I happened to look at my #hamradio Volunteer Examiner stats today and noticed that I've been in 499 sessions. It should roll to 500 tomorrow. All of these sessions were with the WM7X team. (https://wm7x.net). I don't think I can figure out the total number of people I've tested. I'm not in […]

Thanks for pointing this out Trevor. I think one of these with the Anderson Power Pole option is in my future. Or it may motivate me to build something like it. Or more likely, I will look at my list of unfinished projects and just order one. https://hachyderm.io/@trevorflowers/115865815536078324

It sure is nice to have power and internet back after 3 days. We dealt with the power outage pretty well with backup batteries, but loosing the internet was a challenge. There's nothing tougher than being forced to be alone with your thoughts for days on end ;-) Actually, there is one thing […]

Well, that was a first. I just gave a #hamradio Technician exam remotely to a college student who happened to be on a cruise in the Caribbean. It was pretty cool, and yes, he passed. Funny, I don't remember any cruises while I was in college. My typical activity during breaks was going to visit […]

If Alan Dye is the person at Apple who is responsible for Liquid Glass, then I couldn’t be happier that he’s leaving to go to Meta. Just sorry it wasn’t sooner.

I’ve been waiting for the #bambulab H2C to be unveiled so I could check it out. Now that I have, I ordered an H2S instead. I really just wanted a bigger, updated X1C and that’s basically the H2S. Back ordered until 12/21.

I've had an uncharacteristically productive morning. My wife woke up early and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up and did some (#hamradio) #ft8. I pretty quickly got 13 contacts into Japan which was fun. Then I was on a high so I got out and did a 5 mile walk along the beach. It's now ~8 […]

I got a BMOW FloppyEmu for my #Apple IIc and made an insert to expose it in the 5.25" drive opening. This prototype is pretty close to the final version. I just need to tighten a couple of tolerances and I'll be happy. I extended wires for the buttons and […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

OK, a #dumbjoke about #startrek #tng: What do Picard's Security Officer, Medical Officer, and Counselor have in common? One is a Worf, one is a Doc, and the other is a Marina

Disclaimer: I'm about as far from being a UI/UX person as you can get. Having said that, if I had an employee who demoed a project with a UI like the one in the attached screenshot, I would discreetly talk to their manager afterwards and ask if we needed to get that person some additional training.

I grew up with Kepler’s. It’s been in multiple locations over the decades (all within a few blocks), and it almost went under thanks to Amazon, but it remains a great local bookstore with incredible guests. Case in point: https://w3c.social/@timbl/115345706880517151

A friend of a friend gave me their old #PowerMac 8500 with Sonnet G3 upgrade. There was no internal drive so I mounted an internal BlueSCSI. The plastic is super-brittle. Pretty much any part I touched snapped into pieces. I got things back together again […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

If you have a #BambuLab #AMS, you might be interested in the "AMS PTFE Access Mod". You cut an opening in the bottom of the AMS that provides access to the PTFE couplers so you can easily clean out broken filament. A TPU "plug" fits into a printed border to […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just gonna ask where they're going and hook up with them there. -- The late, great, Mitch Hedberg

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, thank goodness for repeater timeouts! Right now I’m listening to a history of the Great Depression. Did you know that “unlike then, people now just don’t want to work”? Ugh. #hamradio #amateurradio

Heard this today and appreciated it: “Sometimes you have to be a bit too optimistic in order to make a difference.” Some of my best work has come from diving into tasks I had no business thinking I could handle. #optimism

Knock knock Who's there? HIPPA HIPAA Who? Sorry, I can't tell you that #dumbjoke #usprivacyregulation

I went out today and did a faux POTA - a FOTA, if you will. For the non #hamradio folks, POTA is Parks on the Air. You take a radio and antenna to a national or state park and try to make at least 10 contacts while you're there. I wasn't at a designated POTA […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

My new thesaurus is terrible! Not only that but it's also terrible.

This very interesting piece by @kenshirriff describes the real-world challenges of connecting the sensitive internal circuitry of a processor to the outside world. https://oldbytes.space/@kenshirriff/115044667107777724

At the Mecum car auction this morning as part of Monterey Car Week. Always a blast. I may be biased, but I think 1960 was a very good year. #montereycarweek #vette

Worth checking out - especially if you're interested in Frank's beautiful work on a NeXT Cube replica. https://chaos.social/@layered/114976327534852549

As it turns out, this is the oldest Mac I have ever touched and probably ever will. It's the 2397th Mac ever built - it came to life in the 2nd week of Mac production. And... it runs. It booted right into System 2. The floppy works, the display is crisp […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I had both these books in college but got rid of them. Now I’ve got them again! #retrocomputing #vcfwest

Well hot dog! Even though I promised myself no new projects until I finish what’s on my bench, I could not pass up an M0001 Macintosh with keyboard, mouse, external floppy, and a box of disks. I will need to trim a machine from my shelves to make room for […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

If you have a chance, head over to the Vintage Computer Festival at the Computer History Museum. The museum itself is awesome of course, and VCF is always a treat - including an exhibit by @tubetime. I'll be there in a couple of hours. https://mastodon.social/@tubetime/114951627216161253

