Sunday, October 31, 2004
Need more wonkery?
The Horserace Blog will give you fresh polling crack. It strongly suggests, quite the opposite of Slate's meta-analysis, that the race is all but decided for Bush.
Well, they can't both be wrong! Or can they?
Back in the land of non-crazy theories, Kausfiles has been outputting a steady stream of useful links and data, including a hit job on his own magazine's Election Scorecard (Wisconsin all but locked up for Bush, despite what ES thinks), an apparent correction of Hitchens' endorsement (apparently he meant his entry into Slate Votes as a Bush endorsement, but then I already knew that. (That's the secret to predictions: once reality conforms to your prediction, however tenuously, declare victory and get out of there).
This is not a political weblog! What am I doing? Okay, um, I got the parts for the Trail-a-bike, and couldn't resist $20 worth of nice new bike gloves at the same time. I have some long-reach brakes on order (those are great for upgrading old bikes), and so far the trick-or-treaters haven't blown up our car. I was fairly impressed by the costumes this year, including a strangely elaborate white thing that was probably a ghost, but which The Lovely One thinks was a marshmallow. We've already eaten the last of the candy.
Well, they can't both be wrong! Or can they?
Back in the land of non-crazy theories, Kausfiles has been outputting a steady stream of useful links and data, including a hit job on his own magazine's Election Scorecard (Wisconsin all but locked up for Bush, despite what ES thinks), an apparent correction of Hitchens' endorsement (apparently he meant his entry into Slate Votes as a Bush endorsement, but then I already knew that. (That's the secret to predictions: once reality conforms to your prediction, however tenuously, declare victory and get out of there).
This is not a political weblog! What am I doing? Okay, um, I got the parts for the Trail-a-bike, and couldn't resist $20 worth of nice new bike gloves at the same time. I have some long-reach brakes on order (those are great for upgrading old bikes), and so far the trick-or-treaters haven't blown up our car. I was fairly impressed by the costumes this year, including a strangely elaborate white thing that was probably a ghost, but which The Lovely One thinks was a marshmallow. We've already eaten the last of the candy.
Keith Disagrees
So keith taunted me with a little e-mail about my previous post on the US election. He thinks, as he put it, that my track record of misguided election predictions will be intact.
Hm. Maybe. I wrote a long note back to him, and am going to restate the least funny parts here.
The presidential race is a complete toss-up. Any last-minute surprises (cf. Bush's DUI snapshot of the last weekend of the 2000 vote) could easily tilt the election dramatically. Turnout (as mustered by the "get out the vote" or "GOTV" plans of both parties) will probably be the decisive factor in the really close states.
Slate has updated its Election Scorecard today, and is still calling the race for Kerry. But it's incredibly tenuous. I think that Real Clear Politics has a view of the state-by-state race that makes the undecided nature of the race more clear. They show 116 Electoral College votes as a complete toss-up, not counting the 82 EC votes that are "leaning" one way or the other.
It's at this point that the sheer toss-up nature of the vote is clear. The will of the voters, for all practical purposes, is evenly divided. I am reminded of my feeling about playoff sports: a season of play tells you which team is the most consistently superior, with a reasonable level of statistical meaningfulness. A playoff is more or less a crap-shoot, even in the case of 7-game series, but especially with a one-game runoff. You can always resort to the argument that one team was chosen as the best on that day, but it's unsatisfactory to me that for some reason that is seen as the team to remember. One rarely recalls the team with the best season record, unless that team also wins the play-offs.
Back to elections, the American two-party arrangement at the federal level makes every competition a close one, and one decided every 2-6 years, depending on the office. This isn't as bad as it might seem to countries with multiple federal parties of substance. The key is that both parties are seeking to win half the voters. This necessarily makes the parties avoid severe extremism in their presidential candidates (like it or not, neither W. nor JFK represent a political extreme, either within or without their respective parties), that being reserved for locally elected candidates like congressional representatives.
With such a close, and essentially randomly decided race, I almost wonder if it wouldn't be better to use some sort of sortition, and make the essentially random nature of the process be made explicit. One variation of this election-by lottery that has been proposed is to randomly draw the candidate from a single ballot.
Hm. Maybe. I wrote a long note back to him, and am going to restate the least funny parts here.
The presidential race is a complete toss-up. Any last-minute surprises (cf. Bush's DUI snapshot of the last weekend of the 2000 vote) could easily tilt the election dramatically. Turnout (as mustered by the "get out the vote" or "GOTV" plans of both parties) will probably be the decisive factor in the really close states.
Slate has updated its Election Scorecard today, and is still calling the race for Kerry. But it's incredibly tenuous. I think that Real Clear Politics has a view of the state-by-state race that makes the undecided nature of the race more clear. They show 116 Electoral College votes as a complete toss-up, not counting the 82 EC votes that are "leaning" one way or the other.
It's at this point that the sheer toss-up nature of the vote is clear. The will of the voters, for all practical purposes, is evenly divided. I am reminded of my feeling about playoff sports: a season of play tells you which team is the most consistently superior, with a reasonable level of statistical meaningfulness. A playoff is more or less a crap-shoot, even in the case of 7-game series, but especially with a one-game runoff. You can always resort to the argument that one team was chosen as the best on that day, but it's unsatisfactory to me that for some reason that is seen as the team to remember. One rarely recalls the team with the best season record, unless that team also wins the play-offs.
Back to elections, the American two-party arrangement at the federal level makes every competition a close one, and one decided every 2-6 years, depending on the office. This isn't as bad as it might seem to countries with multiple federal parties of substance. The key is that both parties are seeking to win half the voters. This necessarily makes the parties avoid severe extremism in their presidential candidates (like it or not, neither W. nor JFK represent a political extreme, either within or without their respective parties), that being reserved for locally elected candidates like congressional representatives.
With such a close, and essentially randomly decided race, I almost wonder if it wouldn't be better to use some sort of sortition, and make the essentially random nature of the process be made explicit. One variation of this election-by lottery that has been proposed is to randomly draw the candidate from a single ballot.
Fall Back
Not much new to report. A fairly uneventful bike ride on Saturday morning. The afternoon was occupied by a tech-support project which was inconclusive. Oh dear.
The return to Standard Time today affects me quite acutely. It means more light in the mornings, which will give me a respite from the recent dark commutes to work.
The good news doesn't last long, though. At this time of year, the daylight ebbs away daily. The Vancouver Sun did a feature article (can't promise that link is permanent) on how quickly it gets dark, and how it's especially bad in Vancouver: Edmonton may have snow on the ground that could stick until Spring, but Vancouver gets far fewer hours of daylight than any other major Canadian city. It's not a small gap, either: Vancouver, 390 hours; Toronto, 505; Calgary, 670. Even Victoria gets 429 hours between October and February.
For a cyclist, the season change is acutely noticeable. I check the weather every morning before dressing for my commute, picking between gear for cold or wet weather. The darkness dictates that I bring and use my lights on the way to work, and with the time change, I will need them for the afternoon ride. Sunrise on Sunday: 0659. Sunset: 16:53. I finish work at either 1630 or 1700, so I'm well into dark rides in the next few weeks. On November 15, the sun sets at 1630.
The return to Standard Time today affects me quite acutely. It means more light in the mornings, which will give me a respite from the recent dark commutes to work.
The good news doesn't last long, though. At this time of year, the daylight ebbs away daily. The Vancouver Sun did a feature article (can't promise that link is permanent) on how quickly it gets dark, and how it's especially bad in Vancouver: Edmonton may have snow on the ground that could stick until Spring, but Vancouver gets far fewer hours of daylight than any other major Canadian city. It's not a small gap, either: Vancouver, 390 hours; Toronto, 505; Calgary, 670. Even Victoria gets 429 hours between October and February.
For a cyclist, the season change is acutely noticeable. I check the weather every morning before dressing for my commute, picking between gear for cold or wet weather. The darkness dictates that I bring and use my lights on the way to work, and with the time change, I will need them for the afternoon ride. Sunrise on Sunday: 0659. Sunset: 16:53. I finish work at either 1630 or 1700, so I'm well into dark rides in the next few weeks. On November 15, the sun sets at 1630.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Blow one for the team!
Indoor soccer. Game 1 of a lunchtime doubleheader. We have a 4-goal lead with 3 minutes to play, so I sub for our goaltender, who also happens to be our top scorer.
The game ended tied 5-5.
D'oh!
We lost the second game. I did not play goal.
Last night, after I came back from my test-ride of the new bike, I noticed that I could see one of my high-cut and one of my low-cut biking shoes on the shoe rack. I looked down at my feet. Sure enough, I had done the ride with mismatched shoes.
A warning to others.
It's Friday tomorrow. Come on Friday. Now, where's my gin and tonic?
The game ended tied 5-5.
D'oh!
We lost the second game. I did not play goal.
Last night, after I came back from my test-ride of the new bike, I noticed that I could see one of my high-cut and one of my low-cut biking shoes on the shoe rack. I looked down at my feet. Sure enough, I had done the ride with mismatched shoes.
A warning to others.
It's Friday tomorrow. Come on Friday. Now, where's my gin and tonic?
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
The Art of the Deal
Now listen up, because i'm about to share a bunch of really good information against my own best interests, and it will save you some money.
