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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater Sun, 31 Dec 2006Just in case you want to see all the incriminating photos, I just posted the pictures I took during Christmas. Here are some of my favorite shots from the trip:
Posted at 14:28 permanent link category: /misc Fri, 29 Dec 2006With a mere two days before the deadline, The Box has finally been removed from my basement. Was I sad to see it go? Not really. And now there's a huge open space where it used to be. I almost feel all inspired to turn on the Hadio again and see what's out there. Almost. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should probably read this. Posted at 16:17 permanent link category: /misc Wed, 20 Dec 2006
I'd like to tell you a little tale
So, I'm going to do my best to redact names here, because I'm not trying to defame anyone or anything. Many years ago, I got interested in a particular hobby. Let's call it Ram Hadio. It was fun, and I was having a good time with it. I got involved with a particular group, which shall remain nameless. Sorry, not even spoonerized. Anyway, I was hanging out with this group for a while, and ended up being a board member for a while, and then wasn't, but kept attending board meetings. All good. At some point, some pivotal equipment, which I shall call The Box, lost its home. It'd previously been living the Boxy equivalent of la dolce vita, in someone's basement. Then, the owner of that place stopped owning that place any more, for reasons which don't matter for this story. So the The Box was cast loose, without a home. There was something of a panic, as The Box has some particular requirements for a home, it can't go just anywhere. So, in a fit of civic-heartedness, I volunteered, "You can put it in my basement." My basement is set up about right for Boxy happiness, although it's really not ideal. That was about two years ago, give or take 6 months. So, my house became the new home of The Box. It was kind of big, and took up more room than I liked, but I could live with it. After all, it was just a temporary home, while this organization scoped out new places to put The Box; places which would be more permanent and happy. So, The Box and I continued living peacefully, even though it wasn't in its happiest possible situation. Every once in a while, the group would come to the conclusion that The Box, being a big and complicated thing, needed some work. Sometimes I'd work on it actively, sometimes I'd just let people in who knew what needed to be done. No real problem. Every month (or as often as I could), I'd go to board meetings, and we'd discuss things, including the current state of The Box, and the search for a new Boxy home. There was always some small progress on the home-search, but never very much. Sometimes, we'd come up with sure winners, which would be dashed a month later, at the next meeting. In every case, it was evident that The Box would be moving as soon as it could. So about 14 months ago, give or take a few months, I came into a board meeting, and said, "Hey! Due to some anticipated changes in my life, I need to get The Box out by January 1, 2007." Now, this was 14 months (more or less) in the future, so everyone said, "Great! Thanks for the advanced warning!" Smiles all around. We would speed up the search for a new Box-home, and it'd probably happen around Summer 2006. Cool. Now, I'd known for a long time that this organization is not great at actually doing anything in chunks of time smaller than a month (between board meetings), which is why I gave them such a huge warning. I figured 14 doing-stuff chunks would be enough. They'll likely find a new Box-home, and I can proceed with my life free of Boxy intrusion. But I also had a little niggle at the back of my head. It said, "Heh. Heh. I bet you're gonna be shoving that Box out the door on January 1st, to sit in the snow, possibly conveying an impression of sadness." The Box, that is, not me, conveying the sadness. In any case. Needless to say, I've set you up well. You know by now that The Box is still with me. Note the date at the top of this entry. Summer 2006 came and went, although with some very promising Box-homes on the horizon. But somehow, we never followed up, or they weren't as promising when we actually examined them in detail. Whatever the case, The Box is still a guest in my basement. So, now, we've been through a mean, nasty winter storm, which knocked out power to most of the Seattle area for a week -- some parts are still without power. That's a terrible thing, and I'm sorry so many people are suffering. I had sent an email about a week before the storm to the President of this organization, and said, "Hey, I can't help but notice that January 1st, 2007 is rapidly approaching, and I won't be able to attend this last board meeting [to coordinate getting The Box out of my house]." Two days ago, I got a reply from the President, more or less saying, "Hey, Ian, that was sure a nasty storm. Any chance we could push back that date a little bit? Just a wee bit, until the January meeting." Gee, it sure was a nasty storm, I'm right there with ya, Prez. But no. I told you fourteen months ago that 1/1/07 was the date. I'm sorry you lost your power, but, really, we shouldn't be in this position at all. It's going out the door as soon as I wake up on January 1st. Oh, and did I mention? It's Christmas-time, which means that my time is all kinds of booked up from now until then. See, that's why I figured we'd be done with this in the Summer. 