Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

A Guided Tour of the Data Facebook Uses to Target Ads Last week, Pew released the results of a survey investigating how users understand the platform’s data collection practices and how they react when shown what Facebook thinks it knows about them. The upshot is that 74% of users weren’t aware that Facebook assembles lists of their interests and traits. 88% of respondents were assigned “categories” for advertising, which could include racial or ethnic “affinities” and political leanings. 58% of those users were “not comfortable” with the company compiling that information. Essentially, this means that more than half of Facebook’s users are unhappy with the major thrust of the company’s business model—surveillance-based advertising—even after they’ve learned more about the info that the company has gotten from surveilling them. This is unsurprising: just knowing how you’re being tracked doesn’t necessarily make the tracking or the targeted ads less creepy . And while Facebook g...

The traditional power market is transforming. New energy building blocks are fast replacing an energy model that came about during the late 19 th century. Renewable energy. Smart grid. Decentralization. Decarbonization. Real-time data. A major result of disrupting the outdated, one-way power flow is energy choice . Choice over both supply and demand. This empowerment also is giving energy consumers a previously unheard energy voice . Who is talking? Prosumers. With smart, connected technology, prosumers now can make more proactive and flexible decisions about their energy. In fact, with a two-way flow of power enabled by digitization, today’s energy consumers can become energy producers themselves. Digital innovation has changed the global energy map, giving prosumers precise and dynamic control of their energy destiny as they speed toward a cleaner, more energy-efficient, and more sustainable future. Along the way, empowered energy consumers — whether homeowners or huge corpora...

The Ingress Protection , a.k.a. IP level, is often mentioned as a key criteria for robustness, especially for pushbuttons . However, a lot of misconceptions are shared and some manufacturers are taking advantages of these to falsely promote their products. So do you really know what you are buying when you are choosing products based on their IP levels as indicated in the catalog ? Here is a quick guide to IP levels and the 2 most current misconceptions. An IP level is indicated by 2 digits, meaning IPab with a being an integer between 0 and 6 and b being another integer between 0 and 9. The first digit indicates the level of protection that the enclosure provides against access to hazardous parts (e.g., electrical conductors, moving parts) and the ingress of solid foreign objects. The second digit indicates the level of protection that the enclosure provides against harmful ingress of water. The most 2 current misconceptions are : IP67 is better than IP66: Wrong Putting a p...

Engineers are excellent at designing control systems , and facilitating user access to those systems. Here’s an old example of our early efforts to help operators control the process. Yep- submarine. That gaping hole in the middle is an early version of today’s Triconex system- you simply sealed off hatches as an ESD. And alarms? How about the sound of flowing water? One mistake on those valves, and it was over. Over time, we realized that people needed instrumentation and designs that reduced error. So we actually did a pretty good job in the 70’s/80’s of designing control panels that reduced operator risk. Firstly, the instrument readouts were designed in a fashion that made them easy to read. And when all was good, indicators would point to the middle of the scale, with markings for where their maximum/ minimum readings and setpoints were.  In fact we had a term for when everything was right in the plant- we called it “lined out”.  This meant all the gages were in the mi...

A new set of trends is emerging in commercial real estate.  The real estate market has been experiencing growth over the last several years, and rents in most urban areas have increased as well.  It’s not surprising that tenants want to squeeze the maximum efficiency out of the spaces they occupy -all the while creating a work environment that will make their HR recruiters swoon! So here are some trends to watch… The Human Experience:    As millennials become a dominant segment of the workforce, they have expectations of a more modern, livable workspace.  Commercial real estate developers are creating properties with more open space, recreational areas, and other spaces to enable more collaboration between workers, better occupant health and safety and productivity.  According to JLL’s international research “both employers and employees see the human experience as the main factor in determining the shape of their work environment for the foreseeable futu...

Something of a battle is raging around the best way to cool data centers, especially when discussing the pros and cons of using refrigerants vs. water in indirect economizer systems for data centers. And it appears the tide is turning in favor of water. It’s a timely topic, as the world is looking to reduce its CO2 emissions in general, with data centers in some countries forced to adhere to increasingly strict requirements. Indirect economization cooling systems that rely on refrigerants, of course, give off potentially large amounts of CO2, whereas those based on water are far more environmentally friendly. But that’s just the beginning of the story. Newer water-based systems can also reduce both your up-front capital expense (CapEx) and long-term operating expense (OpEx). What’s more, the units are smaller than refrigerant-based systems, which means they give you more room in your white space for IT equipment. Lastly, water-based systems can operate in just about any climate with...

Despite the old saying, walls do talk, and they speak volumes about the people living within them. Home interiors are generally viewed as expressions of their owners’ personalities. If you don’t like what your safe, neutral decor is saying about you, try some of these ways to inject more of yourself into it. Choose colors that complement you You may not realize it, but your preference for certain paint and wall covering colors says a lot about your personality. In the study of color psychology , blue is associated with intellect and has a strong influence on our mental state. Conversely, red stimulates us physically. Other colors can evoke feelings of balance (green), spirituality (violet), or warmth (brown). You’re likely intuitively drawn to certain color schemes because of your temperament. An introvert, for example, may respond to the calming effect of soft, cool hues while an extrovert prefers the energizing feeling of warmer shades. Choosing paint colors that complement your...