posts Archives - Lon Seidman & Lon.TV Blog

No, the FCC Did Not End ATSC 1.0 Broadcasts Today

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 18:30:15 +0000

The FCC’s Media Bureau put out a notice on September 2nd (DA 25-789) about the ongoing transition to ATSC 3.0, also known as NextGenTV. There really isn’t anything new in this order that wasn’t already in place from 2017 when ATSC 3.0 broadcasts first began.

One of the key points is around the requirement that full-power and Class A stations continue to provide their main channel in the current ATSC 1.0 format if they switch their primary signal over to ATSC 3.0. This is meant to protect viewers who don’t yet have compatible equipment.

The rules allow an application to be processed on an expedited basis if a station keeps at least 95 percent of its existing audience covered with an ATSC 1.0 simulcast. What the Bureau clarified is that it will continue to use detailed terrain-based coverage analysis to determine whether that 95 percent threshold is met.

For stations that can’t quite hit that 95 percent mark, the notice emphasizes that their applications won’t be ignored. The Bureau says it will still review them on a case-by-case basis, weighing factors such as whether viewers in the “loss area” are still served by another station carrying the same network, or whether the station offers mitigation like providing converter boxes.

The Bureau also highlighted some of the flexibility already built into the rules. Stations are only required to simulcast their main channel in ATSC 1.0, not additional sub-channels. The “substantially similar” programming requirement applies only to that main stream, which gives broadcasters room to experiment with new ATSC 3.0 features such as interactive services or higher-resolution video. Stations can also partner with more than one host station to meet the 95 percent coverage goal. Low-power and translator stations aren’t required to simulcast at all, though they can volunteer to host other stations’ signals.

It’s important to note that this notice doesn’t create new obligations or change the simulcast rules. Instead, it’s meant to give broadcasters more certainty about how the FCC staff will interpret and process applications. In other words, this is more about guidance and reassurance than a firm new policy.

Look for a draft order that will more specifically spell out the rules for the cutover – including whether or not DRM will be allowed. Stay tuned!

More Examples of Facebook Being a Cesspool

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 11:47:28 +0000

A couple of years ago I did a video about how Meta/Facebook operates a cesspool where they look the other way as international criminals exploit unsuspecting users on their platform.

Here’s another example: Take a look at any public Facebook post of a car wreck or other local tragic event and you’ll often find posts like this:

This of course will link you to a scammer account who will do who knows what to a person’s account or privacy.

As the dutiful netizen that I am, I decided to report this Facebook to see what happens.

It took over a week for them to review this, but guess what? Facebook’s moderators allow the scam post, and its author to continue exploiting people on the platform. What’s crazy is how formulaic these posts are and how easy it is (conceivably) to block them programmatically. But they allow this to persist.

Why is that? The answer is shareholders.

Facebook uses a metric called “family daily active people” to report to shareholders how many active users are on their platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, etc). They likely have hit critical mass for new users, so the activities of active users are now the metric.

On this post of a recent tragic accident, you’ll find 8 of these spam posts out of 24 posts total – over 30%! Given the volume of spam traffic I see, it’s probably not out of the realm of possibility that scam accounts are likely a significant portion of the “family daily active people.” A more aggressive effort to remove them would eat into a key shareholder metric.

With no consequences and money to lose, why deal with the problem? For them it’s far more profitable to look the other way. Just like UPS is doing with the recent scam I uncovered coming from one of their local retail outlets.

Email Newsletters Updated!

admin — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 12:44:20 +0000

I’ve updated the look of my email newsletters! My newsletters up until now were hacked together using a combination of PHP, RSS feeds, and a lot of shoehorning. They didn’t look bad all things considered, but some of the automation wasn’t working well enough for me.

If you’re receiving this via email you’re already subscribed. If you’re not, you can sign up for the “digest” version that sends out an email every time I upload a new video, or the “weekly” version that comes out on Sunday mornings.

So this weekend I embarked on a project using my new favorite self hosted app, N8N. I can now take the process from a bunch of RSS feeds and turn it into a really nice looking newsletter with minimal intervention. I had ChatGPT design me a template based on my logo – I think it did a great job!

The output goes right into my self-hosted email blaster Sendy (compensated affiliate link). All I need to do from here on out is click on the send button in Sendy to get my emails out. It could actually send it automatically but I like to take a look for safety purposes. Sendy is great because it outputs email via Amazon SES saving me hundreds of dollars a year.

I did a video a few years ago about how self-hosted content process. It was largely unchanged up until now so I’ll probably do an update soon. N8N is a super cool platform once you figure it out.

Let me know what you think of the new newsletter!

My Crazy Travel Weekend on Amtrak and JetBlue..

admin — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 13:27:25 +0000

Had a pretty crazy travel experience this week. Headed down to DC for a meeting at the FCC on Amtrak. The ride is long but when factoring the hour drive to the airport, security, flight, etc. Amtrak from Old Saybrook is often less time. That is, of course, if the train is running on time.

It took us 6 HOURS to get out of Connecticut due to an engine with stuck brakes. They brought in another engine after an hour or two but didn’t detach the one with stuck brakes, so stuck we stayed. Eventually they limped us to Stamford where they just crammed all of us on the train behind us for the 5 hour ride to DC.

Then we got hit with some communications issues around Philly which added to the journey. All in took about 15 hours to get to my hotel. Even the cafe car was out of service.

The meeting was productive and then I took what should have been a quick Jetblue flight to Nantucket to meet up with the family for our annual weekend here. Quick in theory..

We sat on the taxiway for two hours before returning to the gate due to a northeast US air traffic control logjam. We finally took off three hours after our scheduled departure time. Just as we were on approach to Nantucket the fog rolled in and we were diverted to Boston!

We touched down at BOS at around 9:45 p.m. With Nantucket’s tower closing at 10:00 p.m. there was no way that plane was turning around. Jetblue staff were nowhere to be found in the airport as they probably knew there was a planeload of angry passengers coming their way. I booked the cheapest room I could find on hotels.com and headed off. I got there around 11 p.m. – 7 hours after I first boarded the plane.

I called JetBlue and their foreign call center told me to go back the airport and talk to customer service. No joke! Yet somehow they magically could fix the problem after I demanded to speak with a supervisor. They booked me on a flight the following morning and finally arrived around noon yesterday.

At least my meeting went well!

The silver lining in all of this is that Amtrak refunded my full fare unsolicited (and will provide a voucher for future travel) and JetBlue covered my Boston room, ground transportation and my uber eats deliveries. While both organizations responded well after the fact, a more proactive customer-first approach at the time these incidents were occurring would have cost them a lot less money.

Dissecting a Well Crafted Creator Scam Email

admin — Sun, 11 May 2025 13:14:48 +0000

Creators need to stay constantly alert for channel-killing scams. Here’s a great example of why: I received a very well-crafted scam email from ‘Corsair’ last night. It used assets from Corsair’s actual domain and closely resembled the legitimate emails I’ve received from them in the past — both as a creator and a customer.

On the surface it looks very legit, in fact the “sender,” Darren Toy, does work for them in marketing. But let’s dig deeper..

The first warning sign was this:

The email wasn’t coming directly from Corsair but through “modernitgen dot com.” I loaded up a cloud VM and visited the website and found it to be a tech school located in India. The school likely has a compromised SMTP server that the scammers were able to exploit or somebody on the inside is in cahoots with them there.

You’ll also note in the first image that the reply-to doesn’t go to Darren Toy at an official Corsair corporate email address but rather some random Gmail that anyone could put together.

This is just another warning for creators to scrutinize every single request like this. Gmail passed this email straight through because the sending mail server, while likely compromised, was nonetheless trusted at some point.

What would have happened next? Most likely “Darren” would have sent over some malware disguised as a contract that would attempt to steal my login cookies and do to me what happened to Linus Tech Tips back in 2023.

If you’ve ever received a poorly crafted scam email you are likely on a list that scammers use and pass around. The smarter ones put together much more believable versions like what I received here.

I heavily scrutinize every email like this that comes through, going so far as selecting Gmail’s “show original” option to dig through the email headers to make sure it is a legitimate communication. 9 times out of 10 it’s not.

Unfortunately mobile email apps lack some of what we need to scrutinize these emails. My suggestion is to never reply from your phone no matter how juicy the offer is. Get back to your desk and do your due diligence before communicating with a scammer.

I filed a response to the NAB’s ATSC 3.0 transition request

admin — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 17:38:06 +0000

As I reported on the other day, the nation’s broadcasters are hoping the FCC will finally set a date to transition to the new ATSC 3.0 standard. This of course comes with restrictive DRM that makes it difficult for consumers to tune into over the air television the way they do today.

Here’s what I filed in response:

Dear FCC Commissioners,

It is clear from both the Future of Television report and the recent request for rulemaking from the NAB that the availability of ATSC 3.0 tuners is the major barrier to this transition. Broadcasters seem to believe that setting a firm transition date while simultaneously pulling most of their programming off ATSC 1.0 will magically create a market for tuning devices.

The real reason for this tuner availability problem is that broadcasters have implemented a broken DRM encryption standard that barely works—even for early adopters like me. Before this encryption experiment, it was possible to tune and decode ATSC 3.0 signals on a variety of hardware and operating systems.

With encryption, however, broadcasters now limit tuning boxes to pre-approved tuners running Google’s operating system and encryption technologies. The NAB’s claims that Google is destroying their industry ring hollow when they have essentially created a monopoly for Google in tuning over-the-air signals.

Currently, I have an HDHomeRun “gateway” tuner connected to a single antenna, which delivers ATSC 1.0 and unencrypted ATSC 3.0 content to all of my televisions, computers, and other devices on my home network—regardless of manufacturer. DRM, however, will require consumers to make individual antenna connections to each television and purchase a Google-powered standalone tuner. How is this progress?

Broadcasters will argue that their streaming competitors also use DRM. This is true. However, those streaming services ensure that their apps are available across multiple platforms. Even Apple—well known for its closed ecosystem—makes its Apple TV+ app available on nearly all streaming devices.

A look at Amazon sales data for “ATSC 3.0 tuners” shows that consumers are choosing gateway products at a rate of 20 to 1 over standalone tuners. Why? Because purchasing a single device that integrates with their existing TVs and set top boxes just makes sense. Yet broadcasters want to restrict this option, forcing consumers to either buy more hardware or push them back into a subscription service where they can collect retransmission fees.

While broadcasters have assured this commission that their self-imposed “broadcast encoding rules” allow for in-home recording and gateway use, what they didn’t disclose is that these encoding rules—created entirely by them—only apply to ATSC 3.0 broadcasts that are simulcast on ATSC 1.0.

The broadcast industry’s reliance on retransmission fees will ultimately bankrupt them, as this business model defies basic economic principles. As demand for their product declines, they continue to raise prices. Comcast was charging me $36 per month in pass-through retransmission fees right before I cut the cord!

You will hear from many major corporations in the coming weeks, but I believe it is equally important to listen to the thousands of consumers who have filed on this docket. The truth is that DRM is harmful. The tuning solutions that broadcasters have approved are subpar, expensive, and have stifled innovation—preventing more tuners from reaching consumers by now. ATSC 3.0 offers significant improvements in signal quality that we should all be able to benefit from. But allowing broadcasters to encrypt their signals—on our publicly owned airwaves—in an effort to keep consumers locked into predatory retransmission fees is not the right path for this transition.

Broadcasters already have the full weight and power of the U.S. government to combat and prevent signal piracy. DRM does nothing to prevent piracy but significantly restricts law-abiding consumers from accessing the airwaves that we have granted broadcasters to use for free.

If they want a set transmission date, give it to them—with the requirement that these signals be delivered to the public without encryption or restriction, just as they are now.

For more, you see my prior reports here. You can add your voice to this effort by filing with the FCC yourself! Instructions are here.

Loading a 30 Year Old SimCity 2000 Save Game File

admin — Sun, 29 Sep 2024 00:08:48 +0000

I am a digital packrat. I have a blob of data that I started way back in the early 80s on my Apple II. It includes Bank Street Writer files from elementary school, and nearly all of my school assignments throughout middle school, high school and college. It also includes at least one SimCity save game file I made way back in March, 1994.

I was eager to see if the file would still boot up. I likely made it on my Mac PowerBook that I got in December of 1993 so I figured a Mac emulator would be a good place to start.

There’s a quick turn-key solution out there called Infinite Mac that lets you boot up a number of different classic Mac configurations in your web browser! They even have a copy of SimCity 2000 already installed. I demoed the emulator in this video from a few years ago:

Initially SimCity did not recognize the file and I couldn’t open it up. But what likely happened was that at some point in the 90’s I copied the file onto my Windows PC for safe keeping and it lost some of its embedded file information. Enter the Mac utility ResEdit that helps manually assign those values.

To figure out what those values were I created a new city and saved it and got the “type” and “creator” for that working file. Once I entered the values in the old file I reloaded SimCity 2000 and voila!

My city is a bit of a mess as it kind of just grew over time without doing much urban planning to get it up and running. I’ve had fun this weekend trying to improve the underground utilities and transportation systems, but I do think the bulldozer will be needed soon to get everything whipped into shape.

The early 90’s were a golden era for PC gaming. PCs of course had the advantage of significantly more storage space and processing power vs. the cartridge-based console titles at the time. But there was more to it than just greater system resources. Developers came up with fun and inventive new gaming concepts. We were blessed with Sierra’s adventure games (including talkie CD-ROMs), awesome flight sims, space simulators like Wing Commander and X-Wing, and of course the dawn of first person shooters with Wolfenstein 3D and Doom.

Check out The Lon Report!

admin — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 01:55:46 +0000

Inspired by Dave Winer (the father of RSS) I have been “link blogging” for the last three years. My links get posted to links.lon.tv which is powered by the open source tool “Shaarli.”

I chose Shaarli because it’s a very low impact PHP app that can run on my shared webhost. It also provides an RSS feed of my links. From that RSS feed I then push out individual posts to X, BlueSky, Threads, Facebook, Mastodon and a few others too. I use Zapier to automate the process and Buffer to space out my posts so I’m not too “noisy” when I dump a bunch of links into the linkblog.

But I’ve never been happy with the way Shaarli looks.. It’s just blah.. Shaarli does have a neat daily digest output but I wanted to have something that could consolidate multiple days of links on a single page. Enter the “Lon Report!”

Yes this looks a lot like the “Drudge Report” but as far as linkblogs go the Drudge style is the gold standard. Unlike Drudge’s site which is largely edited by hand, mine is totally dynamically generated from the Shaarli RSS feed.

It takes the first link and makes that the main headline, pulling the thumbnail image from the article. Once a new link gets posted the headline position will switch to the new link and the prior headline will become the first link on the left hand column. Each new link pushes everything down. The last link on the third column is the last link in the RSS feed.

I also have it pull thumbnails for the middle links on the left and right hand columns along with the first link in the center column.

When you visit the LonReport you’ll notice that the page loads incredible fast. That’s because it’s running off a single HTML file that gets rendered via a Python script. The images are not stored on my server but pulled from the source.

I initially tried to have it all run in PHP but it was pretty sluggish and I didn’t want to add the complexity of coding in a caching system. So instead I have a script that runs on my Synology NAS every 15 minutes and uploads the HTML file to my web host.

The craziest part? The Python code was whipped up in an afternoon via Google’s Gemini Advance. It actually worked on the first execution! Google’s AI is very good at coding and it was pretty amazing to see how quickly this thing came together. Even more amazing is that I gave it a screenshot of the Drudge report and asked it to build the site around that image.

