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46 sats \ 8 replies \ @gnilma 26 Jun 2023 \ on: What 10+ year old tech are you still using? tech
Good technology actually ages like fine wine. Everything we use today was once cutting edge technology. Let’s start with your light bulb, your flush toilet, the stove you cook on, your refrigerator, the mattress you sleep on, or everything else that help you live the way you live in a modern lifestyle. Might be a good idea to define “technology” and let people know what you’re looking for.
From the looks of your examples, it seems you’re looking for electronics tech. I have a Big Jambox bluetooth speaker that I still use to play music. That thing is probably around 10 or 11 years old and still running strong. Also, my Nintendo DS Lite got a revival lately because I started letting my kids play Brain Age on it. They would get their stamp each day playing 1 or 2 mini-game. That thing is probably over 15 years old and still good as new.
Even the light bulb aged poorly IMO. Just in my lifetime, there have been huge energy efficiency improvements going from nickel wire conductors in a vacuum to florescent tubes, to LEDs. Sure the "tech" of converting electricity to photons hasn't changed. But each generation was a step function improvement.
Memory Foam mattresses are relatively new and are way more efficient to transport and store compared to wire springs. Likewise with flush toilets and water consumption. Stoves might be the only thing you mentioned that haven't had a step function upgrade in recent decades.
Consider getting a FlashCart for the DS, can load it with ROMs on a SD card and have the entire DS catalog on demand.
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But you’re still flushing that damn toilet multiple times a day I bet. Such a waste of fresh water, yet such a luxury to be able to shit in your home and not stink up the whole place.
The R4 was the first thing I bought after getting the DS. Never spent a dime on games lol.
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Paying for content is sooo last decade. But here's some sats lol
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I don't know if this is true or not, but I have a DIY electric car book by Michael Hackelman(sp?), in which he claims that putting a diode on a light bulb will increase it's lifespan, greatly or indefinitely. Never tested that, but I would love to know if it were true.
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The electronics in a car already runs on direct current (DC) sourced from the 12V battery and doesn’t need diodes. All the diode does is pass through the current when the circuit gets turned on. I don’t see how it would extend the lifespan of any bulb. But I guess you can always try to test it out if you want to find out?
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Yeah, it didn't make much sense to me, either. The book was from mother earth news in the 70s or 80s, so take from that what you will. It did have a lot of very good, field tested factual information about electric motors and batteries for diy electric cars, so I'll forgive him for printing an old wives tale. He had a pretty good book on wind mills and spinners as well, which is of course a related field.
I think the "proof" he used for his diode theory was something like this. But I seem to remember it being an Edison bulb he was talking about, and he claimed that only using DC was why the bulb lasted so long. Silly theory, I know. Which is why I never looked into it.
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Oh wait, I misread your original comment and thought you were talking about regular cars. These DIY electric cars, do they run on batteries? If so, what type?
Regarding the diode theory, it might have some merit if the bulb was connected to an alternating current (AC) circuit, which most electric grids run on. The diode would only allow 1 phase of the AC to pass through and filter out the opposite phase, causing the bulb to turn on and off very quickly. For North American grids where we run 60Hz AC, that's about 8.3ms (1/60/2=0.0083) on and 8.3ms off; fast enough for the naked eye to not notice the flicker. As such, it keeps the bulb off for half of the time than if it was full AC passing through it, which might reduce the amount of heat produced and might help prolong the bulb's lifespan. Again, just pure theory, have not tested it, so I might be wrong.
But if those DIY electric cars run on DC batteries, I really don't see how adding a diode to the circuit would help prolong the lifespan of the bulb, whether it's tungsten bulb or not.
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Yes. He was talking about AC. And his reasoning was basically what you just described. Been about 20 years since I read the book, though, so my memory is fuzzy, at best.
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