At The LA Daily News an article about the Woolsey Fire in Ventura county focuses on the Rocketdyne Facility, or the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. The Woolsey Fire, an out-of-control wildfire that started in Ventura County and moved into Malibu, where it is consuming homes along the coastal community, began as a brush fire near … [Read more…]
In the San Mateo Daily there is an interesting story on the founding of AMPEX and that their sign has been taken down and is looking for a new home. Recording on discs was standard for the broadcast industry in the United States before Ampex changed the game. Discs were easily subject to shock, vibration … [Read more…]
The addiction continues – today I added a RCA Victor 4X (the small one in the photo) and a General Electric E-72 All-Wave. The GE is an AM broadcast, Police, and SW receiver. The RCA is an AC/DC table top model and both date from the 1936 time frame. So, we can easily see this … [Read more…]
I haven’t posted in a while, why? The quick answer is Old Radio. When I was a kid in Eastern Washington, I spent many hours after sunset at the dial of our AM radio. From my basement bedroom, I ran a long wire antenna up to the eves of the house and clipped it to … [Read more…]
By Roy Scranton July 16, 2018 NYT Climate Change and Parenting … Take the widely cited 2017 research letter by the geographer Seth Wynes and the environmental scientist Kimberly Nicholas, which argues that the most effective steps any of us can take to decrease carbon emissions are to eat a plant-based diet, avoid flying, live … [Read more…]
In 1982, Jerome Wiesner, of MIT, warned: The weapons that create the threat of annihilation cannot be uninvented. The sad fact of this era is that our populations cannot conceivably be protected except through political skill and courage applied to the task of minimizing the chances that nuclear weapons will ever be used. Jerome Wiesner … [Read more…]
Sacramento Bee – Fertilizer on farm fields is a major source of California smog, researchers say By Dale Kasler And Ryan Sabalow
Here is a listing of the RISK FACTOR blogs by Robert N. Charette in the IEEE Spectrum. Others will be added as discovered. Great to have Mr. Charette back online in the Specturm. Michigan’s MiDAS Unemployment System: Algorithm Alchemy Created Lead, Not Gold Will U.S. Corporations Ever Take Cybersecurity Seriously? 2018’s IT Failures Already Have … [Read more…]
Another massive, expensive, and painful IT failure was reported in the IEEE Spectrum of 24-JAN-2018, this time, it was the MIDAS Unemployment system in Michigan. Not only did this system fail to deliver, its managers refused to admit that it failed. The system was to replace the legacy software used by the State of Michigan … [Read more…]
View From the Valley Telecom Internet Tech Leaders Dismayed by Weaponization of Social MediaBy Tekla S. Perry Posted 14 Nov 2017 | 15:00 GMT IEEE SPECTRUM The tech industry can’t hide from the information war, particularly when its own creations are being weaponized. That was the consensus of a panel at the Techonomy17 conference in … [Read more…]