One year ago today: March 13, 2020, refused on-line banking.
Five years ago today: March 13, 2016, Wachula & Bowling Green
Nine years ago today: March 13, 2012, $92 in my pocket.
Random years ago today: March 13, 2001, pic near the Orinoco.
We measured the roof for new shingles. In 33 square-foot multiples, if I opt for the economy brand, we can afford to place a thin plywood and tarpaper layer ensuring the roof will last the rest of my time. I logged on to see some of the 9,900 photos the Perseverance lander has sent from Mars. NASA again reveals its shallow non-scientific side by fronting this scene “voted” picture of the week. How cute, how nice of them, how geared to the lowest IQ out there. Myself, I can’t see Mars. That stupid mechanical thing is blocking half the view.
There’s even a couple art displays, for those who prefer to look at pictures of computer chips as opposed to learn anything much about them. The amateur radio society is again showing off radios instead of building them. Why do they call it a radio club instead of a transmit and receive club? If you are more into creating art than walking past it, don’t miss the macaroni stall. If I skip this year, blame the proliferation of LED wearables and the $10 per plastic cup juice vendors.
You may not like the atmosphere of these shows, as there is a massive element of Disney-esque marketing to children. I am against this, which I attribute to growing up in an America where you were repetitively told to act your age and often beaten when you did. Now that discipline is disallowed, expect a noisy free-for-all when you get near the more popular exhibits. What do I want to be when I grow up? A kid again.
And how about those Pentagon types that got their noses bent out of shape when Tucker ragged on about their new maternity uniforms. I saw that. He asked how it would work when they had to use the ejector seat. And those uncooperative people who get the vaccine and just won’t quit dying of cardiac arrest. Or the leftoids drumbeating that the Tesla plant opening has COVID cases. Um, Washington Post, unless there are deaths, nobody is listening any more. You’ve shot your bold with the dire fake warnings. Actual deaths, may 10% of your claims, all elderly or already compromised. Let’s hear about the flu shot deaths.
In a classic I-told-you-so, all these ransomware attacks were predicted right here years and sometimes decades ago. What you are not being told is that the attacks are specifically on MicroSoft servers and that MicroSoft is directly responsible. The vulnerabilities are the same as back on Windows 95 and were never fixed. Redmond should be fined and punished, this was never business as usual. The very architecture was left open to intrusion, which is why I warned against using their products for secure and business applications. Spend the money, use Apple. But, I hear from the peanut gallery, I used MicroSoft products all the time. Yes. But not for business or private material. I don’t even check my bank balance on-line. All e-mail speaks in tongues. And this blog is too inaccurate on the finer points to be used for anything but entertainmet.
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Danger. Boeing has okayed the 737 for flight again, but I would not walk past such a piece of junk. The company admits it “identified concerns” with wiring and such components as the flight control computer. This blog pointed out those problem 20 years ago—the danger of object oriented programming. Like the GPS on your dash, this airplane embodies the worst of millennial think. Each component designed by an isolated department bent of making sure they can’t be blamed for a thing. Sound familiar? It’s a feature of contemporary American culture that I’ve not heard a perjorative for yet.
And it gets worse. I’ve been on such teams of people and they love to work to spec. All too often, when I suggested maybe the on-screen displays should have closer ties with the underlying functions, I was called down for causing delays. By 1990, those sort of morons were a majority in every layer of the company. The end result is always the same—it works like the court system, NASA, and building codes. Each jackass can prove he did his job right and is not responsible when the building collapses. I have yet to hear of a District Attorney convicted of malicious prosecution, yet every other month you hear of some commuted prison sentence.
I’d call this the first proper day of summer. Boss Hogg and me out in the shed, I wasted time but why not. What I mean is I tried to install hinges and latches best I could and it takes longer than building the box. Next, I strung out some electrical wiring. I have some 20 Amp receptacles that require 12/2 wiring. When ganging these together, that is not the easiest gauge to work with. I’ll wisely stock up on peach tea before starting with that. Hang on, let me go feed that chicken or we’ll get no peace and quiet. Okay, I’m back. In the meanwhile, I wired up these receptacles.
It takes twice as long to wash the van as the station wagon, and the roof remains out of reach without some kind of step. I still get a laugh out of vans with those ladders to get up on the roof. The ads show people on deck chairs up there, but fact is there is a very narrow comfort range. Improbable as it is, I also wish radio stations like Boss Hogg would quit lawyer advertising for things like disability benefits. Something is wonky when you may not know you are disabled until you talk to an attorney.
