December 2007 Archives

Skis have gotten fatter and fatter. Five years ago when I bought my first set, the "mid fat" was a very chunky 78mm at the waist (the narrowest part of the ski under your foot). Now you regularly find people with 90mm and wider that you can use for every day and carving. And with the incredible ski season of last year and this year, there are lots of days with 12 inches of new powder where a 78mm will just sink. The new powder skis make anyone look good. So what's a good ski? Well, there are lots of reviews, but Skiing does the most comprehensive. Amazingly, the reviews can't be found on the web except by an incredibly ungainly interface that merges the test results of Ski and Skiing so they are pretty much impossible to read and it isn't clear where the scores come from. So, you pretty much have to subscribe to the paper version of Skiing and wait for every September. From that, you can find the so called "Big Mountain" skis which are those that are between 95mm and 110mm in width. Here are the best of the best:

1. Volkl Gotama . These skis have great karma is you happen to be buddhist. In fact, Gotama and in case you didn't know like me, it's pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, go it it go' ta ma. Technically, it is the family family name of Buddha (so his full name was Gautama Buddha) in his last early incarnation int he sixth century. Wikipedia points out that. As a ski from Volkl, it is what's call a freeski or a freeride ski meaning it is mean for going out beyond the groomed. It is a 133-105-124 size in the 176cm length (respectively, it is 133mm at the widest tip, 105mm at the waist and 124mm at the tail). I demoed it yesterday and it was amazing. We were in four feet powder down a hill and it really floated up, as well as 2 foot powder on the trails and finally on a beginner run that was groomed. The 176cm length seems very short and if you are in the backseat (that is leaning back), the tip wobbles like crazy, so this is a ski that you really want to be forward (think, I can't see the tips when I'm skiing forward). It lists for $800, but typically, it is $700 at REI, Altrec and just about everywhere else. These skis like the others ski short, so a 176cm is good for most folks below 5"11"
2. Line Prophet 100 . I had not heard of Line until this year. K2 acquired them last year. This is their Big Mountain Free Ride ski. It is just $600 list and is top rated by Powder, Free skier and Skiing magazine. It can handle all the powder and is short and light. So you can use it on the groomers too. After 5 years, basically, the all purpose ski has moved from 78mm to 100mm (that's a move from 3 to 4 inches wide, so a big change).
3. Black Diamond Verdict this is another freeride ski that lists for $600. It wont Outside Magazine and did very well in the Skiing Magazine tests. They recommend the 170cm if you are under 165 pounds. It's incredibly versatile as it can be used for telemark, for downhill or for alpine touring as telemarkski.com points out.

By the way if you want to know from real users, Epicski.com seems to be the place folks hang out and you can hear unscientific opinions. ;-0

So what binding would you pair with a ski like this, well, I normally use Marker (no reasons except that this is what I started with). So in that like, the Jester seems like the best fit. It is a freeride binding, so it is heavier which is bad, but more durable and it won't release forward which make a difference doing tricks. Probably too much binding for someone like me who isn't doing jumps, but looks nice in white :-) These by the way do require you swap out the ski brakes as they are a max of 90mm and the ski needs a 110mm brake. As REI says, it is for the big mountain. List for $330. There don't seem to be any reviews of bindings, so hard to say what is better.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Someone asked me about radar detectors. I've actually never gotten one, but have looked over the years, but haven't had the patience to use them, plus I don't go fast too much. That being said, the state of the art has really improved. 007radardetectors.com runs an annual test and while expensive at $400-500, the very best ones really do a pretty good job. Laserveil.com also does a nice job.

The main ones to consider are from the big three, Escort, Bel and Valentine that have been constant favorites:

• Escort Passport 9500i. This one is $450 and it has a GPS built in so it remembers where false signals are. Since garage door openers and motion sensors use the same frequencies as police radar, getting false signals is a big problem. Its accurate as well. The main drawback is that it isn't completely stealth, the police have something called VG-2 that can detect emissions that radar detectors make. In some states like Virginia, it is illegal to have radar detectors. It is also heavy at 10 ounces. It doesn't score a perfect on many things, but is very highly rated.
• Bel STi Driver. This has nearly the best sensitivity of all of them and is completely stealth. It is also $450.
• Valentine One has the best sensitivity of them all, but it is a matter of degrees.

