WAYNE CHIRNSIDE wrote to JAMES BRADLEY, "Tap tap tap..."

 ->  ->  -> How about Edwards, and Billy Mitchel. Both Canadians if
 ->  ->  -> memory serves me. 
[...]

 WC> Murdock or something that begins with M before Edwards AFB.

That seems to ring a bell here too. Maybe Murdock was discovered as a
cross-dresser post-mortem, and fell out of favour? O-8

 WC> "Billy Mitchell" and Pearl Harbor snagged it on google.

Only was off by one "l"! 
 WC> Astonishing he nailed the attack in a presentation
 WC> in 1924 even getting the Pearl Harbor attack time to
 WC> 40 minutes accuracy and Clark field to under two hours.

WOA! Didn't know he was a descendant of Nostradamus to boot.

I watched a show on his career, or more like how it was cut short. The movie; I
just saw snippets of. Quite a template for how to bury ones collective head in
the sand, while technology marches on. I don't recall if he was instrumental in
founding the Air Force, but he had to fight *hard* for his beliefs in its
future.
 ->  ->  WC> Psychology can work :-)

 ->  WC> I used psycholoy more often than anything else, particularly
 ->  WC> when the level of mayham that would result would rise to the
 ->  WC> level someone would quite likely have been severely injured.

 -> My last two close calls, I had to judge if it was to be bloody, or backing
 -> [...]

 ->  WC> You learn to read people.

 -> Sometimes in a hurry! <-;

 WC> You can't let fear or emotion interfere with a cold appraisal
 WC> of the situation but you can sculpt your face to
 WC> telegraph a image contrary to what you're really thinking.
 WC> Plus having run into a few full blown psychotics in my time
 WC> I learned to emulate the expression in their eyes, demeaner
 WC> and posture.

Ya... The drunk monkey isn't a good defence against a drunk monkey. 
 WC> No-one wants to fight with someone who's completely insane
 WC> and unlikely to stop short of killing you so giving that
 WC> impression spared me a great many other fights.

Having grown up with a few potential criminals - OK, I know a few who were
incarcerated - I thought I knew their headset. The four from the ally concerned
me less than the one hopped up foreigner. He was a tiny fellow too.

I took a bow saw out to an old stump in the yard just yesterday. Who should
come sauntering down the ally, but Mr. No-bath-for-a
month-and-talkin'-to-myself. I saw him coming from some distance, and just kept
on with my work. When he was within a distance for me to hear his mumbling, I
made sure the bow saw was free for swinging, JIC.

I kinda enjoy allowing those types the breadth to go about their business. They
seem to be happy with it too.  Just after he passed my yard, I noticed he
had bunked down in the neighbour's garbage shed. Well enough, but when a few
kids passed me by after school let out, I just made sure he was still there,
and hadn't started following them home. The cordless phone is going to be a
permanent part of my toolkit from now on.

 WC> I got totally trashed by a guy named Eric ( near killed me)
 WC> when defending a woman he attacked.
 WC> This was well removed from the bar in geography and time so
 WC> word didn't get around.

First name basis with a woman beater, Wayne? 

Shoot... What you gonna do? He was being physical with her, and you tried to
out-machismo him: He saw that as the threat, and took out the aggression on you
instead of her? Man... that's a tough situation! I trust reasoning with him
wasn't working?

 -> Hall effect... See, I have to call them a spinning magnet that trips reed
 -> sensors. Say what you will about them, they are a sight more reliable than
 -> contacts arcing at umpteen K times/min.

 WC> Hall Effect: the effect of a current in a wire to be affected
 WC> by a perpendecular magnetic field.
 WC> The effect is small so the sensors have very high gain
 WC> amplifiers built right into them.

Ah... So no switch, just a small coil, and op amp?

 -> stringing an antenna
 -> out to the Willow tree,

 WC> Radio Shack had their "P-Box" series of kits, one a 2
 WC> transistor regenerative multiband radio performed rather
 WC> spectacularly.

Regenerative?

 -> (Ya... I had to learn about how grounding affects those

 WC> I sued plastic insulators as suggested in the kit, wasn't long
 WC> before moving on to Heath Kits.

I never tried to "sue" a plastic insulator, but I did find out
soon enough to
use them.  I wanted to antennae the CB radio at the time, so it
wasn't until I pulled out the Experimenter's Kit again that I found out about
the grounding a tree would provide. It wasn't soon after that I meet my first
guitar player over the same CB radio-waves, that eventually led me to my first
real girlfriend. I then realized they were more interested in musicians than
the sound-guy. {-|

 WC> FET's are easier to use as they amplify voltage in a ways
 WC> rather than current.
 WC> FET's emulate tubes.

Heck... Transistors were all the rage at the time. FETs didn't show up 'til the
nineties, didn't they? My tech exam dealt with reactance, Ohms law, transformer
taps... That sort of thing. By the time I took an interest in it again, was
when I couldn't physically do much, and little did I know, remember much
either.

