Over!

Patrick

Patrick is a mid-40 year old geek with an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master's degree in Information Systems. Nothing he says here has anything to do with the official position of his employer or any other institution.

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17 Responses

  1. wardsmith says:

    Da di da dit da da dit da to you Patrick 🙂Report

    • Patrick Cahalan in reply to wardsmith says:

      Computational Group Theory?

      Capital Gains Tax?

      Computer Generated Thought?

      Hm, that last one does sound kind of like me… wait, International, or American?  JGT?  Now you’ve gone and mucked my brain, Ward.Report

  2. Patrick Cahalan says:

    Ah!  I think I got it.

     Report

  3. Tod Kelly says:

    Tangentially related: When I play basketball with my kids, if anyone ever calls out the score of a 10-4 game I immediately say Good Buddy.

    They have no idea what I am talking about.Report

  4. wardsmith says:

    Bonus points if you know what YYZ stands for

    Da dit da da da dit da da da da dit dit. 🙂

    Course I got lazy after getting my novice back in the stone ages (we banged rocks together to make our morse code) IIRC when I was 11. I still remember my call sign and wouldn’t you know it stated with Whiskey too?Report

    • Jaybird in reply to wardsmith says:

      It’s an airport in Canada. The Capital*, if I’m not mistaken.

      *the de facto oneReport

    • Patrick Cahalan in reply to wardsmith says:

      YYZ means “we’re home”, in lingua Rusha.  I’ve heard that story before.

      You don’t have your license any more, Ward?  You should re-up.Report

      • Rod in reply to Patrick Cahalan says:

        Oh, my god! Is that what the title to that Rush song (instrumental) is about?Report

        • Burt Likko in reply to Rod says:

          I thought YYZ was the airport code for Toronto at one time.Report

        • Scott in reply to Rod says:

          YYZ is the airport code for Toronto.Report

          • Rod in reply to Scott says:

            Well, they’re a Canadian band. So that could be more or less the same thing for them.

            That’s about a 30-year old mystery for me solved. Not like I’ve been obsessing over it or anything; just occurred to me when I saw the post.Report

            • wardsmith in reply to Rod says:

              Rod if you’re a pilot (and I believe 2 members of the band Rush are licensed pilots, definitely Lifesong is and I think Geddy Lee) you tune in your VOR for Toronto (if you’re close enough) and it keeps repeating the morse code I put in above. Sometimes a good pilot will select the monitor switch and listen to the code just to make sure the radio equipment is operating properly. You could say the song sort of wrote itself. Go to this site, paste in YYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZYYZ and press the play button. Adjust the Farnsworth speed and you can get it to start sounding like the song.Report

  5. boegiboe says:

    Did you know (I didn’t until years after I started working here) that NASA Goddard Space Flight Center used to be a guide star for HAM radio?

    You probably did. And don’t care. This is obvy me saying I work somewhere cool by standards I know nothing of.

    Plus, I might have it wrong. But, the HAM radio guys around here told me this, so I’m curious: How important was Greenbelt, Maryland, to HAM radio in the late 50’s early 60’s?Report