Signals

For most of us, when we think of Sony, we think of audio/video stuff. Hey, we're home-theater nerds, and our view of reality is warped by that. In reality, Sony is much bigger than TVs and headphones. For example, the company is also traveling to outer space.

It's not easy being a corporation. Take Volkswagen, for example. Right about now, they are probably wishing that Ferdinand Porsche had never stuffed an air-cooled engine in the back of a Beetle-shaped car. Along similar lines, Toshiba probably wishes it had hired more ethical accountants. In particular, it recently announced that it had overstated its profits by $1.3 billion over seven years. Oops. Not exactly a rounding error.

Imagine an alien species in which, when someone dies, all of their wisdom and knowledge passes directly to their offspring. That efficient preservation of experience enables the species to progress at a phenomenal rate. Sadly, when humans die, our lifetime of expertise is lost. At best, we can only try to educate our young, each time starting over from scratch.

A purist can be defined as “a person who adheres strictly and often excessively to a tradition.” I would add the corollary: particularly when it comes to analog audio. Which brings us to today's DIY project: Building your own audio amplifier from scratch. With vacuum tubes, of course.

The TV business is lousy, right? Companies are getting out of that market like it was a house on fire. Just last week, we reported that Sharp is leaving the Americas. It sold its Mexico plant and name and rights to Hisense for a measly $23.7 million. Sharp follows Toshiba, Hitachi, Pioneer, Mitsubishi, Philips, Magnavox and Thomson in divesting and selling its TV interests for fire-sale prices. The TV business is lousy, right?

So, how would you like to buy a piece of a TV company?

Has this ever happened to you? You are surfing on your laptop and suddenly a scary screen appears, demanding ransomware payable with your credit card info, and 3 bottles of vodka. The same thing happened to me, except I was watching TV and instead of demanding that I send money, a pop-up on the TV screen offered to send money to me.