Posts about hardware, software, or the tech industry itself
I wrote about the impacts of AI development a while back. One of the factors I mentioned was technology waste which touches on the concept of AI being a massively wasteful consumer of things like high-performance GPUs, disk storage, and RAM. This consumption is driving up prices for basic technology infrastructure at an alarming rate.
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I decided recently that it was time to build a new network attached storage service for our home network. I have an old one, a NetGear ReadyNAS NVX+, but it is no longer maintainable. The ReadyNAS admin UI doesn’t even support TLS 1.2, which means most modern browsers cannot connect to its administration page.
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I was just beginning to explore the concept of health monitoring or self-quantifying back in 2013 when I wrote about my use of the Fitbit Flex. I was hoping that the device would, if nothing else, remind me how little I move.
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Irene and I are not people who exercise much. Yet over the years we have collected a stable of expensive exercise equipment, the primary purpose of which is to collect dust.
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I purchased a cargo trailer a few weeks back shortly after working out my plans for having one. It is a basic 7 foot wide, 12 foot long, 6’6″ tall box on wheels with a cargo ramp on the back and a human-sized door on the side. I got it home from Kelowna on March 10th and have been assembling a few bits and bobs for it since then.
What have I added to the trailer and why? It isn’t a great mystery but owning a trailer is all ‘new’ to me, so I thought I’d capture some of my choices here.
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I received my new MacBook Air on Friday, and finished migrating my configuration to it a few hours later. This 2025 model replaces the 2020 version I’ve been using happily as my primary ‘browsing’ computer. And so far at least I’m happy with the upgrade.
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I’ve got a few ‘plans’ over the next couple of years where having a cargo trailer would be a benefit. I am at the point where I’m pricing out options and starting to read/watch videos on towing.
This video is extremely helpful and very educational…
But I think I’ve figured out a few other things as well about my wants.
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I have been completing a few technology upgrades around the house this year. The latest activity is replacing my aging NetGear Orbi quasi-mesh (3rd node was a low-end TP-Link WiFi hub) with something a bit more capable.
The change-over went very smoothly but produced a few ‘old man’ moments as I considered the hardware itself. Size isn’t everything, but sometimes bigger is… if not better, at least necessary.
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My new Mac Mini arrived earlier this week as I had hoped and has been set up in my somewhat re-organized office. I’ve had a bit of time to play with the new computer and have a few observations to make.
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Irene and I have three Roombas in our house, two of which are in working order. I spend a fair bit of time and money maintaining these bots, but maintenance on these machines is generally a rather satisfying process for reasons I’ll get into.
This was true until very recently, when our s9+ started throwing ‘uneven surface’ errors and stopping mid-clean pretty much every time it ran. If you have ever owned a robotic vacuum, you probably know that a big reason for having these machines is to magically and automatically keep the floor tidy. Failing on nearly every clean is not a happy situation.
This post is about the problems I had with our s9+, the great service I ultimately got from iRobot support, and some suggestions for the future
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