Product Reviews

Contents

• 1. Computer-related stuff
  • 1.1. Web hosting with DreamHost
• 2. BDSM Equipment
  • 2.1. Fantasy Rack
  • 2.2. Violet Wand
• 3. Book reviews
  • 3.1. The Overworked American
  • 3.2. The Overspent American
  • 3.3. Forgive Us Our Debts

1. Computer-related stuff

1.1. Web hosting with DreamHost

I've been hosting my site with DreamHost for about 6 years now, and I've got nothing to say except good stuff about them. For $10 a month, I have more disc space and more bandwidth on their server than I could ever know what to do with (though I'm trying; I'm now doing archiving backups nightly using rsync). I think I could be Slashdotted multiple times and be fine.

The last time I checked, I had over 20 GB disc and a terabyte of bandwidth, and it grows regularly. When they upgrade their hosting plans, they just throw in the new services— I don't have to beg or wait for renewal or pay for the new stuff, they just give it to me.

All the hosting I've dealt with is UNIX-based. They provide me with shell access and ssh, so I can do useful things like upload my site with rsync— thus, no dicking around with stupid FTP solutions (though you can do that if you want to). I can change file permissions or dig around with the 'find' command if I need to. There are compilers in case you want to build something, and they have regularly-updated installations of Ruby on Rails, PHP, and stuff like that available.

They have a web-accessible account control panel which allows you to add domains; configure user, e-mail, and Jabber accounts; monitor hosting statistics, set up databases, and other mundane tasks. It also includes offers installation of about a dozen different useful, popular packages (such as WikiMedia).

The support has been excellent in the event that I've needed it, which has been pretty rare. Over 6 years, the worst outage I can think of was about a 1.5 day slow period during a DOS attack. Normally stuff is resolved much more quickly than this though.

I've had the opportunity to deal with one other hosting company, and seen friends screw around with free hosting (which is fine, if you've got the time to waste dealing with them) or hosting their own site (again fine, if you want to deal with all the sysadmin hassles), and I haven't seen anything that comes close.

The cost is $120 per year, which includes the first domain; you can get 20% off by paying two years at a time. They also have a pyramid-scheme thing going; if you sign up for hosting via this link it benefits me by reducing my hosting cost.

Review date: 2006-July-17.

2. BDSM Equipment

2.1. Fantasy Rack

Ordering

I purchased a Fantasy Rack from Worldwide Ventures, which I presume is the company that builds them. Though I could have gotten it from various BDSM resellers, I figured I'd try to give all the profit to the folks that build them rather than some intermediaries.

Dealing with them was okay. The simplistic web interface didn't seem to be a fully-finished shopping cart system, rather just a form that sent someone an e-mail and they processed things via a regular credit card machine. The first order was lost, but when I noticed a few days later that my credit card hadn't been charged yet, I called up and we straightened it out over the phone. The company sounds like it's run out of somebody's house on their regular phone line, but they returned calls promptly and were helpful.

Assembly

The product arrived about a week later. It was shipped in a box that looks like a bicycle shipping box, but was much heavier. UPS beat the hell out of it, but the product was packed well and sustained no damage.

The rack was partially assembled, and any lose parts/screws/nuts were already in their places, so there was no matching up any parts with the manual. It was just a matter of matching up where parts go, removing the nut or screw, then reassembling. Assembly took about 30 - 45 minutes, and I was liberally taking my time. They provide a crappy pair of open-end wrenches, which are workable but require care to avoid bending them; having your own would be nice. A screw driver is required, and you'll also want scissors or a knife to cut up all the plastic wrapped around the table body and A-frame. Given the way the table was partially assembled, getting some of the plastic off required partial disassembly.

The instructions were mostly accurate, and judging from them the rack is actually factory-assembled more than originally planned. I found three variations from the manual:

• The nylon limit strap is assembled different from the drawing in the manual. The picture makes sense, but the one they provide doesn't have a clear "correct" way of installing it. Interestingly, the picture on the front of the manual and the ones presently on their web site don't show it at all.
• The table height adjustment is done with a chain. The manual indicates, "do not hook the spring hook past the link that is crimped partially closed", but there is no linked crimped on my rack. It was possible to judge from the picture the link referred to, and mark it with tape.
• The angle selector shown in a picture has 3 positions for positioning the table, but the one provided has only one.

