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Random link to blues music

Raulin de los Bosques found when poking around Jamendo.  Licensed under Creative Commons. Yes, I’ve branched out of Pandora, even though it plays a lot of stuff there’s also a lot it doesn’t know about.

Monday, July 26th, 2010 Uncategorized No Comments

lie detector stuff

recent;y stumbled on: https://antipolygraph.org/ and it kicked off some memories…

Ever since working at Raytheon and making a (pointless) trip to some place in DC for an interview for an ‘extra’ security clearance I’ve been kind of curious as to how such a silly thing keeps coming back to life. I didn’t actually get far enough to get to the “lie detector” test…they were very upset that I had friends in foreign countries and said I would need to curtail such unpatriotic activities. At that point I decided the ‘investiagtor’ or whatever he called himself was an a-hole and if the government didn’t want my (in hindsight perhaps limited) expertise then that was their problem.

But being an engineer, I was certainly interested in this big “doohicky” of a strip chart recorder with enough knobs to look like it belonged in a recording studio. One way glass in the room, etc., I’m sure the whole setup would intimidate someone who didn’t know that these things were useless…

In some respects too bad I didn’t get hooked up as it could have been fun to mess with them. But the no-friends thing already killed my chances so I left, flew back to Boston, and that was that. But I still wonder if in some file in the DoD I’m viewed as a security risk for refusing their BS.

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 Frustration, Uncategorized No Comments

Gullibility and the audio biz…

I’m always forgetting links to the true weirdos of the audio biz, luckily someone else maintains a great list:

http://www.ilikejam.org/blog/audio/audiophile.html

And an excellent collection of  “no BS” commentary on speaker wires but also illustrates how the audio industry has fallen into a death spiral of promoting woo-woo instead of actual value. And then we’re all shocked that people think MP3 at 64 kbits/sec sounds good…

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

Another analysis – wish there was a bit more info on the ABX tests

http://andreconsulting.com/Audio%20Equipment%20Snake%20Oil.pdf

Yet another good set of links to materials on the silliness that pervades the consumer (high-end) audio business:

http://www.bruce.coppola.name/audio/wisdom.html

Friday, February 6th, 2009 Audio, Engineering, Frustration, Uncategorized No Comments

Online calculators

yet another one with some convenient formula and discussion on a range of EE topics.

http://circuitcalculator.com/

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 Uncategorized No Comments

City of Marlborough should be ashamed of itself

I remember reading the original newspaper post a fee months back when the town confiscated this persons legal property on a very flimsy excuse. Looks like the politicians are all covering their asses now, afraid to admit they made a huge mistake.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/86/8645sci1.html

Victor Deeb should be congratulated and encouraged for promoting science at a grass-roots level (well OK, he had some commercial interest too – but since when is being a garage entrepreneur against the law?), and the Marlborough town know-nothings are trying to stop him! What type of message does this send to parents that might have bought a chemistry set for their kids? Heck, I made all sorts of “nasty” stuff as a kid and it was a great learning experience. Would I be in jail these days?

Particularly here in Mass where we have lots of biotech, science, etc., companies and just a few world class universities…

My verdict (of course based only on what I read): Return all of Mr. Deeb’s stuff, and the town managers buy a chemistry kit for EVERY 6th grader in town for Christmas this year to encourage people to play with chemicals!

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Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 Frustration, Uncategorized No Comments

What part of the US constitution do politicians not understand?

Geez this type of absolute crap really, really, makes me want to take a baseball bat to these idiot politicians…what part of separation of Church and State do they not understand? To pick on a set of beliefs the way this political ad does is beyond disgusting.

It’s not so much that one dumb politician did this; there will always be individuals acting badly; it’s not seeing the Republican party stand up and loudly condemn this stuff and kick Dole back under her rock that is particularly appalling. Kind of like the smear campaign to use the word “Muslim” as meaning something bad (as in the Obama rumors).

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/104/story/286195.html

Even the press seems afraid to call this one for the blatant bigotry that it is. If the ad had used (in concept) “Jewish” instead of “Godless” you know the press and politicians would have been all over it.

I’m saving this link in case I ever start thinking I might vote Republican again…I’ll just play this video to knock some sense back in to me.

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Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 Frustration, Uncategorized No Comments