September 11, 2010
F1 Quals: Italy 2010
I have to admit that I didn't believe it when they said it, but the statistic was true. Let's look at the provisional grid for the Grand Prix of Italy:
Just what statistic is it that had me so flabbergasted? This is Ferrari's first pole in thirty races. Love them or, as I do, hate them, one can't take away from the Scuderia the fact that they really are one of the top teams in motorsports history, if not
the top team. One just assumes that, even in a down season, they'd've had a pole somewhere along the way. But no, the last time a Ferrari driver was the fastest at the end of a Q3 was Brazil, 2008. That's almost unbelievable.
Unfortunately, it had to come from HWMNBN. Ugh.
Team McLaren couldn't figure out whether to run the F-Duct system or not, so they split the difference. Lewis Hamilton decided to go the low downforce route and has the little tiny wing... and ended up fifth. Over half-a-second faster is his teammate, Jenson Button, who's got the blown rear wing, more downforce in the turns, and ended up second on the grid. Just as way of comparison, Button was nearly a second faster than HWMNBN through sector 2 which is where all the turns are, yet lost all that time and a smidge more through the fast parts of Monza. Button said in the post-quals presser that while the extra downforce is very handy, it also means that he has to run every lap in the race like it's qualifying, pushing both the car and himself the entire way around the track. If it were nearly anybody else, I'd think they'd be out of the race by the halfway point, either buried in a tire barrier or with a flaming lump where the engine had been, but Button is one of the smoothest drivers in F1.
That doesn't mean he's the best; his teammate is a better driver, Vettel is quicker, Massa is showing signs of his pre-injury form, Webber is darn good, and HWMNBN might be the best pilot in F1. Button, however, is practically gentle with his car, seeming to know exactly the best place to put his chariot to have it do what he wants it to do with the least amount of stress on the machine. That's a very useful talent to have, and one that should allow him to make the "push every lap" work. If it doesn't, he's almost certainly dead in the Driver's Championship.
Seb Vettel, the wunderkind of F1, on the other hand, hasn't a clue why he's starting sixth and admitted as much in the press conference. Despite having the same equipment and the same setup as his teammate Mark Webber, he's nearly 3 mph slower. The biggest problem, then, is that he has to attack, and attack hard right when the lights go out... which might lead to glory at the first turn, or lots of carbon fiber scattered across the chicane. This isn't a track that's suited to the Red Bull's strengths, so if he's not out in front, and quickly, he doesn't stand a chance without incidents occurring ahead of him.
Anybody seen Slappy Schumacher recently? He hasn't made it out of Q2 for six races running.... Speaking of streaks, I didn't realize that Toro Rosso's Seb Buemi is the only driver on the grid right now who has made it to Q2 in every race this season. He's never made it
out of Q2 of course, but that's still a pretty impressive stat: no mechanical failures, no penalties, nothing like that.
On the topic of penalties, Vitaly Petrov will be starting 20th after qualifying 15th. He was given a five grid-spot demotion for blocking Virgin Racing's Timo Glockenspiel early in Q1... and how embarrassing is that? You're penalized for holding up one of the slowest cars on the grid... meanwhile, your teammate has outqualified you for what seems like the 733rd time in a row. Eeeeesh. We do hear that the McDonald's in Irkutsk is hiring, so he's got that going for him, which is nice.
Timo Glockenspiel expresses his displeasure, disbelief, at being blocked by Petrov
Race is tomorrow morning, with the F1U! sometime thereafter! See you then, if Petrov doesn't get in our way.
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You Gotta Be A Football Hero...
Today was the first home game of the season for the Duck U Ducks, and we had a great turnout!
Unfortunately, the good guys lost to the bad guys, 31-21, but from all reports it was a lot closer than the score indicates.
But I was there way before anybody showed up, so as to get Duck U Bookstore signs up, so people knew we were going to be open. It's amazing just how different a football field feels when there's nobody around and the weather is... marginal.
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That ducky sure has a flat bottom. Definitely not a tight-end...
Posted by: Siergen at September 11, 2010 08:16 PM (jNqwY)
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Wide receiver then?
Posted by: Tony von Krag at September 11, 2010 09:14 PM (VGXAE)
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September 10, 2010
F1 Practice: Italy 2010
A bright sunny day at Monza brought with it the usual dull practice sessions. No big surprise there, of course. The real surprise occurred when I got a good look at the cars. What do I mean?
