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Ever Buy Stuff That You Probably Don't Even Need?


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27 minutes ago, Cranium said:

Yes, blockchain is great.  You can follow your stolen bitcoin all over the place!  lol

Unfortunately, and someone correct me if I'm misunderstanding this.....If someone gets a hold of your bitcoin and uses it in some way, it's gone and they are now the owners with nothing you can do.  It's easy to launder and then it would be up to you to somehow prove it was yours and then stolen which is virtually impossible. 

Proof of the difficulty can be seen in this article:

https://gizmodo.com/the-6-biggest-bitcoin-heists-in-history-1531881137

 

With all of the encryption and dual authentication process I have to go though just to access my BC account, I am not worried. On the other hand Key Bank, a revered financial institution, withdrew and wired  $50k from my company’s checking account to some stranger in another state. The fradulant person had posed as myself through emails to the bank  and was able to convince the bank manager that I needed funds wired immediately to an out of state account. Go figure.  Thank god Wachovia Bank intervened at the other end. 

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Ok, stuff that I probably don't even need....

Got myself Cat S60 Flir mobile among a few other mobiles lately... Not even got a sim card in it yet 4 months later.. Just using it for Flir functionality (just for fun really)

Huawei watch - must be the cheapest watch I've ever bought myself... And even though it is a smart watch I have no real use for it. My cars cannot connect to my phone when I am using that watch and it irritates the sh... out of me, lol. But I can answer the phone through my watch, you know, James Bond-style...

tons of things and merchandise and accessories for my cars... don't even know if I have a list...

etc etc.

Oh, Yeah. Surface! Microsoft Surface is must-have they say... Luckily, my better half did like it and using it now, so not so useless PC anyway :)

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10 hours ago, Cranium said:

Yes, blockchain is great.  You can follow your stolen bitcoin all over the place!  lol

Unfortunately, and someone correct me if I'm misunderstanding this.....If someone gets a hold of your bitcoin and uses it in some way, it's gone and they are now the owners with nothing you can do.  It's easy to launder and then it would be up to you to somehow prove it was yours and then stolen which is virtually impossible. 

Proof of the difficulty can be seen in this article:

https://gizmodo.com/the-6-biggest-bitcoin-heists-in-history-1531881137

 

Well, another interesting article.  STAY AWAY FROM BIT COIN.  Or get into it and maybe get rich.  Decisions, decisions.:confused1:

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10 hours ago, Vik's said:

Ok, stuff that I probably don't even need....

Got myself Cat S60 Flir mobile among a few other mobiles lately... Not even got a sim card in it yet 4 months later.. Just using it for Flir functionality (just for fun really)

Hey didn't esaj get the same phone?  Okay, tell us the real reason you got it.  Are you like Fliring women to see if they are all hot for you or maybe lying about something?  :whistling:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2966012/Three-breasted-woman-lying-evidence-thermal-camera-shows-breast-no-blood-circulating-footage-shows-final-demolition-claims.html

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3 hours ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

Hey didn't esaj get the same phone?  Okay, tell us the real reason you got it.  Are you like Fliring women to see if they are all hot for you or maybe lying about something?  :whistling:

Gives new meaning to Flirtatious? Are you planning on using the IR camera on your furry friend? :P

28102030559_c32abacb6d_b.jpg

 

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17 hours ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

Hey didn't esaj get the same phone?  Okay, tell us the real reason you got it.  Are you like Fliring women to see if they are all hot for you or maybe lying about something?  :whistling:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2966012/Three-breasted-woman-lying-evidence-thermal-camera-shows-breast-no-blood-circulating-footage-shows-final-demolition-claims.html

Sounds right. Good Choice @esaj ;)

 

Took a picture of 9b1 and looks like it was warm and ready to roll:

flir_20180124T215410.jpg.642bcafd6c66de5d65450fbeb7fda2c3.jpg

 

My cat is not that hot though 21,9C  Cosy and warm!

flir_20180123T191749.jpg.763950cac4c3a2a1b2061c3d57784ef3.jpg

 

 

17 hours ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

Fliring women to see if they are all hot for you or maybe lying about something?  :whistling:

Spot on!  :D My wife is officially appproved as hot by FLIR-camera :w00t2:(many other girls too but I didn't captured pictures of them :P)

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3 hours ago, Vik's said:

Sounds right. Good Choice @esaj ;)

The company we order our phones from didn't have anything with real qwerty-keyboard (which these days is pretty much limited to the new Blackberries), but then I found out that they had the Cat-phones  :P

I haven't had much real use for it since checking the ceiling heating panels, should go shoot in the attic to see if there are heat leaks... other than that, I plan to use it for much faster detection of burnt components or components running hotter than they should on boards.

