Posts Tagged ‘cars

Monday October 15, 2007 11:47

Problems with House Cats

Posted by MV as Randomness

I actually do not have problems with cats alone but my problem is when they are in heat season or in other words — mating season. We own a queen and her name is Kalya (or Kayla). She’s quite a babe because 3 toms are after her for several days now. Queen is the nomenclature for female cats while tom for male cats. Why would anyone call male cats tom when you can call them with a more royal name such as prince, duke or king after all? I just wonder. Anyway, with 3 toms after my poor queen, our house is set as the battle field for the 3 toms. Sometimes our dogs would participate in our garage and help our very own tom named Cheesecurls to scare the hell out of the trespassing toms. One of our neighbor’s tom is named Twinkle — sounds gay! The other tom is a hooligan street cat we nicknamed “Garfield” for the lack of better alias.

When these toms fight over Kalya, our dogs attack any outsider cats. Cheesecurls has a home advantage. He is one lucky bastard as he does not get any beating from our dogs due to their alliance.

Frankly speaking I do not like the sound they create when they are fighting. I hate the angry high-pitched “growl” they create and their irritating distress signal or whatever you call it . It’s just so fucking irritating! Hell, they even organize triple grudge match on our rooftop which is not nice when you want to sleep peacefully at night. What’s more irritating is they managed to set a battle stage on my car as well! My dogs, anticipating which tom would fall on the ground first happily peeks and cling their front paws on the hood, too — and the result — ugly scratches above the headlamps and fender. I really wanted to cry when I saw the scratches today but I managed to fix the scratches using my Meguiar’s car kikay kit. In my despair to save the paintworks of my car, I bought a car cover this afternoon. I feel less troubled now. However, when I checked my cats this evening… they are all sleeping on top of my newly-bought car cover. FTW!!!

I need to re-evaluate my love for pets. I hate them now. Grrr. Maybe I’ll just pet a bunny.

P.S.

We currently have 8 cats but there’s only one true house cat of them all. She’s toilet-trained but a sleepyhead. She’s so behave and composed we can lock her in the house and she won’t make any fuss about being trapped inside as long long as she can sleep and eat. Her name is Lulu, named after the gothic black mage in Final Fantasy X, as she is almost entirely black except for few white spots on her feet and belly.

Saturday October 13, 2007 12:32

Parallel Parking Made Easy

Posted by MV as Insights, Technology

Nissan Around View Monitor (AVM) makes parking easy by using set of cameras and sensors mounted at all four sides of the vehicle. These cameras form a synthesized view of the surrounding using a processing technique that offers a bird’s eye view of the vehicle. Nissan’s AVM is unique from other camera-assisted car technologies because it’s the first one to offer comprehensive real-time view of the vehicle from all angles, not just a view in front or rear.

Worrisome Blind Spots Sounds clever, isn’t it? Now even a newbie driver can park effortlessly in tight parkings. According to the studies of Nissan there are four common blind spots. The first two — left corner and back of the car can be addressed already by the beeping sensors in front and rear end. The last two can be resolved by AVM. The first two scratches I made in my car is on the left fender and on the rear bumper so I can’t disagree with their study.

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd will introduce the AVM in the new Elgrand, scheduled in Japan by the end of this month. The technology will also be featured on Infiniti EX35 in the U.S. market. While I can’t find a schedule for the Philippines yet, I’m sure this technology will eventually find its way in the Philippine market as we have narrow roads, too, similar with Japan and other neighboring Asian countries. It’s only a matter of time before Japanese car manufacturers add similar features in the the Asian market.

You can already find Toyota sedans with front and back sensors. At first, I thought that having front sensors is insane but I learned that their Lexus big brothers even have automatic parking! Mercedes-Benz have this technology that drives the car for you, much like an auto-pilot, but it does not steer the car. It detects the car in front of you and accelerates as needed. Maybe in the future we won’t even have to drive and park, we just command the cars.

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