Well, consider this. A few days ago I mentioned that if the teams could get away with having no wings at all at Monza, they'd at least give it a try. That's because
La Pista Magica is such a high-speed circuit that any drag at all is a bad thing. Rear wings about as thin and flat as a sheet of paper are the norm, like this one on a Toro Rosso today:
Compare that to the rear wing used at Monaco, about as polar an opposite as can be found in F1:
Pretty substantial difference there. One's flat as board, the other is a friggin' barn door. It makes a difference, as Seb Buemi's Toro Rosso was fastest through the speed traps at a codswalloping 214mph. That'd be considered slow in the Indy Racing League, but they run on big, big ovals. On a road course, even one as "simple" as Monza, 214 is staggeringly fast.
But then some of the teams threw a monkey wrench into the situation. Take, for example, the McLaren of Jenson Button in First Practice:
Wait... what? That's a normal wing! At Monza? The hell? It must've been the slowest thing on the track with all that vertical stuff in the way, right? Nope, Button was the fastest in P1, and 5th in P2. It's that darn F-Duct system again, messing with our minds.
Earlier I said that there'd be little point to running the F-Duct at Monza, simply because there's so little wing involved, but it appears that the aerodynamic specialists in F1 are smarter than me. They realized, where I did not, that stalling the rear wing using the F-Duct serves the same purpose as having a small wing on the straights, while still allowing quite a bit of downforce in the turns. It's not quite as good as having no wing at all (like the Toro Rosso), at least on the fast bits, but when the car has to change direction it's a huge advantage.
Which explains why Button was 1st and Buemi 11th, even though the Toro Rosso was substantially faster through the speed trap. McLaren, Renault, Ferrari, Red Bull and even Sauber had the blown rear wing going, while the rest did not... and for the most part, it showed on the time sheets.
Formula 1: surprising ducks since 2004.
Quals tomorrow, but my coverage will be in the early evening, as the Duck U. football team takes to the gridiron for the first home game of the season and I've got to be at the store. See you then!
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September 09, 2010
Medical Question
Anybody out there ever have a hernia repaired? Someone I know has a bad one, and is going to have a surgery scheduled soon. I'd like to know more about the procedure, but not the usual wiki stuff...
Thanks in advance!
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I had an inguinal hernia repaired when I was 12 years old. Back then they didn't use endoscopic surgery, but the incision was pretty small nonetheless (I'd say just 4-5 inches, don't know exactly cause I'm metrical) and the cut was done in one of the natural wrinkles that form between the abdomen and the pubic area (the scar is almost invisble, and that's considering I have no gut). It was an ambulatory surgery, and I was sent to my house that same day (although I had to stay in bed for 3 days and out of school for a week).
It's a pretty simple procedure if the portion of the small intestine that's protruded into the pelvic cavity has suffered no traumatic damage. They just open up, put the small intestine back in its place and stitch the hole in the inguinal cavity that caused the hernia in the first place.
Mine was detected and repaired before there was any severe symptoms visible (just a little bulge, but no darkening or pain) but I understand that even in severe cases, the risk is low and the procedure is simple.
Posted by: Mauro at September 10, 2010 08:11 AM (k6tMR)
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I've had a couple of hernia repair jobs, one on each side. The first one was essentially as Mauro described his, except that the surgeon also placed some mesh in the area for further reinforcement. The second was done laparoscopically; the primary incision was in my navel with a secondary one a couple of inches away along the waist. In both cases, the hospital staff caused me more trauma than the surgery. I was home the day after both times and spent the next few days in bed. I did have to return to work four days after the second procedure, but I wasn't happy about it. It was about two weeks both times before the doctors said I could lift more than 20 pounds, and before I (very carefully) got on my bicycle again. I had a fair amount of mild to moderate pain in the groin after the laparoscopy, about which the surgeon didn't have much to say. It gradually faded over the course of a year.
Posted by: Don at September 10, 2010 04:52 PM (FYZAw)
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I've had an inguinal hernia repaired with mesh, which is far superior to the old-fashioned way. I've also had a belly-button hernia repaired without mesh, and it had to be re-repaired four years later. The (different) doc used mesh the second time, and also did it laparoscopically. You heal up a LOT faster that way (the first two surgeries I had were open.)
