|
|
Powered by subscribers to
Peoplenomics.com
|
|
Published Monday
- Friday about 8 AM Central Time ....some typos are fixed by 8:30 daily This site is supported by subscriptions: For additional content, please subscribe to Peoplenomics. . Content mirrored at: www.independencejournal.com, Kindle (.MOBI) version here
Saturday Update Another wave of bank failures in multiple states has our attention this morning, but that may not be nearly as significant in the long term as the report from an Australian source that government there is working on some civil engineering projects that plan for a 10,000-year flood. Not a happy thought to contemplate while we wait for more earthquake aftershocks in Haiti and Chile, is it....but is it actionable intel?
More for subscribers at www.peoplenomics.com. Subscriber info at www.peoplenomics.com/subscribe.htm - I'm told it's the best best all-round newsletter out there...
Gnawing the Jobs Report Let's start with the basics:
What used to be the easily found A12 table with alternative measures of labor underutilization has morphed into table A15, U-6 now and we find that (purported) "unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force" improved from 18.0% in January to 17.9% in February, but help me here...isn't this is the statistical noise level?
But what was most interesting about this morning's numbers was that I couldn't get the CES Birth-Death Model numbers since that page wasn't updated with February data as it usually is when the unemployment rate comes out.... which means, we don't know how many jobs were 'estimated into existence' for the report.
So, a call to the Labor Department...and they're trying to get it for me...and I will keep clicking here to see the details, but a Labor spokesman called me back to tell me the CES number was +97,000 jobs (not seasonally adjusted), so that accounts for how
But the real bummer? Almost 100-thosuand jobs were in professional and business services (51k) and temporary help (47.5k)...so many of the claimed jobs are of the temp/short term variety I reckon...
Related: Not Exactly the 1970's BUT... More than a thousand showed up to march at UC Berkeley over proposed budget cuts. Students want their educations...but say, if there aren't lots of jobs, what's the point, know what I mean?
Best I can tell the only real high payback education left out there are Master Gardener programs... MBA's are what, three for a dollar here lately?
Still Spending Just because the jobs picture is a little gloomy, that hasn't slowed government spending. It's already running $655 billion in the hole for the first five months of this year according to reports.
We'll just sit back and watch as the purveyors of the right/left politics scam try to convince us that one, or the other, is responsible for the mess. The republicorps point at the democorps (and visa-versa) but somehow, I think most people figure there's plenty of blame to go around. Oodles and heaps, in fact.
Emotional Relief Valves Don't know if you have noticed the number of crimes and attacks that happen just at propitious moments in the market. For example, the timing of 9/11 when the country was about to notice that the internet bubble had collapsed and we stood on the verge of a second depression by late 2001. Yet, as history shows, that event created an overnight industry -- security) and provided time for a new bubble (no doc loan real estate) to be founded and the game of musical chairs continued again.
So with this in mind, I
somehow sense that
the Pentagon shooting incident overnight might be
lumped in a similar 'relief
valve' context that our friend Bob Hitt noticed a year or
three back in his studies of the astro timing of events and mass
shootings. Is the market near an inflection point? So yeah, terrible tragedy and all, but funny how this could be a scapegoat (along with 'winter') for the market's reaction to the jobs report.
Bothersome Quake Trend A friend of ours up in Oklahoma sent this note overnight:
Yeah, we noticed. And then just a short time ago, Chile pops off with a magnitude 6.6 this morning. So will the next one be a seven something or just a 6.8-6.9???
Cyber Snooping More details about just how far "Uncle" goes in snooping the 'net have come out in a paper from the National Security Council on the "Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative".
Key part: deployment of a government-wide system called "Einstein3":
Since a lot of domestic surveillance is done offshore (places like Menwith Hill, England and Alice Springs, Australia come to mind) we'd expect a little more traffic in the outback so workers not in the USA can surveil us "legally"...
Pappy always taught me an "honest man has nothing to fear" but that may be one of those concepts that expired when machine-reading of email came along. Oh well, see you in the camps, I suppose.
Trash Chipping One more reason to live in the outback where trash is handled by humans not machines. you see where chips have already been deployed to 2½ garbage cans in the UK to weigh what people throw out? Presumably what follows is a trash tax or pay-as you throw collection fee...
Freakin' lovely. But it gets even better...
Stamping Out Mail
I'm still buying "forever" stamps just assuming rates will go up since they have been getting much higher over time.
Look: In 1975 the minimum wage was about $2.35 and a first class stamp was a dime. So, work an hour and back then you could buy 23-24 stamps, with me?
OK, the new federal minimum wage is what? $7.25. So now, for an hours work you can only buy 16.8 stamps for an hour's work.
--- snip and save section ---
PROBE: Chemtrails, HAARP and ET's Late, great Seattle DJ from the 1960's and 70's, Lan Roberts had a wonderful idea way back in the day. An organization of just regular folks with smart minds and the ability to ask questions in an unusual - almost time monk-like way with a real sense of detachment in order to be led to whatever the improbable truth of a situation might be.
He even went to far as to come up with a name for such a responsible group of citizens which we might as well hijack since no one else seems to be interested in the concept. he called it the "Private Responsible Organization Bringing Effect - or PROBE for short.
Every once in a while, I get an email from someone who is not an 'insider' in the usual sense, but who has knowledge not commonly spread amongst 'the peeps' too widely. When an email or tip like that comes in, I immediately think back to Lan's "PROBE" concept and wonder "Gee, why hasn't anyone else put out the call for citizen-research to be sorted through?
The good (and bad) about the PROBE concept is that it doesn't take very long to sort through all the crap on the 'net and figure out that it's mostly a bunch of 'me-too' postings where 8-gazillion people take a single factoid and then run off with cross-postings on several dozen forums (fora) such that in the end, only someone with a clear-headed/research-oriented approach can really weed through available data and ask original questions based on data that's staring all the sheeple in the face, but because it's so heavily cross-posted, the real cream research, rather than rising to the top, sinks to the bottom and any breakthrough thinking gets lost in the fabric of cross-postings.
As an example, here's what a PROBE Call for Research might look like:
Anyway, that's an example of how PROBE could work. Essentially, the idea is to get good brains and research in a publicly accessible platform and try to push the knowledge frontiers out a ways. We the People don't have to be as bright as the PowersThatBe...but we need a better coordination of research rather than the multiplicity of circular cross-postings that passes as monkeymind food.
There Goes Any Spare Time Department Don't know if you're aware of it, but Popular Science has done a really ballsy thing: they've put their entire 137-year history of issues up online for free browsing.
All I can says is Wow!
Just go do a simple article search on a little word like "gravity" and get back to me when you've read everything on the subject in the PS archives. Don't expect I'll be hearing from you for a while, LOL...
Fish 'n Fishy OK, the obvious about the mercury in fresh water fish is what?
That's kinda what I was thinking... coming originally from the Pacific Northwet (sic) I don't usually think about coal-fired energy plants since so much of the PNW is run off hydro...but I get it, I get it. Wanna go fishing this weekend anyway?
Pour Me/Pour Us
Still, we put in about 2½ pallets of 80 lb bags (42 per pallet) so about 8,500 pounds of concrete for the base of the self-supporting 55 crank-up ham radio tower.
Then, since it went much faster than expected (by mixing two bags at a time) we had enough energy to pour a new well house foundation, a foundation for stairs off one of my new decks, a pad for the entrance to the office expansion/library/filing room, and still have a shot of rum by 2:45 PM.
