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cheap Chinese hell
Wednesday, June 18 2008
setting: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York
This morning Gretchen dropped off our house sitter Doug at the bus station and then eventually went to her court date regarding that little matter of failing to yield. In so doing, it was reduced down to "parking on pavement," resulting in zero points and only a $100 fine.
Meanwhile I spent more time than I would have preferred getting to the bottom of the Arduino solar sufficiency problems that had cropped up while I was down in Tennessee. In the end, I traced it to a malfunctioning USB-to-serial interface. In failing, it electrically floated all wires on the 100 foot long serial cable, causing them to channel noise into the Arduino and, in the process, force continual resets. As time goes on, I'm starting to see that there's a real downside to using cheap no-name products bought on Ebay and drop-shipped from Hong Kong.
Since returning from the south, we've found our Hurley abode unexpectedly chilly. It's late June but we're closing doors and windows. Today we even started a fire in the fireplace, though all we were burning was the junk mail and cardboard that had accumulated in our absence.
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