One year ago today: February 8, 2020, like a Russian sub.
Five years ago today: February 8, 2016, a distant chance.
Nine years ago today: February 8, 2012, now, 26 years ago.
Random years ago today: February 8, 2013, past its prime.
My expensive attic fan quit working a month after the warrantee ended. It’s crawl in the attic time, dammit, that fan was supposed to last a pampered 25 years. Give me a day, maybe it’s a loose wire or something. The Mars Perserverance lander, or I should say rover, has hit a bit of luck. It’s landed in nearly ideal conditions for the MarsCopter. This is a giant step forward, as I put it. The machine has to compensate for the lower atmospheric pressure, which places limits on just spinning the blades faster. The blade tips cannot get too close to the sound barrier, which is a lot slower in thin air.
Reading doesn’t help either, since the articles are plainly computer generated, like the voices that read them. Coded by the same losers who created the GPS voice. SeaTac “In-tul” Airport. It’s got that empty content of shallow authors who try to beef things up by using grammar software. That’s so much easier than doing your homework. So I’m watching the video mostly with the narration turned off so I can see for myself what’s going on. The technology is well-tested so I hope they don’t start using the flights for public relations when what we need are large scale maps.
I would not mind if we found new societies if only to break this crud-brained slop that outer space is full of Apache-like clans who live in harmony and name all their unusual geographic formations after made-up gods. How about a society smarter than to send married men on dangerous missions? Instead of trying to force everybody to be equal, how about like myself they were actually intelligent enough to be comfortable with most differences?
The guitar player who wants to start a “super-group” has answered back a few times. I’ve been letting him get his fill of the local scene and he’s not learning as fast as he should. There is nothing out there in Polk County that isn’t already committed. His concept is okay, but he’s hundreds of miles from any place that would hire us to play Alice In Chains or Poison. The guy’s almost 50, but he could be the new 30, kind of like I was, only without the common sense to stay away from leather pants and bandanas.
First ever “metal” 3D printer stuff.
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See this pretty bunch of flowers? My back yard is full of them, and they are a weed. It’s the “pistachio” tree from next door sending out sprigs. The flowers are orchid-like, so I let them bloom. This time of year in Florida, the air is perfumed, and I don’t mean slightly. You can smell a mixture of magnolia and orange blossoms driving around in your car. What does it cost to live in this sort of place. Well, I picked up this cabin for $18,000 and that’s related to what I’m about to write. The only thing stopping most people from doing the same is a special form of going deaf. They don’t listen to good advice because, methinks, because they know it is good whenever it contradicts their gut instincts.
The talk amongst the lesser qualified is all about the $1400 stimulus checks, which could start arriving in a couple of weeks. That’s the free money people wrongly think they are getting, but it is just paper rolling off the printing presses. It’s central to planning around here and there’s been intense planning sessions concerning preservation of wealth with the inevitable inflation surge. I say the lesser qualified in the sense that other than small businesses, Americans who lead proper lives are not all that affected by the shutdowns. This is the basis of my contention that the Democrats are intentionally targeting cash-flow operations.
By proper lives, I mean they did not follow the Zionist bankster propaganda of borrowing when young and spending their remaining days paying off the loans. They did the opposite, like myself, and lived within their means. It’s amusing, the difference between the two groups, I don’t but my neighbors joke about it. The system is skewed funny, where people like myself who could care less get the same $1400 as the desperate—but me because I make sure I sure I am eligible for such programs. After all, unlike the undeserving, I’m only getting a fraction of my own money back. And in traditional capitalist thinking, I must use it to take advantage, or lose it.
I’m saying, in America, it pays to make sure one meets the government definition of poor. I learned this working for a Canadian company in my twenties. It was not uncommon there to meet 40 year old men in perfect health living in a wing of their parent’s mansion in West Vancouver, driving a Porsche, who collected a monthly welfare check. Or in Canadian, welfare cheque. How? Because in the west, wealth is not determined by possessions, but by income. You can inherit a complete comfort zone, but that is not considered income—because the people who gave it to you already paid tax on it once. This screwy system works best for tight family groups.
The challenge is to invest in something that holds its value because, remember this, it is something that remains in demand through inflation, devaluation, depression, taxation, confiscation, legislation, and a host of other bullshit that’s become daily norm in this country. We are already leveraged well in metals. Sadly, the rest is a lot of guesswork. I could buy another house, but nothing makes a market like that collapse faster than me investing in it. I’ve learned. To me, diversification makes more sense when matters are uncertain. So I leave you now to scan for what others are investing in who appear to know what they are doing.
[Author’s note: I cannot stress enough that what you see in this blog is not advice, particularly most numbers. The information here is “15%” wrong, including locations, distances, and anything that is deemed over-interpretable. Do not copycat or take things verbatim around here, the purpose is entertainment, the hope is you will use the material discretely.]
ADDENDUM
Last evening turned chilly so I examined the list of sensors currently available for the Arduino. Other than an increase in the newer 3.3V standard, most merely confirm my statement that there is nothing new in electronics in over 50 years. Capabilities have changed, but even types of sensors now marketed show a decline in imagination. There are sensors that detect touch, knocks, light, soil moisture, vibration, and moisture. In other words, nothing new. I found in my early studies even minimal performance could only be achieved by using several sensors of each type and averaging the results. This quickly gets expensive.
Most projects are single function and there is no provision to team the sensors together for better results. I planned a few on paper, such as using light intensity and ultrasound to increase the results of obstacle detection, but otherwise there is little overlap in terms of usefulness. There is also a growth of projects that emphasize scale over usefulness. One such example is the 256 relays, which is 1 relay duplicated 256 times. Normally one sensor operates one relay or a series of [connected]relays that accomplish something. This project just activates 256 relays, nothing else. Think 256 light switches. Whoopie.
Nonetheless, I am going to faithfully look through all the offerings at arduino.cc, seeking anything I have not seen or imagined before. Hmm, okay, Arduino color detection is new. I like the smart bird feeder, but by page 8 I’ve learned to avoid the “hindu” projects. These are easy to spot because instead of naming what the thing does, like “temperature sensor”, there’s a ridiculous name like “KY-007 Interface”. Okay, here’s something, a device that measures the tension on your band saw blade. But none of these projects use more than a few wires and none come close to the complexity of the ROM circuit I built what, five or six years ago.
And I found that circuit. It is no longer working, but the modular design means I’ll get it happening soon as there’s time. Remind me to built a better keyboard as well. The small clothespins I used deteriorated very badly. My new design will used broken jigsaw blades. I learned that GPS shuts itself off at a height of 65,000 feet as a safety measure.
I was also reminded of my university days when I was the most poverty-stricken student in the school’s history. Once again, I’m watching 19 year olds with hobbies like launching high-altitude balloon flights. At that age, I could not imagine having the car to go pick the balloon up where it landed. If anyone says I’m missing the point and getting the wrong lesson, quit being such an AOL and look who’s talking.
