The wheels arrived this morning from Neuvation. I picked up a pair of M28X on the Christmas sale and they arrived while I was off in Calgary for Christmas so I made an early morning trip to the post-office to go pick them up and slapped them on the bike. It’s looking good. They actually came with different decals than I was expecting and for a couple minutes I thought I might leave them on there. That lasted a couple minutes. The decals will come off tonight. The bladed spokes are longer in cross section than any I’ve ever ridden before, they look great and I hope they perform well too. I rode a wheelset once that whistled at high speeds due to airflow over the spokes, probably a sign of poor aerodynamics but if this wheelset does that I won’t complain, whistling wheels are sawheeeet! The wheels look pretty beefy but when you pick them up you’d be surprised, they’re 1750 grams for the set. That’s a totally acceptable training wheelset weight. Compare that to 1770 grams for the Mavic Cosmic Elites I was using as a training wheelset on my TT bike this past season. I don’t know the weight of the Ritchey wheelset I’ve been running on my road bike but it’s at least a half pound heavier than the Cosmic Elites, so that would put it at over 2000 grams for the pair. All in all, the wheels look to be good but I can’t really tell you how they perform until I can take them on the road.

The wing bar is great. I can’t comment on the ride yet because I don’t even have a stem to mount it to the bike. I’m sure the bar itself is stiffer than my EC90 cross bar, and with the oversize diameter for the stem mount it’s going to be a far stiffer front end, especially once coupled with the beefy head-tube and giant fork. The shape is excellent and it’s got all of the features that I wanted. Basically it’s an ergo drop bar with two lower hand positions, the low hand position and the cornering hand position, It doesn’t do the long curve, just the double bend. I think the wave style bars are really uncomfortable they’re on my commuter bike and I don’t like the drops. I’m not looking for a myraid of hand positions along the lower drop of the bar, I just want two so make it fit them properly and get the bar out of the way for the rest of it. Zipp and PRO amongst others are making the long curve bars these days whereas FSA and Easton are pretty much set of doing it the comfy way with the double bend on the bottom there. I like that. I’ll admit the nice long curve looks really nice when the bike doesn’t have anyone riding it, so I guess they’re selling ’sexy’ and indeed they’re making money on it.

Click to enlarge

The main purpose of buying the carbon bar isn’t really weight, although this is indeed lighter than the aluminum bar I was running on my road bike prior. It’s to get the wing under my hands for riding on the tops. Stretching out the area under your hands distributes weight over a larger area which means less pressure on your hands. This isn’t a gimmick, the area is at least double and so, the pressure will be less than half. The corner has the recessed dimple characteristic of a lot of the nicer bars out there designed to reduce pressure on the median nerve when riding at the hoods. Those features combined with a bit of vibration damping from the carbon and this is likely going to mean I’m never going to have sore hands, except maybe when I’m white knuckling the bars racing on Calgary’s finest Bownesian pavement. The cable routing is beautiful on this bar and I’m surprised that there isn’t a photo posted online, I snapped this picture and the attention to detail is spectacular. It really makes the housing disappear. The mind-blowing thing is that this fine piece of art was $82 (full retail: $91). That’s a fifth the price of a comparable carbon road bar (or for the triathletes reading: a third the price of a carbon TT base bar before you start adding extensions).

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Finally. I’m really not pleased with our society’s extremely low appreciation of any sports other than the ones that start with “N” (Nascar, NFL, NHL, NL, and NBA). I saw this ticker on the TV last week. How are pro triathletes realistically going to make a living if the world around can’t even spell the sport that they do, let alone know how what it entails?

It is not supposed to be -26^oC with the wind chill when I hop on my bike in the morning to go to an exam in April. Sure I didn’t complain when that was the case for December exams but it is rather unappreciated in April. I don’t think I can ever remember it being more than twenty below following my birthday, sure we’ve had some stupid snowstorms in May but this one was actually cold combined with some serious snow. (Thanks to some random webcam for the picture)

This throws a bit of a wrench into my preparation plans for that Half marathon coming up on the 27th of April. At last post I wasn’t sure if I was going to agree to take the spot. I had a good run on Monday for about an hour followed by another 10 mile jaunt on Tuesday. Wednesday was the inaugural XC community league race which was loads of fun. My friend Pat placed top 3 which was outrageous, especially since he made a wrong turn for a little bit. I suppose route-finding becomes a consideration when you’re way up at the front, I’ve never had that problem running in 50th place or so. I fit in two rev sessions with Triathlon club and two shortish rides outside last week as well. I broke 75 hours total for the year so far, that’s OK I suppose but it certainly could be better. I hope to be putting in a decent amount more than 75 per month for May and June.

I guess that just about sums up physical preparation, I’ve got two final exams remaining and a research paper to write before I can cut town. The countdown has begun!

