So I've decided to do a much-needed revamp of the Far North Racing websites. It looks like my second tour of Afghanistan may be iffy and I may need to get a job. Given that my website work is kinda my portfolio/resume, it's high time I stripped out the 1998-era table-based layout for some proper CSS.
Anyway, feedback encouraged. Lemme know what you think.
DG
As previously posted I am doing my little bit to try and help rid the world of the scourge of MS by participating (again) in the MS Bike Tour.
In an attempt to raise funds, I posted a little entry to the Donation Page to the following websites:
The results within the first week are striking. Facebook and MyFamily - nil. Fight Club, 1 pers for $10. And Slashdot - 2 pers for an amazing $125.
Clearly - although the sample set is admittedly small - Slashdotters lead the way when it comes to supporting worthy causes.
I am now attempting to challenge the other members of Fight Club to donate more by appealing to their manhood (or lack thereof) by daring them to beat Slashdot's contributions.
You, gentle reader (previous donors excepted) can help make this more difficult by raising the bar by donating more money - and in the end, it is the MS society who wins.
Help me end MS!
DG
The MS Society of Canada has opened its fundraising website for MS Bike Tour 2009 and I've registered my team.
Help me end MS.
DG
It is hot and dusty, but I'm as safe and well as one can be in these circumstances.
DG
...assuming the wireless is working.
After 13 months of workup training, I finally get to go to war.
DG
So in anticipation of my upcoming jaunt to South Central Asia, I got to work writing a web-based version of my Excel Suspension Dynamics Calculator.
http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets16.html
It's all in Javascript, and it works.
It's also butt-ugly, both on the coding and layout sides, but the intent was very much "get it working before making it pretty".
That, and I'm a perl guy. This Javascript stuff is new to me, so I took the brute force, copy-and-paste approach to coding it, rather than try and duplicate the elegant stuff I know how to do in perl.
But now that it is up, I'm interested in seeing what all y'all suggest for layout and code cleanup. And in particular, I'm interested in seeing a good way to do tooltips for the input fields.
So if you're a Javascript or CSS code monkey, have a look at my steaming pile of shite, and suggest ways to make it better. T'would be much appreciated.
And if you're a car guy (or girl)... you're going to want to see this.
DG
So home for a month before deployment, and I have to find a way to diffuse some of the stress and anxiety building up in the ol' household.
Walking through Best Buy, I find that the PS2 version of Rock Band is on sale for less than $100. Niner used to be a professional musician, and I've always wanted to learn how to play drums, so what the hell?
OMFG, Best Game Evar.
We have turned into Rock Band junkies, with me flailing away on the drums, and Niner rocking the guitar and vocals.
The absolutely amazing part is just how well suited the user interface on the game is to teaching how to play a drum kit. I actually wish it had a training mode that had teaching exercises from actual music lessons on it, because the UI makes practice fun.
In the space of a week, I've gone from failing out of songs on Easy, to mid-90% scores (on the basic songs) on Expert.
Back in the Stone Age, I played a little trumpet, so I get what it is like to learn to play an instrument - and this is astounding. I'm actually capable of maintaining a couple of different basic rock backbeats, and I'm starting to get a grasp on off-beats, limb independence, and other real-world drumming techniques.
OK, so there's a long way to go before I'll be subbing in for Alex Van Halen, and "Run to the Hills" on Expert seems unobtainable in my lifetime... but I haven't gotten such a sense of accomplishment from a game since GT4.
And I find myself air drumming all the time now....
Seriously, seriously cool.
DG
Salaam alaikum.
Senga ye?
Ze shay yum.
Dear she.
Khudai par aman.
DG
In the bookstore at 2300 hrs.
Back home at 0130 hrs.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows finished at 0737 hrs.
No spoilers, but this is the best book since Goblet of Fire, and perhaps the best of the series.
Oh, and she's as ruthless with her characters as David Weber.
DG
Well, I guess my fine day job employers got wind of the fact that I've been activated to go on tour in Afghanistan, and rather than get served with the paperwork that activates job protection legislation for service members activated, they fired me.
I can't say I'm particularly surprised. There not much - hell, there is NO - loyalty in that company. Yet another company that could play the starring role in Office Space.
I suppose I should look up how to apply for the American version of Unemployment Insurance, given that I have been paying into it for 10 years now....
At least now I can start my work-up training with no distractions on that front.
So long Accurate Technologies, the worst decision I ever made.
DG
Thank you for calling the Canadian Forces All Arms Fire Support Call Center. For service in English, please press one now. Pour service en francais, apressez sur le deux maintainent.
*beep*
Please be advised that for quality purposes your call may be monitored.
Please enter the eight figure grid of the target using the touchpad of your phone. Press the pound key once you have finished.
*beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beeeeeep*
You have entered grid 1723 2922. If this is correct, press one. To enter a new grid, press two.
