One year ago today: June 9, 2019, that’s rain-adapted.
Five years ago today: June 9, 2015, 19 pages of foreclosures.
Nine years ago today: June 9, 2011, idol worship ≠ success.
Random years ago today: June 9, 2007, my Yamaha cat-scratch post.
What’s happening in the world? You tell me, I needed a day off and here I stayed. This is the blog that dares feature a donut tire (spare) and refuses to take any side except my own. I’ve recently had cause to talk robotics and detect a similarity. Remember in the early days how my Robotics club was formed? It was due to a complete lack of information or support at ground level. We got the same damnation around here. Unless you got enough bucks to get into the expensive colleges, there is zero available. One or two library books, all introductory level.
The Etch-a-Sketch is a classic, it came out in 1960 and led the baby boomer list for Xmas toys, I believe they sold 100 million of these things at around $25 each in today’s funny money. Myself and a young lady talked for a half-hour about what could be drawn, trying to come up with something original. Amongst the brainstorms were thumbprints, illusions, some type of game, or something to do with horoscopes. But what I got from her is the same situation I found myself in by 2012. If you want to learn this technology on your own, where do you turn? To this day, I dunno.
This marks the third time the young lady has mentioned the topic and I know from experience I’m much easier to take advice from than parents. I have plenty of gear for the beginner but I’ve learned other things. One is that self-taught people, as with computers, are not as sought-after as the people with degrees. They are more likely to succeed and you can’t measure satisfaction. I also know the most likely failure is from not learning to code. There is no shortage of engineer types to build things but are notoriously bad at coding. Thus, even if it dampens the enthusiasm, I think I will introduce the lady to code. It is impossible to tell if someone will be good at it until they create something.
From examining the Animator and its buttons, I imagine the thing was able to save a series of screens and play them back like the gifs you see here these days Want to test yourself? Go to github and read etchasketchstepper / ieee_stepper_instruction. It’s in Arduino. If it makes sense to you, pat yourself on the back. This is 212 lines of truly classic Arduino C+ code, including sparse documentation and not too many lines of unexplained strings. I interpret the longest string to be a drawing of what could be a golf club.
Global radio.
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Things are bouncing back now that people are returning to work by the millions. The Democrats are going nuts. Two weeks ago they were arresting people for not distancing, now they are urging them to bunch up in riot crowds. People like Musk put two and two together and are reopening their businesses. It’s become so clear the Marxists are frantic about wrecking the economy before election time. The problem is, that is their only remaining game plan and they’ve switched game plans so often, even their fifth column spin-masters can’t keep up with the lies. Look how often the Hunting Post has supported the wrong deception because they didn’t get the latest memo in time.
I cannot underscore enough that I am not a Trumpist, but a patriot who believes the liberal leftists are trying to undermine the American Constitution for their own evil purposes. Since these riots will stop what is left for them to try? I know, more Hillary-grade identity politics. They can’t point at a ruined economy and blame it on Trump, and they are not known for new ideas. I can’t see them daring to orchestrate another scandal or investigation, which they have learned don’t work on the Don.
ADDENDUM
College. Whenever I drive to Winter Haven, I pass many colleges with something in common. I never see any students and the parking lots are never full. I’ve chosen some nearby campus sites to see what they are offering, seeking anything that would be interesting to myself. That speeds me past the Criminal Justice and Early Childhood crap into the vocations. Let’s choose Polk State, what’ve they got. The first thing to notice is the list is hard to find. Hmm, the campus on the east end had an art exhibition today, I would have liked that.
The pickings are slim. Video production, medical coding, corrections officer, supply chain management. Maybe these are what passes for jobs in this era. Consider the medical coding. All Trump has to do is remove state lines for insurances, require all medical facilities to accept all insurances (or put the insurers out of business) and force them to post their prices—bingo, you are out of a job and a career. Let’s see what colleges offer real training. The first apparent idiocy is how difficult it is to find the course listings. Too much emphasis on bullying. They are all eager to steer you to counseling and assessment, but Broward Community College is still fresh in the memory. Bunch of scumbags.
The best spread is Ridge Technical College, I think we looked at this before. What is surgical technology? That’s where you hand the doctor the scalpel. There is a course for electricity, but except for the blueprint and code studies, it is child’s-play for the robotics mind. Ah, here were go, building trades. Ah, we did check this already. You cannot take carpentry without taking masonry. Can you see me lifting bricks at my age? I found a list of schools, but the splash page has a photo in such hi-res, I went to make coffee while it was downloading. Way to go, there, Tyler. I don’t see what my name and address have to do with your course lists.
I’m not into agriculture or feed prep. I reviewed what course listings I could find, and boy, when they say basic, they mean it. In my day, when you showed up for carpentry, the expectation was that you knew which was the business end of a hammer. Nor do I get thrilled when I see the tuition costs compared to the starting salaries. Let’s take one example. Lab assistant. Cost of courses $32,000 beginning salary $35,100. I don’t think I’ve every been in debt for more than I made in a year. The last thing I bought on credit was a then-new tech marvel, the dot matrix printer. Mine had three modes, one of which was NLQ. (Near letter quality, the first of its kind outside of Seattle.) Slow as hell, but man I got the use out of that. It was $600 at the time, around 1983?