The Iron Ring ceremony for graduating engineers to be obligated into the profession was held this past weekend on March 29. The day started out with an ethics workshop put on by APEGGA in the morning, a rather excellent lunch and somewhat entertaining speaker (more for method of deliver than content) and then the ceremony. The ceremony is meant to be closed to the public so I’m not going to divulge details here. Anyhow, we all left with smiles on our faces:

We then cruised around downtown and went for dinner at the creperie. Following that a few EngPhys dealt with a robbery while the others proceeded to meet most of the addicts on Jasper. I was almost certain that my library book was stolen from the car and would have to pay a fine but the cops got it back. The evening wore on with a lengthly poker game and philosophical debate regarding whether or not it’s a valid system that we have created where the most effective means to getting good grades in your education are not the most conducive to learning material well.

We all decided that our education system has created test writing machines out of us, that we’re all very well adapted by this stage in our careers to demonstrating rapidly and with loose accuracy significant amounts information under relatively high stress conditions. In addition to the skills that were developed, we noted a few lacking areas contasting them. The retention level of such a situation is deemed to be low. This was attributed in part to the reality of gaining a grade at the end of a course and not being required to retain the information. Additionally however the examination style that follows the period of learning is one that doesn’t demand intimacy with the source material so long as it can be retrieved swiftly and with accuracy. Coming from the African education system Ayo suggested that his experience was even more that way and that in reality there was never any thinking required in the course of his secondary education. While the room was full of people who have successfully managed (very successfully, and in a few cases the most successfully) to develop skills to operate within the current education system, we unanimously identified that it was a bit scary. Upon departure from an academic institution the fact that regurgitation was smiled upon is not likely to benefit us in the long run. The ability to take in information at reproduce it in various forms does not aim careers favorably towards innovation and generally positive contribution to society.

Is there a cooling off period following graduation that is required so that we as humans can return a bit more towards mainstream life? I think so, but I’m also aware of the fact that the best way to reform bits and pieces of one’s mind is to stretch it a bit far in one direction and then let it slide back a ways, inevitably it will be shaped a bit by being drawn in that direction. I think to my own experience identifying myself on the political spectrum. Being drawn heavily in one direction under a certain experience can lead me a bit far afield, but allowing time to season that experience and come back to a bit more of a mainstream position leaves me with a better understanding of things and where I actually do find myself. Hopefully having been stretched over the course of the previous four years into a significant amount of information processing as well as priority management will shape a more efficient and balanced mind.

J. D. Salinger’s book The Catcher in the Rye started out as filler material during the University of Alberta’s International Week. There’s loads of time to kill waiting for lectures to start, and not a whole ton of homework to fill it with, so I started cruising through another book. It took until reading week to gather enough time together to finish off the last couple chapters but it’s not because I didn’t enjoy it. I’d say it’s probably one of the better books I’ve ever read.

Salinger really manages to share his thoughts about phonies, societal uniformity, and finding purpose in life without ever straying from the story he’s telling. While I thought the massive quantity of goddams and other assorted curses was kinda humorous I can see why my Mom’s recollection of the book is one of the controversy it caused rather than the content.

So for highlights of the book, I guess the whole commentary that Salinger is making on the everyday person’s “facade” is really what I started digging out as I read through it. The best snippets (that I remember) are below:

“Then, after a while, right in the middle of the goddam conversation, he asked me, ‘Did you happen to notice where the Catholic church is in town, by any chance?’ The thing was, you could tell by the way he asked me that he was trying to find out if I was a Catholic. He really was. Not that he was prejudiced or anything, but he just wanted to know. He was enjoying the conversation about tennis and all, but you could tell he would have enjoyed it more if I was a Catholic and all. That kind of stuff drives me crazy. I’m not saying it ruined our conversation or anything – it didn’t – but it sure as hell didn’t do it any good.” — Page 112-113

“You should have seen him when old Sally asked him how he liked the play. He was the kind of a phony that had to give themselves room when they answer somebody’s question. He stepped back, and stepped right on the lady’s foot behind him. He probably broke every toe in her body. He said that the play itself was no masterpiece, but that the Lunts, of course, were absolute angels. Angels. For Chrissake. Angels. That killed me. Then he and old Sally started talking about a lot of people they both knew. It was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life. They both kept thinking of places as fast as they could, then they’d think of somebody that lived there and mention their name. I was all set to puke then it was time to go sit down again. I really was. And then, when the next act was over, they continued their goddam boring conversation. They kept thinking of more places and more names of people that lived there. — Page 127-128.