I'll sock away more knowledge on this stuff, I'm sure. Like always, I wish I
had more. When Radio Shack started catering more to the consumer than the
hobbyist, I sure picked up some deals on reference material and components.
Kinda like Heath, we sure enjoyed teasing about them when they were there, but
I sure miss them now that they are gone. You might have noticed the
Sweep/Marker I mentioned to Roy J. It's no wonder the tech at the hospital
built one from kit, compared to purchasing one off the shelf. Today, with all
the VLSI, it puts the *hobby* in a precarious position.
 -> sense like it used to, but I do what I can. This Linux is a great learning
 -> experience so far, but a linear study guide *has* been hard to come by.

 WC> Yeah  having no hard drive here I'm using SSL online.

[Without checking notes] Shared Secure Login?

Then you run an app that connects to a socket on the server? It would take a
special ISP to accept a Telnet client, no?

 WC> All and all i built a 30 Watt stereo Amp, FM stereo tuner and
 WC> aircraft - police band VHF FM radio they sold.

I've noticed a couple of kit manufacturers still out there, but nothing like
what Heath used to produce. Usually it's just a flashing LED thingy. Like I
say, with the state of manufacturing, Heath was probably smart to get out when
they did, but where are the kids going to go today? I guess they can buid
projects out of a mag, but when it will cost as much to do that, or buy the
same off the shelf with a plethora of more or less useful features included...
 -> like a ME 109 with a sprung starter. <-;

 WC> You couldn't kick my 1000 either though they included an
 WC> emergency kick starter stored under the engine.
 WC> I couldn't kick it as is was a huge high compression engine.

How nice of them.  Maybe a 22 blank exploding on a vaned flywheel...

 -> Sad part is, that same computer is likely seen as
 -> worthless, or next to it. )-:
 -> I too have made a habit of hobbling old parts together, but am constantly
 -> frustrated by parts that were designed to fail. (Sorry
 -> for burning your ear.
 -> Guess I'm glad the last few days are over with.)

 WC> No problem, I know what isolation does and I too "burn ears
 WC> when they're about.
 WC> Sony T.V.'s are a bitch to repair.
 WC> Put in a standard replacement part and they fail again in hours
 WC> to weeks.
 WC> You have to get Mil spec devices to repair them as that's what
 WC> they use.

So you're telling me that regulator I bought for the 12V Sony will likely
stress something else? How about working on an NEC monitor. I opened it up
alright, but any adjustments but on the yoke seem ineffective. Do you know if
they use a "service" switch?
 -> My #1 machine was from the pawn-shop w/o CPU, mem, or HD. OS -RH.

 WC> Mine's the one I'm typing on, April or may gets a hard drive
 WC> and I/O card for over 32 Gig then I install Linux on the drive
 WC> w/o Windows.

Mine's a 100/66 MHz MB. I'd like to put a P!!! or VIA chip into it. The 256M
SODIMM that was promised to be 16x16M isn't, so I can only see half of it. ]-:
 -> #2 Auction: Flaky HD, and an ill-flash on the BIOS. OS -W98

 WC> Had Linux -Win 98 dual boot on this box but my flaky hard
 WC> Quantum 6.$ Gig croaked.

I did find two 8G bigfoot drives at auction. Wish I picked up more of those. I
was using Windows 95/98 for so long, I quickly filled them up. As soon as I can
get the USB RW drive to work w/98, I plan on scrubbing at least one of those
for Linux/BSD. 

 WC> My number two was bought new ( 486) at obscene cost.

My first PC was a 386. I did buy it at liquidation, but at what would seem as
obscene in todays market. It was EISA bussed, so it was worth the price if for
nothing but the teaching tool for me. (Resource allocation, et al.) Imagine, a
plug and pray that actually works!
 WC> It died a few years back however I'd found a 496 of the same
 WC> brand tossed in somone's trash two weeks before.
 WC> It had a later release of the same motherboard.
 WC> My 486 is still working after swapping that motherboard out.

You see, I've been telling people for half a decade that if I didn't have this
crap to keep me busy, my brain would have been mush a long time ago.
 -> Not a one is better than a Celeron 466. Next, I want to
 -> upgrade a box to a GHz
 -> or two. (The case will take an ATX MB.) Just one more
 -> financial duck to get in
 -> the row, and I'll have disposable income again. 

 WC> Same sort of difficulties here.

 WC> Hey this is just a Celeron 433 but more than servicable with
 WC> Linux running.

If you try to run any Windows software on that spec, it usually just laughs in
your face. With my #1, it's a super-small footprint, so it's stuck with the MB
that's in it. Technically, I guess my next two are more a #2a, and #2b. One has
a 100 MHz Slot-1/Socket-370 (Or whatever the count is.) MB w/366 MHz Celeron,
and the other has a 83 MHz Socket 7 w/450 MHz AMD K6-3D.

I might toss a better CPU into the 100 MHz MB, but I know the 83 MHz board is
as fast, or as close to it, as I'm ready to take it. I'd like some power to run
those game demos I picked up.(I need SOME entertainment besides TV and text
books. ;-) How do they say, "Real soon now." or "Any day
now." Truth is, it's
more like, "You want it WHEN?" 


... In case of fire, do not use elevators.  Water works better.
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.45

--- Maximus 3.01