Saw a DCPD cop on a rebel 250 today. Had a (comically) huge windscreen that said "POLICE" on it – otherwise you might think someone was joking with you – and the usual markings. Just… smaller. I asked the officer about it, and he said that where the hogs can't go (their enormous 1500cc HD's), and the squadcars obviously can't (we have Malibu's and Crown Vic's here, mostly), the little two-fiddies can. Apparently, his was the first (it was DC-0001), but there are more on the way because they're useful.
How cool. At least he had the stones to cop to it being his. :)
25 February, 2009
Life with my Air
short: status update on my Macbook Air
I don't think it's been quite a year since I got the Air. I could look it up, but I'm too lazy. The point is, it's probably close.
At this point, it's mostly a great machine. I've had no major hardware defects. I've had no major software defects (although one niggling issue we think is actually the base station since it affects the MacPro, one of our PC's, and the Air equally) either, and I absolutely love the touchpad and gesturing (there's no way for it to know when I'm using my middle finger; that would be nice. Also, I'd like for it to have a "four finger" wave gesture so I can switch workspaces with a gesture).
The one thing that's failed me, and it hasn't outright failed, is the hinge. The display is "floppy", with a play back and forth of probably 25mm. This is juuuuust enough to make the light "not quite right" when you're e.g., using the last bit of light in the living room inthe afternoon – which I've been doing a lot of lately.
It's been making some small clicky whirry noises and the occasional That's a Very Bad Noise noises (in the form of strange high pitched beeps from things that don't have speakers), but nothing's failed.
I have not been using it anywhere near as hard as I used my Macbook (plastic) – I haven't bothered installing Photoshop (or even Acrobat Pro!), VMWare or VirtualBox. Basically, the Air, icarus, runs thin. I suck everything out of my subversion repository on semperbellum.org, check it back in when I'm done with it, and keep it backed up with time machine.
icarus will probably be the first machine in the house to be totally reliant on the kdc when it gets reimaged (it's just time for a reimage...), and will be given its own address on the (presently empty) lan segment for machines that have authenticated to krb, and will thusly be reachable by name (e.g., icarus.semperbellum.org will resolve correctly wherever I am). This also allows me to use a number of certificate and biometrics-based authentication schemes that appeal to me more and more as my paranoia increases and the technology available to the black-n-white-hats gets increasingly .... skeery.
More events as warrant.
I don't think it's been quite a year since I got the Air. I could look it up, but I'm too lazy. The point is, it's probably close.
At this point, it's mostly a great machine. I've had no major hardware defects. I've had no major software defects (although one niggling issue we think is actually the base station since it affects the MacPro, one of our PC's, and the Air equally) either, and I absolutely love the touchpad and gesturing (there's no way for it to know when I'm using my middle finger; that would be nice. Also, I'd like for it to have a "four finger" wave gesture so I can switch workspaces with a gesture).
The one thing that's failed me, and it hasn't outright failed, is the hinge. The display is "floppy", with a play back and forth of probably 25mm. This is juuuuust enough to make the light "not quite right" when you're e.g., using the last bit of light in the living room inthe afternoon – which I've been doing a lot of lately.
It's been making some small clicky whirry noises and the occasional That's a Very Bad Noise noises (in the form of strange high pitched beeps from things that don't have speakers), but nothing's failed.
I have not been using it anywhere near as hard as I used my Macbook (plastic) – I haven't bothered installing Photoshop (or even Acrobat Pro!), VMWare or VirtualBox. Basically, the Air, icarus, runs thin. I suck everything out of my subversion repository on semperbellum.org, check it back in when I'm done with it, and keep it backed up with time machine.
icarus will probably be the first machine in the house to be totally reliant on the kdc when it gets reimaged (it's just time for a reimage...), and will be given its own address on the (presently empty) lan segment for machines that have authenticated to krb, and will thusly be reachable by name (e.g., icarus.semperbellum.org will resolve correctly wherever I am). This also allows me to use a number of certificate and biometrics-based authentication schemes that appeal to me more and more as my paranoia increases and the technology available to the black-n-white-hats gets increasingly .... skeery.
