| self fulfilling prophecy |
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| 11:23pm 27/04/2008 |
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'I found that being on the track is a whole other world and I can't lie: I've been eying track bikes & leathers and am considering completely eliminating what little "sporting" street riding I currently do.'
So I signed up for two open trackdays. First up is the Big Track @ Willow Springs on Saturday 5/3, and then up to Buttonwillow on Friday 5/9. In preparation I picked up some new gear: a Dainese Laguna Seca 1pc suit, Alpinestars GP Plus gloves, and some lightly used Sidi Vertigo Corsa Air boots. Here I am modeling my power ranger outfit:
( Fat Man in Leathers behind the cut )
I also managed to find a race prepped Suzuki SV for a trackbike. Ironically, I started riding on a Suzuki SV (and later sold it to AndyW) 7.5 years ago. This thing is pretty pimped out. About the only things left to do would be more extensive (and therefore, reliability impacting) engine work and maybe a wider rear wheel. I'm sure I've got a good year or five worth of track riding before I could even use it to its potential ;)
( Bike Pr0n )
I'm excited, now I just gotta keep from breaking in the new gear and bike with a n00b mistake. :D |
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Read 6 - Post |
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| California Superbike School Mini-review |
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| 03:13pm 04/04/2008 |
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So I've had some confidence issues after a 1-2-3 punch of a hiatus from riding, death of a friend (RIP Ghent :( ), and some silly newbie wrecks. This led to me not really riding as much as I would like to and increased stress and self-pressure when I'm on a group ride in the twisties. My friend Garrett has been encouraging me to get out to the track but I've always had a reason not to: work schedule, lack of leathers, etc. Finally this latest round of encouragement came from him and when I made excuses he pointed out that Keith Code's California Superbike School was coming up, was on a weekend, and would rent me a bike and leathers. Out of excuses, I decided to put my money where my mouth was and signed up.
I battled a serious case of nerves and anxiety leading up to Saturday, but reading reviews on the Ducati board and talking more with Garrett and (another CSS Graduate friend) Bill convinced me that it would be a low pressure environment more focused on skill improvement than track speeds. I didn't sleep much the night before and met up way too early in the morning with Garrett and our friend Steve to carpool up to Streets of Willow @ Willow Springs. We made really good time up to the track and quickly went through the assembly line of signing in, leaving a deposit, getting group/gear/equipment/coach assignments and grabbin a quick bite of breakfast.
The first task of the day was to work on our throttle control, an area I'm absolutely horrible with in turns on the street, and it resulted in us doing a couple of single file orientation laps and then starting our first on track session with the instructions of 4th gear only and no brakes. I started out as a nervous wreck, thrown off by never being on a track or on an inline 4 bike. The terror of coming out of a decreasing radius turn 2 and going downhill into a double apex turn 3 heading back uphill *without* being able to slow up led to an absolutely abysmal starting laptime of 2:47. I slowly started to warm up and had shaved nearly 20 seconds off by the end of the first session.
The classroom instruction was good (though I greatly prefer Keith over his son and assistant teacher Dylan), but I got way more out of the on track coaching. My coach Mike would give me things to work on independent of the individual lesson for the session, and was often giving me big thumbs up and head nods indicating my improvement in these areas while we did a lead-follow. After the first session, I was really having some problems with a 90 degree left hander with bumps all over the apex (turn 10) and asked Mike how to better handle it. He advised me that it appeared I was coming in too hot for my comfort zone and would be better served entering slower, getting the bike over and getting on the throttle soon to stabilize the bike before I hit the bumps.
Our next lesson was on turn in points and they had been marked for every turn on the track. We were allowed to use 3rd and 4th gear, but still no brakes. Both of these helped me tremendously and encouraged by them I started to get a bit more aggressive with the bike. After a few laps to get the tires warmed up, I found myself coming into turn 3 at a speed I was certain was much too hot for my ability. I decided to try flicking the bike in knowing that it would either stick or I'd hurtle off the track and likely end my day (CSS has a no crashing rule), but to my surprise it worked! This was the light bulb moment for me as I finally understood that the bike was capable of far more than I could imagine, and the day continued with edging up entry speeds and increasing lean angles. I was able to apply these new skills to Mike's suggestion on how to handle Turn 10 and was much faster and more stable through that turn.
