Hearted Youtube comments on Technology Connections (@TechnologyConnections) channel.

  1. Displays like this predated microprocessors by several years - they were typically driven by discrete logic or even mechanical switches. By the time microprocessors were a significant thing, LED displays were available.
    1200
  2. Regarding Thorium mantles, another safety aspect is the dust generated when old mantles are removed from the lamp, you don't wanna be inhaling that stuff!
    1200
  3. I have a cheap dishwasher. The kind with only one sprayer. I was going to replace it because it never gets anything clean. Well, followed your instructions and now I use half the soap AND get clean dishes. Running the hot water first was a game changer. So, I figured I owed you $10. Thanks for helping me keep a perfectly fine dishwasher out of the landfill.
    1200
  4. I gotta say I really appreciate the disclaimer of you being an influencer at the beginning. Not because I was going to buy a freeze dryer, but because its super nice to see someone with an audience recognize and respect the responsibility of having a trusted voice. Thank you for being awesome!
    1100
  5. Such an excellent explanation. My version of this trip was barely more than an experience vlog
    1100
  6. Once again, glad to help. Just so everyone knows why I own one... It's because of the 8 hours of record time. It's usually married to a very cheap non-hifi VHS deck and it breathed new purpose into said machine and that's about it.
    1100
  7. Okay, you actaully made me look at my Dishwashers Owner's manual. This is a BOSCH and I am located in Germany, for reference. The dishwasher does not have a pre-wash compartment. In the instructions it says (roughly translated) "Attention: due to the different activation time of detergent tablets you might have inferior cleaning power with short-running programs. We recommend powder detergent". Furthermore: "If you use powder detergent, we recommend pouring in a little extra directly into the tub for intensive cleaning, in addition to the detergent dispenser".
    1100
  8. You put so much effort into those sources, damn. I'm convinced SD cards aren't discs now.
    1100
  9. Doesn't like toast — now owns THREE toasters. That's dedication.
    1100
  10. "Magnetic tape will never be economically viable!" Proceeds to dump funding into firing lasers at holograms
    1100
  11. "I'm a midwesterner, I'm no stranger to principled suffering" is an amazing line :D
    1100
  12. Wow, I made those laser printer images ages ago when I was learning Inkscape. It's nice to see them used ten or so years later!
    1000
  13. I am so thrilled to learn about something that I have literally wondered about since I bought my first Jeep CJ... probably even longer in the past, if I could remember far enough back. :-D (also the note about right-hand drive and headlight patterns was fascinating!)
    1000
  14. As a person who worked in a G.E. Lamp Plant for over 20 years making the actual bulbs for the FlashCube, SuperCube, HiPower, MagiCube, & FlipFlash (names such as GE, Osram, Wootan, & several store brands); your assessment of the parts (glass bulb, glass beads, zirconium/magnesium foil, tungsten filament, oxygen, primer, etc...) were spot-on. The most dangerous part of the process was the use of the primer for MagiCube, which the post was dipped into. (A safer & different primer was used to dip the tungsten filament & electrical posts for the other flash bulbs. That primer wasn't as pressure sensitive.) The cup that held the primer was changed every 3-4 hours. As long as the primer wasn't dried out on the inside of the dip cup; which happens as the level in the cup drops, it was safe. BUT dried primer was extremely volatile & accidents have happened. As a side note... back in the heyday of chemical flash; our plant was just one of several that ran over 100 machines; each machine producing 2000-2500 bulbs/hour, 24 hours a day, 6+ days a week, for about 20 years. THAT'S A LOT OF BULBS!!
    1000
  15. "Now, I'm about to be rather unkind to this piece of alleged technology," he said after basically calling it a piece of shit
    1000
  16. Wow! I didn't know much of this history and I was one of the last engineers to leave the project. Myself and Tom Sasena designed the equipment that put digital information in the vertical interval and as needed filled the video portion with data. It was to be used for educational and gaming applications. Dungeons and Dragons was one of our customers. After spending another year at RCA New Products Division in Lancaster, PA where we were going to build a PC with a 2 chip set display processor designed at the Princeton Labs, I decided they weren't serious and went to Bell & Howell Columbia Paramount where I designed video tape loading systems.
