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One part of my laptop is now newer than the rest of it, which should mean I don’t have to spend quite as much time with two other parts of the computer. But should I feel that good about having to send a second computer from the same vendor back to the shop?
I spent a long time pretending that I wouldn’t need this level of tech support for the HP Spectre x360 I bought last August to replace a 2017-vintage Spectre x360 that had succumbed to an apparently fatal display failure after needing its own repair under warranty.
At first, the fingerprint sensor on this 2022 model only stopped working occasionally, and I could always fix it by opening Device Manager, deleting the sensor’s entry, and then telling this app to scan for “new” hardware. But that kind of Windows 95 workaround is no way to go through computing life in 2024, and it got increasingly annoying as the sensor failed increasingly often.
This laptop includes a Windows Hello-compatible camera that can recognize my face, but I found that a poor substitute for an unavailable fingerprint sensor. The camera would often take its own sweet time to wake up and identify me–especially irritating when I was trying to unlock 1Password to log into a site–leading me to resort to the keyboard to type in the laptop-specific passcode instead.
Two things led me to drop a pattern of denial that had persisted through multiple Windows reinstalls: the impending end of my warranty coverage and having two weeks at home in which I wouldn’t need the laptop. So as I had in 2018, I opened a chat window to HP tech support and was able to make my case without having to perform yet another reinstall of Windows–because the fingerprint sensor was kind enough to fail during the chat.
The rep’s response: “Looks like this could be a hardware issue.”
HP worked impressively fast, dispatching a box to my house via FedEx two-day air in a day. After I wiped my data from the laptop, packed it up and dropped it off in the box at a FedEx shipping facility on a Tuesday evening, I got a confirmation from HP Thursday afternoon that the laptop had arrived.
Wednesday night’s e-mail from HP: “Your HP product has been repaired and is now on its way.”
It would have arrived Saturday, but of course I was no at home for that signature-required delivery. Instead, I got to unpack the returned laptop Monday morning. The receipt in the box listed “Replaced Parts” as “Finger Print Reader” and “Repair Actions” as “Replaced Part” and “Performed Extensive Testing.”
So far, everything seems fine with the restored laptop–as in, I hope it doesn’t go sideways once I’m on the other side of the Atlantic for the IFA tech trade show in Berlin next week. But two good customer-support saves can’t override the problem of my needing customer support in the first place.
Fortunately, I shoudn’t have to make that value judgment anytime soon. Nor do I want to: The most interesting development in Windows computing, Qualcomm delivering Snapdragon X efficiency-optimized processors that can compete with Apple’s M-series Apple Silicon processors, has yet to yield convertible laptops with screens like those on my last two HPs that I can rotate all the way around to turn the computer into a somewhat hefty tablet.
Among the current selection of Snapdragon X machines, Microsoft’s Surface Pro offers some of that two-in-one utility with a detachable screen that you can prop up with a kickstand. But that stand slides off your lap far too easily–a design I’ve found unappealing since first trying a Surface computer 12 years ago.
(Apple, meanwhile, still doesn’t think people need any such thing. Or even a touchscreen in a laptop.)
Bring me a Snapdragon X laptop with a 360-degree screen that also lets me fold the device into a tent shape that eases economy-class movie viewing, and I’ll be ready to buy. Except if this machine comes from HP, in which case I’ll have to think about that for a little longer.
https://robpegoraro.com/2024/08/30/a-touchy-situation-with-an-hp-laptop-hopefully-resolved/
#1Password #2In1Laptop #ARM #biometric #fingerprintSensor #HewlettPackard #HPFingerprintSensor #HPSpectreX360 #HPTechSupport #HPWarranty #laptopSecurity #passwordManager #QualcommSnapdragonXElite #WindowsHello
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Years later than you might have expected, given my line of work, I’ve finally hit the dubious milestone of owning a major appliance with its own Internet Protocol address and mobile app–the Bosch dishwasher we procured as part of an overdue and immensely-appreciated kitchen renovation.
I didn’t pick this 300-series SHE53C85N model because of that connected-home possibility. (I try not to use “smart” as an adjective when describing non-computer devices that can now be monitored and commanded over the Internet, because that’s giving a compliment that may not be earned.) I bought this dishwasher because Wirecutter recommended it, and I know the attention to detail practiced by the staff at my client.
But having flipped through the dishwasher’s manual and seen a note that some dishwashing cycles were only available through Bosch’s Home Connect app, I had to see if this corner of the connected-home future would live up to the glitzy presentations I see at trade shows like CES and IFA.
After installing the Home Connect on my Android phone, the app greeted me with a picture of a woman (note to Bosch: guys do dishes too) surrounded by appliance icons and this headline: “Infinite possibilities. Take full control of your home appliances.” But before I could take control of anything, the app first had me create a “SingleKey ID” account (skimming the privacy policy revealed that Bosch could use IP-derived location data to adjust appliances to match local water hardness), secured by default only with a password (the SingleKey site let me add two-factor authentication but only via text messaging, an underdone security UX that needs to go back in the oven).
Pairing the dishwasher with my phone took three tries, either because I didn’t wait long enough after turning the dishwasher on to press the “Remote start”/WiFi button or because I didn’t press the WiFi button long enough, or because the setup was just finicky. But then it worked, rewarding me with a “Congratulations!” screen.
My WiFi router’s app promptly notified me of the new device’s appearance on our home network, then disappointed me by not including a dishwasher icon among its lengthy list of connected-home devices that I could apply to the new device’s listing in that Synology app.
The Home Connect app’s onboarding sequence then had me select a default rinse-aid setting, decline or accept an Extra Dry default, set the volume for the dishwasher’s beeps, name the dishwasher (because it was late, I opted for “Dishwasher”), and choose what sort of remote control I’d allow.
The default for that last item was “Manual remote start,” where you have to press the dishwasher’s Remote start button before it will take commands from the app; I opted for “Monitoring,” then was confused to see no option in the app to select any of these app-only wash cycles.
Switching back to “Manual remote start” revealed that I can set custom cycles by selecting what I’m going to put in the dishwasher, how dirty those items are, and what my priorities are between cleanliness, efficiency, dryness, sanitization, silence and speed, then save that as a customized cycle. The last page of that setup interface reports the cycle’s estimated water temperature, time, and energy and water inputs, which for the app-only Eco cycle would be 113° F, an hour and 20 minutes, four gallons of water and .65 kilowatt hours.
I can’t lie: Getting that level of usage detail does appeal to my nerdy side. I can also see myself setting a custom cycle optimized for quiet when we have guests over, then adding another the next time I need to sanitize several dozen empty beer bottles for a future batch of homebrewed beer. So although this makes me feel a little dirty in a way that no connected dishwasher can make clean, I suppose I’ll keep this app around for a bit longer.
#Bosch #BoschSHE53C85N #connectedHome #dishWashCycle #dishwasher #HomeConnect #SingleKeyID #smartHome #Wirecutter
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CW: Bare chested Jon-Erik Hexum
This was my favorite show! I was young and so wanted to be the kid in this show and just “feel really close” to my older brother figure. I couldn’t quite say why for sure then. But I can now. I really craved a male role model. Maybe I still do. 🤤
Not sexy:
Will Riker
Pierce Brosnan
Kurt Russell
Kevin Costner
Patrick SwayzeSexy:
Jon-Erik Hexum¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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CES 2024 travel-tech report: a new laptop and an old phone
My messenger bag had less hardware than usual for a CES trip when I flew out Sunday morning–only one laptop and only one phone, plus their charging accessories, and no WiFi hotspots or any other review hardware to back up my own devices. In other words, I was gambling a little in Vegas.
The laptop, a 2022-model HP Spectre x360 that I purchased at about 30% off in August to replace the 2017 model that died at the end of 2021, made battery life one of my lesser worries at the show. I only recall it going into power-saving mode once, at the end of a long day that hadn’t allowed any recharging breaks.
But the HP’s fingerprint sensor became one of my bigger annoyances when it would mysteriously stop working. I’ve seen this happen before and know the fix (the old-school two step of deleting it in the Device Manager app and then having the app scan for hardware changes to restore it), but at CES this happened multiple times in a day because every tech problem gets worse at the show.
I assume that reinstalling Windows would fix this, but CES is also no time for complicated troubleshooting.
Fortunately, none was needed for the other glitch I saw: a confusing minute or two of this convertible laptop acting as if it had been folded up to use in tablet mode, ignoring physical keyboard input, that ended when I rebooted the machine.The phone was the Google Pixel 5a I had brought to the two previous CESes. It’s aged extraordinarily well overall, thanks to Google software updates that have added such useful new features as Live Transcribe–a kind of magic for interviews and press conferences.
But two years and change is a lot of charge cycles for a smartphone’s battery–on top of which, I kept using the phone as a mobile hotspot to work around spotty or nonexistent WiFi. That left me worrying about recharging this more than the laptop. At least the 5a, like most new phones, also charges quickly, so 2024 battery anxiety isn’t like the 2014 kind.
I took all of my notes at the event in Evernote, having somewhat reluctantly renewed my subscription at the new, much higher rate. (I had thought of switching to Microsoft’s OneNote, but seeing Microsoft make it harder to switch by retiring its importer app did not make me want to fuss through moving over my notes via third-party tools.) Evernote’s new management seem to have fixed this app’s sync-conflict problems, which is great, but on the phone the app would struggle to load my increasingly long CES notes in lower-bandwidth situations.
Which came up often, between T-Mobile’s 5G network appearing over capacity in some places and various WiFi networks dropping my laptop or phone randomly. I was glad I’d brought my ancient USB-to-Ethernet adapter, which let my connect the laptop to a press-room cable instead of having to edit the saved press-room WiFi network setting to add the day’s password.
I tucked one other form of old-school hardware into my bag that I found useful at CES: business cards, a form of analog data exchange that’s stayed in style at this show even as networking at other tech events has been compressed to on-the-spot LinkedIn invitations.
#batteryLife #businessCards #ces #CES2024 #CESTravelTech #Ethernet #fastCharging #LasVegas #Pixel5a #SpectreX360 #TMobile5G #USBC #Vegas
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CES 2024 travel-tech report: a new laptop and an old phone
My messenger bag had less hardware than usual for a CES trip when I flew out Sunday morning–only one laptop and only one phone, plus their charging accessories, and no WiFi hotspots or any other review hardware to back up my own devices. In other words, I was gambling a little in Vegas.
The laptop, a 2022-model HP Spectre x360 that I purchased at about 30% off in August to replace the 2017 model that died at the end of 2021, made battery life one of my lesser worries at the show. I only recall it going into power-saving mode once, at the end of a long day that hadn’t allowed any recharging breaks.
But the HP’s fingerprint sensor became one of my bigger annoyances when it would mysteriously stop working. I’ve seen this happen before and know the fix (the old-school two step of deleting it in the Device Manager app and then having the app scan for hardware changes to restore it), but at CES this happened multiple times in a day because every tech problem gets worse at the show.
I assume that reinstalling Windows would fix this, but CES is also no time for complicated troubleshooting.
