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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Wed, 13 Jan 2010I work with a small theater in Seattle, Annex Theatre. Recently, we had an event where we needed to play a DVD. We have a really snazzy projector up, all HD and everything, and we were feeding it with a $60 flip-open travel DVD player. When this cranky piece of crap player refused to go beyond the first chapter on the DVD, I'd had enough. I talked to our managing director, and figured out how much we could spend, and started looking at options. I quickly settled on the Pioneer DVD-V5000 and DVD-V8000 models as being likely, but then, buried deep in the search results at B&H, I found the HHB UDP-89. This player looked like the answer to all my desires in a DVD player. It handles pretty much any format on a CD-sized disc with the notable exception of Blu-ray. It has highly reputable audio hardware, including balanced stereo out (which doesn't appear on any other DVD player I could find). It has the necessary front-panel buttons so it can be operated without a remote. It's only 1U high, which means it will take up less space in the equipment rack. Of course, it's also a $1000 player, but it looked like a good investment in the future, and would match our fancy projector well. It finally arrived yesterday, and I spent a few minutes plugging it in and getting it temporarily situated in the equipment stack (the rack is still a bit of a pipe dream, at least for the stuff we have to access frequently). When I pulled it out of the box, I had a very favorable first impression. This is a dense unit, and I suspect that if I open it up, I'm not going to find that density supplemented by weights (unlike some cheap consumer equipment I've seen). The front panel is very plainly a thick, milled piece of aluminum, very attractive and speaking favorably of the quality inside. Once I got it powered on and had spent a few minutes playing with it, though, that favorable impression evaporated somewhat. The buttons feel quite cheap and plasticky, although they emit a loud click when pressed, so at least there's no question of "Did I press that button or not?" The power-up process takes a shockingly long time, something like 10-20 seconds before it responds to any control inputs. It's not a big deal in the long run, but it's pretty surprising for something that's a new design. You have to wait for it to boot up before it will even stick out its tongue to accept a disc. The disc tray itself is thin and springy, which at first seems cheap, but then I realized that its springiness was its salvation -- it could be thin without being brittle and breakable. Once I got a disc in (a CD, as there was a rehearsal going on that I didn't want to disrupt with a video projection), it quickly read it and was ready to go. I was pleased to see that the auto pause function was given its own, clearly labeled button. This will make it the favored CD player for production use, almost certainly. I quickly realized why the auto pause button was so prominent: when you pause the playback, then skip to the next track, it will automatically start playing again, if auto pause is off! This is counter to every CD and MD player I've used in the last decade, and is going to screw up every first time operator of this player. The information display is pretty minimal, a small two-line dot-matrix display with a few dedicated icons (CD, auto pause, play triangle and pause bars were the ones I noticed, though I'm sure there are others). There is no time button on the front panel, most likely in the interests of clarity, although I'd expect to find one on a pro CD or MD player. Still, a time button (for switching between at least elapsed track time and remaining track time) would be a welcome addition, even if it is a bit useless for a DVD player. I suspect the function is available via the remote control, although I didn't check. Fortunately, the player is quicker to respond once it's playing a disc, as compared to start-up, but it's still a bit sluggish. I pressed a track skip button and it took a second to catch up -- a potentially fatal flaw when you need to skip several tracks quickly, particularly in a tense production moment. You'd better be counting button presses, because the display lags. I suspect Sony avoids this by making sure that the display is always quick to respond, even if the underlying system and mechanism is taking a moment to catch up. Granted, this first impression doesn't actually say anything about the UDP-89 as a DVD player, but I was interested to see my own reaction to it. As there's little out there in terms of user review, I figured I'd share my reactions. I expect I'll have more to say later. Just to ensure that I'm not leaving you with the wrong impression, I was overall quite favorably impressed. The build quality, with the exception of the plastic front panel buttons, seems to be top notch. The slow UI is something that could easily be corrected with a firmware update, which is a procedure clearly outlined in the manual, although no updates are currently available. I'm looking forward to powering up the projector and putting the UDP-89 through its paces with a couple of different DVDs. If I can scrounge together enough cables, it'll be fun to hook up to the theater's 5.1 system and get real surround sound going. I'll try to come back to this topic in the future, and keep you updated on our snazzy new DVD player. Posted at 10:45 permanent link category: /gadgets Mon, 23 Mar 2009I just received my new toy: a Canon G10. It's either a porky compact camera, or a slim SLR replacement, depending on who you choose to believe. Reviews are copious and mixed, although generally very positive. The stupidest thing? 