A Leslie Wong Blog

The National Geographic Channel documents a real life version of Carl Fredricksen’s floating house from the Pixar film, Up  Read More →

Before the 2011 Italian Grand Prix (Gran Premio d’Italia), the BBC’s Jake Humphrey did a nice story comparing the cars and driving styles of 1964 F1 World Champion John Surtees and 2005 & 2006 F1 Champion and current Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso. The comparison between the number of team members in 1964 compared to 2011 is astounding.  Read More →

On the last US Space Shuttle mission, STS-135, part of the Atlantis payload carried to the ISS were two Nexus S phones. The Nexus S is being used to record sensor data and capture video footage on SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites), a miniaturized satellite. You can download the Open Source sensor data logging application, Cellbots’ Sensor Data Logger, in the Android Market and do something with it.  Read More →

The 2011 Formula 1 Shell Belgian Grand Prix at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is coming up on August 28, 2011. Peter Windsor, back working for SPEED (channel), interviewed the 1964 Formula 1 World Champion John Surtees, the winner of the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix in a Ferrari. According to Wikipedia, John Frankenheimer used race footage from the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix in his film, Grand Prix. “The live footage shows Surtees, Bonnier, Bandini, Ligier, Clark & Gurney in action. Surtees doubles... Read the rest of this entry »

On my nearly five year old Macbook (Late 2006), I’ve upgraded the RAM to 3GB and replaced the original 120 GB 5400 rpm hard drive with a WD Scorpio Black 320 GB 7200 rpm hard drive. When I managed to break the internal DVD drive, I decided to put in a SSD, the last performance upgrade for a computer that should be near the end of its useful life. The main reason that I decided to do a $225 upgrade was that it doesn’t feel like the computer has slowed down that much over the years, so... Read the rest of this entry »

When I read that Surefire was discontinuing the Surefire E2D flashlight, I found a good deal on a new one. I liked the ability of the E2D to tailstand, that is, on a flat surface, the flashlight will stand vertically on the tailcap. I decided to make a couple of mods to the flashlight too – modifying the strike bezel so it wasn’t so sharp; changing the switch in the tailcap and replacing the incandescent lamp with an LED. I wasn’t really in need of the defensive capability of the... Read the rest of this entry »

Over 30 years ago, I was standing in the entrance of the Roscoe Diner, playing Pac-Man on their arcade cabinet for a quarter a game. Now, I can go to the Roscoe Diner and play Pac-Man on my phone, while I’m eating. What an advancement in technology.  Read More →

Jeremy Clarkson’s tribute to Ayrton Senna gives my photograph of Senna at the 1990 Grand Prix de Monaco some perspective. (From season 15, episode 5 of the BBC’s Top Gear, original airdate 25 October 2010) On the show, many Formula One drivers, including Fernando Alonso, Rubens Barichello, Martin Brundle, David Coulthard, Mika Hakkinen, Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa, Michael Schumacher and Jarno Trulli regard Senna as the greatest Formula One driver. I hope the Senna film will have wide... Read the rest of this entry »

I recently noticed that my Apple MacBook, (late 2006), doesn’t seem to be slowing down. I’d think that an almost five year-old computer would start to be sluggish. I don’t use that many processor intensive applications, but with Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.7), I am able to run SETI@Home, VMWare Fusion running Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat, Remote Desktop Connection, Photoshop, iTunes, Transmit, Chrome (with 10 tabs open) and Firefox, all at the same time without bogging down. When I... Read the rest of this entry »