On 6/26/2025 at 3:37 AM, Magictoad said:

But the slave trade started in Africa and continues to this day in the same places. It really is misinformation to blame white people for the slave trade BUT if we are to give negroes some kind of repayment then they can return to familial places of origin. That seems fair.

Some have tried to go back to their ancestral lands of the African continent, from America.   They found out they were not welcome, were cheated, robbed, etc.   Then there is the lack of modern amenities often found in a first world country.   

All to often, those that return to their ancestral lands on the African continent, do not last long there and return to the country of their birth, then complain of how hard they have it there. 

On 6/24/2025 at 9:29 PM, Gottfrid said:

Hi Mr Smarty! How many members on this forum have a picture of themselves as avatar? Hmmmm....maybe even you get it now, but I have no big hope. Please try!

Look at my Avatar. 

On 6/26/2025 at 4:37 AM, Dave0206 said:

Say its not true next you will be telling me there is no monkey house 

There may or may not be a monkey house.  But at least, there is a Monkey Bar, since 1936!

10 hours ago, FlorC said:

Gold is easily detected by xrays. Manual inspections , I understand , the guy did a good job.

Lot's of YT video's on it.

It shows up very dark on scans.

I researched it , because I want to get my gold out of the EU dictatorship,

now coming with asset registers , CBDC and capital controls.

 

Even in the shape of the lens , nearly 2kg would have been detected.

I found that odd too.   

Taiwanese man arrested in Vietnam for smuggling nearly 2kg of gold

Hanoi, June 26 (CNA) A Taiwanese passenger was arrested by Vietnamese authorities on Wednesday for attempting to smuggle nearly 2 kilograms of gold through Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, according to Vietnamese media.

Vietnamnet reported that the gold, worth more than US$215,000 (NT$6.37 million/5.5 billion Vietnamese dong), was hidden inside four camera lenses.

...

The bars had been carefully shaped to evade both x-ray scanners and manual inspections, officials said.

On 6/27/2025 at 3:12 AM, Trip Hop said:

 

As a very wise Irish friend told me many years ago when I first started visiting Thailand, never show or tell anyone about any wealth you may or may not have as it will only make you a mark for everyone from ladies, thieves, con-men and the BiB.

My wife told me, if I get a mia noi in Thailand, tell her that any money I receive in my retirement, stops as soon as I am dead!

On 6/23/2025 at 5:01 PM, Social Media said:

As Mamdani continues to poll in second place behind Cuomo,

"As Mamdani continues to poll in second place behind Cuomo, ..."

This must be before the primary voting.   He beat cuomo.   I hear, on the radio, that cuomo may run as an independent.  

I have been trying to find out the approximate numbers of muslims of voting age in NYC.   But could not.   I did find that there are between 1 and 1.5 million muslims living in NYC. 

If mamdani can get between 800 to 900 thousand votes, he may be the new mayor of NYC.   Looking at the election figures for NYC mayors, that amount of votes would be more than any previous mayor got to win the mayorship. 

On 6/21/2025 at 5:41 AM, josephbloggs said:

The free trial was only on the newly opened "spur line" extension from Muang Tong Thani to Lake Muang Thong Thani. It is a little two stop line. The rest of the pink line has been fully open and charging fares since December 2023.

 

 

OK, as I responded to TallGuyJohn, I got on the Pink line by a Home Pro in Nonthaburi.    I don't remember what station that was.  

On 6/21/2025 at 5:14 AM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

 

It sounds like the end of free rides was just on the section at the one end of the line ending in Nonthaburi...

 

My wife too had been paying for regular rides on the other section of the line toward the Lad Phrao area... no freebies there lately.

 

 

OK, the first time I rode it was in Nonthaburi.   I went to a home pro in Nonthaburi and discovered that the pink line had a station there.  I rode it to Civic Center station, exited there, walked to the blue line Civic Center station.   If I recall correctly, I was charged on my card when I exited the pink line station.  

