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=====Chat Messages during LCTG Meetings=====
These are a record of the chats that were passed during meetings in 2024. They have been edited to a small extent.\\
To find chats for a given day, for example January 10, 2024, search for datecode 20240110 (2024, month 01, day 10).
====20240807====
===Metcalfe: Connectivity===
10:08:55 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
What they did not list was that Bob co-invented ethernet.
10:48:09 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
My friends from Xerox say that it was uncompetitive in computers because top management was wedded to COPIERS.
10:50:11 From Carl Lazarus to Everyone:
When AT&T tried to get into computers, it failed miserably. Perhaps it was also a case of a monopoly having the wrong mindset for a competitive industry.
10:50:29 From Tim O'Neal to Everyone:
I saw you explain Ethernet at the PA HomeBrew Computer Club. At what point in your career did you appreciate the analogy between numbers of connections to a device as contrasted to the speed and size of a device, i.e. Moore's Law vs. Metcalfe's Law?
10:52:21 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Note that this is a recording and not a live presentation.
10:58:11 From Harry Forsdick to Everyone:
Re his new work — let’s remember he is getting close to 80. Astonishing…
11:08:31 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
From Boolean Logic to “Fuzzy” Logic (Continuous-Valued Logic) to Combinatorial Logic.
11:20:14 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
From Wikipedia: In automata theory, combinational logic is a type of digital logic that is implemented by Boolean circuits, where the output is a pure function of the present input only. This is in contrast to sequential logic, in which the output depends not only on the present input but also on the history of the input.
11:21:33 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Isn’t that a Markov Model? The current state is all that is available, and not the history of how we got to the current state.
11:23:01 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
The company, Y-Combinator, takes its name from the fundamental unit of Combinatorial Logic, called a Combinator.
11:23:41 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
As I understand it, a Combinator is a species of Function.
11:25:04 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
See the introductory book by Raymond Smullyan, “To Mock a Mockingbird” for a beginner’s guide to Combinatory Logic.
11:33:00 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
“The Inner Game of Tennis”
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====20240731====
===History of Computers 1969-1994===
10:03:02 From Jerome Slate to Everyone:
What is the origin of the word byte?
10:05:23 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Gemini sez …
«The term "byte" was coined by Werner Buchholz in 1956.
1. Werner Buchholz - IEEE Computer Society www.computer.org
He was working on the IBM Stretch computer at the time and wanted a term for a group of bits. He originally considered "bite" but changed it to "byte" to avoid confusion with "bit".
1. Werner Buchholz Coins the Term "Byte", Deliberately Misspelled to Avoid Confusion with Bit www.historyofinformation.com
Interestingly, the number of bits in a byte wasn't initially fixed, but it eventually standardized to eight bits. »
10:06:01 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Bit is a contraction of Binary Digit.
10:06:19 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
First use of the word "byte" by Werner Buchholz in June 1956:
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/pdfs/06-07/102632284.pdf
And yes, this was an IBM Stretch computer.
10:08:17 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
The name [bit] is a portmanteau of binary digit. (Wikipedia)
10:11:50 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Analog Computers were entirely programmed with patch panels.
10:13:47 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
My brother and I had the "digicomp" toys, which were programmed with metal rods.
10:20:26 From Stan Rose to Everyone:
https://multicians.org/thvv/7094.html
10:23:14 From Carl Lazarus to Everyone:
A T1 was 1.5Mbits/sec
10:24:27 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the
Internet and to promote and support its development.
Al Gore and the Internet
By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf
https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~fessler/misc/funny/gore,net.txt
10:25:24 From Carl Lazarus to Everyone:
Amazon was originally named "Cadabra". Some people thought it was "Cadaver", not so good.
10:28:12 From Carl Lazarus to Everyone:
The first proposal for a survivable military network was done at the RAND corporation, by Paul Baran. This was separate from DARPA.
10:32:36 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
Modems were (I think) used as early as World War II. MODEm stands for modulate/demodulate.
10:33:58 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
In 1941, the Allies developed a voice encryption system called SIGSALY which used a vocoder to digitize speech, then encrypted the speech with one-time pad and encoded the digital data as tones using frequency shift keying. This was also a digital modulation technique, making this an early modem. (Wikipedia)
10:43:47 From John Rudy to Everyone:
I remember now, the T1 was 1.544 megabits/sec and was quite expensive, hundreds of dollars/month
10:56:41 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
How many voice channels does a T1 line carry?
10:57:37 From Adam Broun to Everyone:
24
10:57:52 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Gemini sez…
«A T1 line can carry 24 voice channels.
1. What is a T1 Line? - GoTo www.goto.com
It's important to note that one of these channels is typically used for signaling information (like caller ID), leaving 23 channels for actual voice communication.
