09:16 – I’ve just set a new policy. If the USPS loses a package, I’m not going to waste any time trying to resolve the issue with USPS. I’ll just write it off and ship a replacement. It happens seldom enough–a small fraction of one percent in our case so far–that it’s just not worth wasting time to get a determination, which I’m told is almost always “we lost it; tough luck”. Even at that, it’s still much cheaper to ship USPS than to use UPS or FedEx. The packages get to their destinations in one to three days, and we’ve had very little shipping damage. So, I conclude that USPS can be very annoying, but they’re still by far our best option.
We’re just about finished packaging chemicals for a batch of 30 biology kits. We’ve also done 30 sets of the chemicals that (so far) will be included in the Life Science kits, which are a subset of those in the biology kits. All of those chemicals–stains and so on–have essentially unlimited shelf lives, so there was no downside to making them up now. In fact, like wines, some stains actually improve with age.
Back when I was a teenager, I couldn’t afford a good microscope. Back then, even student models were extremely expensive, probably the equivalent of $1,500 or more in today’s dollars. One of my parents’ friends gave me a WWI-era Zeiss microscope. I wish I still had it. I think it was probably produced for the German military. It came in a beautiful fitted wooden case that also included an assortment of accessories, including several stains. I remember thinking at the time that there was no way the stains could possibly still be good, since they were at least 50 years old. A couple of the bottles were empty or had dried out, but there were three or four that looked untouched. So I tried them, and they worked very well.
11:26 – This latest EU summit, like all of the other 20-odd EU summits since the beginning of the euro crisis, accomplished essentially nothing. The position of Greece, Spain, Italy, and the other spendthrift states remains unchanged: “We want Germany to pay all of our debts and continue to subsidize our irresponsible spending. Oh, yeah, and Germany can’t dictate terms to us. Just give us the money.” And Germany’s position also remains unchanged: “We’re fed up with paying everyone’s debts. We just want to get out of this mess as cheaply as possible. Ask us for anything other than more money.”
It seems that Rajoy and Spain are finally beginning to realize they’re not going to get the bailout-that-can’t-be-called-a-bailout. If Spain wants to beg money from the ECB and the ESM, they’re going to have to do so explicitly and accept whatever terms Germany insists on. Doing that would finish Rajoy politically, and he knows it. Rajoy is between the proverbial rock and hard place. He’s already made veiled threats to exit the euro, which would inevitably also mean exiting the EU. Spain’s debt for 2012 is essentially all sold already, but Spain is in deep trouble in 2013, when it has to sell hundreds of billions of euros of debt. Spain has zero prospect of doing this at all, let alone affordably, which means Spain is almost certain to default on a massive scale in 2013. Either that, or leave the euro, which amounts to the same thing. Creditors will no doubt be paid back in worthless local currency, artificially pegged to the euro at 1:1.
You missed out the day of the week.
Fixed. Sorry.
Mein Gott in himmel! What happened to the microscope — or do we want to know?
I sold it when I was in college. I needed the money. I really do wish I’d kept it. It’d be worth a lot of money by now. Actually, it’d be on display in our living room.
Yah, been there, done that. I sold quite a bit for money when I was in college. Oh, the humiliation…
Yeah, been there and done that, too. In fact, I [i]gave away[/i] my Loyal Royal typewriter about 10 years ago and have begun to regret it. And let’s not ponder the books I sold…
So if you did still own it, where on Earth would you get a bell jar for it?
I’ve got some beautiful glass lampwork from Vittorio Costantini http://www.vittoriocostantini.com (do check him out) but they are entirely too delicate to put on display.
I lived at home when I was at uni so I never had to worry about money. But then I never had any neat guns, cameras and microscopes to sell, so it was moot.
Yeah, most everyone in the US lives at university while attending. I did both—lived at home and worked, and also lived on campus in a remote city. My parents, who got their first degrees in education, were utterly opposed to campus living. Me, I WANT kids to live on campus. It is a good training ground transition to living on your own. My brother never lived on campus, and he never made the transition effectively to having to take care of his own living space. His house was always a pit, starting the day he moved out of our Mom’s house.
Regarding the Zeiss microscope, my dad had a fairly complex Hasselblad camera setup that was exactly one version before the electric film advance for the camera backs came out. If anything happened to him, his wish was that it go to my daughter—who, being a graphic artist and a decent illustrator, turned out to be quite a photographer. She used it for a good 4 years, then sold it. It had a set of Zeiss lenses that turned out unbelievable pictures. I still have lots of pictures from that camera—some in wall frames,—but, unlike a microscope, that technology is now practically unusable, as film meets its total demise.
I try to shop as infrequently as humanly possible, and now, I am almost afraid to go into Walmart. Every time I do, something shocks me. This time there was a huge round plastic barrel at the front of the store with CD’s marked $5/each. Sure enough, when I went back to the spot formerly occupied by aisles and aisles of CD’s, there was only one small section of CD’s—the inventory having been reduced to nearly nothing and put on sale at the front of the store, apparently. Lots of DVD movies replacing CD’s in the old section, but looks like CD’s are going the way of film—destined to vanish.
