Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S

This is looking very interesting.  2600 lbs, 200 hp at 7,000 RPM. That's better weight/power than a Miata.  RWD, with lim. slip diff standard. 151 lb-ft—could have used a bit more torque, but that's ok. Subaru starting at $24K.  Scion will sell the same package under the name FR-S, for probably a couple grand less.  My car buying experiences in the past few years tell me that the best bang/buck would be to get the bottom-cheapest version available (since all have the same drive train) and improve on that.

Article on the Subaru BRZ.

Article on the Scion FR-S.

White Clay Creek Park - July 2011

We go for a stroll on a hot July 4th weekend.

White Clay Creek Park - July 2011

PS3 YLOD Woes

Yesterday my trusty fat PS3 decided to have a stroke. It simply shut itself down without warning and entered Yellow Light of Death (YLOD) mode, where cycling the PS3 on starts it up, flashes the power LED yellow once after a couple of seconds, then starts blinking it red and refuses to continue, no matter how many times you retry.

The problem seems to be caused by the soldering under the CPU and GPU chips cracking, after thousands of heat/cool cycles during the life of the PS3 (mine is close to four years old). Fortunately, there is a fix for it, which requires disassembling the device completely and applying heat to the GPU and CPU areas, in an effort to reflux the soldering under the chips.

After some research I found this video by youtube user djwhetzel that does an excellent job walking through the disassembling, fixing, and reassembly of the PS3.

PS3 motherboard.

After following the steps in the three-part video I was able to get the PS3 working again. The fix is not exactly difficult. Breaking apart and getting the PS3 back together was a fairly straight-forward process, especially with the video's guidance. It's mostly a matter of having proper sized screw drivers (I used four different-sized phillips heads and a torx) and cleaning and reapplying thermal compound on the main chips.

Applying heat was a bit unnerving because of the potential for permanent damage. I actually went through this step twice, after I wasn't very convinced I had applied enough heat the first go round. I used a shop heat gun with 570/1100 F heat settings to complete this step.

The good news is that the PS3 came back online like a champ. The bad news is that this fix is usually not permanent and seems to last only for two or three months. Now that I've done it once I could probably repeat the process from top to bottom in less than an hour, but the sad truth is that my beloved PS3 is on its way out... At least I got a chance to back up all my data until I have to buy a new one, but I really like the old fat models: it looks better (IMHO) and has features there are missing in the new slim PS3s (more USB ports, more card readers, and mostly importantly, the ability to play PS2 games).

Salton Sea

I found this well-made YouTube video about California's Salton Sea, a man-made body of water somewhere southwest of the Mojave Desert. A very interesting place, we've been there with friends in one of our off-road trips. One of the things that struck me from this video was the notion of "what things would look like without us", and how eery do places look when humans abandon them. I didn't get that feeling so strongly when I was visiting it, probably because we could only spend a couple of hours near sunset and we were not looking forward to being there after dark; and then we spent a good bit of that time getting one of our companions unstuck off the "fish-bone" mud.

This is a selection of pictures from that 2009 trip, with our short visit to the place.

The fish-bone "sand".

The worst type of mud I've seen.

Broken breathalyzers in Philadelphia

Four broken breathalyzers in Philadelphia affected more than a 1000 DUI cases in that city (article), and suggest that you may be better off declining the breath test. Better the hassle to be detained and taken to do a blood test (I believe that's what happens when you decline) than the major hassle to fight an unfair DUI conviction later.

Update: A quick online search indicates that the consequences of declining may vary depending on where you are in the country.

Fun with Gran Turismo 5

I love GT5. I love the fact that I can drive cars I've always wanted to drive, cars I've actually driven and even cars I own, in real life tracks or randomly generated tracks. I love that I can review races or drive sessions, pause them and walk around taking pictures (and details like the fact that the game actually tries to model the lenses I'm using to take the pictures). I can take my in-game cars and have photo shoots with them (car porn). I think Kazunori Yamauchi has created a masterpiece of a game, and a love letter to the automotive sports. This album is just a small collection of in-game snapshots of some of my favorite cars and race moments. There's not a lot of pics for now because I'm usually having too much fun playing the game to remember to take any.

Fun with Gran Turismo 5