It does, however, have a couple of design flaws that I wanted to record here for other Miele owners to potentially stumble across when googling their frustrations.

Recently, or dishwasher would intermittently stop mid-cycle and flash the “Intake/Drain” light, indicating that the dishwasher either had no supply or the drain had failed. When this first happened, cleaning the filter basket was enough to let it complete the cycle (even when the filter basket didn’t have anything in it). Lately, the dishwasher wouldn’t even complete the initial drain cycle (the dishwasher always fires up the pump when first turned on to clear any sitting water).

Apparently, this is not an uncommon problem.

Once the filter basket is removed, there is a bit of wire that holds down the drain pipe on top of the pump impeller. For most with this problem, taking off the drain pipe reveals that the impeller is jammed by a bit of glass, a pit, hair, or other debris.

Not in my case. The drain pipe is actually not just a pipe, but a gravity/pressure activated ball valve. It exists to prevent backwash from the disposer or sink from entering the washer. That ball valve was entirely clogged with debris.

In particular, there was an olive pit wedge behind the ball valve such that the ball valve was barely opening. This led to bits of food being wedged between ball and pipe, quite effectively clogging the drain pipe. Once fully cleaned, the dishwasher works just fine again.

The real problem is that once there is any kind of problem in the dishwasher that prevents drainage, removing the filter basket causes whatever food bits that haven’t settled into the filter basket to end up falling into the pump intake area.

To avoid this, use a shop vacuum out any standing water (and food) in the bottom of the dishwasher before removing the filter basket.

On the inexcusably stupid front, the dishwasher — like most dishwashers — has a filter basket at the bottom of the dishwasher that is designed to catch bits of food and stuff before it hits the pump. The sump filter basket has a hinged bottom so you can open it up and clean it out periodically.

Unfortunately, the hinge isn’t actually a hinge. Miele’s designers cut a corner and the “hinge” is really just a thin spot connecting the door to the filter basket. Obviously, it is cheaper to make a single injection modeled piece than to actually have a mechanical hinged connection.

Expect the hinge to fail every 3 to 5 years. Replacement cost? $135 as of the spring of 2010.

But, hey, let’s make the vitriol useful– if there were a means that I could report bugs, I would. If there were a way to capture the state of my machine for validation, I’d do it. If there is some way that my crap user experience could be used to prevent future user abuse, that’d be awesome.


To be completely blunt: The team responsible for the PS3 non-gaming user experience — the menus, data management, user interface, and everything else that doesn’t happen in game — are either incompetent buffoons or have a management chain and/or product marketing/design/definition demands that are ridiculous, stupid, and an insult to the customer. (Personally, I’m betting it is the latter — the PS3 is an impressive piece of engineering, both software and hardware).

It is unfortunate that the PS3 is the only vehicle via which one can enjoy such great titles as Ratchet&Clank, WipeOut HD/Fury, and Uncharted. It is insult to their greatness to require the user to have to experience but a moment of the steaming pile of crap that is the Playstation 3 user experience.

I did something incredibly stupid this evening.

I assumed that Sony remotely cares about user experience, that Sony understands that their users care about saved game data, and that Sony — after more than a decade in the game console business — might have a clue about how to implement a system.

Boy, that was a stupid assumption.

I wanted to move the PS3 from TV A to TV B. No video; TV B doesn’t do 1080p. No problem; a google search or two later reveals that holding down the power button will reset the video and give you a menu where you can reset the video.

Nope — the closest is restore default settings. An internet search indicated this was the right thing to do. Wrong. The internet was wrong. Very very wrong. Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that. If you want to switch the resolution of a PS3 without losing data, do so on a TV that works with the PS3 in the current display mode first. If you don’t have one, you are screwed. Sony? Why do you hate your users?

In fact, what it does is worse than restoring the system to factory default. The first sign of trouble is when the PS3 says something like “Hey, I discovered there was user data I didn’t know about, I restored it”.

It lies.

