2005
TRIUMPH
ROCKET III
Compiled
by Gokhra
Those
who love bikes love it for a reason. Exemplified by Marlon Brando
and James Dean a bike portrays freedom in a way not experienced by
other things. It's the wind in face, bugs in the teeth and sand in
the mouth that creates a positively gritty experience. Okay so that
does not portray a very good picture along with the fact that James
Dean actually died in a bike wreckage. But that e fact remains that
the danger of the two-wheeled contraption does provide a particular
allure.
Of
course, that particular allure is missing when you look around the
streets of Bangladesh and all you can spot are wheezy sub 150cc motorbikes.
Most of these are one-year wonders meaning they break down after that
period. There are some funky looking Chinese and Indian bikes around
but these lack that certain certainty. Proper bikes are rare like
the black Harley often seen in Gulshan or the few sport bikes. The
stratospheric prices and the mostly inept mechanics mean that proper
bikes are left in the pages of the magazines to be looked at in awe.
So look on.
What
makes this bike so special? In fact, it is not at all pretty but it
still manages to take your breath away. Could be that it is the biggest
production bike in existence in terms of engine size? It's called
the Triumph Rocket III that started as a concept i June 1999. Powered
by a monstrous 2300cc the bike was screaming for some column space
in Rising Stars. The engine churns out a claimed 140 horsepower and
a Herculean 147 lb-ft of torque. Compare that to your average 1300cc
Corolla that weighs several times as much and comes with a measly
85 horsepower. To put things more into perspective think of the bikes
you see in Dhaka. They have something around 10 horsepower. Ouch!
The Rocket is most powerful cruiser yet easily securing a place in
the history books.
The
closest contender was the Kawasaki Vulcan at around 2000cc. The Rocket
makes the largest Harley-Davidson look positively anemic at 1449cc.
About 1500 people worldwide have already put deposits on the bike
considering the fact that so far mostly he employees at Triumph have
ridden one. Just check out the specs. It has an enormous 240-section
rear tire and pistons the size those found in a Dodge Viper. Its also
got an emissions system with catalytic converter that passes the upcoming
2006 Euro 3 standards making it a first for motorbikes.
Story
has it that during dyno testing the engine made so much power the
whole exhaust system was glowing red. It actually got so hot; the
extraction system could be seen glowing at its exit. This, apparently,
looked cool for the designers but for obvious reasons of safety this
was taken care of.
Due
to the weight of the crankshaft (39 pounds) and the massive rear wheels,
special machines had to be built. Triumph couldn't expect anyone to
physically lift and place a 39-lb crankshaft in every 3 1/2 minutes
during a production run, so cranes have been implemented. Cranes are
also employed to swing the rear wheel into place, as the 17-inch 5-spoke
alloy wheel and tire combo is just too heavy to lift
The
Speed Triple-derived twin headlights are cool though, and there is
no denying the bike has a seriously aggressive look.
According
to one tester, "As I donned riding gear and swung my leg over
the beast, I was immediately surprised how easily it picked up off
the stand, and how fuss free it was to roll around the parking lot.
With
the bike immediately displaying very user-friendly manners in the
parking lot shuffle, the ease of operation just carried on as I got
on the move. The light clutch lets out smoothly, and on barely a whiff
of throttle I pulled onto the road. Getting both feet up onto the
pegs, almost before clutch was all the way out, the bike feels perfectly
balanced and steers with the lightest of touches.
The
bars are wide, there is no denying that, but the steering is surprisingly
light. Just a small nudge on the bars initiates the turn, and the
bike flicks back and forward so effortlessly, I was mentally scratching
my head at the thought that this thing weighs around 750 pounds full
of fluids. This light, easy steering is consistent at all speeds,
but it is the low-speed agility that impressed me most. No need to
muscle the bars and no drama.
A
large handful is going to have you thinking you have inadvertently
hitched a ride on the Space Shuttle during takeoff, however, and you
better be hanging on. Producing 147 lb-ft of torque at 2500 rpm and
140 bhp at 5,750 rpm, you are in for a wild ride. As the approaching
landscape goes into some sort of manic fast-forward and your stomach
internals attempt to wrap themselves around your spine, the Rocket
III just keeps feeling as if it is never going to run out of power.
On
one particular stretch of highway, I snatched a very quick look down
to see the speedometer needle approaching 120 mph, and couldn't believe
how hard the motor was pulling. Feeling for sure I must be in fifth,
I quickly pulled in the clutch and took a quick stab at the lever
just to check. Incredibly, the bike selected fifth, and carried on
pulling as if nothing had happened. By this time things were happening
far to fast to be paying any attention to the small round gauges,
but I have to guess I was knocking on the door of 140 mph when just
seconds earlier I had been traveling around 65 mph.
High-speed
run complete, I grabbed a big handful of front brakes, sunk my right
boot, and quickly got the bike under control. Making this a quick
and painless task is a pair of Daytona 955i-sourced 4-piston calipers
grabbing 310mm discs. Being suitably complemented by a very strong,
progressive-feeling 320mm rear disc, the Rocket III is endowed with
some very useful stopping power.
