I have owned several electric power washers over my life, all of which were more or less suitable to my limited needs. I use them to clean my deck, wash my car, and wash my motorcycle: nothing heavy. And every single power washer I’ve owned has failed me in some way or another. This post is an overview of my power washer history and an introduction to my latest ‘pending failure’: the Sun Joe SPX3001
I am going to start posting more on my blog, and a little less on Facebook: or at least that’s my intent. Why? Because Facebook owns a bit too much…
I’m a strong advocate for the exploration of space. I also firmly believe that we need humans out there. Yes, use robotics to validate assumptions, but please let’s get humans on the surface of the Moon and Mars before I die of old age.
But I also think Donald Trump is one of the most comically inept and arguably outright ignorant human beings to walk the Earth. The man quite seriously disgusts me, and strains my ability to show respect for the office of President of the United States, or for the citizens of that country that elected this dumpster fire on legs. So when Donald Trump signs one of his famous Executive Orders in support of space exploration with Buzz Aldrin, an honest to goodness hero, standing beside him, I’m really, really torn.
My wife and I love our critters, in particular our feline family. It has been the norm during our 27 years together for us to have something like six or seven cats sharing our household. This isn’t ‘by design’, but it seems to work out that way.
For the first time in a while, however, we are down to five cats in our house. And it is a hard change to accept.
I recently upgraded my web server hardware and so, in that spirit, it seemed like a good time to refresh the configuration of my blog software. I had previously made several attempts to ‘make it fast’, but with only limited improvement. This time, however, I seem to have made some good progress… read below the fold for some details of my effort.
You will have undoubtedly noticed that my blog here has been down over the past several days if you’ve been trying to visit. Have no fear!
I completed a hardware upgrade of the server behind kgadams.net. While I was at it, I upgraded the OS (Fedora) to the latest version, and did some initial ‘tweaking’ to improve WordPress performance. Details follow below if you are interested….
I am not a cook. But on the rare occasions when I do make food, the barbecue is one of my primary implements. I suspect it appeals to something primal in me that a stove in the house does not: either that, or it is just easier to clean up.
I decided I wanted to get a griddle when we replaced our 20 year old barbecue this year. In my imagination I was cooking bacon, pancakes, sausage, and eggs on that griddle- my imaginary cooking is pretty awesome. So I wanted an awesome griddle, and seem to have found one: the Little Griddle stainless steel ‘professional’ series griddle.
Apparently this is the year of VR or virtual reality. The Oculus Rift can now actually be purchased by normal (non-developer) user. The Valve/HTC Vive is available as well, and Sony’s ‘Morpheus’ PlayStation VR product is supposedly coming very soon.
This isn’t a review of any of these products, but rather my opinion regarding the current state and potential of VR…
Apple has done some amazing work in recent years refining the definition of ‘small’ and ‘thin’ computers. The Macbook 2015, which I previously reviewed/compared to my Macbook Pro , is definitely the poster child for minimalist full-capability computing.
Unfortunately, I broke one of the keys on my Macbook when I accidentally dropped the laptop on our hardwood floor. My attempt to repair this demonstrated the dark side of all that miniaturization- the Macbook 2015 is very hard to fix.
The first recommendation I found was to replace the entire top of the Macbook: keyboard, touchpad, and case assembly. In addition to this being rather costly (several hundred dollars), it just didn’t seem right. The other keys were fine, and as far as I could tell the electronic ‘bubble’ key mechanism was still working. Just the hinge and the key were broken.
In the end, I was proven right- it is possible to fix a single key without replacing the entire keyboard. Here is my experience of that process.
The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union. This was a surprise to many, but every report I read before the vote implied that it was going to be very close.
Why did this happen? What prompted rejection of a free trade union that had seemingly benefited every member country economically and socially? And what happens next?
I don’t have answers, but I have opinions just as others do: and since this is my blog, I get to share those opinions with you.
