Concept Car : Saab Aero-X

Concept Car : Zap

When Stations Shift, You Find Your Own

Not that I think it's my God-given duty to size up the Finals and decide who's up, who's down, but you've got to admit that Lakers/Magic does present a certain number of curious proposition. For one, these two are neither mismatched nor equals. It's like they exist in parallel universes. The Lakers, as we all know, as flushed to the gills with ability, but only periodically harness it all. The Magic, well, we didn't realize it until recently, but so are they. And they bring it on the regular. Does that make Orlando overachievers, Los Angeles underachievers, and no one but the Cavs the underdogs? The Magic's has been a season of peaks and valleys, hitting their stride, then losing Nelson, then picking up steam again, then hitting a wall earlier in the playoffs when Howard's identity came into question and Turkoglu was hurt. And now, they're riding high, so high, again. The Lakers? Friday was the first time all playoffs they've looked like the Lakers we expected to see come and visiti pestilence upon the postseason. Now you tell me: Which is inconsistency, which on a voyage of self-discovery and perpetual adjustment?

What's more, while this series doesn't seem to have STAR BATTLE written all over it, it will certainly challenge the "nobody digs Goliath, ya dig?" axiom of the modern NBA. Because, simply put, Howard is love and lightness, Kobe the darkest side of Jordan, the least ecstatic aspects of his game, streamlined and boiled down to something potent, metallic, and kind of smelly. That's not to say that Kobe's still the man we love to hate, just that he'll never be easy to love—in much the same way that Chamberlain, and even Shaq, found themselves troubled by.

Here's some fragments from a piece I wrote this spring on Shaq for a certain well-known web magazine. This was from draft #3, and apparently wasn't snappy enoigh. So sorry, guys. In any case, I think it's pertinent here for describing just how far Howard is indeed with "the new Shaq," in terms of natural magnetism and ability to worm his way into our hearts without making us feel engorged or cloyed by absurdity:

O'Neal wouldn't be the first athlete always angling for the spotlight, or looking for ingenious forms of self-promotion. But compared to, say, the whip-smart expressiveness of Muhammad Ali in his prime, O'Neal is at once light-hearted and uncomfortably deliberate. He excels at spoken spectacle, assigning himself absurdist nicknames (my favorites: The Diesel, The Big Aristotle, and Shaqovic) and making off-color jokes about opponents, like his disparaging reference to rivals "the Sacramento Queens."

From the beginning Shaq saw himself as an entertainer, which explains 1993's platinum rap album Shaq Diesel and film roles ranging from the 1996's Kazaam, in which Shaq played a genie, to 1994's Blue Chips, an underrated look at corruption in college sports that starred Nick Nolte. The more he does, the more control he exerts over his image. And with good reason. In the fraternity of superlative NBA big men, O'Neal stands alone in his non-stop levity. Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Patrick Ewing, and peer Tim Duncan, to name a few, were pensive and aloof—and often criticized for it. O'Neal has seemingly spent his entire career trying to break the mold, replacing the towering, faceless Goliath with a hip-hop Paul Bunyan. Shaquille O'Neal may have been Joe Frazier or (young) George Foreman on the court, but preferred the garrulous, daft Ali role off of it.



However, this disconnect comes with a price. Shaq's behavior can get downright ugly when his ego, image, or brand are threatened, since this could send him plummeting into in the annals of large, bitter, awkward freaks. For evidence of this, look no further than the litany of "sidekick" guards who have proved essential to his success: Penny Hardaway in Orlando, Kobe in Los Angeles, and Dwyane Wade in Miami. In the post-Jordan NBA, smaller, more dynamic players are the unquestioned center of attention. Style-wise, they're the Ali's, with inventive games that suggest a richness of personality. Shaq, always the talker in these relationships, always casts himself as the alpha dog, a font of charisma whose dominant play was a matter of fact. At the same time, in each case the other guy was emerging as one of the most exciting, inventive players in the league, leading O'Neal to turn cold and toward them, and however incidentally, move on to another team. [I think you all know how Shaq fell over, and then turned on, Penny, Kobe, and Wade].

Nothing sums up this paradox more than the mural on the bus Shaq brought to an LSU game in 2007: some sort of gangster super-summit, where Shaq presides over Scarface, Tony Soprano, and Vito Corlene, among others. Hilarious, but also quite sinister. Not coincidentally, during his time with the Heat, Shaq was fond of an analogy that cast his Hardaway as Fredo, Kobe as Sonny, and Wade as Michael. Coppola's films and The Sopranos have been defanged by their absorption into pop culture. But watch those movies from start to finish, and you'll realize just how unsettling they really are.

