April 27, 2014

Yesteryear
One year ago today: April 27, 2013, surprise $300.
Five years ago today: April 27, 2009, Dania Beach pub.

           Pssst, there is a new link to ten years back in y'day's post. And up yours, Google, for changing the picture format again to all-portrait mode. But then again, we know the level of intelligence your products appeal to. The only reason I'm still using blogspot is because the others are even worse. You are plainly working hard to change that.
           My kind of Sunday. Things may be picking up over here, I mean I fixed a flat on the 8-speed and it didn’t even make the blog. These are exciting times. Here’s some items that got missed during the week. Plastic knives made from cornstarch, which the package claims is biodegradable. The company, GreenWave also makes plates from bamboo. They appear affiliated with Shantou University, but that is in Japan, not China.

           No cash from the gig last night means I did not go out for brunch. Instead I went over the books and found at least one tidbit of good news. My expense ratios with the new band have leveled, that is, they are not getting any worse like before. Time to go visit the Czech club again, I can’t believe they are listening to reggae music over there. That’s not opinion, the staff told me the club hates it but they can’t find anything else. Yes, I dropped off a promo pack and everything. But they have not even called for a price quote.

           Since this is certain to be a day of light research and discovery, around noon I took my circuit board with notes over to Senor Café for a sandwich. Tinkering is neat in public because it is so rare in Florida that it draws considerable attention. Most who spoke to me assumed I was building a battery charger, an assumption I should analyze, but later. Since I’ve never wired things in public before, I paid attention to what people perceived and it isn’t what I expected.
           What is the name of that test where children and mentally impaired adults cannot imagine how things look from any perspective but their own? You know, where they can’t even draw a picture of what another person sees. Paiget test, that’s it, and I’ll thank you not to bring my family into this. Anyway, I purposely observed what attracted the most attention. It was not the circuit itself. Pause for a moment and try to guess what I noticed. Okay, done?

           I noticed two things, but I am not qualified to interpret them. First, onlookers appeared semi-astonished that I had no compunction about making mistakes. That was easy because they could not tell which mistakes were dumb ones. Second, they seemed impressed by the familiarity of how I handled the pieces. That made me realize how much I’ve changed from the days when I treated every part as super-fragilistic. Anyway, that’s what I garnered from the way they acted. You could say they reacted funny to my “willingness to take casualties”. In a sense, a carefully thought out sense, that is true. Spy on my trash bin and you spy on me.
           My new bike tire went flat three hours later and I had to push it back. The common point is that both bad tubes were bought at the same store. My plan for the day is to read, drink soda pop, and watch on-line documentaries of archeological excavations anywhere in the world except Egypt. Trivia. Did you know all great pyramids were not used as tombs? Only the smaller copies built later had burial chambers. The purpose of the really big pyramids is not known.

           Here’s what I like to see when I pull up to the gas pump. Fifty smackeroos for a about a half-tank. My average fill-up these days is $3.96. And I know whoever spent this much on gasoline does not make 12.62 times as much money as I do. Logic. If he made that much money he would not be driving through this town, much less living here.

           What a concidence. It is one year ago to the day when I previously mentioned the crystal problem. I have a bag of crystals from the old Hacktronics, but no instructions on how to make them work. I have since found out, so expect some news on that soon. See how attending that robot meeting has spurred my competitive spirit. That’s how things get done, my friend.
           In a similar vein, that is, what works and what doesn’t, how about that new table over at Starbucks? That’s the one in Hallandale that replaced one section of individual tables with a long conference model. Judging by the change in clientele that was an astute move. Gone are the posers with laptops, it is just too obvious. Of course, you will never get rid of the garbanzos but I will actually stop in there now and be confident of finding a quiet study area. Today there was a lady studying some kind of psychology, another lady sketching pictures, a man reading a book of formulas, and me poring over schematics.
           Oddly, I was the only one without a laptop in tow which, considering my age, the others must have concluded I didn’t know how to use one. You know, like I conclude they have not yet grown out of them like I did twenty years ago. For anyone who thinks I’m out of date, I had a laptop 26 years ago, long, long before you’d ever heard of them. A TRS-1100. It was stolen in Venezuela in 1997.

ADDENDUM
           Waking up feeling creative, I took another close look at the NAND gate. This is the 1-bit memory circuit I should have chosen [instead of the one I built]. It is wired correctly according to at least twenty circuit diagrams [which] I [had previously] found in tutorials, textbooks, and websites. Every one of them is wrong. I know it is probably wrong because the author, for the sake of convenience, left out something important. Public flogging is too good for such people. Shown here are two NAND gates which work properly when separated.

           However, when coupled together to behave as a memory circuit, the receiving transistor does not switch. It only dims. Digital has to be all or nothing and right now the only technology I have to boost a signal into the saturation range is yet more expensive transistors. I have relays which are even more costly and can you imagine the racket that would make?

           Hmmm, I just thought of something. Yes, they would make a characteristic noise depending on what math operation is occurring. For instance, there would be a volley of clicks as a register loaded, than a clack as they emptied simultaneously. Double hmmm.
           5:09PM, and I found something. All of the existing diagrams are wrong. Due to the design, there is but one point where the circuits can be coupled but the addition of the joining wire creates a voltage divider effect. My gates work on 0 or 5 volts, the divider creates 2.17 volts, close enough to the 1.71 volt transistor operational zone to cause this problem. I must find an alternative design, add a transistor to boost the signal, or build a new circuit with opposite logic.

           This will require another day, so look back in. You know, in a sense it is maybe a good thing I’ve never had a fully equipped lab to pursue my interests. Why’s that? Because, should I ever stumble across something, I’m as likely to be as fair with the world as the world has been with me. That’s why. And besides, Marvel needs a new super-villain and I could play her innocent and well-meaning assistant, but instead of a hunch back, I would naturally have a hunch well-you-know.

           In this photo, I’m pointing to one of the universally wrong diagrams of the NAND (Negative And) gate, and this one is in my trusty “upside down” book. My notes say this voltage problem is something I’ve encountered before in various forms. The first mention is when I added a light to a switch to show it was on or off. When on, the light drew enough power from the switch that it wouldn’t work. Remember, we are working with very tiny power sources here.