May 18, 2013

           Sometimes the degree to which perceptions differ has no explanation. [I somehow remembered an alcove, but not what was in it.] Over at the old estate, in the main entrance was a bust of the Madonna. Which means I would have walked past it innumerable times. It was in an enclave in the wall. I remember the enclave, but not the bust. This beautiful Italian carving is now over with Alaine. It weighs 300 pounds. I did not recognize it. Yes, it's a, well, I can't say, but yes, it was carved by that guy.
           The weather makes the blog. It has been an exceptional month of perfect weather and now the summer arrives with a vengeance. You wake up knowing your AC units can’t cope. I live next to some trees of birds that sing all night. They turn up the volume just before dawn and I swear there is a pattern there that matches what kind of day it is going to be. They are all song birds, but you never see them. They'd probably melt in the sun.
           Ah, but you want word on how the electronics is going. I took a chance and lost on some resistors transistors. [Updated 2014-05-18. I was still learning the pieces a year ago, but I definitely meant transistors.] They [Hacktronics] had a grab bag special, 500 piece factory ends. Now I have plenty of PNP type I can’t use. I’ll let you look that up as homework, but it stands for positive-negative-positive. My entire study to date has utilized only NPN. The NPNs are easier to understand and work with. [Update 2014-05-13. Little did I know they would triple and quadruple in price or I would have scrounged the money to get them before Hacktronics changed hands. Quality NPN transistors how cost 23 cents apiece, and I go through them by the dozens.]
           I further mentioned how chip makers have trouble with resistors and diodes, which is why every circuit board you pick up is full of them. Many books I’d read described logic gates, my specialty, without telling me it was this manufacturing concern behind the designs. Now that I’ve figured that out, maybe I’ll build a diode-based logic gate in my spare time. They are slower than the transistor gates but cheaper to mass produce. Here is another clue as to why so much duplication exists in electronics. And so many authors can tell you what, but haven't the brains to tell you why.
           [Author's note 2014-05-18: that last paragraph is not clear. What I'm saying is that when circuit boards are manufactured, there are certain components that are difficult to etch onto the plate. Resistors and diodes are examples of parts that are tricky to etch. Therefore, when you pick up a circuit board or look inside your computer, you will see all kinds of resistors and diodes soldered onto the board. This soldering is expensive, but there's your explanation.]
           Man, I hate MicroSoft. I carefully tabbed out “Riders on the Storm” so I could read it instead of remember it. At the last second, a typo wiped out my file and I had to redo the entire operation. These gimp features would be okay if you could turn them off. But you know MicroSoft. Out there in this world somewhere is a gimp. And no matter what you have going on, you need constant reminding that you personally are not devoting enough of your day to feeling sorry for him, like it’s your fault. I hate MicroSoft.
           Here’s another gem. The Herald today reports a growing business is Internet profile management. The masses are cluing in to the lack of privacy, no doubt the same gang who called privacy advocates “paranoid” just five years ago. These companies will step in and improve your image by such tactics as buying up domains with your surname and publishing positive material that will pre-empt all searches, making the negative reports “vanish” to the third or fourth page. They claim that is as close to being erased as will ever happen on-line.
           My, doesn’t this sound familiar? Yes, this blog covered the danger back in the 90s, when I advised everyone to take measures to keep data off the Internet and to undertake “disinformation” tactics where that was not possible. No, not false information, but disinformation. You want to cause your enemy the trouble, not yourself. But, so few listened that most people on line are in some kind of jam so bad they don’t even know. What? You want some hints on this disinformation thing?
           I should tell you go back and find it in this blog, but I’ll be nice. First, you define your enemy as being ANY party that seeks to look into your background without your knowledge or permission. The idea is to overwhelm the snooper with at least two conflicting versions of everything. For example, after I finished college and moved, I kept the phone connected in a locked shed round back for seven years. The phone company sells your information, you know. To the student loan people, for instance, or so I’ve been told.