It actually creates disconnected, unsigned, unblessed, shell accounts that have your data in an unusable form. They will have an asterisk in front; bbum became *bbum.

Uh oh.

Upon logging into the faux-*bbum account, many things are now broken. The worst — the single biggest insult — is that the original save game data is still there, but many games can’t use it.

Assasin Creeds II? Apparently, that saved game data will still work. Peggle? Nope, not so much. Oooh.. joy… looks like all data related to games purchased from the playstation network is trashed. WipeOut HD? Won’t even launch — key file missing, redownload dumbass user! But, Sony, All I wanted to do was make it work again? Why are you throwing rocks at me?

Better yet! When you redownload, the PS3 downloads all the bytes and then says “Hey, man, you already got the same crap installed. Do you really want to install it again?” The stupid. It burns!

Now, logging back into the Playstation Network let me sync my trophies. But there was also some warning that said that I might not be able to earn any more trophies, implying that online play was broken in some fashion. Of course, there isn’t anything that I can find to verify current status.

Wait. I played Peggle once and the challenge modes were locked. Now they aren’t. Huh… what? It appears that I didn’t lose Peggle data, but that something magically triggered the reconnection of the data. I’ll have to assume that it was the WipeOut HD “key” download as that seems to be the only “user authing data event” to have happened.

At this point, I renamed the account and have restored Playstation Network connectivity. I may or may not have a mostly working account. I have lost data — all Peggle data gone and deities knows what else. Even getting back to this point was a bunch of effort that I wouldn’t wish upon a non-admin user any day.

Of course, that I failed to maintain a backup was definitely a fault of mine. Then again, I didn’t actually lose any data, Sony just went to great lengths to make my data unusable without actually modifying it.

Or not. It might be that my data is now fully restored and usable. Or it might not be. There is no way to tell. Who knows? I might decide to fire up Uncharted One later this year only to discover that I can’t load the game save and have to start over.

Sadly, this abusive user experience is not unique to the PS3. I had a similar experience with the Wii, though — to be fair — Nintendo has apparently addressed that exact issue in the interim couple of years.

This year was mostly a great growing season for our garden. We got lots of beans, squash, tomatoes, and other goodies.

However, this year was also the year of aphids.

At left is a blossom on a red oleandar that I planted a few weeks before that photo was taken.

The ants are farming the aphids. That is, they herd and protect the aphids. In return, the aphids suck the plant’s sap and the ants carry off the waste product — the aphid poop — to store away in their nest for future feasting.

Two species acting symbiotically to irritate the hell out of me.

If this were the only infestation of this kind, I would be concerned that I had chosen a location for the plant that was sub-optimal and, thus, led to weakness that made the plant susceptible to such an attack.

But, not in this case. This is not the only massive infestation of aphids that I have seen this year!

The community garden was also plagued with aphids. And by plagued, I mean plagued.

This is a closeup of the blossom of a long bean plant. At a distance, the vine looked black because the aphids were this thick over the entire plant.

If you look closely at that photo, there are a handful of parasitic bugs attacking the aphids. Unfortunately, nowhere near enough to quell the infestation. The only solution was to remove the plant in its entirety.

Oddly, they only attacked some of the bean plants. No idea what made one plant more attractive than the next, given that the beans were in the same soil and climbing the same trellis.

AT&T has released a statement:

Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org. To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic.

Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question. We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers.

OK — so AT&T was acting to protect quality of service to customers that may have been impacted by a DDoS attack. Fair enough, though I question the means a bit (and admit fully that I have been too long out of the ISP business to claim these questions are anything but me being ignorant).

Was img.4chan.org hacked and, thus, AT&T walled it off because it was the source of the DDoS attack? Not sure how the “distributed” part comes in to play when an attack is sourced from a relatively small set of machines (I’m assuming img.4chan.org is more than one machine).

The initial report on the nanog list implies that the 4chan server was the source of the attacks and, thus, blocking ensued. Sounds like the server was hacked. Or spoofed?

