A Crummy Commercial

Lots of space news this week such as the successful Vulcan second launch (with an apparent nozzle problem with one of the solid rocket boosters).  But I found this story on the IEEE Spectrum site interesting: https://spectrum.ieee.org/low-earth-orbit-satellite-india A concept by an Indian space company, Bellatrix Aerospace, for a satellite recon satellite in a low earth orbit for better resolution photographs.  Due to the increased atmospheric drag encountered at the lower orbit there is a need to regularly boost the satellite.  This design does this with solar power and by harvesting and compressing the atmosphere - the boost is performed by heating the compressed air until it becomes ions which can be electrically accelerated to boost the satellite.  In other words, use the problem cause (drag caused by the increased atmosphere at lower heights) to solve the problem by using the atmosphere as rocket propellent - very elegant ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I was listening to this story on wired.com: https://www.wired.com/story/pig-butchering-scam-invasion/ I suspect that pig butchering (scamming people online with crypto currency offers) refers to the fact that it is hard to scam people who aren't greedy.  I honestly can't understand the interest in crypto - it just sounds like a scam to begin with - why is it worth anything at all ? - why do governments around the world allow crypo - that's one thing that government is usually pretty jealous about: coining / printing money. And of course since the narration was by an AI voice (since it didn't say Eleven Labs maybe is it TTSopenai or something similar ?  Mentioned TTSopenai.com here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/09/i-think-i-will-give-up-i-think-i-will.html How long will it be until the AI voices and AI interaction via text are perfected to the point that they pass the Turing test ?  They are VERY close now IMO.  If so, couldn't a criminal gang hijack the AI and h

I saw this on Shorpy: source: https://www.shorpy.com/node/27560 Well the steps down to the barber shop immediately reminded me of: https://ia902907.us.archive.org/8/items/vic-and-sade-1946-10-10-xx-mr.-zee-moves-in/Vic%20and%20Sade%201940-06-21%20%28xx%29%20The%20Royal%20Throne%20Barbershop.mp3 The Royal Throne 25 cent barber shop with promotional employee: Hank Gutstop ! Sade not only expresses her usual disdain for Hank but she also dislikes the Royal Throne Barber Shop.  Sade always is the villain :) I *think* that the announcer is Mel Allen mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/04/mel-allen-has-vocal-incident-live-on-the.html Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I used to play cards once in a while with 3 other engineers from GTE.  One time we are playing at a fellows house way out of Cook county, past the Fox River (St. Charles, IL ?).  It was a nice house, big and suburban.  I particularly remember they had a big old GE fridge which had an internal lazy susan - very cool. So we are playing cards and the lady of the house comes in and says something about the washer not working right and that they need a new one.  The man of the house (with tongue loosened slightly by some amber liquid?) says something like: "new, new, NEW ? - that's a Maytag !  all the parts are available - it can be fixed !"  His wife was unconvinced - I suspect the discussion continued later :) I'd never heard the word "New" used in such a negative, emphatic way before, of course he was an engineer :) Anyway, while working on yesterdays blog: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/09/diy-metering.html I encountered this corporate Nikon camera history