August 21, 2015

Yesteryear
One year ago today: August 21, 2014, not another camera . . .
Five years ago today: August 21, 2010, the Sammy-zonk.
Six years ago today: August 21, 2009, there’s an app . . .

MORNING
           Programming must seem mindless to the uninitiated, so I spent the morning doing just that. The sad part of programming is that there are no rules. This is sad because it means there are no standards, either. I am not surprised that most "modern" code only works as well as it does. If it works, even under the most limited of circumstances, then it is considered acceptable these days. And that is degenerate.

           Here’s something else hand-written. A copy of the notes during development. This page shows the algorithm and pseudo-code of the reading an print module. There are five other pages of notes but this one is the clearest and easiest to understand. The parts that are seen as repetitive will later be moved to subroutines. This code is to map out the process.

           While I was pondering why my numbers are appearing so slowly, here is an option I dreamed up. If the numbers are to remain slow, why noy have them appear as if they were being hand-written?
           Think about it. All electronics numbers you’ve seen always flash completely on at the same time. I thought to have them appear as if they were being written by hand. I rejected the idea because of the amount of wiring and coding, but I have not ruled out the idea. I mean, it would, after all, look pretty keen.
           And I love the way Trump told off some pimp who found the term “anchor baby” offensive. The country is going down the tubes but pimps want political correctness. Good for you, Donald. Ha, did hear how he had once earmarked $10 billion to get elected? He has so badly rearranged the political landscaping that he admits, all told, he has not spent a penny so far. No way can the establishment rombots possibly compete with that. The man has started a movement. And to those who think Trump is picking on them, it is duly noted that Trump never hits first.

NOON
           Not only were the numbers on my display appearing slowly, in a lot of cases they were misshapen. That one took me a while. It turned out to be the previous number was not being erased, so some of the “cells” were remaining lit up. There has to be an active command that goes in there and “erases” the previous number for a spance of time detectible to the human eye. (Spance?)

           While this project was intended for learning, you’ll have to already know the basics of programming. There are embedded loops everywhere, which is typical of most applications that try to duplicate the human thought process. Still, I maintain a sharp kid could follow along. I feel it is important that such projects work toward a practical goal, in this case, the display of numbers. I find too many other electronics designs tend to be impractical or contrived. As if the creator discovered some process or quirk in the code and invented an end to match. Like those LED cubes, a cute but useless result of a nincompoop who just discovered muxing.

           What? You don’t know from LED cubes? Here is a photo of one with all the lights on at once. These can be programmed to do all kinds of different swirling patterns—and probably have been already. You can watch this demo. Pretty, but useless.
           And who said I was against welfare? Knock it off! I never said I was against welfare. To those people who agree with welfare, you give all the money you want to, I would never dream of preventing that. But, the moment you compel others to give, that is what I am against. At that point, you become the enemy of not just me, but of democracy as well. You have no right to steal money and no right to elect others to do it for you. There is no room in the heaven for those who force their will upon others in the false name of “charity”.

EVENING
           I headed for the movie in Fort Lauderdale, “Marshland”. It concerns some murders in Spain and I can recommend it. Mind you, I like “detective” plots. And this one was good enough to distract me from programming. Good because I solved a challenge. Return later for my review of the movie. Here is what I discovered with the LED programming.

           But before I do that, here is some popcorn that impressed me. Stopping at my least favorite, Starbucks, I read the ingredients label. While not diet food and likely modified corn, I tried this bleu cheese all natural flavored snack. It is great—and addictive. At 170 calories, it is worth a try. As with most fast food, I’ve noticed it is about 1 cent per calorie. Now, back to my LEDs.

           To “light up” three LEDs, you want your display to flash as many times per second as possible. The reason is that slower flashes mean things look dimmer. Follow my thinking here that if I want to show the “numbers” between 0 and 999, it would mean 3,000 reads. Do the math, 3 digits times 1,000 numbers. Most people are not used to looking at things from this standpoint and today, most programmers are Millennials.
           This complicated matters because if you don’t “print” every number every time, the 100s digit and 10s digit will blank out long before their turn shows up again. Since I must “print” 3,000 digits, how do I minimize the number of time-consuming reads? That is what I figured out tonight. It is 1,110. I need only be just wily enough to read each progressively significant digit 1/16 millionth of a second before I know it has to change. That would be when the lesser significant digit is about to change from 9 back to 0.

           Not bad, considering none of this may work. I’ve figured out the timing of the display should match the least significant digit, since any faster won’t make the display better. Therefore, forget about timing and just embed it in the “1’s loop”. I can do that. This is the type of interplay between programming logic and electric or mechanical interface that I set out to learn. How do you think I’m coming along?
           I stopped at Starbucks on Young Circle. It is sad how the [local] town council, in the blurry-eyed heyday of the mid-2000’s, wound up chasing away all the businesses that gave [the old] downtown its character. Like the used book store and the magic shop. Now we have a grave mismatch between what’s available and what the locals want. Franchise coffee. Unless you want to find parking downtown and pretend you are having fun spending $60 on sandwiches for two, there is not even a real café open after dark anymore.
           The few shops left open attempt to cater to a snooty tourist crowd that is not there year-round.

           And how about those so-called “$17 an hour” farm labor jobs in California quoted by O’Reilly? That guy is brain dead. Gee, let’s all quit our annual jobs and take a chance on a few weeks of that good money. And to hell with what happens when we try to go back our old $8 per hour jobs back once harvest is over. News mediators can be so ignorant it is unfathomable. Gross stupidity is no barrier to becoming a reporter in this land.


Last Laugh
(It’s actually a woman’s dress advertisement.)

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