FedEx Express currently owns 697 airplanes, with another 48 on order. That makes FedEx the 6th largest airline by fleet size. They operate more Airbus 300 and 310 airplanes than any other airline and there are only five airlines with more planes than FedEx.

1. Delta Air Lines
2. SkyWest
3. United Airlines
4. Lufthansa
5. Southwest Airlines

The next five airlines after FedEx are: American Airlines, Air France-KLM, International Airlines Group, Air Canada, and Chine Southern Airlines.

The FedEx airfreight concept was dreamt up by Fred Smith who wrote a college paper proposing the idea. His professor gave the paper a ‘C’ grade and that’s kind of how the company started out in 1971.

At one point, the company was losing up to a million US dollars per month. Smith tried to raise capital from General Dynamics, who turned him down. While waiting for his flight home to Memphis, he decided to take a detour to Las Vegas where he won $27,000 — enabling the company to make payroll the week after.

That gave him enough time to raise between $50 and $70 million in additional funding. By 1976, it was a profitable company that set many trends in the industry. They were the first shipping company to computerize and offer parcel tracking. In 1994, they were the first shipping company offer online tracking.

Tip: Enter a FedEx, UPS or USPS tracking number in google and you’ll get a link to the tracking info.

Fedex’s largest customer is actually the US Postal Service. This is a bit strange since FedEx introduced its overnight mail service in 1981 to compete directly with the USPS’s express mail service. But, in 2001, FedEx signed a deal to carry Express and Priority Mail for the USPS — that contract has been extended to 2013.

Last but not least, the FedEx logo has an arrow between the letters “E” an “x”.

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Sources: wikipedia (world’s largest airlines, fedex)

No matter which mobile phone carrier you use, you’ll eventually drop a call with somebody. Even if you don’t have a cellphone, you still have to deal with dropped calls when you’re talking with people who do.

Sometimes you both try to call each other at the same time and get each other’s voicemail. Other times, you try to call the other person and they’re still talking away, oblivious to the fact that the call was dropped.

Rule #1: Whoever initiated the call, initiates the call back after a dropped call.

To some, this rule is obvious. But, it needs to be stated to remove any confusion and prevent the double voicemail dilemma.

Rule #2: Whoever was listening when the call was dropped, remembers the last sentence the other person said.

This is less obvious, but since the listener is the only one who knows exactly when the call was dropped; they need to remember the last sentence or at least the topic — this may be the same person who needs to call the other person back.

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Photo: addicted eyes (cc)

I use both Mac and Windows computers and I appreciate some attributes of each. For example, I really like the home and end keys on Windows keyboards. These guys make it a breeze to select a single line of text or jump to the end of the line to keep writing after an edit.

Because Apple market share is at an all time high, I’m sure a lot of people are going to notice the absence of these keys when they switch. Unless you’ve got the full-size apple keyboard, the “home” and “end” keys are absent on your desktop or macbook keyboard. But, if you hold down the fn (or control) key, you can use the left and right arrow keys as home and end keys respectively. Hold shift while doing this to select the characters between cursor positions.

Speaking of the Mac keyboard, the delete key is equivalent to the backspace key on a Windows computer — it deletes characters to the left of the cursor. But, you can make Mac’s delete key function like the Windows delete key if you hold the fn key while pressing it — deleting characters to the right. Another favorite keyboard shortcut on Mac OS is fn + F11 which will temporarily hide your windows to expose your desktop, allowing you to easily select files without going to the finder or minimizing all of your windows. Then press fn+F11 to bring all your windows back to their original positions.

By the way, you can plug a Windows USB keyboard into a Mac, although not all of the task keys function the way they do on a PC.

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The batteries in most consumer electronics produce 1.5 volts each.

Different products use different numbers of batteries to achieve different voltage requirements. For example, a TV remote might be designed to run on 3 volts, so two 1.5 volt batteries will provide the necessary voltage when connected in series.

Larger devices, such as radios with large speakers or large kid’s toys, typically have larger batteries, like C and D cells. Smaller devices often use AA and AAA batteries, allowing the devices themselves to be smaller. All of these batteries output 1.5 volts, but the larger batteries have much higher capacities, meaning they last longer. D batteries have four times the capacity as AA’s. So, if you’re going to be blasting music on the beach, you’ll change fewer batteries if your radio uses D batteries.

There are many other types of batteries that are not 1.5 volts. One of the most popular is the nine-volt battery, which is technically called a PP3 battery. Smoke detectors, garage door remotes, transistor radios and a variety of other devices use these batteries.

They’re pretty convenient, giving you the voltage of six batteries after only inserting one battery. In fact, that’s exactly what they are — they’re just containers that link six smaller batteries together. Here’s a picture of a nine-volt battery that I took apart:

Each of the six batteries outputs 1.5 volts, giving a total of 9 volts when connected in series. The name brand nine-volt batteries usually contain six quadrouple A batteries (AAAA) which are rather uncommon in consumer electronics but find a home in medical devices such as glucose meters.

Some of the lesser known battery brands may contain 6 flat cells which are not easily reusable. As you can see in the picture above, AAAA batteries are very close in size to AAA cells. That’s worth noting since they could save the day if you’re short on AAAs:

Keep in mind, device manufacturers often use standard batteries in their rechargeable products and you can replace them yourself.

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Sources: Wikipedia (Batteries: D, AA, AAAA, nine-volt)

Admittedly, I am not an English professor. There are many occasions when readers have corrected me, and I appreciate it, that’s what this site is all about — learning new things.

I’ve noticed a few common phrases that frequently get misquoted in conversations. Even if you know the correct phrase, you might not know it’s meaning or origin. If you’ve got others, share it in comments at the bottom.

Tide over

common misquotes: tie over, tied over

The word “tide” is an obsolete word for time, although it’s still with us in words like “Yuletide” (Christmas Time).

The phrase comes from sailors who had to anchor (or compromise progress) when there was no wind to fill their sails — to prevent the tide from pushing them backwards or off course. The earliest recorded use of the phrase can be found in A Sea Grammar (1627), “To Tide ouer to a place, is to goe ouer with the Tide of ebbe or flood, and stop the contrary by anchoring till the next Tide.”

Down the pike

common misquote: down the pipe

If you’re talking about something in a pipeline, whether it’s literal or metaphorical (like a sales pipeline), then “pipe” does make sense. But, if you’re talking about anything else, then it’s probably “coming down the pike.”

