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Google Nexus One!

Published January 6, 2010

With Google’s release of the Nexus One it worked out very well for me to give my G1 to Danielle and pick up a Nexus One for myself. Thus far I’m quite happy with this phone. The AMOLED is absolutely outstanding and the phone is simply faster overall; the occasional quirky slowdowns when using many apps at once are gone.

It even comes with a cute logo’d neoprene case, as seen here!

I still have some service plan shuffling to do, including moving myself to an employee discount plan (via my workplace) and possibly another service plan. While I am out of contract and should be able to move plans at will, it appears that T-Mobile has a $35 fee to change plans via their website and I don’t want to pay that. We’ll see how that goes… Until then, the phone still works great, just like my old G1 but even better.

(Photographing a phone with active screen and having both parts look nice together is a very difficult task. More photos of the phone unboxing can be found here. I’m not bothering with measurement / thickness / whatever shots, as those are thoroughly addressed elsewhere.)

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Defective FSA OS-190 Stem

Published January 5, 2010

 

 

 

 

While working on my new bike I realized that a slightly shorter stem would be good, so I ordered an FSA OS-190 from Price Point. When the box of parts arrived it had been opened (photo), but as the thread locking compound on the screws was unmarred and there were no marks on the stem it appeared to be brand new. Unfortunately, after installing it I found a small crack in the stem cap, right near one of the bolts. Here is a photo of the stem on my new bike, with an arrow pointing to the cracked area.

Having torqued the stem bolts (cap and steerer) to FSA’s published 78 inch-pounds (FSA’s Stem and Post Torque Specs – PDF) I don’t believe this was caused by me during installation. This is also a particularly inopportune place to have a crack, as it could easily lead to stem/bar failure, which would likely result in a pretty bad crash. Even though it was relatively cheap and looks good on the bike when I request to return the item to Price Point I’m tempted to get a different stem, as I don’t want to risk there having been a bad batch.

Currently I’m thinking of a Thomson Elite X4, but now I have to decide on 0° or 10° rise. The aforementioned FSA is 6°, so 10° shouldn’t be too different…

UPDATE: Thinking about it, I wonder if follwing the FSA directions, which I followed, to “[l]ightly grease the bolt threads and under bolt heads” caused the problem. It’s my understanding that greased fasteners, particularly under the heads, are easy to inadvertently over torque, even with a wrench. This is because the fastener slips along much more than normal, and doesn’t provide the resistance that the torque wrench measures.

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Sunday Morning Winter Ride at 10°F (-12°C)

Published January 3, 2010

Starting a bit after 11am a group of us headed out for some biking at Stony Creek. With temperatures bounding between single and double digits Fahrenheit it was definitely a cold day. With a double-layer of sweat pants and BDU pants, boots and toe warmers, thermal layer, fleece, and jacket I was almost a bit over-warm, but some armpit venting and selective undoing of layers made things rather nice. We ended up riding one course of the single track, visiting The Pines, The Snake, and The Roller Coaster before heading back to the car. This was a rather slow ride, with my middle of the pack average somewhere around 8.6 MPH.

Wanting to wear boots I also fitted my bike with platform pedals, which turned out to be an interesting experience. Since these pedals have a bunch of sharp pins to ensure good traction my foot had no float, meaning that whatever position my foot contacted the pedal in was the position I had to pedal in, unless I was able to lift up my foot and replace it. This doesn’t sound like a problem, but compared to a normal clipless setup where one can pivot a foot at will, it’s a bit uncomfortable. There were also times where I’d inadvertently come off of the pedal, not due to slipping but forgetting that I had to provide continuous, but ever so slight downward pressure while on the upstroke of the pedal. Thus, I’m really not sure I like platforms for riding single track. At one point I had to duck around a tree that I almost hit, and the familar motions that I’d make with my foot to move the bike sideways a bit didn’t work and I ended up clipping the tree.

All said, it was a very nice ride. Having studded tires I had no problem staying upright on icy patches, even if I did have to walk a couple glazed switchbacks in The Snake. With the frequent riding of others and the snow being as cold as it was, everything was packed into nicely gritty flat areas, as seen above.

Here’s a couple of the photos that I took today:

· Standing in the bathroom at the Stony Creek mountain bike trailhead getting ready for a cold winter ride.
· Regrouping at the end of The Pines.
· Heading towards The Snake on a cold single-digit Sunday morning.
· Bob’s icy mustache in the field after The Roller Coaster at Stony Creek on single-digit early-January ride.

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Debadged Klean Kanteen

Published January 2, 2010

My sister got me a an 18oz. plain stainless steel Klean Kanteen Classic for Christmas, along with a Sport Cap 2.0. This will eventually be fit to my new bike with a stainless steel King Cage Iris for holding drinkable things (water, HEED, juice, etc) while biking. Being made of stainless steel the cage won’t leave any marks (save for scratches which can be polished out as needed) on the bottle, and it should look nice for years. It’ll also be easy to scrub out, should any unexpected funk develop.