Heavy, huh? Man, been waiting for a while to get that out. I have to say, though, that this series might explode this paradigm, and perhaps summarily frustrate Shaq's grand mission in life. Despite O'Neal's attempt to undermine Howard, or Howard's obvious inferiority as a pure center—perhaps one of the reasons this slippage is possible—Dwight, with his boyish good looks and effortless acrobatics, is that lovable big men Shaq never could be. Yes, we can debate for days when he is in fact a big man, or just a bigger Amare. But the Superman has stuck there without any sense that we're being forced into embracing his might (like how Superman really could have destroyed the world whenever he wanted). On the other hand, Kobe, while he remains the epitomal post-Jordan off-guard, we all know that this trappings of his game have become so methodical, his aura so admirably bleak, that it's transformed the dream-like "as an explosive shooting guard, I will get rings" of Jordan into a optimization of the position so that it embraces as much of the big man rigor as is possible. LeBron is unstoppable, quasi-religious. Kobe is so professional that he's always adjusting, a character who is about as Terminator-like as guards can possibly get. Like when they made the evil robot a hot lady for T3.

That's not to say that Kobe lacks charisma. He has kind of reached that rare, glare-laden apex where, no matter what his game has evolved into over the years, or what its finer points are, fans respond to him as a showman. You and I know, though, that the man is probably replacing his blood, or grafting metal onto his spine, in hopes of turning this positional role into something with the certainty, and even the purposeful vacancy, of the big man. Howrad is so young, it's hard to gauge where he's really headed. But for now, he's a hunk of muscle unstoppable down low who is also so easy to love. And it's Kobe whose human drives and expressions of self seem more of a technicality or, even to supporters like myself, an afterthought in his grand pursuit of basketball perfection. That's not to say he's totally inhuman, on or off the court, but the personality of his position (and by extension, the Good Kobe that has so many fans) is no longer a restriction on how he looks to put together grade-A efforts.



And to turn briefly to one more WTF about this series: Does this tell us shit about the future of the game? The Lakers are by no means a reasonable template for success. Top to bottom, that team is loaded. In ways new and old. What other team can boast one of the league's most promising pure centers, as well as its second-best Euro, and a post-Garnett weirdo—all who may or may not figure prominently into the game-plan on any given night? It's almost like a brief history of the last eight years of the NBA, all on one team. Except that participation by all is optional, or maybe selectively minimal. Put simply, other teams have no chance at copying this one, and that's without even getting into Kobe's embattled, but persistent, standing among the league's elite.

The Magic offer a far more interesting case. They have this big man who is both more and less than the past. There's a chance they stumbled into it, and that the tandem of Lewis and Turkoglu are both essential and came as a surprise. And when healthy, they have an All-Star point guard. This is old worship of height, plus the age of the point guard, plus a kind of post-Euro Sudoku puzzle that only master coach SVG could make sense of in such a non-obvious fashion (and, as Kevin Pelton has pointed out, this team would suck if deployed in obvious fashion). I also pick up a distinctly Pistons-meets-Suns vine int he way Lee, Pietrus, and even Reddick are used, though maybe now I'm just laying it on thick. In short, this team has everything but a Kobe or LeBron, which is a really fortuitous spot to be in. And chances are, any other squad with this roster would screw it up. So we might be looking at an utter singularity here that both bridges and invalidates the entire ferment of conventional basketball wisdom, past and present. In the end, it comes down to the twist you put on it. Traditions and trends, new and old, can tell you some basics, but past that, you're on your own. The question is, what does it take for a team like the Magic to be absorbed, as the Suns were? The Warriors certainly weren't . .

Orlando Magic, just keep being yourselves. History will sort out the rest. As will the results of this series, incidentally.

We Atone, You Listen

We're traveling light this week on FDPTDOCNBAP, as Dan and myself sit down with the mighty Kevin Pelton to talk about what we got wrong about the playoffs. The ray of hope comes when we stop to marvel at the that great variegated snake we call the Orlando Magic. Then at the end we ponder what could cause the age limit to change, how it's bad for standardized testing and college admissions counselors everywhere. If you enjoy it, be sure and check for the DoC mini-sodes, which strike without warning and address the day's events as they happen.

