A printer that works
Brother laser printers.
Stop wasting money on inkjet printers if you don’t print regularly
Mine was brilliant and now it’s sad and none of the troubleshooting steps for the symptoms I’m getting actually work. I suspect the room it’s in is too cold and humid and that’s making the toner clump, but I’m not keen on replacing mostly-full cartridges as the price has more than doubled since I got the printer.
Try putting the cartridges in a dehumidifier or wrapping them in paper and placing them on top of your radiators for a few hours, just be careful that they don’t get too hot (more than 50°C could be problematic)
RISUG is cheap, permanent, safe, reversible male birth control.
It was invented in 1979, and has not yet come to market.
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I had never heard of that. For more in-depth reading, if anyone else is interested: NIH - RISUG
Thanks, i never heard of this. Now ill never get to play my favorite boardgame:
Microwaves that use directed or reflected waves and to better direct or target energy to specific spots in food. Thermal vision in microwaves and more automated time/power controls.
Why are we still just blasting waves on a spinning dish as high as we can? Like we can pinpoint microwaves for devices with our routers, but we can do it for inside a controlled environment in a box?!
This is my evidence if someone tries to patent this and lock people out of making cool products that I said it here first!
Cost-benefit is not there. You can buy fancy ones that do some such things, but they are expensive.
Do you have any models in particular you are thinking of? I was in the market a few years ago when I thought of this, but couldn’t find anything. So far I’ve found one’s with weight, and ambient temp sensors, and a heating element and fan combination for roasting and convection, but nothing like what I’ve described.
Nah, sry. I just heard/read about them. One thing is using an inverter to control power instead of on/off timing. Other is using a bunch of sensors, that i remember as an idea many years ago.
https://shop.panasonic.com/products/homechef-4-in-1-multi-oven-1-2-cu-ft-1000w
Seems to have both (i just googled “fancy microwave” and it was the first result :)).
For my needs just a timer dial is enough.
No worries! Yeah, the inverter control is definitely a step in the right direction, though!
| For my needs, just a timer dial is enough. Most of the time it ain’t that deep, so time + power level really is enough. It’s just I think the microwave could be a much more versatile cooking appliance!
If you don’t want multiple magnetrons (which would work too as a standard antenna in the wireless model of MIMO) you could use a electromechanical system, ie point magnetrons at reflective plates and move and adjust them to least direct the waves to a given point. Multi antennas I think would give a better granularity (because you can control the wave as well as direction and be able to time the peaks to hit inside a target vs just aiming the beams to a given spot). You may be able to get that with an electromechanical system, but it’s not something I know of a lot of public info on, but if you could get a time division demux device for high power microwave that directs the different peaks to specific reflectors, you’d be good too.
Any openhard ware folks, please take this if you are interested!!!
In lighting effects an analogue could be a ‘scanner’, it reflects a stationary beam with a motorized mirror. Or you could mount the whole magnetron on a moving head!
You have a point! Did you know about inverter microwaves? now you have 2 options, full blast, and less full blast! https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/85575 this cool person found out about this in 1991, and now my microwave has it. Welcome to the future :D
Why don’t we have microwave coolers yet?!?
Just make your own!
I can only find papers talking about using microwaves at near the 0 K scales for that (and admittedly I definitely don’t enough quantum mechanics to even hazard a guess as that works from reading the summaries!!!), so I am not sure about it at higher heats (like around 300K).
Routers? Do you mean Wi-Fi routers? Because they certainly don’t pinpoint waves for each device, they send all traffic out in all directions.
Why ‘correct’ someone when their knowledge of a topic so clearly outstrips your own?
I’m happy to accept that I was wrong, in fact this is a very interesting bit of technology! I didn’t intend to be rude, unlike you, clearly.
I’d also like to add that beamforming, despite the name, does not actually involve creating a directed beam. As I described the antenna still sends a signal out in all directions - multiple antennae work together to create an interference pattern with a stronger signal where a device is located. While I wasn’t aware of this technology, it is not as “directed” as the name implies and wouldn’t necessarily have applications inside a microwave oven, especially since the wavelengths used are pretty long, so I don’t think they would not have much flexibility to create the kind of precise pattern that cooking something while skipping the empty space would require.