The etymology is pretty straight forward, in this context, “pike” simply refers to “turnpike”, which is a major roadway, usually a toll road. In other words, it just means that something is coming down the road.

Flesh Out

common misquote: flush out

Much like, “coming down the pipe“, “flush out” is a real phrase. But, “flush out” is often used when people actually mean, “flesh out.”

To “flush out”, means to expose or release something, like flushing the toilet. It comes from bird hunting, where one flushes out a flock of birds. To “flesh out” is to bring something to life, to make it real. If you take an idea and make it real, you have put flesh on a skeleton.

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Photos: skipnclick (cc), MuseumWales (cc)

Sources: The Free Dictionary (turnpike), Google (pike), UsingEnglish, phrases.org.uk, Wikipedia (Tide), Paul Brians (Washington State University)

Books were once a luxury.

That changed with the printing press, making duplication of books faster and cheaper, which made books more accessible to common people. Eventually, public libraries made books available to everyone in a community.

The way we access books is changing again, by eReaders like the Kindle and iPad.

If you browse the Kindle forums on Amazon.com, you may notice that eBook snobs refer to normal books as DTBs (Dead Tree Books). While eBooks are a status symbol now, they may eventually be the way common people access books, making paper books a luxury once again, reserved for expensive hardcovers and collector editions.

For some people, the only books they have ever read were the ones they had to read in school. This year, many high schools and colleges are using iPads and Kindles to distribute reading materials. It’s not because they’re fancy, it’s actually quite practical.

Although the initial cost of the device is high, the cost to create and distribute electronic books is almost negligible. The cost of a Kindle ($139) is about the price of two or three large college textbooks. At that rate, the device could pay for itself in the first semester.

Because it is much cheaper, faster and easier to download books, eBooks may eventually replace paper books as the primary way we read. Like I said, the reading devices are expensive, but even if people don’t want to buy a dedicated device, chances are good they already own one that is compatible. Amazon has already made software that allows Kindle books to be downloaded and read on Windows and Mac computers, iPads and iPods, along with all of the major smartphone platforms (iPhone, Blackberry and Android).

The future of books may be eBooks. In the meantime, it’s hard to know how popular paper books are, unless you know this secret.

When a book is printed for the first time, the publisher doesn’t know how well it will sell. They print a limited number of books to minimize the risk of their investment. If the book sells well, they can always print more.

Most publishers list the number of the printing in an ambiguous format on the publishers copyright page near the front of the book. They put the numbers 1 through 10 on their own line near the bottom of the copyright page. Sometimes, they’re in left to right order from 1 to 10. Other times, the numbers alternate from left side to right side, with 10 in the center.

The lowest number you can see on this line is the printing that the book is from. When a book goes into its second printing, the number 1 is removed. On the third printing, the number 2 is removed and so on.

1st Printing

9th Printing

12th Printing

You can see that the numbers alternate from left to right. They sometimes do that so the remaining numbers stay centered without adjusting the printing of the remaining numbers. If you see them in a book and they are not alternated, the remaining numbers will be off to one side instead of being centered (they don’t normally adjust the type to re-center it).

Sometimes, printings are confused with editions. A book may go through many printings and still be considering the “First Edition.” Generally, the edition doesn’t change unless the content in the book or the publisher changes.

The images above are from one of my favorite books, The Book of Awesome. As you can see, this book has been extremely successful — it’s in its 12th printing! Frankly, it is an awesome book and I’m not just saying that because I’m trying to be funny or because I’m in the book — the sales speak for themselves, it is a great book.

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Sources: Travelin Librarian, Between the Covers, Wikipedia (Books), Kotaku

We know a lot about the world around us. We have a pretty good understanding of forces such as gravity and magnetic fields. We know a lot about barely visible subatomic particles and even invisible energy such as radio waves.

We can control and measure most of these amazing things and they really are amazing. Think back over a thousand years. Could you imagine what it was like when magnets were first discovered? The amazement, confusion and challenge to explain how they worked.

Due to recent developments, we are in a similar state of fascination.

When you read “quantum teleportation” in the title,  you probably had visions of something from Star Trek where people and objects are transported from one location to another. That is teleportation but it’s not quantum teleportation.

In quantum teleportation, no visible object is moved from one place to another. Rather, quantum information is moved from one place to another.

It starts with entanglement of two atoms or particles such as ions or photons. In simple terms, they are “tied” together. When separated, something amazing can be observed. Changing the state of one, the state of the other changes to match. This phenomena has been observed when the two have been separated by a distance of a few meters (10 feet), 16 km (10 miles) and even 144 km (89 miles).

No, it won’t let you visit your grandma in Montana and your other grandma in Malta on the same day, but the potential is still amazing.

You’ve probably seen a satellite interview on TV noticed there is a huge delay between the two people talking. That’s what happens when shipping information to space and back on each side of the screen. But, Quantum information moves extremely fast so there would be negligible delay if it could one day be used for communication (it can’t for now).

Although a bit awkward sometimes, we can live with delayed satellite interviews. But, as we try to explore deep space, communication delays could become a factor that prevents or severely delays exploration. One day, cell phones might use this technology to eliminate dropped calls and dead zones. In communications, the possibilities are endless.

We can’t even imagine how this might affect other areas of science and that’s because we don’t really understand how it works. But, scientists believe these entangled particles exist in nature and there are potentially billions of them. Of course, we don’t know which ones they are or where the other half of their entangled pair is. Maybe there is some truth behind the notion that one twin feels something when their identical twin experiences something traumatic. Maybe there’s even some science to prove it.

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Sources: Wikipedia (QT), Quantum (Entangled QT, First QT),  The Future of Things , Ars Technica

Photo: Thomas Shahan (cc)

We do know that the X-37B was launched on April 22, 2010. It was originally a NASA project in 1999, but was transferred to the department of defense in 2004. It looks very similar the space shuttle, but it’s unmanned and about a quarter of the size. It also operates very similar to the space shuttle, it is launched by powerful rockets and it lands like an airplane. It has a small cargo bay, about the size of a pickup truck bed.

For safety and security, a little over 14000 space objects are cataloged and tracked. The objects include satellites, debris and rocket bodies. Tracking these objects reduces the chance of a collision between them. In fact, there are a few public websites that let you view this information, some will even plot satellites on a map so you can try to spot them when they’re over your area. The location and orbit of the X-37B spacecraft has not been announced by the government.

