Poofy Goof Rant-O-Matic

in case large control yokes and steering wheels aren't enough for your flight and driving simulation needs, http://www.piengineering.com/index.php offers train and boat controllers. for the more technically inclined, they sell an external I/O box capable of interfacing with anything you like. an AAR105 locomotive control stand is shown as an example at http://www.piengineering.com/redac/redacio.php .

wow. if I wanted to drive a locomotive that badly I would go job-hunting with PNWR, UP, or BNSF.

looking photo software. must suck less than bins, iphoto, gallery, flickr, ...

• generate standard HTML for web output (preferably no javascript or AJAX)
  
• properly handle dependencies in a single-pass for generating web output (no recursing into directories, or unnecessary re-generating of pages or images)
  
• generate thumbnail pages

I have a 1991 subaru loyale. it's only a couple hundred miles away from 200,000, and has become my "bucket" workhorse vehicle. as it has aged, various problems have cropped up, mostly electrical, but one long term problem that's been getting worse has been the engine timing. it had been pinging under load, which I offset by using 89 and 92 octane gas in it, but under load even 89 octane had started to ping, and with gas prices close to 3.50/gallon for the 92, I've been investigating the feasability of getting it to run on cheaper 87.

start at Widmer.

take the tour, say hi to the bros, have a beer (with breakfast?), walk across interstate a couple blocks to the union pacific rail yard, and hop on a train. a few coast daylight pullmans being pulled by the 4449 would be the ultimate, but there are limits to the fantasy, and I'd settle for some RDCs with working toilets.

following some branch lines on google maps from the UP railroad yard across from Widmer in N Portland led me to shipping docks. I have been keeping myself amused the last few days pondering rail travel, and seeing satellite pictures of large container ships made me wonder if it was possible to book passage on a container ship across the pacific.

my definition for the success of public transportation is pretty straight-forward. public transportation will succeed when I can get to work via public transportation in less time than it takes to drive there in my own vehicle. this means I need to be able to get between Tigard from SE Portland (~11.5 miles) in ~30min.

I'm constantly forgetting where to turn for rackmount accessories. Even the local Fry's has some bits and pieces, but as usual I invariably can't find exactly what I'm looking for. When Patrick sprung the question on me, I dusted off some brain cells, grepped some emails, and re-discovered Markertek, who also sells cable and other pro-audio gear, and MilesTek, who appears to be a little more industrial.

I've had a plextor PX-740A in my home desktop machine now for over a year, and it's never worked correctly. it was a special at Fry's, but it had been unopened, and the last plextor I bought there (a SCSI plexwriter 8/2/20) is still working fine, so I figured the non-working bit had to be something I was doing.