The Advisory Boar

By Abhijit Menon-Sen <>

Two coffee grinders

I used a hand-cranked coffee grinder for five years, but breaking it and getting another one has taught me a lot about making coffee.

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Renault Duster AWD 2019

We bought a Duster AWD in 2014. Five years later, we snapped up the last remaining older-model Duster AWD before the 2019 facelift, and before the model was discontinued in 2020.

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I like volumeicon

volumeicon is a small mixer with sensible default behaviour.

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Fighting voltage fluctuations

The Accurex DPM-3000 lives up to its superhero name by saving a lot of our equipment from extreme voltage fluctuations.

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Debian 8 on the Intel NUC5PPYH

Hassath's birthday present this year was an Intel NUC5PPYH (with 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250GB SSD) to stand in at home for her ageing Thinkpad X131E. It works fine with Debian 8.

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123-Reg sabotaged my domain transfer to Namecheap

I tried to transfer a domain from 123-Reg to Namecheap, but 123-Reg transferred it to another registrar owned by its parent company and forced me to pay for renewal.

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Debian 8 on the Lenovo Ideapad S206

The Linux Laptop Wiki has a page about the Lenovo Ideapad S206; the quick summary is that everything works with only a little tweaking.

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DMT DiaSharp diamond sharpening plates

A fast, easy-to-maintain, nuisance-free sharpening technique that works well for kitchen knives and woodworking tools alike.

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Alpen Wings ED binoculars

Two years ago, I bought a pair of Alpen Wings 8x42 ED binoculars. These are one of the least expensive mid-range birding binoculars, but a big step up from my earlier Nikon Trailblazer 8x42 at three times the price. Even so, I didn't expect them to be so much better than anything I had used before.

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Renault Duster AWD 2014: one-year review

Hassath and I bought a Renault Duster AWD a year ago. It's a capable car that serves our needs well under demanding conditions in Uttarakhand. Here's our detailed review.

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