More events as warrant.
24 February, 2009
Forced rehab
short: gaze into my navel with me. no more nude photos, i promise.
No, not that kind of rehab. Today, for the first time since this most recent injury, I got some writing done. What's more, I've been forcing myself to read. With the concussion, I have had tremendous difficulty reading printed text, like you'd see in your average paperback. Stuff on the computer displays was not a problem. Interestingly, larger fonts, or sans-serif fonts (I think this is the crucial difference) and even colorful fonts are easier for me to read, so I do real well with magazines.
I've been forcing myself to read. It hurts, a lot, to have to stop at a paragraph because you're not able to understand what you're reading, or because it gives you a huge headache. I used to read so much, and now I'm able to choke down most of a magazine in a day if I try real hard, and maybe a page or two in a printed book if I try really hard (this latter bit can take 2-3 hours). But I'm getting there. And, the more I read, the more I want to write again. And so today we had a spurt of writing. Just 250 words, kid stuff, but because of the material I've been reading, it's something I can develop if I care to, or just use it as a sort of mental exercise ball.
What kind of cool things does this say about the brain, in general? That, at least in my case, the part that reads on a display is sufficiently developed that it is separate from the part that reads on paper? Or vice-versa? Wow. I would wager nobody's even studied that (and I know an experimental psychologist who might think that was kind of interesting). Or that I can read tabloid-format magazines (Discover, not The Enquirer, tabloid format, not content) but not books? Brains, man. Strange stuff. Zombie food, keepers of the CNS and all of human knowledge, yet fragile and adaptable in ways we don't understand. At any rate, I'll put down the bong now and continue.
The other thing I've been doing since I haven't been working is watching documentaries and trying to write software. I've been watching documentaries on everything, but historically I've been focusing on the middle ages in Europe (including Simon Schama's A History of Britain, which is a rather soporific but incredibly thorough twelve-hour documentary (BBC of course) and book, which I'm unable to read, probably even without the concussion). I've also been watching a lot of my usual astronomy, cosmology, and physics documentaries (I'd give anything to be able to audit Alex Filipenko's lectures, really – and maybe if I'd gotten that job working for Fujitsu on the big Island, I'd have met the man. It's such a small planet to have regret for not meeting someone, but alas, there it is...).
The software I've been writing is kind of mundane other than it gives me a neat safety vest for my computing environment. I've been writing a bootstrapping set of scripts that will allow me to netboot-netinstall my laptop from cold metal (that is, without an OS on it, powered on "for the first time") to having all my applications (from iWork and VisualHub and XCode to additionally having bits and pieces of ruby and python installed, and my own ~/Applications directory) to having my subversion repository checked out (and my ~/Projects directory created and properly chmodded), as well as joined to my useless living-room kerberos domain. The neat thing about being joined to the domain is I can log in to all my machines as ahab (so much cooler than root, right?) and have proper privileges (especially now that we're segregating some of our applications, like Photoshop/iPhoto/Aperture and iTunes/VisualHub/Handbrake into their own user accounts now, too). Another neat effect of this is I can now deploy Xgrid, although having a Macbook Air deployed to a grid that happens to have, oh, say, a MacPro with eight damn cores is kind of silly. Still cool, though.
No, not that kind of rehab. Today, for the first time since this most recent injury, I got some writing done. What's more, I've been forcing myself to read. With the concussion, I have had tremendous difficulty reading printed text, like you'd see in your average paperback. Stuff on the computer displays was not a problem. Interestingly, larger fonts, or sans-serif fonts (I think this is the crucial difference) and even colorful fonts are easier for me to read, so I do real well with magazines.
