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--- lb:technology.connections [2026-04-07 02:50:46] – [Technology Connections] ninjasr
+++ lb:technology.connections [2026-04-29 23:34:24] (current) – [Personal Evaluation] ninjasr
@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 <dfn>Technology Connections</dfn> is a YouTube channel run by Alec (whose surname I don't know) which started out as an edutainment channel explaining A/V-related technologies (like the [[lb:cd]] or [[lb:VHS]])...but 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 – where he actually explains technologies related to A/V – are his peak. His newer videos (starting around 2020, so it's been a long time now) are much worse. This is due to him prioritizing technologies that he has a “personal connection” to, which means you suddenly get videos about humidifiers.\\
+<div passage>
-While I don't think these videos are inherently bad, it's very clearly a shift in the content he produces...and, honestly, he comes off as very dumb in a lot of those videos.
+Technology Connections is a big mixed bag. I think his earlier videos – where he actually explains technologies related to A/V – are his peak. His newer videos (starting around 2020, so it's been a long time now) are much worse. This is due to him prioritizing technologies that he has a <q :en>personal connection</q> to, which means you suddenly get videos about humidifiers.
+While I don't think these videos are inherently bad, it's very clearly a shift in the content he produces...and, honestly, he comes off as very //dumb// in a lot of those videos.
+</div>
+<div passage>
+Alec himself is also clearly a ‘[[lb:tech bro]]’, but not the type like [[lb:CGP Grey]], as he's way more retro-focused.
+Alec promotes:
+  * Complete electrification of everything;
+  * Heat pumps;((:fn:>Which I've heard some conflicting information on. My friend installs air conditioners and I've asked him about it. Though this is the part where I explain that I've forgotten what he told me.))((:fn:>What I do remember is him saying: <q :en>heat pumps are overglorified air conditioning units</q>.))
+  * Solar and wind power;
+  * electric vehicles (and he also drives them);
+  * Replacing all old light bulbs with LEDs.
+And so on and so forth...
-Alec himself is also clearly a ‘tech bro’, but not the type like [[lb:CGP Grey]], as he's 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.
+</div>
+<div passage>
+As an example, Alec believes that all [[lb:streetlights|streetlight]] bulbs (like High-Pressure Sodium bulbs)((:fn:>If you don't know what these are, don't worry too much. They're the street lights that glow a very warm orange and, sometimes, maroon.)) should be replaced with LEDs. Specifically, we should go from the warm orange lights to the cold white lights.((:fn:>I'll note that even this is a bit of a radical position. The reason being that people actually //hate// the cold white lights, and it's been proven to disrupt sleep and lead to declines in mental health.)) 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.((:fn:>In reality, the cool white light was in some cases meant to match moonlight.)) 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 people's sleeping habits. And...this is a guess on my part, because I haven't seen the connection made directly, it also probably interferes with the sleep of animals and insects. So if you've ever heard about that being a problem, just remember that it's white LEDs that are responsible (probably). Note that Alec's solution is to pull up the blinds, which is a laughably terrible ‘solution’. Besides the sleep disruption, white LEDs also make people feel much worse: one town's residents called them ‘prison lighting’.((:ref:>[[https://darksky.org/news/citys-led-retrofit-shows-need-for-careful-lighting-choices/|City’s LED Retrofit Shows Need For Careful Lighting Choices]] from DarkSky International.))
+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, you're also gonna start experiencing headaches, among other minor issues. How is this relevant to streetlights? Well, that's because you can’t light the entire road network with streetlights (for various reasons), so there will always be segments of the road where there are no lights...and, thus, there are places where there's a transition to low-light areas. Now...white LEDs are extremely bright...so let's think about this for a second: is it really a smart idea to force drivers’ eyes to adjust to very sudden changes in brightness like this? And to do so in a way that guarantees tiring them out? This issue isn't 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. That's the main advantage.
