Middle-Age Crazy on a Budget

So I recently fell into a middle age stereotype. I bought a red convertible. It's not a musclebound Mustang, Camaro or Chevelle from the '60s or early '70s, nor is it some sleek little European number. It's a 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, a mid-sized, middle-of-the-road car from the mid-'90s. As I said, it's not a muscle car, not yet an antique but something of a classic in waiting. Like most cars from the '90s, it's just beginning to become a bona fide collectible, especially as fewer and fewer of them remain on the road.

Built on GM's front wheel drive W-Body platform, which it shared with the Pontiac Gran Prix (1988-2008); Buick Regal (1988-2005), Century (1997-2005) and LaCrosse (2006-2010); Chevy Lumina (1988-1999), Monte Carlo (1997-2008) and Impala (2000-2016); and Oldsmobile Cutlass and Intrigue (1998-2002), this final iteration of the iconic Cutlass Supreme ran from 1988-1997. The convertible body style was exclusive to the Cutlass Supreme and was in regular production from 1991-1995, although it originated as an Indianapolis 500 Pace Car in 1988 with only about 50 units produced.

The '95 convertible has the distinction of being the last year model for the last convertible produced by Oldsmobile. It's also the only year the convertible was offered with the updated Cutlass Supreme interior, necessitated by the addition of a passenger side airbag.

With so many sibling vehicles using many of the same components, replacement parts are plentiful and relatively cheap. junk yards are also full of compatible donor cars, although they are getting a bit scarcer as time goes on. The one thing that's borderline 'unobtainium' is parts for the convertible top and any body or interior parts specific to the convertible.

I chose this particular car because its original paint is in very nice condition, the upholstery was in excellent shape with a couple of high-wear panels replaced on the driver's seat, the transmission had recently been rebuilt and the top had been recently replaced, a repair that would have cost almost as much as I paid for the car. It came to me with just under 120,000 miles on it, which is more than I ideally would have liked, but it's a solid enough car and not my daily driver, so it will do.

To be sure, it still needed some work. The air conditioner is non-functional, as is the anti-lock braking system. The brakes still work just fine as conventional brakes, they just don't pulse to avoid locking up if I stand up on the pedal. These things will be fixed as time and finances allow. A more recent priority was to replace the rear struts and the rear brake pads and rotors. Now, it stops safely and it doesn't ride like a buckboard anymore.

As I said, this car isn't a muscle car. At best, it's a cruiser. The 3.1 liter V6 is enough to have some fun with on a sunny day but it'll never win any races, much less do a burnout. But it's the perfect car for a little zen driving in which the journey is more important than the destination.

Driving with the top down on a country road, which fortunately are in abundance within a couple minutes of my house, is a heavenly experience and a great way to de-stress. It puts you more in touch with the surroundings without being quite as vulnerable as one would be riding a motorcycle. It's a feeling of freedom one simply cannot experience in a closed sedan. Curiously, on the occasions when I drive the convertible with the top up, I get a feeling of claustrophobia I don't get when driving my sedan. It's just a car that needs to be open to the sky.

UPDATE—With this year's social distancing due to COVID-19, the convertible provided the perfect means of escape. The combination of cheap gas, empty roads and mild weather formed a perfect convertible trifecta, satisfying my need for a change of scenery without being too close to other people.

UPDATE—Now that I've had the car almost three years, I've begun to have a few problems with it. The rebuilt transmission didn't last and had to be replaced at the end of last summer. The paint and top have also begun to deteriorate and the latter will have to be replaced, probably within the next couple of years and I still haven't done anything about the brakes or the air conditioning but driving it around on sunny days is still just as fun as ever.

iPod Mini—Better than New

Sometimes something old becomes new again. I recently resurrected my old fourth generation iPod to use in the car because I find setting my phone to stream music to be too cumbersome while driving. The iPod had sat in a drawer for a few years and was stone dead when I pulled it out. It took three days to charge and while I was waiting, I looked online to price replacement batteries—just in case.

