Upon This Last Day Of Hurricane Season 2025...

Some good news:

Tomorrow winter begins. (no, don't give me any of that 'not until the solstice next month!' business; no, just no)  What the hell happened to fall?

Reminder: Grand Ole Opry's 100th Tonight

Link to earlier blog post here.

ps, the next day Saturday 29th: Pretty amazing show.  It started with Ricky Skaggs whipping out a tune on "Uncle Jimmy" Thompson's first fiddle used on the Grand Ole Opry a century earlier, and then finished up an extra half-hour over the allotted two and a half hour time slot.  Not that anybody complained about that!

pps: Sounded great on AM.

Winter Field Day Approaches

OK, January 24th & 25th are still two months away, but it's never too early to begin planning.  As usual there are a few minor tweaks to the rules, so read and heed.  Here are the links:

• Main WFD page
• Rules page

The weather's been so hot this fall that I haven't had any chances for practice trips, but things are finally cooling off and it's looking good for the next few weeks.  Expect related postings soon.

More Grant Blight

 Waveland to Open Bids for Pier Repairs; article at the Sea Coast Echo

Five years after Hurricane Zeta... and Waveland's just getting around to fixing up the municipal pier.  See an earlier post for the definition of grant blight.

Think of all the tweenagers and teenagers who missed out on good times fishing there.  Those five-plus years are now mostly lost to a fog of video games, cheap beer, and worse.  If you neglect these amenities, the kids will find something else to do.  Getting these hang-outs back up and running after a storm should be a high priority, not something left to DC's mañana-go-round.

The ugly reality of grant blight.

Grand Ole Opry Marks 100 Next Friday

As a reminder (mostly to self), the Grand Ole Opry will have its 100th anniversary show on November 28th – that's next Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.  Don't forget to tune in.  I have no idea who's on the schedule, but I'm guessing that it'll be all over the WSM web site by this time next week.

Remember, just as with classical music being performed on period instruments (see Academy of Ancient Music), it's far better to listen to the Grand Ole Opry on AM radio.  Fortunately this is fairly simple across most of the eastern half of the United States during dark evening hours: tune to 650 AM just before 8pm EST and you ought to have a listenable signal.  You may have to physically turn a portable radio to point it toward Nashville; their internal antennas are somewhat directional.  Of course, being out of a city center (this is country music after all) and having a good radio will help considerably, but on the whole it's a pretty easy exercise.  If the ionosphere doesn't cooperate (or worse, you're stuck in a city), streaming from the above-linked web site is a lesser but tolerable substitute.

Anyway, don't let this one slide.  Tune in for a little piece of history as it happens.

Meanwhile, Down Home at the Apalachicola Airport...

 The Forgotten Coast Freedom Festival Air Show was held today.  Pretty fun!  Here's the schedule:

And here's one of the highlights, a fly-over by two F-35's out of Tyndall AFB:

Lots, lots more going on there.  Two of the major performances involved T-6 Texan trainers.  The main air show part ran from just before 1pm to 3pm, but there was plenty to do from gate opening at 10am to close at 4pm.  Short and sweet.  Also... the weather was perfect!  So, yeah, again next year.

And Then There Were Two

Two successful commercial space launch companies with reusable first stages, that is.  Blue Origin gets one off of and back onto the ground in one piece: Video at the BBC  It's short, under two minutes.  Go and watch the whole thing.

Congrats to Blue Origin!  This is very good news.  SpaceX was the first, but with them there was only one company with this capability.  One is a special number because it shows that a thing can be done.  However, it's also only one corporate failure away from none.  With two, we have some redundancy.  I'm reasonably sure that companies three and four are about to spring into the spotlight.  Exciting times!

Quick Hike

With the cool snap today, on the way back from Carrabelle I took a (very) short hike on the High Bluff Trail.  Mostly it was to confirm that the picnic table near the east trailhead is still there and useable.  It is, so it looks like we're good to go for more hiking-with-radio adventures in this cooler weather.

Hits the Carrabelle repeater very easily, especially with the upgraded antenna.

The Oystering Rules Announced

 Article in The Times.  I'll need a little time to re-re-read this.  That is all.

"Toward the Unknown" – Surprisingly Good!

I'd heard good things about the 1956 film Toward the Unknown, but face it, I had fairly low expectations.  However, it turns out that it's pretty good in a Top Gun–meets–The Right Stuff way.  Made with the full cooperation and assistance of the USAF, the flight scenes are well done, the few special effects (mostly a practical mock-up of the X-2 rocket plane) hold up to modern viewing, and the tacked-on melodrama isn't too melodramatic.  At least, no worse than either of the Top Gun movies.  And while the historical details of the X-2 program are somewhat different than what is portrayed in this film, in several scenes it's close enough to echo some of the actual tragedies of the real program.

