Archive for the ‘ Striker ’ Category

Lightning strikes

Author: Striker

Jan 13

I’ve been very pleased with the sign-name that the Deaf community has given me, and had no issue seeing the irony when lightning struck my house last weekend.

 

For those who don’t know my sign-name, you can check it out here: http://www.auslan.org.au/dictionary/words/storm-1.html

 

So.. The house got struck by lightning.

Unfortunately, the damage list is quite severe.

All lights and power-points have now been restored.

Laptop – Charger fried (thank heavens it wasn’t the laptop!).

NAS – Fried.

Media center (a Mac mini) – Fried.

Router – Fried.

Wifi – Fried.

HD Set Top Box – Fried.

 

My sister dropped by today with a ladder so that we could replace the broken light globe above the stairs.

Timmmb Supplied me with a replacement router and wifi access point (THANKYOU!)

Kyle loaned me a charger for my laptop.

 

Sitting here the last few days, I’ve come to realise that what I do with my life, is sit in front of the TV (which survived), and I watch movies or TV series.

Without a media center and a NAS, I am unbelievably bored. If you know anyone who has a Mac mini (core 2 duo or better) for sale, please let me know.

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RC Drift

Author: Striker

Jan 1

Autosalon, 2010 was when I re-discovered RC Drift. Meredyth had agreed to come with me to Autosalon, to check things out, and over in a corner we found a bunch of people with remote control drift cars.

Fascinated, we both watched for a while, and something inside me told me that this was the difference in RC Cars that I had been waiting for.

 

I’ve had RC cars on and off during my childhood, but there was never really a goal.. Driving them in the cul-de-sac out the front was fairly boring, I drove in circles, mainly. My cars were almost always electric on-road cars, so there weren’t many places I could go, and when I did drive them somewhere, I pretty-much just ended up driving around in circles. It bored me.

 

When I got to Queensland around a month ago, I stopped to hang out with Rohan, as I always do, and while looking through his room of toys, I spotted a neglected Tamiya TT-01D. He’s run the car a couple of times over two or three years, and got bored of it pretty quickly. We agreed that I could borrow the car, try some drifting, and if I enjoyed it, I could have the car for $100. Car, charger, battery, radio gear and all.

 

Another mate in Brizvegas, Chris, was already in to RC cars, so when he found out about what I had bought, he invited me along to drift at Wynnum. I took Rick along, and we met up with Brenden, Chris and a bunch of other people.

My car didn’t drift real well, compared to the others, but when Brenden lent me a set of drift tyres, it made all the difference. I was hooked.

 

Brenden, Rick and I then headed over to Driftmas at Cannon Hill where there was an entirely different class of drifter, the skill level that I want to reach oneday.

It was at Driftmas that we met Marty. Marty showed off some donuts for us in his drift car, and after some chatting offered me an alloy drive-shaft for my TT-01D.

 

Couple of days later, Rick and I dropped in to Marty’s place to pick up the shaft, and what he had waiting for us was a close to complete Tamiya TT-01, which I gave to Rick, to help him get started.

Getting Rick started was easier than I thought, because Marty also gave me a brushless motor and speed controller, as well as some shells (some of which went Rick’s way also).

 

New kit in hand, we dis-assembled both cars, and started the build processes.

I’m sure there were more Ice breaks on the table before the photo, and certainly by the end of the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time the night was over, my car looked like this –>

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately Rick and I never got the chance to drift together, as I was leaving for the Gold Coast.

On the Gold Coast there are two drift nights a week (Wednesday and Friday nights) at a place in Upper Coomera, called The Compound.

The Compound is a warehouse set up with bike and skateboard ramps. It was here that I met Ridwan and Neale, both of whom run CS (counter-steer) cars, and let me have a drive of them.

It was a great evening drifting with these guys, I learned a lot from Ridwan in particular.

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Back on the road

Author: Striker

Dec 12

I’m back on the road in two ways, actually. With thanks to my mate, Andrew, the TX5 was able to pass it’s blue-slip inspection, and is once again registered.

How I’ve missed driving this thing.

 

The other kind is that I’m travelling again. I’m currently sitting in Morayfield, Queensland, having recently been to the Coffs Harbour, the Gold Coast, Bundaberg and Maroochydore.

 

I’m kicking myself for not installing cruise control in the TX5, though. I bought the setup from Scott, and it’s sitting in my garage. The TX5 is considerably smaller than my XR6, and as such, cramps are much more common. Cruise control would meant hat I could move my foot and leg around a bit without worrying about pissing off other drivers.

 

When I get back to Sydney I’m going to install both the cruise control, and the better suspension package (shocks/springs/swaybar). That will make the TX5 handle a lot better, and be much nicer to drive for long periods of time.

