I like the Fujifilm Instax Share SP-2, despite its wordy name. Sure, the film is expensive. But it’s a satisfying way to turn your digital photos into touchable items to give to elderly people that don’t understand the internets. Or even for yourself.
My old style programmable thermostat died last weekend, and so I rushed over to Home Depot to get a replacement. I wanted a smart thermostat mainly for its wifi connectivity, but also wanted to try out the truly “smart” aspect of it: Optimizing heating and cooling cycles to suit my needs.
They did an excellent job with the user interface, making setup really easy. And their app, though slow to connect at times, is overall well-designed and easy to use. So far I like the ecobee3, but my main concern is with reliability/longevity, and that of course remains to be seen.
I decided to start another YouTube channel. Not because my main channel was getting out of hand, but because I want to bang out a bunch of quick videos just to get practice. And also there’s stuff that I cut out of some of my main videos that I wanted to share.
Annywhoo.. This video is about an Anker Powerline+ USB cable that came in a needlessly elaborate package.
This video goes ridiculously in-depth on the subject of 10 particular models and brands of popular NiMH cells. It covers my recommendations, as well as an extensive dive into my testing methodology. Downloads As promised, here’s the spreadsheet that I mentioned in the video. Both links are to the same document, just in two different formats. Google Docs: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1fu729GXZJyY3RkX3ZNVlp5QjA/view Excel File: NiMH_Capacity_Analysis-Scott_Dotdot-20170908.xlsx My Recommendation Not to spoil the video, but if you’re here for a recommendation: At the current price of $21.99 for a sixteen pack, the EBL 2300mAh cells are the way to go. However, I’d also recommend the high capacity cells by Amazon and Sunlabz. I own a bunch of Panasonic Eneloop cells, and they are reliable, well … Continue reading
Here’s the thing: I don’t need to contact Amazon’s customer service often, but when I do they’ve always been responsive and extremely helpful. So I’m not going to lambaste Amazon in this post, but I do want to tell a story of a horrible customer service experience that’s not just a result of a bad rep but is indicative of a deeper problem. The Toilet In an incident that was far less dramatic than you’d hope, my toilet tank cracked and was leaking slowly onto the floor. Obviously the ideal solution would be a new tank, but I had an Eljer triangle toilet that’s discontinued, and there aren’t a ton of options for a triangular corner toilet. Needing to have … Continue reading
I’m a leftie, but all my life I’ve used right-handed mice in my left hand. I needed to replace my old Microsoft Optical Mouse, and found the DeathAdder Left-Handed Edition. It’s the perfect size and shape for me, but they did the weird thing of switching the left- and right-click buttons. It’s easy enough in most any operating system to swap the buttons in settings. However — at least with Windows — the buttons are only changed locally. So when connecting to other hosts via Remote Desktop the buttons revert to their hardware configuration. That’s a no-go for me, but I liked the mouse so much that I decided to mod the hardware instead. Fortunately, it’s very easy to reconfigure … Continue reading
This is so close to being a good charging stand, except that the USB port is used to hold the phone in place!
Its design is quite simple, as it’s just a USB 2.0 pass-through from a micro-USB port on the back of the dock to a male micro-USB on the front.
There’s not much more to say about it in text, so check out the video to get a full look at it! And this does have the benefit of being one of my shortest videos, so you only need to invest about 2.5 minutes into it. :)
This video answers the age-new question: Can you solder to silver circuit trace ink?
The answer is yes, but it probably would take some practice, and it doesn’t work all that well.
Because the impedance of the silver ink was so high, I decided to try and overload it with far too much current to see what would happen.
The video includes trying to power a 40W light bulb at 120 VAC through the paper circuit as well as a dead short at 30 VDC!
The upshot is that it did not start a fire, and the silver trace failed in a controlled manner. That’s bad for the drama of a YouTube video, but a good indication that this product won’t burst into flame in regular use!
I got a little more practice soldering onto the ink, and here’s the best technique as I could manage:
And that’s it! Using this technique, I was able to make three flawless joints out of my first four attempts. And that was to tack the heavy gauge wire of the 120V power cable to the paper. It was much more solid than I expected.
Hey look! A crate from Japan! (California, technically.)
Japan Crate sends a box of surprise Japanese candy, chips, and other edibles to your door every month. For a fee, of course.
The missus got a 3-month subscription for me as a birthday gift, and I’ve been sitting on the third crate for over a month waiting to do a video on it (much to her chagrin). It’s now come to pass.
I like the Japan Crate crates quite a bit, to spoil the whole review right now.
Update: In retrospect, I probably should have tried everything on camera, and then just edited out the uninteresting items.
The stuff that I thought was root beer flavored hard candies were in fact similar in texture to very rapidly dissolving Smarties that tasted like maple syrup and butter. Basically it was like licking the top of a stack of pancakes from I-Hop. I didn’t care for it, even though in theory I like those two things. What it needed were the pancakes.
My friend Vin (the Kit Kat guy) points out that my detail on the matcha and condensed milk candies was lacking, which is fair enough. But I don’t know how to accurately describe the taste of matcha because it’s fairly unique. It’s got an earthy taste, I suppose. That’s really not enough to go on, so next time you’re in a Japanese restaurant ask if they have green tea with matcha. Ever since I had it for the first time at Arata Sushi in Syosset, NY, I can’t drink regular green tea anymore. It just doesn’t compare.
And I probably should have shown this DIY thing from the previous month’s crate:
It’s called Nomucco Jelly, and comes with a bag of powder plus the plastic dish and straw you see in the video. Add a little bit of water and stir and a minute later you get… melon flavored mucus!.
The texture only becomes unpleasant when you think of it as mucus, a fact of which Amanda reminded me quite gladly. The flavor is lightly melon-y, though, and “pretty good”.
Note that I’m not paid to endorse this, and have no vested interest in Japan Crate. I just happen to like it.
A company called Divine LEDs (now called Vont) got in touch with me out of the blue to ask if I’d be interested in doing a review of their Solar Motion Sensor Light. I said “sure”, but with the caveat that my review would be honest, good or bad.
As it happens, I like this little light. It seems to be well designed, and does what it promises: Light up dimly when it gets dark, and then brightly when it detects motion. It has what looks like a LiPo cell inside that’s charged by the solar panel.
Of course, only time will tell if the light is any good. I’ll save my final judgement until after it survives (or not) a New York summer and winter.
For those of you that are curious, here’s a couple of close-ups of the circuit board:
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Side note: I say in the video that Vont is located in New York. On Vont’s website they list a 718 number, which is Queens / Brooklyn. However, the Divine LEDs Google+ page shows their location as Las Vegas, and the Divine LEDs website shows Hong Kong.
