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Hot Zone Episode Transcript. Length - 32:04 
Magnetofunky No. 162. It's Memorial Day, Monday, May 25th, 2020. [intro theme] Hey. Larry here. A few weeks after the last show and I've had that cabin fever thing where 2 or 3 days kinda blurred together, and I had to check the timestamp on my photos to get back in sync. The lockdown that's being forcefully lifted or never followed at all in red states is extending the first tsunami wave of poorly counted infections and deaths (uh, 160,000 dead by Labor Day?). Meanwhile, I discovered that I'm living in one of the city's few hot zones, right on the border between SoMa and The Mission, but we finally have tests available, and after 2 months of shelter in place, science has a bit of good news in the midst of all the deaths Wall St. couldn't care less about. Also meanwhile, the music is a small sampling of Bay Area local rock... [song] - 01:36 Ok, that was Master/Disaster - Doubleplus Alright, the previously featured 3-piece outfit in West Oakland; Nik, Jackson, and Chris. Among their keywords I like 'Blitzpop' for this and one more number coming up, some nice hard guitar this time out... This is a laid back (and often explicit - you bet your ass) weekly (yeah, right!) international podzine of extremely eclectic music and progressive politics, with a focus on energy independence for the 99%. My podpage is 1223studios.com/mfunky.h. The Twitter is @Magnetofunky. [Grid Theory] - 04:09 Tent Condo vs Bivy... In Grid Theory, Just like before, biker stuff first... Playing around with the 14' x 16' 'Baker Bivy' design and thinking through how fiddly it would be setting up, with anywhere from 2 to 6 tent poles, and how complicated breaking the whole thing down in the morning would be, I imagine the design is best suited for boondocking in one spot for a week or so, not day to day. Even leaving the big tarp intact and not cutting it into a box shape cuts down on sleeping/cooking space, plus the issue that I'd have to setup camp first, then deploy the big tarp - bass ackwards... So now I'm gonna reserve the Baker Bivy for hunker down camping, and leaning towards the 2 tarp 'condo' tent layout from Lonnie at the YouTube channel Far North Bushcraft and Survival. He demonstrated how even a small setup using a pair of 8' x 10' tarps, 10 tent stakes and one tent pole gives you a freestanding structure that sets up in minutes and would accomodate two adults, their gear and a dog, so it would likely fit my setup. He said bigger tarps work better, so I'll try a couple 10' x 12' tarps with grommets every 3 feet. A few days later my sleeping pad and 10 aluminum tent stakes came in, allowing me to custom fit the big roll to the handlebar sling with a little more duct tape. It weighs 14 oz. Next I got a length of 2" dia. plumbing PVC and made two 3" standoffs for the sling that clears just enough space to hold the sling off the brake levers and gear shifters, though it still bumps against the cables in front. I found a couple Instructables and bike forum pieces where a length of 1/4" rolled steel rod was bent into a support rack shape off the handlebars... Meanwhile I picked up a couple bottles of the yellow Heet for fuel, and as I checked the downtown liquor stores for Everclear, I discovered that the stuff's not even legal in Calif., neither the other grain alcohol that could work - Bacardi 151. Apparently, no liquor above 120-130 proof is sold locally... Last few days I tried to find some decent tarps locally, shopping the online Ace Hardware store in the Haight that said the items were in stock, then riding over and learning that the local stores have no input to what the website says, so I may have to do that online too; SF does not make it easy to buy this kind of non-Arduino Raspberry robot and drone type stuff, and Target and Bed Bath and Beyond not a substitute for a decent big box all-purpose hardware store. There's a Lowe's that some people on Yelp downgrade, in particular the curbside pickup---[bell] Anyway, in a bit, more actual lab notes... [Back To The Stage] - 09:11 Ok, Back to The Stage, continuing the very short Blitzpop set with just a couple tunes - Pillowhugger, another burner by Doubleplus Alright, then Voices - TREZ MACHINE, the previously featured excellent Bay Area Punkadelic Power Trio of Gorden Mack, Brian Kenney and Kyle Malone. Nice and hard... [songs] - 09:43; 11:31 ["Geeknotes"] - 14:53 Geeknotes: Testing, Testing... Ok, first off I won't waste time on Pres. Shithole's usual shtick that the corp. media uses for its cookie-cutter narratives to get around reporting that the whole hydroxychloroquine affair is because he and idiot son-in-law Jared bought a shitload of the drug on the downlow and they're gonna unload it for a profit no matter what, or their abject failure in calling him the goddamn liar, grifter and Constitutional arsonist he actually is. Instead, I'm hopeful that this far into the first wave of infection we now have over three dozen magic bullet Covid treatments in the pipe of clinical tests moving at warp speed, and the best news so far that most people who recover from the virus aren't being re-infected, and if they still test positive it's because the test can't tell active virus from dead virus or antibodies, and those recovered aren't infecting others. They don't know yet if this immune response is permanent or fades in a year or so, but it doesn't add onto the worst aspect of the novel virus - the asymtomatic carriers and spreaders. And because of that, when the city started general testing, and when I learned that I'm in a damn