Three random topics

[redbird]

The latest meme going around is to ask someone for "3 subjects I don't think you know or care much about. Then you talk about those subjects in your journal". noachoc gave me:

• Morse Code
• Teletubbies
• Deep sea fishing

What I know about Morse code includes that it's basically a binary code, and that being able to use Morse code used to be a requirement for an amateur radio license in the United States. Free-association gets me to the fact that the Morse "SOS" emergency call was first used by the Titanic, and has now been officially discontinued, but is lurking in slang, the same way "4-1-1" is sometimes used to mean "information" by people who haven't dialed "4-1-1" on a phone in many years, possibly not since they had dial telephones. (This one connects to history, language, and communications, but I'm just free-associating here, and not looking anything up.)

I have seen a couple of episodes Teletubbies, many years ago. I was visiting bohemiancoast, when she had a child in the age group that the program is aimed at. I found it mildly amusing for a little while, but suspect that it would get old very quickly, especially if I had to watch it, rather than happening to be in the room while it was on.

Deep sea fishing is one of those dangerous things that I'm grateful other people are willing to do, because I like eating ocean fish, including tuna. Many people who don't go to sea don't realize how dangerous it is as an occupation, and it's not the only occupation that's true of. (I'm sure there are other jobs that are more, or less, dangerous than I realize.)

(I could take this topic in the direction of conservation, oceanography, the development of navigation, or the European exploration of the Americas, but none of those is exactly about fishing, despite the connection to the Portuguese fishing off the Grand Banks, and the trade in dried cod. Excuse me, I have a sudden impulse to go read about the Hanseatic League.)

If anyone would like me to give you three topics, along the same lines, ask; of course, if I don't know you very well, I may give you a subject on which you could happily talk for days.

Comments

[the_siobhan]

Hit me.

[redbird]

Kites, velvet, Swahili

[jhetley]

The Titanic distress calls also used CQD, as that was standard at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CQD

[brooksmoses]

And following that wiki rabbit-hole leads me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOS, which notes one prior-to-the-Titanic use of SOS for a sinking ship. But the Titanic was certainly among the first.

[minoanmiss]

Oooh! *makes a note*

[calimac]

My favorite fact about early radio, of the Titanic era or perhaps a little earlier, is something I learned at a broadcasting museum: that it was not yet possible to put any content in a radio signal. All you could do was flood the neighborhood with static. You could, however, turn the static on and off at will, which made it a perfect medium for broadcasting Morse Code. Hence ...

[brooksmoses]

Rather more recently than that (but still quite some decades ago), when it was possible to put content on a radio signal but not cheaply possible to turn it into things other than sound, there were simple radio-control boats that made use of a simple static on/off signal. Static off meant go straight, static on meant turn.

[julian]

The version I came across was "may or may not care about," which appeals to me more. It's random! Maybe you do, maybe you don't. Who knows!

(I don't at all care about the Teletubbies, though. Like, I negatively care.)

[oursin]

3 subjects, please?

[redbird]

London plane trees, the Montgolfier brothers, barbecue

[mindstalk]

Morse code is digital, but arguably ternary or quinary rather than binary. You need separation, not just dot and dash, and the full code has three different lengths of separator.

[jhetley]

An experienced operator can extract more information than that. You can recognize the sending, or "fist", of individual operators, and with older equipment you can recognize distinctive transmitters by sound.

[minnehaha]

The meme reminds of the radio show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" which got Pres. Clinton to call in a few years ago. He had to answer three questions on topic he could not be expected to know much about. His topic? My Little Pony.

He got them all correct, too.

K.

[cjsmith]

Two letters I always had trouble with in Morse were “mirror images” of each other: L (._..) and F (.._.). For some reason those just wouldn’t stick.

Fun fact: you’ll never get them wrong again if you think of the two words li-CEN-tious-ness and for-ni-CA-tion.

[carbonel]

I love that! I suppose there are similar mnemonics for all the others.

Once upon a time, I had a Class 3 radio license, but it didn't require knowing Morse code.

[cjsmith]

If there are mnemonics for others, I don't know them. L and F I came up with on my own so that I could finally learn those two stubborn letters.

No ham licenses require Morse any more either. For a while, only some of them did, and my old license converted from something-or-other to somethingelse-or-other during the transition because I had taken a code test. Now Morse is just a thing for old fogies like me to reminisce about. :)

[carbonel]

Sure, I'll take three topics.

[redbird]

Australia, armadillos, calligraphy