Objective, Exhaustive, Thorough Reviews and Product Design

Different people have different ideas of what a review is.  There’s lots of review sites floating around the web, but a huge number of them only offer an off-the-cuff glancing idea of someone’s impression of an item, usually being far from objective or thorough.  This is all just fluff and doesn’t benefit anyone except for the writer’s ego, and maybe their bank account.  What I like to do is be very objective, focus intensely, and thoroughly examine every aspect of an item to give my opinion and possibly recommendations of a design in the end.  If this sounds like I am an engineer - well,  that’s because that’s what I am. 

I am both a product designer and engineering manager by profession.  I design machines.  It’s my job to take the parameters that our customers are asking for, translated through our sales and marketing department and design a new product, the outcome of which is hopefully the result of the best of the thousand or ten thousand choices you have made over the course of a design.  I don’t know why, but it seems everyone wants to be a designer, and everyone also seems to think it’s an easy and simple thing to design something, but it’s quite the opposite in reality.  Perhaps the illusion that supports this is a good design is very simple, yet how you got to that design is a very complex process.  You have to be thinking of an enormous number of things at the same time, in order to come up with the best design solution for a product.  Some of the many things you may need to focus on while designing a product are:  performance, manufacturability, product cost, form factor/size, product lifecycle, durability, ergonomics, failure modes and their effects.  You have to be analytical and objective, have a sense of practicality, a great knowledge of materials, manufacturing methods and a good understanding on how people would like to use a product. Those who are the best at design have vision.  To be conscious of all of these things at the same time is sometimes almost incomprehensible – mind boggling and a very tough thing to do, especially when you have to design complex systems of subsystems.  When you design something complex, it quickly becomes apparent that there are always balances and tradeoffs with everything, as there often is in life.  The best design is something that takes all these areas, and based on their relative importances, and choices you have, finds the optimum balance of all of these areas.  It takes much practice for this design process and I will forever be learning more -  always a student, never a master, similar to photography.

So, I am saying that, because of the way I think day to day, I’m good at doing writeups(if you prefer, over the term ‘review’),  on products to examine every aspect of their design and function, with respect to maybe not by what they are intended for, but how I personally use them – these things may be different.  I like to do this because I find it satisfying to pull those thoughts out of my head and onto a page/document.  Some people call it ‘learning what we already know’.  Bottom line, it makes me think of the root causes of why I like something or why I don’t and how something could potentially be improved, the strengths and weaknesses of something, not unlike what I do everyday in my job, but it's good to apply it to my personal passions and hobbies, this blog focusing on outdoor gears and adventures and outdoor photography.  The other challenge I like is trying to write in an entertaining style, unlike this rant, which is kind of dry :) 

In any case, my plan is to be posting some reviews of the outdoor and photography gear I use regularly, so I can learn what I know about the gear I use, and hopefully anyone else reading this can possibly get little tidbits of insight as well.

Frontenac Park

Frontenac Park is like the little sibling of the go-to Ontario wilderness areas that everyone flocks to - namely Algonquin Park and Killarney.  As such, many people don’t even know about it.  It has a good network of hiking trails, 48 backcountry campsites and is closer than the others.

I normally take a long(er) trip somewhere in the Autumn – late September or early October.  I love the outdoors in the fall…  the colors, the sights, the smells, not to mention the lack of bugs and cooler weather is great for hiking.  So, this year since I had not been to Frontenac before, I decided check the place out with 4 days of backpacking (see trip report here).  There’s some quite good paddling available there as well, but I decided to hoof it this time.

The park boasts 160kms of trails on their website…  I think that is a little on the generous side, whoever came up with that number.  I hiked an obvious majority of the park, and did a bunch of bushwhacking looking for points of interest as well as backtracking in some areas to get to another area of the park, and I ended up with 75kms according to my GPS, which is less than half of the official statement of 160kms.  I think the true number is probably in the low 100s, even with portages counted as hiking trails.

