Moving Product Reviews to LilithPress.ca/Shopping.html

Hello Frequent Shopper!

If you are reading this it is because we have decided to move (copy) many of our most popular posts to the following website:

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Shopping.html

Going forward, all new Product Reviews will be posted on the Shopping section of Lilith Press Magazine. Or possibly both PRC and Lilith Press Shopping.

Also to avoid understanding that doesn't mean we are deleting this website. By moving, we really mean we are "focusing" on the new website and "copying" our most popular posts over to the new site.

 

We may also continue to do short snippet reviews on PRC and possibly some longer ones too.

 

So if you want to see more Canadian product reviews, written for Canadians, go visit Lilith Press and bookmark the website for future use.

Plus Lilith Press has separate sections for the following topics:

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Art.html

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Books.html

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Entertainment.html (Games, Movies, Television)

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Fashion.html

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Food.html

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Music.html

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Sports.html

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Tech.html (Cellphones, Computers, Tablets, etc)

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Transportation.html (Cars, Bikes, Trains and More)

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Travel.html

So technically not everything will be in the Shopping section. Quite a bit will be spread around in the Books, Food, and other sections. But we will cross-list anything that fits in multiple topics.

Now please note, we do have over 440 product reviews on here... so it will take some time to copy the old reviews to the new website. We have decided to prioritize the most popular reviews.

Also, if you could be a doll, please tweet, facebook and link about our new website. We could use the extra advertising.

Thanks for visiting and supporting Product Reviews Canada!

Children of Blood and Bone, Book Review

The book review you are looking for has moved! In the future please visit LilithPress.ca for all of our newest book reviews and an archive of old book reviews.

http://www.lilithpress.ca/Books-Children-of-Blood-and-Bone.html

Directional Couplers

All About Directional Couplers

You may have heard of directional couplers but not really known what is meant by the term. This is true for most people, so it is nothing to really be alarmed about. Here is a basic breakdown of everything you need to know about directional couplers.

Essentially, the couplers are circuits consisting of four-ports where a single port is completely isolated from the input port. By consisting of these attributes, they are defined as networks of passive reciprocity. Each of the four ports is matched to the other three and the circuit is completely lossless.

There are several ways in which the realization of the directional coupler applications can be solidified. These ways include coaxial, stripline, wavelength, and microstrip. They can be used in this way to sample the signal. This sampling technique can include both the wave reflections and the actual incident itself. The couplers also generally work by using the individual properties distributed by microwave circuits. This property of coupling tends to exclusively work within a distance of a quarter-wavelength or in portions of multiple quarter-wavelengths of the device doing the distribution.

The four ports of the directional coupler each have individual names and attributes. The first port is known as the through port. This port is where the signal of incidence mainly exists. The second port is known as the coupled port. This port is where a portion of the input signal will appear and represent itself in the form of decibels, in most cases. The third port is called the isolated port which is where the signal will be terminated. The fourth port, obviously, is called the input. This port is where the signal originates. In some instances, the end user may choose to reverse the direction of the signal so that it actually exits through the input port but this is not a common occurrence.

Why people in Rich Neighbourhoods get Free Two Day Shipping from Amazon

By C. Moffat - May 10th.

I live in a wealthy neighbourhood of Toronto...

And I have discovered something fascinating about what happens when I pick the "Free Shipping" option when ordering things on Amazon.ca.

In the description for Free Shipping it says items will be shipped and received within 5 to 8 business days. However when I order things off Amazon, I typically receive them within 2 days.

And please note, I did not click on the "Two Day Shipping" option when buying them. I only clicked the Free Shipping option that is slower and takes 5 to 8 days.

So for example, yesterday, May 9th, I ordered a picnic blanket for my son and a LP record for my mother. I was just notified by email that both items will arrive tomorrow, the 11th.

So within 2 days, the same as you would expect for two day shipping.

So why would me living in wealthy neighbourhood of Toronto effect the shipping times?

Well, many people in my neighbourhood use Amazon Prime and they are not used to waiting for things. When they order something they usually choose either the 1 day shipping or 2 day shipping options. Plus there is quite a lot of people in my neighbourhood who shop in this manner.

This means that in order to save on costs, Amazon will often load up the delivery truck with multiple items for the whole neighbourhood that is governed by our post office and ship them all at once. This saves Amazon a lot of money on delivery costs.

Thus, with the sheer number of wealthy people in my neighbourhood who use 1 day or 2 day shipping, anything I order off Amazon typically shows up in only 2 days.

The exception to this is the Christmas season, which is a bit slower due to the volume of items being shipped, but I still received everything I ordered ahead of time. Way faster than it normally would have been.

Living in a large city like Toronto probably also helps speed delivery.

I am reminded of when I used to live downtown near the Rogers building on Bloor Street. I had Rogers internet at the time and it was the fastest internet connection I had ever had. Being close to the source dramatically reduced download times.

