July 20, 2014

Yesteryear
One year ago today: July 20, 2013, reads like gossip.
Five years ago today: July 20, 2009, jigsaw puzzles for Dummies.
Ten years ago today: July 20, 2004.

DAYTIME
           Breakfast at Seńor Café, no longer the cheapest and fastest place in town. It was 92° by 9:30 AM so find some shade and stay in it. I know, I’ll rewire the electronics panel, that can be done right under the air conditioner. If there is a picture of it below, then I was successful. I’m adding fuses to the input leads. To answer a question, the black cubes on the panel are not flashers, they are relays. The flashing is controlled by the motorcycle. Ah, I heard the sharp kid in the back ask, “Then why do you need a relay on the tail lights? Don’t they stay on whenever the Honda is running?”

           You are right. But you may have forgotten the relays are also part of the bypass battery system. That only works when all the relays are off whether or not the motorcycle is running. But that’s the right kind of question to ask around here. Shows you are paying attention. There it is, the picture. This is before and after. I suppose you could say we’ve learned a bit about doing things properly in the past year. These two photos are precisely nine months apart.
           There are six small wires missing in the bottom photo. They are power, left, right, tail, brake, side markers, and chassis ground. You don’t need me to tell you how nice it is to have the proper tools. We also have much more sophisticated testing gear, some of it home-made when we required ruggedness.
           One item measured was the smoothness of the wagon ride. It is remarkably smooth over pavement—provided all speed humps are respected. Thus, this time around the solar panels are to be more rigidly mounted. Instead of the elaborate spring system, a simple foam rubber gasket will be substituted. The panels can take a little punishment. Didn’t know that last year.
           The spring system protected the panels, but also worked loose the nuts, including a glued double-nut arrangement with lock washers. Even when the bolts held firm, they moved whenever the panels did and eventually this wore away the surrounding wood. I believe I asked myself the question last year if I would ever build one of these campers commercially. I said no, but now I’m not so sure. The basic design has been outstandingly adaptable. The sidewalls remain cut from a single plywood sheet. The barrier right now is the cost of direct labor, hundreds of hours of it. Direct means not counting the planning and reworking stages.
           Yes, I would build you this camper—and one excellent unit for towing with a small car, it is. But I’d have to charge around $8,000 to break even. The cost of direct materials is, I believe $451 including the $91 renovations just completed, the hardware, the electronics, but not the marine battery.

           [Author's note 2019: this is the relay system I built to make the brake and signal lights work on the wagon. Interstingly, in 2018 (I think), the original wiring system was recalled by the manufacturer. Because the US says they had to. All's I'm saying is this is my proof I knew damn well their wiring didn't work.]

LATE AFTERNOON
           I worked until dark, about a half day, and that sun is not letting until it is twilight. That means I’m too tired to dig up any controversy today. I’m informed that this blog does not display properly in certain modes of IE (Internet Explorer). This does not surprise me in the least, the way MicroSoft mucks around with computer systems. I’d say the problem is the way MicroSoft set your screen resolution. Remember always, Redmond knows more about how you want your computer to operate than you do.
           I hate Vista, yet statistically, everyone with Vista is happy so don’t expect any major improvements. You can bet your bitcoins that MicroSoft is cooking up yet another op-sys that will scramble the commands, remove the most useful features, and make all your existing software obsolete. It will also sell all your usage data to Google, convert your Hotmail to the Outlook spyware package, and if you read the fine print, your old “MicroSoft account” is not the same thing as your new “MicroSoft Account”. The new version has serious new legal conditions attached, and you are giving up any right to privacy—not just for Vista, but forever and you cannot retract the decision.
           You are giving MicroSoft and Google together the right to personally identify you and hold you personally responsible for anything that anybody does on a computer they deem to be your property, whether or not it is actually your property and whether or not it is actually in your possession. Vista users and onward are probably too late, as when you first boot all new MicroSoft systems, there is a window that makes you think you are merely updating or transferring over your old account. No sir, the rules and conditions have changed and you are agreeing to allow MicroSoft and Google to install super-cookies on your system.
           What’s more, the spyware is built in. All the backdoors and snoopware are part of the system when you buy it and it cannot be deactivated. Well, it can, but major parts of your computer will cease working. And last, you should not be using Internet Explorer. It should only be kept around because there are a few antiquated sites, usually government outfits, that won’t work without it. But as a browser, it is one of the worst, hogs your system resources, and is the single most virus-prone browser out there. I was appalled to learn people still use IE, considering its reputation for the last fifteen years.

EVENING

           Agt. M was over, he installed a rocker hinge on the caboose. I had showed him my method of burying the latches so that once inside the cavity, no prankster can push a stick or something through the clasp and lock you in. As in Mark I, the lid must be lifted to open the rear hatch. The other guy doesn’t know that, so consider that a security feature.
           Since this was regular club meet time, we tackled the problems on this lousy Vista computer and turns out it isn’t Vista. It is Windows 7. All the same crap to me, it has no setting that makes it look and feel like XP. Don’t lecture me about XP, it works fine on all my non-Internet equipment and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. We did find that Win 7 has all the public pictures and public music, whatever the deuce that is all about. Didn’t ask for it. But we found the “out of memory” problem. When I was making backups (of neat things like this blog), it would install an extra backup on a hidden E: drive.
           We are aware that our critics like to suggest we don’t like Win 7 and find it hard to use because we are disorganized, that kind of thing. If you care to examine the nearby jpeg, here is a list of my “disorganized” files of this blog for the month of March just past. Before saying the problem is here, and not with Win 7, please explain to the world how you reached that conclusion. And all I do with this Win 7 computer is keep simple files and pictures for this blog.
           The missing Kodak charger mystery is solved. Agt. M went through the transformer drawer and pulled it out of the back. It’s a miracle. The thing teleported itself across my Florida room for sixteen feet. From the window ledge where I kept it for two years over to the long-term storage cabinet. How did that make me feel? Embarrassed, whaddaya think I felt? Then again, I was the only one who kept insisting it was not thrown out.
           In celebration, I treated the club to a late night coffee and donuts over at Drunkin.

Later: for a comparison in long-term consistency, compare this picture to a similar one around a year ago, July 20, 2013.