I was just thinking to myself a few days ago that the overlap between tech workers and car nuts is quite narrow. Not many people I know from my professional environment are really into cars. Sure, some can say "this is better than that" or tell a car story or say how some Mini they drove "handled like a go cart" but nearly none of them is a hardcore car nut (e.g. they're more interested in the tech of a Tesla than what a Ferrari V12 feels like).
Random thought, to which I don't give a lot of credence but can't rule out entirely, is that tech work and car fandom often grow out of childhood/teenage obsessions, and most kids would only have one such obsession.
Related, it's also possible that it's a class thing. Many kids who grew up working on computers did so in a white collar household, many who worked on cars did so on a blue collar family.
Both mostly off-the-cuff speculation based in no small part on clichés.
although cars and computer systems are both examples of "technology", the way we appreciate them is very different.
we consider computers mainly in quantitative terms: cpu speed, memory size and bandwidth, etc. if computer A compiles and runs my project just as fast as computer B, I don't really care what's "under the hood", or whether it was made by an artisan or in a factory. I don't care what it sounds like either, as long as it isn't loud enough to annoy me.
while you can certainly compare the stats of different cars, the story on paper doesn't come close to describing what a driving enthusiast really cares about: the qualitative experience of driving the car. when selecting a car I don't just buy the best 0-60 time in my price range; rather, I seek to optimize some holistic measure of drive quality.
to grossly generalize, I find that most tech people have a quantitative mindset. they feel most comfortable in decision spaces where things can be compared using objective metrics and an authoritative answer can be reached (at least theoretically). tech people spend a lot of time developing quantitative skills, so it is easy for them to get involved in these types of discussions.
I think this explains the bulk of why tech people just aren't that interested in cars; they don't really know how to get involved in the conversation and they don't see why they should.
The cultural gap is real. The car world traditionally appeals to a very different demographic. Remember all those crappy flash intros every geek would hate? Car businesses loved them.
Working on cars is a very social experience: you pick up the interest from relatives or friends, and space requirements for the hobby are such that, in urban surroundings, you usually cannot hide it from people, so they will see what you’re doing and stop to have a chat; you will often need help to push this or that relic around; you will have to talk to garage owners for many reasons, etc etc. Whereas IT is traditionally a loner’s world, and more so since the internet became central to it.
Then consider that the world of car enthusiasts is shrinking. The big expos have consolidated for lack of visitors, and car evolution itself is shutting out enthusiasts by producing more and more products that cannot be tweaked or even repaired without professional assistance. When I was a teenager my dad was often going on about the fact that me and my friends simply did not do any of the motoring-related activities he did as a kid.
I’ve known exactly two geeks in my life who were also car enthusiasts. One was a very atypical programmer, fundamentally a businessman who loved PHP. The other came from a deep UK working-class background, and cars were basically a way to stay in touch with that, a mean to maintain an emotional link with his friends and family. Everyone else only cared about cars enough to use them to from A to B and to hold a non-geek conversation (“did you see Top Gear last night? Ludicrous display! The thing with Jaguar is they always try to walk it in...”).
My experience is that you will find many cs and math people among car enthusiasts (At my university almost everyone involved in motorsport is math/science/eng.) From the other side, you will find a smaller proportion due to the wide variety of people who work in tech nowadays.
I don’t think the majority of students who study cs have an obsession any more. It has become such a public and large field that you can hardly expect that to be the case. cs pays more, so it will be more “diluted” (of car enthusiasts) but also an enthusiast of both is more likely to be in cs than eng for the same reason.
In my case, I have always been obsessed with cars and then taught myself cs afterwards.
I suspect that is they way Unis have been plugging CS ie pure math over EE. I suspect that for those from a "Proper" engineering back ground the over lap is much higher.
Certainly working at a world leading RnD place at Cranfield (which had an airfield) in the 80s there was a lot of overlap some engineers had air band radios so they could listen out for anything interesting Bearcats, Spitfire going out for a test (they used to rebuild spitfires on site) run etc and loads would go out and watch
Weird. They are one in the same to me. I started tinkering with cars and computers at a young age. I got a job fixing computers, then I got trained in cars and went to fix cars for a few years. Now I’m back to computers. I take things apart and figure out how they work and put things together. If that’s cars, or software, or computers, toasters, houses, furnaces, it’s all the same process for me. The overlap between these things is 100% in my mind. :)
>The reason we need those specific Compaq laptops is that they run a bespoke CA card which is installed into them," explains a McLaren spokesperson to Jalopnik. "The CA card is an interface between the laptop software (which is DOS-based) and the car." If you've never heard of a CA card, then Jalopnik commenter Mike Herbst helpfully explains it's a Conditional Access card. Modern PCs use smart cards or USB keys with special access codes to access sensitive systems, and the CA card was used as custom hardware as part of an integrated system for security and copy protection.
