I was typing on my old MacBook Pro today and noticed that the bottom case was wobbling back and forth a little despite being on a flat desk. I grabbed my trusty iFixit toolkit, took off the case bottom, and found this: That’s what we call a “spicy pillow”, a lithium-ion battery that has…
Category: gadgetry.
The trusty Battlestar
This beast is five years old this month. I bought it in December of 2017, and it’s been a rock-solid workhorse ever since. When I configured it online, I picked all the top-shelf options, which is probably the reason for its longevity. (For the tech nerds, it’s an Alienware AW17R4 with a Core i7-7820HK, 32GB…
Military time in the civilian world
Out of idle curiosity this morning, here’s a question for those of you who have served in the military: How many of you are still using 24-hour and DDMMYYYY calendar format on your digital devices? I turned in my kit 28 years ago this month and I still do it. My digital watches are all…
From the Castle Frostbite IT department
Robin’s iMac started giving her the Beachball of Death, hanging up on almost everything she tried to do with it. I used to be a hardware tech support guy and systems administrator, so I am the official Castle Frostbite IT department. In that function, I diagnosed the iMac and suspected that the hard drive was…
More Tik-Toks
Someone asked about the rest of the collection in comments, so here you go. It’s a modest collection of nice-but-not-outrageous watches as far as price goes. The whole case is worth less than a single basic Omega or Rolex. Not that I would mind owning a Seamaster or a Submariner, but I don’t think I’ll…
Posting a TikTok
Eight years ago, when Terms of Enlistment started selling a lot of copies, this $45 Casio Duro was the first “extravagant” purchase I made with some of the first windfall royalties. Fast-forward to 2021, eight years and ten novels later, and I own a lot more watches, but I still wear this one a lot….
View from the factory floor
On the rare occasion of a neat and cleaned-up desk, here’s a picture. Does this ever scream “science fiction writer at work”, or what? The eagle-eyed among you will notice that all the gear is Alienware-branded, which means you can probably guess that I occasionally use it for pursuits other than the typing of sentences…
World shut-outers
I bought these Bose QuietComfort 35 headphones more than four years ago, and I’ve used them almost every day. Now the battery holds a fraction of its original charge, and the earcup cushions have started to separate. I could get new cushions, but the battery isn’t user-replaceable, so it’s probably time to retire these. When…
The Switcher
It’s my birthday this week, so I went out and made a frivolous purchase: a Nintendo Switch Lite. I have always been a PC gamer, but in the last year or two, I’ve found myself gravitating toward consoles. I spend a lot of time in front of mouse and keyboard already, and I don’t really…
A (potentially annoying) ode to the Surface Go.
My MacBook Pro died on the plane to WorldCon while I was halfway through the trip to San Francisco. I rebooted it to finish a software installation, and it plain refused to come back to life. I’ve been using Macs for twenty years, so I know all the tricks to reset the PRAM and the…