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💡︎ Lighting

LED lights are awesome — an amazing transformative technology:

Just be very careful to buy the exact light source you want . . .

Q:  How many Lutherans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A:  25.  One to screw in the new lightbulb, and 24 to talk about how much they liked the OLD lightbulb.

    ― A Prairie Home Companion, as heard by EP a while back.

Carefully choose the color temperature for your use:

Or to list it another way:

Or see for yourself at a friend's house, or lighting or hardware store with excellent displays (I find Lowe's has a better selection of lighting and PPE v. Home Depot).

Get your lamp brighter — measured in lumens — than your existing fixtures.  You will like it.

Spend the extra US$2 each and get them dimmable.  If you later decide your lights are too bright, you can correct by installing a modern US$25 LED-compatible "C-L" dimmer switch.

Get a lamp that gives light in a good angle:

If getting a "recessed" "can light" "downlight" retrofit insert, consider whether you need a gimbal "rotatable" "eyeball" to illuminate your subjects.

An E26 adapter means your unit contains an electrical connector for your can's existing E26/E27 standard lightbulb base.

If your LED light comes with a Color Rendering Index CRI, get it High=90+, so it doesn't mess with your ability to see color.

For my laundry/work/storage room project, I handled each of these issues by replacing humming florescent tube fixtures with new LED lamps, each with:

Pretty inexpensive, too.  Better light, no more hum nor replacing ballasts, and no more light switch — replaced with a blank switchplate cover!

Best wishes for success with your lighting project!

📱︎💻︎ Computer use (and programming)

📱︎💻︎ Computer use for ordinary
and tech-savvy 👥︎ computer users

📱︎💻︎ Computer programming for
ordinary 👥︎ computer programmers

📱︎💻︎ Computer programming advanced topics:
⚠ safety-critical, ✈ aviation, 🏭︎ industrial-quality, 🕵 internals, build, install

📱︎💻︎ Computer programming for ordinary 👥︎ computer programmers

Any useful code must be modified.

    ― Eric's first law, first described by me, as far as I know.

📱︎💻︎ Computer and programming tools (.doc)

Leave something for Release 1.1.

    ― Eric's second law, until I get better attribution.

CSharp C# programming, under 💻︎ Visual Studio .NET (.doc)
Java programming (including ▯ Android), under 💻︎ Eclipse or Android Studio (.pdf)

Any computer development project takes longer and costs more.

    ― saying at Smiths/GE.

Apache web server, MySQL database, and PHP http scripting language (.doc)
VBA Visual Basic for Applications programming, under 💻︎ Microsoft Excel (.doc)

👩︎👩︎👩︎👩︎👩︎👩︎👩︎👩︎👩︎ Nine women can't make a 🚼︎ baby in one month.

    ― saying at Smiths/GE.

Personal topics

🌏︎ On spaceship earth, we are not passengers — we are 👥︎ crew.

    ― Marshal McLuhan, slightly reworded by me.

If you are scheduled to do something hard, and you yet don't feel ready:
◦ Prepare.  Hard.  Over-prepare.
◦ Center yourself, using whatever works for you:  exercise hard, yoga, long walk, play your favorite instrument, whatever.
◦ If you are reasonably-young or -urban, listen to Eminem's Lose Yourself a few times.
◦ Eat a good dinner.
◦ Get a great night's sleep.
◦ Get your game face on.
◦ You are ready.  You own it!
◦ And if it still doesn't feel right . . .
     Fake it until you make it!

    ― various sources, some me, 2018-03-26.

 VOTE, in your next election!

You don't have to behave perfect, just meet the reasonable-person test.

Do not do anything you don't know how to explain to a judge.

    ― Eric's fourth law, first described by me, as far as I know.

When stopped by the police:

Between encounters with police, pay your parking tickets and citations, and attend all court dates.  Attending to these things may be a pain, but they are far is easier to unwind early on, before getting muddled up with other offenses and eventually turning into an arrest warrant.

And while we are at it, you know how children need a parent when they go to the doctor?  I think that we all — educated adults included — need a second with us for all important encounters with doctors, the police or courts.  A friend:

Maybe we can catch all this information the first time, without having to resurrect everything later.

Test like you fly;  fly like you test.
    — The way I learned it
writing aviation software.

Train like you fight;  fight like you train.
    — The way I heard some of our customers learned it.

Plan your work;  work the plan.
    — The way I learned it in chainsaw safety training.

Fail early, and pivot.
    — The way I learned it in entrepreneur startup seminars.

Failure is an option here.  If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.
    — Elon Musk, Inc., 2015-07-14.

How to prepare and show 🌄︎ presentations (for 👥︎ people who do this sporadically) (.pdf)

Just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.  What do we do?  We swim, swim.

    ― Dory.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.

    ― aphorism commonly attributed to Voltaire, slightly reworded by me.

If you have identified a near-optimum solution, it may be OK to implement this one, instead of continuing the search for the optimum solution.

    ― not sure I've ever heard it said this way, said by me for years, recorded 2018-06-30.  Understood instinctively by single parents.

It gets better!

    ― I first heard this used by people trying to reduce death by suicide in gay teens.  Later, I found it applicable for all young people, and anyone trying to find there way in this world.  True.  Partly because you get better at solving problems.  Partly because you meet more people who can help you out, know that one nugget of information that you need right now, and so on.  Partly because you slowly acquire more assets to help you along the way.  It may not look that way now, but if you can avoid dying, I've found it generally does get better!

Eric Piehl resume (.pdf)   Eric Piehl resume (.doc)   Eric Piehl LinkedIn

Not knowing something is fine.
Not wanting to know,
or refusing to know, is the problem.

    ― Eric's third law, first described by me, as far as I know.

old 🏠︎ home page (under 🚧 reconstruction)

If you don't ask, the answer's No.

    ― MM, about 1998.

I have other articles, not for public use.  Some articles are just for me.  But a few articles may be in the of this page;  if you are a on how to access it.