The second shot of rum was devoted to a spirited discussion of what size Cat would be needed to dig out the concrete base in case we ever needed to...we agreed a D9 could do it, but we then got into debating whether a D6 could do the job, depending on if it could dig down around the whole thing.
Not that we're planning to move it (although I woke up in a sweat from the OMG we put the base in wrong dream...).
Did I mention that time included digging up an repairing a buried water line which the concrete pallet lift broke, too? Oh yeah, things are moving along at break-neck speed now.
Figure that today we will get the electrical finished being roughed in, the roof sealed up and tested and then insulation into the sidewalls and roof ready to sheetrock next week; the floor insulation was done before the CDX decking went on.
--- Send your comments to george@ure.net Shop Till You Drop Department: Peoplenomics This Week Time Travel & Financial Markets With the arrival of either the first - or with Haiti's large loss of life, arguably our second - "Great Quake" in Chile Saturday morning, I find myself compelled to jot down a few notes about time travel and financial markets, perhaps because in a very particular way, time 'is short' for all of us and, in another, because quite literally time is money and to the extent that you can accurately forecast what happens over some period of time correctly, your fortunes should improve. However, fortunes are not just limited to a big pile of 'paper assets' or even silver & gold. The real fortunes are those between your ears. Still, it seems a worthy project to better understand the future and how it foreshadows its own arrival...since there may be a method to its apparent madness. Oh, did I mention 2012 has moved? More For Subscribers To Subscribe, CLICK HERE
Cookie Video The folks at Maxa Research have put together a short video (sound track by guess who?) that shows the Maxa Cookie Manager. You can see it here.
I don't usually get all whipped up about software, but this is one of those dandy tools that just simply works great. First thing I put on my new computer when I got it was Avira Anti-virus and Maxa Cookie Manager (MCM). Either follow the on-screen download instructions of simply click:
Once you try it out, to upgrade to the fully functioning version, just click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those nasty and highly intrusive 'non-browser specific' cookies. Bonus: You computer may run faster.
Not for Mac's: MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world....so far. Give them time...
"Live on $10,000" A Year Having a hard time making ends meet? (Like who isn't, right?) A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 e-book "How to Live on #10,000 a Year...or less!"
It's an automatic download. It's written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left. A bonus section called "How to Build Anything" should instill confidence if you've never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too..... Click here for the index and details.
MyGroPonics My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics. It's an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few 'dollar stores' and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space - like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight). Sound interesting? It's just $10 bucks here...
Pass It On A different take on things - that's what you'll find here most mornings. If you know of anyone who might also like our content, simply click here and send a link to them. Or, if you hated what you read, send the link to all your 'worst enemies'. Like they say in Burbank, "Ain't no such thing as bad press..." ---- Last week's report is here. For back issues of this site, click here.
Thursday March 4, 2010 Scary Implications of Productivity Say, not to be a Grinch here, but you have seen this morning's Productivity numbers from the Labor Department?
Of course, the 4th quarter was when unemployment was hitting new highs. Which means what by implication?
Not only did productivity soar (since there were only 13 people left with jobs to produce for all the rest of us) but since more workers doing the same amount of work would lower productivity, I can't think of a good reason for hiring (and a job recovery) to take place yet. Inventory numbers aren't bad...so where's the job growth gonna come from?
Jobless claims were down a bit last week...but the 800 pound gorilla is tomorrow with the job report for February...which reminds me, is this...
Our First Winter? I can't remember there ever being this much economically-tied talk about this phenomena called 'winter'. Oh sure, you just think we have them every year. But no, here lately seems everyone from Summers to every other season seems to be rediscovering seasonality like it's a first. Take the Fed Beige Book out yesterday:
So is this a really, really big deal winter? Not hardly. Take the headline from an ABC affiliate in Florida: "Coldest winter ever? Not even close..."
So why all the blaming of winter? Thought you'd have figured that out by now: The weather's not able to do a talking-head standup on the 6:30 news and rebut such stories, near as I can figure. Makes it a perfect scapegoat as we continue to play the what?
The Blame Game While the whole world teeters on the brink of another financial implosion from (take your pick here) California, Greece, Ireland, the US getting its debt rating whacked, California finding the last possible cut, and so forth, nice to see the blame game is underway.,
"NY's Cuomo is 'father of subprime crisis:" Bove" was on CNBC Wednesday. --- I don't buy it (although Bove's no doubt a lot smarter than me...). To my simple-minded way of thinking, the whole general paper products explosion in finance (yeah, derivatives, et al) is like filling a house up with natural gas. Then along comes just one tiny little spark and the house goes kah-blooey! Was the 'spark' just Cuomo, Madoff, Iceland, or what? Heard a zillion ideas and not a single one holds water in isolation. The problem is systemic.
Who do you blame? The person with the rubber soled shoes who set off that tiny spark, or was the blame a little more general...like the community-wide effort to fill the house with gas, or in finance, the community effort to sell as much paper as possible to as many greater fools as could be found?
Seem to me the gas salesmen on The Street (Wall, Fleet and whatever) will, of course, say "Wasn't our natural gas that blew up this house...nossir...it was so & so wearing rubber soled shoes walking on the carpet..."
No, of course it wasn't. No blame for the greedy SOB's at the printing presses...why of course not. Have another quadrillion cubic feet more paper/gas and all our troubles will be over for sure.
'Cept we're running low on houses...
Tax the Net Crap You did notice that the swirling (as in sharks smelling blood) around the internet is coming back here in D2 (depression two) just as there was a massive power/control grab for Radio in the Great Depression of the 1930's.
Latest little fin to stick out is "Microsoft exec pitches Internet usage tax to pay for cybersecurity programs"? (Don't even say 'with friends like this..'.). ---- What everyone inside the brain-function-impairment zone (the Beltway) seems to forget is that we are all paying for cybersecurity already with the gazillion different antivirus, firewall, anti-malware, and cookie-sniffers.
If they're going to tax the net for 'cybersecurity' we gonna get some mercy on antivirus/malware protection? Hell no. This is what? A grab, of course!
Same kind of "make pay for it once, then make 'em keep paying for it' (like governments are doing with toll roads and then handing over revenue streams to offshore countries). Makes me wanna puke. --- Say, did this hit a hot button? Hand me the BP cuff...lemme check. Your wallet & mine is the blood to the revenue thieving sharks behind "more government". Just remember when the next 'terror' event comes, look for a big web component to stampede the sheep... it will only be a coincidence, of course.
Meds, please? Another Depression and oh look! Another grab for freedom of speech just like in '34...just a damn rhyme, ain't it? And social networking is just CB texted, but you're bright enough to figure that...
Healthcare Payoff What do you do if you're a president and it looks like the healthcare bill is in trouble? How's about buy a vote maybe by appointing an undecided democrat's brother to a plum federal judge position? But that's how politics works, isn't it? Did for the republicorps, does for the democorps...it's just 'binness' as usual...'
Spending Limit Jokes Jeb Hensarling from this part of East Texas and Mike Pence are pushing for a spending limit. They can't be serious: Congress just raises the limits at its convenience so besides a little grandstanding, let's get real, huh? I don't call this slapstick government without a reason. As soon as business started outbidding the folks back home through PAC's it was over...now it's just a matter of time till we return to the Constitution...but that could be a wild ride to watch...so we opt to do so at a distance. --- Republicorps trying to limit the democorp majority...Hahaha....good one! Crack pipe, please?
Golden Outlook A number of readers have been noticing that the price of gold seems to be going up again helped along, in part, by articles like the one this week's in BusinessWeek: "Soros signals gold bubble as Goldman predicts record..."
