A Crummy Commercial

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...

I think the only reason why I've read some fiction is because it was referenced in another work of fiction.  For example, as mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/08/braves-yankees-1957-world-serious-game-1.html the only reason why I read the book: You Know Me Al is that the author, Ring Lardner, was mentioned by Holden Caulfield in Catcher In The Rye . Another was the book: Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.  I saw that referenced in the Heinlein juvenile SF novel: Have Space Suit - Will Travel .  Of course that title was derived from the TV / Radio show: Have Gun - Will Travel   :)  mentioned previously: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/08/hvac-comfortable-rate-of-cooling.html Those are the only two that come to mind - although a lot of the juvenile series books like The Hardy Boys will reference other books in the series, but that's not quite the same thing. I started reading a book called Hyperion (soon to be a motion picture ?  :) ...

I saw these in the daily email from Electronic Goldmine: source:  https://theelectronicgoldmine.com/products/g29888 DigiKey still sells them:   https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/te-connectivity-amp-connectors/6-1437514-7/2135766 But a nickel each just seems high for my 20th century blood.  And I do still have tons of these: source:    https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/09/pin-sockets.html And they might not work in my boards anyway.  Regular sockets work fine at relatively low frequencies, are easier to solder and easier to insert chips into.  Press-fit sockets are theoretically slightly better than the soldered pin sockets because they should make a gas tight bite into the plated copper rather than relying on solder.  Solder just isn't quite as good as copper at high frequencies. But just this one time I will resist temptation :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I went to Mann's Store on Tuesday morning looking for old people fuel (aka bananas) - nope !  Even though I had been warned about it, they didn't have a sale flyer either !  :(  They didn't have the Arizona Just Tea 1 gallon jug that I often get either (although I am getting tired of iced tea - I like the Arizona 1 gallon container, nice and sturdy, good for maple sap or distilled water).  There were other items in dwindling supply as well. However I did see some Best Choice items (the new wholesaler brand) showing up amidst the old Our Family.  For example, I bought a carton of eggs: They haven't had eggs in Styrofoam containers in a long while. Strangely enough I found this in my pantry: Best Choice version of Tums A expiration date of 7/22 would imply that Mann's last sold Best Choice items maybe 6 or 7 years ago ?  I can't really remember.  I assume that a clone of Tums is basically just chalk plus some sugar and flavor so it should last forever in...

I saw this window sticker on Pinterest: The thing that caught my eye was the $11 credit for deleting the seat belts.  If there's a car that would need a seat belt it's a souped up convertible Chevrolet Impala SS ! I tried typing this VIN into a web site:  41467SI65556  (maybe that I should be a one ?  didn't matter much either way) and got this result: source:   https://classicdecoder.com Looks like the details are somewhat wrong but assuming the model year is correct (why wouldn't the window sticker have a date ?), the price inflates to: Assuming the same ratio, that $11 in 1964 inflates to $119.24 today, more than nothing but still. Since it was sold in MN it probably rusted out although convertible owners can be picky about driving in snow.  I'm not going to invest in a report but I like to think it survived as a low-rider, those things are so cool ! Here is one that appears very similar: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1964-chevrolet-impala-75/ I...

I *should* have been working on stuff outside, Sunday was a nice day.  But I wanted to catch the Brewers and Packers play, yikes !  After the games I was greeted with this by the Youtube algorithm: Brewers versus Reds: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRk5l7n4BMw Packers versus Vikings: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wKdU-5kME In MLB baseball if the team wins 2 of every 3 games that's 108 wins for the season, pretty rare and probably World Serious bound.     In NFL football if the team wins 2 of every 3 games that's 11 wins for the season, fairly common and probably one and done in the playoffs.   There's still tomorrow, Monday should be a nice day - also the Brewers and Packers don't play Monday :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I sure don't remember this show: https://archive.org/details/202511_202511/A+Man+Called+Shenandoah+S01E01+The+Onslaught.mkv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Called_Shenandoah I remember that Robert Horton was on Wagon Train but he never seemed to be much in the action.  Sort of like Pernell Roberts on Bonanza - Hop Sing, Hoss, Little Joe and Ben Cartwright I remember but not much about Adam :) Also, I didn't know Robert Horton was a singer either, he sings the opening song: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLLK8fWLJvo One TV western I liked was called: Cimarron Strip .  No amnesia was involved though.  It was interesting in that it was a 90 minute show, more like a short movie every week than a TV show. Hopefully the Oklahoma panhandle doesn't look like this ! I remember one scene where Stuart Whitman's character, Jim Crown, is riding in a rail car with Jill Townsend's character, Dulcey.  She is writing on a pad various occupations like gunman....

