November 16, 2015

Yesteryear
One year ago today: November 16, 2014, identical cookie cutters . . .
Five years ago today: November 16, 2010, justifying the Arduino.
Six years ago today: November 16, 2009, oh boy, “swee-vawnts”!
Nine years ago today: November 16, 2006, guys, Lexmark is IBM.

MORNING
           Finally, I remembered to present a photo of the cream flavoring that does not work. Here you go, Walden Farms. Expensive as hell, like five bucks for the bottle here, you’d expect it to have some effect on your coffee or powdered milk. (I drink only powdered non-fat milk.) Nope. You can see my test glass, chilled, and mixed perfectly to spec. It proves what I’ve said, they can make such a flavoring any time, but for reasons unknown to the populace, they are intentionally not doing so.

           Remember my first digs in Florida, when I lived out near the Design District?. That’s where the Miami Labs is located, but in my day, it was a cement plant. Too bad, because that would have made a huge difference. They never opened until I moved twenty miles away. And Miami is one grueling drive even on good days. I was looking for something different, kind of a birthday present that I missed last week.
           Instead, nothing but brainless meetups. Futball, Lessons in Truth, Tennis, Pub Walk, Adult Gamers, Toastmasters, Deepen the Psyche, Eastern European Cooking, Learning Forgiveness, Toddler Story Time, Gay Togetherness, African Drum Class, and Meditation Circle. Is it any wonder I might just walk over to Dunkin Donuts? Or maybe seek the intellectual comforts of a thrift store?

           Now up in Boynton to see what meet-ups they offer. There is something called the “Intellectual Group”, where members can pose up to five questions for discussion. We know how quickly those devolve into debating societies, but this one clearly states that new members must be “approved by the Organizer” (their capital O). It could be a step in the right direction. Temper that with how they ask for donations. Hmmm, intellectuals begging for money? That doesn’t jive. Our little robot club has never sought outside money, and I doubt we would. Even Donald Trump would agree.
           What? Oh, folks, he’s in. Except for a few party hacks too stubborn to admit they’ve been wrong all along, Trump is in. By the biggest landslide in American history. Traditional thinkers know this is their last chance to save the country. The political rot has been up and down DC since the first World War brought in the income tax. It was really all downhill from there.
           Here’s something. The intellectual club insists you send a photo to be considered. Individuals only, couples must apply separately. Maybe I’ll keep an eye on that outfit. Make sure it isn’t a cover for Scientology or something. You did hear Hubbard (reportedly) lost his non-profit status in England? Selling those “e-boxes” for a 3,000% markup? That is a business in anybody’s eyes.

NOON
           Paris in the news again. Slow learners, them French. Weren’t they bombed in 1995? And look at the names of the “French” terrorists—Omar, Ismael, etc. God you people are stoopider than Americans. Best of all is their phony after-the-fact sympathy marches. That just provides a juicier target.

           France, if you want support, I want the names and address of the government officials who support the policy on non-European immigration because it is against the will of the French people. Like they should in America, I want the pictures of those politicians on the front page of the newspaper after every attack before you get an ounce of pity or help from me.
           Remember Kenth, the guitarist at the Walkabout? I talked to him on April 24th. He’s disappeared so I hope he got a great gig elsewhere. His slot has been taken over by the blond lady guitarist. Then again, maybe he moved to another day of the week when I’m never in the area to see.
           Then I find a train ticket for a trip to Winter Haven I don’t even remember. The Winter Haven part, I mean of course. The idea was the train trip, not the destination. Some may find it out of character, but not every trip is mentioned here. Only if that trip was, in itself, the momentous event of that day. And a few people have mentioned that my blog updates, usually early-morning, will trip their feeds detectors. Then they find that I’ve merely corrected some spelling or such.

           Lecture time. That means it is lecture time.
           Folks, this is not one of those blogs that is just fired off. Everything from the paragraph indents, to the pictures left and right, to the links and the cross-referencing is done painstakingly by hand. Those Yesteryear links are best done by pulling up the actual post and copying the data. All this takes time and brains, which might explain why so many other blogs are tediously alike—lazy authors. The look and feel of this blog is not automated, and anybody with the will to do so can go back and study the evolution of the format and content of what you see today.
           For that matter, one of the draws here (I read all correspondence) is how I don’t watch TV. Some like to see how long it takes for something on the telly to finally get picked up in this blog. I’m the excellent test scenario for that because of the following fact: The longer it takes for me to notice something that is blasted to the media hundreds of times a day, the less important it ALWAYS turns out to be.
           Example: I still have no idea what ESPN or CNN are. Television stations? Why would I know or care? Is television that important to those who doubt what I just said? Could be. The crux of what I’m saying is if you see a gif or a link or a factoid that is old hat to you, it is entirely new to me. Until Trump came along, I didn’t have the foggiest who “O’Reily” was. (Now I know he is an important nobody, a clingon.) I don’t listen to nonsense except from the youngest and prettiest of the women. That might be an important clue.