After nearly a year with no greeters at the Tiny Town Walmart, they have resurrected them—after a fashion. They now stand next to the cash register nearest the door (2 doors in almost all Walmarts) and just smile. Would love to know what is going on in management’s mind. I have maintained for a couple years, that since the massive remodeling that they did, that the store is now designed—and increasingly run—by people who are mentally-challenged. Since the redesign, I cannot find anything in the store, and what’s more—neither can the store personnel. There has been a massive shift at the Tiny Town store to much, much younger employees (all 20’ish); wonder what is going on there? Are younger people suddenly more dedicated and trustworthy than the oldsters, which Walmart used to tout as their best?
Speaking of film vanishing, a friend connected to the movie industry, tells me that mom and pop drive-in theaters are facing a change that is likely to crush them into oblivion. During the coming year, Hollywood will stop making film prints of most movies. The big chains have already upgraded to digital projection, and receive movies in digital format. If you see movie theater buildings for sale around you (there is one in Muncie and 2 that I know of on the Indy northside), it is because those theaters are barely profitable, and the high cost of converting to digital projection has been deemed not worth it. Mom and pop outdoor screens will not likely make the transition, and as their trade comes for unusual niche films, those movies have already cut out distribution via film. Looks like the end is near for the drive-in movie theater.
I don’t know off hand of any drive-ins left in the whole of Australia. I liked them as a kid, a bit of an adventure, but the Landon is too valuable now.
A Scottish pal was one of the very view to live at home while at uni. He was brought up in Glasgow and got a BA from Glagow uni. A former boss and his wife started saving for their kids education when their first was born in 1990, and they were going to insist that they lived on campus, preferably in another city.
A lot of kids live home while studying here. I left home at 21 to work, my brother was 33 when he moved out – 10 houses down the street LOL! He still came home for meals and washing. He never learned to cook, like I did, and has only just started using a washing machine solo, at 58. I have to change his light globes for him. He never went to uni.
Landon. Land.
The Scottish chap was an unusual Brit. In Australia what he did was normal.
We have a drive-in up here and there are still downtown movie theaters in some of the towns around Vermont but I can see that they’re not gonna last much longer. It’s more retro stuff like much other retro stuff up here that may disappear before it has a chance to hang on as the rest of this rotten culture disintegrates.
http://www.stalbansdrivein.com/
In the last year or so I remember seeing a photo of one of those drive in speakers on it’s hook. It was pretty corroded, and the caption asked if people knew what it was.
Old codgers like me could tell at a glance, of course, but I’m sure none of my nieces or nephews would have a clue.
Strangely, I’d bet that the teenage pregnancy rate is inversely correlated with the number of drive-in theaters.
I also wonder how many drive-in speakers over the decades got ripped off their poles when drivers either forgot to take them off the car or did it deliberately. The sound sucked, compared to what we’ve become used to since then.
So is the teenage pregnancy rate going down or something? I am outta touch with these matters, both kids now grown up without having gotten to that state, praise be.
Radio station question for Chuck in Tiny Town or whoever cares to chip in:
We’ve been listening to a local station up here that still does FM “album rock” and blues and folk and suchlike as we used to enjoy forty years ago. They say they broadcast out of Bristol, VT, a small town about sixty or seventy miles to our south and they cover the northern Champlain watershed area. They also have a live broadcast out of Orlando, FL on Saturday nights and they feature several well-known celebrities giving their call sign, such as Dan Ackroyd as “Elwood Blues,” and he’s on all the time. I know he has been associated with the House of Blues operation down in Cambridge, MA and probably has other MA relationships due partly to his former friendship with John Belushi and the Vineyard, etc. All of their advertisers and sponsors appear to be local merchants and stores and shops up and down the Champlain.
But when I look at who owns their netblock it comes to an operation in the UK, not that that means anything, particularly, and Mrs. OFD suspects they are part of a larger radio network.
Here’s their site:
http://www.musicheads.us/
Then there’s this:
http://www.musicheads.net/default.html
(with a Maryland addy)
And this:
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.musicheads.us
Then today they informed us they’re going off the air for several hours so equipment can be jacked around and upgraded and maintained or whatever up in Burlington (“up” for them, “down” for us).
So my question is, who are these guys and are they paht of some larger operation? Thoughts?
“Strangely, I’d bet that the teenage pregnancy rate is inversely correlated with the number of drive-in theaters.”
Ah yes. Did they have bumper stickers in the US along the lines of “If it’s a rockin don’t bother knockin”? I remember seeing a few of those at the drive ins.
As a teen and older, I never went to a drive-in movie theater to watch the movie. There was always a girl involved, which was my focus. There are no speakers at the drive-ins anymore. It is all set up via a FCC Part 15 FM transmitters, and you tune your car radio to the frequency the theater specifies, which gives you full fidelity stereo. I never got any girl pregnant at the drive-in, but I knew couples who did.
