flog

>Would like to see what the flogger has to say about this:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/automobiles/13MILEAGE.html

A little known fact: I do requests. I don't have many comments, really. Most of the tips in this article are old news for TDIClub regulars (down to the suggestion about driving as if an egg were under the accelerator), and are all sound advice. At least 75% of fuel economy is psychology. I use the same tactics almost everyday - including catching up to the BMWs and Lexuses that weave and bob to blow by traffic as soon as the road opens up to be multi-lane. The Rabbit has been out of commission lately and I'm getting 41-42MPG in a manual transmission Toyota Tercel by doing "constant velocity" driving. Those fancy low-rolling resistance tires, though, are total shit in the rain or if you do any kind of spirited cornering. Unless the newer brands are any better than the Michelin Energy low rolling resistance tires, I'd recommend staying away from them if you like your tires to actually remain in contact with the road.

What this article really highlights (in my opinion) is just how far VW has come with this newest generation of TDIs. The engine I have in my Jetta is code AHU and was Volkswagen's first electronically controlled direct inject diesel engine. The AHU and its twin the 1Z was basically the same 1.9L diesel VW had been making for 10 years, with a bigger turbo and an electronically controlled fuel pump (and the 1.9L was tweaked from the ultra-reliable 1.6L diesel that VW had been making since late 70s). The AHU and 1Z were followed up by the ALH which more or less provided the same capabilities. The externals were redesigned so it would mount in the new chassis and there were minor tweaks to reduce smoking. All of these engines were phenomenal in their day in terms of the power, economy, and emissions they eeked out of a reliable (basically, 25 year old) diesel engine design. These reliable engines were followed up by the BEW engine which was available from 2004-2007 and used the fancy "Pump-Duese" injection system. These engines were a bit of a disappointment because they actually offered poorer power and fuel economy in the trade-off for improved tailpipe emissions. VW technically took a break for a year and didn't sell any TDIs in North America in 2008 (but amazingly there was an incredible overstock of 2007 TDIs). Then diesels made a return to North America in 2009 with the CBEA engine which uses common rail fuel injection technology to return simply stunning numbers for both fuel economy and emissions. They blow away the stats for all the previous generations of TDI, including the old (beloved) AHU TDI I own.

Not to tweak too many flog readers, but I also think this article pulls back the curtain a bit on the gasoline-electric hybrid wizard, as well. Hybrids rarely achieve these levels of real world fuel economy when highway driving is involved, and still burn a fossil fuel to go. Modern diesels will routinely give you 60+ MPG, Euro-3 compliant levels of tailpipe emissions, and will run on a completely renewable fuel: biodiesel. I think it is truly awesome. My only regret is that I can't get that awesome TDI engine in a simple, no frills VW. VW doesn't do simple and no frills anymore.

"Because of this opinion or general set of thought, the old man--almost without thinking, almost by instinct--was violently repelled by all that senselessly prettified life and, in his own dark view, belied it. He hated the Snoopy in his grandson's lap, hated Coca-Cola and the State of California, which he'd never seen, hated foreign cars, which he identified with weightless luxury and "the Axis", hated foam rubber, TV dinners, and store-bought ice cream. At Christmas, when the stores in the town of Bennington were jubilant with lights, and shoppers' voices, breaking through the muzak and feathery snow, were as clear and innocent as children's cries, James Page would pause, blanching, his hand in his overcoat, his ears sticking out, and would stare in black indignation at a glittering white astronaut doll in a window. Whether or not he could have said what he was feeling, and whether or not it would have mattered to the world or the company that runs it, the old man was right about the meaning of that doll. It was there to undo him, both him and his ghosts. Whether or not it was true, as he imagined, that once in his childhood he'd heard angels sing, and had seen them moving in the aurora borealis, it was undoubtedly true that the muzak made certain he would hear them--if in fact they were still up there singing--no more. It was hard to believe that any soul, however willing, could be uplifted by the conflict of recordings rasping through the snow-flurried air; hard to believe that the nodding, mechanical Santa in the Bennington Bookstore window could be drawn to the house by the magic of a Christmastree [sic] cut with an axe on Mount Prospect's crest and sledded, the children all squealing, to the woodshed door."

-- John Gardner, "October Light", p 12

So far, "Grendel", is still the Gardner novel I most enjoy, but I'm one chapter into "October Light" and (not to echo the bland praise found on the back of the cover) the prose in "October Light" is something spectacularly special. It was hard to put the book down last night to go to bed because I just wanted to keep reading those wonderful words.

Because I'm the lyric fucking master (yah right), here's version 2.1,
which fills in the formerly missing line.

Party on Iraq I will sing
Put your fingers up we will sing
Move your ass or drop
No one will remember yesterday
Who done wrote that anyway?

Party on Iraq and I say
Freckles get on top
If we stay focused on the job
maybe that'll show us you'll sing it too
I'm sayin' how do you do?

So party on Iraq I will sing
did you stay to lose your ring
did you stay to drop
or did you stay to freaking want to lose your mind?
did you leave it right behind?

A pack of goodie-goodie boys,
the king of rich white indie fools
can't have retards get shoved in schools
all over and across the USA
Oh, let the fuckers have their way



Party on Iraq and I am down to my last drugs [or rock i.e. crack, you know like co-caine]
so I start staring at the rocks and I think
"what the fucking fuck they gonna say?"
or I could just rape my indie date

Party on Iraq and I think
Everybody sucks and I think
mournful everytime I think somebody stole my fucking empathy
Can evil work behind the mean?

So, party on Iraq I will sing
New Kids on the Block I will sing
Sacrifice the wrists
Why don't you just admit it's been a blast
As if we thought it would last

So, party on Iraq and we see
Everybody's ring-a-ding-ding
We smile and rave and dance to this hippie crap
and it's all so fucking groovy, groovy, GROOVY!

grooovy....
GROOVY!
grooovy....
GROOVY!

This blog post about CROSS APPLY in Sql Server 2005 is fucking cool. At work there's a field in a user table that is a {} delimited list of project IDs to which the user is restricted to logging into. Well, it's impossible to join or filter from a {} delimited list. So, I spent 2 hours yesterday writing a table-valued user-defined function which accepts a delimited list and returns a table. Riding high on my hacking prowess, I entered this into the SQL Management Studio query window:

SELECT *
FROM dbo.Table1 a INNER JOIN dbo.MyFunction(a.ProjectRestrictions) f
ON a.userid = f.key

only to be denied all joy by a syntax error at a.Projectrestrictions.

Now, with CROSS APPLY I could use this query:
SELECT *
FROM dbo.Table1 a cross apply dbo.MyFunction(a.ProjectRestrictions) f
where a.userid = f.userid

Of course, the server in question where this action is taking place is still running SQL Server 2000, so I'm still denied any joy, but I warm myself with the knowledge that what I wanted to do is possible in principle.