Ham Radio - Antennas 2

This started out in comments to previous comments, but I pretty quickly ran out of space in the comments form.

Multiband vertical antennas are common good compromise, but they have a reputation for being noisier than horizontal antennas.  It's true because electrical fields have to intersect the ground at 90 degrees, making the fields from noise sources become vertically polarized near the ground. They are ideal for tiny yards, though, since they take up little horizontal space.  A true 1/4 wave vertical is close to 35 ohms impedance, and requires another quarter wave worth of wire extending out from its base to create the "ground plane" the radiating part works against.  A lot of effort has gone into making "no ground radials needed" verticals.  I had one.  It worked, but my replacement antenna with ground radials has worked better.  

Wheelgun commented "I have considered buying one of the All-in-one verticals. Hygain, and MFJ (or whatever part of MFJ) and a few others sell them. Just not sure I trust the reviews or not."  I understand.  My first antenna in 1976 (the Novice class had privileges only on 80, 40, 15 and 10m) was a Gotham vertical (a good honest critique).  These were advertised in QST as "all band, 80 to 6 meters".  What they were was about 20' of aluminum tube with poor joints and a B&W Miniductor at the base.  The hidden problem is that as the antenna went from being too short to too long when you used it above 40 meters, the loading element needed to switch from a coil to a capacitor.

It was essentially useless as sold, being as much an "all band, 80 to 6 meters" antenna as any other 20 feet of tubing from the hardware store.  After I fixed the joints and changed it from a segmented arch to actually being vertical, I used it as a support for wires on 15 and then 10m.  

So while I know from friends that the Cushcraft R8 is a good multiband vertical, I'm still concerned about ads vs. reality.  I've owned a GAP Titan, and they really are good on the rated bands.  My current 80 to 30m antenna is a Cushcraft MA8040V.  I was scratch designing an antenna for 80 and stumbled across this one, which looked so much like my design, with 40m added, that it was almost a kit for my design.  Another standby for small spaces is the 5BTV (5 Band Trapped Vertical) by Hustler and its 6 Band sibling.  In short, HyGain, Cushcraft, GAP, or Butternut (and probably more) all produce good antennas I'd trust.  I also echo Weetabix' comment that eHam or other review sites (including the ARRL) should be in your reading.

Making antennas isn't hard.  Measuring their performance can be pulling-your-hair-out hard because they interact so strongly with the environment - it's their job!  (Which I tend to believe is what's behind the Crossed Field Antenna's mixed history).  It's especially hard below VHF frequencies because of the sizes of everything needed. Simply getting a list of what someone worked is pretty useless; any antenna might work anyplace if the conditions are good.  The best way to evaluate an antenna without a lot of test equipment is to A/B switch it vs. a standard; pretty prohibitive in cost and area to do at home.  If you can switch antennas during a contact you can quickly see if one works better; if you take the old one down and use the new one, you can't get that immediate comparison.   

BTW, Wheelgun, you also commented on Software Defined Radios for HF.   The Flex 6000 series is an almost identical block diagram to one I did a few years ago (and published).  Unless they did something really stupid, that will outperform any conventional radio around.  

NVIS (Near Vertical Incidence Skywave) is a local HF mode created by forcing the fields from the antenna up by running the wires close to the ground.  I've seen articles on field expedient antennas simply say to mount the antenna a foot or so above the ground.  The permanent or semi-permanent installations say to mount it between 1/8 and 1/4 wave up, and some say to use a wire director under the radiating dipole, like a beam would use.  Any horizontal antenna mounted close to the ground has a significant high angle radiation. NVIS systems optimize this.  

Weetabix, it sounds like you've got it made.  You just need to hoist the center of that "Maple Leaf Mini" up on a TV mast or something to get it up in the air.  Shoot for 1/8 wave or higher on the lowest frequency of interest, and don't be afraid if it's not perfectly straight and level.  You can drape the ends down, or slope the whole antenna down.   I ran a 15m dipole sloper off the eaves of my house in the late '70s for a while.  It got me contacts until I could put up a better antenna.

Any antenna put outside like this will outperform one left in its box. Guaranteed.  It's also pretty stealthy; the only thing conspicuous is the coax running to it, which can be the small RG-58 if you're running 100W. 

My current antennas are the MA8040V vertical (with radials) for 80, 40 and 30.  For 20 to 10, I have a Tennadyne T6 Log Periodic and for 6m, a small log periodic called a KMA5054 which also works well on 2m and puts out something on 432 - KMA Antennas seems to be out of business.  The two LPDAs are mounted on a short Aluma tower - which used to be called something like a "ham's special".  It cranks over with a steel post and boat winch rig  which I designed myself.  The T6 is at tower top height, about 25', and the KMA is at the top of the mast, about 30'.  This is a pretty low end station, but represents itself pretty well. 

Ham Radio - Antennas

Thanks to some comments on my Monday post, I got thinking about collecting some thoughts on antennas.  I've been a ham since 1976 and an RF (radio frequency) engineer (but not an antenna designer) since 1986, and along the way have used various antennas, both full size and smaller.  I hope this is useful.  For lots more about antennas than you can imagine, the ARRL Antenna Book is the standard ham's book. 

Let's start at the beginning: why do you need to care about antennas?  We're surrounded by radios that don't seem to care what we use.  An FM radio with a whip antenna doesn't seem to care if the whip is fully extended or not, and a lot of folks will clip or twist a wire onto the end of it to try and get more distant stations.  If you're old enough, you remember putting aluminum foil flags on your rabbit ears - the TV antenna.  Our smartphones or cellphones are radios, and they don't have bulky obvious antennas (at least, not anymore). 

It's the difference between receiving and transmitting.  Transmitting is about getting power out over the air over to a receiver.   A receiver cares about getting something into the first amplifier it can amplify.  In the case of your car radio, an AM broadcast radio or that FM radio, just getting some voltage is all it needs, and almost paradoxically, they don't need power, just voltage.  Those radios are designed with antennas as voltage probes to get a small amount of voltage (millionths of a volt will do) out of that miniscule radio frequency power going by. To get the most power out of a transmitter, antennas need to have the same impedance the transmitter was designed for, and just about all transmitters are designed for 50 ohm antennas.

The problem with saying you want a 50 ohm antenna is that they're only 50 ohms at one frequency, and you probably want to transmit in many places.  The reference 50 ohm antenna is a half-wavelength long dipole, usually made of wires.  (In theory, they're closer to 75 ohms, but in our environments  and the way we usually mount them, that value comes down.)  The length of a half wave dipole in feet is 468/f with f = frequency in MHz.  If you want a 40m dipole, then it's 468/7 or around 66 feet tip to tip.  You can do that for the 40m SSB and find a shorter antenna, so the procedure is to cut it for the part of the band you want.  You can also make a shorter antenna and tune it on frequency with electrical components. 

All of which doesn't answer the question of how you'd transmit on any HF ham band with one antenna. The most direct answer is either an antenna with empirically found dimensions - I've heard good things about the "Carolina Windom" - or a simpler design with an antenna tuning unit. 

I've personally used an off-center fed dipole with a 4:1 transformer in it for years, and the tuner built-in to my HF rigs (I think all Icoms with a tuner use the same basic design) allows it to cover the entire HF spectrum and even up to 6m.  I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this approach.  My 40m OFCD is 66 feet of wire, but instead of being attached to the transmitter in the exact middle, 33' and 33', it's fed at half of 33' (16'6") from one end, so that the long side is 49'6" long.  (Don't get hung up over exact dimensions: 17 and 49 will work just as well).  The feedpoint was hung from the side of my tower at about 18' up, and each end tied off after sloping down toward the ground.  Impedances ranged from 4 ohms on 80m up to over 100 ohms on 6m; the rig was perfectly happy tuning it and running full power.  An antenna analyzer plot of impedance magnitude, angle and SWR looks like this.  Ain't nothing 50 ohms about this antenna!  I've had literally hundreds (thousands?) of contacts with this antenna, including some pretty exotic DX on 40 and 30m. 

