repak shawahb
a.k.a. gorgeous gergis

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rsw@jfet.org


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Wed, 30 Nov 2005

skillz

This video is hot as hell.

Executive summary: the Nürburgring Nordschleife is one of the most fearsome racetracks in the world. Many people would kill for the chance at a few laps, and some are even lucky enough to get them. One such person is one of the guys from the BBC2's show Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson. After taking lessons from a professional and practicing like a bastard, he barely manages to break a 10 minute lap. Upon announcing this accomplishment to his instructor, she (yes, she—how hot is that?) replies "ten minutes? I could do that in a van."

This woman has done about 15000 laps around the Nürburgring—now including two in a diesel-powered Ford Transit. Note that a 10 minute lap time equates to an average of 80 MPH.

Edit: another link.


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he's got the sickness

Yeah, yeah, I just can't leave well enough alone. I promised myself that I wouldn't make any power mods to Dagny until after she hits 10k miles, then promptly found a loophole—suspension and drivetrain don't count.

By the end of the week she'll be sporting a brand new KartBoy short shifter. Suspension will have to wait until I get more time, but springs, hats, sway bars, and end links are all happening eventually.

The sickness is here, and in full force. Nothing appeals to me like the intersection between tinkering and optimization.


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Sun, 27 Nov 2005

didn't ask for a fuckin' travelogue

Nothing major happened on the way back, but there were two minor incidents of note.

  • I was stopped in Wichita for going 80 in a 70, but he only gave me a warning and made fun of me for trusting my radar detector too much ("just slow down and stop payin' attention to that thing!").
  • In Missouri I saw a pretty bizarre scene: a truck hauling bales of hay had caught fire and was parked on the side of the road. Fire and police crews were just arriving as I drove past. I don't think anyone was hurt, which makes me feel OK saying that it looked pretty damn cool.


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Sat, 26 Nov 2005

positive flux

Scott (one of my best friends from high school, and sadly one of the few with whom I'm still in contact, though even in his case somewhat rarely) and I watched the Aeon Flux box set in its entirety last night: ten episodes, four shorts, and the pilot. Damn, but that show ruled.

The box set saw a substantial amount of rework. It's been fully color corrected, sharpened, and, in certain parts, recut and even revoiced. I don't have a list yet of the differences between the original cuts and this "director's cut," but I'm sure someone more knowledgeable in the ways of Flux will put up a list somewhere. Maybe I'll even link to it.

The verdict is a strong yes on this box set—super excerrent; two thumbs up, fine holiday fun.


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Thu, 24 Nov 2005

happy Thanksgiving!

I haven't slept since 6a Wednesday. This is what I call a throwback T-day.

The Aeon Flux DVDs arrived just as I was leaving my apartment yesterday; I'll watch them soon and let y'all know what I think.

Also, I drove my dad's new M3 convertible when I got home. Hot damn, that's a sweet little car. The two features which most assert themselves upon your senses are the incredible feel of the brakes and the absolutely silky smooth Getrag six. If it were me, I'd have gone for the coupe—I hate convertibles—but the point is somewhat moot given that neither could unseat Dagny as the automotive queen of my heart.


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Wed, 23 Nov 2005

someday...

...I'll synthesize one of these and use it for something hot.

Also, I think it would be badass to build a discrete, fully-analog OPL3 synthesizer. I might just have to do it. If you think that's dumb, check this out.


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talk about lilly friggin white

Holy crap. My high school is as crackerass as they come.


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don't pick up hitchhikers?

My mother called me yesterday because a friend of hers has a niece in Austin whose family still lives in Fort Dodge (Algona, actually). Would it be OK, she asked, if Nicole hitched a ride with me to Fort Dodge? Hell, why not—company is (almost) always welcome on a 14-hour car ride, and how can one refuse someone a chance to see their family on Thanksgiving when there's room in the car?

It is kind of weird to drive across the country with someone you've never met before, though. Here's hoping she's not psycho.


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Mon, 21 Nov 2005

frustration is...

...successfully debugging everyone's problem but your own.

