July 19, 2015

Yesteryear
One year ago today: July 19, 2014, DIY blinker relay.
Five years ago today: July 19, 2010, my dream home.
Six years ago today: July 19, 2009, Key West, happier days.

MORNING
           This is a fruit fly trap. I refuse to give building instructions because anybody who would need them has no business reading this blog. Phooey to anyone who thinks I’ve joking about that. The relevance here is this puts to rest that old saying that you catch more flies with a drop of honey. The liquid in the bottom is apple cider vinegar. The flies get in, but they don’t get out.

           Don’t laugh until you try it. I do not allow spray insecticides in my kitchen. Sometimes it works on real flies if you drop a couple pieces of apple core into the vinegar. Or a piece of any fruit or vegetable peel. They love cucumber rind.
           Total trivia for the rest of the morning. That’s interesting. If you take Chicago, Detroit, Washington DC, and New Orleans out of the formula, the US is fourth from the world bottom in murders. (Those cities take it to third from the top.) Lay’s potato chips cost more per pound than steak ($6.86). In Venice, Italy, unless you are a “high government official”, your gondola must be painted black. The flag of the Philippines is flown upside down when the country is at war. A village that has no church is called a hamlet.
           Coca-cola was originally green. Carnivores will not eat any other animal that has been struck by lightning. Kangaroo is Aboriginal for, “I don’t understand you.” You can “melt” a pearl by immersing it in vinegar. Eighty percent of people who view the Super Bowl do so only to watch the commercials. You can be fined $500 in Chico, California, for detonating any nuclear device within the city limits.
           The longest single syllable word in English is “strengths”. Half of all bank robberies occur on Friday. The US has no gold, but there is a silver depository in West Point, New York. The Soviet Union crashed a satellite onto the Moon in 1959. The average American eats 28 pigs in a lifetime. The first motel opened in (where else) California in 1925. There is no rhyme for “month”. And the real meaning of Kemo Sabe is “soggy shrub” in Navajo.
           So there. Can I have the day off now? What? You want one more? Okay, during World War II, the ammunition belts on American warplanes were twenty-seven feet long. When a pilot fired all of it at the enemy, he was giving it “the whole nine yards”.
           And the Eiffel Tower is designed to hold 10,416 customers at once. Yes, customers. It was designed as a tourist trap from day one.

NOON
           Staying home all day, I skipped my plans to see a movie. I researched real estate to find the housing lists are back to normal. I have no explanation why the surge over the past two weeks. Who knows? I was studying Gray code and listening to NPR. If you think that some university eggheads can’t come along and complicate binary, read up on Gray. It’s s system where instead of the right-to-left and carry digit system used by most arithmetic, each number merely has to be different by one digit.

           It sounds like a neat method until you find out there is no standard. It’s like music, every nerd that comes along thinks his arrangement is best. And that he’s discovered something new about it that you overlooked for years. Actually, I had so many options today, I wound up staying home. I originally wanted to go up to Outdoor World, now it’s maybe a magazine and coffee up the road here.
           This photo is the Outdoor World store in Dania, how’s that for unique architecture? Fishing tackle has amazing use in amateur robotics at a fraction of the cost—but that’s not to imply any of it is cheap. Sometimes I’ll see what I want and then go over to see if they have it at WalMart.
           But ideas are free. One concept I’m kicking around is laser rangefinders. There are quite a limited number of robot sensors for perceiving distance. The sound or sonar getups are inaccurate, I find myself taking five measurements and measuring them. And they are easily confused by echoes that are coincidentally a multiple of the distance to the first object. Lasers, which can be pinpointed, are a better candidate. But they are so expensive, I won’t buy one to see if I can jury-rig it to scan.
           There are plans to build your own, but they are too complicated. I figure it is the code that should be difficult, not the sensor. I would be happy to know how the rangefinder does the calculation. There is another advantage to accurate sensors that few consider until the do some robot coding. It is that the more accurate your sensors, the faster your robot can move around. Show me poor sensors and I’ll show you a slow, plodding robot. Like the Mars landers.

EVENING
           I’ve also outlined an obstacle avoiding simple robot that is a bit unlike the others. When they avoid, they have a look-but-don’t-touch approach. My concept will surround the robot vehicle with tactile switches intended to let the rim bump into things. I’m sure that’s how that robotic vacuum appliance works, but I don’t know. Anyway, the focus is not how well the robot reacts to a bump, but how cleverly it figures out a way around it. That’s what counts, not the method.

           Here’s something recently patented. To me, it typifies what is wrong with America. It’s a great idea, but so expensive somebody is bound to copy it for cheaper. Called the Ply90, it costs $30 for a four-pack. The idea is to corner clamp plywood into desks, shelves, and such. Keep it, since that quickly makes all but the simplest projects cost more than the real thing.
           In the end, it was Starbucks, where’ve I designed a pair of LED brackets to replace the front marker lights on the scooter. The original brand have fragile filaments and are constantly rattling loose. The coffee is now $2 a cup, so make it last. I read this month’s article about the groups opposing androids (human-like robots) to treat the 3 D’s. You don’t know what that is. It’s shorthand for (I think) dementia, depression, and delirium in old people.
           That infuriates me, that scientific progress is opposed because of shit like that. You bet I am unsympathetic. You show me old people with feeble minds and I’ll show you useless bastards with wasted lives. I learned this first hand at the phone company and will never be convinced it is not their own damn fault.
           These are not diseases, they are a direct consequence of a sordid life of not using the brain. Now they want to ban robots? Screw them. No mercy. They are getting exactly what they deserve. You cannot watch cable television 2,000 hours per year for 60 years without winding up fucked in the head. Simple as that. As far as I’m concerned the reason this isn’t common knowledge is the medical community treats it like a hot potato. “Well, Mrs. Parsons, the root isn’t dementia, but that you have bored yourself silly through years of self-induced stupidity.”
           You can pick out the bad ones years in advance. Fat wife, retarded kids, not one single activity in a given month that demands a smidgen of brainpower. Reading hurts them, it really does. Do these idiots actually think that later in life they can reach over and switch their minds back on again? Folks, the damage is done after the first year of mental indolence. I’ve got two brothers, you know.

ADDENDUM
           And while I’m crabbing, I’m weary of these stories about Greece. How the poor, poor people over there are going to have to tighten their belts, lower their expectations, and start living within their means. Gag me with a spoon. Particularly the ones who bellyache how they have to explain to their little girls why they can’t have ballet lessons, breaking their little hearts into eentsy-weentsy little pieces.
           To hell with the whole lot of you. And don’t play the empathy card. You have never given a damn about responsible society (such as myself) who’ve lived their whole lives doing without. I don’t spend money that isn’t mine and now you go ballistic when the supply dries up. The army should have opened fire.
           Thank you. I feel much better now.


Last Laugh

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++