Thanks to boingBoing, I have a late installment of Friday YouTubery for your enjoyment.
“Look Around You” is an absurd series of parodies of science education public videos.
If you liked that, here’s another.
And some more if you search.
Archive for January, 2009
friday youtubery: look around you
Friday, January 30th, 2009solved: abandoned sessions in iis6
Friday, January 30th, 2009I’m working on an ASP.NET web application hosted on a Windows 2003 server running IIS 6. Despite explicitly setting the session timeout value to 180 minutes, I was inexplicably getting timeouts after 20 minutes of inactivity.
Some googling revealed hints about timeouts for Forms authentication, though I am using Windows authentication. I thought that maybe the security token retrieved for the internet guest account might have been expiring after 20 minutes but that turned out to be a dead end.
I then ran across this article which explained how to setup up event logging when the IIS application restarts, which might give a clue as to why the application is restarting. Add the following xml node to the global web.config file ([windows dir]\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\web.config) under the <healthmonitoring><rules> node:
provider="EventLogProvider"
profile="Default"
minInstances="1"
maxLimit="Infinite"
minInterval="00:01:00"
custom="" />
Once that’s in there, the ASP.NET worker thread recognizes a change in settings and restarts the web application. Log in to the web application, then wait 20 minutes for the timeout, and look in the Event Viewer’s Application log. Here is what I found:
Event code: 1002
Event message: Application is shutting down. Reason: Hosting environment is shutting down.
Event time: 1/30/2009 12:17:48 PM
Event time (UTC): 1/30/2009 8:17:48 PM
Event ID: b16deb6ad49e4b63a4bd43bab2a26684
Event sequence: 394
Event occurrence: 1
Event detail code: 50002
Application information:
Application domain: /LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT/[WEBAPPNAME]-2-128778143729651871
Trust level: Full
Application Virtual Path: /WMS
Application Path: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\[webAppName]\
Machine name: [MACHINENAME]
Some more googling on the error revealed this thread, which advised that IIS has an option for application pooling which restarts the application after 20 minutes of inactivity.
A little more googling on where to set application pooling options revealed this article which showed that in IIS Manager, there is a folder just under the computer name called Application Pools where you can configure them. I right-clicked on DefaultAppPool, chose the Performance tab, and found the “Idle Timeout” setting which shuts down the application after 20 minutes.
Hooray for explicit session timeouts that get overruled by seemingly unrelated global application settings!
smokin’
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009Here’s a testament to the blazing speed of the new road bike compared with my hybrid*. Since the hybrid is in the shop, I drove to work and brought the roadie so I could ride it on my lunch training circuit.
My bike log shows that I’ve done this ride over 90 times on the hybrid. Today was the first time I did it on the road bike. The fastest time on the hybrid was 49:28 at an average speed of 18.1, and only one other ride broke 50 minutes. My time today was 47:04 at an average speed of 18.5. I shaved over 2 minutes over a distance of just under 15 miles and absolutely clobbered the 50 minute barrier.
* hybrid == mountain bike with slick road tires
i don’t like mechanicals
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009I hadn’t gone more than a mile and a half this morning when I shifted my rear derailleur only to snap the connection between the wire and the shifter. Without a working derailleur, I was stuck in the smallest (hardest) cog in the back.
I thought for a minute about huffing it in to work but the front derailleur won’t put the chain in the smallest (easiest) ring when the chain is in the smallest rear cog. I only had two gears: hard and damn hard. It would be possible but I didn’t want to get caught out in traffic without the ability to shift when I needed. Possible but too unsafe to continue.
I limped back to my car, dejected.
That’s what I get for riding in the wet yesterday. Last night I hosed off the bike and lubed the chain but didn’t lube the derailleurs. Muck probably found its way into the shifter cable housing, and the combination of all that means that the shifter has to work extra hard to move the derailleur, apparently to the breaking point.
Morale is low. I didn’t get many miles in last week and this week is looking dismal as well. Last weekend’s puncture robbed me of a tire that only had 250 miles on it and now I’m looking at another unexpected repair.
This is something I need to learn to fix myself but the last time I tried, I broke the shifter. Not that I have the time to do it anyway. It’s off to the local shop for this bike. At least the shop usually has a quick turnaround. It probably wouldn’t hurt to have them do their full tuneup while they’re at it. Pricey, I know, but I only have so much time and I’d rather spend it riding than repairing.
As my dad used to say, Hell’s bells.
i don’t like punctures
Sunday, January 25th, 2009Today while riding I heard a sharp bang and then some nasty rattling from my rear tire. As I pulled to a stop I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, maybe I had run over something and it was wrapped around my rim or I had broken a spoke.
