Author Archives: Scott

The HP Procurve 5406ZL and… …a whole lot of other crap, vis a vis my opinions on used enterprise-grade networking hardware for the home (or small-ish business). I purchased an HP Procurve 5406ZL on eBay mainly because I “need” 10GbE on my home network, which is almost recursive because it’s for editing 4K video, which I need for editing this video. The bottom line for me is that you can’t beat the feature/price ratio when it comes to equipment like this. That is, if you can afford the resultant power bill.

First World Problems I gotta start off by saying that I know that this is an extravagant waste of time and resources. I didn’t make this video because the K575 was slightly annoying, but rather because it baffles me that they became worse at designing coffee machines than before. It’s doubly confounding because Keurig has based their marketing on the K575 being a “2.0” brewer. As in a (supposedly) new-and-improved follow-up to their original line. Yes, it has a couple of advantages over the older B70 Platinum that I used for comparison. However, it seems that they increased the features without increasing the cost. That says to me that they designed these new brewers on a budget. A schizophrenic software … Continue reading

Rental Car Rally 2017: Los Angeles to Lake Havasu You may ask, “What in the shit is this?” This is a chronicle of my experiences at the Rental Car Rally. It’s both easy to explain: It’s a costume-party-road-trip-photo-hunt-food-fight. And it’s rather hard to explain: You form a team, rent a car, buy some eggs, decorate the car, decorate yourselves, and then follow vague clues through random parts of the southwest for 12 to 18 hours. I guess it’s not hard to explain. But it’s hard to put into words why it’s such a damn good idea. One thing is for certain: It’s nothing like real life. Anyone can do this. The more people, the more fun it becomes. Sign up … Continue reading

Download It Yemememememeh If it opens in your browser as a sound file, just right-click and hit “Save As..”, or whatever the equivalent might be on your system. Huh? This is a bit unusual for this site, but I decided to create a ringtone from a brief clip of audio on The Ricky Gervais Show. I figured I’d share it, in case anyone else wanted this kind of nonsense in their lives. Why? In the episode, Mr. K. Dilkington argues that every noise has been used at least five times. He then goes on to ask why things can’t be made to make a different noise to the ones they make. Ricky insists that things make a noise because the … Continue reading

Oshkoshbegosh!? Another long ramble about power distribution thingies for the home and/or office?! Well it’s true. Hopefully my next video will not be about this subject. This compares the relatively-generically-branded Belkin Advanced Surge Protector (which actually bears the handy model number of BE112230-08, like it came out of some kind of dystopian nightmare) to the easily-spoken Furman SS-6B (which itself sounds shockingly dystopian anyway).

I was searching for an “affordable” power distribution unit for some video-related equipment in a rack. The Technical Pro PS9U looked very appealing with its multiple light-up switches on the front, because they made me all sentimental and wistful for the days of switched under-monitor PDUs. It took a dark turn when I looked at the negative reviews on Amazon, wherein one person uploaded pictures of a melted-down unit. I still bought the PDU, not because I wanted to use it, but purely because I wanted to take it apart for YouTube. And indeed the Amazon review turned out to be accurate. I would not feel comfortable using the Technical Pro PDU in my house. In my opinion as a … Continue reading

This is a follow-up of sorts to my NiMH Battery Roundup video, except this time I’m looking at triple-As, and only one brand. I was vexed by the fact that Amazon had EBL AAA cells with an 1100mAh capacity for only 7 cents more per cell than the otherwise-identical 800mAh variety. That didn’t make sense to me, and besides, 1100mAh is rather high for a AAA package size. Hence I bought a bunch of each and tested them. The Bottom Line The 1100mAh cells appear to be a big fat lie. The average capacity for those clocked in at 980mAh, with one cell showing as low as 946mAh and the highest at 1005mAh. The 800mAh cells were respectable at an … Continue reading

OK, I confess that I’ve only had this bag for about a day. However, this was a love-at-first-sight-type-thing. Not that I’m capable of loving a messenger bag, but you know what I mean. I feel like I have to make this disclaimer a lot, if only because I’m naturally skeptical about anything with a whiff of promotion: I did not get paid for this positive review. I wasn’t promised any favors. And I had to pay $60 in Scott Bucks to B&H for this bag (which was apparently a great deal). In other words, this whole video came at a cost to me in time and money. So if it sucked I’d definitely rant extensively about it (and will if … Continue reading

DIY Tree I got this because it looked like a cool little project, and a neat (if tiny) gift for the missus. So that’s about the extent of my motivations. If you’re trying to put one of these together, I’m hoping that this video might answer a couple of your questions. It’s not really meant to be an educational video, though; More a demonstration of what’s involved in assembly for anyone considering a purchase. Speaking of which, if you want one you can pick one up for about 5 bucks over at banggood.com. And in case you were wondering, this is not a paid advertisement. I actually paid them for this thing, so it’s pretty much the opposite. (If this … Continue reading