One thing to watch out for, which your friend's doctor will not tell him: you may experience numbness in the area the mesh was placed, due to the trauma of the surgery--where I had the inguinal surgery, I had a patch of skin maybe a couple of square inches where the sensory nerves were cut, and couldn't feel anything there except pressure. It took a couple of years for the nerves to completely regrow. By contrast, the laparoscopic surgery had a smaller numb area, and that healed a lot faster.
Posted by: RickC at September 11, 2010 09:15 AM (lbzph)
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September 08, 2010
WMSC Pats Ferrari On Head... Again.
The World MotorSports Council met today to rule on the case of Ferrari and their use of team orders at the Grand Prix of Germany. As you may remember, Felipe Massa was leading that race with his teammate HWMNBN trailing, when a radio call came from the guys on the pitlane: "Okay, (HWMNBN) is faster than you. Can you confirm that you understand that message?" Shortly thereafter, Massa did not accelerate coming out of a turn, allowing HWMNBN to blow into the lead and eventually take the victory.
Immediately after the race, the Race Stewards called Ferrari onto the carpet, fined them $100000, and sent the matter up to the WMSC for further sanctions. They had violated Articles 39.1 and 151.c of the Sporting Regulations, which states "
team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited" and "
any
fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any
competition, or to the interests of motorsport generally." Penalties could range from a fine, exclusion from the results of the race, a further race ban, to being booted from the championship, or anything in between in any combination.
The WMSC's ruling in this rather clear-cut case? They confirmed the Stewards' fine and decided not to take any further action in this case. They then went on to say that "
The Judging Body has also acknowledged that article 39.1 of the Sporting
Regulations should be reviewed and has decided to refer this question
to the Formula One Sporting Working Group."
In short, not only did Ferrari escape any noteworthy punishment (100 kilobucks is approximately 0.00025th of the Scuderia's annual budget... it's probably less than their team's windshield wiper allowance), but the WMSC may very well change the rule! Now, nobody denies that team orders exist in F1 despite the ban, but teams are usually much more circumspect in their breaking of the rules. Ferrari did their violating with a not-at-all subtle radio message for the entire world to hear, and Massa made sure everybody knew what had happened.
Understand, it's not like I'm
surprised by the decision in the least. After all, it's well known that "FIA" stands for "Ferrari International Assistance." I'm just sick and tired of their flagrant rules violations always being winked at... "oh, you naughty scamps. Run along and play now."
What will it take for the team to be actually penalized for an infraction?
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What will it take for the team to be actually penalized for an infraction?
For McLaren to do it.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 08, 2010 08:35 PM (+rSRq)
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Interesting report from AutoWeek http://www.autoweek.com/article/20100909/F1/100909869
I think Ferrari is losing the PR battle.
Posted by: Tony von Krag at September 09, 2010 06:01 PM (VGXAE)
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September 07, 2010
Rocket Girls Ep12: A Wrapup
Over three years ago, in the midst of one of my
occasional bouts of blog-self-loathing, I mentioned that I had some thoughts about the final episode of the show
Rocket Girls. Shortly thereafter, I forgot that I even mentioned it and away it went into the depths of the internet. Flash-forward to last week, when Pete Z won the fourth installment of the "Name This Mystery Ship" contest... which brings with it the winner's choice of a blog post.
His selection was for me to write up those thoughts on
Rocket Girls ep12.
To be honest, I had no idea what he was talking about. I found the post where I mentioned it the first time, and that jogged no memories. I had no idea what I was referring to! Still, a promise is a promise, so it was off to the show to watch ep12 again, see what sprang to mind.
By the end of it, I knew
exactly what I meant.
If you remember, JAXA's manned two-seat capsule, the
Mangosteen, had made rendezvous with NASA's space shuttle
Atlantis in an attempt to rescue a space probe destined for Pluto. The problem was that the probe had reached an orbit too high for either the shuttle or the capsule to reach individually. After an amazing kludge, however, the shuttle gave
Mangosteen enough of a boost so it could reach the probe, fix it, and send it on it's way. While unlikely, I could roll with that; it made for good story after all.
However, all is not well. Due to a data-entry mixup (ain't that always the way?), it turns out that the
Mangosteen won't be able to return to Earth without burning up during re-entry. Some quick thinking on the part of both NASA and JAXA gives our heroines, hot pilot Yukari and mission specialist Akane, one chance: a skip re-entry. This involves the capsule rebounding off the atmosphere a couple of times so as to slow down enough to come through okay. Okay, I can buy that... it's been done before. But there's a snag: there's a whole slew of numbers (Coordinates? Drag coefficients? Shoe sizes?) that are needed so's the capsule can perform the maneuvers correctly. One tiny mixup and poof, they're burned to a crisp... and the crew of the
Mangosteen traded away their pens to the NASA astronauts. No problem! Akane is a super-geeeeenius and can memorize any long sequence of numbers you care to throw at her. Okay, I can buy that, too.
