Lee.org

“You never drink the blood.”

Arrival

The Projeti arrived today with all it’s parts. That was fast :-)

Notables:

• The $80 Mega brushless motor is virtually indistinguishable visually from the $10 brushed motor. Weird… cool…
• The 2100 Mah 11.1 V lipoly battery is considerably smaller and lighter than my 1700 Mah 9.6 V Zagi pack. I’m still worried that I’ll be drawing too much juice from it, burning out this $80 battery prematurely. I’m especially worried about the temperature constraints of the pack. The Nevada desert will be 100 degrees during the day and the max recommended charging temperature of the battery is…. 100 degrees. The max recommended discharge temp is 160… only 60 degrees above ambient temp, and with the sun beating down on it. We’ll see what happens. Maybe I won’t fly it during the day.
• The Projeti looks to be made from EPS foam. I was told that it was “a bit stronger than EPS”. It would have been nice if it were EPP or a foam-composite or something. But no, it’s just EPS. Of course I realized this issue before purchasing, but I’m still worried about its resiliency compared to the Zagi.
• I wonder what 70 mph alkali dust storms do to r/c equipment?
• I’m thinking of getting flexible lighting wire and creating the silhouette of a hawk on the bottom of the plane, then covering the bottom with doculam clear plastic sheeting. That could be cool.
• The Triton charger is 1/2 the size of the Astroflight 110D charger. Tech. Cool.
• If I can get the twin tails to fold down (or something), the whole suitcase I’ll need to haul the plane and equipment will only be about 34″ x 24″ x 5″. Cool.

Zagi News

My second motor is on its way out. I lost another $1 prop to overheating. I’m a bit surprised at that because this second motor is a 7.2V motor… IE, it spins slower at WOT. I had figured that the first motor, a 6V motor was burning itself out extra quick because I was pushing it waaay too hard. And I was only pushing the 7.2V way to hard.

The 2 NiMH 1100 battery packs are having some trouble. I pretty much figured when I got them that I was drawing too much power from them. But I got a whole year of flying out of them, so I’m not unhappy. I tried strapping both to the plane and flying them in parallel. It worked reasonably well. The plane was heavy like a dog but it flew fine enough. I was a bit surprised when I landed the dual-pack arrangement and both batteries were very hot. Shouldn’t I have been drawing 1/2 the normal amperage? Well, as I said, the packs are on their way out… But if they’re on their way out (loosing full power after only about 5 minutes), shouldn’t just 1 or 2 cells per pack be getting really hot? Eh. Whatever.

I ripped off a winglet Monday afternoon when I landed a little hard in some tall grass. So I tried flying winglet-free. YOW, bad idea! When I went into any kind of high-banked turn, the nose would turn toward the earth and I’d lose altitude like it was going out of style. I tried doing a roll without winglets and, YIPE! I had reasonably good form but midway through the roll, the plane started fluttering down to the ground like a piece of paper, flipping nose-over-tail and such. Just zooping about, it was hard to keep it flying straight. Any sudden shift on the controls or in the wind and the plane wouldn’t know which way was forward. Bleh! Conclusion: The Zagi 400X cannot fly without winglets. I’m glad I did the experiment.

From Burning Man Polls

(I’d better practice my DanceDanceRevolution for endurance ;-) )

Trance music on the playa: what’s your take?

I go to those camps once in a while 37.9% BEATS BEATS BEATS! I dance 24-7! 34.2% Ugh! Makes me wish I had no ears 14.6% Don’t like it, but don’t hate it either 12.0% No opinion 1.4% Total votes: 1101

(Most people are on the playa ALL week. Wow.)

When will you arrive on the playa?

Pre-event. We’ve got special contstruction to do. 33.8% Monday – Tuesday 27.2% 12:01 am, Monday morning! 18.8% Wed – Thursday 16.6% Friday – damn my job! 3.0% Saturday – I’m only into the burn. 0.5% Total votes: 728

0.166 / (0.166 + 0.366) = a rather encouraging 0.318

Love on the playa. Romance! or romance? Did you come to the playa…

Single, and are still single 36.3% With my significant other, and we’re still together 25.4% Single, but started something new and special 16.6% With someone important, and we survived the ups and downs of the playa 9.8% With my significant other, we �polyamorized� together 9.1% With my significant other, and the relationship busted up 2.8% Total votes: 968

(bring a bike!)

How do you plan on getting around the playa this year?

I will pedal the playa on my trusty tricked-out playa bike, of course! 69.7% I’m going the old fashioned way … foot power! 12.8% I will dazzle my fellow participants with my fabulously decorated mutant vehicle! 8.1% I shall rely on the kindness of strangers! 4.9% I like to get around on a gussied-up (but muffled) scooter. 4.5% Total votes: 595

from http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=3890

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Yesterday I said that I thought the eHarmony site was broken…. well, that’s not the case. I just didn’t read the letter they sent me. (which is kind-of out of character for me, hence the title of the entry). It actually says that my personality profile is too non-standard for their system.

