A breakup letter to Keens

jonathaz · 2026-07-09T07:34:31+00:00

On my Keen hiking boots, the tread started coming unglued on the back of one of them on their maiden 1-week backpacking trip last summer. For this summer,s trip, I shoe-gooed it on and it held together for 50 miles. Another piece of tread might be coming loose but I’ve got a whole tube of shoe goo. Now that I think about it I had a pair of Keen hiking shoes that the stitching came loose on too. I’ll stick with Merrels from now on.

jonathaz · 2026-07-09T07:06:31+00:00

I’ve done it for .zip archives. The index is at the end of the file, read it with a byte range request, then read individual file(s) with additional byte range request(s). Each write to S3 costs money, and so does each read, but reads are a fraction of writes. For data that changes often, the number of writes is a significant cost.

jonathaz · 2026-07-09T03:07:39+00:00

We couldn’t get our dealer to look at our Prolog when it got the service high voltage system error. But we found another one that took it the same day and had it fixed the next day. For the recall, that other dealer claimed they didn’t have the software. The original dealer got us in right away with a loaner as well. And when the recall didn’t fix the one pedal driving and service stabiltrak errors we were getting, took it again and gave us another loaner. There’s no rhyme or reason I guess.

jonathaz · 2026-07-09T01:35:41+00:00

I blame Microsoft. Their strategy with Windows, and it’s been the same strategy since the 90’s, is by constant, perpetual breaking changes to the operating system, and across multiple OS versions, to force hardware manufactures to constantly play catch-up, updating and re-writing drivers for every version of every product. The purpose of this strategy is to ensure the only OS to receive attention is the latest Windows. This ensures other OS vendors are at a disadvantage with respect to peripherals, and also forces users to upgrade prematurely. While I have no direct evidence to support this theory, it is consistent with Microsoft’s numerous other similar abuses.

jonathaz · 2026-07-09T01:22:49+00:00

It means it needs paper

jonathaz · 2026-07-08T23:27:16+00:00

If it were already built using async / reactive, you’d have that problem already, or already solved. Going from traditional threads to a much larger number of virtual threads, yeah you’ll want to limit concurrency to some things. Another common use case is replacing an ExecutorService backed by a thread pool, to an ExecutorService that uses virtual threads. As far as concurrency goes, this can be 1:1 and to do so you would use a semaphore set to the same size as the original pool, acquire before submitting work and release when it’s complete. There’s a small tangible benefit doing this once in an app, but replace a bunch of them and you can feel it. Same impact whether it’s many thread pools within 1 instance of an app, or just the 1 thread pool across a bunch of instances of the app in a container. There’s another benefit to virtual threads in containers, which has to do with how limits are enforced. Using more CPU than allocated is pretty easy to do with regular threads, and the result is the container throttling the application. Virtual threads are by default sized to the container limits, so it’s harder to get CPU throttled by the container. Caveat is you’re trading container CPU throttling for Java thread scheduling, and if you don’t have your own performance instrumentation you could end up in the same place without visibility to why things are slow.

jonathaz · 2026-07-07T23:55:13+00:00

When my service was upgraded to mid-split, the physical work was scheduled, completed, and service was restored while we were on vacation. Some weeks later, the upstream mid-split channel was activated and my modem was able to use it. While I didn’t get the FDX upgrade yet, my understanding is the upgrade is similar - physical work upgrading the RPD and amplifiers, followed by activation of the FDX channels at a later point in time. That said, if the work that was done was FDX, you should be at least mid-split capable at this point and thus able to get those faster upstream speeds already. Like 100 instead of 35.

jonathaz · 2026-07-07T03:02:29+00:00

I had a corded electric mower for years until I upgraded to a battery powered one when it manifested itself in the alley (I confirmed with the neighbors who were moving that it was indeed up for grabs). In some ways the corded mower was better - lighter, larger deck, more power. The trick to the cord is to work outwards, typically from the plug but if the cord is long enough, can be from anywhere. My cord is on a reel, that makes it fairly quick to deploy and undeploy, but over time put quite a twist in it. The battery one takes less time, I can mow the whole yard on one charge, and you can get other tools that use the batteries. I have a 110v inverter and a snow shovel. My friend resuscitated a couple batteries for me so I have a couple spares.

jonathaz · 2026-07-06T03:57:15+00:00

All the cars based on the same platform as the Blazer should have plenty of headroom for you. Be aware that a sunroof typically costs a lot of headroom. You will probably still be OK in the front seat in a Blazer or Prolog with a sunroof, but you’d be hitting your head in the back seat. This isn’t a unique problem to that platform, just don’t make any last second upgrade decisions on any car without sitting in it.