I don’t plan to spend much time on this but I finally have a linkblog that I’m happy with (for now). I’ll probably tweak things every so often so stay tuned!

Expanding my Footprint to Threads & Bluesky

admin — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 19:13:56 +0000

I have a pretty extensive behind-the-scenes automation system set up for posting my YouTube videos and Linkblog to a number of popular social media platforms like X, Facebook and Mastodon. I am now adding Threads and Bluesky.

I’m adding these two new platforms because they are now supported on Buffer which is one of the ways I automate the process of distributing my links. I use Zapier to grab my RSS feeds and the magic happens from there.

Third Time’s a Charm for ARM PCs? My hands-on first impressions.

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 12:33:29 +0000

Microsoft and its partners have started shipping CoPilot+ PCs equipped with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite ARM processors. Microsoft and Qualcomm claim that these new chips are finally comparable to the ARM-based Apple silicon processors found in Macs. This is promising since, to date, the best-performing ARM-based Windows PCs in my experience are Macs!

I attended a Lenovo press event in New York City yesterday and got some hands on time with two of their new devices: the Yoga Slim 7x and the new ThinkPad T14s Gen 6. The Yoga is pictured below:

In addition to the battery longevity benefits ARM processors have always brought to Windows, these new PCs promise to add some limited on-device generative AI functionality – most of it centered around image generation.

One demo involved a new feature being added to Microsoft Paint that allows the user to draw a rudimentary image and then have the on-board AI generate a much nicer looking version in a number of different styles.

The user still has to enter a text prompt although the AI will take into account the placement of objects in the original image. The photo above doesn’t show that happening, but I did see it correctly place the tree and sun in subsequent image generations. The Windows image viewer also brings similar generative features to images and photos.

Co-pilot+ PCs will get additional OS-level webcam controls that allow for adding realtime filters and a few other neat effects not found on other PCs.

According to a Microsoft blog post, additional on-device AI features are available from third party developers including some generative text capabilties. I did find it odd that Microsoft did not include any generative text features at the OS level like Google and Apple recently announced in their operating systems.

I also saw a short demo of the now infamous Microsoft Recall feature that takes snapshots of user activity and provides the ability to quickly go back to documents, applications and websites with a simple plain english query. Clearly this was going to be the centerpiece of the new embedded AI features but security concerns forced Microsoft to hold off on its release for now.

Without Recall the AI features are a bit underwhelming and currently limited only to these new Snapdragon Elite X PCs. Intel and AMD both have embedded NPUs on their new processors so over time Copilot+ features will likely make their way across the Windows ecosystem which will be necessary for widespread developer adoption.

While these AI features will all execute on device, user queries do apparently get sent to Microsoft to prevent inappropriate use. When I get these machines in for review I plan to explore exactly what type of monitoring will be going on with them.

From a performance perspective the new Snapdragon X Elite feels like a nice step up from the ARM PCs I’ve looked at previously. While the prior attempts delivered great battery life, performance was lackluster especially for applications that were not specifically written for the ARM architecture. This will be another area we’ll explore in my upcoming reviews.

You can see a lineup of CoPilot+ PCs at Best Buy (compensated affiliate link). Most are selling at or above $1,000. Both HP and Lenovo are sending me loaner units to play with. Stay tuned!

Short WhatNot Mini PC Auction Wednesday, June 12th

admin — Sun, 09 Jun 2024 15:39:58 +0000

I will be hosting a short live Mini PC auction this Wednesday, June 12th at 12:30 p.m. eastern time on WhatNot! Four mini PCs will be listed at $1 starts and you do not need to be present to get the winning bid. If you don’t already have a WhatNot account, click here to get $15 off your first order (affiliate link).

You can find the auction on Whatnot by clicking here. If you are using their mobile app you can pre-bid ahead of the auction. If your pre-bid remains the high bid you’ll win it. I have also posted the current retail prices of these Mini PCs. Here’s what will be available:

Beelink SER7 Ryzen Mini PC
Minix NEO Z100-0db Mini PC
Kamrui Mini PC
GMKTec M5 Mini PC (affiliate link)

There will also be a few giveaway items for those tuning in.

I’m going to do shorter but more frequent shows rolling forward each based on a specific type of product vertical (e.g. mini PCs, video production, etc). Weekend shows will be a little longer with more items when I have time.

As always there are other items available at my store too for immediate purchase. I just added a Blue Sona microphone and HP Sprocket Select printer.

I met William Shatner and an Astronaut at the Premiere of “You Can Call Me Bill!”

admin — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 13:43:31 +0000

A big thank you to my decades-long friend Antonio Peronace for inviting me along to the premiere of William Shatner’s new movie You Can Call Me Bill in NYC this weekend! One of the highlights was meeting the man himself and getting a picture with him!

The highlight of the day (in addition to meeting Captain Kirk of course) was also getting to meet and chat with citizen astronaut Dr. Sian Proctor, who was one of the citizen astronauts who flew on the first all civilian Inspiration 4 mission in 2021.

A 45 minute Q&A session followed the film mc’ed by Neil DeGrasse Tyson with Shatner and the film’s director Alexandre O. Philippe. Shatner, who turns 93 this week, was just as energetic and sharp as ever. He kept Degrasse Tyson on his toes throughout the session with the audience eating it up.

Their stealthy photographer also caught me enjoying the show with this shot appearing on their LinkedIn post of the event:

My friend Antonio is the new Executive Director of Space for Humanity, a non-profit that aims to send every day people into space. They are a sponsor of the film as Shatner had a life changing experience aboard a Blue Origin in 2022. Space For Humanity sent up their first participant, also on a Blue Origin flight, that year as well.

Another Zinwell Nextgen Tuner Owner Can’t Watch DRM Content..

admin — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 19:09:46 +0000

A viewer of my YouTube channel, Minimelkav, wrote in to say that he too is unable to tune ATSC 3.0 DRM protected channels without an Internet connection with the new Zinwell Nextgen TV Tuner. Check it out here.

Remembering Super Cheap and Super Fast Shipping in the Pre-Internet Early 90s

admin — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 14:10:55 +0000

One of the many feeds in my RSS reader is from the Internet Archive’s Computer Magazines collection. Every so often they’ll dump a bunch of scans of popular computing and gaming magazines into the archive.

This morning some new (old) Mac User magazines made their way to the archive and I virtually thumbed through a few editions. One of the ads reminded me of one of the coolest parts of 90’s computing: super fast and super cheap overnight shipping from mail-order retailers.

One of my favorites was the “Mac Zone” and “PC Zone.” They were located on the West Coast of the USA. With me being on the East Coast I could call them at 4 p.m. my time and often have items delivered to me here in Connecticut by the next morning. The best part? Shipping was only $3! Even adjusting for inflation that’s still super cheap for next day delivery.

Other retailers like the Mac & PC Connection also had attractive freight rates like this. Most of them used “Airborne Express,” a competitor to FedEx (known as Federal Express back then). Airborne Express was later acquired by DHL.

The Mac and PC Zone is still around today. Known simply as “Zones,” they mostly cater to the B2B market offering IT equipment and services. They still have the same toll-free number! The PC and Mac Connection is also still around. They too pivoted more towards the B2B market.

Fact Checking Warnings about Apple’s “NameDrop” Feature

admin — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 01:41:45 +0000

I appeared on my local Fox affiliate today after a number of law enforcement agencies expressed concern about Apple’s new NameDrop feature.

NameDrop allows two iPhones in close proximity to share contact information. Here’s what most of the Facebook posts I’m seeing today leave out about how the feature works:

1. Both phones need to be unlocked. Your phone won’t transmit your contact info when locked.

2. In order to transmit contact information you need to push a button on your phone to send contact information to the other phone.

3. This only works when the phones are in close proximity, pretty much touching each other.

For users concerned about their phone leaking information I suggest spending some time in the “Privacy and Security” settings to see which apps have access to your private information, location data and more.

My Next WhatNot Sale Giveaway is November 25 – Win an Atomis Alpha Scooter!

admin — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 00:00:02 +0000

It’s time for another WhatNot Sale and Giveaway! This will be a fun one with a huge giveaway of an Atomi Alpha Electric Scooter (provided free of charge by Atomi), some cost of shipping giveaways of a bunch of items including a laptop and some Lenovo tablets, and I’ll be selling a bunch of stuff too. It all takes place Saturday, November 25th at 2:00 p.m. eastern time.

Here’s the scoop:

1. Sign up for a Whatnot account if you don’t already have one at https://lon.tv/whatnot (affiliate link). Signing up with my link will get you $15 of credit to spend on your first purchase! Be sure to follow me after signing up on my Whatnot profile.

2. If you’d like to participate in the cost of shipping giveaways, be sure to submit your Whatnot profile name on this form so we can load the randomizer ahead of the stream. You do need to be present on the stream in order to win.

3. You can pre-bid on the auction items by visiting the link I set up for the stream here. Note that you need to use the WhatNot mobile app to bid on items ahead of time. You don’t need to be present on the 25th to purchase an item – if your pre-bid is the high bid you’ll be billed automatically when the auction closes on the 25th. A list of items being sold is below – note that I may find some more things ahead of the sale. I’ll notify folks on my store alert email of any additions. Sign up for that list here!

Here’s a list of items I’ll be selling:

Zagg Pro Stylus 2
Backbone Controller (Lightning) along with iPhone 13/14 adapter
Robo and Kala Windows ARM PC
Startech Thunderbolt 3 mini dock
Tablo 4th Gen Tuner (2 tuner model
Oculus/Meta Quest 2
Atari 2600+ (review coming tomorrow!)
xScreen for Xbox Series S
Xbox One X Console

If you have any questions shoot me an email at lon@lon.tv. Look forward to seeing you Saturday!

First Impressions of Lenovo’s Legion Go Gaming Handheld

admin — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 12:16:57 +0000

Last night I was invited to Lenovo’s launch event of their Legion Go handheld gaming PC. They sent me home with a review unit so I’ll have more to talk about soon, but I thought I would deliver my first impressions after playing with it for a little while. You can find it at Best Buy (compensated affiliate link) starting at $699.

First and foremost this is a much better Steam Deck alternative vs. the Asus ROG Ally that I reviewed a few months ago. In my review I felt the Ally was “unpolished” but its performance was certainly a leg up over the Steam Deck especially as it could run many games at 1080p with decent framerates. The Ally also was running Windows which is especially attractive for those subscribed to Microsoft’s Game Pass service.

Lenovo seems to have paid close attention to the market with the Legion Go and built a handheld with features that so far have been missing from the other big name handhelds.

First it has a much larger 8.8″ display vs. the 7″ display on the Ally and Steam Deck. I didn’t think the Ally benefited much from its 1080p 7″ display, as even 720p games look pretty good on a screen that small. Like the Ally the Go has an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor and performs roughly the same.

What I like most about the Legion Go so far is that it adds some nice creature comforts missing from the current crop of PC handhelds. It has detachable controllers that work wirelessly. The right hand controller can even function as a joystick style mouse thanks to its optical sensor on the bottom. The Go has a sturdy kickstand that folds out from the back for standing it up on a desk or table.

But the standout feature for me so far is that the Go comes equipped with two USB 4.0 ports running at 40 gigabits per second each. There’s one on the bottom and one on the top of the display. USB 4 is backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3, so it’s possible to dock the Legion Go with an eGPU enclosure to boost its graphical performance. The ROG Ally had a fast expansion port but it only worked with proprietary Asus docks. The Lenovo device should work with just about anything.

I still have a bunch of testing to do before I’ll be ready to post a review but my first impressions so far are very good. This is definitely the better Steam Deck alternative.

Disclosure: I paid for my travel to the Lenovo launch event but they did provide me with a review unit free of charge. They did not review or approve this blog post before uploading.

ATSC 3.0 DRM Absurdity Continues with Zapperbox’s DRM Plans

admin — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 21:08:10 +0000

I just received the below email from Zapperbox .. Apparently it will soon allow for decrypting DRM protected over the air TV channels.

BUT – existing customers need to have Zapperbox customer service log in remotely and unattended to enable it. Yes – you essentially open full control to your Zapperbox (an Android TV device underneath) and give a stranger full and unattended access at at a time that’s convenient to them.

Presumably they have some root level control of it too. I’m more than a bit nervous about that since they don’t tell you when they’ll be accessing it or what kind of access their customer service representatives will have to the device or your local network.

And after that ? You guessed it – you need an active Internet connection to watch over the air TV. And it won’t record DRM protected channels initially. A future firmware update will not require an internet connection they say. But in the near term, Internet will once again be required to watch over the air television using an antenna.

If you’re curious about the Zapperbox you can see my initial review here. I’ll be updating my box to the DRM capability and will do a followup soon.

Recent Media Appearances

admin — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 18:48:02 +0000

In addition to the work I do on my own channel I also show up in other places too! Last week I appeared on WTIC AM radio here in Connecticut talking about Amazon’s Prime Deal Days along with a number of other topics.

And as I announced a few months ago I started working with the folks at NASASpaceFlight.com on some of their live coverage of Space related events. On Friday I covered the launch of the Psyche mission aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket.

And earlier today I co-hosted their livestream of the Annular Solar Eclipse that took place across portions of the United States today!

My Longest Ham Radio Contact Yet!

admin — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 14:10:50 +0000

Every morning when I’m having my coffee I like to make a few amateur radio contacts with other operators throughout the world. This morning I noticed that my signals were reaching into Australia from my home here in Connecticut!

These signals were being logged by other amateur operators running the WSJTX software that listens for transmissions generated using the FT8 protocol.

I immediately sent a Tweet (or whatever X calls them these days) to my friend Hayden who runs the awesome Hamradio DX YouTube channel. He’s located in Tasmania, an island off the southern coast of Australia. He fired up his rig and we were able to reach each other!

FT8 is a specialized digital communications mode that can send limited messages over very long distances. The combination of the signal’s characteristics and the WSJTX software makes these transmissions readable even when a human listening may only hear static. Hayden’s software reported receiving my signal at -15db which is actually pretty good given the distance involved.

What’s most impressive is that these signals are not being relayed through satellites or the Internet. This is a direct point-to-point communication with the signal bouncing off the atmosphere. These super long range communications won’t happen every day, but when atmospheric conditions are right these long distance contacts are possible as we demonstrated.

To find out more check out Hayden’s channel where I learned a lot about radio technology when I was just getting started out. And of course you can take a look at my growing playlist of amateur radio topics including a video where I detail how FT8 works.

Talking iPhones and the YouTube Algorithm on WTIC-AM Radio

admin — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 12:54:38 +0000

I appeared yesterday on WTIC-AM radio’s Brian & Company for a check-in on the iPhone 15 announcement. We also talked about how the YouTube algorithm works. Have a listen!

ADTH Tuner Firmware Update Still Does Not Encrypt the HDMI Port

admin — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 14:17:34 +0000

Last week I reviewed the new ADTH ATSC 3 TV tuner, the first external device that can decrypt DRM protected TV stations.

I discovered in the review that the ADTH is not protecting the HDMI output which is required according to the ATSC 3.0 DRM specifications. Some asked if recent firmware updates corrected this oversight.

After updating my box this morning my Windows laptop equipped with an Elgato Camlink USB HDMI capture device is still able to record encrypted stations:

Tesla’s New Model 3 Has a ’93 Ford Probe Interior Vibe

admin — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 20:06:33 +0000

When I was a kid I had a 1993 Ford Probe. I loved that car – it was affordable, durable, and looked great both inside and out. The 1993 Probe was a significant update from the version of the car Ford sold from 1988 through 1992.