The Podcast:



Music:

1. "All Wrong" - Morphine
2. "Magic Pig Detective" - Melvins
3. "Shoot Your Shot" - James Brown
4. "Hot Freaks" - Guided by Voices
5. "Old School Rules" - Dangerdoom featuring Talib Kewli

For other means of obtaining this program, try iTunes and the XML feed.

TWO OTHER LINKS:

-Ziller send this Journal Times passaage along, with the subject head "Z RAMIFICATIONS": "The last word goes to Louisville Terrance Williams who, when asked what his natural position was, said: "I think like a point guard, but I have the size like a 3. So I guess I'm a 2.''"

-I fully support this effort to archive and create nicknames that aren't just a celebration of phonetics.

O carro mais bonito do mundo

A revista alemã AutoBild fez uma pesquisa para saber qual o carro mais bonito do mundo. E com mais de 100 000 votos o eleito foi o novo Mercedes Classe E.

A Mercedes ainda venceu com o melhor Coupé e Cabriolet, com o Classe E Coupé.

O chefe da divisão de Design da Mercedes Gorden Wagener, afirmou que o design do novo Classe E ”reflecte status, qualidade, tecnologia e prazer de condução”.

E você o que acha? Bom, eu gostei, mas para mim não é o mais bonito do mundo. Mas enfim gosto é gosto.


Clique nas fotos para ampliar

Audi Q5 no Brasil

O mais novo carro da Audi chega ao Brasil. O Audi Q5 tem o valor inicial de R$ 205 840 na versão Attraction com motor 2.0 TFSI de 211 cv no modelo com motor 3.2 V6 de 265 cv o valor é de R$ 263 300.

A Audi quer abocanhar 40% do mercado brasileiro, para este tipo de veiculo, para isso colocara a venda de 400 a 500 unidades. Os Seus adversários são BMW X3 e Mercedes-Benz GLK.

Todas as versões vem com cambio S-Tronic de sete marchas com embreagem dupla, freios ABS e distribuição eletrônica de frenagem, Controle de tração, controle de estabilidade, sistema de auxilio em descidas, farol de Xenon Plus e 12 leds e tração integral e permanente Quattro.

Guest Lecture: All This (Rocket) Science I Don't Understand

Today’s FD guest lecturer is Chi Tung, a man who may or may not refer to himself as the Chinese Stallion (after all, it is what his name means). When he’s not wearing lensless glasses for a tech show on state-run Chinese television, he moonlights as a writer, for publications ranging from the Huffpo to Asia Pacific Arts.

Now that the 2009 Houston Rockets have bowed out for good (bless their scrappy hearts), it’s as good a time as any to turn down all that red glare, and understand what actually matters. There will be talk of caging and uncaging the pitbull that is Ron-ron, whether the collective talents of Lowry/Brooks are lesser or greater than the parts of their sum, and of course, T-mac’s further descent into the abyss. But all that pales in comparison to the made-for-Beyond-the-Glory (as directed by Werner Herzog) trajectory of one Yao Ming, and his newfound FD-ness.

Prior to these playoffs, Yao had yet to have a truly defining NBA moment—at least, not one that didn’t end in head-shaking ignominy (see: Robinson, Nate). Redemption, then, has been thrice as nice to him in ’09—the flawless shooting exhibition he put on in a game-one dismantling of the Blazers that caused them to rejigger their entire defensive gameplan; the gutsy fourth-quarter points he notched against the Lakers in Game One after a near-catastrophic collision with Kobe; and the outright refusal to leave Game Three when he was noticeably limping and would later be diagnosed with a broken foot. Again.



On paper, these images lack the naked transcendence of a Lebron buzzer beater, or the basketball-is-hip-hop undressing of Tyronn Lue in the wake of an AI crossover. But they’re important nonetheless—because mythmaking relies as much on the power of perception as it does shock-and-awe. Pundits and bloggers alike tend to talk about Yao’s accomplishments like they’re being asked to pen a hagiography—as if being compelled to assume the role of China’s sacrificial lamb-cum-cash-cow has earned him a lifetime of faint, backhanded praise. Under their breath, though, there’s more than a whiff of denigration: what kind of dominant big man doesn’t dunk the ball with malice, they ask? Or put his imprint on games by demanding the ball more often? Or, in so many words, tell the Chinese government to step the eff off so his achy-breaky feet can heal properly?

