Secara kebetulan, saat saya ingin menyalakan motor untuk berangkat kerja terlihat ada hal yang unik di speedometer motor saya. Ternyata jarak tempuh motor saya yang terlihat pada speedometer telah sampai 11.111 Km. Semua serba angka 1, tentu ini bukan rekayasa karena monitor pada speedometer yang berada di atas tidak dapat di ubah-ubah kecuali speedometer yang berada di bawah (yang ada tulisan km/h). Ada lagi yang punya angka cantik di speedometer motor ?

Coming soon: 12 days of nerdy where I will commit to 12 consecutive days of random acts to make up for my recent blog-writing flakiness. This is because I want all of your Christmas dreams to come true. Dates TBD.

For this week, I want to share with you eddy currents and governors and flux capacitors (ok just kidding on that last one, but seriously what did happen to Huey Lewis and the News or “The Power of Love?”)

I speak my dear nerds of the speedometer. A coworker mentioned something called a governor as a car function and I figured I’d check it out so I could remove at least one thing I don’t know about cars from the very long list of what I don’t know about cars. I may be a mechanic’s dream customer (educated yuppie who hates getting her hands dirty and doesn’t care how things work as long as they do work), but I will at least know the following:

–The speedometer was originally the “velocimeter”  and was created by a Croatian in 1888. Velocimeter feels faster I think. Also, who knew they even had cars in Croatia?

–Electronic speedometers were introduced in 1980–before that speedometers used an eddy current which is a fancy magnet system that works off of the ripple effects of the transmission. If you really want to 1) learn some science and 2) revel in some seriously phallic knowledge, look up “eddy current” and “speedometer” on wikipedia–I assure you the frequent use of the words “shaft”  and “speedcup” among others will not disappoint.

–A governor is a car device that limits the speed you can go so you don’t blow up your engine or try to go inhumanly fast because you got double-dog-dared to see how fast you’d have to go to make your cheeks flap in the wind like a cartoon. Why does someone always have to ruin the fun? (See also UrbanDoctionary.com’s definition “governer.”)

–Modern speedometers are supposedly accurate to within 10% of a car’s speed (5% in the U.S.). This level of accuracy is a required compliance for car manufacturing by the UNECE–yes, there is a whole commission for this. Important note for those of us who tend to get speeding tickets: size does matter: tire size that is. Irregular sized tires can throw of your speedometer, meaning that technically you may not have been speeding, Officer! (I will let you know how this explanation pans out if and when I get my next ticket. I think at the very least this fact should go into my contestation letter.)

–A boat speedometer is called a pit log. WTF?

Udah 9 bulanan lebih speedometer tigi ane g muter, dengan semangat 45 biar g di jajah bengkel and mekanik abal2, jadi deh bongkar tunggangan ane itu.

Untuk melakukannya pertama lepaskan roda depan dan buka bagian sebelah kiri roda pada motor tiger anda seperti gambar di bawah ini.

Gear Pada Roda Depan

Ada 3 lokasi yg bisa di curigai sebagai sumber masalah ketika speedometer tidak berfungsi yakni : gear yg nempel di roda depan ada di sebelah kiri roda (yg ini kemungkinan besar rusak karena aus) sperti pada gambar, kabel speedometer yang menempel pada gear diatas (klo yg ini kayaknya kemungkinannya kecil untuk putus atau rusak) dan  yang terakhir unit speedometernya yg rusak yg ada di stang motor itu loh.

Cara kerjanya :

1. roda depan berputar yang akan memutar gear nanas
2. perputaran gear nanas diatas akan memutar kabel speedo meter.
3. kabel speedometer berputar akan menggerakkan jarum speedometer pada unit speedometer.

Jika speedometer tidak berfungsi cari saja dari ketiga bagian diatas yang tidak berfungsi dengan baik.

