LavaCon 2026 and the future.

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LavaCon is a conference now going on 25 years. Its always fun at conferences where folks collaborate on what the future holds. This year I drove to Charlotte NC from Duluth GA to attend. I used the Tesla in Full Self Drive. I went park-to-park without touching the wheel for over 200 miles. It's crazy. I don't think most people understand how well it works. Lots of nay-sayers still, but it really does work. Be on guard, but enjoy. I spent some of my time "driving" while conversing with Grok as part of my daydreaming. I was discussing with Grok an idea I have of building a West system (cold molded) old style barrel-back runabout maybe 20 feet long- all varnished Mahogony. Of course this boat would have an exotic 12-cylinder engine under a transparent engine hatch between the twin cockpits. We discussed the designs, available actual study plans and pre-lofted design documents for the hull. We also discussed the best engine (perhaps a BMW N73) coupled with a Velvet Dri...
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Its Sunday again. I played cards with a group of about 9 people last night. It feels as though I know (by sight) about 500 people here, 250 from where they work, 80 by first name and about 30 by first and last name. There are approximately 1080 people on station right now. People talk about isolation. There is no isolation with that many people on station. It is far less isolated than I am back home. Out in the field isolation is a totally different story and it doesn't take long geographically to get out in the field. My job gets me out in the field quite a bit.

My pager went off last night. A repeater seems to to gone down suddenly on top of Mt. Aztec. The science camp has HF radio and an irridium phone as backups so we may not get out there until later this week rather than immediately because it is not a dangereous condition.

The first picture is me on top of Mt 1882 talking to a science camp via my VHF hand held radio to determine if we were succesful in getting the Telephone repeater working (also VHF). Second is of the antenna farm at one of our shelters that we are trying to get a combiner working so we can use just one antenna. Thirdly is Scott base from atop Crater Hill. Scott base is the New Zealand Antartica base a few miles from McMurdo. The forth picture is a Russian helo from the KAPITAN KHLEBNIKOV the cruise ship http://www.quarkexpeditions.com/fleet/khlebnikov.shtml. The cruise ship canceled its tour of McMurdo at the last minute. The sea ice edge is 23 miles from station still. It was decided by the expedition leader on the ship that the time to ferry all the passengers to station by helo or to break through the ice (highly doubtful if possible with current sea ice) was prohibitive.

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