It seems McLaren doesn't need those old laptop anymore though.
> Today, McLaren uses a modern Windows computer running a software emulator for day-to-day computer maintenance. Hines keeps the vintage Compaq around just in case.
Whats interesting about this car is that even if its not driven a mile, many parts have to be changed as per a timetable. Merely changing the tires on this car costs $50k! https://youtu.be/EsKDGdcb6BQ
Whats interesting about this car is that even if its not driven a mile, many parts have to be changed as per a timetable.
The McLaren takes this to an extreme, but this is not uncommon on cars in general. Even the oil needs to be changed if you haven't driven it. Tires rot just sitting there (think of tires as Li-Ion batteries; they rot whether you use them or not). Fuel lines get old and brittle whether fuel runs through them or not. Our VW van has the penalty of the thing burning to the ground if 45psi of fuel sprays on that hot exhaust, so I change them regularly whether they need it or not.
My wife's first motorcycle was something like ten or twelve years old. Only 4K miles! Which means it did a lot of sitting. Guess what I was doing the next winter? Replacing every seal and gasket while I had the engine on the kitchen table, because just sitting there the all rubber bits dried out and leaked like a sieve. It would have been better had the bike had closer to 20-30K miles on it, and it probably wouldn't have leaked (or at least not like a geyser).
Top it off with the fact that this car can go 231mph, and you want to make damned sure everything is up to snuff before you turn it loose. You want low-maintanence, turn-the-key-and-go, go buy a Toyota Camry. You want to go 231mph, even if you can afford the entry fee, know that annual dues are not cheap for that club.
I'm not terribly surprised by the price of the tires. My mom's old Corvette tires were, IIRC, $1200 a piece. Don't know what tires on her '16 go for. And Corvettes don't go 231 mph. As I recall, tires were what speed-limited one of the Bugattis.
Frankly, I have no idea how they get a tire to hold together at 231mph. I haven't sat down and gone "okay, tire is X mm in diameter, at 231mph, that's Y RPM, carry the one...", but I imagine there are some incredible forces trying to pull that tire apart at 231mph. And the poor thing has to keep it together well enough to negotiate a corner with added side forces added to an already stressful situation.
So for $50K [0] you'll assure me that the tread won't come unglued from the carcass while I'm traveling the length of a football field every second? Sounds like a bargain to me.
(Kept separate from my other comment to avoid digression.)
All the new lambos / f-cars are great and Tesla is making exciting things go fast but this... the F1... this is the car to end all cars.
No compromise: engine bay is lined with gold, the v12 designed by bmw’s m division is a smooth fucking monster, driver seat in the center, damn, you need a steel set of balls just to look at this thing.
I’d love to have this job, this is a mechanic dream.
I might argue konigsegg is quicky eclipsing them in both tech and construction. Freevalve engines, transmissionless, hybrid, and bugatti stomping power. They went 0-250 then back to 0 in the time it took the previous record holder just to make it to 250. Truly next level tech.
That said, the mclaren is still much better tuned for actual racing, for now. Not to be minimized.
This article is not true. There are still two other McLaren certified technicians who worked with BMW NA under their program, and both are completely able to work on F1. I should know, as I know one of them, and he was the last BMW/McLaren certified F1 technician trained under Panis personally, yet he or the other guy is not mentioned in any of the R&T articles, whom are still able to wrench on these vehicles as long as they have the tools, which they had to hand back in.
Same director as The Worlds Fastest Indian, another fascinating story about a home-made motorbike. Along with the Britten bike, New Zealand has a handful of tech innovators to be proud of.
I've had the privilege to tour the McLaren Formula 1 team production facility in Surrey. One of the best "engineering tourism" moments of my life. It's amazing what you can make with an unlimited budget :)
I am glad to have found and read this. My parents never finished high school, and soon after the trade schools were closed down around NYC. Most lower-class, working-class people in my neighborhood in Brooklyn were trades people, but they taught their children to avoid the trades, well some of them. The children eschewed the trades, but if intellect or the family's economics didn't allow them to become doctors, lawyers, or teachers, they became policemen (law enforcement officers), garbage men (sanitation workers), or firemen (firefighters). Juxtaposing the old terms with new to put a sense of generation here!
The parents still had respect for the trades, but they wanted their children to make more money, to climb out of poverty. In the article, he states,
"My dad always had some classic cars. I’d help him in the garage," Hines says. "He actually told me I shouldn’t work on cars professionally. He said keep it as a hobby. I wish he was still around so I could call him and say, guess what I’m doing now. I think he’d be proud."