Finally thanks to the Internet, there is even a site that tracks speed traps called speedtrap.org

And with all those lasers out there, all kinds of folks are selling IR blocking paint like veil that makes it harder for a laser to see the reflective parts of a car like the headlamps. I have no idea if these work though.

Powered by ScribeFire.

I've been using Thule for years and Yakima before then. They are both great. Just depends on what you started with. The old Volvo used Thule, so switched to them a while back. It is hard to get discounts on the stuff, but typically you can get 10% off of list. We've used Rackwarehouse.com in the past and they've been reliable. REI also carries them and you can go visit. In Seattle, there is Rack and Road. REI sells at list price, but Rack and Road has a 10% discount. The main issue with mail order is you really have to know what you want and you should wait for a sale that knocks 10% off and gives you free shipping and hopefully no tax (not true for REI and Rack and Road as they have retail locations in Washington for me).

It is confusing, but there is a fit guide on these sites that helps you. for a typical car, which today has no rain gutters, you have to get:

• feet (400xtr Aero's are typical)
• a bar (47" is typical for a small car)
• a fit kit which are little thingies that tie into your cars doors
• wind shield on the front because it sure does blow and cause lots of noise
• a set of 4 locks as the above lists at something like $410 and it is depressing to have it all stolen
  
  Then, you can move on to the actual stuff on the racks themselves. I know this costs a lot, but think about what it would cost to have your bike or skis sailing down the road. The big decision is whether to go with the traditional big square bars or their new aluminum aero bars. Personally, the square bars are functional and cheaper but ugly whereas the aero ones actually look like they might be part of the car. If you get aero like the 400xtr, they you have to get aero adapters for everything.

• Six ski rack pack. This is the most versatile. Most of the time, you can get three skis in but lay them flat rather than pressed together. You can also put your poles up there too.
• Sidearm. Thule has tried many bike mounting systems, but there are so many different kinds of mountain bikes now, that they don't work well, this one is expesnive at $145 list but should work on everything since it actually is a friction system against the bike tire which is reasonably standard. If you have a road bike and don't want to attach it to a tube especially bikes that are carbon fiber where the tube can crush, then get the Peloton which is fork mounted.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Realskiers.com may have it down when they say that most skis have their bindings placed by the manufacturer too far back. There is a technique called, Ball of the foot method that the pros use to get the ball of your foot exactly at the center of gravity. You basically find the exact center of the skis geometrically, then you put on your shell (no inner liner), then you tap the sidwall until you find the skier's ball of his foot. Then you place the binding, so the ball of the foot and the center of the ski are in exactly the same place. Alternatively, you find someone with a Campbell Balance Machine and do the same thing.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Well, it certainly is snowing and raining a lot in Seattle. Most folks just use the tires that come on their cars, but having dedicated snow and rain tires really make a difference. Tire Rack is an amazing source of information about winter tires. For instance, they explain the basics of those crazy tire size and service description that tires use like 225/50R16 91H becomes something you might understand (225mm wide, 50% as tall tire, radial construction, 16 inch rims, 92 means each tire can carry up to 630kg and be run at speeds up to 130mph.

More importantly, they have great advice for winter tire sizing that is to get a narrower than stock tire. So if the stock tire is say 225/50R16 then you can use a narrow 205/50R16 tire (that is 205mm wide instead of 225mm wide) because you plow less snow in front of you. Also they have recommended that are top quality folks like Auto Dynamix in Bellevue.

Perhaps most important, they have lots of end user surveys that tell you what other folks like. In the winter category, these are the Dunlop SP Winter Sport 3D which is great in just about everything except really bad ice. It is a performance winter tire. If you really want the very best ice and snow, then the Bridgestone Blizzak WS-60 seemst o be the ticket, but it isn't as good on dry pavement, so better for those really winter all the time places. For us in Seattle where the only real snow is up skiing, the Dunlop seems like a better choice. You basically can run these winter tires for six months and then when its the summer, go back to high performance summer tires.