Bottom line, though, is why the heck did it take AT&T so long to actually issue a statement somewhere useful?

I’m still in the market for a new ISP, just not quite as proactively.

Thus, I’ll continue to keep this post updated with suggested ISPs that folks submit. Feel free to add one in the comments. If you do, I’ll add the link/info to the article and likely delete the comment.

(To be precise, I don’t care about my ability to reach 4chan. I do care very much about network neutrality. I remember the last time the big providers went against net neutrality in the early 90s. It sucked.)

The suggestions, in no particular order:

Raw Bandwidth Communications, Inc.

No fussiness.

Speakeasy

No stupid policies of what you can/cannot do (within reason). I have heard good things about Speakeasy, too.

Sonic.net

Lots of raves for sonic.net. Shell access, no problems, good customer support, etc…

Verizon’s FIOS

Heard several good things about FIOS. Unfortunately, not available here (but keeping it in the “suggestions” because the reviews are good, where available).

The rejection(s). Companies that do stupid things to traffic.

Comcast

Comcast screws with BitTorrent traffic. I use BT for a variety of quite legitimate reasons, including for my day job. Doesn’t matter how easy it is to workaround, such a policy is a non-starter for me. Also, Comcast’s rates make it slightly cheaper to buy internet w/cable service. I don’t want cable TV in the house.

After 4 years, Canon has released an upgraded camera in the Digital Rebel series that has compelled me to replace my Digital Rebel Xt.

The Digital Rebel T1i, which started shipping in North America this month, is quite an extraordinary camera and a huge upgrade over the Xt. Excellent low light performance (high ISO performance), extreme versatility with the ability to shoot entirely automatic through to fully manual, and lots of usability upgrades.

I won’t be positing a detailed review. That has been covered far more effectively than I ever could by the folks at DPReview.

At above-left is the first image I shot with the T1i. Nothing terribly special, but I couldn’t have taken the same with the Xt without a tripod or switching to the relatively special purpose Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens (but that would have yielded a very narrow depth of field). Since someone asked, I added a link to the Amazon product page, too.

Canon 50mm f/1.4 – 1/125 f/1.6 – ISO 500

While there are many features and refinements of the T1i that I’m looking forward to leveraging, the high-ISO / low light performance is the one that yields an immediate benefit to me.

I like shooting photos in restaurants and the like, but I hate using a flash. Beyond making the food look artificial and destroying whatever natural ambiance the restaurant has tried to achieve, the flash is a huge annoyance to everyone — staff, customers, chefs, etc..

The photo at right is another shot that I could have done with the Xt without the flash or disruptive use of a tripod and posing.

Certainly, I will also leverage the upgrade from an 8MP to 15.1MP sensor, too. While the whole megapixel wars thing was overhyped and appears to now largely be over, there are some serious advantages to having a lot more pixels.

On the interactive front, it means that you can zoom into a photo and see some interesting details that wouldn’t be apparent with a lower resolution image. Looking at the full sized version of Eddie searing scallops reveals the slight haze caused by the scallops scorching under the flame.

But the biggest advantage of lots and lots of pixels is that it stretches the value of your lenses. In particular, I can shoot a shot with the Canon 100mm macro lens, crop nearly half the picture, and still end up with an image that is of the same resolution as a full framed image from the Xt. That would have been very handy for pictures like this, this, and this.

While the camera is brilliant, the software is not. At least, not so much when you want to work with an all RAW workflow.

Whenever a new camera is released, there is a lag between the release of the camera and when Apple or Adobe releases updates that include RAW support for the camera. Thus, I can’t currently shoot in RAW and import directly into Aperture (or Lightroom).

As I had shot a bunch of the initial images in RAW, I decided to install and use Canon’s RAW processing software to convert the images to usable form.

I summarized the experience with this tweet:

Canon’s camera software is a gigantic turd in the box containing an awesome camera.