1. What is a T1 Line and How Fast is T1 Internet? - One Ring Networks oneringnetworks.com»
11:14:03 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
BBN developed the Interface Message Processor (IMP) for packet switching.
11:17:06 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
DECnet, Ethernet, AppleTalk, and UUNET.
11:19:07 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
The press release for the BBN IMP was misreported as the Interfaith Message Processor.
11:19:28 From Mitch Wolfe to Everyone:
OSI model
by layer
7. Application layer
6. Presentation layer
5. Session layer
4. Transport layer
3. Network layer
2. Data link layer
1. Physical layer
11:25:36 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Paul Baran and Donald Davies independently invented the concept of digital packet switching used in modern computer networking including the Internet.[1][2][3]
11:25:45 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
(Wikipedia)
11:27:05 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Packet Switching was an evolutionary advance based on Time-Division Multiplexing.
11:29:26 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Captain Crunch (toy whistle) imitated the tones of In-Band Signalling.
11:33:23 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Another spoofing of the universal signaling tones involves creating a voice-mail message which begins with the three-tone signal that the number is out of service. This disconnects most robo-dialers for spam calls.
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====20240717====
===Developing the Abiocor total artificial heart===
10:10:59 From John Rudy to Everyone:
In 1971 my brother worked for GE. They developed a unit to oxygenate blood during an operation when the body couldn't do it. Thy were 3 times as successful as alternative devices. But it turned out that one of the pieces of the machine was built using a piece of material built in a machine that has asbestos. No asbestos in the part, but the process got shut down and his machine came off the market.
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====20240703====
===Buying a Computer===
10:41:51 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
CPU-X works like CPU-Z for Linux. Mac is still in its own world, as far as I can tell.
10:42:17 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
https://thetumultuousunicornofdarkness.github.io/CPU-X/
10:43:30 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Mac system info is in the Mac interface itself.
11:03:34 From Drew King to Everyone:
https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-will-get-five-years-of-additional-support-thanks-to-0patch/
11:04:53 From Drew King to Everyone:
0patch is a yearly subscription that costs 24.95 EUR (~$27)
11:28:53 From Larry W. to Everyone:
Usb-c is 40 GB/s; hdmi2 is 18 GB/s
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====20240619====
===5G & Beyond Update===
10:15:36 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Would these frequencies be the ones your phone would need to cover to use 5G?
10:31:26 From Stan Rose to Everyone:
What is the advantage of having the label "advanced broadband", other than faster is better
10:42:19 From Stan Rose to Everyone:
Just like the rollout of 5g last year was delayed by the fear of airport interferwnce
11:12:52 From Mitch Wolfe to Everyone:
Is China participating in IMT-2030? In what role?
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====20240529====
===Oppenheimer===
10:52:25 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
I had read that Ernest Lawrence proposed and lobbied for Oppenheimer as the chief at Los Alamos.
10:57:14 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
Oppenheimer had created a theoretical physics group at UCal Berkeley and thus developed a modicum of leadership/managerial skills. He was one of the best-known American-born theoretical physicists in the US.
11:07:27 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Emma Noether.
11:10:07 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Noether’s Theorem established a relationship between Symmetry and Conservation.
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====20240515====
===Spacecraft Technology===
10:17:23 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
"Design lifetime": Please explain how that number has been arrived at.
10:18:55 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Has any thought been given to Space Elevators?
10:19:06 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
While the program never actually lofted a crewed space station, those nearly six years were quite eventful, featuring the selection of 17 MOL astronauts, the remodeling of NASA's two-seat Gemini spacecraft, the development of the Titan-3C launch vehicle and the building of an MOL launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Cancelled in June, 1969.
Declassified: US Military's Secret Cold War Space Project Revealed
https://www.space.com/31470-manned-orbiting-laboratory-military-space-station.html
10:28:48 From Carl Lazarus to Everyone:
Needham has an elementary school named after Suni Williams
10:29:10 From Stephen Quatrano to Everyone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunita_Williams
10:34:57 From Adam Broun to Everyone:
Is “up” the same direction throughout the ISS?
10:38:19 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Would it be possible (availability, permission, technology) for us to have an astronaut on the space station present to our group?
10:43:44 From Larry Wittig to Everyone:
How do you provide water, is some of it from fuel cells?
10:51:01 From John Rudy to Everyone:
see info on Gary: https://www.nasa.gov/people/dr-gary-kitmacher-nesc-academy-biography/
10:53:29 From Larry Wittig to Everyone:
Is NASA looking into non-chemical propulsion?
10:54:49 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
It looks like the Sci-Fi writers completely missed the boat with their concept of “flying saucer” geometry for spacecraft design..
11:01:26 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
Since the moon's surface is rough, how will such a long rocket be stabilized upright when it lands?
11:04:18 From Adam Broun to Everyone:
For the gateway station, isn’t getting into a rectilinear orbit very expensive? Or is there some neat trick to get there?
