"Factoids," "Kirt's Cogitations," and
"Tech Topics Smorgasbord"
are all manifestations of my rantings on various subjects relevant (usually) to
the overall RF Cafe theme. All may be accessed on these pages:
U.S.A.'s Top 10 Trading Partners in 2007 (source
UPS)
Country
Amount
1
Canada
$248B
2
Mexico
$137B
3
China
$65B
4
Japan
$63B
5
U.K.
$50B
6
Germany
$50B
7
S. Korea
$35B
8
Netherlands
$33B
9
France
$27B
10
Taiwan
$26B
N. Korea saw the greatest % increase at 55,414% (that's right)
6-3-2008
eBay & Craigslist Provide a Market for Stolen U.S. Military Items (source:
GAO Report)
Here are a few examples of sensitive items purchased by undercover investigators on eBay and Craigslist.
Winning bidders on many of the auctions were located in countries such as Bulgaria, China, and Russia. Sellers offered to ship "no questions
asked." - F-14 Tomcat antenna on eBay - Nuclear biological chemical gear on Craigslist -
Body armor plates on eBay - Night vision goggles on eBay - Army combat uniform items on eBay - Blackhawk
helicopter antenna on eBay
A sociology paper from the University of
Oxford has suggested there is a tie between the mindset of Electrical Engineers and that of extreme Islamic terrorists.
"Abstract. We find that graduates from subjects such as science, engineering, and medicine are strongly overrepresented among Islamist
movements in the Muslim world... We also find that engineers alone are strongly over-represented among graduates in violent groups... Do engineers
have a 'mindset' that makes them a particularly good match for Islamism..." I suggest printing out the entire 90 pages and using
it as bathroom material - not necessarily for reading.
5-10-2008
...and
Another One Bites the Dust...
Yikes, another stalwart of the RF engineering realm has gone the way of Applied Microwave and Wireless, et al! RF Design's
website is still active, but the last monthly published edition was February 2008. "RF Design is no longer published as a stand alone
magazine. The magazine will be published quarterly and mailed to subscribers of Microwaves & RF magazine." Adieu, and farewell. Subscribe
to Microwaves and & RF.
5-18-2008
China is Doing Things in a Big Way
China is home to the world's largest shopping mall: the 7,000,000 ft2South China Mall; the world's longest sea-crossing bridge
- the 32 km-long span over the East China Sea;
the world's largest hydroelectric dam - the Three Gorges Dam project;
and the world's highest railroad - the Qingzang Railway crossing
the Tibetan permafrost 5 km above sea level; and now the world's largest airport - the
Feng-Shui-compliant Beijing International Airport, which
covers 2x the area of the Pentagon. That's a lot of resources and huge carbon footprints - good thing for them that they are a "developing country"
and are not subject to the Kyoto Protocol.
Remember the old saying, "If you snooze, you lose?" Well...
Then: ¼ of mankind lived under the British flag in the largest empire the world had ever
known; many parts not under Britain's rule had been created by her. Britain dominated worldwide science, manufacturing and trade.
Now: The IMF just warned that the West faces the largest financial shock
since the Great Depression, while Asian economies (mainly China & India) are powering ahead. China spends 35x as much on crude oil as it
did in year 2000, and 23x as much on copper. ½ of the world's new buildings are being built in China. As it builds endless rows of skyscrapers
on former farm lands, China consumes ½ the world's cement and a 1/3 of its steel.
The General Relativity Einstein/Essen Anniversary Test was conducted in September of 2005 by
Daniel Kleppner and his kids. They took several very accurate cesium atomic clocks from home and parked 5,400 feet up Mt. Rainier for a full
two days. The goal was to see if the clocks actually gained time as predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity. Gravity at 5,400 feet
is less (by about 0.1%) than at home at 1,035 feet, and therefore the clocks should run 22 ns faster over the two days.
Did they? The plot to the left shows the results. Click on the image for full details.
RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling
2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed
formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit
design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at
the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps
while typing up your telephone line, and a nice lady's voice announced "You've Got
Mail" when a new message arrived...
All trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other rights of ownership to images
and text used on the RF Cafe website are hereby acknowledged.
"
Here are a few examples of sensitive items purchased by undercover investigators on eBay and Craigslist.