So, this Holden Caulfield kid is pretty critical of everyone else who goes about life being fake and achieving nothing. Really though, he’s being the dead weight in society. He feels entitled to go about life cruising New York and avoiding reality because he’s being himself and not some phoney, who doesn’t want to be himself. To be honest I’m just waiting for someone to slap this guy up side the head and send him out to work for his daily wage. Where’s the balance supposed to go though? Let people fake their entire lives as long as they do so in a socially acceptable way, pulling their own fair share of the world’s weight? Or should we embrace the “enlightened” and allow them to go about their enlightened ways because somehow they are bringing some good into our lives.

If you stretch the analogy too far, which I did because I had the time, you start to wonder why the government should support any form of arts, any form of advanced research, any form of sport, that cannot fund itself by the capital it can raise on it’s own. If Canada can’t support a nordic skiing team based on public interest and event ticket sales why does anyone have the right to do that as their profession. How come some sociology professor can study Buffy the Vampire Slayer with government funded grants when they cannot support that research with the funding of an interested commercial enterprise. Why should I get a ride on government funded scholarships to study material properties, fly back and forth to Holland, and try to get papers published in academic journals when there is no industrial application ready to be put into production.

Holden Caulfield acts as though he has some right, or entitlement to behave in the way he does because he feels he is being true to himself. His own measure of integrity is internal and fully variable with each day’s circumstances. We in some sense like the guy, partly because he’s the protagonist and we’re supposed to, but mostly because we see what we’d suggest are phonies all around us. People towing the consumerism line, married with 1.4 kids and 2.2 cars. Holden’s entitled because he is real, but where is my definition of real coming from. I can’t swing too far that way without making myself sick. There’s a perceived real-ness to being the granola munching, bike riding, sweater-pant wearing, communist voting, anarchist protesting hippie. Isn’t that form of real-ness somewhat different from the form of real-ness that is in fact honorable and beneficial to the world. There’s a fine line between being the practice what you preach form of “real” and taking such a hard and fast interpretation of real-ness that you’re incapable of being real yourself.

Krabbe.ca lapsed for about a week because I was out of the country when it needed to be renewed and I only was emailed a warning about it 3 days before expiry. Not soon enough to catch me before jet setting out of Canada and away from the internet for a few weeks. Oh well, it’s back up and running now but it does lead me to wonder…

Do the domain name sellers want your domains to expire so that they can re-buy them up and sell them back to you at a higher price because they know that this specific domain is a valued one? I think that’s got to be the only answer. Any company without ulterior motives would give you probably a months notice for something of this nature. Oh well, krabbe.ca is booked up for 6 years now.

You might guess that someone taking a course in condensed matter physics in their fourth year of University might be subject to a little bit of tough work. You might guess that the topics are really complicated. You might guess that the prof assumes that you’re not learning scientific notation and basic trigonometry anymore. We’ll you’d be guessing wrong!

• Anyone remember the pythagorean theorem?
  
• Trigonometry from Grade 8 with a mistake in it?? A was supposed to be a unit vector.
  
• Scientific notation from Elementary school??
  

I’ll admit there might be evidence in the last photo that there is some tricky stuff going on, but consider how long it takes to write a partial derivative and how long it takes to draw a picture. The time investment isn’t where the “tricky stuff” is.

So the world has changed a little bit in the past number of days here. Mark Zuckernuts has set himself out on a course to get pretty rich pretty quick, and all the world has got to do is sit on their collective lazy asses and soak up all the instant gratification any company in the world wants to spoon feed to your LCD.

So if you’ve not read any news in the past few days the story is that someone has moved towards open source with something that worked, and wasn’t broken. He’s well aware that other people are going to make loads of dough from his invention but it’s not tough to calculate that he is going to be making loads more than that, he’s set to become a bit of a mogul with respect to managing the average net user’s use of internet applications.

Facebook.com is a website that has about 20 million users, half of whom visit the website every single day. It’s owned by some kid who is pretty smart and has done a few cool things with his time. His website was one version out of about a million social network sites, the appealing difference was that there is a bit of control over what information gets disbursed to the masses and is short on:

• Goths and EMOs (read Nexopia)
• people looking for sex (read Hi5)
• vomit inducing layouts and color schemes (read MySpace)
• fake people that don’t actually exist (read Orkut)
• Uuber long loading times (read Friendster)

Besides not having anything wrong with it, Facebox didn’t offer much to the world ahead of any of these other websites. You can keep tabs on what other people are doing with their time, find out what your friends talk about when you’re not around, and get a gauge on who’s interested in who… etc. (along with a few not so creepy things, like sharing photos and discussing triathlon gear, nutrition and race strategies)

Now Facebook will allow companies to piggyback on their framework in such a way that caters to users as they please. It’s kinda like building the google toolbox, the msn/hotmail world or the yahoo system from a different slant that sets Zuckerturd up to make a killing on advertising. It’s a self categorizing advertisement distribution tool, and as far as I’m concerned advertising seems to be the best way to make money with the internet at the moment unless you want to run a real business and sell stuff, but who really wants to put out that kind of effort?

