AskLeo answers the question Why do things that aren’t broken keep changing? The basic answer is that the owner of those things wants to remain viable. “I actually get this question periodically about almost every major online email service. Google Mail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail all go through periodic major updates, and some set of [...]
Mike Elgan explains Why Google should be allowed to ‘harvest’ your Wi-Fi data “Even if the broadcaster is ignorant of the fact that speaking into a radio conveys his voice into the public space, it’s still not illegal for someone else to listen to it or record it. “In each of these cases — the [...]
Mighty Ohm (Join the resistance) is Announcing the “Soldering is Easy” Complete Comic Book! “This seven page comic book explains in detail and with pictures how to make a good solder connection. It also teaches you all the other bits and pieces of knowledge that you need to successfully solder together an electronic kit, even [...]
“If you’re like me, you’re the bane of hardware store employees. I wander through the whole place picking up everything, looking at possibilities more than parts. Can they help me find anything? “No thanks,” I answer. What am I working on? “I don’t know yet,” I say. They move on, keeping a suspicious eye on [...]
What Engineers Want – A Rebuttal to the 501 Manifesto by Greg Herlein is a response to a leftist’s anti-capitalism screed. Greg says Engineers want: 1. To build things 2. That help people 3. That actually get used What this is saying is that an engineer is a ‘creative’ that is driven not by aesthetics [...]
Joanne picks up on life without math citing a popular YouTube video with a lady who didn’t understand what miles per hour meant. That links to Lynne on Why Tracking Needs to Be Brought Back in Math Classes. “Teaching math is like teaching drawing skills … “We all know of people who seem to have [...]
The preppers have The Evolution of Radio Technology, Part 1, by Roger R. as a good summary of the development of the radio receiver. “The primary steps or changes in the design of radio receiver construction are, the “crystal set” or Passive Tuned-Radio-Frequency (TRF) receiver, the Active TRF, or ‘straight’, receiver, the Regenerative (‘regen’ or [...]
The footprint is still huge. It took five years until it shook the 286 paradigm to really offer the benefit of an operating system that could handle multiple modems and printers in addition to a decent user interface seamlessly. The hardware available then required the system to do a whole lot with very little. 25 [...]
For a station clock, this one isn’t automatically set by WWVB (see NIST for WWVB Radio Controlled Clocks: Recommended Practices for Manufacturers and Consumers -68p PDF) but is easily set at least to the nearest minute. It also shows clock and remote temperatures and a 12v system voltage. It’s in the under $20 class of [...]
The vi vs emacs thing never dies. Luke has a nice rundown on Why Vim?. First up is a graph of learning curves – realistic humor. Then there are pictures of the terminal Bill Joy was using when he wrote vi and the influence that terminal had on the user interface. There is also good [...]