With
stunning performance, easy handling manners and very strong brakes,
the Rocket III is going to be a star performer in most of the important
dynamic areas. The seat is low and comfortable, and the high tank
means your legs are not splayed uncomfortably wide while riding."
So
what do you think? This bike won't give you much fuel efficiency but
if you can afford the monster at around $16,000 then you wouldn't
be too pressed about fuel costs. One tester got 190 miles from the
6.6-gallon gas tank cruising in Europe between 80-120 mph. SO expect
150 miles in the city between fill-ups. A rough conversion to something
we BD people can understand is about 20 kilometer per liter. A huge,
muscular cruiser that thinks it's a sportbike, the new Triumph Rocket
III is just too cool.
Game
Review
By
Niloy
Unless
you've been living down a big, dark hole for the past 4 years, The
Sims will need no introduction. Not only was this game the biggest
selling PC game of all time but it also offered a completely new experience
for all those wannabe Bruce Almighty's out there, there was nothing
like it before and apart from the numerous expansion packs.
But now, after
much anticipation, The Sims 2 has arrived! If there is anyone out
there still asking "but what are The Sims?" Then you really
need to get out more, or maybe I need to get out more? Either way
The Sims offers a simple concept, players get to create a little computer
person (or a whole family), design them a house and then completely
run (or ruin!) their lives from their career, relationships and even
bathroom habits. So what is The Sims 2? Well take everything I've
just said and make it 100 times better and you have The Sims 2!
As soon as you
start the game up the first major change that hits you are the games
graphics, which take The Sims totally into 3D. The 3 pre-designed
neighbourhoods that come with the game are huge filled with tree's,
rivers, bridges, flying birds and of course an array of houses (some
empty and some housing numerous new families) and what's more, each
neighbourhood is totally different with their own stories and overall
style.
The next change
that hit us was the "Create a family" option which has also
had a major overhaul allowing players to create totally custom Sims
with a number of hairstyles, hair colours, pre-set faces, types of
facial hair, eye colour and clothes. To make it even more editable,
players can fiddle with numerous parts of their Sim to get him or
her looking just right from the shape of their eyes, width of their
chin and length of their nose; everything is customisable. In short,
players can re-create anyone they want to from real life family members
to celebrities to a spooky likeness providing they have the time and
patience to mess around with the editor for long enough!
The build tool
has been considerably improved, houses can have a maximum of 3 floors
as well as foundations and a roof top floor allowing players to build
much bigger homes for their families than in the first game. This
game offers a much wider variety of floors, doors, windows, wall coverings
and fences allowing players to really design a custom home from scratch
and thanks to the 3D graphics and variety of build tools homes in
The Sims 2 look much more realistic than ever before.
So onto the actual
gameplay and again, despite the concept of the game being the same
(keep your Sims happy) The Sims 2 feels different from the very moment
you being to control your families. For a start the "characters"
that you create have a much deeper feel to them, they seem to show
expressions, develop their own feelings and come with a host of new
animations that allow them to show off their new personalities. No
longer do they carry the very basic needs such as "bladder"
and "hunger" (although you still have to tend to these),
your Sims now come with life aspirations meaning they aspire to a
particular goal in life from fortune (their goal is to be rich), knowledge
(these Sims have a passion for learning), Family (self explanatory,
family orientated), Popularity (these Sims "need" to be
popular) and Romance (again, self explanatory).
You
simply cannot explain this without an example, so take my family of
Sims, "The Simtons" which consist of a mother (Sarah) and
father (Dave) and a young son (Robert). Now, Sarah was blessed with
the family aspiration and wanted nothing more than a big, happy family.
Unfortunately for her she was partnered (by my good self!) to Dave
who had the fortune aspiration meaning he was obsessed with earning
money, getting the kid into private school and swatting for promotion.
Down the road lived the young "Andrew" who carried with
him the romance aspiration and whilst Dave was at work one day, Andrew
and Sarah got to know each other pretty well, in fact, they ended
up sleeping together, nothing too exciting so far right? Well unfortunately
little Robert had seen the goings on and was stood outside waiting
to greet his father from work in tears, Dave came home and Sarah came
running downstairs all very innocent, she walked past Dave as if nothing
had happened with a sheepish wipe of her mouth and a quick shake of
the head Sarah thought she had gotten away with her quick rumble upstairs…
Dave however had been told of what had happened and refused to speak
to her for days; in fact it took quite a while for me to get their
marriage back on track! At this point, you would've been forgiven
for forgetting that these characters are not real people, despite
the great job they do of convincing you otherwise!
So that's the
game, but the question is, was it worth the 4 year wait? In a word,
yes. The Sims 2 is what everyone wanted The Sims to be, the graphics
are great, Sims get a couple of days off work and school for socialising
and brushing up on skills, everything is fully customisable from the
houses to the Sims themselves and the aging system coupled with the
aspiration system just makes The Sims 2 more addictive than ever.
The
game was provided by AZE CD & COMPUTERS.
