Words On Wednesday

Two vodka options, two countries, two prices, one label. Which is the better option? Name: French Vodka Source: Kirkland Signature ABV: 40% Price: $18.99 Volume: 1.75L Price per oz: $0.32 I’ve been buying vodka from Costco for several years now, but I’ve always opted to go for the American vodka . I knew they offered French vodka, but it was more expensive for the same volume and proof. If I’m just mixing it anyway, why pay for a premium if they both have the same amount of alcohol? After several sources described how good the Kirkland Signature French vodka was, my curiosity grew. I wasn’t big on vodka anyway, but this stuff was apparently legendary. Many described it as being better than Grey Goose, which is top dog when it comes to common vodka brands. Maybe that premium is worth it. One day, I ran by Costco to restock on Evan Williams. While I was in there, I noticed the vodka area. I still had a little bit of American vodka left, but I was getting low. May as well save the trip an...

Plex offers a premium tier for a paid subscription, the Plex Pass, and I’m almost tempted to bite because of their latest music app. Part of what drew me to Plex originally was the ability to listen to my own music, from the internet, without paying any sort of regular subscription fee. No ads like YouTube Music, no limited selection like Amazon Music, just me and my tunes. Sure, they offered a paid subscription for some fancy frills, but it wasn’t anything I needed. I used Plex for several months without any bit of interest in a Plex Pass. The web version on desktop worked perfectly. On mobile, it was a little less ideal. The first-party Plex app is fine for video, but it kinda chokes on music. It takes forever to actually recognize my library when I’m not on my home network, and will randomly stop playing after two or three songs if my screen is off. This is after I paid five bucks for that unlock, mind you. For whatever reason, the app continues playing just fine when connected to A...

I’m trying to consider the best way to organize a data store. Maybe some of my IT friends can shed some light on it. I want a collection of standard household food products. The problem is how to handle different brands or sizes of the same product. Consider rice for example. We usually purchase family size bags of Success Boil-in-Bag white rice. When the grocery store doesn’t have the family size bags, we’ll purchase the normal bags. Occasionally, they don’t have any Success brand rice, so we’ll buy store brand or some other brand. With just white rice, that would be at least four unique items that all serve effectively the same purpose. If I’m going to the grocery store to get rice, I don’t truthfully care what brand or size at the end of the day. Once the rice makes it to the place, I couldn’t care less what the box looks like. I need some way to consolidate each of those records into the same group. UPC as Primary Key At first, I considered making the UPC the primary key and having...