As you might know, I'm really cheap. I like buying stuff cheaply, and I like selling stuff for more than I bought it. Sometimes being cheap just means knowing a good store to buy interesting bits cheaply (I went to Daiso this weekend and found a "third hand" bicycle brake adjustment tool, plus an assortment of useful metric nuts, $2 each), but that only leads you to normal sorts of good deals. Online deal-hunting through eBay and sites like Tech Bargains are other avenues I am exploring, with limited success (the costs of shipping and exchage rates are a high barrier, though the recent strong Canadian dollar has made these options more attractive).
But for really, really good deals, I believe that the most buyer-favoured venue you are likely to experience is the private garage sale. Okay, maybe dumpster diving is even cheaper, but good pickings are usually only available during Spring clean-up weeks.
Garage sales feature the most highly motivated, naive vendors available to normal buyers. The goal of a garage sale is generally to get rid of stuff first, and to get money second. Large, odd items, bicycles, and that eternal boondoggle, exercise equipment, will all go for pennies on the dollar.
Not all garage sales are perfect. I have seen sellers asking $50 for wretched department-store bikes. You have to hit a fair number of sales to find good stuff, and most importantly, you have to be able to assess the condition of the item you are looking at, know what's wrong with it, and know what it should cost. It pays to have some expertise in the stuff you are searching for.
It also takes patience, just like thrift shop chasing (thrift shops...Value Village probably has the most interesting stuff most often, but they charge a bit more than Salvation Army or smaller shops). And you never know where you're going to find the good stuff. You'll hit a couple of sales, see nothing of interest, and then you'll stumble across one that has some extremely unlikely deal available.
Stuff I have bought at garage sales: old video games, high-end bicycle saddle bags, early-80s road bikes, any quality bicycle predating brifters (for road bikes) or front suspension (on mountain bikes), toys, record albums, and much more. Oh, and don't forget to bargain: the tagged price is always negotiable, and I expect you to dicker it down on general principles!
In other deals, the Build-A-Bear Workshop people taught me a whole new lesson in customer retention. The Lovely One got a reindeer from them last year. She named it Ruddy, gave her address in the little computer at the end that creates Ruddy's special storybook, and so forth.
Today, she got an e-mail from the company wishing Ruddy a happy first birthday. It included a coupon good for a free t-shirt for the stuffed animal. That's a lot of goodwill they just bought, and good on them. They raised the bar for customer love.
As you might know, I'm really cheap. I like buying stuff cheaply, and I like selling stuff for more than I bought it. Sometimes being cheap just means knowing a good store to buy interesting bits cheaply (I went to Daiso this weekend and found a "third hand" bicycle brake adjustment tool, plus an assortment of useful metric nuts, $2 each), but that only leads you to normal sorts of good deals. Online deal-hunting through eBay and sites like Tech Bargains are other avenues I am exploring, with limited success (the costs of shipping and exchage rates are a high barrier, though the recent strong Canadian dollar has made these options more attractive).
But for really, really good deals, I believe that the most buyer-favoured venue you are likely to experience is the private garage sale. Okay, maybe dumpster diving is even cheaper, but good pickings are usually only available during Spring clean-up weeks.
Garage sales feature the most highly motivated, naive vendors available to normal buyers. The goal of a garage sale is generally to get rid of stuff first, and to get money second. Large, odd items, bicycles, and that eternal boondoggle, exercise equipment, will all go for pennies on the dollar.
Not all garage sales are perfect. I have seen sellers asking $50 for wretched department-store bikes. You have to hit a fair number of sales to find good stuff, and most importantly, you have to be able to assess the condition of the item you are looking at, know what's wrong with it, and know what it should cost. It pays to have some expertise in the stuff you are searching for.
It also takes patience, just like thrift shop chasing (thrift shops...Value Village probably has the most interesting stuff most often, but they charge a bit more than Salvation Army or smaller shops). And you never know where you're going to find the good stuff. You'll hit a couple of sales, see nothing of interest, and then you'll stumble across one that has some extremely unlikely deal available.
Stuff I have bought at garage sales: old video games, high-end bicycle saddle bags, early-80s road bikes, any quality bicycle predating brifters (for road bikes) or front suspension (on mountain bikes), toys, record albums, and much more. Oh, and don't forget to bargain: the tagged price is always negotiable, and I expect you to dicker it down on general principles!
In other deals, the Build-A-Bear Workshop people taught me a whole new lesson in customer retention. The Lovely One got a reindeer from them last year. She named it Ruddy, gave her address in the little computer at the end that creates Ruddy's special storybook, and so forth.
Today, she got an e-mail from the company wishing Ruddy a happy first birthday. It included a coupon good for a free t-shirt for the stuffed animal. That's a lot of goodwill they just bought, and good on them. They raised the bar for customer love.
Moonshadows and Other Things
If you are reading this, you've missed the lunar eclipse tonight.
I got home, ate some lasagna (which I later found out was vegetarian. Soylent lasagna is green!), and did a rudimentary bike tire change, which seemed to go well. The new Park tire levers worked, which is good. I would recommend them over any other bring-along tire lever MEC sells (I'm referring to the plastic Park levers, which curiously are not shown on that page). I haven't tried the Quick Stik yet, but its packaging warns that it works best on mountain bike tires, and not so good on road tires. The fixed-gear bike is back in business, and with new, non-insane gearing (44/16 or so, which is quite normal for a road fixie).
I took it for a very short test ride, which was completely satisfactory. I looked to my right as I rolled along the Barnet highway, and saw the lunar eclipse somewhere near the peak, a dull red moon. It's one of the more impressive sky sights for an urban dweller, since it happens to a full moon, and is visible even where streetlights abound.
Maybe it was some sort of omen, then, that the Red Sox, after one of the weirdest baseball playoffs ever, won the series under that strange red moon. Curse of the Bambino, only team in baseball ever to come back from a 3-0 series deficit (and against the hated Yankees!), and then an easy-looking romp through four games against the Cardinals. My guess? Not omens, but apophenia.
Gregg Easterbrook's last TMQ column makes the point that while baseball is the pet sport of many intellectuals, football is a much more mentally taxing game, one which relies extremely heavily on teamwork and smart play. I concur with his ideas, but they really only affect the players. For me, the joy of baseball (a sport which I can barely stand to watch) is the way which it lends itself to statistical analysis, and the way in which some very clever analysts of the game have even used that to construct better baseball teams (here's to you, Billy Beane).
This can only be done in football with the greatest of difficulty, because it is such a team sport that it is hard to quantify individual contributions to team success, or even to figure out what it's important to do well in football. That hasn't stopped aficionados like those at Football Outsiders from trying. But on the whole, you can do more interesting things with baseball stats.
The best line of the Sox victory belonged to their boy manager, Theo Epstein, who, in an on-field interview after the win, exhorted fans to "go get drunk!" So far, it seems absent from the news reports, but I heard it live on the radio, so it really happened.
Back to my bike ride, it was short but pleasant. Cool weather, so I took it easy, but wearing a jersey and my new 3-pocket fleece (thanks, Value Village!) kept me warm. Fixed gear is a lot of fun, because of the purity of the experience. No shifting, no coasting, just pedaling.
I got home, ate some lasagna (which I later found out was vegetarian. Soylent lasagna is green!), and did a rudimentary bike tire change, which seemed to go well. The new Park tire levers worked, which is good. I would recommend them over any other bring-along tire lever MEC sells (I'm referring to the plastic Park levers, which curiously are not shown on that page). I haven't tried the Quick Stik yet, but its packaging warns that it works best on mountain bike tires, and not so good on road tires. The fixed-gear bike is back in business, and with new, non-insane gearing (44/16 or so, which is quite normal for a road fixie).
I took it for a very short test ride, which was completely satisfactory. I looked to my right as I rolled along the Barnet highway, and saw the lunar eclipse somewhere near the peak, a dull red moon. It's one of the more impressive sky sights for an urban dweller, since it happens to a full moon, and is visible even where streetlights abound.
Maybe it was some sort of omen, then, that the Red Sox, after one of the weirdest baseball playoffs ever, won the series under that strange red moon. Curse of the Bambino, only team in baseball ever to come back from a 3-0 series deficit (and against the hated Yankees!), and then an easy-looking romp through four games against the Cardinals. My guess? Not omens, but apophenia.
Gregg Easterbrook's last TMQ column makes the point that while baseball is the pet sport of many intellectuals, football is a much more mentally taxing game, one which relies extremely heavily on teamwork and smart play. I concur with his ideas, but they really only affect the players. For me, the joy of baseball (a sport which I can barely stand to watch) is the way which it lends itself to statistical analysis, and the way in which some very clever analysts of the game have even used that to construct better baseball teams (here's to you, Billy Beane).
This can only be done in football with the greatest of difficulty, because it is such a team sport that it is hard to quantify individual contributions to team success, or even to figure out what it's important to do well in football. That hasn't stopped aficionados like those at Football Outsiders from trying. But on the whole, you can do more interesting things with baseball stats.
The best line of the Sox victory belonged to their boy manager, Theo Epstein, who, in an on-field interview after the win, exhorted fans to "go get drunk!" So far, it seems absent from the news reports, but I heard it live on the radio, so it really happened.
Back to my bike ride, it was short but pleasant. Cool weather, so I took it easy, but wearing a jersey and my new 3-pocket fleece (thanks, Value Village!) kept me warm. Fixed gear is a lot of fun, because of the purity of the experience. No shifting, no coasting, just pedaling.
