Life After Coffee

I have written about my Bloc-Tronic electronics kit before. My original article on the kit has garnered several comments asking if I could scan and upload the manual.

I’ve finally uploaded the first 100 pages to my images site! The entire manual is around 180 pages, so this is most of it and I hope to get the rest up sometime soon.

If you are lucky enough to have a Bloc-Tronic kit without manual, hopefully this manual will be of use. Also, since the experiments include schematics in addition to the block layout they could be done on a standard breadboard or even permanently assembled from components.

The experiments start off simple and get progressively more complicated. There’s everything from a volt meter to a radio receiver.

electronic, electronics, toy, block, educational, electronics kit

I’m a big fan of gadgets so when I saw that Vat19 had a USB device which would act as both a cup warmer and cooler I just had to try it!

Vat19 claims the device “Keep a beverage piping hot or cool as ice.” A bold claim for something which powers itself on the small amount of juice the USB bus can put out, but out of the box the device seemed well constructed, so I was optimistic.

First thoughts:

Unfortunately I noticed the first two flaws with the desktop appliance before I even plugged it in. First, there was no on/off switch anywhere on the unit which, while not tragic, would become a problem if your only free USB port is on the back of your system. Second, the switch to change from warming to cooling is on the back near where the cord exits. While neither of these flaws are tragic, both proved irritating.

In action:

I plugged the USB Beverage Warmer & Cooler into my free USB on my laptop and heard the fan on the unit spin up. Surprisingly the small fan made quite a bit of noise, considerably more than my Dell laptop, even more than most modern desktops.

Ignoring the noise I set the unit to warming mode and put my coffee on the unit. Now another problem… The heating/cooling element was too small for a normal sized coffee mug. A half hour later, with my mug straddling the heating element my coffee had cooled to its typical tepid.

For my next cup of the day I switched to a smaller mug which would fit on the heating plate and got somewhat better results. My coffee stayed warmer than usual, but still not warm enough to justify another device and the loss of desk space.

(Please ignore the small army of drinking birds in the background of the picture above. They are of no concern to you.)

Hoping for better results on the cooling side I unplugged the unit and let it cool to room temperature. After lunch I flipped the switch to cool and plugged it in. I was surprised at how quickly the plate cooled so I put my bar-style pint glass full of water on the plate. Half an hour later my water still seemed enjoyably cool, but was it cooler than without?

I decided to do a more scientific test of the cooling capabilities of the unit, so I got two cans of Coke out of my fridge and grabbed the trusty cooking thermometer. With one can on the cooler and the other on the desk (far enough away to not be heated by the exhaust from the cooler) I measured the temperature of each over a two hour interval.

With an ambient temp of 70 degrees F and a starting beverage temp of 39 here are my findings over the next two hours:

After 30 minutes, can on cooler = 50, can on desk = 50

After 1 hour, can on cooler = 57, can on desk = 57

After 1:30, can on cooler = 59, can on desk = 61

After 2:00, can on cooler = 60, can on desk = 63

After the full 2 hours I sipped from each Coke and could tell some difference, but again, not enough to justify another device on the desk.

Conclusions:

While I love the idea of a USB beverage warmer & cooler the current model from Vat19 falls short of both “piping hot” and “cool as ice”. While the price point of $24.95 is very reasonable the novelty quickly wore off and the many drawbacks doom this gadget to the junk drawer. Perhaps a future rendition will bring improved performance and flexibility, but for now there are better warmers to be had and the cooling effect is not enough to justify this unit.

gadget, review, usb, food, drink, cooler, warmer, office toy

Can’t say I’m a big fan of musical instruments that can kill you (I prefer guitar, where the worst thing that can happen is you snap a g-string), but this musical Tesla coil is cool!

If you’re interested in how this is done, this video from The Geek Group explains more than you ever wanted to know about it.

music, science, tesla, tesla coil, electricity, lightning

Well I certainly wasn’t beating down the door for the Nike + iPod Sport Kit but now DavidSteel.com has come up with an iPod accessory I could really use: an Alcohol Breathalyzer with Integrated FM Wireless Transmitter!

Yup, that’s right, soon for just $79 you will be able to pull out your iPod and check your blood alcohol content, then you can decide if it’s time to drive home to “Born to be Wild” or just mellow out and sober up to some Jim Morrison (ok, maybe someone else.)

Dubbed the iBreath, the device powers itself off the iPod battery, supports the full FM band (88.1 - 107.9) and claims accuracy within 0.01% blood alcohol content. I want one, don’t you?

Thanks to Will for sending this on to me.

drink, drinking, alcohol, ipod, apple, mp3, party, breathalyzer

Don Burleson over at Burleson Consulting has written an interesting survey of Oracle biometrics applications.

With the inherent problems associated with passwords Oracle security administrators are finding that Oracle biometrics is a more secure and cost-effective solution. Oracle biometrics system offer more secure environments and also remove the need to dedicate a help-desk person to manage changing passwords for hundreds of end-users.

It’s interesting to see what’s out there, but as Zach will always remind us, biometrics will not hold up in the long run. As biometrics become commonplace they will be hacked. What will you do when someone steals your fingerprints (or the digital representation of them.) You can’t change them. Hell, you can’t even keep from leaving them behind just about everywhere you go.

If a lock can be opened, it can be picked; and if your password can be used, it can be forged. The more common biometrics become (Don mentions in his article that fingerprint readers are now less than $31) the more folks will set their sights on hacking them. These devices work on common interfaces and pass their information over networks potentially exposing your personal password to unknown parties.

If biometrics catch on you could be required to provide fingerprint identification to use your credit card at your local convenience store. Do you really trust them, or worse yet, the government (who can’t even keep your SSN secure) with your password to your bank account, business account, desktop computer and medical history?

So if biometrics isn’t the holy grail of electronic security what is?

I don’t know what the future of password management is. The most holistic solution I’ve seen yet is the one that Zach and I proposed last year where users are provided with a “password change authorization code” which they are encouraged to keep with their birth certificate (or in another safe place) which allows them to change their password through a self-service page in the case of password loss.

biometrics, fingerprint, security, hacking, hacks, oracle