One last tip is to make it easy, invest in some nice looking alloy wheels, so that you don't have the expense of constantly remounting your winter tires. While a good set of allow rims may cost $400, the $20 per tire it costs to remount adds up quickly.

Powered by ScribeFire.

If you have a 1.0.2 phone and you click on itunes and take the 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 update, you will unfortunately have a bricked phone that won't make calls but will work on Wifi. There are a host of ways to fix this, but here are some folks who can help:

# Downgrade your iPhone to firmware/software 1.0.2 if you are currently using a “bricked” 1.1.1 iPhone. # Jailbreak your iPhone. The simplest method for this is to use AppTapp.
# Once Installer.app is on your phone, use it to install the BSD Subsysem and OpenSSH (both under “Subsystem.”)
# Download the re-virgizining tool,
# Follow this guide to use the re-virginizing tool to restore your phone to a factory-fresh state.
# Using iTunes, update your iPhone to software/firmware 1.1.1 and make sure it works normally (it won’t be unlocked at this point, but should work with AT&T SIM cards)
# Jailbreak your iPhone again using this guide for Mac OS X or this automated tool for Windows.
# Put AnySIM for iPhone software/firmware 1.1.1 on your iPhone using this guide for Mac OS X or this guide for Windows.

Powered by ScribeFire.

We seem to always need a new car battery in Seattle. It is cold here and if you leave the battery on even for a little bit, it just kills it. Amazingly, Galtech.com says that there are really only three battery manufacturers left, Delphi, Exide and Johnson Controls. Everything else is OEMed. So for instance, Delphi makes EverStart for Walmart and ACDelco. While Johnson Controls makes Duralast for Autozone, Diehard for Sears, Kirkland for Costco, Motorcraft and Interstate. And, Exide besides its own name, makes Champion, Napa and some EverStart for Walmart.

It does point out you typically need a new battery every three years and the best places to get them are Goodyear, Sears, Firestone or Pep Boys. You can get them cheaper at a Target, K-mart or Walmart or even online,b ut then you have to install it yourself.

Powered by ScribeFire.

If you have $8,000 lying around, why not spend it on 20 (that's right 20) megapixel camera called the Canon EOS-1D Mark III of all names :-)

Doesn't mean it is perfect for instance the new 1D Mark III which is a 10 megapixel (the lack of 's' is a big deal) camera that has focus problems that RobGalbraith.com has spend lots of time figuring out. The main thing is a chance to the sub-mirror assembly (whatever that is) that improves autofocus in AI Servo mode at higher temperatures plus the 1.1.3 firmware installation.

Powered by ScribeFire.

It just goes to show what happens if you read Consumer Reports and Car and Driver and try to find a car that both the practical folks at CR like and the sporty folks at C&D like. The only crossovers are the BMW 328i and the Mazdaspeed 3. I have never even thought about buying a Mazda before, but it makes some sense when you think about it. The Mazda 3 was called the Protege and really saved that company. The Mazdaspeed 3 itself has 260 horsepower on a very light 2500 pound chassis, so it just flies at 5.7 seconds 0-60 and it is just $25K. That's kind of an amazing value. And it has really gotten some good reviews. The car won Car and Driver 10Best this year and last year and over a couple of reviews including this month where it won the hot hatches in the roaring 20s.

There is a 2008.5 model refresh that happens in January. The big ones are that Sunlight Silver and Cosmic Blue (I actually like that color) are being discontinued, instead you can now choose Black mica, True Red, Crystal White Pearl Mica and Metropolitan Gray Mica (hey that's is that means Blue and Silver are gone and you now get Black, Red, White and Gray :-). Also they are taking all the Dark Gray trim out and replacing it with Black.

The main competition looks like the Subaru Impreza WRT and the Mitsubishi EVO. Both are $5K more expensive since they are all wheel drive and the Mazda is larger in the rear seat so more practical.