Fortunately, none was needed for the other glitch I saw: a confusing minute or two of this convertible laptop acting as if it had been folded up to use in tablet mode, ignoring physical keyboard input, that ended when I rebooted the machine.The phone was the Google Pixel 5a I had brought to the two previous CESes. It’s aged extraordinarily well overall, thanks to Google software updates that have added such useful new features as Live Transcribe–a kind of magic for interviews and press conferences.
But two years and change is a lot of charge cycles for a smartphone’s battery–on top of which, I kept using the phone as a mobile hotspot to work around spotty or nonexistent WiFi. That left me worrying about recharging this more than the laptop. At least the 5a, like most new phones, also charges quickly, so 2024 battery anxiety isn’t like the 2014 kind.
I took all of my notes at the event in Evernote, having somewhat reluctantly renewed my subscription at the new, much higher rate. (I had thought of switching to Microsoft’s OneNote, but seeing Microsoft make it harder to switch by retiring its importer app did not make me want to fuss through moving over my notes via third-party tools.) Evernote’s new management seem to have fixed this app’s sync-conflict problems, which is great, but on the phone the app would struggle to load my increasingly long CES notes in lower-bandwidth situations.
Which came up often, between T-Mobile’s 5G network appearing over capacity in some places and various WiFi networks dropping my laptop or phone randomly. I was glad I’d brought my ancient USB-to-Ethernet adapter, which let my connect the laptop to a press-room cable instead of having to edit the saved press-room WiFi network setting to add the day’s password.
I tucked one other form of old-school hardware into my bag that I found useful at CES: business cards, a form of analog data exchange that’s stayed in style at this show even as networking at other tech events has been compressed to on-the-spot LinkedIn invitations.
#batteryLife #businessCards #ces #CES2024 #CESTravelTech #Ethernet #fastCharging #LasVegas #Pixel5a #SpectreX360 #TMobile5G #USBC #Vegas
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CES 2024 travel-tech report: a new laptop and an old phone
My messenger bag had less hardware than usual for a CES trip when I flew out Sunday morning–only one laptop and only one phone, plus their charging accessories, and no WiFi hotspots or any other review hardware to back up my own devices. In other words, I was gambling a little in Vegas.
The laptop, a 2022-model HP Spectre x360 that I purchased at about 30% off in August to replace the 2017 model that died at the end of 2021, made battery life one of my lesser worries at the show. I only recall it going into power-saving mode once, at the end of a long day that hadn’t allowed any recharging breaks.
But the HP’s fingerprint sensor became one of my bigger annoyances when it would mysteriously stop working. I’ve seen this happen before and know the fix (the old-school two step of deleting it in the Device Manager app and then having the app scan for hardware changes to restore it), but at CES this happened multiple times in a day because every tech problem gets worse at the show.
I assume that reinstalling Windows would fix this, but CES is also no time for complicated troubleshooting.
Fortunately, none was needed for the other glitch I saw: a confusing minute or two of this convertible laptop acting as if it had been folded up to use in tablet mode, ignoring physical keyboard input, that ended when I rebooted the machine.The phone was the Google Pixel 5a I had brought to the two previous CESes. It’s aged extraordinarily well overall, thanks to Google software updates that have added such useful new features as Live Transcribe–a kind of magic for interviews and press conferences.
But two years and change is a lot of charge cycles for a smartphone’s battery–on top of which, I kept using the phone as a mobile hotspot to work around spotty or nonexistent WiFi. That left me worrying about recharging this more than the laptop. At least the 5a, like most new phones, also charges quickly, so 2024 battery anxiety isn’t like the 2014 kind.
I took all of my notes at the event in Evernote, having somewhat reluctantly renewed my subscription at the new, much higher rate. (I had thought of switching to Microsoft’s OneNote, but seeing Microsoft make it harder to switch by retiring its importer app did not make me want to fuss through moving over my notes via third-party tools.) Evernote’s new management seem to have fixed this app’s sync-conflict problems, which is great, but on the phone the app would struggle to load my increasingly long CES notes in lower-bandwidth situations.
Which came up often, between T-Mobile’s 5G network appearing over capacity in some places and various WiFi networks dropping my laptop or phone randomly. I was glad I’d brought my ancient USB-to-Ethernet adapter, which let my connect the laptop to a press-room cable instead of having to edit the saved press-room WiFi network setting to add the day’s password.
I tucked one other form of old-school hardware into my bag that I found useful at CES: business cards, a form of analog data exchange that’s stayed in style at this show even as networking at other tech events has been compressed to on-the-spot LinkedIn invitations.
#batteryLife #businessCards #ces #CES2024 #CESTravelTech #Ethernet #fastCharging #LasVegas #Pixel5a #SpectreX360 #TMobile5G #USBC #Vegas
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Flights to nowhere can be fun
I hadn’t planned on my brief visit to Vancouver for Web Summit’s second annual conference there to include any flying between my landing at Vancouver International Airport Monday and my departure from YVR Thursday morning. But sometimes, your event schedule has a gap just large enough for somebody to pilot a floatplane through.
That idea of taking an aerial tour of Vancouver got lodged in my head at Web Summit Vancouver last May–when I found myself distracted by aircraft departing from and arriving at Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre, next to the convention center and its bitmapped-orca Douglas Coupland sculpture.
And as I was nearing the end of my first five appointments on an overscheduled Tuesday, I realized that a) I had almost two hours before my next appointment and b) the weather looked ideal for flying, at least compared to Wednesday morning’s forecast of clouds and possibly rain. So I booked a 20-minute tour flight on Harbour Air’s site at what seemed a workable time before I had to walk a few blocks away for an offsite panel.
The flight on this 67-year-old de Havilland DHC-3T Turbine Otter was what I hoped and expected it to be, going from my experience taking a floatplane ride above Seattle out of Lake Union 13 years ago. Taking to the air and returning from it without solid ground below the wing feels like cheating at flying; being in a plane small enough where you can see the pilot adjust the controls and almost immediately see and feel the aircraft respond provides an extraordinary demonstration of aerodynamics at work; the views from a large and non-pressurized window maybe 1,000 feet above ground are magical.
(The timing of this particular flight was less than magical, in the sense that it seemed that Harbour consolidated its 3 and 3:15 p.m. tour flights into one that departed at 3:20 and then left me hustling to get to my panel. I’ll expand on my avoidable scheduling fail in this Sunday’s weekly recap.)
Avgeeks sometimes call out-and-back bookings like this “flights to nowhere,”1 and I’ve now taken enough of them to realize I may have a bit of a flying problem.
My introduction, as far as I can remember, took place at a 1997 air show at College Park’s airport–the oldest continuously-operated airfield in the world–at which I recall paying $20 in cash for a flight in what years-later searching suggests was a Stearman Model 75 Kaydet biplane.
I then went almost 16 years before the next such flight, my Lake Union joyride–and then followed that days later with a balloon excursion above Sonoma County, Calif., that remains my slowest-ever aviation experience.
2014 bought a work-related flight to nowhere, a hop out of Austin during SXSW on the inflight WiFi operator Gogo’s business jet. That company invited me to try out the ground-to-air connectivity on this Canadair CL-600 by texting people, so I taunted a friend on the ground with “I’m texting you from a private jet. How are you?” and got the reply I deserved.
I had another Gogo flight to AUS and back in 2016 on the 737-500 that Gogo had acquired in the meantime, on which I saw a travel journalist successfully ask the pilots for a chance to experience takeoff in the cockpit jumpseat. That led me to make the same request before another Gogo flight on that 737 in 2017, treating me to an EWR-departure experience unlike any other.
In 2019, a friend took my wife and I on a tour above Sonoma County in his Diamond Star DA40 single-engine, four-seat aircraft. That remains my smallest-plane experience, and the only one in which I got to touch the controls. Briefly.
In 2021, I had my loudest-plane experience when I spent $450 to fly on a 1945-vintage B-25 bomber out of Hagerstown, Md., my only flight to date to allow a view from a tail gunner’s seat.
And in 2023, JSX treated me and other invited journalists to a DAL-DAL hop to try out Starlink WiFi on an Embraer 145.
The last two years tacked on ORD-ORD and LAX-LAX flights courtesy of United Airlines to test their deployment of Starlink on an Embraer 175 and then a Boeing 737. And with this week’s joyride above British Columbia’s metropolis, I have to accept that I’ve developed a moderately expensive habit here.
Which is okay with me.
- The bad kind of “flight to nowhere” involves a long-haul international flight that experiences some sort of malfunction that requires returning to the departure airport, even if that requires backtracking across much of an ocean. ↩︎
-
Flights to nowhere can be fun
I hadn’t planned on my brief visit to Vancouver for Web Summit’s second annual conference there to include any flying between my landing at Vancouver International Airport Monday and my departure from YVR Thursday morning. But sometimes, your event schedule has a gap just large enough for somebody to pilot a floatplane through.
That idea of taking an aerial tour of Vancouver got lodged in my head at Web Summit Vancouver last May–when I found myself distracted by aircraft departing from and arriving at Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre, next to the convention center and its bitmapped-orca Douglas Coupland sculpture.
And as I was nearing the end of my first five appointments on an overscheduled Tuesday, I realized that a) I had almost two hours before my next appointment and b) the weather looked ideal for flying, at least compared to Wednesday morning’s forecast of clouds and possibly rain. So I booked a 20-minute tour flight on Harbour Air’s site at what seemed a workable time before I had to walk a few blocks away for an offsite panel.
The flight on this 67-year-old de Havilland DHC-3T Turbine Otter was what I hoped and expected it to be, going from my experience taking a floatplane ride above Seattle out of Lake Union 13 years ago. Taking to the air and returning from it without solid ground below the wing feels like cheating at flying; being in a plane small enough where you can see the pilot adjust the controls and almost immediately see and feel the aircraft respond provides an extraordinary demonstration of aerodynamics at work; the views from a large and non-pressurized window maybe 1,000 feet above ground are magical.
(The timing of this particular flight was less than magical, in the sense that it seemed that Harbour consolidated its 3 and 3:15 p.m. tour flights into one that departed at 3:20 and then left me hustling to get to my panel. I’ll expand on my avoidable scheduling fail in this Sunday’s weekly recap.)
Avgeeks sometimes call out-and-back bookings like this “flights to nowhere,”1 and I’ve now taken enough of them to realize I may have a bit of a flying problem.
My introduction, as far as I can remember, took place at a 1997 air show at College Park’s airport–the oldest continuously-operated airfield in the world–at which I recall paying $20 in cash for a flight in what years-later searching suggests was a Stearman Model 75 Kaydet biplane.
I then went almost 16 years before the next such flight, my Lake Union joyride–and then followed that days later with a balloon excursion above Sonoma County, Calif., that remains my slowest-ever aviation experience.
2014 bought a work-related flight to nowhere, a hop out of Austin during SXSW on the inflight WiFi operator Gogo’s business jet. That company invited me to try out the ground-to-air connectivity on this Canadair CL-600 by texting people, so I taunted a friend on the ground with “I’m texting you from a private jet. How are you?” and got the reply I deserved.
