Tag: Tech

Unexpected Repair Success at a Premium Bike Shop | August 07 2025, 02:41

Today, I had a little odyssey trying to find a place to tune up my bike. It’s a few years old, tired, and in need of attention. I visited three shops, each told me it would take at least a week or two and would cost about 200 dollars. Everyone said there were thirty people ahead of me. Eventually, I took a chance and went to the last shop which I initially thought was too premium and expensive to consider at all: their main inventory includes triathlon Cervelo and Factor bikes with five-digit price tags. But here’s the surprise: they took the bike right away, told me to wait for a call today, and if anything serious—a decision from me would be required. In the evening, they called and told me it was all done, and the cost… just 32 dollars! I’m very glad that I did not have to overpay or wait for weeks.

This goes to show that sometimes, to achieve something, you just need to act contrary to standard patterns of behavior.

Unlocking Smartwatches with Unique Heart Rhythms: A Missed Opportunity? | August 06 2025, 16:43

Why has no one made it so that smartwatches only unlock on the wrist of their owner, reading their unique heartbeat or other biometric data? This is in addition to having the owner’s phone nearby.

Officially, you can’t disable this in the settings of an Apple Watch — Apple intentionally made it such that when you put on the watch for the first time each day, it always requires a code, even if the iPhone is nearby. This is due to security policy: the watch may end up on someone else’s wrist, and the phone may just be nearby.

Moreover, every person has unique heart rhythm patterns, which include, for example, slight variations in the intervals between heartbeats, characteristics of the heart signal shape, and how the heart responds to different stresses. These microscopic differences create a unique picture” of heart rhythm that is difficult to fake or replicate. Watches have quite a lot of time, after being worn and before they are needed unlocked, to collect, process, and decide whether to unlock or not.

Navigating Code Generation with AI: Essential Skills for Programmers | August 04 2025, 14:28

I am currently using Gemini extensively for code generation, and I see a skill that programmers need to have to be successful in this field. It’s the ability to quickly read and understand someone else’s code, as well as explain why AI generation needs to be redone and how. For the former, you simply need to know the language very well and read “from the sheet,” because there will be little time to ponder. For the latter, you need to know patterns well and understand where they apply and where they do not. AI will still mess up using patterns inappropriately for a long time.

Moreover, a person will still need to understand “as a whole” 90% of the code generated by AI, and also manage to find time to comprehend each generated line of code. If you relax and miss it, the system may produce even working, but very poorly maintainable code. For instance, there is an unwritten rule that individual files should not contain so much code, and if it grows, you need to refactor, breaking one large into two or three. Sometimes this requires rewriting logic, but this rewriting is always aimed at one task – to simplify maintenance. And AI, while rewriting, also “improves” the code at the same time. And this is quite difficult to prohibit.

In addition, the very concept of LLM implies the limitation of the contextual window. Which gets filled with code very quickly. To create an illusion for the user that everything is working even with a large volume of code, LLMs are able to do preliminary processing, extracting only relevant pieces for processing and setting aside irrelevant ones, so that the relevant ones fit into the actual contextual window. But this process is very unreliable, and once it works, and the second time it turns out that something important was set aside, and as a result, the system did not see the whole picture and generated code, which includes a function very similar to the function set aside, and now we have two almost identical ones.

Besides, currently logic is distributed between the DB and the code. That is, data often controls the code. And data in LLMs simply often do not fit. There is too much of it. In the end, without programmers, current LLM architectures cannot cope. But the requirements for programmers’ qualifications will only increase with LLMs, not decrease. So yes, juniors should be worried, but leads not so much 🙂

Aluminum: From Precious Metal to Everyday Marvel | August 03 2025, 01:09

The USA imports aluminum mainly from Canada because aluminum leaves Canada and arrives in the USA. And from Europe, it would be alumin𝒊um!

Also, sapphires and rubies are essentially rusty aluminum, where in the process the new material becomes much harder than the original. In interaction with oxygen, different varieties of the mineral corundum are formed, which chemically is crystalline aluminum oxide (formula Al₂O₃). And bulletproof glass is essentially transparent rusty aluminum, aluminum oxide, but with aluminum nitride.

Also, aluminum was the most valuable metal on Earth until the 20th century. When Napoleon III entertained guests, they ate with golden spoons, while he used an aluminum one. And the “cap” of our Washington Monument is made of aluminum for that very reason.

Alaska Airlines Omits Boeing Branding from Safety Cards: A Strategic Move? | July 31 2025, 13:18

When I flew to Seattle and back on Alaska Airlines, I noticed that the Safety Card in the seat made no mention of the plane being a Boeing (left picture mine, second one from online). Not even in fine print. Only the model was specified — in my case, a 737 MAX, incidentally the same model from which a door detached mid-flight on an Alaska plane. So, from the inside of the plane, it’s impossible to tell whether it’s a Boeing, an Airbus, or a McDonnell Douglas, unless you know that 737 is only made by Boeing.

My first thought was, of course, what else could Alaska do to salvage its reputation, except to remove the word Boeing wherever possible.

But it turns out this has been the case before. One of the Alaska flight attendants mentioned that it’s been like this for about 8 years, at least. Another flight attendant confirmed that this is the case with all planes.

It seems that they simply don’t want to promote another company for free, and Boeing certainly doesn’t want to pay all the airlines for such advertising, meanwhile charging them for every little thing. And they cannot oblige them either. An interesting case indeed.

DIY Wireless Reaction Game: Building Interactive Button-Based Activities | July 28 2025, 22:26

Who knows their way around electronics? Any recommendations?

