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 The Chinese have built this 500 meter radio telescope, called the “FAST,” (Five-hundred meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope) into a natural bowl in southwestern China’s Guizhou Province. Its surface area is 196,000 square meters. For comparison, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico (remember Jodie Foster in “Contact?” That one) is 305 meters in diameter, with a surface area of 81,000 square meters. Which makes FAST roughly 2.5 times larger and 2.5 times potentially more powerful than Arecibo.

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FAST will be able to detect signals as faint as 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 watts. We’re talking some serious sensitivity to radiation here. If someone lights up a Marlboro on Titan, FAST will report them. It will also be capable of peering deeper into the Universe’s past than ever before. Like 10 billion years deep. That’s around 70% of the way back to the Big Bang.

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The Russians built an even larger radio telescope; the 600 meter Ratan-600, but it’s a vastly inferior, 40+ year old instrument. My money’s on FAST being first to hear from E.T. FAST began formal operations last week following nine years of construction and testing.

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 I think I’ve solved the mystery of Lev Parnas’ lawyer's creepy stare. I watched Rachel’s part II of the interview last night, and if anything, the creepy stare dude was even creepier than the night before.

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But I took several screenshots just to check something out, and it confirmed my theory: creepy dude appears less creepy from the side. In every shot where the camera is on Parnas, we get the creepy stare. But in every side shot, you can see that he’s not looking at Rachel at all. He’s looking beyond her, at something over her right shoulder. They probably set up a monitor off to the side.

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The face-on camera might have been 10-15 feet away, but the zoom lens makes it appear to us that it’s right in front of them. That compression creates a parallax view when compared with the side shots. Like when you watch a baseball game on television and the pitcher and home plate appear closer than sixty feet, and the batter often appears to be looking at the shortstop instead of the pitcher.

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I’m not saying he’s not a creepy dude. I’m just saying I don’t think his creepy dude stare was on Rachel’s behalf. For all we know, he was fixated on a hockey game on a monitor over her right shoulder. So for me anyway, creepy dude is off the hook for his creepy stare. Even though he might still be a creepy dude. 🤨

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 My first forays into the dark jungles of commerce were 1) learning to haggle in the souqs of the Middle East when I was a kid, and 2) when I (briefly, thankfully) sold Fords here in Portland back in the early ‘70s. I’m sure you’ve all had similar experiences with unchecked capitalism.

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Between the two, the hagglers in the markets of Turkey and Egypt are more honorable than were the Pinto hustlers of Portland. FAR more honorable. Though both were motivated by the same unwritten rule: Anything goes. If some guy walks in off the street and says “I’ve got $100,000 in my pocket. I want that rusted out Gremlin on your used car lot and I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer,” there’s no law restricting that transaction. The dealership isn’t under any obligation to tell him he’s nuts. It’s the same in Istanbul, Damascus, Tashkent, etc. In fact, some souq merchants feel offended if you pay the initial price without haggling.

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But the one thing they both have in common, is how they size up their quarry. They want to know who they’re dealing with and most importantly, how much you’re packing. Because the bottom line is the BOTTOM LINE: what’s in your wallet. Once they’ve ascertained that, they know whether it’s worth their time to proceed to phase 2.

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In the car business back then, a customer of means was called a “bird” by the salesmen. And customers who were on a tight budget were called “strokers.” The etymology of those terms, I have no clue. But the salesmen would spend HOURS working the birds, and ignore the strokers: “Look around the lot. If you have any questions, flag down a salesman,” unbeknownst to the stroker that all the other salesmen had already been warned that he had in fact been deemed a stroker.

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So... I’m currently getting estimates from multiple contractors to renovate three rooms in my cracker box house. I’ve had a cavalcade of guys with clipboards and buttcracks coming and going for days. They all KNOW their business inside and out. They KNOW just by looking at the project how much material will be required, the cost of said material, the man-hours, etc.

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It’s not like say; Nordstrom, where the store buys 1,000 leather jackets at $X each, then adds 90% of X and calls it “retail.” Nope, that’s not how this works. I’ve suddenly found myself back in the Spice Market of Istanbul. “Why is your saffron more expensive here than in America? And why have you cut your saffron with safflower petals?” Nice guys finish last in their world. And always remember, not all that glitters is gold.

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My planned renovation is a pretty basic project. No plumbing, no electrical, no ductwork, nothing like that. Just strip the walls down to the studs, replace, finish, then paint. Boom. Each of these contractors have thus far been pretty sharp. But a couple of them have taken to sizing me up as either a bird or a stroker: “Mr. Lindner, do you mind if I ask you, have you set a budget for this project?”

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There’s only one correct answer to that question, and in my case, it’s the truth: “No I haven’t yet. I’m just at the estimate stage.” But if you tell them “Yes I have. I don’t want to go over $50,000,” one of two things will happen: They’ll leave and you’ll never hear from them again, because they’ve determined that there’s no profit for them in your project. Or you just told them they’ve hit the mother lode, so wave goodbye to your $50,000. Even if it only costs them $3,000 in materials and $5,000 in labor, the final cost will magically be in the neighborhood of $50,000. Because you tipped your hand instead of holding it close to your vest.

