For the 50th anniversary of the first cell phone call, CNN put out this fun retro story, which actually does a good job of explaining cell phone technology.
50 years ago, he made the first cell phone call
How Does Shit Work?
- Thread starter JHDK
- Start date
April 3, 1973: First cell phone call.
April 4, 1973: First cell phone robocall announcing "Your auto insurance is about to expire. If you wish to renew it, press 1 now."
April 4, 1973: First cell phone robocall announcing "Your auto insurance is about to expire. If you wish to renew it, press 1 now."
IdRatherBeSkiing
Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
That was probably first greeting on the first auto9-answering service.
In this installment, I can proudly say that this time, I figured out how shit works, and it really saved my ass. The backstory begins with the wild weather we've been having lately. Last weekend was beautiful, but on either end of that was some crazy shit.
Yesterday we got deluged with rain that caused massive flooding in parts of the region. And back on Friday, we had thunderstorms that sat right over us for 10 straight hours. It got really close to us in the early afternoon, and it never moved-on. So even at 10 pm, it still sounded like it was right over us. This image from the Nubble Lighthouse in York made the news:
Our older dog was getting very restless from the thunder, and at one point it looked like she needed to go out, but she didn't want to walk into a downpour out the front door, so I had her go out one of the garage door bays. As the door was going up, there was a big orange flash just above one of the safety sensors near the floor. I guess the sensor wiring met with the sideways rain. The entire garage door system, as well as the garage outlets, went dead. Oh fuck.
I had to disconnect the doors from the track and go to manual mode, but the big question was what blew up? And who did I need to get over here to fix it - the garage door company, or an electrician? How long would that take, and how much would it cost?
At first, I was kind of dumbfounded with the situation. The breaker at the panel never tripped. But Mrs. Scotch pointed out that there was a tripped GFCI outlet behind the storage shelving in the garage. It wouldn't reset, so I figured they wired all the garage outlets through it for GFCI protection, and the electrical burst must've permanently fried the protection circuit. This gave me something to do - replace the GFCI outlet.
I marked the wires going to the old outlet, and wired the new one exactly the same. Then I tried pushing the TEST button, which is supposed to get the RESET button to pop out; and then by pushing it back in, the circuit should start working. But the buttons didn't work. It took me a while, but I figured out why
Someone is fucking with me. Here are the elements to wiring a GFCI outlet:
- Line terminals: Going across the outlet there are a pair of terminals marked LINE;
- Load terminals: Going across the other pair of terminals they are marked LOAD;
- White side: Connect the terminals on one side to the white wires;
- Hot/Black side: Connect the terminals on this side to the black wires;
- Ground terminal: The green screw that gets the bare copper wire.
If you look carefully at the outlets, one is flipped relative to the other. There is no reason to do this, other than to fuck with laymen like me. The wires are incredibly stiff to work with, and it takes an extraordinary effort to get the wires far enough out of the outlet box to work with, and then even more effort to get them back in. And wrapping the wires around the screws is hell. So naturally, I'd want to go through the whole process twice.
Well, after the rewiring, it was able to be reset, and the outlets worked again. In fact, both garage door openers worked, except the one that got hit wouldn't go down unless I held the button on the garage wall, because one of the safety sensors was dead (no LEDs on). I ordered a replacement sensor from Mr. Bezos, and it came in 1 business day. And today I replaced the dead one, and now the whole thing works like new (I would've replaced it yesterday, but it didn't seem wise to work in a monsoon). No service calls, no repair bills. Much more useful than the stuff I do at work.
Yesterday we got deluged with rain that caused massive flooding in parts of the region. And back on Friday, we had thunderstorms that sat right over us for 10 straight hours. It got really close to us in the early afternoon, and it never moved-on. So even at 10 pm, it still sounded like it was right over us. This image from the Nubble Lighthouse in York made the news:
Our older dog was getting very restless from the thunder, and at one point it looked like she needed to go out, but she didn't want to walk into a downpour out the front door, so I had her go out one of the garage door bays. As the door was going up, there was a big orange flash just above one of the safety sensors near the floor. I guess the sensor wiring met with the sideways rain. The entire garage door system, as well as the garage outlets, went dead. Oh fuck.
I had to disconnect the doors from the track and go to manual mode, but the big question was what blew up? And who did I need to get over here to fix it - the garage door company, or an electrician? How long would that take, and how much would it cost?
At first, I was kind of dumbfounded with the situation. The breaker at the panel never tripped. But Mrs. Scotch pointed out that there was a tripped GFCI outlet behind the storage shelving in the garage. It wouldn't reset, so I figured they wired all the garage outlets through it for GFCI protection, and the electrical burst must've permanently fried the protection circuit. This gave me something to do - replace the GFCI outlet.
I marked the wires going to the old outlet, and wired the new one exactly the same. Then I tried pushing the TEST button, which is supposed to get the RESET button to pop out; and then by pushing it back in, the circuit should start working. But the buttons didn't work. It took me a while, but I figured out why
Someone is fucking with me. Here are the elements to wiring a GFCI outlet:
- Line terminals: Going across the outlet there are a pair of terminals marked LINE;
- Load terminals: Going across the other pair of terminals they are marked LOAD;
- White side: Connect the terminals on one side to the white wires;
- Hot/Black side: Connect the terminals on this side to the black wires;
- Ground terminal: The green screw that gets the bare copper wire.
If you look carefully at the outlets, one is flipped relative to the other. There is no reason to do this, other than to fuck with laymen like me. The wires are incredibly stiff to work with, and it takes an extraordinary effort to get the wires far enough out of the outlet box to work with, and then even more effort to get them back in. And wrapping the wires around the screws is hell. So naturally, I'd want to go through the whole process twice.