Nope, just a puncture, and a really nasty one at that. A 2 inch screw had embedded itself all the way through the center line and out the sidewall. It actually took some muscle to get the dang thing out, and when I did, I realized that the tire was toast.
Fortunately I had previously cut a 2 inch square patch of old inner tube and tucked it into my seat pack for use as an impromptu tire boot for just such an occasion. With the boot between the tire and a new inner tube, I was able to get back on the road.
As I was riding, I had a decision to make. I was only about 20 miles into what was planned to be a 50 mile ride. I didn’t want to ride another 30 miles on my temporary fix, so I could go 4 miles home and call it a day or 2 miles to the bike shop, buy a new tire, install it, and get a few more miles in.
As I approached the intersection where left would take me home and straight would take me to the bike shop, something guided me straight. I didn’t feel like I had made a conscious decision, there was just something compelling me toward the bike shop.
So I bought a new tire, mounted it, and did some hill training around Bonita to work off my anger at the accursed screw.
My 50 mile ride turned out to be 35, but l got some unplanned hills into my legs and I feel happy that I didn’t give up because of a mechanical setback.
in which i spam myself
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009It is a disgusting thing to spam one’s self. But here I am, doing just that. Follow the link below to view photos of me on last weekend’s century ride.
EDIT: no, I will not shave my legs. I have enough trouble keeping up with my facial stubble.
a long time coming
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009It was a long wait, but my calculator finally shows the result that I’ve wanted to see for a long, long time.
pep boys boycott status update: still on
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009Almost seven years ago, I took my pickup truck to the local Pep Boys to change the oil and have them look at a belt that was whining. When they called to tell me the truck was ready, I asked about the belt and didn’t get an answer. I would have been fine if they just told me yes or no, but the clerk evaded the question, getting increasingly agitated, and eventually said “Just come in and pick up your truck” and hung up on me. I was angered and called back and asked to speak with a manager to advise him that one of his clerks had rudely hung up on me; the manager asked me the clerk’s name, which I didn’t recall, and the manager basically said there wasn’t anything he could do about it. So I picked up the truck (with the belt still whining) and resolved never to go back there.
Awhile later I took the truck to the dealer who found that the reason for the whining belt was that the adjustment bracket on the alternator had broken and they were surprised that the truck still ran. They said they had never seen this happen before and fixed it under warranty. I had to wonder: did Pep Boys break my alternator and try to brush me off? I will never know that answer but the doubt furthered my resolve to never go back there.
Over the last 6 months, my Mazda has been suffering from a rough idle when starting. I have an AEM cold air intake with a washable air filter that hasn’t been washed in a very long time, so I’ve been putting that off but thinking that a dirty filter certainly won’t help the engine idle. This weekend’s drive out to the desert was probably the hair that broke the camel’s back: when I started the engine to go home, the idle was all over the place, and by the time I was on the freeway, the check engine light was on.
I cleaned the air filter and removed and replaced the gas cap (a bad gas cap seal is apparently the cause of many a check engine light), started the car, and the idle was blissfully smooth. But the check engine light was still on, and I figured that it would probably stay on until the code was retrieved and reset. So I drove down to Autozone because they will do a free check engine light diagnosis. Or so I thought. The clerk fed me a line about how the union had complained about Autozone’s check engine light policy, that qualified union members weren’t doing the job and getting paid, yadda yadda. The clerk said that Pep Boys might be able to do it, so I grudgingly drove over to Pep Boys, figuring that after seven years, maybe the management and culture had changed.
I went to the service counter and asked if they could retrieve the check engine code and reset the light. The service guy wrote up a ticket and had me sign an electronic signature device, but never told me what the estimate was or gave me a copy of what I was signing until I had signed. I looked at the paperwork and the estimate was $89.99 to check and diagnose a check engine light. I said, “Ninety dollars? That seems a little steep just to pull the check engine code.” The service guy replied “That’s what we charge.” I said, “Are you serious? I can buy a scanner for forty bucks and do it myself.” The guy said, “So you don’t want us to do the work” and I said “No.”
He gave me my keys back, I went home, disconnected the negative battery cable for 10 minutes, reconnected, and the check engine light is history. I’m holding my breath for it to come back on, but the engine idle is much better now and I’ve gone 50 or so miles without another check engine light.
I refuse to ever go back to that Pep Boys again. Sure, it might be worth $90 to both diagnose and repair a check engine light, but the majority of the time all that’s needed is to pull the code and reset the light which won’t take a mechanic more than 5 minutes. To charge $90 for that is a real racket. I don’t want to bash all of Pep Boys as I’m sure each store is independently owned and operated, but the one at Rancho Del Rey should be avoided if at all possible.
event report: 2009 winter stagecoach century
Saturday, January 17th, 2009Today I rode the 2009 Winter Stagecoach Century. You can’t ask for better weather, organization, and volunteers. A big thanks to Shadow Tour and all the good folks who manned the SAG stations.