So, what's it about?  Here's the one-line summary from IMDB: A shaken Korean War veteran tests the X-2 rocket plane.  OK, that's the plot summary you get – no spoilers.  Let's move on to my summary:  Did you like Top Gun and The Right Stuff?  Then you'll like this one too.

Next Round: Space via X-15.

Just An Earbud

 On one hand, it's just an earbud.  On the other... "Wait, don't you mean earbudS?"  No, and that's what makes this one special.  It blends both stereo channels – if present; if mono output, well, it's still mono – and pipes it through one earbud, leaving your other ear free.  That's perfect for listening to podcasts or when out radio operating in the great outdoors where there are lions and tigers and bears and etc.  It's optimized for clear speech, not music, so be forewarned that this is its focus.  Results with music are... eh, don't even bother.  You probably have a good pair of music-focused buds laying around anyway.

Well, over at the SWLing Post blog, this simple thing has caused quite a favorable fuss, enough to warrant three articles and a raffle over the past six years:

• Review of the C.Crane CC Buds Solo (2019)
• Checking out CCrane's Solo Earbud (2023)
• CC Buds Solo: Two years into the mission... (2025)

This is one of those good little things that's easily overlooked.  Here's a link to the CCrane page.

See that big notch cutting out most high frequencies?  That's voice optimization.

Ground Wave Madness

 In recent months a question has arisen in local ham radio circles, most definitely including FCEM:

What if we have a real lulu of a storm that breaks the Carrabelle repeater antenna off the tower?

Now, on one hand, we see a significant impact about once a decade, and only a quarter of those have winds that exceed the antenna's wind rating (112 mph).  Multiplying through, and we have a 1-in-40 chance of an antenna knock-out any given year.  On the other hand, if we have such a hurricane, then that is exactly when we'll really-really need that repeater.  Putting up a tougher antenna with a 135 mph wind rating would improve our odds by a factor of five (at the cost of about 2 dB gain, plus begging our tower guy to go up there one... more... time...); 1-in-200 are odds I can live with.  Even so, things happen.  We need a fall-back plan.  I smell a project coming on:

GWEN  |  A 160m Band 'Rubber Duckie' Antenna

Coincidentally(?) I'm finally reading Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.  Inspiration comes from the strangest places.  In other news, our run of good luck continues:

A Good Way To End The Month

 With a successful fishing trip, and...

Has It Really Been Five Years?

 

Yeah, I guess it has.  Retirement, I highly recommend it.

Finally Some Word from Jamaica

 'Everything's gone', BBC finally able to access one of Jamaica's worst-hit areas

Jamaica's 'ground zero' – Assessing hurricane damage in Black River

Before and after Satellite photos

A few minutes of video showing a glimpse of the destruction.  It's always this way – an 80 mph Cat 1 roughs up a US urban area and it's all stop the presses because it's the end of the world, but a 185 mph monster smashes a hard-to-reach less-than-glamorous area and it's... meh.

Anyway, good if brief reporting.  As news trickles out, do what you can to help these folks.

Look'em In The Eye

 Nice footage from a Hurricane Hunter of the eye of Hurricane Melissa today, over at the BBC.

I've been directly in the eye of a storm twice – Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and TS Mindy in 2021.  Neither time was a particularly clear sky situation as seen in that video, though the wind did die down spookily for a bit in each case.  Avoid whenever possible.

The Six Haunted Channels

Not really haunted, but it is now late October after all so the term was bound to come up.  It seems to refer these six AM channels, set aside for hundreds of little stations to do low-watt local broadcasts, as being "crowded together as a graveyard."  Anyway, an article at The SWLing Post pointed to this article over at Radio World about these – and I hate to say it – legacy stations.  There's also a pretty cool zoomable & clickable locator map here for you to scope out your local area.

Best I could dig up here on the northern Gulf coast was WTAN 1340 out of Clearwater.  You can see its yellowish broadcast pattern fanning out northwest from the Tampa Bay area in the figure below.  A straight shot over salt water makes for decent daytime listening; a little static-y here in downtown Apalach, but perfectly listenable on my drive between Eastpoint and Carrabelle today.  I'll bet it'd be crystal clear on a good radio out on St. George Island or parts nearby.

The only other graveyard station I've regularly listened to was WGCN 1240, "Home of the Biloxi Shuckers" minor league baseball team.  But that was when I lived over that way.

