We have a lot of swallows (mostly barn and green) on our rural property. Wife is currently battling a pair that wants to build a nest above the back door. Anyway... In the evenings and mornings there might be one dozen or more contstantly flying around between our trees eating insects. Somewhat mesmerizing to watch. Gemini says a single swallow eats about 850 insects per day. Pretty sure that includes a high percentage of mozzies and flies. 850 x 12 = 10,200. Let's assume 50% mozzies (we have lots). So 5,100 fewer per day. Go swallows Go.
Reminds me of a story I read about an overpass in Texas that housed tons of bats. It creeped some folks out, so they disallowed them to roost. Once the bats were gone, the neighborhood was overrun with insects. Did not take long to have the humans get the bats back. Go bats go.
It appears MSFT never wanted to see the image used outside of Windows. Would be interesting to know if had been sold as a stock image by either Westlight or Corbis, and if so what the licensing terms were. Let's assume someone did pay for rights to use when it was available open stock. Did MSFT contact each purchaser and buy their rights ?? Not saying that happened. I have, though, purchased many images over the years via image sellers, and have seen many of those images pulled by the photographer. Called the stock agency to check, and yes my rights are "...in perpetuity".
Been following/hoping for the ultimate battery for... a few decades now I think. Donut reads as a home run of sorts. However... during those decades reading about "new tech" that promised great gains, all ended up in the dustbin of history. I really, really hope Donut is for real. Breath. Not. Holding. HTH, RF
ps: Just ordered two new dog collar lights cause the relatively new ones we had fully discharged while the mutts were outside. Now they wont charge. Jesus I hate LiOn.
When Coffee People was just one shop in Portland, went there every day before work. (B4 internet or phones.) Loved the shop, but they played pretty aggressive rock. Not adverse to it, but first thing in the morning... Anyway was a regular. They played music via a CD player. I noticed they often silently mouthed the lyrics to the background music. Talked them into including a CD I gave them: Cecilia Bartoli "Heroines" (Rosinni). Over time it made it into the regular rotation. I noticed after a while the staff would also silently mouth the "words" being sung. Good times. Long ago.
1000% agree with this. Been using Macs for decades, but now prefer Linux. But Mac hardware is just so much better. Funny note: Sorta just for fun I bought an old Mac Mini ($25) and installed Mac, Windows, and Linux Mint on it. Fun device that is actually pretty useful with a KVM letting me use it seamlessly with my main Mac (also providing a shared external drive). Fingers crossed that the next leader at Apple after Tim has a Nadella-like moment deciding that Linux can be a friend not a foe.
M$FT increased 365 student monthly charges from $7 to nearly $20 per month automatically to cover CoPilot for 2026. Evidently did not inform the college about this. Just sent yearly charges for nearly $200 to gob-smacked parents. We canceled the next day. WTF M$FT.
They say you will get refunded in you cancel within 30 days of the yearly charge. We did so, but I am wondering if M$FT simply and reliably does the refund. Or will I need to spend hours on the phone talking to a M$FT AI Customer Rep trying to get what is promised. Sincerely... I would appreciate others experience. I could do a charge-back in the next few days if the "promised, easy route" is not available. TIA, RF
Daughter in the Material Science Phd progam at major state university with "world class" MS program. Vast majority of her peers are from abroad. Met some. All were the nicest, smartest folks you have ever met. I guess a benefit is that the probability of them leaving may help to increase the teamwork aspect in the program. But that is a guess. Great group of folks who hopefully might help change the world. Went to the recent Phd presentation where recent Phd graduates were honored. Let me tell you... hard to describe how inspiring these folks are. (MS is a pretty hard subject, with amazing applications. You may be thanking one guy who recently got his Phd should you ever get cancer.) Glad our universities welcome talent not demographics. HTH, RF.
