Stand by for news of the return to Florida, a somewhat unwilling task. You’ll get mostly indoor news today, and here is a picture of the trip planning process. On the map table is a large-scale of Colorado showing even the smallest passable roadways. Sadly, these routes are more likely to be surveyed these days rather that follow an old trail. That’s what I like finding but as shown, this takes patience and planning.
This morning it was 58 degrees and raining. For a fact, I didn’t get that information from here, but Trent from Florida, who is in S. Carolina, mentioned it by email before I even went upstairs for a look-see. Ah, technology. And thanks to that rain, I was able to find out what a ripple counter was. That is a term all the electronics experts use who assume you know what it is. Don’t you hate it when they do that? I’ll talk circuits today because this rain is not going away soon.There are two types of “logic” circuits and they are too often treated as separate topics. Wrong, and that is why I should write that book. The types are called combinatorial and sequential. The difference is that combinatorial produce an output based on their input. Sequential do the same with one more feature: they have a memory. Thus, a sequential circuit is a combinatorial circuit with a memory, and that gives you a much better idea where to start.
Start with combinatorial, it’s easier to grasp. Who remembers the adder circuit I built not long ago? It only added a single digit because that’s all I could make, but a larger device like a calculator or computer is just more of these simple adders strung together. If my design was used, to add an eight bit number, any necessary carry bits would have to be passed from adder to adder, that is, they have to “ripple” through the entire circuit, each stage adding a small delay. There are better circuits available to avoid this problem, but now we know ripple is not an ice cream flavor.
Here is a photo of what you can’t see. What appears is one of the new (for us) 1600 point solderless breadboards and useful tools like the hemostat (looks like medical forceps) and the ever-present computer, which which no serious electronics hobbyist can do without. I said “serious”.What you can’t see is the difference in procedures and efficiency. No wasted moves, no mistakes. The components no longer have to be moved around, each piece and combination of pieces is tested for known glitches immediately after hookup and new circuits undreamable a year back are working on the bench first crack. Shown here is the test bed for the motorcycle turn signal alarm.
I was up late with my new toys from JB Saunders. I’ve got a bag full of devices that I’ve wanted to learn for at least a year. Reed switches, coils, optical couplers, and that stuff. So what I can’t build anything yet, that will follow. They are a real brick and mortar, not an Internet virtual store. I dislike cloud computing when I’m trying to find a specific part., as if what other people are buying would ever be of any interest to me. But it shows the programmer put effort into the cloud instead of accurate searches. There’s a place to be trendy, you HTML people, but it is probably not in an inventory listing.
It wasn’t till much later after the above lecture that I spent the evening in the Aurora library. Way back in grade six, the science teacher showed us these logic gate ideas, but sans any indication of why or what for. It left me with the impression such things were futile, as the instructor did not mention these gates were connected with electronics or computers. Thanks to that in a big way, I’m struggling to catch up three lifetimes later. So much for “childhood inspiration” theorists.
It was impossible for the a pre-teen mind to tie it all together. Chips, wires, charts, tables, prices, it hardly makes sense now. It turns out NAND gates are the ones to focus on initially, as they are cheap to manufacture and all other gates can be constructed by combinations. Yep, a decent instructor would have made a fantastic difference, what a pity. Maybe I’ll get it second time around.
I recall reading about “field programmable chips”, these are gates placed in to particular configuration, then presented with an external criteria, like a 1kHz tone and watched to see how they self-configure. By continually selecting or “breeding” the chips that react, after around 1,500 generations, you have a chip that basically programmed itself. Even curiouser, the chips only utilize 40% of their available gates, but removing even one of the unused gates destroys the “memory”. But I can’t remember enough about the article to look it up.
ADDENDUM
I’m getting ready for my trip back, meaning not much time is left for visiting Marion. She remains the longest term married woman I’ve ever known and she accounts for 90% of what I know about that way of life. That is not to say I don’t know married women, it would be dumb to think that. I’ve worked thousands of hours more than the average man around married women. But only with Marion have I discussed the details. It is through her that I see the development and outcome of the attitudes and mental conditions of married women.
For instance, Marion does not drink, so she looks at men going out for a beer exactly like most married women. It must be a waste of money, a dangerous and addicting habit that leads nowhere and comes to no good. But let’s peek at the flip side of that coin. I have absolutely no idea what it is like to have all the money, food, and sex I ever wanted handed to me for free. (This is not true for every woman, but I don’t date those ones.) Let me say, if I ever get what I want for the asking, chances are I would never leave the house either. Why bother? Touché.
Marion subconsciously confirms many of my suspicions about the motives of women. A while back I put that Christian Mingle dating site to the test. Using the exact same profile, I opened six accounts in which the only difference was the birth dates I used were five years apart from age 25 to age 50. In each case, Christian Mingle only brought back “matches” of women whose birthdates showed a very low spread of 13.3 months in age. If compatibility was the most important factor, I would have expected a considerable overlap of more like 72 months. A 33 year old woman who likes musicians is not going to automatically reject a 39 year old man. If Christian Mingle has any criteria but age, they aren’t using it. And age is probably one of the worst indicators of compatibility that ever existed. But it does explain why older women love that outfit.
Marion’s viewpoint makes sense in that I see for myself that most men who drink are misfits and fools. They talk the same inane crap, stare at the same TV, and generally waste time. But “most” is not all [men]. I defy anyone to demonstrate that I have ever sat around drinking and doing nothing. I have never watched a sports show in a bar. Let’s go back a week.
Looking at only the nights I had a drink, I never drink during the day. I went out last Thursday—to perform live on stage with the celebrity Dick Frost. I went out Saturday—as an invited guest to see Dick Frost’s band for the first time. I went out late Sunday—but didn’t stay because the Karaoke was so bad. And I stopped in Monday (yesterday) after fixing the motorcycle—to write nine postcards, sketch my return path down the Mississippi valley, and balance my books. To compare my behavior to borderline alcoholics would show a callous lack of observational skills.
At the other extreme, I cannot fathom how anyone could watch soaps and dating shows on television. That, and sports, seems so totally brain-dead that I consider it near torture to subject oneself to it. Have you seen these people? Glued to that TV, transfixed in time and space. Watching one meaningless program while recording another. Any one of my postcards accomplishes more than all those people put together. It is moot to believe one addiction is any better than another.
There is also the theory that women control the supply of sex. I disagree. I concede that a tiny minority of women control the supply of GOOD sex, but the vast bulk of women constitute an over-supply. That’s where the Christian Mingle formula comes in. Mediocre women; surplus beta males. I don’t put up with nonsense unless a woman has earned my respect, such as Marion. Yes, she does think I should date women my own age (which I have not done since I was 15), that I should not go out for even an occasional drink (she does not specify any alternatives), and that my pastimes are introverted and of no interest to others.
Therein is the paradox. We’ve been friends for 30 years. I think people should date whomever they please without regard to age. I feel to meet dynamic and vivacious women you must play the field, so it does not matter what you drink: coffee, wine or water it’s all the same. I [would] consider it shallow-minded to choose a hobby based solely on its popularity (like golf) and I suggest it is study itself that is solitary, not the person doing the reading. Do I remind anyone of a recluse? And I firmly believe the topics I pursue don’t need the sheeple’s acclaim, that the subjects I study have their own merits.
And 30 years is an awfully long time.
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