Anyway, interesting stuff abounds when you go looking in the obscure corners of the real world.

The Local Graveyard Scene

Nah, Not My Thing

Over at Singletracks online mountain bike mag, here's an article about the latest Red Bull Rampage:

8 mountain bikers brutally injured.  Are the injuries worth it?  Many of the competitors seem to think so.

Eh, you do you, but I don't want to be in the same insurance pool.  This has so little to do with the kind of biking that I do that it is effectively a completely different sport.  BTW, note that this is a recurring question, not just here, but all over the mountain bike press.

Hiking Over 60: The Talk

I reviewed Philip Werner's book Hiking After 60 last April (link).  Now he's on a New England-area library speaking tour.  If that's too far for you to walk, here's a video of a recent talk he gave.  About 50 minutes, so pour another cup of coffee and settle in.

Good talk, good information, good presentation.

Now if we can just get the daily high temperatures down into the mid-70's, we'll be all set.

Watchin' the TV

Slow-Scan TV, that is.  Don't worry, this blog isn't going to be all about documenting these contacts, but this still is something new, so here's a prime example on how these things go.

Translation: "Anybody out there?  Dr. C calling...."

"Yep, N3CHX here.  Decent but not perfect copy."

"Good but not quite perfect copy here too.  Thanks & best regards, Dr. C."

"So long, and best regards from N3CHX."

And that's how it goes.  Here's a sampling of some other items that came in while I was listening.  Er, watching.  Um, both.  Peering.  Squinting.  Something.

Those are some of the better ones.  But then there are a lot of ones that come in something like this:

Fortunately, listening and saving images is automated.  It's kind of interesting to see what comes over the transom over the course of an hour or so, and once set up it's essentially no effort.

OK, SSTV mastered and now there's another tool in the toolbox for rainy day fun.  On to other projects.

So Far So Good

Presented without further comment, because there's really nothing that says it better than these hundred-mile high letters out in the middle of the Atlantic.

Gah, spoke too soon.  Mostly Harmless, but you never know:

All About the NATO Phonetic Alphabet

Short article and medium-length video (23 minutes) over at The SWLing Post.  Both informative, and you get to see the well-worn reasoning behind the word choices.

Bonus, here's what NATO has to say on the matter.  It doesn't get more official than that.

About all I can add is that I can't see any reason to use anything other than this phonetic spelling alphabet.  Perhaps if you're on the local repeater where there's no chance of being misunderstood and there's maybe a little good humor involved, sure, go ahead.  For example, a friend now passed had a call that ended in "ILR."  Often he would often say it as "I Love Radio," rather than "India Lima Romeo."  We all understood both the call sign and the small jest; it was appropriate in the context.  Beyond these sorts of special cases, other alphabet systems are just an invitation to confusion.

Sci-Fi Rotten Egg? Maybe.

The upcoming movie The Astronaut – trailer clip here – looks like an adaptation of the rotten old sci-fi novel The Space Egg.  Here, read a synopsis and watch the clip, and decide for yourself.  I wonder if it is in fact an adaptation, or a re-invention of an old hack plot?

With so many good and classic sci-fi stories out there just waiting for adaptation, why bother with this junk?  Ah well, decide for yourself.  Looks pretty rank to me though.

ps: On a better note, looking around for mentions of The Space Egg on the web lead me to the site Stranger Than SF, which of course has a scathing and spoilerific review of that particular book here.  StrangerThanSF seems to be a passion project of a voracious SF reader, and there's a lot there spread around in good, bad, ugly, and indifferent.  Worth your time to poke around.

Slow Scanned, Finally

After a couple of weeks of getting things ready (new machine, etc.; part 1, part 2), finally a SSTV contact:

Sent:

Translation: Anybody out there?  Dr. C calling...

Reply received:

Translation: Yep Dr. C, my name is Ian and here is the image you sent.  Thanks for contact and Best Wishes, bye.

Final reply sent:

Translation: Ian, your signal is rough but useable.  Thanks & Best Wishes, bye, - Dr. C

Sure, clunky interface, low-res results, and a whole lot of random ionospheric goings-on.  But let's see you send images to and from North Carolina without any intervening infrastructure.  No cell service, no internet, no satellites; just a few tens of watts out of transmitter and some wire for an antenna.

So, why?  Because it's there, mostly.  Also, it'll still work just as well after a bad hurricane.  Here, have an eyeful of what I might have sent a few years ago.

Cool Down Scheduled for Tomorrow

With highs in the low 80's, it's still not quite prime hiking weather.  One more front though should push us  into the 75 | 55 range, and that will be quite satisfactory.  Gear ready, getting small tasks cleared presently.