Oh well.   At least I had a cheaper trip back to the condo than if I had taken a taxi from Home Pro. 

On 6/23/2025 at 4:41 PM, HappyExpat57 said:

Honestly now, does this kind of stuff happen in other countries? This is like a bad South Park episode.

Yes.  Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  A neighbors brother (who lived with his dad across the street), had an argument with his brothers roommate (brothers house behind my house).  Guy got angry with his brothers roommate and shot the roommate with a hunting bolt of a crossbow in the upper leg!.  

Missed the femoral artery by 1 centimeter.  If the femoral artery had been hit, the guy would have bled out and died before cops or emergency medical had arrived at the house.

The man was sentenced to 7 years in prison for attempted murder.

If it was free to ride the Pink line, why was I charged on my prepaid card when I exited the turnstile?   That was back in Feb & Mar of this year. 

Buy 2 at 1/2 the price. 

14 hours ago, Joe Boy Walton said:

Note to self: Must sell that big rock I own in the middle of Oz. Not a scam, anyone interested? 😆

If that rock were green in color, I would make an offer to you.   

On 6/18/2025 at 2:54 AM, StandardIssue said:

Ah, one in the endless parade of scammer groups operating out of Pattaya, Bangkok and the like. 

 

Unfortunately this bust is probably just a small dent in the problem.

 

There are some real nasty Indian scammers doing business out of Pattaya targeting USA. Refund scammers, tech support scammers, crypto currency scammers. It's terrible

So Pattaya is where those Alpha Hotels are calling me from!

10 hours ago, Quentin Zen said:

people said don't use computers

smartphones only one hour a day

no eggs

eggs

no eggs

coffee ok

coffee bad

Bitcoin bad

buy houses, then the crash

green tea cures cancer, sponsored by a Green Tea compnay

weed is bad

weed is good

weed is bad

red wine ok

red wine not ok

vitamins ok

not ok

never ends.  

 

If anyone blindly believes a study, I have some bridges to sell you on the Sun.  

 

I would report you for posting that coffee is bad, but I haven't had my first daily cup of coffee yet and I can't remember how to report a post.   

On 6/18/2025 at 2:49 AM, Homburg said:

But lots of FUN!

You got me there.   More fun if someone else pays for the ammo.  But lots of fun. 

That was one reason I like being in the National Guard and Army Reserve.  They paid for  the ammo, I never got tired of shooting it, even if other people did, and when they got tired of shooting, they gave me the ammo they had left over and I shot that too.

On 6/18/2025 at 1:29 AM, josephbloggs said:

Can you share a link to this news report please? I mean you just read it yesterday so it should be handy somewhere.

It was on a news aggregator.   I don't know where it is anymore. 

On 6/15/2025 at 9:12 PM, seajae said:

hahahahahaha, this would see probably half or more of cars removed, what they need to do is get the machines that turn cars into a metal box/cube  at the check points, watching their cars squashed might make the idiots realize what they have done

Make the owner press the button that starts the car crushing machine!

Were the, attempted marching protestors, "kidnapped" before being deported?

Just today ... wait, it's after midnight my time, I mean yesterday, I read a short news story about UK police being called about noisy neighbors.   Police show up at the noisy neighbors house and find seven adult Pakistani men and two white 13 year old girls who were drunk. 

According to the news report, the police did not question the men about why there were two drunk 13 year old girls in the residence.    The police arrested the two 13 year old girls for being intoxicated!

1 minute ago, simon43 said:

My walkie-talkie is rather low-powered.  I did manage to make a contact via the ISS with a radio ham in China when I was in Laos as XW0LP.

 

However, TBH chatting with other radio hams is a little boring for me.  I prefer to receive the images sent by the ISS and some from the Russian cubesats.