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I’m already at 50/50: I’ve had four firms promise to get back to me “right away” and never called back, and four that have. Better a stroker than a bird. But just getting an estimate is giving me a sense of déjà vu.

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What the heck... the alternative to fixing up the house was taking a trip that included Marrakech and Fez. Seems like I’m there without leaving my living room!

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 So as I do every year during the week between Christmas and New Years, I sat down to my computer and tallied up my business income/outgo for the year. I like to get my taxes to my accountant before the rush. I don’t have anything scheduled for the remainder of 2019 (and I genuinely hope no one calls me with an urgent booking), so I topped off my spreadsheet, added everything up on the income end, then I downloaded the data from Square reader credit card sales.

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But that’s where something didn’t look right. So I compared the 2019 Square data with the 2018 data, and it was down 40% for the year. What the hell! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL! That can’t be right. So I double-checked the sales trends between the two spreadsheets, and I spotted the problem right away: The drop-off began abruptly on February 1st. And I’m like; what happened on February 1st? Someone screwed up! Why, I oughta’ call those blockheads at Square and open up a six-pack of whatfer on them!

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Oh yeah. Now I remember. I retired my weekly business park route on January 31st. So the credit card sales just might reflect that. I went from working 6-7 days a week to 1.

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Chalk this up to another of my increasingly prominent senior moments. 😖

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So, a funny thing happened yesterday. No, I mean other than the impeachment hearings.

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I had lunch with three old classmates that I went to high school with in California. One was visiting from Missouri, the other two live in the Portland area. It was a VERY pleasant get together. I just barely recalled this gentleman by name, but once I looked him up in the yearbook, I remembered him. He wasn’t sure who I was either, so before I’d arrived, he did likewise. So he asked me:

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Him: “Were you in Mrs. Wilhelmson’s cooking class in our junior year? I think I remember you.”

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Me: “I was!”

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“I remember a practical joke you played on the class.” (Practical jokester? Me? In cooking class? Pshaaw). He recounted how I pretended I was going to sneeze, with a big dramatic buildup, then when I finally let loose, I flung a piece of chicken skin out of my hand which landed with a splat. I don’t recall that SPECIFIC incident, but that was a gag I often pulled using whatever gross foodstuffs were at hand. Mrs. Wilhelmson kicked me out of the class for the remainder of the day.

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So I confessed. “Yeah, that was probably me. I could be a real jerk back then.” I then told of the time when I played a practical joke on the three girls who worked in the kitchenette next to mine: I reached into their pantry, grabbed their salt and sugar canisters and switched the contents. One of the victims of that stunt, my Facebook friend of many years; Louise Scouten, has since forgiven me. (Worst angel food cake EVER)!

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So this gentleman, Kurt, put his hand of my arm: “That was you!? Oh, brother!”

 

(💭 Oh shit! This guy’s bigger than me. Methinks I’m about to receive a comeuppance fifty years in the making!)

 

It turns out Louise and her two kitchen-mates weren’t the only victims of that dastardly deed. Kurt was assigned to make a dozen chocolate chip cookies. He figured he’d quintuple the recipe and make cookies for himself and 59 of his friends. He and his two teammates shared the same kitchenette with Louise’s team, so when it was time to measure out the ingredients, unbeknownst to him, instead of using 5 teaspoons of salt he used 5 teaspoons of sugar. And instead of using 5 cups of sugar he used 5 cups of salt.

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Hardee-har-har, right? Not so much. Mrs. Wilhelmson gave him an F.

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Oops. 😳

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Anyway, we all had a good laugh about it. But to have the mystery solved 50+ years after the crime was committed, with the perpetrator standing right in front of you pleading nolo contendre, had to be cathartic for Kurt.

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For me, I felt like a 17 year old jerk all over again. 😖

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This is a remarkable example of gravitational lensing (as predicted by Einstein 100 years ago). See that dull orange blob in the center of that broken circle? No, not that dull orange blob. He’s probably tweeting. That’s a massive cluster of galaxies 4.6 billion light-years away. It’s producing a huge gravity “well” in the fabric of space.

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Far, far in the distance, directly behind that orange cluster, 11 billion light-years away, is an otherwise typical galaxy that astronomers have named the Sunburst Arc. As the light from the Sunburst Arc passes by the galaxy cluster, the gravitational field splits the image and warps it into multiple images of itself. NASA says it’s detected 12 images of the galaxy, spread out into four distinct arcs. I’ve circled them in red in the bottom frame for clarity.

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Just try to wrap your head around how far away 11 billion light-years is. The universe itself is 14 billion years old.

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If you’re like me and you like traditional sports cars, and if you (unlike me), also desire the practicality and off-road capabilities of an SUV, and if you also like the zero emissions drive system of a Tesla, then listen up. This melange is an all-electric, rear/four wheel drive SUV, that Ford says is “Mustang inspired.” It’s supposedly going to be called the Mach E. As in an electric successor to the Mach 1 of yore.

