Not sure what I’ll end up using this for, but I just know it’s going to come in handy in the near future.
It’s an Inflation Calculator. The link to which I came across (oddly enough) in a book on Usability Testing.
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
More Forza 3 Livery Fun – Hello Kitty!
Bordem and Beer are a bad combination when it comes to creating vinyl groups in Forza 3.
I won the NSX during Season play, and immedialy the first Honda Fan that came to mind was my friend Mary (I still owe ya $30 for the game.. damn I’m a flake). The next thing to my mind, was that I had to create a ‘Mary Tribute Car’. So… here it is, just for you Mary. A 2007 Acura NSX all decked out.
I’m not sure who was laughing more while I spent the 2 hours laying out the 201 separate layers it took to make this abomination, but I have to say much laughing was had by all once I was finished!
And to top it all off, I uploaded it to the Forza 3 Storefont, with the design for sale at $10,000 each (limited run of 3). Overnight I sold 2 of them! LOL. That matches the downloads of my FREE Shelby GT500 Mustang design (which BTW looks like a proper race design). Does this make me a professional artist?
Forza Motorsports 3 – racing video game nirvana
No doubt about it, I love racing games. And Forza Motorsports III is no exception. I enjoyed FM2 a lot, but all I really did was race.
Since getting FM3 (and a new power supply for my M$ wireless feedback racing controller) I’ve been racing and creating custom looks for my cars.
At first I had some pretty wild solid paint on the cars. Lately though, I have toned it down a bit, changed the big red and white number circle to a very subtle black/grey (but it’s still there on each and every one of the cars I’ve raced in the game).
In a blog to be posted at a later time, I’ll talk more about the cars (I have 20 or so right now, over 1/2 have never turned a wheel in the came — those are all painted white so at a glance I know which are stock, and which are not).
Some of the fun in the game is creating custom looks for the cars. Sure is cheaper than doing it in real life. In fact, if you are good enough people will pay our in-game credits for your masterpieces (I sold 3 in the first 8 hours they were posted). I can win enough credits in the game, it’s not about that, it’s about customizing, exploring a little artistic expression.
Once you have a car you really like, you can upload them to the FMIII website, then save them to anyplace you like. So, I have done just that.
Now, if you are still reading this, you might wonder when I’m going to post the ‘great graphics masterpiece’ I created that has been so popular, it is now sold out. Well, it’s in the last photo (more on that).
Here is the first car I bought in the game, and the only one not painted black. It’s a smoking Ford Fiesta. Wee. Now it’s pretty over-done, and basically impossible to drive. LOL. Still, I can win races with it.
Next is a the most recent of my racers, and the first with a proper racing stripe on it. Not very exciting I realize that. That’s sort of the point, understated but unique enough to get spotted in an on-line race with friends.
OK, so here it is. The beast of my fleet (currently at ‘Supercar’ status due to mods). The V10 powered BMW M\\\5. Woo! And what did I sell out on the Forza Storefront? The license plate. That’s right. That little license plate graphic. All 95 layers of it. It does not look like much but it’s right with vector graphics detail. Measured and re-created from one of the many actual German EU plates I have round the house. I uploaded that template (users can change the letters to anything they want, or remove the registration tags, whatever). It took about 2 hours to figure out how to use the FMIII in-game editor. It’s not what I would call ‘easy’ but once you get the hang of how they manage layers, it’s not that difficult to get a basic result.
The best Urban Driving film ever made (1976)
This is without peer. Shot in Paris in 1976, in one sequence.
Sit back, enjoy, hold onto your seat.
C’était un Rendez-Vous from Thom Graves on Vimeo.
BASH script writting
It’s been decades since I’ve had to write a BASH script to do something, so I asked one of my programmers to write one for that, that would list a directory over and over again, every 15 seconds.
This is it:
while true; do ls -l; sleep 15; done
130 year trend in Precipitation
While here at home, watching it rain today, I began to wonder what the rainfall trends have been over the last 100 years, and if there is any obvious correlation to the increase or decrease, when compared with the so-called ‘Climate Change’ that is so much in the news.
While poking around the net I came across we chart produced by The Aquinas Project (some sort of research group), but I found it interesting, so I’m posting it here.
What the chart shows, with annual and decade long rainfall trends overlaid is that.. compared to 120 years ago, average rainfall (at least in the search city they chose) is nearly identical.
So, this raised the question for me. Now, I’m not saying I believe that ‘Global Warming’ is happening at all. Frankly, it’s not, and honest good science proves that. BUT, what this chart shows, based on NOAA data (or so they say) that there is NO long-term effect on average rainfall.
