Interesting findings on the internet

[Zenith]

Looking on the WWW, Mitsubishi made a few 61" CRT TVs. With their high cost and weight, few if any of these outsize CRT TVs can have been sold. It seems more like an attempt to gain bragging rights than to produce a profitable product.

I remember helping someone install a huge CRT TV, I think in 2004. It took two of us to lift it. It may have been a 34" model.

I certainly don't miss big CRT based computer monitors.

[AVGresponding]

Yeah, my 28" flat widescreen weighs a ton and I thought it amazingly large, at the time I bought it (plasmas existed by then but were ludicrously expensive)

[Specmaster]

My 50" LG is flipping heavy, I would not be too happy about wall mounting it on a stud board wall that's for sure.

[Cubdriver]

My friend had I think a 32" CRT set. He and I have moved it up and down stairs several times over the years at his wife's behest; it's definitely got some gravity in it. The last time we moved it, I was sorely tempted to drop it on her!

-Pat

[Zenith]

In 1990 I was using a computer with a 21" monitor. Big, heavy, but not too much to pick up, awkward and very expensive. We had an office move, so I picked it up and was carrying it to the new location. On the way there I touched a screw head on the bottom and had a shock. It must have been accumulated static which had originated in the EHT, which was around 25kV I think. How I managed not to drop it is still a mystery.

[bd139]

I remember back in the day a friend of mine had a brand new fairly large 28" FD Trinitron. So he's sitting there watching it and the wood-worm infested floor gave way. The thing went straight through and landed on top of the people downstairs' television. That was quite a mess to sort out. Lots of insurance and lease issues!

Fortunately no-one was hurt. Now a 55" TV weighs less than half of it!

Biggest thing I had is attached....

fixed.jpeg

[mansaxel]

I remember back in the day a friend of mine had a brand new fairly large 28" FD Trinitron. So he's sitting there watching it and the wood-worm infested floor gave way. The thing went straight through and landed on top of the people downstairs' television. That was quite a mess to sort out. Lots of insurance and lease issues!

Fortunately no-one was hurt. Now a 55" TV weighs less than half of it!

Biggest thing I had is attached....

fixed.jpeg

I have 2 off Beovision LX2802 in the garage. And a small Sanyo whose claim to fame is a BNC video input (PAL).

[tggzzz]

From the mailing list that will be 40yo this year, and which everyone should read[1], I give you a pointer to a database that AIn't going to be getting smaller: the AI Incident Database https://incidentdatabase.ai/summaries/incidents/

[1] Originally usenet, SNR>>1, low frequency. I spot what's changed via its RSS feed http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/

Neat analogy plus followup question from the current issue, useful for the credulous http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/34/52/#subj30

A non-tech analogy for Google Search AI Overviews
Lauren Weinstein <email present in the original>
Tue, 31 Dec 2024 10:28:03 -0800

Here's a non-tech analogy to the problem (well, a problem) with Google AI
Overviews:

Let's say you go to a restaurant. Maybe they're offering free meals
that day, maybe you're paying. Either way, several plates of
reasonable appearing food are placed in front of you. You ask about
the ingredients, but you only get vague answers back if any, and the
restaurant refuses to tell you anything about the actual recipes per
se.

You notice a little card sticking out from under one of the plates. It
reads:

"Some or all of this food may be fine. Some or all of this food may
have a bad taste. Some or all may give you food poisoning. It's up to
you to double check this food before eating it—we take no
responsibility for any ill effects it may have on you."

Still hungry?

[tggzzz]

There are no men (real or otherwise) in the USA.

While we already knew it, now it has been officially defined as USA Government policy

Moments after the presidential inauguration, US President Donald Trump signed several anti-scientific executive orders (EOs), such as taking the United States out of the Paris Agreement to curtail human-made climate change and withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization. He also signed an EO targeting trans and non-binary people which had the unintended consequence of making every single American female. If you will legislate with scientific words, you should know the science.

https://www.iflscience.com/trumps-execu ... male-77710

[bd139]

There are no men (real or otherwise) in the USA.

While we already knew it, now it has been officially defined as USA Government policy

Moments after the presidential inauguration, US President Donald Trump signed several anti-scientific executive orders (EOs), such as taking the United States out of the Paris Agreement to curtail human-made climate change and withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization. He also signed an EO targeting trans and non-binary people which had the unintended consequence of making every single American female. If you will legislate with scientific words, you should know the science.

https://www.iflscience.com/trumps-execu ... male-77710

Trump has single handedly improved the European defence and science sectors overnight.

[tggzzz]

There are no men (real or otherwise) in the USA.