On a road trip playing QRP portable, I made a 17m dipole (18.1 MHz), about 12 1/2 feet on a side, and with an LDG Z-11 autotuner, I was able to operate all HF bands.  Even smaller than the home OCFD for easy packing.  I'm sure if you cut a dipole for a lower frequency it would work just as well for you with an autotuner. 

The ARRL has plans for a parallel set of dipoles which works well on the "old" ham bands, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10, due to their harmonic relationships.  A set of wires cut for 40, 20 and 10 will work on 40, 20, 15, and 10.  I ran one of those for a year while in a rental apartment, the midpoint held up by a TV antenna pole (15'? 20?) and the ends drooping off to the ground. I was shocked at how well that worked. 

Of course, there are lots of commercial options and while I've emphasized antennas I've built, you can pay someone to make the wire antennas for you.  I've bought some baluns so I'm not A/R about doing everything myself.  The point is not to over complicate things.  These simple, wire antennas will usually work very well if you get them in the clear. 

Techy Tuesday - Will New Cars Have Radios in 2020?

According to the electronics trade magazine website Planet Analog, there's talk in the industry that cars may not have AM or FM radios in the not-too-distant future. 

These are difficult times for the commercial broadcast-radio business, both AM and FM. According to various articles, such as this one from The Los Angeles Times, listener ratings are continuing to fall, and some carmakers -- where most radio listening is done, apparently -- are considering eliminating radios in the car completely, and not even offering it as an available option. Today’s drivers don’t need old-time radio (a.k.a. "terrestrial radio") for music, weather, traffic, news, or whatever, as they have smartphone connectivity, MP3 players, satellite radio, and much more.

The linked LA Times article about format changes at KFWB AM in El Lay talks about dwindling numbers of listeners for AM radio.  It includes this line:

KFWB has been particularly hard hit as listeners have abandoned AM radio at a steady rate.

The station drew 172,000 listeners a week in July, a small sum considering that it broadcasts to a region that has millions of potential listeners. Top-rated music station KBIG-FM (104.3) pulled in nearly 3.5 million during the same time frame.

The Wall St. Journal, though, presents this graph of what audio sources car owners are using:

Survey respondents still said they tended to get their new music from AM/FM radio.  Some 75% say they listen to the radio to stay up to date, while 66% get new music from friends and family. YouTube and Pandora come in third and fourth with 59% and 48%, respectively.  That varied with age, though.  Younger people are more likely to use digital sources. YouTube takes the top spot among 12-24 year olds, with 83% using the site to keep up with new music. Friends/Family and Pandora are tied for the second spot with 71%.  But even among young people, 65% still use radio to stay up to date.

Buried in all that data is a statistic that surely has an effect on all this.  The average age of cars on the road is 11.4 years - the oldest ever.  That was in the infancy of digital music.  The iPhone has only been around for about seven years, with the first Android phones hitting the market six years ago.  MP3 players existed then, but services like Pandora, I Heart Radio, and other streaming audio services didn't exist.  What else are you going to listen to in a car that doesn't have the most modern services?  Someone did this image depicting the change in car radios we're talking about: 

Like all good humor, there's a kernel of truth in there.

Personally, I find it hard to imagine not having radio services in the car, but I've been a radio geek since I was a tiny kid.  One of my earliest memories is sitting with a cousin on the sand of Miami Beach at night listening to this marvelous thing he had called a short wave radio.  I don't even remember how old I was, just that I was old enough to know that England was a long way away and hearing the BBC was magical.  Years later, in 5th or 6th grade, my parents got me a clock radio so that they didn't have to wake me up for school.  I learned that if you tuned carefully across the AM dial, you'd hear stations from far away.  WABC in New York City or WCKY in Cincinnati?  Easy catches any winter night when the thunderstorms were gone.

I had Sirius satellite radio for a while but when most of your driving is 15 minute commutes, it doesn't make much sense.  On long trips lately, I've just plugged my phone into that aux jack and a USB charger, listening to streaming radio.  It's music or programming I want to listen to, but it doesn't have the local flavor of the local stations; the local talk show that discusses the goings on around town.  Homogenizing the country so that everyone listens to same programs is great, to a point, and there are FCC appointees (at least one) dedicated to killing off local broadcasting; the better to quell dissent with.   We still live in our communities, and local stations can reflect that.  

What do you think?  Is local broadcasting so dead that car makers shouldn't even provide the radio as an option? 

Weekend Find

Saturday was the annual hamfest here in the Silicon Swamp.  I report on hamfests regularly because Mrs. Graybeard and I go to a couple regularly.  Not every one within a few hundred miles, but a couple.  For those unfamiliar with the term, a hamfest is a generally a swap meet with a lot of other interactions - a place where hams meet in person, catch up with old friends, share new stories and just be social.  Some fests have a full schedule of meetings and technical talks; some are simple swap meets.  Amateur radio is a social hobby, by and large, and is full of guys who can talk for hours on many things.  The granddaddy fest is held every year in Dayton, Ohio, the Hamvention.  If you're a ham, you should go to Dayton at least once.

For the first time in several years, I found something I wanted to take home.  A radio called an Icom IC-703 in a complete station.  Here's the illustration from their brochure. 

The '703 is not currently in production, but I consider it a good SHTF radio, and it frequently gets mentioned in places like Arfcom.  It covers all of the HF ham bands from 1.8 to 30 MHz and the 50 MHz 6 meter band.  The radio I found came with that microphone and backpack you see, along with too much to list.  It included the 9.6V BP-288 NiCad battery pack Icom sold for the radio.  The radio is a low power (also called QRP) transmitter, 5W off that 9.6V battery, but 10W off a car battery (or my 35 AH AGM battery from my solar panel).  It didn't come with that antenna, though! 

The Icom specifications page shows the transmit current draw to be 2 amps with unsquelched audio from the receiver around 350 to 400 mA.  Most commercial radios are rated for about 20% transmit, which would equate to 0.72 Amps average (20% 2 and 80% of 0.4).  That 9.6V battery pack's 2800 mAH will power around 4 hours of operation at that current drain.  My 35AH battery will power it for over 38 hours (and it will transmit at twice the power output). 

The radio was in excellent shape, the subject of an estate sale.  The ex-owner's widow was selling it and said she thought he had never used it.  Regardless if that's true, it looks mint and had virtually everything that comes with the new radio along with a good assortment of accessories.  I had it on the air long enough to verify the major functions are working.  The antenna tuner was happy with my antennas (it should be: they're all full-sized, good antennas), the DSP worked, it had an optional narrow filter for CW (Morse code) operation, and an hour of poking around with it showed no problems. 

Taking "Business Class" To Absurd Levels of Opulence

When Airbus announced the A380, my first thought was that it was going to be a cattle car.  A double decker aircraft with a capacity between 525 and 853, depending on version, it just seems like the emphasis was reducing passenger cost per mile. You'll want to moo while boarding. 

It turns out that with all that space, some airlines thought there was a market for business class that went beyond the generous business class ordinarily available to new levels of opulence and decadence.  Singapore Airlines introduced their Suites Class in 2008 for their flagship A380 service.  They go beyond the "pods" that US airlines feature (I've seen Delta's) which offer a seat that reclines into a flat bed all the way to private cabins with sliding doors and a level of luxury that blows my mind.

