iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

The Southern-Ontario race track Mosport recently transitioned from Don Panoz’s ownership to a new ownership group.

They’ve got some great plans for the place and will hopefully be able to give the place the attention it needs and perhaps do some needed updates.

One update that I feel is needed is more slow corners to promote passing.

The track consist of a lot of long high-speed turns which only really provides for passing with modern high downforce cars like F1 cars and the top classes of ALMS. Road cars and other racing series tend to do almost all of their passing in breaking zones or out of slow corners and are forced to follow each-other through most of Mosport’s corners.

I propose a chicane or “S” in place of what is now turn 8 and some of 9. Turn 8 is at the end of a long straight and is a sweeper with some banking, it doesn’t slow cars that much of the straight and does not provide for the changes in running speed that promote passing. Further, I’ve seen street cars and lower formula cars have moments overcooking it into that corner — thankfully there’s generous run-off.

By adding a chicane or “S” cars will be forced to break down to a slow enough speed to negotiate the turn. The need to get the breaking point right and the opposite direction corner could promote passing through this section and on into the start/finish straight. Further I’d added a “kink” after the new 9 both to respect the current layout of the in-field terrain (as best as I can remember) and keep drivers worrying about their positioning relative to the corner and other drivers.
Read more... (369 words, 3 images, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

I’ve recent updated the main page of my website. Ever since Facebook first took off I’ve been trying to figure out how to give the various things that dribble out of my mind and are fit (or not) for on-line consumption a proper home. A proper home, might often have been my blog, but more often than not it was easier to post it to Facebook or Twitter — both for the shorter length and the immediacy of the tool.

To accommodate this I added my Facebook, and then Twitter status to my web site as the constant “first blog post”. This sort of worked, but still didn’t provide an ideal summary of information.

I’ve tried again, this time focusing on mattclare.ca. There’s a little more of a summary of of the blog, focussing in the titles and images, with some teaser text.

Further I’m hoping to write more on the blog, and more pictures etc.

One thing I still refuse to do is narrow the focus of my posts, that will still range from server admin, to ed. tech. to F1 and fatherhood.

Here’s hoping.

Pearson and Google launched their open class platform this week. Its a Learning Management System (LMS) tied to Google Apps domins. Two subjects often covered by this blog.

My short take is that the service looks useful for recreating an isolated web space that respects the need for private on-line areas student privacy and publisher copyright suggest. It’s not as open as I had hoped, but it is more real-world collaborative than any other LMS I’ve used.

My quick assessment, with updates from Tuesday October 18, 2011 4:51 PM:
Positives:

• Private – both in web isolation and in student records
• Private but easy to add others
• Free to add to an Google Apps domain – good option to those already using Google Apps versus other LMSs
• Has document collaboration powered by Google Docs
• Easy to use
• Simple link to publisher content
• UI is polished, including maximize option for all content

Negatives:

• Standard Cloud control concerns
• Unless your institution is paying for a commercial LMS licence the migration costs will likely outweigh any transition costs
• Configuration of items is often done through a Moodle style view/modify (edit) metaphor – can’t say I’m a fan – but so many instructors want a “student view”
• Crude controls of public (rest of the web) versus private, biased to private
• It’s infrastructure, not an innovation
• The menu structure and/or list of tools appears to be extensively cached – is this the return of the turn of the millennium Perl based tools and I need to “publish” something somewhere? – kidding
• There’s no logout button?

Also, you can add other participants via their E-Mail address, but no E-Mails are sent and there otherwise seems to be no way for them to access the OpenClass without being part of the Google Apps domina?
Read more... (368 words, 13 images, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

My top-five Research In Motion jokes about their streak of poor products and refusal to attribute their current situation to their unconventional Co-CEO model:

1. Research In Motion is said to be losing so much money now that Gary Bettman and the city of Glendale are interested in investing.
2. At RIM our motto is “The buck stops here… and over there.”
3. At RIM we know that “Those that learn from history repeat it”. In fact, this is exactly how we pitch our products to our CEO, an then repeat for our CEO.
4. RIM’s mistake with the Blackberry Playbook was underestimating the overlap between tablet consumers and people that use E-Mail.
5. Do you know why messages are so secure on a Blackberry? No one uses it.

Best of luck to a Canadian innovator…. that could use some good luck.

www.flickr.com mattclare’s Storm Wednesday August 24, 2011 photoset

Here are a few pictures of lightning from the storm that came through Burlington Wednesday August 24, 2011.