A Little Something to Do, Part 1

Last year, I began pondering what I was going to do when I retired.

The semi-official retirement age for my generation is 67*, when you can get your full benefits from Social Security, so I've got approximately 11 years left. It's a decently far enough way away, but not far away enough for me to be wondering what I'm going to do when I hang it up.

Obviously, the first thing I'd do is... not much, really. I already work from home --so I don't have a commute to deal with-- but I am on call 24x7, so... Okay, my work is pretty much integrated into my life. Even when I have a day off, I still check work email and occasionally take care of things because Murphy's Law is a real bitch. If I'm not doing that... Well, it'll take some getting used to, but I'm sure I'll survive. 

When my dad took early retirement at age 55, he wasn't sure what he was going to do either. And he annoyed my mom to no end when he was simply there all the time, inserting himself into how she had been running things for decades. So he eventually decided to volunteer as a "second job". He became a chaplain for one of the local hospitals, which he did until he died. I have absolutely no interest in anything vaguely resembling religion**, so that specific path isn't one for me, but that did give me an idea.

Well, that and Hurricane Helene last year.

Originally by Jabin Botsford via Getty Images
and The Washington Post. Found on grist.org.

When the remnants of Hurricane Helene smashed through the Appalachian Mountains in the Carolinas last year, almost all forms of communications were lost. Cell towers destroyed, power lines torn apart, you name it. The one form of communication that filled in the gap until power and telecommunications were restored was that of amateur radio operators. 

"Huh," I mused. It had been a long time since I thought of ham radio seriously***, at least longer than I'd been playing WoW, so that should give you an idea as to the time frame I'm talking about. I've known the occasional ham, and I encountered them when I worked at Radio Shack or (obviously) when I went up to the Dayton Hamvention, but my last trip to that convention was in 2006. But now, watching the news reports about Helene and how ham radio provided a vital link to areas that had no communications or power for a couple of weeks or more, I realized that was something I could do.

I have a history of tinkering with electronics and radio. In addition to my posts on the subject (this one included), when I was a kid I had my share of electronics kits from Radio Shack. 

The later ones had a numeric LED, but
this was the model I had. From Hackaday.

This was my first kit. (No, not the real thing,
but a picture of the model.) Yes, it did work, but I had
to hook up the wire to a water pipe to hear
anything. From Radiomuseum.org.

If I was interested in radio and electronics, and I knew some hams, why didn't I become a radio amateur back in the day? Well... There were a few reasons. In no particular order:

• There was a Morse code requirement. It used to be that you had to learn Morse code to get an amateur radio license, and the more advanced you went the greater the proficiency you had to demonstrate (in terms of words per minute). In 1991, the Federal Communications Commission (the FCC) dropped the Morse code requirement for the Technician license, which was a common entry level license. In 2007, the FCC did away the Morse code requirement for all amateur radio licenses in the US. That doesn't mean that Morse code isn't used, it's actually more popular than ever, but the people who use it are those who want to learn it, rather than they have to learn it.
  
  Still, that there was a requirement meant that I'd have to learn it, and I knew it'd be a bit of a pain. The older I got, the more that Morse code requirement looked like a problem.
  
  
• The hams themselves. Like any activity, you have those who are welcoming and those who are gatekeepers. Those who are nice and those who are assholes. Both the good and bad thing about going to a major amateur radio convention like the Dayton Hamvention is that you get to see a lot of hams in action in as much the same way as you can go to a comic con or gaming con and see the best and the worst of your community. What I saw of some of the amateur radio community was really off putting. 
  
  I now know that's not that great of a surprise --I'm a gamer after all, and we do tend to have certain elements of our community that people like to pretend don't exist-- but it still surprised me that a hobby that at its heart was about communicating with others you'd find people who had real issues with basic human interaction. And no, I'm not talking about people on the spectrum, but people who thought it a badge of honor to not use basic hygiene or be racist/sexist toward others. It's not a high bar to cross, but some of the ham community seemed to have issues with not being a dick toward certain people.
  
