Test Equipment Anonymous

Interesting and well argued points (which I accept). What I was intending to draw attention to was the way DAB was promoted in the UK. Terms such as "crystal clear" and "perfect sound" were touted for a system relying on lossy compression, and politicians in particular wittered about "digital" as being superior and "analogue" being old-fashioned and inferior. I am sure they have no real understanding of what either term means. Yet that is how DAB was (mis)sold to the consumer.

On an entirely separate note, last week it was so hot that the slides on my little lathe locked solid due to differential thermal expansion of the metals involved. Really brought home the need for a stable toolroom temperature.

Blair put down Major as "An analogue politician in a digital age". It sounded pretty good, but he obviously didn't know what he was talking about.

As I said before, a flag went up for me when DAB was promoted as modern as tomorrow, the coming thing, and super kool. Whole radio programmes were produced to promote it, with competitions offering prizes of fabulous DAB radios. It reminded me of the old joke about Christmas raffles. First prize a turkey, second prize two turkeys, third prize three turkeys.

When transistor radios came about in the early 60s, the advantages over valve portables were obvious, and of course people bought them on their merits.

The weather last week, reaching 37C, was miserable. 37C may not seem much in large parts of the US, Australia, Southern Europe etc, but it was also very humid, which made it unpleasant.

mansaxel wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2026 9:33 pm Like it or not, the net won. Because it is modular.

I remember 30 years ago chewing the cud with colleagues while having lunch. There were two predictions...

If this Internet shopping thing ever took off, there would be oodles of money to be made in support services such as logistics. Bit of no brainer, that, since we weren't too far away from the place that demonstrated that phenomenon after 1849.

The other on initially struck me as odd, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense... all comes that then travelled through the aether would travel through copper/glass wires, and vice versa.

As for being modular, there are powerful forces opposing that, so it remains to be seen whether it will be true in a generations time. Some forces are overt and non-technical, some are more subtle and technical. Amongst the latter is googles' repeated attempts to get rid of URLs, or the growth of walled gardens hidden inside javascript implementations.

Some more miscellaneous rambling....

Did you ever get a thank you card from an auto mechanic? I never did either, until now...

I recently discovered that there was a dedicated Honda/Acura repair shop about 10 minutes away. Been in business since the 1980's. Since we are a 3 Honda household I figured I'd give them a try. I would have them do the required annual New York State Safety and Emissions Inspection. This inspection is basically the same as the UK MOT with a fixed price by the state of $21 USD. So in May the CR-V was due. Took it in and it passed. The only "up sell" was the tech discovered that the rear wiper blade was split. Cost: $9 USD. In June both the Civic and Accord were due. Both passed and no attempt at any "up sell". I am impressed. Their shop is large, clean, and they have an extensive parts area. And they try to use OEM Honda parts when possible. I will definitely keep them in mind if I ever need additional service.




I mentioned in prior post that I had to move my tower PC from the living room to the lab. It has much of my music of it and the audio system stayed in the living room. So I looked into a Bluetooth option. The PC had no wireless on it so I bought a combo card that included Bluetooth 5.3. This past week I received a Bluetooth 5.3 Receiver which I connected to the audio system. Connection was easy and I am impressed with the audio quality. I'm sure audiopools would scoff at that arrangement but these old ears notice no degradation. Again, I'm impressed.




And finally. Reminder to you Brits. Tomorrow (July 4th) we formally gave your King George the middle finger 250 years ago.

And we've just discovered a new copy https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... k-archives

I hope most people manage to make the celebrations more about themselves and less about one particular narcissist.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

"pursuit of happiness"??? surely thomas jefferson did not write that! maybe my fellow philadelphian ben franklin added it in an edit? (ben was quite a wacky dude)

my plan for the 4th is to finish binge watching all 41 episodes of the jeremy brett sherlock holmes series on roku. my apologies to med for watching a brit series on the 4th. i promise to flip the bird to king george at the beginning of each episode.

ps ok ok.....basil rathbone and nigel bruce were great in their time.......but that brett guy has become my ideal version sherlock.

Interesting that a copy of Declaration was found in the British Archives and that it even survived this long.

Tomorrow's activities are a picnic at Blondie's Daughter's and lots of (illegal) fireworks in the evening.

I forgive you Marco

nixiefreqq wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2026 9:59 pm
my plan for the 4th is to finish binge watching all 41 episodes of the jeremy brett sherlock holmes series on roku. my apologies to med for watching a brit series on the 4th. i promise to flip the bird to king george at the beginning of each episode.

ps ok ok.....basil rathbone and nigel bruce were great in their time.......but that brett guy has become my ideal version sherlock.

If you are familiar with the short stories and the two or three Holmes adventures that were novel length, the Jeremy Brett version was much closer to the original and had very high production values.

The Rathbone/Bruce version was more Hollywood influenced and most of the plots were nothing like Conan Doyle's works. I object to the way Dr Watson was portrayed as a blithering idiot, but that's a part Nigel Bruce seemed to slip into. The films were engaging.

Now the Rathbone/Bruce efforts were films and the Brett versions were part of TV series, which may explain some of the differences.

In the same vein, David Suchet is Poirot, but before and after there have been a string of pathetic imposters.

Zenith wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2026 10:29 pm In the same vein, David Suchet is Poirot, but before and after there have been a string of pathetic imposters.

Agreed. And there was a ridiculous mini-series on a few Christmases ago purporting to be a Poirot prequel. Complete nonsense and virtually incomprehensible.

Looks like I've opened up another TimeNut rabbit hole (wormhole?).
I've always fancied a master clock set up. Someone on a IO group was offering one and a couple of slaves. Only trouble is they are more than 3 hours drive away. But, my brother lives a couple of miles away and is visiting us next weekend So I ask him if he will pick up a couple of clocks for me. He said yes He's picked them up, apparently I "forgot" to tell him one is 5 ft tall
The master is a Gents Pulsynetic but I don't know the exact model. Can't wait to see what turns up. Can't ask for my money back if I don't like it as they were free. Only slight worry is SWMBO has ears like a bat and may complain about the noise it makes even though she likes long clocks generally. Pictures when it arrives.