One reader sums up recent developments: "So while Soros is blasting gold on public television his firm is simultaneously accumulating huge positions in the metal. Unreal… " Uh huh..
Politics of Roswell New mayor is on the way in Roswell, New Mexico. Is politics alien?
Disappearance Meme While the search goes on for the that family of four that went missing in SoCal, another case of "disappeared" is interesting. It's the case of Lachlan Cranswick, an Australian nuclear scientist who's gone missing in Canada.
Killer Stampede 63 dead (maybe more by now)
as
a lunch at a temple in India turned into a stampede for freebies...
Why, just the other day I was reminded "even when there's no
price, there's still a cost to most things..." as here. For Filing My filing system gets clogged up when I see headlines like "Israel, Palestinians set for indirect talks".
My "Fixin' To Get Ready" files fill several rooms...
Something Fishy Going On... The report that "100 percent of fish in US streams found contaminated with mercury" has me scratching my head. the story goes on to report that about 2/3r'ds of the fish had mercury higher than EPA limits, too, but that's not what's bugging me.
The question I'm sorting through is "Where's the mercury coming from? People busting fluorescent lights and tossing 'em in fresh water? Ideas and research welcome but unless this is the first time fish have been tested, or there's been a breakthrough in things like mercury detection technology, something just isn't adding up here. Scare plan to further cut people off from natural food sources. maybe? Danged if I know, but something smells (wait for it) fishy.
You Are What You Eat, Still WebMD has a good story on the FDA continuing to find misleading labels from some major multinational food outfits.
Surprised? No? Say, you don't think those back-to-basics people who won't eat it unless they grow it, milk it, collect it, or skin it themselves may be onto something?
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: HAARPing on Quakes? Not sure what to make of the continuing rumor about the 'net that the High Active Auroral Research Project (HAARP) has anything to do with the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, but consider this....
Don't know if you have read
much in the subject area, but a good starting point is the book
"Angels Don't Play This Haarp: Advances in Tesla Technology
Way back in the day, when I was in charge of sales for a US HF radio manufacturer, we supplied some radio gear to the project and I remember thinking at the time "Hmmm...this is a kind of strange endeavor...."
Since everything has a 'cost/benefit ratio', I keep asking myself "Where's the benefit?" The Wiki entry on topic notes that as of 2008, the project had spent over $250-million (quarter-billion plus) on it's objectives. Which is what?
Speculation about HAARP has run the gamut from weather modification to mind control on a regional or even global scale to inducing earthquakes, looking for underground bases in Afghanistan (and the rest of the 'sandbox' and to even further-out possibilities like opening "star gates" and as means to disable anti-alien propulsion system devices.
Wild speculation, all. BUT the one thing that I thought I knew was that there's some truth to be found in 'investments' in basic science. In other words, in most rational human endeavors there's a multiplier applied to the cost of R&D.
So the way I figure it is pretty damn simple, really: One of the three following possibilities must be true.
1. This is a 'normal' project (as is claimed) and that fact of all the .dot mil and defense contractors being involved isa only because they so like spending money on basic research.
2. The project really has some hidden payoff that would be worth some multiplier of a quarter billion in spending. For example, with a payoff of four times research cost, is there a 'billion dollar baby' in here somewhere?
Sure seems to have some of the characteristics of the old Russian Woodpecker which was thought to be variously either an over-the-horizon-radar or something else (fill in your pick of conspiracies here).
3. HAARP is an out of control research project with grandiose schemes run wild with ineffective budgeting easily slipped past public scrutiny.
You're welcome to speculate to your heart's content, but here's a like to a video (be patient while it appears). I did a fairly good study of weather way back in my flying days and this whole thing over the past few years of circular clouds appearing doesn't seem to have much precedence...haven't found any photos made of the phenomena pre-HAARP, for example.
No, of course that doesn't prove anything. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
2012 Will Be Early Department The hints that 2012 may show up a year (or more?) earlier than expected keep popping up. For example, Carl Johan Calleman's website has an article "Why the Creation Cycles do not end December 21,2012 but October 28, 2011" that several have shared as worthwhile.
If I occasionally slip and mention phrases "sooner than we think" or "So much to do, so little time..." this is the kind of thing that's going on in background...
Buying a Shortwave Follow-up I bought that Grundig 750 shortwave radio I mentioned earlier in this week's column about getting a good shortwave radio. Mine came in (from Amazon) and worked great - for a couple of hours) and then died.
No amount of resetting and phone calls to Grundig could resolve it, so it's being returned. Don't know what I'll try next. Nice while it played....
But it reminds me to mention that if a modern piece of equipment is going to fail, it will usually do so in the first few hours of operation which is why whever I buy anything that has electronics in it, I turn it one and let it run for a couple of days straight through.
This 'breaks early or runs forever' phenomena is ,called "infant part failure. Usually happens to components like capacitors and occasionally, solid state devices.
In the short term, I have a most excellent 30-40 year old Drake SW-4A that was given to me by a member of the Drake family that will go back into service. No product detector for SSB, no FM coverage, but for just tuning in AM signals from the low end of broadcast to 30 MHz, the radio is fine if you don't mind the glow of a few tubes...and besides, some old radios have collector value as long as the global economy hangs together. The old Zenith Transoceanic (another oldie but collectable) is a little on the large side according to the resident interior decorator...
Peoplenomics Rollover, Redux Most Peoplenomics subscribers are r0olled over - happily - to the new logon and account management system. Here's a good one...
Been known to take their distance learning program, now and then myself, but no degree yet. Keep working on it, though.
Science at the WuJo More WTC-7 Analysis By the way, speaking of 'fishy" yet more data coming out recently (hadn't seen this) but there's a dandy video up on the physics of the WTC-7 collapse which, according to nongovernment experts, WTC-7's physics give away that the building didn't collapse without help....
But, of course, if you want to believe the "official version" no problem.
Clocking Time Distortions Contributed note:
Earthquake Magnitudes Even LARGER A reader at the big airplane company that likes skunks (got it?) sent in this correction to the quake magnitudes...
We sit corrected.
Oh...and my mention of Taiwan as a quake worry-spot? You saw they had a 6.4 overnight?
OK, off to the concrete mixing festival so I can put my ham radio antenna up...about 7-hours of mixing four pallets worth of concrete ahead...
Wednesday March 3, 2010 Record Earthquake Energy Year - In Just Two Months! A couple of readers asked a very interesting question after yesterday's report that yes, there may be something bigger than the economy to worry about: A dramatic increase in earthquake activity lately. Several readers asked if Tony Ring could run out the numbers and instead of just magnitudes, give us some idea of the total energy involved:
OK, so much for the monthly...what about the annual trend here? I combined the monthlies for each year and came up with this composite look:
My, that's reassuring, isn't it?
Whose Default Is This? Ah, from fault lines to default lines, where the top story of the day may turn out to be the boss of JP Morgan rightly says that California is a bigger risk to the global economy than Greece.
Let me see here...the GDP of Greece is $357 billion while the GDP of California is what? In 2008 it was $1.85 trillion so even with a little backsliding yep, the JP Morgan guy's not blowing smoke...
While the whole world shakes and jitters about Greece - and this morning's $6.5 billion 'austerity plan' as the latest Grecian formula - it's only about half the budget for CalTrans, as long as we're comparing things here.
Sorry Charlie Watch Rangel's wrangle wangle tangle mangle jangle... Without the Means, won't me much ways, huh?