  
• The money factor. Let's be honest here for a moment: while radio might not seem like a hobby that you can easily spend a ton of money on, unlike the amount of cash an audiophile spends on stereo equipment, the amount of money just getting a halfway decent starting amateur radio setup for the HF bands can easily reach over $1000. Gaming PCs? Cars? Woodworking? Yeah, they're all potentially expensive hobbies too, just like amateur radio, but when you're starting out that initial cost can be a barrier to entry when you don't have a lot of money. Well, there is the used market, but like anything else, you'd better be careful and do your due diligence. To me, the VHF and UHF bands weren't "real" ham radio, so I never really thought about them much.****
  
  
  

  

  The ICOM IC-7300, currently $1099
  at Ham Radio Outlet (as of November 6, 2025).
  It's actually $300 off the regular price with coupon.
  Picture from ICOM America.

So yeah, amateur radio as a hobby wasn't really on my radar. Until suddenly here it was.

***

Once I reconsidered amateur radio as a hobby, the next step was to start doing some research. And for me, that meant diving into various parts of the internet. I didn't want to go to books or official websites, but rather I wanted to hear/read from actual hams what they thought of the state of the hobby. I realized that just like any other hobby, it was important to understand the context behind people's opinions, so I made sure to take my time and not rush things. Over time, people will reveal their biases, even if they weren't intending to share them. That meant reviewing several months' worth of data; while it sounds laborious, in reality I found it quite fascinating. 

Okay, I laughed. From Reddit.

Some people had axes to grind (that's the internet in a nutshell), and "others" were basically AI created slop (again, welcome to 2025's internet), but I did find quite a few hams whose input was really valuable. I won't go into specifics, but let's just say that in general I discovered that amateur radio is thriving right now. A few hams were grousing about the lack of Morse code requirements, which to their mind kept the riff-raff out ("the CB radio people" is what they meant), but others countered that by pointing out that shenanigans have been going on some of the amateur radio bands long before the Morse code requirement was dropped.

But there were hams who loved their hobby, were articulate and wanted to help people, and were very encouraging in their enthusiasm for ham radio. It was at that point that I made a decision to go ahead and buy this:

Yep, the same book I posted about a while back.

Basically, you could study the license manual for the entry level Amateur Radio class (the Technician Class), take the test, and become a ham once your license shows up in the FCC database. 

Sounds simple, right?

I cracked open that book, started reading, and...

That's what it felt like.
Thanks, XKCD!

Yeah, I'd been away from electronics and electrical theory for far too long.

There had just been so much that I'd forgotten that it daunted me. I pressed on and kept reading, but I realized that my brain was pulling random stuff out of my memory without any real understanding of where it came from. And then I just as quickly discovered that I was misremembering things, which is not good when you have to pass an exam in order to gain your license. 

So what did I do? I put the book aside for a while. Both work and car repairs wreaked havoc on my finances for a few months, so absolutely nothing was going to happen over the Summer. But late August I began to get a bit antsy; maybe I was approaching this all wrong. I needed to exercise my brain, but I also needed some structure.

I needed a class.

*It used to be 65 years old, but it was changed about 10-15 years ago beginning with Gen X. Yay us. But seriously, the "official" age is just a number, because the age you begin taking out Social Security can be several years before to a few years after that "official" age. If someone begins taking SS early, they get less of a stipend per month, but you get access to it early. If you wait until after your official age, you can get a larger monthly stipend. Hey, a few extra thousand dollars per month is a good chunk of change for waiting until 69 instead of 63.

**Yes, yes, I know; I've said it before. I'm not religious at all, while the rest of my family is very religious. I'm not planning on changing, especially since I started down my path when I rebelled against said religiosity. The Satanic Panic and the televangelist scandals of the 1980s provided the initial push, and it's been gathering steam ever since. To paraphrase someone, I might not mind Jesus or others; it's their fan club I have issues with.

***There's a couple of stories as to why amateur radio operators are called "hams". The most common one is that "ham" was a derivative of the derisive term "ham-fisted" by professional telegraph and then radio broadcasters. Rather than shying away from the term, amateur radio operators instead embraced the name in the 1920s and it stuck ever since. So no, it has nothing to do with cooking a ham or anything like that. I use "ham" and "amateur" interchangeably, and most hams do as well.

****And that was me being blind to what amateur radio was about. VHF and UHF ham bands are often more active than the bands in the shortwave spectrum, and the cost of entry there is much cheaper as well. Again, that's me being a bit of an idiot and missing that aspect of the community.