Christopher Hitchens is Confusing Everyone
Slate reprised its refreshingly honest Slate Votes feature, and to the surprise of some, Christopher Hitchens cast his vote for Kerry.
Now, anyone reading Hitchens lately knows that he is one of the strongest proponents of the Iraq War anywhere, and that he has repeatedly stated his case for it. In other words, even though he's a self-described Trotskyite, it came as a lot of a surprise that he didn't back Bush.
I have tried resolutely to avoid turning Wired Cola into the US Politics Channel. But on this case, I am posting, because I think a lot of people have misinterpreted what is going on with his vote.
He was being, as explains, ironic. He compares his vote to the ironic endorsements of Kerry by Buchanan's pet magazine and by anti-war advocates (though he says he "can't compete" with those ones).
He says of Bush that he "deserves praise for his implacability." He describes his vote for Kerry as an attempt to make JFK "get his worst private nightmare."
This isn't an endorsement! This is a personal vote being played out as a joke! I'm not saying that as a critique of Hitchens: I'm trying to point out that his vote isn't a change of heart, it's an attempt to pee in the punch bowl. I think the truest purpose of Hitchens' vote is in this sentence: "Objectively, [Kerry's] election would compel mainstream and liberal Democrats to get real about Iraq."
Since I really don't like posting politics, I thought I'd fill this post out with my horse-race assessment. If I had to guess right now, I'd say it's going to be Kerry. He is showing strange polling strength in the obvious swing states, out of line with his still-lagging overall popular vote numbers. The irony is it is just possible there will be an Electoral College/popular vote split this year, but most likely against Bush.
If you want the counterpoints, it's that Kerry is spending a lot of time in true-blue states, which is not a mark of confidence. The election markets still favour Bush, and have apparently been leading indicators of polls during the campaign. Slate's Election Scorecard still shows Bush in the lead, though I would caution that I think the authors are doing more interpretation than they think they are. At least they include an excellent compendium of the raw data they're using, so you can go through it and make up your own chart. State-specific polling is much more of a crapshoot than national polling, since it usually involves smaller samples, higher margins of error, and other possible issues.
Standard disclaimer: my political predictions are so uniformly useless that in the past they have been useful as an indicator of the opposite of what was about to happen.
Now, anyone reading Hitchens lately knows that he is one of the strongest proponents of the Iraq War anywhere, and that he has repeatedly stated his case for it. In other words, even though he's a self-described Trotskyite, it came as a lot of a surprise that he didn't back Bush.
I have tried resolutely to avoid turning Wired Cola into the US Politics Channel. But on this case, I am posting, because I think a lot of people have misinterpreted what is going on with his vote.
He was being, as explains, ironic. He compares his vote to the ironic endorsements of Kerry by Buchanan's pet magazine and by anti-war advocates (though he says he "can't compete" with those ones).
He says of Bush that he "deserves praise for his implacability." He describes his vote for Kerry as an attempt to make JFK "get his worst private nightmare."
This isn't an endorsement! This is a personal vote being played out as a joke! I'm not saying that as a critique of Hitchens: I'm trying to point out that his vote isn't a change of heart, it's an attempt to pee in the punch bowl. I think the truest purpose of Hitchens' vote is in this sentence: "Objectively, [Kerry's] election would compel mainstream and liberal Democrats to get real about Iraq."
Since I really don't like posting politics, I thought I'd fill this post out with my horse-race assessment. If I had to guess right now, I'd say it's going to be Kerry. He is showing strange polling strength in the obvious swing states, out of line with his still-lagging overall popular vote numbers. The irony is it is just possible there will be an Electoral College/popular vote split this year, but most likely against Bush.
If you want the counterpoints, it's that Kerry is spending a lot of time in true-blue states, which is not a mark of confidence. The election markets still favour Bush, and have apparently been leading indicators of polls during the campaign. Slate's Election Scorecard still shows Bush in the lead, though I would caution that I think the authors are doing more interpretation than they think they are. At least they include an excellent compendium of the raw data they're using, so you can go through it and make up your own chart. State-specific polling is much more of a crapshoot than national polling, since it usually involves smaller samples, higher margins of error, and other possible issues.
Standard disclaimer: my political predictions are so uniformly useless that in the past they have been useful as an indicator of the opposite of what was about to happen.
Monday, October 25, 2004
A potpourri of updates
The Tafelmusik concert was lovely. They're a really great bunch of musicians, and played some nice music. The last thing they played was a long Telemann work, and it wasn't to my taste. But everything else was pure period-instrument gold.
The cat has been remarkably good-natured about the whole stabbed-with-needles experience. I pet it, I inject it, and if I'm clumsy, it might give a startled meow or glance back at me. When I do it right, it doesn't even flinch. Cat seems a lot happier, too, and much healthier.
Did my usual ride on Saturday, then gawked at a cyclocross race that happened to be taking place in Vanier Park, and then hit a few garage sales. The York House one was a complete bust, but a private garage sale on the way back to downtown saw me pick up a bucket of Lego and a Trail-a-bike for $15. The latter item is a huge bargain: it's a sort of bolt-on half bike for kids. It attaches to the rear of an adult bike, turning the whole rig into a sort of articulated tandem. No dropping your kid when you're training, see? I'll have to find a good home for this thing for a few years (suggestions?) as The Lovely One and I will have to actually conceive a child and raise 'em for a time before we have a need for it.
The riding is getting chilly and dark these days, but good clothing and good lighting make the experience pleasant. I like riding to and from work a lot more than I like driving home from work.
The cat has been remarkably good-natured about the whole stabbed-with-needles experience. I pet it, I inject it, and if I'm clumsy, it might give a startled meow or glance back at me. When I do it right, it doesn't even flinch. Cat seems a lot happier, too, and much healthier.
Did my usual ride on Saturday, then gawked at a cyclocross race that happened to be taking place in Vanier Park, and then hit a few garage sales. The York House one was a complete bust, but a private garage sale on the way back to downtown saw me pick up a bucket of Lego and a Trail-a-bike for $15. The latter item is a huge bargain: it's a sort of bolt-on half bike for kids. It attaches to the rear of an adult bike, turning the whole rig into a sort of articulated tandem. No dropping your kid when you're training, see? I'll have to find a good home for this thing for a few years (suggestions?) as The Lovely One and I will have to actually conceive a child and raise 'em for a time before we have a need for it.
The riding is getting chilly and dark these days, but good clothing and good lighting make the experience pleasant. I like riding to and from work a lot more than I like driving home from work.
Bigger than Opera
But never mind about the Opera, the really big news on Thursday night was the display in the lobby of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, explaining their massive renovation plans.
Good. The QE is a big nasty barn, somewhat pretty to look at from the outside, but ridden with hordes of distant or off-angle seats, and merely adequate acoustics. Its only merit as a venue, to my mind, is its size, just under 3000 seats in a typical configuration.
The renovation will narrow and dramatically shorten the seating area. The rear wall will be 40 feet closer to the stage. Seating numbers will be maintained by adding two more balconies and box-style seating along the sides. They expect big acoustic improvements as a result, and the extra space from moving the back wall will be turned into extra lobby space and bathrooms, which are direly needed. Amazingly, the redevelopment team claims the work will be done in two summer closures, without affecting the performance season. Impressive.
Good. The QE is a big nasty barn, somewhat pretty to look at from the outside, but ridden with hordes of distant or off-angle seats, and merely adequate acoustics. Its only merit as a venue, to my mind, is its size, just under 3000 seats in a typical configuration.
The renovation will narrow and dramatically shorten the seating area. The rear wall will be 40 feet closer to the stage. Seating numbers will be maintained by adding two more balconies and box-style seating along the sides. They expect big acoustic improvements as a result, and the extra space from moving the back wall will be turned into extra lobby space and bathrooms, which are direly needed. Amazingly, the redevelopment team claims the work will be done in two summer closures, without affecting the performance season. Impressive.
A Night at the Opera
The opera du jour at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre was Der Rosenkavalier, a nice, amusing 270-minute comic opera in German. Richard Strauss, written in 1911, but set (with anachronisms) in 18th century Vienna.
The Lovely One wanted to go, and a 2-fer coupon got us there. Because of the terms of the coupon, we had to buy tickets on the day of the show (Thursday), and so we got nice seats, but not quite together. We sat one in front of the other, on the far left of the theatre (we were both literally against the wall), but quite close to the stage.
It was pretty good. I didn't fall asleep much, which is, cretinously, my default mode in operas. The plot is fairly funny, and much less stupid than average opera plots, which tend to be either very, very stupid, or else they are Coughing Operas, that lovely sub-genre in which a main character gets tuberculosis. You think I'm joking? La Boheme, La Traviata, The Tales of Hoffmann. Add in the modern remakes (Rent) or the other disease operas (Parsifal and many more), and it's pretty clear that getting a disease was just about the most resonant thing you could present to an opera crowd, aside from sex and death.
I read the plot synopsis before curtain time, but didn't get a chance to look over the cast bios, which led me into a little surprise in the first act. The first act starts with young Octavian, the "Rose bearer" of the title (basically a courier bearing a silver rose, the symbol of an offer of marriage) in bed with his lover Marschallin, the wife of an army officer.
As I sat watching their little duet, a few thoughts ran through my head: Octavian looks rather androgynous...can a tenor sing that high?
