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Preparation for the rugged outdoor life I intend never to lead

4 September 2008 — dan

I never go camping, we have very reliable gas for cooking, and there are several overdue reviews I should be working on.

So I, naturally, just made a little camp stove, after reading about it on Cool Tools.

It's called the Super Cat, because it's made from a small cat-food tin. Since this household goes through small cat-food tins so rapidly that I really should have made some sort of belt-feed system for them by now, the raw materials were not difficult to procure.

And all you have to do to make a Super Cat is poke some holes in said tin.

That's it. You're done.

And it really does work. Mine worked perfectly first try, getting three cups of water from 15°C to a rolling boil in about seven minutes, which is when it ran out of its first shot-glass of methylated spirits (denatured alcohol) fuel. It won't work that well if there's a breeze or it's colder, but a couple of cups quickly boiled per shot of fuel ought to be possible in all sorts of real-world situations.

It's not the safest possible cooker, of course. It'd be easy to set your camp-site, or yourself, on fire if the little tin fell over or the pot on top overbalanced. (You should rest the pot on three rocks, or make a support out of coat-hanger wire or something.) And there's no heat adjustment - it runs full blast for several minutes, then goes out.

But if you're going to cook with an improvised naked-flame device, going with alcohol for fuel is not a bad idea. It doesn't burn hot enough to instantly cook you if you get some of it on you, and you can extinguish it easily with water.

Then again, the flame's invisible in sunlight, which can be a little risky. If you see someone crash a methanol-fueled racing car then leap out and start dancing around and screaming, he may not just be angry.

But c'mon, whaddaya want from a cooker you can make in fifteen minutes by candle-light with only a nail for a tool?

Posted in Hacks, Handicrafts, Toys. 16 Comments »

An excellent, and simultaneously terrible, tool

26 August 2008 — dan

The P-38 can opener is something of a design classic. Tiny, inexpensive and extremely reliable, it's been cracking cans open since the Second World War.

But I'd never even seen one, and was interested to find out how well this iconic military tool actually worked.

So I bought four of 'em, for $US2.25 plus $US4.50 postage to me here in Australia, from this eBay seller. Their only sin was that they packed a worthless cell-phone booster sticker in with the can openers. But that was free.

(Here that seller is on ebay.com instead of ebay.com.au.)

[UPDATE: That seller's gone now, but there are tons of other eBay dealers with P-38s and their larger cousins, P-51s, for sale.]

Herewith, my in-depth review of the P-38:

It does, indeed, open cans.

It does so quantifiably better than would a sewing needle, a rubber chicken, or a silver dollar.

Opening a can with a P-38 is, I'm fairly sure, on the whole generally preferable to starving to death.

The P-38 is, however, a quite serious pain to use. Clip onto can rim, twist hard to make initial puncture, slide a little, twist again. Repeat many times. It requires considerable strength, and you can just feel the repetitive strain injury growing in your hand.

But the P-38 is only an inch and a half long, folds flat, weighs close to nothing, and can be manufactured in great quantities very cheaply. Given these limitations, I can't imagine how you could make a more elegant or effective opener for all sorts of cans.

So, fair enough. Case closed, right?

Wrong.

I'm told, you see, that P-38-type can openers are actually the normal kind of opener, for everyday domestic purposes and not just camping and the military, in some countries. Finland, for instance, and apparently also Brazil.

The versions they use are generally non-folding solid-metal types...

...which are more durable than the lightweight P-38, and are often also a bit bigger, for better leverage and less pain. (There's a larger version of the P-38 as well, called the P-51.)

But, based on my experience with the P-38, I'm here to tell you that making this same device somewhat larger and from one piece of heavier metal will not solve its serious problems.

This sort of opener is a bloody awful thing to have to use.

Why in heaven's name would significant portions of the population of any even slightly affluent country prefer it, and - as is apparently also the case in Finland and Brazil - often believe that the much faster and far easier-to-use turn-the-knob "rotary" type of can opener is likely to be an unreliable piece of crap?

Well, unreliable-piece-of-crap rotary can openers definitely do exist. There's one in this house, which I've had to use when I couldn't find the MagiCan.

Even though that crappy opener tends to lose the thread and have to be restarted a couple of times to puncture the lid all the way around, though, I solemnly attest that it is still better than the P-38. I think it'd beat a bigger, one-piece P-51-type opener too, though that might be a close-run thing.