Re-entry begins. The G-forces build. Akane, frail little flower that she is, passes out leaving hot pilot Yukari to just wing it. Soon enough, the stresses build enough to drop Yukari as well.
And this is where I began to get
really angry at
Rocket Girls.
more...
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Thanks, but you might want to read about Zond.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 08, 2010 08:01 AM (9KseV)
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Well...they, um....had a good safety margin built in.
(Pete does make a very good point regards Zond.)
For my own part I found the last half of the show rather unsatisfying largely because of Akane, who's inclusion in the team was unrealistic and disturbing given her demonstrated frailty.
The Pluto probe was not in any way worth dying for so I disagree that having the girls perish for it would have been a good ending. A greater goal (disarming a nuke in space, deflecting an asteroid perhaps) might have made that acceptable, but for me what would have been a better ending would have been if Akane, who in spite of her frailty
had been training quite vigorously and had demonstrated considerable determination, had actually held it together long enough to do the calculation.
In any event the show is an adaptation of the light novels (which continue on into space at least as far as the moon,) so there are limited liberties that could have been taken.
On balance, despite the problems you point out as well as others, I still like the show.
As I said in my review:
We live in an age when technology is often portrayed as an implacable
enemy of nature and humanity, when our young adults are coddled and
infantalized as "mere children" into their late 20s and where great
deeds, idealism and aspiration are looked upon with a mixture of
contempt and amusement.
With science and rationality portrayed as a
gateway to success, young adults who ARE adults, even in the most
terrifying circumstances, people of vision overcoming all manner of
obstacles to achieve their dreams, and a future where the sky itself is
no limit, Rocket Girls is a dynamic and enjoyable rejection of those contemptible pathologies.
...and Matsuri is hot.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at September 08, 2010 11:38 AM (EJaOX)
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Yes, I'm familiar (to a degree) with the Zond program, and I'm aware that some of them used the skip method of reentry. Maybe I didn't make myself clear:
I didn't have a problem with the skip reentry in the least. What I had a problem with was that hot pilot Yukari had to wing it once Akane went to sleep... and still got it right, despite being about to pass out herself.
THAT's where
Rocket Girls pissed me off.
Muppet, I don't disagree that the Pluto probe wasn't worth dying for... but they went ahead and did it anyway. Everybody fouled up, from the very decision to do it to the bungled simulations of the reentry numbers, to trusting Akane to stay awake under G-forces that she'd shown that she couldn't stand. Quite honestly,
Mangosteen deserved to burn after that series of snafus.
And should have, just to show how dangerous space flight is: one mistake and pfft. It makes the successes just that more impressive.
I know about the light novels, and
I don't care. It wouldn't be the first time, nor the last, that an anime diverges from the source material.
Posted by: Wonderduck at September 08, 2010 06:11 PM (blg68)
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The scriptwriters could have lessened the impact of the pooch-screw by giving
Mangosteen an autopilot, and having Akane's super-smart re-entry course programmed into it. It would still be a
deus ex machina sort of ending, but nowhere near as bad as what they went with. Another alternative would be to have Akane in Mission Control (where she damn well belongs if she can't hack high g forces), sending her calculations to Yukari via radio. They could have played it up like the scene in
Apollo XIII when the flight controllers were double-checking Lovell's arithmetic. (Or they could have used the Super Evil Alternative--have the girls miraculously survive the reentry, only to have
Mangosteen's landing parachutes fail to deploy, turning the splashdown into a splatdown.)
OTOH, I think there's a big problem with the first step in this whole process. I can't see what "amazing kludge" could
have gotten
Mangosteen into the higher orbit without either leaving
Atlantis stranded in orbit or doomed to
break up in a over-stressed reentry. Did they do an on-orbit fuel transfer? The only
significant fuel source I know of in this situation would be
Atlantis's
Orbital Maneuvering System, which IIRC uses nasty corrosive and/or
poisonous propellants--not something that responds well to kludges.