Ahem. Octavian was played by the lovely and talented Beth Clayton, a soprano, just as the role calls for. The opera is notably soprano-heavy: the love triangle that is key to the story is played by three of them. Strauss has some fun with the character of Octavian, since Octavian spends a considerable amount of stage time in drag for one reason or another, and in drag Octavian is pursued by the lecherous and boorish Ochs, who is also proposing to Sophie, the pretty young thing who falls for Octavian at first sight (and vice versa).
On the drive home, I spoke about how I had enjoyed the music, and how the opera plot wasn't completely stupid, and such. Eventually, TLO asked me if I had enjoyed the lesbian action in Act I.
The music was really nice. This particular production was done well. But this is probably not a great bet for a first opera. You'll have to ask TLO for advice on that front, though I did enjoy Mozart's The Magic Flute, which has dragons, drunkenness, talking parrot-people, and secret Masonic symbology. You could do worse.
The Lovely One wanted to go, and a 2-fer coupon got us there. Because of the terms of the coupon, we had to buy tickets on the day of the show (Thursday), and so we got nice seats, but not quite together. We sat one in front of the other, on the far left of the theatre (we were both literally against the wall), but quite close to the stage.
It was pretty good. I didn't fall asleep much, which is, cretinously, my default mode in operas. The plot is fairly funny, and much less stupid than average opera plots, which tend to be either very, very stupid, or else they are Coughing Operas, that lovely sub-genre in which a main character gets tuberculosis. You think I'm joking? La Boheme, La Traviata, The Tales of Hoffmann. Add in the modern remakes (Rent) or the other disease operas (Parsifal and many more), and it's pretty clear that getting a disease was just about the most resonant thing you could present to an opera crowd, aside from sex and death.
I read the plot synopsis before curtain time, but didn't get a chance to look over the cast bios, which led me into a little surprise in the first act. The first act starts with young Octavian, the "Rose bearer" of the title (basically a courier bearing a silver rose, the symbol of an offer of marriage) in bed with his lover Marschallin, the wife of an army officer.
As I sat watching their little duet, a few thoughts ran through my head: Octavian looks rather androgynous...can a tenor sing that high?
Ahem. Octavian was played by the lovely and talented Beth Clayton, a soprano, just as the role calls for. The opera is notably soprano-heavy: the love triangle that is key to the story is played by three of them. Strauss has some fun with the character of Octavian, since Octavian spends a considerable amount of stage time in drag for one reason or another, and in drag Octavian is pursued by the lecherous and boorish Ochs, who is also proposing to Sophie, the pretty young thing who falls for Octavian at first sight (and vice versa).
On the drive home, I spoke about how I had enjoyed the music, and how the opera plot wasn't completely stupid, and such. Eventually, TLO asked me if I had enjoyed the lesbian action in Act I.
The music was really nice. This particular production was done well. But this is probably not a great bet for a first opera. You'll have to ask TLO for advice on that front, though I did enjoy Mozart's The Magic Flute, which has dragons, drunkenness, talking parrot-people, and secret Masonic symbology. You could do worse.
Supafamous: Trying to make me look stupid
So Eric is going on vacation and recommended you check this out. Just as I went on one of my longest non-posting spells in months.
The reason for the lack of blogging was lots of real, and quite amusing, real life. So if you can wait it out for a few hours, I promise good stories. Teaser: lesbian opera! See? You'll be back.
The reason for the lack of blogging was lots of real, and quite amusing, real life. So if you can wait it out for a few hours, I promise good stories. Teaser: lesbian opera! See? You'll be back.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Needling the Cat
Strange medicine in the fridge, needles everywhere, and twice-daily injections. It's the tawdry tale of all too many endurance athletes, right?
Well, not me. I'm blaming my extremely suspicious-looking collection of stuff on the cat, as it has been diagnosed with diabetes. This means twice-daily insulin injections (which The Lovely One and I practiced on the cat at the vet's office this afternoon; I have never heard such an aggrieved meow as it delivered when we first jabbed it today. It wasn't so much a sound of pain as a surprised "what the heck are you doing to me this time?"), special food, and occasionally monitoring the glucose level in the cat's urine. Fun fun.
Seeing as how the cat already pretty much thinks I'm scary and evil, doing the injections should be quite the bonding experience for us. Twice a day. I don't think I'll have the element of surprise on my side for more than a day.
Spent some time in Vancouver this evening, after dropping TLO at work. Started out at MEC, and bought a new set of tire levers to replace the three useless ones and the four destroyed ones I bought this year. This time I spent the extra $1.50 and got a set of Park Tool levers. I haven't used them yet, but just taking them out of the package fills me with optimism. They're a lot harder, and feel a lot tougher than the ok-until-they-broke MEC house-brand levers. Lesson learned about saving money by buying quality in the first place? Maybe.
I'm never sure if that's a good deal. On one hand, I have a lot of stuff where I ended up buying a high-quality product to replace initial attempts at cheaping out. On the other hand, I still have the original $25 floor pump I bought. Maybe more importantly, I'm never quite sure what I want or need in gear until I have spent some time making do. Thus, I started out riding in sweat pants and a Salvation-Army synthetic shirt. Now, I ride in bike shorts, bike jerseys, special bike limb warmers, and I came this close to buying special bike socks today. All that expensive, stupid stuff really does work just a bit better. For cycling, and almost no other activity, you really do want pockets on the back of your shirt and substantial crotch padding.
I hope as I age, I'm getting more thoughtfully cheap.
Also at MEC, I ran into Strider, a friend from university and even earlier. we caught up. He's doing some fascinating-sounding work involving face-matching, database interfacing, and child pornography (and aren't you glad I don't have AdWords now?). But in a good way. It sounds technically stimulating, and I hadn't even realized that face-matching systems were already a common part of police databases. So as of right now, I'm off crime.
After I caught up with him and offered up a gmail invite, I wandered over to one of the seedier arcades on Granville Street, and played pinball for the first time in ages. Boy was I terrible! But the Movieland Arcade had The Addams Family, Medieval Madness, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Three of my favourite pins. It was great.
Cat diabetes, pinball, and kiddie porn databases. Eclectic!
Well, not me. I'm blaming my extremely suspicious-looking collection of stuff on the cat, as it has been diagnosed with diabetes. This means twice-daily insulin injections (which The Lovely One and I practiced on the cat at the vet's office this afternoon; I have never heard such an aggrieved meow as it delivered when we first jabbed it today. It wasn't so much a sound of pain as a surprised "what the heck are you doing to me this time?"), special food, and occasionally monitoring the glucose level in the cat's urine. Fun fun.
Seeing as how the cat already pretty much thinks I'm scary and evil, doing the injections should be quite the bonding experience for us. Twice a day. I don't think I'll have the element of surprise on my side for more than a day.
Spent some time in Vancouver this evening, after dropping TLO at work. Started out at MEC, and bought a new set of tire levers to replace the three useless ones and the four destroyed ones I bought this year. This time I spent the extra $1.50 and got a set of Park Tool levers. I haven't used them yet, but just taking them out of the package fills me with optimism. They're a lot harder, and feel a lot tougher than the ok-until-they-broke MEC house-brand levers. Lesson learned about saving money by buying quality in the first place? Maybe.
I'm never sure if that's a good deal. On one hand, I have a lot of stuff where I ended up buying a high-quality product to replace initial attempts at cheaping out. On the other hand, I still have the original $25 floor pump I bought. Maybe more importantly, I'm never quite sure what I want or need in gear until I have spent some time making do. Thus, I started out riding in sweat pants and a Salvation-Army synthetic shirt. Now, I ride in bike shorts, bike jerseys, special bike limb warmers, and I came this close to buying special bike socks today. All that expensive, stupid stuff really does work just a bit better. For cycling, and almost no other activity, you really do want pockets on the back of your shirt and substantial crotch padding.
I hope as I age, I'm getting more thoughtfully cheap.
Also at MEC, I ran into Strider, a friend from university and even earlier. we caught up. He's doing some fascinating-sounding work involving face-matching, database interfacing, and child pornography (and aren't you glad I don't have AdWords now?). But in a good way. It sounds technically stimulating, and I hadn't even realized that face-matching systems were already a common part of police databases. So as of right now, I'm off crime.
After I caught up with him and offered up a gmail invite, I wandered over to one of the seedier arcades on Granville Street, and played pinball for the first time in ages. Boy was I terrible! But the Movieland Arcade had The Addams Family, Medieval Madness, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Three of my favourite pins. It was great.
Cat diabetes, pinball, and kiddie porn databases. Eclectic!
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Tafelmusik!
Maybe the best baroque orchestra in the world, Tafelmusik, is coming to the Champagne Concert series this weekend, in Port Coquitlam. I'm touting this one because I sit on the board of this excellent organization.
If you have any love for baroque or classical music, this is the live-concert deal of the year. Tickets are $25, but only $12 for students.
So, right there you're paying about half what this same act will cost if you go see them on Friday in Vancouver. Second, the venue, Terry Fox Theatre, is wonderful. It's an intimate space of about 400 seats with superb acoustics. You'll love it, trust me. Did I mention free parking? You ain't getting that downtown.
But maybe the nicest tradition of the Champagne Concert series is the after-concert reception with the artists. Did I mention it's catered? Did I mention there's champagne, just as the name might suggest?
