March 4, 2014

           Here is the second generation flasher. On the left, you saw that last day, six hours assembly time. On the right, 40 minutes time, a smaller and cleaner design. While all this went on, I was listening to an audio book. “Prey” by Michael Crichton. Well, the first two disks anyway. I used to listen to these on long distance Cadillac trips. Can’t do that on the motorcycle. The quality of these recordings, and I mean the subject material, not the sound, has always been disappointing. They talk too slow because some people don’t listen so fast. I maintain, just like large print books for the blind, they should make specially slow versions for the gimps, instead of forcing the rest of the world to slow down.

           I also got some programming done. I had the die throwing program write the results (25,000 throws) to a text file. The thing is amazingly fast, but that wasn’t my goal. I can examine this file with an ordinary text processor, like Notepad. I’ll mention Arduino again but keep these two processes separate. At this time, there is no connection between Qbasic files and Arduino output. I’m barely learning all this.
           However, there is a connection between the last two paragraphs. If you know nothing about programming structure, you should give this audio book a listen. The narrator covers a lot of ground by explaining how errant programmers cause problems. He makes the point that men over 40 do not make good programmers. And from the point of view of the rubbish being churned out by the C+ people, there is a lot of truth in that statement. I’m not looking at leading edge code, I’m going back to a language that hasn’t been used seriously in thirty or forty years. But if all these new C+, object-oriented, parallel processing, neural network, type languages are where it’s at—why have they not invented one single new theorem or concept in forty years? Why do the so-called “new” systems work like crap? Because they are, that’s why.

           And I really mean it. Why does Windows still have problems recognizing printers and drivers? What part of “end now” and “shut down” don’t they understand? Why does it eat up your entire RAM just to run a browser? Why is it incompatible with legacy programs? And why, when I want something to work right, I had to dig out DOS, which itself is the piece of trash that started the computer world down the garden path?
           My philosophy is that it is so because the focus is to sell computers to the goofs by the millions. The motive is not computer science or excellence. It is to get these voyeuristic, basement-living, mouth-breathing, loser men out to the mall to buy whatever junk they can be indoctrinated is “new”. If they are too sheltered to know the difference, then it really is "new". I mean, look at PDAs and texting—those are a step back to the 1980s. The marketplace is made up of such ill-educated dunces who don’t know these products are from the computer stone ages. Oh, it’s a little prettier and connects to the Internet, but the idea is last century. It wouldn’t surprise me if some sharpie sells teens on floppy disks by convincing them it is a new idea.

           Here is real progress. A twelve-digit calculator for $2. That means it was manufactured for about 8 cents. From the standpoint of electronics, which I now have a bit of a handle on, this gadget is remarkable. It is also doomed. Unless you can show me a person these days who has any use for a twelve-digit number. My contention is that most of them would have trouble reading “so many zeros”.

           Recall my idea of the smart license plate? I proposed an Internet connected [license plate] frame, or a license plate iself that changed color depending on circumstances. For example, it would turn yellow if your insurance was expired, red if you license was expired, and flashing red if you were on the run. As usual, like every idea in my life to date, nothing came of it. But now Cisco, the big computer outfit, is investing in the smart roadway. No doubt some will claim it is only for catching criminals, but folks, Cisco does not get involved unless there is big money to be made. Are we clear on that? Says The Internet of Things “. . .it's part of a much larger trend in which city, state, and federal agencies use sensors to monitor the smallest aspects of everyday urban life.
           Cisco predicts the market for this system will bring in $20 trillion in the next few years. That’s trillion with a “t”. They are not basing that on advertising revenue, let me tell you. And if that is not scary enough, these sensors would be buried in the roadway. Who is the biggest proponent of such devices? Your friendly, public-spirited and privacy-respecting people at Google. They claim it is only to help smart cars find destinations. You can already smell the peanuts on their breath.
           Good news for the blog, I think. I don’t publish my stats (or any comments either for some of you who will not just go away), but for the first time more people reached here directly through a search on the blog title than any other links. While direct searches were always a majority, for the first time more people are arriving here using the criteria “Tales From The Trailer Court” more often than all other links combined. So although readership is down, which happens when I’m not traveling and reporting big adventures, there is an encouraging swing in title recognition. If charged people ten cents a day to read this, you know, I’d be rich. Tell you what, if I hit a half million per month, I’ll consider charging the new people only.

           Later this week, my “odometer” should roll around to a figure I never thought I’d see. I’m quite pleased, if only because this blog is NOT intended for mass readership. There are no concessions made here to attract the average-minded or any advertising revenue. Mind you, that is so tempting. This blog is not stupid-friendly. I advise those who can’t grasp technical details to go elsewhere. This blog may be unique in that way, although I imagine there must be a contingent of chronic deadbeats out there who insult everyone just for amusement. My contention is that the mass of my readers are repeats—the graphs show they simply must be repeats.
           This is, itself a near impossibility for blogs with any intellectual content. I can thus maintain my total readership cannot be directly compared to the tons of one-time visitors likely to glance at light-duty blogs on politics or current events. My numbers will always be lower. Quality over quantity, Mr. Leno.
           Next, I’m making progress toward recording Arduino files. There is plenty of confusing information on-line, but I think I have all the necessary hardware. I bought a lot of it back when I didn’t know what I was doing—and could not find any help either. I didn’t know what I needed, so I bought things I've now forgotten about. But now, I can read the files. One side benefit of reading these files is already apparent. I've learned most of the anti-virus people are pretty clueless. Somehow I imagined them to be clever, you know, finding a virus and undoing it. The fact is, they have no more an idea of how the code works than you or I. They simply record what is there on a new computer, assume it is safe, and leave it alone. The problem with such stupidity is factory viruses like the zzbrenkzz.

           I love day of technology like today. Computers, electronics, diskbooks, what did I leave out? Ah, GMOs. Pseudo-food. Corn syrup from Frankencorn is just as bad for you as the corn, peeps. Reports are coming in that these “safe” genetic modifications have been showing up in Mexican corn, a country that banned the product from day one. Folks, every organism on Earth is constantly evolving and competing with every other living thing and with the environment. You can’t tamper with just part of it.

           I see it is time to spell out the dangers of genetic modification. This is only theory, but it’s a good one. Genetic corn and soybean plants have their DNA altered so as to be resistant to pesticides or to kill insects that eat them. In the first case, the idea is the “farmer” can spray his crop with a much higher strength of weed killer and his crop will survive. My guess is you should probably at least rinse any veggies you buy from that team.
           Here is the Campbell’s soup can that I listed the mutant products from last Saturday.

The other variation is how it kills the insects. It makes their stomachs split open. The theory is that a lethal dose to the bug is too weak to have any effect on the human stomach. But the research suggests the chemicals do cause microscopic “holes” in the human intestine. This allow incompletely digested food particles to enter the bloodstream. Many sources say this is the cause of the huge upswing in food allergies in Americans over the past few generations. I was wondering about that myself. I mean, when I grew up, there was no such thing as a kid who could not eat peanuts or wheat or shellfish. Now I’m no specialist on these matters, but what else has to go wrong before things get out of hand? I even read my ketchup bottle and it was full of corn syrup. Made from genetically modified corn.