I had another Gogo flight to AUS and back in 2016 on the 737-500 that Gogo had acquired in the meantime, on which I saw a travel journalist successfully ask the pilots for a chance to experience takeoff in the cockpit jumpseat. That led me to make the same request before another Gogo flight on that 737 in 2017, treating me to an EWR-departure experience unlike any other.
In 2019, a friend took my wife and I on a tour above Sonoma County in his Diamond Star DA40 single-engine, four-seat aircraft. That remains my smallest-plane experience, and the only one in which I got to touch the controls. Briefly.
In 2021, I had my loudest-plane experience when I spent $450 to fly on a 1945-vintage B-25 bomber out of Hagerstown, Md., my only flight to date to allow a view from a tail gunner’s seat.
And in 2023, JSX treated me and other invited journalists to a DAL-DAL hop to try out Starlink WiFi on an Embraer 145.
The last two years tacked on ORD-ORD and LAX-LAX flights courtesy of United Airlines to test their deployment of Starlink on an Embraer 175 and then a Boeing 737. And with this week’s joyride above British Columbia’s metropolis, I have to accept that I’ve developed a moderately expensive habit here.
Which is okay with me.
- The bad kind of “flight to nowhere” involves a long-haul international flight that experiences some sort of malfunction that requires returning to the departure airport, even if that requires backtracking across much of an ocean. ↩︎
-
Flights to nowhere can be fun
I hadn’t planned on my brief visit to Vancouver for Web Summit’s second annual conference there to include any flying between my landing at Vancouver International Airport Monday and my departure from YVR Thursday morning. But sometimes, your event schedule has a gap just large enough for somebody to pilot a floatplane through.
That idea of taking an aerial tour of Vancouver got lodged in my head at Web Summit Vancouver last May–when I found myself distracted by aircraft departing from and arriving at Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre, next to the convention center and its bitmapped-orca Douglas Coupland sculpture.
And as I was nearing the end of my first five appointments on an overscheduled Tuesday, I realized that a) I had almost two hours before my next appointment and b) the weather looked ideal for flying, at least compared to Wednesday morning’s forecast of clouds and possibly rain. So I booked a 20-minute tour flight on Harbour Air’s site at what seemed a workable time before I had to walk a few blocks away for an offsite panel.
The flight on this 67-year-old de Havilland DHC-3T Turbine Otter was what I hoped and expected it to be, going from my experience taking a floatplane ride above Seattle out of Lake Union 13 years ago. Taking to the air and returning from it without solid ground below the wing feels like cheating at flying; being in a plane small enough where you can see the pilot adjust the controls and almost immediately see and feel the aircraft respond provides an extraordinary demonstration of aerodynamics at work; the views from a large and non-pressurized window maybe 1,000 feet above ground are magical.
(The timing of this particular flight was less than magical, in the sense that it seemed that Harbour consolidated its 3 and 3:15 p.m. tour flights into one that departed at 3:20 and then left me hustling to get to my panel. I’ll expand on my avoidable scheduling fail in this Sunday’s weekly recap.)
Avgeeks sometimes call out-and-back bookings like this “flights to nowhere,”1 and I’ve now taken enough of them to realize I may have a bit of a flying problem.
My introduction, as far as I can remember, took place at a 1997 air show at College Park’s airport–the oldest continuously-operated airfield in the world–at which I recall paying $20 in cash for a flight in what years-later searching suggests was a Stearman Model 75 Kaydet biplane.
I then went almost 16 years before the next such flight, my Lake Union joyride–and then followed that days later with a balloon excursion above Sonoma County, Calif., that remains my slowest-ever aviation experience.
2014 bought a work-related flight to nowhere, a hop out of Austin during SXSW on the inflight WiFi operator Gogo’s business jet. That company invited me to try out the ground-to-air connectivity on this Canadair CL-600 by texting people, so I taunted a friend on the ground with “I’m texting you from a private jet. How are you?” and got the reply I deserved.
I had another Gogo flight to AUS and back in 2016 on the 737-500 that Gogo had acquired in the meantime, on which I saw a travel journalist successfully ask the pilots for a chance to experience takeoff in the cockpit jumpseat. That led me to make the same request before another Gogo flight on that 737 in 2017, treating me to an EWR-departure experience unlike any other.
In 2019, a friend took my wife and I on a tour above Sonoma County in his Diamond Star DA40 single-engine, four-seat aircraft. That remains my smallest-plane experience, and the only one in which I got to touch the controls. Briefly.
In 2021, I had my loudest-plane experience when I spent $450 to fly on a 1945-vintage B-25 bomber out of Hagerstown, Md., my only flight to date to allow a view from a tail gunner’s seat.
And in 2023, JSX treated me and other invited journalists to a DAL-DAL hop to try out Starlink WiFi on an Embraer 145.
The last two years tacked on ORD-ORD and LAX-LAX flights courtesy of United Airlines to test their deployment of Starlink on an Embraer 175 and then a Boeing 737. And with this week’s joyride above British Columbia’s metropolis, I have to accept that I’ve developed a moderately expensive habit here.
Which is okay with me.
- The bad kind of “flight to nowhere” involves a long-haul international flight that experiences some sort of malfunction that requires returning to the departure airport, even if that requires backtracking across much of an ocean. ↩︎
-
Flights to nowhere can be fun
I hadn’t planned on my brief visit to Vancouver for Web Summit’s second annual conference there to include any flying between my landing at Vancouver International Airport Monday and my departure from YVR Thursday morning. But sometimes, your event schedule has a gap just large enough for somebody to pilot a floatplane through.
That idea of taking an aerial tour of Vancouver got lodged in my head at Web Summit Vancouver last May–when I found myself distracted by aircraft departing from and arriving at Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre, next to the convention center and its bitmapped-orca Douglas Coupland sculpture.
And as I was nearing the end of my first five appointments on an overscheduled Tuesday, I realized that a) I had almost two hours before my next appointment and b) the weather looked ideal for flying, at least compared to Wednesday morning’s forecast of clouds and possibly rain. So I booked a 20-minute tour flight on Harbour Air’s site at what seemed a workable time before I had to walk a few blocks away for an offsite panel.
The flight on this 67-year-old de Havilland DHC-3T Turbine Otter was what I hoped and expected it to be, going from my experience taking a floatplane ride above Seattle out of Lake Union 13 years ago. Taking to the air and returning from it without solid ground below the wing feels like cheating at flying; being in a plane small enough where you can see the pilot adjust the controls and almost immediately see and feel the aircraft respond provides an extraordinary demonstration of aerodynamics at work; the views from a large and non-pressurized window maybe 1,000 feet above ground are magical.
(The timing of this particular flight was less than magical, in the sense that it seemed that Harbour consolidated its 3 and 3:15 p.m. tour flights into one that departed at 3:20 and then left me hustling to get to my panel. I’ll expand on my avoidable scheduling fail in this Sunday’s weekly recap.)
Avgeeks sometimes call out-and-back bookings like this “flights to nowhere,”1 and I’ve now taken enough of them to realize I may have a bit of a flying problem.
My introduction, as far as I can remember, took place at a 1997 air show at College Park’s airport–the oldest continuously-operated airfield in the world–at which I recall paying $20 in cash for a flight in what years-later searching suggests was a Stearman Model 75 Kaydet biplane.
I then went almost 16 years before the next such flight, my Lake Union joyride–and then followed that days later with a balloon excursion above Sonoma County, Calif., that remains my slowest-ever aviation experience.
2014 bought a work-related flight to nowhere, a hop out of Austin during SXSW on the inflight WiFi operator Gogo’s business jet. That company invited me to try out the ground-to-air connectivity on this Canadair CL-600 by texting people, so I taunted a friend on the ground with “I’m texting you from a private jet. How are you?” and got the reply I deserved.
I had another Gogo flight to AUS and back in 2016 on the 737-500 that Gogo had acquired in the meantime, on which I saw a travel journalist successfully ask the pilots for a chance to experience takeoff in the cockpit jumpseat. That led me to make the same request before another Gogo flight on that 737 in 2017, treating me to an EWR-departure experience unlike any other.
In 2019, a friend took my wife and I on a tour above Sonoma County in his Diamond Star DA40 single-engine, four-seat aircraft. That remains my smallest-plane experience, and the only one in which I got to touch the controls. Briefly.
In 2021, I had my loudest-plane experience when I spent $450 to fly on a 1945-vintage B-25 bomber out of Hagerstown, Md., my only flight to date to allow a view from a tail gunner’s seat.
And in 2023, JSX treated me and other invited journalists to a DAL-DAL hop to try out Starlink WiFi on an Embraer 145.
The last two years tacked on ORD-ORD and LAX-LAX flights courtesy of United Airlines to test their deployment of Starlink on an Embraer 175 and then a Boeing 737. And with this week’s joyride above British Columbia’s metropolis, I have to accept that I’ve developed a moderately expensive habit here.
Which is okay with me.
- The bad kind of “flight to nowhere” involves a long-haul international flight that experiences some sort of malfunction that requires returning to the departure airport, even if that requires backtracking across much of an ocean. ↩︎
-
Flights to nowhere can be fun
I hadn’t planned on my brief visit to Vancouver for Web Summit’s second annual conference there to include any flying between my landing at Vancouver International Airport Monday and my departure from YVR Thursday morning. But sometimes, your event schedule has a gap just large enough for somebody to pilot a floatplane through.
That idea of taking an aerial tour of Vancouver got lodged in my head at Web Summit Vancouver last May–when I found myself distracted by aircraft departing from and arriving at Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre, next to the convention center and its bitmapped-orca Douglas Coupland sculpture.
And as I was nearing the end of my first five appointments on an overscheduled Tuesday, I realized that a) I had almost two hours before my next appointment and b) the weather looked ideal for flying, at least compared to Wednesday morning’s forecast of clouds and possibly rain. So I booked a 20-minute tour flight on Harbour Air’s site at what seemed a workable time before I had to walk a few blocks away for an offsite panel.
The flight on this 67-year-old de Havilland DHC-3T Turbine Otter was what I hoped and expected it to be, going from my experience taking a floatplane ride above Seattle out of Lake Union 13 years ago. Taking to the air and returning from it without solid ground below the wing feels like cheating at flying; being in a plane small enough where you can see the pilot adjust the controls and almost immediately see and feel the aircraft respond provides an extraordinary demonstration of aerodynamics at work; the views from a large and non-pressurized window maybe 1,000 feet above ground are magical.
(The timing of this particular flight was less than magical, in the sense that it seemed that Harbour consolidated its 3 and 3:15 p.m. tour flights into one that departed at 3:20 and then left me hustling to get to my panel. I’ll expand on my avoidable scheduling fail in this Sunday’s weekly recap.)
Avgeeks sometimes call out-and-back bookings like this “flights to nowhere,”1 and I’ve now taken enough of them to realize I may have a bit of a flying problem.
My introduction, as far as I can remember, took place at a 1997 air show at College Park’s airport–the oldest continuously-operated airfield in the world–at which I recall paying $20 in cash for a flight in what years-later searching suggests was a Stearman Model 75 Kaydet biplane.