14.7 megapixels. Yes, this camera has almost 50% more resolution than my SLR does. That's just goofy. Anyway, of course the first thing I did was start snapping random pictures, and I thought I'd post one here in all its terrifying glory:  Click for the Ludicrous Size (3.2 MB) image My immediate take on it, as a replacement for my venerable Canon S410, is that it's nowhere near the same class, and so it's hard to compare. It's much bigger and heavier, but it also has clever things like an image-stabilized lens, and, of course, more than 3x the resolution. But the main thing, the aspect that really nailed it for me, is that it includes full manual control. If I want to shoot at 1/200th of a second, and only 1/200th, I can. If I need to keep the lens wide open at f2.8, I can. It's an excellent replacement in almost every way. Pity it's so (relatively) big, though. I will almost certainly have refined opinions after I get some time to play with it. Oh, but I already have my first gripe: the shutter release has a very mushy feel about it, making the half-press point hard to find. The S410 beats it hands-down on that count, which is pretty weird considering how much higher-spec the G10 is supposed to be. Posted at 11:52 permanent link category: /gadgets Mon, 18 Dec 2006
You wanna know who killed the electric car?
Electric car makers did. I just did some cruising on the net, and confirmed a few suspicions on the ZAP! Xebra:
...And so on. sigh. Most of this is from xebraworld.com, which is nominally an enthusiast's site. Now that I reflect on it from a little tiny bit of distance, it doesn't make much sense for me to drop $12k (or more, I haven't heard back from the dealership on what "other" charges like shipping, paperwork, dealer prep, etc. may be tacked on) on what amounts to a glorified golf cart. Granted, it's electric. Cool. But with a regulated top speed of around 32 MPH, it's not safe for the missions I have in mind, which require at least 35, and preferrably 40 or 50 MPH. Having spent some time figuring out what exactly they're selling for their twelve thousand dollars, it's not really a winning proposition, at least for me. Too many problems, with a too-basic system, for too much money. I keep thinking to myself, "I could build something better for cheaper, and I'd have fun doing it." Not precisely true, in that I don't yet know how to weld, but given a year or so, I'd probably come up with a better vehicle for less total expenditure. Each owner's site I've looked at so far has included the same third-world sounding description of squeaks and rattles (which sometimes correspond to major components trying to fall off the vehicle), and lots of little niggles which could have been prevented by spending another dollar or two in construction, or designing something better. Not encouraging. The troubleshooting guide, which I flipped through, suggests some problems so fundamental as to make me question the assemblers' ability to do anything right. Did the parts get assembled in the right order? Did the welder bother cleaning anything, or just kind of weld over whatever corrosion was on the frame parts? What quality of components are in critical locations, like interconnect cables and cutoff switches? So, overall, I don't think I'm willing to consider such a questionable expense. There are too many open questions about quality, and it's apparent that marketing at ZAP! is not too concerned about truth (which is the point of marketing, but they're usually closer to reality than this). All of which is a pity, of course. I had high hopes for the Xebra, but what I know now suggests that they're charging too much for too little. Posted at 16:32 permanent link category: /gadgets Sat, 16 Dec 2006I've got the review of the Xebra PK in place now: Enjoy, and have fun looking at the pretty pictures. In particular, I'm fond of the picture with me standing next to the thing. It's miniscule. Posted at 18:02 permanent link category: /gadgets I went in to the Green Car Company today, and ended up test-driving three different cars. The first was the ZAP! Xebra PK, my primary motivation for going there. First impression? Tiny! That truck, despite what it looks like in every picture I've come across, only comes up to my chest. It's miniscule. That tininess extends to the cabin. I could just fit in, with the seat rammed all the way back, and