Another old bookmark I found. It shows some of the extra-ordinary lengths that have to be taken to keep the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope free from RF interference.
“I’m 1 mile east of command central in the Quiet Zone, sitting in a Dodge pickup with Wesley Sizemore, Keeper of the Quiet. In a world saturated with radio waves, the Quiet Zone is a haven and an anomaly. A unique combination of geography and legislation has rendered its 13,000 square miles nearly free of electromagnetic pollution. Sizemore’s job is to keep it that way.”
I found this link in my bookmarks. It quite a neat idea.
“What in heaven is a digital sundial?” That was the title of an article in Scientific American (August 1991), which prompted a flurry of mental activity in many a smart brain. One answer is on display here: a sundial that displays the time, not by throwing a shadow on a set of lines, but in plainly readable digits. The dial functions from 8:00 to 5.55�hr, in 5�minute steps. There is a smooth transition from one reading to the next.
Got this link from a mailing list. Paul has manuals for the FT-817/FT-857/FT-897 range of radios as well as the software to ‘Wideband’ the radios. Great resource if you happen to have any of these radios (I do :). Thanks Paul.
Research on elementary particles has revealed that the heaviest element known to science, Administratium, exists in two forms.
The newly discovered element, Managerium, is unique in that it has no protons or electrons, which means that it has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have 1 neutron, 125 deputy neutrons, 75 assistant deputy neutrons, 11 assistants to the assistant deputy neutrons…..
While waiting for the uClibc Toolchain to compile, I did a quick check on my bloglines subscription, and came upon this short piece. Its worth reading the full story. Basically Mr Barlow gets ‘cold called’ on Skype and tells the interesting story about the caller and the call.
I love the bit:
“Why me?”
“Because your name is John. I think that anybody named John speaks English.”
Whatever her (the caller) motives, it does show the real power of the Internet in making the ‘Global village’ so much smaller.
An interesting article on how the Earthquake that caused the devastation around the Indian ocean has affected, amongst other things, the length of a day.
“People using wireless high-speed net (wi-fi) are being warned about fake hotspots, or access points.
The latest threat, nicknamed evil twins, pose as real hotspots but are actually unauthorised base stations, say Cranfield University experts.”
It is very interesting to me as this is precisely what I’m trying to do at the moment on the SEINIT project where I work. I’m currently trying to put together a wireless linux distribution and the plan is to add Intrusion Detection (IDS) functionality. Part of that functionality would be to assume the Identity of Access Points that are being attacked in order to ‘lure’ an attacker into attaching to the ‘fake’ access point. Unfortunately I’m still fighting with a CF to IDE adapter :(.
I was in Clonmel yesterday visiting the folks, got my Dad to help me with a small wiring issue with my car.
I’m planning to have two Radio Transcievers in the car one dedicated to Tracking (APRS) and one for Voice communications. If I was unfortunate enough to hit maximum current draw on both at the same time it would require over 30Amps to power them. So yesterday we ran a dedicated cable out to the Battery. It should be safer than putting that much current through the loom in the Car.
