Tesla’s design [for Wardenclyffe] used a concept of a charged conductive upper layer in the atmosphere, a theory dating back to an 1872 idea for a proposed wireless power system by Mahlon Loomis. Tesla not only believed that he could use this layer as his return path in his electrical conduction system, but that the power flowing through it would make it glow, providing night time lighting for cities and shipping lanes.

It’s a very Victorian / Steampunk idea that is also kind of horrifying. It’s working off theories of what electricity “is” that we now know aren’t accurate, but if you try to scale them to actually working every building and tree and person is now a lightning rod.

Topsy was also electrocuted at the request of the ASPCA because otherwise she was going to be hanged and it was seen as more humane, which always seems to get left out.

To clarify, Edison wasn’t trying to ‘disprove’ Tesla, the War of the Currents was Edison vs Westinghouse. Tesla didn’t invent AC, he would’ve learned about that in engineering school, he invented the 3 phase motor, which made AC significantly more practical. Tesla had an argument with one of Edison’s managers over pay, not with Edison. Tesla and Edison wrote each other letters later on and generally spoke positively of each other in public.

Tesla’s an interesting guy but unfortunately went off the deep end pretty steeply. His ‘death ray’ was a ‘blueprint’ he sold to his landlord instead of paying rent and is basically gibberish. Wardenclyffe tower was doomed by not understanding wireless transmission and is basically a Bond villain device. Turning the Ionosphere and Mantel in to halves of a capacitor would both take more energy than humans have ever generated and be really really really bad for anything tall and conductive, which would be basically everything with the energies involved.

~2010

I remember them being noticeably louder. Unless you were in a library or a movie theater I don’t know why people cared all that much though.

Have a few ebooks and audiobooks in calibre that have been removed from Amazon/Audible. Nothing dramatic drama wise as far as I can tell other than the license expiring/moving.

It’s nice not having to worry about it.

No no. The rest of the world is constantly out of sorts on what common measurements are. It’s like how monolingual non-English-speaking people are constantly aware they’re not speaking the natural language of English.

/s

I think this is much more likely what they think people will pay. And/or what they think a percentage of people will pay that will cover costs/lost revenue from other users leaving. They have basically zero incentive to make it a 1-to-1 replacement.

YouTube premium

Offline and Background video play are the two main ones they tout. Which have also either been part of youtube previously or easily done for free by third party apps.

Was curious before about setting it up on a Samsung TV, apparently can sideload an app or something? Didn’t look too far into it because Plex ‘just worked’. Will have to revisit that.

Also fun, they rely on quantum mechanics.

Individual “bits” on a SD card are electron buckets that are either “full” (they have an electron) or not. 8 bits to a byte ~1 trillion bytes to a terabyte.

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YMMV but personally it makes everything 1-2 wipes to ‘verify’/dry. Got one in 2020 to lessen TP usage, which it does really well. I think you’re underestimating how strong the stream is (which is variable/controllable) and overestimating how ‘stuck on’ any residue is. Works kinda like a pressure washer where you can’t move/angle the washer (on the affordable ones) so you move the thing being washed for full ‘coverage’.

Regardless, if I got muck on my hands would rather rinse them in water than just wipe them off with a paper towel.

Most free trial subscriptions let you cancel but keep the subscription active through the trial period, Apple included. I normally cancel immediately so if I forget about the thing because I stopped using it my card doesn’t get charged. All these free trials require a card on file so they can just automatically start the subscription.

Apple doing this makes it more likely people will forget to cancel if they don’t care for the product and automatically start the subscription. At which point it is far harder to cancel/get your money back.

It can be, but it’s also an issue of “move fast and break things” doesn’t work in all environments.

You don’t want your bank to have an oops with your checking account, or your medical records to get messed up because someone didn’t code it well enough. If it works and is stable, there needs to be a demonstrable benefit and guarantee that it will keep working when to moving to a newer system. Usually on a budget of “what do you mean you need a budget, just do it”.