           Salt your disinformation with coded hints so you can tell which version they are using. Fake middle initials, apartment numbers on your house door. When I get calls from collection agents for the wrong person, I always supply them with all the “facts” needed about who lives here. Same thing when I rent or win contests I never entered. The idea is to put people who are using the public information system to track you down for their own selfish purposes enough conflicting information that the only way they can sort it out is to contact you, thus tipping their hands. Strange how “paranoia” has become common sense.
           Bingo. I got in early enough to report it same day. Where it was great, there has been a tightening of finances for the staff that finally encompassed me. There is now a limit on how well I can enjoy at their expense. Sigh. I knew it was coming and wondered why it took so long. Hence, I left [right after my show] and went to Karaoke. That’s the not-so-great Karaoke of recent description.
           The location was formerly a favorite but I can see that is now a question mark. The clientele now have grown sons who never got past the metal screamer stage. They show up and nobody knows why. Never the daughters, just the sons. The way to become worst performer is to think you are single-handedly going to change people’s taste in music, starting tonight. The parallel to a guitar-mentality on that point is so crass, I won’t bring it up.
           And I’m telling you, if George Carlin worked south Florida, he would quickly have an entire show about the huge inverse-proportional relationship between IQ and who sings what. George, there is most definitely a connection. They’re here, bro, and they listen to Steely Dan on their days off.
           Trivia. I finally learned the difference between saturated and non-saturated fat, which happens at the molecular level. Fats differ mostly from the other building blocks of life in their ability to store relatively large amounts of energy. Saturated fats have a maximum number of hydrogen atoms bonded to each carbon atom.
           Fats with less than the hydrogen they could bond with tend to be liquid at room temp. By forcing each carbon atom (under pressure) to bond with the most hydrogen possible (hydrogenation), you get all kinds of goodies like margarine. Which is not liquid at room temperature. Unless you live in Florida in a trailer park in the summertime.
           Here’s a snap from last party at Alaine’s, who finally took a day off. She’s discovered free movies on the iPad. Though I’m not so sure about the claim that you cannot tell what color the actor’s eyes are. I know a blue-eyed babe when I see one. This photo is more of a demo of the great quality of the iPad, since this is one corner of a still from a video taken twenty feet away. Glory to the man who invents the countermeasure to Google Glass.

ADDENDUM
           What do you know? MarketWatch, a Wall Street publication, becomes the first to investigative report on college tuitions. They could have gotten the material by reading this blog eleven years ago and again nine years ago. Where I clearly stated colleges were over-charging, teaching the wrong fields, and gouging via residency requirements and high-pressure sales.
           I draw attention to the particular incident where I responded to an ad to take a $29 course on using a digital camera. The bastard-rat college “counselor” tried to up-sell me to a $16,000 program. He did not know about my degrees when he actually said if I did not sign up I would be failing in my “obligation to help [my] grandchildren with their homework”. Miami-Dade Community College, September 2002.
           Nor are these modern “degrees” anything like the quality I had to meet. There is no longer any requirement for a rounded education. In my day, even though I majored in physics, I was required to study the humanities and select a minor from a different faculty. (I chose a then obscure course which only 7 of 9,000 students signed up for. It was called “Computer Science 101”.)
           When I returned (in my thirties) post-grad for a financial degree, the accounting society announced the requirement of a public speaking course—and a quarter of my classmates dropped out. Or switched to other fields, such was their fear of crowds. We were afraid some of others would soil themselves. These days, they’d probably sue the school or get it re-labeled “Pacioli Syndrome” and bring in the ACLU.
           Since around 1995, I’ve been appalled by the performance of these degree-holders. Don’t snigger saying I had the advantage of experience, for that is around the same time I was completing my own education. If I had the advantage of experience, why did they not also have it? These new people not only can’t do the job, they just are not able to think abstractly. These days, nobody asks if I can do accounting. Standards have fallen so low they ask if I “know Quickbooks”.
           Yep, it is time to enforce a little regulation on these schools. They amount to little more than a paper press and a mill for selling student loans. Did you know the college “counselor” gets a commission when he strong-arms you into a loan? And, he gets paid in full up front, so has no further interest whatsoever whether you eventually graduate or not.
           Counselor, my eye.