512MB of RAM is ridiculous

Years ago (when Bill Gates said that 640 K is all that is needed or something like that), 512 MB of RAM would have seemed like overkill. Unfortunately (I guess depending on how you look at it), this is no longer the case. I had to send my MacBook Pro in for repairs as it had an annoying whine when running on battery which forced me to use on of my Mac Minis with only 512 MB of RAM for a few days. It clearly wasn't the speed causing things to slow down (1.66 MHz Core Duo on the Mini and 2.16 GHz Core Duo on the MacBook Pro). The OS kept having to swap things in and out of RAM, everything I did took ages. I was tempted to go buy 2GB of RAM, but couldn't justify the cost for a test machine. I can't believe that Apple (and other computer manufacturers) ship machines with this little RAM knowing that it won't be enough. That's how they keep the cost down; pay $600 for the machine, spend another $300 in RAM.

Thankfully Apple's service is fast and I got my MacBook Pro back in 2 days (sent it in on Monday, got it back on Wednesday) otherwise I would have pulled my hair out.

Scared waterless

Yesterday I replaced our reverse osmosis system as the one we had was costing me something like $200 per year to replace the filters. The previous owners of our house installed probably one of the most expensive systems they could find and to top it off, the replacements filters had to be ordered. So I picked up a GE Profile Smart Water system from Home Depot where the replacement filters are about $40 every six months so not only is it half the price per year, I can get the filters right from the local store.

Plumbing is definitely something I hate doing and this job only reaffirmed that. A simple task (since it was already setup for it) turned into an all day affair and I still didn't get it exactly how I wanted it as I wanted a shutdown value for the refrigerator water line (2 Home Depots were out of the part).

Anyway, after I got it installed, I noticed a warning label on the tank "This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer."

Hmmm. Now that is a great thing to have in a system that is supposed to clean my water. I figured it was the paint on the outside of the holding tank, but called GE this morning. The lady I spoke with knew exactly what I was talking about and said that their tests have shown that this is not the case and the label is being removed from new production runs. I asked if my tank was the same and she said yes, so I should have nothing to worry about. My question is, how does a company put out a product that is advertised to reduce harmful contaminants when it has a sticker on the side indicating that it could cause cancer? This label is not on the outside of the box, but is inside. I would have thought that they would have cleared up this issue before shipping. That kind of explains why most of the units were opened at Home Depot; I managed to get a sealed one as I have no idea what people may have done to the units before returning them.

What happens when technology fails?

The other day when I was in Los Gatos for work, I stayed in a nice hotel that had electronic locks on all the rooms with what looked like no manual bypass. I went back to my room one of the days I was there and my key didn't work. I went to the front desk and asked to get a new key; the system wasn't working to generate a new key, so I had to be let in the room by the front desk clerk. He used an electronic master key. What would have happened if the master key didn't work? Would all the rooms unlock (I'd hope not)? How would people get in? Later when I went to get a new key, the system was working again, but I wonder how my card key got deactivated. Hmmm.

What's that growing out of your ear?

More and more I see people with Bluetooth headsets hanging on their ears when they're walking around and even when they're eating. I think that this is extremely rude and completely unnecessary. However, people feel the need to talk on the phone wherever they happen to be. Bluetooth headsets are fine for the car and when you need to be handsfree, but it doesn't have to be a permanent fixture on your ear.