General

General

Biodiesel vs Ethanol

By on Saturday, August 16, 2008

Although for now the price of oil has gone down and the fuel companies are doing their rollback charade (increase price rapidly, decrease price slowly), there is no illusion that the price of oil is on an upward trajectory. Because of this, people are finally waking up to the benefit, albeit only the cost benefit, of alternative fuels. This is evident in the the queues to E10 fuel pumps. That is when it is available.

But not all alternative fuels are equal. Take two off the more popular alternative fuels: biodiesel and ethanol. Biodiesel is a direct pour-in replacement to diesel whereas ethanol blends higher than 10% requires modifications to the vehicle’s fuel system. Biodiesel can be extracted from plants like Jatropha that grow in land that can’t usually be used for food crops whereas ethanol is derived from sugarcane grown in land allocated for food crops. Biodiesel is definitely better for these reasons.

This is why my next car will hopefully be diesel. So should yours. Now if only the manufacturers and the government can do something about the high prices of diesel cars…

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General

Why Linux Sucks

By on Tuesday, August 12, 2008

There are many reasons to love Linux. But there are also many reasons to hate it. And this is one of those reasons.

I’ve been trying to refresh Selene, my Thinkpad X22, since I returned my office-issue Thinkpad T60. I figured Linux would be a good idea as it had Kubuntu before and I was reasonably fine with it. Unfortunately, the only Linux installer I have on hand is Fedora Core 4 (circa 2005). It installed without a hitch BUT I was stuck with Firefox 1.0 which doesn’t support a lot of those Web 2.0 stuff out there.

I tried automatically updating Firefox but apparently the FC4 repository is no longer being maintained. It only contained a point release. My next recourse was to manually download and install Firefox 3.0. But it flat out doesn’t work. Missing library or something. I tried updating the library but, you guessed it, the repository is no longer being maintained.

I turns out that once a new version of the distro is released, the old version’s repository is available for only about a year and then that’s that. This means you need to reinstall your OS once a year! I could probably get things manually updated and working one way or the other but it would just be too much hassle.

Now contrast this with the much older Windows 2000 Professional which installs fine, gets updates fine, and runs Firefox 3.0 just fine, thank you. Now if only I can get rid of the damn spyware that keeps infecting it.

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General

What To Do (And See) In Bohol

By on Monday, August 11, 2008

There are quite a few things you can do in Bohol. Some of these are:

  • Beach, beach, beach
  • Blood Compact Monument
  • Baclayon Church – The oldest stone church in the Philippines
  • Tarsiers – Cute little critters. The reason why I ended up in Bohol :P
  • Loboc Children’s Choir
  • Loboc/Loay River Cruise – Cruise along the river while eating buffet lunch. Along the way you will see kids diving into the river as well as kids singing and dancing along the shore.
  • Man-made Forest
  • Chocolate Hills – Need I say more?
  • Giant Python (and Marimar)
  • Hanging Bridge (and The Buko King)
  • Butterfly Farm
  • Bohol Bee Farm
  • Hinagdanan Caves
  • Firefly Tour
  • Dolphin Watching at Pamilacan Island
  • Diving/Snorkeling at Balicasag Island

If you haven’t availed of packaged tours, you can contact Jessie Gumapac at +63928-307-9791. He does the countryside tour which covers most of the above. He can also arrange for a Pamilacan dolphin watching and Balicasag snorkeling tour.

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General

Amarela Resort (Or Where To Stay In Bohol)

By on Monday, August 11, 2008

Amarela is one of those boutique hotels that have mushroomed all over Bohol. It started off as a vacation home with a few rooms and has since become a hotel with a wing housing a lot more rooms. But because it started off as a vacation home, it has that homey feel to it. The staff is friendly, the restaurant serves good (in terms of quality and quantity) food, a cozy infinity pool (that unfortunately doesn’t appear to merge into the ocean), and facilities for beach activities (volleyball court, beach chairs, kayaks/bancas, snorkeling gear, etc). And if you really can’t leave work behind and just focus on your vacation, they have a business center with WiFi access.

There’s just one problem, the beach is not all that good. But then again, I’ve never been very impressed with the few Bohol beaches that I’ve been to. If you really want the beach maybe you can try the new Eskaya or time-tested Bohol Beach Club. Or for a lower budget you can try Alona Kew or Dumaluan Beach Resort. The last two are rated rather poorly in reviews but they should be fine if you’re not planning on staying in your room most of the time anyway.

Amarela is not cheap. But it’s rated quite highly in reviews. I myself would rate it higher if not for the rates (and the beach). But that’s just me.

Rating: 4/5

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General

SR20DE Transplant

By on Saturday, August 2, 2008

Got my car back the other day from Big Thumb where it had been undergoing an SR20DE transplant. After some road testing I observed the following:

  1. Vibrations. These become more apparent when turning to the right. The mechanic said he didn’t adjust the length of the driver-side axle so that could be the reason.
  2. No power when overtaking or going up basement parking ramp
  3. Timing is at 8 degrees only (normal is 15 degrees) and yet the distributor is set at maximum advance already.
  4. Hard shift shocks
  5. Sometimes doesn’t start at P or N
  6. Stiff shifter when switching between 1 and 2

Argh! The headaches never end. Guess it’s back to the shop.

UPDATE 1: Got the car back 8/6. The first issue was solved by shortening the drive-side axle. Second, third, and fourth issues were fixed by replacing a faulty distributor. The last two were solved by simply adjusting the transmission link to the shifter. Distributor is now centered. Throttle response is now good and power is apparent. Vibrations and shift-shocks are now normal.

UPDATE 2: I went to Servitek 8/11 and got the camber and toe adjusted since the process of modifying the axles screws up the alignment.

UPDATE 3: I went to M7 8/15 and had a solid rear engine mount installed. The old engine mount was too soft which caused the passenger-side engine mount to hit the bracket when the engine is torqued.

If you need or want an engine swap, you can check out Big Thumb. Owner is Noel Paroginog +63917-861-1963. They’ve done quite a few swaps and they know what they’re doing. They just need some improvement in their QA :P

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