I've been forcing myself to read. It hurts, a lot, to have to stop at a paragraph because you're not able to understand what you're reading, or because it gives you a huge headache. I used to read so much, and now I'm able to choke down most of a magazine in a day if I try real hard, and maybe a page or two in a printed book if I try really hard (this latter bit can take 2-3 hours). But I'm getting there. And, the more I read, the more I want to write again. And so today we had a spurt of writing. Just 250 words, kid stuff, but because of the material I've been reading, it's something I can develop if I care to, or just use it as a sort of mental exercise ball.
What kind of cool things does this say about the brain, in general? That, at least in my case, the part that reads on a display is sufficiently developed that it is separate from the part that reads on paper? Or vice-versa? Wow. I would wager nobody's even studied that (and I know an experimental psychologist who might think that was kind of interesting). Or that I can read tabloid-format magazines (Discover, not The Enquirer, tabloid format, not content) but not books? Brains, man. Strange stuff. Zombie food, keepers of the CNS and all of human knowledge, yet fragile and adaptable in ways we don't understand. At any rate, I'll put down the bong now and continue.
The other thing I've been doing since I haven't been working is watching documentaries and trying to write software. I've been watching documentaries on everything, but historically I've been focusing on the middle ages in Europe (including Simon Schama's A History of Britain, which is a rather soporific but incredibly thorough twelve-hour documentary (BBC of course) and book, which I'm unable to read, probably even without the concussion). I've also been watching a lot of my usual astronomy, cosmology, and physics documentaries (I'd give anything to be able to audit Alex Filipenko's lectures, really – and maybe if I'd gotten that job working for Fujitsu on the big Island, I'd have met the man. It's such a small planet to have regret for not meeting someone, but alas, there it is...).
The software I've been writing is kind of mundane other than it gives me a neat safety vest for my computing environment. I've been writing a bootstrapping set of scripts that will allow me to netboot-netinstall my laptop from cold metal (that is, without an OS on it, powered on "for the first time") to having all my applications (from iWork and VisualHub and XCode to additionally having bits and pieces of ruby and python installed, and my own ~/Applications directory) to having my subversion repository checked out (and my ~/Projects directory created and properly chmodded), as well as joined to my useless living-room kerberos domain. The neat thing about being joined to the domain is I can log in to all my machines as ahab (so much cooler than root, right?) and have proper privileges (especially now that we're segregating some of our applications, like Photoshop/iPhoto/Aperture and iTunes/VisualHub/Handbrake into their own user accounts now, too). Another neat effect of this is I can now deploy Xgrid, although having a Macbook Air deployed to a grid that happens to have, oh, say, a MacPro with eight damn cores is kind of silly. Still cool, though.
23 February, 2009
Jeremy Clarkson is gay.
Seriously. Season one, episode six. However, as I stare longingly at Clarkson's SL55 (which he has of course gotten rid of since), I look over my shoulder and see how sunny it is outside. I am tempted, before the trafficky people show up to congest the roads, to take the bike out for a wee spin. It's so... vulnerable looking without its fairings. In fact, I've been meaning to post some...
NUDE PHOTOS
(my god, no, not of Clarkson)
Ok, seriously, I had to do that. Naked pictures of my baby, the affectionately named Hammer. The pictures have been tweaked substantially since they were taken in a dark garage. (a few of these are very high resolution – most of them are just 1600x1000)
Here you can see just how monstrous those front brakes are – I swear those calipers are bigger than the calipers on the STI. Not much else to see on that side of the bike.
190/50ZR17's. Damn, if I didn't own the STI, this bike would make me feel awfully insecure about my automobile. That's the stock sprocket, due for replacement this spring (a few weeks!! wee!!). Chain of course has gotta get replaced, too. This was pre-clean/lube. Probably going to replace the chain guard too.
