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What's that touchscreen in my room?

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Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#431

Post by chefandy »

alexfoo wrote: post #361
chefandy wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering what it was. I only worked on Proviso out of Massachusetts so I never even touched anything that was Netcool proper.

I think I was in Lowell for a few weeks helping out on some App Packs when I heard about the acquisition. Working with JFK? and another guy with a short nickname that escapes me right now. Wedge?

I know who JFK is— rad dude— but Wedge doesn’t ring a bell. I was in support though so my exposure to most of the dev crew was infrequent enough to make a lot of those memory recall threads pretty thin. I went to Dallas in 2006 to get the official Micromuse company training because we were basically still operating as Quallaby when I got hired. It was for… a week I think? Maybe two? Nice folks down there. Plus great barbecue for lunch and great tequila after work. Hard to argue with that.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#432

Post by mcbishop »

ssl-3 wrote: post #87
kelnos wrote: post #53

> There were two strings printed with labels “SSID” and “Pwd”. I froze in horror. They wouldn’t dare. It is literally 3 meter distance. These are embedded devices, they do not need this complexity… Not surprising at all. I would expect that a lot of these are bought as retrofits, and not as a part of new construction. Running wires through existing walls can be annoying, and they don't want to put that barrier to sal…

Also, too: Wifi has inherent galvanic isolation with a wide gap. It isn't strictly necessary, as anyone here obviously knows, but it can be a cost-effective way to isolate the [electrical] pokey-bits from the [meat-based] pokey-bits, and to avoid loops when things go wrong. Wireless has uses beyond just eliminating wires.

> it can be a cost-effective way to isolate

This never occurred to me, thanks.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#434

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

madaxe_again wrote: post #153
kelnos wrote: post #53

> There were two strings printed with labels “SSID” and “Pwd”. I froze in horror. They wouldn’t dare. It is literally 3 meter distance. These are embedded devices, they do not need this complexity… Not surprising at all. I would expect that a lot of these are bought as retrofits, and not as a part of new construction. Running wires through existing walls can be annoying, and they don't want to put that barrier to sal…

>> To be honest, the whole thing was a bit scary, since I was very close to the mains I laughed at this. Changing a fuse is… a bit scary? They literally teach this in elementary school in the U.K. - or they did. As you say, no need to fretfully check the fuse - either it blows or it doesn’t, and you’ll know when it does. At least he didn’t find the receptacle holding a dead fuse, carefully wrapped in the ceremonial a…

I honestly find it pretty sad

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#435

Post by flagrant_taco »

wkjagt wrote: post #275
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend that is diabetic (a number of friends, actually). He has been doing a pretty lousy job of managing his diet. Until his doctor prescribed a monitor for a few weeks. This is a device that looks like a big Band-Aid that you put on your arm, inserting a fine needle under the skin, and communicates with an app on the phone, reporting things like glucose levels. Once he realized the effects of the foods he…

I think even people who don’t have diabetes could benefit from this. Would having access to my own glucose levels throughout the day give me some insights into how what I eat influences my own mood, energy levels etc?

The biggest benefit by far in my opinion is having the opportunity to learn how to listen to one's body again. Most of us aren't very good at recognizing the signals our bodies are sending us, from low blood sugar to adrenaline. Real-time monitors can really help people listen what those more subtle feelings might mean.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#436

Post by autoexec »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #270
jonathanlydall wrote: post #128

A few years ago I came to the realisation that if you want people to be more environmentally conscious or economical in terms of utility consumption, (electricity, water, gas, etc), they need far better data than a single figure per month. You want to be able to see usage to a resolution of at most 5 minutes. That way people can spot things like “having my electric heater on for those couple of hours used more electr…

I have a friend that is diabetic (a number of friends, actually). He has been doing a pretty lousy job of managing his diet. Until his doctor prescribed a monitor for a few weeks. This is a device that looks like a big Band-Aid that you put on your arm, inserting a fine needle under the skin, and communicates with an app on the phone, reporting things like glucose levels. Once he realized the effects of the foods he…

It'd be cool to give something like that a try, but I love that we have so much technology to monitor our bodies but I'd never use anything if it required a cell phone app since you'd have to worry about who else is collected/selling that data. We need more devices that work entirely offline, but they're hard to find because companies know they can make so much more money by collecting/selling your personal data and pushing ads

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#437

Post by autoexec »

verisimi wrote: post #194
failingslowly wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you want people to be more environmentally conscious [...] they need far better data This is one of the reasons all UK homes are being fitted for free with smart meters. (There are others, such as enabling better grid control.) > You want to be able to see usage to a resolution of at most 5 minutes. My one updates every few seconds and has a set of traffic light LEDs at the bottom giving a visible guide to energ…