One of the signatures of the ’93 Probe was its wrap-around interior, with a cool red line that circled interior of the car. Check it out:

Earlier today Tesla announced their updated Model 3 that features an interior refresh that looks a bit familiar!

The Tesla being 30 years into the future uses an LED accent light for its wrap-around trim vs. the Probe’s static piece of plastic. But having spent six years in that Probe throughout high school and college it was hard not to immediately see the resemblance!

I joined NSF’s Coverage of a SpaceX Starlink Launch!

admin — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 04:39:11 +0000

As I mentioned a few weeks ago I was brought on as a contributor to NSF, aka Nasaspaceflight.com! Last night I co-hosted their coverage of a SpaceX Starlink launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Watch the replay here and let me know how I did!

Talking Twitter and YouTube Shorts on WTIC-AM Radio

admin — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 21:45:54 +0000

On my latest appearance on Brian & Company on WTIC-AM radio we talk about Twitter’s algorithm and YouTube’s decision to strip external links from YouTube Shorts videos in an effort to keep viewers glued to their platform. Listen here!

Does Tailscale Work With Starlink? Yes!

admin — Sun, 06 Aug 2023 21:01:53 +0000

Had an opportunity to see if Tailscale works over Starlink. It does! Not a bad way to self-host an application on a Starlink connected device. I’m not pinging long distances geographically here but it’s still going to space and back.

TechHive Picks Up our ATSC 3.0 Encryption Story

admin — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 13:50:26 +0000

As many of you know Tyler the Antennaman and I have been on a mission to inform the public about the rapid encryption of what used to be free over the air television. To date we’ve had 7,600 people sign our petition to the FCC and added 2,000 new comments to the FCC’s docket about the issue.

TechHive this week covered the issue with an extensive piece that uncovers just how restrictive the DRM will be:

For DVR, broadcasters can set expiration dates on recordings or even block them outright. It’s unclear if broadcasters will do this, but ATSC 3.0 gives them the capability.

ATSC 3.0’s DRM has latency restrictions that effectively block out-of-home viewing from networked tuners such as the HDHomeRun Flex 4K.

Users will need an internet connection to stream local broadcasts around the home, for instance from an HDHomeRun tuner to a Roku player, and an occasional internet connection might be required for external tuner boxes.

Recordings won’t work without the original tuner that captured the programming, effectively preventing users from transferring programs they’ve recorded on a DVR to other devices, such as a laptop or tablet for away-from-home viewing.

With an HDHomeRun tuner, third-party apps must get independently certified to play encrypted ATSC 3.0 content. It’s unclear if programs such as Channels and Plex will do so.

It’s clear to see that broadcasters are eager to only provide the bare minimum live viewing experience to antenna viewers who don’t want to pay their exorbitant broadcast fees.

Let’s not forget that these stations don’t own the public airwaves that they want to turn into a toll road. We the taxpayers do. How does this serve the public benefit?

Talking Replaceable Smartphone Batteries on WTIC Radio

admin — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 17:28:35 +0000

My latest appearance with WTIC-AM’s Brian Shactman covers the recent announcement that the European Union may soon require smartphone makers to have user replaceable batteries in their products.

Brian and I talked about the ruling and it what it means for consumers and phone makers. Listen here!

I Upgraded the Storage on my Production PC with a Great Crucial NVME Prime Day Deal

admin — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 20:24:50 +0000

Ever since I switched my production workflow to 4k I’ve been meaning to upgrade the internal storage drive on my Vmix computer to a higher capacity drive. It’s not unusual for a single recording session to rack up 200GB or more of raw footage.

I’ve been using a 1 TB Samsung SSD for the job and it has performed admirably since I built my system three years ago. But during Amazon Prime Day I got a great deal on a 4 TB Crucial NVME drive. It’s still pretty reasonably priced now too.

Crucial has carved out a nice segment of the SSD market for people looking for high capacity storage that don’t necessarily need the fastest performance. This drive is very much in that market segment, delivering reads and writes at “only” about 2.6 gigabytes per second.

Newer drives running on the Gen 4 and 5 standards are almost exponentially faster, but this much capacity in drives that fast are prohibitively expensive for this YouTuber who works out of his basement. And as you can see here this low spec device can easily handle the 4k 30 video I record and beyond too.

Crucial also makes portable SSDs in this lower cost market segment. For example their X6 drive is priced very close to similar capacity spinning hard drives and delivers many of the speed advantages of an SSD. Are they as fast as some of the gaming and professionally oriented drives out there? No, but for many consumers they are more than adequate for the task.

Crucial is a sub-brand of Micron Technology, a well established chip maker that was founded in 1978. Micron manufactures the flash memory in their drives which helps keep costs in check. They used to make some pretty nice and affordable PCs in the 90’s too. In fact my very first PC laptop was a Micron XKE-233 that I reviewed a little while back on the channel.

I’ll be shooting some video on this new drive tomorrow so we’ll see how it holds up in the production environment. Stay tuned!

Happy Prime Day! Livestream Schedule

admin — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 11:44:30 +0000

It’s Black Friday in July as the Amazon two-day sale event has kicked off. I will be livestreaming on Amazon today at 10:00 a.m. eastern for a great deal on a Ryzen 7735HS 32GB RAM Mini Gaming PC followed by an unboxing of some neat Plugable Accessories at 2:00 p.m. eastern complete with a live interview of their CEO, and we’ll wrap things up with a 7:00 p.m. stream detailing Amazon devices – including a live demo of their new 11″ Max Tablet.

You can follow me on Amazon by clicking any of the above links or visiting my Amazon page here. I’ll also be simulcasting on the YouTube channel.

The makers of the mini gaming PC passed along an additional 5% discount code which brings its price well below $500. If you can’t wait for the stream the code is LONTVLLC. You can find the PC by going to the livestream page.

Back to the Echo Chamber: All That’s Wrong with Threads Right Now

admin — Sat, 08 Jul 2023 14:14:08 +0000

User counts don’t matter much when comparing Threads to Twitter. Quality is what matters and I’m not seeing much of it on Threads at the moment.

Instagram has over 2 billion active users a month so it’s no wonder why Threads has as many users as it does already. Twitter is considerably smaller at only 237 million. It’s surprising Threads’ number isn’t larger given how little friction there is for existing Instagram users to set up an account.

The iPhone is a good comparative here: Apple has only 20% of the smartphone market yet makes sizable profits and drives much of the industry’s innovation. You don’t need to the biggest to be the best.

So why is Meta doing this? It’s the quality and level of influence that Twitter’s much smaller user base has, with a bulk of those users driving what the media talks about. Will these Twitter users jump ship? Likely not unless Meta builds something that’s better than Twitter to attract those users.

It appears as though Meta is putting its algorithmic fingers on the scale already in an effort to lock these influencers in, picking and choosing the winners here by promoting content from “verified” celebrity and media accounts over the rest of us. Every time I open the app that’s all I see on my front page, mostly from accounts I’m not following. This is no doubt a means of trying to demonstrate to celebrity users that they’ll have similar reach on Threads that they currently enjoy on Twitter. But it’s artifical.

These same celebrity users were complaining when Twitter’s new CEO Elon Musk put a stop to a similar strategy that stifled independent voices. The existing “blue checks” all threatened to leave but few did and Twitter’s traffic and engagement actually increased.

Meta’s verification process is as arbitrary as Twitter 1.0’s process where most smaller independent creators are left out of algorithmic recommendations. It’s also not clear if paying for Meta’s verification program gets you better placement in the algorithm. Either way it appears as though Meta’s strategy here is to build back the echo chamber lost when Twitter changed hands.

Will it be enough to kill Twitter? Probably not but they’ll likely build a decent ecosystem of Instagram users who want to share external links – something Instagram currently restricts.

My Local Media Appearances Talking About Threads

admin — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 12:27:21 +0000

Meta/Facebook/Instagram’s new social media app Threads dropped the other day and has already attracted tens of millions of users. This is partly because the sign up process for existing Instagram users requires just a single click to get going.

Yesterday I appeared on WTIC-AM radio and WTIC/Fox 61 here in Connecticut to talk about the app and whether or not Twitter has anything to worry about.

Here’s the Fox 61 appearance:

And my radio interview with Brian Shactman on WTIC is here:

No Man’s Sky Players: Come to the “Lon System” and Set Up a Base on Lonville!

admin — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 20:12:13 +0000

I’ve been busy settling a “paradise planet” in No Man’s sky over the last couple of months. What’s great about No Man’s Sky is how it runs on just about everything I have at my disposal including my Steam Deck, GeForceNow and even my Macs with a native Apple Silicon Port !

Because I’m running the game via Steam through each of these platforms I’m able to sync my save game file between them. So if I do a little bit on my Steam Deck things are right where I left them when I jump on my PC in VR.

My home system, “The Lon System,” is feeling a bit lonely so I’d like to invite you all to come and visit and maybe plant your flag down on the planet “Lonville” – a stable paradise planet. Here are the coordinates that’ll take you to my system’s portal:

From there you can take a short flight to Lonville to bask in my stable temperatures and a lack of nasty Sentinels! My base on the planet has both a living space on a hillside and an underwater habitat!

One of the many cool things about this “open universe” game is how seamlessly it integrates the multiplayer experience. If you happen to be in the same place as another player you’ll encounter them! And one of the fun things to experience in the game is visiting a populated star system.

Come on down and be my galactic neighbor!

Another Broadcaster in Boston Locks Down ATSC 3.0 Broadcasts with DRM

admin — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:50:00 +0000

Another broadcaster in Boston has locked down their ATSC 3.0 broadcasts. CBS affiliate WBZ has joined the ABC and NBC affiliates in denying the public the ability to watch TV the way they want.

Here’s the latest from RabbitEars.info. Boston is almost all red now when it comes to access to free over the air TV:

To learn more about this topic be sure to catch this video where I deep dive into the reasoning behind broadcasters locking down their broadcasts. Spoiler alert, it’s all about retaining their lucrative retransmission fees.

10 Gigs of Capacity Does Not Equate to 10 Gig Downloads

admin — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 13:56:44 +0000

Here’s an example of why getting the fastest Internet connection you can these days doesn’t always equate to a real-world experience.

This is the fastest Steam download I can muster on my 10 gigabit connection – which translates to just a little more than a gigabit downstream. Super fast, yes, but the reality is that you’ll never find a server that will give you all of your available bandwidth due to peering and capacity restrictions.

But with 10 gigs of bandwidth you can have multiple connections going on at once without any of them being impacted by the other.

You can learn more about my connection here.

Guest Appearance on “Coffee and Ham Radios”

admin — Fri, 26 May 2023 14:45:43 +0000

I had a fun time chatting with the guys from Coffee and Ham Radios – a live show streamed on YouTube. We talked about how I went from zero knowledge to licensed amateur radio operator in a few months and what I’ve learned about radio technology so far. Check it out here!

Return of the Jedi Released 40 Years Ago Today

admin — Thu, 25 May 2023 23:13:07 +0000

40 years ago today my Mom picked me up early from school (I was in first grade) and we went down to our local duplex theater to catch Return of the Jedi.

I was so excited, especially as the news that morning was showing previews. I remember seeing the speeder bike scene on Good Morning America or the Today show. I consumed every bit of info I could about the movie before it came out – Time Magazine had a great special issue all about it that I’m sure I have around somewhere.

I loved every minute of that movie and still do. It was awesome seeing it with a packed theater of folks also seeing it for the first time. There was so much energy in that theater and quite a reaction when Vader dispatched the emporer! When we left there was a line of teenagers all the way down Main Street waiting to get into the next showing. It was nuts.

Ever since then I’ve taken my Mom to each new Star Wars release to keep the tradition alive.

My College Dorm Tech Circa 1998

admin — Sat, 20 May 2023 21:29:10 +0000

25 years ago I was just finishing up my senior year of college. I was just as much a nerd then as I am today so of course I had quite a bit of tech in my on-campus apartment. I recently found an old video from that time with some of the gear visible. Check it out:

The PC

The PC pictured began its journey as a Pentium 166, assembled with parts procured from local computer fairs. It was the first PC I built myself. By the time I graduated, the PC had undergone an upgrade to a Pentium 233 MMX that was just a simple CPU swap.

My PC was pretty decked out – it had a Creative Labs Voodoo2 GPU which was lightyears beyond what game consoles could do at the time. This is when the PC really started to prove itself as a gaming platform with Quake II and many other games really pushing the graphical hardware available at the time.

You’ll notice on the front of the case that I had both a 3.5″ floppy drive and an IDE Zip drive. Thanks to its IDE interface the Zip drive ran much faster than than the external parallel version that was more widely used at the time. I recall that this particular zip drive required a version of Windows 95 that was only sold with OEM computers which took a little bit of work to acquire!

The CD-ROM drive was actually one of the first DVD drives available for PCs also from Creative Labs. The drive came bundled with an interface card that included an MPEG 2 decoder for watching DVD movies. It also came with a custom version of Wing Commander IV which had DVD quality cut scenes that were a major step up from the regular DOS version.

My video also caught the computer’s screen running Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 4 and Winamp that was playing some tunes while my girlfriend was reading her email.

Earlier that year I discovered the wonder of MP3s. The fact that such a small file could produce such high fidelity sound was nothing short of miraculous. Remember, this was a time when storing uncompressed CD wav files on a hard drive was an impractical endeavor due to file sizes and high storage costs. The advent of MP3s represented a significant leap in music technology, enabling us to enjoy our favorite tunes without worrying about running out of disk space.

That year my campus rolled out a residential ethernet network for all of the on-campus housing. That gave us a direct pipe into the University’s T1 line running at a whopping 1.5 megabits per second. It was a huge step up from the dialup modems we were using up until that point. Transitioning back to dialup after graduation was a major bummer – it would be another three years before DSL service was available at my house.

It was scary too because there were zero security safeguards with many student computers openly exposed to others on campus and the rest of the Internet for that matter. Personal firewalls were still a long ways off.

My Cell Phone

1998 was also the year that saw the introduction of digital cellular phones. I owned a Qualcomm QCP-820 phone that operated on Bell Atlantic’s CDMA network. Fun fact: Bell Atlantic later became Verizon. The QCP-820 was a dual band phone meaning it could operate in digital or analog mode. Digital coverage was few and far between when I first got the phone. But when I was lucky enough to find myself in a digital zone the quality of the call was substantially better.

Here’s another shot of the phone next to the iconic solo cup design of the late 90’s:

The Living Room

Despite the PC Powerhouse in my bedroom we still had a few game consoles on hand which were more fun for local multiplayer games. At this point in 1998 the Sony Playstation had become the dominant home video game console. You can see it sharing space with our VHS VCR that we used as our DVR to record our favorite shows when we were out and about and of course for Blockbuster rentals.

Also on hand, but sadly less frequently used, was my Sega Genesis (the very same one you’ll see on my YouTube set!) along with the Sega 32X attached. A year earlier the 32X add on was discontinued and liquidated so I picked it up for only about $30. The Genesis underneath was purchased in 1989 right when it came out and was almost 9 years old when this video was taken.

Concluding Thoughts

What’s remarkable is how many technologies came to be in the short span of time between my freshmen and senior year (1994-1998). Today’s technology is certainly better than it was back then but what we have today has mostly evolved from all of this 90’s innovation.

