A concert that takes you home

  One bonus of the lockdown was the live Easter Day concert held by Hong Kong’s own Sam Hui (許冠傑), perhaps fairly described as the king of Cantopop.    I had no idea this was even on if it weren’t for the fire at the Baxter’s Knob transmitter that took out television transmission in our […]

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Sticking with 24 inches, but going to QHD: a pleasant upgrade

The Dell P2418D: just like the one I’m looking at as I type, but there are way more wires coming out of the thing in real life   Other than at the beginning of my personal computing experience (the early 1980s, and that’s not counting video game consoles), I’ve tended to have a screen that’s […]

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The “fortress America” approach to the internet fuels piracy

There are websites such as CBS News in the US that no longer let us here in New Zealand view them. US Auto Trader is another one. It’s a damned shame, because I feel it’s a stab at the heart of what made the internet great—the fact that we could be in touch with each […]

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When Microsoft says your Windows 10 needs a reset or full reinstallation, they might be wrong

As many of you know, between around December 8 and February 2—dates during which I had Microsoft Windows 10’s fall Creators update without the January 31 cumulative patch—my computer suffered roughly three to six BSODs per day. Going on to Bleeping Computer was helpful, but Microsoft’s wisdom tended to be hackneyed and predictable.    While […]

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Where did all the manual transmissions go?

Above: The gear selector in the BMW i3, as tested in Lucire. See here for the full road test.   When I was searching for a car to buy after my previous one was written off in an accident, one no-brainer was that it had to be a manual. It can’t be that hard, right? […]

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The best mouse to buy might be a dead-stock one made in 2005

With the mouse being the culprit on my main computer causing mouse and keyboard to be unresponsive in Windows 7 (I’ve still no idea when Windows 10 arrives and Microsoft has been no help at all), I decided to shop for a new one again.    The failed mouse was one I bought in 2012, […]

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It’s full circle for style.com: back to its origins in fashion retail

Originally published in the online edition of Lucire, May 1, 2015   Top Earlier today, attempting to get into Style.com meant a virus warning—the only trace of this curiosity is in the web history. Above Style.com is back, with a note that it will be transforming into an e-tail site.   If there’s one constant […]

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Farewell, Manhattan: switching to the Cooler Master Storm Quick Fire TK Cherry MX Brown

The Cooler Master Storm Quick Fire TK, with white case.   On Tuesday, my Manhattan keyboard, for which I gave a glowing review on Amazon, gave up the ghost. I’m not entirely sure why but through its lifetime, there were two things wrong with it: the first was that regular typing wore off the keys’ […]

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All the Geelys on Autocade

The Geely King Kong Hatchback, one of the new entries on the Autocade website. Not that I blogged it at the time, but Geely’s multi-brand strategy in 2009 felt doomed. Earlier this year, the company retreated, and brought everything from Englon, Gleagle and Emgrand back under its parent brand again.    It wasn’t unlike Mazda’s […]

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A tribute to Massimo Vignelli

The below ran in Lucire today, though it is equally suited to the readers of this blog. RIT Massimo Vignelli, who passed away on May 27, was a hero of mine. When receiving the news shortly before it hit the media in a big way, from our mutual friend Stanley Moss, this title’s travel editor […]

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