In isolation, these mutterings sound like provocations made by Right Way absolutists. But the things you hear in China are equally problematic, albeit for entirely different reasons. The other day, I offhandedly remarked to one of my Chinese colleagues that though it’s a damn shame about Yao’s latest injury, it’s some consolation to see him getting recognition from the MSM as a tough, resilient sonofabitch. His response? That in many ways, Yao has always been the quintessential Chinese male—he has big, brass balls, but doesn’t feel the need to tell you about them, a la Sam Cassell. It’s just one of many instances where Yao-as-cultural-trope trumps Yao-as-basketball-player. And one of many instances where Americans and Chinese alike fail to appreciate the true essence of Yao.



Liberated fandom allows us to root for who we want, in the ways that we want, largely because of our desire to claim ownership over a certain value or aesthetic. But in China, the who and the how take a backseat to the just-is. One could argue that Chinese fandom is inherently liberated in ways that Chinese politics—and American fandom—are not. Without the self-reflexiveness that comes part and parcel with Americanness, Kobe just is someone who makes the game look absurdly easy and fun, not a lightning rod for varying definitions of greatness. NBA player jerseys are worn unironically and with little regard for street cred—hence, the inexplicable popularity of Shane Battier. Even Chinese fandom, as it relates to domestic pro clubs, seems curiously anachronistic—rather than drawing upon clearly defined geographical lines, it functions more like club soccer on a smaller scale. Mercenaries carry little stigma because so little is at stake—replace the name Cristiano Ronaldo with Bonzi Wells, and you’ll understand why.

And yet, through all of it, Yao remains—he has all the responsibilities of a national monolith, but none of its perks. In other words, Chinese people may look to him for inspiration, but rarely can they articulate what they intend to do about it. Part of that is due to the building-castles-in-the-sand nature of globalization. In basketball parlance, it’s like seeing the torch-passing from Yao to Yi as a sweeping, old-school-to-new-school progression, and swearing it’s only a matter of time before China’s own version of Ricky Rubio is releasing mixtapes during the offseason.

I’ve beaten this drum before on my Huffpo beat, but it bears repeating—China is a country containing multitudes within multitudes. Those multitudes ebb and flow in zigzag fashion, but that hasn’t stopped the Western hemisphere from hurtling toward linear categorizations and literal-mindedness. We see Yao pushing his body to limits for a cause that seems far flung from everyfan realities. (Zig) But at varying points throughout his career, we’ve also seen him be silly, wise, cocky, fatalistic, self-aware, angry, unflappable, rattled-to-the-core. (Zag) If Kobe is the man of a million Machiavellian faces to his detractors, then Yao is the fragmented, pixilated visage of a billion reluctant fans and their foibles, few of whom are willing or able to defend him as being unassailably great.



So does that make Yao a blank canvas that leaves the etching of destiny to others? If you think that, then I have an autographed poster of Antoine Walker I’d like to sell you. When Yao first came into the league, he was eminently quotable, but in a way that seemed tailormade for caricatures stemming from Asian Mystique. He would alternate between zany philosophical musings and carefully constructed nationalist mantras. After the Beijing Olympics ended, he even went so far as to say his “life was over.” Not so the Yao of today. Though he remains quip-y (his crack about America’s National Anthem being his favorite song because he hears it 365 days a year seems a pretty cleverly disguised rebuke of compulsory patriotism), Yao no longer speaks like Yoda-meets-Sun-Tzu, and refers instead to personal triumphs and priorities with something resembling ebullience.

While chronic injuries have robbed T-mac of his once-irrepressible vitality, they seem to have reinvigorated Yao, who now plays, acts, and talks like someone who can’t be bothered with the weight of tradition or the double-edged sword of transparency, whereas both remain major hang-ups for China. Perhaps he’s finally realizing that, unlike the Lebrons and Kobes of the world, nothing is preordained, and that he can rewrite the script as many times as he sees fit. In a way, the mundane inevitability of Yao’s injuries have helped put his mortality into clearer focus—it helps liberate him from our static, decontextualized ideas of spectatorship, not to mention the stale notion that his multi-facetedness is somehow artificially conceived.

That same paradigm exists with China—the more we treat its symbols as fuzzy math, the more easily flummoxed we become. As liberated fans, we should know better. After all, we can take a Right Way canard like “let the game come to him” and turn it into a triumph of individual style. In Yao’s case, though, letting the game come to him is about letting everything else go. Only then does he know what’s still worth holding on to.

Carros Rebaixados

Afinal o que pode e o que não pode?

Há algum tempo atrás, mesmo proibido, era comum muita gente chegar nas oficinas e dizer: “Cortas as molas e só deixa tantos dedos do pára-lamas” ou até mesmo para os mais exagerados “tira as molas”.