I Preordered a ROG Ally

admin — Sun, 14 May 2023 18:01:22 +0000

I pre-ordered an Asus ROG Ally (compensated affiliate link), the new Asus gaming handheld today from Best Buy.

This looks to be a device targeting the Steam Deck and differentiating itself by running Windows and not Linux. For those subscribed to the Game Pass PC or Ultimate Edition, the Windows 11 powered Asus handheld will make it a lot easier to access PC game downloads vs. Valve’s device.

The Ally is slightly more powerful vs. the Steam Deck but I don’t think the performance differences will be significant enough to designate it a “Steam Deck Killer.”

That said, the Ally may have some legs given their retail distribution strategy and marketing push. It’s exclusive to Best Buy stores upon its initial release meaning it will be available for hands-on demonstrations at hundreds of retail outlets throughout North America. This will undoubtedly drive some consumer interest that many of the lesser known brands can’t afford to do from a marketing perspective.

I’m sure Microsoft will give it a marketing boost too as it runs Windows and is a great solution for portable Gamepass downloads. In fact my friend and Xbox community manager Larry Hyrb (aka Major Nelson) got an early unit for an unboxing on his podcast.

But if pre-orders are any indication it’ll take some time to build up consumer awareness and interest. Pre-orders began on May 11 here in the US and units are still available on release day both for shipping and local store pickups at Best Buy. By comparison I had to wait months for my Steam Deck!

I’ll have more on this once my unit arrives next month. Stay tuned!

Market Conditions Impact YouTube Success

admin — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 11:50:49 +0000

If you’re wondering why your YouTube tech channel is on the slower side when it comes to revenue and traffic, here’s a hint from this CNN Business article on Samsung’s 95% sales decline:

“Samsung Electronics flagged a gradual recovery for chips in the second half of the year after its semiconductor business reported a record loss on Thursday, driven by weak demand for tech devices.”

Over the years my YouTube channel has proven to be a window into where consumers are at in a particular space. 80% of my traffic comes from search and recommendation vs. subscribers and I cover a variety of gear that stretches across the consumer electronics industry. I just have to look at my analytics to learn what the market wants.

There is therefore a direct correlation between where consumers are at and how well I do as a creator. It’s very clear consumers are buying less stuff but are very interested in saving money with the gear they already have. What they are looking to purchase are products that have a direct return on investment.

My top 10 videos for this year are driven almost entirely by consumer-focused content: Cord cutting tops the list along with content about ISP alternatives. Other consumer focused topics I’ve experimented with are doing much better than product reviews at the moment.

YouTube and some of its orbiting “experts” will tell you to pick one tiny topic and focus on it. This IMHO is a mistake in a market that is is constantly changing based on consumer demand.

Developing a diverse set of topics within the space you cover will help find the pulse of what the market wants so you can deliver based on those needs.

Talking Facebook Suit, Twitter and AI on WTIC-AM

admin — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 02:49:37 +0000

I regularly appear on “Brian and Company on WTIC-AM radio here in Connecticut. This time host Brian Shactman and I discussed my reasons for opting out of the Facebook lawsuit, the latest drama at Twitter and briefly talk about artificial intelligence developments.

Listen here!

ChatGPT Helps me Open a 27+ Year Old Newton Backup File!

admin — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 04:02:40 +0000

Yes, as a lifelong nerd I of course had an Apple Newton back in 1994 when I was a senior in high school. Check out this photo I took of my Powerbook and Newton together likely in 1994 or 1995:

The Newton had a companion app for backing up and synchronizing called the “Newton Connection Kit” or NCK. Apple being Apple this was an optional software package that did not come bundled with the device.

One of the neat things about the Newton Connection Kit software was that it allowed data from most of the core Newton applications (calendar, notes, contacts, etc) to be edited on the host Mac or PC. It stored everything in a single file that I have preserved all of these years.

Every so often I boot up Basilisk II on my modern Mac and tool around with some of the old Mac apps I enjoyed as a kid. (This process, by the way, is a heck of a lot easier now with the awesome Infinite Mac website that’ll load things up in a web browser with zero configuration).

During one of these tinkering sessions I stumbled across the file and remembered how the NCK used to work. So I headed over to the Macintosh Repository and found a working copy of NCK, installed it, and then discovered that my old backup file wouldn’t open.

This was due to the file losing its Mac file type and creator information. Unlike the PC that uses a file extension (like .DOC for a Word document) the classic Macs stored the originating application inside the file itself. Oftentimes transferring the file from a Mac to a PC like I must have done years ago stripped the Newton backup file of this information. Because of this the NCK software couldn’t see or open the backup.

I searched extensively over the last couple of weeks looking for the four letter code needed to get this file open to no avail. So I asked ChatGPT 4:

Its answer of “pkgb” was unfortunately not the right one. It was close though – pkgb is the file type for Newton’s equivalent of apps that the NCK software would also install back in the day. Many times people would email these apps to each other and found the NCK software didn’t know what to do with them.

So then I asked ChatGPT a followup question: “On an old Mac how might I look up what file type an application is looking for?”

Its step-by-step response led me to the right answer.

After following ChatGPT’s instructions using the Mac’s old “Resedit” utility I was able to quickly drill down into the 1994 application and get my answer. The correct file type for NCK backup files is “DCKb.”

I added that file type to my backup file, double clicked and BOOM! Suddenly everything that was on my Newton that day in 1995 was once again available to me.

To be honest there wasn’t much that was all that interesting. But there were some nostalgic calendar entries like the date of my high school graduation:

The rest of it had a bunch of random notes from high school and college classes but also a few fun things like this drawing a friend of mine made on the Newton on October 28, 1994:

What’s amazing about ChatGPT is its ability to sift through all the garbage you might get in a search result and guide you to the right place. It doesn’t always get things right as we saw here, but generally it will point you in the right direction.

If you’re curious about the Newton I made a video about this classic PDA platform a few years back when the iPad gained handwriting recognition functionality. It’s amazing how far ahead of its time it was.

Quick Thought on the SpaceX Starship Launch

admin — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 14:43:38 +0000

I’m sure SpaceX would have preferred the rocket survived longer but it did get through a critical phase of flight.

My armchair analyst’s opinion is that they will be looking closely at the pad at lift off and how to better protect these densely packed engines from shockwaves before the hold down clamps are released.

It looked like something popped right at lift off which may have damaged other engines & systems.

SpaceX’s approach is rapid iterative development and low cost hardware. There’s probably a half dozen more of these either built or in the process of being built. A few weeks to refurb the pad and you’ll see another one out there ready to try again.

They even celebrated their many failures attempting to get their Falcon rockets to land in this video:

You can bet their next launch will get a little bit further.

Google Bard vs. Chat GPT-4

admin — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 02:23:12 +0000

I got access to Google’s new Bard AI Chatbot this evening. I thought it might be fun to see how both Bard and Chat GPT-4 interpret a transcript of my latest video about Verizon’s 5G Home Internet. The transcript was extracted from YouTube’s automatic captioning and converted into a blob of text.

I asked each AI to “Summarize this transcript into a blog post in a journalistic style” and provided no additional guidance.

First let’s take a look at Google Bard spit out:

Title: Verizon 5G Home Internet Review: A Good Option for Many

Verizon 5G Home Internet is a good option for many people who are looking for a fast, reliable, and affordable internet connection. It is especially a good option for people who live in rural areas where other internet options are limited.

In this review, I will discuss the pros and cons of Verizon 5G Home Internet, as well as my personal experience using it.

Pros

Fast speeds: Verizon 5G Home Internet is capable of speeds of up to 1 Gbps, which is much faster than most other internet options.

Reliable connection: Verizon 5G Home Internet is a reliable connection, and I have not experienced any outages or slowdowns in the time that I have been using it.

Affordable price: Verizon 5G Home Internet is an affordable option, especially when compared to other internet options like cable and fiber.

No contracts: Verizon 5G Home Internet does not require a contract, so you can cancel at any time if you are not satisfied with the service.

Cons

Coverage area: Verizon 5G Home Internet is not available in all areas.

Speeds may vary: The speeds of Verizon 5G Home Internet may vary depending on your location and the number of devices that are connected to the network.

Data cap: Verizon 5G Home Internet has a data cap of 500 GB per month.

Personal experience

I have been using Verizon 5G Home Internet for about a month now, and I am very happy with it. The speeds are fast and reliable, and the price is affordable. I have not experienced any outages or slowdowns in the time that I have been using it.

Overall, I would recommend Verizon 5G Home Internet to anyone who is looking for a fast, reliable, and affordable internet connection.

Overall Bard’s summary is weak and got a lot wrong. Verizon does not advertise speeds for its service so I don’t know where it got the 1 gigabit speed from (I certainly didn’t mention that in my review). It also wrongly said there’s a 500 GB data cap (Verizon does not have a cap on their home service). Later when I had it correct the record it apologized but then spit out the wrong info again.

It also completely made up the “personal experience” section. I never said I used the service for a month. I specifically said I tried it out at a friend’s place who didn’t live far from me. Bard also completely missed my key criticism of the Verizon service related to its poor ping rates.

In another experiment I gave Bard a link to another YouTube video I posted recently about an outdoor TV antenna and it came back with a summary about opening a 7-Eleven franchise in the Philippines!

I think it needs some work..

So let’s see how Chat GPT-4 did with the transcript:

Title: Verizon’s 5G Home Internet: A Casual User’s Delight

In Connecticut, Verizon’s 5G home internet service is making a splash, offering a viable alternative to traditional broadband services. Priced competitively at $25 a month for existing Verizon Wireless customers, the 5G Home service provides fast and reliable internet for casual users. However, it may not be the best choice for heavy gamers or streamers.

The service comes with a Gateway device that connects to the Verizon tower and provides Wi-Fi service to the home. It supports Wi-Fi 6 and includes two Ethernet ports for hardwiring devices. For the best performance, users are advised to place the Gateway near a window with a clear line of sight to the cell tower.

In ideal conditions, users can expect download speeds of around 300 Mbps and upload speeds of 15-16 Mbps, which is great for video streaming, web browsing, and email. However, the service has some drawbacks, particularly when it comes to latency in online gaming and streaming services like Hulu Live.

The ping rate varies considerably due to Verizon prioritizing mobile users over home internet customers, which is not ideal for multiplayer gaming or streaming that requires an instantaneous response. For now, there is no data cap or penalties for heavy data usage on the plan, but the router does feature a cellular traffic query page, hinting at possible future restrictions.

In summary, Verizon’s 5G home internet service is a fantastic choice for casual users looking for fast, reliable internet at a reasonable price. However, gamers and streamers may want to explore other options for a more consistent and low-latency experience.

Wow.. Chat GPT-4 is light years better than Google’s system for this task. It effectively encapsulated all of the key points of the video and didn’t make anything up.

You’ll note that it mentions Verizon prioritizing packets – that was something I said in the video that some viewers think is not true. I based that observation on the ping rate variability I noticed during my testing. So if that is incorrect it’s on me and not the robot.

And Google has a long way to go here.. I’m shocked by how much stuff Bard is just making up. Just a few minutes ago it told me that Google developed the competing GPT-3 language model!

This just goes to show how companies that were once the disruptors can be disrupted themselves.

Meta / Facebook Has Just Given Up..

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 14:08:40 +0000

Facebook has long had a huge bot and spam problem. It’s a haven for scammers of all types and Meta seems unable to do much of anything about it. On my Facebook page I frequently get spammers and scammers trying to lure my viewers into their schemes. Take this most recent one for example spamming my group with an illegal IPTV service:

While I remove comments like this when I can it’s hard to keep up with them all – especially as Facebook brings in exactly $0 in revenue to my overall operation. I also report the comments but more often than not Facebook takes no action. Facebook said the post above did not “go against any of our community standards” and took no action against this user spamming pages and groups.

While this illegal IPTV service will likely not result in my account getting hacked , the next set of comments I reported surely will. What do you think happened when I reported a set of comments directing users to a fake account recovery service?

You guessed it : nothing. I will give credit to Facebook though – at least they tell you they’re doing nothing versus the black hole that is YouTube’s spam reporting feature.

The other day Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta’s plans to offer a paid verification tier to make their users pay for something Meta should have been doing all along to protect their users. This is an effort to crack down on account impersonations that also plague the service.

I have no doubt this will be a successful product offering because it’s essentially a protection racket. Individuals and businesses who depend on Meta’s services to reach people will have no choice but to pay in order to protect their accounts and followers. Meta will have even less incentive now to rid the platform of fake accounts and spammers.

High Altitude Balloons Have Little Regulation

admin — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 15:03:44 +0000

Small balloons (similar to what have been shot down recently) have few regulations regarding their use. In fact there are more rules on drones than there are on balloons carrying less than four pounds of payload!

While some balloons are designed to pop when they reach a certain altitude, others can float for months, even years at a time. Take for example the amateur radio W5KUB balloons.

The W5KUB-112 balloon has floated around the world 10 times in less than a year aloft! It is currently in the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska and will be re-entering US airspace shortly. Its altimeter reports its position at 47,734 feet – slightly above commercial air traffic but not by much.

This balloon would almost certainly now be on NORAD’s target list given that similar small objects were shot down by US jets at similar altitudes. And while W5KUB is operating these balloons in accordance with US law, they don’t have to register the balloon with authorities so NORAD would likely not know this is a benign payload.

There are likely hundreds of balloons like this floating around the globe carried by the wind. Their payloads could be dead but the balloons themselves may very well still be floating. Adversaries can take advantage of this information gap by floating small payload balloons that look like all of the other stuff floating around in the wind.

Electronics don’t have to be large to be useful spying tools. A small radio like the ones on W5KUB’s balloons could be equipped to dump data to passing satellites via VHF or UHF bands and smaller messages can be sent over the HF bands without a satellite at all.

W5KUB’s high frequency WSPR radio. Source: W5KUB

A few months ago I demonstrated sending data packets up to the space station using a small 7 watt radio.

W5KUB’s small payload transmits APRS positioning packets on VHF frequencies and weak WSPR signals on HF. Those WSPR signals can be picked up even when the balloon is in the middle of the ocean.

Clearly up until now NORAD was looking for planes and missiles. For its part the FAA doesn’t seem to care much about small payload balloons and hasn’t been tracking their movements.

What’s next? I expect to see the FAA clamp down on domestic balloon activity similar to what they did with drones. Further there may be some discussion with other governments to develop some standards around registration and tracking for balloons that have the capability to float beyond borders.

How Are YouTube Shorts Doing for Me So Far?

admin — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 15:33:43 +0000

Not great. I earned 26 cents on 5,000 YouTube Shorts views since monetization began – a $0.05 CPM. This is WAY below the typical YouTube CPM (cost per thousand views) on long-form content both for ad & Premium viewers.

My Shorts did pick up 83 new subscribers since I started posting shorts so there is some value there, but certainly not on the monetization side of things.

New Shorts don’t take much time to create but I don’t think there’s any value in spending time repurposing older longer-form content as Shorts. The same number of views from long form videos generated significantly higher CPMs even in saturated content verticals like gaming.

My Latest Weekend Project

admin — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 00:05:10 +0000

This weekend’s project is messing around with NFC tags, a Homebridge Docker container on my Synology to connect non-homekit devices to Homekit & Apple’s extensive Homekit automation functions built into iOS.

Can’t wait to show you a few things I cooked up this weekend!

Razer Specs on New Edge Handheld Incorrect

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2023 18:07:15 +0000

We saw the new Razer Edge at CES earlier this month. You can see it in Dispatch 3 at the 7:57 mark. Like the Logitech G Cloud Android gaming handheld we looked at recently they are gearing this towards game streaming, however the Snapdragon processor inside has some decent horsepower according to its specs.

