Tongfamily Website

I sometimes really hate the initiative process. So many things to do, yet voting is also important and this is a big one given the big regional transportation bill (we have to get out of gridlock). It is amazingly hard to find endorsements or any definitives. I used to have the Seattle Weekly but since it got folded into mega-alternative paper, it is hard to find endorsements. So I’m back to the “Seattle Times”:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/ for a least a first cut. The Seattle Times has the worst search engine searching in the world, so after 20 minutes, you can finally find its “Seattle Times endorsements”:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2003967837_electlist23.html in the Opinions section not the politics section. The “Post Intelligencer”:http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/elections/endorsements2007.asp
makes it easy to find their endorsements.

With the Canadian dollar actually above the US dollar, going to Whistler has gone from being really cheap to going to London. The fate of those with lots of American dollars I fear. One way to save is the “EDGE”:http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/winter/index.htm?crmcontact=4875060&crmevar=EM_CRM_WB_PFC_05_E3_071031 card which gives you some discount. The 1 day ski rate is a whopping $70 at Whistler, $57 online. If you guy 5 days online, then it drops to $56 per day on the early bird rate. That is buy by November 19th.

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Well, I’ve had three really powerful bike lights over the last couple of years. First the Light & Motion Cabeza which was lightweight but too dim really. Then after getting hit by a car, I went whole hog and got two HID (high intensity discharge) systems one for the handle bars and the other for the helmet. They are 85 watts and literally brighter than the sun (technically 650 lumens). But, they use really heavy NiMH batteries and the whole kit weights 2 pounds per system. And now all the batteries either failed to hold charge or in another case, the case cracked. Also I’ve been using Xenon strobe flashers for backup. Again, these are getting old and have either disintegrated or cracked. Plus all of these only last about two hours or so. So what’s the solution now? LEDs.

“Mountain Bike Reviews”:http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Lights/index_byrating.shtml has probably the best list of bike light reviews. As a calibration, the Light & Motion ARC has 125 rteviews and is top rated. They like the Stella but it is still new.

With high intensity LEDs, you get very bright (180 lumens) and long run times (5-6 hours) and very light weight (1/2 a pound). For instance “Light & Motion”:http://bikelights.com make the Stella 180-N. “Competitive Cyclist”:http://www.competitivecyclist.com/mountain-bikes/review-lights/Light—Motion-Stella-180-N-Light.222.html has a glowing review of it and it is just $199 from “Beyond Bikes”:http://beyondbikes.com/ or you can go to the REI.

Also, for my existing perfectly good HID system, you can get a replacement NiMH battery for $180 at the same place. Quite a choice. Get a whole lighting system for the same price as the battery. Plus the battery weighs more than a whole bike assembly. OTOH, there is nothing quite like a system that pumps out 650 lumens (or more than 2.5x the LED).

For rear flashers and side flashers, Xenon was great but ate batteries for breakfast even with rechargeables. Now you can get the “Blackburn Mars 3.0″:http://beyondbikes.com/BB/Items.asp?Cc=AC%2DLIG%2DBlackbur with seven LEDs and a 150 hour run time for $12 and “MTBR.com”:http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Lights/product_125385.shtml shows it is popular with 27 reviews and highly rated 4.45 out of 5.

As an amazing aside, someone has actually reviewed Flashlights at “Flashlightreviews.com”:http://flashlightreviews.com. It is now defunct, but still useful. Amazing what people will do.

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“Engadget”:http://engadget.com points out that “Ars Technica”:http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/ has a great review of Leopard. I’m inclined to agree. Great analysis of the user interface and the move to gratuitous but highly demoable features like “transparency in Aero”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero and I hadn’t realized that Apple’s user interface guidelines were so out of date, there is actually a “wiki”:http://indieHIG.com which adds to it.

His discussion of “kernel”:http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/5 improvements makes me wish I still had a simple job just working on the guts of computers. BAsically his main point is that operating system benchmarks aren’t the point, but having great applications performance is what matters, so Leopard kernel focuses quite a bit on scheduling so applications are responsive. The main amazing thing is the source for the kernel is available for developers to look at and it looks like and is Unix. How cool is that. They can add open source features as needed like dtrace which is a really powerful debugging tool for instance. In many ways, by the move to Unix, they are on a very large development platform with many other folks.

Finally at “folklore.org”:http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt there’s a wonderful story about how round rectangles are everywhere because of Steve Jobs and of all things, the Lisa. [Plus this great factoid that the sum of any set of odd numbers is a perfect square, how cool is that!).