Posted by: Peter the Not-so-Great at September 08, 2010 06:34 PM (c62wM)
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Peter, the kludge was simple: they tied the
Mangosteen down in the shuttle bay on a pillow, then sped up. When they reached a certain velocity, two astronauts who had been holding the capsule in place by hand with luggage straps let go, giving the capsule an extra boost.
Yeah, it's as dumb as it sounds.
Posted by: Wonderduck at September 08, 2010 07:03 PM (blg68)
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That sequence was way worse than conservative heat shield modelling. The whole Orpheus story was garbage, honestly. But hey, still better than Planetes -- by a little bit. Also, I like Akane.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 08, 2010 07:51 PM (9KseV)
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Yeah, it's as dumb as it sounds.They had...a
Mangosteen-sized pillow..in the cargo bay...(facepalm)
If I were watching that scene, I'd have ripped the DVD out of the player and thrown it across the room with a curse. Here I was wondering about on-orbit fuel transfers and trajectories, and the scriptwriters decided to go with a frickin' pillow. That IMHO kills any pretense of realism for this episode, long before the pretty-magical-girl reentry.
Posted by: Peter the Not-so-Great at September 08, 2010 08:51 PM (c62wM)
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They had...a Mangosteen-sized pillow..in the cargo bay...(facepalm)
I lost my copy when the trailer was destroyed, but IIRC the 'pillow' was sized for the shuttle cargo bay for some other purpose related to the Pluto probe.
That sequence was way worse than conservative heat shield modelling. The whole Orpheus story was garbage, honestly.
Yeah, I was actually being snarky about the overbuilt shield.
Compared to the superb climax that was the halfway point it really was a disappointing way to end the series. It might have been forgivable as mid-season filler, but it was pretty dumb.
(Of course what REALLY happened during reentry was that people from NASA who, you remember had the skip reentry data, were manning the computers and tracking the capsule, got someone who spoke Japanese to radio the Mangosteen at the crucial moment and say"NOW!!" )
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at September 09, 2010 10:27 AM (EJaOX)
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Which is a nice idea, Muppet, but they clearly stated that during reentry all comms with the capsule are lost (which is realistic). So no NASA-Japanese speaker.
Posted by: Wonderduck at September 09, 2010 03:34 PM (OS+Cr)
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September 06, 2010
F1 on SPEED!: Italy 2010
There once was a time when F1 was about going fast at the expense of everything else. Driver safety was an afterthought, if it rated a thought at all. You had eggshells on wheels with big engines and small tires and no wings. It was a time when if a season completed without a driver death, it was considered a miracle. It was a time when the tires were skinny and the drivers weren't. It was the time of Ascari and Clark, Fangio and Rindt, Stewart and McLaren, Hill and Bandini, Surtees and von Trips. It was a time when the drivers were
truly men. It was the time that the sport was
truly king.
And Monza was its Holy Church.
There was once a time at Monza when a driver would simply stomp on the gas pedal and not lift off until the car broke or the race ended. Today... well, not much has changed, actually. A modern F1 car is on full throttle for nearly 80% of the lap, a truly punishing endurance test for an engine when you consider that we're talking nearly 90 minutes at 18000rpm. They'll reach 210mph at the end of the front straight, just before braking for the Variante del Rettifilo.
At Monza, terms like "downforce" and "drag" are dirty words. Cars run with the bare minimum amount of wing possible; if their use wasn't mandated by the FIA, the teams would probably go without. In fact, the use of the rear wing is so minimal here that many of those teams that run an "F-Duct" system are likely to find the feature useless around this track.
SPEED will bring us its usual sterling coverage beginning from 7am to 840am on Friday, with the day's 2nd Practice session. Saturday, from 7am to 830am, we'll see the usual Quals session. And Sunday brings us the 2010 Grand Prix of Italy LIVE from 630am to 9am, with a replay from 12noon to 230pm.
If I had to bet on the race, which fortunately I don't, I'd probably lean towards McLaren. Like Spa, this is not a track that favors the Red Bull chassis (and their remarkable action around turns), and I feel like Ferrari is just smoke and mirrors for some reason. But that's why they actually run the races, isn't it? See you then!
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It's truly a great place to watch a race too. The food & weather plus the grounds all make you welcome. The tifosi are amazing in their fanaticism & very loud too. One of the jewels of F!.
Posted by: Tony von Krag at September 07, 2010 08:01 AM (VGXAE)
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Great preview! Looking forward to the race...and lamenting that the year is winding down too fast.
