What do you know, there’s no magnet wire around this place. Harrumph, there is supposed to be spools of that. The radio (just an AM crystal type) is past the planning stage and my wire is gone. Instead, I built the earpiece amplifier, shown here. This boosts the signal from the radio before it gets to the earpiece, using juice from a nine-volt battery. This battery is not part of the radio, which is self powered by the electromagnetic radio waves flowing past. Part of this idea is to show the modular approach we’ve used from the start.
That is, the amp is contained on its own separate board and can be used for other circuits as well. It’s a concept that keeps building, planning, and expenses to a minimum. But we don’t always get it right and there is a certain amount of duplication. The cost of this gizmo runs around $11 (if purchased separately) so it is for education only. You could buy something better for half that. There is one annoying jerk posting electronics, goes by the name of Stephen. He starts off with “Hi guyzzzzz” and we instantly know he's a goof. He lies that people asked him to
explain things that he conveniently “has a college degree” about. Then he tries to wing a video, which he can’t do, he’s just not smart or talented enough. His voice rasps, he’s got nothing planned, and he does a juicy sniffle every few seconds. He’s as clueless as the others in his field, describing the transistor as only a switch. But after all, the readers are all numbskulls, so why tell them the whole truth? They can’t handle the truth, right Stevie-boy?Here’s a question for beginners. If logic gates can be built out of only resistors and diodes (except for an inverter gate), why bother with using relatively expensive transistors? The answer is weird in that it is two half-answers, so stay with me. First half, such gates work in isolation but when connected in series to perform Boolean logic, the output from one stage is rarely compatible with the input needed for the next stage. This is particularly true of ground points. Second half, each stage draws power and after less than six layers, the circuit fails (unless you add enough power to boil it). Six is nothing. Transistors to the rescue.
Trent has proposed that we produce something for TAXI, a music service I’m unfamiliar with. My influences are that music leads to performing, not to recording, so right there I’m in the dark about marketing. I was amused from the first listing, as it seems the people with money don’t want the same things I don’t want. “Mid to up tempo only” is a common requirement. They don’t want techno-beats, guitar ballads, one-man recordings, or major guitar chops. I can work with that.
I’m the newcomer and these seem to be agents seeking ready-to-market professional recordings and sometimes the band that goes with them. I can’t produce such material on my own and I really don’t know that many musicians who can. Five or six, maybe, out here. Thus, I’m examining any listing that might match our resources.
Often there is a sound requested but I’ve never heard of most of these artists. Blake Owens? Luke Bryan? I listened to their youTube offerings. The music is slick, but five minutes later I couldn’t recall even one melody. It’s like the teenage dream, one hit is worth more than ten lifetimes of work. But with competition so fierce, musical originality isn’t so easy. That restriction doesn’t extend to lyrics. Do you know anyone good with words?
I (anonymously) took an Internet survey (bankruptcy.me) to determine “how near” I was to insolvency, honestly answering all other questions. My assets are not something I’d tell a stranger, but my payments on all my possessions combined amounts to zero dollars per month, since forever. The last thing I bought on credit was my Cadillac in 1989, and that was 12 payments of $100 because I didn’t have it on me when the deal closed. Even then, the dealer took my word and we filled out no forms. This new survey warned I was in dire need of a bankruptcy lawyer and referred me to several near the Arlington Cemetary.
Who’s bankrupt? Not me. Here is a 3/2 I turned down in West Palm. Why? Because the property taxes are too high. $3,000 per year. The reserve bid on this gem is only $40,000. It last sold for $361,000 six years ago. The buying season is over until May. Plenty of time for another major drop. A Mexican syndicate is buying 1,200 houses in the area, but even syndicates run out of money. In fact, I wonder where the few local buyers left are getting theirs.
And boo on Trulia. The condo market keeps tanking after each big announcement it is making a comeback. So they have undertaken the shady practice of advertising them as single-family homes and using a fake low price. Only a dough-brain would buy a condo these days. Careful Trulia, you already suck in so many other ways, why make it worse on yourselves?
ADDENDUM
Some electronics, for those who have been waiting. I was surprised to see the number of logic gates on otherwise ordinary circuit boards. Why? Because something like a radio is not a computer, it doesn’t have to “think”. Yet, there they are. I’m guessing that these logic gates are present to cut down on the amount of other circuitry that would otherwise be needed. I’ll look again at some of our earlier failed projects, but this time incorporating my newfound knowledge that logic gates are merely clever arrangements of transistors.
One obvious example is our first flop, the AM radio. We could not get it to work, but nor did I have any intricate familiarity with how every electron had to flow. That has changed. Since then, I’ve built logic gates from scratch. I’ve got the day off, still waiting on the scooter, so check back after I dig out all the parts I wisely kept stored away.
The Curiosity rover is nearing two months on Mars. The progress seems too slow though that likely implies it is also methodical. The photos show streambeds but until they find evidence of water that is conjecture. I’ll follow less closely as it now appears the spectacular discoveries were by the earlier rovers and if anything big happens, we’ll all hear about it same day.
I learned another aspect of writing today. If a written language has 25 to 35 symbols, it is probably alphabetic. That is the number of distinct sounds that humans can reasonably utter. Larger counts indicate syllables and thousands indicate picture writing. It’s one of those things I would never have thought out on my own. This came from a Nova documentary on Mayan writing. I have my own take on that topic.
The scholars say the Maya had a complicated alphabet, where one sound is represented by different symbols. That is plain stupid. Our experts say the scribes “disliked repetition”, but electronics has taught us a thing or two about experts. Applying Occam’s Razor, my simpler explanation is the Mayans created their own mass confusion. Unless one genius arrives in every organization and each generation, the rabble sink into ignorance again. Power, control, and leadership are not enough to keep things in line. Therefore I say Mayan writing is not sophisticated, but a primitive mess.
This [situation] I’ve witnessed many times when the untutored try to build databases or write code. They can count but don’t understand numbering systems. They can write but are clueless about typesetting. And so on. In no time at all, the database degenerates into a hodgepodge. Each inflexible department has its so-called expert insisting they are the one doing things right. Generally the only alternative to starting over from scratch is to let them run with it until the system flogs itself to death.
That is my theory on Mayan writing. You got the similar thing in China, where they can all read the same newspaper but cannot speak the same language. Everybody is in charge but nobody is in control. This curious situation can only be improved by the rarest type of thinking: inference. But those who can do it are the least likely to challenge the inertia of idiots that went before. (Inference is the ability to reach a single correct conclusion from a mass of unrelated facts.) Then again, I’m not buying the Spanish version that they conquered an Empire with 200 drunks.
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