Technology Connections
Technology Connections is a YouTube channel run by Alec (whose surname I donât know) which started out as an edutainment channel explaining A/V-related technologies (like the Compact Disc or VHS)âŚbut then quickly morphed into a vlogging channel about whatever he found in his house that week.
Personal Evaluation
Technology Connections is a big mixed bag. I think his earlier videos â where he actually explains technologies related to A/V â are his peak. His newer videos (starting around 2020, so itâs been a long time now) are much worse. This is due to him prioritizing technologies that he has a âpersonal connectionâ to, which means you suddenly get videos about humidifiers.
While I donât think these videos are inherently bad, itâs very clearly a shift in the content he producesâŚand, honestly, he comes off as very dumb in a lot of those videos.
Alec himself is also clearly a âtech broâ, but not the type like CGP Grey, as heâs way more retro-focused. Alec promotes complete electrification of everything; he promotes heat pumps; he promotes solar and wind power; he promotes (and drives) electric vehicles; he thinks all old light bulbs should be replaced with LEDs and so on and so forth.
This also manifests as moralizing within his videos, which is pretty infuriating if you happen to know about a certain subject.
As an example, Alec believes that all street lights (like High-Pressure Sodium bulbs)A) should be replaced LEDs. Specifically, we should go from the warm orange lights to the cold white lights. The reasoning he presents is based on evidence that it increases safety by lighting up more of the road. White lights resemble daylight (in theory), which is why this is much safer overall. Additionally, LEDs come with longer lifespans, lower energy usage and lower maintenance costs. Thus, he concludes, people who oppose the replacement of old HPS lights are simply being dumb.
Except that he leaves out a few very important facts (though he touches on a few of them).
The first major one is that white LEDs tend to interfere with peopleâs sleeping habits. AndâŚthis is a guess on my part, because I havenât seen the connection made directly, it also probably interferes with the sleep of animals and insects. So if youâve ever heard about that being a problem, just remember that itâs white LEDs that are responsible. Note that Alecâs solution is to pull up the blinds, which is a laughably terrible âsolutionâ.
The second important fact is related to how the human eye adjusts to light. Typically, when you go from a high-light place to a low-light place, it takes your eyes some time to adjust to the change in brightness. How long this takes varies from person to person, but the more it happens, the more time it takes to adjust (because your eyes get tired). If this happens often enough, youâre also gonna start experiencing headaches, among other minor issue. How is this relevant to streetlights? Well, thatâs because you canât light the entire road network with streetlights (for various reasons), so there will always be segments of the road where there are no lightsâŚand, thus, there are places where thereâs a transition to low-light areas. NowâŚwhite LEDs are extremely brightâŚso letâs think about this for a second: is it really a smart idea to force driversâ eyes to adjust to very sudden changes in brightness like this? And to do so in a way that guarantees to tire them out? This issue isnât as prominent as with the old HPS lights because their warm orange glow actually prevents the eye from straining as much when switching to low-light. Thatâs the main advantage.
Now, LEDs can be forced to shine at that particular colorâŚbut then they apparently use the same amount of power as HPS bulbs and the LEDs also lose their lower power consumption advantage. Plus their lifespans might be lower. Considering that, wouldnât it make a lot of sense to just keep using HPS lights?
Alecâs videos have a lot of these kinds of errors and mistakes, which go generally unnoticed by the majority population because they simply donât know as much as he does.
His latest video (as of writing this article on 2026-01-31), is about solar power and he dedicates the last 30 or so minutes of it to ranting about Trump, Republicans, fascism, ICE and so on and so forth. This is the single dumbest thing heâs ever done. While his videos did occasionally touch upon âconservativesâ, it was always in the context of town councils and so on. But this is the first time (to my knowledge) that he actually went for it in his videos.
This is especially ironic when Republicans generally support Nuclear, which doesnât have as many trade-offs and negatives as the ârenewableâ sources (which Alec supports)âŚand isnât it strange that in his 1 hour and 30 minute video about solar panels that Alec doesnât seem to mention Nuclear despite its obvious advantages?
Further, itâs bizarre to think that heâd upload a video about solar panels now, of all times, when the EU has shown that âgoing greenâ leads to complete and utter failure.
The rant being so obviously misinformed also has the effect of negatively affecting his entire channelâs perception. How can we be sure that Technology Connections is properly informed about literally anything he talks about if he isnât even properly informed about current events?
Being a conservative (technically) myself, this just didnât mesh well with me, of course. Though Technology Connections has been consistently annoying for several years now.
Trivilinks
- Iâll put a link to his channel here later.