SSTV, Slowly

Following up on last week's SSTV post, we're just about there.  Picked up a refurb MacBook Air for pocket change (more on this below).  Sideloaded Black Cat SSTV along with fldigi, and chirp-next onto it via dipstick drive, and again tested all on the FT-817nd & dummy load.  Went live with fldigi (a digital texting program) and made a few contacts to the usual easy places like TN, NC, & TX.  Then... started pulling a few images off the air.  Here's about the best of the bunch:

Live!  From New York!  (state)

The ionosphere is a noisy place, and it shows in this image.  Not bad at all for less than 100 watts and 3 kHz bandwidth.  You can look at lots of other images people have received and auto-posted at HF Underground.

Great, so that's all working now.  The question arises though, how good can the image quality be, ultimately?  That is to say, what does the scanning process do to the resolution?  Here are two images from my practicing on the image editor, then sending as audio from computer speaker to phone microphone:

input

output

Not terrible, maybe just a tad worse than the old 110 film cameras.  (I used that stuff extensively in an Astrocam rocket; no great surprise.)  A little more practice with the image editor and I'll do some actual transmissions later today.

Now a few notes on that MacBook Air and how it all interfaces with the radios.  It's an early 2020 Intel i3 processor from mac of all trades for 1/3rd the cost of new.  That's plenty of compute power for intended use.  The important thing is that the SSTV software requires OSX v13 or higher, and this is about the minimum machine that checks that particular box.  After that, this laptop only has USB-C ports.  The SignaLink radio interface box I'm using has a USB-A cable, but a $10 adapter sidestepped the problem seamlessly.  In fact, everything worked out about as well as I'd hoped.  The only downside so far is that the i3 is a power hog, and can chew through half its battery in about an hours' use (and that's after applying the full-on daemon killin' cron incantation to matters).  All the more reason to bring a solar panel into the field.

Now on to a few Linux notes.  One of the above-mentioned fldigi texting contacts reported that he'd just upgraded from an old Debian Linux distro to a new Mac M4, just because he couldn't get the Linux machine to talk to his Icom IC-7300 radio.  Linux man, it's a whole 'nother hobby unto itself.

Finally, I may have mentioned that my old Linux laptop's battery charging control system had died, which finally spurred me on to this upgrade.  In the midst of all the goings-on documented above, it mysteriously began working again.  Because how do you get a broken laptop to work?  You buy another one of course.  Eh, I'll keep it around for muddy days in the field.

CB Day, Again, Already?

Time flies when you're modulatin' the aether.  Onward, perhaps have some actual content later this weekend.

Un-Sticking Physics

A modest proposal at SMBC.

Personally I find bike rides better than long country hikes, but whatever floats your boat.

Blogging's been light lately, but it's been a busy week.  Making good progress on the SSTV project with the new laptop in and 90% configured.  Lots going on at FCEM this week: replacing the lock on the Carrabelle tower (grumble), tuning another volunteer's car antenna, sorting out the pile of FRS radios at the EOC (two dozen and counting), and cleaning out the radio desk there as well.

Helene in NC After One Year

I did a short post with a few pictures, but fortunately it was a near miss for us.  The real story is over at the QRPer blog, with a 'one year after' recap that includes links to all of Thomas's previous posts the storm's aftermath in western North Carolina.  Lots of washed out roads and smashed trees, yes, but also a lot of geeky goodness about using ham radio and running an impromptu solar-powered internet access point for the neighbors.  Good stuff, go read!  (And thank your lucky stars.)

An Almost Perfect Minimalist Under-Saddle Bag

The Lezyne Road Caddy under-saddle bag is perfectly sized for carrying a few keys (not the whole bundle!), a little cash, maybe a credit card, an ID, and not a lot else.  Internally it has a divider for a tiny upper pocket, which holds my door keys and gives a tad more security.  The main bag holds...  just named the items.  It's not a lot, but that's not what this pack is about.  It attaches with velcro to the saddle rails, and is so small that it doesn't need to have a loop around the seat post.  This is just right for daily rides on the gravel bike, especially when I'm wearing a jersey that doesn't have pockets.

The only kick I have with it is that the single zipper pull is a pain to work.  It has to go all the way around to almost the forward side of the pack, so the pull has to be threaded back through the velcro attachment straps.  Look at the picture and you can see where the pull ends up.  Awkward.  A double-pull arrangement meeting at the back would make this pack much easier to use.

Almost perfect.  Close enough.  $25 down at your LBS.