It would turn out that my "flick it" idea would be the next lesson, and I repeated this uncanny habit of trying something to help myself in a session only to go to the next class and find that was the assignment for our next session (after flick it was relax, and then two step turn-in and apex sighting).
Mike continued to help me identify and fix trouble spots on the course separate from the class's assigned lesson and with his help I became more consistent in my lines and confident in my abilities. There were multiple times when I nailed a turn and grinned ear to ear as I realized I was doing it right. I am sure I was nowhere near even an amateur racer's level of correctly executing the turn, but I was hitting the basics of a settled and stable bike at a decent lean angle and it was a pretty damn cool feeling. I did turns at speeds and lean angles that I would have never believed to be possible for a 400lb bike and 250lb rider according to the laws of physics.
In the last few sessions I had improved from being passed by practically everybody to the point that I was regularly passing the one or two other slow guys because my lines and speeds were better. I barely scratched the surface of the i4, not being used to the power band I was severely short shifting well below it but I was content focusing on using the now available brakes as little as possible and maintaining my smoothness. I continued improving my lap times in each session and ended the day turning consistent times 40 seconds faster than my first lap. My coach closed out the day telling me how amazed he was that I was the same guy he'd followed being so timid during the first session
I really enjoyed the day and am eager to get some time out on my duc and see what and where I can safely apply my learnings. I'm not sure if I'm ready for level 2 yet, but I'm pretty sure I'll be heading back and completing the entire curriculum as I get to where I think I'm prepared for each level. I highly recommend the school to anyone riding a motorcycle, regardless of cruiser/touring/sport style or intentions to do trackdays and/or races. It really helped to boost my confidence and abilities.
I found that being on the track is a whole other world and I can't lie: I've been eying track bikes & leathers and am considering completely eliminating what little "sporting" street riding I currently do. |
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Read 3 - Post |
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| poor mans hdr |
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| 12:09pm 17/03/2008 |
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So i worked on my bike all day saturday, and messed around a bit yesterday trying to take "hdr images". The basic gist is that you bracket photos of the same object at different exposures and then use a plugin/app to composite them into a single hdr image. No current display technology is capable of displaying a true hdr image, but through some trickery of tone balancing you can highlight details normally lost to shadows or overexposure. Here's a couple shots that I did yesterday, but they aren't the best source. I had no tripod so improvised with soda cans, fence posts, or curbs, and instead of a full manual DSLR I shot these with a sony point and shoot and bracketed the EV (Exposure Values) which consist of aperture & shutter speed instead of the normal adjustment of just shutter speed. Click on any pic to go to my flickr feed where you can view larger versions.
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| Digg It |
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| 02:04pm 17/12/2007 |
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(If you've already heard this a dozen times, my apologies, but I'm trying to get the word out to friends in different circles.)
"Tiger Team" is a new reality show premiering on CourtTV (soon to be rebranded TruTV) on Christmas @ 11pm. There will be 2 30min episodes shown back to back. Tiger Team is created and produced by 2 of my Film/TV buddies from LA and starring 3 of my 303 friends from Denver. It follows the real life team of Chris Nickerson, Luke McOmie, and Ryan Jones as they assess (and bypass) the computer and physical security of their clients. Please watch and/or record it with you DVR (especially TiVo, as networks pay attention to anonymous recording statistics available from TiVo), and if you have a digg account please digg the story below.
Thanks!
Corey
http://digg.com/television/Tiger_Team_New_TV_show_about_real_hackers_airs_Dec_25
(I don't like digg (or kevin rose) much, but this is a worthy cause) |
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| and now for another completely random post |
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| 02:12pm 18/06/2007 |
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mood:  sore
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so we took the first steps into karting the last few weeks.
