Disappointed

Not surprised, but disappointed. I had hoped the ESR's idiotic post on the GT list would go completely unanswered, but there are people who just can't walk away, even when you know that argument is futile, you're talking to a closed book. I'd think that by now everyone had realized that the pig doesn't want to learn to sing.

Darn, dead thumb drive

Actually, flaky. My 4G went through the wash last week. It was working OK for a while but it didn't this morning. I took it apart and washed it. My best guess right now is that it has a bad solder joint on the memory chip; if I press on it as I plug it in, the thing is recognized and mounts properly. If not, it either thinks it's 2G instead of 4G (and says it's not formatted) or it doesn't recognize as a drive at all.

Hopefully a quick once-over with a soldering iron will bring it back to life. I really should get a decent soldering iron one of these days, but I can't really justify it right now.

I did get the TrueCrypt volume off. All it had on it was a PDF of my tax return, a PDF of a couple of National Geographics that I scanned yesterday, some Simpsons episodes, the free classical violin MP3 that NPR talked about yesterday and some Librivox audiobooks. So nothing I'd cry much over but it's nice to not have to redo that stuff.

HAH! Found you, foul solder joint

My eyes aren't what they might be but my camera has a killer macro mode.
Note the gap in the solder joints on the last 4 pins of the memory chip; this is consistent with working fine for months but failing after getting wet and vibrating a bunch.


I've wished for a loupe twice in the last week. 30x folding pocket loupes are like $5, I suppose I should go for it. Hmm, Amazon sells them in "office supplies" - nope, Staples doesn't have them.

John can't solder

Well, not those leads anyway. They're about 3 to a millimeter, I think. Damn tiny anyway, and all I have is a regular old Radio Shack soldering iron. Solder bridge city and I couldn't wick them out. I screwed with them for 30 minutes then decided I'd reached the limit of what the time was worth. 4G USB drives just aren't worth that much anymore; I only paid $34 for it in May of last year, and the same drive is about $27 now, with some < $20.

When I went to look for a replacement, I found that the drive has a lifetime warranty. A quick response to my email led me to an RMA form. So there's not much point in working on it when I can just get it replaced.

Treadmill

45 minutes, mostly at 6 MPH, 4.5 miles
Random hills, bumped the level up to 7 from 6 (steeper/more hills).
This went pretty well; I just about hit my limit on about the last hill at 42 minutes.
I may go for more speed and less hills next time and see how that goes.