I’m looking forward to it! https://mastodon.sdf.org/@icm/114914944510702645

I've really enjoyed helping to administer #hamradio exams. It is really great to see so many people getting or upgrading their license. I wasn't paying close enough attention, but sometime recently I passed 100 exam sessions as a member of the WM7X.net […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Hey, looks who’s joined the fediverse alongside teammates @kenshirriff and @tubetime - it’s @CuriousMarc ! https://mastodon.social/@CuriousMarc/114848054733742495

I saw this superstock 413 at a car show yesterday and was immediately reminded of the #beachboys song "Shutdown" This was actually in a Plymouth, not a Dodge, but same engine (AFAIK)

I don't use Facebook, but I just had to share this link with a story about the 10 year-old #hamradio operator that our team (WM7X.net) tested from her Technician level right through Amateur Extra. What a delight. Just now we had the pleasure of testing her […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

This is my FauxTRS model which is meant to evoke the feel of a TRS-80 Model 3 or Model 4 computer, but is not an exact replica of either. Normally it's running a TRS-80 emulator, but today it has entered the matrix is running Allstar (a #hamradio linking […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A nice find at the electronics flea market. If I had free space, these would be a fun #retrocomputing restoration project. For now I need to stick with my small scale #vt100 replicas.

This is my favorite question from the US #AmateurRadio Technician Exam pool. Even if you're not familiar with radios, you'll probably be surprised to find "Iambic pentameter" as a possible answer to a question about antennas. The person who wrote this […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

In case you wondered, eBay and Amazon will present ads that claim to have just about anything you search for, including hypothetical constructs, like isotropic antennas. I can't wait to get the unicorn I ordered ;-) #hamradio #amateurradio

I'm part of a #amateurradio (#ham) testing team and we got a bunch of people their licenses (or license upgrades) today. The most exciting was a 10-year old who passed her Technician exam and was smiling ear to ear about getting on the airwaves with her dad. Man, that kind of enthusiasm and joy […]

You remember that wonderful scene in “The Trouble With Tribbles” where Scotty has to explain why he started a fight with the Klingons? His final quote is also the one good thing about being “restricted to my quarters” while sick. Also, I’m watching #Andor […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Really interesting brochure about the Xerox 1100, a Dolphin running Interlisp-D. I didn’t think Xerox ever shipped Dolphins to customers. Check out those physical specs: Processor: 200 pounds, 10 Amps Display: 60 pounds, 1 Amp Keyboard: 5 pounds @interlisp […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

You’ve probably seen a Shive wave machine even if you didn’t know its name. The inventor, Dr. J.N. Shive of Bell Labs has a legendary video using the wave machine to demonstrate the concepts of impedance, standing waves, SWR, and more. It is a classic and […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I mentor a #compsci Capstone class at a local University. My team consists of 16 graduating seniors doing what amounts to a joint Senior Project, building a system that I specified. They just had their most valuable lesson as they were about to give me a demo of their final milestone: stuff […]

I administered my first two #hamradio exams today: one for a Technician and one for a General. It was really fun to see the excitement as each one of them passed. There are no testing locations near me (though that may be changing), so I worked as part of a […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I set up my JPC-12 #hamradio antenna and tuned it to 20-meters using a RigExpert. When I tried to transmit, the SWR meter on the radio showed a very high reading. WTF? I tried the same thing with 10m with the same result. Great tune on RigExpert, terrible SWR on transmit. Turns out I had […]

Spring has sprung. Lots of surfers out today (can't see many in this pic). #carmel

I signed. I also see the ARRL is requesting input for their response, but as far as I can see, they didn't specify how to provide those comments. Perhaps I am missing something obvious. https://mastodon.radio/@K3LOE/114201246629249112

My wife volunteers for the Ventana Wildlife Society which monitors and tends to the condors along the Big Sur coast. They also work on the very problematic lead issue mentioned in this article. You can check out their Condor Cams here. https://www.ventanaws.org/condor_cam.html […]

My 91 year old Sicilian mother still makes Crispeddi* every year to celebrate St. Joseph's Day. Since my given name is Joseph, this is my “name day”. I get first crack at them, hot out of the fryer. I think they are called crispelle in the rest of Italy […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Happy Pi Day. It turns out you only need to know π to 37 decimal places to calculate the diameter of the visible universe to within the diameter of a hydrogen atom. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/how-many-decimals-of-pi-do-we-really-need/

Observations of a new #hamradio operator #5/n: My “shack” is a corner of the electronics bench in my home lab. Late at night I would often see noise evenly spaced 20kHz apart all across the 40 meter band. I couldn't figure out why. I just realized that I tend to have just one light on at 50% […]

When I decided to get a #hamradio vanity callsign, my first inclination was to get a 2x1 or 1x2 so it was as short as possible. Then I thought about a local FM radio station here in Carmel, CA named KRML. I obviously couldn't have that as a call sign, but I […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I have a boatload of XT60 and XT90 connectors laying around, but I notice that #hamradio operators seem to default to Anderson PowerPoles. Before I go off and buy yet another crimping tool and fairly expensive connectors, I’d love to hear why people prefer PowerPoles. Is it the solderless […]