Tim

Member since: Dec 7th, 2005

Tim's Latest Comments

Blog Activity

Blog	# of Comments
TUAW.com	56 Comments
Engadget	26 Comments
Download Squad	13 Comments
Slashfood	29 Comments

Recent Comments:

Dulce De Leche - An Easy Dessert Enhancer (Slashfood)

Oct 12th 2009 11:41AM What if I put the condensed milk in a mason jar with a new lid and boiled it that way? The mason jar is designed to be boiled, and it lets off excess pressure through the lid. Plus, you'd be able to see how caramelized it is through the glass.

Taco Bell Cupcakes, Smoothies Coming Soon? (Slashfood)

Oct 12th 2009 11:39AM My proposal: Put flan inside something like a Flinstones Push-Pop container or some sort of cone. That way, people can eat it while driving, and it's still kinda Faux-Tex-Mex. Or you could do Tres Leche cake. Some nice, cool milk soaked cake to go after spicy tacos (yeah, they aren't really that hot, actually) sounds nice, and it'd be pretty hard to mess up. I've seen recipes for Tres Leche cupcakes, if you want to keep the cupcake machinery you already invested in.

KFC's Secret Blend of Herbs and Spices Cracked? (Slashfood)

Jul 21st 2009 8:41AM Doesn't KFC use a pressure-fryer of some sort, making a true "home recipe" a bit unattainable?

Also, if I'm going to put in all the effort to make fried chicken myself, it needs to taste BETTER than KFC to be worth it. I'll go for what tastes great, rather than aiming for a mass-market target. After all, I don't try to make my soups taste like they came from Progresso.

From a parallel universe: The Apple Cafe (TUAW.com)

Jun 3rd 2009 7:47PM It looks exactly like the restaurant in Back to the Future II. Tons of video screens, late 80's/90's-ish design sensibilities. All that's missing is the wacky clothes, Ronald Reagan waiter avatars, and exercise bikes.

I dearly love BTTF both sincerely and ironically, so I'd eat there if the employees there were in on the joke.

Tweetie for Mac OS X: TUAW Hands-on (TUAW.com)

Apr 23rd 2009 6:15PM Anyone have any ideas for a good global hotkey? I liked CMD-Shift-T, but that's open last tab in Firefox, and I'd like to keep that.

Apple drops to number two in reliability (TUAW.com)

Mar 26th 2009 2:08PM All laptops break, it's just the nature of the machinery. It's put under more stress, and some sensitive connections (ie the screen's cables and antenna for the wifi card) are forced to move every time the screen opens and closes. Add to that the fact many people move their laptops every day, and use them during traveling, and that puts strain on the hard drives and optical drives.

Build quality and features like an accelerometer to park drives when falling/moving contribute a lot to reliability. Design is also important in other areas, as overheating can lead to slow performance, discomfort while using the computer, or even hardware failures.

However, support calls in general are likely more about software than hardware, but even that differs. Old or poorly made drivers and bundles of "trialware" can make a computer perform poorly out of the box, worse than it would with a clean install of Windows and the minimum and most current drivers needed from the manufacturers. Sometimes an esoteric office suite is included to save costs (MS Works, Lotus Notes, etc), which users are unfamiliar with. Some companies don't even include a legitimate Windows CD (they include a restore disc, an image of the hard drive's factory configuration, complete with crapware), so you can't even do a proper reformat.

Thus, laptops actually do vary quite a bit.

Apple drops to number two in reliability (TUAW.com)

Mar 26th 2009 11:54AM Apple's customer service is good, but I think they could make the Genius Bar system work much better. I understand the need for appointments, but I'm effectively shut out once I drop off my machine. I can't call someone actually in the store to see how its going or if it's on schedule, I have to call Apple's tele-robot, get routed to a call center tech, have that tech read off the same things that are on the website to me, then appeal for him to call the store, and then wait for him to relay the status to me. If I could just email the techs, that'd be great.

MIT's quick charging batteries could revolutionize the world, maybe (Engadget)

Mar 12th 2009 6:17PM I hate to be a wet blanket, but I think quick, huge draws on the lines would destabilize the grid more. The power companies would hate this if it charges a car in, say, 10 minutes. Instead, I suggest that the car companies sell fast chargers that have their own batteries/super-capacitors (whichever is cheaper/more practical) that trickle-charge at a variable over 4-12 hours, capitalizing on off-peak hours to save money and help the power company, and then quickly charge the electric car in minutes while depleting their own reserves. They should hold more power than the car needs to benefit houses with more than one car (enough to charge 1.75 sedans completely sounds smart to me), and possibly allow the user to sell back a certain percentage of that power to the electric company when the grid is at peak hours, offering stability. And, of course, it can trickle charge a car when it's still depleted.

"Gas" stations would keep a massive battery and have it store enough to charge the rough amount of cars it gets every day. Electric signs will say if it has enough power for more customers or not. They'll likely get several large power lines, and pay an appropriately higher rate for the strain their service puts on the grid, which they'll recoup with the cost of a charge.

MIT's quick charging batteries could revolutionize the world, maybe (Engadget)

Mar 12th 2009 5:57PM I think the idea is that people could charge smaller batteries more frequently. Consider that your laptop probably has a 100 watt or less charger (You imply your laptop has a 2.5 amp charger, but that'd be 300 watts on an American power line and 600 watts on a European line. That'd be a massive, hot power supply, the Xbox 360's huge power brick is 200 watts). A household circuit can deliver around 1800 watts. Say we up it to 1400 watts, the approximate draw of a vacuum, so it charges 14x faster. That's about a 13 minute charge time, meaning that you could run down your laptop at a meeting or over your commute, then plug it at a coffee shop and have a charged battery by the time you leave.

The big issue here, of course, is that the power supplies would be huge and need cooling systems, and the laptop would need a larger charger, as that much power needs a lot of surface area and wire gauge, otherwise it will overheat or short the device. I'd expect something in the middle offered as a fast option (say, 30-40 minute charge on 500 watts) for travelers and a lighter option for office and home use. Or kiosks that provide high wattage DC charges for a fee could open up in public areas, and people could set up their own high wattage DC charging station at home. That home one is actually conceivable. If electric cars that can charge in 10 minutes will exist, standardization will need to happen for DC connectors that transfer a lot of power. Otherwise, we'd need to have Ford charging stations, Toyota charging stations, etc. Laptops and other devices could connect via an adapter to these chargers, and it's likely the home chargers would offer outlets for different levels of DC (12v car adapter, 5v USB, etc) as well as other functions (backup battery for the home, DC-AC inverter to use car battery for power in a blackout or to stabilize the grid over peak hours for a rebate).

Mac Pro refresh brings high-end graphics to the Mac (TUAW.com)

Mar 3rd 2009 4:16PM This is kind of a dumb question, but now that Apple has Intel hardware and rolls in drivers for graphics cards with updates, and Mac Pros are meant to be user upgradable, could a user install their own graphics card? RAM and video cards seem to advance the fastest, so that type of upgrade would be great. And video drivers from both companies are written to support as many of the company's cards as possible in one package to avoid confusion and technical problems, at least on Linux and Windows.