However, a group of amateur astronomers and sky watchers believe they have enough sightings to identify the craft and it’s orbit. The space plane has been tough to spot since it seems to be operating in a low orbit, similar to the height of military spy satellites. There are a lot of satellites in the sky, 75 military satellites plus 15 search and rescue; 37 gps and 19 Navy navigation satellites. Then, there are thousands of other satellites for communications, science and entertainment uses.

China and Iran are both on edge about what this space plane is capable of. According to China, it may signal the start of a space arms race.

Experts believe the X-37B is just another spy plane, except it can stay in the air for 270 days before returning for fuel. The sky watchers who are tracking the space plane have seen it over Iraq and Afghanistan and believe it is currently testing surveillance equipment. Because it can return to earth and be redeployed very quickly, it’s likely that it will serve a number of different roles as needed.

As for the name, it’s just a test plane series number. For example, the X-24A was the model of the plane used in 1963 to test the re-entry heat-shields that would end up on the bottom of modern day space shuttles.

When the X-37B does return to earth, it will land on a runway in California. If it veers too far off course, it will self destruct. Seriously.

Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton

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Sources: Yahoo, Space.com, Wikipedia 1 2, n2yo

I think that everyone likes a good story, that’s why we read books, follow the same TV show for years and lineup overnight for movies. We suspend our disbelief to live in a different world for a few hours, days or even years. We do this because we want to feel happy, inspired and surprised. Great stories make us smile, laugh and cry — LOST is no exception.

Rent the first season on DVD and at least watch the 2 hour pilot episode. At $11.5 million, it’s the most expensive TV pilot ever made and it’s worth every penny. In fact, that’s more money than it cost to make Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and it’s a much better story too. But, it cost more than a lot of money, it cost Disney Chairman Lloyd Braun his job — they fired him for green-lighting such an expensive pilot. In hindsight, he made the right decision, LOST is one of the most successful shows ABC history.

The story of LOST draws from; makes subtle references to, and more than anything; pays homage to dozens of literary classics including: Alice in Wonderland, King Lear,Through the Looking Glass, Catch 22, The Fountainhead, A Tale of Two Cities, Of Mice and Men and dozens of others.

Just to put it into perspective, LOST is so rich with story that it has it’s own book. There is a character with a bit part in the pilot episode. That character (not the actor) is an author who wrote a book. There is no mention of the book in the show, other than its use as a prop in one scene, but you can buy the book on Amazon. Yes, it’s a real book that they wrote just for the show, the author listed is even the Character’s name on the show. As a viewer, you don’t need to read the book, but it’s apparently a pretty good book and it has a meaningful subtext if you’re a fan of the show.

LOST is filmed in Hawaii, which presents its own challenges. One reason the first episode was so expensive is because they bought a decommissioned Boeing 777 airplane to recreate the plane crash scene. Just the shipping on the plane alone cost $250,000. The crash scene was clearly visible to other planes landing at the nearby Honolulu airport. A plane crashed on the beach is not what you want to see from a plane that is about to land on a short runway that ends at the beach. So, airlines were advised to notify passengers they were looking at a TV set.

Many scenes in LOST are filmed in the same area as Jurassic Park. If you remember the magic you felt when you first saw that film, I think you’ll feel the same when you discover what’s great about LOST.

Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton

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Sources: Movie Budgets, LOST Books, LOST Trivia

Photo: ewen and donabel (cc)

The meaning of the word “font” has been butchered since the introduction of desktop publishing in the mid 1980s.

What is the true meaning? Directly from Wikipedia, “… a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface.”

In other words, a font is a specific version of a typeface. Arial is a typeface, and 12-point Arial Italic is a font. 14-point Arial Italic is a different font in the Arial font family.

Changing the size of text on a computer is not a significant amount of work, so it might seem silly to think that you’re actually changing the font when you do this. Especially since we think of the font as just the typeface and not its size or style. But, this terminology made a lot of sense before desktop publishing.

The first printing presses used characters that were carved from wood and arranged in order to form a complete sentence, although they were glyphs rather than Latin characters.

This evolved into more modern systems that used metal characters that were more durable. At that time, changing the size of a typeface was a lot of work — it meant you had to pull all of the letters out and reassemble the words with a different set of metal pieces.

It was very expensive for a printer to have multiple styles and sizes of characters available for their press. When a printer bought a new font they would specifically order the typeface (Times, Arial…etc), size (10-point, 12-point…etc) and style (bold, italic…etc).

There was two drawer case for storing each font. The capital letters were in the upper drawer and the other characters were in the lower drawer. That’s why we call them “upper case” and “lower case” letters.

Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton

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Sources (Wikipedia links): Typeface, Font, Desktop Publishing, Movable Type,

Image: Wikipedia

If you prefer more concise dialogue, then you’re probably reading the wrong website, but I can share a helpful word with you: defenestrate. It means, “to throw out of a window.” Used in a sentence, “I nearly defenestrated my computer.”

Today, this word is typically used for humor, but it has a very serious past. It comes from Latin, de means from and fenestra means window or opening. The word was coined around 1618, upon what is now known as the Second Defenestration of Prague.

The First Defenestration of Prague occurred on July 30, 1419 when a priest led his congregation on a protest through the streets of Prague. At the town hall, someone in a high window threw a rock at the priest. The people were enraged and stormed the town hall. They defenestrated the mayor, the town judge and thirteen members of the town council. Some of them died from the fall and those who survived were ignored.

The Second Defenestration of Prague occurred in 1618 and was critical to the start of the Thirty Years’ War. To make a long story short, some Bohemian aristocrats were upset when a Catholic was made King of Bohemia and ordered construction of some Protestant chapels to stop. The Catholics claimed the land was not owned by the Protestants, but the Protestants believed it violated their freedom of religious expression.

The Protestants bribed their way into the Prague Castle and threw two Regents and their secretary from a window. They all fell 30 meters (98 feet) into mud and manure.

From looking at a picture of the tower (above), I believe the height is considerably less than sources report. That said, the most surprising part is that they all survived. You see, defenestration does not imply death, although that is a likely result.

Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton

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Sources: Dictionary.com, Defenestration, Defenestrations of Prague

Photo: DigitalExtropy (cc)

One of my favorite “Awesome Things” is “Learning a new keyboard shortcut.” Since I’m talking favorites, I want to share one of my favorite keyboard shortcuts: the space bar.

