Herculodge

Carl Finds the $205 Sangean ATS-909X to be 95% as Sensitive as His $48 Tecsun PL-606

 

Carl Boches writes:

Just received a new Sangean ATS-909X black color from Amazon. I knew all about the so called deafness of the 909x. As of now my most sensitive small radio is my Tecsun PL606. I took the 606 and the 909X out on my balcony in Cebu, Philippines and tested sensitivity and selectivity. Both radios were side by side, but not so close as to have any interference from each radio. Only the whips were used, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the 909X picked up 95% of what my 606 did.

 

My conclusion is that there are more sensitive radios than the 909X but not by too much and that the ongoing quotes of the 909x being completely deaf is as far as I am concerned a lot hot air. Not to mention that the selectivity is outstanding.

 

 

Semicolons

The world was saved by Superman, Clark Kent; Batman, Bruce Wayne; Wonder Woman Diane Prince; Aquaman, Larry Payton; Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner; Super Woman, Wendy Carlson, and Spiderman, Peter Parker. 

My second favorite pizza is clam; my first favorite pizza is pesto shrimp. 

According to P.W. Singer & Emerson T. Brooking’s LikeWar, Social Media’s Primary Role Has Become a Weaponized Battlefield of Misinformation

According to P.W. Singer & Emerson T. Brooking’s LikeWar, Social Media’s Primary Role Has Become a Weaponized Battlefield of Misinformation

Back in 2010 to 2012, I had the privilege of hiking with a half dozen United States Marines on the Palos Verdes trail every Sunday morning for a two-hour hike. Some of these Marines were my students, and they invited me to have a two-hour hike for strength, conditioning, and therapeutic conversation.

The Marines were my students, and they liked me because I was their critical thinking professor. I was making critical thinking part of a better democracy, and by making a stronger democracy I was making a stronger America. That was the narrative of 2010. And I needed to believe in this narrative because I had just had twin girls. My daughters were born in an ever strengthening democracy. Thank you, very much.

The hike was grueling and exhausting, but nothing to the Marines, many who walked 14 hours a day through rugged terrain in Afghanistan and Iraq with with an 80-pound backpack.

Driving home to Torrance all sweaty and exhausted in my car, I’d listen to the “Tech Guy” Leo Laporte on KFI 640 radio praise the ascent of social media, like Twitter, as he saw social media as a force for positive social change in the context of Arab Spring.

Overthrowing dictators in favor of democratic rule such as Arab Spring was evidence that social media would bring peace, freedom, and democracy to the world.

I was listening to Leo Laporte sing Kumbaya over the airwaves, and I was hopeful that he was right: Democracy will blossom all over the world. I was thinking, “Oh, happy day! I’m a critical thinking teacher helping propel democracy in my own small way. I’m on the Winning Team.”

So here we are, eight years later: How are things going?

Now over half the world is on social media, all my students have smartphones, and is the world a better place?

Is democracy spreading throughout the planet?

Are Americans of different tribes coming to together for shared understanding?

Are politicians of different persuasions working together for a common goal to make America stronger?

Just the opposite is true. We’re in chaos, we’re divided, and we can’t even agree on what facts are anymore as political pundits speak of “alternative facts” and “alternative realities.”

Instead of peace and understanding, we live in the Age of Gaslighting, bullying people with a twisted version of reality to beat them down and tire them out so they’re too exhausted to question lies and distortions.

What happened?

I didn’t have a clear answer until recently I had the privilege of reading an advanced copy of LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media by P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking.

The main premise of the book is that even though social media has many functions--showing cat videos, posting photos of your kids so grandma can see them, posting selfies of your six-pack torso shot at the gym on Instagram, promoting your brand--the dominant role of social media has become clear: Totalitarian and extremist trolls taken over social media and turned it into a battlefield of weaponized misinformation and authoritarian propaganda.

Totalitarians and extremists throughout the world are using social media to wage war against democracy, and right now they’re winning: That is the very persuasive thesis of LikeWar.