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Finally got around to going through clippings, here are some from Macworld:

* “Imagewell”:http://xtralean.com is a nice photo resizer. A little faster than the 30 seconds it takes to boot up Photoshop CS2

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It is rebate time in the camera world, so if you want to get something now is a great time:

* “Canon”:http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=PromotionsAct has rebates and most shops like “Canoga”:http://www.canogacamera.com/ and “B&H”:http://bhphotovideo.com are including instant rebates. These work better than mailing something into Canon and praying. Actually I’ve had great luck with Canon rebates and terrible luck with Nikon, but YMMV (your mileage may vary
* “Gitzo”:http://www.canogacamera.com/promotions.aspx. These are some of the best tripods I’ve ever used. I have two now. Through Halloween, Canoga has a 10% off on their Tripods, and they seem to have a continuing set of promotions, so check their promotion page
* “Kgear”:http://kgear.com/sale/. This is another short promotion from November 1-7, but for orders of $200 or less a 10% discount, 200-400 a 15% and more than 20% $400 plus free shipping. These are the best bags in the world IMHO. Like the “Y315″:http://www.kgear.com/y/#y315, “BG-4302″:http://www.kgear.com/bGear/SoftGoods/index.html stuff sack that is waterproof, “E280″:http://www.kgear.com/e/E280.html long lense pouch, “Y305″:http://www.kgear.com/y/#y305 compression strap to stabilize big loads like the long lense case, “N950″:http://www.kgear.com/n/ rain cover for the entire belt,

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For some reason my home directory just went completely invisible. You can’t see it in /Users. The Mac OS X has no way to change this from the user interface, so you have to use a third party utility to turn it on. The cheapest and easiest solutions are:

* “X Code”:http://apple.com. Use the command line interface of Apple’s development tools to turn it on.
* “Parallels”. This is the Windows on Mac software. Turns out that if you need this anyway, you can just use the Windows explorer to turn on invisible things. Called Hidden in Windows. So use Windows explorer and choose Tools/Options show Hidden files and then right click on the files and unclick Hidden.
* “Invisible”. This is a utility that is shareware that lets you see what is invisible. You then use FileBuddy to turn the bit on and off. It does cost money thought.

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Calvin says they are studying the first Americans that crossed the land bridge in about 11,000 BC according to “Sangres.com”:http://www.sangres.com/history/firstamericans.htm. They used a spear and a sprear throwing stick called “atlatl”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlatl. The bow and arrow didn’t show up until 1,200 years ago.

They hunted probably “mammoths” (and not mastodons which are older relatives apparently but lived contemporaneously during the last ice age).

There is of course some controversy as to whether they were the first people. “Reuters”:http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN2242177320070223 reports that some think the first folks here were here 15-25,000 years ago.

“Modmyiphone”:http://modmyiphone.com has figured out how to downgrade to 1.0.2 and then upgrade it. There are four steps, but the documentation is at least clear:

# “Downgrade 1.0.2 Baseband”:http://www.modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/Downgrade_1.0.2_baseband_OS_X_iPhone by loading a package of software called Virginize. You then use sftp to copy to your phone over wifi with a freeware utility called Cyberduck
# “Upgrade 1.0.2 to 1.1.1″:http://modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/Upgrading_1.0.2_iPhone_to_1.1.1 by using the latest 1.25 release of iNdependence to open up the software and then use iTunes to upgrade to 1.1.1
# “Activate and jailbreak 1.1.1″:http://modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/Preparing_to_mod_1.1.1_iPhone by using Independence to Activate it (so you can use your phone to make calls) and Jailbreak (so you can install applications and junk on your phone freely). Finally you install ssh, sftp and scp so you can control the phone over Wifi
# “Unlock 1.1.1″:http://modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/Unlocking_the_1.1.1_iPhone_anySIM so you can use a non-AT&T Sim with your phone by loading anySIM on your phone with Independence and then run anySIM

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Arrgh. Why is color management so complicated. Finally figured it out for the Canon i9900, now it has changed for the later Canon Pro9000. It is complicated and there is no documentation. Fortunately, the bright souls at “Photography-on-the.net”:http://photography-on-the.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-29530.html have figure it out. The key thing is that there is actually a guide that they don’t post on make findable on the Canon site but “Renard”:http://homepage.mac.com/renard/ls/Canon_ICC_Profile_Guide.pdf has hosted it. Great reading for the inscrutable ICC profiles and such.

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