Comments by "Brad Griffin" (@BradGryphonn) on "Technology Connections" channel.

  1. 11:20 I've always been amazed at the detail in a well cared for daguerreotype image. Just beautiful. I've been a keen photographer for many years and have a basic knowledge of the history of the craft. I'm really enjoying your history lesson, though. Thank you.
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  2. I tried that freeze-dried water. The bag caught on a tree, and got torn. When I got to the camp-site I discovered the bag was empty! Luckily it rained that night. However, next day, when I headed back down the trail, most of it had entirely washed away, and I got stranded. Right where that bag of freeze-dried water leaked out.
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  3. Harry Slother Really? Changing the colour of an indicator lens adds no cost to a vehicle at all.
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  4. M. P. What is wrong? Adding another safety feature to a vehicle?
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  5. 18:40 I may have an answer why. The average consumer will break/kink fibre-optic cables because that's what consumers do.
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  6. Oh wow! I had one of those albums! That first sound effects album.
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  7. In the early 80s I bought a Hanimex (Haminex?) SLR with a 'digital' exposure meter. It consisted of three tiny LEDs in the viewfinder. Correct exposure was a centre green light. Under or over had red lights. However, you could also do aperture preview by pressing a button so you could fine-tune your exposure. It was a brilliant little 35mm SLR. I took thousands of photos with that camera, even selling A2 posters of my work. I had no studio, but had a very good pharmacist who would ensure my film was looked after went sent off for processing (I used slide film exclusively for a long time). He'd also contact the enlargers to ensure they did the best job possible. Sadly, I have lost all my slides, all my negatives, and all of my father's slides that documented our life in the 60s and 70s. Natural disasters can wipe memories pretty fast.
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  8. 21:25 Someone may correct me but weren't flash cubes used by crims to set off bombs for nefarious lock and safe-blowing type activities? I'm sure I read about them being used that way years ago.
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  9. Awesome. May your channel continue to grow. Good substance deserves lots of subscribers.
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  10. I'm glad you use lesser-known scientific terms such as 'sinkant'. It adds to edumacation about things.
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  11. In the late 80s I went through a bit of a phase. A neighbour gave me an old Russian SLR wirth a 200mm zoom lens in a case that was about 40cm long, and an early Praktica. I ended up going to garage sales and buying cheap, old cameras. I picked up one of these Olympus Pens for 5 bucks. A few years later I did some 'nightclub photos' work for a local photographer. He had a contract with a number of restaurants and nightclubs where I'd go in and offer free photos to patrons. They'd get a ticket for the photos I took and could go to his small studio to look at the photos and buy them if they chose a few days later. He used half-frame Olympus-Pen cameras to maximise his use of film stock. 36 frames becomes 72 photos. He had half a dozen of them laying around for when there were festivals or shows in town and he could employ more people to take pics. Usually, it was just him and me wandering around. He earned a great income from this lurk because it was pre-digital cameras, mobile phones, and pre-fast internet and social media. I think my old Praktica had a built-in solar light meter with a needle through the viewfinder to see the light level so you could adjust shutter speed and aperture.
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  12. Finally. My 20 year, forgotten curiosity about how these worked has been sated. And yes, the battery tester was a great gimmick. I only ever tested them fresh out of the bubble pack.
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  13. I had a 13 plate 12-volt tractor battery (iirc 750 Cold Cranking Amps) in my Kombi years ago because it was a bitch to start on a hill or on cold mornings because of the 50 weight oil I used in it, and I had a pretty powerful stereo system in it that ate the 'standard' battery. I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure the Kombi had a 55 watt alternator so it wasn't wise to discharge the battery because even after a jump start, you'd have to drive for 50 odd kilometres to recharge the thing (electrical geeks can correct on that figure). As it was, I could drive out bush to a campsite and run lights and the stereo for most of the night and still have plenty of crank in the morning to get her going.
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  14. I was taught as a child to always start variable speed electric motors at their highest speed, then reduce the speed to the desired level, be it fans or electric pump motors.
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  15. 1:05 In the early 70s, my parents had these types of bulbs in the fixtures on our oh so 70s, dark, chunky brick feature wall in the lounge room.
