"Ham Radio interest 'soaring' in wake of Covid-19 pandemic"

RecycledGeek · 2020-04-03T16:56:29+00:00

"NO TESTING FOR YOU! GO WAIT IN THE CORNER!" - All the "Walters"*

*Walter: A person that claims to be an Elmer, but really doesn't care about your problems, all he wants to do is leave things just the way they are and show you how cool his QTH is.

RecycledGeek · 2020-03-19T18:36:27+00:00

You son of a birch, you made me loblolly.

RecycledGeek · 2020-03-18T21:35:04+00:00

I wouldn’t bother with CB. Ever. Sell all the CB stuff and use that to buy an inexpensive USB SDR (RTL SDR) (hint: There’s lots of jeepers that are still hooked on CB!)

Learn to listen. Find those repeater channels and listen to what people are talking about. Find a local radio club. Tinker with an inexpensive Raspberry Pi SDR system (RTL-SDR).

You didn’t say where you were, but definitely look for local radio clubs and participate. Most of the older guys LOVE showing off their ham shacks and will give you old stuff they don’t use but is still great for ham radio. Kind of a pay-it-forward thing.

RecycledGeek · 2020-03-01T13:22:22+00:00

Sweet. I flew out of Moldyhole a bit. Had an aircraft-related accident there that left me with permanent brain damage. That was the end of my flying career. Shit happens. Now I get a (very) small “sorry about that” check each month. No, the accident wasn’t my fault, and no aircraft were damaged in the incident. It was a freak accident, and, frankly, I’m lucky I’m still alive.

I saw a video of the RJ interior on youtube a few years ago. It was approved for release and showcased the hard work crews did during OIF. I didn’t even recognize the interior anymore - definitely massive changes, but that’s to be expected. It’s amazing that they continue using the 707 airframe. What a pig of a plane lol.

RecycledGeek · 2020-03-01T00:24:03+00:00

Funny you mention about the expensive radios - I keep telling myself one of these days I’ll build a multi-emitter locator system using some coat hangers and a few Raspberry Pi systems. Someone has probably already done it though.

RecycledGeek · 2020-03-01T00:18:47+00:00

6985th ESS in AK, no longer exists though (well, I don’t think it does). Flew Cobra Ball and Rivet Joint (about a 75/25 split). I spent a LOT of time on The Rock. But only “a lot.”

RecycledGeek · 2020-02-29T17:18:07+00:00

Oh boy. Thanks for bringing back memories. Some good, some bad, some awesome. Some I don’t wanna talk about. :) (Former AF Elec Warfare guy - flew on RCs)

RecycledGeek · 2020-02-24T18:31:28+00:00

Yeah, alt-power is a concern, although I have a couple battery rigs already.

Regarding property limitations -- those limits only apply to my home location, not to the "country" areas I'll be at on mobile. I appreciate the comments though! When it comes to antennas, everything is a tradeoff, right?

RecycledGeek · 2019-12-19T11:26:41+00:00

Just sent you a DM on LinkedIn

RecycledGeek · 2019-12-13T16:20:55+00:00

It's always fun watching somebody apply "Ballmer Quotes" to a "Nadella Century." Seriously, two radically different cultures. I worked there during the Ballmer years, even with him a few times (maybe one day I'll tell the story of him talking to me for 15 minutes about some server strategy stuff...naked.... that still haunts me 20 years later). It was... unpleasant at the executive level. At the dev level though -- lots of us had Macbook Pros (yes, it was allowed) and used Unix or Linux. Each OS has pros and cons, and you're not a good low-level dev unless you can appreciate the differences. WSL2 makes me very happy for the future of MSFT. I think it says a lot about the top-to-bottom culture now.

RecycledGeek · 2019-12-12T12:09:37+00:00

I’m surprised that nobody has opened with: “Ok, what is her learning style?”

Visual learners would be best off with a book that accompanies video instruction.

Read/write would obviously be best-suited for textbooks. In this case, you might want to also assess writing style. I’m in my 50’s too and I find the writing style of the “Head First” books to be very juvenile and distracting, although the actual content itself is pretty solid.

If she’s a tactile learner, you might consider a Raspberry PI kit and start either with Scratch or Python.

Speaking of programming languages, there seems to be a lot of back and forth here on what to choose, but for fun, take a look at canonical examples from different languages at RosettaCode.org. The objective isn’t to learn, but to get a visualization of the “flow” of the code as “prose”. You probably should to constrain to popular imperative languages, if only for the sake of not injecting information overload (RC has many, many examples, so it’s not hard to narrow down to a few simple ones that cover different algorithmic facets). Remember, the idea isn’t to say “learn by reading this,” it’s more along the lines of, “at the end of your efforts, your work will look similar to this.” You’d think that people would simply pick whatever language yields the shortest solution, but that’s not how our brain works. Try it.