Kalo di tiger saya gearnya yang sudah aus sehingga tidak bisa memutar kabel speedometer sehingga unit speedometer g bisa bergerak. Sewaktu mau beli gear nanas yg putih itu ternyata di toko dikasihnya sepaket seperti pada gambar (ketika part tersebut) kalo g salah harganya Rp20.000 atau Rp. 50.000 lupa tapi kayaknya emang bukan yang original, tapi kalo hanya sekedar untuk speedometer tidak masalah kali ya kalo bukan yang original, barudipake sekitar 2 minggu-an, alhamdulillah masih berfungsi dengan baik…

ps : gambar jepretan sendiri..

Radio 420 Beta 04102009

(tag tá legal)

The Dynamics – Miss You

Speedometer – Soul Grooving

Beastie Boys – Sure Shot (instrumental)

Chali 2na (Don Coleon) – Whose 2 Blame

Funkero (Pai Lua) – Selva Urbana

FAROFF – Hollaback Connection

Play parceiro!

Words, the use of words and humor in words are what this blog is about. Today, I have the urge to post about numbers.

I guess I can put this item in the context of words.  Maybe it is about form and function, limits, reasonability or common sense.

Anyway, I will try it. I own a Honda van.  Actually, we own two Hondas since my wife drives an Accord.

For some strange reason, I was looking at the speedometer recently.  No, it wasn’t because I saw a cop with a radar gun.  Have you ever notices the numbers shown on a speedometer?

Isn’t it strange that the posted speed limits are mainly 25, 35, 55, etc. but these number do not show on my dashboard.  I almost have to estimate where the right spot is between 20 mph and 30 mph to say within the limit.

The main curiosity on my speed dial is that it goes to 160 mph.  160! Give me a break.  No one would or could do that in an Odyssey van even on the Salt Flat racing grounds. (My wife’s car only goes to 150 so I guess I could beat her in a race.)

The only explanation I can figure is that since the display is round, they needed all those number to fill space. Why not just leave it blank?

So, I guess this is just one of the mysteries of life.

While I sit and contemplate it, I will put something on the microwave oven and “nuke” it for 45 minutes. (But maybe that is another post for another day.

“…Being an adult means to have a speedometer that marks 210 and not driving over 60…”

Haha.. kena juga gw sama kata-kata temen gw ini.. dia nulis ini di shoutnya karakter dia di erepublik.com ( http://erepublik.com ), game online yg lagi gw maenin sekarang. Hm.. nanti lah kapan2 gw cerita tentang erepublik ini, sekarang lagi pengen merenung aja tentang arti kata2 itu..

Itu dalem menurut gw soalnya.. “have a speedometer that marks 210” lo punya kekuasaan penuh terhadap hidup lo. bebas melakukan apa saja yang lo pengen.. lo pengen mabok bisa, lo pengen nampol orang ya bisa.. pengen ngehajar anak orang, ngehamilin anak orang.. ngaji, solat, puasa, lari telanjang keliling kota.. bolos kuliah, ngga ngerjain tugas.. DO, jadi anak rajin.. apa aja udah bisa lo lakuin.. karena elo sudah cukup umur. catatan disini, bahwa cukup umur saja itu ternyata tidak sama dengan dewasa..

Toh elo dah punya akal pikiran sendiri.. punya uang sendiri, punya hidup sendiri.. keputusan apapun yang lo ambil ya milik lo sendiri. Ya tentu lo punya keluarga, temen dan orang-orang yg lo sayang.. tapi itu adalah faktor eksternal, bukan lagi penentu hidup lo.

“and not driving over 60…” ini adalah bagian yang bikin gw ngakak pas baca.. sekaligus mikir.. bahwa ternyata gw blom dewasa. Ada tentunya hal-hal yang kita tahu ngga bole dilakukan, kita mengerti betul bahwa sesuatu itu diperbolehkan maupun tidak. dasarnya dari mana? dari mana2.. ada yang menggunakan agama sebagai panduan hidupnya, ada yang dari adatnya. ada yang ditentukan oleh dirinya sendiri. apapun itu batasan 60km inilah yang seharusnya jadi pedoman hidupnya.

Apa yang jadi pedoman hidup gw kah? apakah gw pegang teguh kah? pertanyaan itu menggema. pada setiap langkah, tarikan nafas, dan kedipan mata gw bertanya..