'Cause that whole Holiday Season? Bad time to be getting things done which don't relate directly to roasting chestnuts or hanging out with family. I mean, I'm sorry, and don't think you didn't get a little pang of guilt from me there, but if 14 months isn't enough warning, I don't know what is. So now, I find myself in the enviable position of having to tell a public-service-minded organization they're out of luck. In a way, I set myself up for this by ever letting that adorable little Box into my basement in the first place. But in another way, I extended the Box's life by two years (or so) and gave my organization an excellent chance to find the perfect, shiny, Boxy home. I didn't even charge them rent, like the last Boxy home did (it wasn't much, but when your organization runs on under $1000 a year, everything counts). Now, of course, I have grown weary of the organization, and their inability to do almost anything of consequence. I bade farewell to Ram Hadio a while ago, at least as an active hobby, and The Box is my last real attachment to it. When it's gone (whether it's collecting snow outside my door, or happily ensconced in the Boxy workshop, where it will (theoretically) be taken apart and rebuilt from the ground up by dedicated organizational volunteers), I doubt I'll think about it too much. All of which is a pity, since The Box and its organization once seemed to hold such promise. Won't it be interesting to see what I post on this subject, come January 1st, 2007? Posted at 15:21 permanent link category: /misc
And now, a word from our technician
If you've been having trouble viewing obairlann.net from your Linux machine, I've been rudely informed that my site is BROKEN and NON-COMPLIANT. However, in the midst of his rudeness, the bug reader who responded to my bug report did give a good workaround. This problem affects Linux kernels 2.6.17 and forward, and will presumably affect all future kernels until I fix my BROKEN router. But I'm over the rudeness. Anyway, what you do is add a new option to your default route spec. A basic example goes like this: route add default gw 192.168.1.1 window 65535 You'll obviously want to change your default gateway IP from 192.168.1.1 to whatever it's supposed to be (note that's your gateway's IP, not your machine's IP -- run "route -n" first and see what 0.0.0.0 points at if you're not sure). The tricky bit is that "window 65535" bit, which apparently limits something or other so that my FEEBLE and BRAINDEAD router can gum the packets sufficiently to swallow them. It worked for my laptop at work, running kernel 2.6.19.1. If you're not familiar with making low-level changes to this kind of thing, you might want to avoid doing it, but rest assured that it does seem to work. Posted at 13:39 permanent link category: /misc Mon, 18 Dec 2006
You wanna know who killed the electric car?
Electric car makers did. I just did some cruising on the net, and confirmed a few suspicions on the ZAP! Xebra:
...And so on. sigh. Most of this is from xebraworld.com, which is nominally an enthusiast's site. Now that I reflect on it from a little tiny bit of distance, it doesn't make much sense for me to drop $12k (or more, I haven't heard back from the dealership on what "other" charges like shipping, paperwork, dealer prep, etc. may be tacked on) on what amounts to a glorified golf cart. Granted, it's electric. Cool. But with a regulated top speed of around 32 MPH, it's not safe for the missions I have in mind, which require at least 35, and preferrably 40 or 50 MPH. Having spent some time figuring out what exactly they're selling for their twelve thousand dollars, it's not really a winning proposition, at least for me. Too many problems, with a too-basic system, for too much money. I keep thinking to myself, "I could build something better for cheaper, and I'd have fun doing it." Not precisely true, in that I don't yet know how to weld, but given a year or so, I'd probably come up with a better vehicle for less total expenditure. Each owner's site I've looked at so far has included the same third-world sounding description of squeaks and rattles (which sometimes correspond to major components trying to fall off the vehicle), and lots of little niggles which could have been prevented by spending another dollar or two in construction, or designing something better. Not encouraging. The troubleshooting guide, which I flipped through, suggests some problems so fundamental as to make me question the assemblers' ability to do anything right. Did the parts get assembled in the right order? Did the welder bother cleaning anything, or just kind of weld over whatever corrosion was on the frame parts? What quality of components are in critical locations, like interconnect cables and cutoff switches? So, overall, I don't think I'm willing to consider such a questionable expense. There are too many open questions about quality, and it's apparent that marketing at ZAP! is not too concerned about truth (which is the point of marketing, but they're usually closer to reality than this). All of which is a pity, of course. I had high hopes for the Xebra, but what I know now suggests that they're charging too much for too little. Posted at 16:32 permanent link category: /gadgets Sat, 16 Dec 2006I've got the review of the Xebra PK in place now: Enjoy, and have fun looking at the pretty pictures. In particular, I'm fond of the picture with me standing next to