Canon is in the camera business, not the imaging software business. And it shows in the software they ship with the camera.

First, don’t bother trying to download the software for your camera from canon. You can download firmware updates and you can download updates to the imaging software, but you have to have the original CD-ROM to do an installation.

How silly. What possible business reason does Canon have to prevent me from using my camera with any computer I encounter? This isn’t a revenue issue, the software “comes for free” with the camera (their description, not mine).

Because of this, I now have to install whatever outdated version of the software came with my camera and then grab the update from Canon’s rather poor web site to be able to upgrade to the latest version. For the rebel XT, the supplied installer is old enough and poorly written enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if it fails outright on Leopard these days (assuming I could even find my CD).

Now, with installer in hand, the experience does not improve.

The installer must be run from an administrative user’s account. University student trying to use a computer in a lab to process some photos? Not happening. Sensible user whose primary account is non-administrative? Log out, log in as administrator.

Once successfully run, the installer asks some questions and then does the installation into /Applications. No options to install it somewhere else.

The real kick in the crotch, though, is that the installed software is just a bunch of applications. It appears to be isolated to a folder in /Applications.

Even once installed, there is no guarantee the software is going to work. It certainly didn’t on my MacBook Pro; Canon’s own RAW decoding software can’t decode RAW images on my MBP.

However, the same software dragged to a MacPro works just fine.

Frustrating beyond belief and raises the question of why the hell the inferior installer is required in the first place.

Assuming you have the software installed on a working system, the actual user interface is awful, too. Non standard file browsers and toolbars. Toolbar buttons that make little sense. Icons in the UI that indicate something, but clicking on the icon yields no information.

And it doesn’t fully work, either. On the Mac Pro, the non-standard file browser randomly doesn’t allow some folders or volumes to be expanded. Like, for example, my user’s home folder. Got images in your Pictures folder? Nope. Can’t get to them from the software and there is no “open” or “import” that offers the system’s standard dialog box.

Of course, much of this stupidity might be explained by the obviously buggy implementation; so buggy that the system complains about the software loudly and often:

*** WARNING: Method setAutoresizesAllColumnsToFit: in class NSTableView is deprecated on 10.4 and later. It should not be used in new applications. Use setColumnAutoresizingStyle: instead.
*** WARNING: Method autoresizesAllColumnsToFit in class NSTableView is deprecated on 10.4 and later. It should not be used in new applications. Use columnAutoresizingStyle instead.
*** WARNING: Method setResizable: in class NSTableColumn is deprecated on 10.4 and later. It should not be used in new applications. Use setResizingMask: instead.
*** WARNING: Method isResizable in class NSTableColumn is deprecated on 10.4 and later. It should not be used in new applications. Use resizingMask instead.
*** -[NSLock unlock]: lock (%lt;nslock : 0x14a378a0%gt; ‘(null)’) unlocked when not locked *** Break on _NSLockError() to debug.
…. lots more deleted ….

To Canon’s credit, once you do struggle through the installer, move your images to somewhere the software can actually see it, and do all of this on a machine where the software can actually decode an image, it does a brilliant job of turning a RAW into a JPG that can be handled by Aperture or iPhoto just fine.

As an aside, the donateware RAW Photo Processor software can successfully decode T1i RAW images. It isn’t very easy to use, but at least it works. The resulting images don’t look as good as those decoded by the Canon software as they seem to have considerably more noise.

But at least it works and is straightforward to install.

For now, I’ll shoot in JPG on the camera. While it probably won’t look quite as good as using Canon’s software to do the RAW conversion on the desktop, Canon’s software is such a totally tedious pain in the ass to use, I can live with a bit of minor degradation to preserve the fun part of photography.

(I know I could shoot RAW+JPG and then import the RAW once Apple ships an update that supports the T1i, but that ain’t going to happen — I already have enough trouble keeping the photos I take now organized and don’t care to deal with that.)

On January 31st, 2007, the Boston authorities completely lost their minds in a highly visible and ultimately humiliating way.