I really think this is why it is hard to find a good electrician, plumber, you name it, since the trade schools and apprenticeships in the trades have dwindled, or just plain disappeared. I will not speak to the unions; I am speaking of the neighborhood master who plied his trade and then passed it on to an apprentice - plumber, electrician, machinist (I did this), welder (this too), iron worker, carpenter, steam fitter, boat builder, etc...
I grew up working with my hands, landed a job doing computer backups at a NYC law firm at night (learned to code, play Doom when it first came out and started learning expert systems and neural networks). I quit that job and gave my wife at the time anxiety to take a job as a welder making 60% of my cushy night job salary. Best decision ever, since it led me to a lot of different and interesting jobs all around the world, and without a college degree, yet with a dotcom bubble salary before the dotcom bubble.
Now the curse has come to bite me back. I have had mechanics tell my daughter she needs new rotors and pads when I know the rotors were fine, but I didn't have the time to replace the pads. Another mechanic in a different state told her she needed a new $150 O2 sensor when she brought it to him to look at when her engine light came on. A friend hooked it up and it was something totally unrelated, and cost a whopping $25 dollars to fix. My ex-mother-in-law went in for an oil change, and they left the filler cap off, and her engine was sprayed with oil. A different place overtightened the oil drain plug crushing the o-ring on my ex-wife's car, and as a result she leaked a lot of oil out, and fortunately she stopped driving when her engine temperature started soaring. A lot of ill-trained and incompetent people taking care of life-critical machinery. It is the number one reason I am starting to fear flying. If the trend goes towards plane maintenance, it is just a matter of time before accidents increase due to human incompetency or negligence, not just fatigue or cheap parts or manufacture.
The story gave me hope that there are still people who will value such things, and carry the torch to future generations and show the worth in an honest day's work done right.
So Wikipedia seems to indicate that the famous 3-seat configuration was removed in the American version in order to make it road legal. But the pictures don't indicate that. Anyone know why? Were the seats not really removed? Or did the owners have them put back in?
I've worked with the newer F1 variants of such engines. So I'm not impressed at all. "The problem with this car is that it never stops accelerating. Most other cars feel like they start to hit a wall. This car just keeps accelerating at the same rate"
And then I see max 7500 rpm and 231mpH. A normal F1 engine is limited at 19.000 rpm but goes up to 25.000 rpm. How can such an V12 engine provide enough dynamics within 240mpH? Ridiculous. A race engine goes 3x higher. This is a completely different experience. You cannot compare Le Mans with a real F1 race car.
>A normal F1 engine is limited at 19.000 rpm but goes up to 25.000 rpm.
A normal F1 engine of the 1990s had a lifespan of about 500 miles. Not many road car owners are willing to replace their engine after every tank of fuel.
What the McLaren F1 lost in revs, it made up for in capacity. The contemporary McLaren racing car to the F1 was the MP4/6, which had a 3.5L V12 with a nominal power output of 710bhp. The F1 had a 6.1L V12 with a substantially lower redline, producing about 620bhp. The F1 had a considerably lower drag coefficient, because it had a closed-wheel body and produced much less downforce, meaning it actually had a far higher top speed. The highest speed achieved in the 1991 Formula 1 Championship was 210.2mph, achieved by Senna at Hockenheim.
The McLaren F1 wasn't directly equivalent in performance to a Formula 1 car, but it's about as close as you'll get in a road-legal car.
[+] [-] flyinglizard|8 years ago|reply
I was just thinking to myself a few days ago that the overlap between tech workers and car nuts is quite narrow. Not many people I know from my professional environment are really into cars. Sure, some can say "this is better than that" or tell a car story or say how some Mini they drove "handled like a go cart" but nearly none of them is a hardcore car nut (e.g. they're more interested in the tech of a Tesla than what a Ferrari V12 feels like).
I'm sure there's a good reason somewhere.
[+] [-] macintux|8 years ago|reply
Related, it's also possible that it's a class thing. Many kids who grew up working on computers did so in a white collar household, many who worked on cars did so on a blue collar family.
Both mostly off-the-cuff speculation based in no small part on clichés.