Why does it work so well? The chassis is actually developed by Volvo and is the Ford C1 global platform. It is what is used in the Ford focus and the Volvo S40. Ford owns 30% of Mazda so that makes sense. and is inside the 40 series cars, so it has a European like ride. The rear suspension was designed by Ford and is an E-link multilink suspension. The transmission is borrowed from the RX-8. The car is made in Japan and has a 2.3 liter, turbocharged engine and comes with a six-speed manual for the old fashion folks like me. Outside of America, it is called the Axela.

Only thing to note is that in 2009, there will be a redesign coming which will be sportier and the 2.3L will become at 2.5L with photos at Edmunds.com. That means btw about 30hp more for the 2009 model.

Mazdas247.com seems to be the place that Mazda types hang out.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Went to a Swedish Glögg party. It is red wine, vodka, cinnamon sticks, clove and sugar. There are almonds and raisins fit in. Here is a recipe from ling.su.se"

The iphone hackers have this great over the air installer called Installer.app or the Apptapp installer. I'm always looking for new iPhone apps, the latest and greatest apepars on http://modmyifone.com/installer.xml, type that into the Sources/Edit/Add screen...

Bob told me about Focus Magic uses forensic tools to recover sharper images. There is a demonstration but apparently works better than the traditional unsharp mask tools.

He also told me about DxO which works great to correct distortion, although the new version 5 is apparently very buggy, so you might want to stick with v4.51 for now. It works well to get rid of distortion.

Photomatix is an HDR package. You take a bunch of bracketed shots and combine them together to get really great color definition. According to Popular Photo its the most popular standalone program. Popphoto.com has a tutorial that covers how to do it with both Photomatix ($99) and CS2 ($650).

The other ones to try are Dynamic Photo HDR, the same folks who make DVDLab which is the DVD authoring software I've used for a long time. Out of the mainstream but nice. Also both Photoshop CS 2 and CS 3 have HDR creation as well, but somehow I seem to find the easier standalone programs better and simpler than Photoshop which is so complicated.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Seattle used to be pretty baron of great places to eat, but now the number of new trendy restaurants is getting hard to keep track of. Beside Lark which just won Best Chef in the Northwest from James Beard, there is also Purple in downtown which has great cheeses and lunches. Last night, thanks to Mary we checked out Crow. As the review says, the chicken was terrific as was the mussels and the Mediterranean plate. Its a little hard to get to when the Sonics and the Nutcracker are both in town, but worth it. On the lower side of Queen Anne.

Powered by ScribeFire.

I saw a piece on the smallest remote control helicopter in the world, but couldn't find it. Quite a journey, but it looks like there is an entire world of enthusiasts for remote control stuff. Helicopters are cool because in our world of lots of rain, they are way more practical.

Piccolo

• RCGroups.com is the place to look for information on remote control stuff and a huge group on so called Micro Helis and even a very extensive FAQ at swashplate.co.uk that has a good web version. They have good recommendations for getting one.
• The Corona ahd ECO Piccolo come out on top. All things are relative, but at $270 from Helihobby.com I wouldn't call it a kids toy.

Picoo Z

For fun, the hot model is the Picoo Z which is caled the Air Hogs Havoc Hell in North America or Honey Bee in Japan. It is made by Silverlit Toys of Hong Kong and distributed by SpinMaster in the US. There is a clone at Hobbytron which is just $56 for three of them, so quite a bit cheaper :-) but has terrible online reviews so I probably wouldn't order from them.

There is even a whole modders community devote to this little helicopter which is pretty amazing. They are a little hard to find, but Amazon has folks with them. Toysrus.com also has them for $20 and for $83, they have a set that can work together that include a little laser transmitter.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Got this game on a whim. It is actually pretty fun and even somewhat realistic. There are of course lots of sites that cover it and the strategies. The 2004 version as http://www.morrisongames.com/ explains had lots of rules changes. The main thing though is to figure out what strategies work.

