A Crummy Commercial

One thing I used to buy was distilled water.  Maybe 4 gallons a week ?  But aside from the expense another reason why I stopped buying distilled water is that if there is any slight defect or ding at the bottom of the plastic jug it will leak eventually.  Same is true of milk containers.  And water appearing on a pantry shelf or basement floor is UNWELCOME, ask me why I kept the distilled water jugs inside Roughneck plastic containers.  So I bought the air still and distill a gallon of water several times a week.  It's probably cheaper and certainly easier than buying distilled water.  So I usually only keep a couple of gallons of water so I am aware if a leak happens. But what can be done with old leaky plastic water jugs ?  2026 has been a good year for apples so I decided to make picking and storage buckets for apples out of old plastic jugs.  The leaks don't really matter with apples.  Making the bucket is done with a scissors to enl...

I saw this comic page from Pinterest: It reminded me of a song that my Dad once told me about called Gloomy Sunday : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloomy_Sunday Here is the version by Billie Holiday: source:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ2AuLaClmk According to my Dad the song was so depressing that people would commit suicide due to hearing it - and (wait for it) IT WAS BANNED !  (not really). That in turn reminded me of a song I heard during high school called DOA : source:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOMIYEfN7fU The group was called Bloodrock ?  I didn't remember that. But what a dumb song, yuck.  It came out when I was in high school, luckily before I took drivers ed.  I always assumed that the song was about a car crash but no, it was a plane crash per the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.O.A._(song) So I've heard and read this gloomy material and yet I've survived three score and ten  :) This material raises the age old ...

An interesting Veritasium video:   source:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsBZOcqZerk The most interesting thing to me was the explanation of how the "cribs" were used to help manually break the code.  This starts at about 26:30 into the video.  A "crib" would be some boilerplate text sent in a message each time like:     WeatherReportBiscay      (but of course in German).  I'd read other books about Bletchley Park but none of them ever explained in detail how this clever technique was employed.  Of course it was kind of hit and miss before the clock ran out on the messages. Since the Enigma machine never outputs the same letter that was input, the crib could be slid across the message until those same letter impossible alignments were eliminated. One thing I wondered was whether there was a lamp test ?  Old school bulbs don't last forever !  I guess you'd know something was wrong if no bulb lit up but you wouldn't...

Don't irritate me, computer, I'm already bugged !  Yesterday I started seeing this little star in the Firefox icon:  Apparently it is for profiles ?  I don't know or care what profiles are, I want this little star GONE !  I turned off profiles, no help.  I may have to give up and live with the little star. This is another thing that annoys me: Yes, gmail, I deleted something and now I want to bolt, why are you doing: "mother, may I" ??  I will probably just have to live with that as well. Another irritation is Hotmail.  Lately it stinks.  It will erase emails from the screen, I haven't deleted them.  So I have to refresh the screen and voila, the email is back.  But it's a waste of time.  Isn't time saving supposed to be one of the justifications for computers in the first place ? I had clicked on an email and then the screen blanked after a refresh the email appears Now possibly this is due to the Lenovo Ideapad memory going bad - ...

This post was from last Sunday 2026-09-13: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/09/hey-everybody-its-time-for-beating.html But this is how Youtube served up the vids on Monday morning: you know the Brewers have won when they have their own video highlights Yesterday the Packers won an overtime noon game: The Packers lost a couple of players early and the whole game was a wet, ugly mess but a win is a win is a cliche. And the Brewers also won their 98th (a new team record) game of the season in the evening: Six more games in the season for the Brewers. But I did waste a pretty decent Sunday inside - I also ate way too much :( Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I did finish reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons.  It's a very readable book but without spoiling anything, Hyperion just seems to be an intro - sorta like The Hobbit , there are three more books in the series.  I did put a hold on the next book, The Fall Of Hyperion but who knows how long it will take before it is available. My Dad always hated this kind of thing, especially on TV, he'd use the phrase "soap opera" as a sort of epithet.  I guess Hyperion would qualify as a space opera :) BTW, I have no idea why I reserved Hyperion in the first place, must have been something from the internet ?   Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

One thing I've always meant to try is a hot wire cutter for plastic.  The primary application would be for cutting IC tubes.  I like to package DIP ICs or sockets in the plastic tubes to prevent lead damage during mailing.  Cutting is done with an old Swiss Army Knife.  But it's kinda tedious especially with weird tubes like for TO-220 transistors. I was looking at the July 1957 issue of Popular Electronics, from World Radio History: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Poptronics/50s/57/Pop-1957-07.pdf On page 79 I found this article: Here is the schematic: That's pretty simple, basically just a transformer and a wire.  I'm not quite sure where to get the nichrome wire but I'm sure Ebay might have something. The only problem: hardly any kit sales lately, it wouldn't be worth it.  Maybe I could rig something up using a Weller soldering gun ?  Basically those guns are a transformer, a trigger switch and a piece of copper wire. I'll have to think it...