Frakenfone

My latest "gadget hack".

From gadgets

Not sure what this 1940s telephone was originally used for, some sort of radio telephone link I guess. Anyway it seemed ideal for conversion to a bluetooth phone. With the handset down the original loudspeaker fitted in the dial aperture is loud enough to be heard clearly in a quiet room. I though some extra amplification might be needed, but I got lucky.

The clear glass bezel was in my junk box and works beautifully to allow the bluetooth earpiece blue/amber LED to be seen.

From gadgets

A simple project, but very pleasing.

Hiding a castle - no magician required

Update - 9th March. Since posting this Okehampton Castle and Okehampton Primary School have been given their correct locations on Google Maps. Well done Google! Oh and it's now easier to make corrections; see new-way-to-edit-places-on-google-maps.

Search for "Okehampton Castle" in Google Maps, and you'll see something like this -

Which looks so very plausible. There's no castle there though! Switch to satellite view and there's nothing to be seen.

Where is it hiding you ask?

Here it is (or yertiz as the locals say) -

View Larger Map

Another thing computers will never be able to do...

Allegedly.

This time from a BBC Radio 4 program. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8495946.stm

Computers will never be able to simulate the "warrior ethos", the mindset and ethical outlook of the professional soldier.

Presumably it's vital to the proper conduct of war and only true soldiers have it.

Will 3D save consumer tech?

Maybe, maybe not. Best experiment rather than go with guesswork.

Notes on my new Fuji FinePix REAL 3D W1 "on me wiki 'ere"

Getting to the point

Continued from Short and to the Point.

What I found with organised open plan desks where teams are in tight clusters is that people can become quite tribal, defending nearby resources and establishing their own laws! Examples I saw were almost enforced silence except for agreed meeting times. Something that annoyed me was reduced interest in work in progress by some managers. They could now see who was at their desks working, so progress was assumed. Presumably these geniuses assumed that when progress hadn't been achieved in the past it was because staff were slacking off!

Anyway, the above hardly matters now because over time the need to adapt to new staff arriving, others leaving and projects ending, starting, etc. etc. means that many staff are sitting in spaces that became available rather than shoulder to shoulder with team mates. So 3, or maybe 4 moves on, I now find myself sitting by the entrance door. Not a popular spot, which was why I was able to secure it through a small number of swaps, but it suits me. One of the advantages being that it gives me some of the best notice board space in the building.

Most folks don't spend much time by my desk as they'd be blocking an entrance, but nearly all my colleagues will pass at least one each day, so they can't help but read any notice I put up. They're walking and I don't want them to stop to read, so I've established a routine of posting an A4 page with no more than 20 words in large font that I change frequently. Usually it's a quote from someone famous, but it could be anything that made me think, smile, or groan - depending on my mood.

So to get back to the point I was heading towards in my last post. I plan to extract short quotes from What Matters Now and post them on my desk to share with my colleagues.

Short and to the point

Just trying to think how to write what I'd like to say here... and I know already that it won't be short. Hopefully I'll get to the point eventually. But just in case I don't get there, or you get fed up and click "back" or decide to check your email again here's the important bit.

Today I read Seth Godin's excellent What Matters Now and felt moderately inspired by several of the contributions. (Seth is the editor, the material comes from a host of thinkers). Have a read, it's really very good, and will hopefully encourage many people to do meaningful stuff. As I read it I knew I wanted, as intended, to share the content.

Now for the story that is likely to take me drifting away from the point of this post never to return.

When my employer moved to a shiny new building near Exeter I was one of the first to move in, as I already lived locally and had been commuting to the old site in Bracknell. I was given a temporary desk in the first block to be completed. A couple of months later I moved to my proper desk with the rest of the team, as did all the other hundreds of small teams that make up our organisation. For most people it was the first time they had ever worked in an open plan office. The hope of management was that putting everyone in one building and teams in large open spaces would make us all more productive and better teams.

Did it work? More soon.....

Random Hacks of Kindness

I keep thinking "Random Frequent Flyer Dent". But other than that I'm having mostly useful thoughts so far today.

As I didn't figure out how to actually get to be at the Random Hacks of Kindness Disaster Relief Codejam without spending a fortune I've set myself the task of following progress from home.

Here's a press release on the keynote speech by Craig Fugate of FEMA.

Here's the Ning social site for Random Hacks created by Patrick Svenburg.

Here's what I believe to be the official RHOK website on Google Sites. Which is where you'll find the problem definitions.

Here's an interesting blog post from Open NASA.

And now back to look for more useful snippets on Twitter with the tag #RHoK.

---------------

Update

The winning hacks http://www.rhok.org/events/rhok-0/winning-hacks

The winning team http://disastercam.blogspot.com/2009/11/random-hacks-of-kindness-first-prize.html

Valve amplifier components

Went shopping for old junk today and came back with some interesting transformers.