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  16. Yep, I've had this odd disc number scheme on a double album. Buggered if I can remember which one. But hey, I have had four different record players from the 60s vintage through to the late 70s with record changers. Oh, and I'm an Aussie, we do stuff upside down LOL.
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  17. Thank you thank you thank you. You just saved me some time and also confirmed my thoughts. I am planning on building a system similar to this and the batteries will be charged with a 160W solar panel. Running lights and a computer/monitor/speakers (maybe the van fridge) in a small caravan. I have most of the gear except the battery and inverter. I was going to go with a cheap deep cycle battery as you showed. However, I now know that is a baaad idea for a permanent solar charged battery system. Well, I kinda knew that, but you have confirmed my suspicions. I guess I'll spend the extra dollars and get a couple of fit for purpose batteries.
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  18. Queensland Australia. Search bull nose corrugated iron awnings.
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  19. 11:20 YES! For example (and I think I've mentioned this before), I had a battery operated mono portable record player that I carried with me whenever I could (I was 12 years old) around 1975. I had Two 45 rpm records; 'Fox on the Run' (Burn on the Flame B-side) by The Sweet and 'Living in the Seventies' (You're a Broken Gin Bottle, Baby B-side) by Skyhooks that I'd carry with me. I'd sit on street corners, or between buildings that would echo and play my singles. I thought I was too cool for school. As I grew I became a bit of an Audiophile and ended up with collections of different amps and pre-amps and tuners and turntables and cassette decks...and speakers. Oh, the money I wasted on speakers... But I wasn't as addicted as a mate. He had an 8 or 16(?) track reel-to-reel deck and some Nakamichi (?) cassette deck worth 10s of thousands. I could have bought a car for the price of his speaker stack.
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  20. I suffered from premature failures for a while. Then I found the right medication...
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  21. @242sp  I know. It's rare that stuff. I can get it on the dark Web...
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  22. There is an Elephant in the room that many may have already commented on. Fierst off, I'm all for electric cars in terms of their individual use of power other than Hydrocarbons. However, in order to make these cars work, we need baseload power to charge. Currently (although hopefully not for too much longer) we use in the majority, coal-fired or Nuclear power stations to charge our environmentally friendly cars. What will eventually make electric cars truly good is the further development of solar systems and other 'alternative' power sources. The subject of energy generation is extremely complex and my comment doesn't cover any of the issues around coal v solar or the materials needed to make solar panels and systems, Electric cars are awesome, but remember, an average data centre (think Cloud storage) uses as much electricity as an average city, so the journey to be truly fossil-fuel-free will be a long one.
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  23. Whatever happened to 3D pocket still cameras? Those weird, three (or was it two?) lens cameras? You'd end up with a wide print with two images and you'd view them through something like a Viewmaster. The idea came from the way 'stereo' aerial images were viewed for map-making.
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  24. Here's me looking at the title thinking how clothes drying has gone next level...
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  25. I had 2 'Garry' horns on my VE Valiant. They were big, and they sounded like a horn should in my opinion ...
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  26. Clever boys.
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  27. 17:40 I lived and worked in country Queensland Australia in the 80s. Back then I used slide film most of the time, because, as you stated, it was cheaper. I'd buy my film and there would be a padded envelope for your film when you'd used it. You'd take that into your local chemist/pharmacy (drug store), and they would send it away to the Kodak lab in the city. A few weeks later, your processed slides would come back. The processing charge was included in the price of the film. Oh, I also had a pocket slide viewer and a slide projector to throw my prints up on a screen. After I'd looked at the slides, If there was an image worth spending 30 to 50 bucks on, I'd send it away to be enlarged into an A2-size poster print. Photography wasn't cheap so you had to be very judicious in your choice of photo. Sometimes you might shoot 24 - 36 shots and only get half a dozen decent photos.
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  28. 4:55 Oh, flash cubes. I miss them for some reason. Well, I also miss shooting with film.
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  29. In 1986 (or was it 83?) I bought a Fujica STX-1n SLR. It had three tiny LEDs for matching exposure. I still consider it one of my favourite cameras. EDIT: Hang on, no it wasn't. I can't remember the brand name now. I did get an STX 1n years later though. It was a gift.
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