While we already knew it, now it has been officially defined as USA Government policy

Moments after the presidential inauguration, US President Donald Trump signed several anti-scientific executive orders (EOs), such as taking the United States out of the Paris Agreement to curtail human-made climate change and withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization. He also signed an EO targeting trans and non-binary people which had the unintended consequence of making every single American female. If you will legislate with scientific words, you should know the science.

https://www.iflscience.com/trumps-execu ... male-77710

Trump has single handedly improved the European defence and science sectors overnight.

Nice idea, but things are too intertwined now.

Example: we have F35 fighters. Where are they serviced? (Hint: not a one word or even paragraph answer).

Example: BAe is a UK space and defence company; true or false?

Shame about Brexit and Galileo.

[bd139]

Nice idea, but things are too intertwined now.

Example: we have F35 fighters. Where are they serviced? (Hint: not a one word or even paragraph answer).

Example: BAe is a UK space and defence company; true or false?

Shame about Brexit and Galileo.

Marham. (as in RAF Marham). We also make a fair chunk of the parts of it. Includes critical electronics and most of the arse of the fuselage.

As for BAE Systems, it's a British company yes. There are no shareholder groups outside of the UK with a majority combined vote (I think US holdings is 36% including the company I work for ).

No one is going to piss us around on defence from the US but there is a growing market in Europe for BAE products of course.

As for Galileo, yes agree entirely. I hope that we will correct the Brexit mistake before either of us are dead. I quite want to bugger off and live somewhere else in Europe.

[tggzzz]

Nice idea, but things are too intertwined now.

Example: we have F35 fighters. Where are they serviced? (Hint: not a one word or even paragraph answer).

Example: BAe is a UK space and defence company; true or false?

Shame about Brexit and Galileo.

Marham. (as in RAF Marham). We also make a fair chunk of the parts of it. Includes critical electronics and most of the arse of the fuselage.

It is not entirely clear who much they can do. Last I looked the F35 engines were being maintained in the US and Turkey. I hope the geopolitical realities of the latter have sunk in.

The BAe website is a little coy. They mention engine removal and refit, but are how much are P&W going to tell RR and vv.

As for BAE Systems, it's a British company yes. There are no shareholder groups outside of the UK with a majority combined vote (I think US holdings is 36% including the company I work for ).

"Headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, BAE Systems, Inc. employs nearly 41,000 across its major operations in the United States, United Kingdom, and Sweden, and generated 2023 sales of $13.6 billion." At a quick glance that's about 40% of BAe worldwide.

Inc could easily be sold/nationalised. I wouldn't entirely put the latter past the incoming clever, competent, trustworthy, level-headed, young, white president.

No one is going to piss us around on defence from the US but there is a growing market in Europe for BAE products of course.

As for Galileo, yes agree entirely. I hope that we will correct the Brexit mistake before either of us are dead. I quite want to bugger off and live somewhere else in Europe.

I doubt it will be in my lifetime But then I doubt the gulf stream will significantly weaken in my lifetime; that would allow polar bears in London!

I imagine we could force the point about us not being able to use Galileo. The upcoming NATO exercise in Romania might demonstrate what happens to them if we can't find our way around

[tggzzz]

I've got a new favourite unit, replacing furlongs/fortnight...

Neutron fluence is measured in neutrons per kilobarn ...

https://www.nuclear-power.com/nuclear-p ... s-fluence/

[bd139]

Nice idea, but things are too intertwined now.

Example: we have F35 fighters. Where are they serviced? (Hint: not a one word or even paragraph answer).

Example: BAe is a UK space and defence company; true or false?

Shame about Brexit and Galileo.

Marham. (as in RAF Marham). We also make a fair chunk of the parts of it. Includes critical electronics and most of the arse of the fuselage.

It is not entirely clear who much they can do. Last I looked the F35 engines were being maintained in the US and Turkey. I hope the geopolitical realities of the latter have sunk in.

The BAe website is a little coy. They mention engine removal and refit, but are how much are P&W going to tell RR and vv.

As far as I understand the RAF and BAE spent a lot of time reverse engineering things including the software and electronics on the F35 so they can remain sovereign aircraft should they need to be. I suspect these are only stop gap fighters anyway, to replace Typhoon/Tornado and won't be refreshed. Strategically speaking the analysis coming from the Ukraine war and fighting terrorists in the Middle East suggests that air superiority looks very different in 2024 than what they thought it did a decade ago when they put orders in. I suspect things like Taranis and Tempest are the future although that depends on someone pulling their finger out and getting rid of all the impractical shit from the marketing first.

As always time will tell.

