I start every day with about 24 ounces of coffee, and like strong coffee and dark roasts. If you like wimpy coffee, read no further since out tastes differ.

First off, let me dismiss K-Cup machines. I bought a deluxe K-Cup machine, and a large assortment of pods, and could not find any pod that yielded a good cup of coffee. I returned the machine and donated all the pods to a teacher's lounge.

I just finished a really pretty walk through the Torres del Paine National Park in Southern Chile, all in the comfort of my atrium. I did this using the BitGym app on my 2017 iPad Pro. BitGym is quite different from iFit, and each has its pros and cons. I will try to contrast and compare the two programs.

The first thing to do is to haggle.

Call the 800-Comcast number and ask for the Customer Solutions Department. I reduced my bill about $30 a month and got more channels and higher (150 Mbps) internet. And they told me to check back during the holidays for perhaps better deals. The representative also said that Comcast would warn me in the future before special promotions expired.

I have 5 domains at JustHost.com, which is also BlueHost.com. Our e-mails are being bounced by several domains, for example:

Sigh. I broke down and bought an Apple 10.5" iPad Pro with all the bells and whistles for about a grand. It has 512 GB of memory and a T-Mobile SIM card. I also got the Apple pencil and their keypad.

I spent 25 years of my life working as a theoretical plasma physicist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). First I worked on tokamaks, and then on stellarators. I firmly believe that stellarators, not tokamaks, are the best way to achieve magnetic fusion, and blogged here about my dislike of ITER. 

I will start this off by saying that the Galaxy S8+ is the best smart Phone I have owned, the last two being LGs (G4 and G5). In particular, the Snapdragon 835 chip really does cut power consumption. My phone easily lasts a full day. It is really responsive, and the screen is great.

But Samsung has absolutely terrible support. 

Eureka!! I finally found a way to update from build 16199. It has taken over a month. I tried everything under the sun that is recommended everywhere, to no avail. Finally, I found a site that suggested an in-place upgrade. I downloaded the ISO from Microsoft for build 16232 from

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewadvanced?wa=wsignin1.0

I received my preordered Olympus EM1 II camera on December 15. I am not a happy camper.

The bad

Because this camera is so fast, I had ordered a 128-GB Lexar Professional SDXC II 300 MB/s card for this camera.  This card refused to format in the Olympus. 

I compared the two microphones that come with the Zoom H6 recorder—an X-Y cardioid pair and a Mid-Side (MS) Blumlein configuration—to a Shure KSM141 Stereo Pair, also in an X-Y configuration. Vote on which you like best.