*beep*
Please enter the direction to your target, in mils, then the pound key.
*beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beeeeeeep*
You have entered 3200 mils. If this is correct, press one. To enter a new direction, press two.
*beep*
For 80mm mortar, press one. For 105mm howitzer, press two. For M triple seven, press three. For air support, please call the American Air Force customer support center at 1-888-DONT-BOMB-ME.
*beep*
You have selected M triple seven. That weapons system is not available in your calling area. For 80mm mortar, press one. For 105mm howitzer, press two.
*beep*
You have selected 105mm howitzer. For HE, press one. For smoke, press two. For illumination, press three. For DPICM, press four. For Excaliber, please call during normal business hours, 9 AM to 5 PM Monday-Saturday.
*beep*
You have selected HE. Please hold.
*music - "It's raining men"*
Your fire mission is very important to us. Please stay on the line, the next available battery will be with you as soon as soon as possible.
*music - "Everybody wants to rule the world"*
Your fire mission has fired. To drop 200, press one. To add 200, press two. To fire for effect, press 3.
*beep*
Firing for effect. Thank you for using the Canadian Forces All Arms Call for Fire Call Center.
DG
April 9, 1917 was the start of the battle of Vimy Ridge.
Vimy Ridge was a heavily fortified German position on the Western Front that overlooked the Allied position. Literally hundreds of thousands of French and British soldiers had died trying to take it, and it was widely considered to be impregnable.
So the newly formed Canadian Corps - operating together as a national army for the first time, under Canadian command - developed an innovative new battle plan, and in four days and at the cost of just short of 6000 casualties, took the ridge.
One of - if not "the" - most stunning victories of WW1, and the defining Canadian moment in history. We went in a colony, and came out a nation.
Today, ninety years later, the Queen rededicated the newly refurbished monument on the battlefield; a ceremony made all the more solemn by the news that 6 of my comrades were killed yesterday in Afghanistan when an IED was detonated under their LAV-III.
Today is a day for considering one's mortality - a point driven all the more harder home for me by the fact that I turn 37 tomorrow.
DG
So I bought the Alienware m9700. Turion64 2.2Ghz, 120 Gb RAID1, 1920x1200 screen, 2XGeForce7800GS SLI, 1Gb RAM
3DMark05: ~9700. W00t!
To celebrate, I bought Oblivion... and huge chunks of my life are now missing. The game is flat-out gorgeous at full LCD resolution, and playable with most settings near maximum. Niner and I will play together; I play, she watches. It's like watching a movie for her - and the writing is good enough to keep her involved.
My only quibble with the machine is that it is Turion based instead of Core2 Duo based... so of course, three days ago Alienware announced the m9750, which is the same machine I have, but Core 2 Duo and 9750GTX SLI - for the same price as my rig - shipping end of May.
Dammit!
Ah well; that doesn't change the fact that this rig is an absolute screamer.
On the HP front, I got an HP tech to admit (on online chat) that I was dealing with a known flaw in the ZD7000 series and to agree that HP would repair the machine buck shee, even though it is 2-3 years out of warranty. It then took a MONTH for them to send out the mailer box.
But once I finally got the stupid mailer, turnaround time at HP was a couple of HOURS. Two days FedEx to HP, repaired the SAME DAY, and two days back to me. Machine is back in my hands.
It's now a "ZD7000A". It appears the motherboard/video card were swapped out - the nVidia GeForce 5700 Go is gone, and now it has an ATI Radeon Mobility X600 instead. Online benchmarks place these two cards at about the same speed, with perhaps a slight nod to the ATI card.
More interestingly, they wiped the hard drive. Luckily, I had upgraded the HD about a year ago and so had the original drive lying around, so I put that back in the machine before it went back to HP. Good thing I had anticipated something like this; all my precious, precious data isn't lost.
Now I get to put the upgraded drive back in, and see if it boots. I expect it'll boot to Safe Mode so I can install the ATI drivers... but I'm not sure if it was just the video that changed or more besides.
Right now, I have mixed feelings about HP. I'm mad that the machine died. I'm mad that I had to drop so much coin, unexpectedly, to get a replacement. I'm mad that it took so bloody long (and took a lot of bitching) to get the mailer box after the tech signed off on the repair. I'm also annoyed that they wiped the hard drive.
But I'm VERY impressed on the turnaround time for the repair once the box got here, and the fact that the repair itself cost me not a single dime, despite being out of warranty.
So now Niner gets her own laptop, and all is right in the world again.
DG
Back home from Exercise IRONSIDES.
Upon arrival, a surprise - the laptop, the only Windows machine I have, is as dead as a doornail. It'll boot, but the screen stays black. And yes, I tried toggling the LCD/projector key.
A quick Google on "zd7280 hp pavilion black screen" shows that this is a known issue with this model; to the point where HP has an SOP with dealing with it. A chat with a tech support rep indicated that they'd mail me a FedEx mailer and they'll repair it free, despite being 2 years out of warranty.
