Category: anonradio

ASFO 2024–03–02

The anodyne syrup of the “solar–hydrogen economy” keeps mankind suckling at the fossil–fuel teat when we should long since have moved on to adult foods. Also, computer programmers once again prove unable to deal with intercalation, even when it comes on a regular schedule, and has for centuries past ; congratulations to Georgia Power on first synchronization of Vogtle 4 ; and, who are your heroes?

Cutaway model of a General Electric BWR-6 nuclear power reactor, mounted on a wooden plinth, with a plaque reading "Clinton Power Station Initial Criticality February 27, 1987".
Coming soon to a display near you

№4472 Flying Scotsman

Steam railway locomotive noises from an LP? Yes! But not just any steam locomotive, one of the most famous in the world, the last surviving non–streamlined “Pacific” (4–6–2 wheel arrangement) of the Gresley A3 class. Undoubtedly it was the great love for the Flying Scotsman that made possible the brand new “Pacific”, 60163 Tornado of the A1 class, which was funded by rail fans and completed in 2008.

Archive recording (By error, the 2024–03–01 broadcast included only side A of the record, played twice, so I ran a corrected version at the next opportunity.)

Steam shunting locomotive moving three "Excellox 3" nuclear fuel flasks. Ad from ATOM 265 (1978 November)
“From steam power to nuclear power” indeed!
Greenpeace poster advertising a U2 concert in Manchester, part of the "React" campaign against the Sellafield THORP reprocessing plant project.
Of the text on this poster, the location, time, and ticket purchase information is probably truthful. The rest? Nobody cares!

ASFO 2024–02–24

Congratulations to Intuitive Machines for the soft landing of their Nova–C vehicle “Odysseus”. Also, economics, real and virtual – the subordination of the former, which supplies the goods and services people actually consume, to the latter, seems to be a major cause of trouble in our modern world, and inspires the question, what exactly is a market? Also, BANANAs on the march ; “Stranger Danger” a dogma in America ; and Mail Call!

“My Polar Flights”

Umberto Nobile, the Italian airship builder and pilot, came together with the great Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen to reach and cross the North Pole by air for the first time, in the year 1926. Two years later, on a subsequent expedition, Nobile and his men were shipwrecked. This first part of this volume, entitled “The First Crossing of the Arctic Ocean”, covers the successful voyage of the N1 Norge, known as the Amundsen–Ellsworth–Nobile Polar Expedition. The second part, “The Tragedy of the Italia”, is about twice as long.

Having read My Zeppelins, I thought that this would be of similar interest, and also that it might be best to give General Nobile the chance (as it were) to defend himself against some belittling remarks of Dr Eckener’s regarding his skill as an airshipman.

  • 2024–02–20 The preface ; the first chapter, The Preliminaries of the Expedition ; and a little bit of the second chapter, On the Eve of the Flight. (Chapters are not numbered.)
  • 2024–02–23 Remainder of the second chapter ; beginning of the third chapter, The Flight from Rome to the Svalbard.
  • 2024–02–27 Completion of the third chapter, and almost all of the fourth, From King’s Bay to the Pole.
  • 2024–03–08 Completion of the fourth chapter, covering the actual first attainment and crossing of the North Pole by air ; and the whole of the fifth chapter, In the Unexplored Zone, describing an incredible feat of piloting under conditions of adverse weather and extreme exhaustion.
  • 2024–03–12 Two short chapters, The End of the Flight and Returning Home, and an Appendix, complete Part I. The author attempts to settle once and for all the controversy caused by certain intemperate and ill–informed remarks of Amundsen, who knew much of Polar exploration, but little of airships or their handling.
  • 2024–03–15 Origin and Preparation of the Expedition (in which we learn how to spell “caïque”), and the first part of The Flight from Milan to King’s Bay, describing the atrocious weather on the way to Stolp on the Baltic (now Słupsk, Poland), begin Part II.
  • 2024–03–19 Completion of The Flight from Milan to King’s Bay ; At King’s Bay ; and The Flight to Severnaya Zemlya.
  • 2024–03–29 The Voyage to the Pole ; The Catastrophe ; and the beginning of Adrift on the Pack. I note details related by Nobile which completely negative Eckener’s notion of the cause of the wreck. (For some reason, the aNONradio archiver split this show into two parts, so I had to re-join it.)
  • 2024–04–05 After a couple of days when I could not do a show, the remainder of Adrift on the Pack, followed by the entirety of The Courage of Despair. Interrupted near the end by a telephone call.
  • 2024–05–10 “Both Parties will Die!” ; Six in the Red Tent ; and the first part of The Miracle of the Radio.
  • 2024–05–14 After some dead air and glitches at the beginning, the completion of The Miracle of the Radio ; Manna from Heaven ; and the first section of An Aeroplane Lands on the Pack.
  • 2024–05–17 The remainder of An Aeroplane Lands on the Pack ; and all of On the Città di Milano, in which Captain Romagna has things to say which are difficult to comprehend, much less believe. Only one chapter remains.
  • 2024–05–21 Our story concludes with the long chapter entitled The End of the Drama. Details of the political scene have been omitted by General Nobile, but may be read in his 1945 book Posso Dire la Verità.

ASFO 2024–02–17

Cryptocurrency ― leading contender for “scam of the century” before generative AI came along ― was estimated to account for approximately 2% of US electricity consumption last year. That is twelve times what was used by electrified railways, and exceeds the whole consumption of the States of Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Utah, and Vermont, and the District of Columbia put together ― more than seven and a half million people, in a country which uses more than half again as much electricity per head of population as the average for wealthy countries, and almost four times the average for the world as a whole. And to what end? Yet it is almost certainly one example among many.

A strange red shape, square in cross-section and forming a twisted loop, against an indistinct background of diagrams
From my new film transfer, “Nuclear Fusion ― Research toward a new energy source” (German language, 1984)

ASFO 2024–02–10

Rickshaws (Japanese 人力車 jinrikisha, “human–powered vehicle”) considered ; the Myth of the Golden Age and its dangers ; and the real answer to the Nuclear Waste Problem. Also I get to make one of my utterly megalomaniacal statements. Plus, Mail Call!

To Fermi ― With Love

Described as “a commemorative two–record album on the life and times of Enrico Fermi”, this program was produced at Argonne National Laboratory, very likely in the early 1970s. It appears there may have been an accompanying film as well. In addition to familiar voices from other USAEC records, such as Herbert Anderson, Arthur Holly Compton, and Crawford Greenewalt, the great physicist’s wife Laura is heard from. Script by James Chimbidis, drawing heavily from Atoms in the Family by Laura Fermi, Enrico Fermi, Physicist by Emilio Segrè, and The First Pile by Corbin Allardice and Edward Trapnell ; narration by Jay Andre.

  • 2024–02–09 The first two sides, covering the period up to the first criticality of CP–1 and the commencement in earnest of the plutonium project.
  • 2024–02–13 The second disc, finishing the program.