August 21, 2014

Yesteryear
One year ago today: August 21, 2013, world's
least famous drill bit.
Five years ago today: August 21, 2009, advice on tuners.
Ten years ago today: August 21, 2004, Space Needle.

           I’m out of town for the day, so here is some general reading. Just so you know it is not all fun and games over here, I have a batch of bad cream of wheat (cereal). Bad? Yes, ever so often you get a box that will not cook smoothly, it always clumps. That is my first-world problem for today. And anyway, why is wheat so expensive on this Continent? Something funny is going on.

           Now it looks like a hard time to find an ordinary bare-bones digital camera. I’d buy another Argus if they made them still. The basic camera that takes 26 pictures. That’s the most the average consumer should leave on a camera anyway. All that’s on the shelf at Walmart are 16MP models which require 8MB memory cards and sell for $25. Stop the presses. I just found a supplier offering my favorite, the DC1600, on eBay for twelve bucks. I’ve just put a few on order.

           [Author's note: 2015-08-21: the cameras sold out before I could get them. Instead, I had to settle for the much less suitable model 1610, which eats batteries and is very slow to ignite. Many of the pictures seen in this blog are from this camera, which often entails taking four or five pictures to get one that turns out. Mind you, I've never had complaints on the overall quality the photos in this blog.]

           My last five or six cameras didn’t last six months, most didn’t last that long. My original Argus was something like $12 and worked three years, including a dunk in the Atlantic Ocean. Those are the earliest digital photos that appear in this blog back in 2004. And it didn’t break or give out, rather I forgot it behind at a restaurant in South Miami.
           Before I proceed, be advised the Argus DC1600 has bad ratings. Consider the source. Most people complain they can’t get the software to work. Ahem, the Arcsoft applications are so fine, I daily use the original copies from my first camera. It does the job without interfering with your computer. Nine-tenths of the photos in this blog are still rendered by that very same software.
           Obviously, the problem is not the product. The second complaint is the camera has no view screen. Question: how did these jokers ever survive regular film cameras? Then again, the mal-educated have traditionally spurned products that require user skill. Third gripe is no flash. Makes sense. How in hell is the Internet generation supposed to take their daily selfie in the shitter without a flash?
           Here’s a new theory for you, compliments JimmyR, who has actually managed to go a day without a gay marriage post. Conventional thinking is that early European explorers exposed Native Americans to diseases for which they lacked resistance. Contradictorily, DNA evidence now shows that tuberculosis, for example, was present before Columbus showed up. It is more akin to a disease of seals, which were part of the Indian diet. I’m keen on the theory as there is mounting evidence that the whole concept that the white man stole Indian property is being dismantled. The Indians were not the aboriginal inhabitants of North America.

           I’ve only invited a select few to the gig day after tomorrow. I kind of feel the band has peaked and is on the downslide and dumb as it sounds, who knows which show may be the final? I’m not concerned that will happen soon, but all bands, even the Beatles, break up. There arrives a point where holding things together becomes unfeasible. One side effect of this gig is I looked up the roller rink and noticed the twelve-year-olds in the pictures. My gosh, I thought, these are just kids. That is the same age I started my first band against full parental opposition. And don’t give me the fish story that kids grew up quicker in the past. That’s utter nonsense.
           Yet when I see these kids, I can hardly believe myself what I did at that age, and more the mystery because I was often called very immature. No sense of responsibility, they said. The reality was that I refused to take any responsibility unless I got paid for it, so who’s the immature one now? Nor will I accept responsibility unless given the authority to punish offenders. Was I immature, or was I the one that thought these things through? Guess we’ll never know.

           In my investigation of winter train travel, I keep finding trivia. I’m no train enthusiast, but more a travel fan. I did not know that in the old days all the rails were straight. The railroad crews had to bend the steel themselves to make curves. And like many, I guess I presumed to know how railroad signals work. Time to watch this 17 minute video, and you’ll learn where the term “highball” express comes from. The train controls the signals, not the other way around, via relays that work through electric current in the train track.
           You like that, do you? Me too. Here’s more. Light signals are usually one mile apart, but can be determined by the stopping distance of the train. When power is lost, gravity pulls everything to the “stop” position. Railroad workers are obliged to treat any burned out light as red. New York trains have a lever that must be regularly thrown to prove the engineer is not incapacitated. Too bad the Atlantic Northeast won’t apply the same to their politicians.

           Define a computer virus. Something that takes over your computer and uses resources for things you don’t want, spies on you, messes up your files, causes important things to disappear, changes your commands, slows down your system, and causes you nothing but headaches. It usually sneaks into your computer when you thought you were installing something else and invades your registry. Hey! Am I talking about a virus or MicroSoft?

           I wrote back to Singapore about the kits and I’ll show you if anything is new. But a review of American kits show that they are not really learning experiences as claimed. The manuals tell you how to put the kit together, not how it works. The advertising makes wild claims about things we know are not in the package. Even that expensive Meccanno set is still sitting in my corner because there are not enough parts to build anything except the trinkets on the box. One amusing paragraph was me explaining that a lot of the US kits are sold to parents who are convinced their below-average offspring is “special” and only needs the right amount of money spent on him to unleash his genius.
           We were discussing the difference between American kits and what is available in Singapore. The basic philosophy is the kits overseas are designed to be components of larger projects. A Future Kit is part of a bigger system, where American kits tend to be toys by comparison. Frighteningly for the working class, note how the price of labor is insignificant in Asia. Look at some examples. The kit is $18, the finished product is only $20.
           And how about that news release that it now costs $245,340 to raise a child to the age of 18, not including a college education thereafter. American schools have all become nothing but rip-offs anyway, not preparing the students for a job and over-reporting their success rates. But let me map this out. That’s around $13,600 per year. Something doesn’t jive there, as my parents raised me on 1/6th the amount President Reagan said was the minimum requirement. Even when all the conversions are done, my parents raised me for between $6,100 and $8,400, a big chunk of which was money that had to be spent anyway on their own shelter. (The differences in numbers is due to the allocation of fixed costs, such as the estimated value of the house. Was 1/8th the correct fraction that I used, when in fact, I had to build my own room in the basement.) New clothes, new shoes, dental care, what’s that?
           What’s this, Chinese hackers stole 4.5 million identities from a health insurance company. Didn’t I just print a warning about the amount of sensitive, personal information that insurance companies are keeping on people? That nothing on an insurance company computer should ever be considered private. But you can’t really fight back because insurance companies regularly strong-arm your private information out of your relatives and acquaintances. However, elsewhere in this blog, you can find hints at some very effective techniques for salting their files with disinformation.
           The danger of the files isn’t as much the information, but that sooner or later, some very nasty people are going to comb through it. In fact, let me tell you about an advertising technique developed right here in this blog four years ago that was rejected because of the possible unintended consequences. Open a bank account with $3,333.33 and close it on December 30. Somebody stupid will instantly suspect that you and two cronies divided up a $10,000 heist and they are the clever one who figured it out. Nasty people tend to be very, very stupid. Or did I get that backwards again?

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