One year ago today: November 13, 2014, on free rider syndrome.
Five years ago today: November 13, 2010, Clancy goes ho-hum.
Six years ago today: November 13, 2009, looks like Finnish.
Nine years ago today: November 13, 2006, dual fuel, really?
MORNING
I got a little sunburned in the shade, I see. That means I kept indoors and the library is about as indoors as you can get. Man, the local branch has become a hangout for skanky women. You know, I don’t recall ever having seen a decent-looking older woman in that place in what, ten or eleven years now. It’s one of those towns where it makes more sense to be born beautiful than smart. When you’re a babe for a few years, the system makes sure that even if you wind up divorced, you’re set for life.
That’s JZ amused by a stop window in downtown Naples. Don’t get me wrong, if you are shopping for high end statues and think ordinary food tastes better when it is shockingly expensive, then get over there and park the limo. These figurines are handmade and painted expertly. I think they are ceramic, I did not enter the shop.
Here’s your trivia. In 1920, there was only one broadcast frequency of radio. It was 833 kHz. But since the transmitters were weak and every city had only one station, it was not a problem. And you can thank the phone company for radio advertising. Until they pushed through a few laws favoring the practice, broadcasting was considered a nuisance, like skywriting. Mercifully, skywriting is illegal in many places, except for religious organizations who claim the right to commit this crime. Like they do with telemarketing. It isn’t a sin when the church does it.
Generally, the ban is on outdoor advertising in general. As it should be. Skywriting sucks, and so do people who think otherwise. I believe there should be blanket regulations over advertising on any new media that is discovered or becomes popular. I further think that magazines should have to reveal the percentage of adverting in each issue on the cover, and that radio and television stations should be required to announce the same before each different broadcast. “Coming up, Jeopardy, our broadcast of this program is 42% of the airtime”.
The idea is to set the stations against each other to begin to restrict advertising to compete, since the opposite prevails at this point. Before I forget, when the government began licensing radio frequencies, it also began monitoring them. That’s why Aimee Semple McPherson complained to Hoover about when they pulled their license for repeat violations. She insisted she was on a direct wavelength “to the Almighty” on every frequency. Apparently the same with her after-preaching appetites.
NOON
Do you feel like more trivia? Sure, why not, it’s either that or we can chat some more about my cPod camper. Huh? Well, I knew you’d feel that way. So how about we talk silver, the 66th most abundant element on Earth? It slid to $14.25 this morning and my next buy point is $14.00 even. I cannot repeat often enough that you buy the actual silver, not the paper certificates. There is a reputed 300 times as much paper as there is real silver.
And forget “Mexican” silver, also German, Austrian, Afghan, Sonara, Tyrol, Brazilian, or Venetian silver because it is not silver.
How about this vase? You’ve seen it in every set of encyclopedias. It is ancient Greek or Roman and is the most famous, maybe the most valuable, vase ever found. It is in the British Museum, along with tons of other goodies they looted from the world. It is restored, having been smashed by a drunk in 1845.
As I’ve said, I believe most stereotypes and preconceptions of people have some basis in reality, if you dig deep enough. So how about the Germans as scientists? Well prior to World War II, most of the best scientists in the world were in Germany. But you only heard of the [more] famous ones in the West, like Einstein. By the end of the war, the world knew. And that is because a third of all the scientists in Germany during the war had worked on the V2 rocket program.
Most countries developed an acoustic torpedo during that era. The countermeasure was to tow a “foxer” gear behind the ship to attract the homing device. That only worked until they figured out the Germans would launch a sacrificial torpedo to get the escorts to turn on the foxer, thus nullifying the sonar. The counter-countermeasure was called “Pelican”, a sound generator that was dropped and left behind, or which could emulate the movement of a phantom ship. I studied this material, you know.
NIGHT
Oh no, not another pack of magnificent idiots. Kaspersky anti-virus. So I link to their recommended site and it says to download their setup link. Okay. But it doesn’t let me choose where I want the download to go. So a half hour later (Win 8.1 has the usual lousy Windows file search boondoggle. Even when it works, it covers up what you need to see.), I find it mixed in with dozens of other files also named “setup”, but I guessed from the date. Careful newbies, Kaspersky only tell you if there is a virus, it does not cure it unless you pony up some bucks.
