Watt the Hack?

So I've had Plenty of time with the Pascal Press, and I'm happy to say that it's found it's Niche in my coffee setup. I first tried this as a daily driver, completely replacing my 20oz stainless steal mug.  That didn't last to long due to the thermal efficiency of the device.  you get an hour to an hour and a half of warm coffee, which is OK but a drastic difference from the old mug where I get 4+ hours. I've also taken the press on a few camping trips now, and while this is where I was expecting the device to shine, it still lacks due to one major flaw: cleanup.  While the device removes most of the grounds in my experience it still required to disassemble and rinse each part to get all the grounds.  With access to a kitchen sink and a clean counter, sure no problem but camping it can be a bit of a hassle.  Not to mention that this is by definition a single cup brewer, so with a group of other coffee drinkers it's probably not the best option. Where t

This post will go over the setup I had to do to get my   8Bitdo  NES30 Pro controller working on my Arch linux desktop with steam.  This results in the system loading the xboxdrv automatically when the controller is connected, and unloading once finished. Firmware Update The first thing to tackle was the firmware update on the controller,  This may not be needed, but I like to keep my devices up to date. After some googling, I was able to find a program called fwupd  that's able to update the controller via a USB connection.  It's available for Arch in the community repo. The basic syntax of the command is: fwupdmgr get-devices fwupdmgr refresh fwupdmgr get-updatessudo fwupdmgr update The controller will need to be put into 'Firmware update mode'.  Be aware that the final command will also update all eligible firmware on your system, so If you don't want that, please dig into the documentation Bluetooth Connection Getting the controller co

My kick starter reward for the  Pascal Press  campaign, a travel mug that can brew it's own coffee.  Here are my initial observations after the 3rd cup. The materials and construction seem to be good it's made of Polypropylene, stainless steel, and  silicone rubber.  Everything mostly fits together nicely. The screen printing of the logo an max grounds fill line is already half worn off, and rubs off with just a finger wipe.  I've had to lightly etched the fill line in with a knife. The silicone grip appears to be cylindrical, whereas the press body is slightly conical, so the fit is a bit loose towards the bottom of the grip.  A tighter and/or conical grip would fix that. The screw top lid needs 2 hands to open and has no storage place when off.  some sort of keeper like whats on a standard nalgene bottle would be nice. Heat retention is not good. it seems like it will stay hot for about an hour, this might be related to the next point. The inner cup is

Jan 10, 2016 At 12:32 AM My forth case, the one opened specifically for a refund received the following reply: Hi!there thank you so much for reaching us.We appreciate you providing us this valuable information.What we need you to do is to please do contact us on our live queue for us to give our best assistance.Here is the link on how to https://help.ea.com/en/contact-us/new/ 1.select a product then 2.select flatform and 3.select topic lastly 4.complete request.And our phone or chat advisors will do the rest.Thank you so much again. Nice... Real nice... At 1:11 AM My first case, that I had most recently updated with a request for a refund received the following: I'm afraid that I don't see the connection between your missing quest reward and your purchased content. At 6:58 AM It was hastily explained from my phone: I purchased the content on good faith that the issue would be addressed.  Since the game is broken to the point of being unrepairable this is

Jan 9, 2017  (18 days after initial contact) At 1:53 AM I received the following email from EA regarding my first case, the one that I had been repeatedly told had been escalated to a specialist team. Thank you very much for contacting EA Support regarding your PvZ Heroes request. My name is *****, I am a specialist at EA, and I will be assisting you today.  I'm sorry to hear that you were unable to receive your hero.  Now, your hero plant should normally unlock after completing the next level, but I understand that this hasn't helped you unlock the plant. I'm afraid that we aren't able to manually grant any plants at the moment. To compensate your missing plant, I have just granted 100 gems to your account.  Finally, I would recommend you to leave your feedback about this issue on our forum, it would be much appreciated as it helps raise awareness: http://answers.ea.com/t5/Plants-vs-Zombies-Heroes/ct-p/plants-vs-zombies-heroes-en Have a great day!  M