11:08:09 From Adam Broun to Everyone:
Replying to "For the gateway stat..."
Next slide partially answered it- assembly in moon orbit
11:23:16 From John Rudy to Everyone:
Frank Herbert had it right with Dune for water reclamation
11:25:36 From Stephen Quatrano to Everyone:
What have you learned about public/private collaboration over the course of your career? How do private entities vs public entities manage risk differently? How has collaboration changed over time if at all?
11:33:42 From Stephen Quatrano to Everyone:
Replying to "What have you learne..."
Quality and trust are other dimensions of collaboration that interest me.
11:33:56 From tedpk to Everyone:
AMS -- Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer --- has been on ISS and Billions of Cosmic Rays have been observed -- No statements about Very High Energy Cosmic Ray Exposure for extended duratiuons
11:45:35 From John Rudy to Everyone:
how can you bring something so huge down safely
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====20240508====
===Inflammation===
10:28:27 From tedpk to Everyone:
Where do histamines fit into all this -- since this is the height of Seasonal Respiratory Allergies?
10:57:07 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
The prediction quote is attributed to Yogi Berra, not Niels Bohr
11:18:38 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
The allergy discussion raises my own experience with a recently discovered severe allergy. I_t was very specific.
11:18:56 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
I am undergoing treatments for my severe sting allergy.
11:19:31 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
• It’s hard to unlearn a chronic negative reaction to an irritating stimulant.
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====20240501====
===Five Levels of Difficulty Day===
10:07:16 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
For travel backward in time, has anyone solved the paradox of conservation of energy and mass?
10:12:12 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
As an absolute physical constant, the speed of light recently has been questioned. Over long times and distances, some theorists seem to think light may be slowing down.
10:19:43 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Chicken and egg -- the first chicken did not come from a chicken egg -- it came from a dinosaur egg!
10:20:05 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
(Not chickens specifically, but birds, generally.
10:27:19 From Jerome Slate to Everyone:
To know which came first, the chicken or the egg, order both from Amazon. You will soon know which came first.
10:31:30 From Stan Rose to Everyone:
Interesting that these are all ideas in the Netflix series, 3 Body Problem!
10:33:56 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon. The chicken was at Whole Foods before I ordered it. (It was already in my cart.) What does this result prove?
10:39:32 From Dan Silber to Everyone:
I have long agreed with Bob - eggs came into existence before chickens.
10:43:24 From Adam Broun to Everyone:
https://theoreticalminimum.com/courses/general-relativity/2012/fall
All the courses in this series are terrific if you want to go that deep
10:55:58 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
Eggs must be fertilized before there are chickens. "Chicken vs. egg" is incomplete.
10:57:02 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
We should be careful about eliminating the genes responsible for allergies. There are some scientists who think allergies are part of our very complex immune systems. Change one part of this system, and unpredictable effects can happen elsewhere in the immune system.
10:57:09 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Brand new 37-minute video from Veritasium on black holes, white holes, wormholes and parallel universes, entitled, “Something Strange Happens When You Follow Einstein's Math” ~ https://youtu.be/6akmv1bsz1M
10:59:40 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Veritasium has good presentations, we’ve seen some in the past. I’ll put this on the Potentials list, maybe we can show it in a potpourri.
11:00:43 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Derek Muller of Veritasium is a world-class science educator and explorer on YouTube.
11:01:28 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
"Designer Genes" could have ethical and population health consequences. Diversity has been one key to genetic evolution. This process is necessary when, not if the Earth's environment changes radically in the future. (No implication of human causality in these changes is needed to see this issue.)
11:05:14 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Ack!! Did they just refer to human genetics as a "hard drive??
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====20240424====
===Planning meeting===
10:14:41 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Altruism: Private Support of Science and Education.
10:15:44 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
On Quantum Tech, there are a few YouTube videos from Sabine Hossenfelder on various aspects of that.
10:24:32 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Shelf Life of Vaccines and Covid Tests.
10:25:13 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
“Push to DISTANT future."
10:40:28 From Bill Quinn to Everyone:
We have only an email address for Donald Cooke
10:43:08 From TedK to Everyone:
Thermoplastic polymers are extruded from a printer dubbed the “Factory of the Future 1.0," said Habib Dagher, director of UMaine’s Advanced Structures & Composite Center, where both of the current printers are located. It combines robotics operations with new sensors, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence, Dagher said.
10:54:42 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
There are probably copious predictions about AGI.
10:59:26 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
John R. Pierce (V.P. of Bell Labs) wrote a great book, “Signals: The Telephone and Beyond.”
11:09:24 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
ADT Alarms (American District Telegraph).
11:24:40 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Related to aging hardware, one can continue with older Macintosh hardware with Open Core Legacy Patcher (OCLP) which allows older machines to run newer versions of MacOS.
