Technology, History, and Commentary on Amateur Radio
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought.
– Albert Szent-Gyorgi
The most eclectic Amateur Radio site on the Internet
“…One of the essays, by Susan J. Douglas, looks at the excitement set off by Marconi’s introduction of radio – the “wireless telegraph” – to the American public in 1899.
“Wireless held a special place in the American imagination precisely because it married idealism and adventure with science,” she writes.
Popular Science Monthly observed: “The nerves of the whole world are, so to speak, being bound together, so that a touch in one country is transmitted instantly to a far-distant one.” Implicit in this organic metaphor was the belief that a world so physically connected would become a spiritual whole with common interests and goals….
The rise of wireless also set off a popular movement to democratize media, as hundreds of thousands of “amateur operators” took to the airwaves. It was the original blogosphere. “On every night after dinner,” wrote Francis Collins in the 1912 book Wireless Man, “the entire country becomes a vast whispering gallery.”
“The Social Network” – Or, Facebook – the movie
There may be a new kind of Internet emerging — one more about connecting people to people than people to Websites. — FORTUNE Magazine, Fall 2003
Facebook, now with 500 million (July 2010) users was created by four students – Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin - in a dorm room at Harvard University back in 2003. The rest is history. Today, Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook at age 26 is worth an estimated $4B dollars. Good for you guys!
Could a movie be far behind? No. Due out October 1,2010 – The Social Network
See the trailer
Read our article on the book -
The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal
Is there any doubt? “The best way to predict the future is to create it”
Creating the Future
The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Create It
What better a post than to sandwich more from Tom Peters between 2 postings; one on the demise of the middle class in America and the other on the demise of the traditional business model of print journalism (newspapers)
Everyone is aware, or should be aware, of what is happening to traditional business models in the face of disruptive technology and innovation.
From the Federal Trade Commission article posted recently:
Journalism is moving through a significant transition in which business models are crumbling, innovative new forms of journalism are emerging, and consumer news habits are changing rapidly…
Corporations, organizations, and individuals are necessarily in one of three states when it comes to innovation and change. They are either: 1) running away. 2) standing still 3) embracing the change. And maybe I will add a fourth state – 4) creating innovative ways at looking at the world, society, and technology that creates change and builds a new future. Was amazon.com created by the booksellers. No. Was the personal computer created by a major player in the computer industry? No. What business is Google in? Yours? What, and who, is next?
It is not “business as usual”. For those out to, as Steve Jobs says, “Make a dent in the Universe” and for those who envision a future of unlimited possibilities (as opposed to running away), here is more inspiration from Tom Peters on embracing the chaos.
They read Jim Collins and grok on “quiet, humble leaders.”
I say “Give me the Bold, the Brash, the Brassy, the Egocentric
Dreamers who, like Steve Jobs, ‘Dent the Universe.’”
They say they need a “vision” born of McKinsey.
I say we need a “Grandiose Dream” born of a Passionate &
Intemperate Belief that the world can be a different, better
place.
They say “no child left behind.”
I say “education” is leaving ALL our children behind, as it is
totally mis-aligned to deal with tomorrow’s (this afternoon’s)
uncertain, ambiguous, creativity-driven economy.
They say we need to “bring effectiveness to the supply chain.”
I say we need an IS/IT/Best Sourcing revolution based on
nothing less than an Entirely Original Vision of what
organizations are and how they interact.
They say “Globalization is a bumpy road.”
I say India and China and Asia in general are within two
decades of running the show: Get ready or get trounced.
They say “defense” and “consolidation” are musts for a global
game.
I say encourage Offense, nurture a Generation (or 10) of
Entrepreneurs, cherish Creativity & Risk-taking from primary
school onwards … and don’t expect to be saved by a bunch
of bulky, retro behemoths commanded by a phalanx of Old
White Guys who think 30 minutes a day on the corporate
treadmill and 27 holes on the links are a fit defense against
Revolution.
Proposed Government Bailout of the Newspaper Industry
Or, Misguided solutions that undermine healthy marketplaces
and stall the pace of change
Here is another case of an industry (newspapers) looking for government legislation and protection against a disruptive technology that challenges its business model. The players are the dying newspapers, the Federal Trade Commission, and Google.
Here is the “get” on this strategy of protectionism against the (inevitable) re/definition of the business model for traditional journalism (read: print media)
The large profit margins newspapers enjoyed in the past were built on an artificial scarcity: Limited choice for advertisers as well as readers. With the Internet, that scarcity has been taken away and replaced by abundance. No policy proposal will be able to restore newspaper revenues to what they were before the emergence of online news.
It is not a question of analog dollars versus digital dimes, but rather a realistic assessment of how to make money in a world of abundant competitors and consumer choice.