+Now, LEDs can be forced to shine at that particular color...but then they apparently use the same amount of power as HPS bulbs and so the LEDs lose their lower power consumption advantage. Plus their lifespans might be lower. Considering that, wouldn't it make a lot of sense to just keep using HPS lights?
-As an example, Alec believes that all street light bulbs (like High-Pressure Sodium bulbs)((:fn:>If you don't know what these are, don't worry too much. They're the street lights that glow a very warm orange and, sometimes, maroon.)) should be replaced with 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 people's sleeping habits. And...this is a guess on my part, because I haven't seen the connection made directly, it also probably interferes with the sleep of animals and insects. So if you've ever heard about that being a problem, just remember that it's white LEDs that are responsible (probably). Note that Alec's solution is to pull up the blinds, which is a laughably terrible ‘solution’.\\
-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, you're also gonna start experiencing headaches, among other minor issues. How is this relevant to streetlights? Well, that's because you can’t light the entire road network with streetlights (for various reasons), so there will always be segments of the road where there are no lights...and, thus, there are places where there's a transition to low-light areas. Now...white LEDs are extremely bright...so let's think about this for a second: is it really a smart idea to force drivers’ eyes to adjust to very sudden changes in brightness like this? And to do so in a way that guarantees tiring them out? This issue isn't 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. That's the main advantage.\\
-Now, LEDs can be forced to shine at that particular color...but 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, wouldn't it make a lot of sense to just keep using HPS lights?\\
 Another important question that should be asked is this: HPS bulbs were created specifically to address the high power and maintenance costs of more traditional bulbs in streetlights. And if HPS bulbs solved this problem so well that they were used when the grid was much more primitive and incapable of handling as much as we throw at it now...and, of course, they were good enough to be the standard for literal decades...is it really smart to move away from them?
+</div>
 Alec’s videos have a lot of these kinds of errors and mistakes, which go generally unnoticed by the majority population because they simply don't 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 he's ever done. While his videos did occasionally touch upon ‘conservatives’, 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.\\
+<div passage>
-This is especially ironic when Republicans generally support Nuclear, which doesn't have as many trade-offs and negatives as the ‘renewable’ sources (which Alec supports)...and isn't it strange that in his 1 hour and 30 minute video about solar panels that Alec doesn't seem to mention Nuclear despite its obvious advantages?\\
+His latest video (as of writing this article on 2026-01-31), is about solar power where 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 he's ever done. While his videos did occasionally touch upon ‘conservatives’, it was always in the context of town councils and such. But this is the first time (to my knowledge) that he actually went for it in his videos.
-Further, it's bizarre to think that he'd upload a video about solar panels //now//, of //all times//, when the EU has shown that ‘going green’ leads to complete and utter failure.\\
+This is especially ironic when Republicans generally support nuclear, which doesn't have as many trade-offs and negatives as the ‘renewable’ sources (which Alec supports)...and isn't it strange that in his 1 hour and 30 minute video about solar panels that Alec doesn't seem to mention Nuclear despite its obvious advantages?
+Further, it's bizarre to think that he'd upload a video about solar panels //now//, of //all times//, when the EU has shown that ‘going green’ leads to complete and utter failure.((:fn:>For those who don't understand the sheer magnitude of the failure: their policies forcing green adoption almost bankrupted Volkswagen, which is Germany's most important company and strategically vital to the country's long-term survival. The EU actively antagonized farmers all across the continent to such a degree that the farmers are protesting almost constantly now. Many EU member states (such as the Czech Republic) kept running out of the allocated money for subsidies for electric vehicles because they're so expensive to produce.\\ All of this resulted in the EU backtracking on their plans.))
 The rant being so obviously misinformed also has the effect of negatively affecting his entire channel's perception. How can we be sure that Technology Connections is properly informed about literally anything he talks about if he isn't even properly informed about current events?
+</div>
 Being a conservative (technically) myself, this just didn't mesh well with me, of course. Though Technology Connections has been consistently annoying for several years now.
 ===== Trivilinks =====
   * I'll put a link to his channel here later.