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Design for Serviceability
About an hour into a brief, twenty-four hour getaway, I received a not quite panicked call from my mom, letting me know that her microwave (a Panasonic NN-SN733W, bought in August 2015) wasn’t working. She uses the microwave all the time, for heating up water to make tea, and even making a good percentage of…
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Another of My Favorite Things
Maybe this is a series? Growing up, my parents had a 14 speed blender — I think it was a Hamilton Beach. Each of the speeds had a name — things like blend, whip, puree, mix, etc. I think it had 7 buttons for the speeds, and a “High/Low” range switch that selected one of…
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Objet d’art
Not everyone is likely to agree with my assessment of this particular artifact, but in my opinion it is a paragon of industrial design. Perhaps nobody loved the Bell System at the time, but the gear they made (which they owned, and you rented) was made to last for decades, which this example certainly has.…
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More on Music… (not moron music)
Early in my life, my exposure to music was almost exclusively classical music and opera. At home, we had a semi-portable stereo phonograph, and a kitchen radio. The record collection was, with the exception of a handful of children’s records, classical and opera. The kitchen radio mostly played news from the local NPR station, but…
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The Blizzard of ’22
Late on Friday evening, 28 January 2022, it began to snow, and it snowed for about 22 hours straight. By the time I walked the dog around 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, there were a few inches in some spots, but a lot was bare, owing to the winds. The bulk of the snow came during…
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These Are a Few of my Favorite Things
ok — one of my favorite things. It’s my old Garmin eTrex! A friend’s son is going to be working at Garmin for the summer, and I was reminiscing about my long history with their products. This was my first — the original eTrex. I can still remember going to a MacWorld exhibition back in…
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Hey! Watch This!
I’ve always enjoyed watches, from the time I was perhaps 10 or so. I remember the first watch I had, which was a men’s watch, was too big for my wrist, and we had to put another hole in the strap. It was an analog watch with day and date display. I think I had…
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Music as Junk Food
It would be a lie to say that I’m not biased, or that I’m not opinionated. We watched a streaming concert tonight from The Decemberists, one of my all time favorite bands. And watching and listening, I’m reminded of the distinction between art and product. The Decemberists are a band made from the traditional mold,…
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The Mains Problem
One night a few weeks ago, we lost power briefly. And then apparently again that night, but while we were asleep. A couple of weeks after that, we had a strange occurrence during the day which I first noticed because I heard some relays click like when power is turned off on some appliances. I…
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North Adams
This past weekend, Susan and I drove to the northwest corner of Massachusetts, to a town named North Adams, as a last chance vacation before school begins. This year, only one of us is actually going back to school, Susan, to teach eighth grade science again. Even Clara, who is still in school at NU,…
Mind over Matter: Stuff I cared about at the time