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  • Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

    Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach

  • Outliers: The Story of Success

    Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

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    Patton (Great Generals) by Alan Axelrod

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    Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh

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Another Possible Reason for Toyota’s Problems – The Rest of Us

In the June issue of Car and Driver magazine, Aaron Robinson has a different cut on the Toyota unintended acceleration problem (can’t find it online yet). He states that in the great scheme of things, maybe it’s not a problem at all; maybe faster-moving Toyotas will keep them from blocking the left lane [...]

Modeling a “Jamiton” – The Mathematics of a Traffic Jam

My good friend Dave just sent me an article from Wired magazine, “MIT Hopes to Exorcise ‘Phantom’ Traffic Jams,” about research going on at MIT in mathematically modeling randomly occurring traffic jams to discover their source as well as potential remedies.  Since I’m not a mathematician, I developed a somewhat less scientific theory [...]

Mercedes ESF 2009 Worthy of Speed Racer

Mercedes has always been a leading innovator of safety gizmos that help pull your vehicular ass out of the frying pan when things go terribly, terribly wrong.  Every once in a while, they show off what’s next in preventing your insides from becoming your outsides in an auto accident with a marketing-oriented test [...]

Wrong Direction Parking

So, I was in Cambridge, MA last week and parked in a public lot while attending the TechStars Boston Mentor Dinner (really great group, BTW).  I searched the 10,000 little signs around the lot to find out if I needed to fill a meter somewhere and felt fairly secure that I [...]

The Coming of the V-6 Muscle Car

I’m a car guy.  I’ve owned many cars and have driven dozens that I haven’t had the opportunity to own (yet).  Hands down, my all time favorite car was my new, at the time, 1984 Camaro Z28 HO (High Output).  An 80s example of the classic American muscle car.  It had a clutch [...]

The 2009 New York International Auto Show

My son and I once again visited the Big Apple to see what the remaining industrial might of the automotive world has to offer.  Since between the two of us, we read almost every English language car magazine published and cruise virtually all the automotive blogs that Google can dig up, there are [...]

Gotta Love Low Rent Advertising

The back pages of auto magazines are famous for being loaded with advertisements for somewhat . . . let’s say, questionable, goods and services.  Pheromone supplements for your aftershave, slinky outfits for your [in]significant other, a variety of tools and chemicals to increase the length of certain body parts or the amount of [...]

Don’t Be a Deadfoot Manager

Image via Wikipedia

A “deadfoot” driver is one who keeps the accelerator pedal at the same position regardless of the slope or condition of the road they are on.  As such, they often climb hills at 40mph and descend them at 80mph.  They also tend to be the people lying [...]

Why Do People Speed Up As You Pass Them?

You know how it works.  You’re driving along in the left lane at some reasonable speed – OK, it’s usually above the posted limit – and you get stuck behind someone driving more slowly than you are (usually in a Subaru, but frequently in a Volvo).  You pray they realize that you’re about [...]

Geez, I wonder how “The Beast” Handles?

President Obama has a brand new car.  Sadly, this kinda thing is necessary when you’re the most powerful man in the world.  The car, nicknamed “The Beast,” but known as “Cadillac One” by many is not the standard limo ride available to ordinary citizens.  The features are in the graphic (courtesy of Jalopnik), [...]