The solution to the problem involves exploiting another bug documented by many, but most notably Randall Munroe, author of XKCD. You first call your phone. While the call is in progress, you flip the physical keyboard open and shut while tapping the home button. This causes the phone to change orientation. While it is between landscape and portrait mode you cause it to go to the home screen, bypassing the lock. You then disable the pattern, doing this will allow you to bypass the lock by just flipping open the keyboard. Once this is done, you simply change your Google password. When the phone attempts to sync, it will fail and prompt you to enter the new password. Next, you lock the phone by pressing the power button, hit the menu button to bring up the “forgotten pattern” screen, and enter your new account information using the on-screen keyboard. The phone is now back to normal.

As I said above this bug is still unfixed. Since this workaround only works on phone with a physical keyboard, many users, particularly HTC Magic users, will be fucked. The only other solution is to reformat the phone, losing all data not stored on the SD card or Google account. My confidence in Android as a platform is almost at zero at this point. This bug was first reported early this year, was noticed by Android developers a few months later, and left unresolved for at least 5 months. Ignoring a bug of this magnitude is unacceptable. At the end of my contract I will be replacing this phone with something sure to be worse, but at least properly supported.

His astonishing results have been broadcast in the U.S. in a History Channel documentary titled Hitler’s Escape.

News Link
Looks like it is time for a resurgence of WWII first-person-shooters.

Table of contents for A Lap of Lake Michigan

1. The trip I didn’t want to start
2. Leg 1 addendum
3. I’ve never lost a bag before
4. We meet a serial killer
5. Help from Monster
6. Heart Surgery On The Highway
7. The Michigan State Bird
8. The Tunnel of Trees
9. Down
10. Insurance Claims

Rob on the side of the road with the bike broken down. That’s a live lane of traffic.

King David’s Airsoft store is a nice addition to Chicagoland’s (and America’s) lack of brick and motar airsoft stores. David knows his stuff and he’s cool to talk about airsoft with. And the store is also cool, in the same vein that your buddy’s basement is cool.

The store is non-threatening for people new to the hobby and there’s no sales pressure. Not that there’s an extreme amount to sell, the selection is minimal, even though he does hit all the main categories you’d expect: camo, BBs, some internals, AEGs, gas guns and gas, and clips. Surprisingly, prices are OK, although you’ll be paying a premium to support your local retailer as opposed to buying the same thing online.

The downside to this mediocre but friendly locale is that store itself is poorly run and mis-managed. BBs are lying everywhere, guns are half in and half out of their styrofoam boxes they came in, and there’s an out of place display case full of crappy children’s figurines. If you walk into what looks like a gun store to buy toys for your toddler, you are messed up in the head.

Guns AND erasers!

The shooting range mentioned in other reviews is not a range, just a small 3 foot section in the wall to test if a gun works. There’s a repair shop but only in the loosest sense of the word. It’s a plastic table setup in the front of the store sprawled out unprofessionally. Kids were walking around testing out his guns off the walls. Were they vagrants? Customers? Employees? They didn’t act like it.

King David also doesn’t carry things which he should by his own admission. I asked for a cleaning rod, he said “people are always asking for it but we don’t carry it.” I bought a face mask, he had two options but let me try on his, which was nice of him… but not for sale. I wanted a LiPo charger, he only carried a single multi style very expensive one. He suggested I buy mine online. Again, nice, but the reason I asked it because I wanted to buy it from you right then.

There is no literature on local games, clubs, or teams. His suggestion for looking for places and people to play is “Google it.”

David, you need to shape up.
-Clean up your store, display guns properly and orderly.
-Make employees act professionally.
-Sell what the customer wants to buy.
-Support the sport and local teams, get some literature
-Bring new people into the hobby by telling them what it’s about.
-Move that dirty repair table in back, give confidence that your guy knows what he’s doing
-Get rid of the “hobbies” part of the store meant for kindergarden kids.

You’ve got a small time store that’s extremely casual. That’s ok, but if this were a grocery store, computer store, car dealer, or real gun shop I would take my business elsewhere.
Not a well run store, even though you’re a cool guy David.

“Everyone says that when the markets turn around, we will suffer. But let me tell you, we are going to surprise some people this time around. Bear Stearns is a great place to be.’’ Jimmy Cayne

You have a form and a subform. On the subfrom you have a control that you want to disable, but when you try to disable it you get the error message:

2164 ‘You can’t disable a control whilst it has the focus’

Even though you swear to god it doesn’t have focus. You even set focus to something else and you still get the error.

The problem is that there are multiple focuses. Each form and subform has a focus. You need to set focus in the subform to a different control. You cannot just set the focus to a control on your main form. VBA shouldn’t need this crap, there’s no reason it can’t just figure out on it’s own that yes, when I want to disable a control I really want to disable it and I don’t care what has focus.

To disable a control:
1) Set focus to your subform first. (Don’t skip this)
2) Set focus to another control on your subform (cannot be a label, but you can make very small invisible text boxes)
3) Disable the control you want.

Example:

Me![subfrm].SetFocus
Me![subfrm]![txtDot].SetFocus ‘my small invisible text box
Me![subfrm]![txtCtl].Enabled = False

Once again, multiple focuses (focii?) and Microsoft hates you.