Of course, that lead to looking at second hand iPods as well. In the process, I came across an iPod Mini that had been upgraded to be better than new. Besides replacing the original 650 mAh battery with a new 1,300 mAh unit, the 4GB micro hard drive had been replaced with a 32GB Compact Flash memory card, of the sort that used to go into high end digital cameras. The cool thing is that it's a direct fit, requiring no adapters. With a better battery and eight times the storage capacity in a solid state format to boot, this unit was truly better than new and since it was priced right, I bought it.

Being generally curious about such things, I did some online research into what it is involved in making this upgrade and found it's surprisingly easy. Just remove the two plastic end caps, a spring clip from the bottom end and two teeny-tiny screws from the top end, disconnect the click wheel control cable and the whole chassis slides right out. Replacing the drive is pretty much plug-and-play, and it doesn't hurt to put in a new battery while you're at it because iPad Minis were made in 2004 and 2005, so they're getting some age on them.

Learning how the upgrade was accomplished made me want to try my hand at it, so I bought a second Mini for about half what I paid for the first one. It was sold as being in working order, although the battery would go flat in a little over an hour. In short, it was the perfect candidate for an upgrade. After finding a replacement battery kit that included two tiny screwdrivers and a generic 32GB CF card, I was ready to proceed.

Popping off the end caps was easy. There are two competing methods on the Internet: you pry it out with the tiny flat screwdriver that comes with the battery, but you will inevitably gouge the aluminum case. The other, less damaging method is to hot glue a piece of wood (I used a tongue depressor-like 'craft stick' from from the dollar store) to the cap, then lever it out. I used this method and removed the caps with ease and without damaging the aluminum. Removing the wooden stick from the end cap was a different matter but I did accomplish it with a little patience and perseverance. Now came the truly challenging part—getting the iPod software file system set up on the newly installed CF card.

The procedure is supposed to be pretty simple. connect the iPod to a computer with iTunes and run the 'Restore' routine, then start loading on the music. File this one under 'E' for 'easier said than done'. Mine would not successfully restore for what the computer said was an 'unknown error'. After a couple of hours doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result (classic definition of insanity), I opened up the Disk Utility application on my Mac and tried to reformat the CF card at the root level. This failed, but it left things in what iTunes interpreted as a corrupted state, which was something the 'Restore' routine could handle. Finally, after nearly two hours of trying, I had the iPod restored to a usable state and better than new.

In the end, the physical upgrade took me about 40 minutes and well over an hour and a half to get it restored, and I ended up spending about $10 more on the Mini that I upgraded myself than I did on the one I bought already upgraded, but the knowledge gained and the satisfaction of making it work are priceless.

Oh, and my old iPod? the battery isn't what it once was but it's still got sufficient life left in it that I chose not to replace it at this time. I'll just let it roll for now.

A Better Point-N-Shoot

As I've previously stated, I have always had a hard time warming up to point-n-shoot cameras, digital or otherwise.  I'm a 35mm SLR guy from way back and I've always liked being able to twiddle the knobs to control my exposures. A few years ago, I finally took the plunge on a Pentax DSLR camera and have accumulated an assortment of lenses but as much as I enjoy using that gear, sometimes it's nice to keep things simpler in order to stay in the moment.

As I was getting into the Pentax gear, I picked up a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5 bridge camera. It was a point-n-shoot with a zoom lens made by Leica. It was only 5MP resolution and although I was intrigued with it, I finally sold it on, more than doubling my money. While I didn't have any seller's remorse, the idea of an affordable camera that has some Leica DNA has stayed with me.

A year or so after that, I acquired another Leica-lensed Lumix, a DMC SZ1 pocket point-n-shoot. It takes amazing photos for its size, but size is one of its shortcomings in that it's almost too small to handle and I don't have big hands. Still, I've kept that one for those times when I just want to have a camera along but it's not the main focus of what I'm doing.

Eventually, I came across a newer and more sophisticated Lumix, a DMC-FZ35, again with a Leica lens. This one seems to combine the best of what the two previous cameras have to offer in a little more SLR like configuration. Lightweight and comfortable to carry, I thought this was my ultimate point-n-shoot until I came across its larger, slightly older sibling, the DMC-FZ50.

