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

@Coconut-219 I tried basically every major brand, I never found any of that lasted forever.
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@technology_connections If you have a forced air furnace, you really need a furnace mounted humidifier. Where I live they are a code requirement. They connect to your water line directly so you never need to fill them, they're small and out of the way, and they humidify the whole house evenly. And I can say that the install is dirt simple too. Way better than a portable unit. I've seen 3 different types. There's a drum type where a rotating drum covered in sponge pulls water from the tray below and the furnace blows air through it. There's a spray type that sprays a mist directly into the air vent above the furnace, and the type I have has a water sprayer at the top which sprays down over a non-porous element (extruded metal) which I clean annually. Either way, I haven't had a big ugly brown box since I lived in an apartment with baseboard heating. It was also a drum style vs your standing wick version, though the colour was eerily similar. Mild rant: Why doesn't my smart thermostat, which knows the humidity, have a humidistat output to control the humidifier? Why do I have to have a separate humidistat mounted beside it for that purpose???
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- Most of my co-workers. I constantly find myself explaining how thermostats work in the futile hope that I can stop putting it back to the middle of the range every time I walk in. Apparently I'm not successful though, because I constantly find it maxxed out in the middle of winter with the windows open because it's too hot...
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It's hard to say. All high efficiency residential furnaces use the hot exhaust gas to pre-heat the incoming pre-combustion air, so there can't really be too much of a downside to it or I can't imagine they'd do that.
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Awnings are actually coming back. Just not in residential construction. I'm seeing a lot of commercial buildings with built-in awnings going up. Often the awnings are actually solar panels too for a double benefit! My house is newer than awnings, but our big, south facing, front window has a pretty big roof overhang above it, which I think makes a big difference, Though I am a long way north, so not as much as I'd like as, even in the heat of summer, our solar angle is a bit lower than you southerners in the USA so the bottom of the window still gets the afternoon sun.
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Your fixed costs are TINY!, My fixed costs are about 11c/kWH, plus about $40/month. Then the "variable" portion of the electricity is 6c/kWH. We have no time of use rates either.
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There's a reason anything with metal plating tells you not to put it in the dishwasher! When I moved out from home I had some glassware with gold plated leaves on it, now they are just clear glass. I'm sure if I had hand washed them no harm would have come to the gold, however they're less tacky this way anyway!
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@Carterthielftw_ Watched the ad. the first half about DVI makes a lot of sense, and I wish was implemented more. Most controllers have a low intensity mode, but almost none are connected to be automatic, and no emergency responder is going to manually set it. As for V2V sync, while I can see a (very small) use for it, I can in no way justify the required complexity/cost to do it. That said, they're marketing to government agencies, who generally are not at all cost conscious, so we'll probably see it sometime soon.
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I would like to add one more data point. I just looked at my spare parts bin, and I found 4 different outlets from 4 different brands. in every single case, the writing stamped into the metal tabs at top and bottom of the receptacles, and the writing moulded into the plastic on the rear of the receptacle, all appear right-side up only in a ground down orientation. Writing on the front that would be visible when the outlet is installed is all duplicated in both directions. (i.e. TR at each end of the face-plate, one in each orientation, or GFCI test/reset lettering as shown in the video) Based on this, I can't see any reason to conclude that the manufacturers believe that the outlets should be installed ground up, in fact the reverse appears to be true. Contrast this with light switches, and every one of them has "top" stamped into the upper metal tab to indicate orientation. EDIT: It appears that I was wrong in that the 4 different outlets are actually all from the same brand, Leviton. I also found 3 more models from them as well, all labelled similarly. So maybe it's less universal than I thought. It seems I don't have anything non-Leviton to compare to though.
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@GH-oi2jf I just updated my original comment, but it appears I made an incorrect assumption. the 4 outlets in question all date from radically different time periods, and are all very different in appearance, however they're all Leviton brand. I did some more snooping around my house and found several more versions, but again, all from Leviton. I guess Leviton is very popular around here! And everything from the 1970s to modern versions from Leviton all have writing which implies a ground down orientation.
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by the time you have something for the pre-wash, it's easier just to use the same for both.
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Likely the 2 vehicles were from the same manufacturer (or at least the chassis of the ambulance, the conversion could be different). Interesting fact, on many ambulances, the conversion signal lights flash independently from the chassis signal lights. I know in our ambulances there's a completely separate flasher module for all the signals on the box of the truck vs the ones from the factory at the front of the truck. I have however worked in other ambulances where that was not the case.