The rack can be folded for storage easily. If one wants to disassemble it (because, say, it's too heavy to move in one piece), it breaks down to 5 components in a matter of minutes: head, 2 legs, A-frame, and the main table body. Getting the main table body on/off the A-frame requires taking out two knobs and a little finagling.

Operation

The angle selector comes with 12 pre-drilled holes for positioning, thus providing 30 degrees granularity.

The length of the leg and head restraints can both be adjusted to move the balance point. Though I've had to adjust a few times to find the right point for some folks, everyone I've tried on has been capable of balancing pretty well though not always perfect. this may just be a matter of getting the hang of adjusting the rack.

The leg mounts can be reversed, to allow placing a person in the rack belly-first. I tried this once, but it's awkward to buckle someone's feet in this position. Putting someone upright while face-down hurts their feet.

There are two leg restraints, operated independently. This varies from standard inversion tables, which only have one and thus prevent spreading the legs. Indeed, the rack allows separation of the legs and can be locked in this position, and makes a satisfying 'clack' as it's locked in.

Craftsmanship

On initial examination, craftsmanship is pleasing. There were no dents or scrapes. The leather-work, though not outstanding, is very good.

One plastic pipe cover doesn't fit well, and falls off from time to time, but a little hot wax should fix that.

Experience

The only obvious problem as supplied is the spring clips provided to lock the two pieces of the neck support together. The two pieces attach with a hasp, and the spring clips lock it on effectively, but they snag and are just a hassle to get on and off. I picked up two Linch pins at the hardware store, and they work great - much more convenient than the spring clips.

The "fixed" piece of the neck support is strong enough to support the shoulders, which reduces the load on the feet when doing full inversion. (The length of the neck support is adjustable, so you can choose not to support the shoulders and let your subbie stretch.)

2.2. Violet Wand

Ordering

I purchased my violet wand through Electro Jack. I got a recommendation from someone else in the scene. Jack's web site irritated me, having annoying graphics and a lot of grammatical errors. Jack is also hawking the $29.95 cases from Lowes for $59, saying he gets them in volume but otherwise they'd be $169. This put me a little off. Nevertheless, I went with the recommendation anyway.

Jack was happy to take a check I mailed him, and the wand kit was shipped shortly after the check got there. Goods arrived intact, packed in the case that comes from Lowes for $29.95 (which was included with the wand kit I purchased).

After a bit, though, I noticed I didn't get one implement with the wand: a cool-looking knife with funky spikes - sort of Klingon-looking. I wrote to Jack asking what was up, and he wrote back saying he didn't include it because sometimes it knocks around and breaks the glass implements. I asked if it was coming separate, and he said not by default, but if I wanted he'd ship it, but then I'd have to take on any liability for damage caused by the knife breaking the glass tubes.

To make the long story short, he shipped me the knife but I found the whole thing weird; if he doesn't want to sell the knife, he shouldn't offer it with the package. Otherwise, ship the damn thing when someone orders the kit that includes it.

Craftsmanship

Jack did a nice job of cutting out the foam to store the various glass probes, ensuring they weren't damaged. The tinsel flogger thing looked home-made, but was cleverly built and packaged nicely in a tube to prevent damage in the case. I don't know what Jack did with the extra dividers from the case, but I didn't get them; having a few extra dividers around would have been nice to use with my other similar kits, or maybe do something different with the wand kit if I wanted.

The wand included a few pages of instructions on safety and maintenance, written in bad English similar to the web page.

3. Book reviews

3.1. The Overworked American

The Overworked American: The unexpected decline in leisure by Juliet Schor (1991).

In this book, Schor argues that whatever level of income we are at, we adjust our standard of living to use all available funds, then habituate to that level so we don't perceive we could step down our spending. As our pay increases, we gradually make small changes— a slightly bigger apartment, eat a notch up on restaurants, choose a the 5 year aged cheese instead of the 3 year, that sort of thing. Most changes are small, and accrue over time, so there's no obvious thing to point to as the reason increases in pay result in our being no better off.

As long as we're committed to the standard of living we've established for ourselves, we're dependent on the pay. Soon after receiving a pay raise, we habituate and are dependent (or at least we believe we are dependent) on the new, higher pay. And, if we work overtime for a while, we become dependent on that too.