    1000
  17. No channel manages to make me watch, rapt, such long videos about such useless things
    1000
  18. I still like my big 85w CFL's for video lights. Very minimal flicker for high speed video recording. There are better LED's out there, but it's not cheap to get an equivalent setup that runs without flicker on wall power.
    1000
  19. Unless there are more plugs per outlet, I don’t think having more outlet locations will reduce how often people use power strips. Even the simplest TV or computer setup needs more than just two outlets, and if the choice is between running an extension to the next outlet another 6ft away or to put a strip on the closest one, you still run into the gauging issue either way.
    1000
  20. I appreciate how you talked about the environmental risks of this project and how you planned to mitigate them.
    994
  21. 12:49 Hi! I work with Ultra High Vacuum equipment! The reason the water deposits on the sides is due to the how the particles in the chamber interact. The air molecules are basically bouncing around the chamber randomly and the pump is just scooping them out when they reach the vacuum pump. Imagine a crowd of people PACKED in the lobby of a hotel and milling about, but they only change direction when they hit the walls or each other. The only way out is through the automatic revolving door that scoops people out as they bounce into it. More people will bounce into the door when there are more people in the lobby to bounce off of, but the fewer people inside, fewer objects to bounce off of and the lower the odds that they'll bounce into the door. Now, you're still introducing more people to the lobby from the elevator, but it's still not packed enough for them to push into the door like they had earlier. Now, because the walls of the lobby are a bigger target than the door opening, and the walls are now cold, the particles will instead condense on the cold surface and freeze, effectively removing them from the chamber. Hope that helps!
    986
  22. I want you to know that there are definitely chemists, engineers and others at Proctor and Gamble that are screaming at their computers at these videos. Because they 100% tried to point out that pacs completely disrupt how dishwashers are designed to work. But marketing teams and higher ups didn't care and forced these products out the doors.
    963
  23. I was 2nd tier tech support at Compaq back in the early 90's back when tech support was open 24/7 and free (and we would help with ANYTHING) and I prank called one of the new guys, making him try to help the issue I was having: I was playing "DOOM" (it had just been released) and every time I fired the pistol twice, The Clapper would activate and turn off my computer.
    934
  24. This is how I like to think of low pass filters "de-jaggying" (antialiasing). A low pass filter, at it's absolute simplest, is a capacitor (with a current limiting resistor to keep the smoke in) Capacitors resist change in voltage. Like a weight on a spring resists change in length of a vertical spring. So that infinite rate change stair step is slowed down by the capacitor. That's it. The digital signal tells the voltage to "CHANGE RIGHT NOW NOW NOW GO GO GO" Then the capacitor replies, "OK, will do, gimme a second, I'm getting there, plod plod plod" Simples.
    906
  25. One weird use of those sodium lamps I've seen: In high school I was in a production of "City of Angels" where certain parts of the show are meant to be in black and white. To accomplish, the production designer bought two massive sodium lamps that were placed at the front of the stage and during the "black and white" portions these lamps would turn the entire set and actors sepia toned. Genuinely one of the more interesting applications of these I've ever seen!
    896
  26. "Heat pumps for the win" That is the biggest takeaway from this channel, by far
    880
  27. Am HVAC design engineer (floor plan layouts not the actual units), one of the reasons why gas furnaces are always oversized is because that 60k BTU is the smallest many manufacturers make, and they end up being the most common/cheapest because they're used on everything 5 tons and under. To get a smaller heater, you basically have to go electric or heat pump
    871
  28. The thing that really helped this concept 'click' for me: there's no such thing as gray light. You can dim a white light source but it's always white.