But it looks like Razer messed up in communicating those specs to users. Today I received an email updating me on the status of my pre-order – apparently Wi-Fi versions of the Edge have 6 GB of RAM whereas their 5G version has 8. Initially Razer said both versions had 8GB of RAM:

Is this a big deal? Probably not.. I don’t think there’s any Android game that requires more than 6GB of RAM but this might limit some of the multitasking possible on the unit if a demanding game or app is running in the background.

My Wi-Fi version should arrive sometime in the next two weeks so we’ll find out for sure. Stay tuned! I’ll likely do a livestream when it arrives.

2023 Off to a Great Start!

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 19:25:15 +0000

Just a quick note to thank you all for a great start to 2023. After a pretty lousy December our CES coverage kicked off a nice boost to channel viewership and growth this month. I’ve also prioritized a few reviews and topics based on what I’m seeing subscribers are showing more interest in.

Thank you as always for your support!

Retroarch & Emulators on Retail Xbox Consoles Including Series S & Series X

admin — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 16:49:57 +0000

Xbox consoles, even some of the older ones, make great emulation devices. In the past getting emulators onto a game console would require circumventing DRM controls but lately things have become a bit easier.

My project this weekend was getting Retroarch installed on my Xbox Series X. The good news is that the process was so easy I spent more time playing than configuring!

This process initially required setting the console into developer mode but this new method allows any retail console to work without modification or mode switching. I found this guide at MakeTechEasier.com to be pretty helpful. If you’re somebody who needs a little more of a visual step-by-step ETA Prime has a great tutorial that you can find here.

The Xbox Series consoles have pretty powerful CPUs that can handle emulation of nearly every supported core that Retroarch offers. That includes even more complex consoles like the Playstation 2 and Gamecube/Wii. You can even load the games up on a USB flash drive which is detailed in the tutorials linked above.

The MiSTer is still my go-to retro device but for certain things like more recent game consoles and Sega Super Scaler arcade titles Retroarch on the Xbox is a great combination. It was awesome playing Afterburner 2 on my 65″ OLED with its awesome soundtrack pumping through my home theater audio. And although I will probably re-map some of the controls the general experience I found to be excellent insofar as compatibility, gameplay and performance are concerned.

If you’re curious about Retroarch and why it’s so popular, check out this interview I did with a member of the Retroarch team a few years back. They do some amazing work making emulation less complex for the masses!

CES Trip Day 2 Update!

admin — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 16:53:46 +0000

I just posted my second live update from CES here in Las Vegas!

Last night we attended a pre-show event called CES Unveiled. This has never been a great event in past years but this year it was filled with a lot of stuff I found interesting. So if everything cooperates here we’ll have our first dispatch video posted this evening! Stay tuned for that.

I am heading over to Lenovo’s CES suite in a little bit to get a look at some of the products they have planned for the coming year which will be part of Dispatch 2.

This evening my favorite CES event, Pepcom, will be taking place at the Mirage Hotel. There are close to 200 companies there so we should have enough to finish up our second dispatch video this evening.

Yesterday I had to go out and buy some things I forgot to pack with me – specifically a battery charger for my on-camera light and my Apple Watch charging cable! Generally I’m a much better packer but we just got back from a family vacation less than 24 hours before I had to leave for Vegas.

Thankfully there’s a photo store in Vegas called B&C Camera (not to be confused with B&H) that had what I needed at a close-to-market price. It looks like this place caters to photo and video professionals who forget to pack things as they had a good selection of gear.

Tomorrow is going to be a non-stop crazy day. We are going to hit the show floor first thing and stay out there until they close. That will be followed by the last showcase event called Showstoppers that should have a good number of exhibitors. We fly home Friday afternoon. My hope is to try and get Dispatch 2 up before we leave. Wish me luck !

Merry Christmas!

admin — Sun, 25 Dec 2022 18:50:32 +0000

Just a quick note to wish you a Merry Christmas to those celebrating. I want to thank you all for another great year – my 10th as a content creator! Your viewership and engagement make it all happen.

Here’s to 2023! Look for my annual retro review tonight!

Update on LastPass and Their Poor Communications

admin — Sat, 24 Dec 2022 16:44:11 +0000

I updated yesterday’s blog post on LastPass to indicate that some users got an email about their catastrophic breach. But I did not. I got one email in August when this first broke and that was it. And yes, I checked spam and trash. Nothing since August.

The email that reached some but not all users made no mention of their vaults being in the hands of the threat actor. They expected users to click through to their blog post and read a few paragraphs in to get the bad news.

So ultimately the only people notified were those paying attention. Their crisis PR team is running the show now, not good. LastPass’ corporate interest will now be the priority vs their customers’ security.

Each customer’s risk level depends on their password length and complexity. Lastpass is passing the buck by essentially telling customers it’s their fault if their stolen vault is compromised. Not a good look from a company whose one job was to protect password data and didn’t do it.

I wonder if work from home led to this breach. It sounds like the threat actor’s code possession was enough to convince the social engineering target to turn over the keys to the kingdom. Clearly LastPass lacked human to human authentication protocols and learned nothing from their prior breaches.

I have deleted my Lastpass account and switched to Bitwarden for now. Ultimately all of these services are a juicy target for hackers given the value of the stored data. So next I’ll be experimenting with ways I can create something under my direct control.

LastPass Password Vaults Stolen by Hackers

admin — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 16:23:49 +0000

LastPass is a popular password manager that was heralded for their security model when it was a small startup. The allure was convenience coupled with security. Unique, random passwords were easily generated for every website a user visited and could seamlessly sync across devices. The password “vaults” that stored the passwords used an encryption model that made it impossible for LastPass or anyone else to access the contents.

Back in August LastPass notified users of a security breach that impacted their development environment but they did not believe any user data was compromised. But yesterday they quietly updated their blog post on the incident and indicated that this was a catastrophic breach. The bad news was buried several paragraphs into the narrative:

“The threat actor was also able to copy a backup of customer vault data from the encrypted storage container which is stored in a proprietary binary format that contains both unencrypted data, such as website URLs, as well as fully-encrypted sensitive fields such as website usernames and passwords, secure notes, and form-filled data.”

LastPass tried to soften the blow by touting how secure their model is but having what appears to be the entirety of their customer’s data in the hands of a threat actor is not a good thing.

No doubt heavily resourced governments will want to get their hands on these vaults to look for vulnerabilities. It also appears from the notice that email addresses and websites associated with these vaults were not encrypted, making it easy to identify its owner along with the service credentials stored in the vault. And because the master password for most users is something easily remembered it’s not out of the realm of possibility that many vaults could be unlocked with off-the-shelf GPUs in a matter of days.

But worse is that this data is now out there floating around. Even if the security model is secure today, that doesn’t mean it will be secure tomorrow. Encrypted data from the 90’s can now very easily be cracked even on a relatively cheap laptop. Patient threat actors will have a treasure trove of data to look at as the steady increase in computing power will reduce the time it will take to crack open these vaults.

In the short term the biggest threat for most users will be phishing attacks. This is because the websites stored in the vault were not encrypted so a threat actor will know that the user has an account at a financial institution for example. If you are or were a LastPass user you should be vigilant about clicking on links for services you visit frequently.

What infuriates me is that they haven’t pushed out any notice to their customers beyond this quiet update of their blog yesterday. Their press department is not responding to inquiries either.

UPDATE: A few folks who follow my Facebook page received an email from Lastpass yesterday but I did not. But those who did get a communication didn’t receive much other than an ask to visit the blog. they should have disclosed a lot more here:

As for me I spent last night changing passwords and transitioning over to BitWarden. Lastpass has lost my trust – not only because of this hack but also because of how poorly they are communicating to users.

Downloading Shareware Games in the Early 90’s

admin — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 16:24:43 +0000

I stumbled across a game I used to play in 1992 as a teenager called “Night Raid” the other day. You can find it on the Internet Archive and play it right in your browser!

Night Raid was a take on an old Apple II game called “Sabotage.” The premise of both games is that you’re a lone anti-aircraft gunner fighting off wave up after wave of paratroopers trying to take you out. You earn points with each aircraft and paratrooper hit and lose a point every time the gun is fired.

I hadn’t given the game much thought over the years (I even forgot its name) but the other day something about it popped in my head that sent me down a Google rabbit hole. A few minutes of searching brought me to the Internet Archive and I immediately was back in the 90’s playing a cool shareware game in my browser! I’ve since added it to the DosBox-X instance I run on my Macbook Air.

One of the fun parts about Night Raid was the heavy promotion of the Software Creations Bulletin Board System (BBS) that hosted its download files. During the Intermission scenes a little airplane flies overhead with the phone number for the BBS and the end screen of the game also encourages people to dial in and experience the board’s 50 lines and 6 gigabytes of storage space!

Software Creations was located in Massachusetts and was one of the larger BBS systems at the time. When a hot new shareware game came out you’d hear about it on FidoNet message boards on your local BBS but you’d have to dial out long distance to pick up the files at Software Creations. This was also where I picked up Doom in 1993 right when it was released to the public.

As you can imagine I racked up some major phone bills dialing into that BBS. Night Raid’s zip file came in at around half a megabyte which took roughly 33 minutes to download on the 2400 baud modem I used at the time.

When Doom came out the following year it was a whopping 2 megabytes and took over two hours to download. Unfortunately for me there wasn’t an active shareware gaming user base in my local calling area beyond my buddies and me so long distance was the only way to get at the latest goods.

When I finally had the cash to buy a 14,400 baud modem that same Doom download could be done in 20 minutes. With long distance rates running about 10-15 cents per minute that faster modem offered a huge return on investment!

BBS systems are still out there but are mostly available on the Internet these days via telnet. I did a video on the topic a few years ago if you’d like to get a feel for what it was like on one of those systems.

The whole scene died out pretty quickly once dialup Internet service became available in the mid 90’s. But it’s great to see so many people working to keep not only BBS’ing alive but also some of the networks that connected them together like FidoNet.

The Software Creations BBS was acquired by the “Total Entertainment Network” in 1995 right as BBS’ing gave way to web surfing. Apparently TEN cut their losses as the BBS’ing collapsed and shut the system down only a year or so after the acquisition according to Apogee Software’s Joe Siegler in a 2002 message board post:

It was even more of a surprise to us – as we had our files there. They essentially closed down overnight – we had no warning that it was going to happen.

It would be super cool if one of the Sysops (short for System Operator) had a backup of the BBS somewhere. How awesome would it be to have a time capsule like this accessible via Telnet to experience what the PC gaming scene was like back then.

Today’s Project: Amazon Fire TV Cube Part 2 :)

admin — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 17:37:48 +0000

So Amazon pushed out an update for the new Fire TV Cube that apparently fixes some of its issues with lossless audio and Plex. This of course was after I sold the old one to a viewer! I bought a new one and we’ll see how it does now. Stay tuned! Read more about the … Continue reading

Zapier to Mastodon Solution

admin — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 14:58:32 +0000

I mentioned the other day that I spun up a small docker container to pass an RSS feed from my link blog to my Mastodon account.

I’ve now been able to retire it thanks to a helpful post I found at lukas.io that walks through setting up a Zapier webhooks action for posting to a Mastodon instance.

This makes use of a premium Zapier feature so you’ll need to have a paid subscription in order for this to work. Zapier is something that saves me a ton of time so I’m happy to pay for it but other solutions might work better for those with a little more coding prowess.

If you’re interested in how this stuff works check out my video called “owning your content” that shows how I have adopted Indieweb principles for my written content.

The Week Ahead

admin — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 13:46:46 +0000

It’s crazy how fast the end of the year is approaching! I’ll be taking a little time off just after Christmas to recharge ahead of CES but will hopefully get a bunch of stuff queued up! I lost a day and a half this week due to a minor bout of what was likely COVID (my second or third go-around) but I’m feeling much better today. Definitely not as bad as my experience with it last year!

I’m focusing a lot these days on adopting “indieweb” principles for my content. I’ve talked a little bit about this before but I’ve added some new things to the mix that I’ll likely talk about later this week or early next.

Additionally I’m going to do a short piece providing some context on the Twitter controversy surrounding aircraft ADS-B data and how it all works. I figure if people are going to argue about Twitter bans they should at least know what the argument is about :). This won’t be another hot-take about Twitter (there’s plenty of those) but rather just looking at the basis of the dispute, how private aircraft data is collected, and how anyone can do it for about 30 bucks, no radar system required.

I covered a lot this week, including my top tech products of the year, a tutorial on off-site Synology backups, a nice game controller for smartphones and an awesome powerbank with an AC outlet! Take a look below!

It’s Time Connecticut Ratepayers Got A Seat At The Regulatory Table

admin — Sat, 17 Dec 2022 16:59:13 +0000

This is an op-ed I wrote for CTNewsjunkie.com about my longstanding issues with my utility companies here in Connecticut. The following idea came as a direct result of my most recent experience after a telephone pole caught fire at the end of my road. I’m hoping our legislature makes this change in their coming session:

I’ve long been a critic of my local utility monopolies because they’ve put their profits ahead of serving customers and taxpayers. Over the last couple of decades as regulations eased, utilities reduced staff and deferred maintenance resulting in several week-long outages and reliability issues across Connecticut.

Meanwhile, electricity monopoly Eversource enjoys billion-dollar net profit margins, money that comes from consumers who have little choice but to pay whatever rates they decide to charge irrespective of the quality of service being offered. Their corporate culture was on full display at a 2020 hearing when former Eversource CEO Jim Judge ranked shareholders as his top priority above customers and ratepayers.

Progress is being made, however. Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), which allowed these reductions in service quality for many years, is finally starting to turn the page and hold utilities accountable. Additionally the recently enacted “Take Back our Grid Act” is another set of accountability measures that can begin to roll back decades of customer neglect.

But PURA’s staffing levels haven’t increased despite these new tools, making it difficult for the authority to document examples of local deficiencies that could lead to enforcement action. But there is an existing mechanism that can help provide PURA those “eyes and ears” on the ground: local Cable Television Advisory Councils.

Decades ago when legislators grew tired of dealing with constituent complaints about cable television service, they created this local council structure that meets regularly with cable television company officials to work out problems before issues rise to regulatory action. Members are appointed by local municipalities and boards of education.

The councils still exist today but their regulatory authority is limited only to cable television and not any of the other utilities that benefit and profit from poles and wiring conduits running on public and private right-of-ways.

It’s time to modernize this advisory council structure and extend its advisory authority to any utility that makes use of poles and conduits in a community. Irrespective of whether the service is regulated, the use of public rights of way to deliver services is a regulated activity.

Extending this oversight authority will cost the state nothing beyond what it’s already doing to support these councils and will help PURA exercise the new regulatory powers granted to them in recent legislation. But, more importantly, this will provide an opportunity for utilities to build productive relationships with local customers and hopefully prevent regulatory action from taking place at all.

While utilities could choose not to attend these local council meetings it would most certainly be in their interest to be there and listen to customers and officials about local concerns. And if a resolution is not possible locally, the council could, through PURA, initiate regulatory dockets for enforcement such as they have with the cable companies for decades.

I have no doubt the utilities will oppose any additional oversight of their businesses. But they no longer have the trust of the public and it’s time to create a process to re-establish relationships and refocus their efforts on those who matter: us.

Twitter Bans Mastodon Links

admin — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 15:12:33 +0000

This morning I was posting a link back to my Mastodon account on Twitter and got this message: “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.”

