Links

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/facebook-status-provides-alibi

http://www.urlesque.com/2009/11/12/five-facebook-fails/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/bugatti-veyron-sinks-in-lagoon

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/dog-cries-when-soldier-returns-home

Energy

This evening at dinner a cute girl was describing how she uses a search engine called 'Blackle' (that I refuse to link to lest we build their resolve). "Blackle" does a Google search for you and then displays the results on a black screen with gray text. Their claim is that displaying a black screen rather than a white screen "saves energy". This was definitely filed under "far too misguided to let slide" by the engineers in the room. After a short tutorial on how LCDs shutter a back light that is always on regardless of what the image on the screen, it was dismissed as a gimmick. (CRTs and OLED displays do use slightly less energy displaying black but if you're still using a CRT clearly you don't give a hoot about energy efficiency anyhow). This failure to provide savings stacked on top of their mere existence as a middle man server makes them huge losers. Anyway she's still talking to us so apparently we weren't too big of jerks about it.

I mentioned this nonsense to Andy, and he said "At some point I'm going to calculate how many hours of running 100W light bulb is equivalent to the energy consumed by stopping my car from 45mph" Turns out, at some point, was the following 5 minutes. The kinetic energy of Andy's 5400 lb Ford Expedition (the energy that is dissipated by slowing down from 45mph) is the same as burning 100W for about an hour and twenty minutes! This doesn't even account for the fact that your car was at best 20% efficient at getting you up to that speed in the first place! A fun fact to share if you're being chided about not using a compact florescent bulb in a room where the light is rarely on.


Oh it looks like Google covered this themselves 2 years ago.

Year 2 Audi numbers

Year 2 cost of ownership numbers!
Total miles: 222640 (45,498 of them mine)
Year 1 miles: 20195
Year 2 miles: 25303

Total gallons of fuel: 2085 (that's ~40,000 lbs of CO2 if you were just thinking about that...)
Year 1 gallons: 930
Year 2 gallons: 1155

Average miles per gallon
Year 1 mpg: 21.7
Year 2 mpg: 22.0

Estimated fuel cost total: $6078
Est year 1 fuel cost: $3022
Actual year 2 fuel cost: $3056 (much cheaper gas this year! An extra 5k miles for 'free')

Insurance total: $866
Year 1: $380
Year 2: $486 (rates went up and I didn't notice?)

Maintenance total: $3172 ($315 on oil changes, $2858 on mechanical repair)
Year 1: $1227 (all sorts of random junk)
Year 2: $1176 (big timing belt and hose repair job and oil changes only)
(uhh that doesn't add up, I should check those numbers again)

Accident repair: $1695

Total everything cost of ownership: $16,593 (!)
Year total 1: $11,608 (includes$4200 purchase)
Year total 2: $4985

Hopefully there is a 3rd installment for this car. Also I predict a dramatically lower mileage for the next year as I now live only 4 miles from work. And tomorrow I'm supposed to ride my bike in!

Craigslist and Medium Brown

Saturday afternoon I set off on an adventure in search of inexpensive Ikea furniture (in medium brown) to outfit my room a bit more. (Why yes, I am writing a post about buying used Ikea furniture... What?) I got a bit cocky about how much would fit in my car, and somehow thought that the dresser and table would fit in it no problem. The dresser took up a bit more room than anticipated, but luckily the friendly, drunk, starving artist types that I bought the table from already had it disassembled with the hardware neatly organized in a little plastic bin. Things fit just barely! (imagine full car with table hanging over the passenger's head rest, well into front seat.) After two furniture stops, I made another stop to pick up to pick up some concert tickets, where I'm pretty sure I saw Ron Jeremy leaving a restaurant, and then headed towards Santa Monica to hang out with Justin for awhile. We watched "Fast & Furious" it was not as bad as predicted.

Dresser that I'm happy with because it is in good shape, was half price used and I didn't have to put it together. More stuff that needs to be sorted and put away.


Too tall 'dressing table' with too low drawer, my chair is extended and could be a tad higher, maybe a chair with out arms in the answer? At least I didn't have to pay much for it. I like the way it looks and doesn't take up much space, but the heights aren't working out just yet.

Motos from the 1920's

I like how the guys are wearing neck ties while they motocross!
http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/the-oakland-motorcycle-club-hill-climb-hellcats-dirt-devils/

3D guy costume

This is a very cool costume, and well documented as well!
http://testroete.com/index.php?location=head

update: the dude's "fast slide show" of Japan is quite good as well.
http://testroete.com/index.php?location=thisisjapan

New room

New room is set up just enough so I can sleep here now. Amazingly the drive "all the way to Camarillo" to finish moving out seems like a big hassle now. Funny how that works.

 

Hollywood Halloween

West Hollywood had some pretty ridiculous sites Halloween night. Worth checking out sometime just to see the massive numbers of people that are out and about.



 

Muppet Cupcakes

http://geekpadshow.com/2009/09/25/20-muppet-cupcakes/

New road tires

Finally purchased new tires for my road bike. The old ones were starting to show threads and had worn down to have a very flat profile.

 

Close enough to the 3 year mark for the bike to do the data dump.
The short version is I need to ride more!

First ride: 12/08/06
Total miles: 2586.2 (Jason points out that this is roughly the distance across the US)
Average speed: 14.2
Tubes: Less than 5? Not many flats! Two of them in the last month.
Miles in 06: 104
Miles in 07: 882
Miles in 08: 897
Miles in 09: 703 (with 2 months to go)
Total hours in the saddle: 182.2
Rides over 50 miles: 3. Pathetic. Looking back at my ride log, almost all of my rides are in the 18-25 range. (I got carried away... histogram below...)

The only maintenance has been lubing the chain and new grip tape! Totally trouble free!!


Click below to get a close up of the neurosis that is my bike log.

From forweb

Hey look a histogram that displays graphically how I usually don't ride more than 20 miles!

From forweb

Birds of a feather... flocking

A (only mildly staged) photo prior to a very sweaty 3.4 miles @ 4.2mph (ha!) bike ride near Rocky Peak in Simi Valley. Thanks to some expert trail scouting by me, we rode UP the downhill section of the Chumash trail. Oops. There were times when it would have been a nice hike if I wasn't dragging my bike up the hill with me. Actually a very cool trail! Only the 2nd MTB ride since 4/08. Mike has been talking about getting a new bike so there may be more rides in the near future.

Laz0r scanning

Cool 3D mapping on this little UAV. Coolness is a couple of minutes in. Some mild laughs to be had in the comments as well.

http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/4149-indoor-autonomous-helicopter

Beats

New wheels

Konig Rewind 16x7" wheels, 205/60-16 Yokohama Avid TRZ shipped mounted and balanced from Discount Tire Direct. Goodparts 1" lowering springs. Happy with them so far! Big improvement over the worn out and 10 years old tires they are replacing, so I'm not hard to impress at this point.

more photos...

A shipment!

New wheels and tires for the Triumph arrived today. Whooo!! Pics of them on the car by Sunday hopefully...