At a glance, this camera could easily be confused for a DSLR. It's beefy, heavier than the FZ35, and zoom and manual focus functions are on lens rings like a DSLR. Unlike the SZ1 and FZ35, which feature Leica designed lenses, the FZ50 was actually co-developed with Leica, which sold a variant of the camera as the V-LUX 1. Some critics like to say Leica's V-LUX1 isn't a real Lieca but rather a Panasonic in Leica clothing. It could as easily be said that the FZ50 offered an opportunity to own what is essentially a Leica without paying a Leica price for it.

The main difference between the Lumix and Leica variants was in the firmware, but according to what reviews I can find, the differences, other than cosmetics and Leica's three-year warranty, were minimal and neither variant was significantly better than the other. For considerable premium one would pay for the Leica name, I'm sure many buyers had no hesitation to "settle" for the Lumix.

Making Space Fun Again!

A Tesla Roadster, driven by a mannequin named 'Starman',
hitches a ride aboard the Falcon Heavy test flight, blasting
music from David Bowie and bearing a message from
the late Douglas Adams on the instrument panel.

I am old enough to remember the excitement surrounding the Apollo lunar landings and one thing that was inescapable was the triumphant excitement. Originally, there were to have been ten lunar landings, beginning with Apollo 11 and concluding with Apollo 20, but we never got there. Instead, we stopped after Apollo 17. Sure, some of the hardware was recycled for the Skylab project—Remember Skylab? I bet a lot of people don't—and the last mission to carry the "Apollo" brand was a 1975 publicity stunt in which astronauts aboard the last Apollo capsule docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule for a "Handshake in Space" with a couple of cosmonauts. But why did we quit going to the moon and launching space shuttles and other cool stuff? In short, because it wasn't fun anymore. Yeah, I know there are a bunch of more technical explanations for all that, but space exploration needs to have a fun factor if it is to continue.

Today, Elon Musk put the fun back into space in the form of a cherry red Tesla Roadster 'piloted' by a space suited mannequin named 'Starman' and blasting David Bowie's "Life on Mars" on a continuous loop from the radio, while displaying the words "Don't Panic!" in a nod to the late Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy books, on the instrument panel's video screen. All of this served as the dummy payload aboard the successful test launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center's famed Launchpad 39A earlier today, 6 February 2018. The Falcon Heavy, with the Tesla Roadster and Starman aboard, is headed toward an orbit around Mars--not the sun--as some news outlets erroneously reported.

While some may dismiss it as a meaningless publicity stunt or at worst, a shameless plug for Musk's other company, Tesla—and who cares of Tesla uses it in their advertising—it's more than that. It made a positive and entertaining statement for a public that has become bored with space—bored because space has become numbingly routine. This was a hell of a lot more fun than some scientific experiments from Ms. Nelson's sixth grade class. I say kudos to Elon Musk and the rest of the SpaceX team for putting on a hell of a good show, turning a routine rocket launch into a memorable event. In fact, the only thing better, in my opinion, is if Starman's space suit were worn by the mortal remains of either David Bowie (1947-2016) or Douglas Adams (1952-2001). I wish both had been around to see the show they helped Mr. Musk create.

But seriously, this was a brilliant piece of marketing that might just help get people excited about getting back to space. And when—not if, but when—we get to Mars, let's hope Starman and the Tesla are waiting for us in orbit!

What Apple Should Have Done

As an owner of an iPhone 6S, I have followed with interest the recent kerfuffle over Apple's decision to secretly throttle processor speed on older iPhone models to prevent malfunctions such as spontaneous shut-downs as the batteries age. When Apple finally acknowledged this practice, their stated rationale for doing it was to extend the life of older devices, albeit at the expense of performance. Many users were understandably upset, concluding that Apple's true motivation was to accelerate the upgrade cycle by frustrating users into replacing their devices at shorter intervals. Although Apple denies this, the damage was done. Apple's reputation took a big hit and users have become more mistrustful of the corporate entities that manufacture the devices upon which they have come to depend. And rightfully so.