Posted by: Mallory at September 08, 2010 03:17 PM (WJ2qy)
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Labor Day 2010
Thanks to the good folks at
Firestone on Alpine for working on Labor Day. The Duckmobile really needed those two new tires, and the alignment job, and the nearly half-inch of total toe adjustment. It's nice to have a car that isn't fighting me for directional control again, and isn't making odd squealing noises, and has a modicum of traction in the wet!
Happy Labor Day, everbody!
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The Never-Ending Reinstall
It's been a while since I last did a re-install of Windows, and I was noticing some slowdown in the Chiyo-chan for whatever reason; it wasn't from any virus or spyware that I could detect. I suspect it might have been because of the whole problem with the external hard drive a month or two ago. Whatever, it's not like I had anything to do tonight, and with a NASCAR race on, I could watch that while I reinstalled Windows. Pure genius! I'd be done before the race was over!
Yeah, not so much. The race lasted four hours. By the time Tony Stewart won, I was still downloading updates... the last two times I did this sort of thing, it only took three hours
total to have everything done. As I post this, I've still got a few apps to install, and it's almost seven hours later. Ugh.
We'll return to regular blogginationing on Monday.
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Monty comes 9th, and... no race quotes again. What's up with that?! In Formula 1 it wasn't optional, but here he always does this stuff: only communicating when he thinks he's high enough. Last year it included top-10 finishes thought, but I guess not anymore? How soon is he going to skip out from the 3rd place press-conference?
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 06, 2010 08:38 AM (9KseV)
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I really need to re-install my Windows box too. I've bought a set of new drives for it so I can run RAID-5 and I have a free copy of Windows 7 from my friends at Microsoft, so all I need is a rainy long weekend and my
Card Captor Sakura DVDs... And, realistically,
Urusei Yatsura and
Ranmaand the entire
Precure metaverse.
There's a reason I tend to just go out and buy a new computer every couple of years. Linux boxes are just an rsync away, but Windows is forever.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 07, 2010 07:25 AM (PiXy!)
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September 04, 2010
Name This Mystery Ship IV
While I am working on the post that Siergen won for identifying the HMS
Unicorn last time around... he selected a topic I know next to nothing about... here's another possibility for someone to win their very own post on a topic of their choosing! Name this ship:
Winner gets a post on a topic of their own choosing... hopefully not one as difficult as Siergen's, but pretty much anything is free game!
I'm hoping this one is difficult... if it's not, you guys are even more obsessive than I am!
UPDATE: Okay, maybe it was still "easy." Only took about four hours for Pete Z to come up with the
Wakamiya, a seaplane carrier of the IJN.
She's best known as the ship that launched the world's
first naval-launched air raids (against German targets in Tsingtao) on September 5th, 1914... 96 years ago today. In a way, this humble 8000 ton vessel with its four seaplanes and canvas-and-metal hangars is the direct predecessor of today's 104000 ton, 85 plane
Nimitz-class carriers.
Funny how these things happen, isn't it?
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I think I found it, but since you're still slaving over my last topic
, I won't post a guess in this contest unless no one gets it by Tuesday night.
Posted by: Siergen at September 04, 2010 09:29 PM (WLKpA)
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 04, 2010 09:56 PM (9KseV)
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My guess may have been derived from the same set of blueprints (it was laid down a few years after this ship), but yours looks like an exact match, while mine had several differences.
Posted by: Siergen at September 04, 2010 10:36 PM (WLKpA)
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Pete wins... name your topic, Pete!
Posted by: Wonderduck at September 05, 2010 12:29 AM (blg68)
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My guess derives from typing "seaplane carrier" into Google and then looking at pictures. It only took 10 minutes, but only after I wasted hours trying to match hull design to various IDs and even AKs. I thought it was one of the conversions, I forgot what they were called.
Please post the wrap-up of Rocket Girls that you teased a bit over 3 years ago (thought about asking Oh Edo Rocket, but I doubt you watched that).
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 05, 2010 08:35 AM (9KseV)
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September 03, 2010
Extraction #2 Successful
Well, the bad tooth has been removed, and this one was a different experience altogether. The nitrous didn't make me feel sick to my stomach this time, which was a pleasant bonus. The tooth didn't come out quite as readily as the last one, which wasn't nice. Turns out that it had two roots, where the first one (the mirror image tooth of today's) only had one... and one of the roots off broke when the Doc did the deed. No fault on him, he's very good. Heck, my dentist sends his children to him for oral surgery. Eat where the truck drivers eat, go to the oral surgeon your dentist uses.
