dragster
Latest
Ford's electric Mustang dragster covers a quarter-mile in 8.27 seconds
Ford's electric Mustang prototype put all that horsepower to work with an 8.27-second run down the quarter-mile drag strip.
An electric dragster has passed 200MPH for the first time
Electric drag racing has a new record.
Ford's electric Mustang dragster delivers over 1,400 horsepower
Ford's factory-built electric Mustang prototype is built for the drag strip.
Video game records are broken. Can anyone fix them?
After a period of relative quiet, Twin Galaxies recently found itself thrust into the spotlight. The arbiter for video-game recordkeeping played an intrinsic role in disputing two long-standing achievements hosted on its forums: Todd Rogers' unbeatable Dragster time and Billy Mitchell's Donkey Kong high score. Both records have had their share of challenges over the decades, but before users on the TG forums raised their concerns the other week, nothing was done to officially dispute them. In 1982, Rogers sent Dragster developer Activision a letter saying he'd finished a race in 5.51-seconds -- without proof -- and in return, he received a certificate saying he held the record. For many, Mitchell is the "King of Kong" thanks to his appearance in a documentary by the same name. He has recorded higher scores since, but allegedly, Mitchell's 2010 best wasn't recorded on an actual Donkey Kong cabinet, but in MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). (We reached out to Mitchell and Rogers for comment, but they haven't responded.) According to Jace Hall, TG's head custodian of records, it was only a matter of time before these disputes happened.
‘Dragster’ record holder stripped of his title after 35 years
Back in 1982, Activision verified the fastest time on its Dragster video game on the Atari 2600. The record belonged to Todd Rogers, with a time of 5.51 seconds. According to Twin Galaxies, the current holders of the applicable video game records, this score was also acknowledged by Guinness World Records. In 2017, however, Twin Galaxies member Dick Moreland officially disputed Rogers' time, citing analysis by Eric Koziel that showed such a time was mathematically impossible. Twin Galaxies has now decided to remove all of Rogers' score and ban him from future participation in any of its competitive leaderboards.
Dyson's engineers head off to the races, create dragsters using spare parts, DC-16 motors (video)
Dyson engineers certainly know a thing or two about creating innovative vacuums and fans Air Multipliers, but did you know they've also dabbled in the world of high-speed racing? Such is apparently now the case, as these folks were tasked with building go-kart drag racers out of spare parts, resulting in a variety of wheeled wonders viaing for the fastest run on a makeshift strip in the office. Of course, there was a catch -- all of the dragsters had to use the motor from Dyson's DC-16 handheld vacuum in a battle for maximum torque. We won't spoil the outcomes for you, so scroll down to catch a video mashup of all the hijinks in the video below.
Rice University nanodragster rolls on carbon buckeyball wheels, lives life .0005 inch at a time
Drag racing and nanotech seemingly go together like peanut butter and... very small rocks, but that hasn't stopped a team of researchers at Rice University from creating a microscopic car dubbed a "nanodragster." Its wheels are buckeyballs, the rear composed of 60 carbon atoms each, while its front wheels are made of p-carborane. This gives the car more grip at the back, meaning it'll pop wheelies just like a real dragster -- though only when running on a road paved with gold. Even then it doesn't go very fast, just .0005 inches per hour, meaning for those 1,327,000 days it takes to cover a quarter-mile its driver is free.
Dragster - drag and drop file management and transfer with a twist
Ambrosia Software, those crazy kids with the Snapz Pro X and WireTap Pro, have unveiled the latest trick up their sleeve in the form of Dragster, an interesting approach to drag and drop file management and transfer. This utility, as you can see, lives in the Dock and is more or less like a drag and drop command center, allowing you to specify a number of locations you frequently need to move or send files to, such as remove servers, specific folders and more. These locations pop up when you drag items over Dragster's dock icon, allowing you to take care of your business right then and there, instead of rooting around in the Finder or tediously connecting and reconnecting servers. One feature I find a bit more interesting than its Dock icon abilities is the Contextual Menu that offers the same functionality. To me, this seems a bit easier to use and more efficient than dragging icons all around the display.Either way, try it out for yourself. A demo is available, while a license costs $19. Dragster, as most other new applications these days, is a Universal Binary.