Check Out Howard My friend and former Wall St. whiz Howards Hill has an interesting take on Milton Friedman's role in the Chile 'economic miracle' - good thinking material.
Desperation Sets In Since it may be occurring
to people in Washington (as it occurred here months back) that
there's no real jobs recovery yet they seem to be getting
desperate to get a national healthcare plan passed.
Just remember who does what in the House when lever-pulling time comes this fall. Outsource congress. --- It's again noted, by a nonpartisan group, that another financial crisis is on the way as the country suffers through the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Yeah, like it wasn't obvious to readers of UrbanSurvival since what, 2001?
Been really fun watching the buck-passing trying to delay the inevitable. Kinda like watching people at the beach yelling at an incoming tide. Whatever. --- The ADP jobs report sucked again - saying another 20,000 jobs were shed...and no, they didn't make as big a deal about winter as Larry Summers has been...say, there's a convenient phrase to pop up for you...has been. --- Challenger job figures out are improved with only 42-thosuand some in February versus 71-thousand something in January. But let me see: it was a shorter month, no more after Christmas layoffs, and seems like this plane is still headed toward the what?
Pickpockets Rising Department Oh-oh: Next time you eat out, check the tab for a new "health" charge being tacked on in places like SF and Chicago so far... --- What most people don't think through is that whether healthcare comes from a national healthcare system and a series of taxes, or whether it comes down the private pipe, the costs may not be that much different.
In the end, people pay for everything one way or the other. So I don't get terribly worked up about these debates in the closing hours of globalism. Just a matter of time and I may be around to see it...
Looking Ahead To watch our behinds: Productivity numbers are due from slapstick economics tomorrow and then jobs on Friday.
Much being made of a report claiming "An Astonishing rise in anti-immigrant, anti-government groups." --- Just so we're clear about this: Around here we're not 'anti-government' by any means. We just remember that government is supposed to be by and for The People. Not buy and for corporate interests which now have more rights and deeper pockets than humans.
When it becomes (as I think it should) a crime to send money to any out of state campaign for anything other than the presidential contest, just count me as a third party guy who votes "none of the above' every chance he gets.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: Down at the WuJo, ODM's While it's no secret that I'm 61 (Elaine's age is classified) most people can't believe us when we (seldom) reveal my age. Got to thinking about why that might be...luck of the gene pools? Or, when we were young, did we sleep in pyramids during that 'pyramid power' meme that went around in the 1970's?
Reason I mention this is that I got an email yesterday which definitely fits into the WuJo arena...where reality meets esoteric on the mental mat. Check this story out...
Heck yes! Send along the rest of the esoterica about construction if you can find 'em and I'll post them. Still, very interesting...makes me wonder if cones would work (coneheads?) but even more so, I wonder if a copper-clad pyramid worn on the head would somehow change consciousness...hmmm... --- Related: All of which gets me around to speculating if some of my 'pyramid experiments' I did in the 1970's had some long-term effect...Elaine doesn't recall sleeping in a homemade pyramid, but doesn't rule it out as could have been something tried once...
From an acupuncture standpoint, there's one other thing that might hold a clue to anti-aging: Spinning. Classic whirling dervishes spin counterclockwise when viewed from above as shown in this video.
Every once in a while I do a few spins in the shower...and some subtle energy researchers I know say this has something to do with 'spinning up' of one's chakras. One theory is that if you physically spin counter clockwise, the apparent rotation of your chakra energy will increase relative to your body since chakras purportedly spin clockwise.
Like I said, I've never done a real study of people who look especially young for their age, but I do remember that the kid I grew up with (who lived up the street) had frequent 'spinning contests' with me to see who could spin the most before falling over.
Later on in Life, I discovered rum or sake could do the same thing. Ozeki for breakfast?
Another Young Sailor A reader (from down-under) sent me a note politely admonishing me for not being aware of the adventures of Abby Sunderland, another 16-yeaqr old woman who is in the midst of a 'round-the-world-solo' cruise.
What's interesting about this (I mean besides the number of 16-year-old females involved) is that the Sunderland boat appears the much faster of the two. Her boat is a tad longer than the S&S 34 which Jessica Watson (corrected website http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/) is driving around.
If you've never engaged in the fine art of sailboat racing (not that this is a race, per se, but the definition of a race to sailors is two boats going anywhere near the same direction), you might think that since the Sunderland boat has a longer waterline, that it would be the one to bet on.
T'ain't necessarily so. The way sailboat racing works is this: Different sailboats have different racing 'ratings'. These ratings (which can be enough to give sailboat race committees headaches) are touched on here.
So, the way this works is like this:
Actual Time by Boat Rating = Corrected Time
So, you can be the first one over the line in a sailboat race and still have your butt handed to you because you didn't win on corrected time.
Since most of my racing was under the Sloop Tavern Yacht Club in Seattle (known about equally for their fish & chips and their winter on Puget Sound Iceberg series) I occasionally would be up around 2nd or 3rd at the finish line and still lose on corrected time because the Hunter 40 carried a relatively fast rating of 102. The faster the boat (all things equal) the lower the rating, the faster the boat.
All comes down to sail dimensions and displacement plus a little woo woo, near as I can figure. But, trust me, the Sloop race committee never bought into my argument that since I was living aboard and had maybe 1,500 pounds of extra gear aboard, that I should have raced with a more realistic (to me, anyway) rating. The boat's rating was 108 and that was that.
I can see the problem, of course: If the Magic Elf had been granted an exception for 'liveaboard weight', then it wouldn't be long before some of the ULDB (ultra-light displacement boats) would be arguing that they should have a slower rating (which would improve their corrected times) because the two foredeck gorillas brought along six sandwiches and a Thermos. Doggone integrity of 'the system' anyway.
If you have nothing to do all day, you might cobble up estimated ratings for both the Sunderland and Watson boats, do some course & time figuring and send in your estimate as to who is ahead on corrected time at the moment.
Peoplenomics Changeover The Peoplenomics access system finally got rolled over yesterday with (knock on wood) a limited number of problems.
A few people discovered that if they changed their password, they would have to wait for a few minutes (while the system caught up) and close their browser session then restart it, so as to clear the existing session cookie from their computer's cache...that was one minor problem.
Then, a few people didn't understand that by going to the new member logon page that a) they can send their access information to the email address they signed up with and b) that if you go into the site that way, you'll be asked to put your logon in twice.
But, overall, it went pretty well, I think. The object of the change was to get more responsive to subscribers. The system allows for resending username and password information without having to wait on me to look it up and send it back (provided my email filters didn't lose the request, which happened more than it should have) and to see that the process of signing up could be done mon-the-fly. Now, instead of waiting for my every-couple-of-days batch processing, the subscriptions are done on-the-fly by linking directly with PayPal.
No, it's not perfect but it works great so far. The signup page, if you'd like to have access to the additional reports on the Peoplenomics side is here.
Around The Ranch: Buying Time I can't do everything by myself it turns out. 30 acres, a multitude of projects, and a tight clock toward certain events in our future, have driven me to actually hire some local folks who are genuine whizzes at all things construction-wise.
That said, in the past week, the crew has managed to complete the water well, layout, foundation, frame, and roof a 10 X 24' addition to my office. They figure today it will have the siding up which means tomorrow, while the crew is doing a hand mix of 160-bags of concrete for the tilt-over ham radio tower, Panama and I ought to be able to run the wiring for the addition.