A young guy named Derek Low was somehow able to do a photo shoot of a flight in Suites class from Singapore to New York and posted his photo blog here.  He calls it "What It's Like to Fly the $23,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class". 

This is a whole 'nother world from anything I've ever seen or experienced.  Unless you're extraordinarily wealthy, you probably haven't either.  But interesting to see. 

We Have Chips

Made the almost-ceremonial first cut with my mill today; deliberately chosen to be something I never would have tried on my CNC Sherline:  0.2 deep slot across a 1" steel bar.  12L14 or Ledloy for you cognoscenti ;-)

The mill did just fine.  I, on the other hand, did less than 100%.  I hadn't tightened down the vise holding that bar all the way and had some rude shaking.  Nothing that slowing down didn't fix. 

In this past week, I've gotten some familiarity with the machine, evaluated it somewhat and made some measurements of run-out on an end mill in a collet and on a couple of drill chucks.  The 3/8 end mill had less than .001"; that is, a dial indicator contacting the part doesn't change by more than .001 as the cutting tool's shaft rotates once.  The drill chuck, advertised as .004, showed .009.  The R8 adapter arbor it was on had less than .001.  I emailed the seller, Little Machine Shop, on Wednesday and had the replacement via Priority Mail today.  This one comes in at .004.  (Yeah, that's an endorsement.  They treated me well and I'll keep going back to them.  FTC - they don't give me anything.  I buy it).  By the way, the Grizzly chuck that comes with the mill had almost .015 run-out.  Maybe that's acceptable for a drill chuck.  Precision machinists don't use drill bits except for very rough operations.  But I prefer the .004" run-out. 

Stupid iPad ... Stupid Apple

Just a gripe.  Like most owners, I went to OS8.02 last week when Apple released it.  Since then, my iPad has awful WiFi performance.   If I reboot, my first attempt to use the internet works fine.  The next attempt is slower, and the third or fourth is so slow I give up.  I tried to load Bayou Renaissance Man and gave up after two minutes with no movement of the progress bar at all. 

Rebooting after every attempt to read a page is the only thing that works, and that's no way to live. 

The user community is filled with people complaining about this.  I restored my iPad to factory settings and then reloaded my backup with no success.  Right now I'm restoring it to factory new, and install everything manually. 

Meanwhile, a cartoon that tickled my funny bone. 

Things Are Turning Nasty in Texas

The death of Liberian Ebola victim and border crasher Thomas Duncan isn't the nasty turn - that was pretty much expected with a disease that has death rates as high as Ebola does - the nasty turn is that Sheriff's Deputy Michael Monnig is being hospitalized with symptoms consistent with Ebola.

As soon as I heard the story of how Duncan was treated in the ER - being sent home and going back days later when he was bleeding out - I started doing the multiplication in my head.  Everyone in the ER when he was admitted is at risk.  Everyone in the ambulance that carried him to the hospital.  Everyone who rode in that ambulance with that crew or any other crew is at risk.  Add to those all the people who went through the ER or the public areas of his apartment building until (if?) they fumigated with chlorine.  Those family members under armed quarantine?  Chances are they're dead already, they just don't know it.  Deputy Monnig was there for a short time.  The family was in close contact for days, before being evacuated to the luxury place they're staying.  From there, the chances are harder to figure.  What about people who were in contact with people who were in the ambulance?  It's hard to know

It appears that this virus is transmitting faster and easier than the authorities are saying it will/should/ordinarily does.  No one quite knows how they get a virus, after all, but the spread in Spain is perplexing the experts.   Deputy Monnig's son said, “He was in the apartment for 30 minutes, which we were told is no chance to contact the virus”.  Reports out of Spain are saying people who were around the first nurse, Teresa Romero Ramos, are now showing symptoms.

In response to my light hearted cartoon post Monday, an anonymous commenter left this (minor edits, so errors are mine):

Here is the imminent threat: Ebola or some other disease will spread. It will get to Mexico and the rest of Central America. Their health care is inadequate for the challenge and the disease will be certain death if you catch it. They will choose the only logical choice and head North where health care is exceptional and "free". As such they will be considered "refugees" and our laws are so mucked up that we will be forced to allow them in. Our once outstanding and capable healthcare system will be over run and become ineffective. Millions may die. [make that will die - SiG]

A few months ago this would seem unlikely. Today it is more likely then not. Consider how our government choose to respond to Ebola and people coming here from West Africa. The system doesn't work. They will only take the correct steps to save Americans AFTER a lot of Americans die and after the disease is established here. They tell you "we got this".  Our health care system is second to none.  But think about it.  How many health care workers does it take to manage one Ebola patient 24 hours a day 7 days a week? That number is 108. How many total beds in the entire U.S. are their for level 4 quarantine patients? less then 30. It will take less then 30 Ebola patients to overwhelm our system. After that you will be sent home and your friends and family must care for you. Then everyone who touches you or anything contaminated by you becomes sick. The progression is exponential. Does it sound unbelievable to you? Fair enough that is the nature of human nature. On Sept 10 2001 flying passenger jets into the WTC sounded unbelievable too. Sadly by the time you and the CDC and the president "believe" it then it will be too late and we will be subject to the reality of a fast spreading disease. Will it happen this time with Ebola? I don't know but it could and if we get lucky and it doesn't, what next?

Ebola burns out quickly.  If you're exposed to it, you're either dead within 30 days or you're recovering from the fight of your life.  Because of that, quarantine is possible.  It's a shame our CDC is doing exactly what Anonymous said, and is just telling us "we got this".   But in a nearly 100% incompetent administration, what would you expect?

Dr.  Gil Mobley did a one man demonstration at Atlanta Hartsfield Airport last week.

Techy Tuesday - New Fiber Optic Speed Record

It will take a while to make it down to the commercial sector, but a new world record for speed in a fiber optic link has been set. The High-Speed Optical Communications (HSOC) team at Denmark Technical University (DTU) has announced a new fiber-optic technology that transmits at 43 Terabits per second (Tbits/s) using a single laser source.  The team broke the existing 26-Tbit/s record set by researchers at Germany's Karlsruhe Institut für Technologie.

The details are a bit esoteric and I need to talk a little about how data is sent over fiber optics.  To begin with, most fiber optic lines are capable of carrying many different colors of light.  They are optically big compared to the wavelength of light, so light bounces around in there without regard to color (and optical guys always refer to wavelength, not color).  It's literally like wire; you can put many frequencies on it and they propagate down the fiber just as easily.  Electromagnetic field guys would say that the light's EM field can take on many different patterns, making it a multi-mode fiber.  In contrast, there are also single mode fibers which are more selective in what they transmit, only allowing certain frequencies.  It's intended for single wavelengths and one mode of transmission, but other wavelengths can fit in there, too.  Usually shorter wavelengths/higher frequencies; in light a green wave can fit in a red single mode fiber, or blue in green single mode fiber. 

Radio guys will note the analogy to coax and waveguide.  Multimode fibers are more like coax while single mode fibers behave more like waveguide.  The data transmission in multi-mode fiber tends toward the simpler types: on off keying; simple codes.  The data sent in single mode fiber is often more like other data communications at radio frequencies. 

What's novel about this is not just the speed, but the approach.  The DTU team used an optical fiber with seven single mode fibers in it, an idea from NTT.  One of the fiber paths was used to synchronize the other six, and each of the six carrying a 320 Giga-baud (billion baud) channels on a different color light (called Wavelength Domain Multiplexing).  The six WDM channels were then polarization-multiplexed (that is, one set of data are polarized in one direction, while the other set of data takes an opposite polarization) with each optical pulse carrying two bits of information in quadrature using the differential quad phase shift keying (DQPSK) format.