Well, after the rewiring, it was able to be reset, and the outlets worked again. In fact, both garage door openers worked, except the one that got hit wouldn't go down unless I held the button on the garage wall, because one of the safety sensors was dead (no LEDs on). I ordered a replacement sensor from Mr. Bezos, and it came in 1 business day. And today I replaced the dead one, and now the whole thing works like new (I would've replaced it yesterday, but it didn't seem wise to work in a monsoon). No service calls, no repair bills. Much more useful than the stuff I do at work.
Which thread were we talking about lightning frying home electronics and possibly zapping people?
I did ask one of my electrical engineers about the possibilities. He said frying electronics is pretty reasonably possible. Frying a person through their landline phone is extremely unlikely, but getting fried in the shower is plausible especially if your pipes are metal. Getting fried through a wall just might have little bit of a chance, but he guesses that the lighting would probably have to strike really close to you on the other side of the wall.
He didn't have any research or math that he could support the likelihood. He said he doesn't avoid any of the things that they cautioned about doing during a storm.
I did ask one of my electrical engineers about the possibilities. He said frying electronics is pretty reasonably possible. Frying a person through their landline phone is extremely unlikely, but getting fried in the shower is plausible especially if your pipes are metal. Getting fried through a wall just might have little bit of a chance, but he guesses that the lighting would probably have to strike really close to you on the other side of the wall.
He didn't have any research or math that he could support the likelihood. He said he doesn't avoid any of the things that they cautioned about doing during a storm.
Well done to Mrs. Scotch and you. Seems like from that whole fucking long-ass story, the two of two working together managed to fix it all by yourselves and do an end around on the asshole people who just want to charge you for nothing. maybe I was missing the point there but that's kind of what I took away from that post.
Either way, I'm pretty sure the moral of the story is everything worked out so that's awesome. Scotch well done.
GFCI receptacles are like magnets.
Nobody knows how they fucking work.
Nobody knows how they fucking work.
Does anyone know how a printer works like really?
Pam got mad at me like a year ago and then she randomly mentioned she needed to print stuff for school. So I bought a printer to try to get back on our good side and lure her back over to my place and also because I needed a printer too. Once or twice a year I find myself at FedEx Office to print stuff and I curse in the car the whole way there saying how I should finally buy a printer. So I did but whatever that's besides the point.
Somehow I can take an image on my phone or a document or whatever. I bluetooth (which also is basically just magic air frequencies as far as I know) it over to the printer and then it spits out the exact thing that was on the phone but in a physical form.
It's more or less teleportation.
Also, "fucking magnets, how do magnets work?"
Pam got mad at me like a year ago and then she randomly mentioned she needed to print stuff for school. So I bought a printer to try to get back on our good side and lure her back over to my place and also because I needed a printer too. Once or twice a year I find myself at FedEx Office to print stuff and I curse in the car the whole way there saying how I should finally buy a printer. So I did but whatever that's besides the point.
Somehow I can take an image on my phone or a document or whatever. I bluetooth (which also is basically just magic air frequencies as far as I know) it over to the printer and then it spits out the exact thing that was on the phone but in a physical form.
It's more or less teleportation.
Also, "fucking magnets, how do magnets work?"
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Uh, it's like the pixels that make up a picture you take with a digital camera. The printer has cartridges that have little holes which represent the pixels. And as the cartridge heads get moved across each row of the paper, the proper mix of black, cyan (blue), magenta (red), and yellow gets spit out for each pixel. The Bluetooth thing is no different than a cable, it's just wireless. But everything is wireless, whether it's your cell phone, or a satellite dish, or the WiFi in your home. Hell, radio is wireless, and so is OTA (over-the-air) TV. And those have been around longer than even Channel98.
Laser beams and static electricity
The printer's laser beams your print onto a metal drum. The drum uses static electricity to attract powdered toner to the drum's cylinder. The drum rolls the toner onto the paper in the form of your print. The toner is melted & pressed onto the paper by heat from a fuser as it passes through its rollers.
In related news, Marjorie Taylor Greene has a warning about printers...
The printer's laser beams your print onto a metal drum. The drum uses static electricity to attract powdered toner to the drum's cylinder. The drum rolls the toner onto the paper in the form of your print. The toner is melted & pressed onto the paper by heat from a fuser as it passes through its rollers.
In related news, Marjorie Taylor Greene has a warning about printers...
I bet the inventor of the laser printer was Jewish.
*Channeling my inner Channel98* *ahem*
Gary Starkweather invented the laser printer while working for Xerox in 1969, to my knowledge he was not Jewish, but he did share a last name with a serial killer, Charles Starkweather.
Gary Starkweather invented the laser printer while working for Xerox in 1969, to my knowledge he was not Jewish, but he did share a last name with a serial killer, Charles Starkweather.
Here is how a 3D printer works. Here is how a 3D printer works.
If you have been to a 3D movie and you still have the polarized red-and-cyan glasses, you can use them to read that – but they aren't really necessary.
If you have been to a 3D movie and you still have the polarized red-and-cyan glasses, you can use them to read that – but they aren't really necessary.
3D Printing: What It Is, How It Works and Examples | Built In
3D printing uses computer-aided design (CAD) to create three-dimensional objects. 3D printing involves layering materials to create solid objects.
builtin.com
Yeah it doesn't matter how old it is. Whether it's FM AM radio broadcast, TV or Bluetooth. It's all magic air frequencies.
If you gave me unlimited tools and everything needed to create Bluetooth and all the time in the world to do it, but no instructions whatsoever, I would toil away at it forever. I would be like that Greek dude who pushes the rock up the hill everyday and then it just falls back down. Is that Sisyphus? I forget which one that is.
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You better be careful making jokes like that or all of a sudden there's going to be a hurricane in Maine at the end of March.