All I Know - Information, Transmission, Modulation, and Noise

|| General || § ¶Clinton In Berkeley

Today Victoria and I helped out at Cody's Books in Berkeley for Bill Clinton's appearance and book signing.

We got there at 9am and got our badges. BC was coming at noon. The store would be closed most of the day, open only for the signing event. About 60 staff and volunteers were already in the store, along with the Clinton advance team and guys in suits with things in their ears and talking into their sleeves. Lots of Berkeley Police.

Our job was to handle the press from a table outside the front door. By the time we got there a line had already formed going down Haste Street as far as you could see. Some had been on line since the previous day. Actually, there were two lines, one for ticket holders with books and one for folks with books and no tickets. Everything seemed quite festive. People on line were singing.

Around 10:30 the police set up barricades around the store, which is on the corner of Telegraph and Haste, and closed the street.
Crowds started forming around the barricades. It was a beautiful Berkeley morning. The smell of donuts from the pastry shop next door was very much in the air.

There is more to read...

Tuesday June 29 2004 - 19:06 | | General | Got ten comments!

|| General || § ¶Fahrenheit 9/11

Just go see it!
You must!
And take a friend!

PS: I bet a lot of people are learning how to spell "Fahrenheit" correctly.
The printed ticket I got for the Grand Lake theater tonight has it wrong.

Of course, I wonder about the linkage to Ray Bradbury. Apparently the author of Fahrenheit 451 didn't appreciate it.

Saturday June 26 2004 - 22:17 | | General | Got one comment!

|| General || § ¶Reading

These days I'm reading Edward Tenner's Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity (Vintage 2003)
Lots more information about the technology of shoes than you'd care to know. And about rubber. Learned that when rubber was discovered, in the 18th C, the first use was to make erasers, called "rubbers". Now we call everything made with this plant secretion "rubber". Later, it was used on shoes. It made them much quieter than leather soles. In fact, you could sneak around with rubber soles and steal things without being heard. Thus, "sneakers". Fascinating stuff. Incredible research.

Thursday June 24 2004 - 20:08 | | General | Post a comment

|| Music || § ¶Resonance FM (London)

Here's another internet radio site to hear.

Resonance 104.4 FM in London. Its been called the best radio station in London.
The high quality MP3 stereo feed is

http://212.23.57.33:8010

and you can put that in Real Audio or iTunes. The website is:

http://resonancefm.com/index.htm

They also have most of their programs archived at:

http://resonancefm.com/archive.htm

Tuesday June 22 2004 - 15:07 | | Music | Post a comment

|| Science || § ¶Space Weather

I consult spaceweather.com to see what's happening on the sun and between us and the sun. What affect could magnetic storms, sun spots, coronal holes, have on my day?

From hfradio.org you can tell if its possible to talk by radio by bouncing low power signals off the ionosphere, in case you're into that sort of thing.

Check how the solar wind blows daily.

Both have nice pictures and graphs, include timelapse animations of solar flares and sunspot activity.

Wednesday June 16 2004 - 20:54 | | Science | Post a comment

|| General || § ¶Clinton at Cody's

Bill will be at Cody's Books (Berkeley) on June 29 at noon. But there are lots of details...you can't just show up. Be sure to read the specifics at the website. I plan to be there, helping the staff. Will report back afterwards.

Note that this will be at the Telegraph Avenue store. And he will only be signing books bought in advance... no speeches.

I wonder if Julia, the bubble lady, will show?

Wednesday June 16 2004 - 18:14 | | General | Post a comment

|| General || § ¶Bloomsday

Today is Bloomsday.
Have you read Ulysses yet?

Wednesday June 16 2004 - 08:59 | | General | Got one comment!

|| General || § ¶ITMAN

Why "Information, Transmission, Modulation, and Noise"?
When I was in college, the one textbook that impressed me the most was one with this title. I still have it somewhere. It actually dealt with all four topics from an electrical engineering and mathematical perspective. The author, Mischa Schwartz, was one of my professors, and it really was an exciting course. (I see now that the book has been much expanded since 1963, when I used it... and the price has tripled!)

In the '70's I started doing late night radio programs on KPFA, in Berkeley. At that time KPFA went off the air after midnight, because they didn't want to pay someone to operate the board. I volunteered to do a music program most nights, and turn off the stations when I ran out of music, or got too tired -- usually around 3am. Then the usual crew would arrive around 6 to turn KPFA back on and do the morning news programs.

Searching for a title for the program I remembered this book and realized that it described everything I was doing on these radio programs. It also seems to be an apt subtitle for this blog, whatever it turns out to be.

Some of those radio programs are on tape in the KPFA tape archive now part of Other Minds. Sometime soon they may be digitized and available on RadiOM.

Wednesday June 16 2004 - 08:15 | | General | Post a comment

|| General || § ¶Cool

Improved colors. Variations on Beige and Orange.

Tuesday June 15 2004 - 19:13 | | General | Got one comment!

|| General || § ¶New Blog

This is a blog in progress. I'm starting to use Pivot, and learning how it works.
Things may change drastically from day to day, week to week.
Come back and see how its going.
All suggestions welcome.

Monday June 14 2004 - 00:26 | | General | Post a comment

|| Internet || § ¶Internet Radio Stations of Interest

Sunday June 13 2004 - 17:19 | | Internet | Post a comment

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