 

Quote

Took a picture of 9b1 and looks like it was warm and ready to roll:

My cat is not that hot though 21,9C  Cosy and warm!

One thing about thermal imaging is that different surfaces not only emit heat at different efficiencies (emissivity) but also reflect heat. Thermal camera is not an "x-ray" -device, it cannot see through things, and "reading" the temperature values correctly from the pictures is a skill of its own (which I don't really have). Just because something looks warm on the image doesn't mean it actually is, try for example pointing the camera to something metallic like a spoon while you stand close to it or move your hand towards it while shooting... the surrounding thermal (infrared) radiation and your own body heat will reflect from it, and it will look (much) warmer than it actually is. On the other hand, something might appear hotter/colder on the image than it is, because it emits less of the heat and/or the emissivity setting of the camera is wrong. There are tables available, and the FLIR-app on the phone has a (crude) setting for the emissivity, but not actual values, just something like "Matte, Semi-Matte, Semi-Glossy, Glossy".

Table%20of%20Emissivity.jpg

 

What can make it even harder is that things that don't look that shiny/reflective to our eyes (visible light) still might be in the infrared-wavelengths... Not that the camera is bad or anything, but don't take the actual temperature readings as absolutely correct values. For example, to actually see if the battery or mosfets in your wheel are actually running very hot (at least relative to their surroundings), you'd need to open the compartment so that you can point the camera directly to the board/battery. If just shooting the shell, the part that's over the board compartment could look warmer than the rest, but won't give you that much indication, and the shell plastic itself might reflect at least some heat from the surroundings.

 

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1 hour ago, esaj said:

 ...but don't take the actual temperature readings as absolutely correct values. For example, to actually see if the battery or mosfets in your wheel are actually running very hot (at least relative to their surroundings), you'd need to open the compartment so that you can point the camera directly to the board/battery. If just shooting the shell, the part that's over the board compartment could look warmer than the rest, but won't give you that much indication, and the shell plastic itself might reflect at least some heat from the surroundings.

 

Totally correct. Thats the impression I've got too from using flir imaging. It's nothing like "see through" things but merely an indication of heat radiation/reflection of different materials relatively to other things around.

So on the picture of my ninebot - if I place my hand right to it, then the ninebot goes all blue and "cold" relatively to my "warm" hand.

But nonetheless it can be quite useful for some work applications and even help to pinpoint the overheating, warm and cold water pipes, cold draughts and much more. And of course the camera will keep yourself and your relatives/kids amused for hours!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm on a Xiaomi buying spree lately.  I bought a Xiaomi Mi Android TV box and a Xiaomi Mi A1 Android One cellphone to play around with since I killed off my dying LG G3.  The Mi TV Box is okay, but I'm not a huge fan of Android TV.  I'd probably recommend just getting a Beelink GT1 Ultimate instead if anyone is looking.  Benefits of Android TV though do include 4k Netflix, but my TV's are only 720p so that's not really for me.  It also doesn't have a wired ethernet port, but its wireless works just fine with streaming.  You can get an Egreen USB ethernet adapter/hub though.  I'm running PIA VPN on it along with Terrarium TV, Kodi, and Mobdro.  Storage is a little limited on it plus it's not the fastest box, but it works.  The Nvidia Shield is still apparently the king of media boxes, but it's $300 or so.

My iPhone 6 still is experiencing some touch disease issues even though I took it all apart to do the solderless tape mod to help try to apply pressure to the BGA touch processor chip.  I might end up transitioning to the Android phone as my main unit.  I just like the battery life and security on the iPhone as my LG G3 battery wouldn't last that long.  I do like the flexibility more of the Android system.

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  • 1 month later...

More Xiaomi goodness for me!  I got a Mi A1 4GB / 64 GB Android phone recently that I'm really liking so far. You can get them for as low as $199.99 USD (Geekbuying).  It's a bit larger than my iPhone 6.  I've loaded up One Launcher (iOS skin emulator), Swiftkeys, and my usual array of media apps.  The battery life is phenomenal so far with the 3000 mA battery.  Camera is a bit lacking, but the touch button works really well.  Bottom command buttons are annoying, but you get used to them.

