Philippe's Blog

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I was pulling speaker cables in our home theatre and when done, I spotted a USB port on the back of the TV. This a 83-inch LG "smart" TV with a "point and shoot" remote.

So I wondered, can I use a mouse instead of the remote ?

I had a spare wireless mouse from the laptop we no longer use and plugged its USB dongle into the TV. It worked ! The TV cursor moves with the mouse !

It's way easier to use and more precise than the "point and shoot" remote.

It seams that instead of working like a WiiMote and tracking where the remote is pointing, this remote seems to use a gyroscope to move the cursor up/down left/right. When you move the pointer out of the screen, it stays at the edge and when you move the remote back the pointer moves straight away ! Very difficult to use.

Aside, I sure am glad they put a web browser on this thing. I can watch the TV shows and movies on my web server. (And I am not restricted to Netflix and friends). I might just watch my torrented Gold Rush episode on it :)

You do need something to differentiate good idea from bad idea so that you don't end up believing in crazy shit.

Some people require ideas to be "proved" (whatever that means) or go with "I take as true anything an expert says."

Personally, I use my gut.

But there are good ideas where "being proved" does not make sense.

I just watched an episode of Air Crash Investigation and it reminded me of my past hatred of doctors.

I still find it disgusting that doctors have been put in a position that they can do whatever they want to anyone and silence anyone saying anything against them as "he is sick, do not listen to him until we fix him so he agrees with us".

Only my current psychiatrist I do not hate. He's the first one that actually respected me and not treated me like a complex machine to be logically understood and fixed.

Science cannot tell good from bad.

It can tell you "smoking causes cancer".

But the link between "having cancer" and "this is bad for you" is done by a person.

I just did a small electronic project.

I took the ringer from my grandmother's old 500 phone and put it in the gutted out antique phone on the garden floor.

The doorbells ring the four antique phones in the house.

We got that phone from our neighbour, kind of sad that they gutted it to hide a modern phone in it. The ringer was also broken, no continuity. So I put this ringer inside. It works great.

Yesterday, me and my dad installed the bottleless water cooler in my office.

It is fed by our well. During construction of the house, my dad had a water line installed between the basement and my office on the second floor. (We also have one for the fridge on ground level)

I have been drinking bottled water for my whole life at the old house. My dad would buy large water bottles for our water cooler.

When we moved into the new house, we used the same water cooler and kept buying large water bottles for it.

I am now drinking our well water in my office. It tastes good. I will be using the bottled water in the kitchen until the last bottle is empty. Then, I will be drinking from the water dispenser of the fridge.

Me and my dad just finished the shelves in my office.

I have a lot of boxes and I want them gone. I will start putting things in the upper shelves tomorrow.

The generator and emergency panel are working.

Yesterday, my dad installed a temporary cable to connect our generator to the emergency panel. (Until the large shed is built and has an inlet on the outside wall)

The panel has a hydro breaker letting the normal power go in and a generator breaker to which the generator is hooked up.

The way the panel is assembled, there is a piece of metal between the hydro breaker and the generator breaker so both cannot be on at the same time. (So the generator is not connected to hydro and vice-versa).

First, we started the generator. Then, we turned off the hydro breaker (the piece of metal allows both breakers to be off at the same time). Then, after a few seconds, we turned on the generator breaker.

What surprised me was that both of my UPSes accepted the power. At our old house, my single UPS simply refused the generator power and stayed on battery. This is the same generator.

My dad's theory is that there is now a constant load. At our old house, I only had my computers to power. Now, we have a water pump, water softener, UV lamp, my mom's office and a few other things.

Yay.

I have trouble putting a number on some things.

How do you feel on one to ten ? I just never know what to answer. I don't think like that.

Today, we invited my uncle, my aunt and their partners for lunch.

I really enjoyed it. Complete opposite to my sister's friends yesterday.

I guess yesterday it was more about what they were talking about than their presence that I didn't like.