    860
  29. It's videos like yours that have made me appreciate just how incredibly clever, complex, and elegant technologies and systems that seem "old fashioned" truly are. It feels like a common misconception that people were somehow less smart in those days when they were anything but.
    858
  30. Dear Alec, thank you very much. You: "isn't this fascinating?" - me, from the whole of my heart, answering loudly: "Yes!"
    854
  31. I am surprised they are rated in watts over there not hogsheads to the nautical micromile or whatever
    852
  32. You know what else gas stations do? TELL YOU THE PRICE! There's a gigantic illuminated sign with numbers on it facing the road that tells you how much it costs. One of the huge issues I see right now is insane levels of price gouging at smaller charging stations, and you basically have to get there and look at the screen (here in the UK) to work out beforehand what the price per kWh is. Being able to drive past somewhere and work out what the price is both for AC and DC charging, and then benchmark that against the next place, will be crucial for future adoption. Too many times I've shown up somewhere and balked at the price as being two or three times what it is at my local charging point and just driven off.
    845
  33. As someone who owns a flat-bottomed induction-compatible wok, I'd like to point out that you don't need a big kitchen gadget on the side to make stir-fry. It works like a charm with my induction stove top and gets hot in a matter of seconds without turning my kitchen into a sweatshop from an open gas flame.
    841
  34. Everyone knows blue jigglies can't be microwaved. Only red jigglies.
    840
  35. Numitron backing is grey because RCA used what they had in spades, the sheet steel with aluminium coat that was used to make anodes and internal structures for thermionic tubes, and this was proven to survive the glass sealing and gettering operations. Thus they used the standard tools they had in the tube plant, the flat anode sheet, slightly formed to be a stiff backing, and punched out the holes needed to hold the filaments. Then used the technology they had to make glass beads with wire in them, and sealed those into the holes, making the filament supports, and then simply used a flat section of that steel wire that was bent over to hold a length of thoriated filament wire, also a common item in the tube shop. Length and diameter calculated for the brightness needed at the applied voltage, and then simply placed in location, the ends folded over, then spot welded together to trap the tungsten wire under slight tension. Then at the rear spot welds to a lead frame attached to a standard off the shelf 9 pin glass base, and you have the complete unit. Glass top attached, and then evacuated with the standard roughing pump, and as a bonus because of the low voltage, and no need to maintain an ultra low vacuum, the roughing pump and the heat sealing of the tube is all that is needed to operate, no need for a getter to be installed, and no need to flash it, just a RF heating during sealing to get a high vacuum, then seal. Incidentally there were small versions made, the same size as your common 7 segment LED displays, and they were very popular, as they ran off 5V, and interfaced with logic. They worked best using CD4049/50 CMOS level shifting buffers, as those would source or sink 50mA no problem. Using a buffer/inverter per lamp, and a BCD decoder or counter per digit allowed those displays to be bright, and as bonus you could also use the blanking input on the drivers to use PWM to dim them. Project to replace those displays with LED ones worked, just that it really did not drop display current use, it was still 5A of current at 5V, though it was good in that at least you had a display that now was available, using a tiny HP 7 segment red display. Do one conversion and you had 16 numitron displays to use to fix others, so we only converted 3 boards to the LED version. Biggest problem was the resistor value selected was too low, so the LED displays were running way too bright, so had to be dimmed. Rather than destroying the cordwood board made to fit them, I simply used 2 6A silicon diodes in the common line, to drop the voltage seen by the LED displays down from 5V to 3V8, which made them dim to exactly match the old displays. Those 2 diodes were hard to fit in the limited space left on the display board. Users liked the new crisp displays, the bright version got complaints that it was so bright it was unreadable at night with dark adapted sight, and it lit up the entire cockpit. Display dimming had to match the other display, and that board used unijunction transistors, and had a disconcerting habit of the power transistor unsoldering itself from the wire leads, it ran so hot. Base lead unsolders itself, transistor is still conducting, runs hotter and lamp blows. Select spare lamp and it also blows, unless enough time for transistor to cool below 200C junction temperature. Would have been nice to have had some of the more modern mosfets that can handle 50A, but not at the age of that design.