It looks as though this new ban applies to most if not all of the major Mastodon instances that are out there. This means that any link to a Mastodon account or a post on those instances are not even allowed to be posted on Twitter.

This comes in the wake of Elon Musk banning the “Elon Jet” account that was keeping track of the whereabouts of his private jet using publicly available ADS-B data. ADS-B data comes from a transponder required to be installed on most aircraft that transmits the airplane’s tail number, position, altitude, etc. These transmissions can be picked up on the ground with cheap hardware and free software as I demonstrated in this video (tune in at at the 8:53 mark).

Musk says that realtime doxxing (publicly posting private information about a person’s whereabouts) is not allowed and that any account doing it will be removed. He also extended the ban to accounts that link to that information elsewhere. Twitter took this action after Musk says a car carrying his young child was followed home from the airport and potentially blocked by a stalker. Musk posted a video of the alleged stalker along with the alleged stalker’s license plate but did not file a police report as of the time of this writing.

The question to be asked here is whether or not those owning and traveling in private jets have a reasonable expectation of privacy – especially as the position of those aircraft are broadcast unencrypted to other aircraft and stations on the ground.

This move runs counter to the “free speech” direction Musk says he wants Twitter to take. Additionally it appears to be counter to the free market principles that Musk purports to believe in. They could have blocked individual Mastodon links to the Elon Jet account as opposed to restricting any links to the entire fediverse – a competing network that is attracting many Twitter users.

Learn more about Mastodon here:

YouTubers Rich Rebuilds and Hoovie’s Garage Reveal EV Charging Infrastructure Still Not Ready..

admin — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 14:52:50 +0000

Let me start by saying I’m a huge proponent of electric vehicles (EV’s). I’ve been driving electric for the last twelve years, starting with a Chevy Volt and now in a Tesla.

Range anxiety is still a big issue for electric vehicles. Despite massive developments EV’s charge relatively slowly vs. a gas powered vehicle fill-up and charging stations for non-Tesla vehicles are few and far between. A bulk of the publicly available EV chargers are mostly “feel good” installations that charge quite slowly. My local grocery store’s charger for example will get me maybe 5 or 6 miles back in the tank after 30 minutes in the store.

For the last decade most EVs have been cars or crossover SUVs built on car platforms. Over the last year manufacturers have introduced electric pickup trucks and SUVs to the market, with Ford, Rivian and GM shipping their vehicles right now and Tesla’s Cybertruck right around the corner. These vehicles are much larger and heavier than the typical electric car, which means they need larger batteries to get the same range as a comparable electric car would. And those big batteries take longer to charge – if you can find a charger at all.

This is something Rich Rebuilds encountered on his recent purchase of a Rivian pickup truck. He took road trip from his home in Massachusetts down to South Carolina to call out a dealer falsely marketing a Rivian on their lot, but I think the trip was really about visiting his brother :).

The buried lede in Rich’s video was how hard it was for him to actually get down there. Check out his adventure here, like all of Rich’s videos it was very entertaining:

Because Rivian doesn’t have its own charging network, Rich had to rely on publicly available chargers. Some were very slow. Others were not where they said they would be. At one point he had to ask the owner of a bed and breakfast if he could plug in for a little while to get to his next destination. And when he did find a faster charger the cost to use it was often the equivalent to a tank of gas in a traditional vehicle.

Tyler Hoover from Hoovie’s Garage didn’t fare much better with his purchase of a Ford F-150 Lightning EV pickup. Tyler is actually the prime candidate for an electric pickup – the type of driving he does is typically not far from his home. But he found even short trips back and forth to his mechanic towing a vehicle left him pretty close to empty.

His range anxiety was exacerbated by the cold weather in his home state of Kansas that reduced range even further. It was so bad that Hoover and a friend who co-owned the vehicle decided to sell it and try something else.

They ended up choosing an electric Hummer that Hoover says addresses many of the range issues by using a much larger battery pack with twice the capacity of the Ford. We’ll have to see how it fares after Hoover has had more time in the Hummer.

These range and charging issues indicate that just building and marketing an EV is not enough. Without a charging network that makes the vehicles practical it’s really just half a car.

Tesla addressed this issue a decade ago when they started building out their super charger network. After 8+ years of Tesla ownership I’ve never come close to running out of juice, mainly because there’s always a supercharging station nearby wherever I may be.

Tesla Superchargers

Tesla has experienced growing pains with the network (especially in areas like Silicon Valley where there’s a lot of Tesla ownership) but in my experience I’ve always been able to get charge when I needed one here in the Northeast US. Charging is still a bit slower than filling up a gas tank but much faster than even some of the fastest chargers available for other vehicles.

Tesla typically charges drivers market rate for the electricity but they occasionally use the supercharger network as an incentive to clear out vehicle inventory. When I purchased my car, a prior model-year leftover, they gave me “free gas for life” in an effort to get me to sign on the dotted line. Not a bad deal!

At this point I don’t believe the national goal of EV’s representing 50% of vehicle sales by 2030 to be realistic unless some major efforts are made to improve both charging speed and availability – especially for those who do not have the convenience of being able to plug in at home.

Making Progress on Deficient Connecticut Utility Poles

admin — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 13:02:35 +0000

As the saga of deficient utility poles in my town continues I’m pleased to say that some progress has been made!

First the roped together pole at the end of my road was fixed – it likely would not have been had I not raised a stink. I learned that the only thing the power company does to coordinate with the other companies is put the pole in a database. No phone calls, no other coordination.

I’ve since been passing information about other deficient poles over to our state regulator. A few of the worst offenders have already been addressed but they still have a lot of work to do.

So far Frontier the phone company dealt with this tri-pole monstrosity that was blighting my beautiful small town for years:

Frontier also addressed a very dangerous looking strapped together pole that was looming over main street. This one had been like this for the better part of two or three years. They recently put new fiber on the pole even though it was about to fall into the road!

What is clear throughout this mess is that the utilities are not coordinating with each other on pole replacements. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get everyone on site and do it at once? Sure, but only if customers mattered to these monopolies.

The utility companies of course cry poverty complaining they can’t possibly fix all of these problems and meet their minimum guaranteed profits. But if they addressed these issues when they happen vs. letting them rot for years they wouldn’t have the deferred maintenance. This issue also exposes how utility companies have gutted their workforce and rely mostly on contractors to do the bare minimum maintenance required.

I’m working on an op-ed with some solutions that I think will light a fire under utilities to refocus their attention on customers. Stay tuned!

Using ChatGPT to summarize YouTube Transcripts

admin — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 17:07:30 +0000

Like everyone else I’ve been playing with ChatGPT – a natural language chatbot that can do some pretty amazing things when it comes to summarizing text and even writing computer code.

I thought it might be fun to see if it could make summaries of my YouTube videos. ChatGPT can’t yet transcribe directly from a video but you can give it the transcript that YouTube generates automatically.

Here’s what it came up with for my recent video on Mastodon:

Pretty good right? And this is with all of the errors that YouTube automatic subtitles introduce into the text. While not perfect it’s definitely a good start and certainly better than a writing prompt.

I was also curious how it would do with a product review. Here’s what it came up with for the Kindle Scribe:

Here it missed some of my complaints that largely centered on the software-side of the experience mainly how its handwritten notes in books can’t be written on the pages of the book itself, and some of the shortfalls with note synchronization across platforms. But again, pretty good start with nothing but a YouTube transcript to work with.

The explosion of these consumer-facing AI apps we’ve seen over the last few months is stunning.

RSS to Mastodon Solution

admin — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 03:40:33 +0000

I spun up this small Docker container called Feediverse on my Synology NAS that grabs an RSS feed of my YouTube channels and link blog and posts to Mastodon each time a new item gets added. I have the Bazqux reader aggregate the four feeds into a single one.

All of the options are set in the environment criteria so you don’t need to map anything storage-wise. Just be sure to adjust the date variable each time you start the container up so it doesn’t post too much at once!

What the heck is RSS and what am I talking about? See my video on RSS here and get a list of all of my current feeds here.

My Twitter Traffic Continues Trending Upward

admin — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 03:56:33 +0000

Since the Elon Musk takeover my Twitter analytics continue their significant upward trend. Here’s where I’m at at the end of November vs. the same time in October when Musk took ownership.

I do think there has always been an algorithmic advantage to the blue checkmark which is likely contributing to the upswing in performance here. We’ll check back in next month and see where things are at. I have a feeling we’ll see a bit of “settling down” over the next few weeks to a more normal cadence.

But I have been playing around with Mastodon and I really like the vibe. It’s now a part of my posting routine too. You can find me at http://lon.tv/mastodon.

One Pole Fixed, Many More to Go

admin — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 18:04:27 +0000

Following my appearance on Fox 61 last night, Eversource and Frontier came out first thing this morning to resolve the broken utility pole that was the subject of Monday’s Wrap-up video. See the Fox piece here.

While it’s good this issue is resolved my community is unfortunately still littered with blighted, neglected poles all over the place. Today Frontier is in the neighborhood running new fiber and is attaching their new cables to old poles – this even when a new pole is standing right next to it.

The battle is won here, but we have a long way to go to get these companies to prioritize customers over shareholders.

Fox 61 Covers my Utility Pole Woes

admin — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 00:31:22 +0000

My local fox affiliate, Fox 61, covered my woes related to the condition of utility poles in my neighborhood. You can see it here.

While the linesmen did great work getting the pole that caught fire rebuilt quickly my issue is that their management did not coordinate with the other utilities to find a timely resolution to the problem.

Comcast did get their portion fixed after they saw one of my Tweets, but I think it’s clear that if they’re finding out about this from Twitter nobody from Eversource ever reached out to them. Apparently Eversource uses some kind of software package as opposed to actually picking up a phone and coordinating. Once I heard back from Comcast they came out over night to reattach the cables.

Frontier had their contractors running fiber in the neighborhood today but they did not reattach their cables. I think tomorrow they’ll be working their way towards the area where their wires are hanging so I’m eager to see what unfolds there.

The Atari 50th Anniversary Celebration is a Fun, but Incomplete, Exhibit of Video Game History

admin — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 01:15:44 +0000

I picked up the Atari 50th Celebration collection (affiliate link) the other day and found it to be a wonderful tribute to Atari’s contributions to video game history. It has a mixture of emulated games along with documentary material presented in an easy to follow timeline.

You can see it in action in this livestream I did on Amazon. The gameplay starts around the 13 minute mark. I am playing the Switch version but it’s also available for just about every current gaming platform.

The games and documentary materials are organized into eras that take the user step-by-step through the development of Atari’s arcade games, home consoles and computers. It keeps track of progress as the user works through what feels like a museum exhibit. They produced some videos specific for this release along with additional archival footage and documents from Atari’s archives.

The game emulation feels pretty solid. Digital Eclipse, the developers of the collection, added some really solid filters to the emulation that come very close to capturing the look and feel of CRTs of the era on a modern television.

I was especially impressed with how they depicted the arcade version of Breakout. The original game used a black and white CRT but had a colored overlay placed over the picture tube to add color. Digital Eclipse’s depiction of it looks pretty spot on – note how the blue band runs through the borders of the play area on the bottom:

Unfortunately some of the games that were designed around specific control surfaces (steering wheels, spinners, etc) don’t translate very well to modern game controllers. Analog sticks work well with games that originally used joysticks but Breakout is pretty hard to control without the precision of a spinner or paddle controller.

But to add some additional value Digital Eclipse and Atari did produce six modern interpretations of 80’s era games, including Breakout. They’re all a lot of fun and capture the feel of vintage games while being much more friendly towards modern controllers. I especially liked VCTR-SCTR which is a modern homage to the vector games of the early 80’s that plays like a medley of Asteroids, Lunar Lander and more. These definitely add some value lost by control issues on some of the vintage titles.

A bigger shortfall is that the history feels incomplete without Activision games like Pitfall, the 2600 ports of Pacman & Space Invaders, and of course the infamous ET game that some credit with causing the 1983 video game crash. While most of these important milestones get mentioned in the timeline, the games are missing due to licensing issues.

Atari is a shell of the company that dominated the video game market in the 80’s so they probably couldn’t come up with the budget to license the Atari ports of other popular games.

Activision gets a mention in the collection, but no games can be played due to licensing issues.

But the collection does manage to deliver a nice sampling of popular games across every console Atari released including the 2600, 5200, 7800, the 800 home computer, the Lynx handheld and the Jaguar. All in there are 103 games in the collection with five 2600 games that are unlocked by achieving certain milestones in the other games. There’s a full list and unlocking instructions over at IGN.

There’s definitely something for everyone but I would have liked to have even more games included even if they didn’t make it to the historical timeline. For example my Dad and I used to play Atari bowling quite a bit when I was 3 or 4 years old and it would have been great to have that included here even if it wasn’t historically significant.

The bottom line? The Atari 50th Celebration is a lovingly curated exhibit of video game history that ends up a feeling incomplete. The six new games included do make up for that a bit but it’s a shame that the full Atari story can’t be told due to licensing restrictions. Hopefully I’ll live long enough for all of this stuff to find its way into the public domain so we can get a full collection for the 100th celebration!

When Your Business Literally Hangs by a Few Threads

admin — Sat, 26 Nov 2022 16:24:21 +0000

I’ve long been a critic of my local utility monopolies because they’ve put their own profits ahead of doing right by customers and taxpayers. Last night was another example of this.

The top of a utility pole owned by electric monopoly Eversource caught fire around 6:00 p.m. due to their lack of attention and maintenance to their infrastructure. The pole was replaced sometime overnight but the communications cables were still attached to the old pole.

Eversource’s solution was to cut the top and bottom off the old pole and tie it with a rope to the new one. I kid you not. The communications backhaul for me and thousands of Comcast and Frontier customers literally hangs by a few threads.

Eversource owns the pole so they won’t reattach the communications cables. Comcast and Frontier outsource most of their fiber optic line work to contractors and lack the staff to actually deal with it in a timely manner. And they can conveniently point to Eversource as being uncooperative. Who knows if Eversource even tried to coordinate with Comcast and Frontier that evening to get the pole fixed correctly?

Part of the problem is that none of these companies shoulder any responsibility. It’s so much easier to pass the buck – their mutual customers be damned.

And this pole is not alone in my neighborhood.. Five poles down and this is what you’ll see:

It’s been strapped together like this for at least a year or two. The power company added a second pole for power but nobody ever took the communications cables off the old one. Frontier was even coming through here running fiber and left everything on the old pole.

The kicker here is that these monopolies are granted access to public and private property to run the wires that they profit from. In fact I have utility pole on my property and wires running underneath my driveway that go to other homes with a right of way they can use for free in perpetuity.

It’s time these companies put the needs of their ratepayers first and fix this mess. Enough of the finger pointing. For more on why Eversource is the worst company ever see my analysis piece here:

There is still a Mark on My Twitter Record

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 12:55:10 +0000

Despite being fully exonerated following Twitter’s misidentification of my rocket video as porn, there still a mark on my record. Earlier today I tried to join the community notes program where Twitter users can provide context for people/organizations that are not fully telling the truth. Unfortunately I was denied:

Apparently that 12 hour suspension is still on my record as a recent Twitter rules violation. My concern is that this may also negatively impact my algorithmic placement too.

