Lux Properties - Florida Vacation Villa   All content © David de Jongh  2010

Hello, good evening and welcome to another collection of random stuff that just pops into my head.

Getting the most out of Gillette Mach III Turbo blades

July 27, 2010

When I was young, I used the old flat, double-edged razor blades made by Wilkinson Sword (I lived in the UK until I was about 30).  They were the top of the line blades, and expensive.  My father taught me how to get extra life out of them by wetting them and rubbing them on the inside, curved surface of the (glazed porcelain) bathroom sink. It was several years before I discovered the principle of the strop that made Dad’s method work. 

A freshly sharpened razor has a very, very thin edge – about .4 microns, or about a two hundredth of the thickness of a human hair.  As you shave with it, you are gradually bending tiny sections of the edge over, so they no longer cut.  Eventually, so much of the edge is bent that the blade feels blunt.  The edge, however, is still there – it’s just out of alignment.  Sharpening a blade on a stone removes metal, leaving a new edge, but this isn’t generally necessary until the blade has lost all the metal from the edge.  More often, stropping the blade on a leather strop, or using Dad’s method, will realign enough of the original edge to make it usable again.

I’ve been using Gillette Mach III and Turbo for the past several years, and getting through a blade in about three weeks of careful daily shaving, immediately after the shower: wet the skin with soap; apply shaving cream, shave in the direction of the growth of the beard (toward the chin); wet the skin again, slightly; shave away from the chin.  All very time-consuming, but I almost never nick myself, and with the blades at about $2 apiece, making them last 3 weeks means about a dime a day.

Still, expensive, and annoying when you consider they cost about a dime to make.  So, having assumed that there was no practical way to sharpen them, I tried eBay, and there they were – 10 5-packs for 30-something dollars.  Unfortunately, the first one I tried scraped a red patch down my cheek – Aargh!  I then did some research and discovered that Mach III blades are among the most counterfeited items on the planet.  I was able to get a refund from the seller, and a free coupon from Proctor & Gamble when I sent them the opened packet, so I came out about even.  Suddenly, a dime a day didn’t sound too bad…

Anyway, I began to wonder if anyone had come up with a way of sharpening the blades, and sure enough, someone has!  You can actually strop the blades on an old pair of jeans.  Put the jeans on a coat hanger, hold the cuff, and gently push the blade down as if you are “un-shaving” the fabric.  On my first attempt, I got an extra week out of the blade (I jean-stropped it twice), but it doesn’t feel as smooth as a new one, as all the Teflon has been rubbed off.  I suspect there will be “mega-milers” out there who can get six months out of a blade, and maybe scaping some hard soap onto the Teflon area will improve the running.  Stay tuned!

The great Office 2010 disaster

July 31, 2010

(My response to David Andrews's rant about Office 2007/2010)

"After [Bill Gates's] departure the role of chief software architect was given to Ray Ozzie, the original genius behind Lotus Notes."

Well, we now know that Office 2010 is just as great a disaster as Office 2007, at least for the power user. And yes – “genius?” “Lotus Notes?” – another disaster. Don’t get me started: just look at highlighting, or font change, or case change.

In one of my businesses, I use forms to create leases. Most tenants renew their leases at least once, so, I copy the lease from the previous year, and change the dates, and in some cases, change the wording of the lease e.g. we agree to a six month extension, or a transfer clause. Good luck doing that in Word 2010. First of all, find the Unlock Form function.

But the worst thing is the lack of customizable toolbars. “We don’t like menus” – “OK, let’s go with something that doesn’t look like a menu, but takes much, much more effort and clicks to actually use.”
“We don’t like toolbars.” – “OK, but users like to be able to use toolbars for the things they use all the time.” – “OK, we’ll grudgingly give them a toolbar they can customize. But we’ll give them a collection of totally meaningless icons to use with it. And we’ll only give them one. And we won’t let them change the icons – how could they possibly design something themselves that made more sense than the rubbish we provide?”