Film cameras weren’t dead yet but in 1998 digital cameras were a thing.
Quick Access FD Drive 2X
Part of the smart design was integration with the Floppy Disc as storage media. Although limited in capacity (~30 pictures), they were mainstream an cheap common place. On the downside, the smallish image sensor state of the art at 1/4″ translated to a photo image resolution of 640 × 480 pixels. To try to adjust for that weakness the camera came with a 10x optical zoom lens, so points there for shot framing.
The meager 0.4-megapixel resolution was quickly outpaced by competitors (Nikon, Canon, Olympus) offering 1–2 megapixels by 1999. Floppy disks, while convenient, had limited capacity (1.44 MB), and slow write times were drawbacks.
The image was captured to system flash memory. The 3.5 inch disc would spin up for the write (save) or read (playback) After saving to the FD the memory would then be available for the next click of the shutter button. Wait time was ~4–5 seconds per photo (0.5–1s for capture/processing plus 3–4s for writing). You would need to press the shutter button for each photo, and the camera would lock out further captures until the floppy disk write was complete.
The digital camera gave instant gratification like a Polaroid vs 24 hr. film processing at the Fotomat. Images could be shared easily. Once you absorbed the cost of ownership, the picture taking was free!
640 X 480 – best used for thumbnail duty
Any photo collection from this this camera is grainy — primitive to the 4k standard. Click for full size glory. But this was a time before high speed bandwidth so… good enough.
The camera’s bulk (1.5 lbs) was balanced by ease of use but soon this model was passé. The quite novel Mavica is in my legacy ‘can not bear to throw it away‘ bin.
From my shoebox museum of relics, this gizmo was a demonstration of tech wonder. The Personal Digital Assistant in 2002 (5 years before the iPhone splash) was in its infancy and more novelty than necessity.
The Axim was predated (10 yrs.) by Apple’s early PDA attempt and failure; Newton Message Pad. The claim to fame for these early devices was hand written character recognition. Using a stylus pen on the 240 x 320 TFT screen display you could take notes. Built in was a microphone for memos. The Windows Mobile OS had an appointment calendar, To-Do list, address book, and calculator. Microsoft had a protocol called ActiveSync for file transfer and outlook email. The X5 did not have WiFi or Bluetooth. Connectivity was by serial cable — early days.
Advancing design iterations from Dell and Palm established a market but then in 2007 Apple brought it all together with the first smartphone. These traditional PDAs were finished off with the advent of iPad and touch screen tablets.
My Pocket PC is a paperweight now. The charging stand accessory is nowhere to be found. I did find and remove its SD Card (capacity 8MB). Surprisingly the old (20 yrs.) card had valid data on it but it was nothing; just some picture files from another relic from the shoebox museum — a Canon PowerShot SD 30 Digital ELPH 5.0 MEGA PIXELS.
Found in the obsoleted box, a Panasonic SL–SW860 Portable CD Player SHOCK WAVE METAL S-XBS with 40 Seconds ANTI-SHOCK MEMORY 4.0 ! Nomenclature contrasts with Apple’s minimalist and elegant iPod that would debut a year after this short lived unit.
The clamshell lid was unlocked to reveal a CD rip of Lila Downs – Una Sangre (2004). You could supposedly exercise to the tunes.
The device was designed to be clutched in hand with steadying wrist strap –awkwardly. The weight specification is 3/4 lbs. but that is understated. It feels rugged but is only water resistant (splash proof). There is an O-ring on the door so it might survive a rain shower but in fairness nothing was designed for underwater immersion. Hard to imagine jogging with this thing.
Also in the junk drawer, this iRiver iFP MP3. Using flash memory this was a popular digital audio player. Too large to slip into one’s pant pocket, it was intended to dangle from a lanyard. Still, this was an advance from the weighty CD player. The iRiver was well received despite its still unusual form factor.
These two devices, along with plenty of cassette tape players unmentioned, were exciting in concept and served needs for the moment; then came the first generation Apple. Using a a mini hard drive and at 1/2 lb. was about the size of a deck of cards — but at $399. The iPod got leaner/cheaper and we all know who won the digital player battle. Predecessors are only memories now.
Not a social position or political rant — the topic is a DIY alert system as in home security/protection.
One of the better advance alerting devices is the family dog but for redundancy, Home Assistant has an intruder notification integration, Alarmo. It provides a user interface for setting up your own alarm system completely from within the browser.
Instead of buying a dedicated siren why not use an existent sound system that is connected to your local network (LAN) e.g. bluetooth speaker, home theater, stereo. Home Assistant has an AppleTV integration for example. Your sound system can be used to deliver an .mp3 file in a tone of your choosing.
Using VLC for a media player integration: Go to Settings > Add-ons > Add-on Store. Search for and install the VLC add-on. Configure the add-on to start automatically. Next go to Settings> Integrations, look for the just installed VLC media player via Telnet add-on and click Add.