So this makes me ask the question:
Assuming Global Warming (or Climate Change.. pick your BS lable) is real, WHO CARES!??! If it’s not affecting the most easily measured weather ‘symptom’, does it really affect humans at all? And let’s be frank here.. we like to say we’re all about nature, but in the end, it’s survival of the human race we are REALLY worried about. Sure, there are some pathological types that aren’t but, who cares about them? I don’t.
So I ask again… if we’re not even seeing more rain.. does it even matter?
I also wonder what the annual U.S. losses dues to weather related natural disasters plot would look like over a similar period (inflation adjusted of course).
Why do I ask that question? Well, because our ‘Great Savior President Obama is promising $100 BILLION dollars of our money to combat this ‘SO CALLED’ problem.
Well, if we’re loosing less than $100 BILLION a decade to natural disasters then I say STOP wasting money trying to prevent them and put that money into damage mitigation!
Maybe snow, maybe not.
We were forecasted for snow overnight. Nothing materialized.
Forecast has changed a little bit. Right now it’s raining at just above freezing.
Tomorrow, the streets will probably be a ice rink. I’ll have to get my camera ready to train on the highway outside. It’s steep and heavily traveled. Could be some amusing or frightening stuff caught.
I wish the weather would ‘decide’ to do something other than drizzle on the verge of freezing. That’s boring.
It looks like snow is out of the forecast
Significant forecast change from yesterday.
No snow.
I wonder if we’ll have a White Christmas.
It’s cold here.
Yes.. it’s cold.
Today: Sunny, with a high near 36. Calm wind.
Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 22. Calm wind.
Friday: Partly sunny, with a high near 37. Calm wind.
Friday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 25. Light north northwest wind.
Saturday: Cloudy, with a high near 38. Calm wind becoming north around 6 mph.
Saturday Night: A chance of snow. Cloudy, with a low around 26. Chance of precipitation is 50%.
Sunday: A chance of rain and snow showers. Snow level 500 feet. Cloudy, with a high near 40. Chance of precipitation is 50%.
Sunday Night: A chance of showers. Cloudy, with a low around 32.
Monday: A chance of showers. Cloudy, with a high near 39.
Monday Night: A chance of rain. Cloudy, with a low around 38.
Tuesday: A chance of showers. Cloudy, with a high near 43.
Tuesday Night: A chance of rain. Cloudy, with a low around 40.
Wednesday: A chance of rain. Cloudy, with a high near 45.
Additional Shop Makeover Photos
Living with the updated shop.
Follow-up on my first Shop Makeover post.
One of the largest reservations I had about moving the workbench, was the lack of electrical on that side of the garage. Nothing was originally wired there. In fact there are 8 plugs in the shop, 6 of them on the ‘red wall’ side and 2 at the very rear of the shop.
What is the oddest thing about that, is the side of the shop with the main breaker box, there are no outlets!
My buddy Bill to the rescue! About an hour of parts selecting, wire stripping and doing it the right way (I’m sure I would have burned up something or killed myself, I’m a DC wiring guy, not AC), I now have this nifty 4-gang box right on the wall. And with it’s own dedicated breaker to boot. Now I have plenty of power options for the workbench. I’m currently selecting a multi-plug switched gang box to drop off the last connector. No rush, I have the power I need right now. My mini air compressor lives right there in below the box. It had always been a bit of an orphan floating around the shop. How, it has a place (like I said, a place for everything, and everything in it’s place).
For those (few) that asked, this is how the toolbox fit under the workbench. Almost looks like I build the bench around the toolbox, instead of tweaking the toolbox to fit the bench. Either way, I’m SO happy to have the toolbox AND workbench together. So far the tendency to leave tools on the bench and not put them back in the box has been nearly eliminated. As I said before, a man has to know his limitations and eccentricities, and find ways and methods that provide the opportunity to do the ‘right’ things instead of the ‘easy’ things.
Now… the banner.
That banner.
A gracious gift from my friend Mary (THANKS!). It has hung in multiple garages. Originally it was hung on the ‘big red wall’ before I painted it red. Now I have it suspended from the ceiling, via hooks (damn cement wall) along the back wall, covering the natural gas pipes the intrude into the shop.
I was not a big fan after I hung it up, and as time goes on, it’s losing even more favor with me.
So I took it down.
I think it’s less visually distracting without the big banner there. My Porsche banner, well, I plan to keep that. It covers the nasty pipes along the wall, and it does not hang down along the wall like the H&R banner does (did).
For me it works.
This is what the shop looks like this morning. The CLK tucked neatly away, out of the ice (and the soon to be arriving snow). Plenty of room in the shop.
Now I need to work on heating it. That’s been a big issue for me. I used to have a heated shop. I do miss that quite a bit. I’m sure it’s just a matter of getting some good electrical advice. Some space heaters should do the trick in the short term. Sealing up the horribly installed side garage door should also help. Right now leaves (yes leaves!) blow in there, along with the cold wind. One more item on my 2010 Shop ToDo list.