    830
  36. Dude, for reconstituting you need to look to the astronauts for what they do. Most importantly you want to weigh the ingredients before and after so you know how much water is missing. Eyeballing it absolutely will lead to very dry or very moist. And then it's basically directly add warm water, warm not directly boiling and let it sit for a bit. Preferably sealed with the moisture against it directly. Though the thought of you waving a slice of freeze dried ham in front of a mister is incredible and worth subscribing to the other channel for.
    827
  37. I’ve known how pinhole cameras work for ages, but this explanation is the first time I’ve really understood why they work that way. The “move your head and the view changes” lead in was truly eye opening.
    808
  38. "To put ib bluntly, I like to do work on my computer... not work on my computer. And that's why I don't use Linux" As a longtime Linux proponent, I feel you man.
    806
  39. I love learning these sorts of "secrets in plain sight" facts. Thanks!
    806
  40. I love the greater charging ecosystem criticisms you bring up. Everyone in the industry should take these points seriously. Convenience is still key and building an artificial moat is backtracking progress.
    799
  41. HVAC guy here. A lot of the issues I've seen have been lack of adequate training. I've literally googled my way to competency, and that is completely unacceptable. But, they don't care as long as we figure it out eventually because the customer is footing the bill anyways. It's horrifying
    774
  42. The whole "it's not the volts that kill you etc. etc." always annoyed me. That's like saying it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end. The higher the fall, the more likely the stop is to kill you. They're kinda dependent on each other.
    773
  43. Nice evaporators will have a couple features these lack: 1) a shallow trough just high enough for the wick to draw from rather than a big basin (reduces "unusable" water volume) 2) a UV light which will sterilize the water in the trough to keep it sanitary for longer periods
    772
  44. I'm old enough that space heaters were these metal boxes with wide-gap grilles and nichrome ribbons in them...they didn't turn off if knocked over, and it was really easy for anything to pass through the grille and hit the glowing, hot heater element. Things these days are a lot more safe. Similarly, I was telling someone that there was a time when refrigerators had latches that could only be open from the outside...and children would get stuck in discarded refrigerator with bad outcomes. We were taught to fear refrigerators when I was a kid, and adults were told to block or remove doors.
    770
  45. Favorite part of those incandescent C9s was when they'd be on bushes, the snow would cover them, but then their heat would melt the snow on top of them so you'd have colored holes in the snow and the bushes would look like funfetti cakes.
    766
  46. "Old man yells at cloud" has changed from a Simpsons gag about weather to reasoned criticism of online services 😂
    765
  47. To add to your spicy bit: people lend their cars out (especially parents). If charging cost is bound to the car then you need to manually go back and sort the payment of the charges with the person who borrowed your car. Instead of, you know, them paying for it immediately
    745
  48. I refuse to believe phlogiston is not at play here.
    743
  49. It's very satisfying that you made sure that whenever a sound wave was shown on screen, that it visually matched up with your voiceover. Even the DR-05's dB meters matched up in that close up of it. Also: terrific episode.
    736
  50. The thing that really brings the distinction home for me is that with the closeup of the slot-mask CRT, you can see clearly that the brightness of the image can vary within a single phosphor dot, in a nontrivial way depending on the shape of the image (rather than the color or brightness data at a single spot). That would not be the case if they were truly pixels. Of course, the issue gets confused somewhat by the way that systems with LCD screens can do "subpixel rendering" by tweaking the color data in a manner that exploits the spatial arrangement of the red, green and blue elements to provide a bit more spatial resolution. But from the physical LCD's perspective, it's just rendering color data as usual.
    710