Our guy Myers Dupuy cracks me up. CST readers know him from a few of his humorous observation pieces like: Free Fallin' with Haagen-Dazs; and A Triathlon Story (or Voodoo Brine for the Soul).
Yesterday, Myers zapped me an e-mail pointing out one of the lesser known benefits of ping pong:
I play some daily ping pong with a guy here at the office, and while it's not a work out, that “sport” does wonders for the reflexes. I find myself catching things that fall off a desk, like a cup of water before it tips and spills. I imagine as I move through my day that I'm in my own Matrix movie just looking for little reflexive miracles of no material consequence that yet fill my day with joy.
I get this stuff from Myers all the time. When they start writing the sequel to Office Space, they need to follow Myers around for a few weeks and gather in the gold. Seriously.
I was recently given a box of old radio and television industry magazines. I'll probably scan quite a few of my discoveries over the coming months and share them here on the CST Blog.
The first item that caught my eye is from the February 1961 edition of Radio-Electronics magazine. The author of the article, Manfred von Ardenne, speculated that, for safety reasons, cars of the future would be driven backwards! The driver would face the rear of the automobile and would enjoy full head-to-foot shock absorption safety as well as a 210-degree view of the road ahead via a closed-circuit television camera system. The cameras would even boast infrared filters for improved vision in the fog; and, in the event of camera failure, an emergency periscope would be available to the driver.
In an effort to tip his hat to his target demographic, Ardenne was careful to note:
It is quite understandable that [this] solution [to auto safety] has been suggested, not by someone in the automotive field, but by an electronics engineer closely associated with the television industry.
Indeed.
Slate's Dave Jamieson laments the Death of the Baseball Card.
A few years back, I decided to restore my late great grandmother's antique Truetone floor radio that had been sitting in my parents' garage for well over a decade. Now I'm working on my wife's great grandmother's Emerson table radio. I don't know that two projects makes a hobby, but I'm definitely heading that direction.
The radio to the top right is not one of my projects. That's expert work, and I'm a novice at best. But I thought I'd link to RadioAge.com, where radios like the above can be viewed and purchased. I haven't come across an online vendor with a more beautiful selection of old wooden, plastic, and bakelite radios.
You'll find a lot of radio fans who love the sound of an old tube radio tuned to an AM music station (Big Band or Jazz, for instance). Many old radios offer a warm and bassy sound. Unfortunately, the new HD Radio technology for the AM dial causes a good bit of interference on old radios. So some owners and collectors of antique radios choose to buy low power AM transmitters to send music from their iPods, stereos, or computers to their old radios. I haven't yet done this with an AM transmitter, but I understand the sound is terrific!
Maybe the best little transmitter for this purpose is the "Alfredo Lite" made by Chris Cuff. It's roughly the size of a Walkman and costs around $125. The "Alfredo Lite" is specifically made to broadcast in C-Quam AM Stereo; however, it's also ideal for sending an extremely hi-fi AM signal to your antique radio.
