Sometime in the past week, or three (time blurs when laboring hours on the new website), I promised to tell you about my personal encounter with an LDE or long delayed echo.  The reason is that this is very special territory for the inquiring minds who want to know and it is very well-established by real science as being a replicable phenomena.

So what, exactly, is a “long delayed echo?”  A clip from Wikipedia in the interest of being concise because I could go on for hours about it:

“Long delayed echoes (LDEs) are radio echoes which return to the sender several seconds after a radio transmission has occurred. Delays of longer than 2.7 seconds are considered LDEs.^[1][2] LDEs have a number of proposed scientific origins.

These echoes were first observed in 1927 by civil engineer Jørgen Hals from his home near Oslo, Norway. Hals had repeatedly observed an unexpected second radio echo with a significant time delay after the primary radio echo ended. Unable to account for this strange phenomenon, he wrote a letter to Norwegian physicist Carl Størmer, explaining the event:

At the end of the summer of 1927 I repeatedly heard signals from the Dutch short-wave transmitting station PCJJ at Eindhoven. At the same time as I heard these I also heard echoes. I heard the usual echo which goes round the Earth with an interval of about 1/7 of a second as well as a weaker echo about three seconds after the principal echo had gone. When the principal signal was especially strong, I suppose the amplitude for the last echo three seconds later, lay between 1/10 and 1/20 of the principal signal in strength. From where this echo comes I cannot say for the present, I can only confirm that I really heard it.^[3]

Physicist Balthasar van der Pol^[4] helped Hals and Stormer investigate the echoes, but due to the sporadic nature of the echo events and variations in time-delay, did not find a suitable explanation.^[5]

Long delayed echoes have been heard sporadically from the first observations in 1927 and up to our time.”

My own LDE experience occurred in 1966, or thereabouts.  It was a weekend morning,and I was on the 20-meter band using my old Johnson Pacemaker SSB transmitter at 90-watts and my somewhat improved-upon NC-300 receiver.  I was on upper sideband, I was not running the amplifier, the antenna was multi-band inverted-vee at 40-feet (strung off the top of a piece of 4” irrigation pipe that another ham and I had carried on our shoulders 13-miles to get it to my house).  The season was fall or spring, since the band was just opening up, and it was sunny as I recall since sun was coming into my basement ham shack which would have placed the time about 10:00 to 11:30 AM because that was when the sun came in….our house was on a hill so the basement window only got about 2-hours of sun at best.

I was calling “CQ 20, CQ 20” which is radio-ese for “Looking for someone to talk to…

As I un-keyed the mic to listen for a returning station, you can imagine my shock when I heard….ME!  Except it was me delayed by 3.4 seconds, calculated from saying my then call sign and measuring the portion I’d heard on a digital sound rig much later in life. 

Significantly, the signal was dead-to-nuts on frequency and it was S-9 to 20 dB over S-9 so it was stronger than heck against a very low noise level (S-2 to S-3).

I didn’t learn about LDE’s until after I had aced my First Class Commercial ticket around that time frame, so thinking back on the issue date of that (December ‘66) I reckon this took place in the fall when I was a high school senior and a nerd’s nerd in things electronic. 

For the period right after the event, I was convinced it was someone simply recording my signal and playing it back with a tape recorder.  But when I heard a good chunk of myself asking “…are you playing with me?” come back, I realized that there was almost no chance that someone could record and retransmit my signal that quickly for technical timing reasons that would bore you to tears.

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One of your readers, Ken, has a pretty snazzy way of explaining how something as complicated as economics works:

“The story I used to describe how the economy works to my grandkids is this.. the economy is like a table with a puddle of water on it.. if you place a noodle on it..( money) and buying and selling is equal (the water) then you can push the noodle back and forth..

Now take a wet noodle..( printing more money) and put it on the table.. as long as there is plenty of water for the cooked noodle to float in you can push it back and forth .. a little bunching here and there but it will move.

Now the economy starts to dry up.. ( increase of fuel prices, reduction of home and car sales, loss of durable goods sales, etc.. and people start shifting their money to another avenue like from buying durable goods to buying fuel or food..( double insert here.. decrease the amount of money being allocated for food stamps..

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It’s not very often that we nail use-case and software development as accurately as this, but  a couple of weeks ago I wrote up for www.peoplenomics.com readers [SUBSCRIBE] how to develop a scoring algorithm for electronic surveillance of an entire country.

After you go here and read how “NSA tool collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet‘ come back here and read how such systems, even using meta data, can pose a serious risk to personal freedom.