11:30:33 From Steve's displays to Everyone:
Jerry: for video work, you need Intel i7 processor, 16GB or more RAM, and a fast video processor.
11:35:46 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Angels on the head of a pin was in the MIT Museum Tour video.
11:36:09 From Peter Albin to Everyone:
thx Barry,I forgot!
11:36:25 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Reacted to "thx Barry,I forgot!" with 👍
11:40:30 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Synology DiskStation and other species of NAS (Network Attached Storage).
11:44:28 From Larry W. to Everyone:
In the discussion of buying a new PC, storage is so cheap that you should just buy 1 of 2 TB. Right now you can buy 1 TB SSD for $50.
11:50:48 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Contact us: LCTG@toku.us
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====20240403====
===About Eclipses===
09:53:53 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
PBS NOVA will probably produce an episode on the topic.
10:02:55 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
That airs tonight on PBS-2.
10:05:37 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Great American Eclipse
Explore the spectacular cosmic phenomenon of a total solar eclipse.
PREMIERES: 4/3/24 8pm
10:12:04 From John Rudy to Everyone:
See Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Chapter 6 is the eclipse
10:19:28 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
In the Lewis & Clark Expedition, they relied on a predicted eclipse that would occur when they were in the Montana Territory to calibrate their clock and fix their exact position on that day, thus improving the reliability of their map making along the journey.
10:33:42 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
On Mars, eclipses (transits) don't block out the Sun, due to the small sizes of the Martian moons.
10:33:54 From Mitch Wolfe to Everyone:
Moon "distance from Earth varies between 225,700 miles (363,300 kilometers) and 252,000 miles (405,500 kilometers)." [About 10% diff.]
10:36:52 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
the increase in the size of the moon's orbit is due to conservation of angular momentum: because of friction due to earth- and moon-tides, the spin of the earth slows down; the orbit of the moon "compensates" to conserve the total angular momentum of earth-plus-moon.
10:53:04 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
The Northeast, from western Pennsylvania into Maine, have the best shot at seeing clear skies and limited cloud cover. Eclipse forecast for Monday, April 8, 2024.
10:54:59 From John Rudy to Everyone:
apparently there have been many ads for bogus glasses
10:56:09 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Buying glasses in-person (or getting them for free)
If you'd prefer to buy a pair of approved eclipse glasses in person, the AAS recommends stopping by a Home Depot, Lowe's or Walmart to check if they have any in stock. (Some, but not all, locations sell ISO-approved eclipse glasses, according to the AAS.) Additionally, many libraries around the U.S. will be giving away free pairs of approved eclipse glasses; call your local branch
11:00:53 From tedpk to Everyone:
certain degree of unpreparedness for example the diamond ring and the less well known Bailey's beads and the Ruby necklace -- all of which relate to lunar non-spheroidicity
11:02:33 From tedpk to Everyone:
another problem with the discussion -- there is a confusion between scattering and refraction in the atmosphere
11:04:03 From John Rudy to Everyone:
best viewing is from the NASA videos
11:10:11 From John Rudy to Everyone:
blue moons roughly every 2.7 years on average.
11:11:08 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
But how could you see the eclipse in a plane with windows facing out the side of the plane?
11:11:24 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
An airliner can't outpace the shadow of the moon during an eclipse. So the advertised "eclipse flights" will not have much of an extended view of totality. Just, the planes will be above the clouds, so nearly certainly passengers will see the eclipse.
11:13:49 From John Rudy to Everyone:
I was on a plane flying near mt Everest. Everyone moved to the right side of the plane to see the mountain. So maybe 10,000 pounds moved sides. Didn't notice any impact
11:14:58 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
The pilot would apply some changes to the airplane’s controls automatically to maintain level flight.
11:15:25 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Problem is that the angle from which the sun is shining (Azimuth) is at a somewhat inconvenient angle compared to flight path. From the plane’s view the sun (and thus eclipse) would be about 7 or 8 o clock when looking at a clockface. Therefore the best would be that when totality shadow starts (or right before), the plane flies in a more northern direction or even a bit northeastern so most people on board would be able to see it clearly since we would then be at a right angle towards the eclipse (9 of clock). But this requires either that the pilot is a bit flexible (like the SW pilot in 2023 who did some zig zags as spur of the moment) or needs proper flight path planning which is what Alaska airlines did.
11:16:20 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
In this flight path, the pilot does some zig-zags to let passengers on either side of the plane to have a view.
11:16:34 From tedpk to Everyone:
Airliner should get you above most of the clouds -- so it could be useful -- the SR-71 once flew along the path of totality fast enough to "make time stand still" by doubling the length of totality
11:17:36 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
But the stars would come out during totality, like they do at night
11:19:56 From John Rudy to Everyone:
Anecdotally, I just heard there was a spike in births 9 months after the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. Might the same be true with eclipses. Or is this bogus? Probably
11:21:01 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
A nova, not comet, will be present possibly during this eclipse.
