Saturday, May 27, 2006

Michael Schumacher is a cheating bastard

Finally there's some justice in F1 racing. It was painfully obvious to everyone that what Michael Schumacher did on the final lap of qualifying was blatantly wrong, and it's good to see that after an investigation he gets to start where he deserves, right next to his teammate on the 12th row.

What made it stand out was that on the lap that he pulled this stunt on, Fernando Alonso still finished only +0.064 seconds off from making pole. So, instead of taking 2nd position and being on the lead row, the worthless bastard gets to sit at the back of the grid and try to fight his way forward. Not likely given that about 40 of the 50 runnings of the Monaco Grand Prix have gone to the first three grid positions. I believe it has been 10 years since someone not in the front of the pack has managed to win.

If this decision were up to the FIA, I'm sure that it would have gone in favor of Schumacher. For years the FIA has done everything it could to work in favor of Ferrari, but finally this decision wasn't up to them. Under the sporting regulations, the actions of the driver are judged by the race stewards, not Bernie Ecclestone. Thank god.

Sadly, we've had two awesome races recently, the Grand Prix of Europe and the Grand Prix of Spain, both of which were exciting, close fights between the two drivers, and the fans would have had another awesome display of engineering, driving and strategy this weekend, but alas, rather than fight fair, he chose to fight dirty.

Friday, May 26, 2006

How to cheat good

Alex Halavais has done an excellent job of providing useful advice on
how to cheat effectively. As a lecturer at a university, I can understand all too well his lament about students turning in work that is strangely not of their own making. Thankfully the small number of students I have had to work with make this a minor issue for me, but my colleagues with larger student groups do have a heck of a time with it.

8. Edit > Paste Special > Unformatted Text

This is my Number 1 piece of advice, even if it is numbered eight. When you copy things from the web into Word, ignoring #3 above, don’t just “Edit > Paste” it into your document. When I am reading a document in black, Times New Roman, 12pt, and it suddenly changes to blue, Helvetica, 10pt (yes, really), I’m going to guess that something odd may be going on. This seems to happen in about 1% of student work turned in, and periodically makes me feel like becoming a hermit.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

All glass Apple store open 24/7

Glass Apple store in NYC.The new Apple store in New York, New York is absolutely incredible looking. At least from the outside. The rather pedestrian looking Apple stores in the Los Angeles area are entirely unworthy of visiting now. What really kills me is that the store is supposedly to be open 24/7!

I live in a major metropolitan area, but it has a distinct lack of 24 hour offerings. Sure, the Home Depot in Hollywood used to be open 24/7, but that went away back around 2000. I wish more stores would adopt these sort of hours. Other than a burrito and/or some cold medicine, there's very little that is available at all hours within a reasonable distance of my home.

Stone Golem Suit

Stone Golem SuitThis video of a LARP group's stone golem suit is absolutely awesome. If LARPers weren't a half-step above Furries, one would almost want to go play with them.

This would be an incredible halloween costume though. If I only had the time, I would make one and dress up for the first time in years.