In the interest of wider public discussion, here’s the “How it could work” part of that Peoplenomics report from July 20th:

— Peoplenomics extract —

“Let me run through an example of how this can work.  As a practical matter, the first thing you’ll need will be a huge government data center. As luck would have it, exactly such a center is now under construction in Utah. In terms of what will feed into this megalithic computer empire, we already know that bank and credit card transaction information is likely to be there, metadata about cell phone calls and possibly landline communications as well.

As long as we’re at it, let’s also toss in a real-time feed from Google which can be traced back to your Internet protocol numerical address. That could give government keen insight into the kinds of websites we’re visiting, which in turn will reflect our personal tastes and philosophies of life.  Sexual peccadilloes, too, if any.

In the book I begin with the example of a John Doe who wakes up to the sound of a colleague from work calling him on the phone.

“Hello, this is John, who’s this?”

“Hi John, this is Abu and services in IT at the office, and I wanted to talk to you about your computer. You know, I have been working on it and I would like to have your permission to backup your hard drive over the Internet because you’ve apparently had a head crash at some point and you’re experiencing errors. Would that be okay with you John?”

“Well, sure Abu of course you can and thanks for calling. I have some pictures of my wife on their from her birthday party and I wouldn’t want those to get lost, but you guys in the IT department do what you need to do.  I’ll be in early on Monday in case anything needs attention that.

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Although I can fairly be accused of being something of a whiner about how the US economy is managed, I’m usually right more than 50% of the time in the end. And president Obama’s likely nomination of Larry Summers, if it happens, likely would improve my batting average even further. Nevertheless, I’ve come up with an idea this week which would – at a stroke – make congress, the White House, and the American people seem 50 IQ points smarter when it comes to money and economics overnight.  While you let that one roll around in the noggin, we’ll stop to smell the headlines and the coffee…Say, did I mention growth sucks?

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To borrow a station promo from WOAI in San Antonio overnight (1200 AM if you’re in the area) “Don’t take new vitamin B-50 unless you want to end up like Lyle Alzado.”  The station is running special reports this morning on the vitamin, if I follow correctly.

Here’s what we can “dot-connect” here:  Lyle Alzado was one hellavah fine football player – and also one of the first to admit taking anabolic steroids and fessing up publicly (details may be found here).  He died at age 43 of brain cancer – which he attributed to steroids.

Fast forward to this week and we have a warning from the Food and Drug Administration that certain B-50 compounding may contain steroids.  From the official press release…

“…the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers that they should not use or purchase Healthy Life Chemistry By Purity First B-50, marketed as a vitamin B dietary supplement. A preliminary FDA laboratory analysis indicated that the product contains two potentially harmful anabolic steroids—methasterone, a controlled substance, and dimethazine. These ingredients are not listed in the label and should not be in a dietary supplement.

“Products marketed as a vitamin but which contain undisclosed steroids pose a real danger to consumers and are illegal,” said Howard Sklamberg, director of the Office of Compliance in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “The FDA is committed to ensuring that products marketed as vitamins and dietary supplements do not pose harm to consumers.”

The FDA has received reports of 29 adverse incidents associated with the use of Healthy Life Chemistry By Purity First B-50.  These reports include fatigue, muscle cramping, and myalgia (muscle pain), as well as abnormal laboratory findings for liver and thyroid function, and cholesterol levels. Females who used this product reported unusual hair growth and missed menstruation, and males who used the product reported impotence and findings of low testosterone.

Consumers using Healthy Life Chemistry By Purity First B-50 who experience any of these symptoms should consult a health care professional and report their experience to the FDA. Using anabolic steroid-containing products may cause acute liver injury. Some of the cases reported have resulted in hospitalization, but there were no reports of death or acute liver failure….”

I’m one of those people who believes that moderate use of vitamins and nutrient supplementations over time can improve one’s health, but as always we recommend regular blood work and close coordination with your healthcare professional. 

My own daily vitamin/nutrient regimen  consists of celery seed, lots of vitamin C, magnesium, L-arginine, black cherry extract, turmeric, huperzine, and bilberry/lutein.  On top of this is a good solid multi-vit plus zinc and a baby aspirin with a meal.  Every other day a small amount of boron and a B-complex formulated for allergies. 

This is not a recommendation – again, see your health professional.  It does, however, seem to work for me.  I think the way to test vitamins is to add one to your regimen, use it for a month, and note any difference in weight and how you feel.  Blood pressure and periodical blood work-ups periodically, too.

