Blackberry REACT April 2010 NewsletterQuick ClicksHow bomb-proof suits work“The Hurt Locker” is a current movie showing explosive ordnance disposal units walking around in big suits as they defuse bombs. Here’s an article on how those suits are made and how they work. Predictions from December 1900This photo is reported to be from the December 1900 Ladies Home Journal, and it has predictions of what will come in the next hundred years. Some are dead on (There will be Air- Ships, Aerial Wash-Ships and Forts on Wheels), some are dead wrong (Everyone Will Walk 10 Miles, Peas as Large as Beets, There Will be no C, X, or Q in our alphabet), and some are curiously almost right (To England in Two Days, Man Will See Around the World, and Grand Opera Will be Telephoned to Private Homes). Argus C3The photographs of the Kodak camera triggered some fond recollections of his Argus C3 for Phil Henderson, so he passed on this link to the Wiki page. In production for almost 30 years, the camera may have been the reason we used 35mm film back in the golden days of yore. I’m not sure what the lesson isA rock slide covers the road, and a driver looks at the cops and news team instead of ahead. AT&T has cowsThis is a promo for AT&T’s cell coverage at a geek show in Austin called SXSW. After bitter complaints about failed coverage at other geek events (CES, for one), AT&T rolled out three Cells on Wheels to Austin so that all the geeks wouldn’t tweet their displeasure with their iPhones getting no signals. The interest here is that all the cell phone providers have COWs, and they roll them out in emergencies, not just to prevent PR disasters. The video is very low level in terms of showing how things work. Sprint has its own COWs, of course, and here’s it video for their Emergency Response Team. When the DC snipers were active, Sprint provided COWs for the police to communicate securely on a regional level. Sprint also pats itself on the back for providing COWs in New Orleans after Katrina, but they point out that they provide secure communications for G8 summits, political conventions and presidential inaugurations, COWs are the ultimate interagency communications device. Different agencies can’t coordinate their radios, but so long as cell phones work, they can talk. Mansion PolishMaybe in 1946, this is a magazine ad for Mansion Polish for your linoleum floors. I haven’t thought about linoleum for decades, although it used to be part of my daily life. The wear patterns of the linoleum reflected whatever it was laid on, so sometimes you could see the ridges of the wood flooring worn off the linoleum. A scan of the bandsFor those of us new to HF, here’s a tour of the various HF bands and what to expect on and from them. TypewritersAntiques, of course. The concepts were startlingly different from our current thinking. Cranks, dials, pointers were all used instead of keys, and QWERTY was unheard of at the times some of these typewriters were being sold. The 40 most important phonesSome may argue with their choices, but here are photos and brief stories about telephone sets (remember when they were called sets?) starting from Bell’s first, to the candlestick set, through the Western Electric Model 500 (the most ubiquitous dial phone – you’ll know it when you see it) through to cell phones. There’s also a movie on how to use the new “dial” service. AT&T brings you the future in 1993How AT&T said they’d bring you faxing from the beach and conferencing in your bare feet. How your computer really worksArea 51 vets can talk nowAnd you know if people can talk, they will. PBS’s Frontline has a report on the Haiti quakeThe full show can bee seen online. We think because we’ve got our grab and go bags that we’re prepared. Although it’s not likely that we’ll have the destruction caused by this earthquake, we’ll have fires. San Francisco was not razed by the quake, it was burned to the ground. Chapter 1 is not for the squeamish; the other three chapters are about administrative failure. Some issues appear to me to be relevant to life on the Peninsula. Haiti had only one airport, and it choked. Aid could not get into the country by air for a week or so. If SFO is damaged, we could expect our bridges, rail, and highway system to be damaged as well. How would we get supplies for our hospitals if the roads and airport are closed? How would we get food and shelter? And long term, as they point out in the video, New Orleans is still not rebuilt. How long would it take to rebuild here? Years? Computers in the 60sThis is labeled the internet, but that’s not really what it is. The concepts are strangely alien to how things turned out – the wife shops online, and the husband pays for it by having cash deducted from his bank account; he prints out his budget instead of just viewing on the monitor, and email is by some kind of pencil in a pad where you write stuff by hand. On the right side of this video are links to other bizarre predictions of life in the future from decades gone by. Old postcard from 1928When I was in the Air Force, I was stationed in North Dakota, and this is a flash from the past. The recipient lived in Maxbass, ND; the town was named after Max Bass, land commissioner of the Dakota Territories at one time. In 2000, the town had 91 residents. I wonder what it was in ‘28? The sender is a dealership in Bottineau, ND; the town is just south of the Canadian border and has a population now of 2,300. However, for the rest of you, the prices will be more interesting than the geography. Dustmasks in an earthquakeWhy you want a dustmask during an earthquake. If the Mexicali quake had happened in LAWe know about budget cuts to our fire and police services. That means mutual aid agreements may not be worth the paper they’re written on if adjoining departments are understaffed. One firefighter estimates if the quake had happened in LA, there would have been fifteen hundred fires and a need for 20 fire fighters at each one. CalEMA says it conducted a survey that found most households in the state aren’t prepared with basic emergency needs – like water. More information about the survey is here. NPR says ham radio is still alive and wellSome text overview and a 4-minute radio audio (after a 15-second commercial). Events
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