planet snewpy

surface transmissions (2019):

Handy Andy Plying Tool

2019-01-20 14:06:30 -

My wife is into yarn. Almost as much as I am into Legos. So there is lots of yarn around my house, and lots of tools for carding, spinning, dying, and knitting said yarn. But we didn't have a tool for plying yarn. Until today.

Netgear Nighthawk X4S

2019-02-24 11:19:59 -

The time had come to upgrade my old router (D-Link DIR-825). It had been a good performer, with excellent stability, but it didn't have quite the necessary range (since I keep it in the basement) for our house. I also wanted to add some parental controls, and the D-Link firmware does not include that option.

Experiments in Statistical Inference

2019-03-31 15:37:13 -

When I was in high school I took a Probability and Statistics class. My teacher had this really cool setup that allowed us to perform experiments by using a big bowl of marbles in various colors and paddles with holes in them that could be used to grab samples of marbles at random. Recently, I've been preparing to teach my kids some of the fundamental principles of statistics (helped in part by Dr. Nic on YouTube) and I went looking for a similar set that I could purchase.

Linksys MR8300 Mesh Router

2019-03-27 16:17:58 -

I wasn't completely happy with the Netgear X4S router - it was missing a few essential features - but then I really wasn't happy when it started factory resetting itself in the middle of the night. Luckily, it happened within 30 days of purchase, so Amazon took it back.

reMarkable Paper Tablet

2019-11-12 20:12:11 -

I have been intrigued with this gadget for over a year now when I first learned of it. It certainly seemed too good to be true, and for that reason alone I shied away from it. The retail price made it even easier to avoid any serious consideration. But because I find myself carrying multiple notebooks now - for work and for personal use - it seemed like a reasonable alternative. If you do your research you will learn that the company really has created something remarkable - the reviews are unanimous - this technology is the closest you can come to real paper. The tactile experience is everything you would expect.