Thus, in my situation, living in a wealthy neighbourhood where people unaccustomed to waiting I get super-fast Amazon deliveries and all I have to do is pick the free shipping option.

That is a nice perk in my opinion.

Downside, the drivers in my neighbourhood are also impatient morons. Rich impatient morons who run over children. It is so bad in the local park they installed a camera that monitors the speed people are going and flashes what speed they are doing. People in the neighbourhood often have signs on their lawns, warning drivers to slow down because of children. If you know of what I speak, you know which neighbourhood I am living in.

So be forewarned if you live in a rich neighbourhood and have small children, keep an eye on them at all times because rich people don't like to slow down when they are driving and are often looking at their phones.

Proud Mary, movie review

By C.M.

Saw "Proud Mary" this evening.

Two thumbs up from the wife and myself.

Reasons why we liked it?

It felt very similar to the John Wick films, both chapters I and II.

Also had the feeling of various films in blaxploitation genre from the 1970s such as Cleopatra Jones (starring the very tall Tamara Dobson) or any of the Pam Grier films like Coffy, Foxy Brown, or Sheba Baby, and more famous films like Shaft (the original, not the remake).

So the director definitely captured the feel of a 1970s style blaxploitation film, but at the same mixed it with the style of action you see in films like John Wick I and II.

So much so that Mary is frequently double tapping the people she shoots in the same manner John Wick does.

Within the plot, and without spoiling anything, we can also say that the film touched on topics surrounding child abuse, guilt, responsibility, sexual harassment, the role of motherhood, and how people and organizations can effectively use slavery to control people against their wills. Topics worth talking about that reinforce a good well-written plot. The motivation and plot works, and you feel yourself agreeing with the actions of the heroine and thinking you would do the same thing in similar circumstances.

Like John Wick likes his cars, so does Mary. At times it felt like the film was a commercial for Maserati sports cars.

I cannot complain too much. Maserati just happens to be my favourite Italian sports car. Ferrari and Lamborghini are both nice, but Maserati takes it to another level by making cars that are more luxurious, handle better and are super fast. (If you are looking for insane power, check out Koenigsegg and Bugati.)

And apparently the car is ridiculously bullet proof, but we will just ignore that part right? Maybe Mary had body armour added to the car to make it more like the Batmobile. No complaints. We will just assume the car had body armour added to it.

Doing a Facebook Purge, a Review and Commentary

By C. M. - January 15th 2018.

Facebook isn't just any website.

It is the 3rd most popular website in the world after Google and YouTube. (See https://www.alexa.com/topsites for the list of top sites.)

As a social network (the first truly popular social network) it has played an important role in the last decade of helping people to communicate, socialize, organize events and meet new people with similar interests.

But it is also broken.

Don't take my word for it. Mark Zuckerberg (the creator of Facebook) recently said his new goal (resolution?) in 2018 is to fix Facebook. He has realized it is broken and needs to be fixed.

The realization came to Zuckerberg after the revelation that the Russians had manipulated Facebook with fake news reports to influence American voters into voting for Donald Trump. This kind of sophisticated election tampering by the Russians went unnoticed until it was too late.

"I started doing these challenges in 2009," Zuckerberg wrote in the post on his Facebook page earlier this month. "That first year the economy was in a deep recession and Facebook was not yet profitable. We needed to get serious about making sure Facebook had a sustainable business model. It was a serious year, and I wore a tie every day as a reminder."

"Today feels a lot like that first year. The world feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do -- whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent."

"My personal challenge for 2018 is to focus on fixing these important issues. We won't prevent all mistakes or abuse, but we currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools. If we're successful this year then we'll end 2018 on a much better trajectory."

 However...

This is not why I am doing a Facebook Purge today.

I am personally doing a Facebook Purge because of the following reasons, in order of significance.

#1. I find myself too often arguing with morons and jerks.

Yesterday I made a comment on a group about how admins have to balance free speech with the desire to moderate and remove hate speech. I said it was a balancing act. Yeah, metaphors. And wouldn't you know it, one moron decides to disagree with me and says it is not a balancing act, you just make rules and then stick to them.

Oh really? What rules? How do you make the decisions of what to allow and what not to allow?

So for example the admin in that particular (male dominated) group was banning racist comments. But sexist comments were probably still okay, as male dominated groups tend to not worry about sexist comments. Thus the admin is still making decisions about what to allow and what not to allow... which makes it a metaphorical balancing act.

And I have to explain this to the moron who just doesn't get it.

So one of the things I will be doing today is purging Facebook groups that I find to be a waste of time. Groups where people just argue most of the time.

For example I am a member (or was a member until today) of the Toronto Vegetarian Association (https://www.facebook.com/torontoveg/).

