You hear about micro climates within a city but check your own house.

Micro climate in my own house.

81F Inside with no AC. Cooled the house to 75 in the morning and closed the doors and windows.
90F Garage if the door is left open
93F in the shade of concrete patio
103F in the sun
77F on the lawn under the shade of a big tree

Measured using the temperature sensor in Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

Replaced 3yr old CISCO/Linksys E4200 router with Asus RT-N66U for $110.

Strange failure on wired network port of the E4200. There is a gigabit switch connected to it. Devices connected to the switch for loosing connection every few hours after power cycling the switch. Replaced the switch and problem was even worse. So, replaced the router and now very stable connection for 7hrs and counting. Also, in a room about 30ft and 3 walls away where I had spotty connection, I got nearly the speed of wired connection.

This one is not a 802.11AC router which costs about $30 to $40 more. I have only 2 802.11AC capable devices in the house and they are phones which need range more than speed. AC works in 5GHz band. So, decided against it. These routers seem to fail after 3yrs. My guess is that memory may be corrupted or buffer is full and I have more devices in the house than I had 3 yrs ago.

How to get best deal for foreign channels these days?

Currently you can get 3 months of 1 language 13 to 15 channels for $15 a month for 3 months and watch on PC, MAC, Android, IOS or using Roku box. All you need is an email address and a credit card or debit card.

For example: Hindi Channels

I don't recommend the Dishworld App on Samsung Bluray Player. The aspect ratio is distorted. SD is widened to 16:9. People look fat and short.

After 3 months the price jumps to $45 a month if you go month to month or $40 a month if you agree to 9 month contract. Do neither.  A day before the 3 month period open a new account with a different email address. Get another 3 months of promo and cancel the first one. If they want to play bait and switch, so can you. I look forward to the day when MSOs stop playing dirty games. Till then, look out for yourself. Loyalty does not pay. Just don't lock yourself into contract.

4K TV. The good, the bad and the ugly.

In 2013 Dec, Costco was selling a 55" Hisense 4k 3840 x 2160 TV for as little as $1500 now selling for $1000 and 65" for 1700. I asked a good friend what the deal is and then did my own looking up. In fact the specs may look very impressive to most people who can read the spec.

For flicker free experience the panel should support 60 frames per second and 120 for 3D.

3D was dead before arrival. The few people bought them realized that their brain and not the TV was creating the TV image and after a while the brain gets tired and they have headache if they don't feel dizzy.

So, what is wrong with the specs of TVs now available as 4K? Most TVs released in 2013 supported max 3840 x 2160 24 frames per second. In Sep 2013, HDMI 2.0 spec was released supporting 3840 x 2160 60 frames per second which makes it flicker free. Still there is an issue. For ages we are used to seeing 8bits per color Red, Green, Blue in a color format known as 4:4:4. HDMI 2.0 limits the color format to 4:2:0 effectively half the possible range of colors. To get 4:4:4 3840 x 2160 60 frames per second, 2X the bandwidth of HDMI 2.0 is required. If you really want to know try reading this link.
Understanding HDMI 2.0: Enabling the Ultra-High Definition Experience
If you more inclined to read tables, read this link.
HDMI From Wikipedia
There is a technology called Display Port 1.3 which does that today used in high end computer monitors but not in TVs. It is a different cable. May be there will be HDMI 2.x or 3.0 to make it possible to see in 2160p the same color depth 4:4:4 and same frame rate 60 as the current entry level 1080p TV in 2016. But then the price of such 4k TV would probably be $5k for 65" Vs $1300 I paid for my 65" 1080p 120Hz 4:4:4 Tv 2 years ago. That means I may have to wait for 5yrs to replace my 65" 1080p TV with 2160p (aka ultra HD) for $1300.

Advice to 50yr olds and older from a wise Chinese.

This is one of my shortest blogs. Credit goes to the person who translated a Chinese blog to English.

I received this by email from a good friend. The only thing I would add to this is: Realize that food is not your best friend. Don't waste your life cooking and eating. Food is the best medicine if consumed properly. Age gracefully and command respect. No need to be desperate to look young with makeup and clothes. Focus on fitness and what you can do to pass on good habits and don't be afraid to admit your mistakes to the next generation. Realize that we have only one life to live and make a difference to others.

CHINESE ADVICE TO 50-YEAR OLDS & OLDER 

Nissan Leaf vs Nissan Versa

After a conversation at a friend's place, I looked up real world range and mileage data for these 2 cars. In the SF bay area both cares with 20k miles cost around the same $14k used. Battery life on leaf is 60k miles. Assume that both cars are used for 60k miles. Assuming that off-peak charging costs 10cents per Kwh. My finding was that both cars cost exactly 13 cents per mile based on $6k for the leaf battery. What do you think?

Miles Kwh	3.9	http://insideevs.com/real-world-test-2013-nissan-leaf-range-vs-2012-nissan-leaf-range/
Kwh per day	8.46
Cost per Kwh	0.1	If charged using off-peak rates
Cost per day	0.85
Electricity Cost per mile	0.03
Battery life in miles	60000
Battery life in years	5.0
Battery cost	6000
Battery cost per mile	0.1
Cost per mile	0.13
Nissan Versa Avg mpg	32
Cost per gallon	4
Cost per mile	0.125	http://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/5458/nissan/versa/nissan-versa-real-world-mpg