Entries by John

Last night, Jon and I finally got around to trying out a nearby repeater system, that is the C.A.R.L.A. (California Amateur Radio Linking Association) system.

As you can see on the aforementioned link, there are a number of repeaters in the California/Nevada area that allow easy communication between the Bay Area (where Jon is) and Tahoe (where John is). If you use the Interactive Coverage Map, you can see the various paths, and repeaters, even see how the coverage works.

One interesting thing we noticed was Jon was able to hear me much better on the South Lake repeater (#8) versus the North Lake repeater (#23), however he came in slightly scratchier on #8. When we turned on the Paths on the interactive coverage map, I realized that the path the signal took might have been a strong contributor.
To reach Jon at station 11, we either go 8 --> 16 --> 11 or 8 --> 18 --> 11, whereas with 23, we have to go 23 --> 18--> 8 --> 16 --> 11 or 23 --> 18 --> 11.

Regardless, it worked and worked well. I was very impressed with the signal from INSIDE my office, specifically, from my desk via handheld.

Last but not least, this was my first Ham radio transmission. Didn't hear anyone else on the line, so hopefully no one else had to put up with our idiocy.

I went into this film knowing nothing more than it was based on a book and by the title had some affiliation with Greek Mythology, a topic on which I did quite a bit of reading in my youth (and yes that means I also watched Hercules and Xena - minor sidenote Lucy Lawless is doing an amazing job in Spartacus).

This will be rife with spoilers, so if you don't want to know, don't read.
Continue reading "Review: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The..." »

This post was inspired by: an article from the Washington Post.

Currently we pay a tax on each gallon of gasoline we buy. Part of it is Federal, part State, and possibly even a local part (don't know anywhere like this, but it is a possibility I suppose). As we move toward more fuel efficient vehicles (be they motorcycles, hybrids, or whatnot), the amount of tax money is decreasing. Obviously, the governments dislike this as they need that money to keep the roads up, one of the things that has been suggested is to replace the per gallon tax with a "Per Mile Driven" tax. This would mean that the cost of filling up, be it a hybrid or a truck would be much closer in cost. Sounds good for the gas guzzling truck, but not so much for anyone who bought a more fuel efficient vehicle to save on gas fill ups (and/or pretends to care that they really bought it to make the environment better).

Were something like this to pass it could put a serious dent into hybrid sales and also standard motorcycles (like the Suzuki Boulevard S40). Since Standard bikes are fairly cheap (new and used are generally well under $5k) and get good fuel economy (40-80 mpg depending on the model), they are popular sellers when gas prices start to rise, as they usually pay for themselves in a few months, depending on your commute (not to mention the awesomeness that is a motorcycle). Hybrids on the other hand are less of an impulse buy as they are quite costly. The main reason people suffer this cost though is because they are getting a savings at the pump. Remove that savings and hybrid sales will slump.

When Jon and I discussed this new tax, we kept coming back to the same question: How can you, the government/tax collector, prove how many miles I've driven?
Continue reading "Driving Tax vs Gas Tax" »

SQL0104N An unexpected token "" was found following "". Expected tokens may include: "CORRELATION NAME". SQLSTATE=42601

This was the error that I got while attempting to execute a stored procedure under DB2 v8.1 for z/OS. Being quite confused about it, I googled for the answer. I didn't find one, but I did find this google groups post which made mention of it.

Basically, the situation was that I had

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM
(
SELECT ...
UNION
SELECT ...
)

And while that works just fine under LUW, z/OS doesn't like it. The simple solution is to add "AS TBL_1", or any other name to the parenthetical subselect, which I have done below. Both commands work just fine in LUW, but if you are working under z/OS (or at least version 8.1) you will need to use the bottom example.

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM
(
SELECT ...
UNION
SELECT ...
) AS TBL_1

Ingredients:

• Pie Shell
  
• 1.5 Quarts Dreyer's Fat Free Vanilla Frozen Yogurt
  
• 4 Kit Kat candy bars (16 individual bars - you can use the Fun/Snack size Kit Kats as well, but will need 16 packs of those since they are roughly equivalent to one bar each)
  
• Kahlua

Directions:

1. Bake Pie Crust in your standard 9" pie dish
   
2. If the crust puffs up, pierce the bubble and allow steam to escape, after a few minutes gently press it back down
   
3. Allow the frozen yogurt to defrost a little bit and then put about half of it into your blender
   
4. Finely chop up 2 of the candy bars and toss them on top of the frozen yogurt
   
5. Add some Kahlua (personal preference, at least a shot or three)
   
6. Blend it until well mixed, then add the rest of the frozen yogurt
   
7. By hand, crush one more candy bar and add it to the mix
   
8. Blend until completely mixed (adding more Kahlua as necessary), then pour into prepared (well-cooled) pie shell. Use a spoon to smooth over any lumps.
   
9. Break the remaining candy bar into 4 individual sticks and press into the pie (One of my bars was broken so I substituted 2 of the miniature kit kats for the last spoke)
   
10. Place the pie into the freezer and allow to harden.
    
11. Remove from freezer and allow to defrost for 15 minutes before serving.

As a side note, I had enough mixture left over for a mini-blizzard, which was quite tasty with a nice smooth Kahlua taste.

How it turned out:
I was really excited about this pie and it did not disappoint. The Kahlua was the perfect accent for this pie. Everyone was very pleased with how this turned out.

Transport was a bit tricky (as most pies are), however, I was able to place the pie dish inside a cookie container and surrounded it with ice packs (and placed all that in a cooler); it kept it cold enough to make the transit without defrosting.

This pie was inspired by (and made for) my friend, Brett, who once professed a love of Kit Kats.