No, seriously. Even I, who sit in on most of the board meetings, do not know how we do it, except to say it's wonderful that we do. And when I say we, I give all of the credit to the rest of the board, who do the real work. I'm not going to name names here, for various reasons, but really, I hope the board is reading this, because I think every one of them has done an amazing job, and we're putting an amazing product out there.
My main duties this weekend will be arriving at the venue early enough to help move the harpsichord.
Tickets for the whole season are a super-cheap $99 for five concerts. The Tafelmusik concert is on the verge of selling out: call 604 518-6826 if you need tickets.
If you have any love for baroque or classical music, this is the live-concert deal of the year. Tickets are $25, but only $12 for students.
So, right there you're paying about half what this same act will cost if you go see them on Friday in Vancouver. Second, the venue, Terry Fox Theatre, is wonderful. It's an intimate space of about 400 seats with superb acoustics. You'll love it, trust me. Did I mention free parking? You ain't getting that downtown.
But maybe the nicest tradition of the Champagne Concert series is the after-concert reception with the artists. Did I mention it's catered? Did I mention there's champagne, just as the name might suggest?
No, seriously. Even I, who sit in on most of the board meetings, do not know how we do it, except to say it's wonderful that we do. And when I say we, I give all of the credit to the rest of the board, who do the real work. I'm not going to name names here, for various reasons, but really, I hope the board is reading this, because I think every one of them has done an amazing job, and we're putting an amazing product out there.
My main duties this weekend will be arriving at the venue early enough to help move the harpsichord.
Tickets for the whole season are a super-cheap $99 for five concerts. The Tafelmusik concert is on the verge of selling out: call 604 518-6826 if you need tickets.
Monday, October 18, 2004
The Escape Artist
It's a book by Matt Seaton. It's a brief, but superb book. I think it's the best look inside the mind of an amateur cyclist I'm ever likely to read. Insights like the author's description of the failure of his will to win are dead-on. His discussion of how his bike racing meshes (rather badly) with his domestic life is exactly right. I shall not say more. Read the review. Go get the book.
Oh, I'll say one more thing, but it's merely cheeky: no matter how well the author writes, how much of a saddo do you have to be, no matter what your excuse, to have held a Communist Party card in 1989?
Oh, I'll say one more thing, but it's merely cheeky: no matter how well the author writes, how much of a saddo do you have to be, no matter what your excuse, to have held a Communist Party card in 1989?
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Tri-Cities Transit Follies
In news closer to home, the Tri-Cites (the one consisting of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Anmore, and Belcarra) are to be subjected to a light rail system. I think this is the wrong choice, a sentiment reinforced by a conversation with my dad, who works for SkyTrain. This makes him both something of an expert on transit issues and a bit biased in favour of a particular transit solution.
To the facts. There were three systems being seriously considered for a transit solution, which mostly meant finding some way of getting people from Coquitlam Centre Mall (or the Coquitlam campus of Douglas College, or the Coquitlam city hall; take your pick as to the most useful description of the area) to the Lougheed Mall SkyTrain station, and thus to the rest of the transit system. It appears the preferred route goes through Port Moody.
The slowest, cheapest option was buses, or better yet, guided rubber-tire transit, which is a doofus stopgap system that amounts to an elevated bus lane. It was apparently dismissed as "too risky," though I suspect that could be re-read as "too dorky." Nonetheless, I think it offers few advantages over just running a B-line fast-bus route on the roads, and adding bus-lanes where necessary to speed things up.
The fast, super-expensive option is SkyTrain. 13 minute estimated travel time from end to end. That's really, really fast! In rush hour, it would be, no contest, twice as quick as any other way of getting from Coquitlam to Lougheed Mall. That's the kind of speed that puts people in the seats. Coquitlam Mayor Jon Kingsbury disputed that speed estimate, but he's an idiot. More on that in the next section.
SkyTrain's dirty little secret is that it roughly pays for its operating costs (not its capital costs) out of the fare box, which is nearly unheard of in transit systems, and Greater Vancouver has about as small a population as you can have and still justify a light rail system. But SkyTrain is expensive and it doesn't look cute, with those big guideways and big cars.
Light rail is oh-so cute! It's got cute little trains, it has cute little stations, and it's all very "human scaled." It's also a dog. It's most of the way to the capital costs of a SkyTrain system, but it can't carry as many people, and more importantly, it takes 20 minutes to make the trip. That's not unbearable, but I think the faster trip would be worth the trouble. The gap between trains will also be longer than SkyTrain
Now, back to His Worship, Mayor Kingsbury. From the article above: "Kingsbury said the SkyTrain estimates were unrealistic because they failed to consider stop times of 1.5 minutes at each of the nine stations along the route." Well, my dad had some strong words to say about that, since the stop times that SkyTrain actually puts in right now are well under 20 seconds, and they sweat that number to the second, trying to get it as low as possible at each stop (I think that 13-15 second stops are done at the less popular stations). With 9 stations on the route, SkyTrain would spend at most 3 minutes at rest on this route, not the 13.5 minutes the unclever mayor wants to claim. I'm not even sure if the light rail system would actually be that slow in practice, though I assume that they'll use techniques like fare-taking as you board, which slows things down considerably compared to SkyTrain's pay-before-you-get-to-the-platform system.
So, I don't think a good decision has been made. I think the resulting system will work, after a fashion, and I'm sure to use it on occasion, and I'll try not to resent the big headways (6-15 minutes, versus something more like 1.5-5 minutes between SkyTrains). But SkyTrain would be faster, and faster is really important to making a transit system useful and popular.
To the facts. There were three systems being seriously considered for a transit solution, which mostly meant finding some way of getting people from Coquitlam Centre Mall (or the Coquitlam campus of Douglas College, or the Coquitlam city hall; take your pick as to the most useful description of the area) to the Lougheed Mall SkyTrain station, and thus to the rest of the transit system. It appears the preferred route goes through Port Moody.
The slowest, cheapest option was buses, or better yet, guided rubber-tire transit, which is a doofus stopgap system that amounts to an elevated bus lane. It was apparently dismissed as "too risky," though I suspect that could be re-read as "too dorky." Nonetheless, I think it offers few advantages over just running a B-line fast-bus route on the roads, and adding bus-lanes where necessary to speed things up.
The fast, super-expensive option is SkyTrain. 13 minute estimated travel time from end to end. That's really, really fast! In rush hour, it would be, no contest, twice as quick as any other way of getting from Coquitlam to Lougheed Mall. That's the kind of speed that puts people in the seats. Coquitlam Mayor Jon Kingsbury disputed that speed estimate, but he's an idiot. More on that in the next section.
SkyTrain's dirty little secret is that it roughly pays for its operating costs (not its capital costs) out of the fare box, which is nearly unheard of in transit systems, and Greater Vancouver has about as small a population as you can have and still justify a light rail system. But SkyTrain is expensive and it doesn't look cute, with those big guideways and big cars.
Light rail is oh-so cute! It's got cute little trains, it has cute little stations, and it's all very "human scaled." It's also a dog. It's most of the way to the capital costs of a SkyTrain system, but it can't carry as many people, and more importantly, it takes 20 minutes to make the trip. That's not unbearable, but I think the faster trip would be worth the trouble. The gap between trains will also be longer than SkyTrain
Now, back to His Worship, Mayor Kingsbury. From the article above: "Kingsbury said the SkyTrain estimates were unrealistic because they failed to consider stop times of 1.5 minutes at each of the nine stations along the route." Well, my dad had some strong words to say about that, since the stop times that SkyTrain actually puts in right now are well under 20 seconds, and they sweat that number to the second, trying to get it as low as possible at each stop (I think that 13-15 second stops are done at the less popular stations). With 9 stations on the route, SkyTrain would spend at most 3 minutes at rest on this route, not the 13.5 minutes the unclever mayor wants to claim. I'm not even sure if the light rail system would actually be that slow in practice, though I assume that they'll use techniques like fare-taking as you board, which slows things down considerably compared to SkyTrain's pay-before-you-get-to-the-platform system.
So, I don't think a good decision has been made. I think the resulting system will work, after a fashion, and I'm sure to use it on occasion, and I'll try not to resent the big headways (6-15 minutes, versus something more like 1.5-5 minutes between SkyTrains). But SkyTrain would be faster, and faster is really important to making a transit system useful and popular.
Welcome to Vancouver, A Ward-Free Zone
Despite Global's overenthusiastic headline, Vancouver gave a tepid no (link permanence not guaranteed) to wards in a vote on Saturday. Turnout was 22.6%, less than half the Olympic plebiscite voting rate, and much less than the last civic election.
Final score was 54-46 for No.
Let me make a few guesses about the reasons for the outcome. In short, the same people who are out there voting in the civic elections (the west siders, to generalize a lot) turned out today. They favoured a system which favours people who actually vote, over one that offered regional representation.
They also, and I doubt this is a coincidence, favoured a system that keeps the number of councillors at a respectably low 10.
There was much back-and-forth about how neighbourhood representation would be aided by wards, or how wards would create a council of warring representatives, each only concerned with their own neighbourhood at the expense of the greater good. I suspect the truth is that whatever magic has resulted in Vancouver, it had little to do with the council chamber election system.
