DON’T DO THIS: Scare a bird off the dish
So the other day… This guy needs a new LNB for his dish. It’s not an uncommon request, they do go bad, but we get to talking. It seems there was a bird who liked…
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DON’T DO THIS: Franken-dish
So the other day… This guy tells me that he bought a new LNB for his dish and he’s getting a lot of signal loss. I ask him about his signal strength numbers and they’re…
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Sun worshippers
I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. It figures that I would put it off until the actual day of the solar eclipse. Everything on earth is solar powered. It’s not just calculators and…
FUN FRIDAY: Star Wars Sound Effects
There are two recurring themes running through Fun Friday, a column which this blog has featured for over five years. One is that I spend too much time obsessing about Star Wars, and the other is that I…
FUN??? FRIDAY — It is as if you were doing work
Do you remember when you were a kid and you used to play grownup? You would pretend to be a teacher or firefighter or something and then go about doing what you thought that person did….
STREAMING SATURDAY: If You’re Not Watching Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones’ long-awaited season seven premieres on Sunday, July 16 on HBO. If that’s not your thing, there are plenty of other great series to stream! On the one hand, I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t…
FUN FRIDAY: Best Cosplay
Cosplay. It’s gone from being a largely unknown form of entertainment to something totally mainstream. It’s all about adults who dress up as their favorite characters in public. A generation ago such behavior was relegated to Star…
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Smartphones with keyboards
They never did come back into fashion. Back in 2013 I wrote an article about the possible return of phones with real keyboards. I even gave a picture of the last phone I had with one: Does…
FUN FRIDAY: Museum of Failure
Two things you need to know about this video. First of all this is basically what my garage would look like if I didn’t clean out about once a year. I have a tragic tendency to…
What to do with a broken tablet ??????
Here’s an interesting story for you. One of my lesser computers, a Windows 10 “convertible,” just stopped working. I mean, in the middle of a Powerpoint, just shut down and gave up. It’s getting power and…
FUN FRIDAY: Wait, Cars really ARE people?
In last week’s Fun Friday, I put forth the (not completely original) speculation that the universe of the Cars movies only makes sense if you believe that cars have people living inside them who can never get out. It…
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Old Hard Drives
The day of the mechanical hard drive is almost over. Truth is, no one really wants one, which is why you can get incredibly massive ones so cheaply. I mean, one terabyte for $50? I remember…
SEPARATED AT BIRTH? Solar Animal Chaser and 1970s Polaroid Camera
One of the more popular gadgets at Solid Signal is this P3 International Wireless Solar Animal Chaser. It’s a neat little device that puts out high-frequency sound and causes lights to flash when something moves nearby. Most…
FUN FRIDAY: Cars are PEOPLE
Cars 3 is everything that’s wrong with Pixar right now. The studio that brought us the memorable moments of Toy Story and The Incredibles is now pandering to multiple sequels in a presumed attempt to keep their merchandising and theme parks…
FUN FRIDAY: Superhero costumes
Comic books, up until the 1980s, were a very limiting art form. They were produced as cheaply as possible and that meant limiting the number of colors and making everything look exciting even though it looked…