I am, of course, referring to the Mooninite Invasion.

For the first time in 8 years, we have the potential to live in a nation governed by the sane with policies grounded in reasoned thought.

But it is only potential.

We must remain vigilant and must never fail to ridicule figures of authority when they act like complete unreasoning jackasses!

Well, I do. Herein lies a list of random eateries that I — and many people I know — enjoy. It is centric to Cupertino and West San Jose simply because that is where I work [Apple] and live. Thus, you won’t find much from Mountain View (even though there are some awesome spots there).

In no particular order and of no particular focus (and very likely with obvious omissions). And, yeah, I have a thing about pizza. It has a thin crust. It should be crispy. It should not be a fracking cake. I love Chicago-style meat-and-sauce cakes, but they ain’t pizza. There are three kinds of pizza in North America; NYC style, Chicago style, and Shakespeare’s. Deal with it.

Sushi: Furu-Sato

Sit at the bar. Say hello to Young, Kevin or Brian for me. Consistently some of the best quality fish I have been served in a very friendly and well designed atmosphere. Straight forward sashimi, sushi, and rolls, though they also have an interesting menu, too. I live by Omakase here. Recently, they have often had excellent quality fresh mango which goes tremendously well with tuna or hamachi.

Ethiopian: Zeni Ethiopian Restaurant

As long as you don’t mind eating with your hands and can take a rather relaxed approach to dinner (a couple of hours, typically), Zeni offers one awesome dining opportunity. Zeni serves ethiopian food, beer, and a delicious ethiopian honey wine. The best bet is to get a vegetarian sampler platter and order a couple of meat dishes to go with it. The whole thing will be served on a gigantic platter covered in injera. Don’t forget an order of spiced home made cheese to go with your meal. Delicious.

Japanese Tapas: Tanto Japanese Restaurant

The chef and staff of Tanto has served the best Japanese meals I have ever had. Like Furu-Sato, Omakase works very very well at Tanto. Tanto’s menu is extensive, filled with many small dishes and you cannot go wrong ordering off of it. They also have an excellent Soju menu.

Seriously. I have had, now, three meals here that were better than Nobu in New York City.

Mexican: Los Dos Compadres II

Total hole in the wall mexican spot that serves extremely tasty food cheap. Has real Coca-Cola — made with actual sugar and not corn syrup. Awesome seafood this and that. When they say “spicy”, believe it. I usually eat tacos because they are as close to the ones I had on the streets of Arandas, Jalisco, Mexico.

Pizza: A Slice of New York

Having lived in New York city, I was utterly and completely dismayed by what passed for “pizza” on the West Coast. Thin crust that was thick and chewy? Fail. While there are a couple of good pizza shops around the bay area (see below), nothing compared to a really good slice of NYC style “walking pizza”.

Fortunately, an ex-NYC’er who had moved out to join Cisco felt the same, gave up his high tech job, and opened a classic NYC pizza joint.

The key is to get slices. Why? Because truly good, thin, crisp, crust, can only be had by cooking twice. It is just the way it is. In NYC, we would often order whole pies of reheated slices.

Beyond a kick-ass pizza, A Slice of New York also makes an incredible meatball parmesan and they import all the parts to put together a genuine Long Island cannoli.

Halal Middle Eastern: Gulzaar Halaal Restaurant & Bakery

This little — and I do mean little — restaurant serves some of the best non-falafel oriented middle eastern food I have had in the bay area. Cheap. Fast. And utterly delicious. The beef kebab and vegetable samosas are delicious, served with a wonderful array of sauces. Everything is fresh and the focus is on the food, not presentation or atmosphere. They have two kinds of fresh baklava– pistachio and almond — both quite delicious. Very nice staff, too. This is likely to become a regular lunch spot.