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This is the first I'd heard of heat pump clothes dryers, neat! A couple points about water heaters though. You state that if you have natural gas heating you'd "indirectly" be heating your water with natural gas. I can't imagine why you'd have natural gas heating, without already having natural gas heating your water. Also, tankless systems are "instant" the same way the water tanks are. That's what they mean, not that they're faster. The efficiency gains come from not storing the hot water, so I'm not convinced that you'd end up more efficient with the hybrid system you talk about being that you're still heating the water the "traditional" way first, and then just using the heat pump to maintain temperature vs just not storing the hot water in the first place. Really, if you want to look at heat pumps for water heating, most ground source home heating systems I see include both water, and space heating. That's the way to go. I really love the idea of a heat pump, but the economics are brutal. In my climate I don't need an air conditioner at all, and most of the winter is below where an air source heat pump makes sense. The end result is that the cost of an air source heat pump is hard to offset by the use in the shoulder seasons. As for ground source, that would be great, but until they come up with cheaper installation, that too is a non-starter. It's a technology I'm watching closely, and I hope to soon be able to go that way, but we're just not there yet economically.
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One of the fun parts about it not being an official standard is that it was implemented in different ways by different companies. I saw some MP3 CD players that could handle folders and playlists, and others that would choke if you gave it a CD that had anything other than just a bunch of MP3 files, couldn't even handle folder structure let alone playlists. And that's not to mention the fact that some of them could only handle certain bit rates and not others, some that could handle long file names and others that couldn't etc.
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Cooking on gas is better. With the exception of the modern inductive cooktops. But compared to your standard electric range, gas is far better to cook on. That doesn't necessarily mean more efficient, just better for cooking. That's sad around here are electricity is not two or three times cheaper, it's more than five times cheaper. The same reason that heat pumps are a bad idea here are the reason why electric stoves are a bad idea. I like efficiency, I also like money in my wallet.
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In terms of revolving doors, they are on their way out. The problems with wheelchairs, walkers, strollers, etc cause enough trouble, and there are more modern solutions to the problem. I've seen a lot of them recently replaced with air curtains on sliding doors. You also mentioned that you hadn't seen airlocks that forced you to wait for one door to close before the other would open. I actually have, at the zoo here, the penguin exhibit used to have revolving doors on each end to keep the cold air inside the exhibit. They have since replaced both revolving doors with proper airlocks where you have to wait for one door to close before the other will open. They hold about 20 people if you stand close together, and there are prominent emergency exit override buttons inside them. You also said you couldn't think of a reason to have the swing speed faster than the watch speed, I absolutely can. I can foresee lots of reasons why you would want the door to be closed as quick as possible, but also want as soft to touch as possible for noise mitigation. Your hotel is actually a perfect example where you want to close the door quickly for privacy, but you want to avoid slamming the door. So assuming the latch works smoothly, you can have the door move quickly through most of its swing but only slow down at the last moment to avoid the slam at the end.
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Meanwhile most of mine died within the first three or four years, and I think I may only have one left at this point. I found in general their lifespan to be dramatically shorter than the incandescent bulbs that they replaced while they also had a much higher purchase cost. There is no way that I saved more on electricity than I paid extra for the bulb itself over the short lifespan.
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Heating the pre-combustion air makes intuitive sense, afterall, you're trying to make fire, which is hot, it seems intuitive to start as hot as possible. In lighting applications, I'm not sure if it provides a benefit or not, however I don't think it could be too detrimental, as all high efficiency furnaces do this as a matter of course (more to stop the exhaust heat from leaving than to make sure the incoming air is hot, but if there was an efficiency hit to pre-heating the air, I'm sure they'd not do it.)
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It is precisely because the new smart thermostat requires batteries, and has a computer in it, that I still have a mercury tilt thermostat. I have it wired in parallel to the smart one, and set to its lowest heat setting (about 10c) to prevent pipes from freezing if the batteries die in the smart thermostat when I'm away for a long weekend.
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A 20 minute video? what? I didn't think you were capable of doing anything that quick!
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I had a bunch of those Phillips yellow LED bulbs. Unfortunately they were super expensive, and didn't last anywhere near as long as an incandescent bulb.
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Fossil fuel prices may be volatile, but electricity prices are even more so, and while both are climbing, the cost of electricity is climbing WAY faster than that of natural gas. In fact, the only part of the natural gas bill that's actually climbing for me is the increased taxes. Still, even then it's less than 1/5th the cost per unit of energy, so you'd be stupid to pay tens of thousands of dollars to move away from it.