If you’re reading this in a web browser or you do a lot of reading on the web, this is one shortcut you should learn before all others. To scroll your browser down exactly one page, press the space bar.  To scroll up one page, hold shift while you press the space bar.

It’s that simple, happy reading.

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Photo: jakebouma (creative commons)

It was the kind of experience that was once limited to theme parks and special events.

3D media in general is not new; the first 3D camera was patented in the year 1900. Many early prints and movies used red/blue glasses to present 3D images. This technique is called Anaglyph. The color filters are a basic way to present separate images to both your eyes from a single frame, which gives you the perception that some objects are closer than others. The downside is that everything is either red or blue.

I remember Captain EO at Disneyland back in the 80s, that was the first 3D film I saw without the red/blue lenses (although they were invented in the 1950s). In most cases, theaters use glasses with polarized clear lenses. The polarized lenses are different, each one filters out light waves that do not oscillate in the same orientation as the polarization. The projection system projects two images, one that will be filtered out by right lens and one for the left. This allows us to have a full color 3D experience. Although the projection system is very expensive, polarized glasses are fairly cheap and that’s why they’re the primary choice for theaters.

In 2003, 3D films started gaining in popularity, showing up in regular and IMAX theaters. Now, many local theaters have at least one 3D projection system. Some of the films in this time have included: Bugs! (2003), The Polar Express (2004), Chicken Little (2005), Nightmare Before Christmas (2006), Beowulf (2007), Meet the Robinsons (2007), Bolt (2008), Coraline (2009), Up (2009) and of course Avatar (2009).

There were many more, but those are some of the more popular ones. Since there have been so many 3D movies in the theaters, 3D home theater will let you enjoy those movies in all their glory over and over again.

There are a few different technologies that will be competing for your living room. The Samsung TV that you can buy right now is not a polarized lens technology, it uses shutter glasses.

That means each lens on the glasses acts like a camera shutter. The lens can “close” so no light comes through at all. It does this electronically, and it does it many times per second so you don’t even notice it. While the glasses block one eye, the TV will show an image to the other eye, then the glasses will block the other eye and the TV will show a perspective for that eye. Because this repeats so quickly, it appears as if you are seeing a single 3D image.

There are other 3D TVs that do not require glasses. I saw one of these a couple years ago in a production studio and it was mind blowing. But they have limited viewing angles and distances, so they will be more popular for advertising/billboard use than home televisions, at least until the viewing angles can be improved.

The 3D movie selection is a bit limited at this time, but if you’ve got $3500 burning a hole in your pocket, head over to your local electronics shop and pickup the 3D TV, 3D blu-ray player and some shutter glasses.

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Written By: Chad Upton

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Sources: 3D Film List, 3D Film, Polarization

There are a few services available that let people choose the caller id number that appears when they make a phone call.

Telemarketers and collections agencies are not allowed to change their number, but some still do.

I share this secret because caller id spoofing is becoming popular among fraudsters. You should be weary of any caller asking you for something, especially money or personal information. If a caller claims to be from your financial institution or another company that requires personal information, ask them some information that confirms they are who they say they are. For example, if it’s your cell phone company, ask them which calling plan you’re on.

Here are some of the caller id spoofing services:

• Telespoof
• Spoofcard
• Phone Gangster
• Spooftel
• Spoofapp (for iPhone, BlackBerry or Android)

Due to potential abuse of these services, the state of Florida outlawed caller id spoofing services for a couple years, but that decision was recently overturned. Others states are working on laws to make them illegal, but for now, they are legal in all states.

There are some legitimate uses for this service. If your profession requires that you make calls from home or cell, this service could be used to show your office number instead of your personal number.

There is a cheaper option called *67. Dial that before you dial a phone number and it blocks your number from being displayed for that call — it’s free in most places.

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Written By: Chad Upton

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]]> http://brokensecrets.com/2010/03/08/caller-id-can-be-hacked/feed/ 3 Broken Secrets caller id http://brokensecrets.com/2010/02/19/why-vinyl-records-are-becoming-popular-again/ http://brokensecrets.com/2010/02/19/why-vinyl-records-are-becoming-popular-again/#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:26:07 +0000 Chad Upton http://brokensecrets.com/?p=862 ]]> By Chad Upton | Editor

There have always been cool record shops in the hip parts of town hocking vinyl to the enthusiasts. But, it had been a long time since the major record stores carried them, until last year.

Maybe you’ve noticed, maybe not. But if you’ve been into BestBuy recently, some of their stores have a massive vinyl record selection. A year ago, they had a few, now they have hundreds. It’s not every store, but some of them.

Vinyl Edition

For many people, it’s probably hard to imagine that anyone would go back to using records.

Records are not convenient to use. They don’t play for very long, about 26 minutes before you have to flip it over or put a new one on. You can’t easily skip songs at the push of a button. They have to be kept very clean to sound good. The needle drags on the record so the sound degrades over time and worst of all, they are expensive.

Since all of these drawbacks are easily overcome by digital formats like CDs and MP3s, it surely makes people wonder, why are vinyl records making a mainstream comeback?

It’s a good question and to understand the answer, we have to know a little bit about the difference between digital and analog recordings.

Digital recordings are great because the data doesn’t change over time. You can playback a CD or MP3 thousands of times and it will sound exactly the same every time. But, although that recording is the same every time, it’s not necessarily a perfect representation of the live music that it is a recording of.

Most musical instruments are analog, when a guitar string is plucked or a drum is hit, that object vibrates at a certain speed, causing an analog sound wave to travel across the room and make your eardrum vibrate. Our brain interprets that vibration as sound. In a recording, that sound is received by a microphone and recorded. During playback, that information is turned back into sound waves when your speakers vibrate. Speakers are rated in quality by their ability to vibrate exactly like the instruments did that made the original sound in the recording.

On a CD or in an MP3s, there are no such thing as waves. Everything is recorded as a one or zero. So, to make waves, they stores lots of ones and zeros for every second of music (44,100/second on a CD). These ones and zeros approximately represent the original wave that was produced by the vibrating guitar string. The key part of that is “approximately.” If you’ve ever tried to make a round object with LEGO, you know what I mean. You can get it to look almost round, but it’s not perfect, it’s kind of jagged.

Digital recordings are also jagged. Digital players have an analog to digital converter that tries to guess what the wave form would have looked like, based on the jagged forms that are made with the digital data. Because there are so many ones and zeros, it sounds almost exactly like the original recording and some players are better than others at filling in those gaps.

