Last Commented Technology Blogs (217)

But the word is finally in, at the "too much money and time on hands" Consumers' Delectronics "group f-ck convention" in LV Nevada. Thank the Goddess, we now have an AI frying pan.That's right peebles. It not only listens and speaks to us, but can guide our culinary skills based on what it hears about the recipe. Forget those earlier front door items that can smell us coming, and critically warm up the musical door knobs, or even the indispensable opera singing his and hers AI plastic back scratchers. No, my vapid CS consumers, this here is the real McCoy in human "must have" survival items. "Tell me, Jimbo, here are the ingredients for roasted garden earth worms---Your thoughts?" Who can really ever exist without these marvels of technology? At the Vierk Institute, the (only 1%) of sucker cash soaked TD-HD Syndrome patients who don't improve, get one of these pans to take home to the little family. And a firm handshake from the Vierk himself. Don't let the door hit on the way out, Friends. Such a deal.

....As hinted at, here it is. We all have to thank the founders of this great CS service for making our lives better in lots of ways. And doing so without the shameless direct money grubbing of the paid for sites. World wide coverage---with reasonable exceptions. Fun and practical features. Educational value, and so on. But have you ever wondered, just what type of person(s) might they be? Sure, a sense of business. Perhaps cyber/IT skills. But I'm thinking more about people skills. Psychological insight?. Wife/husband/partner team? Whence the great idea? Craigslist sorts? And so on. THINK.

Early in my relation with Amazon, I made the mistake of buying several items in my cart, just after a price increase. Apparently the algorithms decided that price increases were the way to get me to buy, because pretty soon most of the items in my cart were getting their price bumped up. I found that annoying……and expensive.

So I moved items up from my "saved for later" list to my cart; I kept at least 6 items in my cart. Because most purchases are from WANT and not NEED, I am in no hurry. Each time one of them got increased in price, I deleted it from all lists. It only took Amazon about 10 days to notice. Now, when Amazon wants to encourage a purchase, they >decrease< the price, with no more bumping up the price.

Yes, Amazon algorithms study your buying patterns, and price accordingly. Depending on shopping and buying habits, different people get different prices on the same item. You Amazon addicts out there, if you are not in a rush, and if you want to pay less, you might want to give my method a try.

The wind is down and I'm charging batteries to catch a few model aircraft flights this morning. The batteries I use are lithium polymer or Li-Po for short. They develop lots of power for a short time, so I have several when I go flying.
It's important to monitor the flight time because draining a battery below 3.8 volts will shorten its life. Batteries are pretty expensive, around 25 to $30 a piece for the style I use.
Depending on batteries deserves a Blog of its own!

My home has a modern high efficiency furnace only a few years old and of course troubles so being the diy i am I made a go at it after studying the things sensors for flame on vacuum on excessive heat induction motor the condensation hoses from the heat exchanger to various routes and then sensor for vacuum so after a fast course in HVAC online utube I realized it was my pressure switch a vacuum sensor / exhast fan sensor basically a rubber band with a cord (like a cord plug into a electrical outlet)was bad as it stuck open and closed so I ordered one saving big bucks then of course same thing as I watched it start up I realed a vacuum line connected to it from the heatexchanger to it was the problem after I double checked my install the gas line ignition set a backpresure throwing off the vacuum pressure thus sending a signal to the control panel the fan was off due to no vacuum detected but in fact the fan was running but soit kept trying to restart and programmed to do so four times before the system shuts down so after a minor adjustment for that backpresure it's game on and another skill mastered .

....ending their heyday?....Some (academic--so likely alt liberally biased-VERY biased) researchers claim that the costs of these operations will now be much greater than for renewable technical sources. Into the hundreds of billions of USD. Even talking of solving the sun down storage problems using liquefied air. Slick, Jack! Technology. Often badmouthed reflexively by the whiny ueber liberals, as with the BIG BAD corporations. But they all live on the products and income of same. Can't make....well, by now all know the line. CMTSUF. Sort of rolls off the tongue. And off the keyboard.

....links and nodes... Sure, concepts such as like sorts with like (homophily), contagion and resilience, she who has tends to beget more, falsehoods spread faster than truths, etc., are with us. But here's the surprise, they have always been. They underlie everything from Martin Luther's anti Pope reformation, to the fake news on the internet. And, the early idealists of the latter foresaw a totally decentralized non commercial world wide web. How'd that turn out, folks? Our dad's were glued at day's end to every word and page of the local fish wrap. Our kids can't sit for a family meal without phone in hand. Who could dream this stuff up, peebles?

The subject is Obstacle avoidance. I was reminded about this feature as the Kobe Bryant crash on Sunday January 26 killed all nine aboard a Sikorsky S-76B aircraft.

If I had to do a quick list of advances in consumer drones, I would split them into generations. We're probably in the 4th generation. The 1st generation had simple drones. The 2nd generation added camera drones. The 3rd generation added drones with GPS and had detection on landing where the drone would stop it's descent if it sensed the terrain were higher than where it initially started from.

The latest generation of drones have obstacle detection from the front, rear and below. If you steer one of these drones into some trees, it will halt at a distance established in the avoidance setup menu. Let's say, 10 feet is the setting and you are moving toward a building, the drone will stop at 10 feet away of any unknown obstacle.
Once technology like this was only available on drones costing a few thousand and now the feature is standard on drones down to the $500 price range.

Kobe's multi-million dollar Sikorsky didn't have any obstacle avoidance equipment, nor did it have a 'black box' flight recorder. Regarding the crash, there are several different stories but the official report probably won't be released for 12 to 18 months.

The pilot flew in foggy conditions that were so bad, several police departments in the area grounded their helicopter operations.

Info junkie stuff, pretty informative vid,

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"