While the total length of the average Microwave’s wave is about 4.7 - 4.9 inches (12.5 CM) you can further pinpoint the phase of the wave as well both by frequency (playing with that .2 inches in the bandwidth) and phase modulation. This could be further tuned if needed by allowing Microwave ovens to operate in the other ISM band of 5.7 GHZ allowing for 2 inch waves (5.3 CM) or even the 61.25 GHZ band (0.19 inches). Though, as you move up in frequency, you see less penetration as the power is lost faster on the surface of the objects.
Would any of that really make it heat more efficiently though? You’d need at least two magnetrons, some sort of computer vision system, and a computer to do the necessary calculations. Even if you could practically produce an interference pattern that’s better than a single standing wave, I suspect you’d lose more energy than you save.
It might be more efficient though honestly that wouldn’t be MY goal. The main thing would be improving the quality of cooking provided by microwave ovens, less cold centers, burnt outsides, uneven heatings, etc.
A bicycle that is as reliable as a car.
I bought a top of the line cargo ebike from a German manufacturer that cost half as much as a cheap new car. It needs scheduled maintenance every 2000km. After 5000km the entire drivetrain needed to be replaced, the front brake completely failed when temperatures dropped below freezing, the motor sometimes cut out due to a firmware bug in the controller and the suspension seatpost broke when I rode down a curb.
Imagine any car having safety-critical faults like that after 5000km.Due to the nature of bikes there’s probably a ton of weight saving that’s going on, which is why stuff breaks so easy. With cars they’re so over engineered that they weigh a (few) ton(s) and are generally over built for their expected stress levels.
Because bikes are so small they’re harder to add in that element of over building.
Oh, and the manufacturers are greedy and want the largest profit margin
For normal bikes I agree. Ebikes and especially cargo Ebikes suffer from lack of specialized parts. All the parts are the same as on a 10kg mountainbike. My bike with me and a load on it weighs 170kg. Make it 3kg heavier, triple the beefiness of all components.
And I don’t need 11 sprockets that are millimeter-thin when I only use 3 gears (for flat ground, uphill, and an emergency bailout for when the battery dies).
My e-bike (Onyx RCR, basically a motorcycle) hasn’t needed anything of the sort. So it might be either a specific manufacturer thing and/or a cargo bike thing. I can imagine them using regular bike parts even though it’s taking way more weight/stress.
For pedal bikes, they can be that reliable if you want to pay for it:
- hub gearbox (a rohloff gets 100,000km minimum)
- decent belt drive (30,000km)
- solid tires get 5,000km. Not as good as car tires but there’s a reason; any additional durability will add noticeable drag/weight. Super thick e-bike tires could probably get 70,000km like a car
It’s been almost 27 years since the first Austin Powers movie and the world still doesn’t have any sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads.
Would you settle for ill tempered sea bass?
Any maps app that, when you set a route, lets you decide “don’t give me any directions until I get to X step” and/or “don’t give any directions after X step”. I dont like hearing the navigation when I don’t need it, and that would save me from having to open or close the navigation while I’m still driving.
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Tomtom made the first steps with this almost 20 years ago, it could show a second quick instruction in a smaller box, and it only showed it like that if it was in quick succession. Kind of crazy that a gazillion dollar company somehow can’t pin it down
Or stop zooming in to the max, leaving me with zero information! The only choice left is to blindly drive into the river when instructed to do so.
A better voicemail.
I just re-watched the introduction of the first iPhone, and one thing that stood out to me was this “visual voicemail” thing they showed. To this day I still just get an SMS if someone leaves a message, and then have to call my voicemail and listen to recordings one by one. That’s still the norm for standard phone contracts here afaik, it’s ridiculous!
I didn’t know that was even still a thing. For years now on my iPhone I’ve just looked at the text transcriptions of my voicemail in my phone app.