Upload an mp3 Siren File:
Download or create an mp3 file for your alarm sound (e.g., siren.mp3).
Place the file in HA’s /config/www directory (accessible via the File Editor add-on.
note that the file will be accessible via HTTP at http://<HA_IP>:8123/local/siren.mp3
Write a Script that will set the volume (between 0.0 and 1.0) and point to the sound file (your http address may differ slightly)
Go to the Alarmo tab in the Home Assistant sidebar. At the bottom is the Areas header and you should have an Area there (if not click ADD) Your Area has a link to the sensors and a link to the automations. Click the automations link. Create an automation that will run your Siren_PC script. For the Condition use the Alarm is triggered event. For the Mode choose Home or Away (optional). Task will be Siren_PC. In YAML the task looks like this:
Next click upon the RUN button under the Action header. Under Options give your automation a Name. Finally, at the very bottom click on SAVE.
Create a second automation that will run you Siren PC Stop script. In this case the event will be Alarm is disarmed and the Task entity, Siren PC Stop. Choose RUN action and give the automation a name. Click SAVE.
Try it out. Arm your system and then trigger a sensor. The mp3 file will blast away. Disarm your Alarmo system to kill the siren.
My first smartphone was the original iPhone 2G acquired at its debut in 2007. Six or so iterations hence, but who’s counting, I have been a loyal fan of the product. Every several generations, when a replacement was called for, I couldn’t help but glance over at the competition but that is as far as it ever went. In short order my family unit was seemingly locked into the Apple ecosystem, seduced by unlimited call minutes between us or by their excellent but proprietary video calling and messaging features. To change over would have meant upheaval and never gained any traction. My interest was mostly curiosity. And now, boxed to act through bluster I’ve jumped ship.
caveat: I did have a jailbreak fling with an iPhone 3 way back when and mostly for the street cred. It was an intriguing excursion, a preview peek at what I am buying into present day.
We shall see what I’ve been missing all along and report on what has been sacrificed. It will be a learning curve to get up to speed with Android OS; I am a complete newbie. {I tried watching a ramshackle YouTube presenting Samsung Galaxy “tips and tricks” but couldn’t keep up) Apple has always provided a smooth, elegant, and dependable interface and my expectation is that I will be losing standardization for the less polished but greater freedom of configuration and personalization albeit with added complexity.
Preliminary Report
I don’t have the new hardware within my grasp as it will take a few days to arrive but that’s okay; I want to get a head start. My first question is: Does the new phone come with a charger? and no they do not, so best get that ordered straight away. I’m glad I asked because the Samsung commerce site, perhaps out of chagrin, doesn’t make it crystal that a charger nor cable is part of the package. (In fairness, Apple no longer includes them either) They do display a lengthy list of optional accessory extras which include charging solutions and you should take that as a hint.
Samsung’s Galaxy S25 can handle up to 45W for charging speed but the cable must support it. Whereas iPhone used a lightning connector cable made to Apple only specification and dead nuts simple, my new hardware uses USB-C end to end. I have one or two of these acquired over time but found out that they can differ in spec. Specifically, to take advantage of the power the cable must be rated at 5A. A 3 amp cable at 9V could only deliver 27W max. Further more some chargers having a Programmable Power Supply (PPS) or support for USB Power Delivery (PD) requiring USB 3.0 compliant cables for optimal performance.
USB cable research was required. Score one for Apple’s easy to insert plug. Apple’s smaller travel size charging brick for a gentle overnight or a larger size one for immediacy.
Apple was forced to ditch the Lightning Cable for the USB-C standard after pressure from the European Union in 2023. Maximum charging rate for iPhone is 30W currently.
I managed to revisit a fun game for the PC that I had managed to hang on to for all of these years called MYST. Released in 1993, my original copy was dated 1994. Today, 30 years later I unboxed this classic puzzle solver.
The first puzzle was in physically installing the dusted off software. This was one of the first games to be released on CD ROM; cutting edge tech back then. Like so many formats now obsolete one might be hard pressed to find a PC that comes with an optical drive.
Hint: 5 1/4″ floppy, 3.5″ disk, CDs, DVDs, vinyl records, 8-track, compact cassette, BetaMax, VHS -mostly gone. External (portable USB) drives are still out there (for now)
With a USB optical drive on hand for such an eventuality; the 2nd puzzle: Windows 11 OS won’t read the media. Windows Explorer allowed me to view directory structure but these folders were seemingly empty. No files listed. How to load the game? It’s locked. Trapped in the Modern Age.
Hint – The game was created for Windows 3.1. Spoiler – software of the era was coded for 16- bit processors. This requires and emulator to run or a VM such as Scumm.
Barely into the gameplay and next puzzle; the graphics are pixelated. This was one of the first pre cinematic artful immersion experiences. At least the audio was working and true to form.
