Read last evenings rant about idiots. I like to
MORNING
Good thing I kept my winter parka from Yakima last year. Today’s dork award goes to J. Gruber, who said he was sorry for making incendiary comments about the stupidity of the American voter. Never apologize for telling the truth, Goober, I mean Gruber. Let me take over for you, I say right now the voters are stupid and I hope that is incendiary. Very incendiary. Enough to warm up the entire state right now.
I mean, who in their right mind would call any politician “Honorable”? Take this joker, for instance, who is telling us it was this long. And this big around. I’m not anti-politician, I’m pro-leadership. I thought they tarred and feathered this boy long ago. All history books ignore the fact that all wars and recessions are caused by politics.
That’s your controversy for this morning. Next, credit card theft. My motorcycle mechanic got a warning call in time to block his card only after $600. The significance here is that the guy is one of my disciples. Like I taught him, he logs every usage and checks every statement and purchase. All information given out is accurate, but coded.
And there is no doubt this was an inside job, either from his bank or from Visa itself. The fake must have been perfect perfect right down to the strip – it even had the correct version of his name. That card was made at the same facility as the real deal. The crooks only got caught because they did not profile his spending habits—because I warned him never to use grocery cards or movie rental cards in his own name.
That’s correct. I could tell you how to safely swap the card with a trusted friend, but I won’t. Same with your cell phone, I regularly lend mine to people who are going on long trips around the country. Did you see the guy who might get life for lending his car to some burglars who committed a murder? That is why you never talk to the police about a crime. Any crime.
He admitted to the cops that he overheard the burglary plan, but thought they were kidding. He did not take part in the crime and over it he just turned 32 in jail. The cops maintained the crime could not have taken place without the borrowed car. That’s a lie, but remember, the cops are used to giving testimony and know how not to get caught lying. They are also relentless and lavishly funded. Do not talk, it will cause you a little inconvenience, but in the end, you will be better off.
How about the dimwits who criticized the Florida governor for taking the Fifth 75 times during recent questioning? They should have complimented him for knowing his rights. I don’t like politicians, but some people take the stance once they accuse you of something, they can coerce other information out of you. Nope, it is up to the accuser to prove everything. They need reminding that the pleading the Fifth does not make one guilty of anything, much as they would like to think so.
There, I feel much better now. Screw MicroSoft! There, now I feel even better than that.
NOON
You see, clearing the send column does not delete messages, it merely stores them in the delete folder. I’m amazed how many people don’t know that. I have completely deleted all my used e-mails for over 15 years without one problem. Yet I know people who have kept every e-mail like they would old love letters.
You would not let strangers read those, would you? You do not know what laws will be made in the future. Destroy your old mail now, while you still can. That is all discoverable and admissible against you. If you feel safe because you have not done anything, read this morning’s batch again. The guy is rotting in jail for lending out his car.
And if you think they can’t keep every e-mail on file, take a look at this graphic. This is a mini-experiment I conducting on SD card memory. What’s happening is I’m sending simulated records to a 512 MB SD card to see how long it takes to fill it up. It has so far been running 18 hours. That’s a lot of data. The results of this experiment are in the addendum.
Bear in mind this is a very small memory card (I don’t think they’ve made a 512 for years now). Yet it should be clear such a device could hold every record of everything you’ve ever done in your life a thousand times over—and it is so cheap, don’t think for a moment somebody would not do just that given the opportunity. Information is a powerful ally. You want it on your side, not the enemy’s. Who is the enemy? Anyone keeping a file on you without your permission. They aren’t going through all that effort for nothing.
I’m learning “Don’t Rock The Jukebox”, Alan Jackson’s 1991 hit, just before country went generic. It was on an album, yet is credited with 4 Platinums (4 million in sales). It needs heap big work to get presented by a duo but that’s why they called me in for the job. Except for a bit of guitar that is not a country song by most degrees.
AFTERNOON
I got an Arduino operating now, logging distance detected by a Parallax Ping))) ultrasonic sensor. Ta-da, I got it to work right the first time. Some of the code I downloaded, so I went in there and “corrected” it. If fired right up and I took 2,371 readings. The next logical step is to display the data on an integral screen, like one of those 16x2 LCDs. The sensors are terrible quality but you learn a lot, so I may try to double them up and take an average reading.
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I further learned the program does not run unless the serial monitor is activated. Gems like that keep one skeptical about electronics when they don’t tell you these things. You can be stuck there for hours staring at the wires and know you did everything right. Yet the bastards still want $60 for their instruction book.
The program also appends any new records to the old file, there is no easy way to delete the old records without using a computer USB adapter. What I should have shortly is a handheld device that measures the distance to the nearest object, records the reading, and displays that information on a small screen. The complexity of this project compares well with the advanced examples on the Arduino site.
This is not to be confused with slapping together an electronics kit. These components do not work at all without perfectly debugged computer code, not something for amateurs no matter what the package says. The diligent student could probably find code examples on-line for every portion of what I’ve done here. It’s making them all work together that gets awful convoluted. Unlike real computer code, which is semi-interchangeable, C+ is boggled by whatever the other guy was smoking at the time.
All in all, it is not a bad hobby, but I prefer music.
NIGHT
For the next twelve days of Xmas, the night portion of the blog, if any, will feature something from the Dupont Registry, starting with this $400,000 Ferrari. Only $1,800 miles on the odometer, feel free to speculate what it was used for. Have you ever heard of Grigio Nurburgring? Neither have I, but that’s what color this car is. Now I’m not featuring anything out of Dupont as gift suggestions, but should anyone feel so inclined, I do read all the comments that never get posted here.
Both these methods involve solenoids, which have never worked properly for us. But it would finally be a project that justifies the use of an Arduino. Mechanics and computers, there is a formula for never-ending headaches and perpetual improvements.
You know what was a hit? Those Xmas ornaments I cut out of a pizza carton. I set them to dry near the door (spray paint) not thinking everybody who walked in would see them. If enough many people (enough many, there’s great grammar) tell me they like them, well, they could be made into punch-out patterns that could be finished by children. There’s a novel gift, make your own decorations kids. I’m thinking on it.
We didn’t get out of the coffee shop until quarter to twelve. Good night.
ADDENDUM
At the 18 hour mark, I shut down the Arduino experiment. This is not the same as copying existing files onto a disk until it is full. This was a simulation of gathering data. The nine numbers separated by commas are, of course, mock social numbers, pretending each number was read by a scanner, say like a camera reading your license plate. Like the ticket I got from Colorado last time. Here are the
Certainly, I will run some more sophisticated tests now. I also saw the error rate, which surprised me. But this test was so inexpensive and so easy that if you think for a moment somebody isn’t recording everything, you are wrong. The temptations are phenomenal. Upload a program I wrote in twenty minutes, make a couple mouse clicks, and I could be tracking the entire adult population of Luxembourg.
Not only would they not know it, but it never made a dent in my computer power. I was able to watch DVDs, play music, check my e-mail, etc. without even knowing the software was running. So anyone who doesn’t believe you are being tracked, all I can say is try a similar experiment yourself. You will come away no longer asking why they record everything, but instead, why not?
Today’s Togla Treat
Now that’s scroll saw work!
