Here’s the seashore wildlife. These are pelicans sitting in a tree, something that surprised me at least as much as seeing ducks do the same. This is beside the Bal Harbor cut and I would have missed it except for all the noise. In several ways, this month has been a record-breaker. Several sources have, since Saturday, confirmed the Karaoke observations written here at that time.
It’s cold and dark out there this morning, meaning I got another concentrated four hours of study on robotics into my head. I use the term loosely as I’m a beginner at this. One emerging peculiarity is that I was right years ago about not having to learn all those sine and cosine wave formulas. It was enough to know how the thing behaves to work with it. It is kind of like computer schools that make you memorize the Ethernet wire colors. Y’day I priced out parts, the major supplier is still the Shack. They are preposterous, selling disk drive power couplers for $5 each. These are those little white plastic 4-wire clips that come out of your computer power supply. For $5 I can get you twenty of them. I guess I’m disappointed that Radio Shack moved from bulk low end supplier to pricey high-end single-item packaging. I understand they have an expensive distribution network to support but they should streamline instead of overcharge, in my humble opinion.
I decided to learn that Afroman tune, “Cause I Got High”. I was surprised by the complications caused by the layers of harmonies. Talk about fun to learn. Watch me fake it on the bass, this tune was made for my act. The vocal syncopation is confusing but the bass line can be easily morphed into question-answer, and that’s the horse I rode in on.
I’ve decided not to publish the full results, but I’ve got some fine data on seventeen different mobile homes for sale in this immediate area. These represent the entire spectrum of those trying to get their money back to outright panic sales. Forget supply and demand, there is no demand. You can probably guess which avenue I am following.
Ray-B e-mailed that he’s found a Fishmann PA Solo on sale for $599. I don’t have the cash but that price is within striking distance. This got me reviewing costs and here is something notable. Today I bought an LED flashlight, the kind that use the 3 AAA batteries. I held it up and thought just a few years ago such a device could not be purchased at all. The parts existed in America, but nothing else.
It has 9 LED diodes, plus the wiring, case, battery holder, switch and a carrying strap. You’ve got the right guy to tell you those LEDs retail for 40 cents apiece in this country. The product of 9 x .40 is $3.60, yet I bought this flashlight retail for $1.95. That flashlight was not built here. Woe to the working class, China has not yet begun to fight. I’ve had a lot to say concerning this point about China in the past.
What’s more is these LED devices use electricity to produce light, not heat. The one I hold in my hand is rated (and guaranteed) for 100,000 hours of operation. That beats those USA-made Eveready bulbs at the corner hardware by 50,000 times, nor do they contain those cheap-ass Eveready filaments that break at the tiniest jar. No matter how Chinese products are berated, only a fool could not recognize the price advantages of even the worst quality of such imports. I can buy fifty Chinese pieces of junk and still come out ahead of paying ridiculous American prices.
Worst item of the day is that I was scam-changed ten dollars at Burger King. I stopped for coffee in a hurry and didn’t spot the rip-off until too many hours later to complain. I’ve mentioned scam-changing before, and this is the third time I’ve fell for it in eleven years, all in Florida. I’ll describe the trick.
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Normally, you get your change by the clerk placing the coins in the cup of your hand and returning the bills with the largest denomination on top. If you break a twenty, the change is returned with the ten dollar bill is facing upwards, so if there is a mistake, it concerns a smaller note. The scam works by the clerk putting the large bill on the bottom, then covering the stack of bills with the receipt, thus forcing you to take the receipt if you want your change. Then the clerk balances the coins on top of this pile, so you cannot easily flip it over to count the bills without dropping the coins.
I know it seems trivial, but they’ve cheated me for $30, all were for a ten-dollar bill and all were at fast food joints. What are the odds? Multiply that by the millions of customers and even the dumbest clerk knows sooner or later comes out ahead, and if caught, why it was just an “honest mistake”. Hail to the business that first recognizes and prohibits scam-changing.
ADDENDUM
In good news, I may have found an electronics supplier, Hacktronics , who will accept money orders without all the eBay fuss. eBay wants more personal database information than a credit application to get a PayPal account and does not enforce the rule against depositing money orders like checks. You never deposit a money order and wait for it to “clear” because money orders are already cleared.
A money order means the buyer paid his cash up front and wants the goods now. If you still want a deposit, you first cash the money order and then deposit the cash. eBay is pretty clueless over this procedure and I suspect is too stupid to grasp the concept, much less insist on it. But I suppose also to blame is the fact that a money order looks much like a check, at least to the grossly uneducated.
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