NASA Details Launchpad Damage

admin — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 23:28:39 +0000

The NASA SLS rocket’s boosters burn at around 3000 degrees fahrenheit / 1649 celsius, so it’s no surprise the mobile launcher that supports the rocket on the ground took some damage. Here’s what it looked like the afternoon of the 16th following the launch:

One thing I noticed at the NASA press site was that the launch tower definitely had a color change after the rocket blasted off earlier that morning. NASA released some images this afternoon that details the more notable damage the tower took at liftoff:

This area is where the rocket boosters take off from – there was some definite damage around the area but nothing critical that can’t be repaired in time for the second SLS flight for Artemis II.

This next photo is likely why it took so long for NASA’s ground teams to clear the area around the pad – the elevator doors for the launch tower blew out due to the massive pressure during launch! This prevented a quick inspection of the launch tower’s overall condition.

But at a press conference held this evening NASA officials said the hardware is working exceptionally well with just a few “funnies” the team are tracking. They currently have more fuel than they anticipated remaining after their recent burn to whip around the moon and they’re generating more power and using less than anticipated.

There’s still a lot of time left in the mission but if things keep tracking this well a crewed flight around the moon won’t be far behind.

See my full Artemis 1 coverage on YouTube here!

Mastodon & Why a Blog with RSS is the Best Way to Decentralize Yourself

admin — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 14:14:24 +0000

With all of the talk of this decentralized platform called Mastodon I decided to set up an account myself. I went with the indieweb.social “instance” as I have an interest in reviving the independent web. You can find me at @lonseidman@indieweb.social.

Mastodon is not a centrally controlled social media platform, rather it’s a network of federated servers that all communicate with one another. You plant your flag on one of them and you’ll have access to all of the users on all of the other federated servers. To some degree this reminds me of how the bulletin board system (BBS) network FidoNet has worked for decades.

But Mastodon has a few weak points. First, can their federated network scale at the volume of Twitter with hundreds of millions of users? That remains to be seen.

A big problem I see is that if your instance goes *poof* so do you. Migrating to a new instance without losing your identity requires the old one being available to release you to the new one according to this post. If your originating instance disappears one day it’s not clear if you have a way of importing your presence elsewhere without having to start over.

I’m also struggling with automating ingesting my content from elsewhere into Mastodon. For example I’m using Zapier to automatically post my YouTube content and blog posts to other platforms, but Mastodon doesn’t work with Zapier at the moment.

My advice for those looking to “cut the social cord” is to get a blog with an RSS feed. You can control it, own it, and because RSS is still largely the connective tissue of the modern internet it’s relatively easy to link it to other things.

That’s why I set up blog.Lon.tv as my base of operations. Everything from here feeds into other stuff like my email newsletters, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. You can learn more about this effort from a video I did a few months ago.

It’s funny how we really solved this federation problem back in the early 2000’s with content management systems and RSS. It’s how podcasts work to this day. And yet we’re still trying to reinvent the wheel every time a centralized platform has a crisis. There is no need to reinvent the wheel IMHO – we just need to make it easier to get started and federate!

My Latest Appearance on WTIC-AM in Connecticut

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 15:39:49 +0000

I once again joined Brian Shactman on WTIC AM radio to discuss my Twitter woes and the successful launch of Artemis 1. Listen here! I appear about 30 minutes into the broadcast.

Twitter’s AI Took Down Astronomy Videos Too

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 15:37:15 +0000

Twitter has reinstated my account after it somehow determined that my video of the Artemis I launch was pornography. They also republished the post they took down back to my feed. You can see it here.

I’m not the only one this impacted. The BBC reports that an astronomer had the exact thing happen to her the other day. However in her case they shut down her account for 3 months, not the 12 hours they hit my account with.

Twitter has an appeal process but they don’t give the alleged violators a link to access those appeal tools. I only found out they existed when I googled it!

For what it’s worth Twitter says “it appears we made an error” and determined that my account committed “no violation.” So I’m now fully exonerated!

Twitter Suspended My Account!

admin — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 17:39:06 +0000

So early this morning I was here at the NASA press site covering the launch of Artemis I. Following the launch I uploaded this video to share the experience with followers on Twitter along with YouTube And Facebook.

Right when the video finished uploading my account was immediately suspended for violating Twitters “rules against posting or sharing privately produced/distributed intimate media of someone without their express consent.” Clearly their AI misinterpreted the scene and threw down the ban hammer immediately.

Twitter does have an appeals process that they don’t make clear unless you Google it. The communications from Twitter basically told me to chill out for 12 hours before I can gain access to my account. Other people can still see my account but I’m completely locked out of the service.

And oh yeah, I am a Twitter Blue subscriber. That $8 is not taking me very far today!

I should be back up by 2:30 p.m. eastern time today, November 16th. But if you’d like you can Tweet to @elonmusk , @twittersupport and ask them to restore the @lonseidman account!

My Twitter Analytics Post Musk Takeover

admin — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 18:39:57 +0000

My Twitter analytics continue moving upward without any real changes on my part beyond going to the Blue tier. This could be due to more overall activity on Twitter, but I suspect the gatekeeping disadvantaged smaller voices on the platform prior to Elon Musk taking the company private and extending the reach of blue check marks. Have a look:

My impressions (how often my tweets appeared in feeds) went up 83.9%, profile visits are up 57.1%, and mentions are up 51%. Over this same period I lost 44 followers – either they don’t like me anymore, left the platform, or were bots that were cleared out.

The Week Ahead

admin — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 16:41:47 +0000

Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment but I am once again heading down to Florida for the Artemis I launch. The next launch attempt will be at 1:04 a.m. on the 16th which means Tuesday night I’ll be camping out at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. How cool is that?

I was really disappointed my initial video from the Kennedy Space Center didn’t do all that well but perhaps a first person perspective with an actual launch in the piece will do better.

Since so many other outlets (including NASA’s own channel) will have much better close up views, my goal is to show you what it’s like to be there in person. I noted that a live stream I did with my phone showing people around the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center press site generated twice the views with far less effort! I will also present the launch without commentary.

Also coming up I have a review of Twitter’s Blue tier (I paid for it so you don’t have to) along with some balanced analysis of where I think Twitter is headed next. I’m also hoping to shoot a review of HP’s new ARM based Chromebook x360 (affiliate link) later this afternoon before I start packing up gear for my journey.

Stay tuned!

Twitter Blue Check Mania

admin — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:09:56 +0000

It looks like today is the day that Twitter rolled out blue check marks for anyone who pays for the $8 “Blue” tier of service. I got mine this afternoon.

There was some controversy earlier in the day as Twitter rolled out a two tier checkmark system that would give some people a white “official” checkmark to designate them as a VIP in addition to the blue one they paid for. But that was reversed by Musk later in the morning:

But it looks like Twitter is instead going to embed a description for why the checkmark is assigned to a user if you tap on it next to the username. So for example my check mark says that I’m verified because I’m paying.

But if I look at an official government account like @POTUS, it’ll indicate that “it’s notable in government, news, entertainment or another designated category.”

Is it worth paying $8 for just a checkmark? Definitely not. But I like the idea of treating every user equally insofar as how far their content gets pushed out by the algorithms. Twitter’s prior policies shut out smaller independent creators and put them at a disadvantage. The blue check marks could even choose to ignore non-blue check mark people further deepening their echo chamber.

If Musk is serious about leveling the playing field $8 a month to extend the reach of my content is fine by me – especially if my mainstream competitors are having to pay for it too.

But ultimately I hope they really work to improve the consumption experience for Blue subscribers. The edit button and extended video lengths are a nice bonus but I’d love to have a completely ad free experience and better tools for consuming and posting content.

Twitter is not the only social media platform I subscribe to. I get a lot of value out of YouTube Premium as it provides a completely ad-free experience along with the full YouTube Music library. And the channels I watch are compensated for every minute I watch.

I’m also paying for LinkedIn’s Premium tier that offers a lot of useful benefits and guess what? A gold badge too!

Stay tuned as I’ll be doing a video soon about the added features you get with the subscription now and what I’d like to see out of it in the future.

The Week Ahead for November 7, 2022

admin — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 12:15:23 +0000

First, don’t forget to vote tomorrow (Tuesday, November 8) if you are in the United States! I found Vote411.org run by the non-partisan League of Women Voters to be an excellent resource for voting information.

This week we’re going to take a look at the new Apple TV, likely in two videos. I picked up the new one over the weekend and have already put it through its paces with Plex and general usability. You can watch me attempting to unbox it here. Spoiler alert – it’s not much different than the prior 4k models. I’ll be working on that device today.

Also this week will be a review of the new more expensive “iPad.” Apple used to call their entry level iPad just “iPad.” They still do that but they’re also selling the prior generation one at a lower price and still calling it “iPad.” I bet they’re sitting on a glut of excess inventory of that low-end device.

We’ll likely take a look at the new Roku smart home products that are really Wyze products in disguise. There are a few usability differences vs. the Wyze versions that we’ll cover once I get a few questions answered by the Roku folks. In the meantime you can see me unboxing them here.

I’m hoping to get caught up on reviewing a pile of laptops so look for a review of one of them too.

Finally I’m wrapping up two paid sponsorship projects, one for Mevo and the other for Synology. So you’ll probably see those videos this week or early next.

Stay tuned!

GPD Win 4 Indiegogo Begins Soon

admin — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 02:10:14 +0000

GPD has been making handheld PCs long before coveted Steam Deck hit the market. Their latest device, the GPD Win 4, is going to be launching soon on Indiegogo. We’ve looked at a lot of their PCs over the years, you can see them in my handheld device playlist here.

The Win 4 looks to be a lot smaller than Steam Deck yet should deliver better performance thanks to its Ryzen 6800U processor. There will be a version with 32GB of RAM and a 2TB NVME SSD. It has a 6″ 1080p display that can run at 40 or 60 hz that can be slid out to reveal a physical keyboard. Battery life will likely come in at around what the Steam Deck delivers so be sure to budget for some power banks for longer trips.

GPD Photo

Also of note is that it will feature 40 gbps USB 4 ports that are Thunderbolt compatible for external GPUs and other high speed devices. The Win 4 will be running Windows 11 so it should be a good companion for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers who want to download games and take them on the road.

No pricing has been set yet but I expect this will likely cost more than Steam Deck if the prior editions are any indication. The Intel powered GPD Win 3 sold for $899 upon its release with an i7-1165G7 processor.

You can find their Indiegogo campaign here.

Starlink to Start Throttling Users

admin — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 00:39:53 +0000

Via Michael Baylor on Twitter, it looks like Starlink is going to begin throttling users who consume more than 1TB of data transfers in a month.

Those who go beyond the allocation will be “depriortized” for the remainder of the month and will likely experience degraded connection speeds.

Here’s the notice Baylor received today:

Starlink will not run the bandwidth meter between 11pm and 7 am at the moment, so night owls should be ok for now.

It’ll be interesting to see how they’ll manage the continued growth of the service. I have a feeling this is just the beginning.

See my Starlink videos here!

Why Creators Should NOT Apply to the Walmart Creator Program Right Now

admin — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 21:42:34 +0000

As many of you know a good portion of my revenue comes in from affiliate links that I place on my videos. With “social shopping” becoming more of a thing we’re starting to see major retailers develop programs that are better integrating into social video platforms.

That’s why I was interested in Walmart’s new “Walmart Creator” program, especially after some of the success I have found on Amazon’s influencer program. That was until I tried signing up for Walmart’s effort.

As a creator you’re asked to link your social media accounts to the Walmart Creator website. No biggie. But my alarm bells went off when I got to the next screen where they ask for what is essentially full control of my YouTube channel. Have a look:

The first item provides them read-only access to your analytics. While you’re giving them all of your analytics data there’s not much damage they can do there. But the second item which allows them to “manage your YouTube account” is one no creator should grant to anyone outside their organization. Here’s what they’ll be able to do without your intervention with this permission enabled:

View and manage videos and playlists means exactly that: they could change your descriptions, thumbnails, playlists, probably even delete entire videos. You’re also giving them the ability to comment as you on your own videos and others.

This goes without saying but YOU SHOULD NEVER, EVER GIVE THIS ACCESS TO ANYONE, EVER. This makes the Walmart Creator platform a juicy target for hackers who could take control over who knows how many channels in one shot.

What’s worse is that Walmart’s not actually running it. You’ll notice that Activate Holding LLC is the company seeking this access, which is a subsidiary of Impact.com. Impact is an affiliate marketing technology provider that Walmart uses for their normal affiliate operations.

And the fun doesn’t stop with YouTube. Look at what they want from your Twitter account:

And for those of you building your brand on Facebook & Instagram you’ll find they require granting extensive management permissions to your accounts there too:

I don’t have a TikTok account but I’m sure they’re looking for the same level of control there too.

The worst part is the Walmart program is (at the moment) not much different vs. a standard affiliate program where you send people from social platforms to Walmart to make purchases. So if you’re already using affiliate links from them I don’t think being a part of this program is going to be much different unless they cut you a better deal.

But a point or two more commission is not worth turning over this much control to a third party IMHO.

My advice: hold off on this until they change these requirements. Otherwise you’re putting your accounts at significant risk for not much gain.

I have reached out to a number of Walmart and Impact executives via their LinkedIn profiles and have not heard back. I’ll update this post as I get more information or if things change.

Chatting about Twitter with WTIC’s Brian Shactman

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 16:19:22 +0000

Every couple of weeks I appear on WTIC-AM’s morning drive show “Brian and Company” here in Connecticut. This week host Brian Shactman & I talk about Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter and what it might mean for users whether they have a blue check mark or not! Listen here:

Elon’s erratic behavior aside I do think there are opportunities for independent creators if the playing field is leveled and a revenue sharing model is developed.

The commoditization of the “blue check mark” that created two tiers of users allowed the prior ownership to pick winners and losers. Contrast that to YouTube where every piece of content has the chance to be successful based on how well it holds a viewer’s interest.

Years ago one of my laptop reviews on YouTube got placed higher in search than the same product reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. That was empowering and indicative of YouTube’s desire to be focused on users and develop a culture of partnership with those who submit content to the platform.

Twitter doesn’t give the smaller voices that same opportunity. The verification process was never fair to anyone and often it was about who you knew at Twitter as opposed to a true measure of the credibility and quality.

Twitter will have a bumpy ride ahead. I think there’s some opportunity for independent voices but time will tell depending on how competently these changes are implemented and rolled out to users.

The Week Ahead

admin — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 14:15:35 +0000

Another week is upon us!

We had a great cost of shipping giveaway and gadget sale livestream on Saturday afternoon! I spent most of yesterday resetting stuff and packing things up. Due to the Columbus Day holiday here in the USA items will be shipped tomorrow. Be sure to subscribe to my Store Alert email to be notified for when we do the next one! I’m already finding more stuff to sell and give away.

I am actually two videos ahead coming into Monday which is always a good thing. Tonight’s video will be a review of the Lenovo Thinkpad Z13 Gen 1 (affiliate link), a “concept car” of what future Thinkpads might look like. This one already made it into my recent video on USB 4 but in the review we’ll take a look at the rest of the system.

Later in the week we’ll be look at an Orico USB 4 SSD drive that delivers full 40gbps performance on USB 4 and Thunderbolt equipped laptops. You can see the review now on Amazon.

In a few hours I’ll be doing a livestream unboxing and setting up the Nreal Air AR/video glasses. These are supposedly pretty decent and create a private large screen for playing back video (or playing games) from mobile devices and PCs.

Tomorrow I am planning at least two livestreams because it’s Amazon’s big fall Prime Day sale. I’ll be focusing on items that I have on hand that are on sale answering your questions. You can see me live on my Amazon page – I’m planning to start around noonish eastern time and likely will do the second one around 3 or 4 p.m.