11:21:38 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
About the Cubs and births, yes this was a local legend. Don't know about "eclipse babies".
11:22:50 From Mitch Wolfe to Everyone:
Some of the speaker's slides are from https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/ that has a lot of related materials.
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====20240327====
===MIT Museum===
09:59:23 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Sabine Hossenfelder ~ Science without the gobbledygook.
11:16:43 From CK to Everyone:
there once was a nautical museum. Is there still? And is it related to this one?
11:19:09 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Much of the Computer Museum artifacts when to the comparable museum in San Jose CA.
11:19:56 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Boston Museum of Science has a small room with some of the artifacts.
11:21:43 From Larry W to Everyone:
The nautical museum was shut down ~1970 during the anti-war protests. I don't know if ever reopened.
11:23:16 From Stephen Quatrano to Everyone:
I believe there is still an extensive collection of nautical devices, designs and artifacts in the museum. They were indeed a core of the old museum. I don’t know if they are in the new displays.
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====20240320====
===2023 Nobel Prize mRNA===
10:22:31 From tedpk to Everyone:
1 word of caution -- myocarditis
10:38:27 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Moderna's RSV vaccine is an mRNA vaccine.
10:41:47 From tedpk to Everyone:
Unfortunately -- there is at least some of the "inverse astronomers' paradigm" i.e. -- All sheep in Scotland are black" -- you can't say doing in parallel is the same as doing in series
10:47:18 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
From the very beginning, we now could conclude it would have been better if public health officials had never promised to "contain" COVID-19. They should from the very beginning have been forthcoming about the transition from a pandemic to an endemic virus.
10:48:32 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
But hindsight is always better than foresight, especially with public policy decisions.
10:51:35 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
The remarks about vaccines preventing Long COVID make a lot of assumptions, some of which could be challenged successfully.
11:20:37 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
A few weeks ago, CVS alerted me that the newest booster shots had just become available. Can anyone say more about what’s the story with this newest vaccine version?
11:31:03 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
Researchers and authorities had actually hoped to contain covid-19. However, the behavior of significant parts of the public (combined with anti-vaxx propaganda) undermined efforts to contain the virus.
11:34:30 From tedpk to Everyone:
Another key point: The "Spanish Flu" of 100 years ago -- was qualitatively different than all the Flu Pandemics since -- highly transmissible, triggered s
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====20240313====
===Sleep Deprivation and Passkeys===
10:27:19 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
The types of effects on short-term memory cited in this study did not go away just by getting extra sleep after being sleep-deprived. It took longer than a few nights to return to normal functions, if I recall correctly.
10:33:33 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Tuesday, two days after losing an hour’s sleep for DST, I found myself making a substantial number of lapses and errors for lack of paying adequate attention to what I was doing.
10:34:19 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
N.B. ~ Business Insider has a PayWall.
10:34:43 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
I took an extra-early bedtime before Sunday. This took care of my issues, as I woke up "on time" for DST.
10:35:22 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
I tried that, but I ended up not falling asleep an hour earlier.
10:35:23 From tedpk to Everyone:
Tom Edison claimed he just napped -- never had a traditional externded sleep
10:36:04 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Edison is said to have had ADD -- this changes sleep patterns.
10:36:47 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Airline pilots reportedly take “micronaps” in the cockpit.
10:37:36 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
There was just an article in Yahoo News -- in Indonesia, both pilots fell asleep briefly -- and the flight went dangerously off-course.
10:38:13 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
https://www.kccu.org/business/2024-03-12/pilots-often-take-micro-naps-how-much-of-a-problem-is-it-globally
10:39:04 From tedpk to Everyone:
so @ JFK you need a precision timer -- and then you can migrate from pod- to- pod without paying
10:39:06 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Barry -- I am unusual in my ability to adjust my sleep timing.
10:39:50 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
I often fall asleep in front of the computer when there is nothing much to attend to.
10:40:39 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
So that's what you should have been doing Sat. night!
10:41:27 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Narcolepsy -- I once interviewed with someone who has this. She laughed at a joke and her head hit the table.
10:41:48 From Larry W to Everyone:
Narcolepsy doesn't have to the colapse type.
10:42:01 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
The main reason I went to bed early on Saturday night was because there was no activity to attend to in the media.
10:51:44 From Stan Rose to Everyone:
It takes about 1 day for every day of time zone shift to recover
10:52:39 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Sounds about right.
10:54:36 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
It’s a widely reported rule of thumb.
10:59:25 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Now and then, my iPhone issues an audio alert in the middle of the night which wakes me up.
11:03:14 From Umesh to Everyone:
Barry, I sometimes wonder if my meditation worked for the same reason your neurologist’s prescription worked.
