Ray-B is back from the boonies. May I add that he finally knows I’m right about country music and about how bad the situation is here in Florida? T’is true, he was in Tennessee and got bowled over at what he saw, which is exactly what I’d said and nobody believed me. He checked out all kinds of clubs and reports the caliber of musicianship is far above this area. Got that right.What’s more, he finally saw the effect of country music. People were, he reports with some astonishment, “paying attention”. (The opposite of my complaint they’ll turn back to their beers after the first verse of any blues music.) All the Florida zekes need is a distant disco beat, drums in the jungle. Ray-B reports rooms full of blonde babes going wild, and bands with fiddles and steel guitars. No admission fee. It’s what I’ve been saying all along to anyone who would listen. But Florida has gone without country music so long that even the demand dried up.
I find Tennessee quaint. It’s a has-been area. No famous country bands have come out of there in twenty years. Every band is still chasing that golden ring, yet we are in an era of solo chick singers and pretty-boy crooners. Maybe, just maybe Ray-B will follow my logic that a single dynamite country duo around here will pick up all the $1200 conventions, upscale weddings, and private yacht parties.
A new diet pill is on the market. After a dozen years of research, they claim the pill helps reduce weight by 5%. Doesn’t sound like much of a leap forward if you ask me. And the drug works only in conjunction with a diet and exercise program, which, if done right, would lose all the extra pounds without any drug.
Colorado was on the phone. We are both working full tilt on the visit and I’ve arranged to have a heart test before leaving. That’s where I was this morning when the rainstorm hit. From clear sky to drenching downpour in less time than it took me to slow down and pull under a handy canopy. Which was the front of a second hand store. I bought a book on Mississippi so outdated it was a laugh.
I’ve only been through Mississippi twice and once was at night. But I know the state is full of “ghost towns” caused by the railway or politics or freeways that bypassed them. It’s a misnomer because usually a few people still live there. The whole coastal strip was populated for so long there seems to be a rundown group of shacks every five miles, though I wonder if they could still be there. The last time I saw anything was 1984. I would like to drive through again, this time a lot slower.
And how did my six-month medical go? There are no objections to the trip though I’ll wait for a heart test before asking about any return to work (part time). The heart murmur is apparently under control provided I leave it alone. The lower back pain when I walk has got to be a side effect. The regimen is to go off the prescription which affects my kidneys and see if the condition clears. I love walking, my record is something like 850 miles in two months.
More banking information. Remember that foreign currency check that took 19 weeks for my money? Well, monolithic US banks are taking up to 45 days to “clear”. Who came up with that one? They encode the check, send it to the “treasury” which sends it to the other country’s “treasury” and waits for the issuing bank to okay the funds. What a joke.
They are living in the Stone Ages. US banks teleport you back to 1962. But who knows, one day they will hear of a “computer” connected to the “Internet”. Even Venezuela and Thailand have faster systems. The authorities say it is to prevent fraud and terrorism and whatever, but the whole setup spells hidden agenda.
I mean, people, Canada is only 1100 miles that way. It’s closer than Las Vegas. It’s a first-world country, with real telephones and electricity. A check from there should clear in 45 seconds, not 45 days. Get real. Somebody’s got their head up their azz.
One piece is good enough. Show me one piece of Canada ID and prove you have a SIN number, and I would cash any government, welfare, tax refund, pension or certified check you got. That’s a plum ripe for the plucking.
Factoid: I used to run my own loan and check cashing business from my desk at the phone company. Even had payday advances and the only thing I needed to see was your employee ID card. Think about it. The banking system here sucks.
ADDENDUM
Time for a robot update. Most study and programming since May last year hasn’t been logged as it was often refinements of earlier topics. We’ve tested more than enough individual components (in isolation) that, if combined, would produce impressive results. I’ve motioned that prior to any club commitments to build any combination, we retest what’s been learned.
Aside: Retesting will take time though much faster than the agony of first learning. I swear for all the damn help we got around here, we might as well have operated in a vacuum. Thanks for nothing, all you authors, tutorials, and libraries. None of you made any bleeding sense until we did everything the hard way. The way you people write is as if you are the town dimwits who took your bicycle apart and forgot how to put it back together and dad’ll be home soon.
I’ve also tabled that what we are best at is the micro-controlled operation of small motors. You may have seen my early video. I always felt, wrongly, if it didn’t move, it wasn’t a robot. Without coding, the speed and direction of these motors is a mechanical swampland. And we studied hard to be this dumb because we know that those last mentioned elements are useless for robotics unless the acceleration is delicately managed.
You read it here first. I believe we are first, at a beginner’s level where it is most important, to mention this critical factor. There is another hugely important point the experts don’t stress. No, a few disjointed examples after you’ve confused us with serial data and muxing doesn’t cut it. It’s this: begin to think of the microcontroller as a device that inputs an analog signal, processes it, and outputs a digital signal. That’s not gospel, but you’ll thank me later.
Furthermore, I unilaterally decided that transistors will control all acceleration although we are not strong in that sector. For precision, I also mean negative acceleration, or deceleration in street lingo. Within a week, I will propose standardized variables for writing modular subroutines that we can copy and paste. Also, after four months of sidelined study with integrated circuits, I now thoroughly grasp how the Arduino creates digital output, so all speed control (PWM) signals will be programmed rather generated by specialty chips as once planned.
This time, we will be constructing to our own designs and filling in the leftover gaps.
To save a the life of a child (without question)
To save my own life (against unprovoked attack)
To steal ten million dollars (teach ‘em a lesson)
To avoid jury duty (on principle)
To avoid unwelcome involvement (I see nothing)
