Headworx

I think I'll refrain from posting today, This is the 1000 post, so a great excuse to celebrate. Thanks to all my followers for your loyalty over the 20 years.  While the daily discipline helps me being consistent, all that I've been doing comes out of passion and brings a lot of joy. Therefore it is easy :) I guess I never get bored. Or at least not in the near future. This personal road combined with the "business" challenges has been so exciting. The long term nature of some things has always attracted me. And sometimes I feel like the luckiest person on Earth. So probably if I was to give a piece of advice to people, it would be: tame your expectations and be patient. At the same time do not judge things on their face value but dig to the bottom to find the truth and build confidence. The fundamentals will always prevail and win in the long run. This confidence will also let you sleep well. See you next week at post 1001 :)

Call me late, but I now have wireless CarPlay in my 2005 Subaru. It is as convenient and seamless as car-phone integration can be. It started way back in 2016 when (after driving for 9 years a civilian version of the Forester II / SG) I fell in love with the Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) STI-version of it. And during multiple upgrades I installed the Pioneer AVIC head unit equipped with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay technologies. The radio has ton of features (including its own GPS/mapping subsystems and SD-card based music library) but really the bright spot is the large capacitive touch display. And the phone interfaces of course. While the cable versions of Android Auto and CarPlay have of course been great (a single cable to connect/integrate the phone and charge it), they are not that super convenient during short city / commuting trips. I made a small upgrade by installing the magnetic cable , but it still required removing the phone from a pocket. Until I finally decided to p...

I have completed my self-assigned homework after the broken laptop experience on my last trip to Asia. Actually this exercise led to several interesting findings. First - the LattePanda Delta works great. I have it inside a passive cooling case (no fans!). The case gets quite hot during operation but it seems within the limits as the computer itself runs just fine (and totally silent!). It also gives quite decent mechanical protection (although for travel I would recommend at least a small pouch to prevent small object from falling inside). Also I had to do some creative work related to wireless antennas (the Panda leaves this problem completely unsolved - the antennas dangle around on tiny cables). I ended up buying a pair of pcb-strip antennas with IPEX/MHF-4 connectors and gluing them to the sides of the Panda Arduino connectors. It is not ideal but works. Other than that the Panda feels quite fast and responsive, even Microsoft Office 365 applications run quite well. Second - th...

Per Wikipedia : The use of fine print is a common advertising technique in certain market niches, particularly those of high-margin specialty products or services uncompetitive with those in the mainstream market. The practice, for example, can be used to mislead the consume r about an item's price or value, or the nutritional content of a food product. Identifying and recognizing the fine print has been the key strength of so called "experience" we gain over the years. Everyone was burned or disappointed multiple times in the past and over time we learn to approach with skepticism the things which are advertised. Assorted examples (some of them were surprising to me even though I consider myself experienced...): Boarding a flight: "Sir, you have been upgraded". "But sir, no food". The "cost optimized" upgrades tried by Lufthasna. Seems like they have backed off from that already (and also restarted serving coffee in the economy) after their ...