A Crummy Commercial

Recently Youtube has been serving up videos that are kind of boring, same old stuff.  So I went into my vvideo.txt file and found a 1950 movie on Archive called: Mr. 880 : https://archive.org/details/mister-880-1950 While watching the credits at the start I noticed that the story was based on a New Yorker article by St. Clair McKelway.  Actually it's a three parter, August 27, 1949, September 3, 1949 and September 10, 1949: As might be expected of the New Yorker, it's an interesting read - I don't think I've ever heard of a person with the first name: St. Clair (or Saint Clair ?).  McKelway wrote quite a few articles for the New Yorker and seemed to specialize in crime.  I'll have to read some of his other articles. Mr. 880 is a good movie - well worth viewing.  It follows the case as presented in the magazine pretty faithfully although the Secret Service man played by Burt Lancaster and the love interest played by Dorothy McGuire are absent from the article....

This radio strikes me as impossibly French: Google translate version source:  http://rxcontrol.free.fr/Receivers/RS560/ The white face, aluminum knobs, tiny speaker and meter, unusual dial - it's a very interesting looking radio !  It actually reminds me of my stereo from JC Penney which had that same look with the silver face and metal knobs. MCS 3210 - I never liked those metal knobs    The RS560 is a solid state receiver from the 1960s with germanium transistors.  Looking at the internal pictures with the shielded boxes I imagine a very expensive radio machine. What does impossibly French mean ?  something like this: https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a45737315/renault-4-history/ The wheelbase was different on the driver and passenger sides due to the rear suspension :) Remember the Renault Alliance ?  One of the last of the "Kenosha Cadillacs".  I remember reading something similar about the car - but I couldn't find the article online....

I doubt there are many people who could use this free book: http:www.designinganalogchips.com http://www.designinganalogchips.com/_count/designinganalogchips.pdf for the titled purpose, actually designing an analog IC chip.  But there is a lot of good / interesting information in the book for the rest of us (at least in the first chapter which is as far as I've gotten :).  The author is Hans Camenzind, the designer of the famous 555 timer chip which is still in production / use even after decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Camenzind As hams well know the 555 is the basis of numerous code practice oscillators and sidetone generators. One thing in the book that reminded me of when I worked at GTE was when he mentions that an epitaxial or "epi" layer is often used in IC manufacturing to create a controlled substrate for the transistors on top of the silicon wafer.  The only reason why I remember this is that I remember a production meeting I attended as the IC test ...

I guess that CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is now also a vehicle show ?  I saw this IEEE Spectrum article on a motorcycle with a solid state battery: isn't a battery more electric than electronic ?  :) https://spectrum.ieee.org/ces-2026-solid-state-batteries Verge is that company that makes a motorcycle with a hubless drive rear wheel - like something from Tron, mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/07/this-is-really-cool.html I didn't know they were in Estonia - about the only "tech" company I ever heard of from that region was Minox of Riga in Latvia.  Minox was famous for their "spy" cameras.  But apparently Verge of Estonia has beaten the bigs to a production solid state vehicle battery.  These batteries are close to the ideal: quick re-charge, long life, safe with the highest capacity.  Although not cheap at about $35,000 for the 370 mile range version of the motorcycle.   Previous mention of the only time I ever went to CES: https:...

Not sure why but I remembered the name: Wendell Urth - a character who assists the police in four Science Fiction mystery stories by Isaac Asimov: The Singing Bell , page 98 https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v008n01_1955-01 Perhaps the inspiration for a singing bell might have been a burnt out vacuum tube or even a burnt out light bulb with filament particles ?  But it took Asimov's imagination to make something like that an ethereal sound maker. The Talking Stone , page 108 https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v009n04_1955-10 Asimov was an expert in biochemistry.  So maybe it was natural that he kicked around the idea of alternative life forms based on silicon rather than carbon ? The Dying Night , page 3 https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v011n01_1956-07_MadMaxAU The rapid disappearance of actual silver based photographic film has been amazing - it'd be hard to try to make a video of this story considering that people aren...

It's getting to be tax season again so I pulled out my Canon printing calculator: Canon P1-DH III It calculates OK but there is something wrong with the printer: All the numbers and symbols on a line are printed in the rightmost column !  I suppose it's a mechanical fault of some kind - I dread ripping into the calculator to try and fix it though. If this is due to  entropy all I can say is: bad timing universe, bad timing. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Packers 27, Bears 31 Amazing shot of Watson fumbling into the endzone by Evan Siegle Packers photographer the only term worse than cinematic applied to football is operatic ! I guess this loss was to be expected since the Pack had lost the last 4 games.  This game was like a double Jekyll and Hyde but the two teams were out of phase.  The first half the Packers did almost no wrong, no punts, one missed field goal.  But in the second half the Packers punted quite a few times, scored one touchdown but missed the extra point and later missed a field goal.  The Bears started fairly strong in the 1st half but only had the single field goal.  But the Bears stormed back in the 2nd half and scored 25 points in the 4th quarter. The Pack just couldn't finish this season.  Maybe this just wasn't our year with the injuries to several starters.  Next year might be the last chance for this group, already they will lose players in 2026, possibly coaches ?  ...