Odd Lots
- Which movie theater did you go to on your first date? Whether or not that theater still exists, this site may have a photo of it, along with other interesting historical data. The first theater I took Carol to is this one. It’s still there, and still awesome. (Thanks to Ernie Marek for the link.)
- Five years later, I proposed to Carol while we watched the sun set from a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. There are other ways of doing it. I forgot to bring a flashlight up the side of that bluff, and we had to pick our way down in near-darkness. My nerdiness has gaps. (Thanks to Bruce Baker for the link.)
- The Softpro retail bookstore at the Denver Tech Center is closing its doors at the end of March. Even though it’s 70+ miles away, I’ve dropped a fair bit of change there. Bummer.
- Back in the 50s, the Russians were producing an extremely interesting line of low-voltage tubes. I’m still trying to get my head around how they work internally, but hey, “Gammatron” is a wonderful name for a line of tubes–or anything else. (Thanks to Jim Strickland for the link.)
- The war on “moist” (see yesterday’s entry) prompted Bruce Baker to remind us of Moist von Lipwig, a Discworld character whose distinguishing characteristic is having no distinguishing characteristics. See Going Postal and Making Money .
- People are still selling tumbleweeds on eBay. I can’t figure it. If the world has an abundance of anything, it’s tumbleweeds. Unless maybe you live in New York City and want some Western ambience without ever actually going there.
- When I was in college, a girl told me: “The trouble with you, Jeff, is that you’re too damned happy!” Guilty. And this research sounds like BS to me, in part because low expectations are not the same as pessimism. And also in part because most pessimists I’ve spent time with seem pretty unhappy. But what do I know? I’m a pessimism denier.
- The Atlantic reports research suggesting that the Neanderthals went extinct because they ran out of woolly mammoths and couldn’t get their substantial (and hard) heads around hunting bunnies. I’m still convinced that they wiped themselves out for lack of dogs. (Thanks to Bruce Baker for the link.)
- Humanoid robots could make good firefighters, and the Navy is working on it. I’ll believe it when I see it, of course, but I keep thinking that a humanoid robot who can fight fires can do a lot of other interesting things. (Thanks to Bp. Sam’l Bassett for the link.)
- God sometimes teaches stupid people harsh lessons–and sometimes they’re so funny they hurt. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the link.)
Posted in: Odd Lots.
Tagged: books · humor · Memoir · psychology · robotics · tubes · weirdness
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How to the Russian LV tubes compare with the short-lived line of 12V plate tubes developed in the 1960’s such as the 12DS7? http://frank.pocnet.net/sheets/079/1/12DS7.pdf has a data sheet on the 12DS7.
I can’t recall ever putting my hands on one of the US 12V tubes – think they were mostly used in automobile receivers, with a germanium audio output transistor. And they were “overtaken by events” as the phrase goes when transistors got reasonably cheap and good at FM broadcast frequencies.
All the vacuum tube vehicle mounted commercial two way gear of that vintage I’ve had my hands on used standard HV type bottles, with a vibrator supply for receive and, depending on the vintage and transmit power level, vibrators, dynamotors or transistor inverter power supplies. Vacuum tube hand portables (pack sets as they were called) used either pencil tubes or the 1V series for low power stages and sometimes even output stages if my memory is correct. HV via a vibrator or with the really old stuff, a separate B battery.
First sentence should say “How do …” not “How to”
Optimist: “The glass is half full.”
Pessimist: “The glass is half empty.”
Engineer: “The contents are fine, the glass is just twice as big as it needs to be.”
Imagine someone setting a match to that pile of tumbleweeds in that 1964 image!
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/1964-Tumbleweeds-7-Press-Photo-/00/s/ODQwWDEwNTY=/$(KGrHqZ,!rgFBGhULrO7BQgijT1BTw~~60_12.JPG