I didn't realize it takes hours for a tsunami to traverse Puget sound. https://www.facebook.com/share/1CxTLwCxnz/
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
BYD EV for $7800
Interesting video explaining all the people losing money on cheap EV's from China, notably factory workers enduring "slavery-like" conditions, and billions of Chinese government subsidies.
Have they started selling Chinese EV's in Canada? I heard the PM is allowing 49000 of them in under a reduced tariff (NPR story )
Friday, August 14, 2026
A better life boat system
https://youtube.com/shorts/fDe_ya9VZcI?is=gdrGX-ETbhTQEA8h
This flexible escape shaft and self-inflating raft seem a lot gentler than the traditional design, and, as they point out, can deploy even if the shop is leaning at any angle.
Tuesday, August 11, 2026
Claude learns your skill and copies your workflow
This could be a really good time saver... until it made a mistake and went rogue. I would be reticent to give AI complete control over my files like this...
Sunday, August 9, 2026
How GPS works
To get accurate position, the satellites are "told" their position from earth stations that locate relative to quasars. That enable accounting for tectonic movement.
Signals from the satellite are 50 watts, so only a quadrillionth of a watt reaches your phone - easily drowned out by jamming signals.
The signal from the satellite gets distorted on the ionosphere, adding several meters of uncertainty. Wackadoodle car propulsion idea
A very thorough discussion of the physics of a wacky compressed air vehicle that slides the wheels back and forth. He even builds a 3-D printed model of the idea. He also explains why rapid cooling as air expands is the downfall of previous compressed-air-driven vehicles, and the volume of air required to achieve range.
https://youtu.be/WvePFAgMECo?is=4tptWfWhdXPOq3hB
Saturday, August 8, 2026
Thursday, August 6, 2026
Using stored terrain data to locate position
As humans, we navigate by recognizing landmarks. This system recognizes everything from buildings and rivers to mountain peaks to determine position when GPS is jammed.
Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Electric Nissan RV with 400 mile range
87 kilowatt-hour battery pack...real wood cabinets and countertops, a 90-liter refrigerator, and induction stove...Truma-Eezy auxiliary heater...$103,479...doesn't seem to be coming to the U.S.
Are 2nd babies born at a different time of year?
A highly popular strategy among second-time parents is to deliberately wait until August or September to conceive. This ensures they experience the bulk of their pregnancy during autumn and winter, allowing them to wear comfortable layers and avoid peak summer heat entirely while heavily pregnant.
First vs. Second: Across the general population, a massive volume of first-born conceptions happens spontaneously during late fall and winter holiday seasons, leading to an involuntary influx of late-summer births.
Intentional timeline: Because second-time parents are more experienced with tracking cycles and managing family timelines, they are far more likely to practice deliberate contraceptive spacing to override seasonal patterns and force a preferred birth month.
Energy conservation: Couples take into account that managing a first-born's outdoor summer activities while simultaneously experiencing third-trimester exhaustion and heat stress is structurally unsustainable. This makes planning for a winter or spring birth much more appealing the second time around.
Your customer service chat bot puts the company on the hook
Air Canada's chatbot lied to a customer. Then the airline argued in court that the bot was on its own — it didn't go well.
Jake booked a flight after his grandmother died. Before buying, he asked Air Canada's website chatbot about bereavement fares. The bot told him he could book now and apply for the discount within 90 days.
So he did.
Then Air Canada rejected the refund. Because that policy the chatbot described? It didn't exist. The bot made it up.
Jake took them to a tribunal. Air Canada's defense was that the chatbot is a "separate legal entity" responsible for its own actions. In plain English, the airline argued it shouldn't be on the hook for what its own bot said.
The tribunal was not amused. The ruling basically said a chatbot is still just part of your website. You're responsible for everything on it, whether it comes from a page or a bot. Air Canada paid up.
The lesson isn't "don't use chatbots." It's simpler and scarier than that: whatever your AI says, you said. There is no version where the bot is the one who messed up. The customer doesn't see a bot. They see your company making a promise.
A lot of owners are racing to automate customer-facing stuff right now to save a few bucks. Fine. But every automated word that goes out under your name is a word you're legally and morally on the hook for.
If a human employee promised something wrong, you'd own it. The bot is no different. It's just faster at being wrong.
https://www.facebook.com/share/19BJsMwjiz/
Jake booked a flight after his grandmother died. Before buying, he asked Air Canada's website chatbot about bereavement fares. The bot told him he could book now and apply for the discount within 90 days.
So he did.
Then Air Canada rejected the refund. Because that policy the chatbot described? It didn't exist. The bot made it up.
Jake took them to a tribunal. Air Canada's defense was that the chatbot is a "separate legal entity" responsible for its own actions. In plain English, the airline argued it shouldn't be on the hook for what its own bot said.
The tribunal was not amused. The ruling basically said a chatbot is still just part of your website. You're responsible for everything on it, whether it comes from a page or a bot. Air Canada paid up.
The lesson isn't "don't use chatbots." It's simpler and scarier than that: whatever your AI says, you said. There is no version where the bot is the one who messed up. The customer doesn't see a bot. They see your company making a promise.
A lot of owners are racing to automate customer-facing stuff right now to save a few bucks. Fine. But every automated word that goes out under your name is a word you're legally and morally on the hook for.
If a human employee promised something wrong, you'd own it. The bot is no different. It's just faster at being wrong.
https://www.facebook.com/share/19BJsMwjiz/
Sunday, August 2, 2026
Truck reversing
Wow, some clever driving! Especially with all the idiots trying to go around his truck in tight spaces.
Friday, July 31, 2026
Dramatic rescue
Can you imagine going through this? I can't believe he was still conscious when they picked him up.
https://youtu.be/GBLQEnYy_68?is=EKbAk0cgTKttUpza
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
What a cute story! Skagit County teens and seniors swap life, tech skills
...putting teenagers and senior citizens in a room together so they could learn from one another.
The event, called “Ageless Intelligence,” took place in Sedro-Woolley where a banquet hall was set up like a science fair. There were booths with titles like, “How to do a reverse image search,” and, “What’s a large language model?”
Around 30 seniors between the ages of 60 and 85 mingled with more than 100 16- and 17-year-olds.
...a giant skills swap. The teenagers gave presentations about AI and technology. The seniors gave presentations about animal rescue and how to fix a flat tire.
[A senior] explained the art of writing a letter — by hand.
...they almost had to cancel the event because they couldn’t get enough seniors to enroll.
“I saw a different side of the teenagers. They were polite, caring, interested in each other and talking to older people."
https://www.kuow.org/education/2026-05-28/teens-seniors-swap-life-and-tech-skills
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