 

It’s starting to cool down outside, which I’m glad of. It’s been 33 degrees outside most of the day. Hopefully we’ll get a little rain, too.

I don’t miss Sydney in the slightest, but I do miss the 20 degree rainy weather down there.

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NSW Blue slip

Author: Striker

Nov 22

New South Wales has an interesting inspection system. Making mention of it does NOT mean that I disagree with it. In fact, I believe that something similar should be implemented across the country. Every State and Territory with the same rules and guidelines (hopefully a little more relaxed than the ones in NSW).

 

We (NSW) have a yearly roadworthy inspection called a pink slip. It’s not a big deal, even for modified cars to pass this inspection.

If your car has been out of registration for more than three months, or you’re bringing an interstate car to NSW, you need a blue slip. Blue slips are considerably more thorough, sometimes taking more than four hours to complete.

 

My TX5 was purchased from a friend in Victoria, and recently failed it’s blue slip. Yesterday it was towed to a detailer to get the engine and gearbox steam-cleaned so that they’re not covered in oil, as the car failed on “engine and gearbox oil leaks”.

 

Once that’s been fixed, it’s off to SX Developments to fix all the other issues on the list. There was an A4 sheet of paper attached to my blue-slip, and it was near-filled with other things that need to be fixed before the car will be allowed to be registered again.

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Race day results

Author: ViolentCrumble

Sep 1

I’ve wanted to put Violent Crumble down the track for a long time now, and after five attempts to go this year (all of which rained out), tonight was the night.

I’d bragged to my friends, I’d compared dyno figures on cars, weights and estimates, and I KNEW I would be the fastest of us. Hell, I had a feeling in the back of my mind, that I’d be one of the quicker street registered cars on the track tonight.

Unfortunately, that’s not the way things turned out.
According to my friends, I was still quicker than 75% of everything that raced, but I was certainly nowhere near as fast as I should have been.

The culprit? The gearbox. I’ve been warned over and over by pretty-much every workshop that has worked on the car that I shouldn’t race with the standard gearbox because I’ll break it, and so I did.

My run times in order:
13.369@92.44mph (148.77kph) Hit the brakes and slowed down at around 1000 foot.
13.139@96.11mph (154.67kph) Hit the brakes and slowed down at around 1000 foot.
13.131@108.46mph (174.56kph) Stayed on the accelerator the entire run.

I retired after the third run, as there was close to no acceleration in fourth gear, and there was a huge metallic rattling noise in both third and fourth gears.

Congratulations go to Pete who ran a 12.5, and Adam with a 12.8.
Thanks to all the friends who came out to see me race: Adam, Emily, Liam, Meredyth, Travis.
A special thanks to Shannon for being both my crew person, and the talent behind the video camera.

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Birthday

Author: Striker

Aug 11

There are many ways to look at birthdays, but let’s get this year’s figures out of the way first:

Cards received: 1 (Thanks to my friends who have stalls at Liverpool Markets).

Presents received: 2 (One freshly caught fish, flathead, from one of my customers. One $20 note).

Phonecalls: 4 (Dad, Sophie, Karimah, Shannon).

Facebook wall posts: 130+

 

Shannon called after I’d finished work, he and Eleanor invited me over for dinner. It was a lovely relaxing evening, thanks guys.

 

I really want a gathering or party. Maybe lots of meals/outings with small groups of friends. I feel like a neglected hermit for the most part, and want to get out and see people.

Some of the crappy feelings stem from a lot of thinking I’ve been doing about life lately. I don’t like the hermit I’ve become. A number of people have commented recently on how I used to be such a social person, and now I’m just not there.

 

I want to change, I want to get out, but I’m going to need help. I’m going to need YOUR help.

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Telstar TX5 – immobiliser

Author: Striker

Aug 3

Since the day I bought the car, the TX5 has had issues with the alarm and immobiliser, and the central locking has simply not worked.

 

I’d had enough, I went down to Frankie’s and asked them to check it out.

They told me it was best to rip the old one out, as it was both rubbish, and not playing nice. The central locking was replaced also, as the old stuff had become weak over time, and simply couldn’t move the locks anymore.

I decided to go with something that was insurance-approved, and after it was installed, I discovered that it had a built-in turbo timer. Rather glad of that, because I forgot to ask for it in the list of features.

 

Now that the locks all work, and I have keyless entry, I can concentrate on flogging the crap out of the car, and fixing what breaks (and what’s already broken).

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Auslan assessment #3

Author: Striker

Jul 27

Last Wednesday we had our third Auslan video assessment. Basically we sit with a teacher (in this case, Ros), and they video record a signed conversation with us.