(generic artsy picture of optical fibers that don't have anything to do with this news - source) 

How much data is 43 Terabytes?  In the last ten years or so, someone coined the phrase Library Of Congress for large amount of data.  One LOC is 10 Terabytes or 10,000 gigabytes.  This system would transmit 4.3 LOCs in one second. At 50 GB in a Blu-Ray DVD, 43 Terabytes is 860 Blu-Ray DVDs per second.  Look at it this way, that 5 Zettabyte data center the NSA just built in Utah?  It would take 116,279,070 seconds to fill it with this data hose.  1346 days.

Isis Comes to America

Florida, Texas, Alaska or pretty much any one of the free states.  Just not California, New Jersey or those gunfree sewers like New York City or Chicago.

Really pretty simple, after all.  Chip Bok at Townhall.com

The Global Warming Pause Reaches Voting Age

The period over which no statistical test can distinguish warming is now old enough to vote: 18 years and 1 month.  During that time CO2 levels have continued to rise.  

First, satellite temperature data:

and now the Mauna Loa CO2 levels - the ones typically used as the global sample.

It's pretty easy to see that CO2 levels have continued to climb since 1997, but the temperature has not.  

In my world, that marks two uncorrelated variables.

Mostly Done

I had said with some luck I'd have the machine in place and checked out by now.

The mill is in place, the heavy shipping grease (like cosmoline) removed and all I have left to do is do the motor checkout.  The manual describes an hour test, running the motor at 600, 1000 and 2000 RPM for 10 minutes each, forward and reverse.  It says not to leave the room. 

Everything went as planned, with really only one snag.  Assembled the crane, rolled it into the garage, lifted the mill out of the shipping crate, put it on the garden cart, rolled the mill over to near the stand, rolled the crane over to it, lifted and put it in place.

The snag was that the mill had four metric bolts of unknown size to mount it to the stand, and one of the holes in the stand wouldn't accept its bolt.  I thought it was misalignment - the threads on the bolt were boogered up and I thought it was from cross threading.  Lifted the mill again, repositioned everything and it still wouldn't thread.  Cleaned up the threads with a triangle file (I don't have metric taps and dies) - still wouldn't work.  I pulled a mounting bolt from the shipping crate, verified it was the same, and it wouldn't thread in.  Aha!  That meant the nut in the stand was the bad part!  The closest tap I had was 3/8-16.  Its threads would overlay the unknown bolt for almost half an inch.  With nothing to lose, I tried it.  Gently threaded it in a few turns past the part that wasn't smooth.  Voila, the mounting bolt now worked and I have the regulation four mounting bolts holding it down.

Not a bad day's work.  I think tomorrow we'll smoke a pork butt and make some pulled pork to celebrate. 

My Ghost Guns Are Ghostier Than Your Ghost Guns

I haven't said anything about Defense Distributed's new CNC machine Ghost Gunner.  It's cool.  By all means, check it out if you haven't.

The selling point, IMO, is the open source hardware and open source software behind this.  It claims to take the expertise out of the process and make it a turnkey operation.

Ghost Gunner is a miniature CNC machine designed to automatically manufacture publicly created designs with nearly zero user interaction. No prior CNC knowledge or experience is required to manufacture from design files. Defense Distributed's first design is the venerable AR-15 lower receiver. Ghost Gunner automatically finds and aligns your 80% lower receiver to the machine, with simple installation instructions, point and click software and all required tools. Just follow a few simple instructions to mount your 80% lower receiver, tighten a couple screws (with simple tools we provide), and on day one, Ghost Gunner can help you legally manufacture unserialized firearms in the comfort of your own home.

Finding and aligning to your part automagically is fantastic!  Further down the webpage it says that auto alignment only works on metal, but that manual alignment, for plastics, is designed to be easy, too.  But, again, it's more.  They've developed a file format, their "open source Physibles Development SDK (pDev)" files in a new '.dd' file format.  The new format contains all installation and assembly instructions, any required jig files to hold the part in place (that users can print with a 3D printer), and all machine definitions and code to physically manufacture a particular design. Slick!

A single file can contain specific code and installation instructions for any number of machines. A user with both a Ghost Gunner and a Tormach P1100 could manufacture a particular .dd file on either machine and manufacture the same physible with zero additional user knowledge, as only the instructions required for a particular machine are revealed to the end user. The .dd file format is a CNC response to 3D printing's universal .stl file format.

So don't think of this as a device for making only guns. Think of it as a new universal 3-axis CNC machine capable of making anything in its envelope.  DD promises AR-10s and 1911s will follow, but beyond that, expect users to start making files for anything useful that fits in its work envelope (~6.75 x 2.95 x 2.35").  The world of CNC opens for the non-specialist.  Plop it on the desk, and within a few minutes, it's milling a lower receiver for you.

Bob Owens at Bearing Arms says that making guns isn't really the point and the machine is expensive for that.  Using nothing more than a $70-100 drill press or even a hand drill with jigs, people have been completing perfectly functional AR-15 lower receivers since at least the 1990s.  Likewise, you can buy all the equipment necessary to build a small factory churning out AKMs (the correct name for AK-series rifles that the media continues to call AK-47s, even though the original Ak-47 series hasn’t been made since 1960) from parts kits and receiver flats for less than $700.

Bob rhetorically asks, "Is the “Ghost Gunner” worth it?"  and concludes with:

If your goal is to terrify and infuriate the agents of an ever-more-intrusive government, however, the Ghost Gunner serves its purpose well, and that is precisely the role of everything produced by Defense Distributed, which exists for the explicit purpose of ticking off all the right people.

If I knew buying this would personally tick off all the right people, I'd sign up for two!  The feeling must be widespread: Wired reports DD sold out the first level in 36 hours.  The first 10 sold for $99, the next 200 for $1199, and according to their webpage right now, they're at 97 left of the third group that sell for $1299. 

Update One

It was a long frustrating day waiting for the delivery truck.  They said they'd be out between 10 and 2. I neglected to ask, "Do you mean 10AM and 2PM? On the same day?"  Delivery was around 6 PM.  When you think about it, I suppose it's always between 10 and 2 in some way of counting. 

Aside from that aggravation, the delivery guy was great.  He offered to load it up on his pallet jack and put it in the garage, so I let him.  I put the nifty little stand (it has shelves inside) approximately in place.  That little bookshelf on the right was never intended to go there, and just got shoved over there to get it out from under foot.

By this time tomorrow night, I should have the mill in place on that stand and checked out.  I don't have a mill vise, Tee nuts or other clamping hardware that will fit it - that all comes Monday - so I doubt I'll actually cut some metal, but it should be running.  With a bit of luck.

Odds and Ends

Need to spend some time in planning for mill as I got the message it's on the way.  Supposed to be here Friday, but how that really works is the freight company will call me on Friday and we'll arrange a time to meet them here.  I paid extra for liftgate service, which lowers the crate on a hydraulic lift to the sidewalk or street level, but I don't quite know what I need to get it up the driveway into the shop.  Pallet jack?  Is a cart adequate?  It only weighs 375 pounds, so I don't need extremely heavy duty tools.  Do they offer that service for some extra buckaleros? 

