Category: technology

More DIY Success

Another little victory in the DIY repair realm.

In a previous post, I mentioned that my Black & Decker BH3000 string trimmer had died. A plug-in electrical tool, it went without a whimper. No sparks and few complaints. Intermittently, it wouldn’t begin when I held in the trigger but then operated after tapping it against the ground or jiggling it hard. This time, no jiggling, thumping, tapping, whacking, or swearing brought it back to life.

To the net! I put in the results. Naturally, unrelated things with my search were the first pieces of information provided. Going down past them, I found a link that looked promising.

It was. I watched part of the video three times and then went to work. Twenty minutes later, success.

Yes, it’s a small thing. The device is prolly five years old and cost sixty dollars when I bought it. But I really didn’t want to buy a new one, as that would mean getting rid of the old one. And not having to do the wasteful consumer shuffle is the real victory.

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Worth Mentioning

Thirty-two years after it was launched into space, the HST team celebrated the Hubble Space Telescope’s contribution to space exploration by publishing a photograph of five galaxies which are merging into one. Talk about a merger! This event is expected to take about a billion years to finish. I keep wondering, what’s the due diligence on something like this?

The five galaxies involved are called the Hickson Compact Group (HCG) 40, an interesting name for a progressive rock group. (Their music is probably spacy, doncha think?) Contemplating this information is staggering on many levels. One, that we’ve achieved the capabilities as a species to look into deep space and understand this. Two, that the event will take so long. Such patience is required. If I was one of the stars involved in the galaxy merger, I’d be, like, man, this is taking forever. Such is my response at a grocery store when I need to wait an extra sixty seconds because people can’t remember their PIN (no, I’m not looking at my wife), or my exasperation rising due to pages loading v e e r r r y s s s l l o o o w w w l l l y y y on the net. I can’t imagine waiting a billion years for anything, although it’s all relative, innit? Stars live longer than I do, so far as we know at this point.

So if you have the time and resources, that is to say, if you’re not suffering from food and housing insecurity, and you’re not a refugee from war, famine, or natural disaster, and if you have the net connections and a computer, in other words, if you’re a fortunate person in relative measure, it’s worth taking a few minutes to consider this far-away event. Helps add a little more perspective.

Cheers

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Finding A Way

I just finished reading Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson. It’s a novel worth the time to read, but it will consume some days. Dealing with the geopolitics and technology associated with climate change, especially the trifecta of increasing heat, rising oceans and seas, and increasingly violent and larger storms, Stephenson puts the details to work in the novel right from the beginning: a small jet can’t land in its destination of Houston because high temperatures bring on thinner air. There’s not enough lift to sustain the small jet.

Two other interesting aspects struck me in this huge book. One was a story related to London’s mayor and the 1953 flood. After the flood, engineers came up with a solution but were stopped from implementing any changes for twenty years as political infighting took over. By the time the solution was accepted and a consensus achieved to build it, the solution was already overcome by new problems because these things — climate change, rising waters, etc. — are not static, friends.

The second intriguing, amusing, and probably prescient aspect regarded how Americans responded to rising waters and more flooding: they raised their houses and began building them on stilts. That caused a boom in the house-raising/stilt industry. And sure, you can see that, right? People in their houses on stilts, looking out windows, safe, but surrounded by water. It’s one, the sort of approach people will take, adopting a limited, short-term idea that addresses only their personal issues. Two, it’s the sort of business idea that others will eagerly seize and press, making money while they can. Greed, you know.

That second point reminds me of anti-vaxxers and COVID-19. (BTW, the world has endured several more COVID pandemics between 19 and the book’s period.) They don’t trust the government; don’t trust the vax; don’t trust the medicines. Yet, that’s where most rush to be saved while their loved ones look on and damn the government for not doing more.

Meanwhile, wealthy people in the novel, like the billionaire character, raised his Tudor-style mansion and guest houses and outbuildings, and built a mesa out of clay, high above the flood waters, so they can keep living a safe, comfortable life.

Anyway, the book offers deep ideas on the world’s vectors from where we are to where we might be. It will make you think, or at least caused that in me. Cheers

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New Technology

I just read of a new technology that I could actually use. The latest activity trackers, like Fitbit, have a new optional app called Closer. It works like this. If you and your spouse or partner, or whomever, have activity trackers with Closer on it, the systems can be bonded. Closer can then be activated by cycling through apps, then pressing on it when it’s on your device face.

What’s it do? Well, the bonded devices will show an arrow to where the other is located. The closer the two devices are, the larger and greener the arrow will become. If you’re moving away from them, the arrow turns red and small.

Ad campaigns tout several uses. One, if you’re in a store like Costco or a mall and don’t know where the other person is, just call up Closer and follow the arrow. Two, you can find the other’s device if they’ve misplaced it.

Pretty neat, huh? I know it’s a lot like the apps and trackers used to find keys and phones, but I just made all of that up. Closer doesn’t exist, as far as I know. Consider this an early April Fool’s Day entry.

Cheers

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The Tricorder Dream

I began as a fighter pilot but upon returning from a mission, I changed clothes and started writing computer programs as part of a small startup. In my early thirties (from appearance), I was initially writing programs as a database manager while serving as a mid-level manager overseeing several functions, including data collection and entry. The company was involved with a new medical process and was going through clinical trials and marketing trials. Several RL people from my RL employment with medical device companies appeared in the dream. I knew the details of the trial in the dream, but it was all glossed over and they’re lost now. What the company was doing wasn’t working but I realized that another benefit was possible. That’s what I began writing a program. It was to work with a scanner to be a sort of medical tricorder (as used in Star Trek). I developed a form for the scan to fill out. Each iteration helped me refine and expand what the tricorder could do. I became immensely excited because they could be manufactured and sold cheaply, enabling people to scan themselves non-invasively at home without a need for blood and urine panels, x-rays, or MRIs. It would be a proactive tool to get ahead of your body’s trends before they became a problem. You could easily baseline your norms and then keep testing yourself to see what changes had taken place. The dream ended with me scanning myself as a test subject.

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