Wednesday I’ll be taking a quick trip to NYC for another Pepcom mini trade show. There will be several dozen tech companies there showing off some of their products slated for holiday releases so I hope to have a dispatch video for you on that by Thursday.

After that I hope to get caught up on some other product reviews. Busy week ahead!

Steam Decks Sell Over a Million?

admin — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 13:55:59 +0000

Gaming on Linux reports that some developers at a KDE conference said that Valve’s Steam Deck has sold over one million units:

Perhaps the biggest bit of info coming out of this is that according to Edmundson, Valve has shipped over a million. At about 29:45 in the above video in response to a question on it Edmundson said “They have crossed over a million, and they’re still processing back orders”. Valve haven’t actually given out any numbers in public on it yet and Edmundson was not speaking for Valve but still, the answer was pretty confident and clear.

I had to wait awhile for my Steam Deck due to ordering system snafu’s on pre-order day but when it finally did arrive I was not disappointed. Valve did an amazing job on this device across the whole stack: both hardware and software. They also managed to hit a reasonable price tag on it which is no doubt driving so many sales. You can see my full review here:

If these sales figures are true this is by far the most successful hardware product Valve has put together to date. What’s interesting is that it incorporates technologies developed on less than successful products, namely the Steam Controllers and SteamOS / Steam Machines.

I reviewed one of the Steam Machines way back in 2015. While I liked the approach of a dedicated Linux gaming OS and the hardware felt solid, compatibility with Windows games just wasn’t there. I ended up installing Windows on it.

Valve has done a ton of work over the last seven years addressing the compatibility issues with their Proton project, which simplifies the compatibility process and has become so good that most Windows games will run on the Steam Deck and other future devices running Steam OS or other flavors of Linux.

The moral of this story is that even when things fail or fall short of expectations ideas can morph into something better. That’s clearly evident with Valve’s patient approach to the hardware business. Many other VC backed companies would have thrown in the towel years ago.

WTIC Radio Interview on DART / Artemis I

admin — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 13:42:32 +0000

I appeared on WTIC radio here in Connecticut to talk about the recent DART asteroid mission and the status of the Artemis I program. Listen to it here!

Amazing Shots of the DART Asteroid Impact

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 12:04:26 +0000

NASA’s DART spacecraft successfully collided with an asteroid yesterday to see if a kinetic impact can nudge a threatening asteroid away from a collision with Earth.

The target was Didymos – a twin asteroid system that’s not in any danger of hitting the Earth and is about 6 million miles away. The mission targeted the smaller rock in the Didymos system that is orbiting the larger one. Astronomers and scientists will now observe the orbit of the small rock around the large one to see if any changes, slowdowns, etc. happened as a result of the impact.

DART hit the asteroid at a speed of about 14,000 miles per hour – easily 8 times faster than a rifle shot. The spacecraft weighed approximately 1200 pounds at the time of impact. It also beamed back pictures all the way to its demise:

Check out the detail beamed back from DART right before it impacted the surface:

And this amazing shot from a South African telescope captured the impact from here on Earth (via Twitter):

It’ll be awhile until the full “impact” of the impact will be known. But scientists are pretty confident that they’ll observe enough of a movement to help inform a future deflection mission.

AMD’s Processor Model Numbers Explained

admin — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 14:05:13 +0000

AMD announced their model naming scheme for their Ryzen processors today complete with a helpful chart below for consumers to figure out exactly what it is they’re getting:

The first number will be the model year, followed by the market segment. The most important number I think will be the third one which refers to the processor’s architecture. As we saw with the 5000 series Ryzen chips, some were running with the older “Zen 2” architecture while others had the newer “Zen 3.”

This chart should help make sense of what exactly is in the processor driving your PC in the years ahead.

The Week Ahead

admin — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 13:02:19 +0000

After two and a half weeks of back and forth travel I am finally back in one place for a little bit! In addition to the NASA trip I went to NYC for the Lenovo event and took a family vacation to Nantucket. I do have another trip to NYC in two weeks but beyond that I am going to try and get caught up on my huge backlog of tech reviews!

The NASA trip was fun and productive but sadly there wasn’t much of an audience for the dispatch video from the Kennedy Space Center. A launch would have helped the video’s performance of course. Oddly the livestream I did from there did better. But these are the sorts of things I enjoy doing and I’ll keep doing them until I figure out how I can connect space content to a general audience. If you haven’t watched definitely check it out – we had some great interviews!

It’s actually kind of a bummer that my last couple of dispatch videos have performed so poorly. I really like getting out of the house every once and awhile!

This is a shorter week as today is Labor Day here in the USA and I’m going to take a little breather for at least a portion of the day. But I have three videos ready to go: a review for retro gaming fans of the 3DO FZ1-ODE, a review of a well rounded USB-C portable dock/hub, and another fun dispatch video from my visit to Retro World Expo! That video will have some interviews with RetroRGB, EposVox and the creator of the NESMaker !

I have a huge backlog of laptops to review from Dell, HP and Lenovo! So I’ll be working through that pile but also looking at that ARM based Mini PC, testing out the new version of Parallels for the Mac that simplifies ARM Windows 11, some new pro level external SSDs from WD and a lot more.

Stay tuned!

Update on my Artemis I Coverage

admin — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 13:46:03 +0000

I am heading back from Florida following the scrub of the Artemis I launch attempt yesterday. I have a crazy travel story about all of the obstacles that were in the way getting down here which I’ll talk about on the next wrap up video :).

While there is an opportunity to try again on Friday the fact that NASA really doesn’t know what caused the engine issue leads me to think they’ll take some more time to troubleshoot. This issue involved one of the changes they made to the rocket engines powering the core stage.

The weather is also an issue – in fact the weather would have likely impacted yesterday’s attempt even if everything was working perfectly. The ocean water is quite warm this time of year so storms frequently pop up as they did at the press site yesterday around launch time.

If they do try a Friday attempt I will attempt to get back down but my money’s going to be on October.

Even though we didn’t get a launch the trip was still productive. NASA set up a media opportunity at the Kennedy Space Center and I was able to get some great interviews with scientists, engineers and an astronaut working on the mission. I also reconnected with a bunch of my content creator friends in the space community who I haven’t seen in quite some time.

I will be holding uploading what I recorded until I get a sense of the launch schedule. I’d love to have a launch be the end cap of the video :).

The shot above is a captured frame from my camera’s view of the launch pad from the NASA press site. Even though the rocket is three miles away it’s so big that the view we get is spectacular. Just imagine strapping some rockets onto the Statute of Liberty to get a sense of its size.

Out of This World Mobile Phone Announcements?

admin — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 11:39:56 +0000

I’m interested to see what will be announced by T-Mobile and SpaceX later this evening. SpaceX posted this on their Twitter account yesterday:

My guess is Starlink backhaul for remote T-mobile towers to expand their footprint. It’ll be much easier for them to connect to Starlink than run fiber to hard to reach places.

Also yesterday Apple dropped the invite for their latest iPhone event. No, I was not invited but I did see what the invite looked like from what others have posted:

Apple’s Tweet announcing the event also alludes to an outer space theme:

My guess on Apple’s announcement is that new iPhones will work with the Globalstar constellation of low earth orbiting satellites. A few months ago Globalstar announced a major deal with a “global customer” for some form of connectivity from their satellites.

But don’t you need a huge dish for this? Nope! As I demo’ed the other day a handheld radio can get short messages (and sometimes full voice communications) back and forth to the International Space Station. Larger antennas make it easier of course but if there’s a satellite always overhead the challenge of getting a message delivered is reduced significantly.

I did a whole video about this a few months ago. You can check it out here!

The Week Ahead

admin — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 11:51:14 +0000

This will most definitely be a busy week! I have a few videos “in the can” coming up including a review of a WD external SSD for gamers posting tonight, a VisionTek portable dock that I think works well for desktop use and a look at how a smartphones can send text messages through the ISS without a cellular network or Internet.

I also hope to shoot my next Plex video this week along with one or two other video reviews. I am overloaded with laptops again so I will try to get one or two of those done. I’m also eager to dig into the Unihertz phone that has a built in HAM radio.

On Saturday I’ll be at RetroWorldExpo in Hartford, Connecticut. From there I’ll be heading to the airport and flying down to Florida for the launch of Artemis I! After that we’ll get back to a more regular cadence here.

Stay tuned!

You can communicate with the ISS using just a handheld radio with its built in “rubber duck” antenna!

admin — Sun, 21 Aug 2022 11:31:13 +0000

Now that the ISS’s digipeater is active there are several opportunities per day to try out different ways of confirming a radio contact with it.

Yesterday I wanted to see if it’s possible to get a data packet heard by the station 250 miles up with just the “rubber duck” antenna that came equipped with my super low-end 8 watt Baofang BF-F8HP radio (affiliate link).

Normally for satellite communications I use an Arrow Antenna designed specifically for satellite work. But is it possible to use something smaller and more portable? The answer is yes but it’s going to be much more challenging.

I attempted this contact when the station was almost directly over my location for the best results. I attached the radio to my computer with the BTECH-APRS-V01 (affiliate link) cable that converts the radio’s mic and headphone jacks into a three prong TRRS connector for smartphones and laptops with a single headphone/microphone jack on board.

After sending a ton of packets into the air while tracking the station with my smartphone it looks like one of them actually made it according to ARISS.net that listens for packets beamed back down from the station.

I was traveling when I did this so I didn’t have my Windows computer with me. I used an iOS app called PulseModem running on my Mac in its iOS compatibility mode. It was having trouble triggering the radio’s VOX so I probably sent less packets than I thought I did. I ended up holding down the PTT button on the radio and pushing transmit on the computer’s screen.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this works with a more reliable set up on future passes!

What’s On Tap This Week and Next

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 13:20:07 +0000

The next two weeks will be a little disruptive from my usual production cadence. I have a quick day trip out to New York City tomorrow for a product preview that you’ll see a little later in September and then taking a few days off for some family time. The following week I’ll be headed down to Kennedy Space Center to witness the launch of Artemis I!

You can hear about all of the stuff I have in the works in last night’s wrapup video.

The good news is that I’m working to make sure I have plenty of content to bridge the gaps in production. So I have a bunch of things already “in the can” and at least one more video today I’m hoping to get done. A few projects I started did not go the way I had expected so they require a little more work.

Tomorrow I’ll have a review of the new Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X (affiliate link) probably the nicest laptop I’ve looked at from Lenovo over the last year. It’s relatively small and light but has both a Ryzen 6900HS AND a Nvidia RTX 3050 inside. I tested things using both the built in graphics and the discrete 3050 to see how this new AMD chip performs.

I will likely pop up with a livestream later this morning / early afternoon tinkering with an Atari 2600 and a flash cartridge for an upcoming video.

The ISS Digipeater is Active!

admin — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 14:41:17 +0000

The astronauts turned on a data packet repeater on the space station last week. When the station is overhead licensed amateur radio operators can send short messages to the station and it re-transmits those messages back to the ground. I had a successful transmission on my first shot!

Somebody from Virginia heard me through the station and sent a message back:

To hit the repeater I used a handheld radio, an Arrow Satellite antenna, and a Signalink USB soundbox that I talked about in this video. I used a piece of software called PinPoint to manage the data packet traffic which connects up with another piece of software called Direwolf that listens for the packets and passes them to Pinpoint.

Here’s a fun video from RetroRecipes where they made contact using a Commodore 64! This worked because the packet data protocol used is the same one that was used in the 1980s to transmit data over the radio. Sometimes when something works it doesn’t need to change all that much.

This repeater isn’t always active. But the voice repeater on the station is usually going all the time. Sometimes you can even catch an astronaut operating the station during their break periods!

You can learn more about amateur radio on the ISS by visiting the ARISS website.

The Week Ahead

admin — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 14:00:20 +0000

We’ve got another diverse range of content ahead this week.

One of the most successful series of smartphones I do on the channel are for Unihertz phones. They have carved out a niche for themselves making tiny phones and Android phones with Blackberry style keyboards. All of their phones are exceptionally rugged too which leads us to their latest creation called the “Tick Tock.”

The Tick Tock is a more traditional Android phone but it has a nifty second screen that can do a few functions now with more to come. You can get a sneak peak at it from my livestream I did on Amazon the other day (tune to about the 90 minute mark).

Also this week we’re going to look at the new Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X (affiliate link) which is powered by the new 6000 series Ryzen processors. It’s always fun to see how a new processor performs vs. the previous generation.

And finally we’ll have an interview I did with Tyler the Antenna Man! We’ll learn his origin story and how he became YouTube’s TV antenna expert and explore why there is no single “best” antenna on the market – but there are certainly a lot of bad ones.

I’m sure we’ll have a few other things in between too. Stay tuned!

Jason Scott Unearths Another Internet Time Capsule

admin — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 14:55:32 +0000

Jason Scott, aka textfiles, is a master digital historian who works for the Internet Archive. Jason is the man behind the BBS Documentary, Get Lamp, and countless other pieces of digital history that are safely stored on his website but also on the Internet Archive.

His latest find is a 1996 documentary entitled “Life on the Internet” and is hosted by NPR’s Scott Simon. Scott describes it as follows in a twitter thread as:

It is well-made, narrated by NPR voice of Weekend Edition Scott Simon, and, after those of us perform the requisite oos and aahs of memory and nostalgia for the 1990s, is most striking for its off-the-rails naivety about the effects the Internet would have on society and life.
I was handed the VHS tapes over the weekend and I got all 13 done in a day and a half, and I wanted you all to see it as soon as possible. Scott Simon is, and I can’t emphasize this enough, a beyond sneering skeptic throughout the entire series. Nothing misses his contempt.
But once you wade past his sarcasm and disdain, you run into faces like James Gosling, who created Java, and the founders of Yahoo, before they got a chance to ruin everything.
Each episode is 30 minutes, the names are strangely spoken and not given title cards, but if you were there, you’ll get a rush of memories; and if you weren’t there, see how much we got it wrong.

The Week Ahead

admin — Mon, 01 Aug 2022 12:52:50 +0000

Another week is upon us! I already have two videos shot and recorded that just need a little editing and polish. The first one you’ll see is the Lenovo Thinkpad X13s, an ARM powered Windows laptop. Windows 11 appears to have solved many (but not all) of the compatibility issues we saw with prior Windows ARM laptops I’ve reviewed. The 3rd generation 8cx processor also appears to be an improvement. Look for that one likely tomorrow night.

Also ready to go is part 2 of my tour of the ARRL headquarters for amateur radio here in the United States. I was disappointed that there wasn’t more viewership for Part 1 but I expect this video to improve in performance over time as the algorithm puts it in front of people who have more interest in the topic.

Also on the docket for this week is a new NAS device from ioSafe that’s designed to be fireproof and waterproof! We’ve reviewed these in the past – they are Synology NAS devices repackaged into these fireproof boxes.

Additionally got in a bunch of quick hit items that we’ll unbox on an Amazon Live Stream later this week too.

I think I might also do an update on the Analogue Pocket as it now looks like their new firmware allows for additional cores to be installed in the device.

Playing with the ThinkPad X13s Today

admin — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 14:24:54 +0000

Back in March I was at a Lenovo preview event for their summer releases and they had a very intriguing ThinkPad on display with a new Snapdragon ARM processor. They sent me a loaner unit this week so I’m going to begin playing around with it today on a live stream. Set your notifications! I’ll … Continue reading