More info here - http://mike.wepoco.com/retro-geekery/reference/radio-spares-output-transformers

Now I know that some of my colleagues read my posts from time to time and will wonder what on earth this is really supposed to be saying. All I can say is, to the best of my knowledge Google Analytics doesn't lie and it tells me that far more folks are interested in valve amplifier stuff than anything else I ever write about.

Disaster tech

I'll edit this post and add more links over the next few days ......

Here's one to start http://www.frontlinesms.com/what/ (from http://www.janchipchase.com/)

Broadband Global Area Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGAN

EUMETCAST (weather data via satellite IP multicast) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eumetcast

Another time

Back in the summer I was recorded by the Antiques Roadshow with the Uniselector Clock. Unfortunately this segment won't now be shown on 25th October. The letter I recently received from the production team states "there are always difficult editorial decisions to make during the editing process to maintain the balance and variety of the programme and sadly, we cannot include every item that is recorded."

Natural disasters and weather

A recent announcement from the World Bank - http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/2009/10/hackers-and-the-world-bank-unite.html

has me thinking once again about little nudges that could change the world -http://nudges.wordpress.com/

Back when the Wepoco team (anarchists?) were trying to think of ways of getting weather forecasts to people who really could change the world - poor farmers - we deliberately chose to exclude weather warnings from the service. I'm not sure that we ever properly explained why. Well if you work for a government you very soon learn that governments are very protective of their right (responsibility?) to tell citizens when to panic (and how much).

What we hadn't considered is that once the s**t actually hits the f*n, it makes little difference to those affected who is helping them - speed and quality of service is everything.

So perhaps I can make up for not pushing hard enough on the original Wepoco concept by figuring out how best to use technology and weather forecasts to prevent bad situations getting worse.

sudo ifconfig lo up

Before I switch to English here's some more Linux gibberish -

0xb7fc2410: ????* Heartbeat Failure 2 (Step 3)

The above line and many, many others came out of the very useful Helix DNA server when I restarted it yesterday. Why? Because once again I'd forgotten than when I reboot my Ubuntu server it doesn't bring up the loop-back device. Hence the command in the title of this post.

VNC, Google AppEngine Java SDK are a couple of other things I use that fail to work properly without 'lo' up. In some ways what is more remarkable is that the Ubuntu distribution itself is so content to work without this widely used (essential?) virtual network device.

Going, going, gone!

Vintage technology up for auction. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8275483.stm

This story both pleases and saddens me.

It pleases me that old tech is being taken seriously. After all, this stuff changed the world way more than (almost) any book, painting, or tune ever did.

It pleases me that in future people might think twice before throwing old electronics into a skip and not consider if someone, somewhere, might like it.

It saddens me that as with so much collecting it is seen as ticking off items on a list - the first TV, computer, pocket calculator...

"Another possibility is that either the squirrel or the bat were mentally off balance."

You couldn't make this stuff up - http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8261000/8261364.stm

Then again, perhaps it is made up -

Rodents are not known to eat meat or hunt animals, so it is unclear why the squirrel would launch such an attack.

Really? So insects aren't animals any more? When did that happen? Perhaps the reason rodents don't hunt "proper" animals is that mostly rodents are the smallest mammals (proper animals?) about.

Hell - what do I know? I just read stuff and observe things around me. I'm not a "proper" scientist.

Thankfully the web has a plentiful supply of "dead squirrel" pictures to maintain balance.

News of the week - Nation shall speak unto nation

Here's how The Wireless World covered the outbreak of World War II.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1939

Wireless and War

Services to the Nation

THOSE of us who have spent our working lives in the service of wireless must often have taken

encouragement from the thought that the part we have played, humble though it may be, has contributed something towards the good of humanity. The record of wireless is indeed nothing to be ashamed of : we think of the thousands of lives saved from the perils of the sea by wireless telegraphy and of the interest and widening of outlook brought to millions by broadcasting. But it has long been a cause for regret to many of us that the self-evident potentialities of broadcasting in the cause of peace have been exploited with such poor success.

"Nation shall speak peace unto nation" was an inspiring motto for those responsible for British broadcasting, and it was one which they conscientiously strove to justify. That it has so far failed to achieve results does not imply that any blame is to be apportioned, and, even if it were, this is no time for recriminations.

International Broadcasting

Although wireless may not have succeeded in this respect, it has performed a wonderful service to everyone during the dark days of suspense. Anxiety and uncertainty has been relieved, and the extraordinary calmness of the British nation must surely be due in no small measure to the thoroughness of the B.B.C.'s news service. Other organisations that deserve the thanks of the world are the great American broadcasting networks. Considering their position as neutrals and making allowance for the Transatlantic tendency towards dramatisation of news, the crisis

has been handled with admirable restraint. So far as broadcasts that we ourselves have heard or seen reported are concerned, nothing, has been done to exacerbate the European situation ; on the contrary, obviously genuine efforts have been made to play the part of peacemaker. The broadcasting of news bulletins from America in the languages of all potential belligerents has probably done good. Coming from a neutral country, such messages probably carry more weight than if they emanated, from a more directly interested and inspired source.