[+] [-] leetcrew|8 years ago|reply
we consider computers mainly in quantitative terms: cpu speed, memory size and bandwidth, etc. if computer A compiles and runs my project just as fast as computer B, I don't really care what's "under the hood", or whether it was made by an artisan or in a factory. I don't care what it sounds like either, as long as it isn't loud enough to annoy me.
while you can certainly compare the stats of different cars, the story on paper doesn't come close to describing what a driving enthusiast really cares about: the qualitative experience of driving the car. when selecting a car I don't just buy the best 0-60 time in my price range; rather, I seek to optimize some holistic measure of drive quality.
to grossly generalize, I find that most tech people have a quantitative mindset. they feel most comfortable in decision spaces where things can be compared using objective metrics and an authoritative answer can be reached (at least theoretically). tech people spend a lot of time developing quantitative skills, so it is easy for them to get involved in these types of discussions.
I think this explains the bulk of why tech people just aren't that interested in cars; they don't really know how to get involved in the conversation and they don't see why they should.
[+] [-] toyg|8 years ago|reply
Working on cars is a very social experience: you pick up the interest from relatives or friends, and space requirements for the hobby are such that, in urban surroundings, you usually cannot hide it from people, so they will see what you’re doing and stop to have a chat; you will often need help to push this or that relic around; you will have to talk to garage owners for many reasons, etc etc. Whereas IT is traditionally a loner’s world, and more so since the internet became central to it.
Then consider that the world of car enthusiasts is shrinking. The big expos have consolidated for lack of visitors, and car evolution itself is shutting out enthusiasts by producing more and more products that cannot be tweaked or even repaired without professional assistance. When I was a teenager my dad was often going on about the fact that me and my friends simply did not do any of the motoring-related activities he did as a kid.
I’ve known exactly two geeks in my life who were also car enthusiasts. One was a very atypical programmer, fundamentally a businessman who loved PHP. The other came from a deep UK working-class background, and cars were basically a way to stay in touch with that, a mean to maintain an emotional link with his friends and family. Everyone else only cared about cars enough to use them to from A to B and to hold a non-geek conversation (“did you see Top Gear last night? Ludicrous display! The thing with Jaguar is they always try to walk it in...”).
[+] [-] banach2|8 years ago|reply
I don’t think the majority of students who study cs have an obsession any more. It has become such a public and large field that you can hardly expect that to be the case. cs pays more, so it will be more “diluted” (of car enthusiasts) but also an enthusiast of both is more likely to be in cs than eng for the same reason.
In my case, I have always been obsessed with cars and then taught myself cs afterwards.
[+] [-] walshemj|8 years ago|reply
Certainly working at a world leading RnD place at Cranfield (which had an airfield) in the 80s there was a lot of overlap some engineers had air band radios so they could listen out for anything interesting Bearcats, Spitfire going out for a test (they used to rebuild spitfires on site) run etc and loads would go out and watch
[+] [-] acranox|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msantos|8 years ago|reply
https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/5/3/11576032/mcla...
[+] [-] nasredin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PascLeRasc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neurostimulant|8 years ago|reply
> Today, McLaren uses a modern Windows computer running a software emulator for day-to-day computer maintenance. Hines keeps the vintage Compaq around just in case.
[+] [-] teh_klev|8 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11604922
[+] [-] pryelluw|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2sk21|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikestew|8 years ago|reply
The McLaren takes this to an extreme, but this is not uncommon on cars in general. Even the oil needs to be changed if you haven't driven it. Tires rot just sitting there (think of tires as Li-Ion batteries; they rot whether you use them or not). Fuel lines get old and brittle whether fuel runs through them or not. Our VW van has the penalty of the thing burning to the ground if 45psi of fuel sprays on that hot exhaust, so I change them regularly whether they need it or not.
My wife's first motorcycle was something like ten or twelve years old. Only 4K miles! Which means it did a lot of sitting. Guess what I was doing the next winter? Replacing every seal and gasket while I had the engine on the kitchen table, because just sitting there the all rubber bits dried out and leaked like a sieve. It would have been better had the bike had closer to 20-30K miles on it, and it probably wouldn't have leaked (or at least not like a geyser).
Top it off with the fact that this car can go 231mph, and you want to make damned sure everything is up to snuff before you turn it loose. You want low-maintanence, turn-the-key-and-go, go buy a Toyota Camry. You want to go 231mph, even if you can afford the entry fee, know that annual dues are not cheap for that club.
[+] [-] mikestew|8 years ago|reply
Frankly, I have no idea how they get a tire to hold together at 231mph. I haven't sat down and gone "okay, tire is X mm in diameter, at 231mph, that's Y RPM, carry the one...", but I imagine there are some incredible forces trying to pull that tire apart at 231mph. And the poor thing has to keep it together well enough to negotiate a corner with added side forces added to an already stressful situation.
So for $50K [0] you'll assure me that the tread won't come unglued from the carcass while I'm traveling the length of a football field every second? Sounds like a bargain to me.