Pizza: Pizza My Heart

A west coast pizzeria that actually does it right without just being a copy of an NYC joint. Quality pies with some delicious toppings. Good as slices and good delivered (ask for well done). Better yet, Chuck — the owner of Pizza My Heart and an iPhone — mentioned that a new location will be opening at De Anza & Stevens Creek with delivery to Apple! Never again will Dev Tech have a five hour brainstorming meeting with mediocre to awful pizza!

Pizza: Amici’s

Best NYC rip-off pizza in the bay area. Thin, crispy crust, with tasty toppings. Nice salads and sides, too. Small, but excellent, draft beer selection.

Gourmet: Sent Sovi

Our favorite gourmet meal kind of place. I wrote up a chef’s tasting experience a while ago. It was simply awesome. Unlike some “cutting edge” dining establishments, Sent Sovi maintains an awesome balance between culinary gastronomy and comfort food. A sort of culinary adventure with your world-class-chef mom, if you will… Has many special events throughout the year, centered around a particular local wine maker’s products or a specific theme ingredient. We have attended the King of Mushrooms and King of Duck dinners and they were, flat out, some of the most amazing meals we have had. Sign up for the mailing list, if interested. Meals not to be missed!

Gourmet: Manresa

Cutting edge high cuisine that challenges your palette. Christine and I had a phenomenal dinner at Manresa, but it was far from comforting. It was truly a culinary adventure and one that I’ll always remember fondly. Delicious and amazing creations often involving as much hardcore science as kitchen wizardry.

Location is everything: BJ’s Restaurant

I likely never would have visited BJ’s a second time if it weren’t for the fact that it is in the parking lot of Apple’s main campus. As a result, I eat lunch at BJ’s once a week and often have a beer or appetizer after work. They have some good beer (oatmeal stout, nutty, blonde, red, seasonals) and some bad (stout, porter, and occasionally bad kegs of anything else). Food is Pub Food. But there are some gems on the menu; sliders, appetizer pizzas (not the deep dish atrocities), and some of the sandwiches. You have to sort of zen with the service staff to enjoy the place; all things in good time.

Cafeteria: Caffé Macs

The main Apple employee lunch cafeteria. It has undergone a major upgradte in the past year [2008]. From being one of the best company cafeteria’s around, Caffé Macs is now a gourmand’s paradise. Beyond an awesome salad bar, wood fired pizza, sandwiches, and the like, Caffé Macs features daily and weekly specials that are out of this world. Every day is an adventure. I have had duck confit, roast quail, Peruvian and Brazilian national dishes, quail & bacon risotto, stone fruit composed salads, herb seared scallops, and much much more. All reasonably price — cheap, really.

Mexican: Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant

Yeah, like such a list as this would not include Tommy’s. Excellent yucatan style mexican food and the world’s best tequila bar (no, really). I generally stick with the specials, if available; molé, whole fried snapper, anything pork, anything beef. Awesome tamales. And, of course, great margaritas. Say hello to Julio for me.

Sammich: Amato’s Cheeseteaks & Hoagies

Awesomely delicious cheesesteak and chicken sandwiches. HUGE. Plan on 2 people being full after splitting a small. Good fries, too. This place pretty much does nothing but hoagie style sandwiches and they have been doing ‘em for a long time. Nice folks, too. Be kind, they’ll serve you well. Be an ass, they’ll throw you out. As it should be.

I’ll add more as I remember ‘em. Sadly, I’m at a complete loss to recommend a good dim sum spot in the area. Any recommendations?

Replacement parts for our refrigerator seem to be a major profit center for GE and our microwave was clearly designed by jackasses.

Read on for many too many details.

Our GE Profile Refrigerator’s freezer section stopped reaching 0, hovering at 10 to 28 degrees, depending on how hot the day was.

At 2.5 years old, it is out of warranty.

One $69 service call later revealed that the compressor fan wasn’t running. Cost for the relatively small, plastic fan and cheap-ass electric motor? $179. But that isn’t all that needs to be replaced.