Apa elo udah dewasa?

With instruments being my focus of the moment this is the Harley Davidson after market part.

4″ Combination Speedometer / Tachometer – Colour Matched Lighting

tweetmeme_source = ‘kanunski’;

harley davidson

If you own a car, you probably noticed that the speedometer needle’s position varies but relatively slowly, regardless of how the car actually accelerates or decelerates. Unless your speedometer is some variation on the eddy current meter, maybe the noise from the speed sensor isn’t filtered analogically but numerically by the dashboard’s computer.

Let us have a look at how this filtering could be done.

The original signal coming out of the sensor is likely to be noisy. The nature of the noise depends on the device, and it may not be always safe to assume that the average of the noise is zero, nor that it is Gaussian. You can estimate the device noise characteristics by submitting it to a constant input—more on this later. You take a number of readings from your sensor while in operation. You plot the results:

A Sample Time Series

Here, we have 200 samples of the signal. I have shown the samples as sticks to emphasize the discrete nature of that time series. If you’re going to use this sensor’s output directly in an algorithm, it may be quite fine; however, using these values for display will be, despite being an accurate rendering of the sensor’s output, more confusing than informative. Especially when considering human/machine interfaces, displaying rapidly fluctuating numbers is never a good idea. What you want to display is a relatively slowly, always smoothly, varying value. A bit like your car’s speedometer. You’d probably be worried if the needle wouldn’t stop shaking. Instead, what you see is that it varies smoothly, maybe with a slight lag: it moves a few fractions of a second after you felt the acceleration.

A possible way of smoothing readings for display is to use the moving average algorithm. Rather than displaying the last read value accurately, it will display an average of the last values. The size of the window depends on many things, but for now, we can set it quite arbitrarily to, say, or or whatever value seems reasonable to you for your application. The moving average can be centered or tailed. In the centered flavor, the displayed value depends on the surrounding elements:

for odd. In the tailed version, the displayed value depends on the last values and is given by:

Applying the centered moving average on our time series, you would get:

A Sample Time Series with Moving Average (window of 20)

Fortunately, we can compute either moving averages incrementally and we need not to store more than sensor readings in memory. To compute incrementally the sums, we first must notice that:

(✻)

That is, if we shift the window one item to the right from position to new position , the new sum is given by the previous sum minus , the item that goes out from the window, plus , the new item that enters the window.

So clearly, a simple circular buffer suffice to hold the data in the window. Before overwriting the value, we subtract it from the sum, and we add the new value to the sum an into the buffer. The code would look something like:

    moving_sum+=new_value;
    moving_sum-=window[window_ptr];
    window[window_ptr]=new_value;
    window_ptr=(window_ptr+1)%window_size;

The only other thing you have to decide on are the initial conditions. When you have zero reading, the algorithm must return a value that’s sensible to your application. Very often, filling the window with zeroes and having an initial sum of zero is quite reasonable. Maybe in your application it makes more sense if they’re initialized at or 100.

*
* *

Estimating the sensor noise is a tricky thing. It will determine the size of the window depending on the maximum variation you want at any given time, and also how you ultimately compensate for the errors in the rest of the application.

One possible way to measure the spread of the sensor’s output due to noise is to compute the variance of a stationary value. This gives you an idea of how much the noise perturbs the readings on average. The sample variance is given by:

where is the sample average. Or, using Huygens‘ identity:

Remember that one as it’ll be useful to you every time you compute the variance. The variance is the average of squares minus the square of average.

However, variance is very sensitive to minute differences because it is a measure, it deals with squares of values (or squares of differences) rather than the values directly. Plotting the variance around the reading, centered on the moving average, we get:

A Sample Time Series with Moving Average and Variance (window of 20)

Which exhibits large variations when the slopes are large (the signal raises or falls rapidly) so it cannot be used alone as a measure of the noise. Probably a variance/slope ratio would be more indicative?

