Kudos to the Wonka company. This is a box of candy. When you open it up, it really is full of product. Or they’ve invented a candy that is far less apt to “settle during shipping” than Smarties or M&Ms. True also that bottle caps are the cheapest possible of all candy but the box is full and you gotta like that. Are you listening, Nutty Club?
Speaking of misleading packaging, don’t you hate DVD covers that show photographs but inside it is an animated version. I got scammed and bought a Van Helsing cartoon. The world “animated” appears once in the fine print on the reverse side. Most memorable line of the movie: “Lay back. Close your eyes. Think of England.”I like anything free even if it doesn’t exist in the strictest sense. If you go to the Publix on 203rd, you will find a free Wi-Fi coffee shop. The Internet connection is free, and the coffee is free. It is at the front of the store with windows facing the street. Is it permanent or an experiment? Will a few bad apples take advantage? Either way, if it creates a Starbucks-free zone, it has my support.
The ongoing work with the robot motor and gears leads me to an understanding why engineering is such a fragmented subject. You don’t often meet one of them smart enough to grasp the whole field. It’s a world of compromises and tradeoffs not by need, but by design. Each discipline seems cheaped-out and fine-tuned at the expenses of the others. This again reduces me to trial and error, the worst learning method ever devised.
What to do in this heat except stay inside and read? I was at the library y’day but I’ve read all the good books in that branch. I even got to reading how to weld and another useless chapter on antennas. As for robotics, I’ve gotten to a stage where things are complicated enough I can’t study for more than a half-hour at a stretch. So I was watching old war movies on ThisTV. With the German Shermans.
With the studies, I am at least once again reaching levels others must have reached, as with the H-bridge. I’d never heard of these before, now I must learn to build them. What a curious way to learn anything. Textbooks are a major waste of time in electronics. Or, you find a good text but it is not understandable until you’ve already learned what it is talking about.
I must be getting somewhere since I find I’m often and regularly defining a problem before I discover anything about it in writing. Like the H-bridge. I was trying to figure out how to get a motor to reverse without using up too many costly Arduino outputs. What would it be like to not have to consider the cost, to just forge ahead? My estimate is I’m studying 60 hours per week on the topic, that is, more hours than when I attended university.
The club meeting was dominated by this H-bridge, which we learned is apparently a common apparatus to those who go into air conditioning repair. During the meeting, we discovered the same type of bridge is used to operate electric car door locks and certain pneumatic operations. This robotics club was one of the smartest ideas I’ve had in this century.
I then went for late coffee, partially to avoid the new lady. I discover the staff finds her repetitious conversation style as exasperating as myself. Then I got inspired to take the eBike out to the beach. There were two bands on the beach, Toucan’s and the Walkabout. Both stocky middle-aged househusbands playing the usual “look at me” standards taught at guitar school. All with gleaming new expensive gear polished up between each gig. And somebody should tell short men those beach pants make them look like bow-legged little monkeys.
I met a guitar player who said he played some country, but a beach bench audition showed he was just another soloist gone wrong. The type that think they are so kewl they can play anything that pops into their heads and if you were at all “in the pocket”, you’d be able to “follow” them. Mind, they lack any ability whatsoever to follow you because, like man, you aren’t even a guitarist or nothin’, so get real.
HWB is no more. Barry sold out a few months back and it is now “Jakes”. I went in to wish everybody the best and there is a strong chance of a mid-week gig. For reasons unknown, the lack of tourists has rebounded in a busy local crowd. I’d say it was busier tonight that last January-February prime season, probably 600 people on the broadwalk, a truly surprising throng.
My incentive to play the beach is because the crowd is likely to change on a weekly basis. My show works best on people who’ve never seen a bass act. That does not mean I can’t endure, anyone who thinks my act is flash in the pan can refer to my record two-year gig at Jimbos. Maybe I can’t play anything as technically correct as the average guitarist but with their Saharan personalities they best never dare call bingo.
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