Sunny with Bouts of Depression

I have reverse seasonal affective disorder (rSAD?), which is really not a reverse of anything; sort of like karma isn't bad or good, it just is, so a seasonal affective disorder doesn't need to specify a season, though it usually is associated with winter.

For me, it's characterized by heightened anxiety in summer, and the days of increasing sunlight leading up to it.

I understand it's more common in southern climates, which makes sense, as there is more sun to contend with.

I dislike sunshine sometimes, and like it other times, in small or dimmed doses.

Call me a kook or trivialize it if you will, it's very real.

I love the night, the calm coolness, softly lit footpaths. And I abhor the opposite. The sunny stillness after a heavy rain is like cleaning up after a party.

These are a few of my favorite things...

* Sunrise
* Twilight, afterglow, darkness
* Oil lamps and candles
* Passing headlights
* Crickets and bullfrogs and other singing night creatures
* Soft breezes
* Rain
* Distant thunder
* Lightening
* Clouds over flat landscapes, clouds over rolling landscapes
* Fog
* Stars, commets, and blinking airplane lights
* Shades of gray and utter blackness puncuated by lamps in neighbors' windows

Kind of romantic in its own way, isn't it?

 

Started: 2012-01-31

A Hunting Syllogism

(Thank you Adam K for sparking this idea.)

1. We are descended from carnivores. [1]
2. We are programmed to eat meat.
3. Killing has in the past been necessary to eat.
4. #3 is no longer true.
5. Hunting reinforces behaviors that are no longer necessary for the welfare of the species.
6. These behavior are unhealthy and dangerous.
7. These behaviors are manifested outside the hunting context.
8. Therefore, hunting is unhealthy and dangerous .

I'm not entirely happy with this, but I can't argue with my own logic; I know where the holes are (you can see them too), but they are easy to fill with smaller steps. The crux is 5-6; aside from the social and pseudo-religious aspects of hunting, it has no reason to exist.[2]

A radio host recently reminded me of this exchange between Katharine Hepburn (Rose Sayer) and Humphrey Bogart (Charlie Allnut) in The African Queen:

Charlie: A man takes a drop too much once in a while, it's only human nature.
Rose: Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put into this world to rise above.

The point being that we are not necessarily bound by what's in our DNA.

(That picture of Bogart hangs in my home office, a gift from my brother Tom many years ago.)

[1]
Although much of our digestive system has changed to consume other types of foods (flat molars to process grain, eg), we have been carnivores or omnivores for hundreds of thousands years. Our eyes are in the front of our heads.

[2]
I eat meat but do not support hunting; this syllogism is partly in response to my internal battle with this apparent inconsistency; hunters and vegetarians alike take me to task over it. I am in "the troubled middle"; more on that later.

Talking to a vegetarian is like "Can God create a rock too big for Him to move?" Talking to hunters… well, there's no talking to hunters.

I am good friends with many hunters and vegetarians. I don’t want to take away anyone’s guns or vegetables.

And God bless Ted Nugent, I like his music and I like him.

Started: 2012-04-10

A Free Way to Schedule Recordings of Your Favorite Radio Shows

I used to record my favorite radio shows all the time; problem was, after a week, I'd have so much recorded (including 35 hours of Coast to Coast AM) that I wasn't listening to it and it was just taking up space on my hard drive.

What I do now is just subscribe to a few RSS feeds, which include some ham news podcasts, Brian Dunning's Skeptoid , and a handful of NPR and PRI shows.

Now that most of what I want to listen to is available whenever I want it, I don't have to record it. TV will be there soon, and some of it already is. With regular TV and radio, RSS podcasts, and audio books, there is far more to consume than I'll ever have time for.

Coast to Coast AM shows are only available to paying members, but you can record them: the best freebie hands down is "phonostar-player" , a German application that is far more than a player. If the station isn't in their database, you have to know the URL stream, which can be tricky, but if you can find that, it's easy.

