Archive for the 'Gear' Category

I came across this report on Gizmodo today. The story is about one of those new robotic lawnmowers being recalled, detailed in the following excerpt:

Apparently, one of the owners lifted the mower from the ground while it was still on and “suffered minor lacerations from the moving blade.” Yet another case of stupid humans trying to win the Darwin Award. Fortunately for him, nothing serious happened, but the US CPSC and the company have decided to recall models LB2000, LB2100, LB3000, and LB3200 because “the cutting blades continue to rotate when the mower is lifted from the ground and the spacing on the side of the lawn mower could allow room for a consumer’s foot to go beyond the shield and be struck by the blade” which “pose a serious laceration hazard to stupid lawn bozos consumers.”

Now…I’m all for product safety, but this is just plain stupid. Anyone who is moronic enough to grab and lift a running lawnmower, robotic or otherwise, and not expect to get hurt, deserves exactly what they get. I’ve been equally stupid at times: burning myself by grabbing the metal of a hot pan fresh from the stove while intent on removing its handle springs to mind. But I don’t expect the manufacturer of said pot to recall it because I am a fricking idiot.

But apparently, in our modern moron-coddling idiocracy, protecting us from our own increasing stupidity is an absolute necessity. I really feel sorry for the manufacturer of the lawn mowing robot. They shouldn’t feel compelled to recall something for behaving reasonably. Now, if the robot spun its blade up to 5,000 RPM and spat it out at the person picking it up… that might warrant a recall.

Our washer died about a week ago. It was a Maytag Neptune frontload purchased in late 2000, so its failure was more or less inevitable. The point of failure was in the control panel: the washer locking mechanism blew out, which caused a cascade failure in the control board. Repair would have been $600-$800.

I shouldn’t really complain- we got over 7 and a half years of service out of a washer renowned for its high failure rate and defects (the problems in the product family showed up after we bought it). But to me seven years isn’t exactly a stellar record for a “top of the line” washer. Live and learn: great/well respected brands can die ignoble deaths at times.

In any case, we only pondered the repair versus replace question for about 5 seconds. Irene and I were in almost immediate agreement- we wanted to replace the washer and, since we weren’t terribly fond of the Maytag dryer, we wanted to get the pair. I did a little research, and then we went to Trail Appliances to make our final decision. We settled on the LG SteamWasher and its dryer companion. Irene convinced me to get a colour- the pair are navy blue.

I was a bit torn between the LG and the Miele washer/dryer. The Miele are probably better quality, but they looked… clunky. Not exactly high-tech, and I hate to admit it, but the tech sells me more often than it should. LG has a good reliability and service reputation, and was about $800 cheaper for the pair (Miele is about $3500). For that price, the Miele lacked steam cleaning and was a slightly smaller capacity. Mind you, Miele is pretty much the only washer/dryer manufacturer that builds and tests their gear with an expectation of 25 years of use- most of the other manufacturers target 10 years. We looked at the Bosch as well: we have been really happy with our Bosch dishwasher, but the clothes washer control panels take up some of the “folding space” we like to use on the top of the machine.

They were just delivered an hour ago or so, and I’ve already almost finished running through the first load of laundry in the washer. It is quieter than the Neptune (except for the 1300 RPM spin cycle, which is rather noisy- this would probably not be apparent if the washer were situated on a concrete floor in the basement), and I like the little drawer that slides out for loading detergent and bleach. The “I’m done” alert is a nice little tone instead of the horrendous buzzing sound that most older washers seem to favour. The controls are completely electronic- no manual “clockwork” knobs which, in my experience, are the first part of a washer to die. And the LCD display tells me handy things like how long it estimates it will take until completion… based on load size/weight and cycle choices.

So far, though, the biggest “feature” is the glass door- watching the clothing spin around is fascinating. I remember this from laundromats when I was a kid, and forgot how mesmerizing it can be.

A couple of weeks ago I added a second network service provider to my home. The idea was to improve my home office internet access speed and provide redundancy. My thinking is that it is unlikely that both a cable broadband service from Shaw and ADSL service from Telus would both be down at the same time. Things, unfortunately, haven’t worked out quite as planned…

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I would love to have a no-compromise wireless network in my home. In this imaginary scenario, I would be able to put a computer anywhere in the house, even carry one out onto the patio, and get something approaching gigabit Ethernet speeds. Heck, I’d even be happy with half that: 300 Mbps… or even a really reliable true 100 Mbps link- that would be nice.

Unfortunately, after about a decade of living with wireless, I can say that surprisingly little actual progress has been made. Using wireless still means giving up network performance…

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I like experimenting with my computers and network gear. It is even fun sometimes when things don’t work properly at first, so long as I can work out a solution.

But even my patience with technology has its limits. Late last year, for example, I more or less “gave up” (at least for the time being) on Vista and Windows, and switched to using a Macintosh as my primary machine. What has me on the warpath now? My network… and specifically my Linksys/Cisco gear, and even more specifically my Linksys RV016 router/switch.

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Our home entertainment system currently requires a lot of remote controls. One for the TV, one for the DVR, one for the amplifier, one for the Apple TV device I just bought, and one “universal” remote that tries (and fails) to control them all.

The irritating thing, of course, is that several of these remotes claim to be “universal” in some fashion. But invariably something doesn’t quite work correctly: the universal remote won’t switch the amp’s audio sources, the DVR remote won’t change the TV’s video inputs… and none of them are very elegant. I’ve been keeping an eye on the Logitech Harmony remotes for a while, and finally decided to take the plunge: I’m now the proud owner of a Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote

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I’m pretty happy with my Macbook Pro. But on the day I bought it, I started planning upgrades: I’m a geek, after all.

The first thing on my list- upgrade from the default 2 GB to 4 GB of RAM. That was done about a week after I bought the machine. Second on my list: a larger and faster hard drive. 120 GB of storage on a 5400 RPM drive is nice, but 240 GB at 7200 RPM… that would be just the ticket.

The biggest drives I could find in the right form factor running at 7200 RPM only provide 200 GB of storage. If I’m going to go through the hassle of installing a new hard drive, 80 GB of additional storage just isn’t adequate- double my current storage is the least I’ll make the effort for. I’m still waiting for such a beast to become available, but Fujitsu has just announced pretty much the drive I’m looking for: up to 320 GB of storage spinning at 7200 RPM in a 2.5″ laptop form factor. It is apparently scheduled for release in June of this year.

Do I really need 320 GB, or even 240 GB, of storage? My answer is that I can expand what I store to fill any disk capacity I find in my possession. I’ll see what kind of price Fujitsu puts on their new drives when they finally ship later this year…

I came across this photo on Gizmodo and thought it was sufficiently odd to reference here:

Yes, apparently that is an iPod sitting on the dashboard of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. My friend Chris caught mention of the iPod earlier, but I thought the picture was interesting in its own right.

I just completed a completely unnecessary and unintentionally expensive upgrade to my main gaming computer. Of course, this means it is time for something to unexpectedly break and need replacing.

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I decided late last year that I was going to take the year off from the computer upgrade process. That doesn’t mean that I planned on absolutely zero upgrades, but that I would defer the “big stuff”. This came after a tremendous amount of hassle and fuss trying to get Vista and my 2006 PC upgrade working to my satisfaction, and after the satisfying experience I had with my MacBook Pro.

But things change… and the upgrade that wasn’t going to happen, did…

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