| Autocross season has started.
Results from round one are posted.
I ran (three timed runs) and this was my best driving yet, both
in terms of my driving and course and organization.
The Oakland Coliseum parking lot is quite greasy and features mild
elevation changes. The course was moderately fast, with only one slow
corner. I counted 13 turns plus one short slow slalom and one 2nd
gear rev limiter[*] slalom. My best time was ~55 seconds.
The technique of rotating the car by tapping the brakes just after
entering a corner was working just right, and feels so much better than
scrubbing off my outside front tire under excessive understeer. I
started with tire pressures f: 38 psi and r: 35 psi for my first run, then
dropped 2psi out of my heated front tires. I usually make my first
run with a high pressure in the front tires to protect them in case I
overdrive them on an unfamiliar course. (Bridgestone 225/50/16 s03-pp).
I find that an isolated really slow corner between two fast segments,
such as the u-turns common on BMW-CCA-GGCs autox courses,
benefit cars with great brakes and acceleration over the small nimble
cars. The nimble and balanced cars benefit from sequences of
closely spaced turns where the exit from one turn is the entrance
to the next, so there's no straight to relax on and recover
control of the car.
I also experimented with seat adjustments. I put my seat (stock 1997
BMW half-leather sport seat, stock three-point seatbelt) at max low,
max back, got in, put on my seat belt, exhaled, tightened and locked
my seatbelt, then slid my seat forward about 80 mm so I could hardly
breathe. The poor man's harness.
The Toyota Starlet that set FTD was highly modified, and had a lucky
(and talented) driver. Due to timing malfunctions, he got in a couple
of practice (re-)runs which others didn't, thus had the spare runs to
to risk oversteering while entering corners. Done just right, this is
the fastest technique for a moderately powered car to conserve
momentum, but done wrong easily results in a spin or taking out some
cones with the outside rear tire. Especially on a greasy circuit,
once you put more than one wheel outside of the lines used by the cars
before you, you will lose some time if not go off course.
The Boxsters and S2000 rock. Many new Toyota Celica were there, and a
few BMW (the 540 was the most common model). A couple of well sorted
VW Golfs, one A3, one A4. Audi A4, S4, and TT. GM F-bodies have such
terrible throttle lag exiting corners, but a big engine and big sticky
tires makes them fast by the end of the faster segments. My ti will
never catch the Porsche 993 turbo and 996 turbo. Navid's tuned
e46 m3 might. All three of those cars can really put power down
during chicane transitions and are pretty to watch. The older 911 really
hang their tails out, just like they're famous for.
A couple of slammed Hondas with noisy exhausts were painfully slow,
but a some older Civic Si ran just great. And a Honda Insight was
well-driven on Kumho R-compounds. The old British Jensen and
trailered-in Lotus Europa and Elan (circa 1970) are nice to watch but
not particularly fast. A Volvo S80T6, a Lexus IS300 sportwagon and
many WRX ran. There was one thing that looked like a Formula car
(F3000) which wasn't that fast.
Also, the SCCA classification scheme is a bit out of synch with times
set by actual cars; HS is faster than GS. The sun came out and warmed
up the course for FS and FSP, so FS had a one or two second advantage.
(BS means 'B-Stock':
A are the theoretically fastest cars, B a bit slower, etc, down to H;
S means stock, where the main modifications allowed are R-compound
DOT tires and shocks.)
SCCA car classification table.
The m44 Z3 is in CS, the 328is, 328is are in DS, the 318is is in GS;
the ti can be entered as 'BMW NOC' in HS, and on street tires,
my ti can be run in HSN. In BMW-CCA-GGA, my 318ti is classed with
Z3-6cyl.
[*] Maybe not on the rev limiter for an S2000.
I'm getting addicted.
For the smell of it
Smells like teen spirit ?
No, smells like K-Mart [NYT].
Cel phone review
What do I want in a review of a mobile phone ?
Can it be used with one hand ?
Most flip phones require two hands to open.
Does the keyboare lock ?
Brick phones are to easy to dial by buping into things or by
just squeezing the phone in a bag or while sitting in a bucket
seat with the phone on my belt.
How many keys do I press to dial the 77th number I've stored ?
Phone have memory to store > 100 numbers.
So tell me how I could browse available stored numbers.
How loud is it ?
I'd like to use it as a speaker phone.
Can I feel that I've pressed a button ?
I'd like to feel a click to tell me I've pressed a button firmly
enough that the phone recognized my action.
More to come, no doubt.
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January 28, 2002
Show me the money.
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Put your name on an MIT Medialab room |
| |
Remaining labs are available for naming for $5 million each. Other naming opportunities within the new complex include:
- Large meeting facility: $4 million
- Large conference room with outside terrace: $4 million
- Upper atrium three-story lounge: $3 million
- Winter garden: $2 million
- Auditorium: $2 million
- Cafe: $1.5 million
- Medium-sized dividable conference room: $750,000
- Medium-sized conference room: $750,000
- Small conference room: $500,000
- Lounge: $250,000
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January 19, 2002
January 18, 2002
Focus Group
| I was browsing through toiletries-cosmetics-medicines in Target, looking for a Braun shaver cleaner, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a display for FACE CUT razors. En passant I rationalized -- those are not Braun -- and continued browsing.
Then I realized that FACE CUT is a rather improbable brand-name for razors. I retraced my steps to see upon closer inspection, the display I saw was actually some Gillette multiblade contraption.
But subliminally this episode tells me I must not like dragging razors across my face, and prefer instead the gentle Braun.
Or long live the Miami Vice look.
