Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
Q: Can I use an HDMI splitter to extend, not duplicate, my laptop screen across two monitors? (via Quora) A: Nope. An electronics splitter (audio or video) takes a single signal and splits it into two identical signals. If you connect a signal splitter to any of your laptop’s AV outputs, you’ll get two identical…
In 1658, Irish Archbishop James Ussher said Earth was created 9am on 23 Oct, 4004 BC*, making our home planet a sprightly 6,022 years young today. Of course, stick-in-the-mud geologists believe that’s off by roughly 4.5 billion years, but what do they know? Come on, let’s party like it’s 6,022! * https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/history-of-geology/october-23-4004-bc-happy-birthday-earth/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology Permalink: https://wp.me/paaiox-dd…
In Part One, I told you about a weird email problem that caused me to receive a take-down notice from Google, telling me my account was being killed due to Terms of Service violations. The notice was 100% real, but turned out to be meant for someone else at “Langa.Com.” Trouble is, I’m the only…
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Part One: At first, the email subject line was only mildly alarming: It said, “Security alert for your linked Google account.” That usually signals some minor event, such as a new login from an unrecognized device. But this was different: The body of the email began, “Your Google Account has been deleted due to Terms…
Q. Do trees change colors at the same time every Fall or do they change according to weather? (via Quora) A: Nope. It’s highly variable. Trees are living things, so a tough summer with too little or too much rain, or too high or too low temperatures, or events like the arrival of invasive insects,…
The Digital Museum of Planetary Mapping houses some 2000 examples of humankind’s best attempts to map our solar system, from the earliest pre-telescope hand-drawn maps to NASA’s latest high-resolution offerings. Examples: 400 years ago: “The oldest map available on the website is a sketch made between 1600 and 1603 of the moon’s surfaces, drawn without…
Q. Can you see a rainbow on a black-and-white photograph? A. Yes, but the colors will appear as shades of gray, same as with any other object photographed in black-and-white. There’s nothing special about rainbow colors — often listed as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Those colors react with black and white film…
I’m again experimenting with voice-to-text transcription. I keep hoping for that Star Trek experience — you know, where the characters whap their comm badge, speak with normal speed and diction, and have the computer fully understand them. But for me, that’s truly fiction. In real life, with free-form text, voice to-text accuracy is likely to…
Q: When did we first understand that time differences existed between different parts of the world? (via Quora) A. Even the ancient Greeks knew of this, 2000 years ago. (Relatedly, Eratosthenes used variances in the apparent height of the sun in different cities at local solar noon — mid-day, as determined by sundial — to…