One year ago today: February 11, 2020, that’s right, tufted.
Five years ago today: February 11, 2016, a modest trip.
Nine years ago today: February 11, 2012, 11 whole minutes.
Random years ago today: February 11, 2008, Florida blocked intersection.
My emergency dentist refused to make a new appointment, so I still have the loose tooth. There is so much fraud that they won’t take cash. If there are consequences, well, you know. Because today I sent a 1,806 word description of how my bass playing has been negatively affected by arm pain. The secondary reason is to let the other people know that there will be no shortage of facts and figures, an angle regularly tried by certain factions. One document alone shows the damage incurred because I had planned to drive until 2043, with a motorcycle budget. Not only am I compelled to drive a car, the gas that was formerly talked of in quarts is now measured in gallons. Some 625 of them every year, and I said to my attorney—that money has to come from somewhere.
The paperwork took all morning and half the afternoon but something is shaping up that I don’t know. But I’m gagged from supplying details of that end of things, so just wait. It was important enough that I did not play bass all day, a very rare event. When I rehearse lists, I normally do half, or twenty songs, which takes 90 minutes. I had to use the time as Windows was again trying for a force-update, which means install malware. It’s a constant battle, this time I’m using the old DOS trick of letting them install, but immediately restoring the older version. It seems to stump them quite a while.
Bottom line is, if you do not allow so-called updates, all Windows systems after XP will gradually slow down. I am convinced this is on purpose, since it is a given. They love to give excuses like old drivers, but the reality is they are sick in the head over there, always have been. They will tell you what you want and how to do it. It’s one occupation where not one of them has the decency to sign their work. Moments later, dammit, they got Edge into my system again. You can’t delete it but you can mess it up with regedit. And more of the components require “trusted installer” permission, which is evoked by making changes to your properties window, which is never a secure thing with MicroSoft Screw that, they’ve lied and pulled fast ones just too many times.
Miss Arkansas, 2016(?).
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Betting it’s not going to rain till later, I got out the power scraper and put in two hours on the window. I got the frames mostly down to bare wood. This took that kind of time because there were spots where the various layers of paint built up over the years. I had to alternate between two oscillating tools but the outside is going to look fine soon. I know I have four or five quarts of white primer around, but could not find the before the rain came. How do I manage to lose cans of paint?
And the band guy e-mailed yet again, to cancel the second audition, leaving me the impression he’s pretty flaky to start with. But I always have a few comments on such things. During the first audition, I caught all those glances between them when I started playing. I also caught him watching my left hand several times to see how I was doing things. Aha, these guys were used to second and third rate bassists. The snag was that he twice mentioned he wanted a rhythm player. This becomes unnecessary with a bassist like myself, because my rhythm-bass style can punctuate the song at the right spots.
The trade-off is that this technique is not at all subtle. It must play enough of the rhythm section to keep the continuity and that means sharing the spotlight. Especially when the guitar player stops any rhythm he’s playing and launches into a lead solo. In this mode, he can completely outshine a rhythm guitarist, but a bass player keeping up the same is a different ball game. Ten days. He took ten days to decide, so maybe it was not that easy a decision for him and I’m sure he got plenty of prodding from that drummer, who quickly spotted my timing was better than his. Sorry, old boy, but I can’t even play unsteady time any more.
ADDENDUM
Taking a break, I linked to the Arduino sites to see if anything is new. Yes, they were just marketing the 3-axis accelerometer when this cabin renovation took over priority. They now have a basic earthquake detector. Sadly, a look at the software says it is a simple beginner’s project. Nothing but a motion detector. But check out this “matrix lamp” that uses hot glue sticks as filaments. Somebody had to think up that one, thanks whoever you are. Here’s a view of the Seeeduino XIAO, which I’ll inspect a bit later. Notice, the largest obvious component has become the USB plug.
I returned to the Arduino site, it has now caught up to the level of user-friendliness proposed in this blog a decade ago. The Uno model has dropped below $25 in price. I insist it is the best unit for both learning and working. At the same time, I recognize the Seeeduino does all the same tasks for $7. The prime concept here is that at that lower price, one-time usage becomes economical, at least for me.
The example that comes to mind is the drones that flew into burning buildings and volcanoes on one-way missions to self-destruct. Could not this produce similar adaptations for a microcontroller? Let me think on it. At the same time, this opens the door for more IoT. I know down to the electron level the potential for abuse of these things, and I guarantee you somebody will do it. If I can find one locally, we’ll program it to do something.
