Stuff What I Made

I recently got myself a new Garmin, of the Edge 850 variety. I got it from eBay at a relative steal, from a vendor who purported to be London-based. The package tracking however told a different story, with the item originating in Kansas, USA, before being cancelled(!), then a new tracking link was issued saying it was coming from Florida, with a different carrier. Eventually it was delivered in Amazon packaging, addressed to “Martin” (no surname) at my address. Mercifully I didn’t pay any import duties/taxes as I had feared. Quite dodgy on many levels, but nevertheless it was intact,... [Read More]

Several years ago, my domestic waste bin went missing. Bit odd I thought, but then it was quite old and looking somewhat worse for wear, perhaps the fortnightly refuse collectors had decided it was EOL and taken it away for recycling? I ordered a new one from the council and didn’t think any more of it. A couple of years later though, it went missing again, and this time I couldn’t come up with a sensible reason for its absence. This was a bit irritating, but I dutifully ordered another new one and life went on. Late last year however,... [Read More]

Driving a van without rear windows, there is obviously also no rear view mirror. At some point, however, I became aware that aftermarket digital rear view mirrors are available. These use a camera pointing backwards, and the “mirror” itself is simply a screen. I did a survey of the available options and they fell into two broad types, those that clipped on top of an existing rear view mirror, and those that replaced it entirely. Honestly I’m not sure I really understand the point of the former; if you have an existing (and real) rear view mirror, why would you... [Read More]

I recently(ish) got a new(ish) laptop. In the main I’m very happy with it, but it had one flaw, that being that when struck on the right hand side, the space bar would either not work at all, or sometimes insert a double space. This was highly annoying and wasn’t something I was prepared to put up with. I looked into getting an OEM replacement but this was going to be nearly half what I had paid for the entire computer, so instead I looked on eBay and eventually found a C-grade part from a breaker for 40 notes; still... [Read More]

In one of my earlier posts where I discuss my first impressions of the Pinion Smart.Shift gearbox I had fitted to my bike, I had a little moan about the missed opportunity in the Pre.Select auto shifting feature. This is a setting where a gear is automatically pre-selected if the system detects you’re coasting. In general I like it, but it becomes annoying when switched on all the time. For me I only really want it enabled on descents, where it comes into its own. What is really needed is a simple way to easily toggle it on and off... [Read More]