Phonostar-player is a free Tivo for radio; I've tried half a dozen freebies and nothing was as good.

Ausgezeichnet.

Started: 2012-04-30

What Happened to Me?

Yesterday [April 12] I watched Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli in Aurthur.

I used to be able to watch stories of lovable rich people find their inner humanity, as if we shared the same social trajectory; or planet.

Because I have fond memories of that era, I still connect with this story, the actors, and especially the music (Christopher Cross, whom I can only enjoy in the context of this movie).

But I'm now so acutely aware of the disparity between the haves and have-nots, which is enormously greater since I watched Arthur in a theater in 1981, that I can't watch stories like this without a distracting pang of social conscience so sharp that I lose the ability to lose myself in the moment.

I want to go back.

Started: 2012-04-13

Cell Phone and Dual Band Ham Radio in One Package?

The Puxing PX-D03 is very cool idea that needs time to mature: A smart phone and dual-band 2m/70cm ham handheld. I'm not crazy about the appearance. Will wait for the technology to improve.

Ebay 

Some reviews of are encouraging

Problem 1: The rubber duck antenna makes it looks dorky enough that no one who wants it just for the cell phone will touch it with a 10-foot pole. Who might use it? Hams that don't want to carry two devices.

Problem 2: It's not ready for prime time; appears it's essentially 2 devices that charge and operate independently (good idea) but also appear to interfere with each other. It's fine for a cell phone, but other features fall short.

Problem 3: There are a lot of budget ham radios coming out of China (including Wouxun, Puxing, Baofeng, and FeiDaxin – that last one is new to me), but quality is hit and miss. The Wouxun (my radio) gets good reviews; I did some research when I was in China and so made an informed choice, but judging by what I'm reading, the other brands have some quality issues. Haven't used anything else, so can't say from personal experience; eHam.net is a good source of info. I can say that the Wouxun KG-UVD1P has been great for me; it does get daily gentle use, but I'm not an outdoorsman or power user.

Comment 1: Once the Internet is ubiquitous and you can hit it anywhere anytime for free, there won't be a practical difference between apps like Echolink (that let you hit repeaters with your smartphone or computer) and actually using a radio. Of course, it's not the same; they are as different as sugar and Saccharine, and if the goal is only to communicate with someone, the radio hobby is not the way to go.

Comment 2: New hams that pick up a cheap radio that can't perform won't stay with the hobby. It’s hard to describe the thrill the first time I turned it on, went outside and with just the factory rubber duck and listened to a couple hams talking about meatloaf.[1]

(I can hear you groaning. But compare that conversation with Twitter or Facebook. People talk about what matters to them at the moment.)

What I'd like someday is a handheld quad band transceiver with wide band RX on AM, FM, shortwave, and public safety bands; basically, a great MW DXer, scanner, shortwave, and HT. There are some that try, but they are really ham radios with some fun (and unimpressive) extras.

Oh, and an alarm clock and mp3 recorder/player.

Then again, would kinda ruin the unique sort of entertainment each type of radio affords, for each type of listening has it's own rewards.

But still...

[1]
I asked some hams in a newsgroup sometime back when I was studying for my Technician’s license what type of radio to get; I was told by a few not to get a handheld; they feared it would be a poor experience and I’d give up. I know a lot of new hams do, but I was determined. I chose a complicated path, but it was the right one for me. (Wouxuns are a PITA to program without a computer – I tried ; programming, key sequences, and terminology are different from standard models like Kenwood, Yaesu, Icom, so a lot of online conversations are difficult to translate; and antenna a connectors are different).

My advice? Get what you want. And get a dual band. In my area, there is a lot more activity on 70cm than 2m; if I had gotten a low-end big brand name 2m like Icom or Yaesu for the same price, I wouldn’t be hearing anything right now and I’d have figured no one was on the air around me.

Started: 2012-04-20