As to WZXP-FM, well it is owned by Radioactive, LLC, which in turn is owned by the infamous Randy Michaels. Radio Locator
http://www.radio-locator.com/
allows you to punch in the call letters, which the musicheads.us site says is WZXP-FM, and it will query the FCC database for most of the public information on the station. Actually WZXP is located across the state line in Au Sable, New York. They appear to be on a mountain—antenna is 1033 above average terrain, but 2036 feet above sea level. That approaches the height of Chicago full-power stations like WFMT, who are on the former Sears Tower building at 6,000 watts ERP (effective radiated power). That would be the equivalent of 50,000 watts at 500 feet above average terrain, which is considered “full-power” for Class B FM stations. Class C stations are allowed 100,000 watts ERP and were granted primarily to stations is less dense farm areas. Most of the stations in Minneapolis are Class C. Class A station would include WZXP and the station I work at.
Interestingly, WDRC-FM in Hartford, Connecticut is located on a mountain in Meridan, CT. Their tower is barely taller than the transmitter building, but it gives them incredible height above both average terrain and sea level, without a tall tower. You can get their signal for well more than 100 miles in all directions.
WZXP is pretty low power at only 780 watts. 6,000 watts ERP at 300 feet above average terrain will get you out about 60 miles with a pretty weak signal at the 60 mile point. That is what the radio project I am involved with has. You would have to be considerably below WZXP’s 2036 feet above sea level for their 780 watt signal to reach you if you are more than about 30 miles out. The station does not have any construction permit for increased transmitting power, so I suspect their improvements are converting from a tube transmitter to solid state. A 1,000 watt transmitter is about $15-20k, and can be dialed down to 780 watts. The difference between tube and solid state is an increase in efficiency from about 60% to 90%, and NO high voltage to deal with anymore. I think the highest voltage in our new transmitter is about 45 volts, although there is a helluva lotta amps going through, to make the 3,000 watts we need to feed the antenna. The antenna doubles the effective radiated power by stacking ‘bays’, up to our 6,000 watts, ERP. The old transmitter had about 4,000 volts on the plate of the final amplifier, with considerably less current needed to make the 3,000 watts up to the antenna. There are going to be many fewer people killed by transmitter high voltage, as the tube transmitters are retired. We now have incredible space in our transmitter shack, as the solid state is about 1/16th the size of the tube job.
Ah, Randy Michaels. Randy is probably a genius. He programmed WLW/Cincinnati and other Jacor stations to high ratings and good profits. Then he went to run the Tribune empire in Chicago, of radio and TV stations and newspapers all across the country. Apparently, it was the Peter Principle at work, as Michaels utterly failed. You kind of have to be an insider to know everything that went wrong, but
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si0bck6mm1o
(bad language in the subtitles; some swearing in German, too)
tells the story to people in the business. Of course, this was before Murdoch’s cell-phone tapping problems, when he was still flying high—thus the reference to Murdoch as a genius was still true when that video was made.
Lee Abrams was also one of the most brilliant radio people on the planet and worked for Michaels at Tribune, but he kept sending lewd pictures out to staff all over the country in his “think pieces”. Lots of Tribune people detested that. The reference to sending news out on ‘giant rolls of paper being the perfect 21st century business model’ is also pretty funny. Bottom line is that management at Tribune Towers got the reputation of being a bunch of cigar-chomping dirty old men. They had plenty of warning, but did not mend their ways, and both Abrams and Michaels are out. They sent Tribune into a tailspin, and I believe Tribune is still not out of bankruptcy.
After Tribune, Michaels got investors together and came up with this new outfit that owns your favorite station. I see the headquarters is in Kentucky, just across the border from Cinci, so I guess Michaels went back to Cincinnati to live. Their NYC stations are doing abysmally and recently changed formats. The times, they are a changin’, and may have passed Randy by.
As for the House of Blues shows, as far as I know, those are produced out of LA and are canned, not live. “Live on tape” maybe, but never believe what Hollywood hucksters say about being live. The House of Blues was bought out from Dan Aykroyd and other former Saturday Night Live stars a bunch of years ago by Live Nation, a Beverly Hills company, which was previously Ticketmaster, and before that was Clear Channel Radio, and before that was started by one of the big record companies (cannot remember which one right now). As I have noted before, the money in music is no longer in records/CD’s, but in live performance, and Live Nation is in the business of producing, promoting, and selling tickets to that.
So, yes those guys are part of some incredibly larger organization. Isn’t everything these days?
Wow, thanks, Chuck! I knew I could count on you. Wow. Thanks much!
One of my pals from the early Eighties told me about some of his scores in the back seat of his VW Beetle. I don’t know how he did it as he was about my height (6’1″). I mean, those things are *small*.
When we were sharing a house in the early Eighties he had any number of good looking girls chasing him, including a dentist. But he was holding out for the unattainable one, and in the end got no one.