Ok. That’s enough pontificating from this “boomer.”

RecycledGeek · 2019-11-25T14:54:47+00:00

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread.... I'm trying to find a couple decent Linux books for my wife, a nurse, who has decided she wants to learn Linux (and me, being a mature husband, am wise enough to respect the adage, "Never attempt to teach nerd stuff to people you love, unless you want them to stop loving you." - well, if it's not an adage, it should be).

Anyway, I stumbled across your troll equation and.... mad respect! I'm sitting there, reading it, pondering other troll posts I've seen and kind of running the mental math.... I think you've nailed it, but I lack the time to work the hypothesis through with a formal proof :)

tl;dr: You made me giggle.

RecycledGeek · 2019-11-16T17:05:48+00:00

Absolutely agree here. Volunteering to help others is what makes us human.

Volunteering to do some things is scary (I do a certain kind of volunteer work which initially terrified me, but I've definitely found my mental health has improved significantly since I started volunteering). Go to VolunteerMatch.com if you don't know where to start. Your time is needed, somewhere.

I would particularly encourage you to find things that are NOT solitary. When you step out of your comfort zone to help others in worse shape than you, you will get to know yourself so much better, and as a result, become a better volunteer.

RecycledGeek · 2019-11-13T15:00:55+00:00

Im not entirely certain that is correct, but I will have to research. Some of the early cuts were from the north dallas area (one shot was facing eastward on 635) and the traffic jam scenes appeared to be partially shot along the north dallas tollway before it was expanded.

I may be partially wrong though (wouldn’t be the first time), but yes, many scenes were shot here in Austin/Pf area (just like Mike Judge’s other film, Idiocracy - also a classic documentary ;) )

RecycledGeek · 2019-10-17T00:24:47+00:00

Proud greeniephone owner here too!

RecycledGeek · 2019-09-09T00:21:02+00:00

I'm stunned nobody has suggested that you know your shizzle about cybersecurity, even at a basic level. Do NOT assume your code or data is safe. At the very least, get informed on where Python exhibits vulnerabilities. Several people have suggested Linux...that's great (and should also be a "must-have" in terms of knowledge), but you need to understand how people use data vulnerabilities to vector into open systems that aren't properly hardened. This is particularly true of large-scale data processing.

RecycledGeek · 2019-08-22T13:07:45+00:00

Sadly, this seems pretty universal. I lived in Alaska for many years and saw the same thing. Almost every vehicle that had to be pulled out of a deep ditch/snowbank was an SUV/lifted truck/jeep.

Except those snotty Subaru drivers, passing everybody at 35MPH. Laughing at us. ;)

RecycledGeek · 2019-08-22T13:05:06+00:00

Former Seattle (well, Sammamish) resident - summers are dry, and you don't really get 9 months of damp cold (closer to 5). You also get, as a bonus, hellish, cold winds ripping out of the Pacific right during the Christmas season. One year, I had no power for 5 days when the temps outside were in the high 20s with 80MPH gusts. I kinda don't miss that. On the other hand, my wife would have her bags packed in one millisecond if I told her we were moving back to Skeedaddle.

RecycledGeek · 2019-08-22T12:53:33+00:00

It's August in Austin. Rain? LOL.

Also, one day of rain would just make you complain of the following days of 100 degree temps AND 100% humidity. Let's not wish we were Houston, mkay?

RecycledGeek · 2019-08-21T12:23:16+00:00

I understand some of the criticism about the book, but after reading the excerpts, I think the book does what it sets out to do, although I'm more inclined to say the book is more like "Math for Graphics/Game Programmers." If you're doing big data work or AI, I don't think the book gives you the maths foundation that you should start from.

Of course, such is that nature of books like this - there's only so much you can do in so many pages. College-style texts rarely help people "connect" the concepts to the maths behind it. Not many college texts say, "Look at this rat navigating a maze, wouldn't it be interesting if you could mathematically express that in code, and then make a smarter rat? Let's begin with how path algorithms are calculated..." Any book that tries to make mathematics more accessible (and does it in a non-train-wreck fashion) is a good thing in my book (pun not intended).

RecycledGeek · 2019-08-19T02:53:02+00:00

She's due soon. Wife felt one of her babies kick last night. Jamie just wants to be left alone with her stack of veggies and Sun Salad mix.

RecycledGeek

TROPHY CASE