As for BAE Systems, it's a British company yes. There are no shareholder groups outside of the UK with a majority combined vote (I think US holdings is 36% including the company I work for ).

"Headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, BAE Systems, Inc. employs nearly 41,000 across its major operations in the United States, United Kingdom, and Sweden, and generated 2023 sales of $13.6 billion." At a quick glance that's about 40% of BAe worldwide.

Inc could easily be sold/nationalised. I wouldn't entirely put the latter past the incoming clever, competent, trustworthy, level-headed, young, white president.

I'm not sure that would be a consequence of even Trump. The thing is that much like Raytheon Systems Limited back in the day, which was subordinate to the US parent Raytheon, it's a legal construct more than anything to ensure that there is a contractable presence in the country which is required for defence contract negotiation. The threat should anything happen is that the entire workforce get laid off and contracts wiped out, likely as described in the contracts themselves if such a move should happen. That would be a strategic nightmare for the US.

No one is going to piss us around on defence from the US but there is a growing market in Europe for BAE products of course.

As for Galileo, yes agree entirely. I hope that we will correct the Brexit mistake before either of us are dead. I quite want to bugger off and live somewhere else in Europe.

I doubt it will be in my lifetime But then I doubt the gulf stream will significantly weaken in my lifetime; that would allow polar bears in London!

I would love to see polar bears in London but only on a warm day and if they are hungry.

I imagine we could force the point about us not being able to use Galileo. The upcoming NATO exercise in Romania might demonstrate what happens to them if we can't find our way around

Due to the defence pact we just signed with Ukraine and Poland, we have a good position on the negotiating table there. As always and my catchphrase at the moment: time will tell. We can hope.

A side note on GNSS, this is interesting: https://gpsjam.org

[tggzzz]

Marham. (as in RAF Marham). We also make a fair chunk of the parts of it. Includes critical electronics and most of the arse of the fuselage.

It is not entirely clear who much they can do. Last I looked the F35 engines were being maintained in the US and Turkey. I hope the geopolitical realities of the latter have sunk in.

The BAe website is a little coy. They mention engine removal and refit, but are how much are P&W going to tell RR and vv.

As far as I understand the RAF and BAE spent a lot of time reverse engineering things including the software and electronics on the F35 so they can remain sovereign aircraft should they need to be.

I'm sure they have spent a lot of time understanding the externally observable behaviour (for varying meanings of "external"), principally to understand what each "component" can and can't do. I'm also sceptical that they could determine the internal implementations in sufficient detail to be able to replicate them within a useful timescale.

I suspect these are only stop gap fighters anyway, to replace Typhoon/Tornado and won't be refreshed. Strategically speaking the analysis coming from the Ukraine war and fighting terrorists in the Middle East suggests that air superiority looks very different in 2024 than what they thought it did a decade ago when they put orders in. I suspect things like Taranis and Tempest are the future although that depends on someone pulling their finger out and getting rid of all the impractical shit from the marketing first.

As always time will tell.

Just so.

Similar thoughts have occurred to me, and not just in the air. Almost 15 years ago there was a young glider pilot who was progressing towards becoming a pointy jet pilot, with the F35 on the horizon. I remember wondering whether there really would be a long-term future as a fighter pilot. As usual, my strategic thinking was correct, but my timing was shit.

A key weakness is the remote control channels. We know China has sat killers, and I would be stunned if other countries couldn't do similar.

None of the thoughts about drones are new. There's a famous story "War No. 81-Q", written by a 15yo kid in high school in 1928. That kid was interesting in many ways. At the age of seventeen, he negotiated a silver loan for China on behalf of his father - Sun Yat Sen’s legal advisor and one of the financiers of the Revolution of 1911. He later became a colonel in U.S. Army Intelligence, despite partial blindness and general ill health—he once shocked guests at a dinner party by downing a “cocktail” of hydrochloric acid to aid his digestion. He also wrote the standard textbook on Psychological Warfare, originals of which sell for obscene sums (i.e. multiples of the price I got when selling my "The Dune Encyclopedia" )

As for BAE Systems, it's a British company yes. There are no shareholder groups outside of the UK with a majority combined vote (I think US holdings is 36% including the company I work for ).

"Headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, BAE Systems, Inc. employs nearly 41,000 across its major operations in the United States, United Kingdom, and Sweden, and generated 2023 sales of $13.6 billion." At a quick glance that's about 40% of BAe worldwide.

Inc could easily be sold/nationalised. I wouldn't entirely put the latter past the incoming clever, competent, trustworthy, level-headed, young, white president.