“The current challenges faced by the news industry are business problems, not legal problems,” Google says,”and can only be addressed effectively with business solutions. Regulatory proposals that undermine the functioning of healthy marketplaces and stall the pace of change are not the solution.”
Truly, lessons learned by the demise of the Rocky Mountain News
John Temple, former editor, president, and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, described and applied it to the news industry in his blog post about the lessons he had learned from his newspaper‘s demise on February 27, 2009.
As Mr. Temple explained, the paper‘s online service was not viewed by management as providing consumer value in its own right, but rather solely as a way to support the print edition. This mistake proved to be fatal:
Read the rest of this entry »
The statistics on the shrinking middle class in Ameria
Good article in Yahoo Finance – the full story here
The Stats
- 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
- 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
- 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
- 36 percent of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings.
- A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
- 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
- Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
- Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
- For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
- In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
- As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
- The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
- Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
- In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
- The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America’s corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
- In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
- More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
- For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
- This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
- Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 – the highest rate in 20 years.
- Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
- The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.
The Big Moo – Re/imagining the future
Many have articulated a depressing “gloom and doom” vision of the future for America if we follow, or allow to be followed, a linear progression of our current situation and trajectory into the future. If we can clearly imagine an outcome that is highly probable, and highly undesirable, then why stay on the path?
People are used to thinking in a linear fashion. This is how they have projected the future referenced above. But what is needed is some non-linear thinking. A thinking in terms of discontinuities and disruptions to get us out of the linear path.
Is it possible? What does linear thinking make of the Caterpillar? Linear thinking says the Caterpillar, undisturbed, and continuing on its life-cycle path and trajectory will just be a bigger Caterpillar and eventually die a Caterpillar. But that is not what happens. The Caterpillar becomes a chrysalis and emerges as a butterfly.
The life-cycle of a Caterpillar is the best of nonlinearity – it is a series of discontinuities. It is a metamorphosis. Perhaps this is what we need to avoid the linear projection of the gloom and doom future based on our current situation.
Who will do it? In what new way do we need to think? What radical re/imaging of the future do we need? What will place us on the path to metamorphosis?
Excerpts from a contribution by Tom Peters in
The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable by the Group of 33
They say … my language is extreme.
I say … the times are extreme.
They say I’m extreme.
I say I’m a realist.
They say I demand too much.
I say they accept mediocrity & continuous improvement too
readily.
They say “We can’t handle this much change.”
I say “Your job and career are in jeopardy; what other options do
you have?”
They say Brand You is not for everyone.
I say the alternative is unemployment.
They say “What’s wrong with a ‘good product’?”
I say Wal*Mart or China or both are about to eat your lunch. Why
can’t you provide instead a Fabulous Experience?
They say “Take a deep breath. Be calm.”
I say “Tell it to Wal*Mart. Tell it to China. Tell it to India. Tell it to
Dell. Tell it to Microsoft.”
They say the Web is a “useful tool.”
I say the Web changes everything. Now.
They say “We need an Initiative.”
I say “We need a Dream. And Dreamers.”
They say Great Design is “nice.”
I say Great Design is “necessary.”
They say “Plan it.”
I say “DO IT.”
They say “We need more steady, loyal employees.”
I say “WE NEED MORE FREAKS WHO ROUTINELY TELL THOSE ‘IN CHARGE’
TO TAKE A FLYING LEAP … BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.”
They say “We need Good People.”
I say “We need Quirky Talent.”
Vintage e-Book Collection – Radio theory, design, engineering…
Check this link out for a huge collection of vintage e-books related to Radio Theory, Electrical Engineering, Vacuum Tube Theory, Audio Amplifiers, Test Equipment, and much more
Quotable: On Planning
He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan carries a thread that will guide them through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign.
—Victor Hugo
An unpolished plan vigorously executed is more successful than an ideal plan implemented with less determination. Better to strike energetically, gain experience, learn what works and what does not, reassess the new situation, devise fresh plans and take another step. Spend too long preparing elaborate plans, and you will lose both time and initiative.
—Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister
‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where,’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
—From Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
The radio glitch that killed more than 500 people
Anyone who has used a traditional analog communications radio knows that 2 sets of communications can not go on at the same time. When two people “key up” at the same time with about the same power on the same frequency a “heterodyne” is produced and neither transmission is heard.
This has been a challenge of VHF communications in air travel
From Salon ( http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2002/03/28/heterodyne/index.html?x)
Normally, flights communicate with air traffic control (ATC) via two-way VHF radios. While tuned to a particular frequency (the spectrum used by air traffic rests between 118.0 and 136.97 MHz), a pilot or controller clicks the microphone, speaks and waits for an acknowledgment or “readback.” It differs from talking on the telephone, for example, as only one party can speak at a time.
The trouble arises when two — or more — microphones are clicked at the same instant. The transmissions are effectively canceled out, rendered unintelligible in a noisy hail of static or a high-pitched squeal. Speaking simultaneously, the transmitting parties do not realize the block has occurred.