Cheat: Modern 4k display screen are overkill. CRT monitors (obsolete) used resolutions of 640×480 and 256 colors. For the impatient, the solution is to download the latest MYST release from Steam for no waiting. The game play is largely the same and the graphics are enhanced but $$. Spoiler: the latest and greatest has been re-coded to use the Unreal Engine which was well suited for first person shooters however you may find it off-putting. Motion sickness sets in after 30 minutes if you are susceptible.
Gosh, all of these puzzles and I haven’t gotten into the game yet! Thank goodness for hints, spoilers, and walkthroughs. Wanting the original experience (and because $$) I stuck it out with the 1993 puzzle. Obstacles and hurdles solved it was an authentic trip to the linking books of MYST Ages — and like going back home again.
The records above the Anno 1773 title pertain to year 1772
Do you not see the marriage record for Berthelsen? Me neither. Even after a scrutinous look my human eye can’t even locate the individual(s). But, we have the notion that the record is there somewhere. Sallie had somehow transcribed the mess Danish penmanship.
Any genealogy explorer and interested hobbyist like myself may trust but should verify the investigations of others. A problem arises where if enough people take a single researched answer for granted as fact and (copy | paste) assimilate them as there own piece of the puzzle family tree then herd consensus becomes de-facto. Search indexing picks up on the trend, AI is trained on the indexed data and… history is printed.
Not immediately accepting the reading of this church record as gospel (see what I did there?) I perform my own diligence by looking harder and with AI as an assistant. AI is not [yet] a silver-bullet. As good or as weak as it is for the translation and transcription, it needs the person with the keyboard to steer it in the right direction or to keep it focused.
There is also an AI behavior known as confabulation. Beware that AI aims to please an can actually make up stuff thinking it’s fulfilling an expectation bias. It’s early days and not a sinister act. When called out on it, the AI apologizes and amusingly so, confesses the deed. (but you do have to expressly raise the doubt to sus it out)
Keeping this in mind it is prudent to distrust the bot. So, why bother? because the AI can spur you to look in certain direction and give insight into what was not obvious. Here’s what I mean: Following my Chat GPT ask for a full transcription, AI found 3 blocks that I had previously by eye, deemed to be incomprehensible and seemingly meaningless. e.g. the third one: “Exaudi (Sunday before Pentecost) – Third reading (banns) for Jep Berthelsen from Vinge Parish and Anne Nielsdatter from Svinninge Parish.“
Without my asking the AI proceeded to explain: “These are the banns (public announcements of an intended marriage) for Jep Berthelsen of Vinge Parish and Anne Nielsdatter of Svinninge Parish, read on three consecutive Sundays leading up to their marriage. The specific Sundays mentioned are part of the liturgical calendar: Cantate, Rogate, and Exaudi, which fall in the weeks before Pentecost. This format suggests they followed the traditional practice of announcing marriages three times in church before the wedding could proceed.” Very good! I had no previous experience of what a Bann was and now I know. Nice.
The AI still hadn’t confirmed a date for this marriage and the AI had wandered off into the weeds with a subsequent Bann (Dom:14) from another party of record and made an [incorrect] assumption: “The 14th Sunday after Trinity would be in late August or early September, depending on the liturgical calendar of that year. This suggests their marriage would have taken place around early September 1772.” You can see what is meant by keeping the AI on point.
To expedite, I queried point blank: Is there a date of 20 JUNE to be found anywhere in this ANNO 1772 record? Answer: Yes, in the initial marriage record image you provided, there is indeed a reference to 20 June:
Torsdagen den 20 Juni, viet Jep Berthelsen af Vinge Sogn og Morten Nielsdatter af Svinninge Sogn.
AI Translation:
Thursday, 20 June – Jep Berthelsen from Vinge Parish and Morten Nielsdatter from Svinninge Parish were married. So, it appears that Jep Berthelsen and Anne Nielsdatter were actually married on 20 June 1772. It looks like the earlier banns we discussed (from Cantate to Exaudi Sundays) were for this marriage.
the money shot
Now you can see it. With some coaxing which the lens of AI pinpointed and summarized we have clarity.
Betrothal: May 7, 1732 Three banns read on consecutive Sundays (Cantate, Rogate, Exaudi) Marriage ceremony: Sunday, June 20, 1732
This old Danish Church record, written in longhand, is fairly legible and as a human I can make out the various dates and names. But to get a complete understanding one must read the top most header row to understand what is contained in the columnar rows. To avoid the laborious task of Danish > English translation, it seems logical to let Artificial Intelligence (AI) take a crack at it.
