I rode the big bus to the Ft. Lauderdale library a day after I said that wasn’t likely. The reason is I woke up feeling not so great and I’ve learned lately not to push that parameter. Nothing serious, and ten years ago I would have ignored it and gone right in to work. Here is a display of copper ore from the IMAX science museum where I wound up later. It has a beauty in itself, if you ask me.
Here’s the day chonologically. I decided on the bus so as to take it easy, but first off I had to pay the full fare. It seems a new ID card is required to get the discount and a half-day waiting in line for the card. That’s the modern mind-set. If you are old or disabled you have nothing better to do all day.As I entered the library, there were some veterans giving a historical quiz. I think their point was to show how non-military types (such as myself) had no understanding or appreciation of the various wars. Boy, did they pick the wrong guy to make a bad example. I answered every question before they finished asking it and corrected them on some of the finer details. They’re probably still wondering what in hell hit them.
Take for instance this extremely rare photo of the first US drone beside its German (not Nazi, one of the aforesaid finer details) counterpart, the V-1 missile. This primitive contraption actually sank a few Jap ships. It looks like it was built by Cessna and you can see the 500 pound bomb slung under the fuselage. I mean really, propellers in 1944? Examples of future drones that failed to make any real impact include Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and the entire US Department of Agriculture.
The touted main library had four books on electronics, three on basics and one that presumed you had a machine shop handy. Another tedious pattern is the projects. They are much the same in books published 30 years apart. The traffic light, the water depth sensor, the English police car siren. Has nobody come up with anything new? Again, there were no intermediate level schematics, I would define that level as having 4 to 6 integrated circuits and 80 to 100 connections.In two and a half hours, by skipping the duplicate chapters, I read all four books and derived one project. A 555 timer that buzzes for 60 seconds unless you hit the stop button. That’s it. I was hoping for more and so I strolled over to the IMAX. The only 3-D film was a cartoon about penguins that cost $14. When I asked why the price was double, they said it was a special feature. Like I cared. It turns out the $8 films I like are science productions by IMAX, where the bird movie was a studio product.
The plot was for kids, although kids are not allowed unaccompanied into that theater. The characters were all 1960s stereotypes with Mexican, Swedish, and Irish accents. The musicals were a little too reminiscent of gospel for me. But the depictions of Antarctica were phenomenal for a fiction production. The producers knew about krill swarms, global warming, penguin species, whale feeding, and blizzard flocking. They pulled a boner, mind you, on that scene with the polar bears.
Later, across the street, there is a huge screen TV set up. I don’t know it is seasonal or who puts it on. While I was the only patron in the IMAX, the park had a small crowd watching “Home Alone”. Bring your own folding chair and popcorn. Here’s hoping this photo gives you some idea of the screen size as I took this from a good 100 feet away. Where I had planned on doing a quick guitar set at the club, I just wasn’t up to it after getting off the bus. I walked a mile today and it wore me down. Me, the guy who loves to walk! The purpose of the library today was several electrical concepts that were not making sense. I decided to meet them head on. These include circuits I designed that should work but don’t. It’s my feet that are tired, not my brain.
I did not make headway, since the chances of finding a book that addresses my questions is fantasy. But having used one in practice, my understanding of integrated circuits is leapfrogging to the point where it is time to place a big order. I’ve glossed over most of the formulas in all this, and a large number of burned out LEDs later, I’ve learned to choose components in the mid-range, like always using a 22k resistor on the transistor base. Or choosing a 100nF capacitor for the 555 timers.
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So there. How was your day?
