MORNING
Why is everybody so surprised to see me? Don’t others have to cancel plans at the last minute? Hmmm, hold on. Yes they do. I see, so that’s why they are surprised—that I cancelled plans. Well, I still have the option to zip out to Naples for a couple of days. Meanwhile, here is a generic morning. At least around here, as I solve the problems of the entire world. Again.
[Photo Censored by Google] It showed a photo of some nerdy looking geek name's Yayalar who posts stills on Youtube. I happen to think people who post stills on a video site are little pukes.]
Who is this dippy-looking twerp? He’s a nobody who wasted my time, which makes him recipient of this month’s dipshit award. What did he do? Don’t you hate people who upload still pictures on youTube? I do. And make that worse when they give their posts purposely misleading titles. Still photos and bad titles, that’s breaking both commandments. But, for dipshits, that is the only way they can trick anyone into noticing them. Details below.
I listened to the radio news last night. DC has gone to the dogs. All the so-called representatives have their own agendas and I don’t see a solution to the problem. Every time somebody tries to get anything done, the liberals start to scream. Not all the terrorists in France are Muslims. Not all the rapists in north England are Pakistanis. Not all the gang members in Detroit are blacks. Always the same theme, you can’t profile them or they profile you as a racist.
I guess it is true, not all illegal immigrants are Latinos. But tell you what, like with the other “profiles”, let’s not let a few minority exceptions stop us from getting going after the bulk. Stamp out the types that cause the majority of the problems and deal with the leftovers in due time.
Here’s something from 40 years ago, a mistake that should have been cleared up by now by every computer system maker. In the old days, when you issued a command, the system did not indicate if it was accepted. So if nothing happened for several seconds, the user hits the button again. This causes the system to start clogging up, so he hits it again, and again. Finally, some time later, all ten copies of the software open. You’d think that kind of problem was history—until you try Win 8.1.
Another ancient problem MicroSoft has resurrected. You go to save your file, as you’ve saved files countless times every day for years. About every twentieth time, Windows 8.1 comes back with small message that you have altered the file templates and would you like to save this? It is only a matter of time until you accidentally do save it and clobber your settings. Way to go, Redmond.
Now, today’s picture explained. Speaking of morons on the Internet, I thought this was the worst video ever made. Even the background music sucked. It is titled Ingenious Devices, which caught my attention. The damn thing would not play for which I instantly blamed MicroSoft. No amount of coaxing would start the video. Then, I realized what we’ve got here is a full retard named Tolga Yayalar and it is a music video with a still picture. You’re a double azzhole, Tolga!
If you do bother to look at the link, note the number of views. I was the 329th person he fooled. What a desperado, all that work for 329 hits.
Two brains better than one. A change under consideration is moving the marine battery from the cPod itself into the motorcycle. This turns the solar panels into basically a towed power sled. And that battery is heavy, almost 20% of the whole rig. The right saddlebag on the Honda is not used and hard to get a because of the overhang on the sidecar spare tire. The concept is to place the trailer battery into that [towed] configuration.
NOON
Here’s the same old tale every guy can tell you. And it happened to me this morning. I go walking into the bakery and there she is, drop-dead gorgeous, standing there saying good-bye to the owners. The same two lady owners who have known me as their best customer for three consecutive years, that know I drive my motorcycle 3,000 miles looking for a good woman. And there she was, leaving for the airport to fly back to Hungary.
[Photo Censored by Google] It showed only the torso and legs of a fully clothed woman.
I could not possibly have a picture of her, but I went online and found this photo of a lady with a similar body. How close? Damn close, I happen to be a bit of an expert on this, you know. I’ll have you also know I had to scan over 800 pictures to find a match. That’s what a beauty she was.
And she was here, desperately lonely for ten full days. The bakery explained she had a boyfriend in Hungary, and I explained to them there was a reason she was here and the boyfriend was in Hungary. They, of course, said, they never thought of it that way.
Here’s the sad part. She’s been going places by herself because there are no decent men in South Florida either. Her name is Eboya (I thought of the joke ten thousand times faster than you, so don’t bother), she’s 31, single, looking, and has been at the bakery every morning, just a little earlier than I usually get there. She even took the city bus to Jungle Island, four hours and four transfers.
When I asked the bakery why on Earth they never introduced us, that’s the same old tale. “It never crossed our minds.” “We didn’t think you would like her.” “We thought you would not drive all the way to Jungle Island.” On and on, now I don’t blame the bakery staff, because all women do this. Even if they have no personal use for you, they will never introduce you to their friends—even if both of you beg them to meet somebody. They only introduce you on the day she’s leaving town.
Again, this is NOT her picture, but a representative of her body type. I had to reject several dozen photos of other women because of unsightly tattoos. What a joke perpetuated on the working class that tattoo culture is. As with this photo, the woman this morning could easily have passed for 21 years old. And now she’s not just gone, but gone forever.