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This already does exist to some extent on a car. The Tesla Model S (and presumably their other vehicles) automatically puts the vehicle in park as soon as you get out of the vehicle. This is based on both the seat sensor, and the driver's door sensor.
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If there's only 2 wires, then likely the bulbs have resistors in parallel to work properly (sometimes built into the LED bulb, sometimes an external component)
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I definitely want to go heat pump, unfortunately with the cost of electricity here versus the cost of natural gas, I would need a heat pump with approximately a cop of 5.6 just to break even on the running costs, and that doesn't even count installation! What I want to do suddenly becomes irrelevant when we start talking about needing to more than double the cost of running my heating system. I'm willing to do all sorts of things that are good for the environment if I can afford it, but I can't afford that.
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You need a tech and an OBD scan tool to change to winter tires? What's wrong with your manufacturer??? I just put my other set of wheels on in the garage at home, and the car automatically detects the new sensors and pairs them!
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My only computer is a Pixelbook. I often use it with my USB-C dock with 2 external monitors, a normal keyboard, mouse, etc. Now I don't do video editing, or similarly intensive stuff. but for coding, watching youtube, general office type tasks, etc, I've never felt lacking. But there's something magical about pulling it off the dock, going and lying on the couch, and still having all the same applications, files, configuration, etc still there, even if on a smaller screen.
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Little bit of irony here in that you posted dishwasher video, I walked downstairs to my kitchen and noticed that my dishwasher had stopped mid-cycle and was flashing an error. Clogged! I love this European style dishwasher, but I do miss the spinning blades they put in the bottom of the North American versions! We do clean the filter regularly, I don't know how the big chunks managed to get around the filter, but they did.
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@crispyjelly2485 insulated carafe is stainless steel, same colour as all our appliances.
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It's a real shame that Bosch decided to bow too much to finish, and as a result pushes those tabs so hard that they don't even include a spot for pre-wash detergent, nor have any mention of it in the instruction manuals. I'm sure people would be much happier with their machines if they just added a simple divot near the detergent fill and labeled it pre-wash.
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The Canadian government has explicitly stated that they believe red rear turn signals to be a safety issue. They've also stated that they are not planning to do anything about it, because it would make it too hard for the automakers to make different rear turn signals for the Canadian market than the American one. Despite the fact that they intentionally make different rules from the American market for a few things to make it harder for individuals to import vehicles from the US at the request of automakers, such things as bumper standards and immobilizers. Also despite the fact that the vast majority of the vehicles in question actually have amber turn signals when the same vehicle is released for the European, or Asian markets. And additionally despite the fact that Amber turned signals are perfectly legal in the US and therefore they would be no need for automakers to make two versions.
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Where I live, blackouts are basically non-existent. They simply don't happen. We have no time of use metering, so no incentive to shift usage. That said, we do have dry air, which means that there are large temperature swings from day to night. So I can avoid needing any cooling by simply opening windows at night, and closing them during the day. Saves needing an air conditioner at all. I'm always amazed how many people do the opposite and open all their windows when it's hot out, and close them at night, ensuring their house is always uncomfortably hot.
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The wipers thing is common, My bigger issue was jumping in my Ford work truck after a JDM car and putting the Ford in Neutral while trying to signal at a traffic light! I'd like to say that was a one time only thing, but I'd be lying...
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This has been a rant of mine ever since daytime running lights were mandated in Canada where I live. It was always the wrong solution. It would have been simpler to implement, and much safer, if they had simply mandated that the existing headlights were on, rather than come up with a completely new forward-only lighting solution. Worse yet, with modern dashboards that are backlit at all times regardless of the state of the headlights, people no longer knew that they were driving in the dark without their tail lights illuminated because everything in front of them they could see was lit up. The government has finally decided to do something about it, though it only applies starting next year and going forward. Still not a perfect solution, but it is a little bit better. The new solution is that cars must have either a light sensor to turn on the headlights/tail lights, or must not light up the dash unless the headlights are on.
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@RelakS__ if the desire was to avoid running the headlights, then they should have just made it the parking lights. Again already existing lights that satisfy the same purpose but also illuminate the rear of the vehicle. There was never any need to invent new lighting for this.
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It's not hard, it's just INCREDIBLY expensive. With a unit of electricity costing more than 5 times as much as an equivalent unit of natural gas, and the installation costs of each alternative being many thousands of dollars, you'd have to be insane to actually do it.
