Novena

Despite my current condition of chronic non-employment, I may be in the market for a new laptop. It is kind of a cobbler's children with no shoes situation. The battery doesn't last very long, but I could replace it. However, the laptop occasionally shuts down completely - just a power off. That is probably a loose latch for the battery which I have fixed I think. A couple of times a month, Windows just freezes. And the newest problem; max volume is just above a whisper. None of these items would push me over the edge, but I see them as symptoms of age on this thing. If I do discover I need to buy a new one, I probably won't go with the Novena despite the hacker cred it would give me.

"A new open-hardware computing platform, flexible and powerful, designed for use as a desktop, laptop, or standalone board. 

Novena is a 1.2GHz, Freescale quad-core ARM architecture computer closely coupled with a Xilinx FPGA. It's designed for users who care about open source, and/or want to modify and extend their hardware: all the documentation for the PCBs is open and free to download, the entire OS is buildable from source, and it comes with a variety of features that facilitate rapid prototyping."

The Wil Wheaton Project

Evil Wil Wheaton is doing his own show starting May 27th. The Will Wheaton Project:

"a weekly roundup of the things I love on television and on the Internet, with commentary and jokes, and the occasional visit from interesting people who make those things happen. It’s sort of like Talk Soup for geeks, with a heavy focus on those hilariously bad paranormal reality shows (in fact, that’s where the whole thing started a year ago, but as we worked on the show more and more, we discovered that there were lots of scripted paranormal shows that provided a ton of comedic material. When we expanded to cover the scripted shows, we discovered that nobody was doing a show like this that was just focused on the genre shows that nerds like us love, and we decided that we’d make that show because of reasons.)"

Via Slashdot

PMP - What Comes Before Game

After watching the videos from Dave Litton, I am back to reading PMP Exam Prep, Eighth Edition: Rita's Course in a Book for Passing the PMP Exam book. It makes a ton more sense now then when I started it the first time. I'm still using the on-line version of Rita's Process Game, but a recent chapter had be looking for an on-line version of her "What Comes Before" game. These flashcards do the trick pretty well.

Back to the grind...

Marathon Results

Well, I hit my silver goal by running a marathon in less than 4 hours. That puts me in the top 25% for my age group at the Knoxville Marathon. (The winner finished in under 2.4 hours.) I'll take it - especially since it was a huge improvement over 2012. And I ran the whole way without having to stop to walk at all.

I started out too fast and as a result I struggled the last few miles. It was hard to slow down when I was being passed by so many people - most of which I strongly suspect were running the half. I saw several friends along the way. I even ran with one for about two miles which was a nice break/distraction. I made a new friend around mile 18 and ran with him until about mile 23. He needed me to help slow him down and maintain his pace. I needed him to pull me a long. He left me around mile 23 when I started to fade and he started to push.

I really did just have to grind it out from 23 on. I kept playing mind games...

- just a 5k left
- just 2 miles
- 1 mile
- up this hill, down this hill, and up a hill to finish
- doing the math assuming a 10 min pace (that's a nice round number for someone who is not functioning mentally at full capacity) to see what my time would be when I finished

After I stopped, I felt okay except for my shoulder. It was really hurting. I must have tensed it up because of the cool weather. Some heat, food, shower, ibuprofen, and laying down for a couple of hours and I was good as new. I only have a little soreness in one quad.

A couple of notes..

Many of the spectators near the end of the race are liars. Even at mile 25, they kept telling me that I was "looking good." I'm quite certain that was not true.

There were the usual signs along the course. This one, held by my daughter, was my favorite. She's a rascal, but I only have myself to blame.

Baofeng Tech Bluetooth Adapter

You need your own Bluetooth headset, but if you want to go wireless, you can try the Baofeng Tech Bluetooth Adapter for your Baofeng, Wouxun, or Kenwood radios for $85.

Via Hans

Baofeng UV-5R Undressed

Some good shots of the disassembly of a UV-5R.

Via reddit

Winning 2048

Back to the job search for me since I beat the 2048 game.

Ed's Soup

Ed's doing it all at Import Communications... handhelds, mobiles, an HF QRP rig, accessories, soup, etc. Wait a second. Soup? Sure enough.

Ed's Soup

Marathon

I'll be running 26.2 miles on Sunday with about 7,000 runners who are doing the Knoxville Marathon, Half, or 5k. My personal goals are:

3:50 - Gold
4:00 - Silver
4:07 - Bronze

Even my "bronze" time puts me at a minute per mile faster than my first marathon. That's a lot faster, but to put this in perspective, I would need to finish in 3:15 to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

Nagoya NA-701 and NA-771 Antenna Changes

BuyTwoWayRadios.com points out some changes to the new versions of the NA-701 and NA-771 antennas. This might be a useful link if you are worried about fakes and want to compare old and new. Also, they mention the change addresses the cosmetic gap problem.