We must not delude ourselves into thinking that the kind of international short-wave broadcast to which we have just referred reaches a very wide audience. The number of efficient short-wave sets in use is still small, though the better types are now more readily available than hitherto. We can foresee a wide market for them when more normal conditions return. As a contributor says elsewhere in this issue, there is nothing like a good wireless set for collecting news ; it gives its owner the feeling of being in intimate touch with things as they happen, and he becomes something more than a mere spectator, remote and aloof from actualities.

Whatever the days ahead may have in store for us, there is one thing that we can face with the most serene confidence. The wireless service, though young in years, has already established a tradition of steadfast devotion to duty on the part of its personnel of which we are all justifiably proud. Maintenance at extreme efficiency of all forms of wireless communication is now vital to the successful prosecution of the war ; the various branches of the service may meet with difficulties that none of us can yet foresee, but, whatever these difficulties may be, communication will be maintained.

It's alive!

The Wireless World Monodial is now working again. I've not checked the alignment, but it pulls in LW and MW stations just fine. The silent tuning feature works, but probably doesn't justify the extra cost then (or now). The tuning indicator isn't right. The resistor controlling it had been changed, maybe my replacing the weak vari-mu pentode affected things. More investigation required when I do the alignment. But first I need to order parts to build a suitable amplifier.

I'm thinking of using a 1940s pentode, e.g. KT61 rather than a 1930s type.

How to innovate like a robot

Over on Innovation in Practice it's suggested that machines will most likely never be able to innovate - Automated Innovation.

Granted such discourse can be quite dull - computers/machines cannot think/love/walk properly/chew gum/...../invent seems to be for my generation the equivalent of the ancient "how many angels can dance on a pin?".

What saved this post for me was the description of what innovation is -

For a machine to innovate, it would need to:

1. Take a product or service and break it into its component parts
2. Take a product or service and identify its attributes (color, weight, etc)
3. Apply a template of innovation to manipulate the product or service and change it into some abstract form
4. Take the abstract form and find a way for humans to benefit from it

Surely not. This is the blogosphere, at a minimum 4 should be "... find a way for cats to benefit from it."

More seriously if the process of innovation were to be simulated in a worthwhile way, some benefit would probably need to be delivered to the innovator. What I'm saying here is that feedback is required. I'd also argue that for a machine 2 and 3 are probably not required either. After all if a machine was capable of generating prototypes at a fantastic rate - consider synthetic drugs - and then test them for good and bad effects, it is quite likely that useful new drugs could be developed. For all I know this is happening right now.

Eckersley on public sector pay for technical staff

"The conditions of service are not such as to attract people who think that informed enthusiasm deserves bigger rewards than are paid to civil servants. All honour, then, to those brilliant people who accept the conditions ; there could be more of such people if the pay were more attractive."

P.P. Eckersley, December 1942.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Eckersley_(engineer)

There is crisis in Europe

I've got many copies of Wireless World magazine from the 1930s and 40s, including the famous A C Clarke issues. Mostly I find these of interest for the technical material, but there are a few adverts that can take your breath away for various reasons. Here's one from November 1935.

ALL-WAVE RADIO

for

EVERYBODY

AND AT

NO

EXTRA COST!

Giving you - in addition to ordinary programmes -

AMERICAN PROGRAMMES DIRECT

EXCLUSIVE SHORT-WAVE NEWS OF

THE EUROPEAN CRISIS

Political Propaganda Broadcasts, in English,

from the Dictators of Europe

TO-DAY there is crisis in Europe ... and the air is alive with the broadcast news and views of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini ! But the dictators of Europe use the SHORT WAVES for the propaganda, and you cannot hear them on an ordinary radio set.

At this critical moment Burndept have produced an ALL-Wave Radio Receiver for everybody—and at NO extra cost! For £8 8s. you can buy the Burndept All-Wave Battery Receiver which not only gives you all your favourite home and Continental programmes as usual, but receives as well the world-wide Short Wave stations on which you get the dance-bands of New York direct, the politics of Europe, the last-minute news of all the world. The Burndept All-Electric All-Wave Receiver costs -£10 10s.

It requires no extra skill to receive the Short Wave stations, on this Burndept All-Wave Radio. You tune them in like any distant ''foreigner " -- and you have at your fingertips a new and never-failing source of radio interest and entertainment. Ask your nearest Burndept Accredited Dealer or POST COUPON BELOW for full details.

Other folks projects

When I wonder if the time I spend on my projects is worthwhile it's great to read about daft/strange/incredible things that others are doing.

Here's a couple -

The Toaster Project - hey the electric toaster is 100!!!
Maybe the end result will have a retro look - how about these? 1920s Toasters
See the Toaster Museum at http://www.toaster.org/

The Impossible Project - "shake it like a Polaroid picture"