News and Views From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

I got a new phone this week, the HTC Thunderbolt. I’m trading up from the original Droid, which I’ve had for almost 2 years.

The phone works on Verizon’s new 4G (“LTE”) network, and it is FAST. Speed tests show that I’m getting between 10 and 20 Mbps down, and between 3 and 4 Mbps up. This is comparable to my home cable connection. Verizon has the fastest 4G network by far right now, but that may change as they start selling more 4G phones.

The result is web browsing that is about the same experience as on my computer, except for the small screen.

Though small compared to a computer, the screen is larger, and the processor faster than on my old Droid, so the overall experience is much improved. The downside is that battery life seems limited, especially when using 4G. It doesn’t look like I’ll get a full day out of it if I use 4G a lot, but hopefully with a charger in my car it won’t be a problem.

Geek alert. May not be interesting to the casual reader. Technical, gadget-type stuff.

We have had our current water heater for over 15 years (it came with the house). It’s inefficient and I’m concerned that it is ready to cause another flood. So I updated to the latest technology.

I got a GE Geospring water heater. It has a conventional electrical resistance water heater combined with a heat pump. Heat pumps are much more efficient — it uses less than half the electricity to heat water using the heat pump alone. However, a heat pump is slower, so the resistive part helps when demand is higher. There’s a nice animation here.

On the negative side it was about 3 times as expensive as a conventional electric water heater, but the savings in electricity should pay for the difference in about 3 years. So it’s really an investment.

On the plus side, the heat pump extracts heat from the environment to heat the water, so it will actually help to cool the garage (a little). A nice benefit in the summer, but not so useful right now while the outside temperature is in the 30s, and supposed to drop into the 20s tonight.

Took me most of the day to install. I’m OK at sweating (soldering) copper pipes, but it took me a while to figure out that one of the pipes had water dripping into it, and it’s almost impossible to solder a wet pipe.

Now, don’t you non-techy types wish you had observed the warning at the top? Is there anything much more boring than a water heater?

6 years ago I had cataract surgery, with a replacement lens inserted. The improvement in vision was striking, as everything become suddenly much clearer and brighter.

Over the years, the natural capsule in which the lens is inserted has slowly opacified, to the extent that my vision had gradually returned to about where it was before I had cataract surgery. Glare from lights at night was so bad that driving was becoming dangerous. I had trouble reading my Kindle, and general visual acuity was poor.

Today I had a laser capsulotomy, a procedure in which they zap a laser through the lens and blast away the opacified capsule.

Already, an hour later, the improvement again is as striking as it was 6 years ago with the original cataract surgery, even while my eye is still somewhat dilated. The doctor said my vision should continue to improve for a while as the shreds of capsule dissipate over the next few weeks.

Isn’t modern medicine wonderful?

After driving my Honda Odyssey for 10 years and 145,000 miles, I decided it was time for a new car. When you live many years with a car, you’re not aware of the gradual change as it ages — it still seems about like it did when it was new. But it’s not the car it was when you bought it. I was going to make a comment about spouses, but won’t. (Wait — I just did…) I still love my Odyssey, but…

I just bought a brand new 2010 Acura MDX Crossover SUV. Except for the entertainment package (DVD screen for rear seat passengers), I got all the bells and whistles. It’s the coolest car I’ve ever owned, or seen for that matter.

Some of the neat techy features include:
– Adaptive Cruise Control, where it uses radar to keep a safe distance from the car in front
– Collision Mitigation Braking System, where the same radar will warn you of an imminent collision and if necessary put on the brakes and tighten your seat belt.
– Blind Spot Information system, where it detects cars in the blind spot on either side.
– CDs are copied to a Hard Disk Drive, so you don’t need a disk changer.
– Ventilated seats in the front — air blows through tiny holes in the leather to keep you cool.

Plus all the “usual” stuff like Navigation, Bluetooth phone connection, back-up camera, etc.

It’s going to take me a while to figure everything out, but it will be lots of fun doing so.

The 2011’s will be out in a couple of months, but nothing has changed, and dealers were very ready to bargain to start clearing out the 2010 stock. So I probably shouldn’t have splurged, but if I keep it for 10 years I hope I will feel that I got my money’s worth.

We have had a Netflix account for several years, and generally like it a lot.

I quit Blockbuster because I got so frustrated with late fees — I would be charged a whole new rental period for being one day late on a return. With Netflix, you can keep a movie as long as you like and never get charged a late fee. Their selection is very large, and we usually get movies the day after they are sent.

The main drawback is lack of spontaneity. It’s Friday night, friends or family are over, and you want to watch a movie. But none of the ones you have on hand is appropriate for the audience. So you either end up going to Blockbuster anyway, or playing a game instead of watching a movie (which is probably a better alternative, but that’s a topic for another blog).

Now with Netflix streaming movies, we can choose something to watch on the spur of the moment, for no extra cost. If you have a Netflix account, you can instantly stream a movie or TV show directly to your computer, or with the right connections, to your TV.

Gisele, Derek and I are two-thirds of the way through the first season of “24”, which none of us had ever seen before. We have been watching 2-3 episodes a night for the past week. I was out of the country when Ken Burn’s “The Civil War” was shown, but now I’m watching that too.

Not everything is available. Recently released movies in particular are absent, and even the old ones are somewhat limited. But there are so many movies and TV shows that are available that I always can find something interesting to watch.

You can watch them on your computer if you want, but if you have a Wii, or Playstation 3 or several DVD players, you can stream them directly to your TV. We use our Wii, and the picture quality is very similar to DVD. It required a DVD to activate, but Netflix sent it for free.

I think this is the future of home movie watching, though I’m afraid that the movie studios will feel they aren’t being compensated well enough. We’ll have to see how it shakes out. For now, we can couch-potato as much as we want.