Realistic SCR-8 Boombox
We had one of these when I was younger. Back when ghetto blasters and boomboxes were THE thing to have.
Levitating flying sword toy
No Country for Old Men
Driver: “I hope you’re right.”
Moss: “Trust me”, Moss said.
Driver: “I hate hearin them words”, the driver said. “I always did.”
Moss: “Have you ever said them?”
Driver: “Yeah. I’ve said em. That’s how come I know what they’re worth.”
Local Portland muckraking
Recalibrate Portland does a decent job being a voice that calls Portland, and Trump’s, BS what it is. In a radically polarized city that feels it must toe the party line blindly, it’s nice to see someone that apparently doesn’t mind calling out the idiots on any side when they start lying or distorting the truth. That’s something I can get behind.
Sine-wave speech auditory illusion
Chris Darwin was doing a research paper on speech perception and discovered something interesting. He distorted recordings of people speaking based on specific pattern matching properties of speech, and then played them back for people to see if they could understand what was said.
At first, it sounds like distorted tones and bleeps. But after you listen to the original version – your mind seems to be able to hear the speech clearly on the second playthrough. It turns out the brain’s prediction/learning knows better what to expect, and applies that without the listener being consciously aware.
If one listens to enough different SWS samples, some begin to gain the ability to understand the SWS versions without having to be exposed to the originals.
Go here for details on SWS as well as to the (free) Praat software that Darwin used to create the samples. [Hackaday]
A little longer examination:
DOS 6.22 on a 10th gen processor
Yeo Kheng Meng decides to try something silly – can he get DOS 6.22 running natively on his 2020 Thinkpad?
He writes all about the headaches and hurdles he ran into while trying this retro feat – including networking and thunderbolt.
Seasonally adjusted unemployment by state
Solar Panel installation review
Local user brrent reviews putting solar panels on his house and gets a good discussion going on the process, pros and cons.
Summary:
- There are a lot of crummy installers out there with slimy salesman. Out of 6, only 2 even passed the sniff test
- Total out of pocket cost was $30,925 – but about $20k after rebates.
- Seriously consider doing this when you need to get a new roof. You don’t want to install and then find you need to rip it up to put down a new roof in 5 years. A roof lasts 30 years and panels last 30 years, so it’s good to have them in sync.
- Don’t go with any installer that doesn’t use Enphase micro inverters. A micro inverter makes each panel operate independently from the array. Without them, if one panel is shaded, the whole array is impacted.
- A lot of companies will assume crazy electricity price hikes, I’m assuming 4-5% annual increases, and the companies that felt the most honest also used those figures for their payback period. On that assumption, payback is ~10 years.
Fastest USB flash drives
SSD-tester has a great list of the fastest USB flash drives.
For SSD enclosures, Sabrent Rocket XTRM Thunderbolt line appears to be the high speed favorite of a lot of users.
Jumping cars
The Chinese auto company BYD demonstrates the Yangwang U9 model, an electric supercar with four motors, fast charging, a top speed of 243 mph, and individual wheel drive system. It also doesn’t need a driver. Yangwang U9 also has the ability to leap. Watch carefully, and you’ll see the wheels retract into the body like a low rider, and then suddenly extend while at speed to leap over obstacles or holes in the road.
Perhaps they’re trying to duplicate Mercedez-Benz Maybach bounce that has been turning heads.