The weather was phenomenal. A little cool in the morning, probably mid- to upper-50s, but not cold enough to warrant cold-weather gear. A slight headwind going out that wasn’t unbearable but provided a handy tailwind on the way back. No freak wind gusts to blow me off the road.
At 7:00, the team time trials were set loose. The plan was for individuals like me to start at 7:15, but the management was laid back about the rules and said you could start whenever you liked. I decided to wait until exactly 7:15 because I like rules and I like to follow them.
A bit of backstory here: I’ve been fascinated by Arlyn’s cycling blog. He’s currently training for racing, so he has recently focused his blog on his experiences with training. He’s a really good writer and his accounts of his rides are quite thrilling. He really takes you into the experience of the paceline and the psychology and physicality of training with his friends. He hails from North County, so while I don’t ride where he does, I know the geography. He often rides with a team called the Descenders and he mentioned in his blog that he wouldn’t be at this event, but that some guys from the Descenders would. Sure enough, at 7:00, I saw them in their blue jerseys taking off.
So I had this complete pie-in-the-sky goal: I wanted to catch the Descenders. This would be extremely difficult: they had the benefit of a paceline and a 15 minute head start. I would be on my own, except that something odd happened.
At some point early on, I passed a guy in an SDBC jersey. He was in pretty good shape and I knew he wouldn’t stand for being passed. Sure enough, a few minutes later, I had someone on my wheel. I didn’t know that he was SDBC Guy at the time, but he just kind of sat there in my draft for 10 miles or so. Having him in my draft made me want to push just that much harder. As we approached the first real hill of the day, he offered me his wheel. Which I thought was kind of funny, since I don’t need someone’s wheel to go uphill. I thought maybe he just wanted to smoke me on the hill after sucking my draft for so long. But I kept up with him on the hill, and lo and behold, there were the Descenders on the same hill. We both passed the Descenders!
After the hill, I gratefully sat on SDBC Guy’s wheel, enjoying the draft. Another hill came up, and we ended up side by side and had some nice conversation. Which is weird for me because I’m not all that talky, but we were talking about bikes and racing and events like this one, and we both had a lot to say. Near the crest of the hill, I got sporty and pushed hard over the top, then zoomed down the other side of the hill. At this point he was on my wheel again, and this is where we got off course.
There is only one stop sign on the route, where we take a right, followed by an immediate left turn, which I knew we had to take. I started motioning to go left, and he said, “No go straight, we don’t go left.” I said “Are you sure” and he sounded positive. I knew he was wrong, but we ended up going a quarter mile before he realized it too, and we turned around.
This gave the Descenders their chance to take the lead again, but I was hungry now and put down a fairly good pace, and we caught them again just before the 50-mile turnaround. At the turnaround there is a SAG station, at which we all made our first SAG stop, and this is where things got really weird.
I mentioned to one of the Descenders that I felt I knew them through Arlyn’s blog, and they started to joke about how they’re only known through Arlyn. As the conversation went on, I realized that I had stepped over the line from normality to Internet Stalker. It was really weird. I don’t personally know Arlyn except for what he writes, so I feel like I know him but in reality I don’t know him at all. Or the Descenders. The Internet can be a source of huge social awkwardness.
The Descenders offered to let me ride with them as they were taking off, so I wolfed down some energy junk, got on my bike, and pedaled hard to catch them. It was very nice of them to let me in, and I rode with them at the end of their paceline for the 5 or so miles until the SAG station that served lunch. I stopped for lunch, and they and SDBC Guy went on.
It turned out to be a great ride. The Descenders were cool guys and so was SDBC Guy (I never got his name). I killed my usual goal of 6 hours, and even Jim Knight, one of Shadow Tour’s founders, mentioned that I made good time. Total ride time was 5 hours, 25 minutes, and total time including stops was still under 6 hours. I left at 7:15 and finished at 1:11.
| 2009 WINTER STAGECOACH CENTURY | |
| Miles: | 100.67 |
| Riding Time: | 5 hours, 25 minutes, 40 seconds |
| Total Time: | 5 hours, 56 minutes |
| Average Speed: | 18.5 mph |
| Max Speed: | 45 mph |
a winter century
Friday, January 16th, 2009Tomorrow I head out to Ocotillo for Shadow Tour’s Winter Stagecoach Century.
The weather looks fabulous: a little nippy in the morning but the wind is forecast to behave. The wind was the bane of last spring’s Stagecoach century.
And one minor detail: I’ll be on my new bike!