the thing. It's miniscule. Posted at 18:02 permanent link category: /gadgets I went in to the Green Car Company today, and ended up test-driving three different cars. The first was the ZAP! Xebra PK, my primary motivation for going there. First impression? Tiny! That truck, despite what it looks like in every picture I've come across, only comes up to my chest. It's miniscule. That tininess extends to the cabin. I could just fit in, with the seat rammed all the way back, and even then my shoulder and hair were brushing the walls. The pedals are weirdly offset, with the gas pedal about were you'd expect a brake pedal to be in relation to the seat, and the big brake pedal shoved hard to the left wall. It definitely encourages "two-foot" driving despite the automatic nature of the beast. In a quick (~1 mile) test drive, I got to accelerate on the flat, round a few corners, and try going up a moderate grade. Acceleration on the flat is fine, a bit less than what you'd expect from a truly basic economy car. Corners were non-events, apparently due to the positioning of the batteries below the truck bed. No noticeable body roll, but I wasn't pushing anything. Acceleration up the grade was pretty lame. It hit an indicated 18 MPH, and stayed there until the hill flattened out. This was with myself (about 220 lbs) and the salesman (maybe 180-220 lbs) in the cab, and nothing in the bed. Part of our circuit took us over some speed bumps, and the steepest bump there caused some hard part at the front of the vehicle to touch down with a bonk. I would guess it was the lower suspension mount, but I didn't take a close look under the nose of the thing. The sedan model did the same thing (even being very gentle over the bump), so I assume it's typical of the design rather than particular to that unit. The salesman, who I can now only think of as Smilin' Jim (his name is Jim something, but he was definitely a salesman, and not a granola-eatin' hippie) said the Xebras currently come with 300A controllers, but that they were looking into replacing them with 450A controllers. That would definitely help with acceleration, and with getting up hills, but it could seriously impact range if you've got a heavy foot. He said that as equipped, the Xebras don't have regenerative braking, but that with a new controller, they could have regen. I don't know if this is true, and he admitted to me that he wasn't super savvy about the tech side of things. It'd be worth more investigation. He also said that the top speed (40 MPH, more or less) was controlled by a governor, but said that he didn't know where the governor was. If it's not in the motor controller, I'd be very surprised. It probably doesn't make a lot of sense to get rid of the governor, though, as going faster would seriously compromise range. The Xebra sedan was about the same experience as the truck, but the seating was more comfortable. Since there wasn't a vertical wall right behind the driver's seat, it could be scooted much further back, and there wasn't a curved-in section to hit my shoulder. If I were looking at one of these as a single-person transport, I'd pick the sedan (it's also cheaper). The biggest problem I had with the sedan was that the parking brake was situated on the left, next to the door, and was nearly impossible to reach. Smilin' Jim looked over at me at one point, and said (shortly after I'd described my sidecar rig to him), "You know, one downside of this is that you'll have to get a motorcycle license." I looked at him like he was crazy, since he'd commented on the fact that I rode a motorcycle in to the shop when I walked in, and we had just been discussing the way I don't have any cars. He had to understand that I already had a license. "I have a motorcycle license," I said. "But I mean a class 3 motorcycle license," he said knowingly. He's plainly caught motorcycle people out with this before. I just looked at him like he was crazy again, and said, "I have a three-wheeler license, if that's what you mean." He had a little head-slap moment and said, "Oh, of course! The sidecar..." Ah, Jim. Finally, I drove a SMART car, which was a blast. Very much more refined than the Xebras, I could easily see getting a SMART as an all-round car, if I were rich and very specifically wanted a highly-efficient two-seater. At $25k for the basic model, and $30k for the convertible, they're beyond what I want. Way cooler than a Toyota Echo, but of course nearly double the price. The SMART accelerates very well, and Smilin' Jim said they get 40-50 MPG in-city, and 60ish on the freeway. That's pretty damned good, for a boxy little car with a 700cc motor. (It doesn't sound big, but my 250cc motorcycle has trouble topping 50 MPG in-city, and gets 60ish in real-world freeway driving.) The SMART also has ABS and airbags, so it's actually got a lot going for it when compared to a motorcycle. Of course, it's not actually a motorcycle, so it's a bit of a ridiculous comparison. Anyway, after I was all done, I asked if I could test-drive the Meyers whatever-they-call it (nee Corbin Sparrow), and Smilin' Jim lost a bit of the smile (but not too much) and said, "I'm sorry, but it's not licensed for single-driver right now." I gave him the "huh?" look, and he explained, "Because I can't go with you," as if that cleared it all up. "Oh, ok," I said, since the answer was obviously "No. Go 'way kid, you bother me," no matter how I might have tried phrasing it. (I noticed on the way out that the Xebra PK we'd taken