Friday, 31st of July, 2009
Since GM can't seem to make their car stereo and steering wheel controls last longer than a couple years before they start peeling, it has made a market for control surface replacements. This is $50 well spent if you are trying to sell your car - why let a peeling stereo button ruin your otherwise in-new condition vehicle's presentation?
Wednesday, 22nd of July, 2009
I thought the goal of health care reform was to address the issue of escalating health care costs in this country. I am sure I am not the only one who is taking on significant health insurance premium hikes every year. But I don't see how the health care reform that is currently proposed in Congress is supposed to address costs. It may make it mandatory for everyone to get health insurance but there is no restriction on how much this mandatory health plan is going to cost me - so now not only do I have to keep on paying more for health insurance I don't use, but I can't even opt out of it.
Monday, 20th of July, 2009
25 new functions available in WebIntelligence XI 3.1 versus R2:
- BlockName = Returns the name of a block
- DataProviderKeyDate = Returns a key date
- DataProviderKeyDateCaption = Returns the caption of the data provider keydate
- DataProviderType = Returns the type of a data provider
- DocumentCreationDate = Returns the date the document was created
- DocumentCreationTime = Returns the time the document was created
- Else = Specifies a value to return in an If Then Else expression
- ElseIf = Specifies an alternative condition in an If Then Else expression
- First = Returns the first value of a set of values
- ForceMerge = Forces Web Intelligence to account for synchronized dimensions in measure calculations
- Interpolation = Calculates empty measure values by interpolation
- IsPromptedAnswered = Returns whether a prompt has been answered or not
- Last = Returns the last value of a set of values
- LastExecutionDuration = Returns the time in seconds that a data provider took to return its data the last time it was run
- Mode = Returns the most frequently-occurring value in a set of values
- Product = Returns the product of a set of numeric values
- PromptSummary = Returns the prompt text and related user response for all prompts in a document
- QuerySummary = Returns information about the queries in a document
- RefValue = Returns the referenced value of an object when data tracking is activated
- RefValueDate = Returns the date of the referenced data used for data tracking
- RefValueUserResponse = Returns the data entered in response to a prompt at the time when the reference data was the current data
- RelativeValue = Returns previous or subsequent values of an expression calculated using a set of dimensions
- ReportFilterSummary = Returns information about the report filters in a document
- ReportName = Returns the name of a report
- Then = Specifies a value to return in an If Then Else expression
Saturday, 18th of July, 2009
The new I-270/Dorsett interchange is going to be a diverging diamond, where traffic will cross each other and appear to drive on the wrong side of the road while it goes under the highway. This type of interchange has been considered too confusing for drivers, but I guess the theory is if St. Louis drivers can figure it out then anyone can. My prediction is that there are going to be some head-on collisions.
Thursday, 16th of July, 2009
I bet the people who issued lifetime warranties for auto parts weren't anticipating this lady to keep her car for 43 years. It just shows that if you take care of your car it will take care of you - 540,000 miles on the original motor, and she has the diagram of all the lube points for it to show the service technicians.
Wednesday, 8th of July, 2009
I had almost forgotten about Geocities (where I first played with websites and html as a kid) until I got an email today from AT&T Yahoo Geocities that the whole service is shutting down on October 26th. The concept of allowing people to have a "homestead" in a community of themed "cities" recognized the significance of the internet as a social network tool almost a decade before MySpace ever existed. However, it seems like the only thing people could think to do with Geocities was use it as free web hosting.
Saturday, 4th of July, 2009
Picture - With the Subaru sorted out I headed to the charity Autocross this afternoon. I was so excited that I didn't realize until I got there and slapped the first number on the car that the white numbers I owned for my red car are useless on my new white car. Running with painter's tape had to do for today, but I was happy with the relatively consistent runs today and finally getting in a clean one. The 86 Corolla ended up posting a good time too so I trophied with 2nd place in Street Mod - not bad for riding on 14-year-old soccer mom wagon suspension.
Friday, 3rd of July, 2009
Finally got a chance to drag the crashed Cadillac hood out to the salvage yard. Riverside ended up being a great place for finding things today too - got the power windows switches I needed, and even found an 02 Eclipse tucked away in the corner so Dan can have a completely OEM replacement antenna.
Back at home, I celebrated Independence Day with a good old American service procedure - changing the fluid/filter on a 4L60 transmission. Didn't realize how long overdue it was until I took the Cadillac for a spin afterwards - it drives like it's new now.