I get so frustrated with the damn "are you a human" checks for Google search. My default search tool from Brave. I had gotten in the habit of searching quickly for something while reading a web page, etc. Worked find for years. Now some days I get results directly. Many days, though, I am getting 2-3-4 prompts. Getting pretty used to jumping over to Edge to do my searches now. On Starlink in a rural spot. Not sure why Google has flagged me. Do not care I guess. Should probably set my Brave default to Bing, but I do find Google's AI summaries helpful. Just not enough to do a bunch of "find the bicycle" "find the bus" "find the traffic light" captchas. One less Google search customer is not a concern of theirs methinks.
Welp Gemini got me. Using G3 to improve what I write, generate specific images, and use NotebookLM to dive into some research materials. Tried to do a bit each day with my free credits, but hit the limit too often. G2.5 was not nearly as useful. So I upgraded my baselevel Google workspace plan. Recently spoke to someone who is also using G3 a lot with good results. YMMV re: G3, but Google hooked me, and now I pay more. However I think it is worth it for what I do. G3 is my helpful, nerdy work mate. I never plan to use agenic AI. Not using ChatGPT much if any at all anymore. Sorry Sam.
I agree completely re: mev-13 == optimal solution. But the word "pragmatic" hits me hard. Merv-13 when new/clean start out with pretty restrictive flow. They catch a lot of particles so restriction increases rapidly. At some point the CFM loss means the filter is much less optimal. All the studies I read used new filters, smoke-filled rooms, a day's treatment. It is obviously impractical and very, very expensive to replace a merv-13 filter every few days. There are no reusable merv-13 filters that I could find. If there is a study about merv-13 effectiveness over 30 days vs. merv-8 I would love to see it. I would love to use merv-13, but just cannot get my head around how it is a practical, affordable solution across years and years of use, and let's say a month between filter renewal. Let me know if you have good insights as I am pretty worn out researching this. Thx, RF
I use a bank of eight Noctuas to vent from the rooom with our wood stove to the main hall. Then use more units with two sets of Noctuas ganged to move from the hall to various remote rooms. Been using them for more years than I can remember. Silent, never failed yet. It has been great vs. using house fans (my initial approach). BTW: Our local thrift store has a huge amount of various DC power supplies from donations. I sift thru them to find the right volts/amp combo needed for the ganged units, and generally spend about a dollar per supply. HTH, RF.
Thanks. However note that the site dropped electrostatic filters to simplify things. My understanding is that for non-static-affected particles merv-13 would obviously out perform merv-8 for smaller particles. However the promise of electrostatics is that the materials in the filters create a e-stat field that makes them more efficient re: particles like dust. Certainly the two electrostatic merv-8 filters on my hvac blower capture A LOT of dust (fine particles). Since you clean them in a bathtub by filling the tub and washing the filters thru them, I can attest that there is A LOT of really fine particulates being captured.
The lead line for this article pretty much reflects the reason for my post: "The air purifier marketplace is an apt metaphor for how a particle must feel while being trapped in a filter - at every turn there's a new acronym or regulatory agency or purifier type."
Appreciate any thoughts you all have re: this post.
For years I have been using Noctua NF-P14 fans to circulate air in house to distribute heat in the winter from our wood stove. E.g. cut holes in the walls, and circulate remote rooms using the fans. Has worked great, and the Noctuas have been rock solid.
Recently a daughter moved into a really nice apartment close to a major university/freeway where she will live for the number of years it takes to get a Phd. I got concerned about tire dust. So I am about to start building a really nice air DIY air filter using eight Noctua NF-P14s (about 1000 cfm). XMas present.
I really wanted to use merv-13, but got quite worried about air flow restrictions, plus cost to replace (assume monthly). Instead I went with two 12x24 Carter reusable electrostatic merv-8 filters. I use Carter filters on my house blower, and really like them (just washed them... scary how much junk is in household air). Also, I got the 12x24 direct from Carter for a very low price as they were returns. Note: This is NOT a low cost project, but I just got scared re: merv-13 so went with what I know.
