Technology Blogs (216)

That's a topic I haven't discussed before. Consider the extreme hot and cold temperature range on the moon. -208F ( -133C) in darkness to 250F (121C) in direct sunlight.
I'm not sure how they got the darkness reading as we haven't sent any lunar landers there, but they've got the facts.
We've setup seismic measuring equipment near the Apollo 17 lander module in the 70's that detects activity.
Is it important to know what happens on the surface on the moon? To scientists who make a living on doing 'out of this world' research it is.
I would think the moon is a pretty quiet place. No hurricanes, strip mining, fracking, nuclear missile testing and things that happen on earth...

Maybe one or two things to mention. The Russians attempted their own lunar landing that ended up in a devastating crash. Yeah, the country who invaded Ukraine has the money and resources to explore the moon. That's got to be a huge source of quake, possibly changing statistics in the Farmer's Almanac update later this year. The other thing is an alien base setup on the dark side of the moon. So, maybe there is a lot of excavation and road work happening behind the scenes.

Thoughts are running deep on the subject.




Link that kinda got me started:

.. because eYe really want to know...

The Wall. } P Floyd.
.thick as a brick. } Tull...
Off the Wall. } Jackson

One of my requirements of buying a condo is it had to have a washer & dryer within the unit. I shopped some communities where they had one laundry room at the end of the hallway serving all the occupants of that floor. That could be 10 apartments to use 2 washers.
Are you serious? I shower daily and use a clean towel every time. I don't wear the same jeans 6 days in a row. Laundry is serious business with me and has as long as I can remember.
Some townhouses in this area have a laundry room for every 6 units. You have to carry laundry outside of your unit... rain or shine. That doesn't work for me as Laundry often gets done anywhere in a 24 hour schedule and sometimes dry clothes stay in the dryer until wet clothes need to be dried.
I inquired with one association about installing a laundry in my own unit and told no, it's in violation of their rules and I will be fined for doing so. That includes the mini-euro styles.

The washer & dryer combo in the place I bought was old and I suspected it wouldn't take long before needing replacement. I was right and purchased a large capacity washer & dryer pair manufactured by Samsung.
Going with trends, it was an HE model washer with impeller and not the older style agitator.
Nearly three years later, (knowing what I know now) I would not buy Samsung, HE or one with an impeller.

What I'm experiencing is the spin cycle shakes violently and the machine stops. There are sensors that detect an imbalanced load and magically compensate the rotation to stop the shaking. That ain't happening here...
Sometimes the washer resets and does another fill cycle as it's programmed that way to re-balance the load... that wastes water, electricity and more importantly time. It shouldn't take 3 hours to wash a dozen towels.

I phoned customer support at Samsung and they 'walked me through' the calibration sequence for the spin cycle sensors. Better? yeah, maybe 10% better. I washed shirts, socks and underwear and it only stopped a few times. I redistributed the load each time and continued. The spin cycle with 12 minutes remaining jumps to 25 minutes when you restart it. Bastards...
Next week, I'll call Samsung again. If it requires a technician and a service call... so be it.


I don't remember this happening with the old style washer where you turn the dial (that clicked) showing all the settings.

I bought my first personal computer in 1975. It was made by Commodore and the programs had to be typed line by line and saved to a cassette. Soon after I joined a club that would send out monthly games and utilities on cassette. We didn't have internet then and I bought a modem where you could put the telephone handset into a cradle used as an acoustic coupler to transfer data at the rate of 300 baud. That allowed us to connect with other computer users and mainframe with other means of connection.

For me, It didn't do much more than keep records, low resolution images, basic word processing and a scientific calculator.

One of the guys in the club owned a car dealership and took courses in computer programming. He created a finance package that calculated car loan details of interest, payments and contracts. He connected it to an electronic typewriter and the contracts were printed on 4-part carbon copy forms. All of the records were save in his floppy disk system. After perfecting his 'finance package' he sold his software and hardware a complete packages to other dealerships and supported training, service and tax code updates. He had access to control all the dealerships and their client lists.

About 10 years later IBM computers became available. That was the time where people were using low speed connectivity via phone lines. I remember going to an electronics trade show to see companies had lots of business software and I recommended a package to get one company I worked for to use computers and get away from 100% manual bookkeeping. Part of their packages required subscription and their ability to access clients records.