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This is what frustrates me so much about north american lights, the original thing was so manufacturers could save a few pennies on an extra wire, bulb, lens, and reflector (Not a good reason in the first place, but at least it was A reason!), but then you see cars like you describe above where they aren't even doing that, so don't have any excuse at all to make their signals dangerous! Worse yet, many of these vehicles are actually sold in overseas markets with different lenses to comply with those laws, but the manufacturer actually makes life harder for themselves by having different parts for the 2 markets, just to intentionally make their north american vehicles more dangerous!
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After the first video, we stopped using the tabs, switched to a gel, use it for pre-wash as well, and use less total. And get cleaner dishes! Our bosch dishwasher actually does not request pre-wash detergent either in the manual or anywhere inside or on the machine. I think people would be a lot happier with their products if they encouraged pre-wash detergent! Though I do see the advertising for the finish tabs all over it, so maybe they would get less money from the detergent people if they were actually showing you how to use your machine properly.
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They produced great light, they fit in light fixtures better than most CFL bulbs of the time, and they dimmed relatively well. The only really big downsides were their ridiculously short lifespan, and very high price. I had many of them, almost all burnt out now.
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I'm not 100% sure what he's referring to, but for me it's the implementation. For example, on many vehicles if you at all bump the turn signal stalk, it will flash the light 3 (or up to 5) times, with no way of cancelling it. So if it was an accidental activation (90% of the time) then you look like an idiot to those around you for longer. Worse yet, you instinctively try to cancel it by pushing the stalk the other direction, causing ANOTHER 3-5 flashes of the other side making you look like even more of an idiot to those around you! I have however seen it done right, where pushing the stalk the other way cancels the signal, and I don't mind that so much (I still don't find the 3 flash thing useful for anything, but at least if I can cancel it I don't find it overly obnoxious!) And don't get me started on Ford's signal stalks that don't click into the up or down position at all...
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@KevinSauer I too have a solar array, and it powers my house. That doesn't really change the math though, electricity is still significantly more expensive than natural gas. Even at the incredibly low rates of the utility will pay me for my electrical export, it's still three times the cost of natural gas, and when it comes to import electricity, which tends to be a larger portion of my cooking as I generally cook around the time the sun's going down, I'm up to five times the cost of natural gas.
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I'm almost surprised how many people see these things in a room, and think that they are cameras. I've had to explain to guests in my house that no, I'm not spying on them, I just have motion sensors activating some lights!
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I have 1 left. It's a tri-light in my living room. Unfortunately the vast majority of fixtures I have are not appropriate for CFLs. All my ceiling lights are enclosed, my outdoor lights have to work in winter, my bathroom lights are used for short durations, most table lamps couldn't accommodate the ever so slightly different size/shape. I just found them extremely frustrating all around. So, like everyone else, I used them in "inappropriate" places (because there were no appropriate ones) and like everyone else, I found they had extremely short lifespans.
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Growing up my grandparents had a cabin on a lake. The cabin had electricity, but the electricity was horribly unreliable, so they had oil lamps all over the place for use during outages. I always loved those lamps. I'm not sure if they had some different fuel than you're using, or if I just didn't have much sense of smell, but in a small cabin with 4 or 5 of them burning, I don't remember any real smell to them (though I'm sure breathing it all in probably wasn't that healthy!)
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I wonder if we'll ever get a "long life" LED that can last 1000-2500 hours like a good ol' incandescent? I don't think I've ever seen one...
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Sometimes Ok, many of those are also aftermarket and not made to any of the legal standards. Just see if it has all the same certification marks stamped on the lenses, often they don't.
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The issue is that LEDs can't replicate that emission pattern. Filaments emit light in every direction at once, LEDs simply don't. So to mimic it you need multiple LEDs and/or phosphorous coatings and such. In both cases you've moved the light source from a single point source, to a larger more diffuse area. In lighting design that's not necessarily a bad thing, but when working with an already designed system, it just doesn't really work.
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@anthonylosego The new method is still not a point source of light, it causes it to be a larger area, so much of the emissions aren't coming from the focal point of the lenses and reflectors. Again, not a bad thing when designing lighting, but doesn't work right in retrofit applications.
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I used to have an early 1980s mercedes. The turn signal relay quit working, so I went to the local Mercedes parts counter to get a replacement. I said I needed a turn signal relay and he looked at me as if I had horns. So I said "the thing under the dash that goes 'tick-tick-tick' when you put your signal light on!" he answerd, "oh, the sound generator!" ... No!!!!! because the modern cars used a silent micro-controller, and a seperate tick making device, he couldn't grasp that the part I needed did both as the car pre-dated the change to micro-controllers for this function. I did eventually manage to communicate with him, but it was a painful experience.
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