weekend bits

[cellio]

Seen while walking home Saturday: a car with blinkers on, being followed by two police cars with flashing lights but not sirens, all going about 30mph, and all running a red light at a busy intersection. If the police were escorting the car I would have expected one in front and one behind; if they were chasing the car, they weren't doing a very good job of it. There were plenty of places to pull over, so it wasn't a traffic stop in search of handy road-side. The whole procession turned a corner and I lost sight of them. How odd.

This weekend I read about a new (expensive) geek-appeal gadget, a robotic vacuum cleaner. It wanders around your house and automatically goes to the docking station to recharge or empty itself when needed. The review I saw said that it's slow -- its navigation isn't the greatest, so it might do a stretch several times before getting to parts it hasn't done yet -- but since it's the robot's time, the reviewer doesn't care. He was out running errands. :-) This sounds handy (though I do wonder how pets would view it). Now if they could just build the laundry robot, the shopping robot, and the kitchen-cleaning robot, life would be grand. (At $1500, I should clarify that this is wishful thinking, not a planned purchase.)

Shabbat morning we had another new torah reader (and new service leader, the mother of the torah reader). They both did good jobs and I think the mother, at least, will sign up to do this again (and even read torah). I am pleased by the progress our minyan is making, building participation one person at a time. We need to think about workshops or tutorials or something for people who lack self-confidence. (There are several people who I think would do just fine, but they don't think so yet.)

Today was the local SCA group's 12th-night event. It was a fun, low-key event, like many I remember from 20 years ago. This was the second year we've done it; I hope this establishes the tradition. :-) Free site (university), pot-luck feast, good mix of planned activities and schmooze time -- very pleasant and comfortable.

Mapquest says Pittsburgh to Cincinnati is a 4.5-hour drive (slightly under). Is that really right? I thought Pittsburgh to Columbus was close to four hours, and Cincinnati is a good deal beyond that. I thought Cincinnati would be 6 or 7 hours just from looking at a map.

Comments

[cellio]

I failed to retain the name of the one I read about. The reviewer did say that the product he reviewed will be for sale in the US later this year; he reviewed a European product (and translated the price into dollars). So who knows what that'll translate to when they market it here?

Off the top of my head, I'd guess that the cheaper model requires more human intervention, such as, perhaps, not being smart enough to recharge itself. The real appeal to me is not that, when I decide it's time to vacuum a room, I can set up a machine to save me the 10 minutes; rather, I'd like to be able to just set it in motion, say, on my way out in the morning, and come home to a vacuumed first floor. (The review mentioned that it's smart enough to not fall down steps, though of course you have to carry it upstairs yourself.)

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

From what I've read, the Roomba works every day. You tell it when you want it to work (e.g. it knows you're not home from 9am-5pm) and it just covers the area. It also can recharge itself by going to its docking station.

The downside is that it memorizes one room (and one room only) at a time. In a house your size, it might make sense for the bedroom, but not the downstairs.