I then went almost 16 years before the next such flight, my Lake Union joyride–and then followed that days later with a balloon excursion above Sonoma County, Calif., that remains my slowest-ever aviation experience.
2014 bought a work-related flight to nowhere, a hop out of Austin during SXSW on the inflight WiFi operator Gogo’s business jet. That company invited me to try out the ground-to-air connectivity on this Canadair CL-600 by texting people, so I taunted a friend on the ground with “I’m texting you from a private jet. How are you?” and got the reply I deserved.
I had another Gogo flight to AUS and back in 2016 on the 737-500 that Gogo had acquired in the meantime, on which I saw a travel journalist successfully ask the pilots for a chance to experience takeoff in the cockpit jumpseat. That led me to make the same request before another Gogo flight on that 737 in 2017, treating me to an EWR-departure experience unlike any other.
In 2019, a friend took my wife and I on a tour above Sonoma County in his Diamond Star DA40 single-engine, four-seat aircraft. That remains my smallest-plane experience, and the only one in which I got to touch the controls. Briefly.
In 2021, I had my loudest-plane experience when I spent $450 to fly on a 1945-vintage B-25 bomber out of Hagerstown, Md., my only flight to date to allow a view from a tail gunner’s seat.
And in 2023, JSX treated me and other invited journalists to a DAL-DAL hop to try out Starlink WiFi on an Embraer 145.
The last two years tacked on ORD-ORD and LAX-LAX flights courtesy of United Airlines to test their deployment of Starlink on an Embraer 175 and then a Boeing 737. And with this week’s joyride above British Columbia’s metropolis, I have to accept that I’ve developed a moderately expensive habit here.
Which is okay with me.
- The bad kind of “flight to nowhere” involves a long-haul international flight that experiences some sort of malfunction that requires returning to the departure airport, even if that requires backtracking across much of an ocean. ↩︎
-
Weekly output: Mozilla Firefox CEO, AI crawlers vs. publishers and creators, teenage AI chatbot use, Android Live Emergency Video, PCMag’s best tech bought in 2025, World App
Somehow I’m down to the last full workweek of the year–and yet my writing and gift shopping seem to have more than a week’s worth of work remaining.
12/8/2025: Mozilla is doing a delicate dance with AI, Fast Company
I spoke with Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers at a Web Summit event for the second time this year. One thing Firefox’s management no longer needs to worry about, unlike when I met with Chambers at Web Summit Qatar in February: the threat of Google being forced to stop paying browser developers to keep its search engine as the default.
12/9/2025: AI Platforms Are Paying (Some) Big Publishers, Leaving Smaller Ones Behind, PCMag
This post began with me taking notes from a Web Summit panel featuring Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince talking about that Internet infrastructure company’s Pay Per Crawl initiative to push AI providers to pay Web publishers for access to their content, then I did some follow-up reporting that included setting up Cloudflare’s AI Crawl Control bot-blocking filter on this blog, and then I had to update the post the morning it was published after the European Commission opened an investigation into how Google runs its AI Overview search feature.
12/9/2025: 28% of Teens Use Chatbots Daily. You Can Probably Guess Which One They Like Best, PCMag
The latest survey by the Pew Research Center surfaced some interesting statistics about how much teenagers use AI chatbots and which ones they use the most.
12/10/2025: Need Help? Android Phones Can Now Share Live Video With 911 Dispatchers, PCMag
Google is shipping this feature a year after Apple did, but its emergency live video implementation works on far more devices than Apple’s.
12/11/2025: The Best Tech PCMag Editors Bought in 2025, PCMag
I wrote a short graf lauding the compact, quick-charging (and Wirecutter-endorsed) USB-C charger that I bought after losing the considerably bulkier model that came with my laptop.
12/13/2025: App That Verifies Your Existence Adds Encrypted Messaging, PCMag
Tools for Humanity announced an update to its World App that adds an end-to-end-encrypted chat feature and expands its cryptocurrency tools. I took advantage of this news peg to try out the app’s ability to verify a “World ID” by scanning the NFC tag on my U.S. passport; that did not go well at all for me.
12/15/2025: Updated to add the PCMag best-tech package that I forgot to check for on Sunday.
#AIChatbot #AIOverview #AISearch #ChatGPT #Firefox #GoogleZero #Mozilla #PayPerCrawl #PewResearchCenter #ToolsForHumanity #WebSummit #WorldApp #WorldID
-
Weekly output: Mozilla Firefox CEO, AI crawlers vs. publishers and creators, teenage AI chatbot use, Android Live Emergency Video, PCMag’s best tech bought in 2025, World App
Somehow I’m down to the last full workweek of the year–and yet my writing and gift shopping seem to have more than a week’s worth of work remaining.
12/8/2025: Mozilla is doing a delicate dance with AI, Fast Company
I spoke with Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers at a Web Summit event for the second time this year. One thing Firefox’s management no longer needs to worry about, unlike when I met with Chambers at Web Summit Qatar in February: the threat of Google being forced to stop paying browser developers to keep its search engine as the default.
12/9/2025: AI Platforms Are Paying (Some) Big Publishers, Leaving Smaller Ones Behind, PCMag
This post began with me taking notes from a Web Summit panel featuring Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince talking about that Internet infrastructure company’s Pay Per Crawl initiative to push AI providers to pay Web publishers for access to their content, then I did some follow-up reporting that included setting up Cloudflare’s AI Crawl Control bot-blocking filter on this blog, and then I had to update the post the morning it was published after the European Commission opened an investigation into how Google runs its AI Overview search feature.
12/9/2025: 28% of Teens Use Chatbots Daily. You Can Probably Guess Which One They Like Best, PCMag
The latest survey by the Pew Research Center surfaced some interesting statistics about how much teenagers use AI chatbots and which ones they use the most.
12/10/2025: Need Help? Android Phones Can Now Share Live Video With 911 Dispatchers, PCMag
Google is shipping this feature a year after Apple did, but its emergency live video implementation works on far more devices than Apple’s.
12/11/2025: The Best Tech PCMag Editors Bought in 2025, PCMag
I wrote a short graf lauding the compact, quick-charging (and Wirecutter-endorsed) USB-C charger that I bought after losing the considerably bulkier model that came with my laptop.
12/13/2025: App That Verifies Your Existence Adds Encrypted Messaging, PCMag
Tools for Humanity announced an update to its World App that adds an end-to-end-encrypted chat feature and expands its cryptocurrency tools. I took advantage of this news peg to try out the app’s ability to verify a “World ID” by scanning the NFC tag on my U.S. passport; that did not go well at all for me.
12/15/2025: Updated to add the PCMag best-tech package that I forgot to check for on Sunday.
#AIChatbot #AIOverview #AISearch #ChatGPT #Firefox #GoogleZero #Mozilla #PayPerCrawl #PewResearchCenter #ToolsForHumanity #WebSummit #WorldApp #WorldID
-
Weekly output: Mozilla Firefox CEO, AI crawlers vs. publishers and creators, teenage AI chatbot use, Android Live Emergency Video, PCMag’s best tech bought in 2025, World App
Somehow I’m down to the last full workweek of the year–and yet my writing and gift shopping seem to have more than a week’s worth of work remaining.
12/8/2025: Mozilla is doing a delicate dance with AI, Fast Company
I spoke with Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers at a Web Summit event for the second time this year. One thing Firefox’s management no longer needs to worry about, unlike when I met with Chambers at Web Summit Qatar in February: the threat of Google being forced to stop paying browser developers to keep its search engine as the default.
12/9/2025: AI Platforms Are Paying (Some) Big Publishers, Leaving Smaller Ones Behind, PCMag
This post began with me taking notes from a Web Summit panel featuring Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince talking about that Internet infrastructure company’s Pay Per Crawl initiative to push AI providers to pay Web publishers for access to their content, then I did some follow-up reporting that included setting up Cloudflare’s AI Crawl Control bot-blocking filter on this blog, and then I had to update the post the morning it was published after the European Commission opened an investigation into how Google runs its AI Overview search feature.
12/9/2025: 28% of Teens Use Chatbots Daily. You Can Probably Guess Which One They Like Best, PCMag
The latest survey by the Pew Research Center surfaced some interesting statistics about how much teenagers use AI chatbots and which ones they use the most.
12/10/2025: Need Help? Android Phones Can Now Share Live Video With 911 Dispatchers, PCMag
Google is shipping this feature a year after Apple did, but its emergency live video implementation works on far more devices than Apple’s.
12/11/2025: The Best Tech PCMag Editors Bought in 2025, PCMag
I wrote a short graf lauding the compact, quick-charging (and Wirecutter-endorsed) USB-C charger that I bought after losing the considerably bulkier model that came with my laptop.
12/13/2025: App That Verifies Your Existence Adds Encrypted Messaging, PCMag
Tools for Humanity announced an update to its World App that adds an end-to-end-encrypted chat feature and expands its cryptocurrency tools. I took advantage of this news peg to try out the app’s ability to verify a “World ID” by scanning the NFC tag on my U.S. passport; that did not go well at all for me.
12/15/2025: Updated to add the PCMag best-tech package that I forgot to check for on Sunday.
#AIChatbot #AIOverview #AISearch #ChatGPT #Firefox #GoogleZero #Mozilla #PayPerCrawl #PewResearchCenter #ToolsForHumanity #WebSummit #WorldApp #WorldID
-
Weekly output: Mozilla Firefox CEO, AI crawlers vs. publishers and creators, teenage AI chatbot use, Android Live Emergency Video, PCMag’s best tech bought in 2025, World App
Somehow I’m down to the last full workweek of the year–and yet my writing and gift shopping seem to have more than a week’s worth of work remaining.
12/8/2025: Mozilla is doing a delicate dance with AI, Fast Company
I spoke with Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers at a Web Summit event for the second time this year. One thing Firefox’s management no longer needs to worry about, unlike when I met with Chambers at Web Summit Qatar in February: the threat of Google being forced to stop paying browser developers to keep its search engine as the default.
12/9/2025: AI Platforms Are Paying (Some) Big Publishers, Leaving Smaller Ones Behind, PCMag
This post began with me taking notes from a Web Summit panel featuring Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince talking about that Internet infrastructure company’s Pay Per Crawl initiative to push AI providers to pay Web publishers for access to their content, then I did some follow-up reporting that included setting up Cloudflare’s AI Crawl Control bot-blocking filter on this blog, and then I had to update the post the morning it was published after the European Commission opened an investigation into how Google runs its AI Overview search feature.
12/9/2025: 28% of Teens Use Chatbots Daily. You Can Probably Guess Which One They Like Best, PCMag
The latest survey by the Pew Research Center surfaced some interesting statistics about how much teenagers use AI chatbots and which ones they use the most.
12/10/2025: Need Help? Android Phones Can Now Share Live Video With 911 Dispatchers, PCMag
Google is shipping this feature a year after Apple did, but its emergency live video implementation works on far more devices than Apple’s.
