One year ago today:March 30, 2013
Five years ago today: Missing or no post.
Instead, here's a decade earlier March 30, 2003 where I mention Acapulco.
And Russian spies.
Here’s the graduate engineer’s concept of an LED “lightbulb”. Why so? Because it is an outdated design, uses an old format, is five times as expensive as what it replaces, and throws about half the light in the wrong direction. I went to Senor Café for breakfast and the lineup was so long I missed the window for breakfast. However, a few chosen Spanish words got me a big plate of sautéed potatoes with bell peppers. Sorry, onlookers, you have to get your own. The staff here knows me. This late morning bite was on bingo, which surprisingly is slowly edging back toward profitability.
What kept me reading, however, was an insight into the tank crew as they fought. On the English side, you hear of screaming, yelling, swearing, and mayhem. On the German side, the speaker invariably spoke methodically, even calmly. “We shot the first tank. Then we shot the second tank. The Commander said turn left and we saw a Grant tank about to shoot us. We quickly fired two shells and disabled it.” Some of the crewmen would describe knocking out six or seven Allied tanks and driving on like it was routine.
Then around noon I trucked on to the Frenchie flea market. Did you know that all French tourists are over 70? For the first time since I was last in Acapulco, I bought a new wallet. That means something like twenty-five years. Like jewelry stores, wallet-makers will never get rich off me. I’m not expecting to find such quality any more. Here is a picture of the old grey leather, now cracked and faded like my neckline from driving a motorcycle. Below it is the cheap pseudo-leather half-plastic replacement made of Chinese pigskin from India. And they both cost the same. Five bucks.
Here is my plan. The data is analog but interpreted by the Arduino as digital. This is a format which is fixed: analog to digital. There are no naturally occurring digital functions in nature. What I have in cheap supply are LDR (light dependent resistors), a component that changes resistance depending on the amount of light falling on it. My plan is to put these in a row facing an ordinary bulb thermometer. Then finagle things until the resistors tell me the temperature by the amount of light blocked by the colored fluid.
I’ll try to post a diagram if I draw one, for now it is just an idea I got riding the bicycle. Did I describe it clearly enough? Say I put the LDRs in a small, long trough. Then I put the thermometer above this arrangement. As the temperature goes up and down, the shadow of the thermometer fluid will move over more or less of the resistors. I presume this would work best on sunny days. But it would be easy to shut it down if it was cloudy or dark. That’s like one or two commands. Ah, I heard that from the back row. Someone muttered this is just another project I hope to sell to the science fair people. You, step to the head of the class.
However, this does not solve the problem of the expensive Arduino. We are aware of the Arduino circuit board that uses a chip removed from the original Arduino. But we can find no clear instructions on how to accomplish this. Nor are we predisposed to ordering something first and hoping we’ll be able to decipher the instructions that come in the package. And we still have to find a supplier willing to cooperate as did Hacktronics. Did I tell you they are back in business? Yes, but without our former excellent contact and their offerings are skeletal by comparison.
Wait, there’s more. The five-piece band finally plays a good 20% newer material from the lady singer. This may result in more and better gigs. I don’t regard this as chance, for this new music and lady combination has done something I could never have accomplished without excessive arguments—it pushed weaker old material into the background. You’re darn tootin’ I pay very close attention to what she’s up to. While the music is still a generation earlier than even my folk-country list, it is boomer music and that’s your paying crowd. I’m the first to vote yes for house parties and the new sound is a much better fit for such venues.
If we get booked often, this is the happy situation that would stop me from traveling. It is practically the only thing that would, I’ll let you know. If we get any type of weekly work, I much prefer playing to spending my own cash to get out. It is the way I’ve been geared for a lot of years. Don’t extend what I just said to conclude I like playing in a band on the road. I don’t. That is a rotten lifestyle and don’t you believe a word about the constant wild parties. I’d change my mind if we were given free accomodations for playing the Smithsonian. But that’ll be the day.
Did I really start drinking decaf on December 5, 1992? That’s what y’day’s link said. It makes sense. I was living in Venezuela about that time and would have just met that Argentine jet pilot. The guy who got me to quit putting sugar in my java. I’ll say the date must be accurate, as this blog back then was a hand-written journal. That’s a huge difference in effort expended to make a point, so the point stands.
Band rehearsal today was discouraging, but a bad session before a gig is expected somewhat. The problem I see is the band has changed the PA system a few weeks ago. The new setup has a heavy bass midrange. This means the lower guitar riffs clash with the upper bass runs. But this band has a solid, uncompromising resistance to anything originating from or by the bassist—whatsoever. Even when I am totally right, and you can judge that by how often I am totally wrong, I often have to wait a week for somebody else in the band to grudgingly allow the change. My goal is defeating that PA system, since it muffles the bass. It’s a Peavy, with tricky harmonics. I’ve done it before but can’t recall the solution. And the gig is in five days.
ADDENDUM
You know, I don’t arbitrarily view material about WWII. I have an associate degree on this era of history and I as well have an interest in the subject. I regularly plan the topics I’m going to investigate. Back when I studied for finals, questioning of this history was not permitted. Any but the official versions meant a wrong answer. Here is a list of some items I’m planning to look into more closely.
The first Battle of El Alamein. The few roadways in the area are shown clogged by British vehicles, thousands of them. Even if the claim of Allied air superiority was true, that was a dumb thing for any commander to leave exposed for days on end. There has to be some other explanation.
Here’s one that smells to high heaven. That half-baked story about the broken water distiller on Midway Island. Even if the Jap code had been broken, I don’t see that a bunch of white boys from West Point learned to read it well enough to do what they claimed. And I don’t see the Imperial Navy being set up that easily.
That copper wire is to be replaced by a resistor that partially biases the circuit. What is bias? It means to use a voltage divider to step down a larger voltage to a level that matches the input design of the transistor. What I’m trying to do here is adjust the blue dial so this circuit turns itself on at a certain spot. Just like you do with your outdoor security light.
This is a fascinating hobby. Getting something lifeless thing like electricity to do all kinds of outwardly intelligent things. Tomorrow I pick up my new parts delivery from the warehouse. Alas, it was missing the LDR pieces I needed for my A/D (analog to digital) thermometer project. Actually, it would not be the first time I got an idea seemingly at the same time as a whole whack of other people. Then the supplier sells out due to over-demand. Seriously, this happens a lot in my life. What irks me about that is there is no mad scientist I can compete with. Rather than an individual who repeatedly bests me, I seem to be up against countless masses. And the stream of them is never-ending.
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