A few months back I started going to a enthusiast indoor karting track at the request of my coworker. I'd been to a few before, but was largely turned off because my weight made it nearly impossible for me to be competitive. Either I've gotten better at identifying and following racing lines with an emphasis on carrying my momentum or these karts are different than everything else I've run, but the point is I was able to turn very competitive times winning the majority of my races (based on fastest lap time during the session, not posiition).
I quickly grew frustrated with not being able to reliably improve due to equipment differences (this kart sticks, that kart slides, and that other kart has severe electric motor lag) and a happy coincidence of said coworkers gf needing a bday gift idea led us to schedule our first day at Jim Hall for last weekend.
We went and had an absolute blast! The staff was wonderful and we lucked out with an extremely fast and competent class. We were running 100cc sprint karts and they told us to expect low to mid-40s for the day, with <38 qualifying us to join the race series (which they don't expect most people to make until after the second day and/or some additional lapping/tutoring sessions) and the track record in the 35s. I quickly acclimated to the differences in outdoor race-spec karting (wow, do track surface changes and speeds twice as high really change things!) and was able to post a fast lap of 38.41 for the day, with my friend able to clock a (frustrating) 38.04 (and I give up 100lbs to him!). In fact, out of ~15 people: only 2 weren't able to break into the 30s and another 2 (with previous experience) were able to break into the 36s. Not too shabby for my first time on a real track.
Thanks to another luckily timed coincidence my second track visit wouldn't have to wait long. While I was begrudgingly holding my tongue on the bday surprise, I caught wind that SSC Racing (NA importer of Rotax engines and CRG Chassis) had begun running arrive-and-drive demo/trackdays with their selection of rotax karts (jr/sr/dd2) at moran raceway. Mags and I booked our spots for today to join coworker Ryan and his dad for a little father's day track time and we just got home after an awesome day out there. Moran is a monster of a track, nearly a mile long, with a miniture version of laguna's corkscrew and plenty of other elevation and camber changes to make it really interesting. I was impressed with the karts, and we all had a great day. SSC is really a class act, and we'll be heading back out to another one of their events soon.
Unfortunately, there was some bad luck leading in to the day and it reared itself again towards the end. We started with a miserable toothache for mags (she had an aborted root canal Weds, and is waiting to see a specialist this week to finish the job) and the bizarre mishap that saw the exhaust literally drop (and drag at highway speeds) off of Ryan's Dad's 81 Vette. Luckily mags was a trooper and the pain subsided, and more importantly wasn't aggravated by the karting, and Ryan's Dad just happens to be a mechanic/shop owner who was able to macguyver the exhaust hangers back into place.
On what would be our last session out, a pretty nasty collision happened and brought out the yellows. It was open practice at Moran, and we had to share the track with private kart owners and folks renting from the raceway itself in addition to the 5 total karts in our group. Thankfully traffic was light because of the holiday, and most everyone was courteous and in control waiting patiently to be waved by when it was safe. Mags did awesome for her first day in a race kart, on-line and always aware of a faster driver behind her to wave by at her earliest convenience. On her 3rd lap of the session, she noticed someone coming up very hot in the front half of the track. After she made it out of the second corner, a large and fast constant radius with a slight bank they called "carousel", she moved to the outside and waved him by. Somehow the moron locked up and got sideways and hit her from behind, making wheel to wheel contact and sending him literally flipping over her. She doesn't remember (not due to injury, it just happened so damn fast!) exactly how, but she seemed to take the brunt of it with her outstretched arm, and he ended up shiny side down skidding in front of her. He quickly extracated himself and even quicker made an ass of himself by bitching about her going slow and flat out ignoring her request for help exiting the kart as she couldn't put weight on her arm to pull herself up. Track staff came out to help, check her over, and get her back to the pits while the asshat continued his asshattery. All the while I continued running laps blissfully unaware she'd been involved until I pulled into the pits. She was icing her arm and was shaken, but mostly ok. We're going to keep an eye on it, but it's seeming like just a strain/bruising and nothing serious. Hey, she stopped thinking about her sore tooth and how many people can say they've been run over before?