Several years ago, GE redesigned the Profile such that it uses a “main board” — a little embedded controller — to control the various fans, pumps, etc… And when the compressor fan stops working, it either takes out the main board’s compressor fan control subsection or the main board’s compressor fan control subsection already failed and the dead compressor fan is the result.

Main board? Yeah — GE wants $250 for that. So, with labor, GE wants $520 to fix a 2.5 year old refrigerator that didn’t cost that much more than $520.

A quick search on the internet reveals dozens and dozens of similar failures. GE screwed up the design and their replacement part program is either intentionally or inadvertently a profit center.

A call to the service # yielded zero sympathy or clue. “That will be $99 to visit your refrigerator and you’ll have to talk with the [likely competent, but completely powerless, front line service guy] about not charging you to fix our screwed up product.”. Uh, no. That isn’t acceptable. I’ll be speaking to GE’s customer relations next week.

Ball is in their court. If GE makes good on fixing something that — evidence on the net and exorbitant parts quote — is clearly their problem, I might consider their products in the future. As it stands, not so much.

Update: GE didn’t care. During our remodel, we ended up sticking the refrigerator in the atrium — our make-do kitchen — with a box fan behind it. Kept the temperature stable on all but the hottest days for about 5 months until our new Kitchen Aid refrigerator was delivered and installed.

GE appliances are now on our blacklist.

The second issue is sort of funny if it weren’t actually downright dangerous.

We have a Samsung microwave that is more than a decade old. Nice enough device with the typical overly complex UI. Once you ignore all the gee-gaws and extraneous buttons, it is actually possible to program the microwave to nuke a bit of food — like, say, melt some butter — for a given amount of time at some given power level.

It goes like this:

• Insert food into ‘wave and close door
• Type a time
• Hit power level button
• Type a number from 1 to 6 (no UI indication of range), microwave will show that 10x that number (for no apparent reason).
• Hit Start button.

Now, say, you:

• Open door to check if butter is melting, stir it slightly (microwave, of course, stops nuking)
• Close door
• Hit Start button.

Beyond continuing the nuking process with the remaining time left, would you expect the microwave to also (a)continue to use the same power setting or (b)revert to full power with no indication that any change to power settings has occurred?

For whatever reason, the microwave does (b). So, if you are melting butter, this means that the microwave goes from power level 3 (which seems to work well) to power level 11 (whatever the maximum is, which seems to be beyond what you can set when you use the power level button in the first place).

This, in turn, renders the butter into a molten pool of lava like fat in a matter of seconds, shortly after which it explodes all over the inside of the microwave.

Awesome user experience, folks.

Nothing like reaching into the microwave to grab what is left of the lava butter only to have a big splat of lava butter fall off the roof of the microwave and land on the back of your hand.

So, I have decided I’ll employ a new policy.

I’m going to let such comments stand. Especially when they bend over backwards to complement my work. I like that. I’m shallow that way.

However, if the URL and/or email address associated with the comment is nothing but a marketing splurb, those particular fields will be deleted.

From the press release, this device contains features such as “a 28-in-1 media card reader, front IO, USB and fire wire connections, dual NTSC and HDTV tuners (with CableCARD shipping soon), 8 channel HD audio”, etc.etc.etc…

Sounds neat enough. Especially with the six terabytes of potential storage. Put some decent multimedia control software on it and… well.. not bad!

Except who the hell designed it? Clearly not someone who actually thought through how to use it!

Anything that sticks out at all from any of those “front IO” ports is going to obscure the screen! Can you imagine trying to download photos or video with your video camera balanced somewhere — because, most likely, this behemoth will be inside a big old media center cabinet — while trying to deal with a touchy/feely UI with cables constantly flopping on the screen?

And, of course, you’ll probably want to plug in a keyboard and/or mouse to be abel to properly annotate and edit whatever media you capture into said unit. That’ll be convenient.

I wonder if it is even smart enough to know not to open the DVD drawer when the screen is in the retracted position (assuming, of course, the screen retracts).