Monday, February 27, 2012

An Open Letter to Chris Dodd from ESR

Sing it, brother! Quoting:
"I can best introduce you to our concerns by quoting another of our philosopher/elders, John Gilmore. He said: “The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
To understand that, you have to grasp that “the Internet” isn’t just a network of wires and switches, it’s also a sort of reactive social organism composed of the people who keep those wires humming and those switches clicking. John Gilmore is one of them. I’m another. And there are some things we will not stand having done to our network.
We will not have it censored. We built the Internet as a tool to make every individual human being on the planet more empowered. What the users do with the Internet is up to them – not up to Hollywood, not up to politicians, and not even up to us who built it. Whatever else we Internet geeks may disagree on among ourselves, we will not allow our gift of fire to be snuffed out by jealous gods."
Via Slashdot

Baofeng UV-3R: Survivalists and Preppers

Looks like the preppers see the UV-3R as a handy rig to have around... Survivalist Boards, Survive Kits, and Urban Survival.

Windows 8 Logo

Pogue I love the new logo for Windows 8. Ties in well to the "tiles" concept. ("Your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?") bit.ly/AakTVdFri, Feb 17 17:31:22 from TweetDeck

Heinrich Hertz Doodle

As you can see, I am catching up...

google Today's wavy doodle celebrates Heinrich Hertz, who proved the existence of electromagnetic waves cc: @GoogleDoodles pic.twitter.com/oVpiLWBkWed, Feb 22 13:11:22 from web

Good Company for Lent

So Coach gave up sweets for Lent, too.

wesrucker247 Cuonzo Martin also said he promised wife/boss Roberta that he'd give up sweets for Lent. "So far, so good, but that's a fight I can't win."Mon, Feb 27 12:31:16 from TweetDeck

Next They Will Build a Meth Registry

ciphergoth US crackdown on crystal meth means Sudafed is hard to buy. But meth is easy to buy; here's how to make Sudafed from it. heterodoxy.cc/meowdocs/pseud…Sun, Feb 26 08:02:04 from web
retweeted by andrewchen

Baofeng UV-5R: Manual

Ed (ImportCommunications) published a copy of the UV-5R Manual. I've not had a chance to read through it to see if there are any interesting bits.
UV-5R User Manual

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Yaesu FT-818

Time to play "Is it real or is it fake?" But, this time it is with a Japansese radio... a Yaesu FT-818? Looks like a photoshop job to me.

The Future of Ham Radios

This comment and the radio mentioned here got me thinking about the future of ham radios.

The variety of these Chinese radios amazes me. I've only been a ham for a short time. After listening to others and seeing the relatively few models that ICOM, Yaesu, etc. put out, I could see how one could become familiar with most of the ham radios.

That was until now... With the Chinese radios coming so fast and furious, it may be a game changer. Ten-Tec may be done with radios in 10-20 years as the original founders leave. Yaesu has spun off the amateur side of the business. In a few years, will we have a market dominated by the Chinese rigs?"