If I ran the zoo, I'd focus on Vancouver's only real problem, the Downtown East Side. I'd fix it in the only way likely to work: by putting the residents of the area in a culture where it was no longer normal or acceptable to be on drugs, off meds, or otherwise completely messed up. I'd accomplish that in the least popular way possible: dispersion and gentrification. Pop little tiny SRO-type developments into the corners of a wide number of co-ops all over the Lower Mainland. Make the current residents of nasty SRO units live in similarly priced (and probably more spacious) basement suites in the suburbs, just like SFU students. Then I'd do everything in my power to gentrify the heck out of the remains of the neighbourhood, until it was nothing but a pile of condos perched on endless numbers of Starbucks and upscale boutiques.
And that's why I'm not mayor.
Final score was 54-46 for No.
Let me make a few guesses about the reasons for the outcome. In short, the same people who are out there voting in the civic elections (the west siders, to generalize a lot) turned out today. They favoured a system which favours people who actually vote, over one that offered regional representation.
They also, and I doubt this is a coincidence, favoured a system that keeps the number of councillors at a respectably low 10.
There was much back-and-forth about how neighbourhood representation would be aided by wards, or how wards would create a council of warring representatives, each only concerned with their own neighbourhood at the expense of the greater good. I suspect the truth is that whatever magic has resulted in Vancouver, it had little to do with the council chamber election system.
If I ran the zoo, I'd focus on Vancouver's only real problem, the Downtown East Side. I'd fix it in the only way likely to work: by putting the residents of the area in a culture where it was no longer normal or acceptable to be on drugs, off meds, or otherwise completely messed up. I'd accomplish that in the least popular way possible: dispersion and gentrification. Pop little tiny SRO-type developments into the corners of a wide number of co-ops all over the Lower Mainland. Make the current residents of nasty SRO units live in similarly priced (and probably more spacious) basement suites in the suburbs, just like SFU students. Then I'd do everything in my power to gentrify the heck out of the remains of the neighbourhood, until it was nothing but a pile of condos perched on endless numbers of Starbucks and upscale boutiques.
And that's why I'm not mayor.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Fixed Gear
I couldn't do the club ride today due to a scheduling conflict, but I did manage to run a few other errands, and kept pretty busy. I spent a few hours doing a major reconstruction of the fixed gear, one of my less-ridden bikes.
The reason I wasn't riding it so much is that in the first iteration, I had created a monstrously overgeared bike. A typical road-going fixed-gear will use a gear like 42-15 or so, but I was riding around on something like a 52-16. That's a crazy gear, super-high, so the bike was all but impossible to ride up a serious hill, and coming down was almost as bad, as the high gear ensured you couldn't slow the bike down much by backpedaling.
So, since I had the bike apart, I decided to correct most of the bike's other fixed-gear sins: quick releases are a fixie no-no, mostly out of a respect for track traditions and a serious desire for the rear wheel to not come loose while riding in the velodrome (if possible, a loose rear wheel is an even worse experience on a fixed gear than a geared freewheel bike, but then most drivetrain failures are). So I decided to respace to 110 mm at the rear, the traditional fixed-gear standard, so that I could use other hubs in the future, and so I could remove some spacers from my current axle, convert it to nuts from a quick-release, and possibly use the second set of threads on the other side (this is a good thing, because it means I can now put a second choice of gearing, or even a freewheel, on the spare side).
When a shop re-spaces your steel frame (usually to make it wider so you can use modern drivetrains with 8-10 speeds) they probably use the fancy term cold-set, which sounds nicer than "bend frame without using heat". Which is what they do, and what I did on the porch. The approved technique involves a 2x4 and judicious force, but since I was going narrower and felt lazy, I just stood on the frame a little, then un-bent it a bit to fix my overenthusiasm, then used my nifty dropout-alignment tools to make the final tweaks. Some string and cleverness nicely substitutes for a frame-alignment tool, and you can get away without using dropout-alignment tools, but the latter is fun to play with, and I got my set for free, more or less.
Changing the gearing was surprisingly involved. The old chainring I was using was permanently attached to the cheap original crank from the bike. This bit of unpleasantness was removed from the bike and put back on the parts pile, and out came a 5-bolt crank and appropriate ring. Two appropriate rings in the end, since the easiest way I had to solve some spacer issues with the chainring bolts was to add another, smaller chainring just outside the actual drive ring. It looks silly, but it works just fine, and gives me a theoretical option to drop the gearing slightly, from the 44 to a 40.
I got the project mostly reassembled before dark (there are some outstanding issues with re-centering the rim, adjusting the rear brake, and fixing a flat tire), and retired to the computer feeling quietly satisfied with a fairly well-executed bike project.
I also found the SCSI drives I needed this week (yay eBay), and have convinced my father to focus on the Canon A70 or A75 as his first digital camera. They're really good.
Uh-oh. There's some ready-made frosting in the fridge. I don't know what evil the frosting cartels work to make it so smooth and tasty, so close to being pre-mixed butter and sugar, but um, it's okay to just eat that stuff, right?
The reason I wasn't riding it so much is that in the first iteration, I had created a monstrously overgeared bike. A typical road-going fixed-gear will use a gear like 42-15 or so, but I was riding around on something like a 52-16. That's a crazy gear, super-high, so the bike was all but impossible to ride up a serious hill, and coming down was almost as bad, as the high gear ensured you couldn't slow the bike down much by backpedaling.
So, since I had the bike apart, I decided to correct most of the bike's other fixed-gear sins: quick releases are a fixie no-no, mostly out of a respect for track traditions and a serious desire for the rear wheel to not come loose while riding in the velodrome (if possible, a loose rear wheel is an even worse experience on a fixed gear than a geared freewheel bike, but then most drivetrain failures are). So I decided to respace to 110 mm at the rear, the traditional fixed-gear standard, so that I could use other hubs in the future, and so I could remove some spacers from my current axle, convert it to nuts from a quick-release, and possibly use the second set of threads on the other side (this is a good thing, because it means I can now put a second choice of gearing, or even a freewheel, on the spare side).
When a shop re-spaces your steel frame (usually to make it wider so you can use modern drivetrains with 8-10 speeds) they probably use the fancy term cold-set, which sounds nicer than "bend frame without using heat". Which is what they do, and what I did on the porch. The approved technique involves a 2x4 and judicious force, but since I was going narrower and felt lazy, I just stood on the frame a little, then un-bent it a bit to fix my overenthusiasm, then used my nifty dropout-alignment tools to make the final tweaks. Some string and cleverness nicely substitutes for a frame-alignment tool, and you can get away without using dropout-alignment tools, but the latter is fun to play with, and I got my set for free, more or less.
Changing the gearing was surprisingly involved. The old chainring I was using was permanently attached to the cheap original crank from the bike. This bit of unpleasantness was removed from the bike and put back on the parts pile, and out came a 5-bolt crank and appropriate ring. Two appropriate rings in the end, since the easiest way I had to solve some spacer issues with the chainring bolts was to add another, smaller chainring just outside the actual drive ring. It looks silly, but it works just fine, and gives me a theoretical option to drop the gearing slightly, from the 44 to a 40.
I got the project mostly reassembled before dark (there are some outstanding issues with re-centering the rim, adjusting the rear brake, and fixing a flat tire), and retired to the computer feeling quietly satisfied with a fairly well-executed bike project.
I also found the SCSI drives I needed this week (yay eBay), and have convinced my father to focus on the Canon A70 or A75 as his first digital camera. They're really good.
Uh-oh. There's some ready-made frosting in the fridge. I don't know what evil the frosting cartels work to make it so smooth and tasty, so close to being pre-mixed butter and sugar, but um, it's okay to just eat that stuff, right?
Friday, October 15, 2004
Dark Rides
Today is one of those days I use to mark the seasons: the first day I absolutely, positively had to have lights on for my commute.
I depart from the house, ideally, at 0715, with and expected arrival at 0745. Official sunrise was at 0734 today. Sunset is not until 1823 local time, and I finish work at 1700, so I should make it home without needing the lights, though I often run a red blinkie at the rear just for extra conspicuity.
Lighting options have greatly increased lately, mainly due to the rise of white LEDs. These are great lights for being seen, but don't yet throw enough light for really good seeing at night. My commute is well-lit, but I want to try some night-riding of trails this year.
I'm using a simple 3-LED blinking white light at the front, and I have a set of good used incandescent lights which should be usable for trail riding. I'm experimenting with them now: the battery is depleted, so I need to hook up a new one. Fortunately, I have a serious 12V sealed lead-acid unit that I managed to get for free. Unfortunately, it's about 15 pounds, and big. If I can find a way to securely mount it, it should work for my needs. And provide some weight training in the bargain.
Played indoor soccer yesterday, as the lunchtime intramural season started up. My neck is still hurting 24 hours later. We lost 7-2.
I depart from the house, ideally, at 0715, with and expected arrival at 0745. Official sunrise was at 0734 today. Sunset is not until 1823 local time, and I finish work at 1700, so I should make it home without needing the lights, though I often run a red blinkie at the rear just for extra conspicuity.
Lighting options have greatly increased lately, mainly due to the rise of white LEDs. These are great lights for being seen, but don't yet throw enough light for really good seeing at night. My commute is well-lit, but I want to try some night-riding of trails this year.
I'm using a simple 3-LED blinking white light at the front, and I have a set of good used incandescent lights which should be usable for trail riding. I'm experimenting with them now: the battery is depleted, so I need to hook up a new one. Fortunately, I have a serious 12V sealed lead-acid unit that I managed to get for free. Unfortunately, it's about 15 pounds, and big. If I can find a way to securely mount it, it should work for my needs. And provide some weight training in the bargain.
