Two Physics Articles

Here are two articles you ought to carve out time to read.  While both are written at a non-specialist's level, they both give good depth and coverage.

Next-Gen Nuclear is Coming – If Society Wants It
These meltdown-proof power reactor designs have been roaming the wilds for three decades now, stuck between the rock of public histrionics and the hard place of obsolete bureaucracy.  It'd be a hell of a note if the "free, open, and fast-innovating" country of The Peoples' Republic of China scooped us on this technology, but it looks like exactly that is happening.  At least somebody is moving on it.

The Peculiar Math That Could Underlie the Laws of Nature
This is so far removed from my sub-field(s) in physics that I really shouldn't comment.  However, since this is a blog and so I ought to shoot off my mouth from time to time, here goes.  I think it's safe to assume that the peer reviewers of the work have done a competent job and that there are no obvious errors.  Beyond that, the mathematical results seem to align well with both current theory and experimental results, and in a way that nothing else manages.  Looks promising, will stay tuned.

There, two content-rich articles for your summer reading.  Think I'll take a short break from blogging now.  See you in a...  well, whenever another morsel of worthwhile content presents itself.

Ruminating on The Ramones

(1) Does it seem weird to you that The Ramones have been gone (since 1996) for as long as they were around (1974-1996)?  Twenty two years in each case.

(2) Here, listen to their Do You Remember Rock 'n Roll Radio, and recall that in a fundamental way they were always a nostalgia act.

(3) Read this guest post over at The SWLing Post blog: The Days of AM Pop Music in NYC   Tampa's WLCY was about all we could handle on the Gulf coast, I can't even imagine what it was like to have several top-notch DJs competing on the local AM band.

(4) Waste another hour digging around at Ramones videos over at youtube.

Think I'll go mow the grass now before it gets too hot.

Never Gotten That Bad

Although I've never gotten quite this bad (xkcd 2023):

... I will have to admit using a log(log(y)) axis once upon a time.

And just when I was thinking "this sounds pretty good"...

.... the joke's on me:  yesterday's SMBC.  Be sure to read the mouse-over text.

Meanwhile, down at the Hamfest

Attended the Slidell Hamfest today, and did something different.  Instead of treating it as a shopping trip and social event, I made a point to attend several of the forum meetings.  Here's a link to the complete list; I just took in the NWS's Severe Weather and Hurricanes and a club member's Overview of Digital Modes talks.  Both were really informative, without getting too far off into the weeds either.  I'm going to make a point to look ahead at these forum schedules in the future.  Time well spent, and once in the door they didn't cost a dime more.

Having said all this, naturally I got sucked in while passing the solar guy's table, and picked up a 27 watt foldable panel and associated hardware.  At about 3 lbs, it's really too heavy for backpacking, though I could if pressed.  It's really more of a car camping item.  Realistically, a 27 watt panel will put out 1.6 amps of useable current over the course of a 5 hour day.  That's plenty to keep an FT-817nd happily running indefinitely with something left over.  It's also enough to extend 50 watt radio operations by about 2x, which will let me skate for a weekend pretty easily if I start with a full 12 A-H LiFePO4 battery.  I'm estimating it'll give about 7 hours total operating time under those conditions.  In any event, it's a lot smaller and lighter than a rigid 100 watt panel, which is what I'd been taking along before.

So back to my plan of "gain knowledge not stuff, and don't spend a bunch of money," it sort of worked, if only in principle.  Anyway, it was fun running into friends and making a long morning of it.

Hm yeah, don't do that.

Cyclist falls into drawbridge gap

"Alcohol may have been a factor in this incident."  I am shocked!

Some Interesting Destinations

Abu Simbel – Egypt's only portable* temple
The Sinai Trail – hike it in 42 days.  For me, there's not enough sunscreen in the world.
Lac Assal – pretty, but don't touch

All over at the BBC's site.  They all look like really great places to visit, certainly off the beaten tourist-path.  One of these days I could almost be tempted.


*For very, very large values of portable.

Two from The SWLing Post

Shortwave Trading Part III    The story continues.  We covered Part I here back in May.

Thai cave rescue employed ham-designed 87 kHZ transceiver   Useful!

More Trouble in Smart Device Land

Article at Ars Technica:
Smart TVs are invading privacy and should be investigated, senators say

This kind of privacy invasion business always ends in tears.  None of this stuff is harmless; remember this case involving military personnel running with their Fitbits from last winter?

If nothing else, companies should observe privacy busting behavior's effect on the bottom line.  Last year when an iRobot (maker of Roomba) executive commented about plans to sell maps of customers' houses to other companies, their stock took an immediate 36% nose-dive, and is still 24% off its peak.  The fact is that when people want their houses swept by robots, they don't want the glorified brooms doing the job to tell their maker all about the floor plans.

Didn't someone at some level at iRobot say "Something about this just feels... creepy"?  I guess not.  For what it's worth, I love my six year old (non-mapping) Roomba, but when it's time to replace it I'll look at other companies' offerings first, even though iRobot still makes one non-mapping model that does everything I want it to do.

AM Radio Revitalization: Nowhere Slowly

New post up at Engineering Radio yesterday: Status of AM revitalization  Not completely depressing, but not any sort of encouraging turn-around rally either.

Not much change from five years ago when we last considered the topic.  Give it another five or ten.

Yes, somebody makes this.

Or, more like tried to make a commercial go of it and flamed out sometime around 2015.  Anyway, if you've ever wanted your bike to sound like like King Arthur's horse, check out Trotify.

Found over at There I Fixed It, which strangely enough hasn't also flamed out.  While we're at it and on the bike theme, also found over there:

Just the thing for clearing trails after a long summer.

Webb Space Telescope Delays

Detailed over at Wired.

Graphically explained by xkcd:

Bottom line it that this isn't looking good.