even then my shoulder and hair were brushing the walls. The pedals are weirdly offset, with the gas pedal about were you'd expect a brake pedal to be in relation to the seat, and the big brake pedal shoved hard to the left wall. It definitely encourages "two-foot" driving despite the automatic nature of the beast. In a quick (~1 mile) test drive, I got to accelerate on the flat, round a few corners, and try going up a moderate grade. Acceleration on the flat is fine, a bit less than what you'd expect from a truly basic economy car. Corners were non-events, apparently due to the positioning of the batteries below the truck bed. No noticeable body roll, but I wasn't pushing anything. Acceleration up the grade was pretty lame. It hit an indicated 18 MPH, and stayed there until the hill flattened out. This was with myself (about 220 lbs) and the salesman (maybe 180-220 lbs) in the cab, and nothing in the bed. Part of our circuit took us over some speed bumps, and the steepest bump there caused some hard part at the front of the vehicle to touch down with a bonk. I would guess it was the lower suspension mount, but I didn't take a close look under the nose of the thing. The sedan model did the same thing (even being very gentle over the bump), so I assume it's typical of the design rather than particular to that unit. The salesman, who I can now only think of as Smilin' Jim (his name is Jim something, but he was definitely a salesman, and not a granola-eatin' hippie) said the Xebras currently come with 300A controllers, but that they were looking into replacing them with 450A controllers. That would definitely help with acceleration, and with getting up hills, but it could seriously impact range if you've got a heavy foot. He said that as equipped, the Xebras don't have regenerative braking, but that with a new controller, they could have regen. I don't know if this is true, and he admitted to me that he wasn't super savvy about the tech side of things. It'd be worth more investigation. He also said that the top speed (40 MPH, more or less) was controlled by a governor, but said that he didn't know where the governor was. If it's not in the motor controller, I'd be very surprised. It probably doesn't make a lot of sense to get rid of the governor, though, as going faster would seriously compromise range. The Xebra sedan was about the same experience as the truck, but the seating was more comfortable. Since there wasn't a vertical wall right behind the driver's seat, it could be scooted much further back, and there wasn't a curved-in section to hit my shoulder. If I were looking at one of these as a single-person transport, I'd pick the sedan (it's also cheaper). The biggest problem I had with the sedan was that the parking brake was situated on the left, next to the door, and was nearly impossible to reach. Smilin' Jim looked over at me at one point, and said (shortly after I'd described my sidecar rig to him), "You know, one downside of this is that you'll have to get a motorcycle license." I looked at him like he was crazy, since he'd commented on the fact that I rode a motorcycle in to the shop when I walked in, and we had just been discussing the way I don't have any cars. He had to understand that I already had a license. "I have a motorcycle license," I said. "But I mean a class 3 motorcycle license," he said knowingly. He's plainly caught motorcycle people out with this before. I just looked at him like he was crazy again, and said, "I have a three-wheeler license, if that's what you mean." He had a little head-slap moment and said, "Oh, of course! The sidecar..." Ah, Jim. Finally, I drove a SMART car, which was a blast. Very much more refined than the Xebras, I could easily see getting a SMART as an all-round car, if I were rich and very specifically wanted a highly-efficient two-seater. At $25k for the basic model, and $30k for the convertible, they're beyond what I want. Way cooler than a Toyota Echo, but of course nearly double the price. The SMART accelerates very well, and Smilin' Jim said they get 40-50 MPG in-city, and 60ish on the freeway. That's pretty damned good, for a boxy little car with a 700cc motor. (It doesn't sound big, but my 250cc motorcycle has trouble topping 50 MPG in-city, and gets 60ish in real-world freeway driving.) The SMART also has ABS and airbags, so it's actually got a lot going for it when compared to a motorcycle. Of course, it's not actually a motorcycle, so it's a bit of a ridiculous comparison. Anyway, after I was all done, I asked if I could test-drive the Meyers whatever-they-call it (nee Corbin Sparrow), and Smilin' Jim lost a bit of the smile (but not too much) and said, "I'm sorry, but it's not licensed for single-driver right now." I gave him the "huh?" look, and he explained, "Because I can't go with you," as if that cleared it all up. "Oh, ok," I said, since the answer was obviously "No. Go 'way kid, you bother me," no matter how I might have tried phrasing it. (I noticed on the way out that the Xebra PK we'd taken out had no license plate whatsoever, so