Is it just me, or is it really the case that there are no adults left in charge in the country?  These guys are worse than the faculty lounge crowd, they're more like the student council!  There are so many examples, I don't know where to start, but WTF happened to the secret service?  Didn't they used to be competent?   We have agents being sent home for being drunk from the Netherlands, from Miami  and there was that rather big incident with the Colombian hooker.  We have the president in close proximity with a guy with convictions for assault and battery, who was carrying an illegal firearm. And, of course, we have this story, which is sucking up most of the air.  (Holbert at Townhall.com)

The NIH is finding cultures of deadly diseases lying around in old boxes, and the CDC exposed employees to anthrax, so no worry about them letting ebola into the country. 

No, no, no.  Everything is fine.  They're smarter and better than us.  We just don't understand how lucky we are to have them.

Techy Tuesday - Biohacking

In recent years, the term hacking has drifted back to its original meaning, and extended the range of things it's applied to.  Originally, hacking was experimenting on something with clever tricks to get the best results out of it; perhaps even finding ways to make systems do things their designers didn't know those systems could do.  Hardware hacking, for example, might mean figuring a way to increase the clock speed of a CPU to get software running faster; software hacking might be coming up with an elegant trick for sorting lists faster.  The term started being applied to felons breaking into computer systems and became a derogatory term, but within the last couple of years, it is being used more like the original meanings. 

Today we hear of Lifehacking, coming up with little tips and tricks to make life easier and better.  Another version of life hacking comes from Dave Asprey, former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist, who spent $300,000 of his own money investigating how to improve his body and mind non-invasively.  His small business, The Bulletproof Executive,  sells things he's productized and information he has gleaned to improve health.

Dave lost 100 pounds without counting calories or excessive exercise, used techniques to upgrade his brain by more than 20 IQ points, and lowered his biological age while learning to sleep more efficiently in less time. Learning to do these seemingly impossible things transformed him into a better entrepreneur, a better husband, and a better father.

As he puts it, he hacked his own biology to become better at everything.  (I've heard him interviewed once or twice - he's an interesting guy!)

But hacking ourselves goes beyond this, into the emerging field of biohacking: people doing direct surgical modifications of themselves and introducing technology into their bodies in an attempt to improve or enhance themselves.  This piece, on the UK website MakeUseOf.com describes some of the things people are having done to themselves:

“Sorry about the mess,” says Steve Haworth, as we walk down the stairs to the surgical theater in his basement. My friend Ted is visibly pale and sweating – for good reason. He’s about to get a sixth sense the hard way: by way of a scalpel, a needle and thread, and a tiny, gold-plated rare-earth magnet. Haworth is a body modification expert with a particular interest in what’s called “biohacking” – the practice of merging consumer technology and the human body to produce uniquely functional body modifications.

Why implant a magnet into your finger?  To "experience" magnetic fields in new and different ways.

Haworth has several already installed in his own body, which he shows us as he moves his hand through the air next to his running can opener. Sure enough, you can feel the magnet twitch and jump in response to the electromagnetic field generated by the motor. It’s startling, and shows off exactly what you’re getting for your three hundred and fifty dollars: the ability to feel the shape and strength of electromagnetic fields in the world around you. Our host describes someone who had the procedure done, and was startled, when walking through New York City, to discover the powerful electromagnetic field produced by an electrical junction under the sidewalk.

There's an unmistakable scent of "latest hip trend here" and attracting people intently wanting new experiences.  For example, the MakeUseOf piece has an embedded video by a young German girl playing with the magnet in her ring finger, and one of the comments is from a 13-year old asking if it was legal and if he could get it.  But it goes beyond that.  Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Coventry University, was the world's first man to get a silicon chip implanted in his arm and learn to control things in the outside world with it. 

By capturing electrical signals flowing down his arm, Warwick was able to control a robotic wheelchair, and remote-control a robotic hand over the Internet. Later, his wife had a similar electrode grid implanted, allowing them to communicate with direct nerve impulses via the Internet.

It made the Warwicks the first people on earth to feel each other's nerve impulses.

“It didn’t feel like pain or heat or seeing. It was like an entirely new sense. And that was part of the experiment: to see if the brain can adapt and take on new types of input and learn to understand. The brain is very clever like that—I just want to see how far we can push it.”

There are obvious applications here for better prosthetics and better cyborgs (Warwick himself has been called "Captain Cyborg").  Imagine developing interface chips that can be implanted in someone who lost a limb, and a prosthetic that takes the same nerve impulses that used to move the real arm and turns them into equivalent motions in the prosthetic.  It doesn't seem remotely more difficult to give tactile feedback to the person through those same interfaces.

The progress in cochlear implants for the deaf has been remarkable, and there's talk that video implants are not far behind.  Blindness and deafness defeated?

Most forms of total deafness are curable these days, via the use of a cochlear implant — a chip implanted in the nerves of the ear that uses several electrodes to translate sounds from a worn microphone into electrical signals to the brain. The audio quality is not as good as in a normal ear, but electrode densities are improving, and modern cochlear implants are good enough to understand speech without lip reading in a quiet room, and even to appreciate music (though audiophiles will probably complain about the bitrate).
...
Even more ambitiously, scientists have reverse-engineered the retina, and created a computer program that reproduces its operation. This allows you to connect cameras to the optic nerve as though they were living eyes, and have the cameras speak to the brain on its own terms, providing a much more natural approximation of normal vision than has otherwise be possible. In principle, these cameras could eventually exceed human vision – implementing optical zoom, active night vision, and the ability to see the non-visible portions of the spectrum.

Steve Mann - quite possibly the first victim of anti-cyborg hate crime - and a version of Eyetap.  That's not a Google Glass, it's physically attached to his skull by several screws. It entirely captures the visual input to one eye, runs it through a computer to attach additional information, and then displays it on a small near-eye screen.

This is clearly the beginnings of transhumanism,  perhaps the early stages of Vernor Vinge's Singularity that has been written about at great lengths elsewhere.  There are parts about all of these procedures that are creepy: the discussion about the surgery to implant the magnets made me think of the Joker getting his face fixed in some dirty ex-hospital, or Tom Cruise getting new eyeballs in Minority Report. I'll hand the conclusion back off to MakeUseOf:

The future is here – and, while it’s often rough around the edges, anyone with two cents worth of vision to rub together can see that near future is going to be tumultuous and wonderful and strange beyond measure. That’s the philosophy that drives biohacking – fulfilling the promises of science fiction a little at a time, as the future slowly becomes more evenly distributed. Right now, it’s expensive, painful, and sketchy enough that it’s pretty much reserved for enthusiasts, DIYers and other people who are not entirely sane. The tech is getting better, though, and sooner or later it’s going to move into the mainstream in the same way that tattoos and piercings have.  Your grandmother may someday be showing off the implants that remind her where she is and monitor her health to call for help if something goes wrong. Your aunt might have robotic eyes that can see things that human eyes never could.  When you’re old, maybe you’ll opt for enhanced legs and a porcine heart. At this point in time, it’s a question of ‘when’, and not ‘if.’

Outfitting the Small Shop - Part 2

Update to my post from a couple of weeks ago, I just pushed the button on the new mill for my shop.

The Grizzly version of the BF20 mills sold a few places. These are built by Chinese company but not Seig, makers of the other mill I highlighted in that previous post. 

There's a few reasons for this: the size and power put it right in the range I'm looking for, capable of taking relatively very heavy cuts (compared to what I'm used to).  I think an 80% lower will be a Saturday afternoon job instead of a spare time for a week or more, and it brings possibilities of lots of other gunsmithing adventures.  There's a lot of online support for it - this one is referred to often. 

Obviously, it's not CNC ready, so there's that.  Frankly, I've never turned the cranks on a milling machine and I don't know how I'll do with that.   I definitely need to look into one of options for a DRO (Digital Read Out - a digital reading of position).  Yeah, Griz sells one outfitted with a DRO, but I've seen DROs made out of digital calipers.  For two of the axes, that should be reasonably cheap.

