It's not about the car, it's the language: "we can conquest sales"? Pardon?

OK, OK, I'm pedantic. But "conquest" sales? Did he simply mean "win" sales? Or maybe there is an element of "convert" intended here? I remain unconquered and unconverted by his word use, anyway.

Kia Koup: first drive review | Review | carsguide.com.au

Watt says Kia research shows that many hatch buyers and coupe buyers are similar. "We actually think we can conquest sales from people looking for a hatch alternative," he says. "There aren't a lot of competitors in this market." Like the Soul, Watt expects Koup sales to be modest. "But like the Soul, it is a bold statement for the brand," he says.

Poor quality screenshots of ibike data collection during CCCC crit = must get fitter

OK, I'm not that fit right now. I was really fit in 1987, but that seems to have worn off already. Who would have thought? So this is 2009, I'm reliably told, and here's an almost 52 year old trying to get race fit in CCCC 'D grade' at the Lucca Rd crits, North Wyong (once more, with feeling). BTW, it's not a closed circuit, we give way to traffic, follow the road rules, have a marshall and signs as per our plan agreed by the NSW Police. No 'furious riding' here, folks. But it all went horribly wrong. Maybe I was off-colour, but no excuses - I made 2 big mistakes. Drifting to the back of the bunch (after keeping to the front 3 riders for a few laps) at exactly the wrong time, and not doing enough interval training beforehand. Oh well. The smaller mistakes include not warming up well enough, doing too much early work either setting the pace or bridging gaps and just generally not conserving my momentum when I should have. Actually they were big mistakes too. All that in my 2nd race back from a 7 month break. Isn't race data wonderful, even in D-grade?

Oh yeah, I use an ibike to collect the data. I also must take my screenshots at higher quality. Been testing the 'Greenshot' tool. Nevermind, next time!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Mod 2JJJ Weller interview '83

Mod 2JJJ Weller int_cover_066
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Tribal Sydney in the late '70s, early '80s. Mods roamed the streets on Vespas and Lambrettas from the 1960s onward, especially enjoying a re-birth with the 1979 release of the Who's film 'Quadrophenia' (which also helped rebirth the British film industry).

This is a scan of a cheap and cheerful Mod 'zine from 1983.

Mod Get Smart mag

Mod Get Smart mag_057
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Tribal Sydney in the late '70s, early '80s. Mods roamed the streets on Vespas and Lambrettas from the 1960s onward, especially enjoying a re-birth with the 1979 release of the Who's film 'Quadrophenia' (which also helped rebirth the British film industry).

This is a scan of a cheap and cheerful Mod 'zine from circa 1980.

Great, mindless reporting. Press release, LA Times article, SMH reprint. Is this good enough?

Exactly what do newspapers want to be paid for? Unbiased, detailed reporting and critical analysis? Made up, self-referencing stories based on "polls" or narrow opinion? Self-proclaimed "special reports"? Celebrity gossip? Or, as in this case, a cheap, distorted rehash of the top point of someone's research paper?: http://www.smh.com.au/world/what-a-nerve-placebo-lives-in-the-spine-20091018-h2y9.html

Folks, it's rubbish.

OK, the SMH got it from the LA Times (and attributed), simply dropping a few links found in the online LA Times "blog" version: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/10/placebo-effect-spinal-cord.html

And the LA Times took it from Science mag (again with attribution) but dumbed it down so it basically misleads the reader into thinking that the placebo effect "lives" in the spine, not in the brain. The writer kept making that point, so they must have really misunderstood it. What the researchers actually found was "direct evidence for spinal cord involvement in placebo analgesia". Did you get that, "involvement". Not "sole ownership by location". Involvement. It's believed to be involved. It's believed to have a role in the analgesia, but not the guts of the effect itself. Just that the spine is somehow aware of the belief that the placebo really works and does its job by shutting out (in this test) pain stimulus.Which may indeed be a step forward, in that it demonstrates that the brain (presumably!) acts to positively and physically inhibit spinal sensory transmission. Previously we may have thought that the pain signal reaches all the way to the brain, where the brain itself, tricked by the placebo, simply ignores the incoming reports. However that theory doesn't sit well with the obvious - we already know that the nervous system often takes a shortcut when pain is involved. The brain may get a report later but the response has already happened (an important time-saver where injury is concerned).

So this "placebo lives in spinal cord" story is almost a complete fabrication, isn't it? It mentions "psychological factors" as an afterthought and really tilts the content towards the spinal cord as a virtual "placebo central" making the decisions, which is really not proven - or suggested - at all. Not sure if the LA Times wrote the first piece itself, but once again it's an example of what can go wrong when a journalist re-writes the "facts" to suit themselves. Careless.

