One year ago today: May 22, 2013,
I see an ad for a bassist.
Five years ago today: May 22, 2009, beef trivia.
MORNING
Start with the trivia. There are certain uninhabited islands in Hawaii where visitors, usually naturalists, must buy all the clothes new and leave then in a government freezer for 48 hours first. I won’t tell you which islands, but it sounds like an excellent immigration policy for the southern continental states. Good morning. I’m at the coffee shop. Speaking of trivia, “Now I Know” is begging for money, saying that “many dozens of hours” of research are required to produce his distributed e-mail every month. Gee, it’s a good thing I chose a blog instead, which only requires a few minutes at most. Ahem.
Who has done any speed-dating? You know, where you get six minutes to talk about anything you want and then by agreement switch partners. Frankly, I’m ready to try anything, but with reservations. I’ve been to a Lock & Key and had my pick, you may recall that episode from around ten years ago now. JZ and I had every babe in the place around our table—except the two we wanted. In early June there’s a meet-up that features speed-dating. And not a bad club, either. I think I’ve played there but never attended as a civilian (that is, a regular patron who sits there like
Speed-dating. It’s all talk, and you know me, I’m all talk. Actually, there is an irony in that little joke. Most guys who talk like me don’t actually play any instruments or build any circuits or write any blogs. Much less drive sidecars across the nation. Telling the truth most often works against me in a way, a very Florida way.
Speed dating sounds like one of those places where if you score, it will be the first night. After that if you return, you’ll keep running into the same women or type of women time after time. Is it possible I’d meet a woman who, like myself, is just testing the water. I’m thinking and the blog likes new material. I do not, among my circle, know any person who has done these events. Nobody to ask for advice. How many times in life do I go alone for the first time? Always, it would seem. My kingdom for a an adventuresome gal.
EVENING
Boy, do I have a lot of gossip for you from the robot meetup. Except, I ain’t passing it on. Instead, just you read between the lines. Even then I’ll be skimpy with facts. Only four people showed up and the Russian and I were late a half-hour until we found the relocated room. For all the years I’ve been out of university, I still have strong opinions about changing the lecture hall at the eleventh hour. Not everybody checks their smartphone at 30-second intervals or so I’m told.
The thrust of the evening is that although A.I. (artificial intelligence) is a grand topic, it is too advanced for our purposes. It runs simulators, but those simulators cannot for the life of them export code to the Arduino. We did meet another member with a 3D printer, but he lives in south Miami and has all the difficulties you read predicted here with that apparatus. Clogged nozzles, no design software, finicky file structures, and expensive consumables. We can work with that but many others cannot.
I gave out the contact business card for those who want to work on a robot project more than once per month. But again, eleven people did not show up so the core group is back to myself, the Russian, and two students, one of whom lives thirty miles away. However, I know something they don’t, which I learned at the Ft. Lauderdale library. The printers over there have a three month backlog of orders. That is, there is a three month waiting list if you want something printed. They are turning away business. You just can guess what I’m thinking.
ADDENDUM
Here are some disturbing news items. Disturbing in the sense that there are ominous signs about the manner in which law enforcement is changing. First, let me say there are enough current crimes to be investigated and plenty of future crimes to be deterred to be tying up billions looking for petty crimes of long ago.
There is some sinister reason that the authorities are poring over fifty-year-old jaywalking and shoplifting records. A new body of prosecution is emerging, the digging up of ancient matters on otherwise law-abiding citizens. Ah, the ultimate blackmail tool--plea bargaining works much, much better forty years down the line when the victim has a career and family to consider. Be very afraid.
This strong-arm tactic was imported from Canada, where it has never been illegal. (Up there, they can change the law itself to get an ex post facto conviction.) There were once Constitutional limits in the U.S. on how far the authorities could break the law to enforce it, but that has passed into history. I, for one, have never believed the police have the right to use any conceivable method whatsoever to obtain a conviction, that the end justifies the means.
How about that man in Ft. Lauderdale arrested for video sex on the Internet? I mean, just exactly how was he supposed to verify the female’s age on-line where anybody can lie? I don’t agree that merely watching a video of any subject constitutes much of a crime on the viewer. Maybe the producer and distributor have broken the law, but not necessarily the viewer. Who are the police to say why a man looks at the picture of a nude? How long before somebody flashing certain naked photos in front of your eyes turns you into a felon? They plant drugs, don’t they?
Worse, how about that kiddie porn ring in New York with the rabbi and scout leader? What’s scary about that? I’ll tell you. The take-down was not by the vice squad as expected, but by “The Homeland Security Investigations arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” Think about that. Homeland Security? Customs? Even the worst idiot alive wouldn’t claim the sex fiends were terrorists negotiating a border crossing. How much more proof do some people need that the Feds are testing a new profiling system? And how long before these “five-week investigations” are turned on the innocent to scrutinize their credit files for “suspicious” behavior? I think the complacent masses are about to find out. But be warned, obeying the law by living like they are told is not going to save their asses on this one.
Um, Inmarsat is the company that makes those snappy satellite phones you see in the spy movies.