The adventure will begin in earnest next week at about this time, with a few hundred pounds of machine-tool kit in the shop.  Meanwhile, the next level of planning begins.  And this is totally ignoring the L-word: a tool room lathe. 

Lava Fountains Taller than the Statue of Libery

The Bardarbunga volcano made headlines about a month ago for starting to erupt under ice fields.  The website RUV notes that Bardarbunga has created a lava field 11-12 square kilometers in size, containing erupting fountains of lava which have been measured at 130 meters high - 427 feet high. The Statue of Liberty's torch is 305 feet above the ground. 

"We returned to the fissure early this morning and saw considerable volcanic activity at around 7 AM," says Dr. Hoskuldsson. He and other scientists spent the night at a mountain hut nearby, after an evacuation was ordered yesterday when volcanic tremor was detected in the area, leading to fears that a subglacial eruption was imminent. "The main craters are now very active and the lava fountains from them rise up to 120 - 130 meter height," he says.

 A commenter at Ice Age Now said,

At the moment this eruption alone is pouring out more SO2 than the whole world’s human production.

I saw some Iceland Met office figures a day or so ago. 80%+ of the emissions are H20. 15% CO2 and 5% SO2 + assorted.  If the fluorine count increases this will be a real worry.

There are some reports that the Laki fissure eruptions of the 18th century had lava fountains over a kilometer high.

I'm impressed that one volcano gives off more sulfur dioxide than the entire human race.  So far, this is considered a small eruption.  But remember: your SUV, or the exhaust from your lawnmower, or from your outboard motor, are a threat to the planet.

10 Years Ago Today

We were in the cleanup and aftermath of Hurricane Jeanne, the second of the two hurricanes to hit us directly in 2004.  Charley, which was a small but intense Cat 5 storm when it came ashore in Charlotte Harbor, brushed us in late August but only at tropical storm strength.  The storm came ashore almost exactly where Hurricane Frances came ashore on September 5th, they came ashore within roughly 8 miles of each other, between the cities of Ft. Pierce and Stuart on the SE coast of Florida. 

Jeanne had one of those peculiar paths hurricanes sometimes get, going north of the Bahamas, well offshore from here, but then doing a loop and coming back to hit us.  From our standpoint it was convenient, if not a little spooky.  After the clean up from Frances and life getting back to normal (traffic lights actually working), we took off for a week's vacation in the upper peninsula of Michigan to look for samples of the native copper it's famous for up there.  As I recall, we flew back into town on Wednesday and the storm hit on Saturday night (it came ashore Sunday morning).  It's as if it waited for us to come back. 

Like Frances, our power stayed on until the eye was well past and the winds shifted from easterly to more southerly.  Unlike Frances, we'd bought a few battery backup power supplies for the critical stuff, so I could watch some goofy movie on the Sci-Fi channel and as the lights flickered, I could still watch the movie.  After Frances our power was out from just before daybreak until 9 that night - about 15 or 16 hours.  After Jeanne it stayed out about 36 hours.  Both of those times are exceptionally short, for reasons I've never understood.  Many friends were without power for weeks after Frances only to lose it again for weeks after Jeanne. 

More hurricanes would hit elsewhere in Florida that year, but Wilma late in the season of 2005, was the last before the current 9 year gap (and counting) without a hurricane making landfall in Florida.  Wilma removed the new roof my brother put on his south Palm Beach County home after Frances and Jeanne, but Wilma is only notable to me because it was late October and the cold front pushing it northeast and over the state actually got me cold while I was outside cleaning up.  It was the only time in my life I've gotten cold cleaning up after a hurricane or tropical storm! 

It is beginning to look like the era of 'high spin cycle' tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic basin that started in 1995 has run its course with only five named storms recorded through today (and none expected through the end of September). There were hints of that demise last year with a below normal level of hurricane development, i.e., only two Cat I storms - the last time that the Atlantic only had two hurricanes in a season was 1982. The last time that a season had three or less named storms by August 31st was in 1994 - the last year of the previous 'quiet cycle' in the Atlantic.

Since the lack of activity cannot be blamed on an El Nino event (it has not yet started), it is increasingly likely that the period of Atlantic high tropical cyclone activity has ended. However, it is important to remember that the likelihood of a U.S. hurricane landfall is about the same (approximately 22%) during a 'quiet cycle' era as it is during an 'active cycle' era - and that is also true for a Florida hurricane landfall (about 5%).

Are We Leading Students Down a Wrong Path?

Let me preface this by saying that the national "conversation" about the changing nature of work in this country has gone on for a long time and will continue to go on.  There are those who fervently believe that within a generation, robots will be doing most of today's low wage jobs and unemployment will approach becoming the majority of the population. Which means the other 50%, who are working, will pay benefits to those replaced by robots.  Can such a society be stable and exist more than a couple of years?  There are those who say that many of the good jobs have left the US and will never come back.

Still, as I've said before, I've been working in American manufacturing companies for almost 40 years - since 1976 to be exact - and the only constant has been people telling me that manufacturing is going away and will never come back.  I've been told over and over, as you'll hear pundit after pundit say, that America just doesn't make anything anymore.  America doesn't make the cheap consumer products that fill your local Wal-Targ-inc store; we make virtually everything else.   Chances are, you'll be getting most of those plastic things 3D printed within 10 years, anyway (my guess).  Today, I work for a company that exports products to China, and have for most of my career. 
  
I don't watch much TV, but it's hard not to notice the drumbeat that we need to get more kids in engineering, or more precisely into STEM; Science Technology Engineering and Math.  Just last night, I was watching a bunch of fresh-faced child actors glamorizing the appeal of engineering for some company.  After scenes of various teen actors asking "who's going to invent?" various new things, the photogenic kid says, "Change the world?  It's in the job description".   Calculated to appeal to the idealism in kids. 

But are those jobs really going to be there?  In Electrical Engineering Times, author Daniel Donahoe writes about what he sees as the decline of engineering in the Silicon Valley. 

The US Department of Labor provides more detailed, if more bureaucratic, employment numbers than my simple reference to Craig’s List. The total pool of domestic electronics engineering jobs totaled 223,000 in 2012, some 57% of the total electrical engineering jobs if you include those related to electrical power.

The pool is projected to grow only 5% over the next decade, which works out to only 1,100 new electronics engineering jobs per year. The US graduates approximately 14,000 electrical engineers each year and imports many more. So digging up government data paints a darker picture.

Now graduating 14,000 engineers for 1100 jobs is obviously a problem, but it's worse than that.  We also import engineers under the H1B visa programs started in the 1990s.  Can you really argue we have a shortage of engineering graduates in this country? 

His view of the problem is that industry has turned engineering into any other commodity, and all commodities are price-negotiated in business.  Now maybe this is too "inside baseball" for those who aren't engineers, but he talks about the way that companies have done so much to cut costs.  Not just offshoring things that aren't their "core competencies" (the parts of their business they think they're best at), but everything.  In Donahoe's view, the thing most fundamental to the Silicon Valley is silicon, but the current generation of American semiconductor companies proudly proclaim being "fabless" (they don't make their own silicon chips).  

Back to Donahoe:

Contrary to the Pidgin English promoted by freshly minted MBA’s from management consulting companies, the atrophy of American electronics engineering is not the magical result of an invisible hand or a disruptive force. It is due to a loss of character, or what I call the "great vacuum of American business thought leadership."