You may want to hide the noise from the user altogether. However, I’m not sure it’s always a good thing. In some application, showing that there’s a large variance around the read values may be of some use; maybe detect excessive vibration in a sensor, indicating some other, more important, problem? Whichever you decide, you should make sure that the information is presented in a clear, non-obtrusive way. May be not have okudagram-like displays, but you might want to show something like:

Where the brackets would change geometry depending on the variance or the standard deviation, which is the square root of the variance. Color could also play a major role. The interval between the brackets could vary color depending on the variance; maybe green under a certain threshold, maybe red to indicate an inordinately large variance?

*
* *

You may also have noticed that the incremental algorithm to compute the average (and thus the incremental algorithm to compute the variance) does not compute exactly the same thing as the naïve algorithm. Well, they are mathematically equivalent, but not equivalent when considering the implementation. In one case, we start with a sum of 0 and add a finite number of values to compute the average. In the second case, we start from the previous average (or previous sum) and, using the identity (✻), we compute the new average (or sum).

The problem with the second approach is, although it is much more efficient, it is susceptible to the accumulation of rounding errors. How the rounding errors accumulate depends on the nature of the noise and the magnitudes of the values you are adding. If the rounding errors are asymptotically symmetric around 0, they should more or less cancel each other out and yield an accurate average.

But the precision at which the computation takes place is also crucial. Let us consider this simple experiment. At each time, the new value is computed as , where is an uniform random number in the interval (from -1 to 1, inclusively). I generated a series of 10 000 000 samples.

If using double, I find that the error between the complete average and the incremental average is always between -0.0000000000227374 and 0.0000000000306386, so, roughly “zero”. Therefore, using double you shouldn’t expect major stability issues. Not so when using single precision float. Now, we find that the error is contained between -0.0333557 and 0.0012207, which is significantly larger than with double. Maybe when using float or some less than excellent implementation of IEEE 754, you could reset the incremental sum every one in a while. Maybe every million samples or so.

*
* *

You can test for window size, float type, and data source using this simple framework:

#include <time.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

#define nb_tries 10000000
#define window_size 20
#define float_t double

// some random function between -1 and 1
float_t random()
 {
  return (rand()-rand())/(float_t)RAND_MAX;
 }

int main()
 {
  //srand(time(0));

  float_t x0=0;
  float_t s0=0;

  float_t min_diff=0;
  float_t max_diff=0;

  float_t window[window_size]={0};
  int window_ptr=0;

  for (int i=0;i<nb_tries;i++)
   {
    // maintain the sum and
    // the circular buffer
    s0+=x0;
    s0-=window[window_ptr];
    window[window_ptr]=x0;
    window_ptr=(window_ptr+1)%window_size;

    // compute the sum by
    // computing the whole buffer
    float_t s1=0;
    for (int j=0;j<window_size;j++) s1+=window[j];

    // compute estimates
    // and compare
    float_t mu1=s1/window_size;
    float_t mu0 = s0/window_size;
    float_t diff = mu1-mu0;

    // let's keep track of
    // maximum errors
    if (diff>max_diff) max_diff=diff;
    if (diff<min_diff) min_diff=diff;

    printf("%8d %0.16f %0.16f %0.16f\n",i,diff,mu1,mu0);

    // next!
    x0+=random();
   }

  printf("max: %0.16f\nmin: %0.16f\n",max_diff,min_diff);

  return 0;
 }

Be sure to compile using gcc -Wall -Wextra -std=c99 -O3 -ffloat-store stability-test.c -o stability-test. The -ffloat-store option makes sure that you’re not using a special feature of your processor, such as the x86’s 80 bits internal float registers. If all the maths are done on 80 bits internally, you’ll get an artificially low drift.

I don’t know whether i have articulated the heading properly, but the idea is “can we design metaphors which are interactive”. Here I am not trying to get into a core funda of interaction design of input-output, but trying to understand whether metaphors can be more communicative than interactive. Perhaps communication design is a proper word to describe it. But lets get to the point, recently i was watching a video of IXDA 2009 by Robert Fabricant from Frog Design, where i came across a really interesting example of sustainable speedometer. It is interesting to see how metaphor design can make a huge difference in communicating the concept.