12/11/2025: The Best Tech PCMag Editors Bought in 2025, PCMag
I wrote a short graf lauding the compact, quick-charging (and Wirecutter-endorsed) USB-C charger that I bought after losing the considerably bulkier model that came with my laptop.
12/13/2025: App That Verifies Your Existence Adds Encrypted Messaging, PCMag
Tools for Humanity announced an update to its World App that adds an end-to-end-encrypted chat feature and expands its cryptocurrency tools. I took advantage of this news peg to try out the app’s ability to verify a “World ID” by scanning the NFC tag on my U.S. passport; that did not go well at all for me.
12/15/2025: Updated to add the PCMag best-tech package that I forgot to check for on Sunday.
#AIChatbot #AIOverview #AISearch #ChatGPT #Firefox #GoogleZero #Mozilla #PayPerCrawl #PewResearchCenter #ToolsForHumanity #WebSummit #WorldApp #WorldID
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Maybe you shouldn’t take WiFi advice from me
Sunday, I set up a new wireless router at home–the second time I’ve done that in less than two years. I am not proud of that fact, even if the most recent WiFi router cost us nothing and even knocked $5 a month off our broadband bill.
That cost savings–the product of a June 2024 Verizon Fios pricing revamp that I took embarrassingly long to capitalize on–would have been motivation enough to take that company up on its offer of a zero-cost WiFi 6E Verizon Router. But I was also tired of seeing wireless reception in my home office flicker in and out.
That was a problem I’d hoped to solve with my December 2023 purchase of a Synology WRX560 WiFi 6 router, which itself was an attempt to fix reception problems that had persisted after I’d bought an Asus RT-AX3000 in April of 2020. That, in turn, was a response to the pandemic overloading an older Asus router that I’d somehow kept in service since 2012.
But the bandwidth that makes its way to the Mac mini and other computers in my home workspace, about the farthest point in our small, old house from the router behind the living-room TV, remains a tiny fraction of our 300 Mbps fiber-optic connection. Even if the latest wireless link seems slightly less likely to glitch out during a Zoom call.
I tried dusting off the 2012-vintage Asus model that I’d somehow kept around to set it up as a wireless bridge that would pick up my WiFi with (presumably) better antennas than whatever Apple has tucked inside the Mac mini and then relay it to that computer via Ethernet. But that option, apparently unavailable on the Synology router, has only yielded a modest improvement… which means that everybody who has been telling me all along to set up a mesh WiFi network should go ahead and laugh at my unwillingness to take their advice.
In my defense, our house still seems too small to require a mesh network. But there must be enough plaster walls with enough metal inside them between downstairs and upstairs to bog down reception this badly.
While I research my options–inconveniently enough, Wirecutter and PCMag don’t recommend the same sets of mesh routers–I have appreciated the opportunity to inspect the WiFi experience Verizon provides for its customers.
Overall: not bad. The router could use a fourth Ethernet port, but the companion Verizon Home app does a lot to simplify network management by surfacing more detailed identifications of devices on the network than Synology’s DS router app could. Verizon’s app also requires fewer taps to rename those gadgets (but not change their icon), group them by room, and apply time limits.
And then the app clearly identifies problem performers by adding a red “Weak signal” label to devices with poor connectivity. One consistent example: this Mac.
#AsusRouter #Ethernet #Fios #FiosRouter #meshNetwork #meshWiFi #SynologyRouter #SynologyWRX560 #verizon #VerizonHomeApp #WiFi #WiFi #WiFi6 #WiFi6E #wirelessBridge
-
Maybe you shouldn’t take WiFi advice from me
Sunday, I set up a new wireless router at home–the second time I’ve done that in less than two years. I am not proud of that fact, even if the most recent WiFi router cost us nothing and even knocked $5 a month off our broadband bill.
That cost savings–the product of a June 2024 Verizon Fios pricing revamp that I took embarrassingly long to capitalize on–would have been motivation enough to take that company up on its offer of a zero-cost WiFi 6E Verizon Router. But I was also tired of seeing wireless reception in my home office flicker in and out.
That was a problem I’d hoped to solve with my December 2023 purchase of a Synology WRX560 WiFi 6 router, which itself was an attempt to fix reception problems that had persisted after I’d bought an Asus RT-AX3000 in April of 2020. That, in turn, was a response to the pandemic overloading an older Asus router that I’d somehow kept in service since 2012.
But the bandwidth that makes its way to the Mac mini and other computers in my home workspace, about the farthest point in our small, old house from the router behind the living-room TV, remains a tiny fraction of our 300 Mbps fiber-optic connection. Even if the latest wireless link seems slightly less likely to glitch out during a Zoom call.
I tried dusting off the 2012-vintage Asus model that I’d somehow kept around to set it up as a wireless bridge that would pick up my WiFi with (presumably) better antennas than whatever Apple has tucked inside the Mac mini and then relay it to that computer via Ethernet. But that option, apparently unavailable on the Synology router, has only yielded a modest improvement… which means that everybody who has been telling me all along to set up a mesh WiFi network should go ahead and laugh at my unwillingness to take their advice.
In my defense, our house still seems too small to require a mesh network. But there must be enough plaster walls with enough metal inside them between downstairs and upstairs to bog down reception this badly.
While I research my options–inconveniently enough, Wirecutter and PCMag don’t recommend the same sets of mesh routers–I have appreciated the opportunity to inspect the WiFi experience Verizon provides for its customers.
Overall: not bad. The router could use a fourth Ethernet port, but the companion Verizon Home app does a lot to simplify network management by surfacing more detailed identifications of devices on the network than Synology’s DS router app could. Verizon’s app also requires fewer taps to rename those gadgets (but not change their icon), group them by room, and apply time limits.
And then the app clearly identifies problem performers by adding a red “Weak signal” label to devices with poor connectivity. One consistent example: this Mac.
#AsusRouter #Ethernet #Fios #FiosRouter #meshNetwork #meshWiFi #SynologyRouter #SynologyWRX560 #verizon #VerizonHomeApp #WiFi #WiFi #WiFi6 #WiFi6E #wirelessBridge
-
Maybe you shouldn’t take WiFi advice from me
Sunday, I set up a new wireless router at home–the second time I’ve done that in less than two years. I am not proud of that fact, even if the most recent WiFi router cost us nothing and even knocked $5 a month off our broadband bill.
That cost savings–the product of a June 2024 Verizon Fios pricing revamp that I took embarrassingly long to capitalize on–would have been motivation enough to take that company up on its offer of a zero-cost WiFi 6E Verizon Router. But I was also tired of seeing wireless reception in my home office flicker in and out.
That was a problem I’d hoped to solve with my December 2023 purchase of a Synology WRX560 WiFi 6 router, which itself was an attempt to fix reception problems that had persisted after I’d bought an Asus RT-AX3000 in April of 2020. That, in turn, was a response to the pandemic overloading an older Asus router that I’d somehow kept in service since 2012.
But the bandwidth that makes its way to the Mac mini and other computers in my home workspace, about the farthest point in our small, old house from the router behind the living-room TV, remains a tiny fraction of our 300 Mbps fiber-optic connection. Even if the latest wireless link seems slightly less likely to glitch out during a Zoom call.
I tried dusting off the 2012-vintage Asus model that I’d somehow kept around to set it up as a wireless bridge that would pick up my WiFi with (presumably) better antennas than whatever Apple has tucked inside the Mac mini and then relay it to that computer via Ethernet. But that option, apparently unavailable on the Synology router, has only yielded a modest improvement… which means that everybody who has been telling me all along to set up a mesh WiFi network should go ahead and laugh at my unwillingness to take their advice.
In my defense, our house still seems too small to require a mesh network. But there must be enough plaster walls with enough metal inside them between downstairs and upstairs to bog down reception this badly.
While I research my options–inconveniently enough, Wirecutter and PCMag don’t recommend the same sets of mesh routers–I have appreciated the opportunity to inspect the WiFi experience Verizon provides for its customers.
Overall: not bad. The router could use a fourth Ethernet port, but the companion Verizon Home app does a lot to simplify network management by surfacing more detailed identifications of devices on the network than Synology’s DS router app could. Verizon’s app also requires fewer taps to rename those gadgets (but not change their icon), group them by room, and apply time limits.
And then the app clearly identifies problem performers by adding a red “Weak signal” label to devices with poor connectivity. One consistent example: this Mac.
#AsusRouter #Ethernet #Fios #FiosRouter #meshNetwork #meshWiFi #SynologyRouter #SynologyWRX560 #verizon #VerizonHomeApp #WiFi #WiFi #WiFi6 #WiFi6E #wirelessBridge
-
Maybe you shouldn’t take WiFi advice from me
Sunday, I set up a new wireless router at home–the second time I’ve done that in less than two years. I am not proud of that fact, even if the most recent WiFi router cost us nothing and even knocked $5 a month off our broadband bill.
That cost savings–the product of a June 2024 Verizon Fios pricing revamp that I took embarrassingly long to capitalize on–would have been motivation enough to take that company up on its offer of a zero-cost WiFi 6E Verizon Router. But I was also tired of seeing wireless reception in my home office flicker in and out.
That was a problem I’d hoped to solve with my December 2023 purchase of a Synology WRX560 WiFi 6 router, which itself was an attempt to fix reception problems that had persisted after I’d bought an Asus RT-AX3000 in April of 2020. That, in turn, was a response to the pandemic overloading an older Asus router that I’d somehow kept in service since 2012.
But the bandwidth that makes its way to the Mac mini and other computers in my home workspace, about the farthest point in our small, old house from the router behind the living-room TV, remains a tiny fraction of our 300 Mbps fiber-optic connection. Even if the latest wireless link seems slightly less likely to glitch out during a Zoom call.
I tried dusting off the 2012-vintage Asus model that I’d somehow kept around to set it up as a wireless bridge that would pick up my WiFi with (presumably) better antennas than whatever Apple has tucked inside the Mac mini and then relay it to that computer via Ethernet. But that option, apparently unavailable on the Synology router, has only yielded a modest improvement… which means that everybody who has been telling me all along to set up a mesh WiFi network should go ahead and laugh at my unwillingness to take their advice.
In my defense, our house still seems too small to require a mesh network. But there must be enough plaster walls with enough metal inside them between downstairs and upstairs to bog down reception this badly.
While I research my options–inconveniently enough, Wirecutter and PCMag don’t recommend the same sets of mesh routers–I have appreciated the opportunity to inspect the WiFi experience Verizon provides for its customers.
Overall: not bad. The router could use a fourth Ethernet port, but the companion Verizon Home app does a lot to simplify network management by surfacing more detailed identifications of devices on the network than Synology’s DS router app could. Verizon’s app also requires fewer taps to rename those gadgets (but not change their icon), group them by room, and apply time limits.
And then the app clearly identifies problem performers by adding a red “Weak signal” label to devices with poor connectivity. One consistent example: this Mac.
