It was a great day for a CinciTDI get together (GTG) as the scheduled brake bleeding event went like clockwork thanks to our volunteer ‘wrenchers.’ (Thank you guys) Most of the VW TDIs received fresh brake fluid very efficiently as the Motive Powerbleeders made short work of changing the brake fluid in each of our Volkswagens. Unlike many GTGs, we all had time to relax and talk a bit — including the ‘wrenchers;’ it was great to hear each others thoughts on how to plan and prepare our bid to host the 2008 TDIFest. I’m starting to get excited … it is going to be a great ‘Fest!
Again, thanks to all the CinciTDI folks who came, helped and share a good time around our cherished little Volkswagens. (It was great to meet some new folks too)
Since I have a friend who frequently travels to Canada (link 1; link 2), we note the exchange rate of U.S. dollars to Canadian dollars. (click for larger 5 year graph) It has been rather attractive for the past several years and in fact made our visit a few years back much more pleasant. This is changing since yesterday we’ve gone ‘par’ on exchange rates. $1 Canadian = $1 US. Hmm … maybe I’ll postpone that talked about trip to the Canadian Rockies another year?
🙂
I enjoy Ben Eriksen’s sailing blog enough to include one of his video clips below … although I don’t think many reading my blog are sailors? His recent single handed sail back from Maine aboard his Nor’Sea 27 will probably be enjoyable just the same, as he has done a pretty good job of capturing his trip in this clip. For me, I readi his regular posts because they stimulate the fond memories my wife and I had in pre-kids years aboard Brenich, our Baba 30 … and then with our kids aboard Tulla — a Nor’Sea 27. (the reason I was initially attracted to Living Aboard a Nor’Sea 27 blog.) I’d like the think Brenda and my best years of sailing are still ahead.
Ben’s current trip to Maine was the highlight of his summer after leaving his web designer career earlier in the year … although I suspect temporarily? He spent the summer working on wooden boats at Gannon and Benjamin on Martha’s Vineyard while living on Chamois.
I suspect that most active DIGG users know that the popular social bookmarking site which has popularized rating stories by Internet surfers continues to expand. For those that don’t, here’s a great intro from Kevin Rose (founder) that previews a few of the new expanded list of features.
Lots of new changes coming to Digg! We’re excited to introduce you to the new Digg Profiles. With over fifty new features, we’ve completely revamped our profiles from the ground up – making it easy for you to share your favorite Digg stories with friends. If you’d like to see them in action, visit Digg or get a walk through of some of the new features in this video.
Because Digg enables people to share information with one another, the policies for how you use Digg and how we treat your privacy on Digg are very important to us. As part of this release, we have updated our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which we encourage you to check out. Some highlights to note:
* Digg will notify you via email when certain activities happen, such as when someone adds you as a friend or a story you submit becomes popular. You can control what emails you want to receive in the Email Settings section of your Digg User Profile.
* You can easily find your friends’ Profiles on Digg by searching for them by their email address. If you don’t want to enable others to search for your Digg Profile by your email address, or if you want to manage what personal information to display in your Digg Profile, you can reflect this in your Privacy Settings.
The best way to learn more about these changes is to try out Digg Profiles for yourself. Visit Digg.com, login, and click the Profile button at the top of any page on the site.
A great time was had by all as the leaders from Miami University planned an outstanding YoungLife kickoff meeting at our house. My son’s Lakota East High School Young Life friends enjoyed a beautiful evening and well attended kickoff meeting with football, pudding fights, slip’n slide, swimming and picnic food grilling. I hope the new friendships and enjoyable fellowship continues as the year progresses. The five impressively mature college leaders have great group in which to “share the good news of God’s love.” [link] From a parents perspective, I couldn’t be more impress with everyone I’ve met involved in the YoungLife Christian outreach.
The Fed cut interests rates today by 1/2 basis point; many assumed they would only react by moving 1/4 including former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. One can only assume that the Fed sees inflation under control or are hoping to fend off a recession brought on by a slump in the housing market. The Dow moved up immediately after the afternoon announcement and skyrocketed 335.97 points.
I enjoyed the entertaining look at living ‘green’ last year when the HGTV program “Living with Ed” premiered. (last year’s post) The program was filled with light husband/wife humor and yet offered educational content aimed at getting each of us thinking about our energy use. Personally speaking, its nice to be informed about how we can use energy more intelligently by someone who lives his life with that in mind, and has for many years. Its refreshing not to have someone lecture me that the ‘sky is falling,’ especially when they seem to have a political agenda and are flying on private jets or living in homes using 20 times that of average homes. Currently Ed Begley’s season two is under way and the program has been visiting Ed’s friends’ homes that are adopting as least a few commonsense energy saving measures. Both he and his wife Rachelle do a cute job of ‘acting’ some marital unrest issues as they attempt new projects around their home or envy those of their friends. Perhaps one of the more comical angles of the program that reappears this season is that of their competitive neighbor … Bill Nye (the Science Guy); he is quite the character.
