What am I so happy about? My checkup this morning. After 48 weeks on the program my cholesterol is dropping significantly for the first time in nearly 20 years. I have to give myself injections and you knowing how I feel about needles, believe you me I was serious about results this time. Then, over to the bakery for the mousse, shown here. Good coffee, chocolate, and a good book. Who could ask for anything more?
What’s this, Michigan is restricting the use of Bridge (welfare) cards at casinos and strip clubs. Fine by me, but that is the wrong approach because it means more surveillance and less vigilance about who gets the cards in the first place. This law shows you the governor if Michigan ain’t all that bright. The abusers will just transfer the funds to another account or card and continue as before.
Then there is Putin, who claims to envy Obama’s ability to get away with spying on his own citizens. That’s coming from a man who two years ago imprisoned young women for singing “Mother of God Drive Putin Away”. Speaking of repression, the BMI/ASCAP/SESAC are in the news again for threatening to sue coffeehouses that offer live covers (bands that play copyrighted music).
Bear in mind the BMI/ASCAP/SESAC organizations are law firms, not musicians, and they purchase “song rights” specifically to make money by threatening law suits to locations that hire musicians who play covers. They do not represent musicians. When is the last time you heard of a musician suing anyone for playing his music? The major contention is that by tradition, new upcoming artists have always played the music of their idols and that establishes a tort-like precedent.
Am I worried? No, because I can see both sides. Musicians detest any system that stifles creativity while the copyright owner wants his cut. Another reason I’m not worried is because I like to think ahead. Marion always gets antsy when I claim to be first, but what if I was the only local musician who purchased the right to perform music and could approach clubs on that basis? I fully expect other musicians to do nothing but bitch and moan at any additional expense. So if I do it, yeah, I would probably be first.
The copyright laws state only that live performance “can” be regarded as infringement. However, the very premise of copyright law is to inhibit that which lessens demand for the original. We are back to the Sony mindset, a formula that says any person who is prevented from acquiring an illegal copy would promptly march out and buy a legal recording, which is simply not the case. There is also the rationale that my pay derives solely from my performing skills and not from any song I might play. No income for the song means no loss to the composer means nothing actionable has occurred.
Another dip in the economy just before Xmas. The US retail system isn’t set up to endure those.* Silver took a dive as well, but that means little. Overall, it is the decline in middle-class income that will defy any permanent recovery. (Can you tell I was looking at real estate again?) The reason the high-paying jobs will never return to America is because of the global interrelationship of production. I had spotted this in my travels during the ‘80s, how did I word it? Something about no job being worth more than the least you could hire someone to do it anywhere. That “anywhere” soon became the entire planet.
I was [at that time] referring to how garbage men were so highly paid in North America. I knew a 24-year-old (Leon) who was making $80,000 per year back in 1988. If I ever get around to publishing all of my writings from those days, you’ll see how I identified this problem well in advance. This knowledge was influential in my leaving my “secure” job in the mid-90s. There are ways to get ahead, but hard work is not one of them. My chances of striking it rich are much better than anyone who wastes his energy working for somebody else. What I find strange is so many people know that, but don’t do anything.
Here is a home-built computer security camera system. My neighbor built it out of older parts. Connecting these things up is not my field. The circuit board here has new software designed to only record when there is movement, which cuts down drastically on the size of hard drive required. This dreadfully old technology is still the most reliable security system around here and I personally trust older equipment more. They built it better.
*This is not just spouting off. Since the early years of credit, the nature of cash has changed. I feel the most significant but least understood is electronic transfers. Only 8% of transactions involve cash any more. You see few fifty and hundred dollar bills because these denominations are no longer required to settle large debts. To me, it signifies the fleeting nature of money. Some say cash only has value because people believe it does, though I instinctively feel there is more to it.
However, not only does electronic money encourage snooping, it also shaves the margins off how long and how much shopkeepers (in the largest sense) need to keep as a float. In turn they become more vulnerable to any stoppage. We’ve already seen how airlines operate on as little as six hours lead time. Often, your airplane sitting on the runway waiting for “clearance” doesn’t mean the control tower, rather the last batch of passenger credit card payments.
My transactions since 1991 have been 100% cash and I have not written checks since circa 1980. Even then, I wrote one or two per year at most.
ADDENDUM
I’m broke till next month, so all I’m spending is time at home. Which brought me to the study of a particular “chip”, the integrated circuit known as a 7489. Why? Well, it depends on what you mean. Why this chip or why study it? Having just made a pot of tea, I’ll answer both. This is for those who have been following my electronics study, haphazard as it has been. I chose this chip because its schematic looked uncluttered. None of these chips arrive with user-friendly documentation, so pick one is the only study method left to me. (Elecktropage has good diagrams.) There is but a single such chip in town, over at Alfa you may have guessed, and they want $11 bucks for it.
Translation: Don’t buy NTE chips unless you have no other choice. Their chips come individually wrapped but so what? For reasons unknown, despite low labor prices and automation, NTE prices have risen to obscene levels unless you order in bulk.
The chip is a basic memory storage chip that I chose to study upon becoming frustrated with “data sheets”. I built the flip-flop (a single bit memory) circuit, but without storage, it is a toy. So, here is what I’ve figured out about a possible way to store memory and free up the flip-flop for the next operation.
The 7489 has sixteen memory cells. They can each hold 4 bits for a total of 16x4 or 64 bits. These cells each have a unique address between 0000 and 1111. I gather that the chip must select one cell address at a time, and “write” four bits into it. That requires two sets of four wires. One set to select and hold one of the addresses while the other set writes a value into the selected cell. This is the “write” operation.
Later on, the address can be selected again, and a third set of four wires can “read” the contents. This is not explained in the manual, it must be one of those things you are “supposed to know”. And that is the easy part.
I’ve read dozens of chip books that talk about a clock or a clock signal without spelling out what it is. But I early on figured out it has nothing to do with a clock. It is a switch that moves sharply between off and on, without any sparking or messy contacts. It is called a clock because sometimes the switch operates at a fixed speed. But the fact it isn’t a clock gave me another reason to dislike engineers.
The study of this chip filled in many blanks for me. The chip must have power or the memory disappears. The cells can be read without destroying the contents, which can only be changed when over-written by a new command. The chip has another switch which allows it to accept commands only when the chip is selected, a wise thing if you are going to use multiple chips. And the “clock” switch allows you to set everything up and then conduct the read or write with a single pulse when you are ready.
I intend to buy the chip and experiment as there are other questions. Like when you have a decimal input (0 to 9) connected to this chip which can hold four bits (0 to 16), what happens to the extra capacity? And of course, how do I transfer the contents of my flip-flop into memory?
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