I joined that group because I like eating more vegetables. I am not a vegetarian or a vegan. I was simply a person who wants to eat healthier and I was hoping people on there would be posting recipes, events for foodies, that sort of thing.

Instead what I routinely see on there is people complaining about the meat industry or the fur industry, arguing about organic food, free range chickens, and a whole host of other topics.

Worse, vegans and vegetarians have a tendency to be jerks. Or sometimes morons. Sometimes both.

And so I am leaving groups like that too, because frankly they are not posting the food recipes I had hoped they would be. I should have just joined a cooking group.

So why am I wasting my valuable time arguing with morons and jerks?

So I will be purging every Facebook group I consider to be a waste of time.

#2. Finding more time for groups I admin.

I am the admin of various groups and part of this Facebook Purge process will be deciding which Facebook groups I want to keep being the admin of, and whether those groups need a set of rules so that people know that I expect a certain level of behaviour.

So for those groups I am keeping, I will be posting a set of rules. Hopefully this will discourage people from being jerks - and thus I won't be bothered as much to decide whether to ban people who are disruptive jerks posting racist/sexist comments.

Although I admit, there is a certain kind of joy that comes from banning a person from a group and sending them a message that tells them why I kicked them out. That part is certainly enjoyable.

#3. Friends and people I barely know who waste my time.

Sometimes you end up being friends with people whom you have not seen in years. They move away, you stop hanging out, but you still talk to them regularly on Facebook.

Some of them I have realized... they're just a waste of time.

Some of them are even argumentative jerks and morons and yet I am still friends with them. Clearly I need to dump them and purge them.

#4. Wasting time when I could be doing something more productive.

Facebook is a huge time waster.

I currently spend at least hour every day talking (sometimes arguing) with people on Facebook, clicking Like and so forth.

A lot of it is things that don't even matter to my day to day life.

What I need to do is prioritize things that are my close friends, the people I actually socialize with, and family.

Everyone else is basically me wasting time on Facebook with cat videos and things that have little or no bearing on my life.

#5. I have a son now.

And I would rather be spending time with my son. I routinely post photos of him on Facebook (to share with his grandparents, other family members and friends who also have kids). But if I cut down on the wasteful Facebook time, that means more time spent with my son (possibly taking more photos of him).



So what about you? Should you do a Facebook Purge too?

Probably a lot of us should purge how much we use Facebook.

Just imagine how much more free time we would have to do something productive instead of all the time we waste on Facebook.

Amazon's Shipping Speed - and why you should not pay extra for it

By C.M.

This year I did most of my Xmas Shopping on Amazon.

And I did not spend a cent on shipping.

Nor am I am member of Amazon Prime. (Nor I am using Amazon Prime free for 1 month on any such promotion.)

Instead I have been clicking on the free shipping option where it is supposedly shipped slower and is supposed to take 5 to 8 days for my packages to arrive.

And instead they have been showing up in 2 to 5 days.

Take for example 3 card games (my parents like card games) I decided to order as bonus gifts just last night on Tuesday.

According to Amazon Tracking they will arrive Thursday night around 8 PM. I will likely delay picking them until Friday though, more convenient for me.

My worry on ordering them on Tuesday night was I was not sure when they would arrive on time to be given as Xmas Gifts... and since they were bonus gifts and I was not too worried about this so based on previous experience I knew that even if I did select 5-8 day shipping that it would arrive earlier than that... so I went for it.

And instead of 5 to 8 days it is arriving in 2.

That is pretty amazing considering that the shipping costs is free.

So what are the 3 card games I ordered?

• Monopoly Deal
• Wizard
• Rook

I have already written about the card game Wizard on a different website called Nerdovore (an eating and nerd culture blog). So no need to write about it again here.

I have never played Monopoly Deal or Rook, but they both looked interesting and had lots of good reviews so I figured they would be fun to try.

Plus my younger sister refuses to play normal Monopoly (she always loses) so maybe she will play this game instead.

An Open Letter to Meetup.com

To Meetup.com!

From C.M.

I already sent this to Meetup via their Help Center, but here we go again:

Hello!

Awhile back Meetup changed how people suggest and organize meetups. The group I am thinking of is https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Area-Gamers/ and the new system is very restrictive for how to organize an event.

Under the old system anyone in the group could organize an event, which is a necessity since the people running and hosting games have to be the ones posting it, editing any changes, etc.

Under the new system people have to suggest the event, wait for the leadership team of 33 people with busy lives to hopefully respond... and even then there is problems.

The new system is full of problems that many of the people I have spoken to are switching to organizing events via email, Facebook and other means. I personally in the last week organized two different events via Facebook.

So my question is, why are you not trying to fix this problem when clearly you are going to be losing money over the issue in the long run?

Why should we, the customers, continue to pay for a service that has gotten worse, not better?