I got tricked into thinking that Javascript was a user friendly language once again. I think I’ve finally learned that it hates me, maybe I’ll not try and fuss with it as much in the future. Anyhow I was able to tackle the latest beast of a problem thrown at me by my little brother.

He was interested in having a photo album that displayed the current photo as well as the next thumbnail and previous thumbnail, I wasn’t about to just display them and make you click on a separate button, of course I want to make you click on the thumbnail to go to the next page. Now this is where Javascript gets under my skin, I’ve got to jump through all their hoops regarding buttons on top of the style attributes I want to modify for the images.

It was a challenge, but it works now and it’s reasonably appealing to the eyes even though it’s not so appealing to the programmer behind them. Check out Reuben’s Photo Gallery for the moment, I’ll likely implement the same changes in my photo gallery sooner or later but it’s enough of a pain in the arse that I’m not keen enough tonight.

Consider the individual who shows up on the first day of work prepared to give it their best shot, hoping that that their new job is something they’ll really enjoy. When performance of their peers is honored that is completely out of line with the work requested it’s natural to try and then poach grades from the ’system’. By the time they arrive at performance review #3 it is then completely understandable to aim for a zero. When they realize it’s possible to get their work done in 20 minutes the natural progression is to see if a 10 minute effort will also score in the zero category.

When I had given up on ever scoring above a 0 in the assignments I enjoyed the lectures far more and paid alot more attention to where I saw the topic of discussion for the course arising in different situations. When I got the message that “understanding management issues is important in life” my commitment to learning the material was improved, it was never reflected in my effort towards the assignments and if I had to do it again I likely would start out on the very first day aiming for a zero grade, it is truely not worth the effort.

I understand that Flynn was rushed in class today but isn’t the message that we’re supposed to take from this situation that as managament we need to try and decouple this avenue (payment) from feedback? Wouldn’t an atmosphere of “we don’t do the work to get paid?” be the most likely to produce quality work. Some work situations are certainly conducive to this message but aren’t they also the least likely situations to promote the feeling of poaching a paycheck from the ’system’?

I am hesitant to agree with Flynn’s comment that “Managerial recognition is a more powerful motivator than compensation.” Recognition seems awfully fake unless there is something hands on to support it. Wouldn’t a work atmosphere of ‘usefulness’ do a much better job of motivation than recognition. I can draw on 2 examples of why I think this is true.

1. Flynn’s comments regarding frustration working at the chemical plant because he didn’t know what was going on, the comment was that lack of understanding was a powerful demotivator. There are many other examples of jobs that suck because you don’t know why you’re doing them.
2. Why do so many people turn to religion to seek purpose in life? It’s not out of recognition but rather them believing that what they do with their time matters.

LOOK’s new fork and headset setup for their track bikes has bled into the triathlon market (the 496). Luke Bell has been riding it for a while and I always wondered a bit about it. It’s been kicking around for a number of months/years but I saw it for the first time being ridden by a an amateur (Well someone who wasn’t obviously sponsored) in a photo taken just a month ago (end of January 2007). It had been making appearances here and there as a prototype since Athens in 2004 but I hadn’t seen anybody riding one except for sponsored athletes. I know they did a 2006 model of it but who knows exactly when that started distribution, apparently their 2007 version is different paint on the 2006 frame. That indicates to me that it was likely a “second half” of 2006 release.

Take a look at the photo, the front fork doesn’t connect to the frame via a standard headset as every other bike on the planet does. The fork stem come up in front of the frame instead of going through it. My guess is that this might make the bike a bit squirrelly to handle especially considering riding any bike with a shorter wheelbase and steeper seat-tube is that way already. For a track bike I guessed it was a decent trade off for aerodynamics, but couldn’t imagine (and still can’t) that it was going to make a big splash in bike construction.

I checked out the Look website and got no really clue as to when they started actual distribution of this bike to the real world paying customer market but in my travels did read that it claims the headset design improves stability. Now that sounds kinda bogus to me. If this headset design solves the problem of instability in the aero position shouldn’t every manufacturer of tri bikes have started building this? we’ve seen it since August 2004. Isn’t it a bit odd to believe that a company like LOOK which sells a traditional geometry frame (486) as a triathlon bike would be the company to figure out how to solve a problem that no-one else has solved? Companies like Kuota, Cervelo and Orbea are building superb tri geometry but all are still using the traditional headset configuration.

Look makes great $4000 frames that work superbly for draft legal ITU-triathletes, but to imagine that they fix the stability problem on one of their first attempts into steep seat triathlon geometry is a bit suspect to me. My guess is that this probably does allow you to cut weight and it may even improve lateral stiffness but its not going to make your bike ride rock solid when you’re splayed out on the aero bars. It’s not the lack of stiffness of the fork that makes your adrenaline rush when things get crazy it’s the geometry of the setup.