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Thundersnow

Published December 19, 2008

This is only the beginning of a rather large snow storm, and the reason I am working from home today.

For those of you not in the midwest, this is the reason I’m staying home today. Also, this was taken about 45 minutes ago (yes, it seems the time in my camera is wrong), and we’re only about half way through the storm.

While I was writing this the power flickered, went out for about 30 seconds, then came back on. While I would still have had hot water and the ability to cook food, I would have been without heat had the power stayed out, so those 30 seconds were a bit nerve wracking.

Looking outside, my footprints from when I went out to take that photo have pretty much been obscured and now just look like slight dents in the ground.

For reference purposes I’ll quote the National Weather Service‘s warnings for today. One of them even notes that there may be thundersnow. There is no snow more hardcore than THUNDERSNOW. \m/

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Fenders For My Mountain Bike

Published December 18, 2008

SKS Shockboard and X-tra Dry 3 fenders for my bike, purchased at REI.

Today I purchased some extra dorky fenders for my mountain bike. I don’t really mind mud, but I don’t like glops on my face and a handful rubbed into my back when riding in cold, sloppy weather. This is exactly the kind of weather we will have here in Michigan on off-road paths through March or April.

They look a bit strange on the bike, but seem like they’ll do a good job of collecting / blocking spray and mud. I’ll try and get a photo of them mounted after I try them out in actual riding.

For reference, the fenders I picked up are the SKS X-TRA-DRY rear and SHOCKBOARD front mudguard.

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x0xb0x Artwork Under Creative Commons License

Published December 18, 2008

600dpi version of the complete x0xb0x panel, v1.3 (Final).

Almost three years ago (wow!) I built my first x0xb0x. Being unhappy with the original artwork I designed my own, making the template available for others to use. However, I’d never actually released the artwork under a particular license. I’d forgotten about this until recently, so now I’d like to release this artwork under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

Creative Commons License

This means that anyone can reuse this template and artwork, sell artwork based on this, and do anything they want with it as long as they credit my contribution.

Here are links to the various template files which I am releasing under this license:

x0xb0x_mainpanel_overlay_v1_3.ai – Original Artwork in Adobe Illustrator Format
x0xb0x_mainpanel_overlay_v1_3_CS.ai – Original Artwork Saved-As Adobe Illustrator CS Format
x0xb0x_mainpanel_overlay_v1_3_MAVERICK.ai – Artwork Submitted to Maverick Label For Printing
x0xb0x_mainpanel_overlay_v1_3_MAVERICK.swf – Shockwave Version of .AI File (Someone requested this once…)

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Microsoft: Dump Switch Support for Windows

Published December 18, 2008

Schematic from Microsoft's article Dump Switch Support for Windows.

Known mostly as a software company, it surprised me a bit when I came across the article Dump Switch Support for Windows at Microsoft’s site a few years ago. This site has a schematic (which appears to have been done in Paint, detailing a PCI device for generating an NMI to force a machine to bugcheck and dump.

Many servers have NMI switches built in, but it’s quite nice to be able to add one to a PCI slot bearing device of your choice. I think it’d be nice to know how to do this on PCI Express, but it’d take me a little time to figure out how. It’s probably not as easy as this implementation.

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Honda DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communications)

Published December 18, 2008

Honda DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communications) R&D vehicle seen in Southfield, MI with small antennas on it for short area network research.

While parking yesterday I saw a couple of these Honda R&D vehicles for DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communications) parked next to each other. They initially caught my eye because each has one or more small, round antennas stuck on the top. A quick look around online shows that each manufacturer seems to be doing some manner of DSRC work for things ranging from freight management to toll booths, collision avoidance / proximity notification, traffic detection, etc. This sounds like it could be interesting to play with.

(Yes, this photo was taken in a very public parking garage.)

Here, have a few more moblog photos:

· My coworker Nick happy about his machine crashing again. At least we now know the cause.
· Crappy traffic on the way to work today.
· I accidently opened the door marked 18 on my chocolate-filled advent calender today.
· Vernors branded department store quality mountain bike.

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Space Giraffe PC is Out

Published December 15, 2008

Space Giraffe PC screenshot running under Vista.

In case you haven’t already heard, Llamasoft has released Space Giraffe for PC. It’s US$20 for a license of the game, or you can download the demo here and give it a go. It’s pretty nifty, and the new NUXX version (no relation to nuxx.net) is a easier to see, for those who thought that the original version was too cluttered / busy. Don’t worry, though, the original graphics are still there as Acid-Mix should you wish to use them instead.

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Locking Pliers, Furnace Issues

Published December 11, 2008

A pair of Craftsman pliers with locking jaws found in the road around my condo complex as I was leaving for work this morning.

This morning I found this pair of Craftsman locking pliers in the road as I was leaving my condo. I’ve been wanting some of these but haven’t purchased them, so this is a nice find.

Before that, I found that my house was 58°F (14.4°C) when I woke up this morning. The thermostat was calling for heat, but the furnace wasn’t igniting. This has happened in the past, requiring a quick reset of either the thermostat (Heat -> Off -> Heat) or the furnace (power cycle) to make it work again, but in the past couple of weeks it’s been happening with alarming frequency. I’m afraid that an electrical component of my furnace is starting to go wonky. I may end up just calling Mike’s Heating & Cooling who did a nice job installing a new air conditioner in 2006. While I normally wouldn’t mind fixing such electronics myself, reproducing the issue is difficult I can’t exactly wait for parts when it’s regularly below freezing outside.

Oh, and welcome to my first post from WordPress 2.7. Hopefully it’ll continue working nicely. As long as it goes well I’ll probably be upgrading the rest of the blogs I host sometime this evening.

UPDATE: Some things are a bit weird, and plugins like StatPress Reloaded and AdSense Manager need their management / control portions tweaked so that they show up under the right part of the Dashboard, but they still seem to work.

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Palazzo di Bocce

Published December 10, 2008

Playing bocce with some coworkers. Brad is on the left and Doug just rolled a ball.

Today some coworkers of mine and I went to Palazzo di Bocce to play some bocce as a group Christmas-ish outing. It was much nicer than the last times I went with work, because we had smaller teams which allowed everyone plenty of time to play. The last time we went there was a tournament-style game, fewer points needed to win, and four players per team which meant that I was only able to bowl six or eight times the whole day.

After work I ran to Trader Joe’s, then Danielle and I met up for some nice dinner here at home of sweet potato fries, mayo and Clancy’s Fancy dip, organic chicken sausages, wheat buns, and tapioca pudding. At TJs I was able to get some of the 2008 Vintage Ale, which being brewed by Unibroue will hopefully be good. I acquired quite a bit of it last year’s 2007 vintage and if this year’s batch is just as good I’ll probably get a bunch more.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to build up the hardware portion of a replacement PC for my grandparents, a meeting about some volunteer computer-ish work, normal work, and… whatever else comes up. This is right in line with how busy my days have been lately. I guess this is a good thing… I think?

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