Which means on Friday, the crew ought to be able to insulate and sheetrock the addition, and finish off a couple of small pours of concrete (a stair landing for one of the decks, a handing for the new build, and then next week, they'll be able to finish the sheetrock taping/mudding and paint. --- The hand mix & pour festival tomorrow would have been a simple 3½ yard pour of premix. But, that was before the local premix emporium advised me that if their truck (all 45,000 pounds of it) got stuck due to the ground being somewhat soft from recent rains, guess who'd be responsible for the wrecker to pull it out? Oh...and paying $60/hour wait time until the wrecker arrived and...well, no thanks. The guys will be doing the hand mix and frankly, I'd rather pay them their hourly and do a 'continuous pour' rather than gamble with the unknown factor on the premix truck, or paying wait time while I run tractor-buckets of mix over to the pour from firm ground. Cost is about the same either way. --- Good guys, too. One of 'em used to work for a restaurant chain as an operations troubleshooter, as I understand it. But after moving something like nine times in 4 years, he hung that up and decided to do contracting work locally.
His partner's a fellow who has done just about everything people do in Texas, construction, welding, wildcatting, and a fair bit of CDL/over-the-road.
You have no idea what a pleasure it is to pay people who intuitively 'get it'.
"I'd like to have the well automatically feed the house if the rural water ever goes off..." Only to have the crew tell me "Oh, yeah, we did that on (so and so's) property...used a 24 volt RV pump to backfeed the house, so just one valve to shut off...." With the solar system set up for 24V this is about perfect, near as I can figure.
I'm buying an antenna from the estate of a friend who passed away a few months back... the crew will be handling both ends of that, too.
Yup, competent fellows - and it reminds me again that as much as I like the many projects around here, no shortage of them anyway, sometimes hiring some talented local folks is a dandy use of resources especially when you're trying to buy time for what's ahead.
Tuesday March 2, 2010 Peoplenomics Subscriber Note: Our new subscription, logon, and automated customer service software has (at last) gone live.
Please see logon instructions at the top of the Peoplenomics.com homepage.
To get your username and password, simple go to the member page here and scroll down to the "Lost Password?" box, enter the email used when you subscribed, and it will be emailed to you.
Once you log in, password changes may be done via this link.
A Bigger Problem than the Economy? Disturbing Quake Trends My friend Tony Ring has been slicing and dicing earthquake data again...and his latest charts give all the more reason to expect that our "4-5 more Great Quakes" forecast for this year will come to pass.
Consider these charts, starting with the count of quakes is going down:
BUT! While the count is going down the Average Magnitude is going UP!
But the MOST worrisome is the number of 6.0 and is going where?
I hope you saw where the "Chile quake may have tipped Earth's axis" which obviously could set off a whole series of follow-on quakes, so the linguistics - which may have seemed far-out in January when I told you about them - are now coming into focus as something to get serious about planning for. have you done any real quake prepping?
And then there's the ugly question I should repeat: How many countries can be severely shaken without busting the global economy? What would an 8.0 do in India, Taiwan, or Japan...nations that the US depends on to support its formerly lavish lifestyle that's already receding?
Remember the Chilean quake may have agricultural and food impacts when you're debating about whether to put in a garden this year.
Quake Fallout: Broken Promises Also, we're hearing back-channel (informally) from relief group sources that a number of countries which said they would step up with aid for Haiti are not coming through on their promises, but the MSM isn't saying anything about it because it would not be 'PC' and might embarrass a few countries. As it should.
Meantime, Chile is scrambling to get aid distributed. The good news: Thanks to good engineering of buildings, the Chilean quake which was what, 500 times larger than Haiti's? Has only resulted in around 700-800 deaths, at least so far. --- Friends up in Okie-lahoma are wondering about the 4.1 shaker up at Sparks on Saturday. My imagination, or is something moving in mid-continent? --- We still have either four or five great quakes to go this year (either Haiti-sized loss of life or over 8.0) depending on how you read the predictive linguistics. But headlines cause a certain kind of 'echo-effect' too, so wer;ll just count as they come.
You Know It's bad When I see that Larry Summers, White House economic [insert your own favorite adjective here], is coming out preemptively announcing that "Winter storms may distort the jobless figures" when they're released Friday morning.
This means a couple of things: first, it hints that the figures might show an increase in the 'offishul' (sic) unemployment rate...my guess is somewhere over 10% again from the last reading of 9.7%. I take it as an article of faith that someone in the Labor Department has the job of calling Summers and giving them a 'heads-up' when bad news lurks. Still, don't remember it being stated publicly like this in the past.
Not that it matters. Should be a fine time for B-school students to document the old adage "Buy the rumor, sell the news" though. The application I'd expect would be a run-up to the Friday morning report and then a decline following. But, seeing as the Obama administration would really like to get the Dow rolling (a shot at 10,800 or so might be in the cards if they can get a weekly close over 10,500) maybe this is just gaming. --- You saw where Donald Kohn sent in his resignation as a Fed governor Monday? This leaves Tim Geithner and the aforementioned Summers looking for a replacement.
My suggestion: As a showing of solidarity with the real people, please pick someone who is currently unemployed and an outsider to the Washington apparatchik. (Obviously, they won't, but it would be good form, don'tcha think, comrade?) --- No really 'big' economic numbers due this morning. Commodity traders will get some dairy products and energy stocks numbers today while Auto Sales will be out this afternoon. thanks to Toyota's problems, I expect domestic sales will be up for the next couple of months...no-brainer that.
Whose Money's in Opel? How good is your memory? Remember the bail-out of GM? Remember the mid 2009 stories about how the federal government was "making available about $30bn of additional federal assistance to support GM's restructuring plan..."?
So comes this morning the headline that "GM to triple funding for Opel restructuring" to the tune of $2.6 billion US) going into Opel & Vauxhall in Europe.
WTF? Have I missed something, or have we - the US taxpayers who've had our asses kicked all over the economic block - just been pawns to bailing out of a couple of EuroZone companies?
Hand me the ViceGrips...time to start pinching myself again.
All That Glitters... You know about the story bouncing around the 'net that there are some 'glod' bars that have been turning up with much of their contents found to be tungsten which is right next to gold on the periodic table? Well, a story over at ZeroHedge claims "German ProSieben TV Channel Finds 500 Gram Tungsten Bar At W.C.Heraeus Gold Foundry With Bank Origin..." Seems the foundry was melting a bar and....
All of which brings me to mention several things. First, weight along will not always tell the tale on gold bars. Second, it has been suspected by many (OK, including me) that the price of gold should be twice what it is. And thirdly, that if you think owning an EFT that tracks the gold action represents real gold you oughta read about how legal weasel words are used that can be read to mean there's no metal underlying some funds and that they only mirror the price performance and pay off in paper.
Wonder what the payoff of 'paper non-gold equivalents' will be if the tungsten-in-gold goes viral? Real gold, one would think would go up, but any time the words counterfeit are used values go down. So, is this stuff which long ago linguistically tracked to China really widespread?
The "R" Word, Again Under the headline "A world away from Texas" along comes the discussion of "Cascadia" again. This is something that has kicked around the Northwest ever since I can remember (which goes back to about 1976, or so). The main idea is that Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia are really6 separate places - intellectually and politically, anyway - from the rest of the US. --- All seems to come back to the Tenth Amendment: Not to be a rabble-rouser, (no, you're no rabble) but if you could kindly point me to where States empowered the government to bail ouit private insurance companies like AIG or water down the money by subcontracting money creation/value-setting to the bankers, I'd sure appreciate the help in my studies. Thank you. --- Meantime, "American reliance on government at all-time high" says the Washington Times. A coincidence of chaos or by design? Doesn't matter if you're homeless and hungry, does it?