(Kept separate from my other comment to avoid digression.)
[0] EDIT: oops, $50K/set, not each
[+] [-] cyberpunk0|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tbrock|8 years ago|reply
No compromise: engine bay is lined with gold, the v12 designed by bmw’s m division is a smooth fucking monster, driver seat in the center, damn, you need a steel set of balls just to look at this thing.
I’d love to have this job, this is a mechanic dream.
[+] [-] nugi|8 years ago|reply
That said, the mclaren is still much better tuned for actual racing, for now. Not to be minimized.
[+] [-] M235i|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] telesilla|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/mclaren-2017
Same director as The Worlds Fastest Indian, another fascinating story about a home-made motorbike. Along with the Britten bike, New Zealand has a handful of tech innovators to be proud of.
[+] [-] gregpilling|8 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rjJQUnq5Js
I was on track with the first version at Westwood, in BC when it was ridden by Gary Goodfellow and Steve Crevier. 88-90 era.
[+] [-] DanCarvajal|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eggy|8 years ago|reply
The parents still had respect for the trades, but they wanted their children to make more money, to climb out of poverty. In the article, he states,
"My dad always had some classic cars. I’d help him in the garage," Hines says. "He actually told me I shouldn’t work on cars professionally. He said keep it as a hobby. I wish he was still around so I could call him and say, guess what I’m doing now. I think he’d be proud."
I really think this is why it is hard to find a good electrician, plumber, you name it, since the trade schools and apprenticeships in the trades have dwindled, or just plain disappeared. I will not speak to the unions; I am speaking of the neighborhood master who plied his trade and then passed it on to an apprentice - plumber, electrician, machinist (I did this), welder (this too), iron worker, carpenter, steam fitter, boat builder, etc...
I grew up working with my hands, landed a job doing computer backups at a NYC law firm at night (learned to code, play Doom when it first came out and started learning expert systems and neural networks). I quit that job and gave my wife at the time anxiety to take a job as a welder making 60% of my cushy night job salary. Best decision ever, since it led me to a lot of different and interesting jobs all around the world, and without a college degree, yet with a dotcom bubble salary before the dotcom bubble.
Now the curse has come to bite me back. I have had mechanics tell my daughter she needs new rotors and pads when I know the rotors were fine, but I didn't have the time to replace the pads. Another mechanic in a different state told her she needed a new $150 O2 sensor when she brought it to him to look at when her engine light came on. A friend hooked it up and it was something totally unrelated, and cost a whopping $25 dollars to fix. My ex-mother-in-law went in for an oil change, and they left the filler cap off, and her engine was sprayed with oil. A different place overtightened the oil drain plug crushing the o-ring on my ex-wife's car, and as a result she leaked a lot of oil out, and fortunately she stopped driving when her engine temperature started soaring. A lot of ill-trained and incompetent people taking care of life-critical machinery. It is the number one reason I am starting to fear flying. If the trend goes towards plane maintenance, it is just a matter of time before accidents increase due to human incompetency or negligence, not just fatigue or cheap parts or manufacture.
The story gave me hope that there are still people who will value such things, and carry the torch to future generations and show the worth in an honest day's work done right.
[+] [-] mathiasben|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] owenversteeg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaadd33|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] userbinator|8 years ago|reply
Despite the fact that I'm unlikely to ever own one, I'd love to read the service manual.
[+] [-] pibefision|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rurban|8 years ago|reply
And then I see max 7500 rpm and 231mpH. A normal F1 engine is limited at 19.000 rpm but goes up to 25.000 rpm. How can such an V12 engine provide enough dynamics within 240mpH? Ridiculous. A race engine goes 3x higher. This is a completely different experience. You cannot compare Le Mans with a real F1 race car.
[+] [-] jdietrich|8 years ago|reply
A normal F1 engine of the 1990s had a lifespan of about 500 miles. Not many road car owners are willing to replace their engine after every tank of fuel.
What the McLaren F1 lost in revs, it made up for in capacity. The contemporary McLaren racing car to the F1 was the MP4/6, which had a 3.5L V12 with a nominal power output of 710bhp. The F1 had a 6.1L V12 with a substantially lower redline, producing about 620bhp. The F1 had a considerably lower drag coefficient, because it had a closed-wheel body and produced much less downforce, meaning it actually had a far higher top speed. The highest speed achieved in the 1991 Formula 1 Championship was 210.2mph, achieved by Senna at Hockenheim.
The McLaren F1 wasn't directly equivalent in performance to a Formula 1 car, but it's about as close as you'll get in a road-legal car.
[+] [-] walshemj|8 years ago|reply