The number
of statements uttered verbally and/or in print is uncountable. Some are more noteworthy
than others either because of sheer brilliance, good humor, or utter inanity. We
all hope our own remembered words, if any, fall into one of the first two categories
rather than the third. I do a lot of reading and find many notable quotes to use
that fit the theme of RF Cafe; they fall into all three categories. I always try
to verify quotes from original sources or at least from printed books like
The Experts Speak, of which I own a hard copy. Enjoy.
Notable Tech Quote Archive
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3/15/2024, 11/25/2021
11/11/2021
10/28/2021
10/14/2021
9/30/2021
Edwin Eugene "Buzz"
Aldrin, Jr., has always been my favorite astronaut.
Neil Armstrong, of course
being the first man to step foot on the moon, is a legendary favorite and probably
has better name recognition. He was known to be very practical, brilliant, and businesslike.
Michael Collins
orbited the moon in the Command Module and never did get to land there on subsequent
missions. Buzz, while equally brilliant, liked to play the jokester / prankster
role and could be very openly honest about his opinion on persons and matters. He
could be intimidating because of his reputation for not abiding Bravo Sierra, and
rarely being wrong. Chapter 1 of his book No Dream Is Too High, is entitled, "The sky is not the limit
... There are footprints on the moon!" Buzz is a strong advocate for visiting and
colonizing Mars.
10/ /2021
9/16/2021
9/1/2021
8/19/2021
8/5/2021
7/22/2021
7/8/2021
"Intelligence is a constant. The smarter
your phone is the dumber you are." - Anon. Scientists have assigned
a word to describe the psychological condition where a person experiences fear and/or
anxiety over not having access to a cellphone -- "nomophobia"
(short for "no mobile
phobia"
). Per Wikipedia: "...cell
phones are 'possibly the biggest non-drug addiction of the 21st century,' and college
students may spend up to nine hours every day on their phones, which can lead to
dependence on such technologies as a driver of modern life and an example of 'a
paradox of technology' that is both freeing and enslaving." "...young adults and
adolescents are more likely to suffer from nomophobia." I only carry a cellphone
while travelling out of town, and then turn it on only when I need it. Governments
and corporations know practically nothing about my daily movements.
6/10/2021
3/4/2021
Unfortunately the James Webb Space Telescope
(JWST) is now 20x over budget and 14 years behind schedule. "'It's like building
a Swiss watch at 40-feet-tall... and getting it ready for this journey that we take
into the vacuum at minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit (-240 °C), four times further
than the Moon,' said
Scott Willoughby of lead contractor Northrop Grumman. He was speaking at the
company's spaceport in Redondo Beach, California, from where the telescope will
be shipped to French Guiana to be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket, with NASA
targeting October 31 for liftoff."
American physicists Carl Anderson and Seth
Neddermeyer were studying cosmic rays when they discovered the
muon in 1936. The discovery of
this particle was so surprising that Nobel laureate Isidor Isaac Rabi exclaimed:
"Who ordered that?" Dr. Rabi
was an American physicist who won the
Nobel Prize
in Physics in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance and was a
pioneer in the development of the
cavity magnetron.
"You need only two tools: WD-40 and Duct
Tape: If it doesn't move and it should, use WD-40. If it moves and shouldn't, use
the duct tape." - Red Green.
5/27/2021
"Nothing is ever a complete failure; it can
always serve as a bad example." - Carson's Consolation. I tried to find out who
this Carson guy is, but to no avail. It is probably not John Renshaw Carson, who
developed the well-known amongst RF Cafe visitors
bandwidth
rule stating BW = 2·(Δf + fm). The same quote
is sometimes referred to as Carlson's Consolation. Regardless of its progenitor,
the tenet holds true.
12/22/2020
Joel R. Hallas (W1ZR), ARRL QST magazine's
monthly "The Doctor Is In" column writer, has written many notable quotes
over the years while responding to readers' questions. Most of the Q's and A's are
about antennas, transmission lines, and impedance matching. The October 2020 issue
contains the following statement which is profoundly important to remember, particularly
where antennas are concerned, "...but ground is always somewhere." It might seem like a Captain
Obvious statement, but people not overly familiar with the effects of a ground plane
- be it solid, mesh, or an array of radials - can and does have a huge effect on
the radiation pattern and effective impedance of every kind of antenna. Mr. Hallas'
middle initial is given as "R," but is might as well be "E" - for
EZNEC - because of his masterful
and frequent use of it in analyzing antenna setups and which often includes pattern
plots in his answers. It just figures that since I mention it, EZNEC is not mentioned
this month.
10/1/2020
"...Difficulties in recognizing one's own
incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments." - Dunning-Kruger. The full title
of the paper authored by David Dunning and Justin Kruger outlining what has become
known as the
Dunning–Kruger Effect is entitled, "Unskilled and Unaware of It:
How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments."
