Off the bat, let me report a successful club meeting. Within five minutes of the demo, beginners were able to answer questions about which diodes to move to change the display. That is a major underlying principle here. Yes, I’ve already thought of a bingo display. It would cost a fortune. The club approved my motion to set aside $620 to pursue the kit. Seriously, you should see the faces light up when somebody “gets it”. They shine brighter than an LED about to fry.
Here is a photo of the seven-segment display showing the intensity of the work. The individual signal wires are shrink-wrapped to prevent solder shorts. This is definitely one of the pieces I would modularize. There are 51 solder joints in this instance, most of which had to be made purposely smaller than regular.I contacted E24 to miniaturize and plan the PCB (printed circuit board). It is the single most important, and also the one that I doubt anyone has build this way before. It all depends on the degree to which the end-user wants to learn anything. But I can guaranty if you do what I did, you will have utter and complete understanding of every last tidbit that went into this thing.
This being Friday [with no gig] I stayed home to relax and read, this time research. Ha, I learned as a teen not to go out Fridays and waste money. This time I chose to read about the chemicals in Alka-Seltzer (there’s more in there than baking powder so be careful) and to examine the most recent run on banks in the modern era. That turned out to be in England in 2008. You see, money has fundamentally changed since the last time banks ran out of money in the 1930s, so I thought to read up on it. These days, the bank need only get more money printed up for its “reserve”.
That is allegory since the bank no longer really uses printed money. The dollars you and I see are less than 5% of the money in the world. The rest is electronic money created from nothing. The big banks learned long ago if you increase the rate at which money moves, the less if it you need make people think there is enough to go around. When you pay a bill on-line, there is every good chance the money was created and placed in your account a few microseconds after you pressed “Enter”.
With an infinite supply of money, how could a bank go under? That, I could not find out. But I do know it has to do with conditions banks must meet before the national “central bank” releases the freshly printed money. What was scary was in the various videos I watched how few politicians have any grasp on how the money system works. Anyone who has passed Economics 101 knows you cannot have economic growth if everybody puts their money in a savings account.
And I was stunned to learn that 30% of adults still believe the bank keeps their savings in the vault. Maybe in a shoebox with their name on it, or a little pink piggy bank? I used to joke about opening a bank that really did this, but that was before I found out 30%. To go further, a lot of people still believe that the money in the bank is from old people’s savings and the bank lends it out to young people to buy houses.
This is the point I like to remind people that I never set out to get rich. I would not turn it down, but nor would I sacrifice my life for it. Rather, I am preparing to cash in on the time differential between a currency collapse and the emergence of the follow-on. People who spent a lifetime paying for a house will still think $300,000 is a lot of money until it is too late. That’s where I will strike. From terrific altitude. With deadly accuracy.
I put in a few hours this afternoon searching for gigs, but do not expect miracles from the new band. It doesn’t work that way. The market for a four-piece band isn’t that huge. Florida is so innately stupid, many clubs will ask if you have a following. Duh, if you had a following, they would have already followed you to where you are playing now in which case you’d hardly be wasting time looking for work. Trust me, if any band really had a real following, business is so bad the local clubs would be fist-fighting to book them.
That’s Florida. Even the business model is ridiculous. An alcohol seller would be loopy to place his business success in the hands of musicians. Think about it. Bands are there to sell music, not beer. But, that already represents thinking more than one layer deep, so no wonder such logic escapes the masses. In fact, thinking to the third level, under their twisted ideas, unless their club always paid top dollar, the most they’ll ever get is the second best band.
The only bite I got was the French-Canuck club who are looking to host a lady’s night. At least they didn’t say no. It is also the beginning of the worst season to find work. I’ll work the angle to build that night they should start now rather than after the tourists arrive in November. I’m a prime example how getting paid to practice pays off. This club wants a freebie before they book, an old ploy band managers call a two-for-one sale.
Every source reports the same, that clubs are finally beginning to favor duos again. This makes sense in a town where all the solo acts play exactly the same song lists to the same backing tracks. I will be satisfied just to be out there again, but make no mistake about it, I have every intention of creating a duo at the first opportunity. That should be easier when I’m again moving in the circles of non-solo working musicians. All I need is that one guitar player who does what he is told.
Last, congratulations on the diode-based ROM are pouring in from worldwide. Singapore reports they did not even know this was possible. Thanks to all, I assure everyone I am very happy with this outcome and I have further stages in planning. The cost of the working prototype was around $7 out of pocket and a week of sleepless nights grappling with the Grendel.
ADDENDUM
My note last day that bonds were a public expense drew fire. I would not touch a bond these days knowing that real inflation is on the way. I’ll say it again, bonds are a type of tax on the entire system. Very rarely are bonds redeemed for cash. They are usually sold to others or for more bonds. Thus, whenever bonds crash, it brings down the system along with it. Bonds are like debts and there is not enough money in the world to pay back all the bondholders in the cash promised.
My example currency crash is the Kuwaiti disaster of 1982. Their version of a stock exchange, being run out of a former camel parking garage, burgeoned into billions until one check bounced. Everything was paid for by post-dated check until one lady went into a bank and asked for the money. Ker-boom, 98% of the wealth disappeared in that moment.
The same will eventually happen here, except this country is not sitting on a vast oilfield to bail us out. Our infrastructure is one of the oldest in the world.
Today's eclipse.
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