Good and Simple

One good and simple idea is worth more than a solar mass of approximations.

Why Prius ?

Ever since I bought my first Prius in 2001, I was hoping my next vehicle would be an electric car.  Then I got 2006 Prius, which lasted until now, so I got a 2026 Prius.

What happened?

Well I did put a deposit on a Tesla Model 3 back in my working days when I made enough money to pay for one.  But then when they actually came, I found 3 major issues for me:

1.  It was nearly 10 inches wider than my Prius, which was already difficult to get into my narrow garage.  (I've recently heard that Teslas might be able to do this automatically, maybe it could squeeze through narrower openings than I can.)  And then there's getting around the car once it is in.  The 2026 Prius is about 3 inches wider than the 2006, which is just about the limit in my garage.

2.  No standard instruments in front of the driver.  I considered this a modernist fascist design flaw.

3.  Too high back window (that's a bit of a problem with the 2026 Prius too).

So I canceled my deposit.  Then I retired early, and wasn't putting too many miles on my old car anyway.

But, what about now???

Well, the standard Prius LE (the lowest trim level) is already stretching my income to the limit.  I could barely think about a Plug In Prius, let alone a Tesla model 3.

I'm now into affordable cars, and the Model 3.  I see two EV's I could have bought:

1.  Nissan Leaf

2.  Fiat EV

But above all, I wanted a reliable car like my last Prius.  I was very used to the size, format, and luxury features of a standard Prius too, including especially automatic climate control, and the size of the hatchback loading area (which is little different on the 2006).

EV's simply haven't become widely available enough, cheap enough, to make the exact model I need at the price I need.

And, there's actually a good reason for this.  There simply isn't enough lithium to make all vehicles EV yet.  Only a small fraction.  (And lithium mining is horrible, toxic and all that, though lithium is fairly ubiquitous.)

Given that there isn't really enough lithium to make EV's for everyone, what should be done?

Well, plug in hybrids would be one thing.  And nearly all cars should be hybrids simply to save gas.

Sadly, plug in hybrids aren't as reliable as the non plug in types (yet).  And the larger batteries are far more expensive to replace (come 15 years or so, and I hope I get more than that).

Smaller EV's with smaller batteries would be another thing.

Limiting EV to cases where it could do the most good.  That would not apply to me because I hardly do any driving anymore.

So it ultimately made the most sense for me to simply have a regular non-plug-in for long term lowest mechanical costs, though perhaps somewhat more fuel cost, but that simply wasn't much a factor for me.

2026 Toyota Prius

I have finally replaced my 2006 Prius with a 2026 Prius.  The speedometer board on my 2006 Prius was failing, a $1100 estimated repair (if they can actually get the parts) which nudged me into doing what I had been planning to do anyway, and no better time than now it seemed.

The 2026 Prius has morphed into something like a sports car.  It looks the part thanks to styling which may well be the best I've ever seen on a car (and I collected car models for quite some time).  It's a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and a Porsche all rolled into a gas saving Toyota.

It grips the road way better than before, even in LE trim with the 17 inch wheels.  (The 19 inch wheels with 50 series tires are sports car territory.)

Downside there is more road noise and even some road and engine noise at times, something rarely as obvious in the 2006.  Ride however is generally smoother and it absorbs big bumps better.  (My 2006 shocks were probably shot.)

Biggest Downsides

So far the biggest downside for me is that they took off the climate control adjustments off of the steering wheel.  It used to be so wonderful to nudge the target temperature up or down a degree or two.  That would also affect fan speed and everything.  You could also control the recirc from the steering wheel.

The 2006 Prius automatic climate control system was very sophisticated too, including ambient light into it's calculations.  It worked very well, but sometimes needed a slight nudge up or down.  The 2026 system might be even better.  As much as I'm complaining about the controls, it might not need them as much as before.  "74" seems to work just fine so far.  When I ride in my friends cars which never seem to have automatic climate control the AC is always doing something wrong and no adjustment fixes it for long.  I just don't get how most people don't see how important it is to have automatic climate control with a thermostat just like you have for your house, and that most cars don't actually have this feature.  I was looking for it in car brochures in the 1960's, and was jazzed when my first new car--a 1986 Mitsubishi Galant--had it.