Bom hoje em dia isso continua acontecendo, mas não precisa mais ser um “fora de lei”, hoje existe uma lei que regulariza a modificação na suspensão, que é a Resolução 262 do Contran (Conselho Nacional de Trânsito).

Mais ainda existem alguns “poréns”, bom obviamente inda não pode cortar as molas e muito menos retirá-las as reguláveis também não podem. O que pode são molas e suspensão regulamentadas pelo Inmetro as famosas molas esportivas.

O que a legislação define é que: Antes de realizar qualquer modificação é necessário solicitar autorização prévia do órgão de trânsito competente. E todas as modificações deverão constar no Certificado de Registro de Veículo (CRV) e no Certificado de Registro e Licenciamento de Veículos (CRLV).

Muitas vezes será necessário apresentar o Certificado de Segurança Veicular (CSV), o CSV é expedido pelo Inmetro.

Citroën C5 no Brasil

A Citroën iniciol no Brasil a venda do novo C5. Ele começou a ser comercializado em 2008 na Europa.

Ele chaga por R$ 103.500,00 na versão sedã e R$ 112.500,00 na versão Perua (o modelo é produzido na França e Importado para o Brasil). As duas versões vem com o motor 2.0 com potencia de 143 cv e torque de 20,4 mkgf e cambiou automático de 4 marchas.

Dentre muitos equipamentos os que chamam mais atenção são os seguintes: freio de estacionamento elétrico automático, nove airbags, faróis de xenônio auto-direcionais, freios ABS, controle eletrônico de estabilidade (ESP) e suspensão Hydractive 3 Plus que que permite regular o funcionamento do conjunto e escolher entre os modos "soft", para conforto, ou "sport", mais rígido.


Fonte

Look Out, Distant Past!!!!!

This has already been up on Twitter for an hour, so I don't even know why I'm bothering with this announcement. Perhaps I'm just a man of tradition, or the old ways that will never die. In any case, when you gear up for the 2010-11 NBA season, you will be able to do so with a new FreeDarko book by your side. That's right, today we shook virtual hands with Bloomsbury on a follow-up to The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac, tentatively called something like The Microphenomenal Companion to Pro Basketball History. For those concerned, "microphenomenal" is even less of a real word than "macrophenomenal."

As the title suggests, this volume will take our zany and introspective take on the game and comb through the sands of time with it. Who knows what will pop up? We too hope to be surprised, challenged, and even occasionally disgusted.

We look forward to once again working with Ben Adams, Carrie Majer, and all the other fine folks at Bloomsbury. We'd like to thank our agent Chris Parris-Lamb, and wish his Jackals good luck in the upcoming NY Urban Professionals League playoffs. And yes, we owe it all to you, the readers, but probably mostly those of you who bought a copy of the first book.

With that, let a new day dawn!

Chevrolet Prisma 2010

A Chevrole anunciou a nova linha do Chevrolet Prisma. Que não terá nenhuma mudança no seu visual e nem mesmo em seus itens de equipamento.

O Chevrolet Prisma virá com novo motor 1.4 Econo.Flex e o 1.0 VHCE. Também virá acelerador eletrônico “drive-by-wire”, coletor de admissão de plástico e novo módulo de controle eletrônico (ECM)

O Prisma 1.4 quando abastecido somente com álcool, alcança a velocidade máxima de 182 km/h, com a aceleração de 0 a 100 km/h em 10s9. Já quando se utiliza a gasolina a velocidade máxima fica em 178 km/h, com a aceleração de 0 a 100 km/h em 11s4. Na versão 1.0 Flexpower VHCE, desenvolve 78 cavalos com 9,7 kgf.m, quando abastecido com álcool, e 77 cavalos com 9,4 kgf.m, com gasolina. No desempenho, o sedan alcança velocidade máxima de 164 km/h (álcool) e 162 km/h (gasolina), e acelera de 0 a 100 km/h em 14,3 segundos (álcool) e 14,8 segundos (gasolina).

O Prisma 1.0 parte de R$ 27 686 na versão Joy e o Prisma 1.4 começa em R$ 30 741 também na mesma versão de acabamento.

Vídeo Audi Q5 Custom Concept

Audi Q5 Custom Concept preparado para o Worthersee Tour tem seu primeiro vídeo oficial divulgado.

