Why has technology gone to shit, /g/?

>>58715407
It hasn't. Its more amazing than ever.

Normies are however now too dumb to even barely grasp how amazing most shit is, still flawed as it may be.

Thats the source of your problem.

>people have made clocks as wide as a couple of strands of hair
>some inbred retard hipster is putting a old, decrepit piece of crap on a plaque on the wall
because of people like you

>>58715449
>old, decrepit
I don't think you understand what those words mean. That plaque is also pretty awesome.

>>58715407
Too bad those are 200 bucks and you still have to build it which takes fucking hours by hand

>>58715478
>so proud of being backwards and nostalgic you spend 80$ on something you can get for <4$ and put it on the fucking wall

>>58715552
Wow, are you high on your marijuana needles or something, retard?

>>>/b/

>>58715552
>stop liking what I don't like

>>58715571
if you even consider building this you need to retire from your tech job and sit in your basement soldering ham radios
>>58715577
>Why has technology gone to shit, /g/?

>>58715599
>implying I'm OP
You do realize there are multiple people itt, right?

How practical would it be to use relays for hobbyist circuits instead of transisters/vaccuum tubes? I've always thought such a project would make a better conversation piece, especially because its audible and ideally visible.

>>58715407
>Probably uses more power then several RPis and only shows the time
incredible

>>58715631
Well relays and transistors fundamentally do the same job: they pass or don't pass current depending on whether you apply voltage on another line. Any computation you can do with one you can (at least in theory) do with the other. Some early machines in the 40s did use relays, and they were already widespread in the telephone industry.

What you'd have to deal with is that relays are larger, more expensive, much slower to switch, and wear out.

But if you have a project on the boil and want to try it you can buy loose relays of all sorts of specifications at any place where you'd get other loose electronic componentry.

>>58715571
Sure is a retard party in here.

>>58715660
>electricity is cheap as fuck
>consuming substantially less than a fucking light bulb is somehow an issue

>>58715519

Soldering up that board in a few hours is not a big deal at all, much more concerned about the price tag

>>58715697
This. At that price the fucker should come as a nixie tube kit.

>>58715407
That fucking board that's it mounted on, so god damn hideous.

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>>58715674
Those old 40s computers are exactly what I was thinking of. I forgot which but I loved the ones with relays with no cases. What is the smallest, low amp, dc relay where you can actually see the contacts move. A quick googling shows suggests a lot of the modern relays are $0.20 but boring black boxes.

>>58715776
Kill yourself, you fucking retard.

>>58715407
todays technology is amazing, it's the end products that are shit

>>58715407
That's actually pretty cool

ICs almost take the fun out of it, like its too easy. almost like python vs C

>>58715826
That switch. Imagine if that's the concept that was used to make computers...

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>>58715449
>>58715552
>>58715599
>being this fucking insecure that someone enjoys technology and creating things while you sit on your ass shitposting and filling the room with the stench of sour grapes

If making you incompetent monkeys mad is what being a hipster is all about then sign me up

>>58715407
Cool clock Ahmed.

That clock is breddy cool, but where is it getting its timing from? I don't see a crystal anywhere.

Unless it's AC powered and uses that as a base?

>>58715407
technology is as awesome as never before

u only seem to have bought the wrong shit, nigga

>>58716341

Looks like the power input has a full wave rectifier

>>58716341
>>Unless it's AC powered and uses that as a base?
ding ding ding. It's called a "synchronous" clock, it uses the frequency of the power supply (60Hz) to keep time. These clocks are much less common now then they once were, but electric companies still try very hard to keep the AC frequency within tight bounds because of them. They keep track of short-term frequency variations and then adjust the frequency later on so that the number of AC cycles in a day remains roughly on target.

>>58715407
I can't find a crystal resonator on this. Is there an oscillator circuit in here?

>>58715407
Jesus Christ, the getting the timing correct on this thing must be a nightmare.

>>58716491
Nah. Put it together, press the buttons to set the time, off you go.

btw you can buy the kits at kabtronics.com. There's a nixie-tube version too, and two IC-based ones.

>>58715599
>being this asshurt that someone making a fuckhueg clock in their garage for fun instead of buying a chinese clock for $2
I bet you get really mad when someone gets or has an old computer

>>58715826
The smallest I've encountered are protection relays in old stereo amplifiers. They're usually enclosed in a clear plastic for reducing emi, but you can see the kachunk kachunk through it. Having them exposed completely risks them interfering with one another or the rest of the circuit.

