A motley collection of ideas
In this section, you’ll find all kinds of articles. Some of them are machine translations of my older writings in Hungarian, which may contain grammatical errors or content that is no longer up to date. I apologize for these mistakes, and I would be very glad if you let me know when you come across any. Happy reading!
The meteorological radiosonde is an interesting creature. It sets off from somewhere beneath a large white balloon, measures the atmosphere’s temperature, humidity, pressure and GPS coordinates, and then, when the balloon bursts, the instrument descends to the ground. For meteorologists, the story more or less ends here; for radio amateurs and radiosonde hunters, however, this … Read more
The device shown in the picture is the NZ-1 hand winding machine: a simple mechanical tool used to wind neat coils from wire, thin electrical conductor, or other filament-like material. It is not an automatic wonder machine, nor a CNC-controlled industrial device, but a cheap Chinese gadget. I bought it for about 30 euros. Its … Read more
I have a cat who likes to sleep next to me. In the mornings she wakes me up very sweetly — unless I fail to get up on time. Then she switches to more persuasive methods, and occasionally the pillowcase pays the price. Since proper pillow covers are not exactly cheap, and ours were disappearing … Read more
Mushroom foraging has its small but very important essentials, and one of the most important of these is a good basket. In this article, I present a practical, lightweight solution. Mushroom picking is one of my passions. Without sounding immodest, I can say that I know mushrooms quite well. I learned a great deal from … Read more
Used books do not need sterilizing, but they do need sensible handling. Since the COVID years, no shortage of dubious “disinfection” methods has appeared, from alcohol sprays to ozone generators—many of them more dangerous to paper than to microbes. In practice, the only truly serious risk is not infection, but the chance of bringing home … Read more
The literal English translation of the Hungarian phrase “DVD-játékos” would be “DVD gamer,” which does not mean some bloke raised on the game consoles of the 2000s who insists on physical discs. Rather, people jokingly used it for a “DVD player” because, years ago, the machine-translated Hungarian user manual of a Chinese device — later … Read more
Total Commander’s button bar can launch programs, run scripts, open folders, and automate repetitive file‑management tasks with a single click. You can also pass the currently selected file(s) as parameters, which makes custom buttons ideal for conversion tools, batch renaming helpers, backup scripts, and “open in …” workflows. Where buttons live Custom buttons are stored … Read more
Among radio amateurs – especially abroad – fox hunting is still a fairly popular sport today. Here I present a simple fox‑hunting setup that can be used at home, in the garden, for play, for tracking animals, or even for hunting “flying foxes”. “Fox hunting”, or radio orienteering (Amateur Radio Direction Finding – ARDF, also … Read more
In 1950, the Gilbert U‑238 Atomic Energy Laboratory appeared on toy‑store shelves as an educational kit. This oddity resurfaces from time to time on social media; Facebook just served it up to me again. Back then it cost $49.50 (roughly $650 in today’s money), but nowadays—when it very rarely turns up—it can fetch $4,000–5,000 at … Read more
Every day, dozens of tiny, invisible instruments rise above our heads. Weather radiosondes that collect data from the lower and upper layers of the atmosphere, then a few hours later quietly disappear somewhere above fields, forests, and villages. The signals from these sondes can be received by anyone — and that’s where the exciting world … Read more