Between the 6th and the 9th not much happened.  Mostly this was the peroid where I was trying to be a nusance and hopefully cause something to show up on a report that would land on a middle managers desk at some point. Jan 6, 2017 At some point this day, I gave the game a 1 star review on the play store.  I also took to the official forums and saw several others experiencing the same issue, as early as Nov 1st.  I don't know at what time each happened. At 1:22 PM I submited a bug, claiming that there was a problem with the support procedures, causing cases to be closed with out a proper resolution.  This was closed without responce, then again reopened by me.  It currently remains open. At 4:16 PM They responded to my second case, that it was a duplicate, and that it was closed: Thank you for contacting us back at Electronic Arts.  I would like to inform that your case (escalated)#[First Case] is already escalated to our specialist team. Please let me share that due

Jan 5, 2017  (14 Days after the initial contact) At 2:24 AM I was sent the following in reply to my 3rd ticket where I stated that I was going to become a nuisance. Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts Customer Experience. I sincerely apologize for the delay caused in responding to your issue and appreciate your patience. This is ***** from the Game team following up your incident.  I would like to inform you that your case was escalated to the dedicated team. In this case I suggest you to wait for email from the specialist team.  Should you have any further questions regarding this or any other issues, please do not hesitate to let us know. You can also find answers to common questions on our Help Center at http://help.ea.com , or ask our community experts by visiting Answer HQ at http://answers.ea.co This reply also closed the ticket. At 5:26 PM I replied with the following: Hi, Thank you for taking the time to update me on this issue. However: Acording to

So the last email said 48 hours for a response, So I waited a week, and honestly I'm starting to get a bit irate. Jan 4, 2017 (13 days after the first contact) So a week after my last communication, time for a new ticket.  In retrospect I should have updated one of the previous ones, maybe, but in so far the only response I received were the initial reply from the CSR that also closed the ticket. At 3:00 PM I put in a new ticket, again I don't have the language used but it was either a recap of the issue, or a request for an update on the previous tickets. At 4:33 PM I received an exact copy of the previous message from EA, so no need to quote it here. At 4:49 PM I replied with the following: Thanks for the time it took to copy and paste a canned reply.   It seems apparent after being dismissed twice that I will need to become a nuisance customer for this issue to be addressed.   I will continue to re open this issue, submit duplicate issues, and fill out custom

Dec 27, 2016  (5 days after the original contact) At this point in the saga I can't recall my resoning at the time, it may be the note at the end of the first contact that the issue was marked as closed on their end, and maybe with the loss of this second hero it was worth another ticket, so I opend a second ticket.  I don't have the language I used in this ticket at hand, from what I recall it was the previous email I had sent with some additonal clarifications. That was sent at at 9:18 AM. Dec 28, 2016  (5 days after the original contact) I recieved a reply to my second ticket, Here it is: Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts Customer Experience. I’ve checked your contact history, and found that there is another support request awaiting in our queue for the same issue. The reference number on the pre-existing request is #<27726519 >. I would like to inform you that our specialist team is working on the issue, and they will get back to you at the earlies

Dec 24, 2016 (2 days after initial contact) I completed my task set out by the CSR from my previous contact, what I had interpreted as being complete the next quest, and in this case I chose the complete 25 games to unlock the final zombie hero.  Over the course of those 25 games I played some multiplayer and increased my Rank and League.  I completed several additional Quests, as well as several single player Missions. None of that had worked, and now the final zombie hero did not unlock either.  Time to contact support and tell them that the issue had not resolved. At 1:52 PM I sent Support the following email: Hi. I've completed up until the next quest where the reward was unlocking the last zombie hero. I still have not received the last starting plant hero, as well I have not revcieved the last starting zombie hero from the last completed quest. My hero's thus far are: Green shadow Solar flare Night cap - revcieved from 6.99 starter bundle Super b

I am having a heck of a time getting support for the free to play EA title Plants vs Zombies: Heros, so I thought It might be an idea to write it down somewhere in the hope that it can help someone, or  maybe best case get some exposure Here is the saga as best as I can recall it bering in mind that it started on Dec 22, 2 days short of 4 weeks at the time of this writing.  I also got slightly irate, and perhaps irrational during this experience, I'll include all of that as well. Dec 22, 2016 I experience a bug with the game wherein a quest in the game failed to provide the completion reward.  The quest in question was to play 15 games, the reward was an additional hero for the game, which as you may guess are kind of a big thing in a game called Plants vs Zombies: Heros .  I don't have the initial language I used in the support request, but it was noting inflammatory, I then did the reasonable thing and opened a support request with the EA help system through the game.