The XX - Vinyl Edition

But, our ears are not digital. Our ears are analog. When you get your ear next to a real instrument and pluck its strings or press its keys, you hear a timbre, a texture in the sound that is very difficult to reproduce. There are subtleties and nuances that often get lost in recordings.

Record enthusiasts like analog recordings because they more closely represent sound in the way that our hearing works. If you use an analog amplifier, there is no digital to analog conversion, making the experience very similar to being at the live recording.

Records are also large (up to 12 inches in diameter) and maybe they only play for 26 minutes and show their age over time. But, that has a certain romance, like a hand written letter instead of an email. Email has its obvious benefits, but when you get a hand written letter, it is special.

Records are not for everyone and they’re not for every situation. I don’t expect to see portable record players any time soon and I wouldn’t give up my MP3 player either.

Bonus Secrets: The Olympic Medals in the photo in yesterday’s post are the medals won by Nancy Greene in the 1968 Winter Olympics. She also carried the Vancouver 2010 torch when it passed through Kamloops, BC.

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Some people think that air traffic controllers are the guys that stand on the ground, waving lighted wands to guide the plane up to the gate. Those guys are actually part of the ground crew and they only have control over your flight for the last couple hundred feet before you reach the gate. The rest of the flight is controlled by someone else and it’s not the pilot.

The pilot flies the plane, but his course is being set by somebody on the ground. Those people are known as Air Traffic Controllers.

This system is a lot more complicated than it seems.

At the airport, the air traffic controllers sit up in the control tower. Those guys decide who gets to take off and land, which runways they use and when. They also direct planes that are moving around on the ground between gates and runways on the apron and taxiways. This aims to provide an organized flow of ground traffic and a safe flow of air traffic.

Once your plane has left the immediate area of the airport, the pilot must then communicate with a regional controller at an Area Control Center (ACC). If you’re on a long flight, you may get passed from one ACC to the next multiple times as you fly across the country.

Why?

The main purpose is safety. These controllers use radar to see all of the flights in their area and they are expected to provide proper separation between planes. Depending on the altitude, the minimum separation distance changes. That is because less sophisticated planes have pressure sensitive altimeters which are less accurate at higher altitudes — greater separation at higher altitudes compensates for risk.

At high altitudes (above 29,000 feet / 8870 meters), planes are required to have at least 2000 ft of vertical separation (it is usually 1000 ft when below 29,000 ft) although there are exceptions.

They even stagger the planes based on the direction they’re flying. Planes on the next level above and below you will becoming towards you. This makes it easier for the planes to see each other and ensure they’re at the proper height to avoid a collision.

Horizontal or lateral separation also varies. It’s not dependent on altitude but distance from the radar antenna. 3 nautical miles of separation are required within 40 nautical miles of the antenna, 5 nautical miles when more than 40 nautical miles from the radar antenna. This compensates for inaccuracy as the planes get further away from the radar antenna.

Many aircraft (especially large commercial planes) also have an on board system that is designed to alert the pilot when other planes are dangerously close or on a collision course.

When airplanes are over land, they actually have to fly where there is ground based radar that can track them. So your flight may be directed into “lanes” that keep the flights in an organized flow and within radar range. As I mentioned, having planes in radar view is important for preventing collisions but it’s also important for dispatching help if a plane stops responding or goes missing — they have an accurate last point of record.

Over the ocean, there isn’t any radar tracking. Many planes have on board GPS navigation systems, but there is no current standard to make that data available to flight control centers. This the why it was so difficult to find the Air France flight 447 that crashed in the ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris, France in June 2009. Nobody noticed the flight was missing until it failed to make a radio call as it entered airspace controlled by a ground radar facility. When they tried to find the plane, the last location information they had was in a few short messages automatically relayed by the maintenance system on the plane as some systems began to fail before the crash.

The FAA (United States Federal Aviation Administration) is currently working on Nextgen, a new GPS based flight tracking system that will be much better than the current ground based radar network.

For now, some flights will let you listen in on the radio communication channels that pilots use to talk to controllers. If you ever have the chance to listen in, it’s very interesting. In fact, you can stream live feeds from LiveATC.net.

Related Post: Why Airlines Dim Interior Lights Before Night Landings

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

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Sources: ATC, Flight Level, SKYbrary

It doesn’t shave as close as a straight blade or cartridge razor, but it does shave time off my morning routine. It’s an easy way to catch up when I’m running behind or anxious to get working earlier.

I’ve had the same electric razor for about 10 years. I got it as a gift and it has worked really well, but its ability to hold a charge has degraded significantly since it was new. When it was new, I could travel for a week and not recharge it. Recently, it has required a charge after every use.

A couple weeks ago, it failed to run for more than a few seconds. I charged it again, and had the same result.

The internal rechargeable battery had finally failed.

I checked with the manufacturer’s service department and they don’t service my model anymore, but they said a battery replacement service usually costs $60-80 (plus the cost to ship it to them). When a good electric razor starts at $70 (and goes much higher), they’re really telling you to get a new one.

The electric razor is assembled with tamper-proof screws, so the average person can’t open it. They do that because they’re hiding a very big secret inside.

Of course I own a set of tamper-proof screwdrivers. If you haven’t read it already, you should read my earlier post about acquiring a set of your own (click here).

It took me less than one minute to open the electric razor and discover: the rechargeable batteries inside are AA size! I easily replaced them with new rechargeable batteries and saved a bunch of money.

So, if you’ve got a rechargeable product, be sure to open it up and see if you can easily replace the batteries before you buy a new one or have it serviced.

When you get rid of your old batteries, never throw them in the trash — the garbage truck crushes them, then in the landfill the battery leaks into the water table and ruins our water supply. It’s easy to recycle them properly, Best Buy and Whole Foods both have free battery recycling containers in many of their stores. I have a small box of dead batteries that I keep beside my box of new batteries and when it gets full I drop it off at one of these stores.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

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You’ll need a thin sturdy object to operate the manual eject, a straightened paperclip works well. In rare cases, the hole will be slightly smaller than a paperclip and a sewing needle will be required.

Look for a round hole on the face of the CD drive that is just large enough to feed a paperclip through. The following photos show the manual eject hole on a desktop and laptop CD drive.