Based on your answers to our Relationship Questionnaire we will not be able to provide you with matching service.

The message you received onsite is used to notify people that they fall outside the range of those we can accurately match with the eHarmony matching service. Let me explain what that means. eHarmony matches people by analyzing their answers to the Relationship Questionnaire in order to accurately match compatible types of people.

The difficulty with this technology is that about 20%, or roughly 1 in 5 people, do not fit neatly into any of these categories. When that happens we are faced with a dilemma. We can either match them anyway and hope for the best, or not match them. We are so convinced of the importance of creating compatible matches to help people establish and enjoy happy, lasting relationships that we have chosen to not provide service instead of risking an uncertain match. We feel that incompatible matches could easily lead to bad marriages; the very thing eHarmony was created to prevent.

Please do not take our inability to match you as a reflection of your desirability. We want you to feel totally welcome to spend time with us on our site. Take advantage of every other part of our service – Our Personality Profile, Q&A with Dr. Neil Clark Warren, and Enlightenment, our monthly newsletter. One thing I can promise you is that all of us at eHarmony are deeply committed to your welfare. We want you and everyone else involved with us to end up with the life he or she most dreams of having.

To access your free personality profile, please go to www.eHarmony.com. At the bottom of the screen you will see the text, “Login to complete your registration or personality profile” next to form fields with the words “Username” and “Password” directly above them. Enter your user name and your password in the corresponding spaces then click the Login button. At the bottom of the screen you will see the message referenced above ending with, “You can still receive your free personality profile by clicking here.” Please click the ‘here’ link to access your profile.

This message is an auto-response to your inquiry. If your questions or concerns have not been addressed, please reply and a Customer Care representative will get right back to you.

Sincerely,

eHarmony Customer Care

Yesterday, I was 1/2 way through writing another rant about a problem I was having with Match.com when I realized that the problem wasn’t on their site but in my head. Hmmm. Hmmmmm. I don’t know what’s up with me. I -feel- reasonably ok. So why are my senses off-kilter like this?

My Cassiopeia E-125 Pocket PC died a few days ago. :-(

The screen started getting really flaky. Sometimes it would work… sometimes when I hit the box, it would work… sometimes not. So I opened it up. And opened it up some more. And then a little more. And I didn’t find anything loose. I think I have to open it even more to find the problem but I can’t figure out how to do it. Hurumph.

So I bought an E-125 on eBay. I paid $500 new in 2001 or so. I bought the used on on eBay for $97, shipping included. It will hopefully arrive by Wednesday.

I spent 3 hours over 3 agonizing evenings filling out the eHarmony.com profile thing and this is what I got back after 30 milliseconds of thought by the mainframe.

eHarmony is based upon a complex matching system developed through extensive testing of married individuals. One of the requirements for it to work successfully is for participants to fall into our rigorously defined profiles. If we aren’t able to match a user well using these profiles, the most considerate approach is to inform them early in the process.

We are so convinced of the importance of creating compatible matches to help people establish and enjoy happy, lasting relationships that we choose not to provide service rather than risk an uncertain match.

Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching system is not suitable for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply would not benefit from our service. We hope that you understand that we regret our inability to provide service for you at this time.

And their system seems to be broken… The FAQ says that I can change my profile to cast a wider net (ie, change the geographic area I’m willing to accept, religious beliefs, etc). But I don’t see the button they want me to push on the web site. :-( I wrote to them.

I went out with The Eleventh President the other night. She helped me feel better about things. Thanks.

I got an email of encouragement from TJIC. Thanks.

These things mean a lot. Thank you.

You know, right after we broke up, the dread-factor in my life decreased dramatically. I wasn’t expecting that. I mean, there shouldn’t be a direct link between a universal dread of waking, working, and living and not getting to see a girlfriend as often as wanted. I’m surprised I didn’t see this strong correlation before.

I just bought a Projeti electric flying wing and brushless motor set. It promises to go 3 times as fast as the Zagi, still with amazing acrobatics. I’m taking it to Burning Man in August. It’s going to need a more artistic paint job than what comes out of the box. Too bad I don’t have an artistic girlfriend.

Everything is coming from Northeast Sailplane Products http://www.nesail.com

I’ll probably be lighting the plane with something from one of these companies:

http://www.glowire.com
http://www.rcneon.com

Here is a calculator for LEDs I might need
http://www.rc-cam.com/led_info.htm

Paypal says:

Transfer money into your PayPal Money Market account and earn the #1 Money Market prime retail yield as ranked out of 297 investment companies. Currently, you can earn 1.00%*!

I spent 15 seconds looking and CNN Money showed me 14 money market funds currently earning between 1 and 2% interest. I’m not sure I could find 297 investment companies, much less 297 offering less than 1%. Paypal is lying.