David McNett (Nugget)

I'll be in NYC from the 20th through the 28th, setting up FlightAware's New York office. My schedule looks to be organic and reactionary, mostly arranged around the various delivery and telco install dates that we've lined up. I'm definitely up for drinks and shenanigans with all my local peeps. Let me know your schedules and what nights work best for you.

It sounds like I miss ivo at EWR by about an hour on Tuesday, too. Pity.

Was lots of this:


Concluded by this.

(Crosspost from nucleartacos)

Just a reminder, we're having our super-special ODD edition nuclear tacos and non-nuclear grillables at my place tonight. Show up any time after six, but we probably won't start cooking until eight or so.

directions here for anyone who hasn't been to my place. All are welcome.

equiraptor and I skipped out on the world for a few hours during lunch today and headed south of town to check out Harris Hill Road, a new track that's about to open. H2R (as they like to call it) will be an enthusiast-built, privately-owned motor sports park -- a 1.8 mile road course track for eating up tires and wasting prodigious amounts of gasoline.

The finished up all their asphalt work earlier this year and have started opening up the track to small groups and prospective members. I've been considering joining the track as a member and have been trying to find a good time to schedule a visit. At the last minute we sort of realized that today was that day.

We headed down around 11am and I finally got a chance to meet Bo and Eric, the track owners, face-to-face for the first time. We'd been exchanging emails for over a month but had never managed to meet. We hadn't been there 5 minutes and Eric managed to goad us out on the track for some hot laps. We spent 95% of our time driving -- it was great.

The track is fully paved but there's no barriers, no lines painted, and the buildings are just framed in so far. Still very much a work in progress. But -- of course -- the track is drivable. You know how when you move your computer is the last thing you shut down and the first thing you set up at the new place? Well car geeks are that way but with their cars. I'm pretty sure they were more interested in getting the track to a drivable condition than they were with getting port-a-potties set up.

So the driving experience is a bit rough -- there's pointer cones but no lines, no good track edge visual indicators, and the surrounding terrain is in so much flux that there's not much in the way of visual landmarks you can use to set your braking and turn-in points. Still -- it's a blast. And the surface is pristine.

We were in my car, on my street tires. It was equiraptor's first time tracking my car, in fact. We got a good 20 laps each, in both directions. I got some rough video, but the camera setup was plagued with technical problems so the quality isn't what I'd hoped. It'll work much better with the top down and with some better placement of the battery packs. Overall, though, the concept of multi-camera video was a success. I got both bumper and cabin cam stitched together.

Bottom line -- I'm hooked. We're going to join and I'm going to learn that track. It's so much less of a hassle to have a track right here in town instead of driving halfway across texas to TWS or Motorsport Ranch to get in some good track time. decibel45, you'll have to join us next time. It's a great NSX track. :)

Equi posted her thoughts in her journal as well.

The latest in my mod_rewrite repertoire, for a farker who linked to my feature.jpeg pic:



Sadly the thread where it's employed is TotalFark and I'm a cheapskate so I can't see it.

Following in the tradition of the Gulfstream pilots who wrote GV over several states, Cessna pilots draw the outline of an aircraft over 7 states flying a Citation X. It's adorable:



(previously...)

You know you want tacos...

Monday night, 6PM. The usual tent.

Choose your social networking pill:
nucleartacos · Upcoming · Facebook

Just a single data point so you can't plot a curve or anything, but...

Texas Precinct 334 (Northwest Austin) Caucus results: 31% Clinton, 69% Obama.

The caucus process was really interesting and I'm very glad I participated. This is the first primary I've ever participated in (mostly because it's the first time I've ever lived somewhere that held a primary that mattered) and it was pretty cool.

I'll be a delegate at the Travis County Democratic convention.

I'm totally going to buy this book. It's like Tufte meets xkcd.

MLP courtesy the big picture (link with excerpts from book)

We're Hiring...

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/mar/578234816.html

Five minutes for your heart and twenty minutes for your head.

Edit, post-Tuesday: Here's the bottom line.

Lots of people asked me to remind them and pester them the next time a Driver's Edge TWS track even came up, and the next one is scheduled and open for registration. Register online for the March 1-2 event in College Station at Texas World Speedway. They're at 25% capacity now, and it filled up fast last time, so don't slack.

It's more fun than you can imagine. Just do it. Really. For a refresher on my thoughts as we got back from the last event in November, I posted about it here on LJ and gushed all about it.

Based on everyone's interest level I think we're well-positioned to have a large group of cows attending this event, which should really amplify the fun we're all able to have. Plus if you haven't met Karl in real life yet you'll get a chance to discover that he really does exist!

Register. You know you want to.