Here are my Four Takeaways from the book:

One. The Internet has gone through its evolutionary process and is now in its adult stage. It’s stopped evolving. We know what it is now. So what is social media. It’s a vector for false information. Why? Because information on social media is algorithmically tailored to conform to your cognitive biases so that you become isolated in your false information bubble.

Two. Social media is foremost a battlefield with no borders, and instant misinformation attack can happen without notice; faster than bombs, misinformation can affect political opinion.

Emotionally manipulating masses of people by disseminating misinformation in a viral saturation bomb is the new warfare.  

Three. We have to see information as a weapon when three things happen.

One, the information sticks because it pulls emotional heartstrings by giving people a story they want to believe in.

Two, the information gains mass appeal and becomes the dominant narrative to explain an event or a policy.

Three, the information has the power to affect the behavior and beliefs of mass populations.

The American military is deeply concerned about these totalitarian trolls. For example, the United States Army has a Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk where they engage in Social Media Environment and Internet Replication, known as SMEIR; it simulates social media scenarios where misinformation is weaponized and unbridled chaos ensues. You can cause more chaos with less retaliation and less expense through social media weaponization than you can through traditional warfare.

Four. Finally, there is no escaping this battlefield. We can’t turn back the clock, we can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube; we can’t put the Genie back in the bottle.

Don’t count on the Tech Bros who are making billions of dollars off their social media platforms to protect us. They’ve proven inept in controlling the misinformation flow. In fact, their platforms are allies in this misinformation.

Meanwhile, they’re allowing authoritarian governments to take over social media for the purpose of dismantling democratic governments.

We have to know how this war works; otherwise, the trolls, terrorists, and foreign enemies will take us over. Look how divided our country is. The trolls are already winning.

Think about that next time you distract yourself with a cat video.

Dominant Effect of Social Media Is Totalitarians Waging War Against Democracies: Reading P.W. Singer & Emerson T. Brooking's LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media

Social Media Blossomed with Optimism

Social media starting taking off around 2009. It started getting positive buzz around 2010 and 2011 during Arab Spring. The world rejoiced as Twitter was seen as a way of bringing people together. Social media would bring people together. I remember hearing Leo Laporte singing praises to social media and Twitter on 640 KFI around 2011.

Today over half the world is on social media. Whether we like it or not, social media dominates our existence.

Today social media has many purposes and functions: sharing cat videos, doing unboxings, talking about watches, sharing photos of the kids with grandma, showing off your pecs after a sweaty workout at the gym, people promoting your brand.

Of course, these are social media functions, but don’t be fooled. For all the fun we sometimes have on social media, these functions are not what the Main Function of social media has become.

The optimism that many of us had 7 years ago about social media is gone. And it should be gone because now we’re grappling with a brutal reality.

Social media has been taken over by bad people, evil people, totalitarian-leaning people who have made weaponized misinformation the dominant mode of communication on the Internet in the service of dismantling democracy and democratic ideals. Authoritarian governments have learned to troll democratic societies in the interest of dismantling democracy, and it’s working.

This is the number one story about social media today.

Misinformation has become weaponized because the most clever and savvy social media users have learned they can wage war on their enemies with more immediacy and potency with weaponized misinformation and manipulation and bombs.

This is the the persuasive thesis of P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking in their book LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media. I had the privilege of reading an advanced copy of the book, which comes out in about a month.

The foundations of this book are five core principles:

One, the Internet has gone through its evolutionary process and is now in its adult stage to be the “preeminent medium of global communication; half the world is now on social media, so social media is a ripe battlefield for information and propaganda wars. Bad people know this is the place to wage war. Most of these bad people are totalitarians trying to destroy democratic societies.

Two,  social media is foremost a battlefield with no borders and instant attack can happen without notice; faster than bombs, misinformation can affect political opinion, affecting elections and major foreign policy decisions.

Social media is not a place of peace and understanding as we wanted to believe during Arab Spring of 2010. The worst of human instincts and motivations have taken over social media to make weaponization the dominant mode of communication.

