One 60–80 g shampoo bar can replace two to three 250 ml plastic bottles, and the average adult uses around nine personal-care products daily. Multiply that across a year and a household, and the inputs—money, time, packaging, and water—scale quickly enough to feel inescapable. If you’re curious why people move toward cleaner formulas, minimal aesthetics,...
Near the end of 2019 this column included a review of a white-light smart bulb by Canadian technology company Globe Electric. After seeing the review, Globe sent the Gadget Inspector some of their other smart home products for review. Here are our thoughts. Multicolor Changing RGB Dimmable LED Strip Light Globe offers multicolored strip lights...
Smart home devices are likely to be among the hottest buys around Black Friday and the holidays. Yet, with so many different brands to choose from, it might be difficult to decide which line to buy into. The ideal smart home product should be reasonably priced, and both easy to install and reinstall if you...
If your vehicle didn’t come equipped with Android Auto but you’d like access to Google Assistant while you are driving, the Roav Bolt could be your answer. This clever little gadget from Anker Innovations plugs into a vehicle’s 12V cigarette lighter socket and doubles as a dual USB adapter. The convex top of the Bolt...
Greg Antista and the Lonely Streets, Shake, Stomp, and Stumble. Down Orange County, California way, punk music has always held a special spot in the hearts of the locals. Maybe it’s because the ultra-conservative John Birch Society had such sway there, and the punks needed to make as much mess as possible to pull their...
Luther Dickinson and Sisters of the Strawberry Moon, Solstice. In the land of Mississippi musician Luther Dickinson, there are moons of every persuasion. Those people that live on the land there find a strong rapport with things which glow in the sky, and Dickinson has made a life of using that inspiration in making his...
Gary Clark Jr., This Land. Those moments when a musician explodes into a whole other galaxy are ones to cherish forever. There is usually a sign in the artist’s previous work which predicts what the possibilities for true greatness might be, but still there is no sure-fire way to know it will happen. Gary Clark...
JD Allen, Love Stone. The tenor saxophone has always sounded like the closest instrument to the human voice. There is something about the range and the tone of the tenor that captures the inner soul of what a gifted singer can express. The long line of America’s saxophonists beautifully encapsulates the entire history of jazz...
This year once again showed the ultimate test of longevity: great music never stops. It keeps coming like the wind and the waves. So here is this year’s list of favorite albums, starting with the first half of 2018 posted in July’s Bentley’s Bandstand: Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Downey to Lubbock; Niki Bluhm,...
The Beatles. Always known as “The White Album,” The Beatles 1968 double-disc set stopped a lot of listeners in their tracks when it was first released. It was different, partly because it was twice as long as their other releases, but more because they’d cut loose from the confines of their previous constructs on how...