SSTV - Pretty Much There

I've been working with getting fldigi (for digital text) and Black Cat SSTV (for slow-scan TV) working on my desktop Mac, and things are about there now.  Below is a test transmission of the image from the previous blog post along with the original image.  Quality is poor, but that's only because of the crappy S/N ratio: I'm transmitting 2.5w from my QRP radio into a dummy load on my desktop machine, and listening to the leakage on my main HF set-up.  Not much power is getting through all that, but it's enough to confirm that things are working.  Possibly more importantly, it's not enough power to fry my main HF rig's input circuits.  That is a consideration when intercontinental-range radios are being used in adjacent rooms.

Anyway, here's a transmitted test image:

you may need to squint

and the original:

SSTV has been a long-term goal (see two posts from 2017: Getting There and Working Out the Fiddly Parts), and other than becoming proficient with the user interface, I'm pretty much there now.  It is handy though to have an FT-817nd and a dummy load on the desk while figuring out all the bells and whistles at my leisure – and not bothering anyone else while fumbling around.

Straggler - One Month Review & Commentary

One month along with the new Surly Straggler and I'm still digging it.  The initial comments (with picture!) from last month still hold.  The further comments I can make are:

• pro: I really like the 1x11 SRAM Apex drivetrain.  And everything else.  Almost.
• con: It's been a little bit of a struggle to keep the disc brakes in alignment, between the comfy-but-flexy steel frame, pain-in-the-ass horizontal rear drop-out, and quick-release axles.  I've finally got it dialed, but this bike could really benefit from having thru-axle dropouts and hubs.

So here, a month after getting mine, Surly updates the bike for the first time in its 10 year run, and what does the new version have?

Thru-axles.

It now comes in two component levels, which are a $300 and an $800 price jump up from mine.  The older version is still available, but if you're looking, go with the new.  The thru-axles alone are worth the price jump, though there are some other nice upgrades and improvements to the geometry as well.

Anyway, here's a review at Singletracks online magazine, here's the new Straggler page (with links to the two versions from there), and a link to the old (*sigh*) Straggler page.

Thru-axles.  Straggler shoulda had 'em years ago.  But I will get by.

More 70's than Jimmy Carter on a Moped

My copy of 1973's Buckingham Nicks arrived today, and after two listens through it's pretty good and about what I expected.  That is to say, it is very much in the mode of the eponymous 1975 Fleetwood Mac album, but more country-ish guitar driven and of course missing all the touches the rest of Fleetwood Mac brought to that album.  Fans will immediately recognize the one song that was later re-recorded by the full band, and there are a number of guitar moves that were recognizably recycled later on as well.  The whole feel though is that of an early-mid 70's artifact.  For example, Without A Leg To Stand On has a real Cat Stevens vibe.

Here, have a real review by a real reviewer at Louder Sound.

Hey, if you like it you like it, and I like it.  After years of hearing snips and scraps of the album on various nooks of the internet, it's great to have the entire thing in hand.

Not Really Fall Yet

Even though today's the fall equinox, it's not really feeling like fall just yet.  Nor is the extended forecast all that promising:

Eh, we'll see.  In the meantime, preparations for fall fun continue:

• new gravel bike, pretty well tuned in now – check
• hiking clothes coated in permethrin and air-dried – check
• next up: getting radios dialed in for trail fun; more on this as events unfold – in progress

Onward, and back to work.

Coffeeneuring for 2025?

Starts October 11th.  This fall is not quite so crazy as '22, '23, or '24 (so far) so this might actually happen here this year.  Or not.  Details at Chasing Mailboxes.  More, and commentary on the matter later.

Sentience, Self-Awareness, and All That

Last month I listened to Nicholas Humphrey's interview on the Jim Rutt Podcast, and it was a real eye-opener.  So much so that I ran out and got a copy of Humphrey's book Sentience, read it, then listened to the podcast episode again.

Initially what captured my interest was the phenomenon of blindsight, where someone has lost the conscious ability to see due to brain damage, yet retains some vestige of vision at an unconscious level.  Here's a short video clip of a test subject, sans visual cortex due to stroke or injury, successfully navigating down an obstacle-filled hallway.  After such tests subjects often insist that they simply walked down the hall, having no conscious memory of dodging around objects.

This and other similar observations have led Humphrey to surmise that humans along several other candidate species have the capacity for conscious sensation layered onto a more primitive unconscious perception.  This follows naturally into some ideas about the meaning of self, others, and what is commonly termed theory of mind.  I won't further belabor the ideas, but simply refer you to the above-linked podcast for a much better brief introduction.

