Blackberry REACT November 2010 Newsletter

Quick Clicks

Weather change = grab and go change

We’ve hit autumn, and we’re rolling into winter. If your grab and go bag still has your summer wardrobe in it, time to add something warm and waterproof. Of course if it’s still all your winter clothes from last year, you’re fine.

Photo of the hangar deck on a modern aircraft carrier

The USS George H. W. Bush somewhere in the Atlantic. You think parking is a problem where you work and live … .

Louise and I visited the USS Midway museum in San Diego, and we posted these photos.

The first nuclear-powered Navy task force

Aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, the USS Long Beach, and the USS Bainbridge sailed around the world without refueling in 1964.

My CERT instructor said not to do this

Communications Lessons from Katrina and Rita

This link triggers the download of a 200K .pdf file. Mormons have an interest in communications support for their many different locations. This analysis of communications after Katrina and Rita hit concludes that amateur radio and satellite phones are the only reliable means of communicating the needs of the members of the church.

It’s a fairly specific document about what worked and where communications were needed. A couple of the more interesting lessons: mobile UHF/VHF radios worked better than HTs because mobile radios have more power. HF worked better still because they needed to communicate outside the range of UHF/VHF radios. My suggestion: get your general license and an HF radio, then get on the air and use it so you know how.

Hazmat gear in Alameda County

Turns out the Raman in the photo isn’t noodles, it’s a $32,000 device that IDs chemicals – from cocaine to nerve gas. Other items in their kit include cyanide antidote, hazmat suits, and sparkless sledgehammers, all with photos and prices to knock your socks off.

What 1975 will be like

“Atomic radiation of foods will be routine in the seventies,” according to “1975: And the Changes to Come,” Arnold B. Barach’s 1962 book. This is a Flickr set of 21 photos of what the futurist of the early 60s saw as the future in 10 years. Basically, he got nothing right.

Don’t stand around when the overhead power lines short out.

Language is not safe for the workplace.

Want to know what it was like for Forty-niner gold miners?

This is a remarkable picture of 19th Century life in the 21st Century. Four men in the Ukraine have found an abandoned coal mine that’s no longer commercially profitable. They dig out the coal with sledge hammers and chisels. They remove only the coal, and the seam they’re working is about two feet thick, so that’s the height of their tunnel. They crawl in on their stomachs. They can’t turn onto their sides, so they swing the sledges lying on their stomachs. They eat lunch on their stomachs in the mine, then have a cigarette and go back to work.

I’m guessing this is what it was like back in 1849 in the Sierras. Back- breaking, hard, dirty labor for little reward.

The documentary is courtesy Al Jazeera’s English newscast.

What the news is going to be like in three years

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8g3AFnT_Hk

Events

Dec 4 – BBR Annual Dinner at Harrys Hoffbrau in Redwood City at 5:30 PM.