I’ll post a couple links below … until someone is offended … that can be ‘right click/saved as’ for those who want to view quicktime episodes of the programs after they have aired:
In keeping with the alternatively powered ‘bikes’ (see KillaCycle), Sunday “The Crucible” industrial arts school in Oakland California raced their biodiesel powered BMW R1150 RT with a BMW 3 series diesel to a new speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats. The diesel motorcycle ran th two-way average speed of 210.2.03 km/h. Michael Sturtz rode the bike and can be seen in the video below as a way to “demonstrate the capability of bio-diesel and call attention to the need for automotive technology to integrate environmental responsibility with performance.” He commented that his team of volunteers nicknamed “The Diesel Dozen” has proven “that style, speed, and environmental efficiency can come together in one vehicle with more than 210km/h already achieved with only 22 percent of the emissions of a standard diesel engine. We’re not done with this project, we’ve set the bar for other alternative-fuel vehicles to compete in speed tests – and we expect to get more than 250km/h on our next run!”
I’ve posted on the Wired NextFest in 2006 and attended in 2005 with my daughter, so its only appropriate to comment in 2007. Unfortunately the ‘newsy’ part of this years event is probably the “KillaCycle” electric motorcycle demonstration. The high … let me repeat HIGH … performance electric cycle is impressive without the attached video clip since it has the latest in battery technology from A123 and about 400HP in high torque electric motors. The 600 pound screamer can do 0 to 60 in under one second. (.97 seconds) and a quarter mile speed of 158 mph. That’s fast …. REALLY fast.
Now to the demo … Bill Dube, a government scientist during the day and electric bike builder at night, was talking to a reporter about his custom motorcycle and demonstrated a “burn out†at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It got away from him and accelerated like a bit more like a rocket than a bike and launch Bill after crashing into a Minivan. Hang on … Mr. Dube is ok, although some may question his sanity! “I’m just a bit scraped up. Embarrassed of course. I had not intended the bike to move in the soapy water, just spin the tire.”
Bill Dube Demonstrates the “KillaCycle” – click link for video
A recent post by moderator Brandon C. on the Sling Community blog has highlighted some information on the much anticipated Slingmedia’s “clip + Sling.” In case you don’t know what a Slingbox is, it is hardware component that is usually located at your home or office and broadcasts your local television signal to authorized computers or smart devices on the Internet. (my post from 2005)The Slingmedia software call the Slingplayer is then in control of the Slingbox or devices that might be connected to it. (ie. DVR, VCR, TiVo, cablebox, etc) It works extrodinarily well and is a great way to watch a local broadcast when traveling away from home … when you have broadband access. (“audio only” would well under dial up non-high speed data or cellphone connections)
I own an original Slingbox connected to my TiVo box and find it great for recording a program if I know I’m not going to be home and occasionally watching a ‘don’t miss live’ broadcast. Although I don’t recommend it, it even works well connected to my Sprint EV-DO high speed data cell service from in the car. (see blog posts) If I’m not on my computer, I can easily access this from my Palm Treo 700p and schedule the recording. (TiVo offers online scheduling too, but your Series 2 box much be connected to the Internet and you must schedule the program well ahead of the start time)
Now for the in’s and out’s of the new Clip+Sling. Think of it as a YouTube for the Slingplayer. Noticed I said “Slingplayer” … as the Clip+Sling is a software based component that will work with all existing Slingboxes. The new software will reside on the computer enabling you to record segments and upload them to the special Sling Media website. This site has been designed to share clips, and content provider descriptions, with others much like other hosted media sites. Interestingly, since most Slingbox users have a TV or DVD player on our Slingbox, I suspect some restrictions to preserve copyrighted content that many broadcasts, rented and purchased DVD already have in place? (I’m unsure how this will work?)
The current assumption is that Sling Media will finance the new project with ads placed at the begining of the encoded clips, probably related to the content. Viewers will probably be permitted to embed the clips in their web design or blogs and viewers who want to share video clips with friends will most likely be able to forward a URL link to friends. Brandon mentioned that the Clip+Sling website will also have a comment and rating section included … very YouTube-ish.
I’ll post more when I get the chance to try it out. Here’s a YouTube clip announcing the product.
I enjoy 
I suspect that most active 
The Fed cut interests rates today by 1/2 basis point; many assumed they would only react by moving 1/4 including former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. One can only assume that the Fed sees inflation under control or are hoping to fend off a recession brought on by a slump in the housing market. The Dow moved up immediately after the afternoon announcement and skyrocketed 335.97 points.
I enjoyed the entertaining look at living ‘green’ last year when the 
In keeping with the alternatively powered ‘bikes’ (see 
I’ve posted on the 
A