#AsusRouter #Ethernet #Fios #FiosRouter #meshNetwork #meshWiFi #SynologyRouter #SynologyWRX560 #verizon #VerizonHomeApp #WiFi #WiFi #WiFi6 #WiFi6E #wirelessBridge
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D.C. has its issues, but armed soldiers from other states won’t solve them
After a week and change of wondering when a trip in or out of the D.C. would treat me to the sight of President Trump’s Aug. 11 decision to summon National Guard troops from the rest of the nation to serve as political props around the District, a Bikeshare commute for an event Tuesday provided visible proof: soldiers walking around Lafayette Square.
They were picking up trash.
Going to Union Station Friday afternoon provided a few more reminders: five soldiers, armed with pistols, standing on the upper level of Metro Center (one flashed a thumbs-up for a news photographer), and three outside Union Station, outnumbered by veterans under a tent with signs reminding current servicemembers of their duty to the Constitution.
I asked the three where they were from: Louisiana. After a bit of banter about the weather, I said I hoped they could get home to their families soon.
That’s not because I think the D.C. has crime1 solved–although it is down significantly across the city–but because soldiers are not the way to solve it. Law enforcement is not military service, those two professions have profoundly different missions and rules, and U.S. law has long prohibited using soldiers as cops for sound reasons.
The governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia who sent National Guard units to the District should know this, because multiple cities in their states have higher crime rates than D.C. If deploying armed National Guardsmen and women in urban areas helped stop murders, those governors would have done it already with a much smaller travel budget.
But sending a large contingent of soldiers carrying weapons into D.C. in particular does something else: advertise the president’s ability to treat my neighbors across the Potomac as subjects. While it seems clear that Trump broke the law when he sent National Guard units into Los Angeles without the permission of California’s government, the law expressly gives the president control of the D.C. National Guard, with zero input allowed to the District’s government.
Trump may think this show of force makes me nervous. If so, he’s wrong. It makes me angry. And it makes me even more convinced that the only way to end the abuse of power that Congress has also repeatedly enjoyed at the expense of the taxpaying people of D.C. is statehood for the people of D.C.
- My most direct experience of crime in D.C. came in February of 1996, when I was mugged at gunpoint on the sidewalk in front of my apartment building just off Connecticut Avenue. I had maybe $30 in my wallet; I then made far more than that by selling a moderately overwrought essay about the experience to the Post, a journalistic business model that I cannot recommend anybody try to repeat. ↩︎
#DC_ #DCStatehood #DistrictOfColumbia #militarized #NationalGuard #statehoodNow #TrumpNationalGuard #TrumpOccupation #Washington
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D.C. has its issues, but armed soldiers from other states won’t solve them
After a week and change of wondering when a trip in or out of the D.C. would treat me to the sight of President Trump’s Aug. 11 decision to summon National Guard troops from the rest of the nation to serve as political props around the District, a Bikeshare commute for an event Tuesday provided visible proof: soldiers walking around Lafayette Square.
They were picking up trash.
Going to Union Station Friday afternoon provided a few more reminders: five soldiers, armed with pistols, standing on the upper level of Metro Center (one flashed a thumbs-up for a news photographer), and three outside Union Station, outnumbered by veterans under a tent with signs reminding current servicemembers of their duty to the Constitution.
I asked the three where they were from: Louisiana. After a bit of banter about the weather, I said I hoped they could get home to their families soon.
That’s not because I think the D.C. has crime1 solved–although it is down significantly across the city–but because soldiers are not the way to solve it. Law enforcement is not military service, those two professions have profoundly different missions and rules, and U.S. law has long prohibited using soldiers as cops for sound reasons.
The governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia who sent National Guard units to the District should know this, because multiple cities in their states have higher crime rates than D.C. If deploying armed National Guardsmen and women in urban areas helped stop murders, those governors would have done it already with a much smaller travel budget.
But sending a large contingent of soldiers carrying weapons into D.C. in particular does something else: advertise the president’s ability to treat my neighbors across the Potomac as subjects. While it seems clear that Trump broke the law when he sent National Guard units into Los Angeles without the permission of California’s government, the law expressly gives the president control of the D.C. National Guard, with zero input allowed to the District’s government.
Trump may think this show of force makes me nervous. If so, he’s wrong. It makes me angry. And it makes me even more convinced that the only way to end the abuse of power that Congress has also repeatedly enjoyed at the expense of the taxpaying people of D.C. is statehood for the people of D.C.
- My most direct experience of crime in D.C. came in February of 1996, when I was mugged at gunpoint on the sidewalk in front of my apartment building just off Connecticut Avenue. I had maybe $30 in my wallet; I then made far more than that by selling a moderately overwrought essay about the experience to the Post, a journalistic business model that I cannot recommend anybody try to repeat. ↩︎
#DC_ #DCStatehood #DistrictOfColumbia #militarized #NationalGuard #statehoodNow #TrumpNationalGuard #TrumpOccupation #Washington
-
D.C. has its issues, but armed soldiers from other states won’t solve them
After a week and change of wondering when a trip in or out of the D.C. would treat me to the sight of President Trump’s Aug. 11 decision to summon National Guard troops from the rest of the nation to serve as political props around the District, a Bikeshare commute for an event Tuesday provided visible proof: soldiers walking around Lafayette Square.
They were picking up trash.
Going to Union Station Friday afternoon provided a few more reminders: five soldiers, armed with pistols, standing on the upper level of Metro Center (one flashed a thumbs-up for a news photographer), and three outside Union Station, outnumbered by veterans under a tent with signs reminding current servicemembers of their duty to the Constitution.
I asked the three where they were from: Louisiana. After a bit of banter about the weather, I said I hoped they could get home to their families soon.
That’s not because I think the D.C. has crime1 solved–although it is down significantly across the city–but because soldiers are not the way to solve it. Law enforcement is not military service, those two professions have profoundly different missions and rules, and U.S. law has long prohibited using soldiers as cops for sound reasons.
The governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia who sent National Guard units to the District should know this, because multiple cities in their states have higher crime rates than D.C. If deploying armed National Guardsmen and women in urban areas helped stop murders, those governors would have done it already with a much smaller travel budget.
But sending a large contingent of soldiers carrying weapons into D.C. in particular does something else: advertise the president’s ability to treat my neighbors across the Potomac as subjects. While it seems clear that Trump broke the law when he sent National Guard units into Los Angeles without the permission of California’s government, the law expressly gives the president control of the D.C. National Guard, with zero input allowed to the District’s government.
Trump may think this show of force makes me nervous. If so, he’s wrong. It makes me angry. And it makes me even more convinced that the only way to end the abuse of power that Congress has also repeatedly enjoyed at the expense of the taxpaying people of D.C. is statehood for the people of D.C.
- My most direct experience of crime in D.C. came in February of 1996, when I was mugged at gunpoint on the sidewalk in front of my apartment building just off Connecticut Avenue. I had maybe $30 in my wallet; I then made far more than that by selling a moderately overwrought essay about the experience to the Post, a journalistic business model that I cannot recommend anybody try to repeat. ↩︎
#DC_ #DCStatehood #DistrictOfColumbia #militarized #NationalGuard #statehoodNow #TrumpNationalGuard #TrumpOccupation #Washington
-
Since March, stovetop cooking hasn’t sounded the same in our kitchen. Instead of the click-click-click-poof of a gas burner igniting, turning recipe ingredients in a pan or pot into a meal begins with the beeps of buttons on a touch-sensitive display and then the pulsing buzz of an induction coil.
Replacing the gas range that had come with our house when we moved in 20 years ago, and which had become increasingly iffy about having two of its burners light, was an unquestionable part of finally getting the kitchen redone. Getting an induction range did not seem as obvious until some contemplation about how we’d want to end the need to burn fossil fuels in the house every day1 and learning more about the health risks of gas burners in unventilated kitchens.
Five months into cooking with the Bosch induction range2 we picked out, several impressions stand out:
- The cooking surfaces really do heat up quickly–I almost botched one of the first pots of rice I cooked when I didn’t realize the water was already boiling. If you cook pasta with any regularity, an induction cooktop is your new friend.
- Induction surfaces are also responsive in a way no gas burner is, almost immediately cooling down when you turn down or turn off the heat. They also let you keep a pan on minimal heat without worrying about gas flames blowing out.
- That buzzing noise can sound weird, especially when it’s louder with particular pieces of cookware for reasons that I have yet to figure out. On the other hand, I’ve decided that I like the beeps the touch controls make as I tap them; the experience feels a little like cooking on the bridge of NCC-1701-D.
- Not every pot or pan heats up as quickly. The All-Clad stainless-steel cookware we got with our wedding works great, as does the Wirecutter-endorsed nonstick pan we bought to replace one that wasn’t induction compatible (determined by a magnet not sticking to its underside). But the griddle pan we bought to retire another induction-incompatible model takes longer to heat up than I’d like.
- Because the cooktop is so smooth, a pot or pan will spin around or slide away from the induction element very easily. That unbroken surface, however, is also super-easy to clean.
- As you might expect with any stove swap, it takes some time to adjust muscle memory for one range’s output for another’s, which can be a issue for particularly temperature-sensitive recipes.
- The embedded electronics in an induction cooktop may make fussy moments possible, and I may have seen one happen after our kid left the oven on for too long after baking cookies. That apparently heated up the cooktop enough for it to balk at turning on a cooktop coil for a few minutes.
After those five months, I not only don’t miss cooking with gas but have been reminded of what I don’t miss when I’ve used other people’s gas stovetops where some burners don’t light up reliably. But it’s also easy for me to say that when we still have a gas grill on the back patio for the not-everyday experience of cooking with fire.
- Replacing the 2018-vintage gas furnace and water heater with more efficient heat-pump units will be a task for another year. ↩︎
- Yes, that is an expensive piece of hardware. And well worth it considering all of the time I spend in the kitchen! ↩︎
https://robpegoraro.com/2024/08/16/home-on-the-induction-range/
#Bosch #cookingWithGas #hob #homeElectrification #induction #inductionCooktop #inductionRange #inductionStove #magnetic
-
Since March, stovetop cooking hasn’t sounded the same in our kitchen. Instead of the click-click-click-poof of a gas burner igniting, turning recipe ingredients in a pan or pot into a meal begins with the beeps of buttons on a touch-sensitive display and then the pulsing buzz of an induction coil.
Replacing the gas range that had come with our house when we moved in 20 years ago, and which had become increasingly iffy about having two of its burners light, was an unquestionable part of finally getting the kitchen redone. Getting an induction range did not seem as obvious until some contemplation about how we’d want to end the need to burn fossil fuels in the house every day1 and learning more about the health risks of gas burners in unventilated kitchens.
Five months into cooking with the Bosch induction range2 we picked out, several impressions stand out:
- The cooking surfaces really do heat up quickly–I almost botched one of the first pots of rice I cooked when I didn’t realize the water was already boiling. If you cook pasta with any regularity, an induction cooktop is your new friend.
- Induction surfaces are also responsive in a way no gas burner is, almost immediately cooling down when you turn down or turn off the heat. They also let you keep a pan on minimal heat without worrying about gas flames blowing out.
- That buzzing noise can sound weird, especially when it’s louder with particular pieces of cookware for reasons that I have yet to figure out. On the other hand, I’ve decided that I like the beeps the touch controls make as I tap them; the experience feels a little like cooking on the bridge of NCC-1701-D.