Schor argues that the way to give us more free time, and reduce our workload, is to offer time reductions as an alternative to pay increases, thus cutting off the habituation before it happens. Cutting back proactively can be done, but can be financially damaging because of loss of benefits if going part-time, or damaging to a career because of failure to live up to societal expectations.

In general, I like Schor's arguments; I see parts of my life in the things she described. The way my income went from $28K to $60K over a period of 8 years, but I never had a lot of extra. Then I dropped down to a couple of grand— way less than I started with— and I've still done okay. Schor quotes statistics to back up her arguments, although some of her statistical discussion seems a bit odd— but I didn't look closely at the numbers or methods either.

One big difference between us is that she concludes that money and time need to be decoupled, breaking the old addage that "time is money"; I think we should go even farther and look at purchases in terms of time. For me, this made arbitrary dollars into something concrete: the amount of time I would have to rack my brain doing some tedium for a company or beating some idiot to have whatever item. And suddenly, a lot of things started looking a whole lot less attractive. A new plasma TV... or over a month to rat around on my bike, maybe do some hiking, sun myself a little bit, read a book, visit some friends ... and generally enjoy some leisure. Yeah, screw the plasma TV.

I think it's worth the read, but if tight on time then skip the statistical details and go straight for Schor's a priori discussion.

3.2. The Overspent American

The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need by Juliet Schor (1996)

I found a fair amount of overlap with Schor's earlier work, The Overworked American, but Overspent provides more statistics and detail on spending than work. Overworked describes the simple cycle of work-and-spend, with habituation to keep us always thinking we're living on the edge; Overspent goes into more detail on the processes driving our spending.

A lot of the argument is based on class distinction: the idea that what we have, and how we present ourselves, shows who we are. The group we desire to belong to provides a reference for us which we try to live up to, allowing assimilation into the chosen class. The 50's keeping up with the Joneses encouraged neighbors, who were typically of similar means (owing to living in neighborhoods), to try to live up to one-another's lifestyles. As income increased, standards of living gradually increased, but at any given point people could keep up with their neighbors without going into huge debt.

Enter the television, longer working hours, and breakdown of local community. As we spent more time at work (argued in Overworked), we moved our reference group from our neighbors to co-workers, who would include managers and people making way more than us. We had less time to spend at home, so relations with neighbors faded, effectively removing that reference group. After work, we began to sit down and watch the tube because we're too tired for anything else, but television provides a skewed version of what people should have: with the current pile of legal and medical shows, a reference group for much of America is lawyers and doctors, who are not on average salaries. And in shows such as Friends, coffee-shop employees inexplicably make enough money in New York City to afford nice, roomy apartments.

One wonderful statistic: For every additional hour of television watched weekly, research found an average of ~$4 less savings 1 . Breaking this down further, ~20% of television watchers felt pressured by adverts, while ~80% didn't. The 20% showed little change in savings based on hours of television watched, while the 80% who didn't feel pressured saved ~$5 less per week for each hour of weekly TV watching. The person who watches television 2 hours per day, blissfully unaware of the pressure of commercials, will save $70 per week less or $3600 less per year than someone who watches no television or is aware of the pressure of advertisers.

We try to live up to the standards of these reference groups, and in doing so we've been increasingly spending out of our means— and going into debt in attempt to keep up. It may be no simple coincidence that as my group of university friends in Rochester has dissipated, I've stopped playing the "keeping up" game with electronics.

Another problem is the Diderot effect the idea that once you upgrade one thing, others follow suit. In a kitchen whose floor I replaced, the counter— which previously fit in fine, and which continues to function perfectly well— now looks well worn, an eyesore in a kitchen with a spanking new floor. But if I replace that, then the cabinets will come into question... and soon, I'll have a whole new kitchen, and be much poorer. (Being aware of this, I'll instead choose to suffer the social hazards of my current counters.)

For geeks, this has certainly been a big trap. How often we have desired simply a bigger hard drive, only to find an IDE limit that inspires a motherboard replacement, which means new memory and CPU, and then we might as well replace the case and power supply, so just get a new CD-ROM drive too. The new hardware inspires an OS upgrade, to take full advantage of it; old software no longer operates and requires purchase of an update.

(And let me tout that when I put a 120 GB hard drive into my old second-hand Clamshell iBook, it's the first time I've ever not encountered such an upgrade problem as I just described. Thanks Apple!)

