Technology Blogs (216)

Decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit to measure sound or electronic signal levels. For the purpose of this blog, I'll use it in audio... sound levels.
On another blog, a member will be going to a Formula One race and it's suggested they bring along hearing protection as often race cars develop noise of over 130 dB. Two weeks ago, I attended an outdoor concert and used ear plugs to lower the sound of the performance. It didn't bother my friend, but for me, the volume was louder than I wanted to be subjected to.

The decibel scale In basic terms: zero dB is the threshold of human hearing and a whisper would be 25-30 dB. Normal conversation is 60-70 dB and a lawn mower (at 6' feet) is around 100 dB. Most scales I've seen rate 125 dB as a level of pain and a jet engine at 100 feet away would be 140 dB.

Some sound ratings in the work force, like the noise from a wood chipper or jack hammer where used continuously poise serious problems of hearing loss. A blast from a shot gun could register 170 decibels. Although it's only a split second of noise, a few of those could permanently harm ones hearing. I know 2 people who lost most of their hearing... one guy had the job of refueling helicopters in Vietnam. The aviator hearing protection always fell off as they scrambled to get the helicopters back in the air and he now has dual hearing aids supplied by the VA. The same for my uncle who had the assignment to load bullets on the guns of a battleship during WWII.

When we were kids, it's was rare to have a car stereo more than 20 watts. It's become commonplace to see custom shops installing 1,000 watt systems in cars now!

When talking to one of those guys (with a megapower system), it won't be long before their first word is... huh?

People are online... and it looks like all systems are up!

The US and UK are placing either restrictions or bans on 'Huawei's' development of 5G phone coverage in those countries. Are those actions to ultimately protect their network security or will the impact be far greater for the UK with the erosion of further trade development with China?

A few times a day I receive (robotic) phone solicitation calls to my cellphone offering me discounted healthcare programs and the recording starts with "We've been trying to reach you..." along with that is their takeaway "This is our last attempt to offer this discount..."
If that were true, I wouldn't receive so many calls.

I stopped using a land line years ago and switched to VOIP service provided by Vonage. It was my backup to a cellphone and served as a FAX line. I haven't used it in months and decided the $30 fee could be used elsewhere.

Since I'm a T-Mobile customer, I decided to switch to their VOIP service for $10 and now that I'm at a location 45 miles North, I selected a new phone number in the local exchange.

The device with new number has been installed for a little more than a week and the first message on the voicemail system is:
"We've been trying to reach you..."

I'm at my home house in Miami for the weekend.
Plans include sorting through 2 closets and 2 dressers of clothing to determine what I get to keep, what gets donated and what becomes rags for cleaning.

My laptop came for the ride and I've got a Wi-Fi hotspot signal from my phone to get internet.
I've done this lots of times, but today the bandwidth was crawling and I cannot link to my computer in the office to do any work. I switched to my tablet that also has hotspot capabilities and it was streaming along very well.
So, I switched back a forth a few times checking bandwidth with a few services and called my cellphone provider to complain.
My phone has unlimited 4G, but 3G if I set it in hotspot mode. The tablet gets 4G with a 2gig ceiling and drops to 3g... or slower depending on conditions.
For $10 I can upgrade the plan so my hotspot has 4G with a 10gig ceiling then drops to 3G. I can add or remove the plan as needed with no penalty.

I was told it would be about 2 hours for the system update and to reboot my phone for it to take effect. I rebooted and about 15 minutes later I had a 4G hotspot out of my cellphone. The bandwidth was so good it, out performed my Comcast internet at my condo.

Not sure how long 10gig will last if I play a YouTube movie, but I can set it on low bandwidth and see how that goes.

Four years ago, I went shopping for a Smart TV. The salesman explained (at the time) the current Smart models had a processor/engine that was slower than some models that weren't Smart. I asked if I buy a non-Smart TV, how do connect it to the internet and his reply was with an add-on device called CHROMECAST.

His whole focus was, I should get a TV with a faster engine. The analogy was watching a golfing event and the ball streaking across the screen. Did I want to see the ball clearly or or a with a tail like a comet? The slower engine has limitations on fast moving objects.

So, I bought the TV with a faster engine and a Chromecast. It was great. Easy hookup and I was able to 'cast' YouTube videos to the TV from my desktop computer!

My son-in-law complained that he had to rent another 'box' from the cable company so he could watch Netflix on the TV in the bedroom. I bought him a Chromecast for Christmas and he said it was the BEST gift he ever received.

He preferred to control it via his cellphone. iPhone to be exact.

It's been months since I moved and we hooked up the 4 year old TV via the cable box as part of my HOA package, but... I didn't get around to connecting the Chromecast.

Last week, we purchased a new TV for the living room... yeah, Smart TV. This time, we had the option of one with a faster engine, much better than the older models. It's not that I wanted to watch golf balls streaking across the screen, I wanted something new. So far, I only hooked up the cable box and bypassed the setup routine.

The old TV got moved to the bedroom and this weekend, I got around to connecting the Chromecast on it. What a pain. Google Chrome for desktop no longer supports Chromecast. I've got to link everything to a phone (or tablet) to make things work now. That involves logging in to create an account as the new app that connects to Chromecast is Google Home, as 'we' now have to power to connect any smart device to other smart devices via this app. I say, f'king great...

Third time's a charm... Chromecast was willing but Google Home failed. It's amazing how I b*tch and send out service tickets and 'right after' it miraculously works!
Anyway, I have it connected to an old phone using Wi-Fi. What I didn't experience on my desktop is advertisements. I'm unable to play YouTube videos in Chrome, it routes to the YouTube app that not only plays commercials before each video, it's got them jumping up around the selections. One wouldn't go away until I made a selection.