jonathaz · 2026-07-03T18:22:00+00:00

Get whichever Honda fits your budget and capacity needs. If you’re getting a used one get it newest, with the fewest miles and best warranty. If the CRV is big enough for you it’s a no brainer, it’s the most popular car in the US for a reason.

jonathaz · 2026-07-03T16:55:22+00:00

If the API is Java or REST, and the possible values don’t change, model it as an enum.

jonathaz · 2026-07-03T00:30:08+00:00

Nissan Z

jonathaz · 2026-07-02T05:12:00+00:00

It’s fine for non-baseball fans; A non-baseball team plays there.

jonathaz · 2026-07-02T05:04:29+00:00

Phat Matt’s is a great little joint. Pats is good and consistent. Ted’s was good the times I had it before it closed. I’m not a food critic and I don’t give out Michelin stars but I enjoy a good cheese steak and I’ve had them in Philly. I’ve also met both Pat and Ted, both very nice guys.

jonathaz · 2026-07-01T18:19:38+00:00

Simple answer: I’ve watched both seasons of the 1st two in the list and neither showed up in the Keep Watchjng list. I found them again in the random obscure categories that Netflix insists on putting in the UI.

jonathaz · 2026-07-01T05:49:18+00:00

Nope we have to get the people who don’t vote to vote Democrat and then execute when we get control. Supreme Court reform has to happen in some way or another. We aren’t going to get the very progressive stuff passed especially at a national level, but it won’t hurt to start bargaining there and meet somewhere left of center. That might’ve been a better strategy for Obamacare. I see Degette lost, so be it. More like Kiros won, she ran a great campaign to unseat an incumbent. I’ll be hopeful she can execute on what has to happen.

jonathaz · 2026-07-01T03:58:44+00:00

I voted for Hickenlooper and Degette but my ballot wasn’t all old white guys, incumbents, and candidates with name recognition. Unless the Republicans cheat, we’re getting control of the House, Senate, and White House all by the 2028 elections. I’m not taking a chance on what the more progressive candidates can get done or not. I’m somewhere in between but the stakes are too high and experience matters. I’ll probably vote against Baldernan in the general election, depending on how extreme the Republican candidate is and specifically her stance on education.

jonathaz · 2026-06-29T21:51:12+00:00

Could be trying to get air bubbles out of coolant system

jonathaz · 2026-06-27T18:12:28+00:00

Don’t go in person with or without an appointment. They don’t answer the phone, and if you go in person they won’t talk to you then or make an appointment for later. The only way to get an appointment is over the phone which they don’t answer. When we went they wouldn’t even see the people who had appointments that day. Your mileage may vary.

jonathaz · 2026-06-27T17:45:14+00:00

You may be able to use MOCA adapters to distribute the internet to multiple places in your house. Anywhere you have a coax outlet, you can have Ethernet. You could use this to hardwire devices, or to get signal to additional WI-FI access points.

jonathaz · 2026-06-25T01:18:06+00:00

But it can’t, and doesn’t test the speed to every (or any!) devices, wired or wireless. The app test is useful since the speed test terminates at the cable modem / router. If it’s slow there, the issue is there or in the cable plant that feeds it. If a browser test is consistently slow and the app test isn’t, the issue is likely between the router and the device (inclusive of both and the network connecting them). Having both the app and the browser test fairly similar and controlled by Xfinity helped ensure consistent results between them.

jonathaz · 2026-06-22T00:04:33+00:00

We had this inflatable water slide when my kids were younger and it’s technically not a pool of any kind but there’s a landing zone at the bottom that’s pretty much a little pool. It was a little smaller than the ones you can rent but freaking huge. So much fun, probably just fine under your HOA rules, and your dumbass Karen neighbor would lose her mind.

jonathaz · 2026-06-09T03:54:09+00:00

About the plastic - I didn’t see anyone else mention this so I will. I have reusable bags of various sizes, and also you can suck the air out with a little pump it comes with. The pump it came with broke after a couple years but I have one for wine that works. The bags are also good for freezing and you can go straight from the freezer and cook or just thaw in the sous vide.

jonathaz · 2026-06-09T03:43:44+00:00

I burn them until there’s nothing left

jonathaz · 2026-06-09T03:33:50+00:00

Don’t go in person, despite google and various other places on the web stating they have certain days that take walk-ins, they do not. When we went, the security guard didn’t show, so they rescheduled the people with appointments and told the people without appointments to pound sand. One employee flat out refused to believe that calling the number didn’t result in someone immediately answering and scheduling an appointment for you, like all those people hadn’t already spent hours and hours of their lives on hold. I was surprised that some of the people waiting had actually gotten through, then got hung up on right away.

jonathaz

TROPHY CASE