It's not as if the steering wheel isn't littered with all sorts of other controls, many of which don't seem to be the kind of thing you would use on a daily basis.  It's just that whoever designed this doesn't appreciate the world in the same way I do.  When you are driving a car, there are two key things: driving, and the air conditioning.  The infotainment stuff can go hang (I haven't used car infotainment much in 15 years because I nowadays prefer to focus all my attention on driving).

Power Outage and SimpliSafe

My power went out at 3:00 am and wasn't restored until 11:00 am.

Less than a minute after the power went out, my SimpliSafe Base Station started announcing network trouble.  Ok.  But it kept announcing network trouble about every minute and I was trying to get to sleep.

I took out my phone and opened the SimpliSafe app in order to turn off the voice completely.  (I've already had door chimes and entry announcements turned off as those get annoying as heck.*  But I didn't mind the Armed and Off messages, which are in the "Status" category, which sadly also includes the endlessly repeating network trouble messages.

It wasn't easy to get through to the base station.  I figured that was because the wifi router was down, and it only worked with direct communication from my phone to the base station when it would try to use the router first.  But eventually I did get through and shut the messages off.  And was able to get back to sleep.  (I was in deep panic for about 10 minutes worried that somehow I would not be able to do this, but persistence paid off.)

(*One of the curious but unfortunate things is if you have door chimes or announcements enabled for any entry sensor, you have to get some announcement or chime (you can choose which) for every entry sensor.  So I couldn't just have an announcement for the back door, which I hardly ever use and might like to have such indication, without also having an announcement or chime for the front door, which is what gets annoying as heck.  I tried just having a chime on the front door and decided that was little less annoying than the announcement.)

To avoid having this situation happen again, I'm going to have to keep all the voice messages off, and I miss some of them. 

Blinking LED strips

A few years ago, I discovered that lighting up my 'home office' (which is actually...my kitchen) with ambient lighting in the dark corners helped avoid eyestrain late at night.  I've taken it as a requirement since then to be sure there is background lighting for ever screen in the house.  Watching video in darkness is bad for your eyes because of unnatural light changes.

Around one corner, above the refrigerator and near my electric vent, where it's always dark, I used an LED strip, placed on top of the sound absorbers.

So far, two of these LED strips have failed.  They work fine for about two years or so, and then something happens, and they start blinking.

I've always noticed that when the blinking starts, the power supply is quite warm.  Online sources often say you should check the power supply.  But none of the power supplies have gone bad.

Instead, what seems to happen is that the strip draws way more current than it is supposed to.  As it heats up, it draws more and more current.  That then forces the (fully working as intended) power supply to shut down for awhile.  About a second later the power supply fires up and tries again.  But the same thing happens.  So...blinking.

Now actually putting one of these LED strips on top of my (fire rated, acrylic) sound absorbers is a non-standard usage.  And I just lay them there without removing the paper backing.  Possibly because of that, they are generally running too warm and eventually develop an issue as described, a thermal runaway.

These lights have never given me problems actually attached to a TV or monitor.

Anyway, clearly strip lights are not good here.  What I've been successful with before are mini LED spotlights.  I have not needed to replace those, even though they are also installed on top of the refrigerator (but not on top of the sound absorbers).  I can aim two of them to fill in the two walls in the corner behind the refrigerator, eliminating the eye straining darkness.

Now, there are larger ambient light products that all look interesting.  But most of them suffer from a fundamental flaw.  They are operated by push button or app or remote control.  That's OK maybe if you have one.  But if you want the whole room lit up, you want to have them on the same power strip or whatever is needed to turn them all on and off at once.  But I also don't like the idea of having an app that powers them "all" because that presumed you bought "all" once and forever at the same time.  Instead, what organically happens is you keep adding to a growing set of lights to achieve the full desired effect.

