Shuff's General Chat Thread ... #73 - Talk about anything and everything...  

Tipper driver caught on dash cam wants road ban lifted
Marissa Georgopoulos, Mt Druitt-St Marys Standard | 16th May 2017 4:14 PM

A TRUCK driver who was caught on camera locking up his brakes before careening across lanes of busy traffic in St Marys, NSW earlier this year is appealing his sentence.

Firas Al-Hussein, 31, fronted Penrith Local Court on Thursday and was convicted of driving recklessly or speeding in a dangerous manner - a first offence charge - on February 23.

Al-Hussein, who pleaded guilty, was ordered by Magistrate Stephen Corry to pay a $1000 fine, enter a good behaviour bond for 12 months and lose his licence for three years.

But the driver is appealing the disqualification on the grounds of the penalty being "too severe".

Al-Hussein was driving a Kentworth tipper truck and towing a trailer along the Great Western Highway about 12.37pm on the day.

According to a police facts sheet, he changed lanes "in order to overtake vehicles ahead of his", failed to slow down "narrowly missing them", and forced the driver of a black ute to "take evasive action to avoid a collision" as he left-turned on to Mamre Rd.

"The actual and potential danger he posed to motorists was extreme due to the sheer size and mass of the heavy vehicle and the amount of traffic," the facts sheet read.

Had the heavy vehicle combination driven by the accused actually collided with any of the vehicles in the vicinity, the aftermath ... would have been catastrophic and resultant injuries would have been very serious to critical in nature."

NETFLIX TO PRODUCE THE WITCHER TV SERIES

Netflix will develop and produce a new show based on The Witcher Saga, the series of eight novels by Andrzej Sapkowski that inspired the hugely popular CD Projekt Red RPG games.

Sapkowski - who is famously dismissive of adaptations of his novels - will serve as a creative consultant on the series. “I’m thrilled that Netflix will be doing an adaptation of my stories," he explained in a press release, "staying true to the source material and the themes that I have spent over thirty years writing."

NIO EP9 Electric Supercar Breaks Nurburgring Lap Record - Full Onboard - 06:45:90
FIA Formula E Championship

Published on May 16, 2017
The NIO EP9 all-electric supercar completed a lap of the Green Hell - the Nurburgring's formidable Nordschliefe configuration - in a record time of 06:45:90. Having previously set the electric vehicle lap record, the NIO EP9 shaved a further 19.22 seconds off that lap time. This makes the Chinese supercar not only the fastest electric vehicle around the historic circuit, but the fastest production car ever to take the challenge. Watch the full record-breaking Nurburgring onboard lap right here.

This will put some peoples noses out of joint





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Interesting, but not a production car, and how many times can it do that on one charge?

This Nio EP9 is a 1,341bhp electric supercar

A megawatt of power and a Nürburgring record for NextEV's new plug-in hypercar

Every time a quick electric car launches, it’s deemed a Tesla rival. Not least by us. Sorry. But there’ll be none of that here, for this fully electric Nio EP9 lives in a whole different ballpark.

Looking not unlike a Koenigsegg – the styling is exciting, if a bit uninventive – it has similarly scintillating numbers on its spec sheet.

Like the Koenigsegg One:1, it comes with one whole megawatt of power, which translates into 1,341bhp. You’ll know this is comfortably more than a Bugatti Veyron or LaFerrari.

That’s enough for 0-124mph in 7.1 seconds – quicker than a Mazda MX-5 will complete 0-62mph – while its top speed is 195mph, unusually high for an EV. It’s also the fastest EV around the Nürburgring, with a 7m05s lap time. We suspect that wasn’t a difficult record to claim.

Perhaps more pertinently, it will apparently charge up in a mere 45 minutes, endowing it with a 265-mile range figure before you need to plug it back in again. Quite what performance that’s allied to we don’t know. A few 7.1sec blasts at full throttle will probably cut that number significantly…

The Nio EP9’s maker, NextEV, also claims 3G ability. Nope, not for your phone signal, but in corners. That’s quite some G-force to contend with.

The chassis is built to Le Mans LMP1 standards and employs lots of carbon to keep strength high and weight low, though it’s still a relatively portly 1,735kg. Decent for a car stuffed full of batteries, perhaps, but plenty for a supercar to haul along.

Which perhaps makes its performance yet more impressive, even if its 0-62mph time – 2.7secs – is a touch behind Tesla’s best. Oops, mentioned Tesla. Sorry…

Representative: Rocker Chris Cornell has died at age 52

Rocker Chris Cornell, who gained fame as the lead singer of the bands Soundgarden and later Audioslave, has died at age 52, according to his representative.

Cornell, who had been on tour, died Wednesday night in Detroit, Brian Bumbery said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Bumbery called the death "sudden and unexpected" and said his wife and family were shocked by it. The statement said the family would be working closely with the medical examiner to determine the cause and asked for privacy.

