NSFW

This is the darkest comedy ever: https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/ It just goes on, and on, and on...

Speaking of VAERS, here is what VAERS has to say about VAERS: In a world flooded with misinformation from online trolls, this form must be awfully tempting: https://vaers.hhs.gov/esub/index.jsp

I'll just leave this here...

How dare.

Some peoples' purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/dick-farrell-anti-vaccine-radio-host-dies-covid.html

Shaden... Schadenfra... Schadenfuckit you know the word I'm thinking of. https://www.star-telegram.com/news/coronavirus/article253276493.html "I would never wish death upon a man, but I have read many an obituary with great satisfaction." - Mark Twain

I haven't looked at the rules in a couple decades, but I don't think you can get unemployment if you quit.

I was in Seattle twice in the last month to meet friends for dinner. There are more homeless people in Seattle than there were a couple years ago, but it's not as big a change as I expected. Other than the tent cities that sprung up under some freeways, it didn't seem any different. The number of mentally ill people seems no different (I saw just one). The number of people who lost their jobs and can't afford apartments seems a lot higher though. I'll grant that two quick trips doesn't make for a statistically significant sample.

That was quite a cliffhanger. I was on the edge of my seat.

But did god make the chamber strong enough? The lord works in mysterious ways...

"Open source" tuning has four major components: * Reflashing: the Tactrix OpenPort and EcuFlash * Editing: EcuFlash and RomRaider * Data logging: RomRaider * ECU Definitions: included with the editing apps, and downloadable separately Colby is the Tactrix guy. Tactrix is still selling OpenPort hardware and giving away EcuFlash software to use with the OpenPort. Nothing has changed there. The guy who did the majority of the reverse-engineering of Subaru firmware went by "Merchgod" on the forums, and that's the guy Cobb hired. Can't blame either of them - he got a job doing something he enjoyed, and Cobb got a talented employee. Merchgod was cranking out definitions for new Subarus, almost as quickly as they hit the market - and that takes a lot of work. After he left the open source community, other people have created definitions here and there, but not at the same pace. As a result, there are a lot of newer Subarus that are not supported by RomRaider / EcuFlash. It's a shame, but creating definitions takes a lot of work, so it's not too surprising that volunteers haven't done that work. What's surprising is that Merchgod managed to do so much quality work, mostly by himself, back in the day. RomRaider has had some updates since Merchgod left the project. Not many, because it's a pretty mature project.... but Merchgod wasn't working on RomRaider itself, so his departure didn't affect RomRaider itself. But the lack of support for newer cars did reduce enthusiasm for "open source" tuning in general. Those of us who were lucky enough to buy Subarus made during Merchgod's heyday have a nice set of tools for tuning our cars. People who bought Subarus afterward... some have definitions for their cars, some don't. IMO, what the open source world should be doing is setting up crowdfunding / bounty campaigns where a few owners of a particular model-and-year each put up a hundred bucks for whoever steps up to create a definition for that firmware. That might be motivating enough to get new definitions created.

Congrats on the new job. Sorry to hear about the concussion though.

My bad, fixed now.

Attempted meating... 2005 LGT 245/35/18 Pirelli PZero - published specs are 9.8 section width, 24.8 diameter 18x8 +48 (or 45?) TSW Nurburgring 3 degrees front camber (Mooresport top hats, Tokico struts) 2 degrees rear camber (Whiteline rear links) Moderate fender roll/pull all around. The pull up front was completely unnecessary (due to camber) and I'm not sure any was needed in the rear either. It drives great, but it came out less meaty than I had hoped. When these tires wear out I'm either going to try 255/35/18 (I think there's room, but might need a couple mm of spacer) or coilovers and 255/40/18. Or maybe just a wider 245/35. Well see.

Mutations that weaken the virus tend be quickly outnumbered by the original stream. Mutations that increase the virus' ability to spread tend to overtake the original strain, becoming the dominant strain. That's how evolution works. Unsurprisingly, that's also the pattern we saw with the coronavirus. Taking vaccines after the virus has "gone through the population" is standard practice. I'm curious as to what makes you think coronavirus has "gone through the population" though. The hospitalization rate in the US is declining, but it's still a long way from zero. It was only a couple weeks ago that we got back down to October 2020 levels. You stop taking vaccines after the virus has been eradicated. That's not even on the horizon for coronavirus.

A while back I linked to a thread about a guy building a 4th-gen Camaro to run 7s. He sold that car, started over with a Foxbody Mustang, and got into 6s with it (at 202mph). So, obviously that turbo wasn't big enough. https://ls1tech.com/forums/drag-racing-tech/1928903-calypso-fox-street-car-quest-6-s-hydraulic-388ci-gtr98-5.html#post20357179

I'm pretty sure we moved the neutral and reverse switches from my 5MT into my 6MT during the swap. But it was a log time ago so I'm not 100% sure. I searched the thread and found something I wrote about moving the netural switch, but I didn't mention the reverse switch. I think they're on the same harness though and we just moved it all from one trans to the other.

It might be interesting to try logging accelerator pedal angle and throttle blade angle. If you plot those over time you'll be able to see whether the ECU is adding to the throttle angle, and under what conditions. There's something that stops the throttle blade from going all the way to idle in MT cars when the vehicle speed gets slightly above zero, and I didn't notice it for years. So I wonder if AT ECUs have their own quirks that just aren't noticeable under normal circumstances.

I bought a new set of wheels (Hope hubs, carbon rims from light-bicycle.com) and figured it just didn't make sense to buy tubes anymore. I took the wheels and tires to a shop to get the tires mounted and the guy walked me through the process. Seems pretty straightforward, I probably should have looked for a youtube video instead. They ride like... tires.

I am riding tubeless tires now. Yes, it's true. I have finally entered the modern era.

The death rate in the US peaked at around 4k deaths/day, so 3k/day in a country with 3x the population doesn't sound so bad. But it's worse. https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/the-covid-19-death-toll-in-india-could-be-up-to-10-times-higher-than-the-official-200000-figure-experts-say/articleshow/82342319.cms I work for multinational with offices in India, and I have quite a few coworkers from India, with family in India. They're telling me it's terrible over there. We've also been getting emails from upper management talking about the situation in India when it was just starting to make the news over here, telling us to expect work in the India offices to be delayed, asking us to be mindful of what our expat coworkers and their families are doing through, and so on. There were similar messages last April, when the US had 3k deaths/day mostly just from NYC, but this is more severe.

A bunch of amazing moments:

Today I learned that there is a race for paraplegics with exoskeletons. They basically walk about 50 feet, sit, stand, weave around some tables, and go up and down a few stairs and through a door.... but it's beyond awesome that they're doing it at all. I can't figure out how to get a link to the video, so here's the whole page, with links to all of them: https://cybathlon.ethz.ch/en/event/disciplines/exo#media-video-4440 I'll admit that I only watched a couple. It's not exactly high speed entertainment. It's just awesome because of what it is. At least check out the winning run - top row, right column. I wonder how long until they are running faster than Olympians and the rest of us are shopping for upgrades.

My mom (75) got her first shot last week, and my inlaws (90s) are getting theirs some time next week. And I have a few friends who got theirs early due to working in health care. A refrigerator broke at a local hospital so they stayed open 'til 1am or something giving shots to anyone who showed up, rather than letting the vaccine go to waste. A few of my friends got in line, but I'm not sure they actually got shots. I know a couple of them just missed the cutoff. I'll be surprised if I get one myself before the end of summer, but we'll see.