One year ago today: July 28, 2014, Nova, you are on notice.
Five years ago today: July 28, 2010, bullet-holes in the ceiling?
Six years ago today: July 28, 2009, teenage outlaws.
MORNING
There’s JZ rapping with some passerby in the Lanai Tunnel. The Lanai Kai has a passageway from the street to the beach—just like real old Hawaii. We didn’t stay this time, just lunch and then later corn dogs. We had intended to look around the town. Instead we waded through water from the downpour. And iced tea. We had iced tea.
I’m developing a distaste for Complex News and other Millennial productions. They are more concerned with being politically correct than being accurate, and we already have too much of that. And as for the Millennial teens who disappeared on the boat—if they die, blame the parents. If they survive, send the parents the bill. I saw their fat mothers on TV, so if my suggestion seems cruel, like whatever. When I was fourteen, there were no boats, much less boats to go joyriding in. Or $117 to fill the fuel tanks. And you want my sympathy?
Most fourteen year olds are lost as it is, lost in poverty. I don’t recall any public sympathy for them. Where were their search parties? Where was their news coverage? Who was there to rescue them? Or is it only the rich who are worth saving at public expense? I say: no special treatment. No privilege. Dead or alive, send ‘em the bill. Daily.
Worse, circumstances meant I had to wait around all day doing very little, stuck in a room with the television on. Fortunately, I had brought my Cussler novel. He’s slipping. But not as badly as those terrible pro-Hispanic reporters who try to out-talk Trump and Coulter. Come on Geraldo, you know you want to say it, “All of us are immigrants.” That’s a cop out, since the controversy has nothing to do with legal immigrants. But you know you want to be a dick and say it.
Or how about the peckerheads who bring up that he has donated money to both parties 30 years ago. Even though he has answered that stupid ancient question how many times already? These reporters are such trolls they don’t know they are being out-trolled by the best.
NOON
”If you cause your ship to stop, and place the head of a long tube in the water and place the other extremity to your ear, you can hear ships at a great distance from you.” ~ Da Vinci, 1490.
Trivia, because I was at the library. Snakes can catch malaria. A rocket, accelerating at a tolerable 3Gs, reaches orbital velocity in around 9 minutes. The oldest European language is “Euskara”. Only one word of it has ever been incorporated into English, the word, “silhouette” which means, in Basque, “lots of holes”. During WWI, England court martialed 8,608 people, of whom 7 went to prison.
This is the internal part that makes stepper control expensive. The screw turns on a stationary mount, causing the plastic assembly to move back and forth with great precision, depending on the pitch of the screw threads. A matching nut would work, but usually inside the plastic shaft is a spring forming and “anti-kickback” assembly.
The Arduino is ideal for tool control. Bonus, the programming is tricky enough to discourage all but the most determined beginners. I consider automatic reprogrammable tools as a form of robotics and I have the tools to make these tools. At this point, I can make the motors stop and go, and vary the speeds. This is a far cry from controlling them well enough to do useful work. But not as far a cry as a year ago thinking I’d finally be at this stage.
It won’t be anything fancy, but it is in keeping with the general progress of robots. The major reason robots are just now making inroads into major manufacturing is that they are difficult to maintain. And most robots pick up a part and set it down, sometimes referred to as a “bang-bang” robot. I was thinking of getting one to drill evenly spaced holes. I spend three hours just doing the math, only to discover I was, in fact, designing a 2D printer table. Hmmmm.
And as another example of “truth by majority rule”, the latest Compton’s has 30 pages on baseball and basketball, but just five short paragraphs on Basque.
NIGHT
For those who like lobster, I just heard of it referred to as “the cockroach of the sea”. Yummy. The review of our auction adventures is done and we’ve lost the element of surprise. The recorder reveals that nothing happens as others come and go, but the strangers present are now closing ranks when we enter the room. Sudden hush, and they have figured out a few of our pitching signals. And that we are there to learn, not to bid.
Again, it is trashed inside, but JZ and I are near expert rehabbers. We have not thoroughly inspected the place, but comps in the neighborhood are going for $156,000, so we know there is something wrong with it. But how much could be wrong with a house built in 1991? It has a troubled history, selling in 2001 for $71,000 and again in 2011 for $10,570. Those prices pretty much say good neighborhood, so we take a look.
The whole auction thing was a lark, but something I highly recommend to anyone who actually believes that the system is fair to the little guy. I’m insinuating the courthouse auctions, but the very fact of letting an agent of the seller participate in the bidding is so offensive to common sense it makes it all absurd. Plus the “right” of the seller to refuse to accept the highest bid. Why bother calling it an auction?
Tactically, we learned these auctions largely go to locals who can inspect the property. And they are dominated by professional buyers. One must have a schedule of attendance, not trying for a successful bid, but watching closely for something to go wrong, or a lapse in the system. It’s a damn shame, but that’s hardly my fault. We are, I suspect, going to have to outright buy something as a base to operate out of. But flipping these properties is indeed a lucrative enterprise.
Last Laugh
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