Once you have found the hole, push a straightened paperclip through the hole and when you feel it stop, push a little harder and it should push open the motorized drive tray (desktop) or release the drive lock (laptop).

If you’ve got a Mac, most new models have a slot load drive (there is no tray that the disc sits on, similar to most car CD players). Some of these drives are particularly bad at ejecting CDs with uneven edges (if yours does this then you’ll know what I’m talking about) and there is a paperclip method for these drives too. There is an Apple support document for this issue; you’ll have to click here to view it since I can’t use their material.

Maybe you’ve seen that hole and wondered what it was for, maybe not. Frankly, it doesn’t matter, because you know now and that’s what we do here.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

Available on Kindle | Share Your Secret!

Imagine your computer caught a really bad virus and you lost all of your files.

You lost all of the documents you’ve worked so hard on, all of the family photos you never printed and all the desktop icons you never clicked on. Hopefully, that never happens to you; if it does you’d probably be devastated, unless you have a thorough backup. Unfortunately, many people do not have a proper backup.

Now imagine our food crops or oxygen producing plants were being killed off by an aggressive virus that we couldn’t stop. If that happened, and it’s possible, how would we produce food to eat or air to breath?

Luckily, some smart people are keeping “backups” of as many plants as possible, so we can grow them again in the event of some man-made or natural disaster that wipes out existing crops and seeds.

These facilities are called seed banks.

Seed banks are a type of gene bank. A gene bank is a facility where organic material of any kind (not just seeds) is kept for the purpose of reproduction at a later time. Gene banks typically stock seeds, animal sperm (and eggs) and coral fragments.

There are approximately 1,300 gene banks that store about 6 million organic samples. This may sound like a lot but it is in fact a small portion of the Earth’s known biodiversity.

One of the first seed banks was setup by Russian geneticist, Nikolai Vavilov. It survived the Siege of Leningrad during World War II and is now the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry.

Seed banks have come a long way since then. One of the most advanced seed banks, called the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, is buried deep in a mountain on the island of Spitsbergen — one of the closest land masses to the north pole. It is was built by the Norwegian government but is maintained by a trust that has been primarily financed by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UK, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and many other smaller contributors, including some third world countries.

Seeds from all over the world are stored in four-ply packs and heat sealed to protect them from moisture. The mountain location is ideal for a number of reasons. It has a natural temperature of -3 °C (30 °F), so if power is lost completely, many of the seeds will survive for a very long time, potentially even thousands of years. The elevation is also important, if all of the polar ice caps melt, the site has been designed to remain above the high water level.

If you want to know more, check out this video and the source links.

PS – if you need an easy way to backup your computer, try one of these online solutions that offer 2gb of free space: Mozy, iDrive

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Sources: Svalbard Seed Vault, Gene Banks, Seed Banks, Spitsbergen

Photo By: Dag Endresen

Trying to fold a fitted sheet is the adult version of the kids toy that teaches you a square peg doesn’t fit in a round hole. It’s designed to test patience, induce anxiety and destroy self-confidence.

Folding a deformed oval into a tidy rectangle is not meant to happen. The closest I ever got was a triangle and I was pretty happy with it. Usually, it’s a big mess that doesn’t fit the description of any defined shape. Conveniently, that makes it very easy to spot in the closet when you need it.

The scale of this problem got me wondering if there are scientists somewhere, working on a mathematical model to describe the shape of a fitted sheet, so they can ultimately solve the problem of folding it. If there are not, there should be. I like to believe our brightest minds in our best schools are solving our greatest mysteries; solutions that could explain problems we haven’t even encountered yet.

Until then, some people on youtube have some really good ideas.

I watched about a dozen videos on this topic and most have slightly different solutions. The video I have selected for you to watch is all one take; I think that’s important since it clearly shows how to get from one step to another. It’s less than two and a half minutes, and worth every bit.

For those who don’t have video player capabilities, I can’t explain it better than you can see it, so click here for a photo series that also shows the steps.

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Relevant: There are not many household items that are more frustrating than elastic border fitted sheets. On the mattress, they work great. In the closet, they’re a nightmare.

If you buy a new battery, keep your old one. I used to travel almost every week for work and I always had a second laptop battery with me. At times, the second battery was old, and only ran for 45 minutes, but that was a lifesaver on an airplane when you’re trying to finish some work (or watch the end of a movie you brought).

I usually buy the aftermarket batteries and never have problems with them. I did have a problem with an aftermarket power supply cord once; it died after three months. But, even with that $13 loss, buying aftermarket laptop accessories has saved me a lot of money over the years.

If you travel a lot, a second power cord is paramount. You should have one that you always leave in your computer bag, that way it’s impossible to leave behind when you travel. Have you ever tried to find a computer power cord at a retail store? If you are lucky enough to find one, it’s going to cost at least $60. If you can’t find one, and you need one for work — it’s a disaster.

In the meantime, you want your existing battery to run on its charge for as long as possible. It really comes down to energy consumption. Think about your computer the way you think about your car. You use less gas when you’re going down hill and more gas when you’re going up hill because your engine needs to work harder going up hill (which requires more energy/fuel). To make your laptop battery last the longest, you don’t want your computer to work hard. Here are some ways to do this:

Keep it clean. While your laptop is turned off, use canned air to blow the dust out of the fan on your computer. Dust is a really good insulator and your computer needs to stay cool. When dust builds up in the heat-sink, the fan has to work harder to keep the computer cool, which drains your battery more quickly.

Avoid peripherals. Don’t use your CD/DVD/Bluray drive if you can avoid it. Spinning the disc and running the laser both require extra power. Also, USB drives with lights on them should be unplugged when not in use.

Dim the lights. You computer screen is one of the worst culprits for sucking battery juice. Unless you’re outside or in a really bright room, you should be able to dim the screen and still see what you’re doing just fine. Look for a set of icons on the keyboard with a shining sun on them — they’re for changing the brightness of your screen.

Drive downhill. If your computer is clean and you hear the fan get louder, that means the computer is working hard (and the fan is trying to cool it down). If what you’re doing can wait until you’re plugged in, save it until then. Watching movies and playing graphically intense games are two examples of activity that can drain your battery more quickly.

Adjust your power settings. Most laptops have power profiles/rules that are used when running on battery power. You can set your screen to shut off within a few minutes of inactivity, you don’t lose any data but your screen stops using power. If you’re not moving the mouse then you probably don’t need the screen on (unless you’re doing a presentation or watching a movie).

