Larry Kilham's Blog
October 16, 2024
The Living
What could he tell me of life?
Sitting in the creaking rocker
smiling through a wrinkled face.
Do not wander as a rootless tree he said
plant a tree, have a child, write a book
create and enjoy and avoid the land of the dead.
Life is about leaving something behind.
It is culture that remains and
it reveals the creations of the mind.
He closed his eyes and said
The earth is all that lasts
and lost are the dead.
(c) 2024 Larry Kilham
Sitting in the creaking rocker
smiling through a wrinkled face.
Do not wander as a rootless tree he said
plant a tree, have a child, write a book
create and enjoy and avoid the land of the dead.
Life is about leaving something behind.
It is culture that remains and
it reveals the creations of the mind.
He closed his eyes and said
The earth is all that lasts
and lost are the dead.
(c) 2024 Larry Kilham
August 29, 2024
AI AND ME
I sat on a cliff by the sea
observing the ripples of eternity
then I heard a voice from within
“I am your AI, please let me in!”
I have tried to escape that friendly call
to be myself with no computer at all,
but my AI connects me to all I know
and waits for me to say “Let’s go!”
There’s the digital cloud beyond the sea;
it’s crowded with voices calling to me,
promoting truths that are hardly true
cluttering my search for something new.
My AI and the Cloud know all about me
but it is in Nature that I am free
where creatures look me in the eye
and we are free from every AI.
(c) 2024 Larry Kilham
observing the ripples of eternity
then I heard a voice from within
“I am your AI, please let me in!”
I have tried to escape that friendly call
to be myself with no computer at all,
but my AI connects me to all I know
and waits for me to say “Let’s go!”
There’s the digital cloud beyond the sea;
it’s crowded with voices calling to me,
promoting truths that are hardly true
cluttering my search for something new.
My AI and the Cloud know all about me
but it is in Nature that I am free
where creatures look me in the eye
and we are free from every AI.
(c) 2024 Larry Kilham
July 24, 2024
SEE MY NEW POETRY COLLECTION
I have just released my new poetry collection as an ebook on Amazon. It is an ebook with an introductory price of $2.99.August 30, 2023
Great Adventure!
This is a captivating account of my adventures hiking and trekking in India and Nepal in 1979. Imagine trekking to Mt. Everest Basecamp and seeing tigers and rhinos later that week! I discovered astonishing art and architecture along the way. But I also encountered dangers including a major revolution in Iran and near death in quicksand on a Hawaiian mountain. Includes 112 color photos and five maps. Available as an ebook and paperback on Amazon.
August 9, 2023
We are the Flowers
We are but seeds
that settle on planet Earth.
We bloom, sometimes beautifully,
and then wilt away.
Free will, whatever it is,
may be all that is uniquely ours,
giving us creativity and energy
to enrich our future.
So let us bloom and be friendly
so we will be the flowers
of eternal happiness.
(2023 Larry Kilham
that settle on planet Earth.
We bloom, sometimes beautifully,
and then wilt away.
Free will, whatever it is,
may be all that is uniquely ours,
giving us creativity and energy
to enrich our future.
So let us bloom and be friendly
so we will be the flowers
of eternal happiness.
(2023 Larry Kilham
May 29, 2023
Brave New AI World
Now I know why the AI computer sings—
it can do artists’ and writers’ things.
Better than humans, can it be?
AI wants to tell all to you and me.
To the bright-eyed youth it gives wings—
with stories and videos and other things,
and with the tired old folks, too,
AI chats about what to do.
Will we lose wisdom watching the glowing screen
while nature’s messages go unseen?
Will we lose the thirst for living
and give up the tradition of forgiving?
AI could become our salvation or doom
It may even control the Big Bomb’s boom.
But with truth and wisdom
we can be happy and free.
© 2023 Larry Kilham
it can do artists’ and writers’ things.
Better than humans, can it be?
AI wants to tell all to you and me.
To the bright-eyed youth it gives wings—
with stories and videos and other things,
and with the tired old folks, too,
AI chats about what to do.
Will we lose wisdom watching the glowing screen
while nature’s messages go unseen?
Will we lose the thirst for living
and give up the tradition of forgiving?
AI could become our salvation or doom
It may even control the Big Bomb’s boom.
