The blower motor doesn't work on the Mercedes. Before I start pulling everything apart, I figured I'd check how much a replacement would be—if it's less than $50, I figure I'll go ahead and replace it anyway even if it isn't busted. I'm sure the old one is megafunky. It...
One of the problems that came with the Mercedes was a stuck rear door. The problem is that the lock (one of those vertical pull/push arrangements) won't pull up further than about halfway. Thus, the door can't be unlocked, and so it can't be opened. Thankfully, Mercedes put two-piece door...
Layla and I watched American Splendor tonight, the story of real-life comic writer and average guy, Harvey Pekar. Absolutely fascinating movie about a simple man who lives each day by the only rules he knows. There's no facade to the things Harvey does, and there's no bravado. It's just a...
I've posted a collectibles article about the Merkur XR4Ti over at Autos Articulated. No sir, I don't like the XR4Ti....
If you're taking two weeks off, where would you go? Hint: not Oregon....
Tonight marked the first serious fight that Aleph and Fifo have gotten themselves into. As far as I can tell, it started when a yellow spotted cat wandered onto the back patio and caught both of our cats' interest. What happened then is somewhat unclear, but the hissing and screaming...
Hoorah for another post over at Autos Articulated. Today's topic is the Nissan 350Z/Infiniti G35 or, more specifically, how much better the G35 looks than the 350Z....
I mentioned last week that if I had a chance, I'd take some audio of the 3 and post it. Well, here it is (WAV, 188kB). Do ignore the ... footsteps at the beginning and the end of the clip. I haven't had a chance to, you know, trim those...
I talked last night about getting a bit too used to the whole Windows Vista thing. Well, I went to a talk today about the Windows PowerShell (formerly Monad) and my interest has been re-sparked. PowerShell has been in the works for a really long time and now that I've...
I've been working for over a year now on Windows Vista. I've seen it transform from something completely unusable to a superbly stable and functional piece of machinery. It's exciting to do so much major work on something that will be used by so many people, and so forth and...
I'm officially back getting into getting back into the swing of things! Tonight's article is a request from Rob: the Mazda RX-8....
This is the 4000th picture taken with Layla's Sony DSC-T1 camera. So, this is sortof nerdy and also a cat post—all at the same time. Oh, and a total copout. I'll have more to write about tomorrow....
The picture at right is of:My old phone, Layla's new T-Mobile SDA (HTC Tornado) my new Samsung SGH-t809 a Secure Digital (SD) card the 1GB Mini SD card that Layla's camera takes the 512MB Micro SD card that my camera takes The Micro SD card is unbelievably tiny. I actually...
Layla and I went to the local Ross today—partly because she wanted to look for new comforters, but mostly because I needed to buy a new robe. My five-year-old Wal*Mart robe has finally developed a tear in the shoulder and it's time for it to be retired. Anyway, back to...
It's been over a year since I last got a new phone. Since my contract has lapsed, Layla and I combined our plans together (onto a family plan—it's way cheaper) and we both got new phones. I ended up with a Samsung t809 slider and Layla got a T-Mobile SDA...
I've hit my first big wall in Aikido. Not literally—well actually, yes literally, although that's not the wall I'm talking about. I actually feel like I'm making serious negative net progress. The last two classes I've been to have been fairly frustrating and I've walked away both times feeling like...
Both the bedroom and office of our townhome are on the third floor, and we've got a peaked roof. So instead of making the top of those two rooms boring, the architect/builders decided to put in a shelf that runs the length of one wall and goes back a good...
I keep a close eye on the comments posted here to /dev/null. The biggest reason for this is that I often get comments on really old posts and the only way I'd ever know is if I watched the comment list. Another (slightly less important) reason is to keep the...
Here we go—videos of Layla and I at the track! One of Layla's many runs (22.7MB MPG) The run where I spun out (24.2MB MPG) One of the runs where I drifted the last corner (Part 1, 9.99MB) One of the runs where I drifted the last corner (Part 2,...
Over six months ago, Manuel and I drove way up north to go check out some dude selling a 1991 Toyota MR2. Hilarity ensued when we actually drove the car—the car drove like the frame was bent and the engine was making double-digit compression. The automatic (yes, automatic) transmission didn't...
In case you couldn't tell, the home.milkmandan.org server was down all day today to get a swap into a new case, get a new ATA controller, and have a new drive attached. I've got real posts for yesterday and today, but will toss them on the server tomorrow sometime....
I admit, I forgot to mention: Layla beat my time at the autocross. Badly. She managed a 51.778 and my best time was a lousy stinking 53.306. So what the heck happened? Well, it turns out that Layla now has more track time in the BMW than I do. In...
That's right. I finally talked her into it. How I talked her into it was the A.C.E. Ladies Practice, held today at the Boeing plant up in Everett—the same spot as the novice school I attended about a month ago. The Ladies Practice is an annual event sponsored by the...
Just over ten years ago I bought a hard drive for $200. It was 500MB. I think I've still got it somewhere. Today, I bought a hard drive for $200. It's 500GB. Yowch....
Tuesday (yes, the 6th) marked my one-year anniversary at Microsoft. I've learned a lot.You can learn as much on the job as you can in a class. I thought for a long time that academia was great because it allowed us to compress a lifetime's worth of learning into a...
This video of a kitten playing with Apple's Frontrow is officially too cute not to post. For the record, Media Center blows Frontrow out of the water—but it's no competition for the feline....
Layla and I have been invited to a friend's daughter's first birthday party. What the heck do you buy a 1-year-old?...
On Saturday, I posed a hunt for a synchronization bug. In the approximately two days since then, I've gotten ... no responses. Maybe comments are broken1. Before I get to the solution, here's another copy of the source so we know what we're talking about. class Singleton { public: static...
I think we've all heard the hyper-leftist nutcases screaming that modern media is strangling society. "It's evil," they usually say, "because it's profit-driven and numbs our brains. It makes people complacent and desensitizes them to the feelings of the world." Most of this is fairly overblown. Yes, violence in entertainment...
Standard rules apply here. You're on an x86 machine and the mutexes are, in fact, atomic. Don't worry about error-casing, because that's not where the problem lies. The reason that I bring this up is that this example is often used to describe a performant solution to the multithreaded Singleton...
Do you know the guy I'm talking about? I've seen him (or a copy of him) in nearly every class I've ever taken—he's the guy who pipes up and gives exactly the wrong answer any time the professor poses a question...even a rhetorical one. I generally loathe this guy because...
It's not about writing software around a maze of requirements. It's about elegant design with all the right side effects....