Played indoor soccer yesterday, as the lunchtime intramural season started up. My neck is still hurting 24 hours later. We lost 7-2.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
A Michael Moore movie I can really get behind
Hey, what can I say? You'll never think about Middle Earth the same way again. (Þ: Darren Barefoot.)
Interesting Thing of the Day: The Evolution of Scrolling
Obviously, I'm not reading Joe Kissel's Interesting Thing of the Day often enough. He recently did an article on
The Evolution of Scrolling which I appreciate for a few reasons.
I briefly worked as a hardware and software tester for Kensington (their Gravis facility in Burnaby, actually) in 2000, and Joe was the guy in the office two doors away, and met with us testing grunts fairly often. I did some testing of the TurboRing trackball he describes, and several other devices, including some joysticks and the latest and greatest versions of the software for both the Kensington mice/trackballs and the Gravis joysticks and joypads.
The oddly named Expert Mouse (it's a large-ball trackball) which Joe talks about is still my very favourite input device. I like the efficient, precise movement combined with a device that doesn't wander all over the desktop, which is what mice do. It is a quirk of cheapness that I don't own one of these most excellent devices already.
My retirement present from Gravis was a prototype gamepad, which is kind of a neat thing to have.
The Evolution of Scrolling which I appreciate for a few reasons.
I briefly worked as a hardware and software tester for Kensington (their Gravis facility in Burnaby, actually) in 2000, and Joe was the guy in the office two doors away, and met with us testing grunts fairly often. I did some testing of the TurboRing trackball he describes, and several other devices, including some joysticks and the latest and greatest versions of the software for both the Kensington mice/trackballs and the Gravis joysticks and joypads.
The oddly named Expert Mouse (it's a large-ball trackball) which Joe talks about is still my very favourite input device. I like the efficient, precise movement combined with a device that doesn't wander all over the desktop, which is what mice do. It is a quirk of cheapness that I don't own one of these most excellent devices already.
My retirement present from Gravis was a prototype gamepad, which is kind of a neat thing to have.
Saturday, October 09, 2004
Ridiculous weekend redux
So lots of projects right now. I need, for obscure reasons, some high-performance 50-pin SCSI drives. I'm trying to find a nice new camera for my parents (DMC-LC70 on eBay, I'm looking at you), I'm trying to buy Eric's camera, and there's the usual fuzz of bicycle projects ranging from the sane (replace brake pads) to the insane (just about everything to do with the Auto-mini, a BMX for my mom...).
Regarding these, if you have any suggestions for a source of old SCSI drives, or a good camera in the $200-300 price range, I'm all ears.
My very, very stupidest project of recent days was the Katamari Damacy music project. Essentially, I loved and desired the music from this great little game. I searched high and low for some secret PS2 hacking tool that would give me access to the music tracks. The short answer is that it would probably have required hacking assembly code in the hopes of finding the entry and exit points to the music data.
Then, as I was ready to go insane (or possibly order the soundtrack from Japan), I discovered when you finish the game, you unlock clean copies of all the in-game songs. Oh. New plan: play songs through the receiver, run cable from the receiver's headphone jack to the laptop audio-in.
Not to be ungrateful, but the sound room plays most of these tracks as a loop (interestingly skipping some sort of short start loop with most of these songs; presumably this is how the songs are looped during each level in the game) with no indication of where the songs end. So I can't tell how long to record.
So other than that, the usual: bike ride in the morning, Katamari Damacy in the afternoon, dropped by Daniel's house in the evening, coming up with a terrible parlour game: given a movie title, add another movie that shares at least one word with the first film, and then describe the mash-up plot before giving the film name.
Example: "I want to see that film about the kids who build a Russian nuclear sub in their back yards and then defect to the us side! You know, The Hunt for Red October Sky."
Paul "won" the game with his description of the daring adventures of a group of WWII sailors who plotted to take over a German submarine by pretending to be crazy, U-571 Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Regarding these, if you have any suggestions for a source of old SCSI drives, or a good camera in the $200-300 price range, I'm all ears.
My very, very stupidest project of recent days was the Katamari Damacy music project. Essentially, I loved and desired the music from this great little game. I searched high and low for some secret PS2 hacking tool that would give me access to the music tracks. The short answer is that it would probably have required hacking assembly code in the hopes of finding the entry and exit points to the music data.
Then, as I was ready to go insane (or possibly order the soundtrack from Japan), I discovered when you finish the game, you unlock clean copies of all the in-game songs. Oh. New plan: play songs through the receiver, run cable from the receiver's headphone jack to the laptop audio-in.
Not to be ungrateful, but the sound room plays most of these tracks as a loop (interestingly skipping some sort of short start loop with most of these songs; presumably this is how the songs are looped during each level in the game) with no indication of where the songs end. So I can't tell how long to record.
So other than that, the usual: bike ride in the morning, Katamari Damacy in the afternoon, dropped by Daniel's house in the evening, coming up with a terrible parlour game: given a movie title, add another movie that shares at least one word with the first film, and then describe the mash-up plot before giving the film name.
Example: "I want to see that film about the kids who build a Russian nuclear sub in their back yards and then defect to the us side! You know, The Hunt for Red October Sky."
Paul "won" the game with his description of the daring adventures of a group of WWII sailors who plotted to take over a German submarine by pretending to be crazy, U-571 Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Friday, October 08, 2004
Naughty, naughty Microsoft!
Robert X. Cringely (the PBS one, not the Info World one, long story...) has a natural gift for overstatement. Erick tends to think he's a complete idiot most of the time. Nonetheless, he's got the scoop on some interesting, if long court documents.
The scary court submission suggesting MS told naughty lies to the Department of Justice and others. The explanatory column.
The scary court submission suggesting MS told naughty lies to the Department of Justice and others. The explanatory column.
Katamari Damacy Update
Curse you Penny Arcade for addicting me to this wonderful game! I have picked up a cow, two types of car, a couple of motorcycles, and some jungle gyms. Current project: find some way of extracting the soundtrack so I can make my own CD of the rich, tasty music. Oh yes.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
This post is mostly about voting
So the City of Vancouver is about to ask its citizens to vote on whether they want a ward system to replace the at-large council system which the city currently uses. Mercifully, I live two municipalities away, so I don't have to make an excuse for missing the civic plebiscite on the 16th.
The entierety of left-leaning politics in town, from the Mayor to the Georgia Straight to Mike Harcourt have come out firmly in favour of wards, apparently on the basis that what they have done for Los Angeles, Detroit, and Washington D.C., they can do for us. Forgive my suspicions that they figure this would cement the current COPE majority on council, since the west side of town would no longer the gain the unfair advantage of having an overabundance of citzens who bother to vote, thus ensuring their interests are well-represented in city hall. The nerve! Exercising franchise! It must be racist! Or something. The accusations (it hurts minorities, it's unconstitutional, &c.) are weird. I'm not sure if the proponents believe this, or just believe there will be political gain to be had.
The thing that surprises me is that this is the same gang calling quite vociferously for some form of proportional representation at the provincial level. of course, in some key ways, the current at-large system has much more similarity (though some notable differences) to current pro-rep systems. Meanwhile, the proposed wards are are a perfect equivalent to the current federal and provincial systems of electing MPs and MLAs.
I think the move to a ward system represents a move to a slightly less perfect form of democracy. This isn't an entire province, or even counry, where ridings are a consequence of having vast swathes of territory to represent. Vancouver can be traversed by bicycle in less than an hour in virtually any direction. It's not a challenge to check out something happening two neighbourhoods away.
But I'm going to leave off. Port Moody is in the throes of dealing with some major developments, notably recreating Rocky Point, facing some sort of upcoming rapid transit system, the reconstruction of Murray St. for the purpose of making traffic go faster, and a lot of development.
More some other time.
The entierety of left-leaning politics in town, from the Mayor to the Georgia Straight to Mike Harcourt have come out firmly in favour of wards, apparently on the basis that what they have done for Los Angeles, Detroit, and Washington D.C., they can do for us. Forgive my suspicions that they figure this would cement the current COPE majority on council, since the west side of town would no longer the gain the unfair advantage of having an overabundance of citzens who bother to vote, thus ensuring their interests are well-represented in city hall. The nerve! Exercising franchise! It must be racist! Or something. The accusations (it hurts minorities, it's unconstitutional, &c.) are weird. I'm not sure if the proponents believe this, or just believe there will be political gain to be had.
The thing that surprises me is that this is the same gang calling quite vociferously for some form of proportional representation at the provincial level. of course, in some key ways, the current at-large system has much more similarity (though some notable differences) to current pro-rep systems. Meanwhile, the proposed wards are are a perfect equivalent to the current federal and provincial systems of electing MPs and MLAs.
I think the move to a ward system represents a move to a slightly less perfect form of democracy. This isn't an entire province, or even counry, where ridings are a consequence of having vast swathes of territory to represent. Vancouver can be traversed by bicycle in less than an hour in virtually any direction. It's not a challenge to check out something happening two neighbourhoods away.
But I'm going to leave off. Port Moody is in the throes of dealing with some major developments, notably recreating Rocky Point, facing some sort of upcoming rapid transit system, the reconstruction of Murray St. for the purpose of making traffic go faster, and a lot of development.
