A Crummy Commercial

This photo is priced above my Ebay pain threshold: Although I did get a 15% discount offer: source:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/185914151164 The listing says circa 1920s but other internet pages fix it at 1911.  By that date Percival Lowell had already fired the public imagination with his drawings of Mars and had published books about Mars per the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Lowell And the War of the Worlds had been published just before the 20th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds I'm not aware of any reason for a surge of interest in Mars during the 1920s - the Orson Welles Halloween telling of that tale on the radio was in 1938. I find it a fascinating picture raising several questions.  What was it like inside ?  Was it just a movie or slide show ?  Where are the customers aka rubes ?   Of course here is the semi-obligatory inflated price (it won't go below 1913): I guess it depends on the show as to whethe...

For some reason I thought of the song: Bandstand Boogie .  I found it on Youtube, there is the original instrumental by Les Elgart and his orchestra (which is really catchy and brief): source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHiFsRQEHQw Then there's also the version with lyrics by Barry Manilow (longer but also good): source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTXWf2_H0FI Now this search was in a private window, so theoretically it shouldn't "pollute" my regular Youtube feed, right ? But then later in the day my regular Youtube feed recommended this: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsLT-zRWWdQ I didn't actually watch this Youtube video, I watched the movie instead.       Escape From New York is a good movie, fast paced and entertaining but there's almost no music - except for the Les Elgart version of Bandstand Boogie !  Ernest Borgnine's character, Cabbie, has it on cassette in his yellow Checker cab.  And the song plays a ro...

I saw this illustration titled: "A Simple Method for Reading Pictures by Wire or Radio" on Pinterest: I counted 48 squares across, assume the same height that's 2304 squares total.  Send a Morse code digit from 0 to 9 for each square (1 to 10 as shown doesn't make sense to me).  The actual time to send a picture would depend on the picture (a polar bear in the arctic would probably be the longest assuming white => zero. The longest Morse digit by time spent is the five dahs of a zero.  But certainly a real photo would take a LONG time. This method is the basis for picture storage and transmission to this day. Oh yeah: the guy sending is a lid, a tapper :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

When I see this: The trail cam gets shut off and brought inside, so no trail cam pictures from last night. While listening to the Brewers Mets game the phone woke itself up and had an ominous tornado warning message.  Unfortunately I didn't save a screen shot but it got me all rattled.  Here's the gist of it: Not sure where it was actually, probably over the lake. there's a red box on the southern part of the island, is that where it was ? One thing I did notice again, Starlink is like our old dog, Buddy.  When there was a bad storm Bud would go downstairs and lay in his crate.  When Starlink encounters heavy rain it doesn't work.  I got a red LED on the router (it didn't photograph red for some reason or I'd include a picture). So anyway, I wasn't always online during the storm.  There was a little hail and then heavy rain along with the usual winds.  But I didn't hear "the train" so no tornado around me. Eventually after the Brewer game the p...

The first joke from Annie Hall was mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/01/another-one-of-my-elmers-has-died.html But, as the literalist, seeing an old Australian magazine ad made me remember the final joke from Annie Hall : source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3feAYfyjzk Here is the ad originally from Pinterest: From other sources I gather that Ke-Peg was (don't think it is available in the USA) a paint on or wipe on substance for fresh eggs to prevent moisture from escaping out and bad stuff like oxygen and germs from getting in.  From the months of peak egg laying mentioned you realize this is a southern hemisphere ad. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/has-anyone-ever-used-kepeg-egg-preserver.226412/ The peg in Ke-peg may refer to polyethylene glycol 400 or PEG-400 (described as a clear, colorless viscous fluid): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEG_400 Apparently PEG 400 is the active ingrediment in Visine ?: Mineral oil is an alternative coating t...

But he won't and he's not being a dick about it, he's dead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Montgomery (actually quite a fellow !) his namesake today (SS Richard Montgomery): source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery Here's the video where a fellow with overly expressive hands for video tells us about the situation: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnvd3gFNap4 I thought this was quite a mural: As far as the SS Richard Montgomery, I would evac the area, drain the LNG tanks and then use flotation balloons first get them off the bottom  and then a tug to tow the wreck halves somewhere else and dump them.   Or I'd hire a Washington Islander to do the patrolling of the wreck.  One time I was with my Dad's cousins (the ad-man and the scientist) down near the ferry dock.  There was a US Coast Guard station south of the ferry then.  We walked down there but before we got too close a fellow (NOT a Coast Guard, just a guard)...

I thought this was an interesting video, there are also other shorter ones from different people on Youtube. source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhZEi7bOAjY I've mentioned de-capsulating before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/01/before-flash-there-was-eprom-that.html This is probably a pretty obvious idea given that the ICs are now marked with lasers, but I never thought of it. I wouldn't have had the chip power on while the laser is on but it's certainly cinematic :) I would have done the 2nd chip the opposite way, use high power at the start and then down shift the laser to lower power at the end which he sorta does for a while but then relents. It sure does beat using a Dremel tool to dig a "well" and then using red fuming nitric acid (after heating with a hot plate) to de-capsulate an IC. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm