The hall of famer lets me down

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

My check engine light came on this morning. I’ve been driving this Honda Civic since May 2003, and this is only the third time that’s happened. But the other two times were nuisance lights. The car ran fine, so I bought a new gas cap, replaced the cap, and the light went off.

This time was different. I confirmed it when I turned the corner and tried to accelerate to 25 miles per hour. The car acted like I was asking it to go a hundred and twenty-five.

After 10-plus years and 194,000-plus miles, I had my first mechanical problem. For the first time, I was going to the mechanic for something other than arbitrary, mileage-based maintenance. Read more

Sculley on Jobs

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Sculley on Jobs

John Sculley famously fired Steve Jobs in September 1985, a move that’s pretty universally panned today. Nearly 28 years later, Forbes asked Sculley about it.

Here’s the money quote:

“He was not a great executive back in those early days. The great Steve Jobs that we know today as maybe the world’s greatest CEO, certainly of our era, he learned a lot in those years in the wilderness.”

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Clean your air conditioner at home

Dave Farquhar DIY, Saving money ,

Last week I had to get an air conditioner serviced. The air conditioner was cooling fairly well, but struggling to keep up on hot days when it had kept up just fine last year. So I bit the bullet and paid $79 for a cleaning and health check. In the process I learned it’s possible to clean your air conditioner at home. And save a bundle.

I also learned is that a cleaning can make the difference between running all day and being able to maintain a comfortable temperature while cycling. So cleaning the air conditioner makes it more comfortable and more efficient, saving you money. I also learned that the most important part of the cleaning is something you can do yourself, very easily. If your air conditioner isn’t under warranty anymore, you can save the $79, which adds up.

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A programmer writes about writing

Dave Farquhar Writing

I saw this piece by Steve Losh last week, and thought it was some of the best advice about writing I’ve seen in a very long time. Programmers don’t generally like to write, but I find if you tell them how, they can do a good job of it. It’s much easier for a programmer to learn to write than for a writer to learn how to program. Losh does a good job of telling how.

But beyond that, I think it’s a good reading assignment for anyone who writes documentation of a technical nature. I’ve worked with some very good writers and some very bad writers over the course of my education and career, and this would have helped both types. It would have made the good ones better and the bad ones at least marginal. The thing about writing is that if you know the rules and you follow them, it doesn’t take much else on top of that to be good.

So, if you ever get stuck writing documentation–and if you’ve been reading me for many years, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance you do sometimes–give this a read. It will help you get into the mindset you need to be in, and write more effectively. Even if you’re not a programmer. Because, even though he’s a programmer, he uses cars and guitars as his examples. So if you were writing about how to build a bookcase, his instructions would help you.

How I freed a seized-up garbage disposal

Dave Farquhar Landlording , , , , , , ,

I’m sure all landlords have a story like this, but let me tell you my garbage disposal story. I don’t know what the last occupant put in that disposal, and I don’t want to know. What I do know is that it was completely seized up and wouldn’t run.

The motor hummed, which I know from years of tinkering with old Lionel and Marx electric trains that meant the motor wasn’t completely dead, so I had to find a way to free up whatever was keeping the motor from turning.

The usual fix is to use a garbage disposal wrench (which is really just an allen wrench–so you can use any allen wrench that fits) to spin the motor in both directions until it turns freely. There’s a little key in the center of the underside where the wrench goes. Mine wouldn’t budge. I wasn’t being wimpy either–I’d lean on it to the point where the disposal itself was shifting in its mount, but the motor stubbornly refused to go anywhere.

At this point I’d about written it off. A 1/3 horsepower Waste King Legend disposal costs around $55 online, and sometimes you can get their low-end half-horse unit for around $5 more, so I figured I didn’t have a whole lot to lose, and I knew I couldn’t make the disposal any worse.

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Install an outlet for an above range microwave

Dave Farquhar DIY ,

We have a house with an above range microwave, but no nearby outlet to plug it into. The previous owners simply ran an extension cord. While I’m not 100% positive this is illegal to do in my locality, the safety is questionable and it certainly goes against the manufacturer’s recommendations. My home inspector wanted me to install an outlet. Here’s how to install an outlet for an above range microwave.

Better yet, I did it over the drywall without tearing into any walls, and spending less than $20.

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Amazon bundles free/discounted e-books with print books

Dave Farquhar e-readers

Amazon just fired off another salvo in the e-book war, one that’s going to be very difficult to return: Selected e-books are available for free or at a substantial discount if you bought the print book new from Amazon at any time, dating back to 1995.

Of course, being an e-commerce site, Amazon has the data to do that. Barnes & Noble doesn’t, necessarily. Their records of in-store purchases will be spotty, at the very least.

It’s a fair and reasonable deal for consumers, and I think it’s a good deal for authors and publishers too. Read more

Don’t be too surprised that financial writers don’t follow all of their own advice

Dave Farquhar Saving money ,

Horror of horrors–a financial writer confessed to Lifehacker that he or she doesn’t track every penny of every expense. The hypocrisy!

Not really. There are two things you need to understand: The end goal, and how to get there. The end goal of every financial writer is to get people living within their means. The majority of their advice are ways to get to that goal. If they’re already at that goal, then they’ve outgrown some of their own advice.

So if they don’t follow all of their own advice, that could be a positive sign.

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The pizza procession

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

There’s a plaza over by our house that’s home to, among other things, a pet store, a license office, a Chinese food joint, a mattress store, a haircut place, a Radio Shack, another cell phone store, and a pizza joint. My wife was there last week, getting ready to pull out of the parking lot, when a funeral procession approached. She stopped to stay out of the way.

The pizza delivery guy behind her didn’t.

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