- Not every pot or pan heats up as quickly. The All-Clad stainless-steel cookware we got with our wedding works great, as does the Wirecutter-endorsed nonstick pan we bought to replace one that wasn’t induction compatible (determined by a magnet not sticking to its underside). But the griddle pan we bought to retire another induction-incompatible model takes longer to heat up than I’d like.
- Because the cooktop is so smooth, a pot or pan will spin around or slide away from the induction element very easily. That unbroken surface, however, is also super-easy to clean.
- As you might expect with any stove swap, it takes some time to adjust muscle memory for one range’s output for another’s, which can be a issue for particularly temperature-sensitive recipes.
- The embedded electronics in an induction cooktop may make fussy moments possible, and I may have seen one happen after our kid left the oven on for too long after baking cookies. That apparently heated up the cooktop enough for it to balk at turning on a cooktop coil for a few minutes.
After those five months, I not only don’t miss cooking with gas but have been reminded of what I don’t miss when I’ve used other people’s gas stovetops where some burners don’t light up reliably. But it’s also easy for me to say that when we still have a gas grill on the back patio for the not-everyday experience of cooking with fire.
- Replacing the 2018-vintage gas furnace and water heater with more efficient heat-pump units will be a task for another year. ↩︎
- Yes, that is an expensive piece of hardware. And well worth it considering all of the time I spend in the kitchen! ↩︎
https://robpegoraro.com/2024/08/16/home-on-the-induction-range/
#Bosch #cookingWithGas #decarbonization #hob #homeElectrification #induction #inductionCooktop #inductionRange #inductionStove #magnetic #stovetop
-
Since March, stovetop cooking hasn’t sounded the same in our kitchen. Instead of the click-click-click-poof of a gas burner igniting, turning recipe ingredients in a pan or pot into a meal begins with the beeps of buttons on a touch-sensitive display and then the pulsing buzz of an induction coil.
Replacing the gas range that had come with our house when we moved in 20 years ago, and which had become increasingly iffy about having two of its burners light, was an unquestionable part of finally getting the kitchen redone. Getting an induction range did not seem as obvious until some contemplation about how we’d want to end the need to burn fossil fuels in the house every day1 and learning more about the health risks of gas burners in unventilated kitchens.
Five months into cooking with the Bosch induction range2 we picked out, several impressions stand out:
- The cooking surfaces really do heat up quickly–I almost botched one of the first pots of rice I cooked when I didn’t realize the water was already boiling. If you cook pasta with any regularity, an induction cooktop is your new friend.
- Induction surfaces are also responsive in a way no gas burner is, almost immediately cooling down when you turn down or turn off the heat. They also let you keep a pan on minimal heat without worrying about gas flames blowing out.
- That buzzing noise can sound weird, especially when it’s louder with particular pieces of cookware for reasons that I have yet to figure out. On the other hand, I’ve decided that I like the beeps the touch controls make as I tap them; the experience feels a little like cooking on the bridge of NCC-1701-D.
- Not every pot or pan heats up as quickly. The All-Clad stainless-steel cookware we got with our wedding works great, as does the Wirecutter-endorsed nonstick pan we bought to replace one that wasn’t induction compatible (determined by a magnet not sticking to its underside). But the griddle pan we bought to retire another induction-incompatible model takes longer to heat up than I’d like.
- Because the cooktop is so smooth, a pot or pan will spin around or slide away from the induction element very easily. That unbroken surface, however, is also super-easy to clean.
- As you might expect with any stove swap, it takes some time to adjust muscle memory for one range’s output for another’s, which can be a issue for particularly temperature-sensitive recipes.
- The embedded electronics in an induction cooktop may make fussy moments possible, and I may have seen one happen after our kid left the oven on for too long after baking cookies. That apparently heated up the cooktop enough for it to balk at turning on a cooktop coil for a few minutes.
After those five months, I not only don’t miss cooking with gas but have been reminded of what I don’t miss when I’ve used other people’s gas stovetops where some burners don’t light up reliably. But it’s also easy for me to say that when we still have a gas grill on the back patio for the not-everyday experience of cooking with fire.
- Replacing the 2018-vintage gas furnace and water heater with more efficient heat-pump units will be a task for another year. ↩︎
- Yes, that is an expensive piece of hardware. And well worth it considering all of the time I spend in the kitchen! ↩︎
https://robpegoraro.com/2024/08/16/home-on-the-induction-range/
#Bosch #cookingWithGas #hob #homeElectrification #induction #inductionCooktop #inductionRange #inductionStove #magnetic
-
Since March, stovetop cooking hasn’t sounded the same in our kitchen. Instead of the click-click-click-poof of a gas burner igniting, turning recipe ingredients in a pan or pot into a meal begins with the beeps of buttons on a touch-sensitive display and then the pulsing buzz of an induction coil.
Replacing the gas range that had come with our house when we moved in 20 years ago, and which had become increasingly iffy about having two of its burners light, was an unquestionable part of finally getting the kitchen redone. Getting an induction range did not seem as obvious until some contemplation about how we’d want to end the need to burn fossil fuels in the house every day1 and learning more about the health risks of gas burners in unventilated kitchens.
Five months into cooking with the Bosch induction range2 we picked out, several impressions stand out:
- The cooking surfaces really do heat up quickly–I almost botched one of the first pots of rice I cooked when I didn’t realize the water was already boiling. If you cook pasta with any regularity, an induction cooktop is your new friend.
- Induction surfaces are also responsive in a way no gas burner is, almost immediately cooling down when you turn down or turn off the heat. They also let you keep a pan on minimal heat without worrying about gas flames blowing out.
- That buzzing noise can sound weird, especially when it’s louder with particular pieces of cookware for reasons that I have yet to figure out. On the other hand, I’ve decided that I like the beeps the touch controls make as I tap them; the experience feels a little like cooking on the bridge of NCC-1701-D.
- Not every pot or pan heats up as quickly. The All-Clad stainless-steel cookware we got with our wedding works great, as does the Wirecutter-endorsed nonstick pan we bought to replace one that wasn’t induction compatible (determined by a magnet not sticking to its underside). But the griddle pan we bought to retire another induction-incompatible model takes longer to heat up than I’d like.
- Because the cooktop is so smooth, a pot or pan will spin around or slide away from the induction element very easily. That unbroken surface, however, is also super-easy to clean.
- As you might expect with any stove swap, it takes some time to adjust muscle memory for one range’s output for another’s, which can be a issue for particularly temperature-sensitive recipes.
- The embedded electronics in an induction cooktop may make fussy moments possible, and I may have seen one happen after our kid left the oven on for too long after baking cookies. That apparently heated up the cooktop enough for it to balk at turning on a cooktop coil for a few minutes.
After those five months, I not only don’t miss cooking with gas but have been reminded of what I don’t miss when I’ve used other people’s gas stovetops where some burners don’t light up reliably. But it’s also easy for me to say that when we still have a gas grill on the back patio for the not-everyday experience of cooking with fire.
- Replacing the 2018-vintage gas furnace and water heater with more efficient heat-pump units will be a task for another year. ↩︎
- Yes, that is an expensive piece of hardware. And well worth it considering all of the time I spend in the kitchen! ↩︎
https://robpegoraro.com/2024/08/16/home-on-the-induction-range/
#Bosch #cookingWithGas #hob #homeElectrification #induction #inductionCooktop #inductionRange #inductionStove #magnetic
-
My city’s subway has done impressively well at recovering from its pandemic-induced collapse in ridership, but the transportation system that has rebounded better yet around Washington relies on only two wheels per vehicle.
And despite not having an everyday office to commute to and from, I’ve been along for much of this ride at Capital Bikeshare. Our bike-sharing service continues to serve as a convenient and cheaper alternative to Metro for trips into the District and between events in D.C., and a few other changes have further elevated CaBi’s role in my transportation toolkit.
One looked like a downgrade when it was announced in 2021 with inadequate advance notice: The increase in the annual membership fee from $85 to $95 also extended the length of a free ride for members on a regular bike from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. That means I can get from my house to Capitol Hill and points slightly beyond in a single ride without having to worry about having to stop midway to dock one bike and take out another.
Another arrived with less discussion than CaBi’s introduction of new, extra-cost e-bikes: updated “classic” bikes, distinguishable by a longer cargo shelf in front of the handlebars and a red fairing covering the top of the back wheel, that feature a continuously variable transmission instead of the three gears of the older bikes. Those newer rides are easier to take on moderately hillier routes, which means much of D.C. and its neighbors.
A third has come from local governments: The District and Arlington have done impressive work in adding bike lanes that aren’t just painted white lines but cycle tracks split from car traffic by concrete dividers.
Then I bought a bike helmet that I can easily grab for most trips: a Closca folding model, which I picked up on sale at $60 on Amazon after reading the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute’s approving assessment of it among other foldable helmets. This neatly solved two problems I’d had with using the helmet I’ve long worn for recreational rides on weekends: It’s not gross from caked-on sweat, and because its concentric rings snap folded in a second or two, I can tuck it into my regular laptop bag even with my laptop already there.
Millions of other Washington-area cyclists seem to agree with my assessment of CaBi. Its public stats show that the service–operated by Motivate, a company the ride-hailing firm Lyft bought in 2018–has grown from 337,704 trips in May of 2019 to 515,394 in May of 2024. That remains far below Metro’s daily ridership even as dented by continued remote work, yet it’s still good enough to vault our bikeshare system past Chicago’s to become the second most-used bikeshare network in the U.S.
Finally, almost 23 years after my overdue introduction to CaBi, I’ve taken the bait of its Bike Angels rewards program, which offers kickbacks to cyclists who take bikes out of stations nearing capacity or park bikes at those nearing emptiness. This neatly slots into the intersection between my fondness for gamification schemes and my readiness to overthink any commercial transaction, and so far it’s only required me to alter my bikeshare routine in three ways to cash in. First I check the CaBi app for stations offering an extra incentive for dropoffs or pickups, then I alter my own course accordingly as long as it’s not more than two or three blocks out of the way, and finally I redouble those efforts when the app says I can earn double or triple points.
And once you convert those points in the app for e-bike credit–the sliding redemption scale encourages holding off, because 80 points for $10 beats 10 points for $1–you can burn those rewards on speedier e-bike rides that in turn generate outsized rewards when a Bike Angels bonus activates. For a more detailed look into how these incentives can twist a cyclist’s behavior, see Chris Person’s strategy guide to the equivalent system at New York’s considerably more expensive Citi Bike.
I’m not going to say that all of this amounts to one giant leap towards the Copenhagenification of D.C. But all of these small steps combined have made this place a better place for getting around without so many cars.
6/15/2024: I rewrote the last paragraph after a better conclusion popped into my head not long after I woke up Saturday and added a little more explanation of Bike Angels.
https://robpegoraro.com/2024/06/14/bikeshare-keeps-rolling-along/
#BikeAngels #bikeCommuting #bikeshare #biking #CaBi #CapitalBikeshare #CloscaHelmet #CloscaHelmetLoop #cycling #foldingBikeHelmet #gamification #Lyft #micromobility #Motivate
-
My city’s subway has done impressively well at recovering from its pandemic-induced collapse in ridership, but the transportation system that has rebounded better yet around Washington relies on only two wheels per vehicle.