After a few minutes the driver and a couple of his buddies came down to check on her and "apologize" which I thought was classy...until they flipped their story when I asked for his contact info. There was damage we were going to be responsible for and under the advice of Joe from SSC I thought maybe he would man up...he didn't. Apparently he and his cronies (who did all of his talking) were strangers to the idea of safely passing slower traffic and being in control of your vehicle. Huh In the end, karma's gonna work it out. He left the track soon after as his kart was in much worse shape.
All in all, we're really enjoying the sport and hope to get more involved as the year moves on. Mags would like to go take day 1 at Jim Hall so she can join Ryan and I when we return for their Day 2 and TAG Classes. After that I'd like to focus on getting some more track time and hopefully pick up a used demo/previous year race team kart from SSC at the end of the year. We'll use it to get even more seat time and when we're comfortable (and I drop my extra "ballast") we'll take a look at joining the Rotax series. |
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| victory for measure y! |
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| 08:53am 08/11/2006 |
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mood:  satisfied
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I haven't said much about it, but I got involved in politics this past spring. I responded to a call for action from the Marijuana Policy Project, as they were interested in supporting a "Lowest Law Enforcement Priority" initiative in Santa Monica. I got in touch with them and ended up sitting on the committee and acting as a proponent on the initiative. Similar initiatives were to simultaneously take place in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and West Hollywood. The earliest success was in West Hollywood, where despite their qualifying for the ballot the city council supported the initiative and enacted it without placing it up for popular vote. SF took a similar route with the mesure being put to a vote of supervisors on Monday (results unknown). Santa Monica was to be the hardest battle with a well funded and influential Police Department as our primary opposition. We attempted to work with the city to enact the initiative this spring, but both sides were unwilling to comprmise on key points, so we headed to the ballot. The results are in and the city has approved the measure by an overwhelming 65-35 majority. Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz also passed with similar numbers.
MPP/NORML and EFF are political groups that I've long supported and hoped to make a difference with. While this measure by no means signifies the end to the failing War on Drugs, it is a good first step in the process and I'm proud to have made a difference, however small. |
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| Webmonkeys: Help with Resolution autodetection? |
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| 05:17pm 16/10/2006 |
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I heaven't put much research into this yet, but my 5 minutes of googling isn't yielding much. Is there a quick and easy way (i.e. not activex/flash) to unobtrusively autodetect a viewing browser's monitor resolution? pointers to example code appreciated. |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| fuck time warner |
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| 05:02pm 19/09/2006 |
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mood:  pissed off
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My Tivo Series 3 arrived today. While I handled the lifetime transfer from one of our (currently dead) series 2, mags called time warner to arrange cable card installation. After first flat out refusing (and trying to upsell their shitty HD DVR), she eventually convinced a supervisor to schedule the appointment. They claim their cards are incompatible with Tivo, furthermore that our Sony TV is also incompatible, and even that Panasonic cordless phones in the household would render the cards useless as well (what do 2.4ghz radio transmissions have to do with a PCMCIA coax card?!?).
Obviously TWC is completely unfamiliar with the terms "Standards" and "Federal Law". They're charging us $29.95...for showing up. You see, they flat out refused to touch the Tivo (and said if they did it would be a $50/hr charge), so I'll be installing the cards while their technician stands there and calls in the activation. What's even more frustrating about this is that this arrangement of self-install-technician-activate is *exactly* what the FCC Plug And Play mandate calls for but the cable companies refuse to do. |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| My wife is a dork |
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| 01:00pm 30/08/2006 |
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mood:  amused
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mags: HELL YEAH
mags: MOTHER FUCKING FINALLY
(my wife rarely cusses, or uses all caps when we're talking online, so i'm curious what's going on as we're waiting on job news/bar results/wedding gifts/etc)
core: ???
mags: saved the princess |
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| What I've been doing... |
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| 09:48am 30/06/2006 |
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this article came as a surprise to me, guess my boss taked to them a bit ago. Network Computing is an IT trade journal. Steve is my boss and the corporate politics navigator, but the design/buildout/implementation/support has been all me.
At Insomniac Games, a working partnership between IT and business executives has had tangible results. Until recently, the PlayStation video-game developer with 160 employees--just four of them IT staffers--had artists twiddling their thumbs for a couple of hours to an entire day as their PCs rendered background scenes for video games. Because the process consumed all their PCs' CPU cycles, artists could do nothing but wait.