hot zone, and 3, not just 1 person in my bldg. caught it (they won't say if the other 2 died of it), I made an appt to get tested this weekend (the one with the long ass QTip that feels like it's poking your brain) and I just got back. This is the basic test - it doesn't see antibodies or if you were infected, just if you're infected that day, but it's a start. (and no, no pics cause I got chastized for trying...) Anyway, the latest, not quite confirmed info is that some people who've had some strains of the regular flu (part of the coronavirus family), may already be immune to Covid-19. Now this is broad speculation from just a couple scientific papers, but until there's enough testing and contact tracing, no city or state can get a handle on the pandemic; it's like a forest fire that's only 10% contained cause the firefighters are busting their ass with leaky hoses and toy shovels, the chief refuses to issue gear until his ass is kissed, and a few jackasses keep setting fresh blazes... Anyway, as far as events, in the email I got pluggers or sorts from Greenpeace, sending an emotionally-laden begging letter that mentioned Int'l Day of Biodiversity without saying that it was Sat.; Projekt Records in the great northwest is always worth checking out at Bandcamp; and excellent jazz pianist and singer Jamie Fletcher is playing a socially distanced Memorial Day weekend set at Stone's Throw Winery in Door Co., Wisc., a place that grows grapes transplanted from Napa Valley. Interesting... Ok, for the duration, If you have promos, pluggers, gig info, an art opening, etc, send me an email and I may add it to my Twitter feed if possible. The address is [email protected]... [Grid Practice] - 20:11 Mobile Control Panel... Ok, In Grid Practice, Ok, while working on the bike gear (and deciding what tarps to chase after), I finished prepping the mobile power plant control box, AKA the cheap plastic dollar store tubs that tend to crack and split easily, so I cut a piece of Plastruct panel to hold the actual components. This is the last piece from my ill-conceived powerbox project (I don't remember what I was gonna do with 600V DC strapped to my hip once the AC part stopped working...). After laying out the components and making room for labels, I carefully cut holes to insure a 1mm margin - no problem with the panel; a pain in the ass with the plastic lid, which cracked anyway while dry fitting the parts. Next I cut access holes for the power cables, the DC outlet, and a nice big slot for the charge controller terminal block. I stopped there cause the next step would be to transfer the 100W doohickey directly over and start soldering the wires, but I still want a 200W unit, even though I suspect that 300W CC CV boost buck converter sold from just that one shop in Shenzhen (not being sold by anybody else on the planet), has gotta be either a one-off or they're just lying and selling strictly buck converters that you can find all over. Either way, no sale. That leaves the previous idea of using a 300W 20A buck unit and a 1200W 20A boost unit to give me separate voltage and current, but I haven't nailed down whether or not that arrangement is even possible, though it's suggested. Good thing is these units both go for around $20 each and can be bought from Taiwan or HK (until Chinese Pres. For Life until he screws the pooch Xi Jinping finishes curb-stomping the protest leaders). So I'll go ahead and permanently mount and wire up everything for the 100W unit except the DC converters, and maybe next month I can order the 22Ah batteries and pick my solar panels as I pretty much wrap up the bikepacking gear and get on with a few practice camps before the end of summer... [One More Tune] - 23:59 Ok, for this week's One More Tune, we close out with TREZ MACHINE, Rise. Nice piece... [song] - 24:09 Well, OK. [Closing] - 28:37 Hey, this show is a 1223studios joint. I'm on Internet Archive, Spotify, Tunein, Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes, PlayerFM, Listen Notes, Podknife and Mixcloud. Show notes are on the podpage. Send email to [email protected]. If you like the show, tell your friends, and, I've been fascinated lately by the Flat Earth freaks (no, not the followers who swallow wholesale the BS videos and attend the conventions, I mean the scam artists, who saw all the Ancient Aliens crack dealers making bank and said 'me too!'), pushing the consistently debunked theory that doesn't have a working model, just slick CT doubletalk for why the globe model is supposedly fake. Anyway, I have a few points I haven't seen covered yet (cause I haven't seen every SciManDan 'Flat Earth Friday' video yet): - If the Earth is flat, doesn't move and the universe rotates, why is it a round disc? Polishing? - If the Earth is flat and covered by a dome of firmament, how do meteorites hit the Earth without breaking it or making ripples? - If the Earth is flat, how come I've never seen the Southern Cross in the night sky over Memphis, New Orleans or Los Angeles? And spare me the NASA/CGI crap, when that technology didn't even exist until the mid-70s when I was in High School. If I made a YouTube video on this shit it would get more troll hits than anything I've ever posted, which is sad... Show themes "Rocket Power" & "Spy Glass" by NY musician and composer Kevin MacLeod. Some additional audio from freesound.org. Next episode is set for maybe Friday, June 12th 2020. I'm Larry, trying hard to stay chill at my garrett in the Mission, and this is Magnetofunky, from San Francisco, where we go through, not into, the darkness. |
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