I'm sorry in advance if some of my explanations might be a bit confusing or missing some pointers, didn't really do a practice run of it in advance and I was running out of time. But if there are any questions, feel free to ask here, too, I'll be happy to answer :-).
The new RedragonShop Eisa K686 Pro SE keyboard just arrived at my front door a few minutes ago.
This was sent to me as a review unit, so I'll be using it, checking it out and testing it over the next couple of weeks and then posting my review on the #AllThingsTech blog that you can view here:
There is a specific point here in Austin that will disconnect Android Auto/Carplay if you drive past it -- there are entire reddit threads about this phenomenon that go back years.
Supposedly people have reported to FCC but I've never heard of any resolution. I rarely drive in that area but did today and was reminded of the whole thing when my phone, indeed, disconnected.
Now I'm mad because this is one of those things that's going to haunt me forever.
I'm in the market for a really good quality outdoor camera, that is battery operated and wireless.
We want to put it on the side of house in the back so we can monitor things, mostly just to see what kind of wild animals come around the house during the night while we sleep.
I don't want something crazy expensive, but don't really want cheap either. Something that can store a few days worth of video or even cloud options.
The #FBI has finally declassified its files on Nikola Tesla, but questions remain.
By: Sarah Pruitt
Updated: June 1, 2023 | Original: May 3, 2018
"What happened to Tesla’s files from there, as well as what exactly was in those files, remains shrouded in mystery—and ripe for conspiracy theories. After years of fielding questions about possible cover-ups, the FBI finally declassified some 250 pages of Tesla-related documents under the Freedom of Information Act [#FOIA] in 2016. The bureau followed up with two additional releases, the latest in March 2018. But even with the publication of these documents, many questions still remain unanswered—and some of Tesla’s files are still missing.
"Three weeks after the Serbian-American inventor’s death, an electrical engineer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (#MIT) was tasked with evaluating his papers to determine whether they contained 'any ideas of significant value.' According to the declassified files, Dr. John G. Trump reported that his analysis showed Tesla’s efforts to be 'primarily of a speculative, philosophical and promotional character' and said the papers did 'not include new sound, workable principles or methods for realizing such results.'
"The scientist’s name undoubtedly rings a bell, as John G. Trump was the uncle of the 45th U.S. president, Donald J. Trump. The younger brother of Trump’s father, Fred, he helped design X-ray machines that greatly helped cancer patients and worked on radar research for the Allies during World War II. Donald Trump himself cited his uncle’s credentials often during his presidential campaign. 'My uncle used to tell me about nuclear before nuclear was nuclear,' he once told an interviewer.
"At the time, the FBI pointed to Dr. Trump’s report as evidence that Tesla’s vaunted '#DeathRay' particle beam weapon didn’t exist, outside of rumors and speculation. But in fact, the #USGovernment itself was split in its response to Tesla’s technology. Marc Seifer, author of the biography Wizard: The Life & Times of Nikola Tesla, says a group of military personnel at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, including Brigadier General L.C. Craigee, had a very different opinion of Tesla’s ideas.
"'Craigee was the first person to ever fly a jet plane for the military, so he was like the John Glenn of the day,' Seifer says. 'He said, ‘there’s something to this—the particle beam weapon is real.’ So you have two different groups, one group dismissing Tesla’s invention, and another group saying there’s really something to it.'
"Then there’s the nagging question of the missing files. When Tesla died, his estate was to go to his nephew, Sava Kosanovic, who at the time was the Yugoslav ambassador to the U.S. (thanks to his familial connection with Serbia’s most celebrated inventor). According to the recently declassified documents, some in the FBI feared Kosanovic was trying to wrest control of Tesla’s technology in order to 'make such information available to the enemy,' and even considered arresting him to prevent this.
"In 1952, after a U.S. court declared Kosanovic the rightful heir to his uncle’s estate, Tesla’s files and other materials were sent to Belgrade, Serbia, where they now reside in the Nikola Tesla Museum there. But while the FBI originally recorded some 80 trunks among Tesla’s effects, only 60 arrived in Belgrade, Seifer says. 'Maybe they packed the 80 into 60, but there is the possibility that…the government did keep the missing trunks.'
"For the five-part HISTORY series The Tesla Files, Seifer joined forces with Dr. Travis Taylor, an astrophysicist, and Jason Stapleton, an investigative reporter, to search for these missing files and seek out the truth of the government’s views on the 'Death Ray' particle-beam weapon and Tesla’s other ideas.
"Despite John G. Trump’s dismissive assessment of Tesla’s ideas immediately after his death, the military did try and incorporate #particlebeam weaponry in the decades following World War II, Seifer says. Notably, the inspiration of the 'Death Ray' fueled Ronald Reagan’s #StrategicDefenseInitiative, or 'Star Wars' program, in the 1980s. If the government is still using Tesla’s ideas to power its technology, Seifer explains, that could explain why some files related to the inventor still remain classified.
[...]
"Although some of his more sensitive innovations may still be hidden, Tesla’s legacy is alive and well, both in the devices we use every day, and the technologies that will undoubtedly play a role in our future. 'Tesla is the inventor of #wireless technology. He’s the inventor of the ability to create an unlimited number of wireless channels,' Seifer says of the inventor’s lasting impact. 'So radio guidance systems, #encryption, remote control robots—it’s all based on Tesla’s technology.'"
As my #wireless#earbuds were dying, I decided to order a new pair. The new ones required to be paired through an App on #Android. This made me feel very uncomfortable and thus I decided to return them and instead order some basic wireless earbuds that just pair through bluetooth.
Am I the only person bothered by this sort of thing?
YouTube member Svenny McG introduces the world to the Nyko Air Flow controller for the original Xbox. This amusingly over-engineered joypad has a massive fan built into the unit, which draws in air from the bottom and redistributes it through vents built into the handles. What this means for you, the player, is less sweaty...
BlueRetro: Open source and low latency multiplayer Bluetooth controllers adapter for retro video game consoles (github.com)
Saw these on MyLifeInGaming last night and it looks like a cool open hardware project so I thought I'd post it here....
The Nyko Air Flow brings new meaning to the term "Xbox fanboy" (www.youtube.com)
YouTube member Svenny McG introduces the world to the Nyko Air Flow controller for the original Xbox. This amusingly over-engineered joypad has a massive fan built into the unit, which draws in air from the bottom and redistributes it through vents built into the handles. What this means for you, the player, is less sweaty...