Today I was on Hwy 153 on my way in to work, and as I approached a traffic signal that had changed to red, I slowed from 50 or so to around 25-30 with the traffic in front of me, and as I glanced in my rear view mirror, I saw a car coming up on me from behind at a high rate of speed.
Having been the “sandwich car” in my last accident (about 1988 maybe?) where a car hit me from behind and pushed me into the car in front of me, I knew I didn’t want that again, so made the choice to move farther over to the right, hoping the car would miss me and have time to stop before hitting the vehicle in front of me. It didn’t happen like that, instead, the car came over slightly to the right, and managed to hit the right two foot of their bumper on the left two foot of mine, and that resulted in pushing my car to the right, where I impacted with the guardrail (I think she pushed me maybe 30 ft???).
Interesting things happen when you get hit. First of all, all the papers and stuff that were on my sun-visor, and the change and business cards that were in my ashtray, that all flew out and I was hit in the face with quarters and papers. The next thing to happen was all the stuff in my front passenger seat and back seats flew forward as I hit the guardrail and came to a stop… My camera case (Nikon D70S and lenses) flew OVER the seat and into the front floorboard from the back seat. Ham radio transceivers flew (an ICOM IC 7000 broke loose from its Velcro mounting and hit the back of the rear seats, Alinco DR135TP flew into the floorboard from the back seat, and a Yeasu HT flew into the floorboard)… Its really quite amazing how much moved in the car…
As far as me… I think I’m okay. Starting to get very sore, and kinda shook up still, tomorrow will be the real test, but I should have the weekend to recover before starting back to work! So that is the blessing of the day! The driver of the other car is fine too, shaken but not stirred. She didn’t really know what happened. A witness stated she was speeding up (maybe 50-55? faster?) and she watched it all unfold, and was the first to call 911. The driver was fasting for blood work, and probably had low blood sugar or something and just zoned out. Very nice lady, and so was her husband that showed up to help out. The witness stuck around and comforted the driver of the vehicle that struck me, until she calmed down. That was very sweet as well. And then my wife came to the scene to make sure I was okay! The police took an hour and a half or so to get there due to other accidents.
Now I have to go through the ordeal to get the car fixed. It’s not too bad I don’t think. Have not spent much time looking at it. Rear deck is tweaked, rear bumper and supports damaged, tail light on driver’s side, some scratches on the left rear quarter, the exhaust looks like it is hanging down on that side, and the front and rear passenger side doors have creases in them from the guardrail. The driver’s side seat is bent, or maybe the supports as it is leaning at an angle, and the gearshift (auto transmission) is difficult to move. It is also pulling to the right and feels like a tire is out of balance. I think that covers it. I hate that this car has been damaged, I actually love it… A 2004 Mazda 6 Sport Wagon… V6.. sweet ride… Or at least it was. Thank God it was only the material things that seem to be hurt.
You still reading this? Sheesh you must be bored. Get back to work.
An article on NetworkWorld.com made me chuckle today… Apparently the Bad Guys are now using Radio Direction Finding (RDF) to locate hidden notebooks because their 802.11* wireless was enabled.
It seems amazing to me that it has taken this long for anyone to realize that if a ntoebook or any other device is “wireless”, that it is transmitting a signal, which can be located. RDF is actually a sport and ham radio operators have been doing it for years… We use high gain, directional homemade and sometimes professionally made antennas, receivers and sometimes doppler systems to zero in on a hidden transmitter. This is called “foxhunting” in the USA for the casual participant.
The original article can be found here: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/030210-wifi-finders.html?hpg1=bn
A friend posted this YouTube video on a County Hunter forum. I found it very well done and thought I would share. This is a demonstration of a Yagi beam antenna and shows how adding a reflector and directors to a driven element increases the signal strength in front of the antenna by focusing the power bounced off the reflector and through the “director” element/s.
Today I spent about an hour or more showing Scott what an Amiga A-4000T is all about. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any disks with me to show him the awesome 80s & 90s graphics. Nor did I get it online to show him what that machine was used for.
What was it used for? I’m glad you asked! It was used to run Amiga Connection (AmiCon.Net) BBS for years and years. At the time that I pulled the plug on it about 2005, it was likely the oldest CNet Amiga BBS still online. I hope to be bringing it online again in the coming weeks, and let it live out its life serving up those wonderful ascii/ansi graphics via a telnet connection. Don’t worry, I will announce the grand re-opening because I know you want to see messages and uploads that posted 10 years ago.
AmiCon has over 800 registered members still that have not been weeded out (I turned off the “weed” for inactive users to preserve the database). Some awesome people used this board over the years, maybe they are still alive?
While I’m on the subject of forgotten technology, what about IRC? It’s around still, in fact, there are thousands of IRC servers and if you log onto some of the larger networks, you will find thousands of people online, however, if you ask 100 people if they know what it is, a dozen will have heard of it, one might still use it. I still run an IRC server at irc.SuperHosts.Net, which was part of the irc.ExodusIRC.Net network until we lost all the other people. Want to join in the fun? No problem, shoot me an email, I’ll tell you all about it… IRC is actually pretty fun. You can find live discussions going on just about any time of the day, in any language, and on any subject.
Maybe I should leave out my OTHER forgotten technology…. Ham Radio… Uhmm yeah, I still use that too!