11:04:47 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Umesh, I think it was Larry who spoke of his Neurologist. But when I was working on my Ph.D., I’d take naps when my brain got foggy from too much math scribbling.
11:10:34 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
In 1974, on the IBM 360 at Bell Labs, passwords were saved in plaintext on a publicly readable file.
11:16:40 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
If someone purloined your physical device, doesn’t that defeat the security of passkeys?
11:18:50 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
The QR Code on the phone is old-fashioned 2FA. That's in addition to the Passkey itself.
11:19:21 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Even if someone got your passkey vault, they could not access the passkeys without your MAster Password.
11:19:37 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Trusted Platform Manager (TPM)
11:30:44 From Drew King to Everyone:
https://bitwarden.com/password-strength/
11:41:17 From Adam Broun to Everyone:
Dashlane supports passkeys in the browser too not just mobile
11:42:09 From Stan Rose to Everyone:
Quite a bit. Most of my logins now text me a code when I try to login which I th we n have to enter
11:50:06 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Another scam to watch out for is a fake bitwarden site where the ‘a’ in ‘bitwarden’ is the other ASCII font for the letter ‘a’.
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====20240306====
===Neat Android Phone Apps===
10:30:16 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Shades of Matrix, O. Henry (surprise ending), Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and Theology.
10:31:39 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
«Creativity is Intelligence having fun.»
10:32:21 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
… and what is intelligence?
10:33:28 From John Rudy to Everyone:
remember smellovision
10:34:32 From John Rudy to Everyone:
debby reynolds
10:35:16 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Intelligence is the ability to think, solve problems, and devise plans for reaching a goal.
10:36:29 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
We call a work of art or film creative when it goes beyond our expectations of what should be possible.
10:38:40 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
So, creative AI would possibly be when the AI produces outputs which were not explicitly programmed into it. Generative AI is supposed to be able to do this, but not LLMs.
10:40:22 From John Rudy to Everyone:
creativity, I think, is what the 1% figures out that the average person can not. So the average erson says "wow, that is creative"
10:41:22 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
10:41:32 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Novelty, originality and utility are some of the components of the definitions of creativity used by psych. researchers.
10:54:49 From John Rudy to Everyone:
But I do not believe that scientists yet know how creativity works. What causes some people to pull together disparate ideas and create something new. I suppose that some day they will. Computers will remember something from decades ago or that someone else has said, and "creativity" may just be putting it together
10:55:20 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
There is still a ghost in the machine.
10:58:19 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
A fair amount of creative art is juxtaposing or merging two or more models that normally would not be considered related. The art reveals some aspect that they have in common (or perhaps in opposition).
11:05:03 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
Also, there's a form of creativity in which one person 'triggers' thinking by another. This can be with people who are in direct contact, or it can occur remotely (so to speak -- reading something another person has written). Triggering is well known in psychology (I think).
11:06:40 From Carl Lazarus to Everyone:
Thanks for mentioning magnifier and light app. I found an iPhone app "Magnifying Glass With Light" (maybe the same one mentioned for Android), just installed it. Exactly what I need for restaurant menus!
11:15:37 From Carl Lazarus to Everyone:
I use free Hiya on my iPhone. It helps some with spam calls, but it should do better.
11:30:32 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
There is a “Wifi Analyzer Network Scanner” app for iPhone. (Not sure yet how good it is.)
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====20240228====
===Neat Phone Apps Part 3===
10:17:46 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
ARC Search Browser (IOS only).
10:19:56 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Right (iOS only) as I don’t see it on the Mac store.
10:26:49 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
CanOfSoup (pictures)
10:27:20 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Windy (weather). Rise (baking).
10:41:10 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Home Assistant (runs on one’s own server).
10:44:30 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
So the app is free, but to use it you will need to set up a server (and the server app costs around $9)
10:45:36 From Larry W to Everyone:
The BMAX looks a lot like my NUC Desktop PC
10:47:24 From Larry W to Everyone:
Does someone sell a RAID box with Solid state drives?
10:55:40 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
TruNAS (Network Attached Storage).
11:01:22 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
ProxMox is neat. Buy one machine, and create many virtual machines on it.
11:09:24 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Bitwarden -- fork called Vaultwarden which is also self-hosted. So you have the same apps, but you host your own password database.
https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden
There's an already built instance which is someone else's server (Cloud service).
https://www.vaultwarden.net/
https://vaultwarden.us/
11:12:00 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Self hosted forum in reddit
11:22:12 From Grace Poon to Everyone:
Please I have a lot of photographs of museum paintings, will photoprism be able to sort them out? At least for the famous painters? Monet vs renoit? Thanks
11:23:41 From Adam Broun to Everyone:
I doubt it will distinguish between painters, but I don’t know
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====20240221====
===Neat Phone Apps Part 2===
10:09:31 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
When MS Word goes away, people might consider Notepad++, AbiWord or other alternatives. Launching MS Word is too slow for quick RTF document writing and copy/paste operations.
