Whither the Manual Transmission

I have always, if it's available, ordered a stick shift, or manual transmission, for my cars. I think driving a manual makes the driving experience more fun and more engaging. There's something about hitting the correct gear as you downshift out of a corner to maximize the car's torque to accelerate.

Plus, in the past, manuals got better gas mileage, and had less maintenance and break-down issues.

The only problem I have with manuals is I've never mastered heel-and-toe downshifts. I blame this on ankles that don't like to be turned certain directions, but it might just be I'm not coordinated enough.

Fewer and fewer cars are now being offered with manuals and, according to an article a few years back in the Wall Street Journal, less than 20% of Americans can drive a manual. Which I thought was horrible when I read that.

And I'm starting to think it doesn't matter.

Last year (on Christmas Eve) I bought a new car. This car's transmission has three modes: regular (although I'm sure the marketing department calls it something else), manual, and sport. To put it in sport mode, you pull back on the shift lever when the car is in "Drive" and an "S" appears on the instrument panel under the "D" for "Drive." You can also push the lever to the right for "Manual" mode and shift using the paddles behind the steering wheel. (You can also while in "D" mode use the paddles to manually shift and after about a minute it goes back to automatic mode.)

In the year I've owned the car I've tried everything with the transmission, every mode of driving it. I have found that for passing (depending on how slow the car you want to pass is going) if you're in D you pull the left paddle to shift down to fourth or third, then accelerate. The car will automatically shift at the redline (6,200 RPM). This makes the pass very quick (and you have to be careful not to accelerate too much. First time I did that I was over 100 mph before I knew it).

Or, if you put the transmission in sport mode, it downshifts for you, always keeping the engine in what's called the "power band" where torque and horsepower are maximized. It does this better and faster than I can using the paddles.

Finally, if you try to shift using the paddles, you might miss the power band or short shift it. A human is just not as precises and accurate as the computer.

And, if you leave the transmission in "D" (normal), and accelerate moderately, it shifts often (it has 7 gears) and keeps the RPMs low to maximize gas mileage. It often shifts before 2,000 RPM. I've tried to replicate that using the paddles, and, again, can't shift fast or accurately enough.

In other words, in this car with this transmission, there's no need to shift manually even if a manual were an option. The computer can handle the gears better than I ever could. I do not miss having a manual at all. In fact, I enjoy NOT having a manual and letting the computer do the hard work.

One reason manuals are going away is because it is harder to make a manual transmission car meet federal regulations for pollution and mpg. But with the transmissions like in my new car, I may not care.

The Speculative Fiction Cantina with Judith Ann McDowell and Joann H. Buchanan

Today on a special Halloween edition of the Speculative Fiction Cantina we welcome horror writers Judith Ann McDowell and Joann H. Buchanan

Judith Ann McDowell

Judith Ann McDowell

Judith Ann McDowell is a novelist with seven finished books. When not working on a manuscript, Judith and her husband Darrell like to travel to different cities such as New Orleans to talk with people about voodoo and to talk with those who have experienced, first-hand,  true hauntings. Judith is the mother of four grown sons Guy, David, Rhett and Nick and lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband Darrell and their two Pekingese Chi and Tai and three cats Isis, Lacy and Reefer. Judith is at present working on seventh screenplay.

Judith's books include:

Rougarou I

Rougarou  II

Rougarou III (The Devil's Child)

The Hay Fort

Judith's Links:

Website

Facebook

Joann H. Buchanan

Joann H. Buchanan

Joann H. Buchanan is a mother of five children, and has a wonderful husband who supports her passion for the written word. She owns a small audiobook company named Empire voices. Empire Voices creates audiobooks. You can stop off at www.empirevoices.com for more information.
Her upcoming releases include Shine, After Dark book 3 in The Children of Nox series, and Empires Lost book 1 Keleigh. She is in two anthologies, Horror in Bloom and Hidden in Your World.

For more information about Joann H. Buchanan please visit www.joannhbuchanan.blogspot.com, or www.facebook.com/JoannHBuchanan. To arrange a book signing or interview, contact her representatives at 541-813-1113 or joannhbuchanan@charter.net

Joann's Books include:

Soulless Light 

I Am Wolf (book 1 Children of Nox)

The Kiss (book 2 Children of Nox) 

Shine

Joann's Links:

Blog

Facebook

Twitter

From the program today:

Science Halloween Tricks/smokey fingers

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The Score Does Not Reflect the Game

I have not watched a University of Washington Husky football game live since the Stanford loss in September.  But I have watched them all DVR'd and avoided social media so I wouldn't learn the outcome until I watched the game.

Saturday's Husky game against #14 Arizona State was a defensive battle marked by high winds that not only rattled ESPN's satellite dish around enough that there were many interruptions of the picture and sound, but anytime the football went into the air, you had no idea what was going to happen. Both teams limited passing.

First the good news: the Husky defense was brilliant. They stopped a goal line stand by Arizona State to prevent them from capitalizing on a fumble. They got an interception and ran it in for a touchdown, the first Husky score of the game.

Now the bad news: Cyler Miles, the starting quarterback, did not play in the game due to a head injury in the Oregon loss. He had "concussion-like symptoms" and Coach Chris Petersen decided to keep him out of the game. So we had backup red-shirt freshman quarterback Troy Williams. It might have been the wind but Williams couldn't connect with passes very well. He fumbled the ball once (the one described above) and threw and interception which was ran in for a touchdown, making the score look worse than it did for the Huskies.

