work as if you live in the early days of a better nation
On the left, a very worn blade from a roughly decade-old Fiskars paper trimmer. On the right, one of the replacement blades you can get at Staples. Note the extra lugs stopping the new-style blades working with the old-style cutters? Bet they think they’re really clever little Fiskars for coming up with that planned obsolescence move.
It’s nothing that a steady hand and a rotary tool can’t fix, though …
I’ll just leave this stinker here, shall I?
I spent — no, wasted — two hours traipsing around big-box stores looking for a replacement for this. I bought the light fitting at Lowe’s, but do they stock the tubes? Do they chook.
The Circline seems to be an especially weird idea. It comes in a whole bunch of odd sizes, but most stores only stock 8″ and 10″ replacements. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have bought the light in the first place.
Instagram filter used: Lo-fi
I’d noted previously that a standard USB micro-b power plug doesn’t fit into a Pibow. I’ve measured the opening in the case at 10.4 mm. This is what the USB.org spec says for the Micro-B plug:
A conforming cable can be up to 0.2mm larger than would fit into the Pibow. The rather weak excuse given by the designer is:
My Micro-USB cable doesn’t fit!
The Pibow supports a wide range of svelte, stylish micro USB cables, we recommend on [sic] of these. We may be able to slightly widen the aperture to include more cable. We don’t intend to support cables with large sleeves though, they just look naff 🙁
While I had the vernier calipers out, I measured all the USB connectors I could find. Not one was under 11 mm, way out of spec, and completely unlikely to fit in the Pibow.
I have had a nice BASIL basket on the back of my bike:
With that, it has had all three of Syd’s requirements. But there’s a problem; with the basket on, it doesn’t fit into my bike locker:
These Cycle-Safe lockers taper down to a narrow point, so basically anything other than a stripped-down bike won’t fit. The city says of the lockers:
“Most standard bicycles will fit insideâ€? Grah. If there’s something more standard that a Dutch bike with a basket on the back, I don’t know what it is. I have to go back to my makeshift solution — a too-tall basket lashed on with bungees — and deal with it biting my bum as I ride. Sigh.
Got a couple of spare NOOKcolor Charging Cables, since (grar! gnash!) it uses its own special twist on the USB Micro-B connector that just doesn’t work with anything else. They came in a middling size box, and then each cable was packaged thus:
That’s a 120×75mm box with 70×70mm blocked out, leaving only 50mm for the cable. Stay wasteful, Barnes & Noble …
Yes, Downers Grove Doubletree Guest Suites, I’m talking about you.