I do not think i need to explain what is says.

Well, summer is officially “almost” over.  OCHSA Registration starts next week.  Poop.  And to make things worse, I’m still required to put in 5 days a week at work after I go back to school.  What the heck?  Is that legal?

Well, my job is pretty fun.  I still have some bad days, but most of my co-workers and leads are super cool.

What else is new?  Oh, I got my Theremin in the mail today!  It’s fun, but REALLY HARD!  I can hardly even hold a note for more than a few seconds without it going out of tune.  I guess I should practice.  Well, I should probably also practice the piano.  And I should probably also start my summer homework.  MEH.  SparkNotes, here I come!

Anyways, right now I’m considering overwriting my Linux partition with Windows 7.  I hope I don’t regret it. :[

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft a lot lately.  It’s pretty fun.  I’m level 72.  Yay.

My car’s speedometer is broken.  I think I’m gonna watch Michael Clayton tonight.

“Each human life is like a new symphony heard for the first time. It can’t be understood or fully appreciated until after the final cadence.”

-Alan Harris

This weekend’s training rides provided a lesson that I hope to carry over into my day-to-day life: keep it simple. If I focus on my cadence–I can get to my final destination faster and probably with a stronger performance.

Bike Path in Concord/Lincoln near Route 2-- Just off of Airport Road

In the last two days, Wuggs and I have biked in excess of 80 miles. Creatures of habit, we have stuck to our favorite roads in between Somerville, Bedford, Carlisle, Concord, and Lincoln.

I’ve been having trouble with me bike computer. I find that the more I WANT to rely on measuring my speed and distance–that I keep pressing inaccurate buttons or accidentally moving my magnetic gear. Electronic devices–I think that you can measure a person’s age by their aptitude for using programs and gadgets. I used to make fun of my mom and her generation for their seemingly inability to “get with the times.” And now I find myself a victim to the same technology issues. I think this means that I’m officially at the peak of my adult experience!

Today I was messing with the odometer/speedometer on my computer. I give Wuggs mad props for inherently understanding how to tiptoe (and sometimes do the marine crawl) around my wildly swinging moods. What can I say? I’m Italian!

There I was, silently fuming, pushing my buttons harder and faster (like that would make a difference)….and there Wuggs was watching the fuse burn closer and closer to detonator. Moments before the explosion, she offered a simple but brilliant solution:

“MAC, we’re only riding to Bedford and back. We already know that’s 25 miles. Can we just make a pact to have the bike shop look at this at a later date?”

Wow–my wife really is a calm and collected innovative thinker. Why didn’t I think of that?!

I let it go. And it was good for my ride because I funneled all that pent up frustration into my cycling and made some serious headway in gaining speed today.

Although the computer did not read speed and distance–almost magically, it was able to accurately track cadence. In cycling terms, cadence is the number of revolutions of the pedal crank per minute. I learned from my recent visits to Back Bay Bicyles that touring cyclists (like me) should aim for 85-100 rpm (pedal revolutions per minute). This is a great article on the subject of form and technique for getting the most out of your cycling:

CYCLING PERFORMANCE TIPS

Back to my faulty computer system….and by this, I mean the one on my bike and the one in my head!

Well it turns out that my crotchety bike computer was about the best “coach” that I could have today. Usually I’m tracking my speed, distance, and cadence all at once while I cycle. The result is that I have a vague idea of all and I’m really not performing at my optimum with any.

On this trip, I decided to focus all my attention on my cadence. My goal was to keep my cadence between 80 and 95. I actually kept my gears on pretty low levels to maintain this cadence. Usually, I have my gears set as high as I can because this gives me the illusion that I’m actually going faster. What I learned today is that–even if I’m cycling on a lower gear–as long as I maintained my cadence to 80 and above, I reached my final destination in 3/4 of the time it usually takes. For example, it usually takes me about one hour to reach the end of the minute man bike trail from my house. Today, I reached it in 45 minutes!