 

I don't know when ISS will next transmit SSTV pictures (they'll announce it beforehand).  But on June 27th the Russian college cubesat UMKA-1 will transmit SSTV images of space-topic drawings submitted by young students across Russia.  I asked one of the schools that I'm in contact with in Burma to submit a couple of drawings and I've sent these on to the space centre in Moscow - so I'm hopeful that one will be chosen for transmission by UMKA-1 🙂

 

Sadly (for me), all passes by that cubesat on June 27th are at low elevation at my location, but I'll try to receive something!  SSTV is an analogue signal, so even a weak signal can result in a visible image.

I have seen SSTV pictures that were transmitted from the space station before.   They looked similar to the one you posted.   At one office where we were more involved in communications monitoring, we attempted to intercept terrestrial SSTV, but if I recall correctly, we were not successful.  We did intercept weather faxes regularly.   Mostly out of interest to see what they were transmitting as it was usually weather for areas thousands of miles from where our office was.   

Cubesats, I have read about, but those came after my time.   I was not involved in satellite comms, other than looking for IX to GPS signals. 

35 minutes ago, simon43 said:

Another post about interesting signals from space 🙂

 

The International Space Station (ISS) occasionally transmits SSTV (Slow Scan TV) images on a 2 metre band VHF frequency.  I have received these images on previous occasions and I show one below as an example.

 

 

But the ISS also has a 'cross-band repeater' on board, whereby licenced radio hams can transmit up to the ISS on a VHF frequency, and their signal is retransmitted in real-time back down to Earth on a UHF frequency.  Occasionally, the astronauts on the ISS will also chat with the radio ham 🙂

 

I noted that the ISS was going to pass over my location at the ungodly hour of 3.10am last night.  So I decided to see if I could contact another radio amateur via this repeater.  I set up my equipment using a small 'walkie-talki' as the uplink transmitter and monitoring the UHF downlink frequency using my SDR dongle and software.

 

Ideally, I should move my UHF yagi antenna to follow the ISS as it moves across the sky above me, but this was impossible, since I also had to use my walkie-talkie and monitor my laptop for received signals (I have to manually rotate/swing the antenna mast - I have no Az/El rotator)..  So I pointed my antenna sort of mid-pass....

 

Anyway, as the ISS came over me, indeed I heard another radio ham who had also got out of bed like me!  This was Liu Cheung in Hong-Kong, callsign VR2WAZ, and I attach a short audio recording of his signal that was being relayed by ISS 🙂  Unfortunately, although I called back, my signal was quite weak, but the ISS relayed it.  You can hear Liu say "QRZ" which is a short code for "who was that?" so he heard my signal but the ISS was already at a low angle and moving northwards over China. (AN doesn't support mp3 files so I saved it as a blank mp4)

 

 

 

 

BTW, for anyone not interested in space comms, it must be more exciting to watch paint dry... 🙂

 

 

I read about comms with the space ships before. 😁  Might be the first time I have heard real one though.   

On 6/16/2025 at 3:39 AM, Homburg said:

Uzi?

More difficult than you might think.   

30 minutes ago, simon43 said:

That's a real-time sweep and yes, the signal peak is about -112, but the S/N of 16 is more than adequate.

 

Averaged display from multiple sweeps is used to receive/display the Hydrogen line signal.  I built an antenna to do this in Laos a few years ago.

 

 

 

and this is a video of that signal with the Milky Way superimposed.  That measurement was made over several hours, so as the MW passes overhead, the amplitude of the hydrogen line increases.

 

 

 

 

 

I think I have seen mention of the Hydrogen line when reading something years ago.   I don't know what it is though.   

Is that entire spectral display the Hydrogen line from the Milky Way or was there some indication in the spectral display as the Milky Way passed?   

I have no experience with astronomical signals.   All my experience is with terrestrial signals other than GPS use.   Short, medium, and long range HFDF, spectrum analyzer use to identify radio signals from 60 hz up to 3 ghz, VHF/UHF mobile DF.  Most observations of radio signals were with spectrum analyzers until near the end of my employment, before retiring, and then had real experience with waterfall displays using hand held receivers, followed by the waterfall displays of SDR's on the internet.