Why a photo of the door latch? Because this paragraph is out of sequence. This is the new digital camera work described below. It is also a celebration of finding out what “latch” meant in the context of electronics. It means about the same, to holds things open or closed until released, but just you try to get that information out of the bastards. Anyway, notice the shiny metal and this is about to get rigged with an unbeatable home-built alarm that, although not RFID, is RFID compatible.
I slept for 11 hours. This isn’t a blog about my habits, but that little nap rated as most unusual, so it’s listed. That was after I spent one of the least interesting evenings of my life, sitting here at home like Joe & Mary Shmeeb. Do other people really live that way? Don’t take it to mean I sat in front of the boob tube, I read 23 projects in the new electronics manual. What I mean is I worked for and therefore deserve a better Saturday night than average.Plenty was accomplished, but even for me, partying on stage downtown is still more fun than learning. There’s probably a balance to things I don’t appreciate as the price one pays for never being bored. I must focus on the positive. For example, items that were bamboozling 90 days ago are now in short supply, such as 47µF capacitors and double throw switches. So you know, a four IC project is on the drawing boards, where in August we didn’t know how logic gates even worked.
First, it is breakfast on bingo and then to Big Lots for a new digital camera. Sorry, Vivitar, you don’t make the grade. I’ve had a ten dollar Argus that blows you out of the water. Then analog meters. A while back I ran across somebody selling them by the pound, now I can’t find him or remember where. Also, I’ve been asked about the term “first world problem”. This is an Internet sarcasm about what comfortable first-world residents consider a crisis compared to what third world unfortunates go through every day.
[Author’s note: I found the meters and ordered five at $3.00 each. They are totally outmoded by digital models, but the swing needles are an invaluable learning tool. This blurry photo is explained below.]
Plus, a new term has entered our vocabulary. First encountered in writings by Cutcher, how do you like “solder jockey”? It is meant to describe those who work on assembly lines, but we extend it to include those who solder together kits and call themselves robot builders. Today, I am installing the seventh hard drive on the super-computer and it goes back to the seller under warranty if that does not solve the boot-up trouble once and for all. I hate MicroSoft.
We have a new Emerson digital camera. It’s a vast improvement over the Jazz predecessors, better designed and faster to bring into action. It lacks macro, that is it blurs objects closer than around a foot away. All this after I missed three classic photos this morning. An unusual gathering of birds at the casino lot, two cars backing into each other at the supermarket, and a scattering of aluminum cans. I’ll explain. There is a recycling trash bucket near the office door during tourist season. But the wind can blow it over at night and there is a wind eddy in the driveway.
This sets the metal rolling around the parking lot with a terrible intermittent racket following the gusts and drafts. I can sleep through anything, so I thought I’d see how long before it drove the Frenchies crazy. Around five hours. When I got up at dawn, the cans were kicked all over the office lawn where they don’t roll and the bucket was stuffed into the dumpster. Ha! But I missed the photo.
While doing a shop at Radio Shack, another customer there, a young black guy, overheard the staff and I. He’s in his second year at Broward College taking electrical engineering. We talked for 30 minutes. Guess what? He’s out thousands of dollars and realized he doesn’t really know any more than we do after $300. Uh-oh. What’s more, while I was working a $41 budget for the next club project, he was mournfully unversed about costs and procurement. Guess the college feels no need to teach any of that. I know mine didn’t. “That’s business school,” they’d say.
After hours, I watched DVD movies using my bingo music machine. I’ve demoted it, as it is starting to skip and chirp. The output jack (Toshiba) was one of those triple-ring 1/8” jacks that sell for $30. By deft stringing together pieces from a jar I’ve owned well over 30 years, I was able to fake the interface (though not in stereo). The replacement cost of these adaptors is around $300 today. One way or another, it’s the same old jacks, so there’s your logic and proof that by changing to “new” technology every few years, the manufacturers have bilked millions of unwary consumers for an average of $300 each.
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