resistance to persistence

I was reading a review for the new BMW M5. It sounds amazing. 5 liter V10, 507HP, 8250 rpm redline. (0-100 kph) in 4.7 seconds, (0-200 kph) in 15 seconds!

One of the coolest things (but I don’t know when you’d use this) is the Launch mode:

Stand By for Take-Off . . .
Still, the marketers insist that’s what the customer wants, choice, and the engineers have delivered—and then they’ve added that ultimate option, launch control, which goes like this: Select full, 507-horsepower grunt via the one-touch “M Drive” button on the wheel. Now disable the Dynamic Stability Control, select the most aggressive of the “S” shift programs, hold the gearshift lever forward and floor the throttle.

The engine builds to optimum launch revs and stays there until you let go of the lever. Then the car catapults forwards with a chirp of tires and a mighty howl of power while you keep the pedal buried in the luxurious carpet. When the revs peak, it slams into the next gear and rides out the wheelspin, and then the same again, and again, and again—with barely describable violence—until it hits the M5’s voluntarily restricted 250 kph (155 mph) maximum

Click the image to start the process to get your free iPod.

Reading Wired’s gifts for geeks article, they talk about TrafficGauge, a realtime mobile traffic map. Shows you where heavy traffic is and where not to drive. It’s only available for Seattle & LA so far, but in time more cities will be added.

I ran across an article on mindmaps and how they can be applied to the software process. I’ve never heard of mindmaps before, and since I’m so keen on different ways of developing software, I read more. Mindmaps are a great way of brainstorming and tracking heirarchical ideas. Tony Buzan developed mindmaps in the 60’s and recommends using graphics, colours, very visual clues. This has been simplified in many software tools. Mindjet’s MindManager looks very slick and integrates well with the MS Office suite. As expected, I’m sure it carries a hefty price as well. Mac OS X has a very graphical version with Conceptdraw.

Thankfullly, there are decent free options as well. Freemind [screenshots] produces great quick mindmaps and can be edited all via the keyboard. Great for fast brainstorming sessions. Just think & type.

Below is a quick map of blog categories on my site. Use mindmaps for brainstorming project plans, product features, tasklists, etc.