A few years later and IBM clones were sold at a much lower cost than the original computers. Some of the reasons to buy cheap is they used cracked software.
A brief explanation is someone got into the original program and changed (cracked) the parameters so you didn't need an activation code or registration to use the programs.

The bad thing about cracked programs is who did the work and want 'gains' did they crack it for? I would guess (of the people I knew) half were using cracked software. In a hobby environment it wasn't so bad, but in a business environment, it was a no-no.

A friend told me the engineering firm next to his business had people using cracked versions of a popular design suite called AUTOCAD. One new employee didn't know his workstation had a cracked version and tried to do an update. The company information was in the cracked software and the update didn't match a registered serial number. If I recall, they had a few installations (seats) all using the same fake serial numbers.
Not long after, they were visited by police with a search warrant to seize all the computers using the cracked software. Along with the seizure were heavy fines for using unlicensed software. The company had to 'pay up' to stay in business.
They were lucky as I've heard other companies using cracked software had their data pirated that included bank account information giving access to the people who controlled the cracked software.

While some top level software prices have gone up, there are alternatives. Subscription, software is available. For example, If you cannot afford $4,000 to $5,000 for a purchase, you can access fully workings versions online without a large cash outlay.
I use PDF's in my business. Adobe was the original. It's expensive and I don't need to use all of it's capabilities, so I found a few competitors with fully licensed software at a fraction of the original. That works for me and no cracks!

Check this video out. EVs in confined spaces equate to Satan unleashed

I had an Aunt & Uncle from Philadelphia who pronounced battery as BAAH-tree... To me, it was funny as the BAAH was strongly accented and dragged out a little. Kinda like the sound a sheep would make.

That reminds me of the traveling salesman who came up to a house on a country road. He rang the doorbell and a young boy answered. The salesman said "Hey kid! is your mother at home?" and the boy replied "Yeah, she's in the barn making love to the sheep"
A little shocked to hear this, the salesman took a step back and asked "Isn't that bad for her health?" The boy replied "Naah-ah-ah-ah..."



Batteries are an important topic from A to Z in electronics. they are found in all devices in our modern lives. Over the years the technology has improved greatly. Maybe one day those alkaline cells that advertise a 10 year shelf life won't destroy my smoke alarm and flashlights after 2 years!

The entire aviation hobby has switched over to battery power using lithium polymer (Li-Po) batteries (from gas/alcohol engines) and electric systems give tremendous power for short periods of time. 40 years ago, my model helicopters ran on fuel with 25% nitro-methane, 20% synthetic oil and 55% methanol. Flights with a large tank were 15 minutes then. With electric, we average 6 minute flights.

The good thing is Li-Po batteries can be recharged hundreds of times if properly cared for. Don't over charge them or you risk explosion. Don't fully run down the charge as the bad thing about Li-Po batteries will lose their ability to recharge. Long term storage should be monitored so they have no loss of power when fully charged.
The chemical composition in the makeup of these batteries will break down with misuse and give off gas internally. The sealed battery will swell and not hold a charge. At that point, it's best to send them to a recycle center and replace with new ones.

I usually charge-up the night before a planned day of flying. That's 3 to 4 hours with several chargers running to have 10 batteries ready. The chargers are microprocessor controlled for voltage, amperage, internal resistance and time limit. They stop charging when the voltage reaches 4.20 as it's the maximum safe limit for lithium polymer batteries. Every 15 to 20 minutes I feel each charging battery to be sure none of them get warm while charging. That would indicate a serious internal problem.
I've heard horror stories of people leaving batteries to charge without monitoring the session and they have a fiery explosion. A young girl was charging her cellphone in bed (while sleeping) the phone was between the pillow and mattress and what would normally be a warm battery, became hot enough to burn. She was lucky it didn't ignite a fire.

So, however you pronounce battery, please be careful and not overcharge them.

Nuked by a software glitch. I queried what happened and got the below reply. It seems I am not the only one.
Stuff happens.

"Hi Ken -- Thanks for the message. Recently a small number of user accounts and their associated messages were accidentally deleted during a clean up of our database. We apologize deeply for the problem. It's great that you've created a new account and we hope you'll continue to participate in the CS community.