Confira o vídeo abaixo:

Secrets Revealed

Everyone wants to know what drug—"drugs", as that interview lady may have let slip tonight—Chris Andersen was into. All of them would be funny, for different reasons. However, I think this weird T3 graphic inserted into the halftime show might actually hold the answers. If you didn't know, it's a biometric scan. And I'm guessing ESPN didn't realize that, if you perform the calculations already underway above, the truth emerges. They narrowed it down to three in the script, too, but don't be fooled: Experts knows that many, many more substances, and sub-substances, are contained in the little lines and symbols.

More important: My J.R. manifesto for tonight over at The Baseline. Let's see how that audience deals with my religious leanings.

Baked Alaska

I usually hate the sun, in fact, it places undue pressure on me to love life and makes me that much more determined to hide in the shadows. But fuck it, it's been gorgeous here for three days, there's only so much basketball on, and no one's checking their email. So I'm suddenly filled with spring fever—more like compulsion—and have to get to the water and get my tan on.

Before I run out the door, though, I did want to say a few things about last night's game. Sorry for the lack of frilly language, these are more notes that grew out of post-game conversation:

-I recognize that this Cavs loss somewhat mutes my latest spasms of LeBron-mania.

-That said, it is kind of sad to watch Bron go straight at Howard like the DPOY doesn't have shit on him. You wonder if an angrier Dwight might help here.

-At some point, I began to wonder if the Magic could only win, or at least impress me with a win, if they made a comeback that was . . . ummm, magical?

-Based on conversations with my friend Nate, Kevin Pelton, and my own two eyes, it's become obvious to me: Howard is a monster on offense provided he's in motion. Give him the damn ball, just make sure he's cutting, leaping, or in a position to make one step and then dunk. That's why, even though he could stand to diversity his offense, it is on SVG and other players to see this gives them a tremendous weapon right now. See also Game 1 of this series.

-Someone needs to tell Howard that him stationary in the post is a total dead-end. Unless he's got a total mismatch. When Amare was a raw killing machine in 2004-05, the trick to his success was that he avoided this situation like the plague. Now, Howard will never be able to expand his range, or ability to put the ball on the floor, like Stoudemire has done—the main way he's overcome the obvious limitation of not playing in the post. So who knows what the long-term prognosis for Howard is. But Amare was never as imposing as Howard. There's no reason he can't be used creatively so that, in short, the post is always the terms set by Howard's lateral or upward motion.

-Not surprisingly, Kevin just realized he'd said something like this several years ago:

For years now, Howard has drawn comparisons to Phoenix's Amaré Stoudemire because of how both players have a prodigious combination of size, strength, and athleticism. The comparisons break down at some point, because Howard is a far better rebounder and defender than Stoudemire, but the Magic clearly learned from how the Suns accelerated Stoudemire's development by pairing him with Steve Nash and surrounding him with double-team neutralizing outside shooters.

And also. . .

We're trained to recognize that those kind of outside shooters help beat double-teaming of a post player, a style so popular in the NBA in the 1990s that was perfected by the Houston Rockets around Hakeem Olajuwon. However, the Suns of recent vintage have demonstrated that deep threats can be just as valuable when it comes to running pick-and-rolls. Even though Magic point guards Carlos Arroyo and Jameer Nelson are not on Nash's level, the Orlando pick-and-roll is still difficult to defend because teams can't leave the outside shooters to provide help and because Howard is so good at going up and getting the ball on lobs to the rim.

-KP adds: "The point now is they realized this a long time ago, and then seemed to forget it in these playoffs, either because Nelson/sorta Turkoglu were hurt or because of ORTHODOXY."

-Tangentially related, Rafer Alston is so weird. He's at his best as a straightforward guard. Nothing outside-of-the-box or too improvisational.

-So yeah, despite Joey's earlier critique of Howard, the Magic could be making a lot more of the current situation. And maybe Dwight could stop making me feel so damn bad for him, as LeBron plays like him with perimeter skills.

-It's true, I wrote something claiming that a big game from J.R. was more important to the Nuggets than Billups stepping it up. That probably would've made more sense around these parts. But I would still like to forget it happened.

-GO WONDER PETS!!!!!!!

Troca de Anéis - 9ª Parte

Se você ainda não leu a 1ª parte, 2ª parte, 3ª parte, 4ª parte, 5ª parte, 6ª parte, 7ª parte e 8ª parte de Troca de Anéis, pode ser que fique em duvidas no texto seguinte.

Exame dos pinos de pistão

Além dos pistões em si, também os pinos podem sofrer desgaste.