Smilin' Jim obviously wasn't too worried about legality.) No worries, he'd been very accomodating. I know I'm not going to get a Corbin Sparrow, although they're very cool, and I'm glad to see that another company picked them up. So, bottom line, I liked the Zap! cars. I'm going to write up a more formal review which will appear on my main page sooner or later, with pictures. I'm only going to review the truck model, with perhaps a smattering of comparisons with the sedan model. Posted at 15:30 permanent link category: /gadgets Mon, 11 Dec 2006Ok, this is just cool: I'm going to have to head over to the Green Car Company soon and look at one. That's a truck I could get into. Posted at 17:13 permanent link category: /gadgets Tue, 31 Oct 2006So, earlier this year, I bought myself a Grundig FR-200 to keep at work. It's a radio which can be powered by a hand crank, making it an excellent emergency-preparedness item. I actually ended up cranking the thing for about 2 minutes almost every day, and listening to the news in the afternoon. Yesterday, I went to crank it up again, and to my surprise, it almost immediately went POP, and cranking was suddenly interrupted every 1/5th revolution by a little grunty feeling. Clearly I had popped a tooth off one of the dynamo gears. Oh well, I thought to myself, that was fun while it lasted. Then, today, I remembered that this had happened, and did a little bit of searching around, to see if I could locate a parts list, and maybe figure out what the specs were on the gears. I thought perhaps I could find a replacement, since nylon gears tend to be relatively standardized. I came across the manual for the radio, and there, on page 7, I was reminded that the radio has a 1 year warranty! Ah-hah! I called the listed support number, and got the grumpiest-sounding guy I've encountered in a long time on the phone. "Uh-huh, this happens from time to time," he grumbled. "Try not to crank it for ten minutes." He took my name and address, and said he'd be sending me a new set of crank gears. Woot! That was surprisingly easy! So, thumbs up to Eton (the parent company of Grundig) for standing behind their warranty based only on a punter's word as to purchase date -- no grilling for receipts, or warranty cards, or anything. Most excellent. Now, of course, I have to figure out how to replace the gear cluster. One problem at a time. Posted at 16:05 permanent link category: /gadgets Fri, 09 Jun 2006
The return of the pocket knife
In 1996, I was given a very nice Laguiole pocket knife for Christmas. I'd been carrying it for a number of years as my apple-cutting knife, when it suddenly went missing a few weeks ago in Portland. Despite searching the places it would have likely fallen out of my pocket, I didn't find it. Drat! So, I started the search for a new pocket knife. They're so handy that I didn't really want to be without one. A friend recommended Knifeworks as a good place to buy pocket knives, so I took a look around. The first model my eye lit upon was the CRKT M16. That's about the perfect shape, in my mind, and would probably be small enough to be unobtrusive. With a bit of cursory searching after I found that, I decided that it was the right thing -- the price was certainly right. So, I ordered it. I waited patiently for it to arrive (ordering things online is never quite as instantly-gratifying as buying them locally). I got a call one day, about when it should be arriving; it was Knifeworks calling. The woman on the other end explained that there'd been a mixup, and my order had been sent to someone else, and their order sent to me. Could I please send it back? No worries, but how annoying (they paid for return shipment, of course). However, in the mean time, I'd been doing research, having gotten more interested in the subject. I ran across this article on steel types in my wanderings, and after a thorough reading, I began to have more misgivings about the M16 I'd ordered. On the one hand, that knife is an excellent price. On the other, I really don't like liner locks (the kind where part of the liner springs into place once the blade is open, to lock the blade in place): I always feel like I'm going to lop off the end of my finger, since the unlocking tab is invariably in the path of the closing blade. I was uncertain of the liner lock, but swayed by the low price. Then, in the steel article, I found that the steel CRKT is using in that blade (which isn't even listed in the article, but is logically "below" a steel rated "just barely acceptable for daily use") is sub-par. That at least partly explains the low price, I guess. All this brought about a certain amount of buyer's remorse. When I got the call that the order had been cross-shipped, I took it as my cue to change my order. For a birthday present several years ago, I was given a Benchmade knife, exact model unknown. I carried it for about a year, clipped to my pocket (as is the style with these things), until one day a shoulder bag grabbed the clip and slid the knife out of my pocket without my knowing it. Of course, when