Category: General

General items. For things that don’t fit other categories easily – to prevent proliferation of category ID’s and simplify the taxonomy

  • Product review: Whirlpool WHER25 RO system

    Product review: Whirlpool WHER25 RO system

    When we bought our house in South San José, I learned that we were on Great Oaks water. Having experienced that when I lived in my first condo, I knew the water was hard, and had a “taste”. (it is well water)

    While there was a filtration system, it was a simple cartridge system, and by how frozen the cartridges were to the manifold, it was clear that it had been installed and neglected for a long time (so long, that the cartridges went end of life and couldn’t be replaced).

    I looked for a little better system, and bought a Whirlpool Reverse Osmosis system for the under sink filtration. I will admit defeat on the installation (I hate plumbing), so we hired a handyman to get it fitted in July 2015. (more…)

  • Review: Doc Martin

    Review: Doc Martin

    Doc Martin

    Netflix had been offering me as a “recommended” show to watch a series called “Doc Martin”. I had successfully ignored it for months, when one evening, as I was scrolling (and scrolling and scrolling) looking for anything decent, I saw it roll up again.

    What the hell, I fired it up, expecting it to be like many of their recommendations. However, it quickly sucked me in with the story, and the cinematography.

    Set in the seaside village of Portwenn (actually Port Isaac) in the Cornwall region of England, it is the story of a once masterful surgeon who developed haemophobia (fear of blood), and having given up his senior posting in London, became the GP of the village. (more…)

  • Grinds my Gears – Maths

    Grinds my Gears – Maths

    I was going to write something about politics, but the bizarre keeps happening, and is totally dispiriting. So I will talk about something entirely different.

    As I am currently working in a role related to education, one of my tasks is to figure out what is out there. You know, competitive investigation.

    The other day I was poking around the MOOC’s, and their offerings related to my research, and a class jumped out at me. A refresher on linear algebra with applications in Python (the programming language).

    dot productBeing a math geek, and somewhat familiar with Python, I signed up. It was free unless I wanted a certificate (which I didn’t). (more…)

  • Bad commute days

    Being somewhat ecologically conscious, I take pride in riding the train to work. Stress free commuting, predictable schedules, and for the most part a hassle free experience.

    Bonus is that my employer sponsors a transit pass for my, a tax break for them.

    Most of the time it is fine. Sometimes, there are annoyances, like the passengers who reek (either poor personal hygiene, or (far worse) those who smell of being heavy marijuana smokers), or rude passengers, but mostly it is just a joy to settle into a seat, open my kindle, and read while listening to whatever strikes my fancy.

    Then the occasional curve-ball is thrown at you. Yesterday was one of these.

    I left the office late, I had a couple of documents to finish up, and get submitted, and knowing that I would likely not get to them at home, I just bore down and finished them. About a quarter past five, I walked over to the station in front of the office, and grabbed the train.

    About 5 stops into my trip, the engineer comes on and says that the last stop for the trip will be Bonaventura, and that we would have to get out and catch a bus bridge to get around an accident.

    Merde.

    We hit Bonaventura, we got out, and to where they said the bus bridge would be. One of the gathering crowd actually called the VTA support line. Apparently there was no bus bridge in operation (liars), so a goodly fraction of us fellow train riders walked to the next station, Component. Alas, the wreck appears to be an auto and a light rail train decided to tangle it up at First street and Trimble.

    Caught the next train, and what is normally an hour trip took almost 2 hours by the time I walked across the threshold of the door.

    Stupid drivers who play chicken with trains. Dumb.

    If I would have left 15 minutes earlier, I would have had no issue.

    I swear I am cursed.

  • Music Mess

    Music Mess

    My music collection is a mess. They say that the first step is admitting you have a problem. And boy do I have a problem.

    I have nobody to blame but myself.

    How did I get here?

    I first started collecting music back in high school. Of course, back then, the state of the art was dragging a rock along a jagged groove and then amplifying the signal through loud speakers. But, while that might be the start of my collection, that isn’t the root cause of my chaos today. (more…)

  • Group Dynamics

    Group Dynamics

    Some observations I have made, purely anecdotal, about the dynamics in groups. I do not offer these as scientific, or that there is any universal truths, but some of the behaviors are bizarre in the greatest.

    Group 1 – Guitar Enthusiasts

    Being a Guitar player, Facebook recommended to me a closed group, with about 80K members. Several of my friends were in there, so I asked to join and was accepted.

    At first it seemed cool, people sharing clips of their playing, pictures of their guitars, and some general fun stuff. (more…)

  • Xfinity Time-wasting

    Xfinity Time-wasting

    Yesterday, as she was headed out to the gym, the wife tossed over her shoulder that her printer wasn’t working. A simple request for her IT person (a.k.a. me).

    Simple, right? Ha ha hahahahahaha.

    Log into her computer, and sure enough, the printer is offline. Poke and peek around and it looked like it just couldn’t see it.

    Then I tried with my laptop. Same problem. Crap. (more…)

  • If I knew then – Guitar

    If I knew then – Guitar

    I was late to learning to play a musical instrument, not being subjugated to lessons when I was a tike, but instead developing a desire to learn when I was in high school. I didn’t really have the funds to pursue this until I graduated, but then I got into playing guitar.

    Fast forward 33 years or so, and here I am. Recently, I joined a closed Facebook group called “Everything Guitars”, and I enjoy it, but it seems somewhat harsh. That is a topic for another post, as this one had its genesis in a post on this group that asked: “If you could go back to your just starting out self, what would you say?” (more…)

  • Gee, you think the other automakers are cheating?

    Gee, you think the other automakers are cheating?

    For the “No duh” files:

    All car makers are likely cheating on their emissions testing. Sadly, the VW fiasco was not a one off, now that Fiat-Chrysler has been caught cheating via software on the diesel emissions test.

    Truth is, the engineers are clever, and the regulations have C5-A sized loopholes for them to leverage. Perhaps this will lead to an improved testing regimen, one that is much more difficult to game. (more…)

  • I’m so Ronery…

    Circa 2005 – Oliver dreams when his Daddy is not home