"It was literally a case of starting a render and walking away," says IT director Steve Kirk. Because he is involved in the business' strategic direction and long-term projects, Kirk keeps a sharp eye on the horizon, anticipating the company's needs as gaming technology advances. He knew the company's rendering system couldn't handle projects designed for Sony's PlayStation 3, which is scheduled to debut this year. "We wouldn't have been able to make our deadlines," he says.
Kirk boosted the artists' productivity up to eight times when he proposed and won approval from business leaders to construct a server farm for video-imaging rendering, to take the processing load off individual workstations. Now, instead of using their own workstations, the artists send scenes they've completed to the farm--essentially a large collection of blade servers--so they can immediately move on to their next scenes.
The render farm so far has cost the Burbank, Calif.-based company $50,000. Kirk was able to sell the idea because of its potential business benefits. "We're developing larger environments--massive battlefields, for example--with exponentially more detail," says Kirk, who meets with the CEO and business departments regularly. The work they're doing now translates into a more appealing product and, the company hopes, more sales. |
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| i don't know whats worse... |
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| 03:12am 12/06/2006 |
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that i came in at 1am to get some coding done in peace, or that there are other here doing the same thing.
video game production crunch mode 4TL |
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| bombs |
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| 05:26pm 08/06/2006 |
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I'm no muntions expert, but does anyone else find it odd that after 2 direct hits on the safehouse by 500lb bombs the corpse is this identifiable? |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| some pics |
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| 09:36am 05/04/2006 |
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I'll write up the whole story later, but for now here are some pictures:
Rev. Bill performs a traditional baptist (aka 15 minute) ceremony.
After the ceremony with our friend/casino host/witness/photographer Johnnie Keid.
The obligatory kiss. (and gleaming bald spot ;)) |
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Read 18 - Post |
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| home |
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| 11:40am 10/02/2006 |
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Friday, February 17 - BURBANK CA(BUR) to OAKLAND CA(OAK)
Flight 558 L
Depart BURBANK CA(BUR) at 7:00PM and
Arrive in OAKLAND CA(OAK) at 8:10PM
Monday, February 20 - OAKLAND CA(OAK) to BURBANK CA(BUR)
Flight 1738 Y
Depart OAKLAND CA(OAK) at 8:40PM and
Arrive in BURBANK CA(BUR) at 9:45PM
i'll be here fri night:
beyond that, no plans but spending some quality time with the xty. my phone number has changed, and i've lost all numbers I had. if you wanna get together hit me up with a comment or drop me a line on aim. |
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Read 6 - Post |
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| MIT IT Conference |
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| 10:55am 01/02/2006 |
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Anyone been to this before? Work is thinking about sending me, but it seems awful corporate aimed and I'm not sure if I would get anything from it.
Here's a "Who Should Attend?" blurb from their mailer:
The 2006 MIT IT Conference has been developed for senior executives who are responsible for IT oversight and management, and for technical professionals responsible for managing IT infrastructure and systems security, and for developers of IT network products and services.
Those who have attended previously include Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Vice Presidents of R&D, IS and IT, Corporate Strategists, Systems Information Directors and other key members of technical management.
Topics, of which none sound particularily applicable:
Semantic Web, Building on Existing Systems
Pushing the Limits of Wireless Networks
Useable Security: New Defenses for Fighting Phishing and Information Disclosure at the User Interface
Global Storage
Network Coding: What It Is and What It Does
Economic Incentives and Traffic Engineering in Networked Systems
Architecting the Internet of Things: Building the Global EPC Network for RFID
Computational Paradigms for Genetic Medicine
Moving Technology Out To Market
Attentive Objects: Augmented Physical Objects, Platforms, Techniques and Applications
Learning From Millions of Hours of Audio and Video
The Impact of RFID on Supply Chains and IT
IT Leadership, Capabilities and Financial Performance
I'd like to go, but I don't think its worth the money if only about 10% of the program interests me. |
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