What a lesson! This simplification of a goal can translate to other areas in my life. I can be so distractable–especially since I finished graduate school in May. I’m so used to multitasking that sometimes it feels like I’m accomplishing many things–but only at an average level. I would like to experiment with my projects at work (when I return from my conference in DC next week) by breaking up my daily schedule in 15-3o minute chunks and then completely focusing on one task at at time. I look forward to measuring my performance after this test!

***

This is an entry from the adventurous, thoughtful and occasionally humorous journal of my training escapades in preparation for two great century bike rides: Harbor to the Bay and El Tour de Tucson. To find out more information or to make a pledge, visit our home blog, The Amazing Adventures of Two Girls on a Bike.

“Each human life is like a new symphony heard for the first time. It can’t be understood or fully appreciated until after the final cadence.”

-Alan Harris

This weekend’s training rides provided a lesson that I hope to carry over into my day-to-day life: keep it simple. If I focus on my cadence–I can get to my final destination faster and probably with a stronger performance.

In the last two days, Wuggs and I have biked in excess of 80 miles. Creatures of habit, we have stuck to our favorite roads in between Somerville, Bedford, Carlisle, Concord, and Lincoln.

I’ve been having trouble with me bike computer. I find that the more I WANT to rely on measuring my speed and distance–that I keep pressing inaccurate buttons or accidentally moving my magnetic gear. Electronic devices–I think that you can measure a person’s age by their aptitude for using programs and gadgets. I used to make fun of my mom and her generation for their seemingly inability to “get with the times.” And now I find myself a victim to the same technology issues. I think this means that I’m officially at the peak of my adult experience!

Today I was messing with the odometer/speedometer on my computer. I give Wuggs mad props for inherently understanding how to tiptoe (and sometimes do the marine crawl) around my wildly swinging moods. What can I say? I’m Italian!

There I was, silently fuming, pushing my buttons harder and faster (like that would make a difference)….and there Wuggs was watching the fuse burn closer and closer to detonator. Moments before the explosion, she offered a simple but brilliant solution:

“MAC, we’re only riding to Bedford and back. We already know that’s 25 miles. Can we just make a pact to have the bike shop look at this at a later date?”

Wow–my wife really is a calm and collected innovative thinker. Why didn’t I think of that?!

I let it go. And it was good for my ride because I funneled all that pent up frustration into my cycling and made some serious headway in gaining speed today.

Although the computer did not read speed and distance–almost magically, it was able to accurately track cadence. In cycling terms, cadence is the number of revolutions of the pedal crank per minute. I learned from my recent visits to Back Bay Bicyles that touring cyclists (like me) should aim for 85-100 rpm (pedal revolutions per minute). This is a great article on the subject of form and technique for getting the most out of your cycling:

CYCLING PERFORMANCE TIPS

Back to my faulty computer system….and by this, I mean the one on my bike and the one in my head!

Well it turns out that my crotchety bike computer was about the best “coach” that I could have today. Usually I’m tracking my speed, distance, and cadence all at once while I cycle. The result is that I have a vague idea of all and I’m really not performing at my optimum with any.

On this trip, I decided to focus all my attention on my cadence. My goal was to keep my cadence between 80 and 95. I actually kept my gears on pretty low levels to maintain this cadence. Usually, I have my gears set as high as I can because this gives me the illusion that I’m actually going faster. What I learned today is that–even if I’m cycling on a lower gear–as long as I maintained my cadence to 80 and above, I reached my final destination in 3/4 of the time it usually takes. For example, it usually takes me about one hour to reach the end of the minute man bike trail from my house. Today, I reached it in 45 minutes!

What a lesson! This simplification of a goal can translate to other areas in my life. I can be so distractable–especially since I finished graduate school in May. I’m so used to multitasking that sometimes it feels like I’m accomplishing many things–but only at an average level. I would like to experiment with my projects at work (when I return from my conference in DC next week) by breaking up my daily schedule in 15-3o minute chunks and then completely focusing on one task at at time. I look forward to measuring my performance after this test!