The radio program was another hits of the past and again left me wondering. Where was I when these were even on the charts? I learned there are two bands with the most rock hits in a row, six each by the Beatles and the BeeGees. These bands are like 1960s, maybe the bunch writing today’s music could take a hint? That’s about as likely as them admitting everything they’ve ever coded on a computer has already been done. However, the all time total of consecutive hits is twenty by Alabama, with sales in their home turf accounting for most of it. Makes you wonder if they did a Barbara Streisand. (Her connections with a chain of family-owned music stores drove sales up to the millions by inventory shuffling, the precursor of ballot harvesting.)
By late afternoon, I finally removed a shelf in the back bedroom that was meant to be temporary. It was there four years. What’s with all the shelves? I think the cheap shelf lumber now costs what the good stuff used to so I’m just spending in the same scope. This exposes the wall that will become the center of the network, office, and music in this house. I never did have a place big enough to have a room for everything, so it’s more like a music wall or corner than a music room.
You know what I would change? LEDs have become so cheap that I would require receptacles to have a small light, maybe blue, that indicates power is present. And helps you find it in the dark. Remind me to look into that idea. Not to build it, but to sell it. Leaving autoplay on by accident while up the ladder, I got to listen to a clip by Biden’s wife, the so-called doctor. You have to be kidding me, the woman is not just slow in the head, she has mental issues that are quite consistent with her politics and she lacks the ability to think clearly. Doctor, my eye.
ADDENDUM
Yep, wrapping my head around FPGA is fun until the cup fills up and spills over. Here’s how far I got today. This is a diagrammatical display of why I think the way I do about whatever these FPGA gadgets turn out to be. On the left is a depiction from off some techie site, on the right is the logic board of my original home-made ROM. (It quit working, I’m troubleshooting.) My inspection was on horizontal and vertical wiring intersects. I would post this on-line but I don’t have any background music that sounds like theme for an emerging clothing line.
Let’s take a brief but closer look. I say the LB squares on the left stands for “logic blocks”, which is more information that was contained in the post. Note the profusion of inputs on the perimeter. To the left is my design, showing a minimal grid, you can just make out the 7-segment lettering along the bottom. Anyone capable of figuring out how this works would be tempted to replace those diodes with something more flexible. These would normally be invisible, but I used the light-emitting type so the user could see the action. A new term is making an entrance, “glue logic”. For now, it means each component is confined to working with its direct neighbors.
Can you spot the carefully placed patterns of the diodes? These channel the input from a pressed key to the correct configuration of junctions that will cause a single digit to display in human-readable form. When I get the thing working again, return for a demo. Each segment has its own dedicated circuit through this logic board, plus any overhead. It’s lot’s of work, as each junction diode also acts as its own switch. That is why you see a somewhat randomized arrangement, but the number of LEDs in each horizontal line matches the number of segments that would light to display that digit.
It’s so labor-intensive that after the first or second digit, you’d be thinking how nice it would be to put a diode and every intersection and use an external switch to pick the paths as needed. Yeah, then the “logic” just moves to the wiring instead of the board and creates more work. That’s where transistors come in. Replace the diodes with transistors and you only need seven more wires and only one row of connections. I’ll let you figure that out.
What I figure is the FPGA goes that extra step and replaces the transistors with logic gates. This idea I guarantee you occurred to anyone who has made complex circuits using jumper wire. Toward the end some of my designs you could not see the chips any more for the wiring. That’s why I think the LB is a block of logic where inside each node there is a configurable set of gates that emulate moving jumpers around. If that is a correct guess, it’s a pity none of those people had the brainpower to just say so. That would make it logic moved to the wiring, as just hypothesized, but in a tiny more efficient structure. It would explain the hefty price tags.
Those pink inputs around the core, that’s where I will concentrate. If I understand how those pins access the gates, then it will dawn on me how the scrabble-like programming commands work. Right now, they dance in front of my eyes seconds into each sentence. So much of learning electronics and programming involves figuring out that near total lack of teaching skills which turns geeks into engineers.
I say again, the concept will turn out to be simple, it’s the way engineering turns it into an operational chaos that produces the challenge. I’m saying it would not be all that tricky to design a friendly interface first and adapt the electronics, but that is not how those people roll. Time permitting, I will try to find a depiction of one of those logic blocks.
