It was a day I hoped would never happen, but I sat down this weekend and updated my little US national debt clock to display over $10,000,000,000,000. I say it's a sad day because despite what some people say (that the further in debt our country is the more prosperous we are) I find it hard to believe we're better off because of the debt we've just taken on. The whole concept of "money as debt" just seems corrupt. Then again, I'm not an expert on economics. Maybe having our national debt increasing at the rate of $36 per millisecond is a good thing.

The debt clock started when a friend e-mailed me a years ago and asked how to do a counter like a clock that starts at a specific point. He needed it in Flash so I whipped one together and sent it to him and then realized I could maybe do something worthwhile by putting it out there for people to use. I did.. and it hit myspace and facebook.. and I'm currently seeing about 65,000 views of it each month. I encouraged people to download it and install it on their own servers (it's not sucking too much bandwidth, but they shouldn't have to wait on my server for their page to finish loading..) so I'm not sure how many views it's getting that way.. I know it's being used on quite a few political web sites (both Republicans and Democrats running for Congress for example), in articles, and on some personal web sites.

I don't fuss with the accuracy of it since I figure if they can pull a number like $700,000,000,000 out of thin air just because it's "a really large number" then there's no point in trying to be too accurate on anything based on numbers provided by the same folks. I like to think that over the last few years I've helped a tiny bit to raise awareness of our out of control spending.. I can hope it's not too late to sort things out and maybe someday I'll be able to reverse the clock.

I was working at about midnight the other night when I heard my little VPN app scream that it'd lost connection.. I noticed that I couldn't get out to my favorite site and checked my DSL modem.... the status light was off. So the next morning I got up and saw it was still off. I called the DSL provider, we went through the standard power off/on stuff and the regular checklist and the guy in India said he'd overnight a new modem (it still hasn't gotten here..). A little while later I remembered something from my CCNA 1 class - check "layer 1" first.

So I swapped out the line between the modem and the wall jack. The lights came back on. I took that phone line and tested it with a phone and it was bad... heh. Always check layer 1 first.

Well, Keith saw this too.. The keynote at the 2004 FlashForward in SF stuck in my mind, so when I saw mention of the laser projector on engadget it reminded me of Bill Buxton demoing the little projector from Symbol.

Maybe Buxton wasn't far off when he predicted "$10/sq ft. for 100dpi" within five years (and that was two years ago).

Now go look at the little tiny laser projector and maybe you'll wonder why they had to make it look like a minature projector.. it's like.. a mini-me projector..

So if you're into road racing and enjoy seeing cars that turn right instead of just left OR if you're into motorcycle racing then check this out.. a new track on the East coast of the US. And even better, it's close to me, so I won't have to haul my motorcycle as far for track days.

From what I've gathered it's designed primarily for the NASCAR teams to practice on, so it mimics some of the difficult turns on the tracks that they frequent. It's within 45 minutes or so from most of the NASCAR teams, so I suspect they'll be on there testing a good bit. The site says it's designed for "world class" motorcycle events as well, but from the looks of the layout it looks kind of scary to me. I mean it doesn't have the wide runoff areas that the new F1/MotoGP tracks being built these days have (see the Losail circuit built in Qatar for $58mil). If you followed the return of MotoGP to the US last year you might remember that there were lots of changes made to Laguna Seca for safety before MotoGP would even run a race on it.. and there were still lots of complaints from the riders about the track not being safe. But.. . maybe the track map just doesn't show the runoff areas. It does show a good bit of open space around the track (a few trees look kind of close to the track though) so maybe some of that space will be used for gravel runoff areas.

Notice that there's little or no mention of spectator seating or amenities on the layout.. kind of like VIR or Carolina Motorsports park.. or Barber.. this ain't no Bristol or Lowe's motor speedway. It's built for the drivers/riders and those watching on tv. Look on the track map for grandstands - none. (I'm assuming there will be some small grandstands, just not shown yet..)

The site is all in Flash.. not sure why.. but that might be part of the reason it's almost invisible on Google so long after it being released. I had to really hunt for it to find it... so I'm bumping it up a bit here. So note this you Flash designers out there.. this site doesn't even show up in the top 20 for searches like - raceway salisbury nc -,or - road racing track nc -. Bet it will soon though..

(( this post was about the original web site for the track.. I've updated the link below to the new web site ))
Here's the site for High Rock International Raceway in Salisbury (or Spencer ?), NC

OH.. and I wonder if you'll be able to see that back strait from I-85.. it would be a riot to go down that back strait and look over at the wide eyed motorists only 200' or so away (if the map is to scale).

**edited 8/10/08 to add that the zoning board in Spencer approved the plans for the track.. it's moving forward **