You do not, however, have to spend a lot of money to get a rotary opener which, like the MagiCan, will open many hundreds, if not many thousands, of cans quickly, easily and completely reliably.

Yes, electric can openers for domestic use are stupid if you're not afflicted with arthritis or severely short of the most popular number of fingers, and the very cheapest dollar-store clones of the good rotary openers are not reliable.

But the can-opener design problem has been a thoroughly solved one for many years now. For the first half-century of the history of the can, they were made from such thick metal that no hand-held opener short of a hammer and chisel would do to open one. It didn't take terribly long after the metal got thinner for a variety of purpose-built openers to be designed, though. The first rotary opener was invented in 1870.

If people in Finland and Brazil think that a P-38-ish opener may perhaps open even more cans, without breaking, than a high-quality rotary type, then I suppose they may be right. But the number of cans you'd have to open with your twisty spiky thing to see the difference would, I think, have long since led you to employ that pointy little blade to slit your own throat.

I invite enlightenment on this subject from any readers who live in places where twist-spike openers are the norm.

(If you want to buy a P-38, they start from approximately no dollars on eBay. The P-38's larger and less painful cousin, the P-51, is also easy to find on eBay, for approximately no dollars plus 20 per cent.)

Posted in MiniReviews, Strange Tales, Toys. 34 Comments »

Further Freudian illumination

22 August 2008 — dan

The 85-watt compact fluorescent lamp I wrote about almost two years ago now still works fine. (Though the eBay seller I bought it from has vanished.)

But that lamp now looks a little... weedy.

This monster has a power rating - the actual power it draws, not the "equivalent" power that an incandesent bulb would have to draw to output the same amount of light - of two hundred and fifty watts.

(I found it in the eBay store of "DigiMate3". As sometimes happens on eBay, this store has a twin with all the same products, called CNW International.)

This lamp's output, in incandescent-equivalent terms, has to be something like 1200 watts. Since it's got the simple out-and-back design that doesn't get in its own way as much as a more compact (but in this case baroquely complex) spiral, I wouldn't be surprised if it actually shines as bright as three 500-watt halogen floodlights.

My 85W lamp lights the room it's in to about 205 lux, measuring on top of the spare bed that I use for most of my product photography. That's about half the brightness of outdoor light at sunrise or sunset on a clear day. This thing'd probably manage an easy 600 lux all by itself.

A few of these lamps would probably make fantastic workroom or warehouse lights. You could probably even power them from a normal domestic lighting circuit - many normal light sockets can deliver 250 watts safely, especially if they don't also have to cope with a 250-watt incandescent filament blasting away six inches away from the socket's plastic parts.

(You couldn't directly install these lamps in a normal light-bulb socket, because they use the big E39/E40 "Mogul" version of the Edison-screw fitting, rather than the bayonet fitting that's normal here in Australia or the "medium" Edison screw that most US light bulbs use. They're also obviously too heavy to dangle from a poor innocent domestic bulb socket, even if they'd otherwise fit; you can get simple screw-in medium-to-mogul adapters, but they don't magically make the bulb weightless. It wouldn't be a big deal to whip up a home-made luminaire to fit these lamps, though. You might even not electrocute yourself.)

You could even use these things as photo lights, though their colour rendering probably isn't all that great. The seller claims a Colour Rendering Index of 80, which ain't that bad, but might not be accurate.

I think most people who buy this things intend to use them as hydroponic grow-lights, though. I've written about this area of human endeavour before.

(Just think how much electricity would be saved if marijuana were legal, so people could grow it in their garden, instead of in their garage...)

Here's a hydroponic company being a bit sniffy about these "unbranded" lamps, which do indeed seem to be inferior to their similar...

...but even bigger product.

If you've found a CFL that's bigger still, do tell us in the comments.

UPDATE: It took some doing, but I managed to come up with something much more ridiculous than this bulb.

Posted in Electricity, Nerdery, Toys. 12 Comments »

Little see-through speaker update

19 August 2008 — dan

Regular readers will know that Unique Hardware are the makers of the hilariously-named but great-looking and, more importantly, surprisingly-good-sounding "HUMP" series of USB computer speakers.