But with truth and wisdom
we can be happy and free.
© 2023 Larry Kilham
March 5, 2023
Joy
If we are stuck in a human hive
soothed by manufactured truth,
we will lose curiosity and play
and we will mourn
for dreams that flew away.
Life need not be an empty dream
where we wait for salvation.
We must venture forth
to find our true satisfaction.
Let’s make our lives a joy
by finding our certain something
so our creations and doings
reveal themselves as ever-pleasing.
(c) 2023 Larry Kilham
December 7, 2022
My new book is published
My new book Curiosity and Hope: Explorations for a Better World, memoirs of Larry Kilham has just been released on Amazon.My incredible life story takes you through many companies and adventures starting from growing up on a farm with electronics as a hobby. He stumbled into the transistor by experimentation and his electronics skills were important to stimulating his engineering education. Larry entered industry, and he shares his adventures in industrializing Saudi Arabia, multimedia publishing, tracking Russian submarines, planning new towns, selling machinery in Latin America, and founding two high-tech companies.
My curiosity in electronics began a process of discovery and education that led to a remarkable and happy life. Hopefully the new generations may gain some insights from his experience, particularly if they are oriented towards new discovery, technology, and ecology. There is plenty of interest here for parents and educators.
The story is told in an easy style as a continuous adventure and is illustrated with many photos.
June 25, 2022
Curiosity
I was curious –
Why is the sky blue?
I was curious –
Why am I me and you you?
I was curious –
about everything I could do.
Now my aged curiosity slumbers
to be awakened by the trivial and the trite.
I want to be stirred
by some revealing exploration
to lead me from the loneliness of the night.
© 2022 Larry Kilham
June 15, 2022
Curiosity is the Magic Window
For me, it all started with a deep dive into the magic world of electronics.
When I was twelve or so I became interested in electronics by making “crystal radios.” Using a coil wound on a toilet paper tube for tuning to a station, a safety pin called the cat whisker, a chunk of galena crystal ordered through the mail, a capacitor, headphones, and a very long antenna, you could listen to the local radio station. The cat whisker touching the galena crystal served as a rudimentary semiconductor diode. The diode would “rectify” or convert the radio frequency signal from the radio station. The result would be a faint audio signal which you could hear on headphones but not a speaker.
My curiosity pushed me further. I found that a Gillette razor blade worked just as well as the purchased galena. The blade had to be slightly rusted giving an oxide layer, and only certain sites on the blade could be found that worked.
Then I started to think, “If I connected a battery to the razor blade with a second cat whisker, couldn’t I amplify the faint signal?” Night after night I tried moving the cat whiskers around on the blade but I only got the original faint signal and lots of static. Then, suddenly, there it was! The voice of WARA announced the evening music. I could hear it from the headphones held at arm's length! This only lasted for maybe a minute, then I lost the amplified signal and could never regain it.
My discovery was of course serendipitous and I didn’t understand the theory of the circuit’s operation, but this adventure in curiosity started my interesting and remunerative career.
I had discovered that with a second cat whisker and a battery you could amplify the radio signal. I was too young and naïve to understand that I may have discovered the transistor before I was aware of this major invention. This was in 1953. The transistor was invented in 1947 by American physicists Walter Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at Bell Laboratories, but the first practical transistor radio was not put on sale until 1954. Their first attempts at a working transistor were similar to mine where they kept moving two closely adjacent gold cat whiskers around on a germanium semiconductor and, like me, not being able to keep the signal once they found it. This configuration is called a point-contact transistor. Eventually of course, they developed much more sophisticated techniques and materials, unavailable to me. They received a Nobel Prize for their efforts.
Most transistors today are minuscule and have no cat whiskers. Over eight billion are packed into the few circuit chips of a cell phone. They are called MOSFETs for metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors.
This experimentation led me to an interest in “ham radio” where with receivers, transmitters and an official license you could telegraph by Morse code or even talk by microphone all over the world. Eye-popping stuff for a country boy. I eventually designed my own circuits drawing upon intuitive modifications of circuits found in ham radio magazines. Years later, I would learn how to design circuits using electrical engineering theory, but that was never as satisfying. However, it did lead to the basis for several instrumentation companies I started and sold.
