In my day that same box would cost the equivalent of $7.32, meaning ammunition price has dropped to nearly a third. But the pistol has skyrocketed from $16 to $500. It’s a little fancier and looks better made but gasp. I prefer a revolver because a misfire only delays the next round. In case any Amendment people are offended, this tiny pistol is only good for target practice, which I rate as just another skill. Like learning to type. My critics can type, can’t they?And I have not been to practice in so long. Each gun has a different “feel” that you learn by firing about 300 rounds. Without reinforcement, your muscles forget and you can’t hit anything. And with anything larger than a .22, you’ll quickly go broke shooting that many bullets. Newcomers, do not try to save by using .22 shorts. They are not commonly available and lack power. And stay away from center fires, which cost twice as much and have no advantages.
I tackled a piezo circuit. These are those crystals that make a sound, but if you rap them, they put out an electric charge. Therefore, they should be able to light up an LED and operate a transistor. After two hours of sheer frustration, where it would work on the breadboard but not when I soldered it permanently, I put it aside for the evening. But it was the first such circuit I formulated in my head. That calls for a mug of coffee and some popcorn. Kind of a diet snack I’ve learned to enjoy.
I’ve been studying the Arduino programming again. I see that it is quite a limited apparatus while admitting I have not programmed even one percent of its capabilities. But I already know I can get any code to work and building circuits is a lot like assembling a model airplane. Every site visited has demos and schematics of the same 50-odd circuits, I suspect there has not been a real breakthrough in twenty years. Nor am I the man to invent one.
In the end, I’ve had more fun playing with discrete components than programming. The most difficult task has been getting feedback in human-readable form. The C+ language is a complete failure for printing messages. What’s a “unint_8”? It’s an unsigned integer 8 bits long. A proper coding language would have simple print commands that isolate the programmer from such engineering-level concerns, letting them get on with the logic instead of bogging down on the mechanics.
I went over this long ago but it bears repeating. There was a time when programming languages were getting better by moving toward more natural language commands and logic. Yet, in every class there was a bulk of students who had real difficulties with advanced level coding. We were assigned to work in teams and the higher GPA people (like myself) used to joke about how these dummies always screwed up in similar ways. When I look at C code, I recognize it as a vast collection of those very same mistakes.
Like carving an elephant, C contains a huge component of telling the logic what not to do and hoping like hell what’s left over will work. This explains why operating systems like Windows crash so often. The only “improvement” possible is to add more code to get around the ever more complicated crash situations created by ever more code. That’s a big part of why MicroSoft is on its seventh version of Windows in less than 20 years.
ADDENDUM
Still working on my year-end, I can happily express I was only $415 over budget for the entire twelve-months. That’s more due to planning ahead than my daily self-control. Still, anything less than a $2,000 variation is commendable. Some projections were way off, like motorcycle repairs that were not even on the 2012 budget. Items cancelled outright include sewing lessons, the Raspberry Pi, a week in Savannah, a new bicycle battery, the Fishstick PA, my trip to the Smithsonian, a new microscope, and a high speed scanner. To name a few.
At all times, there was a surplus, that is, no credit. Not a cent was borrowed. I still suppress a smile at people around me who think they have nice things but are up to their necks in debt. We know about the underwater houses; do we know about the underwater people? Lest it be taken otherwise, remember budgets are guidelines, not commandments. Other changes include cessation of tracking the scooter mileage and the books I read (except for what gets mentioned here).
So tell me to hurry up and finish the review, because the new budget that follows is not only more fun, but these type of plans are so rare in real life that they take on a curiosity of their own. Example. Have you seen silver prices lately? Rising and falling around the same time each day by almost precisely one dollar. The supply side, which is easier to measure than demand, says production is less than consumption meaning industry is drawing down stocks which is not being replaced. And there is no close substitute for silver. I like that.
Some changes are already underway, for example, my 30-day survival pack. I’m switching to 72 hours for good reasons. The larger pack cannot be easily moved, and nearing the expiry date you wind up eating it for a month or throwing it out. I figure 72 hours is plenty for the authorities to contain a local crisis or there’ll be other things to worry about than a month’s food. Besides, those three days puts me ahead of 95% of the population around here. And if the crisis is elsewhere, who would flee to Florida? Who’s going to drive to the end of civilization and follow beer cans the rest of the way?
