Google Chrome scroll fix

I downloaded Google's Chrome internet browser and it's been really sweet for a first attempt. Overall, I like the layout and have become an instant fan. It's definitely FAST!!! It loads so much faster than Internet Explorer 6, and you can surf faster also. If you take the time to read the Google Chrome comic book, you'll get an understanding of why.

My one big complaint has been that I could not scroll up with the trackpad on my HP laptop. I wasn't the only person. Fortunately, with some time, PaulusDev has come up with a working solution. I downloaded it here and now I have scroll up. Yea!!

Finally went motorcycling in Scotland

As you may know, I've been really bad about not posting anything for a few months. There have been things goind on, so here's some highlights. I went back to the US for couple weeks at the end of June, Dena and I took a weekend trip to Paris the first weekend of July, then two weeks of vacation in France mid July, and then a weekend trip to London the first weekend of August. I have lots of pictures that I need to get uploaded to my Flickr site. I just haven't had anything REALLY exciting to post about until now. Well, maybe I have, and I've just been lazy. :) Back to my motorcycle ride.

Yes, I've been here for over a year now, and Dena and I have been for little rides on both bikes out of and around Aberdeen, but I have not been on a serious motorcycle ride. I haven't had any business trips planned for a couple weeks, so on Monday, I asked one of the guys at work with a brand new 2008 GSXR 1000 if he wanted to go riding this weekend. He agreed, so all we had to do was hope for good weather. It rained all week, but finally on Saturday things started to clear and the sun came out. I cleaned the Kawi, and Sunday was looking good! I wanted to get my TomTom set up to record the route we would take, but I didn't download the software in time for this ride, and I still have to wire an adapter for 5V power.

We met up at work this morning, and he brought another friend of his along with a '06 GSXR 1000. Both of them were in leathers and both had scuffed knee pucks, so I knew I was in for a good time. WOW, could both of them set a pace!

The ride started about 11 am and I just got back at 5:30 pm. We put on roughly 250 miles. The roads over here are incredible! Very few truely straight stretches. The pace was close to the ton most of the time, and quite terrifing. I was probably riding at about 90% of my ability most of the time trying to keep up. I was always following because as long as either one of them was in front, I could jugde the corner speed. Most of the corners are blind, but somehow they just knew how quick they could ride through them. Unlike the US, the corners are not posted with a suggested corner speed sign. Here, there were really just 3 items to help judge corners, and they were "SLOW" painted on the road, and either a sign indicating a corner or a sign with black and white alternating arrows pointing into the really slow corners. In my opinion, not really helpful, but with all the corners, they'd have to put up a LOT of signs.

I just about ran off one of the corners early in the day. After a series of 80+ corners, this one was much slower, and I braked really hard for it leaving a nice black skid mark from my rear tire. I did get slowed down in time, but ended up jamming my right foot down as I skidded with the front tire briefly on some gravel as I was almost stopped. My right big toe is now purple from jamming the nail to the inside of my boot. Then, about midday, I ended up running a little wide on a corner, but luckily there was no car coming. Overall, I had a blast! The roads over here are excellent. I just wish the corners were marked a little better. I'm hoping there are a couple more sunny weekends to go out riding. Everyone keeps telling me I need to go ride some of the roads on the west coast. So, I guess I need to go plan and ride some of the roads on the west of Scotland. :)

Polar bears listed as threatened!

It took three years, a LOT of work, and a lawsuit to finally make the U.S. Department of the Interior make a decision on whether polar bears are at risk due to climate change. One day before they HAD to make a decision, polar bears have been listed as THREATENED, which is the first step before becoming endangered. Read the official release from the U.S. DOI.
I hope that history will look back and see this as the turning point that the US recognized climate change and global warming due to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emisions. Bush has messed up badly. He will be leaving office as the least popular President in decades, that delievered a horrible response to one of the greatest natural disaters in US history - hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy, rising inflation, agreeing to use of "harsh interrogation techniques", continuing the second longest US war, misleading the US in regards to climate change and not acting on it, leaving when fuel prices are at record highs, food prices are going up, the economy is essentially in a recession, and the US popularity is at an all time low with governements around the world. Someone has to serve as the bad example.
I really hope the next President of the United States of America takes climate change as his top priority. Change is good, and necessary at times. It may be painful at first, but good things will happen.
Greenpeace has a 96 page document that they've defined as a blueprint to a sustainable energy future. I'm about to read it now. I'm pretty sure that for the $1.5 TRILLION dollars we spent on trying to wage an oil war in Iraq (Iraq has the second biggest oil reserved in the world), we could have secured an independant, renewable energy future for the US, which would also lead to better national security because we wouldn't be dependant on foreign oil.
No, I'm not really happy that my tax dollars will be going to pay for a messy war for many, many years into the future.