Honestly, I just keep all my kitchen ambient lighting running all the time.  I probably shouldn't, though I think it's a trivial amount of spent electricity for making my life much more convenient. 

So generally the best idea is for ambient lighting to have no switch at all.

The mini LED spotlights have no switch at all, they plug into "USB" power and draw only 1 watt.  (It's best to say 1w or below so they don't get hot.)

Much Greater Risk of Buying Wrong Item with Digital Media

 Today I was searching for the acclaimed documentary No Other Land.  Amazon first said "Currently Unavailable" but I realized that was DVD and looked for other version in the main search results.

I cannot retrace my steps at all (the history was completely expunged by Amazon and Google somehow immediately after my purchase was final) to see page where I made my mistake, but I could have started from a page for a different movie not realizing it was a different movie.  I somehow thought I was on a page for No Other Land, and it only offered to stream or buy, which seemed to make sense.  I chose buy, figuring then I could download it.  It took me to a page warning that I would not be able to view the movie in 4K because of my device (ok, 2k would be fine by me) and there was a "view" and a "download."  I repeated selected the "download" and nothing happened.  So finally I started to view the video through Chrome and all.

Only then I realized that I had ordered the wrong movie, after watching 2 seconds.  But two seconds two late because all digital media sales are final once watched, no matter how little.

I then tried to retrace my steps, but the only history prior to the movie window was the the Amazon search results.  Digital movie purchases show up in a different folder within Purchases and Returns and the only option was to review.

If I had ordered a Blu Ray, as I would have preferred to do, I would have caught this error in 10 different ways before it was too late.

It would show in a purchase screen (not a "viewing" screen).  It would show up in my email to be checked a few hours later.  It would be delivered and I'd see the name on the sealed disc package.  And then I could have returned it.  If somehow I had opened the movie, I might not have been able to return it, but I could sell the disc and recover some amount of the cost, or donate it.

I finally found the film through YouTube which actually linked to the movie on Rumble.  The Rumble version appears to be the genuine article, but only standard definition (480p), or perhaps less, some kind of lowered resolution copy.  It does not appear to come from the producer but from some blogger with 11 followers.

There seemed to be another version in high definition on Youtube.  But if you look carefully at the title, and the description, you see it isn't the movie at all, but a "Review" of it which consists basically of endless junk such as pictures of the DVD package and the producers appearance at Cannes and various logos with various disparaging fades.  Nearly two hours of junk which profits from YouTube royalties which value time watched and how many, so for each person sucked in (especially if they download the film) they could get some royalties for junk, scamming off the original title.  (And in the search results there are many similar other "reviews" just with slightly different titles.)

Here's the actual Title at YouTube from the one I looked at.

No Other Land (2024) Movie ‧ Oscar Winning Documentary | Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra | Review & Facts

Well, obtaining that was not as bad as my mistaken purchase at Amazon anyway, though I hate the fact I subsidized scammers.  Sadly I doubt the producers get any royalties from Rumble, and I guess that's the whole point of being "locked out by Hollywood."

Another version even added "Full" just before the "Movie".

Selecting CD metadata

Whenever I "rip" my CD's to my harddrive, I first must select the metadata.

My preferred ripper, XLD, doesn't have the biggest metadata collection, so I've always let a native Mac application (which used to be iTunes, now it's Music) identify the metadata first, then I run XLD to rip it.

Generally I'm presented with more than one possibility for the metadata.  You can already gleen some differences just by looking at the list.  Some are exceptionally wordy (I don't like those, my Roon always knows all the details anyway) and others not.  Some are in languages other than English (but 95% are in English).

But there really isn't enough detail in most cases to figure out which would be the preferable metadata (or, at least, the one I would prefer).

It would be better if you could explore each metadata option, to see how they label each song rather than just the whole disc.  But I have never seen such an option available.  Instead the only thing that I can do is select one version of the metadata and see what it's like then.  If I really don't like it, I can undo it and start over, but this gets complicated especially if I have already ripped the disc.  Not only do I have to delete the ripped disc files, or quit and restart the XLD application, sometimes I've had to reboot the computer.