I was going to invite Trent for some brews, but have you looked outside? Broiling hot days and torrential rain at night. Instead, we are going to meet up at the beach for a few tomorrow. I haven’t really been out at all this week except when JZ came by to look at the hot water tank. I don’t know how, but he has talked me into one of those tankless models. We’ll do that soon, the other one is still dripping. That is an exciting night in South Florida once you are over 30.
And the way most of the women look and act these days, I don’t know if being under 30 is such a great thing either. How about those studies that show how men react to the same woman depending on how much makeup she is wearing? It doesn’t surprise us that the more men watch TV, the more they like the severe look. Makes sense, not ever having seen any wholesome women, they wouldn’t know any better. Then, those pictures of Ukrainian college girls? Over here that would be a modeling agency. I mean wow!
So, sorry guys. If I can’t find anything, that means you jokers are hopeless. I learned in my teens not go out on payday. That still makes sense years later, when I can afford it many times over. You get the gold-diggers. My most successful night for meeting women is a Tuesday. I’m inclined to think that’s the day nice girls stop by for one or go out, knowing the mashers are broke until the weekend.
I remain astounded that some sharp people have not come up with a new offering on-line that gives customers what they want. They want privacy, anonymity, and freedom from what the regular Internet has become. It’s gone sour. The big players have colluded to divide up the market and employ dirty tricks. For example, if you download the new version and don’t like it, you often cannot reinstall an older version, at least not easily. Or instead of the option to block all ads, the software now seeks to determine your tolerance level. Or sign-out buttons that take you to another link. These Millennials don’t know when they are being led down the garden path.
ADDENDUM
So there I am last evening with a mug of Russian tomato soup and a good book on electronics. I hit this chapter where they talk about a “60 element array” as if it were so common, everybody knows what it is. Then, it hit me. These guys were talking about the early days, and when I was a kid, I saw broadcasts of the dinosaurs at the Disney parks. They called it “automated animatronics”, which I thought was the neatest phrase ever. I had noticed the dinosaurs moved somewhat erratically and repeated their motions every 30 seconds.
Aha, then it hit me. The sixty element array was sampling something every half a second. I remembered the Disney documentary that showed an operator could look through a peep hole and press levers to alter the movement of the dinosaur when people were near. But when he let go, the dinosaur reverted to the repetitious motions.
Got it. The guys at Disney were not programming the movement. They used a recording device to capture an initial “default” set of lever commands, two per second for 30 seconds. (I read later it was sound recordings on an ordinary reel-to-reel tape deck.) This was played back in series, it was not digitally looped, but recorded serially on a reel, which had to be rewound to be replayed. Now it makes sense. When some tourists approached, an operator overrode the tape with his primitive “joystick”.
It was all analog, but that must have been a fine example of pioneer work. One of the challenges is the analog signals themselves. I find it difficult to imagine how they got all the variants to work together. Many a time they must have dreamed of a digital system, where simple math can resolve the differences. All you really worry about digitally is that the input signal varies between 0 and 5 volts. You sample this as a value between 0 and 1023 (or 2n where n=10). Thus, 2.5 volts would “read” as a digital value of 512, or half of 1023.
Since each “volt” can be divided into 205 digital values (1023/5), this is what they mean by resolution. A higher n value would be more divisions and higher resolution. Note to Arduino buffs, this is also why you should choose to buy sensors that output a voltage, not a current, and work on 5 volts or the newer 3.3 volt standard, which I avoid. Um, if you get a sensor that operates at a different range, this is what that strange and misunderstood AREF pin is for. That pin is something else I avoid. Stick with 5 volts.
Trivia. Don’t you hate those air compressors at gas stations that demand quarters? There is a rumor going around that the stations are legally required to give you air (and water) for free. Ahem, this is only in California and only when you buy gasoline at the station. The idea is that cars with properly inflated tires are better for the environment. (Stations are still allowed to post prices and install pay slots to fool people who don’t know the law.)
Last Laugh
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