Copycat #1? An incident at the IRS building in Weaver County Utah making headlines on Salt Lake TV... non-hazardous, we hear, but is it our first 'copy-cat' after Austin?
The Myth of Growth From the IRS "Winter 2010 Statistics of Income Bulletin" I thought this was interesting...since it doesn't quite square up with jobv and savings numbers pouring out of other government agencies:
Something to think about - will the incomes be down again when the figures come out for the 'recovery' we're statistically experiencing now? Hmmm...
Presidential Checkup The president's health is in the spotlight with headlines like "Barack Obama should drink less alcohol and try hareder to kick his smoking habit, doctors say." Shouldn't we all? The presidential cholesterol of 209 is a tad on the high side but then again, I tend a little toward 50 wt instead of 30 wt myself....
Speaking of Self Medicating... A new study being released today says that "Teen pot, alcohol use rising". Which doesn't exactly come as a shocker. But if you take this story, and match it up with the report that more seniors are doing a little 'home baking' so to speak, you might - and this is just a sociological dart-throw here - you might infer that the reason people are doing more self-medicating is that the times suck.
Check me on this: If everyone could find a job, had a little dough in the bank, had enough money to vacation, had employer-provided healthcare and lower taxes - in other words if social pressure was generally lower - would the use of controlled substances not also be lower as well, everything else being equal?
More coffee - oh I see you have brownies & Prozac, too?
Trials of Democracy Hmmm...a $1.3 billion bankruptcy and 20,000 unemployed was the body and cash count from the Enron collapse, right? But now, looks like Jeff Skilling may get a new trial because of concerns over jury bias. Seems two jurors had been victims in the case...
Still got them ViceGrips handy? Need to pinch myself...the surreality of the world is getting a bit much.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: Still, There Are Dreams Hard world out there: It's almost like the country is being force-fed Toyota coverage on teevee instead of the real news: quakes ascending, imminence of global bankruptcy, the decline of jobs in America so workers overseas can have what were once our jobs at a fraction of the working wage here, and all the rest.
But, every so often, along comes a story that is honest at its core: A story about being young and about reaching for a dream. --- Starts with a reader passing along a note from a blog website...and in this case it's the blog and the adventure behind it that's refreshing. The site is http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/ nd it chronicles the story of a 16-year old girl who is sailing a well fitted-out S&S 34 foot sailboat *non-stop* single-handed around the world. No, girl is not the right word for her: I figure somewhere in this solo sailing odyssey the 'girl' goes away and the 'woman' appears in her place. --- Jessica Watson & boat passed the 15,000 nautical mile mark a couple of days ago and she's been able to keep in good communications with family, friends, supporters (and teevee in Oz) via satellite internet connectivity. There are several good video's to watch on this page.
If, after watching the videos and reading about the project you feel just...what? A little less smug in your accomplishments in life? Maybe challenged to go at your Life's work a little harder, reach a little further for the brass ring?
I dunno how to capture it in words, but when I read about the adventures of Ella's Pink Lady it took me back to our boat and what it's like to be offshore - even a ways. There's something about it that's hard to put your finger on - a cross between the ultimate responsibility (since there's no one out there to bail you out if you fail to plan for all possibilities) and the sense of personal accomplishment at some deep-down/changes you level that comes from seeing land rise up from the horizon or appear like an apparition out of the fog. Land, right where it oughta be. --- Much as I've done in life - no matter how many personal skills and competences I collect, there still comes a story now and then - like this one - that reminds me I haven't done enough and there are people who are facing down bigger fears and placing bigger bets on the table than my small wagers with Life. Humbling might be a good description of it.
Ever wonder where some people get their 'energy and drive' from? Maybe it comes from looking at the accomplishments of others - like Watson's - and not being satisfied with how we measure ourselves in comparison, then doing something to even that up a bit. This kind of competition in life is not specifically with others, and no, I'm not going back to a sailboat - it's just that their adventuring and demonstrations of human spirit provide references marks as to what can be done; bearings; and brings up the question what have we done that's as good? --- A moment of coffee, some fond memories of three oceans dredged up, and a few word for Watson:
Fair winds and following seas....
Monday March 1, 2010 Monday. Again Well, March Fool's Day, I see. And like almost all Mondays lately, the futures are pointing higher. Partly because largely public-owned AIG is selling an Asian division and there's Grecian formula happy-talk again. But it will be a numbers-driven week. Last week's drop in housing numbers were perhaps just a foretaste of what's to come, but reality means nothing here in the Land of the Free, and home of perception management. --- Overseas, there seems to be some optimism that a bailout for Greece will be cobbled up, so at this rate, you'll want to advise the kids of a new long-term profession: bailing out multinational companies that are 'too big to fail' - seems a surer bet than medical school going forward. Bailing out Greece I reckon will cost about the same as medical school.
The story this morning that Warren "Buffett says health care costs hurt US economy" and his apparent support of public healthcare misses the mark, as I see it. --- From where I sit, it looks like cheap overseas labor rates have applied so much downward pressure on working people's wages here in America that business is not able to pay the working class benefits that were common until a decade or two back. Benefits have been declining since cost-cutting geniuses are running most companies and they don't want to raise prices to provide honest (and hard fought for by organized labor) health insurance as part of a worker's compensation package.
You saw the headline that "Apple says children were used to build iPhone, iPod"? Factories in China, and so I'll ask again for the benefit of the deaf globalists: "Why aren't we imposing a wage-adjustment tariff so American workers aren't cut off at the knees by nickel-an-hour labor?"
Too damn simple: That would pay for unemployment and balance the federal budget...and then if we could onshore jobs...anyone listening?
So, what's a globalist to do? You'll notice that a lot of the Third World crap that's shoveled into America's consumer economy comes from countries where workers don't get healthcare as a part of employment, so as the playing field gets leveled among globalists, guess who lost the benefits that organized labor fought for? (go look in a mirror for clues)
No, I'm not particularly bitter about it, but let's consider that European workers still manage to get (in many cases) 6-weeks of vacation and more, and why? because they are willing to strike and because of the European tradition of a strong labor movement. No worries, it's being regulated and processed out of existence, too. Why do you think the EuroElite are all in favor of immigration? Same as here: New, cheap labor with lower benefits. Duh. --- It's against this background (visualize a crooked playing field where your on the field being tilted by rich guys looking to profit) that we turn our attention to the first number of the week: Personal Consumption and Expenditures. May I have the envelope, please?
No, I cannot explain that ridiculous personal savings number, unless they counted bankster bonuses for the month OR they figure that since your car has been repo'ed and you don't have a house anymore, you must have a lot of dough to salt away, now that you're living in an Obamaville or under an overpass... --- So much for numbers - lot's more due this week including the 800-pound gorilla...the unemployment number on Friday. Oughta be a real knee-slapper from the Creative Department at Slapstick Government.
Truly: If you believe the numbers, It's March Fool's Day for sure.
Quake Aftermess The predictive linguistics that had suggested in January that we would see at least six "great quakes" with most coming after July 7/8 is off to an early fulfillment with the Chilean Quake this weekend.
So far, millions of people have been impacted and there have been continuing aftershocks not only in the immediate area of Chile, but elsewhere, too. A scan of the USGS near-real-time list here shows a disconcerting amount of activity.