Schor concludes with some proposals Blending my thoughts and hers, here are some suggestions:

1. Don't put yourself into a place of desires. Don't visit the mall, get off junk mailing lists, recycle catalogs without looking when they arrive. Don't peruse eBay just looking for good deals on stuff you don't need.
2. Be aware. Watch for whether you're just trying to keep up, or whether you really want something. When you observe the Diderot effect, control it.
3. Put a delay on buying items, both big and little. Budget for the big ones, and think overnight on small stuff to avoid impulse buys (the little things add up when there's a lot of them).
4. Borrow from and share with neighbors; barter for services.
5. Work less. With inadequate time, we purchase to meet needs that aren't thought through, and/or we don't purchase wisely because we don't have time to consider alternatives and shop around. This keeps us in debt, so we have to work hard to keep up so we keep doing it...
6. Resist advertising, especially appeals to our emotions or instincts; avoid status purchasing. When you're trying to define yourself by climbing the status ladder, manufacturers of status items have you by the nuts.
7. Buy for function, not for status.
8. Don't use shopping as a recreational activity.
9. Resist the commercialization of traditions such as Christmas, birthdays, Valentine's Day, and Halloween.

3.3. Forgive Us Our Debts

Forgive Us Our Debts: A Crusading Lawyer's 10 Commandments to Avoid Costly Mistakes and Resurrect Your Credit Legally and Morally by Blair Drazic, Esq (2004).

I like Drazic's style. He has a tack similar to Juliet Schor that corporations are trying to trap you into debt and use that as a mechanism to enslave you. Instead of how you get trapped, and how to proactively escape the game, this book covers what happens when you're behind the 8-ball and can't keep up anymore. It ain't pretty.

The book caught my eye in the library, my interest drawn by curiosity about the situation of one of my friends, saddled with more debt than my house could pay for after having cancer. According to Drazic, the credit system works like this:

The average person is doing just fine, until something goes wrong - sickness, job loss. When you start to fall behind on payments, they charge ridiculous late fees and crank the interest rate to usurious proportions, ensuring you can't pay it back (they justify this because, paying late, you're a higher risk which they need to accommodate for). Already in a bind, you're now even farther up the creek.

They will then harass you with bill collectors, making both veiled and blatant threats, legal and illegal. And even if you do manage to get back on your feet and pay them off, they'll by default leave a blot on your credit report as thanks.

The book is simple to read, and there's definitely attitude to his writing. He's a bit repetitive, and often spends more time telling about why they're bastards and their disreputable practices than nailing down anything to do. He does nail down a few things though:

• Avoid consumer credit counseling. Though allegedly working in your interests, they're funded by a percentage of the take - so all they're really doing is helping you work out a budget to keep you paying. And going to one leaves a blot on your credit report.
• Don't feel guilty, or at least don't let them use guilt to manipulate you.
• Prioritize who gets payments based on importance and how much they're putting on your credit report. Consider proactively contacting those you aren't paying, so they know you want to pay and aren't just welshing.
• Be nice to collectors when they call, and don't promise things you can't follow through on. You'll need to negotiate with them later.
• Learn collections regulations. If you can spot anything illegal the collectors are doing, you've got a bargaining chip.
• If you can't stand them anymore, send a cease and desist letter. They have to stand down, and if they don't, they're breaking laws. See above.
• Once you've been turned over to a collections agency, stop paying them and put your dosh into something that hasn't been turned over yet. Same if an account has been written off as a loss.
• Threatening filing bankruptcy is a bluff you can use, because creditors are almost sure to lose in the deal. Avoid actually doing it, as it leaves a nasty blot on the credit report.
• Filing a lawsuit is their threat, and is usually a bluff.
• As you get back on your feet, pay off things that aren't turned over or written off yet. Once those are good, start saving up cash. When you've got a chunk (not necessarily the full amount, although Drazic suggests it for self esteem), contact one of the companies leaving a blot on your report, and agree to pay only if they remove the account from your credit report. Get it in writing before giving them money. If they won't agree or won't put it in writing, don't pay them.

There is more detail in the book, and though somewhat repetitive I think it helps set in your mind that they're bastards, and that left to their own devices they're going to screw you. I could see where this would help overcome personal guilt and into a more defensive mental stance, preventing being trodden on in their greedy focus on taking your money.

It's worth the read for anyone in a credit bind.