Three, We have to think differently about information. Now social media is the dominant mode of information, and by social media’s very nature of algorithmically shaped information to match people’s cognitive biases, most information people receive is manufactured, curated, and patently false.

This misinformation has changed how wars are fought; why use bombs and other weaponry when it’s cheaper and more effective to use weaponized misinformation? A manufactured event or fake news can be more destructive than a torrent of bombs.

Don’t believe me? The United States Army has a Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk where they engage in Social Media Environment and Internet Replication, known as SMEIR; it simulates social media scenarios where misinformation is weaponized and unbridled chaos ensues. You can cause more chaos with less retaliation and less expense through social media weaponization than you can through traditional warfare.

As a result, we must look at information differently. Information is no longer people sitting around reading books.

Information is short bursts of digital dissemination, often in the form of weaponized misinformation that sticks. Why does it stick? Because weaponized information is not based on truth; it’s based on simplicity and immediate emotional appeal.

Truth is now irrelevant: "Pull people’s emotional heartstrings," and "control the narrative," and you win the war.

Four, Social media battles have changed what war means: Elections and battles on the actual field can be won or lost because by controlling the opinions and beliefs of the masses. War and politics have never been so entwined with each other, so say the authors of LikeWar.

Five. Finally, there is no escaping this battlefield. We can’t turn back the clock, we can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube; we can’t put the Genie back in the bottle.

Don’t count on the Tech Bros who are making billions of dollars off their social media platforms to protect us. They’ve proven inept and indifferent except for protecting their image. Meanwhile, they’re allowing authoritarian governments to take over social media for the purpose of dismantling democratic governments.

We have to know how this war works; otherwise, the trolls, terrorists, and foreign enemies will take us over. Look how divided our country is. They’re already winning.

Because I Prefer a Smaller Collection As I Grow in My Watch Hobby, Should I Sell Black Seiko SBDC051 and Keep the Blue SBDC053?

During the last 13 years of my watch hobby (obsession), I've noticed two major changes in my tastes and habits:

Smaller Collections Preferred

One, I cannot tolerate large collections, as they are a source of anxiety, they tend to make my life too busy, they tend to compete too much with one another, they tend to "cancel each other out," or some similar effect, and I find myself worrying too much about giving any watch ample wrist time. I find having a small collection, about 5 or 6 watches, to be in my comfort zone. 

Smaller Sized Watches Preferred

In the beginning, I wanted only a Muscle Watch, oversized timepieces, so that I was operating on the principle The Bigger the Better. Without shame, I could rock a 52mm watch. I even wore a 60mm Invicta Sea Hunter at one point, but that one tugged at my sense of decorum and screamed "clown watch!" 

In the last 9 months, I've lost close to 50 pounds. My trim self looks better in watches in the 42-44mm range, a size that I would have considered puny several years ago. 

Currently, I have 6 watches in my collection. In the above photo pose, I'm wearing a Seiko SBDC051, which I like quite a bit, but I'm thinking of selling it. Why? Because I have the blue version SBDC053 (below) and I find the two watches compete with one another and by selling the 051, but the above photo, taken with me and my family at a nice restaurant, Ortega 120, has a certain sentimental value. Will I sell it? I'm on the fence. 

Glycine Airman Purist 42mm Refund Request Submitted Due to Misaligned Hour Hand

I was feeling the love for my Glycine Airman Purist 42mm, received yesterday from Jomashop at a great price, but I had to submit a refund form after discovering that the hour hand is significantly misaligned. It's too bad since I was liking the wrist presence of this Glycine. But I need to be able to tell time.

Zebra Has Something to Say About Cultural Appropriation

I'm no expert on cultural appropriation unless we're talking about Elvis Presley, who couldn't hold a candle to James Brown . But I saw this on Twitter, and I rather liked it:

EXCUSE ME, MA'AM. DO YOU KNOW WHAT CULTURAL APPROPRIATION MEANS?

File This Under First-World Problems Department.