And sadly enough, the lesson here is not so much of what could happen, but what has already happened. For this month marks the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst air disaster, a crash between two airplanes that never left the ground, caused in part by a blocked transmission, a heterodyne. Most people have never heard of Tenerife, a small, frying pan-shaped speck in the Atlantic. Tenerife is one of the Canary Islands, a rocky chain off the coast of Morocco, governed by the Spanish. The big town on Tenerife is called Santa Cruz, and its airport, at the base of a cascading mountain, is called Los Rodeos. On March 27, 1977, Los Rodeos was the scene of the worst airplane crash in history.
Long delayed and overly complex solutions to simple challenges?
In the past, the FAA has eventually gotten around to legislating a host of important regulations after various accidents. After two high-profile midair collisions, one in 1978 and a second in 1986, an airborne traffic collision avoidance system, known as TCAS, is now found in the cockpit of every airliner. Following the crash of ValuJet in the Everglades in 1996, fire suppression was mandated for cargo holds. And after a long pathology of something euphemistically called CFIT, or, “controlled flight into terrain,” ground proximity warning systems (GPWS) became standard equipment.
Generally, not only were these fixes mandated long after they should have been, but they came in the form of expensive, overly complex warning systems. Things like GPWS and TCAS probably thrilled the engineers who designed them, but their color-coded depictions, variable-pitch aural warnings and multistage alarms often use up more gray matter than a pilot may have to spare in the heat of battle.
This time what’s needed is not another acronymic “system” of high-technology prowess, but a back-to-basics, low-tech solution to an old and very high-stakes problem. The fix is so low-tech, in fact, the airlines and regulators should be ashamed and embarrassed even to debate the matter.
In some instances, serious problems do not require cumbersome or costly solutions. It’s too late for those killed on Tenerife, but 25 years later, another clipped transmission could find us back on a foggy runway asking, “Why?”
So, what is the easy low-tech solution?
Read about CONTRAN – http://www.aatl.net/publications/contran.htm
Marconi’s Cape Code Station and “messages without wires”
History of Radio fans can check out some vintage photo’s, recordings, and sights in this short video on Marconi’s Cape Cod Station – and see a bunch of amateur radio operators operating from that location having some fun.
More info here -
http://www.stormfax.com/wireless.htm
The invention of FM Radio and the power to stifle the effect of technological change
If you take a read of the book Free Culture (get the PDF for free) you will find the story from the early days of radio.
It’s the story of the invention of FM radio in 1933 by Edwin Howard Armstrong and how this new (superior in audio quality) technology challenged the dominant technology (AM modulation) and the dominant corporation in the marketplace – RCA (Radio Corporation of America)
AM radio technology was at the heart of RCA Corporation and RCA saw FM as a threat. RCA used its power to influence the government to its cause to undermine this new technology – FM Modulation of a radio wave.
RCA began to use its power with the government to stall FM radio’s deployment generally. In 1936, RCA hired the former head of the FCC and assigned him the task of assuring that the FCC assign spectrum in a way that would castrate FM—principally by moving FM radio to a different band of spectrum. At first, these efforts failed. But when Armstrong and the nation were distracted by World War II, RCA’s work began to be more successful. Soon after the war ended, the FCC announced a set of policies that would have one clear effect: FM radio would be crippled.
In the end, this was the tragic result
Armstrong resisted RCA’s efforts. In response, RCA resisted Armstrong’s patents. After incorporating FM technology into the emerging standard for television, RCA declared the patents invalid—baselessly, and almost fifteen years after they were issued. It thus refused to pay him royalties. For six years, Armstrong fought an expensive war of litigation to defend the patents. Finally, just as the patents expired, RCA offered a settlement so low that it would not even cover Armstrong’s lawyers’ fees. Defeated, broken, and now broke, in 1954 Armstrong wrote a short note to his wife and then stepped out of a thirteenthstory window to his death.
The insight
This is how the law sometimes works. Not often this tragically, and rarely with heroic drama, but sometimes, this is how it works. From the beginning, government and government agencies have been subject to capture. They are more likely captured when a powerful interest is threatened by either a legal or technical change. That powerful interest too often exerts its influence within the government to get the government to protect it. The rhetoric of this protection is of course always public spirited; the reality is something different. Ideas that were as solid as rock in one age, but that, left to themselves, would crumble in another, are sustained through this subtle corruption of our political process. RCA had what the Causbys did not: the power to stifle the effect of technological change.
Here is the full text of the story from the Introduction of the book Free Culture: how Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity by Larry Lessig
Get Free Culture
For those who want to learn about Free Culture but don’t have the time to read Larry Lessig’s book, Free Culture , can listen to the audio book which has been released by the author under Creative Commons.
