Should I swallow some hookworms to cure my allergies and asthma?
Brother PT-1100SBVP P-Touch Scrapbooking Labeler
Yes, it’s pink. No, I am not gay. I bought a pink hand held label printer. We need a label printer for our new house. This one is just too good a deal to pass. There are only two major brands of label printer, Dymo and Brother. When I think of label, I think of Dymo first. The old fashion emboss tape machine everyone has one when we are kids is too inefficient, so I am looking for an electronic label printer. Dymo is more expensive, but it has less function. It only support 12mm tapes, so I ruled it out.
Staples is having Brother label printer on sales, all models are 50% off. I don’t need a fancy business model with useless features. My choices come down to the entry level P-Touch series. There is one normal label printer in blue and gray color or the PT-1100SBVP scrape booking special in pink. Both of them have identical hardware and are selling at $25. The normal unit comes with only a 4m sampling tape. The pink unit comes with a 4m sampling tape, a 8m real tape, 6 Duracell AAA batteries and a carry case.
A replacement tape is selling for $20 in Staples. A pack of 8 Duracell AAA batteries is selling $12 in Staples. The extra tape and the batteries come with the pink unit already worth more that its cost. On a side note, the label printer company use razor and blade business models. The printer is pretty much give away for free and they make money on selling the tapes. Of course you can always buy cheaper online for about $12 a tape.
It is an obvious choice which model should I get. As a pragmatic engineer, function triumphs the appeal. I swallow my masculine pride and by the pink label printer. Luckily, I am a married men and my wife love scrap booking. There is no way the pink label printer will go into my tool box. It is a gift for my wife so she can use it in her scrap book. The pink label printer fits well with her scrap booking supplies. When I need to print a type, I can borrow my wife’s pink scrap book label printer.
Canada’s deadlocked politics
Maybe we should go back to the old fashion 3 party system. Outlaw the separatist Bloc Quebecois, merge the Green Party with NDP. Then we can have a more meaningful election. Too bad that the Conservative is unlikely to win a majority government anytime soon.
The fad for functional foods
Organic food is out of fashion. Welcome genetic modify food with enhanced nutrition. Artificial gotta be better than the natural product, otherwise where is the value add of human?
Anki, flash card program
A flash card software works like an old fashion flash card. You write new words on the side of the card and definition on the other side. You randomly draw cards from the deck to test how well you remember the words. A flash card software has more bell and whistlers, like search, filter, timer, progress tracking, etc. I can’t believe someone actually willing to pay $15 to buy iflash, an flashcard software.
I am not referring to download the software for free off the net instead of paying it. I am talking about how could anyone charge such a ridiculous price for such a small piece of software. The function of the software is pretty basic, it stores a list of words and randomly flash the word to test you. Any high school students can write one for his computer programming class project. If you are really desperate, you even write one using Excel. Best of all, there is actually a much better freeware version out there!
Anki is an open source flash card program support Windows, MacOS, Linux and a few other platforms. The stand alone software not only has every single feature of iflash, but also comes with an online version. You can synchronize your flash cards database to their server and retrieve the deck of cards anytime, anywhere. I just don’t understand why would anyone buy iflash?