The game was very close until the end and the Huskies had moments of brilliance. But the wind and the backup quarterback both limited the offensive capabilities. The final score was 24-10 but before ASU scored 14 points (7 of those the interception), it was 10-10 and looked as if we might pull off a win.

Next week we play Colorado in Bolder, CO. And we'd better win. Colorado is 2-6 with zero wins in conference. I'll be watching that game live.

Babylon 5: It Sucked.

I never watched Babylon 5 when it was in first run back in the '90s.  But I have this vague memory of someone recently praising Babylon 5, perhaps in my writers' group (which is the only place I really talk to people who are into science fiction). So I put all of season one on my Netflix queue (it's only available on discs, not streaming).

My conclusion after watching one episode and perhaps a third of another: it sucked. How did this thing survive for five season?

Yes, the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation sucked. But not like this:

• The acting was wooden when it wasn't shrill
• The writing was atrocious (I turned off the second episode when a character said "clear and present danger")
• The production values were barely above porn movie levels (not that I've ever seen porn movies)
• The direction was plodding and pedestrian
• It was shot on video tape rather than film, which added to the cheap milieu (and didn't scale up very well on my big-screen TV)

The one thing I could recommend about the show is the make up on the aliens was generally done well. And occasionally they made a nod to real-life physics (e.g. the station rotates to simulate gravity).

But I couldn't sit through two whole episodes let alone the four on the first disc.

But now I can say I tried to watch Babylon 5. 

If it had been Star Trek: Babylon 5 I might have stuck it out. But if it had been Star Trek: Babylon 5, it would have been Deep Space Nine with was good, even if it had a rough first season.

The Speculative Fiction Cantina with Tony LaRocca and C. Norman

Today on the Speculative Fiction Cantina we welcome Tony LaRocca and C. Norman

Tony LaRocca

Tony LaRocca

Tony grew up in Basking Ridge, NJ. He joined the army after high school, and had an unglamorous career across the United States. He currently lives the glamorous life of an author / electrician / occasional karaoke crooner, and chronic doodler in New York City, along with his wife and children.

Tony's book:

False Idols and Other Short Stories - Science Fiction Short Stories
Amazon
B&N
iBooks

Tony's Links

website
blog
Facebook
Twitter

C. Norman

NOT C. Norman

C. Norman is the author of dozens of bite-size short stories, available for free at herebewonder.com. Topics range from vampire blind dates to alien abduction.  He lives in Texas but has never ridden a horse.

C. Norman's Links

Website

From the Program Today

If Every Car in the World Lined Up and Floored It.

Listen to this program live or in archive here.

NaNoWriMo Once Again

Oh oh, it's almost November.

And if you're a writer, you know what that means (or at least you should): NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. Why it's in November with Thanksgiving and the holidays and only 30 days, I don't know.

In case you're not sure what NaNoWriMo is, it is a challenge to write 50,000 in November. If you do that math, that's an average of 1,667 words per day. Every day. Including Thanksgiving.

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with NaNoWriMo. I have said I don't like it because I think it is responsible for producing a lot of crap writing. But, I like the ideas behind it which is embodied in two things I often say: "Just keep writing" and "Your first draft will suck, get over it and write the damn thing."

In fact, the NaNoWriMo group has you sign a contract stating (among other things):

During the month ahead I realize I will produce clunky dialogue, clichéd characters, and deeply flawed plots.  I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected and/or excised at a later point.

A lot of people write the crap, but forget the "to be corrected and/or excised at a later point." After NaNoWriMo, there is a lot of work left to do.

This year I'm, once again, planning to participate in NaNoWriMo. I am planning to write a sequel to Treasure of the Black Hole (which is not published, yet).  Treasure of the Black Hole was my NaNoWriMo novel from last year.

But I can't start writing it until November 1st (although I'm doing a little outlining and "pre-writing" now). ("Pre-writing" is when I think about something I'm going to write, but I don't start typing).

In the meantime I have a science fiction novel to edit (tentatively titled Alien Fleets War). And I need to finish up my western/fantasy mashup currently titled The Terror of Tombstone.

I want to have everything out of my way for NaNoWriMo because 1,667 word a day is a blistering pace and I don't need distractions.

I Don't Want to Talk About It

Here it is, Tuesday, and I've yet to write about the University of Washington Huskies game against the Oregon Ducks. I guess I don't want to talk about it.

Going into the game I was cautiously optimistic. The Ducks looked vulnerable having been nearly beaten by WSU (of all teams) and losing to Arizona (a loss that knocked them from #2 in the AP poll down to #11).  They had climbed back up to #9 by the time they faced the Huskies.

Also, the Huskies had played very well in their win over California the prior week. I thought if we could play that well, have a little good luck, we might beat the Ducks for the first time in ten years. But what I didn't realize was that a key offensive player for the Ducks was out with injuries for the three games including the loss to Arizona. And he was going to be back for the game with Washington.

At first it looked good. On their first position, the Husky defense held the Ducks to a three-and-out and then the offense put the first points on the board with a field goal.

It went downhill from there. The Huskies didn't play awfully. They just didn't play as brilliantly as they did the week before. And if there was luck to be had, it all seemed to go Oregon's way.

The final score was 20-45. This was not as bad as it could have been.

The Huskies are 5-2 but are 1-2 in conference. Next week we face #14 Arizona State, another tough opponent. We need one more win to be bowl eligible and that will, unless we are lucky and very good next week, come against Colorado who are currently 2-5. That game will be November 1st.

I guess we're back in re-building mode. Seems we have been since the year we went 0-12.