Let me caution that Silicon Valley engineers have developed a tendency to be a bit like New Yorkers, in the sense that they think they work in the "Capital of the Universe" and everything important in the industry happens there.  Lots of important engineering goes on in companies that don't make ICs at all; and never had a wafer fab to outsource.  Nevertheless, he has a point about commoditization.  It's why America doesn't make those plastic parts I referred to above.  They're too easy.  To distinguish yourself or your company, you need to do the hard things better than the other guys.  American companies don't make portable AM/FM radios anymore because anyone can make them.  American radio companies make industrial radios that are harder to make, and that are tested to work under extreme conditions.  And you can't consider the megatrends like outsourcing and fabless semiconductor companies without considering the regulatory environment and the government's footprints on the industry.  The famous founders of Silicon Valley, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, started in their garage (now a landmark in the Valley).  Today, they'd probably be locked up for environmental crimes, like dripping alcohol on the floor and leaving it to evaporate.  If it was easier and cheaper to start companies, more companies would be started, and likewise if it was easier and cheaper to run a semiconductor fab than outsource it, more companies would run fab operations. 

As for the kids, it's hard to say if we're setting them up for future unemployment.  I don't know if anyone can demonstrate those commercials affect anyone.  While there might be a few percent of kids that could become engineers who have never thought of the profession, most of them have The Knack and know it - even if they don't have the words for it.  They know they're ... different.

For the First Time in Eric Holder's Tenure

He makes a correct decision.  If it was his decision. 

Good riddance, pathetic scumbag. 

There appear to be two lines of thought on his resignation.  One is that he was planning to retire after the midterms and is going now so that his replacement (who is guaranteed to be just as awful) can get through the senate while Harry Reid is still running it.  The thinking is that if the Stupid party takes the senate, as some are suggesting, the inevitably doctrinaire racist-communist appointees will be blocked.  The other main thought was that this was caused by a need to get Place Holder under the bus, perhaps due to the decision denying the DOJ's request to keep stonewalling the papers on fast and furious.  The longtime rules of engagement for the Ruling Class in Washington is that once you're out of the city, they don't come after you.

While I'm sure we're not getting anything good out of this, it's still good to see him leave. 

Speak For Yourself, Zeke

Rahm Emanuel's brother, Ezekiel, recently wrote that he hopes to die at 75.  Ezekiel, you might remember, was instrumental in the design of Obamacare.  He was an author of an influential paper (pdf) on the Whole Lives system, a model for allocating the scarce resources of health care.  It has been reported that his approach from that paper is how Obamacare is structured.  In this system, the "probability of receiving an intervention" (that is, your chance of being treated) is almost zero as new born or as a senior, but peaks for young adults, up to about age 55.  Not coincidentally, those are the ones who have the largest chance of contributing tax money for the longest time, paying for their own treatments.  As I wrote long ago (2010):

In this system, it's acceptable to let a 70 year old, die while giving care to a 25 year old, because their life is worth more to the collective - excuse me - worth more to society.  To paraphrase their quote, "it's not discrimination to deny care to the 70 year old and give it to the 25 year old.  Everyone who is now 70 was once 25 and the majority of those who are 25 now will be 70 some day".   In other words, "we can screw you now because we didn't screw you earlier; and if we're not screwing you now, wait until you're 70 and then you'll really be screwed."

and...

The implications are obvious: if a twenty-something needs a liver or kidney transplant and a suitable donor person below 10 or over 50 (judging by Emanuel's chart) is available, these ethics standards say go ahead and kill the kid or kill the grandma and get the working "unit" back to work so "it" can make money and pay taxes to the mighty Fed.gov hydra.

Zeke is no longer in the policy-making position he was in during the design of the "Obamination"; he's now the director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.  In other words, he's still sucking on the government teat, but he apparently is no longer in a position where he can force these ideas on the rest of us - although that die has probably already been cast. 

Zeke says he's not actively planning on offing himself, he's just going to stop taking care of himself.

This means colonoscopies and other cancer-screening tests are out—and before 75. If I were diagnosed with cancer now, at 57, I would probably be treated, unless the prognosis was very poor. But 65 will be my last colonoscopy. No screening for prostate cancer at any age. (When a urologist gave me a PSA test even after I said I wasn’t interested and called me with the results, I hung up before he could tell me. He ordered the test for himself, I told him, not for me.) After 75, if I develop cancer, I will refuse treatment. Similarly, no cardiac stress test. No pacemaker and certainly no implantable defibrillator. No heart-valve replacement or bypass surgery. If I develop emphysema or some similar disease that involves frequent exacerbations that would, normally, land me in the hospital, I will accept treatment to ameliorate the discomfort caused by the feeling of suffocation, but will refuse to be hauled off.

It's actually a pretty interesting piece, if you read it as a physician's view of his own situation and not as a government plan for what it's going to do to you.  He raises some interesting and valid points; the main point revolves around not wanting to be a burden to his children, and not wanting to watch himself go through the decay that comes with age.  That we're living longer, but living with more impairments and disabilities.  Some of it strikes me as insightful; real truths.  Other parts of it strike me as neurotic.  He includes this graphic, which I think he finds scary:

I think he's afraid of not being considered a great contributor in his field any longer.  He speaks of mentoring. I think about this subject a lot because it's one of my main tasks these days. 

Mentorship is hugely important. It lets us transmit our collective memory and draw on the wisdom of elders. It is too often undervalued, dismissed as a way to occupy seniors who refuse to retire and who keep repeating the same stories. But it also illuminates a key issue with aging: the constricting of our ambitions and expectations.

His concern with being a burden to his children, and making sure they have pleasant memories shines through like a searchlight:

But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.
...
The situation becomes of even greater concern when we confront the most dreadful of all possibilities: living with dementia and other acquired mental disabilities. Right now approximately 5 million Americans over 65 have Alzheimer’s; one in three Americans 85 and older has Alzheimer’s. And the prospect of that changing in the next few decades is not good. Numerous recent trials of drugs that were supposed to stall Alzheimer’s—much less reverse or prevent it—have failed so miserably that researchers are rethinking the whole disease paradigm that informed much of the research over the past few decades.
...
How do we want to be remembered by our children and grandchildren? We wish our children to remember us in our prime. Active, vigorous, engaged, animated, astute, enthusiastic, funny, warm, loving. Not stooped and sluggish, forgetful and repetitive, constantly asking “What did she say?” We want to be remembered as independent, not experienced as burdens.

At age 75 we reach that unique, albeit somewhat arbitrarily chosen, moment when we have lived a rich and complete life, and have hopefully imparted the right memories to our children. Living the American immortal’s dream dramatically increases the chances that we will not get our wish—that memories of vitality will be crowded out by the agonies of decline. Yes, with effort our children will be able to recall that great family vacation, that funny scene at Thanksgiving, that embarrassing faux pas at a wedding. But the most-recent years—the years with progressing disabilities and the need to make caregiving arrangements—will inevitably become the predominant and salient memories. The old joys have to be actively conjured up.

The thing is, this all strikes me as egotism.  Rather than concern for his children and grandchildren, it seems more like he doesn't want them to think any less of him.  I truly understand not wanting to be a burden to my kids, but I don't think less of my mom because we had to spend a lot of time and effort last year trying to care for her.  I don't have fewer good memories and I don't have to "actively conjure" them up.  I have all the good old memories and some more.  So they're not the most wonderful of times; so what?  That's the nature of life.  I don't resent her in any way and don't regret the time I spent with her when she was hospitalized.  If anything I regret I not being able to do more for her.  I think if Zeke's kids resent him, he was crappy father.  They're too shallow and need to develop some character.  

Go give it a read. 