There have been several breakthroughs with the chip thus far, and pretty much all of them have been as a result of some suggestion I made—"try it without the choppers," or "move the common-mode around," or whatever.

No one has come forward with any brilliant ideas regarding the gain error in my beloved monitor ADC. The precision is there, but some strangeness is causing channel-to-channel variation in the gain (to the tune of a couple percent). Fuckin' shit.

Here. Y'all read this and tell me what I'm doing wrong.


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Sun, 20 Nov 2005

don't know my own strength

Last night doing a brake job I managed to tear apart a Craftsman 16mm 6-point socket. I didn't think such things ever happened, but now I have proof. I'll definitely take a picture before I exercise my lifetime warranty (thank you, Sears!) and get me a new one.


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Thu, 17 Nov 2005

magic smoke mirage

Sweet. I'm officially attending CES in January. Unlike some *cough Woz cough* my employer isn't sending me, so in addition to attending the show I'll probably be relocated to the basement and asked to take care of the roach problem, but screw it. Given that in previous years I've bowed towards Las Vegas five times a day over a certain weekend in January, I'll be way too embroiled in the hotness to notice the rats gnawing at my toes while I sleep.


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whoa, good

No need to comment; I know I'm a l00zer for appreciating this.

Edit: the original link went down, but here's another one. This also answers the question "who rendered this?" since it's apparently an easter egg on the Revenge of the Sith DVD.


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Wed, 16 Nov 2005

money laundering

I spent my morning laundering drug money.

OK, not really. What I did was sold my Camaro to a guy from Louisiana who drove up with a flatbed and drove her off—after paying me in cash.

I then went to the bank and deposited said cash, whereupon several forms were produced, identification checked, various documents stamped, identification rechecked, money counted, amount noted, surreptitious glances exchanged between clerk and manager, and finally I was given a deposit slip and sent on my merry way.

That is without a doubt the largest amount of cash I have ever handled. All I can say is, transactions that "sanitize" the process (electronic banking, credit cards, &c) do not do proper justice to our great instrument of commerce—there's nothing quite like holding a fat stack of cash in your hands. I recommend you sell a car in cash some day—it's breathtaking.


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Mon, 14 Nov 2005

milking the system

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I finally got my ass in gear and went about abusing my position at SiLabs in order to get free shit. In particular, I got one of the development kits for the C8051F320 microcontroller on the cheap (free, really). Now I have to figure out what I want to do with it.

Y'all should totally start using these things (6.115, anyone?). They're really sweet.


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portability, here we come

The 300-MHz 2465 and 150-MHz 2445 represent the leading edge of technology, establishing higher standards in both value and performance for today's portable oscilloscopes. They enable faster and more precise measurements than ever before possible in a portable oscilloscope.

So reads the datasheet on the Tektronix 2465 scope. I just managed to pick one up off eBay for a cool $250—a damn good deal, even now, as most of them will go for upwards of $400. Woot.


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Sun, 13 Nov 2005

a cute trick

Marius showed me an interesting way of thinking about the input stage of the classic μA741 as designed by Dave Fullagar (not Bob Widlar, as many people think—he designed the first monolithic op-amp, the μA702).

The first picture to the right is a Widlar current mirror; as you'll remember, it's a feedback-biased mirror that copies the input current to the output current as shown. If we add a PNP transistor between the NPNs on the output side, we can crank on its base in order to change the voltage on the input side, thought the current is unaffected. We can also modify it by splitting the upper NPN; assuming matched transistors, the current is split perfectly between the two outputs, since they share the same collector-emitter voltage.

If we combine the two modifications, what do we have? As we move the common-mode voltage on the two PNP transistors, we change the voltage on the input side, but don't change the way the current is shared. If, however, we apply a differential voltage, we change the way the current is shared between the two sides; add a mirror on top in the standard op-amp fashion and you get a pretty cute input stage.

Why would you do this? The transconductance of the input PNP diff pair actually adds with that of the NPNs; if you can only make (extremely shitty!) lateral PNPs, as was the case in Fairchild's process at the time, you get fucked either in the input stage or the output stage if you want to have any reasonable common-mode range. This lets you get around the biasing problem and the transconductance problem by using PNP inputs in the first stage without sacrificing Gm.

