To live by…

Composite fail

Today’s composite materials are amazing, making many things we touch lighter, cheaper, and often stronger than wood/steel. However, you occasionally bump up against the product designed “just strong enough” in the engineer’s mind, but in fact a failure in real world application. These pruners are a perfect example. Nice light and relatively cheap… but put […]

Flying is amazing

No matter how many times I fly, I marvel at living in an age when I can have morning coffee in LA, and follow it up with a casual dinner in DC. Does it mean life is “better”… maybe… but it sure is amazing! Of course, human nature being what it is, as I write […]

Window 8 – pile of poo

Initial experience with Windows 8 is that it is an unfinished pile of poo. Upgraded using the wizard and it automatically installed 32-bit version on my i5 x64 processor with no choice given…$39 down the tube. Bought 60Gb SSD for the core OS install, then found out that Windows 8 applications automatically install on the […]