I went back to look for it an hour later, it was gone. Crap! That was actually what spurred me to carry the non-clip Laguiole. Anyway, thinking back to that knife, which I really liked, I decided to change my order to something about the same. After some deliberation, I decided to order a Benchmade Mini-Griptilian. It's got a few things going for it: the "axis lock," which is a much better locking system, to my mind; 154CM steel in the blade -- in contrast to the AUS4 in the CRKT knife, 154CM is among the best rated steels for knife use; it's smaller than the M16 -- I realized after looking at a ruler that the M16 is huge and would have been hard to carry every day. Of course, it's also $20 more than the CRKT M16. I got the call that the Benchmade shipped on Wednesday, so with any luck I'll be seeing it today or Monday, but I'm resigned to waiting until Wednesday or Thursday before it arrives. I guess the advantage or ordering stuff online is that it's kind of like waiting for a Christmas present to arrive, except you already know it's going to be exactly what you want. Posted at 11:04 permanent link category: /gadgets Fri, 14 Apr 2006I just ordered an Extech clamp meter, for the measurement of currents. DC current, to be exact. I've actually wanted one of these things for a long time (not this specific one, just a clamp current meter), since they allow you to measure current without opening up the electrical system being measured at all. This particular one is actually more featureful than I wanted, but it was a great deal. I guess it's an older design, but Extech is still making them due to demand. For $80, there's not a better deal to be found, from my research anyway. My real goal for it is to figure out the "running" current required by a motorcycle, and then to compare that with the claimed output of the same motorcycle to figure out how much power is left over for running things like lights and heated clothing and GPSes. It should be excellent for that. I had originally hoped you could just clamp any old AC power cord and see how much current was being used, but of course it's not that simple. Apparently, with the electricity running in both directions (into the device, and back out), the fields sensed by the meter are cancelled out. So, I could cut into the insulation, and separate out just one wire.... No. Anyway, it does mean I'd have to rig up a "separated" length of cable so I could measure just one wire, which really defeats the purpose of walking up to a random cable (like a computer's power cord) and checking to see how much current it was using. Ah well. Still interesting, and I'm sure I'll have fun playing with it. By which I mean, of course, that it'll be a very useful tool to have at my disposal. Yes. Posted at 14:42 permanent link category: /gadgets Thu, 02 Feb 2006
First impressions of the Garmin 76Cx. I finally got my Garmin 76Cx yesterday, and have spent some time playing with it. This page details my first impressions -- obviously, if I've only had it for a day, I haven't explored a lot of its capabilities. Background for this review is that I'm coming from a Garmin 12Map, which is basically a GPS III+ in a 12-series case, and limited to vertical orientation only. It's a comparatively limited GPS, with a mono screen, no autorouting, and a 1.44MB memory size. I got the 76Cx to use on a motorcycle, so things like waterproofness, and the ability to use it with gloves on were important in the decision. First off, the 76Cx feels pretty solid. It's light (Garmin claims it floats, although I haven't tested that), but it doesn't feel cheap. It doesn't creak or shift at all, and still manages to convey a good sense of quality, which sparse devices sometimes fail at. The buttons are big, and relatively easy to hit. On mine, they're also pretty stiff, requiring a reasonably hard press to register. My thumb is actually sore from the limited key pressing I've done so far. Inserting batteries was easy, but I noticed that one battery got a coiled spring on its negative terminal, while the other got a leaf type spring. I wonder if one of them will fail sooner than the other. The MicroSD card is truly micro. I fear I'd lose it very very easily -- it's about the size of my pinky nail. On powerup, there's a brief flash of the screen, followed maybe 3 seconds after you hit the button by a series of ascending tones and a welcome screen. The unit quickly switches to the satellite acquisition screen. When I'm outside and doing a warm startup, it already knows where it is by the time the satellite page comes up (about 7 seconds after the first poweron page). In my office (on the ground floor, with two stories of concrete-and-rebar above me), I get zero signal. On the second floor, I just barely got some signal -- hardly the "indoor navigation" Garmin claimed, but it would be amazing if any signal penetrated this building. I took it out with me to lunch yesterday, and travelled a more roundabout route to and from lunch than I normally take, checking out the receiver a bit. It had a hard time with walking