***

This is an entry from th adventurous, thoughtful and occasionally humorous journal of my training escapades in preparation for two great century bike rides: Harbor to the Bay and El Tour de Tucson.  To find out more information or to make a pledge, visit our home blog, The Amazing Adventures of Two Girls on a Bike.

Da qualche giorno NGI, famoso ISP italiano, ha creato un nuovo Speed Test che permette di valutare in modo semplice e veloce la banda disponibile da e verso la propria connessione Internet e altri parametri qualitativi quali latenza, jitter e packet loss.

Il test è raggiungibile tramite l’indirizzo: http://test.ngi.it

Tak perlu waktu lama bagi Vixi The Grey untuk mencatat 1000 kilometer. Motor datang pertama kali pada 10 Juli silam, dan langsung saya easy break-in (in-reyen) hari itu juga. Usai serah terima STNK, The Grey pun menjadi tunggangan harian Cibinong – Jakarta. Jadi hanya butuh waktu kurang dari tiga minggu untuk menggapai seribu kilometer.

Hari ini odometer persis menunjuk 1000 dan trip meter pada angka 12,8 kilometer. Begitu tahu odometer akan berputar mendekati angka 1000, trip meter langsung saya set 0 dari rumah. Akhirnya,  seceng kilometer itu dicapai 12,8 kilometer dari rumah. Lalu di mana lokasinya?

Detik-detik menanti angka 1000, bagi saya, menimbulkan sensasi sendiri. Mirip countdown peluncuran Colombia. Di jalan, saat odometer bergerak dari 990, 991, ……… motor saya pelankan sambil melirik situasi jalan. Odometer terus bergerak 996, 997 ….. mata melihat kiri kanan sambil mengira-ira lokasi bakal berhenti di angka 1000. Apakah di masjid itu? Wah lewat. Apa di rumah bersalin ini? Lewat juga. Jangan-jangan di pertigaan depan sana?

Motor semakin saya pelankan ketika angka menunjuk 998, 999…. Apakah di pertigaan depan itu? Wooo….lewat dikit, akhirnya kilometer 1000 berhenti persis di papan RW Siaga, Jalan Raya Parung Serab, Depok, Jawa Barat. Tepatnya di RW 01, Kelurahan Tirtajaya, Kecamatan Sukmajaya.

Buka tank bag, keluarin camera digital, poto-poto speedometer. Selanjutnya, turun dari motor dan meneruskan memfoto lokasi Vixi The Grey kilometer 1000 dari berbagai sudut.

Termasuk foto ngawur yang ini.

Saya sempat merenung, kenapa pencapaian 1000 kilometer itu tepat berada di depan papan RW Siaga? Saya hanya yakin, bahwa ini memang sudah kehendak Allah SWT. Mungkin hikmahnya, agar saya selalu SIAGA ketika berkendara. Insya Allah.

I’m a cheetah, bitch.

[Bill2009] has made some nice progress on a control panel for his motorcycle over at the arduino.cc forums.  It can show speed, tachometer readings for the wheel and engine, as well as indicate the current gear. He reads the square wave coming off of his tachometer input and pulses from a reed switch mounted on the wheel to calculate all this. To top it all off he can monitor the data via a Bluetooth module attached to the board, which is much better than trying to balance a laptop on your knees while cruising down the highway.  He is working on getting the size down so that he can mount the whole assembly inside of his motorcycle. He also plans to add new software features like wind resistance calculations and0 to 60mph timing.

2001 Buick Century

I figured I would go ahead and do both so it wouldn’t be a case of “Do what I say, not as I do.”

As you remember from the The Concept, this was all inspired by me driving down the road look at my ordinary speedometer, and here it is.

Can you beat it at all?

Buick Century 2001

As I promised in The Concept, this was all inspired by me driving down the road look at my ordinary speedometer, and here it is.

Can you beat it at all?

I couldn’t come up with an idea to write about today. So I went to my old stand-by – the History Channel’s website – to see what significant events have occurred on May 21^st. Here is what I learned about this day in history.

