16 October 1999 - previously, on this month: 6 9 10 11 13 16

1 - Site news ; 2 - Sleeping and Yamahing

Site news

I've redesigned the Java applet to access the previous updates, and designed a totally new one, for people to jump directly to the most popular articles, according to each page's counter. The applets don't consider the current month statistics. The next step is the long promised on-site search-engine. Again, you must wait...

If you are having trouble with the [very compact] applets [<15K], you are advised to visit http://www.java.sun.com/, from where you can download the latest Java release. Everytime your browser tries to launch Java code, it does so by using the Java classes installed on your computer. If the Java classes are outdated, you can suffer from poor browsing performance, so get yourself the latest kit! This is really important: I've come to the conclusion that the scrollbar problems that some people have with my applets are due to their old Java classes!

These Java changes are not the "NEW look" I was talking about last update, day 13 October 1999. In fact, the "NEW look" should only happen by the end of the week, when I'll probably have a few hours available.

I would *really* appreciate if you could input your opinion on the site's current look and accessibility. Please do contact me. Do input your own ideas. Thank you.

the problem with bikes is the braking. You can't smash the brakes, when you're just about to dive into the corner, like with high performance cars...

This is the Red Bull Yamaha, as seen from my own eyes :) @ Suzuka, in what was a lousy test session.

Sleeping and Yamahing

Yes, I was supposed to play System Shock 2 this saturday, but I didn't have time to do it, after my strangest friday in years!

I have been sleeping no more than 3 hours in a row, usually from 6 to 9 am. Then I go to work / school or just sit reading important stuff, until lunch time. After lunch I sleep at least one hour...

...and everything went fine until this friday. I came home very tired, tried to stay up until 6 am to watch F1 live @ Malaysia, but I dropped on the carpet and slept until 1 pm of today! Ouch! It does not seem such a long sleep, but the truth is that after lunch I couldn't resist another bed marathon, 8 hours long... The whole saturday was wasted on dream land :)

While trying to stay awake and watch F1, I took a ride on a 500c Yamaha @ Suzuka / Japan... using the Microprose's GP500, which runs awesome on "time trial" but not that great with adversaries on the track.

GP500 can be very, very hard. I bet that very few people will manage to play it without automatic leaning: you have the option to control your own body movements, and that surely is of great importance in motorcycle riding, since you must crouch on straights, rise the body on hard braking zones, lean yourself according to the maneuver you are trying to perform, and so on... now, imagine yourself controlling all that and yet doing manual gear change, throttle, turning, braking... too complex... remember that bikes have very distinct front and rear brakes, and that is also recreated in GP500!! Daunting!

More GP500 soon. But System Shock 2 is not forgotten.