To get one funnel to change my oil, I had to buy the set of four. Life is tough, I could not even give the other funnels away. Would you like a funnel? I have some extras. That’s why I have a tough hobby--it keeps people problems in the background. Maybe I can find some way to use these in my act, but we won’t go there. Speaking of going anywhere, Cowboy Mike is in Jacksonville and Agt. M is in Georgia. Everybody gets out of town for the hot summers except me.
Instead, I was in the clinic again and reading the lobby magazine about a new “monocular” laser eye treatment, quite different from the laser I was getting in my veins. Instead of zapping your eyes to a lens prescription, they focus your dominant eye for distance and your other eye for close up reading. It’s easier and cheaper, but I’ll wait until I talk to somebody who did it. As Charlie at the club asked, “What happens when the DMV tests both your eyes?”I was lucky enough to find silver [one ounce bars] for less than $30, which doesn’t make sense because there is a run on the metal happening world-wide. Manipulation and sabotage, I tell you. They aren’t making any more 1 oz bars, the closest size to real currency in circulation. This is [we hear] what caused bar charges (up to $5) to get out of hand for the “better” brands like Engelhardt. If the trend continues, 5 oz bars may become the smallest available.
And another thing I don’t like is web sites that, when you hit the back arrow, take you one page up their menu instead of right out of their site. That’s today’s firstworldproblem. Programmers: it’s the tab key for page navigation and the back key (or backspace) for sites. Do I have to teach you everything? At least I was never a geek when I programmed, oh no, not me. No wonder most of those guys are funnel-less.
I googled many electronic sites last evening for amusement, and I was able to follow, understand, and/or predict all manner of these intermediate projects. Told you I could not learn in a curve, it’s all or nothing. Whole chunks of circuits now make sense. I’ll be revisiting our old friend, the 555 timer. To test if I’m getting it, that is, not just imagining so like some people, Ken, I timed myself a full hour and successfully built a counting circuit. Where before it was a challenge to light the LEDs, this time I got it to display meaningful information.
If I can get it to count, I can get it to measure. I was enthused but had to quit as I’ve bought all the available display chip sets in this town. But it is crystal clear in my mind what to buy and how to connect it, and that is real progress. My work bench is a mess; I’m not an electronics engineer. It is now only time until I invent something.
Make you a deal. I’ll upload a half hour video of me constructing this circuit if you’ll make some attempt to view it. I understand electronics is a nerdy field, I’m not expecting to meet women. You can expect countless hours of unsparing effort. Music teaches one the loneliness of deep concentration that 99% of people never attain. Watch at least part of the show, it leads to the stage where the first “number” chip started to count every 1,000th digital pulse. Tomorrow I take it to 100,000 with the option for 1,000,000. Sweet victory. (Later, it turns out I just bought the last chip in town again, so forget the million.)
As another example of things I can do now, take a look at this circuit. I know exactly what it does. The ST1, ST2 etc. are control stages. My guess is they are for stage separation, booster separation, parachute deployment, and event staging. Why, it’s a space rocket controller. You know how I know this? Not because I’m smart, but because I read the spec sheet. Ha, gotcha, but still. . . . &
nbsp; But I’ll tell you who is getting not smart. NTE, the circuit people. Every IC has an associated datasheet and the custom is you build it; you supply the sheet for free. The Internet is ideal for dissemination of this information. But NTE and their suppliers are going the Firestone Tire route, twisting every inquiry into a sales pitch. “The datasheet? Oh, yes, right away, sir. If you’ll just have a seat and fill out the credit application, as soon as I get down off this ladder, I’ll specially go check to see how many we have in inventory for you.” Grrrr.
Okay, here’s the circuit video I promised.
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