A Sign?

So I was doing a preview of the post about the election and what should appear in the ad on the sidebar? Is it a sign? I don't own a wookie suit, but I guess I could find one on the net somewhere.

Death to Inefficieny

Death to independent bookstores. (Amazon)
Death to publishers. (Amazon)
Death to publishers again. (Apple)

Death to inefficiencies.

Euphemisms: How about a smoke and a drink?

Nifty article on the differences in euphemisms between cultures. A Chinese example:

One feature of Chinese euphemisms comes from the tonal nature of the language. Yan is slang for cigarettes; jiu means alcohol. But, with different tones, the two syllables together can also mean “to research”. So a corrupt official being asked to do something might suggest, “Let’s research (yanjiu) this issue together”, by which he would probably mean, “Give me some cigarettes and some alcohol and I’ll make it happen.”

andrewchen Euphemisms: Making murder respectable | The Economist econ.st/zFQnMZWed, Jan 18 11:19:04 from Timely by Demandforce

SOPA

I like being late to the game... it saves me the effort of writing an opinion and I can link to someone who said it better than I could have anyway. Larry Correia:

"As for SOPA, piracy sucks, but I’d much rather have some loser rip me off than give an already out of control government one more Orwellian power."

Amen.

Top Gear, Top Shot

Who wouldn't want their job as presenters on Top Gear?



Via ENDO

Form Factor and Integration

We want to do more and more with our personal computing devices - smart phones, GPS watches, tablets, etc. We've seen new smart phones get larger, so that we can have bigger screens. The GPS watches are not exactly tiny. Tablets come in a variety of sizes, too.

I think this really is the future - wearable computing. The key will be the integration of these devices in a personal area network (PAN). I'm sure the internal electronics will continue to get smaller, but if the devices can leverage each other, so there isn't so much redundancy, there is a real opportunity do more with less.

Baofeng UV-3R: Fix for Extremely Low Power

Many hams have measured the output of the UV-3R on low power and noted that is extremely low - as low as 100 mW. SP3SWJ reports a fix by "exchange some inductance in first stage transistor driver from 47nH to 220nH." You see his notations in the schematic here. He also reports the change improves the spurious transmissions on the harmonic.

Here are his measurements using Motorola R2670 on SMA antenna port:

HI POWER +33 dBm
2nd harmonics -27 dB
3rd harmonics -41 dB

LO POWER +16 dBm --- before fix
2nd harmonics -10 dB
3rd harmonics -44 dB

LO POWER +31.4 dBm --- after fix
2nd harmonics -27 dB
3rd harmonics -47 dB

He says the the change improves the output across all VHF frequencies.




Bert, DD5XL, verified that the mod works:

He "used a 150nH wire-wound 0603 SMT coil to replace the stock 47nH type. Before that my low-power output was around 60mW, it increased by nearly 10dB now up to 620mW with a fully charged battery (4,1V). High output is at 2,1W now, this increased of about 200mW compared with before mod.

I've also made a quick check with the spectrum analysator for the low-power setting, the first harmonic is now down to roughly -45dB, this is also an improvement although I already had a improved harmonic suppression by the PA0EJW filter mod."

Via the UV-3R Yahoo Group

Stupid

I try to avoid doing intentionally stupid things. I fight back when others try to rope me in. Case in point, I asked one of our service providers to send me a copy of their SAS70/SSAE-16 report for my auditors. When the report was ready, they asked me for the shipping address of the CFO of my company. Their auditors, who prepared the report, required that it only be sent to the CFO.

Really? In a completely pathetic attempt to protect their intellectual property, they want to ship the document to someone who a) doesn't even know anything about the service provider and b) will just send it on to me anyway. Reality check, aisle one.

After sending an e-mail to the COO of the service provider, they decided it would be okay to send the report directly to me.

I have several more examples of similar stupid audit rules and requests. I hope others are pushing back. Auditors aren't magical. Heck, their entire industry is built on GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). Generally accepted? That sounds cut and dried to me.

Lets stop being stupid and start being productive.

Adidas adiZero Rush

Maybe my next running shoe... I really like my current Adidas shoes.

wesrucker247 Bet they have an orange one. RT @darrenrovell: Adidas unveils adiZero Rush, its 7.5 oz running shoe ($100/pair) yfrog.com/nubypcsjTue, Jan 17 16:46:30 from TweetDeck

Game of Thrones - Season 1

Watch it again (or for the first time) in preparation for Season 2.

Season 1 will play on Thursdays at 10PM starting on January 26th. Season 2 starts on April 1.