tintedpane.com

I want to have a side section that shows new/recent posts that aren’t in the “Daily Activities” category b/c I want to stop posting entries that aren’t front page worthy to the main page.

I’ve installed the Speling (sic) spell checker plugin for MT. A few notes:

* If you need to download and install the Lingua::Ispell Perl module, create a folder named Lingua inside of extlib and place the module in there. It took me about half an hour of fumbling around to figure that out.

* If you need to find out the location of Ispell on your *nix server but don’t have shell access, you can see if your website control panel has the ability to do Cron Jobs. If so, you can set it to run the command whereis ispell. The resulting output should tell your where the location is. Usually it’s /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. You can also run ispell -v to see if your version is recent enough.

I’ve been waiting a few years for a decent, yet affordable headunit to show up on the market. There are finally some models with a rotary volume knob and non-flashy interfaces. Car audio to me is not like home audio. I think you should get the cheapest thing possible because there are always thieving eyes out there ready to take your hard earned bucks. So that’s why I stayed away from brands like Nakamichi and Denon (before they stopped their Car Audio Division) even though they had quality stuff. Well, I also don’t think it’s worth getting a hi fidelity system only to use it in a noisy environment when you could spend it on quality home hi-fi where you can control the noise sources.
So to keep it brief, I’ve found some units by Panasonic that have those features plus MP3 CD-R/RW playback, which is the clincher for me. In accordance w/ my philosophy of conservative car audio, using CD’s for lossy audio storage is much better than an expensive hard drive-storage based headunit. It’s easier to get the data there in the first place, plus you do away with needing to keep all your expensive cd’s on your car (again, keeping your liability to a bare minimum).

And without further adieu, I present the units I’ve been looking at (click for a larger view):

(Images (c) Crutchfield.)

The first model has two fading (front/rear) 2.5V outputs. I actually saw the unit firsthand, and was unfortunately? disappointed. The black is a cheap shiny looking black and the seek buttons look cheezy and don’t have good tactile feedback.

The second model has a non-fading 2.5V sub. channel output in addition to the two fading outputs. However, it has a non-defeatable 80/120Hz cutoff. (I’m not sure yet if this is a good thing or not.) It also has a better looking front panel. Too bad it doesn’t match my car’s matte black trim. (I’m actually thinking about going into business making my own car audio headunits and making them match OEM trim since I’ve not seen any manufacturers attempt to do this.) I’m very picky about keeping the OEM look in my car and it irritates me that the display lights won’t match either.

(I hope I didn’t sound too irritable just then. I only wish the state of car audio was better than this.)

I was also looking at some Eclipse audio headunits. I’m irked that they only sell them through brick and mortar stores. I don’t like dealing w/ salespeople. No commission != no pressure, non-asininity nor nondiscrimination. Anyways, their units look decent and they tailor more to high-end audio consumers.

Here’s a pic of their lower-end MP3 compat. unit:

Maybe I’ll also look into this one. It’s got the same kind of outputs as the second Panasonic unit. The display is a bit primitive though, compared to the Panasonic units.

One thing that’s innovative about the Eclipse stuff is their security. Most companies employ a removable faceplate. Eclipse however asks you for a unique CD as a key and it stores the CD’s signature in ROM so that the unit won’t work w/out the specific CD if power is cut. I like that kind of innovation. Still sucks for you if it gets stolen though, haha.

Their higher end stuff includes 8V low-impedance balanced outputs for better signal to noise ratios and 24bit delta-sigma digital to analog converters. And a <drool> vacuum fluorescent </drool> display. (If you want the best display, you gotta go VF (a la Mark Levinson). But I spose that gets away from my car audio philosophy doesn’t it? <grin>

So let me know what you think of these headunits — features, how it would fit in my car, etc.

A technology survey from AMD. Check out the press release after you finish it.

(From Ars.)

I’ll be disconnected for the next couple of days. Bye!

Inkjet ink more expensive than ‘85 Dom Perignon.

Stop the Clear Channel Monopoly!

Short story if you’re bored.

(Thanks to boingboing.)

And on the same note of quick info, I think I’m gonna add a side blog (column) for little stuff like this and also other things like a wishlist, current projects, music, etc…

I’ve been following F1 racing for a few months now and it’s pretty exciting. Last night I happened to watch the qualifiers for the French Grand Prix that ran this morning at 7am. Ralf Shumacher and Juan Montoya of the Williams-BMW team qualified first and second, respectively. And this morning, they took first and second place, also respectively. This a big boon for the team as they started their season with a lot of car trouble. But they’re comin’ out of the clearing. The previous race, the European Grand Prix, which ran on the famous Nurburgring circuit had them place in the same order — one and two.

I was reading up on the specs of the car and whoa, the 3 liter, normally aspirated V-10 produces ~900 horsepower @ 19,050rpms. Talk about incredible. I wish I had that many revs to play with and a nice sequential transmission to feed that power to the wheels. I’d smoke anybody who rev’d their engine next to me at a stop light. LOL. You like that John? Or would you still prefer the Viper’s V-10? :-p Of course, the BMW would have to be torn down and rebuilt every 300 miles or so.
Now I want a cool hat.