I'm not sure that would be a consequence of even Trump. The thing is that much like Raytheon Systems Limited back in the day, which was subordinate to the US parent Raytheon, it's a legal construct more than anything to ensure that there is a contractable presence in the country which is required for defence contract negotiation. The threat should anything happen is that the entire workforce get laid off and contracts wiped out, likely as described in the contracts themselves if such a move should happen. That would be a strategic nightmare for the US.

Agreed. Trump appears to be constrained by neither legality nor sense. He appears to think he can only win if you lose; win-win appears to be a null-concept for him. He enjoys that.

No one is going to piss us around on defence from the US but there is a growing market in Europe for BAE products of course.

As for Galileo, yes agree entirely. I hope that we will correct the Brexit mistake before either of us are dead. I quite want to bugger off and live somewhere else in Europe.

I doubt it will be in my lifetime But then I doubt the gulf stream will significantly weaken in my lifetime; that would allow polar bears in London!

I would love to see polar bears in London but only on a warm day and if they are hungry.

I imagine we could force the point about us not being able to use Galileo. The upcoming NATO exercise in Romania might demonstrate what happens to them if we can't find our way around

Due to the defence pact we just signed with Ukraine and Poland, we have a good position on the negotiating table there. As always and my catchphrase at the moment: time will tell. We can hope.

Ah, yes. There's always Pandora's box, and maybe the horse will learn to sing

A side note on GNSS, this is interesting: https://gpsjam.org

No surprises there.

10-15 years ago there were regular NOTAMs stating that GPS accuracy was reduced south of Aberystwyth. What could possibly have happening at Aberporth? Surely nothing to do with Qinetiq

[synx508]

On the subject of GNSS, my Bodnar gps locked oscillator has new firmware which defaults to a mix of US and Russian satellites, choosing not to involve China or Europe. The old firmware didn't use the Russian constellation but did use all the others. The chipset can support multiple constellations but not all of them simultaneously and since the latest change the positional accuracy has improved considerably. I don't have any references that are better than it, so I can't check that. Leo Bodnar fixed the bug that prevented the FLL working but didn't update the version number until this new version appeared recently - it turns out that the firmware releases are not directly downloadable and well hidden, the firmware update tool downloads them on demand to the Windows PC's memory and flashes the device without storing the update permanently on the PC's storage. The binary that does this is encrypted and signed. I haven't looked at the network traffic but it's probably HTTPS, I also haven't looked at the USB transfer but I've a feeling that might be encrypted too. Clearly not keen on having the firmware nicked and put into a cheap clone and I can't say I blame them but it would be nice to have a proper changelog for the firmware and version numbers that increment when those changes happen rather than at other times.
I was wondering if anyone knows why accuracy is seemingly compromised when using a mix of Galileo, GPS and BeiDou versus the seemingly better performing combination of GPS and Glonass?

[Zenith]

Dunno. I have a TM4313 which appears to be perfect for my purposes and I find I'm oddly lacking in curiosity about how GPSDOs work. Designing one seems to be a fiddly business and rapidly leads down the rabbit hole of time nuttery and potentially vast expense. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a hole in the firmware. There's loads of stuff on the WWW. I've toyed with the idea of getting a Leo Bodnar unit for comparison. I recall it uses a new TCXO rather than a OCXO which is a pull from a cell tower. The Aliexpress cell tower pulls are extremely good from my experience.

[ch_scr]

Found this picture in one of the ESI manuals (252 AC bridge), took a moment to find a good one & scale to A3.
IMHO it's a proper "wall ornament" for any electronics lab, work or home.

[BU508A]

US restricts Switzerland’s access to AI chips

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/multinatio ... s/88781270

[AVGresponding]

https://emperoroftestequipment.weebly.com/

[Zenith]

https://emperoroftestequipment.weebly.com/

That's a good site. There are a lot of my favourites on it. It's also given me ideas about fixing my Racal 1991.

[tggzzz]

Wendy Grossman's net.wars column always worth reading, even if you don't necessarily agree with all her points.

The latest issue mentions "...Google now classifies the United States internally as a “sensitive” country, treating Donald Trump's USA in the same way as China, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia or Iraq"
and

[BU508A]

Local chemical heterogeneity enabled superior zero thermal expansion in nonstoichiometric pyrochlore magnets
https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-ar ... ogin=false



Here are the basics:
Predictive Theory of Anomalous Volume Magnetostriction in Fe–Ni Alloys: Bond Repopulation Mechanism of the Invar Effect
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcc.3c07037

[tggzzz]

Did you know that Alan Turing created a portable SIGSALY? Very few people did until the release of "the Bayley papers".

https://spectrum.ieee.org/alan-turings-delilah