Carl Edwards Is NASCAR's Eddie Haskell / nascar / nascar game

SPEEDWAY, Ind. -- Grinning from ear to ear and sporting a new crew cut, Carl Edwards cheerily sat down to face a crowd of reporters even larger than the group waiting across the room to interview NASCAR's most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

After making himself comfortable, Edwards leaned in to the microphone and with a huge smile, dead-panned, "You guys see that race last week?''

Everyone laughed.

Good ol' Carl -- NASCAR's Eddie Haskell.

Like Haskell, the too-good-to-be true kid next door from the 1950s and 1960s TV show 'Leave It To Beaver,' who was mischievous when the grown-ups left the room, Edwards is proving more complicated than he lets on, too.

Edwards has endeared himself to fans with his trademark victory back flips, smooth style and up-for-anything disposition. He's articulate and charming -- a sponsor's dream with made-for-TV good looks and personality. And he knows how to get around a race track, winning the 2007 Nationwide Series championship and collecting 16 wins in the Sprint Cup Series.

Lately though, Edwards is making headlines as NASCAR's new "bully" who wrecks his rivals in the name of a win, prompting fans to wonder if he is really the gentlemanly sports hero atop the white horse, or NASCAR's new villain.

This week Edwards was put on season-long probation, fined $25,000 and docked 60 Nationwide Series championship points for intentionally wrecking Brad Keselowski on the last lap of Saturday's Nationwide race. Keselowski was also put on season-long probation.



The two banged fenders while fighting for the lead. Yards in front of the finish line, Edwards punted Keselowski's Dodge, sending it into the outside wall where it careened across the track and hitting the inside wall an instant before it was slammed by two other cars in a frightening melee of wreckage.

Edwards, meanwhile, took the checkered flag and boldly declared from victory lane a few moments later, "I was not going to let him take that win from me."

"I walked out of that race track, head held high,'' Edwards said Friday before opening practice for Sunday's Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

"I went home and had a really good week. I rode my bike and hung out with with my daughter and my family and to a person, every single person that I talked to thought it was the right outcome for that race.''

Edwards insisted the on-track troubles aren't personal, as Keselowski had said earlier in the day.

"I have a lot of respect for him and what he does on the race track," Edwards said, "but the problem is that he can't just run into me to get an advantage, especially for wins.

inception flim / Inception / inception 2010 / inception movie / inception wallpaper

Inception

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Starring: Leonardo Dicaprio, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe

Director: Christopher Nolan

Release Date: 16th July 2010



Nothing else could have been number one, not after 2008, not after The Dark Knight. It. Was. Awesome. Due in no small part to the genius of Christopher Nolan, a director with an enviable track record, who now turns his attentions to the sci-fi genre with Inception, a movie shrouded in Cloverfield-levels of mystery.



We know Ken Watanabe is blackmailing Leonardo DiCaprio, who’s married to Marion Cotillard and works with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page, but that’s it. Oh, and, it’s set within ‘the architecture of the mind’, which could mean anything at this point. Inception makes number one sheerly on the basis of the talent involved, the mega cast, the phenomenal director, and, again, because of 2008, which as our top two shows, was quite a good year for movies.



Note: Leonardo di Caprio and Ken Watanabe sold this one out for me. I mean, I didn’t actually fell in love with Jack, but I must admit and surrender to the undeniable fact – that Leonardo di Caprio is one of the most talented and versatile actors in the world today and I just love this movies. And Ken Watanabe was simply one of my favorite Japanese actors…well, next to Takizawa Hideaki of course.

Supersonic flight / Supersonic / first supersonic flight

The term supersonic is used to define a speed that is over the speed of sound (Mach 1). In dry air at 20 °C (68 °F), the threshold value required for an object to be traveling at a supersonic speed is approximately 343 m/s, (1,125 ft/s, 768 mph or 1,236 km/h). Speeds greater than 5 times the speed of sound are often referred to as hypersonic. Speeds where only some parts of the air around an object (such as the ends of rotor blades) reach supersonic speeds are labeled transonic (typically somewhere between Mach 0.8 and Mach 1.2).