T-mobile’s Free Companions Flight’s booking system is designed to make you kill yourself first and foremost. Because if you’re dead then you can’t use their coupon, and everybody wins except you. Even if you don’t kill yourself you still don’t win. At T-mobile’s website you first enter in the airport you want and the time you want. At which point it’ll give you a string of error messages after clicking “OK” which will tell you nothing. You’re sent back to the first page (your selections graciously deleted for you) so you can guess again at why you can’t get the flight you want.

You can select the hour you want to fly out, but select the wrong hour and ERROR MESSAGE: GAME OVER NO SAVES. If I’m going to end up selecting ANY TIME any way then don’t put in a goddamn clock. Multiple airports? Have you ever heard of a goddamn city t-mobile? I LIVE BY TWO AIRPOTS YOU ASSHOLES. And guess what, I want to go to another city that ALSO HAS TWO AIRPORTS. But unlike say, Southwest, you can’t choose the area. You need to guess and guess and guess.

By the way, they apparently have TWO websites. I went to the older one, and they don’t tell you to go to the new one until you call them. Doesn’t matter anyway, the new one is still an unusable pile of crap, it just has some AJAX built into it to bring your frustration to you prettier. Probably designed by some intern to keep him busy until he goes back to the frat house to compete in the beer pong tournament.

So if you haven’t stabbed yourself in the stomach yet, when you see the flights you will. They’re all transfers. I live in Chicago and I have to fly to Milwaukee to get to San Francisco? Some flights come with two transfers and I can’t even get a flight from the airports I want.

Then you have the hidden fees. It costs $400 for a ticket, which is +$100 in hidden fees. Southwest cost $300 a ticket for times and flights I actually want from the airports I want on a system that is easy to use and on an airline that doesn’t charge for water, bags or oxygen.

T-mobile’s Free Companion Flight’s is cruel and unusual. I promise I will waterboard everyone involved in it.

I went with my Dad’s Harley club for a qualifying session for an endurance race that Chicago Indoor Racing was going to hold. The club, Windy City Club, was planning on putting together a team for the 300 lap event, and naturally I wanted to be on it. Format was (3) 15 lap point races and one double 30 lap final GP.

The only problem is that for a bunch of crotchety Harley riders some of them are pretty fast. And not all of them are crotchety or Harley riders. One of them apparently has a legit race team, another a dealership, and another dude brought in a video of his destruction derby race (yea, I guess it’s a race). Of course, the destruction derby race looked easy. Anybody who has had seat time using their friend’s cars as braking zones in Grand Tourismo would be instantly familiar with how to crash one thing into another thing trying to get away from you in what amounts to questionable physics in a muddy pit.

That said and all, I had about 100lbs on them so I wasn’t too worried until I started pumping the desk clerk for tips. He said the difference between the lightest person ever and the heaviest person ever is only about 1/10th of a second, and the karts reach about 30mph. The track is short though, track record for the month barely broke 16 seconds.

Not to suggest it’s an easy track. The karts are powerful enough that it takes finesse and intimate racing knowledge not to oversteer, understeer, or lock up the brakes. The track is hairpin-y, but can be straightened out to bring the kart up to top speed if you get a good run, with really only one or two good passing zones.

Don’t be fooled though, it is real racing. You get a fireproof sack to roast your organs in (race suit), DOT approved helmet (I brought my own) and neck brace (toilet donut). Some people for the open run even had their own suits. There’s flags and track marshals, it’s not bumper cars and although there IS a bar for your ditzy and slow girlfriends to drink at, you cannot drink and then drive.

Apparently there are assigned karts, so I was booted out of pole position in the first race. They said they’d assign them so each person would get a shot to start from the front, mid, and rear of the grid, but it was pretty random. I was always mid.

The people there aren’t real racers though. Our first 10 man race was nuts. Everyone was figuring out the limits of traction and nobody was NOT crashing into the backs of other people or simply slamming them into the walls when passed on the inside. Infact, in every race I was taken out at least once. My laptimes evolved from mid 20s to low 17s with a few high 16s as I figured out the good passing zones and the limits of traction, but the people who won constantly in our group were the ones who could stay out of trouble.

I was faster than Jon and my Dad, leading the midpack with an unlucky 5th place finish in the GP, and 3rd and 4th place finishes earlier. Jon was quick, but made risky passes and was taken out when other racers didn’t forfeit the line to him. He even got penalized once for bumping into the back of my cart too much, which made my night and ruined his week. My dad got screwed over with at least (2) bad karts. In the ultimate race, I passed him twice like he was standing still. Kind of bullshit, and it’s the thing you think they’d account for.

Cost was $70, and that’s about par for whatever race version of entertainment you’d get there. We spent at least 3-4 hours there, suiting up, waiting our turn, and bullshitting after each race. You only get a total of about 30 min of seat time, but it’s something I could see myself splurging on maybe once a month, especially in the winter during that pre-season itch. Unless you fancy yourself a fast man, go with a group of friends and realize that there’s a difference between time trials, and racing. And you are racing.

In this picture I’m trying to describe the chassis flex I’m experiencing on the left hairpin. If only I could get some more Go Faster parts from the factory. I barely get any support.