AFTERNOON
About the MIG welder, I think you are already supposed to know how to use it. That’s a surprise, but one I can deal with. I mean, what’s wrong with an instruction booklet, guys? And I measure another defect in the Opera browser. When you go into silent/private mode, there is a distinct slowing down of the entire broswer’s response time. Think about it, people, but the level of snooping that is going on can only be the result of complicity between every last party involved with the Internet from top to bottom. I said think about it. In the hopes that 1% of you will.
Right now it carries one of those booster battery packs that has never been used except for the once it let me down. There’s a fancy chrome bracket bolted to the Honda frame that will make an excellent tray for a protective marine battery cover. Since I’ve learned those marine batteries can go through hell, it’s a simple matter to keep it charged up before I leave on a trip.
Next, taking a tip from the Karaoke two weeks back when I had the crowd dancing, I’ve learned a fake version of the Macarena. By fake, I mean I don’t learn the exact bass line, but
Some trivia. The version of that song popular today is a 1996 parody of the 1992 original. The rhythm caught on with the Latin communities and the song is often quoted as the current “On-Hit Wonder” of all time. However, this is due to the way record companies were forced to fragment the rating system in the 80s by creating non-mainstream divisions in order to end The Beatles’ domination. Overnight, you had unknowns like Adele and Michael Jackson suddenly having “number one hits”—in categories custom-invented for their brand of music.
Whether this represents progress remains an open question. But if they ever come up with the class “country-ish wayfaring solo bassist sing-a-long”, be sure to call me right off. I can be ready in twenty minutes.
EVENING / Late afternoon
I can’t wait for the MIG welder and its learning curve. So plowing ahead with what I’ve got, here is the basic test configuration of the battery pack. On top is the vacant cavity of the removed saddlebag. Below is the marine battery resting on the bracket, but this is NOT the final config. This is a test for fit. This formerly wasted space will be boxed in with plywood for now. The plan is now to completely remove the control electronics from the cPod onboard the sidecar.
For those interested, the difference on the Honda is dramatic. I’m leery of manufacturer claims of 225 and 330 cranking amp batteries with equally high prices, as there is limited space to fit these parts into the existing Honda bracket. I trust the 625 cranking amp battery shown here, this unit got me going that frozen morning north of Winnemucca last November. The time I had to take a hammer to free up the gearbox.
For now, I will test the system using the big battery in tandem (parallel) with the tiny Honda unit, sort of as a backup. Another motive is to further power the extras on the bike. As I work on it, I see evidence over the years of the various owners having rigged something up without considering whether the Honda could handle the extra amps.
When they found out it could not, they cut the wires and left them there. Thus, you’ve heard me mention how the sidecar marker lights and such did not work when I purchased the vehicle. This new battery arrangement should completely power everything. The tradeoff is that when parked at home, the marine battery requires careful regular attention and a trickle charger.
I’ve already designed the opto-isolator. These sound impressive, but they are a simple type of switch that has no electrical contact. Instead, the “opto” part is a tiny light that comes on and activates the switch. This way, I will know for sure that the cPod is not drawing any current from the Honda battery. There is also a redundancy feature in place. Who remembers the home-made ROM I built last year?
That circuit used a set of diodes, which only allow electricity to flow one direction, to create memory. It was a baby step to build a memory to power the cPod in a similar configuration.
ADDENDUM
Navigation. Here’s something I think demonstrates the value of learning the system instead of the formulas. I noticed the Almanac contains a single sentence in the back pages that the 2015 positions can be calculated by subtracting 5 hour 48 minutes from the 2014 numbers. I’ve got a hundred bucks says most “navigators” would leave it at that. It got me thinking. Isn’t that almost a quarter of a day?
Now, this is sheer speculation, I have nothing to back this up and it is probably all written down somewhere. The point is I independently derived this. The most immovable objects in the sky are the stars, right? There are 360 degrees in a circle and 365 days in a year. So any dummy knows the stars will offset by a predictable amount each cycle. But how many spotted this coincidence?
My next intention is to go back to square one and completely relearn navigation from scratch. This works well, because each time through the process, you become more critical of the errors that led you astray before. I can now easily calculated my position down to as little as 4/10ths of a nautical mile, but this is not at all the same thing as using the sextant to get my working figures. And it is a far cry from taking readings on the heaving deck of a ship. I have not been on a ship in 30 years, and that was in the Philippines.
And I finally have an opinion on dead reckoning. It’s a lot like your history of trusting your own judgment. It is deadly accurate if you are smart and just plain deadly otherwise. But I like the way John Wayne put it. “Life is hard. And if you’re stupid, it is even harder.”
