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If names like Yeti, Tundra, and RTIC strike a chord, you’ve likely gone through the sticker shock associated with deliberating between very large rectangular blocks of insulated plastic. Ice coolers fall under the product category of “you wouldn’t believe how much these things cost,” at least when considering options amongst a top performing tier of coolers attached to price tags of hundreds of dollars. Oyster, a new Norwegian brand will still set you back $500, but it introduces a uniquely smaller and more efficient design aiming to suck out the air from its larger and bulkier competition.
Typically thermal energy is circulated within a cooler very slowly, affecting the overall temperature within. The Tempo thermal circulation is 380x faster than a comparable hard cooler, the equivalent of 190 watts/meter Kelvin versus 0.5 watts/meter Kelvin.
The Tempo is the most engineered ice cooler, inside and out, with an intelligently designed accessories system allowing easy and fast switches from a metal carrying handle to the included shoulder strap with only a couple turns of a dial. This assembly/disassembly construction also makes cleaning the cooler simpler and more thorough.
Even the best hard cooler requires pouring large amounts of ice to retain a cold drink temperature for hours, making for a laborious haul, ironically heating the carrier while attempting to keep the contents cool. The Tempo proposes something a bit wild: subtracting ice out of the equation. That is, if you start off by throwing in cold drinks or food to begin with. The Tempo’s patented double-wall vacuum insulation technology is so efficient in preventing heat transfer from occurring – keeping cold temps within from escaping and warmer ambient air from intruding. The cooler can keep cold foods or drinks chill for hours without ice… or for much longer aided by two included ice packs.
Two ice packs designed to fit perfectly into the Tempo are included, helping keep food and drinks cold(er) for longer periods. The precise fit of the two accessory packs into the aluminum lined interior illustrates the level of detail the Oyster team put into developing the Tempo over the span of six years. \\\ Photo: Gregory Han
The sleek extruded aluminum cooler essentially works just like those popular double-walled metal flasks you might already carry around everywhere to keep your coffee hot or water cold throughout the day, creating an insulated and vacuumed sealed interior large enough to fit 36 cans of beverages within. The only caveat of the design is if you dent it, it’s going to wear the signs of your mishaps forever (but that’s what strategically placed stickers are for).
The cooler’s rectangular shape is in itself an innovation; previous attempts to manufacture anything beyond a cylindrical vacuum-insulated shape would fail to retain their shape over an extended span of time. Oyster stands by their design so confidently, not only will they replace any broken parts, they claim their replacement policy even extends out to damage if your cooler is “mauled by a bear.”
The lid locks into a vacuum seal by securing two long handle hinges on both sides. Leave one in place and the lid levers open in a clamshell configuration. \\\ Photo: Gregory Han
Photo: Gregory Han
A strap or handle can be switched out quickly and easily thanks to the Tempo’s twist dial securing system. \\\ Photo: Gregory Han
A red nylon shoulder strap attaches easily to the Tempo for longer, heavier hauls after loading the 12.3-lbs (empty) cooler for outdoor destinations. \\\ Photo: Gregory Han
Outward appearances may give off the impression the Tempo is designed only for modest loads. But because of the thin-walled design, the Tempo offers three times the capacity compared to other rotomolded coolers of similar size.
Photo: Gregory Han
As the owner of an enormous and unwieldy rotomolded cooler, the Tempo’s manageable size is revelatory, and to be frank, suitable for more than 80% of our typical hiking, camping, or picnicking adventures. Pair that with the Tempo’s extraordinary ability to keep contents cold without bagfuls of ice, the quick-switch handle or strap carrying system, superior portability, and its subjectively standout industrial good looks, and the Tempo is arguably the coolest cooler on the market.
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I boiled snow for the first time this morning. Last night, I wild camped somewhere in The Cheviots as the clocks ‘sprang’ forward. Waking up before dawn, I put my iPod on shuffle, skipped one track and listened to Surprise Ice by Kings of Convenience. The song couldn’t have been more apt, given that my tent was covered in snow and ice!
The overnight camp was in preparation for walking at least half of The Pennine Way in a few weeks’ time. I’ve got all the kit I need, so I was just testing the new stuff out and making sure the existing stuff was still in good working order. The good news is that it’s very unlikely to get colder during my walk than it did last night, and I was warm enough to sleep!
This week, I’ve been helping WAO finish off our work (for now) with Passbolt and Sport England, continuing some digital strategy stuff for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, doing some work around Greenpeace and KBW. I updated a resource I’d drafted on open working for Catalyst, and put together a proposal for some badges work under the auspices of Dynamic Skillset.
We had a co-op half day on Tuesday in which we ran, and eventually passed, a proposal about experimenting with a ‘drip release’ model for our content. Essentially, this would mean that we would have patrons (platform TBD) who would get our stuff first, and then everything would be open a few weeks later. This emerged from an activity of us individually coming up with a roadmap for WAO for the next few years. We were amazingly well-aligned, as you’d hope and expect!