One year already

Wow, time flies by when you're working your ass off. It's almost hard to believe that Dena and I have been in Scotland for a year now. We spent the first 3 months in temporary housing and numerous rental cars. Then, we bought a couple of motorcycles, happily moved into a great house in a nice neighborhood, and picked up our BWM. I started travelling for work, and Dena spent time making our house into a home. We flew home for Decemeber to visit friends and family, and to have surgery on my back. Dena spent the next couple of months updating Marine Turbine's website. I've spent the last couple of months working longer and longer hours on various projects.
Because time is flying by, we have made a commitment to see and experience more things while we are here. I'm looking forward to taking a motorcycle trip over to Lock Ness. Dena and I plan to go down to Glasgow. We're also making plans to go visit Frederique in France and spend a couple of days on the beach in Nice.

Internet TV is finally here!

OK, internet TV has been around for a while in some form or another, but at least from my perspective there hasn't been any well know and organized software to watch TV on your computer while connected to the internet. Now there is. Adobe has just released, what else Adobe TV on their new Adobe Media Player software, and just like the PDF viewer, the software is free for Windows and Mac OS!

The Adobe Media Player has a surprising number of channels available considering that this is now going to challenge major cable companies and satelite TV providers. I've only been checking the software and available programs for about the last 45 minutes. I've checked out some Paula Deen on Food Network (Dena misses watching Paula), watched today's Houston Weather Channel, and CSI: Miami. I've also noticed what looks to be the entire original Star Trek TV series. There are commercials, but it appears that there is only one where the normal commercial break would be. The CSI: Miami episode is only 45 minutes long, so that's a noticable reduction in commercials. There aren't a lot of well known programs yet, but I'd bet there will be.

How's the quality? I'm at a Quality Inn in Stavanger, Norway and the downloads are fast and the quality is plenty acceptable for watching on a 17" widescreen laptop. I'm watching on a HP 8710w which has a really nice Nvidia Quadro graphics card. I'm really looking forward to watching episodes on our projector when I get home.

Overall, Adobe Media Player rocks!!! It's going to be a big hit, and likely adopted very quickly. The difficult part may be how to organize everything so programs or channels can be found quickly. I'll try to do a follow up to this in a few weeks, and maybe Adobe will have posted how many downloads they've had.

Dan's 25 hour birthday

Dan's cake - Step 4
Originally uploaded by mechanicaldan1

Yep, I'm now 33. I'd like to thank my lovely wife for the yummy birthday cake.

My birthday celebration started on the 12th of Feb while I was in Holland. I went to a Chinese restaurant with some co-workers. The dishes seemed to take a while to come out, but when they did, the explaination may have been due to the elaborately carved giant carrot sculptures. None of us had the heart to eat the art.

So, leaving Holland on the day of my birthday and flying back to Aberdeen gave me an extra hour to enjoy my birthday. And enjoy it I did! There was a pile of presents waiting for me when I got back home. I scored some Technic lego sets, "Long Way Round" book, some interesting trivia cards, and a disturbing but funny book annimated book on bunny deaths.

For all the pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lifeasmechanicaldan/sets/72157604130925653/

The Lego brick is 50

What a fun surprise to go to my favorite search engine and see the Google logo made of Lego bricks! The mouseover said "50th Anniversary of LEGO brick", so I had to do a little surfing. It's actually 50 years since the patent was filed, so I looked up the LEGO patent.

I was a huge Legomaniac when I was younger. More of a Legomaniac than Zach. I started with just a few bricks when I was around 6, and then for almost every birthday, Christmas, Easter, and any other special occasion I got a new Lego set. My big facination was with the Space sets, and then eventually got interested in the Technic sets. I'd play with them for hours. I think I had 40-50 sets when I sold them to raise some money for my first car. Looking back, it would have been nice to still have them, but I've been windowshopping on Ebay, and one can get used Legos in bulk pretty cheap. In fact, a Technic Lego set (or Technic blocks) is on my wish list for my birthday, which is February 13.

Even better is that you can download building instructions for new sets directly from the Lego website here and there is a website that collects and posts Lego set building instructions after the set is 3 years old here. A quick Google search shows there are likely a few others that have old scanned instructions. Just more reasons for me to love the internet.