out had no license plate whatsoever, so Smilin' Jim obviously wasn't too worried about legality.) No worries, he'd been very accomodating. I know I'm not going to get a Corbin Sparrow, although they're very cool, and I'm glad to see that another company picked them up. So, bottom line, I liked the Zap! cars. I'm going to write up a more formal review which will appear on my main page sooner or later, with pictures. I'm only going to review the truck model, with perhaps a smattering of comparisons with the sedan model. Posted at 15:30 permanent link category: /gadgets Mon, 11 Dec 2006Ok, this is just cool: I'm going to have to head over to the Green Car Company soon and look at one. That's a truck I could get into. Posted at 17:13 permanent link category: /gadgets I was over at my friend Jesse's house for dinner last night, and happed to grab the camera in time to take this picture:
I thought it turned out pretty well. That's Jesse, his girlfriend Katie, and my girlfriend Kristin. Posted at 11:44 permanent link category: /misc Sun, 10 Dec 2006Some time this morning, probably around 6:30, the power supply on my web server went buh-bye. I noticed later, after I'd gotten up, when I couldn't get to anything on ye olde Intarnette (my web server is also my name server, ah the joys of multitasking). With minimal grunting and swearing, I dislodged the server from the rack, and opened it up. Nothing was obviously wrong, so my first guess was the power supply. Fortunately, my first guess was right, and swapping in a spare power supply got everything up and working again. Of course, I couldn't leave it at that. The spare power supply I have is an el-cheapo, and I didn't really want to leave it in this computer that will be running 24/7 for the next several years, if all goes right. I headed out into the pouring rain, and dropped into the local computer store, where I picked up a "nice" supply (ie, one which has a recognizable brand name, and might even use actual bearings on their fans). I got it back, and went to hook it up, but there were two things obviously wrong: first, the device itself was clattering ominously, and I first thought that one of the fans had disgorged all its ball bearings; second, the connector which hooks to the motherboard was a different style, and I didn't think it would work. So, I bundled it all back up, and plowed back through the rain. The rattling was probably loose silica gel beads, but I figured if I was going to spend $65 on something, it should probably be nearly perfect. The store didn't give me any trouble about the exchange, and showed me how to modify the power supply's plug to work with my older hardware. Back to home, watching the rain soak into my riding suit (which seems to have lost any pretensions of waterproofness in the outer fabric). I plugged it all together, and it worked on the first try. Delighted, I put everything back together, and laboriously loaded it back into the rack. I flipped the switch, and nothing happened. Well, something happened, but it wasn't good: the monitor just showed a series of flickering lines, as if the vertical hold were out of whack. Grr. So, I pulled all the cables, and unbolted it from the rack, sliding it back out again. Off came the cover. The only thing which looked likely was a power pin which had worked itself out of a connector, so I shoved that back together, and powered it on. Success! Well, hopefully. Fortunately, when it all went back together in the rack, it continued working. I did have to stop half-way through, though, since I was approaching the point of just kicking the computer until it was in tiny pieces. So, finally, around 3 o'clock today, obairlann.net came back up. Sorry for the outage, those of you who are mysteriously addicted to my bizarre little corner of the intarweb. Posted at 18:28 permanent link category: /misc Fri, 08 Dec 2006My meteoric rise to novel-ness the first time was pretty encouraging, although the novel I came up with had some distinct shortfalls. It was, actually, encouraging enough that I decided to do it again. I don't have the vast wordcount goal that I had last time, approaching this one a bit differently. I'm not trying to get it done in a month, I'm just trying to get it written at a goodly clip. In two writing sessions so far, I've got nearly 4700 words done, so it's going at about the same pace as the first one. The idea this time is to take my friend Web's Rocketmen idea, and build a novel around it. This occurred to me as being a great subject for a novel when I was half-way through the last one, and I decided I might as well get started on it now. So, I'm off again. If you'd like to keep up with me (spelling errors, weak descriptions, missing plot and all), give this link a reload every couple of days. As always, keep in mind that this is pure first-draft, and it's probably worth less than you're paying for it. The other story hasn't been forgotten, just in case you were wondering. I've done a complete first-pass edit, and have started a second pass. Then the month ran out, and I'm following the advice I generally hear bandied about, which is to leave it for at least 6 weeks before I start trying to edit it. I'm not terribly impressed with the first story, but after I've got it edited and as good as it's going to get without major work, I'll probably post it over on dangerpants.com for all and sundry to mock. Posted at 10:27 permanent link category: /misc Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net. |