So who was fooled by the LA Times and the SMH? Interestingly the "Food & Health Sceptic" was true to their name and wasn't fooled, giving an accurate summation of the research and putting it into context: http://john-ray.blogspot.com/

Which led me to the TimesOnline, which as the Sceptic's source also got it right with a much more detailed and thoughtfully researched article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/medicine/article6877064.ece

That's they way it should be done. I guess there are sources and then there are sources.

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On audio purity, musicianship, commercialism, accessibility and automation

Audio engineers are by definition purists, they know so much about audio
recording and have spent so many years developing their high-level
production skills that they are committed to - or welded onto - what they
do. And they want to do it "right", as they know it. They can hardly be
expected to enjoy lower sonic purity, or to support lossy audio recording
formats. They want to capture the soul and essence of musicianship and
creativity, and they believe that this is best done through relentlessly
pursued, highly skilled orchestration of all of the facets of modern
hi-fidelity studio audio production - whilst artfully capturing the
spontaneity of the session. (Hmmmm.) It is also not suprising that, with
their own art and craftsmanship at such a high level, they expect the same
of the musicians they work with. Well don't we all want that? (Read more on
what some top-line audio producers want, here: http://sn.im/slq8r)

Well guess what? Most people can't even detect the difference between
lossless and lossy recordings. And even if they can, most people don't
care. Whilst they may respect and admire the production values and the
skills involved at the highest level, they want the finished product at a
price they can afford that sounds "good enough" on their (dare we say it?)
imperfect sound systems. That's "accessibility" at work. When was it ever
any different? Sure, there's a sizable niche market for audiophiles and
musical purists but the bulk of the iceberg is below the water. And that
bulk is keeping the small portion we see up above the waterline afloat.
Whilst it's all well and good to criticise artists like Britney Spears for
her imperfect singing, and to cast aspersions on audio tools that mold and
shape wayward singers into some semblance of acceptability, it's the
finished product that sells in the shops. Just to take Britney as an
example, she's a product of her times, and an artist with multiple
marketable skills and attributes. It's not about the audio purity or
musicianship, it's the total package that sells. It may not be right, but
it's the way it is.

Which brings me back to purity. Purity is really about reduction. Reducing
ourselves to our essence. Now to me that's taking us back to humanity's
beginning's and searching for what makes us, "us". It's not about the
tools, although the tools we make and use are clearly part of the essence
of "us". It's not about the arcane language of specialists, or secrets of
the trade. Applying purity as a test to the audiophile's argument about
lost musicanship and lossy recordings brings us back to the unrecorded
human voice. What we sing and how we hear it - live, individually and in
the context of our family or our tribe - is entirely up to us. Judging
other people, their skills, talents and their art is subjective - always
was - and individual to our selves and our context. Everything outside of
true purity - like audio recording itself - is impure, shadowy artifice. To
cling to that is to grab onto to a mist.

So it is throughout our lives. Audio aside, those of us (and this may
include myself) who cling to some form of 'perfect' Engish are not
acknowledging the very change that forced the English language into the
shape it is today. Similarly those who drive manual cars may scorn the
automatic transmissions that have taken the essence and skill out of
driving. And those who double declutch and hell-and-toe may scorn the
sychromesh that has removed the skill from driving a manual car. And on and
on. Pick any human tool you like and it has evolved to become simpler and
more accessible - more democratic, if you like. If you try to pin it down
and stamp a standard on it, or to trap it, you lose it. Or render it
irrelevant. It's shapeshifting, it's morphing, it's malleable. It's a puff
of smoke, and it's gone.

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Ask a stupid question...should we throw more money at roads or let congestion help us onto bikes?

Ahh, the simple souls at the Daily Terrorgraph know what will stir up their readers: traffic jams and a government 'without a single plan': http://sn.im/sl625

Mind you, having no 'single plan' may simply mean that the state government and the state and local bureaucracies have individual plans. That question wasn't asked, or reported. We aren't informed by the judgmental journo, Rhys Haynes, exactly why he sought out a single "silver bullet" solution for a range of varied hot spots, unless he was hoping for a mega ring road of sorts. Now that would ease congestion - and encourage a lot more cars onto the road. Where that takes us is - back to square 1? And the money comes from? Oh well, so much for transport planning a la the Tele.