BTW & because someone's gonna ask: LLMs, conscious or not?  No, none, not at all.  Barely touched on, not even under consideration here.

One rough patch in this material is the lack of a brief glossary.  Humphrey and Rutt bemoan in the podcast how most conferences on these topics spend the first half simply trying to define the terms they're using.   Rutt mentions that he's now on the board of the California Institute for Machine Consciousness; go dig around at that site, maybe you'll find something glossary-ish.  Or perhaps keep a notepad at hand while reading in order to assemble a DIY glossary.  When I get around to a re-read, I'll do just that.

Anyway, they're making good progress, getting much farther than the old Turing Test, Chinese Room scenario, and those sorts of things.  Interesting stuff.  I won't even begin to publicly speculate if or how this bears on numerous observer-centric problems in physics, such as the measurement problem.  However, I wouldn't be surprised if Humphrey's lines of research ultimately converge there as well.

Flat Tire Wednesday

Grr.  And on the new gravel bike too.  Just one of those little thorns that causes a slow leak.  You finish the ride, but overnight it leaks down and the next time you go to ride you get a flat surprise.

While patching I took a little time and installed an ancient set of Spinskins.  On the old gravel bike these reduced the flat rate from one every two weeks to one every decade or so.  (YMMV)  Too bad they're not made anymore.  However, looks like Panaracer is making something comparable, so if these poop out I'll pop for a set.

Or maybe just convert to tubeless.  Honestly for these little thorn-pricks, tubeless + sealant gives effortless protection on the mountain bike.  Damned mess though if you get a real slash.  Let's see how this goes.

BTW, wicked thorn.  Presta valve cap shown for reference, and those grid squares on the workbench are 1/2".

ps: Nah, my bike came with the cheaper wire-bead Knards.  Not tubeless ready.  Maybe next round of tires.

New Statue of Franklin for Franklin County

In the sheltered north-west nook between the main building and the massive front stairs on the Franklin County Court House (a definite consideration here in hurricane country), a new statue of Benjamin Franklin was dedicated today by Gov. Ron DeSantis.  Full Story at WOYS's blog, but similar statues of the Founding Fathers are being dedicated all over Florida in counties with corresponding names: yes, Franklin, and also Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, Madison, and Monroe Counties as well.

Walking around the statue this evening, it's well done.  Seemingly life-size and more or less at ground level, it gives the impression of standing in front of the actual man.  Though I must say, I vastly prefer my picture (inset; click to embiggen) to the one at WOYS.  Click through and compare for yourself.

An Interesting Little Collection of Heinlein Short Stories

Last Friday over at viewfromtheporch, Tam posted a sexy pic of Sally Rand's 1938 Packard along with a link to a collection of Heinlein's short stories which has some peripheral connection to said car.  I clicked through and discovered – for the deep bargain price of $0.99 – eleven stories I'd already read and four that I hadn't!  Specifically, these are:

• Let There Be Light, about the invention of the Douglas-Martin sunscreens that figure so prominently in RAH's Future History series.  Glad to finally read it, but I can see why he omitted it from various short story collections throughout his later life.  Being his second story published, it's just not all that good.
• The Year of the Jackpot, another stinkeroo, as Heinlein termed his early fumbling works.  Still, it has some interesting ideas about what would happen if a mathematician devised a way to predict the future.  SHGT anyone?
• Project Nightmare, an early Cold War thriller about a hastily concocted team of psychics staving off nuclear blackmail – if they can just keep from falling asleep.
• Sky Lift, in which a pair of pilots give their all to deliver vital medical supplies – to Pluto.

I can vouch for the remainder of the stories.  Because they're better than the four listed, they've shown up in various other collections, most of which are on my living room shelf.  Click through to the above link and click through to Amazon for the complete list, or to buy, in which case Tam gets her affiliate cut.

Now about the publisher and illustrations, I'm not so sure.  Most of the stories seem to be from the late 30's to about 1950, so maybe the copyright has timed out?  Don't ask me, I'm not a lawyer.  The publisher and copyright are both from Ukraine, which is slightly suspect.  The illustrations are few, probably machine-generated, and don't really add much.  Maybe those are a copyright fig leaf?  Again, not a lawyer.  Will Heinlein or his spouse miss out on any royalty payments because of these (possible) shenanigans?  Pfft, they've been dead 37 and 23 years respectively, so that's not a concern.  I like to think that they'd just be glad to see some early works getting a little more airplay.  Let the dead sleep and the living read.  Onward.

