Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

A funny thing to post on a snowy day like today, but if you are looking for some different routes, then Cascade Bike Studio has a whole collection of ones they’ve put onto Strava.

Well trying to read these papers and my intuition is just never too strong on what is really happening, but found:  Colah who gives really good examples of what is happening. He explains how networks basically are contorting things so that you can divid thing linearly. A great set of illustrations Max Pechyonkin. He does…

This is actually a pretty complicated topic, there are cheap duffel bags that you can get for $25 at Columbia for instance, but if you look at Outdoor Gear Labs, you can spend a lot more to get a lot more. The truth is that I’ve had the same duffel for literally decades and it…

When you are working on blog or a site, the typeface really does make a difference. Yes, you can just use Arial and be fine, but with Google Fonts, there are literally thousands of free fonts available just about anywhere. So what’s a person to do if they are not experts. Well, consult the internet…

I wanted to created a truly professional site, not just a blog, so my good friend Jim said that Elementor was the way to go. This made some sense, it is based on WordPress and thus easy to get something up and running quickly. So here are some hints: You need a good tutorial to…

Well since I’ve been doing way more documents lately, it’s time to take a look and see what fonts are available. Extensis has a great set of tools that you can loads as an add-on to Google Docs that let’s you browse and see what is popular and trending: Noto. This is one of the…

Well time for an update on keeping yourself safe from viruses on a Mac and all the bad folks out there. While the defaults are pretty good, you can always do better, here are the recommendations in a nutshell: Automatic Operating system. This is probably the most important one, but while there the risks of…

Well, I’ve been writing way more in Google Docs than anything else these days. The collaborative features makes it way easier to create documents, but there are still some things that you need to make it a world class environment. Here are some notes: Templates. The basic ones are pretty good, but they don’t really…

There are way too many bulbs in the world. In this case it’s a case of just unscrewing it. And then looking at the bulb type. It’s a wide base e26 base and it is a HR26 reflector. Hard to figure but it turns out I bought six the last time 🙂 — Read on…

Well most phones have this built in and there is a basic one in every copy of Lightroom and Photoshop, but I’ve found those ones are pretty basic. I’ve also used the open source Hugin. This seems to work pretty decently, but for a while, it wasn’t even working on the Mac, but the 2018…

I always seemed to have trouble with certain sites especially advertising ones. My main machine worked fine and my backup phone. At first I thought it was content blocking. Or maybe cross site tracking. Then I cleared the history. Turns out it was Safari Experimental Features. I had wandered in there and enabled them all.…

Well they have been sitting around unused for quite a while and for some reason I decided to get them working again. I also have an old receiver, so why throw away speakers, yes they are 20 years old, but they also have 12 inch subwoofers in them and 1kW of power each. Here’s the…

itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ride-the-lightning-tesla-motors-unofficial-podcast/id1025399574 The very last tip from Ryan is mine about supercharging pairing 🙂

Wow, the world has certainly never stopped providing the power nerd with cool products. Apple’s latest announcement provides ever more expensive and ever cooler technology for every day use. Here are some notes on things to get the person who has everything this Christmas. In order of coolness to value ratio. iPhone XR Red 128GB…

Wow it’s just gotten so much easier to write machine learning applications. A great case in point is bringing up your very own chatbot that understand natural languages whether it comes in on SMS messages, via Google Assistant or Whatapps or any of a zillion of other places. Looking at various tutorials, most or them…

[IMG] On the Road! Driving a Tesla is a bit different from driving a gas car, or even most electric cars. On a daily basis, there is no concern about… — Read on teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/ A great summary of what to do to get maximum range on road trips. Only thing I’d add is run in…

OK, so Vlad was wonderful and recommended a nice beginner set of lenses, so shooting with DxoMark database as a first cut, here is a quick review: Sony Zeiss Planar T* FE 50mm 1.4 ZA. This is the classic prime Lense. It is big heavy but boy is it every so sharp. Having such a sharp…

If you are away from home, what are your options with Tesla gives you out of the box. Well they give you the so called Universal Mobile Charger), this is a 240V x 32A or 6kW maximum charger, they provide you with two connectors out of the box: 120V by 12A NEMA 5-20. This is…

OK been playing with these cameras for a month now and figuring out what the best mode is. The first consideration is that you really want the highest resolution and also the lowest noise for each. Aperture Priority and Base ISO in good light There seem to be two really good settings for this. The…

Well since having a backup modem is pretty critical these days, here’s a list of modems to think about. The first thing to ask is how much bandwidth you are buying. For 99% of all users, they are getting way less than 300Mbps, so the lowly basic Docsis 3.0 modems should work. But if you…

Ok, you knew life wouldn’t be simple, but now that Apple (and Google and everyone else) are eliminating that 3.5mm jack, it does seem like a push to Bluetooth wireless headphones is inevitable. Naturally, technology means that it is super complicated to get audiophile quality from these things. Here’s a short decoder ring: Format available…

These days the cable modem is the weakest link in most homes. Even if you do enterprise networking the way that Comcast work is pretty mysterious and hard to figure out. Here are some pointers for diagnosing problems. As an aside they have a push on to get you to rent modems. Makes great sense…

Well the emergence of really cheap voip and nearly free phone numbers means that this kind of spam is on the rise. Even with T-mobile anti spam we still get messages every week. Here are some notes on how to prevent it. iPhones On the iPhone there are few things to turn on. The first…

Well Mojave has been a pretty seamless upgrade for me at least. The quality push at Apple seems to be working. The only glitch I’ve seen so far is that on one of my machines, Finder is not refreshing properly so you see old files even after you move them. The fix seems pretty simple,…

OK some more notes about using these cameras. Brian Smith explains how it works with the older app from Sony: DxO PhotoLab 2 costs $80 for the latest upgrade, but does a nice job of processing the A7R III images The Sony RX100 M6 appears to overheat pretty quickly. I had it set for proxy…

Well it’s time of year, so time to check that everything is safe and ready for the winter. Here are some things that may need upgrading: Water hoses. The cheap plastic ones are hard to manage and they get brittle. Bring them in for the winter. Alternatively, get the Wirecutter recommended Flexzilla which is 50…

Wow it is super complicated to get all the syncing working right. But if you are biking and running here’s a quick guide. First you need a list of sources and sinks (uses) then figure out what sync apps you need. The net is that using the right apps it is nearly all automatic except…

Well that was a pretty good list of things, but as always I forget a few. Here are some additional things that a good high end camera needs. Quick Release Plate and L Brackets If you have a tripod, then you probably have an Arca Swiss 1.5″ long quick release on it. That means all…

OK so what about the Sony RX100 Model 6, what are the settings that matter, let’s ask DPReview.com: Set camera mode to P for program JPEG Quality to extra fine which is 26% less compression Panorama Direction to UP. You want to turn the camera vertically, so you get more pixels on the height dimension.…