All in all, just another cheap shot at the NSW State government. Keep this sort of transparent nonsense up and they'll get back in.

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A short, incomplete visual tour of Dubbo, NSW

If you are in or near Dubbo, and as far as I'm concerned that includes Sydney, go to the Western Plains zoo. Then get on a bike, or walk. Take your time. Take 2 days. Take a picnic. Enjoy. Go on, you know you want to...

OTOH I was still a bit depressed seeing those magnificent animals penned up. More room than at a traditional zoo, sure... and lots of good work going on in conservation terms, too - but still slightly sad that this is how we wish to view "nature": behind an electric fence or a moat. Of course the birdlife could (mostly) fly away, not so the larger animals. The litter (school hols, of course) and the weeds were a bit off-putting too. Overall, good, not great. Kids liked it.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Just can't let this one past - soft brake pedal, so blame the pads?

I like EVO mag. It's readable. It's not necessarily focused on sustainable motoring - in fact all forms of 'motoring', be they EV, diesel or petrol, are arguably unsustainable. It's really about harm-minimisation.

That said, I have to question rev-heads who throw a road car onto a track, find the brakes inadequate and blame the pads. After just one warm-up lap it's hard to imagine overheated pads, or rotors, or even boiling brake fluid; but of all those options I'd pick the brake fluid over pads. Soft, mushy pedal? That's extra play in the hydraulics as the fluid boils. Hard pedal that fails to slow progress, that's a pad with a layer of superheated material on top, between pad and rotor, causing the braking equivalent of skating on ice. To me it suggests old fluid, or just lousy standard brakes. They aren't designed for race tracks after all.  

Project Veyrog: Audi TT | Trackday features | evo

"With John Barker alongside in the Audi’s passenger seat, we completed an easy out-lap to warm everything through. But approaching the first corner proper – Hangar Hairpin, which requires some serious slowing from fourth gear down to second – we discovered that the old, worn, poor quality pads were already too hot, causing the pedal to go mushy underfoot and the TT to shed speed only gently, rather than in the major hurry I was asking for."

Missed this the first time around - great quote from Kamahl on Hey Hey

Livid Kamahl has had enough | The Daily Telegraph

"They are just trying to push the envelope. Like The Chaser. The Chaser may take it to another level but at least it's witty.

"Hey, Hey is devoid of any real wit.

"It's desperate. It's toilet humour and it should be flushed."

The closed-box Apple defence: or is IBM a mainframe monopolist?

Is IBM a mainframe monopolist? Or is a mainframe 'just another server'?
This artcle explores a comparison with Apple's locked-down hardware and OS:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/09/monopoly-mainframes-apple-intelligent-technology-ibm.html?partner=alerts
. Valid comparison?

I offer no opinion on this. BTW, my day job is with IBM.

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On old media, balance, polls, journalism, interest groups, lobbyists and corruption

Since old media want both a fair return on their investment and to claim
the moral high ground (above bloggers, of course) what exactly do we want
or expect from old media, their paid journalists and their old media
cohorts, the pollsters, the lobbyists and self-interested groups? What
independent standards should we apply to "news" creation and distribution?
None? A few? The ones we have already?

Bear with me, but it seems that daily we get drip-fed meaningless polls
that may or may not show that (a) climate change is off the popular agenda,
(b) that we may or may not be coming out of a recession that we may or may
not have had, or that (c) Turnbull is now a dead dog, because we (or
someone) says so. OK, I'm being a little harsh here, but the old media
seems to be driven by a need to pump out as much content as possible. To do
so they critique the content less and less, or make it up themselves. So a
press release becomes reportable fact, a lobbyist becomes an expert and
someone with a clear vested interest is reported uncritically without
balance. To me this seems corrupt, as in a deviation from the ideal, a
blatent distortion and the victory of money over morals or ethics. When
those reported make a contribution also to the old media bottom line via
advertising dollars, it starts to raise an eyebrow or two. Of course to you
it may be 'open, honest debate' or an expression of free speech. But to me
it's borderline perverted and sick, and it's getting worse. If we really
believe that polling people for their opinions and then releasing the juicy
bits is legitimate news, and that its creation and distribution without a
balanced analysis or clear statement of self-interest is open and honest
then fine, keep on keeping on.