Meme Monday: First Snowfall Memes

By the time you read this, we might have had our first snowfall of the season. Accumulations of up to 1 inch/2.5 cm expected.

So, in honor of that, I figured I'd present some first snowfall of the season memes...

Ha! From FowlLanguageComics.com
and Brian Gordon.

Uh, I hate to tell you this, but that
freezing sensation in your brain isn't
what you think it is. From Reddit.

Yep. Pretty much this. From imgur.

But if it's a cute winter, can we keep it?
From funnybeing.com.

From Reddit. And can confirm.

Real Life Intervenes

Around 5:45 PM last night we got a call from my youngest who lives in Louisville. She was stuck on the interstate close to the airport and smoke was everywhere, and she called us to see if we knew what was going on.

While she talked to my wife, the Louisville native, I quickly got onto one of the Louisville news sites and found this:

From WAVE 3 News. The original news link
is gone.

At first it was unclear whether it was a passenger jet or a cargo jet, as one of UPS' primary hubs is based in Louisville, but it shortly confirmed that it was a UPS cargo jet bound for Honolulu that crashed on takeoff.

From CBS News.

From NBC's Today Show.

For those who don't know exactly where Muhammad Ali Airport is located, it's immediately south and west of the Kentucky State Fairgrounds, Churchill Downs, and the University of Louisville (which is located in what is known as "Old Louisville"). South of the airport is an industrial area, which included an auto parts place and a petroleum recycling facility, both of which took a direct hit from the crash.

The city was under a shelter-in-place order, that has gradually shrunk overnight to encompass the immediate crash area. As of this morning, the airport has reopened. No

It's the sort of nightmare you really just push into the dark recesses of your mind and try not to think about, especially when you realize that once the crew had committed to takeoff there was absolutely nothing they could have done once they discovered the plane was on fire. There's simply not enough runway to stop a fully loaded jet going 200+ miles per hour. 

As for my youngest, she made it back home safely and sheltered in place as requested. She's back at work today as the shelter-in-place is now down to a 1/2 mile radius around the crash. 

Meme Monday: Miscellaneous Memes for November

I figured it was time for some more miscellaneous memes, given that I've got a bunch I've never used and they really need to see the light of day.

This dad joke was brought to you by Reddit
and Fletch.

Since I've finally been playing a Hunter
on the Anniversary servers, I truly get this one.
From Reddit (and Friends).

I still giggle a bit at this one.
From Pinterest (and Shinga).

From the Facebook My DnD group.

Been there. Oh, I've been there enough
that I can look at a donut and immediately
figure out if I can accommodate one with
my meal. From Pinterest.

From Pinterest.

Less Brooding and More Examining

My wife and I took advantage of being near to our closest Barnes and Nobles bookstore on Saturday that we decided to drop in for a little while. The last time I was at this Barnes and Nobles was several months ago, and after putting up my post at the end of last week, I thought it a good idea to follow up on whether or not I could find some of those authors I mentioned on the SF&F bookshelves.

At least this particular Barnes and Noble separates Science Fiction and Fantasy into two separate sections --they did this about 3-4 years ago I believe-- and as Bhagpuss observed Fantasy outstrips Science Fiction in shelf space. But you know what outstrips both combined? Manga. 

Here's a crude representation of the SF&F / Comics section at our B&N:

This is as of November 1, 2025.

It's an approximate design, as I was using Paint and it isn't exactly a precise tool. However, as you can see, Fantasy and Science Fiction took up about 5/6 of the interior section of three bookcases, with Fantasy getting 3/6 and SF getting 2/6, with the last 1/6 a depository for SFF-related oversized books as well as some RPGs. The RPGs shared space with other Western-style comics in the smaller shelf in the center, whereas Manga had the entire outer portion of the bookshelf to themselves. And to be honest, I might not be quite representing this accurately, as there might be even more manga shelves that I missed.

Anyway, all that's past is prologue, so let's get to the interesting part: the books.