Anyway, the final product will NOT be like this guy's DIY. I will use my somewhat decent woodworking skills to fashion a good looking standing "lamp like" appliance that should look good in most living rooms. I am thinking of going with knotless cedar as I really like working with cedar, and there are some mills here in NW WA where one can go to get such wood (not a HomeDepot specialty).
My question is whether an electrostatic merv-8 filter would do well with tire dust. I am not looking to create "clean room" conditions in the apartment. Just get rid of some of the bad stuff. I am very weak re: understanding filters, mervs, etc. APPRECIATE any insights. Thx, RF
We were not in the service bay. Our Maverick was outside. The Service Guy said they had to download the update to their servers. From there it was a quick trip to the service bay for the updates. That is the reason I had asked in the first place. I could see the Mav outside. Not blaming the SG. I am sure it as not the Dealership, but someone at Ford Corporate??? Not so sure.
Also: I made sure we were the first appointment, arriving at 7:45am for my 8am reservation. Soon another guy was behind me. One thing I have learned it to always schedule "the first time in the AM" if you do not need immediate service.
Edit: In retrospect, they had turned on the OTA system in the Mav. So maybe when the SG said it was downloading, I thought "to a server" but maybe it was directly to the Mav. As I noted, was not a big issue. Still not using the OTA features.
Not just the ads. They are likely tracking your location, and drive events. These can be sold to your insurance company who may adjust your rates, or even drop you if they consider your driving patterns to be risky. When we got our Ford Maverick, first thing I did was disable this. Kudos to Ford for making this easy.
Downside is that we got a recall notice about the software for the backup camera needing an update. I scheduled an appointment, and it took over 3 hours. Asked the service guy why it was taking so long to flash to software, and he said our system needed an update because we had not enabled over-the-air connection with Ford which allows this to be done in the background. Evidently the download speed for this was incredibly slow according to the SG, so it took over two hours before our Mav was current, and they could apply the backup camera fix. Note: I was very suspicious about this claim. I thought it was more likely we were being purposely held captive in the service waiting area -- which has a big screen constantly running Ford ads. I guess that is OK. I had my Kindle, and was into a great book at the time, so I actually was not too put out.
I have had a FOSS web app for learning arithmetic for quite a few years. I occasionally review it, and make changes. Each year Chrome and Safari both nip at the edges of what allows a PWA to be OK. No one really cares until one has to write documentation helping folks install the PWA and avoid issues that did not affect the PWA a few years ago. I mean really, are Tim and Sundar really that afraid ?? I guess so. They have dozens of millions on the line. Capitalism... gotta luv it.
We live in Western WA. Mostly Rufous and Anas. Used to feed them, but had to stop as the battles over the feeder got very scary. Plus if the feeder was empty (it was located outside our kitchen window), they would hover outside the window staring at us. Lots of guilt when this happend. In the winter the Rufous somehow fly to Mexico. The Anas somehow make it thru the winter. Then the Rufous return, and the territorial battles start again. Here is a key for life, "Do not piss off a hummingbird."
