scott_sanford

After finding a power supply at Rickreall, as related here, I didn’t have much excuse to not get the old Kenwood working. So this morning I drove down to Ham Radio Outlet for the antenna and base that I’d picked out online. (I’d worked out a scenic route to Rickreall that took me past Ham Radio Outlet, but I missed that exit on the way down. I didn’t need to go there anyhow.) I’d been dithering a week or so about this but realized having the radio not working but very close would bug me until I did something about it.
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As some may know, there was a ham radio event in Rickreall on Saturday the 15th.

Getting down there was interesting, as my whim to drive down via McMinnville did not take me by the fastest possible route, but I saw parts of rural Oregon I’d never seen before and drove past the Evergreen Air Museum.

This is basically a large garage sale or flea market, only pretty much everything in the building is obsolete specialty electronics. Want vacuum tubes? They got those. Want back issues of QST? They got those. Want a gigantic radio that the seller assures you worked when his grandfather bought it off some other ham? You have come to the right place.

Among other things I was after a power supply of specific parameters, and I found many that were too small and a few too powerful. (Frustratingly, I was hardly in the door when I spotted a box with the right amp and volt ratings - but it was a battery charger.) There was a lot of other junk. I did find something that I’m pretty sure will work, literally as the dealers were packing up their table to go; they were willing to knock off five dollars to avoid hauling another heavy thing home with them, so lucky me. This was near the end of the event, so by the time I realized that I had everything I needed to get on the air except an antenna it was too late to cruise around for a two meter antenna that would let me test the radio I could now power.

Along with the junk dealers were some Girl Scouts with cookies; this was a good cause and I bought some Thin Mints. I also dropped five dollars into the prize drawing, for the heck of it.

That gave me reason to hang around until the drawing, so I was nearby when they had trouble with the ticket rolling barrel. One got on the PA to announce, “Does anyone here have a Leatherman tool or a pair of pliers?” He started to explain the problem but by then I was at the table with my Swisschamp out, unfolding the pliers. It turned out they just needed to pull out a wooden dowel that locked the barrel rotation.

For the drawing itself tickets were pulled out by the most obviously trustworthy people in the building, a pair of Girl Scouts.

And then something happened that I’d made no plans to handle: I actually won something! I now have a Yaesu VX-6R triple band handy-talkie. Honestly, I have no idea yet what I’ll do with it; my collection of radios is expanding past any plausible need for radios. (I am aware this happens a lot.) I am looking forward to trying it out; my cheap Baofeng often loses reception even in town and I suspect that it’s not all the fault of the tiny rubber duckie antenna.

...but useless? Verily, I have done ART!

Since html and css are markup languages that pertain to documents, they're not that useful for making pictures. Poking at code for the heck of it, I did so anyway. I drew a slide rule. There are plenty of javascript slide rule emulators, such as this one, but this is a no-code nonfunctional picture, the equivalent of ascii art. Like most such art, it's mostly for the accomplishment of doing something despite the limitations of the medium. It was also a good excuse to learn a little more CSS code - and I discovered that direction: rtl is poorly documented.




Also, DreamWidth has different assumptions about formatting than web browsers, requiring some editing of the code. What you're seeing, basically v0.2.7a, hasn't yet been coded to allow for all possible sizes of fixed-width fonts; that can be another project.

My car has a radio. Neepery below...( Read more... )

So I was looking at my Leatherman tool the other day and had what seemed to me a simple idea for an improvement. This one is a Charge TTi, but it applies to a lot of the models with outside blades, such as the popular Wave. My tool has several gadgets on the outside (so it doesn't need to be unfolded to use them), and comes with two knife blades designed for one-handed opening. The other outside options are a saw and a file, neither of which is quite as useful; held in the right hand, one of the two knives will be under the thumb - held in the left hand it presents the other tools but no blade or thumb opening feature.

Many people are left handed. Also, the blade mounting is standardized; there seems no reason why any blade could not be put in any position. (This is tricky to do yourself because you need moderately rare tools such as a pin torx driver.) Thinking it over, I couldn't see any reason why it couldn't be made with parts on hand nor any difficulty marketing a left-handed Leatherman.

So I found a spare moment and brought this up to the only person I know who's both left handed and a long term Leatherman employee. I hardly had begun my explanation when he got a knowing smile and I realized he'd heard this many times before. Apparently this gets suggested a lot, including several times a month via the website, and the company for some reason has yet to actually try marketing a mirrored tool. Harrumph.

According to this and this, we've gotten a proof-of-concept prototype on the contact lens display already.

It's not ready to go yet. The rigid lens form factor is a minor concern. Also, the prototype is fitted on rabbits; it's not clear that they've built one that can be tried by humans. The fact that the display only has one pixel is the real problem - we're a long way from a usable HUD at this point.

I admit I'd expected to see a wearable HUD in a pair of glasses well in advance of contact lenses (if you've missed this idea, watch Dennō Coil for an example); the ones on the market now are a long way from the convenient glasses we've been hoping for. Maybe the age of wearable computing will skip past the glasses stage more quickly than we'd guessed.

According to this article human energy use over time plots very close to linearly on a logarithmic scale (~10x per century), back to 1650. Extrapolating, we become a Kardashev Type I in only 400 years - much less than I'd guess, but not impossible with SPS arrays. Past that we hit Type II only a thousand years later, and that seems rather soon for a full Dyson Swarm.

While many functions that look logarithmic eventually go sigmoid, it's unclear where the inflection point is - except that we haven't gotten there yet, and it may be quite a ways out. Much like Moore's Law; we know it tops out somewhere... I'll take a stand that it will inflect well before reaching Type II, and that we definitely won't reach Type III on schedule; if nothing else this would require massive FTL travel, which looks unlikely.

The article also points out that if we're using this amount of energy on Earth, the waste heat is going to become first a nuisance and then a damn problem, as the planet cannot radiate that much energy into space without active assistance. (I expect the author will get some flames because only atmospheric CO2 levels are supposed to be mentioned in this context.) It's not clear how much heat we could lose by, for example, a low-orbit radiator disk and orbital towers - but even trying wouldn't be cheap.

PS: Because I know my readers are the kind of people to be curious, humanity currently uses about 22 terawatts per year, about 0.16% of Earth's total energy budget, putting us around 0.72 on Carl Sagan's revised Kardashev scale.

I've been using the classic Bic four-color pens for longer than I care to think about, but while one goes with me everywhere I go I don't lose them as fast as I once did. So today for the first time in a year or two I actually had to buy one. It wasn't until I actually opened the package that I saw the only design change I can remember in twenty years: the little round ball at the butt end had been modified into a fat ring, allowing a string or lanyard ring to be added. I've not tried adding anything yet, but this strikes me as a useful improvement.

I ran across this, and as at least two of my followers are hams, thought it would be worth passing along.

WARNING Perform as many functions as possible on the ground. Installing antennas on windy days can be strong forces. Be prepared to safely handle these forces at unexpected moments. Antennas Direct Inc. is not injury resulting from antenna installations.

WARNING Antennas improperly installed on an inadequate structure are very susceptible to wind damage. The owner and installer assumes full responsibility that the installation is structurally sound to support all and properly sealed against leaks. Antennas Direct Inc. will not accept liability for any damage cause by an unknown variable applications.

WARNING Do not attempt to install if drunk, pregnant or both. Do not throw antenna at spouse.

Well! Good thing we know how to safely put up antennas now!

ARGH!

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