As luck would have it, I found a supplier of Integrated Chips, and only three miles from here. I still don’t trust the Internet when items might have to be returned. While the place here is expensive and doesn’t have everything, they’ve enough to keep me busy. I glanced at their homebuilt panel and knew exactly how the store alarm system worked somewhat to the amazement of the clerk.I returned here with the goodies, three ICs. A 4001, a 4011 and a 4051. You’ll probably find out what they do shortly. Today I stuck with the 4011, something called a “quad NAND gate”. That’s a fancy way of saying it contains 4 switches called gates, each of which has two inputs and one output. You can easily look up a truth table for this type of gate. By midnight I still had not got one working, which is precisely the right kind of learning curve for me.
Stopping by the library, I found some large scale maps of Florida and Alabama. This library has zero books on electronics. So I looked in some carpentry and medical books. I was seeking information on a malady called “mahogany poisoning”. The Internet is silent on that subject and I found nothing in the library either. It is a serious condition that woodworkers get from sawing mahogany veneer. So that will have to be your trivia for today.
This month’s Popular Mechanics talks about inventions. I was more interested what they had to say about musical inventions, in particular, the MP3 format. This is the music style I switched over to in 2006. It was only invented in 2003 and I am normally very slow to adopt any new and untried format. (CDs took me 15 years.) But I knew MP3 was going to change everything. By 2007, my music show was entirely dependent on it. The ability to buy songs one by one instead of an entire album was a boon to Apple, but not to the music industry.
You see, when CDs were the only format, the average American spent something like $65 per year on music. Now that has dropped to an all time low of around $23, and that is more trivia for today. Myself, I don’t care if music-selling companies go under. They control the distribution system and that’s what you are paying for. The Internet takes care of distribution now, so maybe it is goodbye CD store. Why pay $20 to get one or two good tracks.
I’ll say it again, I would like to see music return to touring musicians in front of small live audiences. No one hit wonders, no $400 stadium tickets, no recording contracts. You pay to hear your favorite performer and his band live at the local auditorium or club. Performers learn to get along without a half-million in road gear. The artist makes good money only if he works a full 40-hour week and puts on a good show. It’ll never happen, but I’d like to see it.
There’s an app for that? The person who thought of allowing users to write apps was a genius. Two apps that impressed me today? One that zaps a loud but inaudible beam at barking dogs. And you know how people flick their bic at concerts? Now you can bring up a perfectly safe flame on your iPhone. Brilliant, as it were.