Overall and despite those concerns, I'm glad to have finally read these, especially Let There Be Light.  The Douglas-Martin sunscreens are in so many of Heinlein's Future History stories that not having read this always felt like a big hole in my literary knowledge.  Turns out it wasn't, but for $0.99 the itch has been scratched.

Weirdness Gap Filled

Last spring I lamented about how the late night paranormal radio show Coast to Coast was difficult to receive here on the Forgotten Coast.  The three closest AM stations broadcasting it are 450, 590, and 800 miles away, making skywave reception doable but unreliable, and we fall into an unfortunate gap in the line-of-sight FM coverage.  Well good news, WSB Atlanta has now picked up C2C.  At a mere 290 miles distance, the reception is much better.  You can tell it's skywave propagation, but it never quite drops out.

Life – and judging by some of the guests, possibly the afterlife – just took a turn for the better.

From Nashville to Apalach

I see that Mark Wills will be on the Grand Ol Opry both tonight (Friday) and tomorrow.  You can listen on WSM 650 AM or figure it out for online.  I'm sure it'll be for just a couple of songs.  Then, he'll be the headliner at the Seafood Festival on Saturday Nov. 1st.  See y'all there.

Telegram?

No, not the app.  Actual, you know, telegrams.  Hard to believe, but they still exist and you can still send them.  Weirdly, there is a legal reason in certain cases why you might, namely to leave an official record for later legal reference.  Anyway, here's an old article at Atlas Obscura, and the actual

send-a-telegram web site.  Prices start at $30, so if you get a message at all from me it'll probably be a text or email.

No real tag for this one, but because Morse code is peripherally connected, so I'll file it under 'radio'.

Eggbeater Pedal Rebuild Saturday

Yesterday it was time to tackle a pair of Eggbeater 2's gone wrong after just two years' use and a nice four year old pair of Mallet 3's that were crying out for some TLC.  It wasn't particularly difficult, but the first one took a little while with flipping back and forth through videos.  Set aside some serious time for each pair of pedals.  Figure on about an hour for a pair, but have an open schedule for up to two hours in case something goes awry.  Also, you'll need a rebuild parts kit for each pair of pedals.

How?  Oh hell no, I'm not going to tell you how here.  I'm just going to link through to a couple of videos for each variety.  Required tools are also detailed in each video.  You'll want to have those rounded up before beginning along with lots and lots of paper towels.

• Eggbeaters: factory vid | some bike shop guy
• Mallets: factory vid | Park Tool vid

They all move kind of fast and take slightly different routes, so whichever model you're overhauling it's worthwhile to watch both videos.

The bottom line is that this exercise resurrected about $250 worth of pedals for $60 in parts plus a couple hours' semi-interesting work.  I can think of worse and less profitable ways to spend a chunk of a Saturday afternoon.

ps & Follow Up, 9/10: After several test rides of both pedal sets, all is functioning very smoothy.  However, thinking on the economics of this, if you're running the bottom-end Eggbeater 1's, it may make more sense to just replace a worn set.  Odds are that if a set of pedals need replacing,  you'll need new cleats too.  Digging around on ModernBike.com I see that a pair of Egg 1's goes for $54.  Compare with a refresh kit and new set of cleats – $30 and $25 respectively – and the price is a wash.  Of course, it pains to throw out when a rebuild will do; doing so reeks of wretched excess.  Hey, your Saturday afternoon, your call.

Gravel On The Block

With the new Surly Straggler well in hand, it's time to put the 2010 Specialized Tricross up for sale.  $338 bike + $315 in parts = $500 cash, firm.  You can see full details here at craigslist.

55cm / Medium, in Very Good shape

I had intended to keep this bike for a good while more – hence all the parts.  But what I'm doing on a gravel bike these days is closer to mountain biking and these old hip and knee joints aren't getting any younger.  Anyway, I hate to see it go, but an unridden bike is a sad horse.  Time to move it on down the line.

If you're reading this, you know how to reach me.

Punctuated Equilibrium Seems to be the Way of Things

Here's a short article about punctuated equilibrium in biological systems, proteins, and (surprise!) languages at Quanta.

I was very surprised to see PE arising in some genetic algorithm work I was doing several decades ago on systems that were entirely non-biological.  I simply remarked on it in the resulting paper and moved on with the main thrust of that research.  Still, the waves of evolution in this system did show significant regularity and could be useful in determining when some point of diminishing return has been reached, and hence when to stop burning computer cycles.

Looking around on the web using an AI search quickly showed that this has been observed many times before:

Give me a list of research showing punctuated equilibrium in genetic algorithm simulations of non-biological systems.

