You can get there from here.

I recognize a great number of names on the reunion tour tags. You people still exist? I know I do.

The following is a transcript of an email dialog with Lacie tech support. Lacie manufacturers (poor quality) external hard disk enclosures. May they be as embarrassed as possible.

Andy: Power brick (model: ACU034A-0512) fails to provide sufficient current on the 12 V supply line. Supply current is measured at 400 mA. 5 Volt rail is as expected. Further investigation reveals that the provided power brick is out of specification for this model Lacie drive. The two disks inside are each stamped with "+12V 1500mA," indicating they each need 1.5 Amps of current on their 12 Volt rail. The pair together requires 3 Amps. The power supply brick is stamped with "12V 2A, 5V 2A," indicating that its 12 Volt rail is designed to supply 2 Amps of current. Of course, a 2 Amp supply will fail if connected to a 3 Amp load for long enough. This is either a design mistake or the wrong power brick was packaged with this drive. In either case, I am requesting a replacement power brick with a current rating of 3 Amps or greater on the 12 Volt rail. Old supply brick can be returned if desired.

Lacie:
Andy,

Thank you for contacting LaCie Technical Support.

This confirms a bad power supply.

Normally I can send you one at no fee, but according to the serial information, the drive appears to be past the one-year warranty.  If you have bought the drive within the last year, you could reply to the ticket with an image scan of the receipt, or fax it to my attention at 503-844-4505. If you fax the receipt, include this ticket's number on the cover letter.  Once I receive that, I can send you a power supply at no charge under warranty.

Otherwise, if the drive is out of warranty, over a year since you purchased it that you know of for sure, you can purchase the appropriate power supply from us at this link:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10706

Our sales department sells power supplies with a 30-day return period, so if this does not fix your issue, it is usually possible to return the part during this period.

Andy: With respect to your warranty period, this is clearly a defect in engineering. The product you have referenced is a 3A supply instead of the 2A one I have. Either the wrong power brick was supplied in the box, in which case Lacie would be liable to replace it, or the engineering department has quietly realized their mistake and updated the product line. In that case, I believe Lacie should issue a recall of the device, as overdrawing a power supply is a fire hazard.

I would certainly prefer to have the functioning external drive, but as we repurpose old computers, I can certainly dedicate one of them to act as a file server for these disks and an upcoming 1 TB upgrade. There are a great many other choices in drive enclosures on the market.

Lacie:

Andy,

While the drive probably shipped with a smaller 34W power supply originally, that part has been discontinued. The link references our newer 57W power supply that is backwards compatible with the older drives. The fact that a slightly different power supply was included with the drive originally does not indicate that there was any problem with the original part at the time it shipped.

We see less than a 2% failure rate with our power supplies on an annual basis. If multiple power adapters are failing this is usually caused by either:

• An environmental cause that is stressing the adapters beyond their normal capacity including but not limited to: dirty power, a bad UPS or light strip, wrongly grounded power, etc.
• We have seen a failure due to a bad UPS
• An external hard drive with bad internal components that is stressing the adapters beyond their normal capacity
• A run of bad luck with the adapters
• Any combination of the previous 3 causes
• Some other factor we are not aware of

Andy: The failure occurred because the original power supply was not rated for the current draw of the drive. An engineer who designs a 3A system with a 2A supply is designing the system to fail. I will simply integrate the disks into a sensible enclosure and avoid Lacie products. If this is an acceptable solution, you may close the ticket.

Lacie:
Andy,

Again, the 34W power supply is sufficient to run this unit. That part is simply no longer being made. The 57W supply is the replacement part that we have available for units that needed the older part.

[ticket closed]

Now I have to explain it.

"Logotypes and logograms push typography in the direction of hieroglyphics, which tend to be looked at rather than read. They also push it toward the realm of candy and drugs, which tend to provoke dependent responses, and away from the realm of food, which tends to promote autonomous being." -Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style.

Radio Shack clerk: Thank you for calling Radio Shack; my name is [omitted]. [unintelligible tag line].
Me: Good morning. Do you carry 300-ohm twin-lead?
Radio Shack clerk: What?
Me: 300-ohm twin-lead.
Radio Shack clerk: 300-ohm what?
Me: Twinnnnn leeeeead. For antenna feed-line.
Radio Shack clerk: What's it used for?
Me: Antenna feed-line.
Radio Shack clerk: Uhhhh.
Me: It used to be on spools in the back. Beside the coax cable.
[pause, typing]
Radio Shack clerk: Uhh, yes, we do.
Me: Great; thank you. Have a good day.
[click]

Recap:
Staple workout: multiple 5-minute pieces at sub-race pace.
Lab: stable split-circuit tunnel diode oscillator at 390 MHz that will withstand pulsed 25 Tesla fields.
Excellent weekend in Tennessee. The older I get, the more I appreciate my family. Appreciate my girlfriend as well. Glad they get along with each other.
Random amusement that might be useful later: ham radio license. (passed all three exams in one sitting for one sitting fee)

Cap:
The girl ordering coffee at this coffee shop looks ridiculous: short jean shorts with pockets that stick out the bottom to point out the fact that her shorts are far too short. She doesn't even look good in short shorts in the first place.
Rare day off work: presently blogging, and not doing 12 hours of penetration depth measurements on the superconductor l-(BETS)₂GaCl₄.

Precap:
St. Catharine's, ON. August 10.
Quantum mechanics qualifier.
Another crop of premeds who want to "learn" physics without thinking about it.
Trip to Texas, once it cools off a bit.

That should get me into the early fall. I apologize for my lack of reading about your coffee-drinking and drama. I'm allowing myself part of this afternoon for such purposes.

Just did the second in a series of weekly weight circuits meant to make me fast. Holy crappola. It's been a couple of years since I did them last and forgot how much it hurt. It's one thing to remember dragging my feet as I walk out of the weight room. It's another to try and pick them up one at the time until I reach the door.

I'm rowing more forcefully this year. Not quite as fast just yet, but I haven't gone above 28 ticks either.

May has slid by too quickly.

I think the authors of this article are either out of touch with reality or working for computer manufacturers.

http://tinyurl.com/4w98ya

I wouldn't entrust a laptop to a kindergartner no matter how much it weighed. The kid can't read or write, but you're giving them a multipurpose general computing device? Teach reading and writing with paper and pencil first. Then when they have the motor dexterity to use a pencil, introduce them to the keyboard.

When the time comes to put a computer in a kid's backpack, here's how I see it working. Assignments in the early elementary school grades are very targeted, with specific rules and expectations. Why shouldn't the kid's computer be the same way? They can't take their paper math assignment and use it to play with Pokemon without some legitimate creativity. I envision an elementary school kid's laptop with a small screen, small keyboard, enough flash memory to store an assignment with video, meager general purpose computing power, and GPU for powering video. The teacher would load the day's assignment into the flash (no operating system = big savings!) via wi-fi, and the computer simply wouldn't have anything else on it. (Again, no operating system. Just the assignment.) Sturdy case material, no moving parts, low-power everything. You could absolutely mass-produce that for $100.

But first, pay me for my $0.02.