Comments by "kd1s" (@kd1s) on "Technology Connections" channel.

  1. Speaking of Walkman - I didn't have one of those oh no. I had an Aiwa unit with AM/FM tuner too.
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  2. In my case I'm a fan of clocks tht use NTP. No fuss, no muss. Just accurate time all the time.
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  3. Light pressure is also known as photon pressure
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  4. So these heat pumps would work well here where I live. Winter temps rarely get below freezing. In fact lowest I've recorded so far was just a few degrees below 32F. And of course now it's getting to the point where daily temps are starting to hit 60's and 70's.
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  5. It's funny how progress marches on from cylinder to disc to wire to magnetic tape to digital discs to now streaming over a net connection.
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  6. Here in the state of Georgia the heat is resistive electic. When the overall rate for power here is $0.12 a kWh it makes sense. I'd love to have a heat pump though. Now when i lived up North we had oil heat that was then converted to gas heat. Much better but still expensive. And we won't talk about the rates for electric power - $0.25 kWh.
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  7. No my favorite is what i've seen. Crossing signs with amber LED's flashing around them. Or stop signs outlined with red LED's. Yeah I know.
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  8. Here in the northeast U.S. we went from oil which was getting too expensive to a gas heating system. That baby retains heat in interesting way. The flue closes off, the circulator runs etc.And when we build our place I'm not averse to putting a small nuclear reactor on the property.
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  9. Oh I see where you're going. The helical scan drum
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  10. Well there are electronics that can detect temperature and humidity. So it's not hard to imagine a heated surface that only comes on when temperatures drop below freezing and humidity goes up. So only SOMETIMES the heater would come on.
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  11. And modern displays use a low voltage differential signal to address the pixels. Usually an FPGA or like that controls it. And on the old CRT's they came up with a way to stuff data in the blanking areas. That was cool.
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  12. Consider if you will Thunderbolt is otherwise known as IEEE-1394. And regards SD - they're pretty damned ubiquitous. The biggest use of storage around. And they're not so much disks but storage devices.
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  13.  @Toothily  Thanks - you're right. Thunderbolt is a charging and audio protocol.
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  14. Where I live all the traffic signals got upgraded to ITS standards. Meaning they're mostly LED, can sense cars, detect emergency vehicles and have the LED based walk/don't walk with timer signals. But go down to Warwick, RI and the traffic lights don't have sensors, use incandescent etc. And the other thing - traffic light cameras. We pretty much accepted that. But then the city started deploying portable speed cameras. That pissed us off. In fact one camera was stolen, one was vandalized and the politicians got an earful. And the right turn - unless posted otherwise you can always make a right on red after stop. And the traffic detectors you also see them on highways - two loops - speed checks. That's how they set 85th percentile. And drivers rememeber rules - as if!
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  15. The problem with vacuum tubes was that they were power hungry and generated a ton of heat. Sure some transistors generate heat too. And the first transistor was what is called a point-contact transistor, and the Field Effect Transistor which was just a sandwich of NPN or PNP.
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  16. So it goes coal gas to incandescent electric bulbs. Then compact fluorescent. And now everything is LED based. And oh yeah my maternal grandparents house in the city had gas nipples in all the rooms.
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  17. I used to have a pair of Advent Prodigy Tower speakers. And of course the Realistic MIninus-7's which really didn't sound too bad.
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  18. i do french press but I've found the water temperature is clutch. why? best coffee is between 190f and 205f. anything past the lattter brings out the bitter components.
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  19. Its basically a relay.
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  20. Actually the thrifting is the best bet. You can get a slightly damaged set of speakers and recondition them to prime.
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  21. Well in this house it's gone from CFL's to GE Light Sticks - LED based.Oh and you can get CFL's in soft white light.
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  22. Well up north I measured it, 125VAC and that means 250V. Haven't yet measured down here but I bet it's close the same. And oh yeah the power is on different phases in some cases.And get your Amateur radio license and suddenly you understand phases.And oh yeah I only deal with max 12V sources. Did once have to rectify and switch mode 130VDC that was to control the coin relay on a pay phone.
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  23. Oh and the CCD - that one has a fascinating history too. Bell Labs had it at one point, then Polaroid, Kodak, et al.
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  24. RGB LED Have been around for quite some time. And wth own you dim them
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  25. Oh yeah and when Shannon wrote up his paper on Information Theory the bigwigs at Bell Labs knew it would spell the end of the Bell System. And it has.
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  26. And just a few years later a VCR could be had for around $200. Amazing how that works.
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  27. I've engineered big backup power systems. The kind that would float an entire server room for 45 minutes. Then the natural gas powered generator kicks in and provides power through the automatic transfer switch.
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  28. Oh prudes I was always considered a orude. Little did they know.
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  29. Yeah I have the Oxo version I like that you can re-use the lid afterwards. And baked beans - yeah no pull tops. And I don't know if the case but all you get is Bush's beans. Oh and fun fact - there are only two canneries in the U.S.
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  30. Well I employ a hardware firewall and also ScriptSafe on the browser. That way I get notifications when something is trying to use my camera.
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  31. Where I'm now living no space heaters are necessary. And consider most U.S. line voltage is 120VAC at 15AMPS which gives any one circuit or about 1,800W. And where we previously lived in the northeast U.S. power was 125VAC so that times 15A = 1875W. And the remote thermostat likely does exist but here's what I note is never on heaters - a GFCI plug. An air conditioner is required to have one but a heater is not required to have a GFCI.
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