prodrive

The driving school looked like the Top Gear production office, but most of the time we were outside anyway.

SkidCar - Toyota Camry lifts in each corner to reduce tire contact patch either in front or in the rear so it will skid/spin at 15 mph.

no rocket no heat

I just finished my car control course. It starts in a classroom and the instructor talks about understeer and oversteer and what you should do. Everyone then goes outside and breaks into groups for the skidcars, which are Camrys mounted on a steel frame with pneumatics at each corner. I was with a UO student who had once spun his car and has several speeding tickets, so his family "encouraged" him to come to this, and a high school kid who had an accident involving a mailbox and some trees and ended up needed two brain surgeries. So I apparently get points for being proactive.

The instructor first set up the car so it would understeer at 15 mph and we all had some practice doing figure 8's with that to see how steering less can get you to steer more. Then the car was set up for oversteer. I was the first in the series to go and I spun the car several times before I could get it to go around a corner at all. We did some figure 8's like that, then widened up the driving area to add some different corners, and then took the widened course in the opposite direction. By the end of the day we were all doing pretty good. The instructor even asked me if I was sandbagging at one point, but that just made me start spinning again. Overall I think it was a worthwhile experience.

Now I'm going to go play Midnight Club Los Angeles and do the opposite of everything I've learned today.

there's so many things that i cannot explain

On the advice of family members I've started reading "A Random Walk Down Wall Street." It is supposed to be a guide for investing, but so far it is mostly concerned with how people are stupid and irrational. Once I finish this book it might be interesting to go back to "Critical Mass" and go through what it says about patterns (or lack thereof) in the stock market.

Another week of work. But car control class on Saturday!

fell asleep on tuesday woke up monday afternoon

Sadly I'm not done ranting about alarm clocks. I found a model that looked like it was almost done properly so I decided to get it. You care to guess what store it was at? Best Buy? Target? Nope. Toys 'R Us. I could see going there if I wanted a pirate alarm clock, but why are they the only ones who sell decent normal ones as well?

So I get this thing home and plug it in. It says it has Indiglo. But of course it hasn't been done properly. Instead of lighting up when you hit the button, like in a proper alarm clock, it does an always-on and the button just sets the brightness. Fortunately one of the settings is off. But now if I want to check the time during the night, I have to hit the button four times instead of one. Outstanding work.

I then went to set the time. Pretty standard stuff. Except that it asks for the year as well. I don't need to know what year it is! I just need to know when to get my ass out of bed!!

Fortunately the new alarm clock doesn't seem to have any other stupid functions built in - no temperature or atomics - so I may be able to get some use out of it yet. For the record this is like the fourth time I've tried to replace my old one.

(I can just imagine an Apple alarm clock. Requires AT&T service and WiFi connection, charges you for a $10 firmware update to tell hours in addition to minutes, daily alarm downloads from iTunes store are DRM-enabled.)

While we're on the subject of badly designed things, it turns out that under New Facebook the posted items app won't actually let you post items. It's just for sorting things already posted. Way to put functions where nobody will find them, New Facebook.

The one bright spot in my badly designed day was that more Genesis Coupe news has come to light. It has gone on sale in SK, where the first review sounded pretty good, and a very well put together ad appeared on YouTube. Which is what I was trying to post.

october moon and rusty skies

I am trying to buy a new alarm clock, as my current one is in a bad way and I slept through it on Friday. The difficulty is that I absolutely require Indiglo, and that is exactly what you can't find. I saw all of two Indiglo clocks in stores, one with a ridiculous four-minute snooze and one billed as 'All-Night' Indiglo that never turns off. Which completely defeats the purpose. It's not much better online, where Amazon's results for 'Indiglo alarm clock' are three travel clocks, an iPod dock and a Tom Clancy book. Google chips in with an Indiglo thermometer.

It's also hard to find one that is just an alarm clock. I've ranted before about "atomic clocks." And telling the temperature just clutters up the display for the purpose of telling me what I already knew, that it's warmer in bed than out.

the stone gods did not make a sound

I randomly pulled up Top Gear's Africa special. Apart from the scenery I am amazed at how they were able to keep their heaps of junk moving every time they broke down. I know the presenters probably had car people with them but someone there was able to get them working again, and I admire that. It's also interesting how the cars evolve over time to adapt to whatever challenge they are taking on...at least two of them do.

I've been playing with the iPod touch for a few days, and unfortunately it doesn't work at work. There isn't a suitable WiFi network. Which I suppose makes sense, but it's no fun. So it's a funny thing. A cell phone, for example, is a cell phone 99% of the time because you can get a signal pretty much anywhere in the area. But with the iPod I am dependent on whatever WiFi signal I can get so half the time it's an amazing WiFi gadget and half the time it's just an over-designed iPod.

pirate watch: day 8

The thing with the Somalian pirates hijacking the Ukrainian ship full of tanks has been in the paper every day for a week, and a group of us have started following it at lunch. Lunchs haven't really had a story arc until now.

Today's news:

"Somali pirates on a hijacked cargo ship holding battle tanks and hostages said Thursday that they were ready to battle any commando-style rescue attempt."