Cellular
Review By Gokhra
Cell phones can be made to do an awesome
amount of things these days except in Bangladesh where all you get
to do is show it off. Other than being able to communicate and entertain
with games, music and video, phones can preserve evidence by maintaining
call-back records, work as emergency alarms and serve as a plot device
for a movie.
The plot: Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger),
a high school science teacher is kidnapped by violent home invaders
and held prisoner in an attic. The men who have taken her want something
from her husband that she knows nothing about. They know where her
young son Ricky Martin (oh, c'mon!) played by Adam Taylor Gordon attends
school and plan to kidnap him, too. The kidnappers are hard men, especially
their cold, intense leader Greer (Jason Statham). The attic has a
wall phone, which Greer smashes to bits. Because they've allowed Jessica
to see them, she assumes they will eventually kill her.
Jessica knows her family is in danger
and being a resourceful panicky science teacher cum mother, she fixes
the phone and gets through to someone's cell phone right away. If
it was you or I receiving the call we would probably not answer in
fear of the phone bill.
Anyway, she reaches Ryan (Chris Evans),
a twentysomething kid who at first doesn't believe her when she says
she has been kidnapped. Jessica pleads with him not to hang up, to
trust her enough to hand his cell phone to a cop. Hearing the bad
guy in the background convinces him. He walks into a police station
and hands the phone to a desk cop named Mooney (William H. Macy) who
also later on feels that something may not be right.
The movie's surprises, when they come,
mostly seem to make sense. Finding out what the kidnappers want is
not the big surprise. The movies main thrill is in the unbelievable
amount of obstacles that stand in Ryan's way as he races to help Jessica
(without even knowing what she looks like).
So the movie turns into a race against
time as well as a Ryans dying phone battery. He holds up a store for
a phone charger, steals a Ferrari when a truck hits his other stolen
car, and runs out to the Los Angeles airport to warn Jessica's husband.
Throughout there is also a freeway chase scene leaving many cars mangled
in the wake but it is all acceptable cause after all Ryan is the hero
and heroes can do anything in movies. There are plot holes aplenty
but you have to fish them out. The rest of the movie has Ryan eluding
or battling an increasingly large and intimidating array of villains.
The director, David R. Ellis provides
plenty of fast paced chases and shoot-outs but he doesn't depend on
them to make his movie work. A lot of effort and detail has been attended
to showing how and why the characters behave. The movie has a lot
to do with what the characters are thinking. Cellular works up a lot
of laughs and a lot of suspense usually at the same time. The movie
is slickly produced and very excitingly made even though there are
very silly plot twists. The excellent cast makes the movie more believable.
Thrillers don't have to be 100 percent plausible so after the first
20 minutes or so, keep your logic disconnected.
Sites
Unseen
By Niloy
100
GB email accounts, anyone?
www.hriders.com/
If you think Gmail's one GB account isn't big enough for you, then
head over to the hriders.com site. They are giving away 100 GB accounts!
Can you just believe them? Of course, the email service isn't as good
as Gmail's one… but the size is 100 times bigger. And if you are somehow
able to fill up the 100 GB, they'll give you a 1000 GB account. Damn!
Discover the forces of nature www.nationalgeographic.com/forcesofnature/
Earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes and hurricanes… so devastating yet
so interesting. This site let's you discover things you never knew
about these disasters. You can also create your own disaster and "play"
around with it.
A cool game I didn't knew existed.
I wish I knew about it when I was at my boring school.
www.cepophan.com/foldit/
The folding art game… extremely easy and enjoyable. First, take a
paper and fold it twice… then draw something wicked. Pass it to someone
else and let him draw something. Take the drawing back and draw something
wicked again. Let someone else draw something one last time. When
it's finished, unfold it and be amazed. This site has a vast gallery
of drawings made this way.
The real Y2K bug: Some people just
has too much time to waste
www.mashie.org/casemods/y2k19.html
When four years ago, when the whole world was buzzing about the terrible
Y2K bug, some geeky folks just discovered that they have too much
time to waste. So those geeks spent six long tiresome months determinedly
working to create the ultimate Y2K bug. After spending six months
working on their "monstrosity", they finally came up with
a tricked-out computer that looks like a real bug and can flap two
wings. Pity. Maybe, it's a good thing that the world isn't run by
geeks.
Just a cool optical illusion
www.snafu.com/Rotation.html
The best illusion I've seen so far. Nothing fancy, just a tricky image
to confuse the "sights" department of your brain. Worth
visiting.
Awesome pavement art
users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm
Some people are just too creative. This Julian Beever is one of those
people who can easily amaze you by their work. He draws brilliant
pictures in pavements, pictures which are so beautiful… that you fell
like stopping staring at them in awe. I especially like his "3D"
illusions.
Toughest game ever!
www.spikything.plus.com/games/marblemayhem/
Yes, you have my word; this game is the toughest of all games, even
tougher then chess. Still, it's pretty addictive…
All right, nice folks, let's end things here. I guess these links
will be enough for one week. If you need to contact me about something,
mail me at niloy.me@gmail.com