I recently (last week) used Nano Banana Pro3 for some specific image generation. It was leagues ahead of 2.5. Today I used it to refine a very hard-to-write email. It made some really good suggestions. I did not take its email text verbatim. Instead I used the text and suggestions to improve my own email. Did a few drafts with Gemini3 critiqueing them. Very useful feedback. My final submission about "..evaluate this email..." got Gemini3 to say something like "This is 9.5/10". I sorta pride myself on my writing skills, but must admit that my final version was much better than my first. Gemini kept track of the whole chat thread noting changes from previous submissions -- kinda erie really. Total time maybe 15 minutes. Do I think Gemini will write all my emails verbatim copy/paste... No. Does Gemini make me (already a pretty good writer) much better. Absolutely. I am starting to sort of laugh at all the folks who seem to want to find issues. Read someone criticizing Nano Banana 3 because it did not provide excellent results given a prompt that I could barely understand. Folks that criticize Gemini3 because they cannot copy/paste results. Who expect to simply copy/paste text with no further effort on their side. Myself, I find these tools pretty damn impressive. I need to ensure I provide good image prompts. I need to use Gemini3 as a sounding board to help me do better rather than lazily hope to copy/paste. My experience... Thanks Google. Thanks OpenAI (I also use ChatGPT similarly -- just for text). HTH, NSC
Just last night I was using Gemini "Fast" to test its output for a unique image we would have used in some consumer research if there had been a good stock image back in the day. I have been testing this prompt since the early days of AI images. The improvement in quality has been pretty remarkable for the same prompt. Composition across this time has been consistent. What I initially thought was "good enough" now is... fantastic. Just so many little details got more life-like w/ each new generation. Funnily enough, our images must be 3:2 aspect ratio. I kept asking GFast to change its square Fast output to 3:2. It kept saying it would, but each image was square or nearly square. GFast in the end was very apologetic, and said it would alert about this issue. Today I read that GPro does aspect ratios. Tried the same prompt again burning up some "Thinking" credits, and got another fantastically life-like image in 3:2. We have a new project coming up. We have relied entirely on stock or in some cases custom shot images to date. Now, apart from the time needed to get the prompts right whilst meeting with the client, I cannot see how stock or custom images can compete. I mean the GPro images -- again which is very specific to an unusual prompt -- is just "Wow". Want to emphasize again -- we are looking for specific details that many would not. So the thoughts above are specific to this. Still, while many faults can be found with AI, Nano Banana is certainly proven itself to me.
edit: I was thinking about this, and am not sure I even saw Pro3 as my image option last night. Today it was clearly there.
Surprised no one has mentioned that Private Equity has rolled-up most HVAC operations. Not sure about Dallas, but what he describes certainly suggests that the Dallas market is controlled by PE. E.g.
Not disagreeing re: vision for quality software and new products. However this segmentation is pretty good. Most everyone buying a Macbook today wants "M" performance. Most everyone who does not care about "benchmarks" and is price sensitive (likely a surprisingly large number of folks), is put off by MB pricing. So you gimp the processor, lower the price, take a bit of a margin hit on net profit for hware, but capture lots of sales and canabalize virtually no "M" sales. Plus I would guess the Apple has done enough market analysis to understand that the folks buying this new Macbook are likely to want to subscribe to something Apple offers which will offset the lower hware margin.
Used it to capture respondent data for a unique research tool we run. Got good results. Had to custom-code all the server/client interactions to handle MTurks' requirements. Went well. Still use the content from MTurk users as demo of "...how to get unique insights from your consumers". As things progressed, stopped using it. However all our project setup/server/client code still have variables/functions that start with mturk_. Not causing any issues, so there they sit. I feel guitly every time I think about not having cleansed the code. BTW: Just added new custom code for Prolific. Hoping to test their respondents this week. However Prolific's affect on the code was nothing compared to interacting with MTurk's servers.
I had a 20 minute appointment with a doctor at Kaiser in WA. I thought I had set up a free, yearly wellness meet. However due to Epic's really epically bad UI (they provide Kaiser's online presence), I had setup a standard meeting. My bill was nearly $1,700 discounted to $200 which I was fully responsible for as I/We (family) had not yet reached our deductable limit. Funny things: 1) Doctor wanted me to approve the use of AI to take notes of the meeting so she would not have to (I agreed). 2) The one issue I cited caused my doctor to say (pretty close paraphrase), "I have an idea what the problem is." I asked what it was, but the appointment was over so was advised to setup another meeting. I decided to keep working on it myself as I am pretty sure it is a stiff-ligament issue. Thanks Doc. Also: I like Kaiser overall. This one doc (who is not my regular one) was not as asset to Kaiser imho.