Small Sample-Size Theater

Software, politics, economics, baked goods.

Dec 26

Nov 13

Oct 7


Sep 2

Aug 29

Aug 14

Aug 5

Is this thing still on?

How do I flip it over and shake the spiders out of it?


May 20

Jan 3


Dec 31

Wakemate’s charger

This morning I received an email from Perfect Third, the company making the Wakemate sleep-monitoring gizmo, recommending I desist in using the USB power brick which shipped last week with their hardware. TechCrunch applied their usual levelheaded gloss.

I finally thought to put the Wakemate brick next to an Apple iPhone brick, which it resembles in every physical detail. The resemblance continued:

Wakemate charger

(Click to embiggen.)

Note the black void where the “JET Apple Japan” box appears, and how Apple’s puzzling warning text is re-rendered as “Caution: for use with infor technology equipment”. The space occupied by Apple’s green dot is empty as well (the dot, I believe, indicates that this charger is from a later batch than the ones Apple sourced with their own problems.)

Apple’s charger says it was designed by Apple, and I haven’t seen any others quite like it until now. Electrical failures notwithstanding, making perfect reproductions of Apple kit seems chancy for a company selling hardware which depends on a counterpart iOS app.


Dec 15


Nov 26

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