As I mentioned yesterday, I recently beat Mass Effect 2. Today I wanted to talk about a few things, what I liked/disliked, my end game team, guns, and lastly what the "bonus" was for beating Mass Effect Galaxy (the iPod Touch/iPhone game).

Liked:

• The improved combat system
  
• The upgrade system - no more pausing mid-fight to adjust ammo types as necessary, or installing an upgrade for one weapon and moving your upgrade into another, etc, etc
  
• The planet scanning instead of taking the Mako down to run around the planet
  
• The heavy weapons
  
• Three different versions of Barrier: Fortification (for more Armor), Geth Shield (for more Shield), and Barrier (for more... biotic Barrier).
  
• No achievement/bonus/incentive for having one particular squadmate(s) for most of the game. This encouraged me to try out everyone.
  

Disliked:

• New weapons weren't always better than the old ones. Specifically, I went from the semi-automatic sniper rifle to a bolt action (that looked like an M107). It did more damage, but the constant reload was annoying. More on this below.
  
• Only being able to use one "power" at a time. In the previous game, I enjoyed being a biotic because I could fire off multiple abilities at a time.
  
• This one comes from Jon: no measure of what your squad is composed of; in the previous game, you had 3 bars letting you know how much Tech, Combat, and Biotic prowess your chosen squad had. This goes inline with your squadmates not really having classes in this game (thought it was fairly obvious what they were in most cases).
  

End Game Team:
When you begin your assault on the collector ship you need to pick a Tech Specialist and a leader for the second team (Fire Team).
I used Tali as my Tech Specialist (though I've heard Legion works as well).
Miranda as my Fire Team Leader (heard that Jacob or Garrus also work).
For the next section you need a Biotic to shield you, a Diversion team leader, and an escort for the survivors.
I used Samara as my biotic (I've heard Jack works as well).
Miranda once more headed up my second team.
I used Jacob to get everyone back to the boat.

Since everyone in my party was loyal, I suffered no deaths.

Guns, guns, guns! Someone over on the bioware forums had this to say about the effects of guns on resistances/armor/shields/barriers: Mass Effect 2 Gameplay Data. Useful bit (of course I didn't find it till AFTER I finished playing). Basically, if an ammo/gun type says it is good at something it does at least full damage to that (usually 1.5x damage though).
Now, far and away this is the most useful bit I have found, a Weapon Chart by Arthelinus which shows weapon stats for... EVERY weapon in the game, including the guns that came in other editions (Collector's and Digital Deluxe). It also points out the gun that is only available if you are playing on Hardcore or Insane difficulty.

Last, but not least... Did you play and beat Mass Effect Galaxy? Wondering what the bonus is? I finally found the answer via a post on the IGN Forums:

Not too far from the entrance to Afterlife in Omega, you bump into a Salarian named Ish who asks for some help finding a pair of datapads. If you have Jacob and/or Miranda with you, you get some dialogue that references their dealings with Ish in Mass Effect Galaxy.

I didn't realize this was the "reward" before because I never had Jacob or Miranda with me while completing his mission.

That's right, the bonus is some random conversation about an NPC. Congratulations.
So yeah, it happens toward the beginning of the game, after you have gotten Archangel and/or Mordin, you see him outside Afterlife and he asks you to find him some datapads. If you have both Miranda and Jacob they will talk about it. Seems pretty darn lame to me, but such is life.

Beat Mass Effect 2 recently and managed to get all but 3 achievements: Insanity - Beat the game on Insanity difficulty; Overload Specialist - Use Overload to destroy a shield 25 times (only did this 22 times); Warp Specialist - Use Warp to destroy a Barrier 25 times (only did this a few times). I probably could have gotten Overload and Warp, but didn't realize that you actually had to finish off the Shield/Barrier with Overload/Warp in order for it to count. That and not many enemies had Barrier.

I ended up putting in just over 40 hours in my first playthrough.

At the end it tells you that you can keep playing and will now have the option to use this character for your next playthrough (basically New Game +). I had already done well... everything so I just ran around listened to the conversations and then decided to start a new game to see what carries over.

What carries over:

• Level/Experience
  
• Guns - both Heavy and Regular
  
• Skills - Your skills look exactly the same as how you left them on the save before you imported, minus your bonus skill (Tip: Use Retrain Powers before you save and import, that way you can reallocate everything when you start).
  
• Armor - All the armor pieces and sets you have are still there
  
• Bonus Skills - Each of the squadmates that were loyal to you had a bonus skill that you could use, you get to pick which you want when start a new game

What doesn't carry over:

• Paragon/Renegade Points - This was the biggest disappointment to me
  
• Upgrades - Anything you researched will need to be researched again
  
• Money/Resources - I finished the game with over 50k Element Zero, 300k Iridium, 250k Platinum and Palladium, and 44k Credits - all gone. However, you do start with 50k of each mineral and 200k credits.
  
• Squadmates/Loyalties - Not surprising that you don't get your buddies as getting them was a large part of the game, or that they aren't still loyal

Since I beat the game at Level 30 (which is the level cap), I don't know if I'll do another playthrough as that character. Yeah, I still need to beat the game on Insane mode and having a fully leveled character will help with that, but I'd rather try out a different character class. I was an Infiltrator and rarely used my Class Ability (Cloak), though the time slowdown when zooming in with the Sniper Rifle was great. I'm thinking of being a Sentinel next, that way I have both Overload and Warp on my character.

Any readers played/playing/beaten Mass Effect 2? What class did you choose and did you like it?

Tomorrow's post will contain some more thoughts on Mass Effect 2, specifically, the composition of my End Game Team and how I kept everyone alive!