Techy Tuesday - The Top Myths About Stainless Steel

An unfortunate fact about living in the Silicon Swamp, as I do, is that we're said to have the saltiest air in the country and among the worst in the world.   Since it's blowing in from the ocean, the east side of a lot of things left outdoors gets hammered by corrosion.  We can tell you what side of a house a window screen came from by how corroded it is.  If you're building things made of metal, you'd better give consideration of the material's corrosion resistance or finishing it to prevent corrosion.  Around here, stainless steel isn't an exotic material, it's virtually mandatory.

Stainless steel gets its corrosion resistance from the addition of at least 10% by weight of chromium into the mix.  Much like aluminum resists corrosion by forming a layer of aluminum oxide corrosion that then protects the bulk metal, the chromium forms an oxide layer that protects the steel.  Some good general info on some details about stainless steels can be found on About.com, but it starts out with a myth about the discovery of stainless steel which you may have heard.  The myth is that stainless steel was accidentally discovered in 1913 by British metallurgist Harry Brearly, when he noticed that some samples of an experimental alloy he was planning to throw away hadn’t rusted after sitting on a shelf for several months. In fact, Brearly knew what he was doing; it had been known since the 1800s that adding chromium to steel increased its corrosion resistance, and a number of inventors around the world had already developed materials that would be considered stainless steels today before 1913. (Source)

Unfortunately, stainless steel can and does rust.  In seawater, for example, the plentiful chloride ions (salt is sodium chloride) can bond to the chromium and destroy this coating, causing the steel to rust, often called pit corrosion for the appearance it has.  There are special marine grade stainless alloys that are more resistant to this because of other elements added to the mix.  Additionally, since steel contains carbon, the chromium can bond with the carbon to form chromium carbides. Carbides can form when the steel is heated to high temperatures; for example, in the heat-affected-zone of a weld. The carbides tend to form along the grain boundaries of the material, so the corrosion follows the grain boundaries. Therefore, this phenomenon is called “intergranular corrosion.” In the specific case of welds, it is also called “sensitization” or “weld decay.” This form of corrosion can be minimized by using stainless steels with low carbon contents. These alloys are identified with the letter L: for example, 304L and 316L.  Even if it doesn't rust, stainless on boats changes appearance with age in the marine environment, becoming darker, more gray, than it was when it was new. 

The second most common myth is that stainless is non-magnetic.  I actually have a few of those rare earth magnets in my shop and test my hardware with it, but I know it's not the final word.  The two most common series of SS alloys  are 300 and 400 series; the 300 series is either nonmagnetic or only slightly magnetic, while the 400 series is magnetic.  My test is that if it's not attracted to those strong magnets (given the right appearance, etc.) it's definitely stainless.  If it is attracted to it, it still might be stainless, and I might need to do something else with it.

You'll see the terms martensitic and austenitic to describe steels; these terms might be useful to materials weenies, but I find it easier to work with the number series of steels.  300 series alloys are austenitic while 400 series alloys are martensitic.  Those terms have to do with the crystal structure.  Martensite is formed by the rapid cooling of the alloy while austenite is formed by slower cooling.  The crystals are completely different.  Austenite is a "face centered cubic" crystal while Martensite is body-centered tetragonal (BCT) crystal.  The cool thing about steels is how they can be customized for the properties you want by tweaking both the composition and heat treatment.

For my general shop use and hardware on boats, 316 stainless is what I tend to use and prefer.  303 is a "free-machining" stainless.  Free machining stainless steels are created by the addition of a couple of percent of sulfur, which sacrifices some corrosion resistance.  You'll find 303 used in lots of places including, surprisingly, jewelry.  400 series steels are stronger than 300 series, but the trade off is less corrosion resistance.  416 SS is a commonly used alloy, a strong alloy, but it's not going to hold up in harsh environments as well as 316.  You'll also find references to other alloys, like "18-8".  These aren't part of the formal 300 or 400 series, but are similar; 18 is the percent chromium and 8 the percent nickel.  That particular alloy is closer to 304 than 316.  Your search engine is your friend for questions like "18-8 vs 316". 

Unfortunately, if you go and just buy "stainless screws" that don't specify the alloy, it can be hard to know what you're getting.  Having a supplier you can get that information from is a big plus.  Boat manufacturers pay extra for a guaranteed supply of 316 - even when they buy hardware by the drum.  We might have to pay extra to get what we want, too. 

A common problem with stainless hardware is galling; stainless bolts in stainless nuts can actually cold weld to each other and have to be cut apart.  Galling can be reduced by using coarser threads or by a PTFE (Teflon) lubricant before assembly.  

A Day for Rowing in Circles

No, not the big picture.  Just my day.  First it's "we need you to get a plane tomorrow and go visit...", then that turned into "Not really.  Not now".  Then some stuff that had to be done, and home from work two hours late.  So, a no content night...

What Caliber for Ebola?

I may be a bit late to this party, but in my view the President's sending boots on the ground to fight Ebola while vowing to never put boots on the ground to fight the Islamic State is almost perfectly wrong.  Completely backwards from what should be done.

A friend asked me if I'm worried about Ebola.  I think the answer is not so much worry as alertness.  Not worrying, just watching for developments.  I keep hearing the official line that it's difficult to spread and contact with body fluids is required, but I see a doctor who came down with it was treating maternity patients and supposedly not in contact with Ebola patients.  Maybe it's all stock photos, but the medical people all seem to be wearing gowns and gloves with the seams taped.  All good precautions.  A little Clorox sprayed on the outside of that gown and it should be keeping them safe - if it's spread by contact with fluids.  

I've heard that the health systems in those countries are in bad shape due to the impact on medical practitioners.  Sending supplies is a great thing but it seems like the best people to send would be civil engineers and companies that can boot up infrastructure. 

As for the Islamic State (btw, calling them ISIL - L is the Levant - expands their territory beyond what they have, basically giving them Cyprus, Israel, parts of Turkey and more), I don't see how you shut them down without people on the ground.  Of course I don't claim expertise in the military, but to my knowledge, to truly control territory you need ground troops.  I recently heard Jay Sekulow, author of the just-released "The Rise of ISIS" while on the new book tour describing a conference he attended about ISIS at Oxford last spring.  He said the Oxford professors, doctrinaire liberals who believe negotiation can solve virtually anything, viewed ISIS differently.  When asked how to handle them, the professor leading the conference said, "Crush them.  There is no alternative". 

Tam linked to a Buzz Feed article "Inside the Chilling Online World of the Women of ISIS" yesterday, calling it "almost hypnotically appalling."  Reading it was like watching slow motion explosions, knowing that people were dying while you watched.  The casual way they approve of taking non-muslim women as sex slaves; the way they refer to "hand cuttings" as if someone were injected with Novocaine to have a mole removed - not having their hand cutoff with a scimitar; the disregard for killing the kuffar (non-Muslim) as if we're non-human; and their celebrating 9/11 ("Happy Boom Boom Day") all combined to make a horrific read.  One of these precious princesses posted a picture of the beheading of one of the American hostages and tweeted "If this doesn't bring a bit of comfort and ease to your heart then # Go Check Yourself "  (Hashtag deliberately scrambled - SiG)

While I'll be the first to admit that I don't think you end this problem with military means alone, "boots on the ground" seem to be a much more essential part of the solution for ISIS than Ebola.  I think if our Commander in Chief had followed the recommendations of the professionals who work for him, ISIS either wouldn't be a problem at all, or it would be a much smaller problem. 

So now we're joining with the "Moderate rebels in Syria", whoever they are, to overthrow the Syrian government.  Some of those rebels just signed a non-aggression pact with ISIS.  And just who do you think takes over that government after that happens? 

(Source - Air Force Times)