speed some of the time, having me going all sorts of wacky directions, and at a variety of speeds. The basemap, I also noticed, is stinky, having only major roads (like freeways) shown, and the one that I passed under in real life remained half a mile away on the screen. It had none of the surface streets which even the 12Map has in its basemap. To be fair, I didn't touch either the provided software or the City Select v7 that I got with the unit, and it looks like the provided software includes a slightly better map than what's preloaded. One of my first problems in actually using the GPS was that I couldn't figure out how to get cardinal directions (N or NW, for instance) and compass heading (358° for instance) to show. I could get one or the other, but not both. I called Garmin today, and confirmed that that's the case -- you're limited to either cardinal letters for direction, or degrees (or mils), but you can't mix-n-match. This is kind of an "oh well" for me, but I can see how some people would be annoyed. I passed on the suggestion that "Heading - degrees" and "Heading - cardial letters" (and so on for the several other bearing-type databoxes) be added to the list of customizable data fields. The 76Cx still uses the PAGE and QUIT keys to move between pages, which I got used to in the 12XL and 12Map. This GPS has the ability to add pages into the page rotation (and take them out), which is quite handy. I've left it in the default setting for now, but I'll probably play with it more as I develop a sense of what I'd rather have available. I think every single data field can be customized to some extent in this receiver, which is a great feature to have. Unfortunately, some fields are missing. As I mentioned above, there's no way to show "N" and "358°" at the same time. Also gone is the compass tape across the top of the screen which the 12XL and 12Map had. The list of fields which can be included, while very long, feels incomplete -- some of the data I'd really like to see doesn't seem to be there. Like voltage. I have a feeling there are others, but I can't think of them at the moment. The screen is pretty quick to respond when switching pages. The CPU is obviously speedy. Route calculation seems quick to me, but I've never really used an autorouting GPS before. I've got it set to the next-to-slowest setting, which is the default. The autorouting (once I installed the detailed maps from City Select) started out pretty good. I had it calculate the routes between a few places I go all the time (work, my house, a business, etc.), and the routes usually made sense. The only one that didn't make any sense was when it routed me through a recent construction zone, so I can't really complain. Then, I tried it on a couple of simple freeway trips. The first one was extremely wacky because I just wanted to go down I-5, but forgot that I'd set it to avoid freeways (I had been seeing what kind of cool route it might come up with for motorcycle rides). It tried to route me off at every exit. The perplexing part of that is that I'd forgotten all about the "avoid freeways" setting. Maybe one just gets used to checking settings. The other funny thing was that, coming back, I went a different way (and remembered to change my preferences); it routed me by a reasonable but traffic-prone route. I took a slightly alternate route (going from Renton to Seattle at 3:30 pm on Friday -- I chose 405 to 90, it chose 405 to 520). But once I took my alternate turn, it spent the next 20 minutes (about as long as it took to go half way along my alternate) telling me to get off at the next exit and turn around. It was remarkably insistent. The screen is quite good, although it looks dim when inside. Under even a dark overcast sky, the screen is very readable, though. The backlight is very good, evenly lighting the screen. It has some large number of brightness levels (21, in fact). Surprisingly to me, the beeper is very quiet. Where I could hear the beeper on either the 12XL or 12Map at 50 MPH with earplugs in, the 76Cx is so quiet that it's inaudible above about 25 MPH on the motorcycle. It's about right inside a quiet car, but far too quiet to be useful on a motorcycle, or with an outboard motor running on a small boat. It's not a big deal, since I usually turn off the beeper, but I can see how that's a useful detail for some people who might read this. Physically, I'm glad to see that the 76Cx still retains the "standard" Garmin plug, the 4-pin circular plug. The USB port on the unit is a standard size, so you're not utterly stuck if you lose the Garmin-supplied cable. The external antenna connector is the standard MCX my other GPS receivers have had. I've had the GPS through several downpours now, and the unit is not obviously the worse for wear. That's exactly what I expected, but there's a difference between "believe us when we say our product is waterproof" and "I just got back from this rainstorm, and it's still working." Posted at 00:35 permanent link category: /gadgets Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