And despite not having an everyday office to commute to and from, I’ve been along for much of this ride at Capital Bikeshare. Our bike-sharing service continues to serve as a convenient and cheaper alternative to Metro for trips into the District and between events in D.C., and a few other changes have further elevated CaBi’s role in my transportation toolkit.
One looked like a downgrade when it was announced in 2021 with inadequate advance notice: The increase in the annual membership fee from $85 to $95 also extended the length of a free ride for members on a regular bike from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. That means I can get from my house to Capitol Hill and points slightly beyond in a single ride without having to worry about having to stop midway to dock one bike and take out another.
Another arrived with less discussion than CaBi’s introduction of new, extra-cost e-bikes: updated “classic” bikes, distinguishable by a longer cargo shelf in front of the handlebars and a red fairing covering the top of the back wheel, that feature a continuously variable transmission instead of the three gears of the older bikes. Those newer rides are easier to take on moderately hillier routes, which means much of D.C. and its neighbors.
A third has come from local governments: The District and Arlington have done impressive work in adding bike lanes that aren’t just painted white lines but cycle tracks split from car traffic by concrete dividers.
Then I bought a bike helmet that I can easily grab for most trips: a Closca folding model, which I picked up on sale at $60 on Amazon after reading the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute’s approving assessment of it among other foldable helmets. This neatly solved two problems I’d had with using the helmet I’ve long worn for recreational rides on weekends: It’s not gross from caked-on sweat, and because its concentric rings snap folded in a second or two, I can tuck it into my regular laptop bag even with my laptop already there.
Millions of other Washington-area cyclists seem to agree with my assessment of CaBi. Its public stats show that the service–operated by Motivate, a company the ride-hailing firm Lyft bought in 2018–has grown from 337,704 trips in May of 2019 to 515,394 in May of 2024. That remains far below Metro’s daily ridership even as dented by continued remote work, yet it’s still good enough to vault our bikeshare system past Chicago’s to become the second most-used bikeshare network in the U.S.
Finally, almost 23 years after my overdue introduction to CaBi, I’ve taken the bait of its Bike Angels rewards program, which offers kickbacks to cyclists who take bikes out of stations nearing capacity or park bikes at those nearing emptiness. This neatly slots into the intersection between my fondness for gamification schemes and my readiness to overthink any commercial transaction, and so far it’s only required me to alter my bikeshare routine in three ways to cash in. First I check the CaBi app for stations offering an extra incentive for dropoffs or pickups, then I alter my own course accordingly as long as it’s not more than two or three blocks out of the way, and finally I redouble those efforts when the app says I can earn double or triple points.
And once you convert those points in the app for e-bike credit–the sliding redemption scale encourages holding off, because 80 points for $10 beats 10 points for $1–you can burn those rewards on speedier e-bike rides that in turn generate outsized rewards when a Bike Angels bonus activates. For a more detailed look into how these incentives can twist a cyclist’s behavior, see Chris Person’s strategy guide to the equivalent system at New York’s considerably more expensive Citi Bike.
I’m not going to say that all of this amounts to one giant leap towards the Copenhagenification of D.C. But all of these small steps combined have made this place a better place for getting around without so many cars.
6/15/2024: I rewrote the last paragraph after a better conclusion popped into my head not long after I woke up Saturday and added a little more explanation of Bike Angels.
https://robpegoraro.com/2024/06/14/bikeshare-keeps-rolling-along/
#BikeAngels #bikeCommuting #bikeshare #biking #CaBi #CapitalBikeshare #CloscaHelmet #CloscaHelmetLoop #cycling #foldingBikeHelmet #gamification #Lyft #micromobility #Motivate
-
My city’s subway has done impressively well at recovering from its pandemic-induced collapse in ridership, but the transportation system that has rebounded better yet around Washington relies on only two wheels per vehicle.
And despite not having an everyday office to commute to and from, I’ve been along for much of this ride at Capital Bikeshare. Our bike-sharing service continues to serve as a convenient and cheaper alternative to Metro for trips into the District and between events in D.C., and a few other changes have further elevated CaBi’s role in my transportation toolkit.
One looked like a downgrade when it was announced in 2021 with inadequate advance notice: The increase in the annual membership fee from $85 to $95 also extended the length of a free ride for members on a regular bike from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. That means I can get from my house to Capitol Hill and points slightly beyond in a single ride without having to worry about having to stop midway to dock one bike and take out another.
Another arrived with less discussion than CaBi’s introduction of new, extra-cost e-bikes: updated “classic” bikes, distinguishable by a longer cargo shelf in front of the handlebars and a red fairing covering the top of the back wheel, that feature a continuously variable transmission instead of the three gears of the older bikes. Those newer rides are easier to take on moderately hillier routes, which means much of D.C. and its neighbors.
A third has come from local governments: The District and Arlington have done impressive work in adding bike lanes that aren’t just painted white lines but cycle tracks split from car traffic by concrete dividers.
Then I bought a bike helmet that I can easily grab for most trips: a Closca folding model, which I picked up on sale at $60 on Amazon after reading the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute’s approving assessment of it among other foldable helmets. This neatly solved two problems I’d had with using the helmet I’ve long worn for recreational rides on weekends: It’s not gross from caked-on sweat, and because its concentric rings snap folded in a second or two, I can tuck it into my regular laptop bag even with my laptop already there.
Millions of other Washington-area cyclists seem to agree with my assessment of CaBi. Its public stats show that the service–operated by Motivate, a company the ride-hailing firm Lyft bought in 2018–has grown from 337,704 trips in May of 2019 to 515,394 in May of 2024. That remains far below Metro’s daily ridership even as dented by continued remote work, yet it’s still good enough to vault our bikeshare system past Chicago’s to become the second most-used bikeshare network in the U.S.
Finally, almost 23 years after my overdue introduction to CaBi, I’ve taken the bait of its Bike Angels rewards program, which offers kickbacks to cyclists who take bikes out of stations nearing capacity or park bikes at those nearing emptiness. This neatly slots into the intersection between my fondness for gamification schemes and my readiness to overthink any commercial transaction, and so far it’s only required me to alter my bikeshare routine in three ways to cash in. First I check the CaBi app for stations offering an extra incentive for dropoffs or pickups, then I alter my own course accordingly as long as it’s not more than two or three blocks out of the way, and finally I redouble those efforts when the app says I can earn double or triple points.
And once you convert those points in the app for e-bike credit–the sliding redemption scale encourages holding off, because 80 points for $10 beats 10 points for $1–you can burn those rewards on speedier e-bike rides that in turn generate outsized rewards when a Bike Angels bonus activates. For a more detailed look into how these incentives can twist a cyclist’s behavior, see Chris Person’s strategy guide to the equivalent system at New York’s considerably more expensive Citi Bike.
I’m not going to say that all of this amounts to one giant leap towards the Copenhagenification of D.C. But all of these small steps combined have made this place a better place for getting around without so many cars.
6/15/2024: I rewrote the last paragraph after a better conclusion popped into my head not long after I woke up Saturday and added a little more explanation of Bike Angels.
https://robpegoraro.com/2024/06/14/bikeshare-keeps-rolling-along/
#BikeAngels #bikeCommuting #bikeshare #biking #CaBi #CapitalBikeshare #CloscaHelmet #CloscaHelmetLoop #cycling #foldingBikeHelmet #gamification #Lyft #micromobility #Motivate
-
My apathetic arrival on Bluesky last spring did not suggest I had much interest or confidence in that decentralized social network: I opened my account on April 25, posted for the first time on April 27, and then waited more than two months to grace Bluesky with a second post.
And yet over the past two months, Bluesky has become my primary successor to Twitter as the platform that now goes by X continues its spiral into conspiracy-theory hell under Elon Musk’s militantly ignorant misrule. Bluesky now ranks as one of the first apps I check in the morning and among those I revisit most often during the day–even though my follower total of 608 is far smaller than the 1,404 following me on Mastodon or the 18,713 followers of my idle Twitter account.
The top reason is the quality of the conversations on Bluesky. I see more engagement with my posts here–see, for instance, the comparison I did in December when I shared the same PCMag story about Comcast rate hikes on Bluesky, Twitter, Mastodon and Meta’s Threads–and that feedback is more likely to leave me more enlightened or at least amused. I keep thinking this won’t last, especially after the platform dropped its invite system in February, but so far Bluesky’s banter remains mostly pleasant.
It also helps that so many of the voices I valued on Twitter have made their way over to Bluesky–and that I’ve had the pleasure of discovering new voices there. And since I’m not getting paid for any of this or deriving other obvious and direct professional benefit (as in, I know how few people clicked through to stories I shared on Twitter), those things matter to me.
Second, Bluesky has advanced faster than I might have expected. A small team of developers led by CEO Jay Graber has built out its foundational feature of account portability with impressive speed. That means not just the option to take my followers to a new account with a different handle, what I call settings portability as offered at Mastodon, but the ability to move my entire presence, including the handle that I’ve set to my robpegoraro.com domain name, to a different host.
That progress in building a legitimate breakthrough in social networking gives me confidence that Bluesky’s developers will check off such lesser to-do details as these items on a product-roadmap update posted May 7: direct messaging, inline video, in-app tools to create and manage custom feeds (for example, my D.C.-area airports feed), and login-security upgrades enabling a choice of multi-factor authentication options.
An edit button, however, is not among those roadmap items, and in that aspect Mastodon maintains a distinct advantage over Bluesky. But while I continue to have good conversations there, too many of the people I liked seeing on Twitter either haven’t set up shop on Mastodon or tried it and have since moved on.
A large fraction of the Twitter diaspora, meanwhile, has looked past both Mastodon and Bluesky to migrate to Threads instead. But while the default “For You” algorithmic feed isn’t as hopelessly vapid in my Threads account as it was six months ago, I still find the notion of handing over that much more of my online social presence to Meta to be profoundly distasteful. I do not need a single point of social-media failure that large, especially not one with Meta’s history of bad-faith behavior towards journalism.
Also distasteful: how I still have to read Twitter because of all the people who have not bailed on that platform and continue to share enlightening tidbits there. I mainly do that through lists I created that help me avoid the clout-chasing randos, conspiracy-lie merchants and fascism-curious creeps now polluting that platform, but because I cover social media I also have to keep up with Musk’s reputational self-immolation through his increasingly delusional tweets.
I don’t know that Bluesky will ever replace what Twitter was, or if anything can or even should. But while much about this project remains uncertain–most of all, if this public-benefit corporation can secure a reliable business model–at least I know my free writing online isn’t underwriting a shitposting billionaire’s vanity value-destruction project.
#Bluesky #BlueskyFeeds #bsky #DMs #domainVerification #editButton #ElonMusk #ElonMuskTwitter #JackDorsey #JayGraber #journaHost #Mastodon #meta #Threads #Twitter #X