I feed this record in its original high resolution image page format to 3 of the top AI bots and posed the same question:
the person of interest is Fanuel Peter August. what is the birth date and christening date?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet:
[reply] Looking at the church record, I can see Fanuel Peter August (written as "Samuel Peter August" in the entry) listed as entry #3. According to the record, his birth date is listed as 19 Jan 1817 ("19 Jan 1817") and his christening date appears to be on the same day as shown in the "Daabens Datum" (baptism date) column.
The entry number 3 is good as is the birth date. The mistaken S instead of F in the first name can be forgiven; it was penned with a flourish. The baptism date from its column in the record however is interpreted as being synonymous with date of birth. My eye can see that there appears to be a differing date in that column so I pose the following follow up question:
what actually does the Daabens Datum column say. it looks like an actual date?
Claude responds with:
Looking at the "Daabens Datum" column for Fanuel Peter August's entry (#3), it shows "19 Feb in die Kirch" (19 February in the church). So to correct my previous response:
Birth date: 19 January 1817 Christening/Baptism date: 19 February 1817
This would have been an apt first time answer but still the Christening/Baptism date shows the 19th when to my eye the number is clearly a 14. Confidence is low so I run this identical query with another flavor of AI: X’s Grok 2
Grok 2
[answer] For Fanuel Peter August:
Birth Date: 19th January 1817 Christening Date: 19th January 1817
This individual appears on line 3 of the document, with his full name listed as "Fanuel Peter August." Both the birth and christening (baptism) dates are noted as the same day, which was common in historical records where infants were often baptized shortly after birth.
This returned response, as far as the dates are concerned, is identical to that of Claude AI previously. There is the added claim that birth/christening dates are commonly one and the same (equal) in historical records. (expectation bias or confabulation? ) That will need to be a separate fact check investigation.
Now I come back with my follow-up question to try and coax the bot to have another look at the Daabens Datum column and:
[answer] Upon closer inspection of the Daabens Datum column for Fanuel Peter August, it reads:
Daabens Datum: 19 Jan 1817
This means that the christening or baptism date for Fanuel Peter August was indeed on January 19, 1817, which matches the birth date also listed as January 19, 1817. This is a common occurrence in historical records where infants were often baptized on the day they were born or shortly thereafter.
Grok doubles down sticking to its guns and refuses to modify its incorrect answer original interpretation. Let’s try ChatGPT.
ChatGPT
This was the best of the bunch. Chat pretty much nails it and with the single query . No follow up question necessary.
[answer] In this record, the entry for "Fanuel Peter August" provides the following details:
Birth Date: 9th January 1817 Christening Date: 11th February 1817
The christening date gets listed as the 11th however. So… less than perfect. Yet, very cool that a machine can scan a difficult document make sense of it and feed a summary back to me with only a one or two sentence plain English prompt. The consensus of bot+person:
Fanuel Peter August Birth Date: 9th January 1817 Christening Date: 14th February 1817
This visualization of a home automation shows a mesh network of smart switches, smart plugs, and sensors.
The rectangle object in the diagram identifies a Zigbee Coordinator (radio adapter) which is the go-between for the automation hub. Sensor end devices (circular object) that are within close proximity can signal back to the Coordinator directly. Data is transmitted using a low power RF so signal strength is a factor. Happily, since this is a mesh network, the more distant end devices can chain relay through smart devices (oblong object) which relay amplify to the Coordinator like a router.
In sympathy with peoples abroad who might be chilling these next few months and in consideration of rising energy costs closer to home I am implementing a new routine with hopes for conserving.
The first step is to adopt a “time of use” billing strategy that utility companies offer. The utility solicits a pricing incentive for customers to refrain from and reduce consumption during the part of day that is historically prime time for energy usage. My humble abode is equipped with a heat pump and that is a big consumer so I give you the following strategy:
On-peak is from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., Monday through Friday excluding holidays, so I don’t intend to use the heat pump(s) or worse — system AUX heating, a big draw item. So to comply, the thermostat will be turned down for this time slot. To mitigate rise and shine shivering or breakfast hour discomfort the living space will be pre-heated using the Off-peak ($0.067) rate before it cuts off. On-peak is a penalizing $0.39 per kilowatt hour and to be avoided.
thermostat – settings
0500-0600 74 degrees (pre-heating)
0600-0900 65 degrees (On-peak)
0900-1600 68 degrees
1600-2145 72 degrees
2145-0500 65 degrees
A Smart Thermostat simplifies the task of micromanaging the setting adjustments.
extra credit
Ensuring that the water heater, also electric, will never draw current during the On-peak is a bit more involved but easily controlled. A relay to open/close the 240v contactors for the heating element can be actuated by a 120v smart plug. An [smart-hub] automation routine then will pause the appliance like a timer.
future plan
There is a Super Off-peak between the odd hours of 10 at night and 5 in the morning. At a mere $0.043 cents per kWh this will be an opportune time period to charge the EV.
maybe…
At some point go off grid? Solar array? Powerwall? In any event, please stay warm.