Disable wireless functions like wifi and bluetooth if possible. These use a lot of power and should be off if you’re not using them (like on an airplane).

Disable scheduled tasks. If you have a virus scan that runs at a specific time every day, disable that when you’re on battery (but don’t disable constant protection).

Close programs you’re not using. Programs you’re not using may be working in the background, you don’t want your computer to work any harder than it has to.

One final thing. If you are going to buy a new battery, get the highest mAh (milliamp hour) battery you can afford. This indicates how much energy can be stored in that battery, and they vary widely, so look closely.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

[available on Kindle]

Until a few days ago, my January 2010 calendar was really small. I hadn’t bought a new calendar yet, so I was squinting at the tiny January 2010 layout in the corner of my December 2009 calendar.

If only I kept my 1999 calendar, I could have used that this year.

You see, there are only 14 possible calendar configurations. This year, January first was a Friday and next year, it’s a Saturday. In 2012 it’s a Sunday, but in 2013 it’s a Tuesday.

Why do we skip Monday? Because 2012 is a leap year, it pushes January first back a day in the following year. Leap years are also why the 14 calendar configurations do not fall in 14 consecutive years.

There are only two variables that differentiate one calendar from another:

1. the day of the week the year begins
2. whether or not it is a leap year

Lets say you want to collect all 14 calendars. You need one calendar that begins on each day of the week for both regular years and leap-years (7 x 2 = 14). If you time it right, you can get 9 of the calendars you need in 9 consecutive years. But, you’ll need to wait another 17 years to collect the remaining 5 leap year calendars that complete your collection.

Obviously, using old calendars isn’t practical. You probably have writing on them, or crossed off days leading up to a special date or counting the number of days you’ve stayed faithful to a resolution. Also, the moon phases will be horribly inaccurate. Moon phases repeat approximately every 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes — meaning they repeat about every nine years. Good luck trying to collect all of those calendars.

If you found this topic interesting, you might also enjoy my writing on leap seconds.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

[available on Kindle]

Sources: Lunar Phases

Before I understood how they worked, I saw things as magic boxes. I wanted to know how the engineers solved all of the problems that made the product useful; what were their secrets?

As an adult, I still like taking things apart. Sometimes, I want to know how it works; other times it doesn’t work and I want to fix it, or break it further.

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to disassemble things.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably tried to disassemble something and then realize you don’t own a screwdriver that can turn a triangular notched screw-head. Or, maybe you have noticed funny looking screw-heads in public restrooms. Not the people, the metal screws used on fixtures and cubical walls. If you don’t recognize the pattern on the screw-head, they’re likely what we call “tamper proof” screws.

When you’re not supposed to disassemble something, the manufacturer or installer uses obscure screws to make it very difficult. What they don’t want you to know is: the proper tools are widely available online.

You’re not going to find these tools at Home Depot — trust me, I’ve looked. But, a couple of clicks on the internet and you’ll be tightening gaps on bathroom cubicles by the weekend.

For example, to pickup a 101 piece tamper-proof screwdriver set for less than the price of a couple pizzas, click here .

Then you can disassemble your old Nintendo or procure that automatic flush fixture you’ve had your eye on. Just promise you won’t get into any trouble or steal cable TV, it’s not worth it when you can get HDTV channels for free.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

[available on Kindle]

That’s because our eyes can recognize a contrast difference of 1,000,000,000:1. That means, the brightest thing our eyes can see is a billion times brighter than the darkest thing. Good contrast to your eyes is like a gourmet meal for your taste buds. Contrast adds a lot of detail to the picture and ultimately immerses you in the action.

Unfortunately, when shopping for TVs, contrast ratio is almost meaningless. It could be really useful, but all of the manufacturers measure this number differently and then call it the same thing — it’s really only useful when comparing two TVs from the same manufacturer.

Imagine you want to buy a new car: you are cross shopping three manufacturers who measure fuel economy in three different ways. The first one, measures fuel economy while driving down a hill, while the other two measure it on flat land and while driving up a hill. Obviously, you can’t compare the results of those tests. But, if you’re looking at two cars from the same manufacturer then there is some comparative value to those numbers, even though they may not be accurate in a typical situation.

Thankfully, our eyes are extremely sensitive to contrast. Turn both TVs on and look at a flat black image for a while. A flat black image makes it easy to spot variations in darkness (aka “banding”), no banding should be present in a good TV. If you still can’t tell the difference and they both look good, then the difference is too small to worry about. Trust your eyes, they are incredible instruments.

It takes 20-30 minutes for your eyes to adjust from one extreme to the other because the contrast ratio is so high. If you’re in bright sunlight and then walk into a very dark room, it will take 20-30 minutes before you can see your best in that room. If you are in a moderately bright room and go into a very dark room, it is often closer to 15 minutes.

The rods and cones in your eye are tested during dark adaptation. Rods are more sensitive to light and take longer to adjust. Cones are much faster to adjust, often in approximately 9 minutes. People over the age of 50 need twice as much light to see as well in the dark as a 30 year old. So, if you need more light, consider my CF light secret.

Frequent fliers will eventually notice that the aircrew dims the airplane’s interior lights on final approach during night landings . They want your eyes to be adjusted to the darkness outside in case the landing does not go as expected and you have to evacuate the plane.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

Available on Kindle

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Sources: Why Planes Dim Interior Lights, Adaptation (Eye), Contrast Ratio, Growing Older

I started drinking it in college, like most people, for the caffeine boost. Over time, I got really attached to the flavor. I went through a coffee obsession phase, trying coffee from different parts of the world with different tastes and different roasting techniques.

I’m not a coffee connoisseur, but there really are coffee connoisseurs out there. Premium coffee retailers and distributors have tasting rooms where they constantly inspect and taste coffee.

They sip it, swirl it around in their mouth and then spit it out. It must meet their strict approval to make it to the stores. If you think I’m exaggerating, click here to get a taste on the Starbucks blog. They even talk about coffee that is aged 3 to 5 years before being roasted.

Aging coffee probably reminds you of something else, wine. It turns out the coffee industry is a lot like the wine industry. Experts taste coffee the way connoisseurs taste and rate wine. They also share a similar vocabulary for describing flavor notes, hints of: caramel, chocolate, nuts…etc. Wine is classified by it’s region and grape (species). Coffee is also classified by region and species.

