Tag Archives: Off Topic

From the brilliant Derek K. Miller- “Here it is. I’m dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote—the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.

If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming…” Read on.

I read a story recently of a man who bought his first F-91W when he was 18 years old in 1992. The strap broke after 10 years so he bought a replacement and he is still using it. For 19 years he has owned 2 of these watches and only changed the battery once, in 1999. That is remarkable reliability by any standards, but there are many people still using their original F-91W from the 1990′s and theirs still keep perfect time and work every day as they did the day they left the factory.

That all sounds great, but there is more to this humble watch than meets the eye.

This is what you get-

# Water Resistant
# Micro Light
# Daily Alarm
# 1/100 second digital stopwatch
Measuring capacity: 59’59.99″
Measuring modes: Net time, split time, 1st-2nd place times
# Hourly Time Signal
# Auto Calendar
# Accuracy: +/-30 seconds per month
# Battery CR2016

This is what you pay for a brand new F-91W-

£7

This is the battery life-

7 years

None of the above is mis-typed. You really do get 7 years of battery life for £7 alongside a bevy of handy functions that give you exactly what you need from a watch. The light is great for checking the time when you wake up in the middle of the night, the display perfectly presents the time (12 or 24 hour format), day and date and the watch is so small and light that you do not even feel it on your wrist.

The design has not changed since 1991 and has somehow survived massive changes in watch fashion; digital watches were second only to the pocket calculator as new products of the digital age, but they quickly became very uncool and we all went back to analogue watches and this has remained the case until the last 2 years. Despite the shift to hands, the F-91W has always retained the retro wording on the front describing every feature within. The 3 buttons remain the same and are as easy to use as they always were to the point that I could remember exactly how they worked when I bought an F-91W recently.

The watch isn’t without controversy, as can be seen here, but for anyone who wants a watch that does everything it needs to more reliably than any of its peers this is the one to buy.

The design and form are as uncool as you could imagine in 2011 yet it is somehow beautiful to the point that this is possibly the coolest watch in the world. It flies against all of the current trends for expensive mobile products that are supposed to do everything possible and be designed from materials never used before. It is what it is and that is why I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t own an F-91W.

Now this is a clever use of a Google service. Go to this link and check out some of the real-life images that pop up in Google Earth.

This isn’t mobile related, but could present an option many of you would not have considered before. David Hewson has fitted an SSD into his MacBook Pro rather than upgrade to a newer model. The cost was £148 and by all accounts it worked out very well indeed.

“For the money this is the best upgrade around in my view, provided you can fit your main disk into the space you buy, of course. It’s not just speed either. The laptop’s cooler so the fans are less noisy and supposedly the battery life will be better too though I’ve yet to try it.”

Content will be lessened today due to my 7 year old daughter demanding that I watch the Royal Wedding with her. Despite all of the cynicism from some quarters, the event has already generated overnight stayers the number of which Apple could only dream of. I also can’t help but feel slightly proud that no other country in the world can pull off something like this the way we do…

This video is somewhat off-topic, but you need to watch it. The things some people so amazes me- “It is, believe it or not, possible to build a Lego ship in a bottle. I filmed almost the entire process, but I’ve cut out parts and sped it up to 32x so that you don’t have to endure all the hours of footage.”

A sad day. Check out the video below, especially the astonishing guitar solo at the end…

2 MINUTE SILENCE

I just bought my copy. Have you bought yours yet?

This is way off topic, but makes for a wonderful 4 minutes of your time. Thanks to Wally for sending it in.