I want to make a thing some weekend. A big bulbous button. It lights up – you smash it. The app records the time from when it lights up to when it’s smashed. There might be several buttons and they could be scattered – on walls or the floor. WIRELESS. They might light up randomly – this is controlled by the app (phone or computer). Metrics like average reaction time are calculated on the fly for different understandings of the word ‘average’. For instance, you could place buttons on the ground a few meters apart and invent a moving game for the kids. Or attach them to a wall and smash them with a ball. Basically, it’s a technical question.

How would you do it – dumb buttons on an nRF24L01+ chip or smart buttons on an esp32 microcontroller?

In the first case, every such module listens to the radio: as soon as a command with its ID arrives from the central node, it turns on the light. After the button is pressed, it sends back a “pressed” message. The timer is on the side of the central node. Each button has an Arduino Pro Mini + nRF24L01+, but there will also be a central hub with either nRF24L01+ and Arduino Uno, Mega or ESP32, which collects the data and is connected to the computer (Bluetooth or WiFi).

In the second case, the buttons are connected via Bluetooth (BLE) or WiFi. The brains of the button is the ESP32, which needs to be programmed through a programmer.

Cost-wise, both approaches are roughly the same minus the cost of arcade buttons and 3D printing, somewhere around $10-15 per button.

Seattle’s Monorail: A Vintage Transport Still in Motion | July 22 2025, 16:28

Seattle’s two-station monorail (a world record!), reportedly self-sustaining and extremely popular among tourists despite being arguably the city’s most pointless form of transportation, features the same Alweg trains that have been in operation since its inauguration 63 years ago for the World Fair.

Interestingly, even the one-station monorail has a driver. I recently saw a job posting for a Monorail Driver, paying $20/hour (with a minimum wage of $18.67). Roughly the same hourly rate can be earned by stocking shelves in any supermarket in the USA.

However, the only major accident on the Seattle monorail in 2005 was due to a driver’s error. According to authorities, the driver of a train heading into the city failed to yield to another train at a spot where the tracks are too close together for simultaneous passage.

The problem was that the tracks were installed without the gap necessary for the free passage of trains. Imagine that! At one spot, just so:) This was deliberately designed to allow loading ramps to extend beyond the carriages. For 40 years, careful attention ensured that trains never traveled simultaneously on this section. But then one day, a driver decided to leave early — and the rest is history. As always, Murphy’s Law applies.

Nearby in 1988, the construction of the Westlake Center mall uncovered an issue just days before its scheduled opening. Engineers found the west track was two inches (50 mm) closer to the platform and building than it should have been, making it impossible to use. The issue came to light when a retractable loading ramp at the terminal scratched the blue train during a trial run; the misalignment was caused by a pin in a hinge that did not fold properly. The ramp was repaired in November, but other technical issues and prolonged safety inspections delayed the new terminal’s opening by four months. To avoid redesign, trains were simply not allowed to run simultaneously. As of 2025, bi-directional movement is still NOT anticipated above the narrow gauge section at the southern (Westlake) station:-)

By the way, exactly a month ago, the monorail at VDNKh in Moscow, opened 21 years ago, was permanently closed. There, too, nobody understood its purpose, and moreover, it was brutally unprofitable.

In the photo, Nadia enjoys Seattle

Seattle Airport Chaos: IT Glitches and Alaska Airlines Grounded | July 21 2025, 07:07

Seattle Airport is at a standstill – some nonsense with IT systems, Alaska Airlines planes are not taking off (grounded).

UPDATE: remember the door that fell off Boeing mid-flight? It was Alaska Airlines and Boeing 737 Max, which I am currently sitting in.

Why Aren’t Smart Systems Widely Used in Commercial Vehicles? | July 18 2025, 20:33

I wonder why smart systems, cameras, driver assistance systems in driving are not used on commercial transport such as trucks and buses? It’s one thing to integrate such statuses into a $35K car, and another into a truck or bus, whose prices start at least at $100-150K, and in some cases more. Buses are often purchased by organizations for whom an extra $5-10K on a price of $100-150 may not make much of a “difference” in deciding what to buy. Although of course understanding that there, with a tender for the minimum price, every thousand could be decisive. On the other hand, insurance might be lower, and it can be nicely sold to people (passengers). Also, it seems that truck drivers falling asleep are simply more dangerous and costly than personal car drivers falling asleep.

Unexpected Costs: My Tesla Model Y Windshield Replacement Saga | July 16 2025, 17:26

Well, it hasn’t even been two months since I bought the Model Y, and I’ve already replaced the windshield. An unfortunate stone flew from under the wheels of some truck. The result — a crack that grew every few days of waiting for the repair.

Overall, it was known from the start that Tesla’s service is not as good as their cars, but so far my experience with the service has been most wonderful — except for the fact that I ended up paying $1000 out of the blue (not their fault, of course).

As soon as you get a crack, you create a claim through the app and set up a repair. The nearest available date was in two weeks from that day. The estimate came immediately through the app: $1,140. This included a new windshield ($1000 with a 50% discount) and labor — about $600. The insurance will only pay me $140, because I pay the first thousand as per the insurance terms.

The repair works like this: you arrive at the appointed time, and leave the car. The reception already knows you have arrived and why you are there. The initial estimate for completion in the app was 6 PM — that’s 10.5 hours after the appointed time. I brought two laptops, headphones, a charger, and hadn’t finished my coffee when I received a message that everything was done. It took 40 minutes.

So, the experience with their service was excellent, although of course it would have been better if there had been no need for it at all.