But that means no access to Windows for however long that takes, and while my primary home machine is a Linux box, there's stuff I need to do on Windows that cannot be duplicated in Linux.
No iTunes for Niner's iPod;
No MapView for my Garmin GPS;
No Steel Beasts Pro for training;
No Solidworks;
No tax software;
Hrm. I really can't afford to be sans Windows for very long - more's the pity.
I trotted over to Best Buy to check out the options there, but they all have Vista on them, and I'm not dealing with that; especially not the software incompatibilities and and the constant nagging popups.
So I reviewed what I want in a laptop:
* High resolution 17" screen
* Full size 103 key keyboard
* A good enough video card to play Steel Beasts and CoH at full detail
* DVD burner
* Integral Wireless G and Bluetooth
* XP Media Center, not bloody Vista.
Well, guess what? Anything that meets these requirements is going to run $3500. Ouch ouch ouch.
But the truck is paid for as of today..... and having just sold the race car, I can afford one last splurge.
So I configured an Alienware M9700. 2.2Mhz Turion, DUAL 7900 GS Sli video. 2 x 160 Gb HDs in Raid 1. Dual-layer DVD burner. Just 1Gb of RAM, but AW wanted $220 for the extra Gb, and that seems excessive.
Oh, and Green.
$3488.00
So now I'm trying to talk myself into it. It's SO tempting.....
It's only money, right?
DG
So Niner picked up the BodySolid G5S home gym from the warehouse, and when I got home, I assembled it.
That killed 5 hours.
Notes on install:
1) Cut a hole in the ceiling drywall about a foot long by 8' wide or so, and took the time to make sure it was square to the wall and to itself. Used the studfinder to centre the hole between floor joists, a 5/8" spade bit to open up the corners, and a jigsaw to do the actual cut. Worked flawlessly - take that Mike Holmes!
Discovered that there is fiberglass pink in the ceiling , but it looks like they used R12 (for 2X4 stud walls) instead of R24 (for 2X8 joists)
2) That turned out to be not quite enough clearance for the rear pulley, so I cut out the carpet underneath the machine to drop it down another 1/2". That worked. That carpet is seriously nasty and has to be replaced anyway, so no big loss.
I'm curious about how deep the concrete floor pad is. It's temping to inset the concrete and drop the machine right into the floor - that would also probably drop it down far enough to eliminate the need for the ceiling notch... but anyway.
3) Body Solid, if you change the design of your machine during its product lifetime, that's OK - but for the love of God, update the assembly instructions to match! It's a good thing I have designed similar structures and know how this stuff goes together (and I expect projects like this to go not quite as planned - nothing for a race car ever just "bolts right up") or I'd still be scratching my head.
4) My Dewalt 18V 1/2" cordless impact wrench rocks. Most of the hardware is 3/4" hex drive (not metric? In this day and age?) and that's a perfect size for the impact gun. Zap-zap-zap and it's together. I figure that saved a couple of hours of assembly time, easy.
5) Overall, I really approve of the design of this machine. Good materials, solid concepts... one or two minor nits I could pick, but overall, I really approve of the engineering done here - picked up a couple of clever tricks for mounting bearings and bushings too. This is one solid machine. And working out the free body diagram for the pulley system was fun.
So this morning, time to put the plan in place - get up a touch earlier, and do a quick workout. As it turns out, I can do most of the exercises without even having to get off the machine and change positions, which is a real timesaver.
Also interesting is that different exercises have different mechanical advantages, so it's possible to get different weights without moving the weight pin.
3 sets of 15 reps of the chest press @ 50 lbs
2 sets of 10 reps of the leg extension @ 75 lbs (too much weight; will have to back that down some)
3 sets of 15 reps of the pec fly @ 22.5 lbs (moved the weight pin for this)
3 sets of 15 reps of forward crunches @ 30 lbs
2 sets of 15 reps of bicep curl @ 30 lbs
That took 15 minutes, and it kicked my ass too. The last couple of reps on each exercise was a struggle, and I was definitely feeling the burn afterwards... But 15 minutes... damn, that's *NOTHING*. I can do that!
I think I'll reorder so I do chest press at 50 lbs, then crunches @ 50 lbs, then change weight down to 30lbs, and do leg extensions, pec fly, and pulldowns, and finish up with the bicep curl.
The machine is rock solid and totally smooth too. It feels like gym equipment. Yeah, it set me back 2 bills, but it seems to be quality stuff.
After that was done and I wobbled into the shower, I realized we got the biggest snowstorm Windsor has seen in a decade, and I have 50m x 1/2m of snow to shovel. Just light powder, but after that workout.... damn, that hurts.
Not *hurt* hurt, but sore as hell. Ouch ouch ouch.
DG
"A car is just a big purse on wheels." -- Johanna Reynolds