The 'climate change has dropped down the list' poll was a classic - it was
leaked, reported, released, reported again. Sure, it was interesting, in a
manufactured and manipulated way. It certainly suited someone's agenda. And
it was critiqued here and there. After all, you can always find someone to
offer another opinion if you look hard enough. But how many people actually
read a full, balanced analysis of that poll? (Not that we can make them
read or watch it, of course.) If we step back and look at it, what sort of
distorted world view was actually delivered by the mass media over the last
few days, and to what end? And then look at the Liberal leadership polls.
Interesting again, sure, but who commissioned them? Who reported them? How
many conflicting interests were involved and how much of this is simple
news generation, rather than reporting? Do you care?

Which finds me grating once again at "reporting" in the local
sensationalist rag, the Central Coast Express Advocate. Of course
journalists love to personalise a story, and of course home builders will
be "hit" by an interest rate rise, as will everyone who borrows money. On
the flipside people who save money or otherwise invest in cash will earn
more, too. And it may well be in the overall best interest of the
Australian economy and those who partcipate in it to see interest rates
rise and monetary policy adjusted in this way. So a balanced view would
present both sides. Instead the Express Advocate gets one view - that of
the Master Builders Association, and bolsters it with a Real Estate agent's
view as well. Wonderful stuff. The builders want low rates so building
keeps growing, and the estate agent wants to see low rates because that'll
keep home sales up. That's a balanced view! Of course we can all read
between the lines and we are well educated people who can smell a vested
interest a mile away. Hopefully. More remarkable were the confused
ramblings of the estate agent: interest rate rises would cool an
overinflated market (sounds about right) yet this was a bad thing. Perhaps
the journalist got confused. The agent also had a dig at the stimulus
package (it should be wound back faster, doesn't that sound like original
thought?) and a swipe at the Reserve Bank which he saw as making "another
big grab". Huh? What exactly does that mean? Overall, here's an "expert"
who doesn't understand the Reserve Bank's role or can't explain it to a
journalist, with a clear vested interest, getting a guernsey in the local
press. A couple of lines of flimsy "balance" appear at the end. It's sad,
it's self-interested and it smells. Thankfully the paper doesn't collect
money from that particular chain of estate agents in return for advertising
space, does it? Not that this would influence anyone in their independent
judgements, of course. I bet the agent is happy they got their name "out
there". Hopefully not too many people will see through the smoke, either.

The article is here:
http://express-advocate-gosford.whereilive.com.au/news/story/builders-brace-for-another-rate-rise/

Ok, it's a small issue - but a common one. What's a local paper - a virtual
monopolist at that - to do? They only have so much space and they can't be
filling it with balanced reporting, can they?

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Get the Vector, Victor - another bike power meter, this time in the pedal spindle

Power meters for bikes? OK, I"m an ibike fan, and I paid for it, too. It's
light and easily bike-swappable. I have a Mark 1 and I can swap it from my
trainer (a Felt on an Elite mag unit) to my ye old Colnago steel track bike
in 2 twists of the locking system (once to get it off, and again to get it
onto the other bike). True, I have to swap to a different saved profile (I
have 3 - one for the track bike and 2 road profiles) but that's it, job
done. All for around $US600; and it installs just like an old-style bike
computer - in just a few steps. Importantly, the results are both
consistent and accurate relative to itself, so I have no problem comparing
rides, setups and positions with confidence. It also offers reasonable
absolute accuracy, if you take the time to set it up and remember a few
quirks about how it measures power (which it does by back-calculating from
speed, acceleration, slope and wind). For example, pulling hard on the
handlebars may lift the front of the bike and distort both the measured
slope and the calculated power. So you remember to be smooth.

Of course you can spend a lot more and get a force-measuring device that,
if calibrated, offers greater absolute accuracy. At a much, much higher
price. These come with strain gauges in wheel hubs or BB axles, or in the
crank arms themselves (like an SRM). Or you can spend your money on systems
that offer about the same level of features as an ibike, almost, but do it
in funky ways, like Polar's slightly tricky chain-tension system. And now
here's a new idea that makes a lot of sense - a power meter in a pedal
spindle:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/on-show-interbike-2009-part-15. The
MetriGear Vector.

This one makes a lot of sense - it's relatively simple to swap onto another
bike, as everyone uses pedals, it's cheap (but still not as cheap as the
ibike) and it measures force and its vector, so you can analyse pedalling
action in new ways. That may be the clincher. You may well be generating a
lot of power, but how can you be sure that it's all going in the right
direction? Some of it may be wasted in bad pedalling habits, and that may
be revealed with these Vector pedals. I guess we need to see them in action
and take a look at the software...

Another report here:
http://nyvelocity.com/content/gallery/equipment/2009/metrigear-vector

And the MetriGear website: http://www.metrigear.com/products/

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