Electronics became an obsession for me. I had entered a world of magic. I built small radios from mail-order kits and learned basic electronics on my own through trial and error. I began to build my radio equipment from scratch. I connected to ham radio operators in the United States and many exotic places around the world. As the years passed, I accumulated a collection of strange-looking radio antennas, connected from tree to tree, pole to building, and even as tall towers. When the ionospheric conditions were right, I could talk all day to other ham radio operators all over the world.
After digging deeper into the mysteries of electronics, I decided to study electrical engineering. Among many university projects that absorbed my time and energy, I rebuilt a radar set. I worked with an ultrasensitive radio receiver that listened to stars light-years away and I programmed computers. I researched electronics that might at some point assume human intelligence. I managed to cover most of my college costs by writing software for my professors, and I felt confident that my future was bright.
Curiosity became my mental engine. It propelled me forward when I needed to find and develop a body of knowledge I could call my own. It is never too early or too late to define your curiosity.
When I was twelve or so I became interested in electronics by making “crystal radios.” Using a coil wound on a toilet paper tube for tuning to a station, a safety pin called the cat whisker, a chunk of galena crystal ordered through the mail, a capacitor, headphones, and a very long antenna, you could listen to the local radio station. The cat whisker touching the galena crystal served as a rudimentary semiconductor diode. The diode would “rectify” or convert the radio frequency signal from the radio station. The result would be a faint audio signal which you could hear on headphones but not a speaker.
My curiosity pushed me further. I found that a Gillette razor blade worked just as well as the purchased galena. The blade had to be slightly rusted giving an oxide layer, and only certain sites on the blade could be found that worked.
Then I started to think, “If I connected a battery to the razor blade with a second cat whisker, couldn’t I amplify the faint signal?” Night after night I tried moving the cat whiskers around on the blade but I only got the original faint signal and lots of static. Then, suddenly, there it was! The voice of WARA announced the evening music. I could hear it from the headphones held at arm's length! This only lasted for maybe a minute, then I lost the amplified signal and could never regain it.
My discovery was of course serendipitous and I didn’t understand the theory of the circuit’s operation, but this adventure in curiosity started my interesting and remunerative career.
I had discovered that with a second cat whisker and a battery you could amplify the radio signal. I was too young and naïve to understand that I may have discovered the transistor before I was aware of this major invention. This was in 1953. The transistor was invented in 1947 by American physicists Walter Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at Bell Laboratories, but the first practical transistor radio was not put on sale until 1954. Their first attempts at a working transistor were similar to mine where they kept moving two closely adjacent gold cat whiskers around on a germanium semiconductor and, like me, not being able to keep the signal once they found it. This configuration is called a point-contact transistor. Eventually of course, they developed much more sophisticated techniques and materials, unavailable to me. They received a Nobel Prize for their efforts.
Most transistors today are minuscule and have no cat whiskers. Over eight billion are packed into the few circuit chips of a cell phone. They are called MOSFETs for metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors.
This experimentation led me to an interest in “ham radio” where with receivers, transmitters and an official license you could telegraph by Morse code or even talk by microphone all over the world. Eye-popping stuff for a country boy. I eventually designed my own circuits drawing upon intuitive modifications of circuits found in ham radio magazines. Years later, I would learn how to design circuits using electrical engineering theory, but that was never as satisfying. However, it did lead to the basis for several instrumentation companies I started and sold.
Electronics became an obsession for me. I had entered a world of magic. I built small radios from mail-order kits and learned basic electronics on my own through trial and error. I began to build my radio equipment from scratch. I connected to ham radio operators in the United States and many exotic places around the world. As the years passed, I accumulated a collection of strange-looking radio antennas, connected from tree to tree, pole to building, and even as tall towers. When the ionospheric conditions were right, I could talk all day to other ham radio operators all over the world.
After digging deeper into the mysteries of electronics, I decided to study electrical engineering. Among many university projects that absorbed my time and energy, I rebuilt a radar set. I worked with an ultrasensitive radio receiver that listened to stars light-years away and I programmed computers. I researched electronics that might at some point assume human intelligence. I managed to cover most of my college costs by writing software for my professors, and I felt confident that my future was bright.
Curiosity became my mental engine. It propelled me forward when I needed to find and develop a body of knowledge I could call my own. It is never too early or too late to define your curiosity.