Por isso verifique, e sempre , se os pinos de pistão não estão frouxos e substitua-os se for necessário. Muitos pinos de pistão são instalados sob pressão na extremidade superior da biela sendo necessárias ferramentas especiais para pôr e tirar esses pinos. Consulte o manual de serviço do motor antes de tentar retirar o pino do pistão. Isto poupará tempo e possíveis danos ao pistão se os pinos forem do tipo colocado sob pressão.

Exame das bielas

Um outro ponto importantíssimo a ser observado, e que muitas vezes é deixado de lado, é a verificação do estado das bielas.

Se uma biela estiver empenada, ela vai fazer com que o pistão fique desalinhado dentro do cilindro, provocando um contato irregular dos anéis com a parede do cilindro.


Uma biela empenada faz com que o pistão fique desalinhado dentro do cilindro.

Quando isso ocorre em um lado do pistão , o canto superior dos anéis é que vai fazer contato com a parede do cilindro, enquanto que, no lado oposto, somente o canto inferior é que vai fazer este contato.


O canto superior do anel, em contato com a parede do cilindro aumenta o consumo de óleo.

Esse contato incorreto dos anéis provoca um aumento no consumo de óleo e desgaste irregular dos anéis.

Além disso, como todo o conjunto pistão-biela trabalha desalinhado e portanto, forçado, outras partes também apresentarão desgaste irregular, estando entre elas as bronzinas e bielas.

Como pode-se observar na figura abaixo devido ao empenamento das bielas, as bronzinas tenderão a se desgastar mais em pontos opostos o que, sem dúvida, reduzirá sensivelmente sua vida útil.


Bronzinas desgastadas em regiões opostas.

Para se descobrir se uma biela está empenada existem aparelhos apropriados que permitem determinar-se, exatamente, quanto é e onde está localizado o desalinhamento.


Verificação do alinhamento das bielas.

No entanto, uma pré-determinação pode ser feita através da observação dos locais de desgaste do pistão.

Se o pistão estiver mais gasto, de um lado, na parte superior (região dos anéis) e no lado oposto, o maior desgaste for na parte inferior da saia, isto indicará que a biela está empenada.

Um desgaste em diagonal, conforme indicado na figura abaixo, também é indicio de empenamento da biela.


O desgaste do pistão em diagonal é indicio de empenamento da biela.

News to Me

Am I the only person on the planet who didn't know that Paulette Reaves is the mother of Josh Smith? Her current site has some candids of her with Amare, Nash, and others.

Like you need FD to tell you that LeBron is almighty. Read The Baseline tomorrow for my thoughts on the game. Some other random shit will probably show up here around the same time.

UPDATE: Excuse whatever chippiness follows, because my internet connection is once again totally unreliable and it makes my increasingly professional life a total mess. Fuck writing serious emails on a phone. Anyway, I know I've been scarce around these parts. It's got a lot to do with the new gig; I'm trying to both 1) figure out the hang of it 2) divert traffic from here to there (sorry if that's a huge sinister surprise). So if anyone has advice or feedback on either of these counts, let me know. I can pretty much write whatever I want, and it's really only the recaps/previews I've gotten bogged down with, but every writer is these days (power of repetition = power + repetition. Which means no need for "experts" after a point.)

That said, from last night's Bron/Magic post, here's the FD money shot that would've fit very nicely into this site's special place:

The Magic have been better in this series than they've been at any time during the season (or playoffs, of course). That Turkoglu shot, a mirror image of Lewis's heroics from Game 1, looked like it had capped off, or kicked off, a new glory era for the Magic. No matter how unlikely it all seemed, it would be damn hard to argue with after this. I know that athletes can taste victory, but for once, I understood why that language exists.

But the Magic don't have LeBron James. And while we know stars can lose, upsets can happen, and our preconceptions can be wrong, James is the ultimate superstar. In that, he's both breathtaking and boring. We're watching a career unfold that's already HOF-bound, maybe even the best ever, and yet it all feels so inevitable. And so it was with that shot. Of course James would make it and put everything in its right place. The second -- and yeah, it was literally a second -- the ball went his way, you thought "this is how it's supposed to happen, isn't it?" You realize that "scripted" and "storybook" differ only in connotation.

It had to happen, and as shocking as it was, you could only be so surprised. But isn't that what makes LeBron so ridiculous? He's conditioned us to not only expect the impossible, but take it for granted.

