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My Statistics textbook, “Understandable Statistics, 7th Edition” by Brase and Brase is an AWFUL TERRIBLE WORTHLESS PIECE OF CRAP. There are so many things wrong with this book I’m going to turn this journal entry into a rant shortly. Suffice to say for now that this book should never be used in a statistics classroom. Never. I’m not joking in the slightest here.

This has disturbed me to no end. So I share it with you!

Here is, without doubt, the coolest PC-related illusion, i’ve come across.
To enjoy it, just follow the instructions:

1. Relax and lazily stare at the 4 tiny dots in the picture below, for at least 30-45 seconds.
2. Slowly, shift your gaze from the screen to a wall near you.
3. You will see a circle of light formed on the wall.
4. Start blinking and continue till u see a figure within the circle.
5. What do u see? Rather whom do u see?

I tried this a couple of times, to reconfirm.. man o man… freaky!

Freaked out?

Yea. Me too.

Stunt flying at night with no lights is dumb.                   And it wasn’t even that fun :-(I have an idea as to how I can fix the motor mount with EPP foam instead of that flimsy, brittle plastic.

A whole lot of sci-fi (and some other) memorabilia is being auctioned off on eBay. Most of the items are expensively out of my reach… But if I won the lottery today, here’s what I’d buy: Link to My Auction Wish List

I also took this opportunity to build-up my Colonel Deering shrine a bit. Link to my Colonel Deering Shrine
A very nice Tivo Mod: SORT

You can sort the entries in the Now Playing List
In Now Playing, Enter: (S)low (0)Zero (R)ecord (T)humbsUp

Press enter to switch sorting options.

Short cut keys are
1 for normal
2 for expiration date
3 for alphabetical

One, two, three. Hey!
Look at Mr. Lee
Three four five. Hey!
Look at him jive
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee, hup!
Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee, hup!
Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee, hup!
Mr. Lee, Mr. _Lee–^ee–_ee

View all of the lyrics

I’m reminded of Cliff Whitney’s email .sig. “When flying upside-down, down is up and up is expensive.” Well in my case, up just got me to improve my super-gluing skills. I was working on my rolls and tried doing fun stuff in the roll. I found that the following combination puts the plane into this wacky roll where (if done right) you barely lose any altitude and the plane looks…   I don’t know… cool…:- Dive, then pull up to gain a little speed and an upward angle
– Hard turn right
– When the wing passes vertical, push the stick far-right and far-forward
– When the wing passes vertical again, push the stick far-right and far-back
– Flatten out and smile.

The plane doesn’t roll nearly as fast as just a hard turn. While it’s inverted, it gains a little altitude and it looks like the right wing (which is now on the left side) is being pulled up while the left wing is just sitting there. It looks pretty cool.

I was also working on getting really comfortable with inverted flight. I’m almost there! The Zagi keeps trying to right itself (which is a good safety release) so you have to fight it while upside-down and turning. I was trying to recover from a botched krazy roll; I tried to pull out inverted and…. well… I got my controls confused and drove straight into the ground at full throttle. The motor mount was smashed. I repaired it with superglue and that superglue quick-drying stuff.

Also, it was pretty cool when I dislodged my battery at about 100 feet. That happens when you’re inverted and wiggling a lot. Duh. The battery flew out like a throwing knife and stuck in the ground about 3″ deep. Cool. Happily, the controls were locked in a position where the plane wafted down like a piece of paper… back and forth… back and forth. Ploop.

Wow, I burned through 5 batteries today.

Went to Shara’s birthday party in Jersey City last night. Fun and good stories. :-)

I’m going to keep track of my battery usage until both 1100mah batteries have the same age on them…. So here is a new section of my journal. Tracking. woop.

• Battery 1: my original 1100mah ni-mh. Has approx 19 flights on it. Charged at 2.5C approx 4 times. Charged at 1.5C approx 10 times. Charged at 1C or below approx 5 times.
• Battery 2: purchased 6-22-03. Same as Battery 1
• Battery 3: Zagi KR-1700AU. Has approx 21 flights on it. Never charged above 3C. Charged at 3C without air cooling maybe 4 times.

I wussed out and bought another battery pack from Kenvil Hobbies instead of building my own out of snazzy 1700mah Sanyo HR-4/5AUP Ni-MH batteries. I just didn’t feel comfortable spending $80 in batteries ($4.50 apiece + shipping), another $30 for battery bars, shrink wrap, wire, soldering gun, & connectors… and THEN have to put ’em together in my lair. All that work would get me packs that are only marginally better than what I could get from Kenvil Hobbies for $35 apiece… for something like $55 apiece.

So I was picking up misc. items at Kenvil Hobbies and I just bought a battery pack. It’s the same type I got last time. So I’m going to use the new battery 19 times (occasionally abusing the charging times… just like I did on the first battery) and then I’ll start charging them in series together. That’ll be nice… more air time, less charging time.

I flew today. I’m enjoying inverted flight.