The terrain in the area is quite unique.  Even though there is nothing in the area that could remotely be called a mountain, the landscape is quite hilly with steep granite ridges and valleys.  It seems the beavers have moved into the area somewhat recently (within 100-200 years ago), as almost all of the depressions have been dammed up and are lakes or bogs, there are dead tree stumps sticking up out of the water, showing the relative recentness of the dams.  There are no rivers or large creeks in the area, only small streams and brooks.  The forests are almost entirely hardwood forests, with only the odd conifer.  The west side of the park has a little acidic area with conifers - pine and tamarack trees.  The majority of the park is former land used by homesteaders scratching out a hard living, mica/feldspar mines, and hardwood logging camps, the abandoned remains of all which can be seen.  There’s even ‘Old Thor’, an abandoned truck used for roadmaking in the area, off to the side of one of the trails, and a large old boiler for one of the mines, Tetts Mines can be found in the woods.  The official park map has many points of interest such as these and most can be found if you do a little off-trail exploring to look for them.  The trails in the northern part of the park are mainly the old roads from the former inhabitants.  The area around Slide Lake in the south East is the most scenic and rugged – I would recommend visiting that area if you are only there for a short period.

The campsites are arranged in ‘clusters’ , with one cluster usually being four campsites.  There’s 13 different clusters, making 48 total reservable backcountry sites in the park.  There’s no car camping available.  And by calling these backcountry sites, I’d have to classify these as deluxe backcountry sites.  Each site has a leveled tent pad (complete with permit holder for some reason), a set eating/fire area complete with a picnic table, a steel fire pit with grill (the standard issue provincial park type), and either one or usually two well made semi-permanent benches made from split logs.  Not only that, there’s either one or two shared outhouses/privies for the cluster, made from fiberglass….  and the kicker, they’re stocked with toilet paper, too!  To go beyond that, some sites even have set up bear rope/pack hanging areas with some chain/wire/tube/pipe contraptions between trees at a designated spot near each campsite.  These amenities do make the camping more comfortable but at the same time gives me the feeling that I am almost car camping.  I could personally do without the extras, but I don’t mind them.  Some sites are very close together and would be a bit annoying at busy times, where others are spaced apart.  Two of the three nights I was the only one in the cluster I was in.

Another cool aspect of the park is it’s open year round and offers many courses to teach outdoor/wilderness skills.

As far as the quality of backpacking goes, I would even go so far as to say Frontenac trails are more scenic than Algonquin backpacking trails, a lot more variety to look at, although it doesn’t feel quit as remote, as you will encounter more day trippers since any part of the park can be reached as a day trip.  In any case, I’d certainly recommend a trip here for a few days, there’s lots to see!

Links:

Everytrail trip report

Frontenac Provincial Park Wikipedia

Friends of Frontenac Park

2011 Map of the park

Garmin GPSMAP 62S Review

Garmin GPSMAP 62S Review

Well, I’ve now been using the GPSMAP 62s for a full season.. I thought I would post a follow up review to my First Impressions Review, with the good points and point I feel could be improved upon with this device. 

I generally use a GPS for their basic functions, seeing where I am on a map or how to get to a place or waypoint, either by road or straight line.. I also collect the tracks from my trips for geotagging photos and keep records on my trips, and I use the GPS to look for nearby points of interest such as gas stations and restaurants on occasion.  Other than that, I don’t use (or need ) a bunch of the bells and whistles that come with the unit.  So instead of many paragraphs, here’s a quick list of my opinion of the good points and ones that can use improvement

Garmin GPSMAP 62s Good Points
- Profile configurations, can easily switch between automotive and recreational
- Ability to load and store different types of maps
- 'recalculate on road’ feature is very useful when tracking to a waypoint, to switch from straight line to rout along roadways
- Beeps are good for signaling turns when in automotive mode, although it would be good for it to be a bit louder
- The ability to attach the GPS to a variety of mounts is great
- Good shape for holding in hand
- Battery saving mode is great, so is battery life in general
- Screen modes highly configurable to display data you want in each view or mode
- 3 axis compass is very accurate and better than previous generations
- Slot for hand strap/lanyard is great (lost my previous Colorado 300 because it didn't have this)

- 

Garmin GPSMAP 62s Could Use Improvement
- Could be lighter, slimmer
- Processor is very slow, painful to do spell searches, and building the maps when zooming out is sometimes extremely slow
- Could use a waypoint management system to separate into folders.  Scrolling through many waypoints to find the one you want and spell searching are both painful
- Has many features that are not necessary and can be trimmed from the device – the share wirelessly, and GPS antenna connector features, among many software features are unnecessary in my opinion. 
- Mini USB connector should be switched to micro USB..  all phones have switched to micro now, so I wouldn’t need two car adapters
- Screen resolution very low, it would be nice for it to be significantly larger and higher resolution
- Instead of a rubber stopper type of water seal for the connectors at the back can be a more proper waterproof door, similar to newer waterproof cameras
- Plastic screen scratches somewhat easily
- Operating system layout is very complicated and needs a while to get used to remembering what you have to do to get what you want from the device
- I loathe Mapsource desktop software for loading maps, managing waypoints, tracks etc.  It feels like an outdated early 90s software.  The interface can be much more intuitive, slick and  much easier to use as well as more functional.  The search function is downright horrendous – you much exact match what you are looking for, or else you won’t find it
- Switch from AA to Lithium Ion battery source?  That is a tradeoff that would have pros and cons.