With his powerful, nearly four-octave vocal range, Cornell was one of the leading voices of the 1990s grunge movement with Soundgarden, which emerged as one of the biggest bands out of Seattle's emerging music scene, joining the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.

Formed in 1984 by Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil and bassist Hiro Yamamoto, Soundgarden's third studio album, "Badmotorfinger," in 1991 spawned enormously popular singles "Jesus Christ Pose," ''Rusty Cage" and "Outshined" that received regular play on alternative rock radio stations.

Cornell also collaborated with members of what would become Pearl Jam to form Temple of the Dog, which produced a self-titled album in 1991 in tribute to friend Andrew Wood, former frontman for Mother Love Bone.

Three years later, Soundgarden broke through on mainstream radio with the album "Superunknown," which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Record in 1995. It included hit singles "Spoonman," ''Fell on Black Days," ''Black Hole Sun," ''My Wave" and "The Day I Tried to Live."

Soundgarden disbanded in 1997 due to tensions in the band, and Cornell pursued a solo career. In 2001, he joined Audioslave, a supergroup that included former Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford. The band released three albums in six years and also performed at a concert billed as Cuba's first outdoor rock concert by an American band, though some Cuban artists have disputed that claim.

Audioslave disbanded in 2007, but Cornell and Soundgarden reunited in 2012 and released the band's sixth studio album, "King Animal" in 2012.

In addition to his music, Cornell also became involved in philanthropy and started the Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation to support children facing challenges, including homelessness, poverty, abuse and neglect.

Kevin Stanton, Mi-Sex Songwriter and Guitarist, Dies at 61


Kevin Stanton, founding songwriter and guitarist with Mi-Sex, a new wave band from New Zealand remembered for the late '70s hit "Computer Games," died Wednesday night (May 17) after a long battle with health problems. He was 61.

"It is hard to fathom Kevin is no longer with us," writes founding Mi-Sex keyboard player Murray Burns in a social media post. "Just last Sunday we chatted, arranging times together in the not too distant future, hoping for a new chapter in our creative partnership."

Stanton had just returned to Australia from France prior to his death.

"Kevin really opened up the door to songwriting for me," adds Murray. "He was my teacher in so many ways and gave me the confidence to explore my music and believe in my ideas. He brought the dark, dark edge to Mi-Sex that we all loved and were intensely intrigued by."

Born on June 21, 1955, Stanton assembled Mi-Sex in 1977 with Steve Gilpin (vocals), Doc Martin (bass), Richard Hodgkinson (drums) and Burns. The group relocated to Sydney the following year and got to work on their debut album Graffiti Crimes. A later version of the set included "Computer Games," which hit No. 1 in Australia in October 1979 and won Best Australian Single at the Countdown Music Awards.

Stanton wrote, played guitar and occasionally took vocal duties on a string of songs, including "But You Don't Care", "People," "Space Race," "It Only Hurts When I'm Laughing", "Shanghaied!," and "Castaway" (which hit No. 31 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Songs chart).

Stanton took leave from the band in the mid '80s and relocated to London where he produced soundtracks and worked on the Fairlight CMI, a pioneering Australian-designed digital synthesizer and sampler. An enthusiastic adopter of studio technology, Stanton was one half of the StanLee Productions team which programmed much of the sound library for the Fairlight Series III.

Mi-Sex continues to tour with Burns the only member remaining of the band's classic lineup, though Stanton has not been involved in any recent reunions due to ill health. He suffered with cervical spondylosis which affected the use of his left arm and hand, and he had been recovering from major spinal surgery.

Mi-Sex vocalist Gilpin died in January 1992, two months after a car accident from which he never recovered.

It's still not a production car as far as I know - it's a trackday special tuned for 'ring attack.
I bet you can't do a full trackday in it without charging it 4 times.

Hell, the 918 is only HALF electric, and I believe it only gets one good 'ring lap in per charge?

Its styling isn't any different to other supercars, so i can't see any reason that it couldn't be registered & a larger production run. We need manufacturers to build these cars to inspire future generations of automotive enthusiasts.

Meanwhile i'll just continue to burn a hole in the ozone layer with my rotor.

Boldly going where no man has gone before! Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin-Green lead crew 'before Kirk and Spock' in Star Trek: Discovery

Julian Assange: Sweden drops rape investigation

Breaking News

Sweden's director of public prosecutions has decided to drop the rape investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The move comes ahead of a Stockholm court's examination of a demand by Mr Assange's lawyers that Sweden drop his European arrest warrant.

Mr Assange has lived in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012, trying to avoid extradition to Sweden.

He fears if he went to Sweden he could face extradition to the US.

He could face trial in the US over the leaking hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents.