MORNING
This day’s navigation calculation (winter solstice) brought into focus Norfolk Island. It’s east of Australia in the middle of nowhere, population
I probably already said, but I am very leery of people, particularly women people, who undertake expensive activities that are not occupations. I got this way from attending compulsory “meetings” at my old job. Compulsory in that if you stayed and worked instead, the company docked your pay. You’d often find yourself at lectures promoting some idiot’s agenda. Enter Pete, the Englishman.
He would always ask these speakers what they did for a living that they could travel around giving speeches instead of working. It started as sarcasm, but then you realize that question mortally offends a lot of women. Especially the ones who ask for donations at the end of the show. Occasionally we’d meet a widow who attached herself to a cause, but most of the time, these women would never tell you where the money is coming from. And Pete, with his accent, was just the man to ask the questions.
By then, most of us were taking crossword puzzles or magazines to these “meetings”. The worst case scenario was a lady lecturing on medical care for retarded kids. Pete dug out of her that she and her husband were from the wealthiest part of town who had seven retarded children, dumping them all in institutions at public expense while they went out on lecturing tours. Or the one who went on about women’s rights and Pete unmasked that her money came from being divorced four times.
That reminds of the news item last day where a man advertised for a woman with the same name as his ex to go on a world trip. Seems he’d bought the ticket in happier times and now the airline would not exchange the ticket for anyone with a different name. That sucks. Airlines should not have any such say. If they sell you a ticket, they should honor it or pay back the money without money-grubbing “policy” stunts.
NOON
Robots, my guess is that we are on the verge of a breakthrough, probably the 2020s. Somebody has to standardize and build the parts specifically for bots, as opposed to adapting off-the-shelf hardware. That pretty much describes what's available. I’ve heard tell of a prosthetic limb being controlled by nerve endings, there’s the interface we’ve been waiting for. The existing crop of sensors is, well, pretty bad. No, it stinks. But if the medical teams can fuse onto the nerve endings, that would be something indeed.
For example, as a novelty item, here's something a robot could make. I’ve long since noticed that the ink stems inside plastic ballpoint pens are the same diameter as the leads in a number 2 pencil. Wood is nicer and more comfortable. But I could not build such an implement by hand and make a profit. Where as a robot could make these in small batches, a factory to produce such items would cost big bucks to be worthwhile.
Hold on, I think it best to show you a picture of what I’m talking about and I’ll have to put something together to show the pieces. Okay, I’m back. The top photo I’m pointing to a broken stick pen. The bottom photo shows the extracted pencil lead beside the ink stem. Alas, they are different diameters. Too different to machine into place. But at least we are thinking.
As for robotics, our understanding of them has ultimately led to the unlikelihood of us building any. They are plain expensive and anything useful is expensive. It’s a case of the knowledge turning out more interesting than the construction. Like computers, it is easier to understand one than build one.
Most of our “robot tools” are used for ordinary repairs and projects, which makes us semi-skilled laborers. This has saved us countless thousands but that may not compare well to others who’ve had access to proper tools for a lifetime. I am probably the only farm boy in America who grew up never touching a band saw or a belt sander.
(To be fair, I did have relatives with such things, but you never, never accept anything, even a tiny favor like pick you up a soda from the store, from anyone in my family. You might wake up to find your car missing. You don’t think they pick up sodas for nothing do you? Of course that means they can now borrow your car. You did think the soda delivery was free? Well, that’s the stupidest thing they ehhhhhhhhhh-ver heard in their whoooooooooo-le lives. Smarten up, booodddy boy.)
Not a one. No good movies this afternoon, even at the foreign cinema. Unless you are actually interested in the life of Steven Hawking or want an opera of people in rat costumes. Do you like think like in the Hawking movie they like are gonna mention like that he’s got that like weird disease like thing, like? Because like, there are like, so many people like who don’t like know it already, like. No wonder movie attendance is falling.
In the end, I’ve decided against the idea of making the book safes, the old hardcovers with a hollow compartment for “valuables”. The operation is labor intensive and not all that many folks have valuables that fit in a space that size. Instead, today I’m making some turkey stew, the kind with turnip. There is no way Steven Hawking can compete with a turnip. For excitement, I’m planning on a 5:00 PM coffee at the Panera with a crossword puzzle. Let that be a lesson to me about how life goes when I’m not in a band.
I also read some textbooks on electronics to see if I missed anything. Nope, they are as confusingly written now as when I first looked a few years ago. Same with some of my old university texts. No wonder it was so hard to learn that stuff. It’s still worth the read though, because a lot of physics and computers are like electronics--it takes a lifetime to realize your teachers weren’t any good.
EVENING
In my quest for unique Xmas gifts, I took another look at handmade Xmas tree ornaments. Even the more complicated patterns on the scroll saw produce a better gift than the book safes for the time expended. Here is photo of various finishes. I keep forgetting to pick up some green paint, so I have only red. These wooden pieces would be natural except for my new trick of applying brown shoe polish to get a distinct color. (I carefully dilute the stock color, that’s my secret formula.)
The sparkle does not have to cover the entire ornament, but I did [cover it] to try for effect. Shown here is a variety of test finishes, even on the bare wood. That’s also a nice effect. I am surprised how evenly the fingernail polish spreads the sparkle. Surprised because I supposed there was a little more to it. Yeah, yeah, what was I thinking? Anyway, it’s so easy I’ll try some double and triple layers.
And that’s the end of my Dupont gift suggestions. The magazine has gone missing, it seems like it got borrowed. Not to panic, you got the best in what I presented here. Really, the rest of the magazine is mostly car ads. In fact, the whole magazine contains nothing but ads. No articles. So, there you have it. Rich people and poor people don’t need to read much, between them they know it all. It’s just the dumb ass in-betweens like me that have to hit the books each and every day.
That’s right, I promised you one more Togla treat. There you go, Mr. Turkey, 20 times as many people now know about your existence in the past few weeks than your entire life’s effort to date. If they happen to think you are a jerk, well, that’s what I happen to think as well.
Today’s Togla Treat
Here’s my impression of “artists” who post still pictures on youTube,
and my view of foreigners who think copyright law is for censorship.