A while ago, I reviewed their NF01 and NF02 speakers, which differ only in the USB amplifier module. The NF02s...

...have an amp with buttons and an auxiliary input.

In brief, these tiny (but surprisingly heavy) speakers sound quite remarkably good for their size. Which really is astonishingly small.

When I reviewed them, though, they cost about 75 US dollars delivered, and you could only buy them on eBay.

You still can buy Unique Hardware speakers on eBay; the US ebay.com store is here, and the Australian-dollar version is here. The price is now down to about $65 delivered, which would be too much to pay for ordinary crappy plastic USB speakers, but is quite a good deal for the Unique Hardware products. They're unquestionably the finest "pocket sized" speakers in existence. If you ask me, their only weakness is that if you treat them roughly and fracture the cables - which you could easily do in less than a year, if you're chucking them into your laptop bag twice a day - you're going to have a dickens of a time repairing them.

I've recently updated the review to mention that ThinkGeek have started selling "Crystal USB Desktop Speakers" that're obviously actually NF01s, for only $US39.99 plus delivery. That's a great price, if you're in the USA and don't have to pay much for delivery.

Oddly, however, Unique Hardware tell me that they aren't actually wholesaling any speakers to ThinkGeek. In truth, they've been having some trouble making money on the product.

It's not likely that the ThinkGeek speakers are inferior copies, though. The rock-solid machined-acrylic cabinets that make the Unique Hardware speakers special also make them rather difficult to clone. Unique Hardware believe that ThinkGeek have actually bought a crate or three of NF01s from some other outfit that earlier bought them from Unique, then found the speakers hard to sell.

(If you're a ThinkGeek insider with more info, do feel free to fill me in.)

It's not surprising that people - including the manufacturers - have had trouble shifting these speakers. As I point out at the beginning of the review, little tiny computer speakers, as a general rule, suck. Sucky speakers that cost ten bucks are one thing; sucky speakers that cost more than $50 are quite another. When Engadget mentioned the "new" ThinkGeek product, they therefore quite reasonably assumed the Crystal USB Desktop Speakers sounded lousy.

But they really, really don't.

No, these little speakers don't have much bass, and no, they don't go up to party volume. But they really are a very great deal better than you'd think.

I invite US readers to buy up ThinkGeek's entire stock, which Unique Hardware figure isn't more than about 500 units. Then they may have to start buying direct from Unique, who deserve more business.

Posted in Music, Toys. Leave a Comment »

I'd be smiling too

14 August 2008 — dan

Found among my referrer tags, thanks to a comment:

The picture's from the guy who runs Fleebnork; oddly enough, his other photos have something of a Lego slant to them, too.

The custom spaceman itself came from the guy who runs the bespoke-minifig-accessory emporium BrickForge.

Shameless commercialism

14 August 2008 — dan

Herewith, a duplicate of the bit I just put on the front page of Dan's Data, in accordance with my ancient tradition of slightly padding my PayPal account by pimping Photon sales:

Again with the Photon Light special offers. But there's something different about the current sale:

Shipping to the US or Canada is, until the end of this month, free. And shipping to anywhere else is only four bucks, this month only.

No matter how much stuff you buy.

And yes, this includes Photon's larger lights, batteries, chargers, and so on. Anything you like.

The price you pay for this is that the prices of the actual products aren't any cheaper than normal for the duration of this "sale". But you can still get Photon's standard volume discounts, which start from only five units and are obviously interesting when shipping's this cheap.

If you're in Australia like me, or in Europe, or in some other place that isn't North America, and have gotten as far as the shipping prices on previous Photon sales before deciding that you perhaps did not need a collection of funny-coloured key-ring lights quite that much: This is the sale for you.

And, as always, if you follow this link and then buy something, I'll get a cut!

Quote from front page ends.

My reviews of the mainstream Photon products are all a bit elderly now; I've had some newer Photons sitting on the to-review pile for lo, these many moons. It's not as if Photon have suddenly started making laser pointers or nose-hair trimmers, though; their key-ring lights remain rock solid and highly reliable, and just get newer, brighter models of LED from time to time.

(Although they have recently released a freaky rechargeable four-LED key-ring light; you charge it by clicking magnetic contacts onto the ends of any standard 1.5-volt cell!)

