Wired, March 2003 - Speed Freaks
The latest Wired magazine is about speed and the people who crave it. The cover article chronicles those that rank at the top: from the fastest person, through to the fastest computer. I still can't believe that the SR-71, at Mach 3.4, still holds the speed record for an aircraft (that was set back in 1976) - and considering that Columbia was over Mach 18 when it broke up ... you'd think there would be a faster plane by now. Other articles on speed in this issue are:
War of the Wheels: a well written article on the drag racing scene. The article compares the old-school dragsters who pushed raw-horsepower, topping with vehicles that put out 7,000+hp, to the "rice burners" - souped-up Japanese imports, such as overclocked Honda CRXes that reach upwards of 1,000hp. The article is well written, and pulls no punches.
Maximum Overdrive: covers the overclocking of processors. It started out just as a way of pushing a CPU and a computer faster than the manufactuers wanted so that the edge could be gotten in the first-person shooters such as Doom and Duke Nukem. It's evolved into refined sport where the latest king of the hill can claim fame at such sites as HardOCP.com and Futuremark.com.
... or Die Trying: Ken Warby's holds the world's water speed record at 317.6mph, set in 1978. Everyone who's tried to break it have either failed and/or died in the attempt. Warby now thinks he can break his own record, and he's got competition from two other teams, all are readying for runs within the next year.
The latest Wired magazine is about speed and the people who crave it. The cover article chronicles those that rank at the top: from the fastest person, through to the fastest computer. I still can't believe that the SR-71, at Mach 3.4, still holds the speed record for an aircraft (that was set back in 1976) - and considering that Columbia was over Mach 18 when it broke up ... you'd think there would be a faster plane by now. Other articles on speed in this issue are:
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