Next time around I'll be looking to download ad blockers for YouTube and Chrome.

I have an e-cigarette and it’s doing my head in. I am constantly having to fill the damned thing with liquid. This is because there is an EU ruling that e-cigarettes must not have a tank capacity of more than 2ml, which is a minuscule amount.

As e-cigarette manufacturers also sell their products outside of the EU, they make them with tanks of a higher capacity than 2 measly ml. So, in order to be able to sell inside the EU, they modify them. This typically involves incorporating a volume restricting object into the tank, usually a cylindrical insert pressed onto the central column going up through it.

It occurred to me that this cylindrical, capacity reducing object should not be too difficult to remove, or at least tamper with. I do have a predisposition to tamper with things. My first idea was to drill holes in it, assuming that it would be hollow and the holes would allow the liquid to occupy the inside of the cylindrical, capacity reducing object, thus giving me increased capacity.

I tried six different drill bits on that bastard and even broke one in the process, but made no more than a tiny indentation in the surface. What that Mother Kisser (self censorship) is made of I don’t know, but I’m sure it doesn’t need to be that tough.

Next thought: angle grinder. I had an angle grinder, and I can think of no reason why I wouldn’t have brought it with me when I moved into this place, yet find it can I not. It’s almost enough to make me believe in God, and fancy he is having fun at my expense.

Am I the only person living in the EU who cannot -nay, will not- accept a paltry 2ml restriction on the capacity of my e-cigarette?

Here are two recently true stories involving human and technology and it not ending well for a human.

First story has to do with 2 people...a son and a father with two different first names and both of them have cable tv from the same provider. The employees plug in the payment received data in the wrong account where the son for a period of time is being credited with his father's payments until the father begins getting bills in amounts that are double the usual.

The father calls the cable company and they spot the error and it is quickly fixed for the father. However, the cable company's computer system that generates the billing statements does not provide the son who has been incorrectly being credited with his monthly bill for two months. The son being a busy guy only recognizes he never got a bill for one month and figures he will pay next month when the current bill comes in. It does not work that way. By the time the next month rolls around, the son's cable has been turned off by the the cable company's computer system. In addition, his account has been hammered with late fees and rehook-up fees. A bill that was suppose to be a little over $200 is now nearly $600 and if he wants his tv back on, he is to pay that amount. The son paid that and now his tv only works half of the time. Now that the son understands what is going on...he is in the process of getting things straightened out. He has been on the phone for hours and all of the cable company's employees are not sure how to fix the problem yet. Who knows how it will all end...but nearly a week without tv and possibly out about $350.

Second story. A huge online company allows people to sell on their venue. Everything that happens on their site is part of a computer system. In this case, a recent seller was penalized an increase in seller fees of 40% that could lead to expenses for the seller raising over $10,000 per year. This selling venue allows returns to be freely done and unquestioned. In many cases, the seller that would get a refund would relist the item exactly as previously described and as pictured...nothing changed. The new buyer would leave a positive feedback and very pleased with the purchase. However, the selling venue's computer system only weighs in on the fact the item was returned for a refund. When the seller contacts the venue and asks the question...who is right here...the first buyer returning it for a refund and blaming it on the seller for them returning it....or the second buyer who buys it exactly as it was sold the first time around and is very satisfied with their purchase. No real answer becomes of that question. Because...there is nothing they can do, the computer system recognizes what is was designed to do. The seller is left with an increased expense of $10,000.

A friend once said....sometimes you can be the dolphin that gets caught in the tuna net.

...lets hope as we become more and more technology dependent and driven...not too many dolphins get caught in the net.

Yesterday, my cellphone carrier pushed through another update, from OREO, Android 8 to their current version PIE, Android 9.

Maybe you're familiar with some of their previous versions... they all have to do with something sweet. Names like Donut, Eclair, Jelly Bean, Ice Cream Sandwich, Marsmallow.
Typically, when a new version is available, Google will release a BETA version that goes out to select groups for field testing. After the bugs are worked out (notice things with sugar often attract bugs) they release them to the carriers who decide what to remove or add to the 'Pure Google' version to the (slightly) altered version that's installed in your Android device.

It wasn't broke, so why are you fixing it? I asked that to a technician and his response was not all phones running Android react the same way. When a new release gets installed they are already working on 'patches' to fix problems not encountered in previous releases or to resolve issues with different models. One (major) flaw is that applications (APPS) must be updated so they can work with new operating systems.

This is the way things are. Implement a new O/S and spend months updating apps to correctly work under it.

Back to the update...
I first noticed the icons have changed appearance. The top row of clock, battery power, Bluetooth messages got moved around a little. Many of the screen backgrounds are (battery draining) white. When will they learn? I had to put the phone in night-mode to get a black background. Text message banner now uses 40% of the screen to tell me I have no new messages. Colored dots appear in front of all my contacts. I haven't checked to see if they actually have meaning or just random colors. I could do without the dots.

The biggest drawback for me is connecting everything to 'clouds' and social media. I don't want to share what's on my phone with the world. Every time I open a photo viewer I'm being asked to sync (synchronize) my photos somewhere else (group messaging and friends list, etc.) and tag locations with story lines. Thanks, but no and I'd like not to have to decline every time I open the app.

It would be nice to see a menu option 'don't bother me' as I don't want to update all my apps monthly because some new data sharing service becomes available.

Category is Technology but the new update is leaning to lifestyle.

More later...

I recently heard that one day it will be available for everyone to see, review, read...or whatever...all your activity you have ever done on the internet.

I am not sure how true that is....but what is to stop whoever from doing so?

How would you feel if everything you have ever done online is shared?

I think I would be okay with it. After all, it was well known that everything that is done on the internet was/is not entirely private in the first place.

It would be a great way of identifying who many people really are.