Not being fond of having too many logos on things I removed the Klean Kanteen branding from the bottle with a No. 96 Scotch Brite pad, whose grit perfectly matched the existing finish of the bottle. A solid rubbing over the logos and a quick wash with a bit of soap and water later and the bottle is now nice and plain, ready to match the logo-free bottle cage.

I’ve been using the bottle and sport cap to drink from while writing this post and it’s really quite nice to drink from. With a silicone check valve on the top to let in air while drinking liquid flows quite quickly. The use of this check valve means that its not completely leakproof, but it should be sufficient for bike riding when the bottle is generally kept upright in a cage.

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More Furnace Problems

Published January 2, 2010

Here’s one of two limit switches in my furnace. This was pulled out while I was attempting to determine why my furnace isn’t working properly. As it’s nice and clean this didn’t seem to be the reason for the problem.

What I’ve observed is as follows:

1) Pilot igniter sparks for ~20 seconds.
2) Pilot lights.
3) ~20 seconds later main gas valve opens.
4) Main burner ignites.
5) Main burner extinguishes, but pilot stays lit.
6) 4-5 repeat three times before blower starts.

After removing this limit switch, looking it over, cleaning its contacts and surrounding area, then reassembling it #5 didn’t occur and the blower started like normal. I’ll listen carefully for a while and see if the problem reoccurs or if more thought needs to be given to the issue.

I’d generally blame the flame sensor, but there isn’t one on my furnace. I’m concerned that this problem may be caused by the controller board dying (capacitor plague?) or some other passive electronic bit slowly failing, leading to intermittent issues. Replacing controllers or gas valves is not cheap, and I’m wary of doing so without knowing that it’ll fix the problem.

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Google Maps Fails Again!

Published December 31, 2009

Here’s yet another failure of Google Maps in my area. Not only is my address not found (it worked just fine in the past but now has the street name listed incorrectly), my ZIP+4 alone doesn’t work, and now 22 Mile Rd. shows up improperly in Street View as 20 2 Mile Rd..

I just submitted the following bug report to Google about this:

Google Maps lists 22 Mile here properly, as the name '22 Mile Road'. When in Street View this is listed as '20 2 Mile', which is wrong.

We’ll see how far it goes. My last few bug reports, while acknowledged as correct and noted as being fixed in future releases, have resulted in only one fix that I can validate myself; more appropriate naming of roads on the GM Tech Center campus. It’s now been months since I reported my address as not working and it’s still not right. There are also problems where a local highway and surface road with similar names are sufficiently confused to make businesses appear along the wrong road. As can be seen here a bunch of locations are incorrectly placed roughly one mile east of their actual location. This too has been reported, and not fixed.

I currently use (and rather like) a T-Mobile G1 Android-based phone and I like it enough that I’m seriously considering buying a Nexus One when it launches. However, terribly inaccurate local data including not having my home address available limits some of the major selling points of the phone.

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Acquired in Trade: WTB Laser V

Published December 30, 2009

Through a very timely trade with someone on the MMBA Forum I was able to swap my ill-fitting WTB Rocket V for this new and (very? overly?) shiny WTB Laser V. I’d already ordered a Laser V to try out, but unless this one’s appearance ends up being beyond reproach, I think I’ll be returning it. As can be seen here the chrome and yellow bits aren’t too terrible when taken in context with the yellow bits on the computer and the various silver things on the bar.

Being cloth the cover of this one is also a bit rougher than I’m accustomed to, but that should be okay for now. If it’s not there’s always plenty of other options. At least this one will only cost the $7 or so to ship back the unwanted saddle when it arrives.

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Bonding Cut Bicycle Cables

Published December 30, 2009

After installing a bicycle cable and crimping on an end cap, removing it usually results in a frayed cable which is difficult to remove and reinstall. For maintenance reasons I want to be able to do this, so I’ve begun looking at methods to seal the end of a cut bicycle cable as is done with factory cuts.

My first experiments with cyanoacrylate glue (aka Super Glue) seem to work well, and when Erik suggested that I solder them, I decided to give that a go. Some research online indicated that a silver-bearing solder works well, so after acquiring some plumbing solder (with silver in it) I gave that a try, and it wouldn’t wet the surface nor wick into my test cable. Normal lead/tin solder for electrical work didn’t work either. I next tried a blowtorch, and while fun it only resulted in ablating the wire resulting in what is seen on the right.

So, right now I think that wetting the ends of the cable with cyanoacrylate glue is the best solution. This is what is shown on the left, and it results in a rigid, solid piece of cable. Disappointingly the cable could be crushed (and promptly frayed) when squeezed with locking the pliers that I use to pretension cables, but this should be acceptable.

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