 

I made one idiotic mistake, a sign I learned in my first week at class. “late”. I’ve used this sign every week, multiple times a week. There’s simply no way to explain how stupid I feel for getting it wrong.

Instead of moving my finger towards me when lifting away from where my watch would be (if I wore one), I moved my finger away. Luckily it was the only mistake in the entire conversation.

 

The Monday previous to our assessment the class had learned some new things about spatial awareness, and emergency situations that were thrown in to the assessment. If I had been in class that day, I probably would have learned them too.

I consider myself to be a fairly cautious kinda guy. Fairly aware of my surroundings, first to lift my drink as a running child approaches, so that there won’t be a spill.

When Ian and I sat down to go over the video, obviously he pointed out the mistake. During the conversation I finger-spelt “drunk”, because I didn’t know the sign for it, so he showed me the sign. Ian seemed happy when I reacted properly to the surprises thrown in to the assessment, so all up I have a good feeling about it.

 

The only thing left now is to mark it properly, and give individual grades to things like non manual features, finger-spelling, movement, things like that.

Fingers crossed. I’m hoping to see some fives (out of five). Last time I was assessed I scored all-fours, some bordering on fives. I would really like to see that I’ve improved.

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Captiview and the move from open captions to closed captions

Author: Striker

Jul 26

I had hoped that we would return to normal learning in TAFE today, so I was somewhat disappointed when we were told that we would be reviewing the videos of our assessments last week.

 

Ian, one of our teachers, told us about his weekend, where he had gone to see the new Harry Potter movie with the new closed captions device CaptiView.

Recently I read an article about some bimbo having gone to the movies, and complaining about seeing subtitles on the screen (open captioning). Personally, I’ve never seen subtitles in a cinema before aside from when I was in Holland, or when a character is speaking a different language, and we are shown English subs.

A year ago I would have been slightly confused about English subs in an English movie, but I probably would have figured it out. I certainly wouldn’t have gone on a massively public rant about how inconvenienced I was by it.

 

So now that we’re all clear on what Open Captioning is, the new CaptiView is Closed Captioning.

The CaptiView is a small OLED display which has three lines of text reading out what’s happening in the movie.

The display has traffic-light-like blinders on it, so reduce distraction to those around you, and can also display musical notes so that it can tell you when the display is showing a song being sung, or music being played. Technically, being OLED, it should be able to display pretty-much anything.

 

Open Captions is white text at the bottom of the screen. Not hard to read, when that area of the screen is dark, but the lighter the area gets, the harder the text becomes to read. Ever tried reading white on white? CaptiView displays green text, and the device (thus background) is black. Very easy to read.

I asked Ian if it was difficult looking up at the screen, and down at the device, and he described to the class how it mounted in to your cupholder, so you could sit anywhere in the cinema, and it had a long bendable arm, so you could locate the device anywhere in your viewing area, to make it a little easier. Apparently it did not take much getting used to.

 

I have always been a big fan of technology, and without having seen or used this device, I like what I’m reading, so far.

 

What I like:

Better contrast (Green on black).

Less distraction for others (blinders and no text on the movie screen).

Usable from any seat in the theatre.

Moving from one movie per day/week to being able to have several movies/sessions per day with only one theatre.

 

What I don’t like:

It’s not being implemented in every theatre of every cinema.

 

For more information on how this is being implemented, please follow this link.

You can also check out this YouTube video for a quick (verbal) brief from a representative of the company that makes them.

 

Now to go see a movie with one of my Deaf friends, and see this thing in use.

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Filed under: Auslan, EvilHouse Tech

Depth of speed videos

Author: ViolentCrumble

Jul 25

Recently I discovered a small series of videos made by a guy called Josh. He named the series ‘Depth of Speed’.

It didn’t take long for the first few videos to win me over, and I’m now eagerly awaiting the episode on the VW bus.

What is Depth of Speed, you may ask?
Well, in his own words:

“Depth of Speed was born from a desire of story, travel, and a love of anything automotive related. Next year my wife and I will be taking to the streets to uncover and document the greatest stories from the automotive world. From coast-to-coast and from top to bottom, finding the best stories will take the highest priority. Every time I meet someone new or attend an event I amazed at the depth, passion, and love that the automotive world brings. Depth of Speed is just that, an in-depth look at these stories. There is something about motors and machines, that to an outsider looking in, would make us seem plain crazy.

We have begun the process of outfitting our trusty Scamp trailer to traverse the entire country. Known affectionately as a fiberglass egg, our Scamp will be our home for one year of our lives. At only 13 feet long it will make for a cozy year.

Please join us as we make our way across the country and drop us a line if you know of a great story!”

Check out this great series, and be sure to watch the episode on the BMW 2002.
http://depthofspeed.com/

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