This week, I published:
I also helped a little with this post from Laura, and she helped me with one that I’ve written but has yet to be published. I’ve also drafted another couple of posts and an email-based course. I also (with a little help) created a weather app using the OpenWeatherMap API. Which brings us onto…
I’ve continued to find ChatGPT 4 really useful in my work this week. It’s like having a willing assistant always ready. And just like an assistant, it sometimes gets things wrong, makes things up, and a lot of the time you have domain expertise that they don’t. AI-related stuff is all over the place at the moment, especially LinkedIn, and I share the following links mainly for future me looking back.
While I got access to Google Bard a few days ago, the experience Google currently provides feels light years behind OpenAI’s offering. This week there were almost too many AI announcements to keep up with, so I’ll just note that ChatGPT was connected to internet this week. Previously it just relied on a training model that cut off in 2021. Also, OpenAI have announced plugins which look useful, although I don’t seem to have access to them yet.
There are lots of ways to be productive with ChatGPT, and this Hacker News thread gives some examples. I notice that there’s quite a few people giving very personal information to it, with a few using it as a therapist. As Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin point out in the most recent episode of their podcast Your Undivided Attention, AI companies encourage this level of intimacy, as it means more data. However, what are we unleashing? Where are the checks and balances?
Writing in Jacobin, Nathan J. Robinson explains that the problem with AI is the problem with capitalism. Robinson’s attitude reflects my own:
It’s interesting that we talk about jobs being “at risk” of being automated. Under a socialist economic system, automating many jobs would be a good thing: another step down the road to a world in which robots do the hard work and everyone enjoys abundance. We should be able to be excited if legal documents can be written by a computer. Who wants to spend all day writing legal documents? But we can’t be excited about it, because we live under capitalism, and we know that if paralegal work is automated, that’s over three hundred thousand people who face the prospect of trying to find work knowing their years of experience and training are economically useless.
We shouldn’t have to fear AI. Frankly, I’d love it if a machine could edit magazine articles for me and I could sit on the beach. But I’m afraid of it, because I make a living editing magazine articles and need to keep a roof over my head. If someone could make and sell an equally good rival magazine for close to free, I wouldn’t be able to support myself through what I do. The same is true of everyone who works for a living in the present economic system. They have to be terrified by automation, because the value of labor matters a lot, and huge fluctuations in its value put all of one’s hopes and dreams in peril.
If ChatGPT is going to revolutionise the economy, we should probably decide what that should look like. Otherwise, we’re running the risk of Feudalism 2.0. We’ve heard the hyperbole before, but if AI systems are exhibiting ‘sparks’ of artificial general intelligence (AGI) then we shouldn’t be experimenting on the general population. Perhaps Nick Cave is correct and that the problems with the world are “certitude and indifference”.
Next week is my last before taking three weeks off. I’m very much looking forward to a family holiday and am psyching myself up for my long walk. Ideally, I’d like to do the whole 268 miles in one go over a two-week period. But I don’t think my family (or my body!) would be up for that…
The post Weeknote 12/2023 first appeared on Open Thinkering.
In time, infrastructure supporting the electrification of vehicles will become robust, reliable, and a wonderfully mundane reality, an evolution that will undoubtedly coincide with everyday vehicle range that will not only match, but exceed internal combustion engines. But even the most confident long range battery-equipped EV owner today has occasionally felt the twinge of range anxiety while roadtripping beyond your normal routine roads. That is, unless you set beyond city limits equipped with your very own EV-charging batteries doubling up as a teardrop 4-person camper to call your own.
The Boulder by Colorado Teardrops sports an attractive design, one evocative of the offspring of a Tesla paired with a retro teardrop camper your grandparents might have once explored the highways with in tow. The softly angular, Cybertruck-ish design is evidently designed to complement the most popular EV today, down to gull-wing doors and aerodynamic wheels.
The Boulder’s skateboard platform and powder-coated steel trailer design sits on top of a 3500 lb. rated suspension, holding a 75 kWh bank of EV batteries, allowing wanderers of the road to recharge their EV batteries with nary a charging station in site.
Other than being a sizable charging station on wheels, The Boulder offers cozy accommodations for a family of four, equipped with a fully insulated cabin with a seating arrangement during the day that easily converts into a queen-size bed with two additional bunk beds. The rear of the trailer reveals space for all of the necessities of the road camping lifestyle, with the option to upgrade to “glamping” grade accoutrements such as air conditioning, propane heater, patio umbrella mounts, awnings, side counters, espresso machine, and an assortment of optional colors.
The Boulder’s compact size belies its price, which will set you back $67,000, more than the starting price of a Tesla Model Y. But considering the double-duty capabilities of a trailer that can comfortably house four people and offer Level 3 or Combined Charging Standard (CCS1) to add an additional 100 miles of range in just ten minutes, those with electrified hearts stricken with wanderlust might find the price justifiable.
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