The consumer element is the sugar to help the masses swallow the pill. If it was just about the consumer, the unit would never report its findings back to base. But blurting back your information is integral to, well, all smart devices. That is the point. Once the government has that info, it will be able to come up with bespoke taxes for you according to what it ordains as fair use. 'Your showers are too long', 'you…

You don't even have to worry about the government (it seems unlikely that most of us will see a "10min showers only" law anytime soon), but it's usually private companies collecting and selling the data and they're happy to use that data against you in any way that they can.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#438

Post by flagrant_taco »

stdbrouw wrote: post #222
jonathanlydall wrote: post #128

A few years ago I came to the realisation that if you want people to be more environmentally conscious or economical in terms of utility consumption, (electricity, water, gas, etc), they need far better data than a single figure per month. You want to be able to see usage to a resolution of at most 5 minutes. That way people can spot things like “having my electric heater on for those couple of hours used more electr…

Your experience also points to the limits of monitoring and subsequent behavioral change, though. I mean, yeah, it might prompt you to start your washing machine a bit earlier or a bit later to align with high production by your solar panels... but how much consumption can you really move around like that, and how many energy hogs can you just decide to not use? If you notice high energy use while cooking, are you go…

> If you notice high energy use while cooking, are you going to start eating more salads instead?

Of course, why wouldn't you? If the assumption isn't that effectively unlimited power is available on demand you adjust use accordingly.

On sunny days with excess power maybe you charge and do laundry. On a stretch of cloudy days you avoid long periods of cooking or using large tools like sellers or air compressors.

Adjusting to our environment rather that chasing convenience is a very reasonable approach to makinh a real dent in reducing our environmental impact.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#439

Post by flagrant_taco »

srmarm wrote: post #279
Angostura wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on Octopus Agile in the UK which offers pricing in 30 minute increments. I'm lucky in that I have a small solar panel setup (3kW) and battery system (5kWh) to go with it. With this battery set-up you really don't need appliance support - most of the advantages are accrued by force-charging the batteries to avoid mains usage at the peak cost period (usually around 5pm-7pm). I also have a few smart plugs which turn…

Your battery usage sounds exactly like the kind of behaviour they're trying to encourage but which aren't apparent to most people without an interest in these things so you left with the energy monitor which is really just a nice bonus to the system rather but is tangible to the lay person. Of course the very real benefits of this can be abused by the gov and there are some conspiracy types using that to push their o…

> Of course the very real benefits of this can be abused by the gov and there are some conspiracy types using that to push their own agenda but on the whole I'm largely positive about the smart grid stuff.

There is usually a bigger of truth behind conspiracy theories. In this case there may be no reason to think the initial goal is to control what people are allowed to use energy for, but smart grid initiatives do open the door for that. The same automated systems that allow individuals to reduce their carbon footprint today could be abused to control people later.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#440

Post by owenversteeg »

rokweom wrote: post #278
xerox13ster wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A 3A fuse would burn out in a fraction of a second if you tried to do that. he bought it on Amazon. He has every reason to be worried that it won't burn out. Louis Rossman did a video[0] where he put 8 amps through a 2 amp fuse and left the room for quite a long time, I think it was several minutes with 8a going through a 2a fuse. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU

In general, people have the wrong idea about how fuses work. They're not supposed to blow at their rated current, they're supposed to withstand it indefinitely , and only blow at much higher currents. Look up any datasheet from a well established manufacturer and see for yourself (like this one from littelfuse: https://littelfuse.com/products/fuses/cartridge-fuses/5x20mm... )

Indeed. There is a slight temperature dependent de-rating, but in general that is correct. To add, Littelfuse is in fact the inventor of the standard automotive blade fuses - they know their fuses if anyone does. I archived a datasheet of some of their blade fuses here [0] - you can see that a 1-amp fuse will run at 1A indefinitely, 2A for 300ms, 3A ~100ms, 4A ~60ms, 5A ~40ms etc. The same datasheet will tell you the temperature derating for their blade fuses is less than 25% at any temperatures you want your electronics to live at.

Another fun fact that is obvious from applying Ohm's Law - you can calculate the current flowing through a fuse by measuring the voltage drop. You can do the math yourself, or there are handy "fuse voltage drop charts" so you don't even have to use a calculator. Yes, this means that with a simple oscilloscope you now have a portable energy meter that requires zero rewiring. Ha, I accidentally brought us full circle :)

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20240121052239/https://m.littelf...

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