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From a marketing standpoint, I think it’s pure genius. SUVs are selling like hot cakes these days, and the Mustang is the one nameplate that even Ford haters love. From a styling standpoint... it’s okay. A four-door vehicle with a Mustang badge in the grill that doesn’t go vroom, vroom is going to take a while for me to wrap my brain around. But, the times, they are a’changin’.

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This mockup is probably pretty close to the actual production version, which goes on sale next year. The only question I have about its design (which is different from its styling), is the height of that hood. For a vehicle without an internal combustion engine, that seems awfully tall. A lower hood would make for a better aerodynamic coefficient of drag, better visibility, and (IMHO), better looks.

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The big reveal is two weeks from today. Oh, and a new Ford Bronco and a retro mini Bronco like the original 1966 model are also in the works. Expect electrification or hybrid drive there too.

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A few Saturdays ago, I noticed a new high-end audio store on my way home from West Portland. I’m not in the market for anything, but being an audio junkie, I’m always interested in what’s being peddled these days.

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A word about this niche industry: Most of the old commercial stereo dealers are gone. Much of it is has been folded into the audio/video big box stores like Costco and Best Buy. The other reality, is that Amazon has done to the commercial home entertainment industry what they’ve done to bookstores and just about everything else. So of the few dedicated audio stores still in business, many have moved upscale. WAAAAAY upscale. They’ve become “boutiques.” And boy-howdy, do they push that elitism.

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I noticed that audio store was open today, so I maneuvered the Javamobile into the parking lot for a look-see. Which is kinda’ like docking the Queen Mary into a slip meant for a dinghy, but I managed.

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[SIDEBAR] Even before I opened the door, this place looked chic. Smoked glass, polished zebrawood everywhere, etc. And admittedly, I probably stuck out like a hobo at the Ritz-Carlton. Chocolate and espresso-stained Levis, denim shirt with a big brown chai tea stain, Birkenstocks... you get the picture. 🧟‍♂️ 

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So I opened the door and walked in, almost as if I didn’t give a shit what people think of my working man’s attire—because I don’t. There are two salesmen, each “working” two well-to-do looking couples. And by working them, I mean WORKING them. The same appeal-to-the-ego techniques that I learned in the car sales business back in the early ‘70s: Make them think whatever they have now is substandard, and that the ONLY way they can impress the neighbors in the castle next door, is to buy X... which they just happen to have on sale today (though in reality has a 200% markup).

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Salesman #3 emerges from a back room and gives me a once-over. I regret that I didn’t stop him long enough to whip out my iPhone and make a video of his reaction when he saw me, but oh well. He started at my Birkenstocks, worked his way up until he reached my eyes, and said “May I help you find something sir?” Pained look on his face, like he just came in from his mother’s funeral. If you’re picturing the “Broker” from Guardians of the Galaxy, you’re not far off.

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I said “No thanks, I just want to browse. I’ve driven past here before, but never when you’re open. So I thought I stop in to see what’s new in audio.”

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“Well, let me know if you have any questions,” and he went back to whatever it was he was doing, glancing over his shoulder for one last look at the abomination sullying his salon. I checked out their wares. Some pretty good stuff, some great stuff, and a LOT of grossly overpriced stuff. Again, intended for the deep-pocketed, insecure type. (P.T. Barnum was right, you know).

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I picked up an MSFL version of Carol King’s “Tapestry” album, and took it up to the spotless checkout counter. Out comes Mr. Broker again. “Ah, Tapestry! A great album. So what kind of turntable do you own?”

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“I have several actually,” and rattled them off to him.

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“Have you considered upgrading to the new Super-Zowie-Ultra-Fantabulous-Polyorgasmic moving coil cartridge? It’s like nothing you’ve ever heard. Velvety smooth.” (Ironic: I remember the sales manager at the Ford dealer telling me that we should tell customers that the new Country Squire station wagon rides “velvety smooth.”)

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“No thanks. I have all the cartridges I need.”

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“Moving coil cartridges?”

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“Two. I have two moving coil cartridges. One of which I’ve had since before you were born, plus five moving magnet cartridges. I’m good.”

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He ran my credit card for the Carol King record, never once bothering to pretend he was anything other than disgusted by my presence, and I left.

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I’ve been in business for just over 25 years. Granted, coffee ain’t an $11,000.00 amplifier, but a sale is a sale. You’re selling yourself, as much as your product. I’ll be amazed if that place lasts a year.

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This is a fun update I have to share with you all.

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About 5-6 weeks ago, I posted that my dad had been summoned by the California DMV to renew his driver’s license. At six weeks shy of 100 years old, that was a perfectly reasonable request. He took the written test and ACED it. He didn’t get a single question wrong.

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So they called him back today to take the actual behind-the-wheel driver’s test. And he ACED THAT TOO! The person administering the test told him he was the oldest person he’s ever approved a license to.

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We spoke just a few days ago, and he was certain they were trying to force him into surrendering his license. He wanted me to fly down and pick up his Prius if they did. But it wasn’t meant to be, and I think it’s AWESOME!

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My dad’s twice-weekly jaunts to Trader Joe’s ain’t over yet. 😄

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F. NADER!