Friday, May 20, 2011

Odds, Ends And Major Geekitude

- Reports are that hundredsof death threats have been received by the justice who wrote the majority opinion in Indiana's "no right to resist unlawful police entry" decsion (that would be Justice To Be Voted Out In 2012 Steven H. David). This is not unexpected, but both impolite and foolish: we can, should and will vote him out in 2012, sending him home in ignominious defeat to ponder on Third Rails In American Politics. Why waste the effort and collateral risk of dealing with him any other way? Plus, you can only humiliate statist jerks and their addled philosophy if they are alive and fumin'. Still breathing and sent down for idiocy, they are cautionary examples to their would-be overreaching brethren and cistern.

Let us not forget his concurring justices, as well: Randall Shepard and Frank Sullivan, Jr.; when they show up on the "shall [insert idiot's name here] be retained?" ballot, vote 'em out good and hard; make sure all your friends vote them out, too. Signs and bumper stickers wouldn't hurt, either. Your home is your castle; they need to be chastised for trying to make it otherwise.

- Today, Deus volente and high water permittin', Turk Turon and I will embark for the Dayton Hamvention at 0800 or shortly after. I'm goin' into work at cow-yawn and scurrying to do the needful before departure. This is probably going to be the best weather of the weekend -- I'm a-gonna nap on the way there, take my B vitamins and hope for the best!

- I already have a head start on the geekery: after years of dithering, I purchased a very elderly Bird 43 wattmeter from an online seller from whom I have bought things for work. It's not pretty (you can buy really nice ones from the guy but you'll pay more) but guaranteed to be working. This gadget has been the standard workhorse for everyday RF measurement from medium frequencies all the way up through UHF to millimeter waves since about the day after it was introduced; you'll be seeing it written up over at Retrotechnologist, by and by. The basic design is genuinely clever, a particularly clear version of how to turn a pretty band-specific measurement tool into a highly-flexible, wide range instrument.


I'd write more but it's shower time. Back to the salt mines!

6 comments:

Drang said...

Glad to see you get to bit Dayton after all!

I imagine The Powers That Be will be investigating the threats; I wonder how they will break down, demographically? Is "the left" as outraged by the decision as "the right" and "libertarians"?
Any chance there's some astroturfing going on? Can't help wondering if any of these threats came from the same "non-credible" threateners who were so up in arms over the anti-union vote in WI...

WV: ingleark. A really big boat for when The Little House On The Prarie floods...

Drang said...

"Hit." "Hit Dayton..." Sheesh...

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the Bird. I have had one for many years. Only have two elements that cover 144, 220 and 432 bands. Looking forward to the writeup over on the other blog.

BTW, in a response to a comment to an earlier post you mentioned the failure of your boss to understand the necessity of your moonbounce project. I was fortunate enough to have known Paul, W4HHK (SK). Paul was quite a gentleman. Check out his obit here:

http://www.n4mw.com/PaulWilson.htm

Terry
Florida

Carl Bussjaeger said...

Don't read too much into the death threats report: I'd be willing to bet that most of the "threats" are along the lines of "I hope you get SWATted in a no-warrant raid now", "burn in hell, traitor", and "someday scum like you will be held accountable". Note that these are only threats to someone with a guilty conscience who understands exactly what he's just inflicted on other people.

Birds: Yep. Good, no-nonsense, rugged instruments that do what they're supposed to.

Eck! said...

My Bird 43 has followed me since 1972 when I bught it new as a land mobile
tech. Likely it will outlive me. One of my most useful instruments.

Eck!

North said...

Been a long time since I've been to anything like that. I hope you have a great time and find a treasure.