For starters on the Fantasy side of things, no David Eddings. There was plenty of Terry Brooks, which I'd seen numerous times before, but Terry is still actively writing so that gives him a boost over the deceased Eddings. There was also no Katherine Kurtz, Katherine Kerr, or Janny Wurtz, which again tracks with what I'd seen before. There was also no Fritz Leiber, but guess where I did find a book of his? In the Science Fiction section:

As of November 1, 2025.

That was surprising, given that his arguably most well-known works are the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser collections. 

I'll use that as an excuse to flip over to the SF section, which when I was last at B&N was indeed very thin. However, in the intervening months, it seems that either the corporate leadership or the local ownership* decided to beef up the SF section quite a bit. There was always quite a few Isaac Asimov books around, although they apparently have yet another cover design, but given that Foundation was (relatively) recently loosely adapted into a television series, I guess that's no surprise.

Ray Bradbury, however, is having a bit of a moment.

As of November 1, 2025.

Because of the video adaptation, classroom requirements, and the political climate, Fahrenheit 451 is present in large numbers. However, it was rather nice to see The Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way Comes as well.

Arthur C. Clarke, while not being given even close to the amount of shelf space as Asimov or Bradbury, still has at least a few books present:

As of November 1, 2025.

If you were going to pick 3-4 books of Clarke's to be there, I'd expect Childhood's End, Rendezvous with Rama, and 2001, all of which are present. There's also 2010: Odyssey Two, which is an okay sequel, but I guess it's there because 2001 is there. 

And yeah, I suppose I ought to mention Bob Heinlein:

As of November 1, 2025.

At least the back of Starship Troopers mentions that it is a controversial novel, something which my old Berkley Books edition never did. Speaking of which, it's interesting that Heinlein's novels are being reprinted by Ace, as opposed to Berkley and Baen**, which were you'd find his novels back in the 80s. Given that Ace is now a subsidiary of Berkley, I guess that makes sense, but while investigating who owns what imprint for this post holy crap is the publishing industry consolidated these days. I can easily see why some people go and self-publish if the consolidation of the publishing industry is any clue.

So there you have it. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself incorrect with regards to the SF authors, and maybe that's an indicator that some other novels I read back in the day may have a chance in the sun as well.

*I'm betting on the local ownership, because while the corporate overlords have some say in the overall layout and the big displays around the store, the composition of individual areas will reflect local tastes and what sells.

*Given Baen's current publishing focus in Military SF, it's no surprise that Heinlein's old 40s-60 short stories ended up being published by them in the 80s/90s. As I'd mentioned before, Heinlein's works --particularly his older short stories, have aged really badly, and I suppose you could see his imprint on Baen's authorial focus, particularly some of the right wing aspects of Baen's output.

Where's the Voice, Copilot?

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon*, I'm not a fan of "assistance" by AI when writing.

There's a big difference in providing flags for grammatical errors and AI frequently "helping" by suggesting words and/or complete sentences to assist me when writing. Oh, I can see where it'd be a useful tool to have around if you're trying to write an email for work and you're stuck on how to present it properly, but most of the time I can muddle through without much of an issue. After all, there's a certain value to experience at work. (I think.)

But when you're writing a blog post or fiction, where you want a specific voice, having Copilot or another pseudo AI pop up word or sentence structure suggestions isn't very helpful at all.

The AI portion begins around the 3:33 mark,

which I'm linking to right here.

Believe it or not, this post wasn't caused by Emma's gripe about AI on The Late Show a few days ago, but this article on The Register about roughly half of the people laid off due to AI are predicted to be rehired at a lower payscale. That didn't exactly surprise me, given the shoddy quality of work I've seen out of people who think using AI to do their job and not bothering to check the results has risen quite sharply over the last year. Remember the line "trust but verify" that I mentioned in the post on Wednesday? Yeah, kind of like that.

But her complaint as an author pretty much hits home for me. If you don't know what you're doing and you're trying to write something (such as a support document) for your job, then fine. Let Open AI have a crack at it. But if you're trying to write fiction and you just rely upon Copilot or another Open AI to do your work, people WILL notice. You (yes, you) have a specific authorial voice, and even if you're writhing as Anonymous, people will know it's you who wrote the piece because of that voice. But if you let AI create the word salad, you'll discover that your authorial voice vanishes. And people won't like it.