Historians believe that coffee plants were first cultivated in Ethiopia, around the year 850. In the next 50 years, coffee seeds were taken to the Arab world. The Arabians saw a future in coffee trade and guarded the seeds closely, but a few seeds were smuggled to the Dutch. Early in the 17th century, seeds made their way to Indonesia, being planted in Sumatra, Bali and the island of Java.

Java is one of the earliest coffee plantations and still an exporter of coffee today. Calling coffee, “java” is similar to referring to wine by it’s region, such as “I’ll have a glass of Champagne.”

On a related note, check out another coffee related secret: How to Properly Pour a Cup of Coffee.

Written By: Chad Upton

BrokenSecrets.com [Available on Kindle]

Sources: Coffee, Java Coffee, Indonesian Coffee, Coffee Bean, Champagne

Of course, we all know it’s impossible to leave it alone. You have to mess it up. At first, you turn a couple rows and then turn them back. Then you turn a few more and a few more again and eventually, you can’t get it back! Now, you have to actually solve the puzzle.

To make a short story long, you’ll try to solve it by working very little over a long period of time.

Rubik’s cube will sit on your shelf for a few days before you try it again. Over the next six months it will get picked up by a few smartypants friends who want a crack at it. After another year, you may pick it up and work on it for a short time, maybe even get one or two sides complete. Again, you’ll put it down for the next rainy day. It will seem like you’ve worked really hard on it, but you haven’t. Still, there comes a time in every cube owner’s life when they decide it needs to be solved, at any cost.

From my experience, there are three approaches to solving a Rubik’s cube.

I learned the first strategy from my brother when we were children. Every time we visited my Grandfather, he’d be working on his cube. On one visit, our small minds were blown when we realized he solved the cube. As I already stated, it’s impossible not to mess up a solved Rubik’s cube, and that’s especially true when it belongs to someone else.

When my grandfather realized we unsolved the Rubik’s cube, he told us that we’d have to re-solve it before we left. He was serious, or at least we thought so at the time. My brother’s solution, which I thought was pretty clever: peel off all the colored stickers and reapply them on matching sides. Although we got all the colors in the right places, it was still a big mess — similar to our paint-by-numbers work.

These days, I’d consider that cheating. But, it’s a good strategy to be aware of, you never know when you’ll be in a hostage situation that is one Rubik’s cube away from freedom.

The second approach comes in true internet style: have your computer solve it for you! Your computer is probably smarter than you anyway, why let that talent go to waste?

There are a number of web-based Rubik’s cube solvers. Basically, you paint the onscreen Rubik’s cube to look like yours and it generates a list of moves required to solve it. Click here for one that I have vetted. It works on the traditional 3 x 3 cube, and also on the newer 2 x 2 and 4 x 4 cubes. This is still cheating. But, it’s much less detectable than relocating the colored stickers.

Finally, the official approach, sanctioned by Rubik himself. This is the cross, corner, middle, top, corner method. It’s a combination of moves that systematically solve the cube. Once you know these moves, you can solve any cube. For the complete tutorial, click here.

The original 3 x 3 cube is a classic. But, they have released many different versions of the Rubik’s cube and similar puzzles. There is even a touch screen Rubik’s cube called the TouchCube. Click on the picture to check it out.

Broken Secrets

Written by: Chad Upton

[Available on Kindle]

As for the type of paint, many people report good results with rust-oleum and Krylon Fusion (or similar).

If your dish is not gray then you may want to prime it first.

Tips:

• do not paint over the LNB (plastic cap at the focal point of the dish – see picture)
• only use satin/flat paint (not glossy or metallic)
• do not move the dish while painting it (unless you plan to re-aim it)
• do not hurt yourself

BrokenSecrets.com

PS – Sorry to my readers in “grey” countries. :)

Sources: Helium, DSS Geeks, Satellite Guys

Photo: angelrravelor a3r (cc)

]]> http://brokensecrets.com/2010/01/13/satellite-dishes-are-gray-because/feed/ 0 Broken Secrets dish http://brokensecrets.com/2010/01/11/what-do-am-and-pm-stand-for/ http://brokensecrets.com/2010/01/11/what-do-am-and-pm-stand-for/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:46:24 +0000 Chad Upton http://brokensecrets.com/?p=765 ]]> You might see these acronyms every day and never even think about what they actually stand for. But, at some point, you’ve probably set your alarm for PM and been late for something in the AM.

I asked my dad about AM and PM at the curious age of five. He had a really good answer. It wasn’t the right answer; but, it was a good answer.

According to him at the time, “AM” stood for “At Morning” and “PM” was “Past Morning.” It made sense and kept my mind at bay until now, and it’s not that far from the actual Latin translation.

AM is a Latin acronym for Ante Meridiem, which is “before midday” when translated to English.

PM is Latin for Post Meridiem or “after midday.”

Now, if you want to showoff you can lose the acronym and throw down, “post meridiem” the next time someone asks “AM or PM?”

BrokenSecrets.com [available in the Amazon Kindle Store]

Source: WP

Just dial: 1-800-GOOG-411

It is just like your local telephone company’s 411 service, except it’s free and it automatically connects you to the number for free. It works from US or Canadian phones and can be used to find US and Canadian business listings.

It also has some cool features. When you find a listing, you can say “text message” and Google will instantly text you the phone number, address and a map link for the address that opens in Google maps on a capable phone.

There are even cordless phones available with a dedicated button for Google 411.

Remember goog-411 the next time you need to make dinner reservations or order takeout — it couldn’t be easier or cheaper.

BrokenSecrets.com [available on kindle]

Photo: morrowplanet (cc) | Source: Google 411

Yellow lenses are a popular option but it’s a myth that they make things brighter — they do not amplify light. But, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, they do enhance depth perception. This is because they block some of the blue light that can make objects look hazy and reduce sharpness.

For this reason, yellow lenses are popular with pilots, cyclists, shooters and boaters in low light. In daylight, blue lenses are good for pilots and skiers because they enhance the contrast between objects that are white (snow and clouds) and other objects. For boaters, red lens are good because they increase the contrast between water and objects that are in the water.

Although colored lenses can increase contrast in specific conditions, the downside with any colored lens is that they obviously distort color. Brown colored lenses are the happy-medium; they offer minimal color distortion while improving contrast, so they’re great for everyday use.

BrokenSecrets.com

Big thanks to Todd for sharing this secret with me!

Sources: American Academy of Ophthalmology (PDF)