Hacking your shower head: 2.5gpm a minute and flow rate limiters

Federal laws put strict limits on the maximum flow rate for shower heads, of 2.5 gallons per minute. Many shower heads do not even reach that for fear of exceeding the limit and the strong sanctions the company's would face for selling such a shower head. If you pay for your water, the amount you use to shower should be up to you. Some shower heads offer a convenient law work-around: a plastic washer or screen is used to set the rate limit, and can be removed. It's not something they can advertise online, however, so it can be hard to find one. Here's a list of what I've tried, and what level of success I've had.

Peerless massage shower head, "4-spray SH-chrome", model 76456. No obvious rate limiter to remove, and out of the box it's like showering in a light drizzle. ~$13 at Walmart.

Waterpik power spray 4 setting (model sm-423cg). The back of the box advertises a removable flow limiter. The included diagram shows a water filter and a separate rate limiter, but in my shower head I could only find the filter. Removing the filer did improve pressure, to a level much better than the Peerless above, but still weaker than I'd like. Maybe I didn't find the rate limiter, or maybe it was missing, but in the end this shower head was only satisfactory, not awesome. ~$15 at target.

Review of Nikolai Pavlov, Dentist of La Jolla

Nikolai Pavlov (Nick) is located in a low rent part of La Jolla, near the border with PB. I took this as a good sign: he could pass the savings on to me. Wrong! Instead I got one heck of an up sell.

The good: the office was clean, if tacky, and I didn't have to wait long before the dentist was ready to see me. First they wanted Xrays, which I was expecting, but I don't like having more than once every couple years, so I declined. Unexpectedly, I was able to get Nick to agree to this, though he wasn't happy to do it.

The bad: next he looked in my mouth for all of 20 seconds, checked the depth of the pockets in my gums in about 3 places, and then announced I needed a special treatment that would cost 80 extra dollars, even after insurance. My previous dentist checks the gum pockets for each tooth, and had never thought such treatment was necessary.

While the snap judgment was troubling, worse was that Nick refused to respect my wishes and provide a regular cleaning. I'm no pushover on these kinds of things and I spent a good ten minutes politely trying to convince him to just give me the regular cleaning. No dice.

Either I pay the $80 extra, or I go home, having already wasted my morning.  I resolved never to come back, but since my time is worth something I went ahead with the more expensive cleaning.

The actual service seemed OK - I had to wait a while, but all the arguing with the dentist was probably the main factor behind that.  I couldn't see any evidence that the actual cleaning was subpar.  They never did a full check of my gums though, which was disappointing.

So I paid more, and got less. There is nothing to recommend Nikolai Pavlov as a dentist.

Resolution comparison of Nintendo sprite-based gaming systems

nes 256 x 224
gba 240 × 160
nds 256 x 192

The SNES has a bunch of resolution modes, but it sounds like the most common one matches the NES.

One upshot of this is that no hand-held unit can perfectly simulate the old (S)NES games - some of the pixels must be cropped or scaled. But the NDS isn't far off. The PSP is  480 x 272, so a non-Nintendo portable gaming system would actually be the best for emulating classic Nintendo games (slightly ironic, eh?)
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Krups 10-Cup Thermal Coffee Maker FMF5 review - avoid!

We bought this because of the thermal carafe. That part worked great - the coffee stays hot for 3-4 hours with no loss of taste, unlike a regular coffee maker which starts to burn the coffee within 15 minutes of brewing.

Nothing else about this coffee maker is very good, however.

It is very hard to pour from the carafe without spilling.

The machine has some kind of fancy logic that is supposed to determine if the coffee maker has been turned on with no water in it, and will shut off immediately. Nice idea, but whatever method they use also responds if you make coffee, and then refill the reservoir right away to make another batch.

And the real kicker: it failed on us after 1.5 years of service (it only has a 1 year warranty). Not a little failure, either: the heating element cracked in two! I called Krups and they refused to even estimate a repair cost - I had to send it back in at my cost and then they would tell me how much more I would have to pay if I wanted it actually fixed.

And a final minor annoyance - in order to discover what was wrong with the unit, I had to take it apart - which required not only a TORX screwdriver set, but a fancy, TORX security set that is hollowed out in the middle so that it can fit into the screw-head. I own it, I should be able to take it apart without having buy a new screwdriver!

Borrego Springs Resort hotel review

I stayed here during the wildflower bloom of 2010. 

The rooms are clean, and well furnished. I stayed in a king suite, which was quite spacious, with a separate master bedroom. The bed was overly soft, but some people like that.

If you wanted to increase the occupancy, there was more than enough space in the living room for an air mattress. In fact I suspect you could sleep at least 4 people in the living room if you were willing to move the furniture (a dinner table, with two chairs). even with two king sized air mattress, everybody would still have a clear path to the bathroom at night. 

The kitchen included some counter space, cupboards, a small sink (with scalding hot water), a microwave, 4c coffee maker, and a spacious mini fridge with a good freezer. All appliances were in good condition. There were also 2 large TVs, which we never used. I mean come on - you don't come to the desert to watch TV!  

We tried cooking with a propane stove in the kitchen, and set off the fire alarm. The balcony had some metal furniture, so we set up out there and it and worked much better.

The shower was hot enough, with moderate pressure. It was built for midgets though - be prepared to stoop way over to wash your hair.

They have a website - all flash and pretty unusable. 

Microtel inn at the Jacksonville airport (JAX).

Small rooms, but clean. Mini fridge and microwave included in each room. The shower was hot, but didn't have that much pressure. The bed was soft, but did not sag. the pillows were a bit oversized, though. They had free wireless (and Ethernet) that was easy to set up and free local and long distance calling. there was a nice flat screen TV with at least 40 cable channels.

Food: No coffee maker in the room, but there was hot coffee in the lobby until at least midnight. The big disappointment was the breakfast. The bagels (plain or raisin) were stale and the toaster didn't do much more than warm them (even after using it twice). The microwave was on the same circuit, and which kept on getting tripped. Instant oatmeal was available, but the Styrofoam bowls were so small you couldn't cook it without making a mess. The juice machine had "100% OJ" that tasted like it had been cut with 50% water. The best option was the cold cereal. There was no fruit or yogurt.

Most hotels in this price range are clean, so all that is left are the little things. Except for the breakfast all the little things were good.