In layman's terms, it could be put thusly: "The dumber a person is the more [s]he
believes [s]he knows more than everyone else." This phenomenon can be seen all over
social media and within the burning, looting, and mayhem protestor hordes terrorizing
cities across the world. Of course it is also exhibited in politicians who try to
rationalize the behavior and do nothing to prevent the wanton destruction of private
and public property.
9/17/2020
On the eve of World War II, the Brits
built an amazingly successful twin-engined bomber called the
D.H.98
Mosquito. It proved to be the bane of German cities, bridges, and dams. More
than a decade after the aeronautics industry had switched from wooden to metal airframes,
de Havilland engineers decided to design the craft using materials and techniques
familiar to model airplane hobbyists - balsa, plywood, spruce, silk, and dope. The
April/May 2020 issue of Air & Space magazine has a great article entitled
"World War II's Strangest Bombing Mission" containing a quote
from Hermann
Göring which is like music to the ears (double entendre
intended) of our English brethren. To wit: "Famously, the RAF's speedy wooden
workhorses left a lasting impression on Göring. According to a 1973 history of the
Luftwaffe, he later blustered, 'The British, who can afford aluminum better than
we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over
there is building... They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops.
After the war is over I'm going to buy a British
radio set - then at least I'll own something that has always worked.'"
Key up "God Save the King/Queen."
6/22/2020
"Matter was neither particle nor wave, but
a bit of both - a wavicle." - Ian Stewart, in "In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World,"
2012, regarding the dual nature of light as covered in the chapter on
Schrödinger's
equation for wave functions. BTW, the real term used is "wave–particle
duality," which is a quantum mechanical principle stating that all matter–energy
has both a wave and a particle nature. The wave behavior of light is exhibited in
its ability to be diffracted at a sharp edge. It is the particle nature which accounts
for the photoelectric effect.
3/27/2020
This was a Tweet put out by the World
Health Organization on January 14, 2020: "Preliminary investigations conducted by the
Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human
transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in Wuhan
China." Since Twitter posts have a way of disappearing when proven embarassing,
that hyperlink goes to an archived Google page. For some reason Archive.org is not
able to save Twitter pages (I tried to force a save, but it failed). President Trump
initiated the
travel ban on January 31, 2020 (and caught heck for it), two weeks
prior to WHO's infamous Tweet telling the world not to worry.
3/22/2020
On May 21st, 2010, in an interview with CBS
News entitled, "The Cell Phone: Marty Cooper's Big Idea," cell phone inventor
Martin
Cooper, was asked, "Isn't there almost a Brave New World sensibility behind
all of this being connected? What does it do to our privacy?" His reply: "Sorry.
Privacy is a thing of the past." There are two aspects of that loss of privacy.
One is the vulnerability of data collection by anyone with the technology (including
Big Brother). The other aspect is loss of privacy by choice due to people blabbing
all their business in public where anyone nearby can hear. The former is unavoidable
by the cell phone user, while the latter is completely avoidable - and preferable,
since almost nobody want to hear you yak about your personal business.
3/18/2020
"Young
man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." -
John
von Neumann,, mathematician & physicist
1/23/2020
The
November 2019 issue of Astronomy magazine included an interview with
Apollo 12 moon-walking astronauts Alan Bean and Pete Conrad.
It is the 50th anniversary of the world's second manned excursion to the moon's
surface on November 19, 1969. Amongst the science experiments and tasks to be performed
was the deployment of a plutonium fuel cell that would power the equipment remaining
on the surface after the Lunar Module blasted off. Most of the gear had been set
up without incident, but the fuel rod got stuck inside its transport cylinder. None
of that science gear would be of any use with out a power supply. After unsuccessfully
trying to free the rod without risking damage, it finally came down to whacking
it with one of those infamous
$400 NASA hammers to get it out. Bean's comment to Houston upon
completion was, "Don't come to the Moon without a hammer."
12/16/2019
"The nice thing about standards is that you
have so many to choose from." - Andrew S. Tanenbaum,
Computer
Networks, 2nd edition, page 254.
11/14/2019
"Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan" -
Mary Somerville, radio executive
11/8/2019
The November 2019 issue of
QST (login required) is chock full of great articles. The
one entitled, "Indoor Antennas for VHF Weak-Signal Work," written by Mr. Les
Rayburn (N1LF) discusses ways to stealthily mount an antenna in your attic in order
to work around HOA restrictions and/or to protect your installation from weather
abuse. Considering the close proximity to living quarters, he offers caveats and
mitigation suggestions regarding RF exposure during transmission and subjection
to high noise levels from his own home and from nearby neighbors. The notable line
pulled from the article is, "Neighbors equal noise." The situation gets worse every
day. Here's my own
attic-based TV/Radio antenna installation.
November 1, 2019
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