File this in the First-World Problems Department:

After many years of hard work, I can now afford a nice car and a luxury timepiece, but I find my lifestyle does not require anyplace to drive other than a mile-long foray to Trader Joe’s and no function to attend requiring power jewelry. It’s as if my younger lifestyle begged for status symbols I could not afford while my older living arrangement negates the need for all the material gadgets that are now within my financial reach but are rendered superfluous, even useless. The trumpets of materialism still blast in my ear, but those sounds are dissonant with my relaxed state of affairs. 

Hardly considered a luxury watch, my beloved Seiko Marine Monster is not too fancy nor too shabby but strikes the sweet spot of where I am in this world. 

Better Study Manual Before Getting Citizen Attesa AT3014-54E and AT3010-55E

 

Now that I've lost over 40 pounds, chronicled in my novel How to Kill Your Inner Fat Man, I am more amenable to "small" or smallish 42mm watches. This change has made me take another strong look at two very beautiful Citizen Attesa models, the black AT3014-54E, which I owned briefly, and its silver twin, the AT3010-55E. The radio-control function works in Japan only, so in the United States one has to use manual time mode. Gary sent me a link to the English translation manual for this E610 calibre movement. Setting the time appears to be a daunting task. But these watches look so beautiful, so svelte, so potent in stirring the Siren's Call. 

How to Kill Your Inner Fat Man: A Novel

 

The novel, or I should say novella, is on Amazon Kindle. The cost is a paltry $2.99. 

Here's a description of my book:

There is a Fat Man wreaking havoc inside former bodybuilding and Olympic weightlifting champion Jeff McMahon. The Fat Man delights in the fact that Jeff, a stout 245 pounds, is a domesticated connoisseur of angel hair pasta with pine nut pesto, triple-decker barbecued tri-tip sandwiches larded with smoked gouda and extra spicy horseradish, and strawberry-rhubarb pie drowning in vanilla bean gelato.

In spite of a nagging feeling that he could benefit from losing 40 pounds or so, Jeff’s Inner Fat Man assures the erudite Critical Thinking professor that this bloated middle-aged suburbanite is perfectly healthy, that he carries his extra weight well, and that his girth after all is mostly muscle from his hardcore kettlebell workouts.

But the Fat Man cannot quell an excruciating burning sensation in Jeff’s left foot that feels like a blowtorch. Nor can this Fat Man suppress Jeff’s memory of reading somewhere that such pain in one’s extremities is associated with obesity-related onset diabetes. But no matter. The Inner Fat Man uses his silver-tongued persuasive powers to help Jeff go into denial about his “minor foot irritation” and to impede Jeff from making the connection between his thick waist and his burning foot.

But then one evening at a Christmas party in the Los Angeles suburbs for his seven-year-old twin daughters, Jeff meets the lean, muscular Max Penfold, a former Navy SEAL and current executive chef for Future-Lodge, a tech company that makes solar-powered rocket ships, burglar-chasing drones, and other kinds of “disruptive” innovations. Upon hearing of Jeff’s burning foot, Max persuades Jeff to go on a Paleo diet, to depend on Max as his weight-loss mentor, and to chronicle his melting fat in a journal, which Jeff titles How to Kill Your Inner Fat Man.

Just as Arthur Dent was saved from the destruction of Planet Earth at the last moment in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Jeff McMahon is saved from his own fatness by his guide, Max Penfold. Adhering to the code of the Samurai warrior, Max steers Jeff on an Odyssey to Thinness, helps his friend reclaim his manhood, and helps Jeff conquer his Inner Fat Man, resulting in a loss of 50 pounds, a stunning metamorphosis that not only results in the end of Jeff’s burning foot and all his other diabetic symptoms, but helps Jeff make a radical departure from society’s false promises of unbridled consumer gratification and self-indulgence.

Just as Walter White from Breaking Bad was compelled to become “The Danger” to a world that had dismissed him as an irrelevance and a joke, Jeff McMahon is driven to become The Master of his insidious inner glutton, and he chronicles his triumph in a manifesto that is in turns funny, philosophical, and useful to those languishing under the weight of their own rapacious appetites.