My collection of “additives” works well:  The celery is a mild diuretic which works excess salt through the system.  The magnesium is to hedge against heart disease.

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We can’t help but notice from raw irony in how Detroit, due back in bankruptcy court this week, could become a poster child for Obamacare. 

The reason, as the New York Times explains in more detail over here, is that by pushing (early) retiree healthcare off onto the Obamacare system, that would reduce the city’s future financial obligations and, depending on how you push the numbers around, could become a keystone to working out a plan to avoid bankruptcy proceedings from moving ahead.

Not that other cities are not having a tough go of it, as well.  Chicago is quickly burning through its cash reserves and we have to wonder if mayor Rahm Emmanuel shouldn’t have spent more time playing SimCity when younger.

“Hand me that 5/8ths Woonsocket, would’ja?” 

That Rhode Island city, not to be confused with the similar-looking left-handed skyhook, is increasing property taxes 23 percent.  By doing so, they take another bold step toward being the first city in America to taxing people more than they make…a sadly crowded field, indeed.

As we spiral in on Ben Bernanke’s departure and the arrival of (please God, not him!) Larry Summers at the fed, Governing.com has a useful resource that shows government unit are marching out back for that final cigarette before the blindfold and wall. 

The real solution, which Peoplenomics.com readers will receive in Wednesday’s report, is going to uniform government worker retirement programs and multi-color currency.  I know that’ll keep you guessing, but I’ve been rereading lots of (first) Depression economic books of late, including some rare ones, and it’s amazing how much of what we’re facing now has been around before.

The Week Ahead

Since this is the end of the month this week, we should be braced for some predictable things that will happen.  Oh, sure, there is a pending home sales report due out later on this morning, but that’s not nearly as important as tomorrow’s Case Shiller/S&P Housing Index report which continues to be the gold standard of non-government truth detectors.  Housing prices stuck at 2003 by a month on month happy chart would be my dart toss.

Speaking of truth hurts, then on Wednesday morning, our “First Things” section in Peoplenomics will be assessing the new GDP figures.  This is always a statistical nightmare being the worst mash-up on self-referential percentages imaginable.  Once we get down to the actual constant dollars up or down of it, we can then infer whether the collapsing velocity of money will continue down, or whether it will try to level off a bit.

And one other economic highlight to keep an eye on is the price of gold which usually has some kind of a month-end beat down so the commercials can sop up something to deliver. 

As any summer Monday should be, this promises to be a somewhat predictable week, after all.

More After This…

The Point of Iraq?

Oh, sure, we went into Iraq to develop ways to control people’s harvesting of heritage seeds, develop purple finger inks, and defend the West’s interest in heavy duty oil reserves.

But now that will pulling back to the US mega consulate, we see a wave of sectarian violence returning with more than 60 Shi’ites killed in the latest bloodshed.

Down the trench a ways, we have Syria’s government scoring a major victory over rebels (backed by the west) in Homs.

Continuing our matutinal stroll southward, we hear Israel whining about the price of peace talks.

Then, before heading to the throne room (as a result of all this exercise), we finish up at the south end of Western influence with Egypt disorder causing much hand-wringing in places like the Wall Street Journal.

It is, sorry to say, same hike and the same crap, as most mornings.  Maybe for tomorrow’s stroll, we’ll do the other side of the sandbox.  Whatever.

Hot Reader News Tips

We get plenty of news tips from readers about stories that may not be getting front page (above the fold) play in the mainstream media, but which have captured reader attention.  Here’s a sampling of where reader revelations are pointing today:

• Reader Jeff finds the “Breaking the Banks” site useful – you might want to see if your bank is on their list/database

• Intrepid contributor Charles thinks you oughta read about how the official weight of a kilogram is drifting in this video and as long as you’ve got the player going, have you seen this one about the good-guy cop who got fired for speaking out on ticket quotas used by police departments.  How many times have I told you about the dangers of “fee justice” and how quotas encourage law enforcement to break laws rather than be content at simply enforcing them?  Definitely worth 7-minutes of run time…

• “Somebody” has got a couple of hot tips this morning:  “Where the **** is summer for the Midwest? How much has the RECORD LOWS gotten attention, vs. say, record highs? I know, I know, it’s all part of Climate Change, so we need to increase taxes to stop this, right?”

• “Somebody” gets his second thought from some serious dot-connecting: “So, let me get this right: H1B visa’s for jobs in the USA are good.

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