January 31, 2011

           Here's the Pudding-Tat. Again spending long hours sleeping beside me, usually while I spend the long hours reading. Say hello again to Florida's most famous blog cat. She patrols the neighborhood, making sure the local birds don't get too comfortable.
           Many changes at the scooter shop. The new mechanic has experience running things and the bustle is replaced with steady work. I helped him get photos off his cell (phone) and wrote up a few ads for Craigslist.
           Ray-B called. Nothing is written here, but there was considerable talk in my circles over the past three months about the suspicious advertising that's appeared from a place called Jacaranda. It may be the rip-off we predicted. It seems Ray-B has to, at his own expense, chase down the owner to get paid. I say again, the only people who object to a blacklist are those destined to be on it.
           My new companion blog, "Minutes" contains descriptions of some of my experiments. The radio item 009 has provoked lots of questions. All I can tell you is to try it. You can make a coil out of old wire and a toilet paper tube, the capacitor is nothing but tin foil and wax paper. You can buy a diode for 5 cents. It is the antenna that is most of the fun. Every wire around you is an antenna. We used to joke the best way to listen to the Blues was to connect the radio the the wire mesh of a garbage can.
           Google has changed their search algorithm to include a space between words. How finally brilliant of them twenty years after they taught the world to do it the wrong way. And they screwed this up too, for if you don't want a space, it inserts one, does the search and later asks if you wanted the original space. It now breaks "very atlantic" into two words. Now everybody's memorized searches get the wrong response. No matter, the good blogs like this will always rise to the top again.
           Meanwhile, google finds a Boolean "AND" of the two words and returns garbage. Such as European travel guides and a company making storm shutters. Trust google to get it wrong again, since it still does not recognize the whole phrase, the two search terms don't even have to be close together in the text. Duh, google.
           I'm beginning a new mystery novel, "At Risk", by Patricia Cornwell. Have I read something else by her recently? I opened it at a random page and read "those stupid spinning hubcaps" and instantly knew I wanted to read this book.