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Sunny Snow in the Microwave

Published December 20, 2008

The day after a foot of snow fell everything was nice and sunny. This photo taken via a reflection in the front of the microwave in the kitchen.

The morning after the giant storm which dropped almost a foot of snow here it’s nice and bright and sunny. Hopefully the roads are becoming clear and it’ll stay cold enough that this turns into a nice blanket of winter sitting over everything for the rest of the holidays.

Of course, then right after that it’ll turn into typically Michigan piles of gray and brown dirty snow piled at the sides of parking lots, mixed with shopping carts, Burger King bags, and broken pieces of parking blocks.

(This photo was taken in the reflection from the microwave in the kitchen.)

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Riding In Deep Snow

Published December 19, 2008

Snow-covered bike, fitted with fenders, after trying to go for a ride in the snow after the storm on 19-Dec-2008.

After the snowing stopped (about 3pm) I decided that I should try going for a bike ride. This was much more difficult than I expected, and I wasn’t able to ride more than about 100′. As soon as I’d get going the front wheel would slide and essentially turn into a ski, and I’d slow down enough that I’d have to stop.

It seems the only thing that this much snow is good for is holding up my bike while I take a picture of it fitted with its new fenders. The rear one is a little low, but that’s roughly how it’ll be adjusted.

This weather is making me wish I had access to a Pugsly, but I also don’t want to spend the $1500 or so it’ll take to build one up nicely. I think I’ll just wait until a bit of the snow goes away.

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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/

Continue readingThundersnow
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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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