Category Archives: Technology

Your Rights

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It is said that armchair generals discuss tactics and real generals discuss logistics. It seems to me that those that worry about the state of those rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights in a casual way, worry about the second amendment, while those who worry about it seriously, worry about the fourth. The right to privacy is far more important than the right to bear arms. Guns will no longer overthrow a dictatorship in the 21st century, but privacy allows for the planning and discussions that CAN lead to the overthrow of a dictatorship.
Additionally, intimate knowledge of our individual psychology, learned through constant surveillance and developed through artificial intelligence will allow us to be carefully manipulated through commercial media delivery systems.
Giving up privacy to both the government and to private enterprise is very dangerous. I would go so far as to say the latter is more dangerous than the former. Government can be better restrained.

AI cameras are everywhere — and people are paying the price for their mistakes

China is Beating Us to a Green Energy Future

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As I have long predicted. The corruption of U.S. leaders like Trump by the international oil companies has only allowed China to pass us on green technologies. While our country turns into a polluted wasteland and climate change becomes more “our” problem, China seizes the day.

Trump wants to own Venezuela’s oil, but its largest oil customer is speeding toward clean energy

Another Whack Job Heads a Government Department

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When Reagan was elected, he was largely put in place by moneyed interests that wanted to buy up public land and the mineral extraction leasing of those lands. He installed a special little toad of a human to head up the Department of the Interior named James Watt. Watt was a lunatic who believed that it didn’t matter if we destroyed the planet because Jesus was coming in a few years anyway. I was reminded of him by the idiot in this story. When I was in high school my Physics teacher told me that we would have nuclear fusion figured out in 10 years of less. That was almost 50 years ago. When I was in college my Physics professor told me we would have nuclear fusion figured out in the next decade. That was 40 years ago. I don’t think the track record on predicting fusion is reliable.

US energy chief tells BBC nuclear fusion will soon power the world

Smartphones and Kids

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The rise in teen suicide, juvenile crime and child anxiety can be traced (at least in part) to the use of smartphones. I have heard child psychiatrists acquaint giving a smartphone to a child with giving them a heroin needle. So why would a loving parent get one for their kid? The answer, of course, is peer pressure, and a contest of wills between parent and child.
‘My Fellow Parents Have Betrayed Me’ How it feels when your allies in the fight for a phone-free childhood buy one for their fifth-grader.

The answer, must be legislation. Give parents a break and allow kids to only have “dumb phones” until eighth grade. Only if we do this as a culture, do we have a chance at saving out kids. Ohio just passed and is implementing a “no phones” in school policy. We will see how that works. If behavior and academics improve, then I see no reason to not implement a kid smart phone ban.

And on This Day Let Us Consider…

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This is the beginning of a current article in Scientific American…

“From World War II until 2024, the US stood unchallenged as the scientific leader of the free world. Across practically every discipline — physics, materials science, astronomy, chemistry, biology, medicine, geology, etc. — American scientific missions and initiatives, often in collaboration with European, Canadian, Asian, and many other global partners, brought us new advances and breakthroughs, paving the way for generations of scientists to thrive. In a society that values facts, scientific truths, education, and the public good, this recipe led to multiple generations of continued breakthroughs and advances.
Since late January of this year, however, all of that has rapidly changed. Many of the most valuable scientific organizations in the world, including NOAA, NASA, the NSF, the CDC, the EPA, and the FDA, have experienced a set of unprecedented internal attacks.

Funding streams have been terminated.
Grants that have been successfully competed for and won have been pulled.
Fellowships and scholarships have been revoked.
Contracts have been broken.
Thousands upon thousands of employees have been terminated, often in defiance of court orders.

And now, at the start of the second half of 2025, a new budget is on the verge of becoming law, which would largely eliminate science as we know it across universities and colleges, research institutes, and national labs. This isn’t a horror story; this is a real-life nightmare for the most educated and skilled American workers of all: scientists.”

This is a sad thing indeed. And a real betrayal of our country. Hope all that “winning” was worth it Trumpers.

American science to soon face its largest brain drain in history

Long COVID in Kids

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“An article recently published in JAMA Pediatrics (or, the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics) presents findings from a study suggesting that Long COVID, a condition where symptoms last at least 3 months and up to several years after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, has surpassed asthma as the most common chronic health problem affecting children.”

Summary here… Long COVID in Young Children, School-Aged Children, and Teens

Full article here… Characterizing Long COVID Symptoms During Early Childhood

Don’t bother vaccinating them, they’ll be fine.

I Could Watch This Guy for Hours

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I first heard about “Mend It Mark” when there was an outcry from the Youtube community that he had received a take down notice from a “high end” audio manufacturer called Tom Evans. It became a right to repair issue and many Youtubers posted a copy of the video and dared Tom Evans to try and take them down. Anyway, Mend It Mark is a really good channel of a very competent electronics tech doing his job. Like furniture and tool restoration videos, it is soothing. Here Mark does a quick, but thorough repair on a 90’s Technics Amp.

The Tom Evans thing is pretty neat. He basically reverse engineers a piece of audio kit that has every part “potted” (identifying numbers have been erased or covered on every component) and created his own repair manual. Amazing talent this guy has. The video was restored and is here…

The £25,000 Pre-Amp that went Wrong – Tom Evans Mastergroove SR mkIII