The apples and grapes are starting to ripen:   Is this causing the deer to turn up their noses at my bait pile ? half the pile was still there the next morning I noticed this Friday morning on the way to Mann's Store: Fall color changes are starting to happen here.   When I got to Mann's store I noticed that the shelves were somewhat bare.  It turns out that two things are changing at Mann's.  First, the truck from the mainland schedule is now Friday (and I assume Tuesday ?) used to be Monday and Thursday.  So I went in on Friday morning expecting well stocked shelves from Thursday.  But the truck was late so NO old people food (aka bananas) :)  This other change probably has something to do with the truck schedule: Mann's is changing wholesalers to AWG.  Their previous wholesaler was SpartanNash. Mann's has changed wholesalers multiple times since I've been doing the shopping (roughly 15 years).  AWG has these house brands (Best Choice ...

yesterday Blogger wasn't allowing pictures to be uploaded but today OK,  weird but true I've mentioned the sleep inducing power of the PBS show: NOVA several times, here is one: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/01/it-happened-again.html But I just found out that this wiki list of NOVA episodes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nova_episodes has hyperlinks to some of the episodes on Archive.org, neat !  Unfortunately they aren't all there, for example Skydive To The Rainforest mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/04/nova-skydive-to-rainforest.html Luckily Skydive To The Rainforest is on Youtube :) Recently I was looking for a NOVA episode on how training for sports affects the human body.  In the episode an MLB pitcher is x-rayed to show how throwing a baseball has affected his arm - I *think* it was Don Sutton who played for the Milwaukee Brewers for a few seasons including the World Series against the Cardinals.  Search engines are useless for ...

I have heard of this sonification concept before - I *think* it was on NOVA  which mentioned using musical notes to scan for errant DNA pairs ?      This article/interview in IEEE Spectrum mentions landline Morse code and how it transitioned from inked characters (tele-GRAPH, distance writing, get it ?) to the clicks/clacks of a sounder: https://spectrum.ieee.org/data-sonification-stephen-roddy Here is the reference:  (Blogger isn't allowing photo uploads today for some reason)   Then in the mid-19th century, telegraph registers [printers that receive incoming Morse code messages] started out by recording received “dots” and “dashes” as indentations on moving paper tapes. Reading the printed data was slow and challenging work, so skilled operators quickly learned to identify the distinctive rhythmic clicking sounds produced by the registers. By the 1850s, the telegraph registers were replaced with sounders. These devices amplified the rhythmic clicks into...

source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qPLEPfYlNE The magazine itself:  https://archive.org/details/Space_Science_Fiction_v01n01_1952-05_cape1736 Incidentally, I noticed that Mann's Store no longer sells newspapers or magazines.   Sometime fairly recently (a year or so ?) the store was cut off by the supplier - not enough sales to justify the account.  So I can't even report on what magazines sell for these days.  Here's the inflated price of Space Science Fiction : And in the style of the OTR radio shows like The Whistler there is a twist at the end of Youth :) This story appeared in the first issue of  Space Science Fiction,  the wiki:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Raymond_science_fiction_magazines Space Science Fiction didn't have a long run but the stories were pretty decent.  BTW, it's a good thing this person has a cape and gloves, otherwise she might feel COLD  :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham....

 I took a required engineering design class in college - one thing they gave us was a deck of cards (about the size of the chance cards in Monopoly ).  The cards provided suggestions on designing a product - I remember one of those cards said something like:  Make it smaller - that is what Xteink did with their e-readers: about the size of a credit card I saw the Xteink X3 mini ebook reader reviewed in The Atlantic : https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/09/xteink-e-reader-best-technology-years/688539/ the Xteink X3 page:     https://www.xteink.com/products/xteink-x3 Incidentally I have actually read the book mentioned in The Atlantic  review, The Power Broker - in hardcover - I have it around here somewhere, I remember the cover picture of Robert Moses standing on a beam: from the 1930s to the 1960s Robert Moses was hot stuff in New York The Power Broker is a really interesting book.  But I always wondered: how did author Caro know that R...