Sincerely,
CS Staff"

Last night CS went offline, probably an hour or so. Trying to reach the site returned a page explaining Technical Difficulties with a Contact Link.
I haven't seen any comments about it and curious if anyone used the link to fill out a trouble ticket. It was late night East coast USA time zone, so most of Europe was asleep.

This is a repeat of an offline issue a few days ago and may be the reason so many blogs, comments and forum threads are disappearing.

Technical Difficulties... sounds viable.

Awww snap!

YouTube is filling up with videos now about how the OceanGate Titan submersible imploded. Fingers are pointing to the 5 inch thick hull 'spun' with carbon fiber claiming it was the culprit. They all say it was the materials used.

The video below shows a machine winding a large metal tube with carbon ribbon about 4 inches wide the same way a spool of thread gets put on a bobbin. This is how the hull was created. Was the metal tube part of the hull or was it only used for the process of forming the tube? The first part of the building sequence it appears the tube had something applied first and it could be a 'release agent' used in mold making or the bonding adhesive and the metal tube was part of the hull.

Did the layers of carbon fiber get bonded with resins making a solid casting?
Other than the fibers appearing shiny, the process wasn't clear and I'm guessing the machine that applied the ribbon was laying it on 'wet' with resin applied.
The problem with that process is resin has catalyst and you are limited by the amount of time to work before it hardens. Laying up 5 inches could take all day... maybe longer and take several sessions. The first layers would be curing while the layers on top would be applied over it. That creates a weak point where the layers are attached.

Molded carbon fiber components are used in automotive and aviation sectors... they have been for many years. The process isn't new. The process turns bad when you try to add several layers as one because they each have a different curing rate and may not have a uniform bond between each layer.

Were any layers of carbon fiber running crossgrain (left to right) or did it all get wrapped in the same direction? The video shows all in the same direction of the cylinder.

Note, in woodworking, the strength of plywood sheeting is created by running the layers in different directions giving it stability. If all the layers are in the same direction, the wood becomes flexible. That rule of lamination applies to fiberglass and carbon fiber technology too!

I read that OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush had a US Patent for a device to detect any sound or vibration that would indicate a stress crack in the hull. Maybe, I'll go into that part of the equation later.

From the look of things, the design had no internal ribs or supports.
The titanium rings on the ends were only glued in place. Only glue.
Say that again... Only glue.
What's missing in the construction??
The rings were applied to the OUTSIDE of the carbon fiber cylinder designed to withstand EXTERNAL pressure. Technical no-no.

I do cabinets for a living and have some model aircraft experience for 40+ years and things like that need both a mechanical and chemical bond.
Simple thought... anyone out there having done some soldering of 2 wires knows you first twist the wires making a mechanical connection before heating and applying the solder.

Did the people who designed the Titan forget the obvious...

There should have been double rings with bolts between them to 'sandwich' the hull to the end rings. Titanium and carbon fiber have different expansion/contraction rates so a mechanical connection should be first, with the glue/epoxy/sealant in between.

No assumptions, but let's say the external forces caused the carbon to flex more than the glue between the hull and the end rings, the failure really was the bonding agent and not the materials it was supposed to hold together.
Just a thought.

Another thought was the crane that hoisted the salvaged Titan submersible had a strap through the titanium 'door' where the viewport used to be.
Did it fail causing the craft to implode, or was it removed when brought on deck of the salvage boat making it easier to move it to the dock?

That may have been the weak link to the design and all the talk of carbon fiber would be meaningless.

Upgrades come under a few headings. Do them or ignore them as it's not broke so I don't have to fix it. At some point in time I have to do an upgrade or two and the time is nearing.

I bought a few refurbished computers over the years and they appear to be okay for my normal use. My business computer was purchased new years ago with an older system using Windows 7 and some of the software I'm using requires Windows 10 to get all the features out of them.

The latest version of Google Chrome is like the kiss of death and email drags, times out and sometimes requires a refresh to function.

Time for an upgrade I've been putting off for a while. I bought a refurb and I'm busy migrating all my data and programs from the older computer to the new one. One main program that handles my PDF documents similar to Adobe cannot be moved. The company offered an upgrade that was half price, so I'm in the process of installing and setting up the environment that will take a few hours to accomplish.

Upgrades, sometimes you've got to do them!