10:10:25 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
10:10:29 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
https://abiword.en.softonic.com/
10:13:46 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Drew has static in his sound.
10:15:36 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
backmarket.com. — refurbished phones all models (and tablets and computers) at reduced prices. Recommended by me and Harry.
10:18:28 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
BackMarket phones (and other devices) come with a 30-day return for any reason and a 1 year warranty.
10:21:35 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Rome2Rio
10:31:56 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
TeamViewer.
10:32:00 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Team Viewer
10:43:15 From Jerome Slate to Everyone:
Is the SmartNews adjuster called the "Confirmation Bias Slider"?
10:51:08 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
alltrails
10:57:45 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
You can give it a web page and it will translate the whole page.
11:17:53 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
What Is a Passphrase, and How Can I Create One? https://www.dashlane.com/blog/what-is-a-passphrase-and-how-can-i-create-one So it appears passphrases can be handled by dashlane, and this was 2 years ago.
11:26:37 From Dan Silber to Everyone:
You can always express your age by converting to the Celsius scale: subtract 32 and multiply by 5/9. Thus, 30 Celsius is 86!
11:27:47 From Adam Broun to Everyone:
I have an app you might be interested in : Arc Search
11:35:07 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
info@lctg.toku.us. or. lctg@toku.us
11:35:31 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
If you have suggestions to present for next week, email me/Steve or lctg@toku.us
11:43:01 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
US Mobile Plans
11:43:37 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
https://www.usmobile.com/plans
12:01:04 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Insight-Scientists-Personal-ebook/dp/B0019IB0II/ and Ted talk https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_my_stroke_of_insight
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====20240214====
===Phone Apps and Neat Websites===
10:04:36 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
I often ask (repeatedly, if necessary), “Who’ calling, please.”
10:04:59 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
I expect a real name and a company name and a location.
10:11:38 From Alice Meade to Everyone:
Has anyone figured out how to watch Napoleon for free?
10:12:17 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
I get very little Spam on both Comcast Voice and my US Mobile Cell Phone plan. My phone is almost never active. This may affect the willingness of spammers to call me.
10:18:54 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
If you’ve already paid for something once, reviewing later it shouldn’t be an issue. But viewing fresh content might be problematic with respect to Intellectual Property Rights.
10:21:14 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
There are arrangements about this already.
10:22:58 From Grace Poon to Everyone:
I use the Minuteman library, you can request movies and I just watched Oppenheimer again at home with subtitles, plus the special feature with the PBS documentary, which I always find it interesting.
10:23:24 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
ChatGPT says: «The top-level domain (TLD) ".ph" is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the Philippines. TLDs are the last segment of a domain name, which follows the "dot" in an internet address. Each TLD is assigned to a specific country or territory, and ".ph" specifically denotes websites associated with the Philippines. It is commonly used by individuals, businesses, and organizations based in or affiliated with the Philippines.»
10:23:40 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Bard concurs.
10:33:33 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
One problem with ReelGood -- it offers VPN suggestions for getting around regional blocks. This also has ethical issues.
10:34:50 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Public Libraries also may rent out equipment for viewing DVDs and BluRay Discs.
10:40:24 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
TLD .tv is actually owned by the country of Tuvalu.
10:47:23 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
RPN is Reverse Polish Notation. (Push-Down Stack)
10:47:50 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Operations apply to the topmost numbers on the stack.
10:49:24 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
RPN has no parenthesis keys. If your calculator has parens keys, then it’s not RPN.
10:50:29 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
LOL means Lots of Love.
10:51:56 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
Wikipedia will also give you acronyms
10:55:16 From Grace Poon to Everyone:
inaturalist is good for birds, plants ID etc
‘seek’ for plants is a simpler ID version,
Merlin is great for birds
10:55:43 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Are the plugins available for the free version of ChatGPT, or only the premium version?
10:56:10 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Peter says, “Only the paid premium version.”
11:00:45 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
FYI, Acronym finder is a web site acronymfinder.com and an app as I demo’d, and it’s free and extensive.
11:01:49 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Unless they’ve changed it, any given chat can have at most 3 plugins enabled.
11:04:05 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
The hp 15c calculator app that I demo’d is free for iOS, search for “Retro 15c”.
11:05:29 From Adam Broun to Everyone:
You might enjoy suno.ai (built by some former colleagues of mine). Generative ai to compose music and songs from a prompt.
11:10:01 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
There is a plugin for asking questions of a PDF document.
11:14:26 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
There are Browser Plugins and ChatGPT plugins, and it’s sometimes hard to remember which is which.