In 1901, Connecticut became the first state to enact a speed limit for horseless carriages. It stated that the speed of all motor vehicles should not exceed twelve miles per hour on country highways and eight miles per hour within city limits. I’m guessing that the ‘highways’ of the time were not as nicely paved as they are today. Thus, twelve miles per hour may well have been seen as ‘breakneck’ speed.

While setting a speed limit doesn’t seem all that strange, one has to wonder why twelve M.P.H. and eight M.P.H. were chosen as the upper limits. One also has to wonder how those speeds were measured by the state troopers and local police. If I’m not mistaken, radar had not yet been invented. For that matter, how many of the motor vehicles were equipped with speedometers?

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An even stranger event took place on May 21, 1924. That’s when fourteen-year-old Bobbie Franks was abducted from a Chicago street and murdered by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. The killers were extremely wealthy and intelligent teenagers; their sole motive for killing Franks was the desire to commit the “perfect crime.”

The two young men had both graduated from college while still in their teens, but their high IQs didn’t stop them from making several mistakes that allowed the police to determine their guilt.

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In 1992, Amy Fisher, the so-called “Long Island Lolita,” was arrested for shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco. Fisher, only seventeen at the time of the shooting, was having an affair with Mary Jo’s husband, thirty-eight-year-old Joey Buttafuoco.

Mary Jo survived the attack but was left with a bullet lodged in her head and a partially paralyzed face. Fisher pleaded guilty to the shooting and was convicted of assault. She received a sentence of 5 to 15 years the following year.

Mary Jo seemed to think her husband was blameless in the affair. The courts felt differently and Joey was convicted of statutory rape. He received a six-month jail sentence.

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In 1996, seventy-six-year-old Richard Keech shot his son-in-law, Nicholas Candy, to death outside his Long Beach, California, home. Candy was in the midst of a divorce and custody battle with Keech’s daughter Nancy and had arrived to pick up his son.

After the first shot, Candy staggered down the street yelling, “Help me, help me,” Keech shot four additional bullets in his back. Candy died on a neighbor’s lawn.

The case captured national attention because Keech had a highly unusual defense. He claimed his actions were due to post-traumatic stress disorder, caused by being a prisoner of war during World War II.

The defense portrayed Candy as a man with a bad temper who began a reign of terror against the family. In December 1995, as the arguments over the son, Martin, intensified, Keech purchased a gun, which he later said was for protection against Candy.

On the day of the murder, Candy was informed by Keech that he couldn’t take Martin because the child was running a fever. He and Keech then got into a shouting match. After Keech shot Candy to death, he purportedly told a neighbor, “It’s over. He won’t be bothering anyone anymore.”

According to his defense, Keech fired the first shot in order to defend himself from Candy’s attack. The four subsequent shots were allegedly the result of a flashback. Keech testified that while he was shooting Candy, he thought he was back in the Japanese prisoner camps and was about to be beaten to death for hurting a guard.

The jury didn’t buy Keech’s defense; he was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997.

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And now, for what I see as the most bizarre thing to occur on this date. In 2000, the bones of President James Garfield’s spine were displayed for the last time as part of the “Out of the Blue Closets” exhibit at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C.

The display featuring President Garfield’s spinal column showed exactly where one out of two assassin’s bullets had passed through it on July 2, 1881. Garfield succumbed to complications from his wounds 80 days after being shot.

Garfield’s spine is not the only presidential body part to have been an item of interest at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. The museum also owns some of Lincoln’s skull fragments and President Eisenhower’s gallstones. A museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, keeps a tumor removed from President Grover Cleveland. John F. Kennedy’s brain, which was removed during his autopsy after his assassination in 1963, “disappeared” and has never been found.

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I have been told that the altar of every Roman Catholic Church has a ‘relic’ embedded in it. When I asked what sorts of relics were used, I was told, “bones from saints.”

Based on the things they do with saints and dead presidents, I think I’ll try to avoid becoming either one. If you don’t mind, I’ll continue to be a sinner and worry about forgiveness when I get ‘there’.