I love this about motorcycles: you can see just about damn everything (well, after you get the fairings off, right?). Here we see the rearset: this pedal is the gearshift, and if you follow the pedal, you can make out a rod that connects to the transmission (it's visually just in front of the "toe" part of the pedal, but this is a trick of the lighting; it's further away). We also see the chain and swingarm, we see the rear suspension, we see the oil sump (that big rectangle thing in the middle of the photo, behind the kickstand). We also see the "on/off/reserve" switch for the fuel tank. Getting to this stuff is a giant pain in the ass on a car (especially the reserve fuel!).
I love how adjustable everything on the bike is. This is (part of) the rear suspension. Those two "collars" are adjustable with a wrench that is, naturally, included with the bike, and stored conveniently under your seat. Maybe this will help people understand why I don't "do" cars anymore – I spent my whole "career" with cars fighting them to get to the adjustment I wanted, to get them to move the way I wanted them to, and the bikes, well, they just goddamn do it, or let me make whichever adjustment I like, even if it's absolutely stupid and will get me killed. That's my damn right (but you do see me wear appropriate gear for whichever speed I am traveling – I actually wear more gear if I know I'm going to be on the freeway, etc).
Hey, look, it's those big goofy turn signals I'm getting rid of. They're great, everyone on Earth can see them. Nobody has any question about where I'm going. But they stick out so far that they get broken all the time. And then there's the giant spaceship swoopy front cowling. I personally like it, but then I also think the Katana is only a little gay (okay, I like it a lot, but it's a lot more femme where this bike is more butch, and the '7 is kind of clinging on to what little butch it can muster).
And this, really, is a more "lovable" shot of the bike, although one must note there are no damn fairings, so, yes, it does look a little goofy.
Just what is lurking in those intake, what dwells in those huge anime/hello-kitty headlamps (yes, they're HID, and they're a far sight, hah, than the Subaru's)? Well, if you look deep into the face of the hammer, all you see is the blackness of its soul. Actually, just kidding. Its soul isn't very black. It's kind of, you know, Japanese.. Anyways, behind those mesh covers is a dual-chamber air "horn" that results in airflow that's a little more turbulent at low speed and a little less turbulent at high speed (turbulence is good, but positive intake pressure is better). There's also a spot for water ingested to be, er, relieved. But seriously, I could sit and stare into the front of this bike for a while. What is she thinking?
The "driver's seat." It's actually surprisingly comfy. That's an aftermarket rear cowl (normally, the '7 came with a second seat – you'd have to be insane, really), and it doesn't fit real well. I'd like a taller one that gives me a better bolster when the bike stands up, and I've got some other ideas like a USB bus and solar panel back there (for GPS and 3G communication, for example). Those handles are the bike equivalent of "oh shit handles" you see in cars. The reason they remain is they're awfully convenient for hanging luggage off of (such as the disc lock).
And this, in addition to the giant rear tire (seriously, this is the OEM size of the damn Hayabusa; I think in 1996, Kawasaki was trying to make a statement. It's big by today's standards, even), is the equally giant can. The muffler is so big that it causes people trouble when cornering as you can drag the damn muffler. There are marks where this has clearly been done on mine (though not by me; I assume the PO). I also think that's a removable baffle inside the muffler, but I haven't looked into removing it. Rather, I've been thinking of fabricating a new exhaust from a MotoGP-style trumpet and a stainless header from Delkevic (which are real cheap; no need to drop a kilobuck on the Muzzy just to chop it in half!):
Yes, I notice the fact that the bike on the right (which is a ZX-7R) has a single-sided swingarm. The good news is, it's still in production. The bad news is, that bike is likely to be loud as an entire flock of migrating B-52's heading over the Arctic Circle for the winter. It just looks so damn cool. Maybe I could find a baffled megaphone (like a supertrapp or something). I know they exist. Hrms, hrms.
(and, yes, this post has accomplished what it was supposed to do: take long enough to keep me off the road long enough that the roads were so congested I didn't want to go out for a ride. The doc told me to stay off the bike till I see the neurologist and get a prognosis on the concussion)