If you'd like to join the folks who've decided to get next year's sock shopping done while funding a teaching hospital in Sierra Leone, you've only got until the end of today! This was such a cool project, and thank you to everyone who made a purchase! I think you're really gonna like your 2026 sock wardrobe :)
I never thought I'd never do any Technology Connections merch, but over the years lots of people have asked for some. Well, for a very limited time, I now have some! They're socks, and 100% of the profits will go to charity.
Everybody needs socks, but rather than go sock shopping the boring way, why not get yourself some amazing — and dare I say groovy — socks which will surprise you every month? Each design was approved by yours truly and I am very happy with them. I think you will be to!
Hey! It's come to my attention that somebody's on TikTok pretending to be me. I don't use TikTok so anything of mine you see there has been uploaded without permission.
If any of you out there who use TikTok would like to flag that stuff for me, that'd be pretty neat.
As we in Chicago repeat our silly tradition of dyeing the river green for St. Patrick's Day, I think it's a good time to remind people that our ancestors *reversed the flow of the river* to keep Lake Michigan, our source of drinking water, clean and safe.
And earlier, in the 1860's, the central core of the city and all of its buildings were *lifted by several feet* to allow for the installation of sewer systems which improved drainage and public health.
Remember that the next time someone says heat pumps and electrification are hard.
A lot of comments on the HVAC sizing video are implying that the fact that I live in a townhome is some kind of gotcha which invalidates the whole video. Rather than continuing to play whack-a-mole, here's a community post instead:
I was upfront about the fact that sharing walls with neighbors makes my home energy-efficient. So it's not like I was trying to hide that - it's honestly weirding me out how many people think I was trying to pull a fast one by "ignoring" that fact. But if you're under the impression that I'm "getting heat" from those shared walls - no. That's not how that works.
You don't include shared walls when doing load calculations because the loading on them is somewhere between zero and negligible: even if one of my neighbors were going buck-wild and setting their thermostats to 85 degrees, then there's only a 15 degree temperature differential across that wall and hardly any heat would move from their home into mine. Similarly, if they had left and turned the heat down to 55 degrees, then that *single* wall behaves as though the outside temp were 55 degrees. Some heat will move across it, but very little compared to the exterior walls (especially since our shared walls are insulated on both sides, but that's a particular fact of my home which I can't say how common it is in the grand scheme).
But most importantly, the dynamics in-play here were identical between using my furnace for heating and using the space heaters for heating. Heat is heat! Doesn't matter how it got there. If you somehow got under the impression that I shut off my heat and was mooching entirely off my neighbors - you must have checked out early.
Lastly, I want to address supplemental/backup heat. So so soooo many comments on both versions of the video don't seem to get how that works. Now, rather than be cranky about this, I'll put the blame on me and assume I failed to communicate this effectively. With a heat pump system with auxiliary heat (electric heat strips or even a furnace if you go dual-fuel) you have *two* sources of heat. Both of them should be sized to take care of your heating needs by themselves - ideally the heat pump holds it own, and the heat strips can also hold their own if they must. But when the system is operating normally, they can work together and double your heat output when you need it. So on those epically cold days? When you want to bump the temp up, you can absolutely do it even without whipping out space heaters. I included the line about "whip out some space heaters" because they're extremely cheap and anybody can do it, and I typically lean on the side empowering people to fix their own problems. But that apparently backfired since many people are under the impression I'm advocating for heating systems that barely work. That just isn't the case.
I'm probably paying too much attention to comments (particularly since some are clearly coming from folks who think I have an "agenda" and want to push "scams" on people), but this is a really important topic and we desperately need everyone inside the industry and out to recognize these new realities. I'm disappointed in myself for not staving some of those wonky misinterpretations off.
Hey everybody! I forgot to include a clip of the two contactor coils together... probably because the 120V coil is wrapped and thus not really exciting. There's not a lot to see!
But in case any y'all were curious, well here's the only part that's meaningfully different between the two.
Technology Connections
LAST CHANCE FOR SOCKS!
good.store/products/technology-connections-12-mont…
good.store/products/technology-connections-6-month…
Sales are ending very soonly - this was designed as a limited-time thing so we could know exactly how many socks will be needed each month.
If you'd like to join the folks who've decided to get next year's sock shopping done while funding a teaching hospital in Sierra Leone, you've only got until the end of today! This was such a cool project, and thank you to everyone who made a purchase! I think you're really gonna like your 2026 sock wardrobe :)
-Alec
1 week ago | [YT] | 3,021
View 186 replies
Technology Connections
In case you missed it:
I never thought I'd never do any Technology Connections merch, but over the years lots of people have asked for some. Well, for a very limited time, I now have some! They're socks, and 100% of the profits will go to charity.