There are lots of strategies that don't make much sense in the real world, but work for this game for instance, German is heavily weighted to getting the first run right. The main thing suggested is to invest heavily in rocket and bombers in the first game because rockets let you take lots of points. Also to attack the African areas quite a bit and to blitz against Russia to slow them down so here's a good summary:

1. Get rockets. Basically in this game, rockets take away money from everyone and Germany is surrounded so it can hit both the UK and Russia. Use three rolls to get a 50% chance you'll get them.
2. Get heavy bombers. They recommend not playing with heavy bombers because they really unbalance the game. They take twice the IPCs for every roll of the dice so once you get them, you can essentially win. This is because if you attack with just tanks, you might take the equivalent of 15 IPCs (three tank divisions), but a heavy bombers take way more than that.
3. Hold Western Europe. that is France mainly by building lots of infantry that you send east to hold against Russia
4. Get Africa. It has 11 IPCs (very unbalanced really) so you have to hold onto the German fleet there. You really want to take Egypt in turn one and then transport troops there from Italy.
5. Lots of fighters. You want them because they have good enough range to defend against Russia and UK.
6. Fight in Russia. Don't expect to win here, just grind on Russia so it doesn't attack Japan.

Most interesting thing is the recommendation to disallow technology improvements at all since they unbalance the game so much.

Finally there are many House Rules as in http://www.wargamer.com/axisandallies/original/houserules/house_rules.html that make the game more realistic. The most well developed at the MIT
Axis and Allies MIT House Rules and also a simulator that lets you play online even.

Remember that great video that almost everyone has seen in school showing zooming in and zooming out by 10 orders of magnitude, Calvin was wondering the same thing for computers. So here are some interesting facts:

1. Moore's Law. Its been going on for thirty years, but every 24 months, the number of transistors in a microprocessor has been doubling. That's some exponential. Wikipedia's's_law description is actually better and more complete.
2. Kryder's Law. A related idea is that the capacity of a hard disk drive increases doubles every 24 months. Actually the rate is increasing right now, as opposed to Moore's which is predicted to end in a decade.
3. "Butler's Law" says that the bandwidth of a fiber optic cable doubles every 9 months which is simply amazing and explains why the Internet is so cheap and pervasive.

Finally, although it can't go on forever, the actual growth of Internet users sure looks like an exponentials as Internet World Stats shows.

Internet Systems Consortium does show the number of domain names, a measure of how big the web is can grow exponentially and they have a history to prove it.

After reading reviews from gpsreview.net, I finally caved and got an el cheapo $300 GPS for our old Volvo. It cost about $3000 for the DVD Navigation unit in new cars, so its interesting to see how good the add-on products are. I have to say I'm amazed. The thing really is not much a kludge. The biggest thing is that it has a Lithium Ion battery that last five hours so you don't necessarily need an ugly cable connected to your cigarette lighter (12V car outlet for the politically correct). And it includes an FM transmitter in the unit, so you can play right to your speakers.

The other great thing I hadn't appreciated is that the SD card let's you use it like an iPod. That doesn't sound so cool until I actually tried it. The user interface is terrific and it is nice not to have to always plug in my iPod all the time.

The user interface is actually pretty good and easy to use. The only gripes I have is that the actual software part isn't super clear. Basically, the newest software client is TomTom Home 2.1 and it is only available on Windows. Mac just has 1.6. You need 2.1, because you get what are called TomTom updates, so rather than having to subscribe to really expensive GPS updates, they are creating a community that corrects POI. You get updates from the community, so for instance, the thing started up not knowing where any of the Starbucks but you load the "Latest Map guarantee" and move from version 7.05 to 7.1 and suddenly you know where to get your coffee.

There seems to be a pretty good community of folks who know how to hack it at Tomtomforums.com. The main question right now is when does voice input work. Some say firmware 7.221 allow it in the US. TomTom is a European company so for instance, they have traffic data in Europe that requires a separate device called a TMC in the US. Voice input works in the UK, but not US or Australia. Apparently, there is a fix where you:

Create a text file support_asr.dat and just put 1 in the file. Then copy it to the ASR directory on your TomTom internal drive. It will enable the icon to allow you to input address. However, you may need to have the North_America map v7.10 to be able to input City and street though voice. I can only input street number before I upgraded to v7.10.

On the other hand, their Mandarin chinese voice output works great :-)

Powered by ScribeFire.

One of the truly cool things about iPhone applications (assuming you have a jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch) is that the user community is amazing. Most folks now use Apptapp which downloads applications over the internet automatically for you. You get Apptapp pretty much automatically if you use jailbreakme.com for 1.1.1 firmware.