The whole thing comes down to a question of ownership, as in who actually owns the devices you use? End user license agreements for software applications and operating systems state that ownership of, say MacOS or Micro$oft Office is retained by the manufacturer. When we 'buy' the software, we are really just buying the license to use it. This has become more and more obvious as software manufacturers have continued to scale back on the physical packaging of their products. Twenty years ago, M$ Office came in a large box, containing not only physical media on which the software was stored but extensive printed manuals as well. By the early 2000s, the printed manuals were gone and the much smaller package contained only the physical media and a copy of the end user agreement. Today, physical media is pretty much a thing of the past and the product has largely been reduced to bits and bytes transmitted over our broadband Internet connections. Some manufacturers such as Adobe have taken things a step further and have moved to a subscription model, where they only license the use of their software for a specific period of time and the customer must purchase a new license each year to continue to use it.

In this new paradigm, we grant software manufacturers access to our hardware so they can keep their products fully updated as a way to add 'value' to our purchase. It's pretty easy to see how a manufacturer like Apple, which makes both the hardware and the software, might see a blurry line between the two and use a software update as a way to control the hardware. But they also try to control the hardware in other ways such as making replacement parts available only to authorized service centers. And lest we forget, Apple has long regarded its devices—especially iPods and iPhones—as disposable items, designed to be used up and replaced over time. That's one reason the batteries aren't easily replaceable.

While I don't fully disagree with Apple's thinking regarding throttling processor performance to fit the capabilities of a degraded battery, I think they really messed up by not telling consumers what they were doing—and more importantly—by not giving them the ability to opt in or out. Given the opportunity to make an informed decision, many consumers would have doubtless agreed to give up a little performance to get another year or so out of their existing phone while preparing for an inevitable upgrade. Others would prioritize performance over longevity, taking the words of Neil Young to heart that "it's better to burn out that to fade away". The bottom line here is that giving consumers a choice in the matter would have also been giving them respect. Instead, by following its long established pattern of secrecy, Apple has alienated customers, fostering suspicion regarding its true motives.

In an attempt to make amends, Apple is offering $29 battery replacements for affected devices. With such an offer available, I naturally began wondering whether my 13-month-old iPhone might need a new battery. Earlier today, I used two free apps to determine that at the moment, my battery is very healthy and my phone's performance has not been throttled.

I downloaded and installed an app called Runtime and using its 'Battery Wear' function, I discovered that my phone's battery is at 99 percent of its original capacity. I then used Lirum Info Lite to determine that my phone's CPU is operating at its full clock speed of 1.85 GHz, so no throttling has been applied—at least not yet. Needless to say, I will be using these apps to continue monitoring my phone's health, especially between now and the time the $29 battery replacement offer expires. And in the meantime, I would urge Apple to make the CPU throttling feature optional going forward and thus let consumers decide what is in their own best interests. Such a practice would be entirely consistent with the time honored business axiom that the customer is always right.

Update—It seems Apple is now poised to do the right thing. Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced that the next update to iOS, coming in March 2018 will include the option to turn throttling off, along with more robust battery health monitoring options. This is what should have been done from the beginning, but I'll certainly give them credit for being responsive to consumers and ultimately doing the right thing when it's pointed out to them.

A bright idea for my fridge

I recently had to have the control board (aka self-destruct device*) replaced in my refrigerator. While the technician had the ceiling console, which also houses the light fixture, apart, we noticed something startling. The 40 watt incandescent light bulbs that had been in the fridge since new had begun melting the ceiling! Even though the console completely hid the damage, the technician was concerned enough to leave the light bulbs out and advised me to look into something would put off less heat.

Having recently acquired some LED bulbs to try out in lamps and light fixtures, I immediately thought they would be a good solution since they stay quite cool to the touch, even when they've been on for an extended period of time. The ones I had were physically too large so I went shopping and found a 3-pack of LED bulbs the same diameter as the original incandescents for $10 and change, which was a perfect solution since my refrigerator has two bulbs plus one in the freezer below.