Everybody needs socks, but rather than go sock shopping the boring way, why not get yourself some amazing — and dare I say groovy — socks which will surprise you every month? Each design was approved by yours truly and I am very happy with them. I think you will be to!
Check 'em out here!
good.store/products/technology-connections-12-mont…
good.store/products/technology-connections-6-month…
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 8,412
View 241 replies
Technology Connections
Hey! It's come to my attention that somebody's on TikTok pretending to be me. I don't use TikTok so anything of mine you see there has been uploaded without permission.
If any of you out there who use TikTok would like to flag that stuff for me, that'd be pretty neat.
kay bye
1 year ago | [YT] | 22,815
View 634 replies
Technology Connections
Remember how I said I would make a Q&A video on the pinball machine?
Well, lucky for you I have!
1 year ago | [YT] | 1,002
View 31 replies
Technology Connections
Kevin and Popular Science are exploring one of my favorite topics today, with a cameo from yours truly :)
Give it a watch!
1 year ago | [YT] | 586
View 30 replies
Technology Connections
As we in Chicago repeat our silly tradition of dyeing the river green for St. Patrick's Day, I think it's a good time to remind people that our ancestors *reversed the flow of the river* to keep Lake Michigan, our source of drinking water, clean and safe.
And earlier, in the 1860's, the central core of the city and all of its buildings were *lifted by several feet* to allow for the installation of sewer systems which improved drainage and public health.
Remember that the next time someone says heat pumps and electrification are hard.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_River#Reversing_the_…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
(edited b/c the buildings were lifted differing amounts)
1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 9,589
View 540 replies
Technology Connections
A lot of comments on the HVAC sizing video are implying that the fact that I live in a townhome is some kind of gotcha which invalidates the whole video. Rather than continuing to play whack-a-mole, here's a community post instead:
I was upfront about the fact that sharing walls with neighbors makes my home energy-efficient. So it's not like I was trying to hide that - it's honestly weirding me out how many people think I was trying to pull a fast one by "ignoring" that fact. But if you're under the impression that I'm "getting heat" from those shared walls - no. That's not how that works.
You don't include shared walls when doing load calculations because the loading on them is somewhere between zero and negligible: even if one of my neighbors were going buck-wild and setting their thermostats to 85 degrees, then there's only a 15 degree temperature differential across that wall and hardly any heat would move from their home into mine. Similarly, if they had left and turned the heat down to 55 degrees, then that *single* wall behaves as though the outside temp were 55 degrees. Some heat will move across it, but very little compared to the exterior walls (especially since our shared walls are insulated on both sides, but that's a particular fact of my home which I can't say how common it is in the grand scheme).
But most importantly, the dynamics in-play here were identical between using my furnace for heating and using the space heaters for heating. Heat is heat! Doesn't matter how it got there. If you somehow got under the impression that I shut off my heat and was mooching entirely off my neighbors - you must have checked out early.
Lastly, I want to address supplemental/backup heat. So so soooo many comments on both versions of the video don't seem to get how that works. Now, rather than be cranky about this, I'll put the blame on me and assume I failed to communicate this effectively. With a heat pump system with auxiliary heat (electric heat strips or even a furnace if you go dual-fuel) you have *two* sources of heat. Both of them should be sized to take care of your heating needs by themselves - ideally the heat pump holds it own, and the heat strips can also hold their own if they must. But when the system is operating normally, they can work together and double your heat output when you need it. So on those epically cold days? When you want to bump the temp up, you can absolutely do it even without whipping out space heaters. I included the line about "whip out some space heaters" because they're extremely cheap and anybody can do it, and I typically lean on the side empowering people to fix their own problems. But that apparently backfired since many people are under the impression I'm advocating for heating systems that barely work. That just isn't the case.
I'm probably paying too much attention to comments (particularly since some are clearly coming from folks who think I have an "agenda" and want to push "scams" on people), but this is a really important topic and we desperately need everyone inside the industry and out to recognize these new realities. I'm disappointed in myself for not staving some of those wonky misinterpretations off.
More Pumping More Now
1 year ago | [YT] | 13,493
View 1,000 replies
Technology Connections
*looks at calendar*
oh no
1 year ago | [YT] | 10,593
View 398 replies
Technology Connections
Hello!
I recently appeared on @TomScottGo's podcast Lateral with @BerylShereshewsky and @NBTJacklyn! I had a lot of fun being puzzled by puzzling questions.
You can find it here www.lateralcast.com/ or, as they say, wherever you get your podcasts ;)
2 years ago | [YT] | 2,765
View 103 replies
Technology Connections
Hey everybody! I forgot to include a clip of the two contactor coils together... probably because the 120V coil is wrapped and thus not really exciting. There's not a lot to see!
But in case any y'all were curious, well here's the only part that's meaningfully different between the two.
2 years ago | [YT] | 1,835
View 79 replies
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