Not to bring up an impolite/ugly thought here, but what not many seem to be cognizant of how the Chilean quake will impact foods consumed by North Americans. Elaine noticed at breakfast Sunday that "Did you see where these blueberries we're having are from Chile?"
Just in case the go-juice hasn't kicked in yet, here's the deal: Blueberries are just the leading edge. IF the linguistics are right and we get four or five more Chile-sized quakes this year, ask yourself "Can quakes and Ma Nature bankrupt the global economy? Why sure! But don't blame Ma Nature - it's a path the banksters put us on when they did away with honest money in the Bankster Coup of 1913.
And on that, you see where the IMF is starting its power-grab with BS hype about a new 'global currency'?
Still, quakes will likely speed up the collapse.
Bait And Switch Department Then there's the whole IPCC report crumbling...meaning global warming may be global hoaxing with Al Gore still insisting in a NY Times op=ed piece this week that we "Can't wish away climate change".
No, we can't. We can find bad science, though, and ask who benefits besides the new Carboneers, among which I'd count Gore as a pied piper.
Oh, rats.
Police State Notes You saw where the everyone in the Washington power circle seems to have signed off on continuation of the misnamed Patriot Act for another year.
Land of the Free, Redux As if elections aren't enough of a gamble, I see where up in Idaho "Police break up senior center poker game."
Don't know about you, but around here, Poker is honored as a game of skill.
If our fellow patriots in Idaho want to bust up a $20-buy in poker game, I'd suggest that we are as a nation totally screwed.
If you want lyin' & cheatin' look to Washington, not the local poker games.
Please.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: Quest for the Right Shortwave Some things in life always seem to boil down to one word: compromise. Just as in grad school, business geeks like (care to guess who?) have concepts like "One Best Way?" discussed for hours on end followed by wasting half a stack of paper writing the learned discussion of it, turns out that there is only a 'best way' for this company in a particular condition (or set of conditions) that is likely unique and so too, therefore, must the managers response, yada, yada...wake me up.
Same thing applies in human relations, too; whether it's picking a spouse, finding the best mix of benefits, pay, prestige, benefits and so on - it's that way in job-finding as well.
But in perhaps no other two endeavors are the compromises so clear as they are in picking the 'perfect' sailboat design, or, in this morning's discussion, picking the right 'radio'.
I won't go into the full-blown ham radio discussion, because buying the "best' ham radio from an all-out performance standpoint really boils down to nothing more than writing the biggest check. Some day, I'd like to be able to write a check for an Icom 7800. This beast not only has every bell and whistle known to man...but several not done before. And, since you forgot my birthday, you can send me a late birthday present by clicking here to order one...for a mere $10,499.95. Hell, I'll pay for shipping...is that a deal, or what?
The Icom 7800 is a transceiver - which means it is both an incredible receiver and a best-available kind of transmitter. Overkill? Hardly! Just depends on how good your ears are and whether you can hear the difference in third-order intercept points, or not.
Most people just flipping across a crowded ham band casually listening to SSB (single sideband) conversations would have no concept of the use of completely independent receivers, or being able to tap into a digital IF datastream so you could whip up outboard processing...let alone having a clue about FGS-1045 - FS-1051 ALE standards (and their reliability for long distance frequency-agile work discussed in part here) and nuclear-survivable store & forward low baud order wire capability using multifrequency modems. We'll gloss over Golay interleaving and some of the grown-up discussion points until you get at least your General Class ham ticket - and since that no longer requires Morse Code, you have absolutely no excuse for not having at least some basic radio savvy. The whole American Radio Relay League is there to get you started, but if you want to be a bump on the sidelines, so be it... --- Still, for the person who is just looking for a passable emergency radio, it's like finding the 'perfect sailboat'., In other words: there just isn't an ideal radio receiver out there at all.
Let's consider the high points of what you're looking for.
Basic Ergonomics: The radio should have a fairly small footprint. It should have a clear frequency display. Putting frequencies into memory, recalling them, changing, and deleting should be straightforward and not be based on a an esoteric year at The Radio Monastery to learn. The lighting at night should be adjustable from invisible on a moonless company (or light sensitive spouse) to bright even in direct sunlight. No radio I have found is adequate in this regard and it bugs Elaine no end when I use a radio with dial lights on for late/in the middle of the night shortwave listening. It should have at least two clock options: Local time and WWV/GMT time.
Power and Packaging The radio should have rubber coverings over all jacks and the whole radio should be waterproof and immersible to 3-meters for 30 minutes. Dream on... The radio should run for at least 40 hours on one set of batteries. The batteries should be either AA or D sized. At the user's discretion, they should be NiCad or NMH rechargeable through an onboard charging system that should be selectable to optimizer each battery type and, long as we're at it, let's make that temperature compensated since charging profiles vary by temp. The radio should have a built-in set of solar cells sufficient to provide 12-hours of operation on a sunny day. The speaker should be large enough to provide listenable fidelity and be moisture resistant or waterproof. A hand crank should provide power for at least 1-hour when necessary. A built in LED flashlight is a nice touch, too. Cellphone charger would be a bonus.
Frequency Coverage In approximate order of importance, although your list will vary) the radio should cover: NOAA Weather channels AM broadcast band FM broadcast band (with stereo output) All shortwave bands 1.5-30 MHz Aircraft Band (108-135 MHz) Low VHF public services (148-180 MHz) High VHF (450-500 MHz) TV audio channels for all V and low U channels to 500 MHz.
Some people like the idea of longwave coverage, but I have never found much of interest there. That hunk of spectrum is mostly inhabited mostly by aircraft beacons while somewhat useful if you're doing propagation studies, from the shortwave listening perspective, you're likely to get more useful information out of a little MFJ HF beacon receiver (reviewed here). About $100 but only worth it for its special purpose. Nothing else.
With this modest set of specs, to the best of my knowledge, I have eliminated every portable radio made. Nothing I'm aware of meets these practical requirements. So, as you go shopping, if you find one, let me know.
If it's meeting a good number of the basic frequency specs you're after, the VHF VX-8R ham radio transceiver made by Yaesu will get you the waterproof and much of the DC-to-daylight coverage you're after, but ham radio gear that is this complicate is not necessarily intuitive (Also nearly $400 by the time you get batteries, shipping, and option it out a bit) which is why you might want to gin up the $25 for 'short' 22-page cheat sheet...darned useful it you're trying to program Blue Tooth options or the automatic satellite position transponder options, but is this a casual shortwave emergency radio?
No solar panels, no crank, no flashlight...but a kick-ass radio for its intended use.
Technical Features A shortwave radio needs to have a good frequency read-out to at least 100 Hz. Its tuning steps should also be (at the user's option) 10 Hz and faster (1 would be better) so as to make listening to ham conversations easy. Both USB (upper sideband) and LSB (lower sideband) should be marked on the front panel. The detectors should include: Synchronous detector for conventional AM which reduces selective fading (a long conversation we'll pass on), a product detector for SSB, and FM detector with stereo decoding. Looking ahead, a radio that incorporates a strategy for decoding Radio Mondiale (DRM) would be nice, too. Memories and scanning should make some sense - many don't or require the aforementioned time at the Radio Monastery to learn 'the way'.
Antennas and Performance Before you spend the first dime on a good quality shortwave radio, go around the house with a cheapo radio tuned to the high end of the AM band (1650 AM, or so) not tuned into any particular station, but turned up a fair bit so you can zoom in local noises sources that will ruin even the best radio's performance.