See, it lives! And yes, I took out two really weird sentences that are what happens when I write too late, under some deadline of some sort. Those always make me anxious, as opposed to the sense of urgency, or competitiveness, that used to spur me on when it was totally self-imposed. Welcome to America, I guess.

-While we're on the subject of me saying shit that could potentially hurt my future interest, I find it weird that in that fat dude swimming adidas ad, KG is cast as both less (cardboard shoes) and more (world champs!) fortunate in the grand socio-economic scheme of things than Jim, or whatever his name is. It's like NBA players' former poverty has been mythologized, turned into a necessary part of how high they'll one day rise. It's teleology, and Horatio Alger, and frankly kind of gross. At best, there's a disconnect between "kid plays on dirt and goes on to dominate American sports" and "ordinary schmo loses job during recession." The former is both fantastic and in our society, totally familiar; the latter is cast as the salt-of-the-earth feat of bravery. We're all ordinary people, unless we're too poor, then we might as well be rich because we'll end up cagers or rappers.

Fuck a photo, I have to go watch a movie about Chechnya. Will be live tonight.

Fox Sunrise

Como já é de tradição quando um carro vai sair de linha ou sofrer uma modificação muito grande a Volkswagen costuma lançar uma série especial para reduzir o estoque. E a bola da vez é o Fox que terá a serie especial denominada Sunrise.

A nova versão adiciona ao veículo rack e antena no teto, lanternas escurecidas, spoiler, aplique na placa, refletores no para-choque traseiro, adesivos pretos nas colunas centrais, rodas de liga leve de 14 polegadas com pneus de uso misto, estribos laterais, faróis com máscara negra, molduras nos para-lamas e adesivos alusivos à versão aplicados nas colunas traseiras e na carcaça dos retrovisores. Na parte interna, nova forração em couro e tecido, detalhes nas maçanetas e painel pintados de branco completam o visual. O modelo está disponível apenas com o motor de 1,0 litro de 72 cv, nas cores branco Cristal, prata Sargas e amarelo Ímola.

Internamente, o Sunrise possui revestimento dos bancos em couro e tecido com uma inscrição alusiva à série, enquanto que as maçanetas e a régua do console central são pintadas em branco. A lista de opcionais inclui itens como ar-condicionado, freios com sistema anti-travamento (ABS), vidros e travas elétricas e coluna de direção com ajuste de altura e profundidade.

De acordo com a VW, o modelo será vendido em diversas opções de cores, como Branco Cristal e o Amarelo Imola. O Fox Sunrise poderá ser comprado por 32.785 reais.

BMW Série 5 GT

A BMW divulgou algumas imagens da BMW Série 5 GT. Que é uma mistura de SUV com esportivo, ou seja, tem posição mais elevada para dirigir porem desempenho de em esportivo.

A BMW informou que o Série 5 GT é baseado na plataforma da próxima geração dos outros modelos da Série 5 . O GT mede 4,998 mm de comprimento, 1,901 mm de largura, 1,559 mm de altura e 3,070 mm de distância entre eixos.

Com comercialização mercada para o final do ano, o Série 5 GT Será proposto com dois motores a gasolina, os já conhecidos 3.0 de 306 cv (535i GT) e o V8 de 4.4 litros (550i GT) com 408 cv, e um turbodiesel de 3 litros de cilindrada com 235 cavalos de potência (530d GT).

O Série 5 Gran Turismo (GT), que será apresentado oficialmente no salão de Frankfurt, em setembro.

Clique para ampliar

Subaru Legacy 2009 New Car Pictures

Subaru Legacy 2009 New Car Pictures

Vehicle layout	Front engine, AWD, 5-pass, 4-door sedan
Engine	2.5L/170-hp/170-lb-ft DOHC 16-valve flat-4; 2.5L/243-hp/241-lb-ft DOHC 16-valve flat-4; 3.0L/245-hp/215-lb-ft DOHC 24-valve H-6
Transmission	5-speed manual; 4-speed automatic; 5-speed automatic
Curb weight (dist f/r)	3270-3545 lbs (mfr)
Wheelbase	105.1 in
Length x width x height	185.0 x 68.1 x 56.1-56.5 in
Headroom, f/r	37.6//36.5 in
Legroom, f/r	44.1/33.9 in
Shoulder room, f/r	54.2/53.7 in
Cargo volume	11.4 cu.ft
EPA City/Hwy Econ	17-20/24-27 mpg
CO2 Emissions	0.86-0.99 lb/mile