Now my iPhone, actually transcribes my voicemail live and gives me the opportunity to pick up during them leaving the voicemail. Like old-school answering machines used to do.
I’ve had my google voice account handle voicemails for like 15 years and it did that for me. Well, now I don’t have to, but it’s been great.
That’s odd, Android transcribes my messages by default
Seems to heavily depend on your provider. Some work with the standard phone apps, some have their own apps, but most don’t seem to offer it at all here in Germany. One even sends you an audio MMS instead and just calls that “Visual Mailbox”. It’s crazy to me that such a basic and useful feature still isn’t just a standard thing on all phones.
It depends on your service provider. In Canada they charge for it. Last time I checked it was around $7/month.
Being able to get pinged for a new message in a group chat bit mute the consecutive messages from that chat until you check it.
I like to be part of multiple chats like for my game server if there is an issue I want to be alerted from my guardians. Usually the channel is quite for days and days until someone says something then it’s pings after pings as people reply while I’m commuting home and it interrupts my music
Discord only does 3, then stops for a while.
Phone assistants responding to you in the same volume of voice you used to address them.
This would require a way of judging the distance you’re speaking from. Calling out from another room might get a whispered response, and vice versa.
This seems solvable. There are differences in pitch between a nearby whisper and a distant shout.
I agree, but I wouldn’t call it a “no-brainer.”
Maybe not. I’ve heard of apps that can detect mood and I imagine being able to tell that someone is sad from the tone of their voice should be more challenging than picking up the relative difference in inflection, quality of overtone saturation, application of the built in compressor, etc.
E2EE phone calls, anyone ?!
Signal offers E2E voice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Features
I know Signal can do that, but why not encrypt SIM card calls… everything about SIM cards isn’t secure… jeez
useful implementation of AI silo’d to the applicable function.
some examples:
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“rename these images with X pattern, add their description to the meta data”
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“correctly capitalize all the names in my address book and tag them by how i know them”
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“show me how much i spent on fast food last month”
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actually good and useful autocorrect / spell check
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find all the emails about Jane’s wedding next year and let me know where we are with the planning
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find me an app for windows desktop that does XYZ
edit to clarify: I know there are algos and LLMs that do this, but I don’t want a “machine” that does all of them, I want a machine that only does each one really well.
LLMs would do all of those incorrectly with 100% confidence.
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Drunk mode for phone. It holds all purchases in a limbo state and pops up with a list to approve or deny at noon the next day.
It also redirects any communication with your ex to an AI bot for the evening.
Draino for gutters!
I remember helping a friend apply eardrops to his ears due to earwax buildup and thinking “man if these vials had long bendy straw-like tubes then he wouldn’t need someone to lean over his ear applying drops like someone applying cookie flavoring to a cookie.”
Audinell ear spray. It will change your friends life. And only $15 a bottle.
Where would we find something like that? That sounds like something I’d see in Walmart and buy in an instant if I saw it.
You literally turn your head to the side and drop the drops in your ear. You don’t need a second person.
A long bendy straw would require you to squeeze the liquid from the bottle all the way along the straw until the end point. That would mean a larger bottle with a larger amount of liquid for you to be able to squeeze it along the whole length.
The problem isn’t the drops not going into your ear, it’s the fact they specifically instruct you to put in two drops, no more and no less, and it’s hard to see how many drops you’re putting in when the vial’s method of secreting the drops is squeezing the container.
Do you actually need someone to help with that?
I just apply ear drops myself, are you sure they didn’t involve you in some kind of ear drop kink 🤔
The problem isn’t the drops not going into your ear, it’s the fact they specifically instruct you to put in two drops, no more and no less, and it’s hard to see how many drops you’re putting in when the vial’s method of secreting the drops is squeezing the container.
Not the person you replied to, and not a kink, but:
I would absolutely be more willing to clean my ears if I had this straw-like mechanism. I still do it, but it feels like a huge effort. I also end up with drops all over me.
I can’t really explain why.
Five minute abs