I continue to highly recommend the odd colours of Photon light, although I don't think they've actually got a lot of brightness advantage any more, since lots more development money has been poured into white LEDs than coloured ones. But you can still get a "turquoise" Photon II or Freedom Micro, and it'll still be surprisingly bright (from fresh batteries, at least), and make the world look like a cheap sci-fi movie.

Posted in Affiliate pimpage, Toys. 2 Comments »

The worst Lego piece ever made

31 July 2008 — dan

In Lego fandom, the acronym "POOP" stands for "Piece Out of Other Pieces".

A POOP - adjective form, "POOPy" - is a single Lego piece that is larger and more complex in form than it should be.

Lego is all about putting pieces together. POOP gives you single lumps of plastic that should have been multiple pieces.

This concept needs a little clarification.

Almost every Lego piece bigger than a fingernail could, in theory, be made from smaller pieces. You also need some large-ish pieces to build larger models, or you'll end up with a creaking mass of tiny pieces that's aching to fall apart.

So nobody's arguing that every 16-stud Technic beam should be replaced by two 8-studs or four 4-studs. And, obviously, big flat baseplates of whatever type need to be big and flat and all in one piece.

And the old spring-loaded crane jaws may be one irreducible assembly which has only one real purpose, but that purpose is one that'd be very difficult to achieve with separate pieces. Fair enough.

POOPy pieces, in contrast, don't have any good structural reason to be that way. And when a piece's POOPiness makes it less generally useful and more forced to adopt one specific role - and, moreover, reduces the time you can spend having fun building a model - then there is grounds for complaint.

Apropos of which, I think I have found the single POOPiest, and therefore just plain worst, piece that Lego Group has ever managed to make.

And here it is.

It's the astounding #30295 Car Base.

And yes, it is all one piece.

I bought it as part of an eBay job-lot of odd pieces, including six of the unusual Car Wash Brushes, plus a couple of axles for them, but no holders.

My Car Base is in the old dark grey colour, which means it had to have come from a Rock Raiders Chrome Crusher or Loader-Dozer. I also got one orange piece #30619, indicating that the very POOPy #4652 Tow Truck had contributed to this lot.

The Car Wash Brushes are a fine example of very unusual Lego pieces that're not POOPy at all. They're made from a translucent hard rubbery polymer, do not resemble any other Lego piece I can think of, and appear to be quite specialised in purpose. But they can actually be used for all sorts of odd Technic-y things.

Lego themselves only ever included the Brushes in car-wash or street-sweeper sorts of sets, plus the instant-classic 10184 Town Plan, which features on the box the boy who, one or two years earlier, appeared on the box of set 248.

But if you want to make, for instance, a Lego printer or plotter, Car Wash Brushes may work a lot better for certain sorts of paper handling tasks than the plain old tyres that you probably first thought of.

The brushes would probably work very nicely in a Lego Roomba. They can also engage each other like fuzzy gears. So even though the brushes have a smooth, not cross-axle, hole in the middle, I'm sure some lunatic's found a way to use them as part of a torque-limited or variable-shape transmission.

None of this can be said for the #30295 Car Base.

It's a Car Base, and that's all it is. You'd have to work quite hard to get it to do anything else, if you didn't just use it like a flat plate in the middle of some other construction that managed to avoid interfering with the Car Base's wheel-studs.

POOP is similar to the concept of "juniorisation", in which pieces are amalgamated to allow the very young, or very stupid, to build large Lego models without having to deal with any, y'know, thinking.

For a while, Lego had a terrible case of POOP/Junior Disease, producing sets with more and more big single-function pieces in them. You'd find something that looked like a normal little Lego set, which in the olden days could be expected to have at least fifty pieces in it. Then you got it home and discovered that there were actually only 28 pieces, because the whole chassis of the vehicle was one stupid piece that could, and should, have been made from several separate components.

But as this interview with the current CEO of Lego makes clear, the company has now scourged itself with barbed wire and abandoned these degenerate ways, returning to the True Path of lots of smaller pieces that you can do whatever the heck you want with.

If the fun of building is not why you're using Lego - if, for instance, you're using it as a rapid robot-prototyping system - then you'll probably be able to find a use for at least a few giant POOPy pieces.

To everyone else, they're an abomination whose death we should celebrate.

Posted in Nerdery, Toys. 18 Comments »