Generally, the cheaper the radio the better and a built-in ferrite loop antenna is best since it has a null - or direction you can twist the radio so that the noise will be reduced. Knowing this trick, you then simply follow the null to the noise source.
Handy Survival Tip: If you ever need to hijack a sailboat, he3ad offshore and look for contrails by day if jets are flying and use an AM radio's null at night as a general indication of the bearing of that faraway station. It's not instant celestial navigation, but radio direction finders are easy as pie.
Over the course of 50-years of noise-sniffing, I've seen just about everything imaginable cause shortwave issues (except on VHF and other FM modes which by the nature of their detectors (ratio or discriminator) are less susceptible to external noise.
A noise blanker is just that: When a noise pulse comes in (as off a lousy dimmer for the living room, for example) the radio just 'shuts off' for the duration of the noise pulse. Key thing in noise blankers is therefore what? Adjustable so you can 'tune' out the width of the noise pulse.
Most radios have a built-in AM antenna, so rotating the radio may help reception. Some high-end radios have it built in.
Most have cent selectivity and sensitivity to where the limiting factor in performance will likely be the antenna you're using. "Active Antennas" are a nice thing if you're not able to throw 35' or more of plain old insulated wire up under the eaves or out to a tree, but again, they are a compromise. They will amplify the local signal which if you're in a noisy house with computer gear (often noisy) or a television and some dimmers going) wi8ll still mostly suck.
On the other hand, 100 feet of wire thrown up in some trees with a good grounding rod and lightning protection away from the house 50 feet, will likely give decent listening with all but the cheapest of cheap radios.
Specs for sensitivity on the AM band night be 10 microvolts for 10 db of quieting, but 3 microvolts is better, one is likely more than you'll ever need since you will be hearing radio stations all over the AM band at night with that kind of radio.
10 microvolts is not enough sensitivity on the shortwave bands...you'll want 1 microvolt or better. Competition-grade ham gear is 0.25 microvolts and less which will generally get you down to the atmospheric noise floor.
Decent FM sensitivity is nice, but the limiting factor on FM and higher is line of sight so once you get down to a millivolt or two on FM, height's more important than anything else.
Some Shopping Ideas Just ordered (for my
birthday) a Grundig Satellite 750 AM/FM-Stereo/Shortwave/Aircraft Band Radio with SSB (Single Side Band), Black
A couple of good radios
come to mind in the
$150 price class...depending on what you want. One that
has a pretty good street rep is the
Sony ICF-SW7600GR AM/FM Shortwave World Band Receiver with Single Side Band Reception
Even though it doesn't
have shortwave, the
C Crane Co CC2T Radio-2 AM FM/Weather and 2-Meter Ham Band (Titanium)
I had a Kaito 1100 - series radio on the boat and it was an excellent inexpensive radio with many of the features I was looking for. Amazon has the Kaito KA1102 - Worldband radio for about $70.
No shortwave, but a lot
of other features are in the Etón FR150 Microlink Solar-Powered, Self-Powered AM/FM/Weatherband Portable Radio with Flashlight and Cell Phone Charger (Black)
A couple of years ago, I was on Steve Quayle's show and put up a presentation on some of the basics of ham radio. That's still available if you have more interest.
I guess the bottom line to this short overview is that there is no perfect radio. A lot come close, but not have the whole list of 'dream radio' features outlined here nailed down. Don't know whether it's a matter of cost, or what. But I think there are plenty of people who would pay $250 and up for a radio that handles all the aspects outlined here. The Grundig Millennium 800 and the more recent 750 series show there's a niche there, but no one's likely to listen because to get it 'all' right would likely be a ground-up effort.
Read before spending
sources:
Passport to World Band Radio, 2009 Edition
OK, back to work.
Before the chart, a little background: Once upon a time, a long while ago, I observed during my quest for 'truth' in economics, that the PowersThatBe, the talking heads on the teeve, and the other information sources that actively engage in the programming of humans not to think, had conveniently swept several trillions of dollars that disappeared in the Internet Bubble's bursting (since spring 2000) under the rug. Surely, it wasn't unnoticed by the thousands of people who called brokers and said "Where is my money?" "Gone, but hang in there as you're a long term investor!" was about all they heard back.
So one of our charts for Peoplenomics subscribers oughta be widely circulated - it shows that if you line up the peak of the Dow in January 2000 with the peak in early September of 1929, we're on a very very close replay track. Much closer than even the chart shows if you were to back out inflation, and put in the effects of 1929 deflation, but that'd be real work, and I'm sort of lazy if the truth be told.
No, it's not a perfect replay of 1929, but history doesn't repeat exactly, it only rhymes. So think of this as the rhymes and the crimes chart:
"George, that's only a coincidence!" your monkey-mind will protest.
Why sure it is...you bet. A 9½ year long coincidence...yessir....just a coincidence, I'm sure...
Write when you get rich,
George Ure, The People's Economist
|
Further
Readings Bots: NE Power Outage
Our Favorite Tool: Minneapolis Fed Inflation Calculator
Our Suppliers: Graphics By
Machine parts: www.emachineshop.com
Printed Circuit Boards
Commodity Trading
Bullion Buying/Selling
Web Hosting
Radiation Monitoring
Emergency Food Stores
Tequila
Organic Heirloom Seeds:
|
|||||||||||||||
|
This is a Free Financial News and economic information site updated daily except Sundays. If you can not get to www.urbansurvival.com from your corpgov workstation, please try our mirror site: www.independencejournal.com . This site is also available at www2.urbansurvival.com and www3.urbansurvival.com which may not be blocked. · Bulletins are posted as our work schedule permits and as events warrant. · I try to publish Monday-Saturday by 8 AM Central Time/ 9 AM Eastern with 7:55 Central pretty normal. If you're easily offended by the occasional typo, then check about 8:15 Central we usually proofread and spell check after the first post. We've had some amusing typos in the past... Sometimes a Saturday issue will be dropped due to projects & chores on our ranch. · Financial and news judgments of the publisher are not to be considered "advice" · Please read and understand our disclaimer · All original content © 1997-2010 by George A. Ure except sources as linked. Very short extracts are occasionally used under 'fair use' but never entire articles without permission. That would be beyond 'fair use'. · Copyright of all linked articles is cited under fair use as this is a topic specific site (long wave economics and humanistic economics, which we call "Peoplenomics"
Our premium service, which contains more in depth reports is available on a $40/year subscription basis. Details at www.peoplenomics.com/subscribe.htm.
The "web bot project" indicates a reference to the time predictive technology embodied in the "Asymmetric Language Trend Analysis Intelligence Reports" technology pioneered and operated by Tenax Software Engineering for www.halfpasthuman.com. An intro to the technology is here. Extracts, when used, are with exclusive permission and any references on other web sites must contain a link to both this site and HalfPastHuman's main page: www.halfpasthuman.com.
Site Contact: george@ure.net
© 2010 Copyright Notice: The author(s) of this site requires that any links or use of material from this site include the author's name and a link to this site. All links included in our material must also be included in citations. Address questions to: george@ure.net. Copyright infringers will be pursued, and please note that Fair Use requires identification of the author/source and we require a link which when you think about it is really minimal recognition of our works and the works of those who are quoted herein.
|
|
by Nick Begich.
for about $300 (list is $399 or so). Haven't gotten the
radio yet, so I'll do a review of it when it comes in and I get
a chance to wring it out.
.
Around $140.
has enough features that it rates a mention, even thought we're
talking shortwave.
which for under $40 is a lot of capability, especially since it
had the solar and hand crank with a cell phone charger.
and the
.