You can listen via a stream or download the mp3 files (100 MB) from this site
http://www.archive.org/details/free-culture-audiobook
Read a related article with video – http://frrl.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/who-owns-culture/
What is Free Culture?
It was culture, which you didn’t need the permission of someone else to take and build upon. That was the character of creativity at the birth of the last century. It was built upon a constitutional requirement that protection be for limited times, and it was originally limited.
–Lawrence Lessig
All creative works—books, movies, records, software, and so on—are a compromise between what can be imagined and what is possible—technologically and legally. For more than two hundred years, laws in America have sought a balance between rewarding creativity and allowing the borrowing from which new creativity springs. The original term of copyright set by the First Congress in 1790 was 14 years, renewable once. Now it is closer to two hundred. Thomas Jefferson considered protecting the public against overly long monopolies on creative works an essential government role. What did he know that we’ve forgotten?
Lawrence Lessig shows us that while new technologies always lead to new laws, never before have the big cultural monopolists used the fear created by new technologies, specifically the Internet, to shrink the public domain of ideas, even as the same corporations use the same technologies to control more and more what we can and can’t do with culture. As more and more culture becomes digitized, more and more becomes controllable, even as laws are being toughened at the behest of the big media groups. What’s at stake is our freedom—freedom to create, freedom to build, and ultimately, freedom to imagine.
Quotable: On Imagination vs. Knowledge
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.
Albert Einstein 1879-1955, German-born American Physicist
Making connections with Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor
From the department of “what I stumbled upon”. Sometimes connecting the dots among people yields a legitimate chain of influence and sometimes it’s simply an interesting accident of confluence with nothing more to it.
Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis of 1969 – when she was at Wellesley College – about radical activist Saul Alinsky is certainly an insight into Alinsky’s influence on Hillary. (Read the thesis)
How about this one.
In 1976, Sonia Sotomayor, now Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, graduated from Princeton University. Here is her senior picture. Note the quote
I am not the champion of lost causes, but the champion of causes not yet won.
The quote she uses is from Norman Thomas. Who is Norman Thomas? Norman Thomas was a candidate several times for U.S. President in the 1930s. For what party? The Socialist Party of America, which was officially a Marxist party. A plaque in the Norman Thomas ’05 Library ( at Princeton University’s Forbes college ) reads: Norman M. Thomas, class of 1905. “I am not the champion of lost causes, but the champion of causes not yet won.”
So, that’s an interesting connection. Just like the connection of Hillary Clinton with Saul Alinsky through her senior thesis. Here is a nice quote from Norman Thomas
The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. — Norman Thomas
There seems to be a sort of anti-intellectualism in the United States – and those in political office seem even to encourage it. Even the First Lady, Michelle Obama, encourages people to do social work – but she has not, to this date, been encouraging folks to be intellectuals like her and her husband. Or for that matter, intellectuals like Hillary and her Rhodes Scholar husband Bill Clinton.
The point is simply that if one understands the chain of influence that these folks have who hold high political office – then one might get a clearer picture of where the United States, and perhaps the world, is headed. But this understanding is not going to be facilitated by the anti-intellectualism that is prevalent in the United States nor by those who encourage careers and pursuits other than what, they themselves, have chosen. To encourage the path of academics and intellectualism would simply frustrate the achievement of their ultimate goal.
Like the iceberg, for many of these people, 90% of what they are really about lies hidden in the history of their connections with influencers. The task is to determine, given some of these innocent quotes, if they are merely an accidental association or a harbinger of the 90% that lies below the surface which we are all, presently, dimly aware.
Get Culture
Why waste time watching America’s Got Talent when you can get some Culture – for free?
Check out this site of free audio books and other media
http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks
Cultural literacy is the ability to converse fluently in the idioms, allusions and informal content which creates and constitutes a dominant culture. From being familiar with street signs to knowing historical references to understanding the most recent slang, literacy demands interaction with the culture and reflection of it. Knowledge of a canonical set of literature is not sufficient in and of itself when engaging with others in a society, as life is interwoven with art, expression, history and experience. Cultural literacy requires familiarity with a broad range of trivia and implies the use of that trivia in the creation of a communal language and collective knowledge. Cultural literacy stresses the knowledge of those pieces of information which content creators will assume the audience already possesses.
Defining the convergence of media and influence
Check out this graphic by Brian Solis showing how to connect your brand with customers, peers, and influencers. The world of social media has changed marketing, brand management and public relations forever.
Full image is here
The Social Marketing Compass serves as our value system when defining our program activities. It points a brand in a physical and experiential direction to genuinely and effectively connect with customers, peers, and influencers, where they interact and seek guidance online.
Check out Brian Solis’ web site – Defining the convergenceof media and influence
http://www.briansolis.com/
And FutureWorks, a digital and social media agency- http://www.future-works.com/