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January 16, 2002
Larry and Napster
Napster, my favourite sonic recycling tool
PW: I like to think of this as the Napster recession. If you plot the stock markets before 2001 September 11th, you can see that the crucial court rulings are almost like hinge points where the market bends up or down. The stock prices go up after a favorable ruling for Napster and drop afterwards. It's probably a bit silly to ascribe all of the market's zeitgeist to one company, but the end of Napster is really the biggest roadblock for the personal computer. Until Napster crashed, everyone kept predicting more, bigger and better things for the humming space heaters under the desks.
LL: This is an important and under discussed point. We have seen a dramatic crash in the market. Why?
Most attribute it exclusively to "irrational expectations." But meanwhile there has been a very dramatic change in the legal environment within which the take-off occurred. This change must have had an effect.
PW: We've also lost the rational exuberance. Now, we've got to ask mother-may-I before developing any neat software? Why bother? Can we blame Hollywood for this?
LL: While it would be irresponsible to try to say with any precision how much is a function of the content industry lawyers, it is also irresponsible not to at least acknowledge that some part of this decline is due to the different way the law regulates the net. Laws protecting dinosaurs from the content industry are killing the opportunity for growth. Why? Only because the only thing worse than
well paid lobbyists is well paid lobbyists with movie stars.
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(Peter Wayner and Lawrence Lessig) -- full interview [slashdot].
January 15, 2002
bad Murky News
Once again the San Jose Mercury News
shows us how not to put a newspaper on the web.
They cannot publish a single edition that does
not break URLs by column-wrapping them. |
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meannie
It is tempting to excuse them, in their twilight, for at least having made the place
more colorful. Mr. Helms affected a theatrically courtly demeanor, sirring and
ma'aming witnesses he regarded as infidels.
(His manners were selective; it was the courtly Mr. Helms who once remarked
that if President Clinton visited North Carolina he'd "better have a bodyguard.")
Mr. Gramm pokes witty fun at his own orneriness. "People say I don't have a
heart," he once joked. "I do. I keep it in a quart jar on my desk."
As David Plotz wrote in Slate, Senator Gramm is a mean, bitter pessimist, but
"he has benefited from one of the strangest prejudices of politics: that
meanness is a synonym for integrity." Mr. Thurmond benefits from
another prejudice, our instinctive American admiration for those who correct
themselves. He abandoned his ardent segregationist views when the
demographics of his state made that expedient, and even hired actual black
people to work on his Senate staff, a fact sometimes reported with such awe that
you'd think he'd marched with Dr. King in Selma. -- Bill Keller, January 12, 2002
(Mr. T., Mr. G. and Mr. H)
January 14, 2002
Findlaw vs Salon
Findlaw's arguments could kick Salon's opinions down
several flights of stairs.
In an article relating law against discriminatory intent
-- the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- and law against
discriminatory effect -- Americans With Disabilities Act,
note that the criminal law frequently treats a defendant
who commits an act knowing its likely effects no differently
from one who commits the act intending those effects.
blogging code
B2 d++ t+ k- s u+ f- i- o+ x+ e-- l c+
is my blog code.
Update 2003 Jan. 23: Also known as Blogger Code.
January 08, 2002
Half baked
| Half Bakery have some interesting ideas.
However, their layout aligns For with the
number of votes against, and aligns Against with the number of votes For.
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January 06, 2002
January 04, 2002
station
Staionmasters have good info about the Washington, D. C. Metro
stations, e.g., the Vienna Station.
Caltrain could do better.
Who's that girl ?
When publishing a review of work, always make clear who is
- the reviewer
- the author or producer of the reviewed work
- the topic of the reviewed work
Of who is this a picture ?
a) Michiko Kakutani
b) Miranda Carter
c) Anhony Blunt |
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These rules apply to posters and pictures, too.
Matching the pictures of movie stars to the billed names on posters
is often a quite a puzzle.
ANTHONY BLUNT -- The Gay Savant and Traitor With Hardly Enough Closets, by Miranda Carter.
Review by MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NYT, 2002 January 04.
THE YEAR IN ARCHITECTURE
The city's leading corporate architecture firms linked arms with their developer-clients to devise strategies for turning a catastrophe into a business opportunity. An ad hoc group, the N.Y.C. Rebuild Infrastructure Task Force, convinced its members that they had earned the moral stature
of firefighters, medical personnel, emergency volunteers.
-- HERBERT MUSCHAMP
THE YEAR IN ARCHITECTURE: The Deadly Importance of Making Distinctions,
NYT, 2001 December 30.
January 03, 2002
mmm pop music
Through most of the year, best-selling hip-hop acts competed to depict the most garish visions of hedonism: designer labels, call-brand drinks, easy women. They celebrated Mercedes-Benzes and platinum-and-diamond jewelry, gleaming with the onomatopoetic flash called bling-bling. Rappers,
whose job has always been to be immodest, also escalated their rhetoric of self-adoration; recently Jay-Z, the year's dominant rapper, renamed himself Jay-hova. Too often, the raps had less to say than the innovative electronic free-for-all of the top producers' backing tracks.
-- By JON PARELES
THE YEAR IN POP MUSIC: Blasted From Its Self-Absorption, at Least for Now
NYT, 2001 December 30.
maps
Multidimensional scaling is way cool [MSN].
E.g., Keith Poole and Rosenthal use a technique and a computer program
called DW-NOMINATE to produce a two-dimensional map of the House
and the Senate.
entp
Pick Your Persona
Do it now, before you get old and somebody picks it for you.
By Jodie T. Allen
Posted Thursday, January 3, 2002 [MSN]
Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) [Google cache] or
original or Sample [PDF].
Or Myers-Briggs and Keirsey .
the train ! the train ! the train !
The NYT has a nice picture showing the relative popularity of various train stations.
From It's All Aboard, if They'll Fit, as Sept. 11 Jolts Mass Transit,
NYT, RANDY KENNEDY, 2002 January 03.
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