11:15:15 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Send your topics ideas to: info@lctg.toku.us (Or to Bob, John, Peter, or Steve and we’ll forward)
11:15:49 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
I played with a PDF-Questioning Plugin for a friend’s Master’s Thesis.
11:20:44 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
Google Image Search can recognize and translate text in an image.
11:32:34 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
There’s only a modest number of routes, not an astronomical number of possible itineraries.
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====20240207====
===Space Update===
10:07:50 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
"InSight" stands for "Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport."
10:11:07 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
When he says that it reaches Mach 1, is that relative to Mars speed of sound?
10:13:46 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
«The speed of sound on Mars is significantly lower than on Earth. On average, the speed of sound on Mars is around 240 meters per second (about 784 feet per second), compared to about 343 meters per second (around 1125 feet per second) on Earth at sea level.» [From ChatGPT]
10:15:05 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
I’m guessing that you don’t want the rotors to break the sound barrier, as that would waste energy.
10:20:27 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
The tips of some of the earthbound helicopters' blades evidently do exceed Mach 1. In those cases, the helicopter sounds like it's generating a rapid series of explosions -- very annoying.
10:21:25 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
I don't think the Martians will mind, much. : )
10:22:04 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
i suppose on earth, we can afford to waste energy by emitting sonic booms. But on Mars that would not be a sensible use of limited power.
10:23:09 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
Maybe the very low density of the Martian atmosphere might cause much less of an issue.
10:24:38 From Larry W to Everyone:
The US doesn't use counter rotating blades because they're too loud. but Russia does have some. They are however more efficient.
10:28:49 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
You don’t need the tail rotor with a pair of counter-rotating lift blades.
10:37:20 From Carl Lazarus to Everyone:
How do we know the size of Mercury's core without any seismic measurements?
10:43:02 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
I think it’s based on measurements of the strength of Mercury’s magnetic field.
11:00:04 From Larry W to Everyone:
The Chinook helicopter which has two sets of rotors on the opposite ends of of the aircraft do rotate in opposite direction also not requiring a "tail rotor". This seems to be much more efficient. I wonder why there aren't more such designs. Also I assume the Osprey blades rotae in opposite directions.
11:04:48 From Chuck Kaufman to Everyone:
are the Webb photos real color?
11:05:51 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
No. Webb detects infrared radiation. So the colors must have been added by NASA to make things clearer.
11:16:26 From Carl Lazarus to Everyone:
I hope Boeing installs all the bolts.
11:25:53 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
"A billion here and a billion there. Pretty soon it becomes real money."
11:30:29 From Barry Kort to Everyone:
It really sucks to have an open gash in the side of the passenger compartment.
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====20240110====
===LIDAR Mapping===
10:08:12 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Do you take into account difference in speed of light through air and water (non-cloud moisture in air)?
10:17:14 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Can the mapping collect real time events, such as seeing people walking or vehicles as they move?
10:18:54 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
What is the price range of the cameras BAE sells?
10:22:23 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
As plane is moving as it’s doing the mapping, and sending laser beans to a given spot on the ground, can the laser angles see under objects?
10:24:02 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
(You just answered the angles question!)
10:27:41 From John Rudy to Everyone:
can you in any way measure what is under the ground? like bombs or tunnels
10:30:05 From Larry Wittig to Everyone:
Can you damage the eyes of observers on the ground?
10:30:09 From Judy & Mike Alexander to Everyone:
Please comment on eye safety on the ground (where/what you're measuring)
10:32:21 From Dick to Everyone:
How do you get the "tilt" data? What does it tell you?
10:38:07 From Dick to Everyone:
What wavelengths do you use?
10:39:57 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Do you use different laser wavelengths for different conditions?
10:40:32 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Or maybe do you use multiple wavelengths at the same time (would this improve mapping)?
11:00:35 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Is the laser/lasers you use be weaponized? (Ie, see bad guy running through forest and disable him/her)
11:05:46 From John Rudy to Everyone:
could you find lost hikers in the mountains
11:07:28 From John Rudy to Everyone:
but they are moving
11:07:51 From Steve Isenberg to Everyone:
Can the heat of an object be measured, so that maybe a lost hiker on a colder ground could be detected using their body heat
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====20240103====
===Using files across Windows, Apple, Linux, etc platforms===
10:31:24 Barry Kort: WiFi speeds vary. 2.4 GHz WiFi is slower than 5 GHz WiFi, and both are typically slower than hard-wired Ethernet.
10:32:34 Bob Primak: From th AX standard onward, MIMO uses multiple channels simultaneaously to increase network throughput. WiFi-6 is even faster.
10:34:30 Barry Kort: Synology makes a nice local network storage device for your LAN.
10:54:12 Bob Primak: Actually, nearly all fiber-optic ISPs have symmetrical upstream/downstream bandwidth. Verizon is by no means unique in this regard, for businesses.
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