Cheaper would be either relays used in tool switches or in cars. Cars these days still use fuck loads of relays. If you wanna go real cheap you could salvage a bunch from a junk yard.

>>58716399
Cool I didn't know that. I imagine there's more reasons beyond trying to keep a tidy frequency though. Isn't there quite a bit of power loss involved with noise suppression? I mean I'm sure it's pretty negligible on an individual level but shit adds up with 400 million people with tons of electronics.

>>58716595
No, not really. Resistive loads (Toasters, incandescent bulbs) don't give a flying fuck about the frequency. Most stuff nowadays that has its own power supply uses some kind of switchmode setup, and those will run happily from pretty dirty mains. This is why cheap UPS units work, even with their cheap modified square wave inverters that generate power that looks nothing like a sinewave. The things that care about frequency are 1.) AC motors, which don't really need precision, you just need the frequency correct to within a Hz or two, and 2.) linear power supplies. If you have an old-style heavy plugpack, its one of these. But frequency ripple doesn't make them use more power or anything, they either just pass it straight on through (AC plugbacks) or have filter caps to eat any minor power variations (DC plugpacks)

So no, keeping the frequency bang-on isn't about saving power at all.

>>58716666
I always assumed some of the current shunted through caps sacrificed some losses in the form of heat.

>>58716698
Oh also power factor. I know we don't have to pay extra in the US if you have a shit power factor but I've seen anons from other countries talk about it whever people post those stupid "power saver" things that are just boxes with some caps.

>>58716666
>>58716595
This isn't my field at all but I recall hearing that operators keep the timing so tight due to the risk of damage to other power plants and that a relatively small phase misalignment was a contributing factor to the 2003 New England blackout. I have misremembered that or got bullshitted.

>>58716730
>we don't have to pay extra in the US if you have a shit power factor
You do if you're an industrial user. They'll never charge consumers for it because the average consumer doesn't know an amp from a hole in the ground.

Standards bodies wanting to make things easy on utilities is the reason why all but the shittiest PSUs have PFC. The shittiest PSUs don't give a fuck about regulatory compliance anyway.

>those stupid "power saver" things that are just boxes with some caps
it's worse because those things don't work in the first place. power-factor correction has to be matched to the thing it's correcting, you can't make a generic plug-in box that does it to arbitrary things. So even if you were charged by power factor they wouldn't save money.

>>58716698
Nope. Inductors and capacitors are known as "wattless components". They absorb power on one quarter-cycle and return it on the next.
The ohmic resistance of either component constitutes a loss of efficiency (also known at "Q"). A good wattless component has an efficience approaching 100%.

>>58715449
Why does almost always a retard like you who doesn't understand that such things are done for educational purposes try to ruin threads?

>>58716766
For all practical purposes electrical distribution networks are inductive. Motors, transformers etc.
Thus the current will lag the voltage because of inductive reactance; inductors producing back-EMFs through self-inductance as the voltage rises.
Since power is the instantaneous product of Volts X Amps, if they aren't aligned the power available will be lower (by the Power Factor) than it should. Since the current is lagging, the maximum power is going to be far less.
Sometimes utilities will park a good-sized PF correction capacitor in a modest brick building somewhere in their customers' area in the hopes of bringing the voltage and current phases back into sync. But it's a moving target.
The other way to "fix" the problem is to crank up the voltage at the power station/switchyard.
Here be dragons.

>>58715449
Are you retarded? that's a home made computer I'm pretty sure.

>>58717423
It's literally just a timepiece

>>58717474
Technically it is kind of sort of a really basic computer with a single purpose. The input is a 60hz oscillation and the output is the changing of the characters into symbols we recognize as numbers. It would be a lot cooler if it was a completely homebrew device and not just a kitof components you solder into a prefab board.

>>58718041
Yes, it's a computer that functions as nothing more than timepiece, but that's clearly not what anon meant. In essence, it's just a timepiece.

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>>58715407
It's too complicated now. Hardware is more powerful than ever but software is a buggy mess. There are too many features and no one cares about stability or usability anymore. It's all about how many bells and whistles you can cram into a shiny little box to attract the normies. Computers are not at all "nerd friendly" anymore. They are cages with golden bars. Truly a terrible time to be a hobbyist when companies like Microsoft and Intel try to tell you what you can and cannot install on hardware you purchased. Not fully owning a product you paid for is for commie cucks.