They include a bunch of what are called community sources, but if you want the list of lots and lots of other things, you have to add them manually to apptapp. Modmyifone.com has a great Wiki for these various repositories that are the three official ones:

AppTapp Official: repository.apptapp.com
Conceited Software: conceitedsoftware.com/iphone
Ste Packaging: psmxy.org/iphone-apps

Original Three rogue sourdes that started it all

HighTymes: hightymes.org/iphone/index.xml
iSwitcher: web.mac.com/iswitcher2/list.xml
Loring Studios: loringstudios.com/iPhone-schnapps/index.xml

All of The Others that I haven't had a chance to try yet

AlohaSoft Graphics: http://homepage.mac.com/reinholdpenner/alohasoft.xml
iApp-a-Day: iappaday.com/install
MTL Repository: home.mike.tl/iphone
Studded.net: studded.net/installer/index.xml
Swell: lyndellwiggins.com/Swell.xml

Powered by ScribeFire.

Got a great note from Bruce about getting up to Whistler. Some I knew and some that are really useful:

Take the long way around as you can see with Borderlineups.com there are four border crossings to take. Most folks take the Peach Arch which is the most crowded. The next is the so called Pacific Border crossing which is know as the commercial crossing. Rather than go straight through the Blaine border crossing, take the Aldengrove/Lynden crossing as the wait times can be much shorter. As an example right now the delay iw 30 minutes at the Blaine WA but there is no delay Aldergrove. You then go the long way around. You really need to constantly check wap.gc.ca or www.gc.ca o see the real time wait times through your phone. Use the WAP portal if you have a less advanced phone like a RAZR or use the full web site for XHTML if you have an iPhone or a Blackberr but the drawback is that it doesn't have the Aldergrove wait time so you use Borderlineups.com to look at the actual webcam. From the Lynden/Aldergrove crossing, you then wend your way on Canadian Route 1 through and miss some of the traffic.

One important thing is good places to grab a bite. Going up to Sun Peaks, we made the Stanford's restaurant as a mandatory stop, but there are more things on Route 1:

1. Westview Oriental (westvieworiental.com) - Good Chinese, including pretty extensive dim sum from a menu, with friendly service, in a shopping centre just north of Rt 1 (exit 17) in North Vancouver. There's also a decent, friendly little sushi place in that same center.
2. East No. 1 Seafood Restaurant, upstairs in the big shopping center at302-2800 East 1st Ave @ East Kaslo, East Vancouver (exit 27 & go west) - Good dim sum.
3. La Casa Gelato (lacasagelato.com) - 218 flavors (flavours) at a time rotating from a much larger selection!!! 1033
   Venables @ Raymur, a couple of miles west of Rt. 1 in between exits 26 and 27.

Finally if you are renting up there, try Alluradirect.com. Good recommendations and the site puts you directly in touch with condo owners. Some folks like Whistler Village because it is central, but it is also major party time, so be a sound sleeper if you stay there as the party goes on forever.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Well it did snow here in Seattle. An amazing day. A camera's normally miraculous autoexposure system can be confused by snow. As Luminous-Landscape.com explains, the camera is set to see the world as 18% grey, so if the world is much more white (e.g., snow), it will tend to underexpose to get back to that grey and if it see black (e.g., a night time shot), it will tend to overexpose to get to the grey. So, the solution is:

When there is lots of snow, overexpose by 1.5 to 2 stops. You can do this by either opening up the lense or decreasing shutter speed. Modern dSLRs make this simple with an Exposure adjustment, just set it to 1.5 to 2 stops to the right for a Canon and 1.5-2 stops to the left for a Nikon (the two camera makers reserves the sense of their adjustments).

Same with night scenes, if you have one, you want to underexpose as About.com explains and blackphoto.com provides a good tutorial but the net is normally I don't change the autoexposure system since you want the camera to overexposure, that is bring out the light that is in the scene. Otherwise, if you really want it to look dark, then you want to set it to underexpose by 1-2 EVs.

Powered by ScribeFire.