205 Miles per Hour in a Corvette... I work on this Car!

Just watch this video. It's pretty amazing, 200+ miles per hour in a Corvette. And the best part is, I work on this car! Woo Hoo!

Enjoy!

New Pending Patent!

Here's the link

This is exciting stuff for me. My second patent has be published by the USPTO. In theory now it's just a matter of time before one of my patents gets granted. Exciting stuff for dorks like me!

50Hz Square wave from Astable 555

 

Here's a quick look at the 50Hz sqaure wave created from a 555 timer to overcome the vehicle anti-theft system.

50Hz square wave generator for VATs/Passkey

 

My weekend project: create a circuit that would create a 50Hz square wave signal to feed into the ECM/PCM on a 1990's caprice to circumvent the vehicle anti-theft system. Solution? A couple of capacitors, resistors, and a 555 timer. Result: the car runs like a dream. More to come.

More problems with Zecco

Today I could not log in to zecco.com at all for trading. This was pretty much what I was expecting when I signed up for the service, and the reason I have only put a small amount of my money into Zecco. If you cannot trust a banking or trading site to be 100% reliable, it is difficult to put much faith into them. For this reason, zecco will only hold my 'play money' for the foreseeable future.

Here's their explanation:
http://www.zecco.com/forums/Update-on-Site-Availability-27008_1.aspx

Downtown Farming Petition to fight narrow streets

I found this article in the free press:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080410/NEWS03/804100362/1005/NEWS03

I agree 100% with this petition. Restricting Grand River will only further reduce the number of shoppers downtown. There are many areas I already avoid because of the horrible traffic, and if this goes through I will have to put downtown Farmington on that list.

Had the DDA actually done their homework, they would have found that what is needed to make this actually work for the area is:

1. Increase Grand River to 4 lanes, possibly with bike paths, to ensure maximum traffic can reach all areas of downtown.

2. Create an 'offshoot' of Grand River that has quick & easy access to plentiful parking. This parking should be 1-3 blocks away from the desired shopping district. The amount of added parking needs to be in the 300-500 spaces, not the 10-20 spaces that are currently being offered.

4. Ensure clearly labeled pedestrian crosswalks at multuple places. on Grand River for those who want to cross.

Basically, they need to take the cue from cities that have implemented successful 'downtowns.' Take a look @ Birmingham, Royal Oak, Ferndale, & Novi. All have followed the exact same formula of unrestricted traffic along the major artery (Woodward/Novi Road) with offshoots & ample parking.

If they think for one minute that restricting traffic in the downtown area is the right thing to do for local businesses, all they have to do is look at the sales numbers from last summer. The bridge work successfully slowed down traffic downtown, and in turn nearly bankrupted local businesses.