Note that I've drawn this flipped around—the schematics to the right are a sex-changed version of the real μA741 (also, they have a "helper" transistor, some degeneration, and offset nulling inputs for the turnaround diff pair).


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Sat, 12 Nov 2005

marvellous diction

I think that's what struck me the most about Good Night, and Good Luck—David Strathairn's amazing diction as Ed Murrow. That, and the observation that literally anyone could look cool if filmed in black-and-white while smoking a cigarette. Too bad they kill you.

GNGL is a quality movie—even Hippo might approve of it, after a fashion. It covers serious material, so don't go if you're looking for a lighthearted flick or date fodder, but do see it (on DVD, at the very least, as it doesn't get all that much from the big screen, but is good enough to be worth the money anyway).

Oh, I also caught a sneak of Just Friends on Thursday night. It's one of those painfully funny movies (main character gets shat upon something ferocious) on completely trite subject material, but I still laughed a whole lot. I rate it a must-rent-and-get-drunk—two beers up.


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Thu, 10 Nov 2005

xcircuit, Xorg, and NVidia GLX

In case you're wondering, Xcircuit now supports OpenGL (though I don't know why it's really necessary, as such...). If you want to get it working with a machine that's using Xorg and the NVidia GLX drivers, you'll have to go through some contortions, though. In particular, you'll need to link against libpthread and libXxf86vm, which can be accomplished by adding -lpthread -lXxf86vm to the configure script everywhere that either LIBS="-lGL" or LIBS="-lGLU" appears.

Also, how awesome is it that two Panthers cheerleaders were arrested for battery after getting into a fistfight with a woman who was yelling at them for fucking in a bathroom stall?


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Wed, 09 Nov 2005

in the court of the traffic king

I got a speeding ticket last week for doing 70 in a 55. Now, in Texas, you can plead no contest and take a defensive driving course once a year to nullify a ticket, but doing this sucks for a couple reasons: first, it costs $100 plus the course (another 50ish), and second, you have to actually spend six hours doing the fucking class.

Here's the beauty: there are a couple attorneys in town who specialize in traffic law. By that, I mean that when you get a ticket, you hire them and they make it disappear. I've used their services once before, when I got four simultaneous moving violations (80 in a 50, following too closely, failure to use turn signal, and passing unsafely). They just went away, and for less than a third of the cost of the ticket itself (not to mention the insurance rate hike and all that).

I believe you can actually have these guys on retainer if you'd like, and for a monthly fee, they'll take care of all the tickets you want.

Texas is kind of crazy.


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Sun, 06 Nov 2005

delaying the magic

Boston ruled, as expected. Also, as unexpected—but definitely ruled.

Now I'm dying of boredom in the Newark airport. Delayed flights can suck the root.


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Fri, 04 Nov 2005

thirsty thursday fallout, or stars and bruises in and around my eyes

Well, this week's Thirsty Thursday was a rousing success. The handles of Daniels (that almost rhymes...) and Cuervo seemed to go over well (though somehow I remained almost wholly unsuccessful at forcing the adoption of the Armadillo Sunrise—George and Ian tried it, but I noted that they didn't ask for seconds).

Also, I punched Radio after he threatened (empowered by vodka muscles) that if I did so he'd punch me back, and in the face. Apparently the man doesn't bluff when faced with vodka, 'cause I now have my very own little black eye. I'm kind of proud of him, actually...

I got up (after about 3.5 hours of sleep—when I called to ask for a wakeup call, the woman on the other end of the phone said "but that's less than three and a half hours from now! Is that enough sleep?"), showered, and headed to campus, where I'm now burning some time before the CICS review starts. So here I'm sitting when who but Paul Gray (of Gray and Searle, not Gray and Meyer) walks by. I stopped him to say hi, and while I'm pretty sure he didn't remember me from 6.002 back in 1999, it was still pretty cool.


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woot

That is all.


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