More some other time.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
I got it for my birthday
Katamari Damacy. Well, Mike gave me a gift certificate, which was quickly turned into Katamari Damacy. Funny story about that: I got all excited after he came over around 7 last night, told him what I was going to buy with the gift certificate, so we jumped in his car, drove to the mall, and as we got there, I remembered that it was Tuesday, and the mall closed at 6:30. So I went back and got it this evening.
The short version, after an hour of play: the game's graphics, how can I put this charitably? They are bad. Some of this may be the look the designers wanted for the game. But we're talking almost untextured objects in many cases, and no visual depth. But the graphic design of the game, as opposed to how many neat visual effects are on screen, is High Japanese Weirdness. I love you, Japan! You're weird! Don't ever change! The music is silly, in a very good way. The controls are pretty tight, but the experience of rolling around your Katamari-ball once you've gotten it good and lopsided (and if you're clumsy like me, that will happen a lot), is annoying, but it's supposed to be.
Who cares? You can pick up cats! Yes, roll over birds, mice, almost any household object you can imagine, animals of all description, and make a big ball. It's funny, it's fun, I'm quite happy to have spent $30 on this thing, because I've been playing for an hour and I can't stop grinning. The cut-scenes are actually funny, featuring as they do the King of the Cosmos, who is almost certainly on drugs, and dresses a lot like Chairman Kaga.
Yeah, so go play Katamari Damacy. I can't wait until I make a ball big enough to pick up cows.
The short version, after an hour of play: the game's graphics, how can I put this charitably? They are bad. Some of this may be the look the designers wanted for the game. But we're talking almost untextured objects in many cases, and no visual depth. But the graphic design of the game, as opposed to how many neat visual effects are on screen, is High Japanese Weirdness. I love you, Japan! You're weird! Don't ever change! The music is silly, in a very good way. The controls are pretty tight, but the experience of rolling around your Katamari-ball once you've gotten it good and lopsided (and if you're clumsy like me, that will happen a lot), is annoying, but it's supposed to be.
Who cares? You can pick up cats! Yes, roll over birds, mice, almost any household object you can imagine, animals of all description, and make a big ball. It's funny, it's fun, I'm quite happy to have spent $30 on this thing, because I've been playing for an hour and I can't stop grinning. The cut-scenes are actually funny, featuring as they do the King of the Cosmos, who is almost certainly on drugs, and dresses a lot like Chairman Kaga.
Yeah, so go play Katamari Damacy. I can't wait until I make a ball big enough to pick up cows.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Happy Birthday to me
31. And darned nearly hairless thanks to my recent close shave. Instead of ruminating about being old, I think I'll ruminate about being bald.
I'm not really bald. I just shaved my head down to about 2 mm. Since I am a perpetually warm person (not just my personality, either!) I enjoyed the cooler feel. But really, it's a little much. I, who didn't generally wear a hat even in the rain (I have no use for umbrellas, but that's another story), now wear hats all the time, and not just to hide my unsightly skull. It's also to keep my unsightly skull warm, a job previously done by, you know, hair.
Have a happy birthday today, even if it is my birthday you're having.
I'm not really bald. I just shaved my head down to about 2 mm. Since I am a perpetually warm person (not just my personality, either!) I enjoyed the cooler feel. But really, it's a little much. I, who didn't generally wear a hat even in the rain (I have no use for umbrellas, but that's another story), now wear hats all the time, and not just to hide my unsightly skull. It's also to keep my unsightly skull warm, a job previously done by, you know, hair.
Have a happy birthday today, even if it is my birthday you're having.
Update on Vic
Vic will be discharged from the hospital, either Monday (ie, already) or Tuesday. The cracked ribs and collarbone will keep him out of action for a while, but he seemed in good spirits when I saw him (and his lovely wife) on Monday around noon. We had a good visit. He's pretty badly beat up, but eager to get back on the bike. That's good!
Saturday, October 02, 2004
Say a prayer for Vic
My friend Vic came out for the Saturday morning bike ride with me, fell down, and is now spending the evening at Richmond General Hospital as they treat broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a partly collapsed lung, and a seriously rung bell. I'll be off to see him tomorrow. Remember kids: it's not fun to make people with rib injuries laugh.
You can get it for me for my birthday
As a regular reader of Penny Arcade, I was bemused when they did a comic and newspost on something called Katamari Damacy, which they liked more than candy.
That box art! That ludicrous gameplay! The promo copy seems to have been written by Bizarro Jesse Jackson: "Featuring ball-rolling and object-collecting gameplay mechanics of mesmerizing fluidity, reduced to Pac-Man simplicity, through pure absurdity." And did I mention the luscious, juicy price? Namco is selling this as a budget title, which means about $30 in Canada.
Speaking of cheap games, SOCOM II, Jak II, and Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando are all "Greatest Hits" now, which means they're cheap and cheerful too. Not to mention SSX 3, which is sweet snowy goodness. But I already bought that at full price.
That box art! That ludicrous gameplay! The promo copy seems to have been written by Bizarro Jesse Jackson: "Featuring ball-rolling and object-collecting gameplay mechanics of mesmerizing fluidity, reduced to Pac-Man simplicity, through pure absurdity." And did I mention the luscious, juicy price? Namco is selling this as a budget title, which means about $30 in Canada.
Speaking of cheap games, SOCOM II, Jak II, and Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando are all "Greatest Hits" now, which means they're cheap and cheerful too. Not to mention SSX 3, which is sweet snowy goodness. But I already bought that at full price.
BMX LX version II.i
Sorry, no photos yet, but The Lovely One's bicycle underwent some major surgery Friday. I did a fork transplant in order to add new brakes in hopes of improving the braking. Did it work? A painful but hilarious endo during the first test ride says yes, emphatically!
Alas, it didn't go quite as planned. In fact, it took three tries to make the brakes work.
Attempt #1: I replaced the fork with one that had cantilever/V-brake posts, as I didn't have a long-reach brake around with any decency. In the long term, I may try to buy some for use in this project and on the Auto-Mini. Dave donated some very nice Suntour XCM cantilever brakes for the BMX LX, and I tried to put them on. Unfortunately, there was some odd incompatibility, and they almost-but-not-quite worked. I think they're designed for a slightly different mounting post.
Attempt #2: No trouble. I have lots of other, cheesier cantilever brakes. I grab a set of plastic-bodied Exage brakes from a bike in the shed, and pop those on. A perfect fit. Unfortunately, the new fork had a slightly shorter steer tube than the old one, and there was no way I could fit the a headset-mounted cable stop. Which sucked. But I wasn't licked yet.
Attempt #3: Grab some cheesy linear-pull (V-brake) units I had in my parts bucket. The sad part was this obviated using the really neat Campagnolo brake lever I had (it was from their long-defunct mountain bike group, but would only work properly with conventional or canti brakes), forcing me to dig into the parts bucket for a linear-pull lever (Alivio, sigh). But it all worked, at long last.
That led to the amusing test ride. The previous brake was nasty and flexy, and required a high-effort pull to get any stopping power. I pulled the new brake as if it was the old brake, and learned that short-wheelbase bikes are very happy to lift their rear wheels. Then I lost my balance and endoed over the bike.
I did some other bike stuff at the same time. I completely stripped the donor BMX, I examined the Auto-Mini with an eye to doing some other projects on it (to do: get a frame gusset welded in, and possibly canti posts added to the fork, then lace up my new 3-speed hub into a 20" wheel, expressly for this bike), and I made a problematic attempt to rehab two bad wheels into one good one by transplanting a freehub body from one to the other.
I'm on the back side of my vacation time. Last day at home is October 5, my birthday.
Alas, it didn't go quite as planned. In fact, it took three tries to make the brakes work.
Attempt #1: I replaced the fork with one that had cantilever/V-brake posts, as I didn't have a long-reach brake around with any decency. In the long term, I may try to buy some for use in this project and on the Auto-Mini. Dave donated some very nice Suntour XCM cantilever brakes for the BMX LX, and I tried to put them on. Unfortunately, there was some odd incompatibility, and they almost-but-not-quite worked. I think they're designed for a slightly different mounting post.
Attempt #2: No trouble. I have lots of other, cheesier cantilever brakes. I grab a set of plastic-bodied Exage brakes from a bike in the shed, and pop those on. A perfect fit. Unfortunately, the new fork had a slightly shorter steer tube than the old one, and there was no way I could fit the a headset-mounted cable stop. Which sucked. But I wasn't licked yet.
Attempt #3: Grab some cheesy linear-pull (V-brake) units I had in my parts bucket. The sad part was this obviated using the really neat Campagnolo brake lever I had (it was from their long-defunct mountain bike group, but would only work properly with conventional or canti brakes), forcing me to dig into the parts bucket for a linear-pull lever (Alivio, sigh). But it all worked, at long last.
That led to the amusing test ride. The previous brake was nasty and flexy, and required a high-effort pull to get any stopping power. I pulled the new brake as if it was the old brake, and learned that short-wheelbase bikes are very happy to lift their rear wheels. Then I lost my balance and endoed over the bike.
I did some other bike stuff at the same time. I completely stripped the donor BMX, I examined the Auto-Mini with an eye to doing some other projects on it (to do: get a frame gusset welded in, and possibly canti posts added to the fork, then lace up my new 3-speed hub into a 20" wheel, expressly for this bike), and I made a problematic attempt to rehab two bad wheels into one good one by transplanting a freehub body from one to the other.
I'm on the back side of my vacation time. Last day at home is October 5, my birthday.