AFTERNOON
           On returning, I thought to use the new tablet to record some video. That’s a random event, no reason for doing it now. As soon as I had the camera setup, which with a tablet unless it is hand held is a major operation, guess what? The city pulled up with a truck next door and started up some chainsaws to remove that dead palm tree. Question, how did they know I was going to record? They didn’t just cut down the tree, they dragged it across the vacant lots to beneath my window and started slicing it up.

           I know, it’s pretty unbelievable no matter how many times you’ve seen it before—the peasants and lower orders seem to know exactly when you will try to get anything done. And interfere in some way that they can claim they are “just doing their job”, never establishing that behavior as the cause of them being a peasant. They can’t see the connection. It’s the hallmark of being a peasant.
           Well, the native sound of the tablet is not that great. I should get it off the tablet and play it on a decent system. But even the headphones had a bit of a bad sound even with bass boost set to ten. Actually, I don’t know if the files can even be transferred from the tablet, but there is a USB port and the thing must have some kind of system on it. I mean file system, not the Google-NSA tracking system that follows you even when the computer is turned off.

           You know, Trump has touched on the issue of privacy. Since I am convinced somebody on his team is reading this blog, let me mention the millions of extra votes he would get by putting some brakes on the surveillance of non-suspects, in the hopes that concept gets picked up. Not everybody is a hipster who accepts being shadowed 24/ as a voluntary condition of owning a telephone.
           Plus, that tablet cannot really be used as a computer despite having all the required components. You might say they are pieces of junk, but then, can fifty million Millennials be wrong? Relax, the peer pressure to conform was just as severe in my day. I just don’t happen to be one of the toadies who succumbed to it. And I have the “touch” aspect of the Android down pat. The problem is, the system itself is lousy. It seems to guess wrong about 40% of the time.
           Hence, I find myself doing a “hipster”. Trying to get a simple file to play back and I catch myself going through all those characteristic wasted motions I’ve seen in others. And criticized. When it doesn’t take a command, it seems to entail an average of six more actions to get it back on track. This is progress? I will find a cable and download the video files to a real computer. I can’t be wasting 40% of my computer time trying to interface with the damn thing.
           Most frustrating? When a given motion does not produce the same result when repeated. What? Oh, I’m a musician, I know a lot about performing the identical motions. If it doesn’t understand me, good luck to any fumblefingers. For the first little while, I actually blamed myself. But then I noticed when I handed my tablet to experienced users, they were not any better at it.

EVENING
           NiMH batteries. I’m into the testing phase and have mixed results. They do charge faster where nickel-cadmium should be “trickle charged”, the nickel-metal-hydride can take a fast charge and they get quite hot. Unlike cadmium, the metal hydride slowly discharges itself if you leave it unused, but it doesn’t have a memory and doesn’t work better if you deep discharge it before each charge. One improvement I would make is to have some distinctive design feature so people don’t keep mixing the two together. Mixing bothers both models.

           I chose not to go see “The Martian”, not being certain I can sit still for 2-1/2 hours. That’s when I hit the local pub with pen and paper (a lonely vigil) and re-mapped how to install those rear-facing hinges on the cPod. Last year or the year before, with no experience, we placed the hinges on the outside. This resulted in a gap at least twice the prevailing width of the thickest board. I figure put the swivel on the inside, so it will “squeeze” into whatever waterproofing material you put in the gap. I tend to put strips of rubber from old motorcycle inner tubes, but you can devise your own.
           Interesting, one of the properties that was “under contract” is back on the market. Contracts are pretty useless when the other guy has no money. This situation is becoming familiar to JZ & I, I shall go through our real estate lady early manana. The difference? We really do have the money. If I don’t sleep until noon. Remind me to check in on that property in the morning.

ADDENDUM
           Stats on shackups. That’s interesting, people who live together before getting married are six times more likely to fight and get divorced. Makes sense, considering how the laws instantly put a husband in a far more vulnerable position than a boyfriend. This is from a book on how to date “the right way”. Probably meaning play hard to get, which only works for the young and innocent. Pssst, that’s none of us. And another stat says that 71% of women say they would never live with the same guy again. That makes even more sense. Sorry guys, she doesn’t love you any more.
           That’s why I believe in very long engagements. Any woman can pretend to be interesting for a few months. I understand my arrangement would be considered very unfair to most women, but I’ve had a few who were perfectly okay with it until it was time to move on. And besides, any other arrangment is very unfair to me. I estimate 95% of the women who ever had anything to do with me were after money, though not in a malicious way. Only the other 5% made any difference in my life, only they get truly remembered.
           I can’t stand women who are indifferent about you until they find out you’d make an excellent sugar daddy, husband, sucker, whatever. I didn’t say it was wrong. I said I didn’t like it.


Last Laugh


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