Best Tech Gadgets Released in 2017

Excluding phones and tablets. Obviously. If you're looking for phones check out yesterday's post about the Best Smartphones of 2017.

1. Nintendo Switch: A hybrid gaming console that can be used both as a handheld device and connected to a TV. It introduced a unique concept with detachable controllers and popular games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey.

2. Apple AirPods: Wireless earbuds designed for seamless integration with Apple devices. They offered automatic pairing, Siri integration, and a compact charging case.

3. Amazon Echo (2nd Generation): A smart speaker powered by Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa. It provided voice control for music playback, smart home automation, information retrieval, and more.

4. Google Home Mini: A compact smart speaker powered by Google Assistant. It offered voice control for various tasks, including playing music, managing smart home devices, and answering queries.

5. DJI Spark: A mini drone with intelligent flight features, such as gesture control and automatic obstacle avoidance. It was designed for easy operation and capturing aerial photos and videos.

6. Fitbit Ionic: A smartwatch focused on fitness tracking, offering features like heart rate monitoring, GPS, music storage, and contactless payment capabilities.

7. Sony WH-1000XM2: Noise-canceling wireless headphones known for their excellent sound quality and effective noise isolation. They offered long battery life and customizable noise-canceling settings.

8. Microsoft Xbox One X: A powerful gaming console that supported native 4K gaming and offered enhanced performance compared to its predecessors. It provided backward compatibility with Xbox One games.

9. GoPro Hero 6 Black: A rugged action camera capable of shooting 4K videos at 60 frames per second. It featured improved image stabilization, enhanced low-light performance, and advanced video recording modes.

10. Sonos One: A smart speaker with built-in voice control powered by Amazon Alexa. It delivered high-quality sound and allowed seamless integration with other Sonos speakers for multi-room audio.

11. Samsung Gear Sport: A smartwatch focused on fitness and water resistance. It offered built-in GPS, heart rate monitoring, and various fitness tracking features.

12. Oculus Rift with Touch Controllers: A virtual reality headset that provided immersive gaming and multimedia experiences. It included handheld controllers for precise motion tracking.

Best Smartphones of 2017

So... what is the best of the best? Is it the phone with the biggest camera? The phone with the most space? The phone with the longest lasting battery? Or is it the most expensive?

Every company comes out with their highest end model each year in an effort to snag your hard earned dollars. The best of the best offer a blend of the most sought after features that their customers value, even if it isn't necessarily what the customers know they want. Often this comes down to the camera, in my opinion, because that is the first thing I am looking for.

1. Samsung Galaxy S8 (Starting at $1,035 CAD): The Samsung Galaxy S8 impressed with its stunning 5.8-inch Infinity Display, which curved around the edges. It boasted a powerful Exynos 8895 or Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, depending on the region. The device featured a 12 MP rear camera with optical image stabilization and an 8 MP front camera. Its iris scanner and fingerprint sensor offered enhanced security features. (Note that the S8+ is arguably slightly better because it is slightly bigger.)
   

2. iPhone X (Starting at $1,319 CAD): The iPhone X introduced a significant redesign with its edge-to-edge 5.8-inch Super Retina OLED display. It featured Apple's A11 Bionic chip for enhanced performance and Face ID facial recognition technology. The dual-camera system with 12 MP sensors provided optical zoom and portrait mode capabilities. The iPhone X set a new standard for flagship smartphones in 2017.

3. Google Pixel 2 XL (Starting at $1,099 CAD): The Google Pixel 2 XL showcased a 6-inch P-OLED display and ran on the Snapdragon 835 chipset. It stood out with its exceptional camera performance, featuring a 12.2 MP sensor with advanced computational photography capabilities. The device offered unlimited Google Photos storage, exclusive Google software features, and quick software updates.

4. LG G6 (Starting at $699 CAD): The LG G6 featured a 5.7-inch QHD+ FullVision display with minimal bezels and an 18:9 aspect ratio. It was powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor. The device had a dual-camera setup with two 13 MP sensors, one offering a wide-angle lens. The G6 was water and dust resistant, and its unique aspect ratio provided a more immersive multimedia experience.

5. OnePlus 5T (Starting at $659 CAD): The OnePlus 5T offered a 6.01-inch Optic AMOLED display with minimal bezels and a 2:1 aspect ratio. It ran on the Snapdragon 835 chipset and featured a dual-camera system with 16 MP and 20 MP sensors. The device provided a near-stock Android experience with OxygenOS and boasted impressive performance and fast charging capabilities.

6. Huawei Mate 10 Pro (Starting at $1,099 CAD): The Huawei Mate 10 Pro featured a 6-inch FullView OLED display and ran on the Kirin 970 chipset. It offered a dual-camera setup co-engineered with Leica, with 12 MP and 20 MP sensors. The device provided advanced AI capabilities, a large battery capacity, and a sleek design with water and dust resistance.