And hey, he's got this print hanging in the extraction room:
"In Gallant Company" by Robert Taylor
...which is nice. I don't think he was too impressed by my fascination with the Battle of Midway last time, but how many of his patients know the difference between the F4F-3, the F4F-4, and the FM-2?
Oh, and his assistants expressed an interest in visiting the site too...
Hi, Ladies! The other tooth extraction post with that picture you wanted to see is
right here. Thanks for visiting... and for helping make the extraction go easily!
Posted by: Wonderduck at
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1
All F4F's are the same for me but I recognize a Corsair instantly (the vic in the background).
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 03, 2010 03:47 PM (9KseV)
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September 01, 2010
Dissecting The Austin F1 Circuit Map
There comes a time in every person's life when one of their core beliefs is shaken to its very core, and they must reassess everything they thought prior to that time in response. My friends, one of those times has come to me, for reader David has pointed me in the direction of a press release from the promoter of the new US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas. This press release contains a proposed circuit map as designed by Hermann Tilke. As readers of my F1 posts are aware, I am not fond of Hermann Tilke as a track designer. Only his design for the Istanbul Otodrom is any good as far as I'm concerned, with his other layouts ranking "meh" at best. Here's the overhead map for the Austin track:
I have to admit, publicly and with no shame whatsoever, that I actually like this. There seem to be a number of homages to other tracks here, like Tilke sat down and borrowed some of the best features of them. For example, I see Suzuka's famed "S Curves" or Silverstone's Maggots-Becketts-Chapel complex in the Turns 3-4-5 on the map, Montreal's Hairpin at Turn 11, Turkey's Quad-8 at Turn 16-18, and Abu Dhabi's massive back straight is echoed by the 3/4th of a mile long back straight here.
All of which is nice, to be sure, but it gets better... oh yes, yes it does... when you look at the elevation map. Seems this time, Tilke's gotten to play with something other than a featureless plain.
more...
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1
))(&^%@)% windshield smashed in by flying pig strike!
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at September 02, 2010 01:21 AM (mRjOr)
2
That track is a thing of beauty!
Posted by: Mallory at September 02, 2010 10:24 AM (WJ2qy)
Posted by: David at September 02, 2010 10:55 AM (oyblT)
4
That big map shows the expected line.
If it's right, it makes the T15-T18 complex a lot less interesting. Seems like the road bed is wide enough so that the expected line through there is a smooth curve. It doesn't have the challenging aspect of "Quad 8" (I believe it was called).
The problem is that it's too small. If those exact same turns were further apart, then it would be much more challenging.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 02, 2010 02:03 PM (+rSRq)
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I wonder about that, Steven. I suspect that what we'll really have is a "turn" that will have a changing radius depending on which apex you happen to be looking at. That's what the Turkish Quad-8 does, and I can't imagine them NOT copying that feature.
I'll note that the elevation map seems to show three distinct "kinks" in the turn, which is why I think what I do. I also note that the Austin-8 (hey, I think I've got something there!) appears to be going uphill, too. That's gotta make it more difficult, too.
I'm pretty sure that Turn 1 will be pushed as the signature turn for Austin, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Austin-8 will wind up with the accolades in the end...
Posted by: Wonderduck at September 02, 2010 07:06 PM (blg68)
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So when is this track going to get used?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 02, 2010 09:54 PM (+rSRq)
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F1 returns to the USA in 2012. No exact date yet, but it's a sure thing that it'll be either the weekend before, or the weekend after, the Canadian GP; figure sometime in June or July.
Posted by: Wonderduck at September 02, 2010 10:01 PM (blg68)
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I was thinking, 21 GPs in 2012? 19 this year, adding India in 2011 and US in 2012, that would be madness! But it looks like right now China, Istanbul and Japan have been dropped for 2012. Not that surprised based on turn out for the first two. But no Japanese GP? Seems odd. But no Japanese teams so...
Posted by: Buttons at September 17, 2010 12:42 AM (NOsNG)
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Buttons, Darth Bernie says that 20 races is the maximum he thinks the calendar can carry. The three races you mentioned aren't contracted past the 2011 year. There's currently 18 tracks that'll be run for 2012, with the possibility of Moscow joining for #19. Bring back Japan for #20.
Posted by: Wonderduck at September 17, 2010 07:04 AM (blg68)
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