Holy shit, this is just unbelievably cool. Craig Mitchell has dropped back on to the face of the earth recently and promises to finish writing the epic novella "She Hates My Futon." The old myboot site is back online under a new domain famousboot.com. If you didn't catch this thing the first time around then pull up a chair and start reading. It's great stuff...

Seriously, this and that story about the junk cheque guy are two things that nobody on the internet should miss.

Chapter 1: Futons

I picked up a copy of the St. Louis Gutterfrump Times at the restaurant where I had lunch today.

It’s an arts and entertainment rag, comes out once a week. You know, a little politics - but not too much, movie listings and that sort of stuff. Usually I just check out the local music section, read a few futon ads and pitch the thing into a corner of my apartment where it sits for a couple of months until I finally get around to pitching it.

The ads are really the best part. Fly Helicopters, lessons start at $79. The Best in Leather-Rubber-Vinyl. Uncle Timmy’s Boudoir. Sounds Right. Custom Car and Audio Store. Great name for a store, huh? This stereo, it sounds right, it works and it’s probably not stolen. It sounds right and it might even be brand new.

The issue was just brimming with ads for cheap futons and I couldn’t resist turning its newsprint-scummy pages. Futon Paradise Ltd… Futons your girlfriend will hate… Really, really cheaply made Futons… Modern Futons…. Futons that sit so close to the floor that you feel like you’re sleeping on the floor. As per tradition I was about to chuck it in the corner when I noticed a completely different kind of ad nestled between the ones for speed reading classes and the “Abs-master.”

“Girlfriend-Express,’ it read. “We’ll find you Ms. Right.”

They were offering to find me a girlfriend for $19.95. I wondered how they could even make such promises. Why does the Better Business Bureau let someone operate such a scam? Why would the Gutterfrump Times even accept their ad? I thoroughly scanned for the catch. I had no doubt that one was lurking somewhere.

The phone number was a local call. Not a 1-800 number. Not a 1-900 number. Nothing that said $5.95 per minute - just one price. I noted that it even had the same first three digits as my own number.

I made the call.

2007: Seven Things We Should Pretend Never Happened.

For your friend who has everything... now available at amazon.com:

Uranium Ore

Product Description
Radioactive sample of uranium ore. Useful for testing Geiger Counters. License exempt. Uranium ore sample sizes vary. Shipped in labeled metal container as shown. Shipping Information: We are always in compliance with Section 13 from part 40 of the NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules and regulations and Postal Service regulations specified in 49 CFR 173.421 for activity limits of low level radioactive materials. Item will be shipped in accordance with Postal Service activity limits specified in Publication 52. Radioactive minerals are for educational and scientific use only.

I think what I like best is the customer feedback:

"I bought a can of this about 4.5 billion years ago, give or take a few million years, but when I went to use it today I noticed only half of it was still in the can. I swear I put the lid on tight. I'd give it more stars if it came in a better package." - Jimbo Jones (Chicago)

"Does any one know if this comes on the 3 oz travel size that is TSA approved? " - Rebecca (Seattle)

. . .Tufte is God.

Today karl and I attended Edward Tufte's one-day course on presenting data and information. It was tremendously valuable. His talk was compelling and engaging and I think we both left with some tangible and substantive ideas for improving FlightAware and with a much better appreciation for the topics covered in Tufte's excellent books.

It takes a special sort of speaker to get me motivated and inspired by statistics.

He'll be in Austin next Monday and Tuesday. If you can make time I highly recommend the course.

A rose by any other name might not smell so sweet.

It's never an encouraging sign when the Doctor's parting shot is: "Oh, and be sure to call and let us know if the antibiotic kills you."

This might push back my Houston time a few days if I still feel like crud on Monday.

Tomorrow I will have had my new car for nine months. In that time I've had it out on the autocross course four times (I think) and I've been quite happy with how it performs. Despite being heavier than the ///M was, it's infinitely more communicative which means it's much more rewarding to drive in a "brake and steer" environment like an autocross. Still -- it's no MX-5 and I've been teasing Monica that we'd just have to do a track event eventually so we'd finally be in a venue where my car was designed to be competitive.

( This past weekend we finally did just that and it was everything I could have hoped for )

Edit -- just to make Doppler cringe: I got 9.6 MPG over the weekend. Single-digit!

Attention old dude who lives in my neighborhood:

Strapping a motor to the bottom of your skateboard has not extended its useful life. What it actually does is make you look even more ridiculous than you'd otherwise look on a normal skateboard. I know it's hard to imagine something more ridiculous than your chunky ass in khaki pants skateboarding through the neighborhood but I look out my window and there you are pulling it off. I've seen you out there about a dozen times over the past month but today I had the window open and got to hear the goofy whirrrrrrrrrr of the motor and believe me the sound effects really complete the whole ensemble.

Warmly,

Nugget.


P.S. You're not invited to taco night tonight at my place but everyone else reading this letter is.