So my advice is to do the hard work of learning your voice and keep writing to learn how to use it. Your voice is your own; don't abdicate your uniqueness to some Generative AI.

Oh, and after writing this but before I published it, this little ditty dropped from Jared Henderson:

Hucksters and swindlers using AI to try to make a quick buck by flooding Amazon with "ebooks" close enough to the original human-written work to fool customers? Who'd a thunk it? Maybe if some swindlers start using AI to create ebooks "exposing" some of these leading AI CEOs, something will get done. There are enough tech CEOs with fragile egos that maybe they'll get something done about this slop. Or, unfortunately, they'll probably just create their own slop to counter the original.

*The late Andy Rooney comes to mind. I can only imagine what his commentary about the rise of Generative AI would be like. I think that Wilhelm would have met his match, never mind me.

A Day to Brood About Stuff

It's been an interesting couple of weeks since I last checked in with my Operation Spread the Love on the WoW Anniversary servers.

By that, I mean very busy, and not playing very much either. 

Card's getting to the point where she'll have
some of her pre-raid gear on her, such as the Frostweave
gear (the purple tunic) that provide a pretty good bonus
to Frost spells. Although the screencap was taken today
this was the status as of Thursday, October 30th.

First there was the weekend trip up to visit my oldest and her partner, which included a stop at a coffee shop built in the building that once housed a pumping station for the Milwaukee River...

It was a chilly morning or we'd have sat outside.

And here you go, proof that there is a coffee
shop inside. (I had green tea as I'd already had coffee.)
At the Collectivo Coffee Lakefront in Milwaukee.

And an additional visit to the Milwaukee Public Museum...

Including a rebuilt saloon/taproom. Not sure
if the topless statues were added for effect or not,
but I did make a few snarky comments to my wife.

And you can't visit a museum gift shop
without seeing rocks for sale.

And a small restaurant next to an old train depot. Which of course brought out the train fanatic in me...

It's not a depot any longer, although the train
tracks are nearby.

Next to the depot was a statue of Czech
immigrants coming to this part of Milwaukee.
The irony of seeing this in our current political
climate wasn't lost on me.

On Tuesday, I spent some time over at my mom's house because her hot water heater has begun leaking, which is a good sign that the 20 year old heater has finally rusted through and needs replacement. I've had to argue with her about the immediate need to call a plumber to get this replaced ASAP, because you don't want a catastrophic failure and have 40 gallons of water on your floor.

Then, yesterday I attended the funeral of one of my brother's in-laws.* It rather understandably got me thinking quite a bit about mortality afterward.

It also brought up the very real question about what happens to our games and our characters when we die. I have a few boardgames that are difficult to find these days, such as Avalon Hill's old Civilization (and Advanced Civilization) game, and I've taken care of the game to make sure it doesn't fall apart. But what happens to it when I die? Will it end up in a landfill somewhere, like what happened to my grandfather's stamp collection?**

Or in terms of video games, who gains access to them when I'm gone? More than likely they'll vanish as well, given that someone else would have to take ownership of my Steam account (and other accounts, such as my Battle.net account). 

Orcish Army Knife may be gone, but Rades' old
toons are still present in Puggers Anonymous as
of October 31, 2025.

As you can see above, I logged into OG Balthan just to check to make sure Rades' old toons are present. I guess they'll remain until Microsoft purges accounts from Battle.net for inactivity, but I'm certainly not removing them.

Another reason for thinking about mortality and what happens to things after you die is all of those books that came out decades ago but are no longer published. The most obvious example I can think of David Eddings' Belgariad, which I never see anymore, but there's also other authors who published books in the 70s, 80s, and 90s that are now hard to find. I'm thinking of works by Barbara Hambly, Janny Wurts, Katherine Kerr, and Katherine Kurtz. Even older classics such as Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books are long out of print. I suppose you could go the ebook route, but you don't actually own those books and ebook publishers have shown an inclination to simply yank books away from you whenever they feel like it. 

Oh well. Just another thing to brood on, I guess.

*He died of a brain tumor at the relatively young age of 44.

**My mom and her siblings thought it would be worth something, but after consulting with a couple of experts on the collection the result was that the collection wasn't worth much of anything. It was merely my grandfather's obsession, and that was all it was really worth.