I had not realized just how hot the incandescent bulbs got. In the 45 seconds or so it took to change one bulb, the other one got hot enough to blister my finger when I tried to remove it. I had to close the refrigerator and let it cool off for a few minutes before I could safely handle it. I have to wonder if that heat from those bulbs damaged not only the ceiling of the fridge but the control board as well.

These new bulbs not only put out less heat, they consume considerably less power, pulling only pull seven watts of power (the equivalent of an old fashioned Christmas tree bulb) to put out light equivalent to a 60 watt bulb. Also, the light is more of a stark white color, quite appropriate for inside a refrigerator. Being brighter and whiter, the bulbs do a better job of illuminating the formerly dark corners. Given the small amount of time those bulbs are ever on, I'm not expecting to see any savings on my power bill and I have no illusions that they will come anywhere near paying for themselves as they would in some other application where they were on more. They will instead pay for themselves by extending the life of my refrigerator. They'll also earn their keep by giving the inside of the fridge a more up to date look. All in all, it's not a bad return on a minimal investment.

*I refer to the electronic circuit boards in modern appliances, both small and large, as 'self-destruct devices' because they seem to serve as an intentional weak link designed to shorten the life of an otherwise dependable and durable device. By redesigning and discontinuing circuit boards on a regular basis, manufacturers make repairs less feasible--if they're even possible--thus pushing consumers into an endless cycle of replacing their appliances, which have been re-positioned as consumable items instead of the durable goods they once were. Remember when a vacuum cleaner lasted for decades? One thing you wouldn't find in such a machine was a circuit board. 

Meet the New Linux; the Same (but maybe a little better than) the Old Linux

For the past two or three years, I've been happily using Xubuntu Linux but like all good things, this too eventually came to an end.

About a year ago, I had attempted to upgrade to the next long term support version of Xubuntu and it wouldn't install. It seems my hardware was a little outdated. Since the version I was using still had a couple of years left before it reached its scheduled end of life—the point at which all development, including maintenance and security updates, ceases—I had decided to just ride it out and make a decision about what to do with the computer in a couple of years.

For better or worse, things just didn't last that long. Updates kept failing and the system was becoming more more outdated and thus more and more vulnerable. Finally, I decided I'd had enough and decided to see what else was out there. I finally settled on Linux Mint 17.1 and decided to keep the xfce interface I had grown accustomed to.

One of the things I have truly come to love about most popular Linux distributions over the years is the ability to boot from a live CD or DVD and take the operating system for a test drive without affecting anything on the computer.  One of the first things I discovered in the release notes was a built-in workaround for the problem that had kept me from upgrading to the newest stable release of Xubuntu. It took a couple of tries to get the workaround to work, since you have to be pretty quick to access the Linux Mint boot menu to apply it, but once I did, it worked flawlessly and even remembered that setting when I installed the operating system on my hard drive.

The installation went flawlessly and configuration was a breeze since I was already quite familiar with the xfce interface. One of the nicest things was that almost all the software applications I needed were already included on the installation disk image. The only thing I had to add were the Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client and Radio Tray, an Internet radio player I had been using.

After I ran all the updates, I found the version of the LibreOffice productivity suite included on the disk image was not only outdated but had actually reached its scheduled end of life several months ago. I've encountered this issue before as Linux distributions often don't keep the most current versions of third party software in their repositories. It's not a big deal, but in my previous experience, it has always required mucking about on the command line to set up access to an alternate repository in order to install the current version. It's a one-time thing, after which updated versions are installed automatically.

After a quick post to the Linux Mint users' forum, a helpful administrator gave me my answer and the news was better than I was hoping for. Not only was it possible to gain access to a more up to date repository, but there was a pre-installed app that let me do it without venturing onto the command line. It took me less than five minutes to access the repository and install the current version of the software. Configuring my printer was equally as easy. It took all of about four mouse clicks. That's a far cry from the first time I installed OpenSUSE Linux on an old laptop some six years ago.

I've only had Linux Mint installed on my nine-year-old HP laptop for about 24 hours, but I'm happy with it and it seems to hold the promise of keeping this particular piece of old hardware running and up to date for the foreseeable future.

Mac OS X may still be my operating system of choice, but my appreciation for desktop Linux in all of its forms continues unabated.