Here is a list of relevant research papers that demonstrate or analyze punctuated equilibrium (periods of stasis followed by rapid changes) in genetic algorithm (GA) simulations applied to non-biological systems, such as abstract optimization problems, engineering tasks, or artificial life models. I've focused on studies where the systems are clearly non-biological (e.g., not direct simulations of real biological processes like speciation or genetic drift in organisms). Each entry includes the title, authors, year, a brief description of the GA and system, and how punctuated equilibrium is shown. The list is chronological.

• Punctuated Equilibria in Genetic Search by Michael D. Vose and Gunar E. Liepins (1991). This paper formalizes a simple GA with selection, mutation, and one-point crossover, applied to non-biological search spaces modeled as high-dimensional dynamical systems. Simulations and mathematical analysis show punctuated equilibrium through alternating periods of relative stability (attractors) and sudden rapid evolution when populations shift between basins, supported by eigenvalue computations and trajectory diagrams.
• Genetic Algorithms and Punctuated Equilibria in VLSI by J. P. Cohoon, W. N. Martin, and D. S. Richards (1991). A distributed GA with subpopulation structures is used for the K-partition problem in VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) chip design, a non-biological engineering optimization task. The approach is inspired by punctuated equilibrium theory, with empirical simulations demonstrating performance advantages from "ecological opportunities" that enable rapid evolutionary bursts after periods of stasis.
• Population-Based Incremental Learning: A Study on Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing by Shumeet Baluja (1994). This work uses Population-Based Incremental Learning (an extension of equilibrium GAs) compared to standard GAs on non-biological optimization problems like numerical functions (e.g., De Jong’s, Griewangk’s), NP-complete tasks (e.g., jobshop scheduling, traveling salesman), and deceptive problems. It demonstrates punctuated equilibrium in parallel GA variants with subpopulations, where stasis in isolated groups is interrupted by migrations leading to rapid improvements, shown via a contrived example where single-population GAs fail but multi-population ones succeed.
• Punctuated Equilibria in Simple Genetic Algorithms for Functions of Unitation by Sangyeop Oh and Hyunsoo Yoon (2000). A simple GA with roulette wheel selection, mutation, and crossover is simulated on non-biological unitation functions (bit-string optimization in bistable potential landscapes). Theoretical analysis via diffusion equations and simulations reveal punctuated equilibrium, with long metastable periods at local optima followed by exponential-duration sudden jumps to global optima, visualized in population mean trajectories and parameter-dependent duration plots.
• Punctuation Equilibrium and Optimization: An A-Life Model by Ravi Jonnal and Anthony Chemero (2000). An evolutionary algorithm evolves artificial neural network weights for controlling a virtual creature in a 2D grid-based simulated environment with resources and obstacles (non-biological artificial life setup). Simulations compare standard and punctuated mutation rates, showing that introducing rare bursts of higher mutation leads to punctuated equilibrium patterns—long stasis interrupted by rapid fitness gains—resulting in significantly higher overall fitness scores.
• Punctuated Equilibrium and Neutral Networks in Genetic Algorithms by David Shorten and Geoff Nitschke (2022). A simple GA is applied to non-biological benchmark optimization functions (11 numerical ones plus Royal Road and Trap functions). Empirical simulations demonstrate punctuated equilibrium as populations explore neutral networks (genotype spaces with stable phenotypes), leading to periods of phenotypic stasis followed by rapid changes when escaping to fitter regions, analyzed via consensus sequences and genotype-phenotype

Huh.  Effect noted, explained, harnessed.  I wish search engines had been this effective in 2007.  Back to and onward with my real work.

If You're Going to Move to Apalachicola...

... then please look into these three resources.  

First off, read Suburban Nation (and if you can, order it from here; usually not in stock but quickly available) to understand how and why this town works so well.

Next, read Classic Cracker (again, DTB usually stocks it) to see how houses should be built to suit this climate.  Don't settle for a slab-foundation house; mold can set in when the power (and air conditioning) has an extended outage after a hurricane.  Build raised with a metal roof and wide porch and you'll be ahead of the crowd on both your power bills and ongoing maintenance costs.

Finally, speaking of mold and dampness, contemplate this map and related comments regarding where not to locate.  Namely in old stream beds.  As good buildable lots have filled up, people have recently taken up building in these.  Clue-by-four time: When the contractor crew has to use hip boots to get around the building site (and yes, I've seen it), just cut your losses and halt construction.  Your sinus condition will thank you a few years down the road.

These sorts of public service messages shouldn't be needed, but well, evidently they are.