A note on screen protectors

The screen is lexan or some type of plastic, which can get scratched easily rubbing on branches, lying in the bottom of a canoe, or dropped while bike riding…   yeah I scratched the screen a bit by these things.  So I ordered a Protech screen protector.  The application is very simple, jut wet in soapy water, apply and squeegee off the excess water with the card provided – if you mess up you can peel it back off and reapply.  It is ultra clear and I don’t notice it’s on there at all – no bubbles, no fingerprints from the application.  It even hides some old scratches that are on there before application.  I would recommend these for sure.

This is much better than most screen protectors that once you begin to stick it on, you are at the point of no return and are more likely to have bubbles, fingerprints on them.  Some screen protectors affect the quality of viewing the screen, but the Protech is invisible.

Summary
All these things said, the GPSMAP 62s does what I need it to satisfactorily, like I said I only use certain basic functions.  I would recommend it, but it would be good to improve some things on it. 
In the end, I just want a  simple GPS unit that does basic functions, but does them very efficiently and well.  For my use, I just want a stripped down, lightweight GPS unit that has a fast processor, excellent battery life and large high resolution non-touch screen.  It would be nice if a company can make a unit like that, instead of spending effort adding functions such as cameras, sharing wirelessly, antenna jacks, touch screen and other things and other BS 'value added' things that just add weight and cost for features I don't want or need.
 If anyone can recommend a better unit than this that does these things I want, let me know!

Edible BEAR'S HEAD TOOTH (a.k.a. Hericium Americanum) MUSHROOM!

I find mushrooms fascinating.  Even with the strange variety of life of this planet, fungi and mushroom seem to be even stranger to me, like they are from a different planet.   Walking through the forests, especially during early autumn the ground is covered with many varieties of mushrooms.  The first time I happened upon this strange mushroom (or rather, at least the first time I remember seeing it) was last year near Goderich on the Maitland Trail.  This one is certainly different than all other types of mushrooms I have seen, a sort of cascade of icicles or tooth-like formations, coming out of a log.  Apparently they are relatively common in North American hardwood forests.  Looking through my Mushrooms of Ontario and Eastern Canada field guide, I identified it as Bear’s Head Tooth mushroom, or Hericium americanum.  Researching online, I found that they are quite edible and delicious.  The good thing about these is that no other mushroom out there really looks like them, so identification is quite easy.  There are a few varieties but they are all edible.  Usually found in late summer/early fall growing from dead hardwood tree trunks lying on the ground, they sometimes can grow from living damaged hardwood trees as well.

On my hike this past weekend, about 500m where I started on the trail, I came across a patch of these growing from some downed logs.  I returned after I finished my hiking loop to collect them and eat ‘em to see how they tasted.  Word on the internet is they taste similar to lobster, and some places they even cultivate them commercially in sawdust, although I don’t think that’s anywhere near where I live, since I’ve certainly never seen or heard of it.  I gathered about 5 clumps of them from the one log they were growing from in the dark with my headlamp.    Some of the clumps were quite large, and others were a bit smaller but fresher looking.

The next day I wanted to cook ‘em up..  so I took one of the smaller clumps and attempted to clean them from the pine needles and miscellaneous forest dirt that was between the ‘teeth’.  I suppose one of the downsides of these, dirt is kind of hard to get out of them.  I cut off some of the outer bits, and the inner portions were relatively clean. 
 

The insides are a nice white color, and don’t discolor much after slicing.  It is quite strange looking – to me it’s not unappealing, but certainly doesn't look like something tasty.  The look of it reminds me of tripe...  which I will eat on occasion.

I then fried it up in butter with half a clove of garlic, salt and pepper.  It darkens a little and turns slightly red.  Tasting it, it certainly tastes mild and mushroomy.  I’m not so sure about the lobster taste, but it certainly is edible.  It is slightly tough on some of the bits, possibly because I slightly overcooked it.  It would be pretty good in a wild mushroom soup- I think I'll make this out of the remaining mushrooms I scored.

A few more links: 
Bear's Head Tooth Mushroom
Mushroomexpert.com  

American Mushrooms