Sounds are travelling vibrations (pressure waves) in an elastic medium. In gases sound travels longitudinally at different speeds, mostly depending on the molecular mass and temperature of the gas; (pressure has little effect). Since air temperature and composition varies significantly with altitude, Mach numbers for aircraft can change without airspeed varying. In water at room temperature supersonic can be considered as any speed greater than 1,440 m/s (4,724 ft/s). In solids, sound waves can be longitudinal or transverse and have even higher velocities. Supersonic fracture is crack motion faster than the speed of sound in a brittle material.

Supersonic flight
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Supersonic aerodynamics are simpler than subsonic because the airsheets at different points along the plane often can't affect each other. Supersonic jets and rocket vehicles require several times greater thrust to push through the extra drag experienced within the transonic region (around Mach 0.85-1.2). At these speeds Aerospace engineers can gently guide air around the fuselage of the aircraft without producing new shock waves but any change in cross sectional area further down the vehicle leads to shock waves along the body. Designers use the Supersonic area rule and the Whitcomb area rule to minimize sudden changes in size.



It should be kept in mind, however, that the aerodynamic principles behind a supersonic aircraft are often more complex than described above because such an aircraft must be efficient and stable at supersonic, transonic and subsonic flight.



One problem with sustained supersonic flight is the generation of heat in flight. At high speeds aerodynamic heating can occur, so an aircraft must be designed to operate and function under very high temperatures. Duralumin, the traditional aircraft material, starts to lose strength and go into plastic deformation at relatively low temperatures, and is unsuitable for continuous use at speeds above Mach 2.2 to 2.4. Materials such as titanium and stainless steel allow operations at much higher temperatures. For example, the SR-71 Blackbird jet could fly continuously at Mach 3.1 while some parts were above 315°C (600°F).



Another area of concern for continued high-speed operation is the engines. Jet engines create thrust by increasing the temperature of the air they ingest, and as the aircraft speeds up, friction and compression heats this air before it reaches the engines. The maximum temperature of the exhaust is determined by the materials in the turbine at the rear of the engine, so as the aircraft speeds up the difference in intake and exhaust temperature the engine can extract decreases, and the thrust along with it. Air cooling the turbine area to allow operations at higher temperatures was a key solution, one that continued to improve through the 1950s and on to this day.


Intake design was also a major issue. Normal jet engines can only ingest subsonic air, so for supersonic operation the air has to be slowed down. Ramps or cones in the intake are used to create shock waves that slows the airflow before it reaches the engine. Doing so removes energy from the airflow, causing drag. The key to reducing this drag is to use multiple small oblique shock waves, but this was difficult because the angle they make inside the intake changes with Mach number. In order to efficiently operate across a range of speeds, the shock waves have to be "tuned."


An aircraft able to operate for extended periods at supersonic speeds has a potential range advantage over a similar design operating subsonically. Most of the drag an aircraft sees while speeding up to supersonic speeds occurs just below the speed of sound, due to an aerodynamic effect known as wave drag. An aircraft that can accelerate past this speed sees a significant drag decrease, and can fly supersonically with improved fuel economy. However, due to the way lift is generated supersonically, the lift-to-drag ratio of the aircraft as a whole drops, leading to lower range, offsetting or overturning this advantage.


The key to having low supersonic drag is to properly shape the overall aircraft to be long and skinny, as close as possible to a "perfect" shape, the von Karman ogive or Sears-Haack body. This has led to almost every supersonic cruising aircraft looking very similar to every other, with a very long and skinny fuselage and large delta wings, cf. SR-71, Concorde, etc. Although not ideal for passenger aircraft, this shaping is quite adaptable for bomber use.