I also picked up a $28 Xiaomi Dafang PTZ 1080 camera.  It was quite tricky to get working, but it's actually quite good for the price. 

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54 minutes ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

More Xiaomi goodness for me!  I got a Mi A1 4GB / 64 GB Android phone recently that I'm really liking so far. You can get them for as low as $199.99 USD (Geekbuying)

That sounds like a good option for a EUC designated phone. My $40 LG Android has a small screen and is out of memory. 

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$40?  Wow that"s a good price for an EUC phone.  This A1 that I bought is the Global version as some apparently don't work on all bands.  It has dual sim capability and microSD card expansion which is handy.  I'm just using it on WiFi mainly as my media phone for Terrarium TV and Netflix.  Build quality seems right up to par with iPhone models. 

Any of you US peeps concerned about the impending Trump Tariffs making  cheap Chinese goods more expensive?  What is it ~ 25%?  Will EUC prices be taking a jump making that $1000 wheel a $1250 wheel? 

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11 hours ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

Any of you US peeps concerned about the impending Trump Tariffs making  cheap Chinese goods more expensive?  What is it ~ 25%?  Will EUC prices be taking a jump making that $1000 wheel a $1250 wheel? 

Not concerned but the stock market is! :crying: The larger tariffs are mostly on steel so the axles on EUCs might cost more.  ;)

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On 24/06/2017 at 9:39 AM, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

Didn't know you could still buy a brand new one of these.  This guy is way too excited about it.  :rolleyes:  I did a little bit of programming back in high school on one, but I'm not that nostalgic over it.

 

Damn, I wonder if he’d like to buy some software for it, we are aiming to move 300 miles North and I’m desperately trying to de-clutter  30 years of stuff including the software that predated Microsoft Office by several years - Psion’s PC-FOUR on 5 1/4” floppies, just like that AT takes ?

70213BAD-8153-40E6-B75D-9E1D4B0EFE1A.thumb.jpeg.2035ad297005496e298554f819a77c00.jpeg

 

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I would put those kind of items up on eBay to see if anyone wants it.  You never know who's looking for what out there.  I sold an antique box with some copper rings a few years back, and surprisingly someone had a use for them.  I guess it depends on how much time and effort you want to place in re-purposing older items versus sending them to the landfill.  One man's junk can be another's treasure!  :w00t2:

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3 hours ago, Vik's said:

I've been playing with a few Philips Hue bulbs... https://www2.meethue.com/en-us

Very cool... You can now even hook it into some systems, so your room lighting enhances the movie you're watching / game you're playing!

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4 minutes ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

I've been playing with a few Philips Hue bulbs... https://www2.meethue.com/en-us

Very cool... You can now even hook it into some systems, so your room lighting enhances the movie you're watching / game you're playing!

Definitely cool with controlled/"smart" bulbs. Have been using a mix of both zigbee (ikea tradfri/philips hue) and 433mhz standards for quite some time at home. Lights dimming down when I hit the "play" button on the touchremote and lights going up to 50% if "pause" button is pressed etc.

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45 minutes ago, Vik's said:

Definitely cool with controlled/"smart" bulbs. Have been using a mix of both zigbee (ikea tradfri/philips hue) and 433mhz standards for quite some time at home. Lights dimming down when I hit the "play" button on the touchremote and lights going up to 50% if "pause" button is pressed etc.

Nice... I've got an "auto on at sunset" thing happening and (of course) the "big screen" mode for when the projector is in use!

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24 minutes ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

You guys are way too high tech.  I'm old school ClapperTM myself.  :innocent1:  I can turn on my light bulb for my "Chia PetTM" from the luxury of my bed.

Why clap... When you can use an app!   :P

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  • 7 months later...

Okay peeps share your Black Friday hauls!  :w00t2:

I got me a:

1.  $12 Air sandblaster gun.  It blasts particles at 90 psi to remove rust, paint, flesh - you name it!  Comes with two bottles of abrasive powder!

2.  $199 Newegg Nvidia Shield with remote and game controller.  Gonna sign up for the free GeForce Now stream gaming experience.

3.  $99 portable battery booster/compressor/light.  At -32°C some cars do not start well!  I wish my Tesla had a booster mode on it.  Oh well more batteries!

4.  $65 Instant Pot Duo 7 in 1.  Apparently these are all the rage.  Toss stuff in, and it cooks it in record time.  Get one.  It’s gotta be good.

 

 

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