One year ago today: September 23, 2020, playing with COBOL.
Five years ago today: September 23, 2016, Mr. Chirp-chirp.
Nine years ago today: September 23, 2012, still missing.
Random years ago today: September 23, 2008, typical early blog style.
Yes, it is a mobile home, but is sitting on its own land. Around ten miles away, and I have the guy down to almost the price of a vacant lot. I’ve not decided because it would drain my resources and it will need a new roof shortly. The area is working class and mostly the right demographic. And I know a lady who is looking, but she might want something nicer. I look at it as a place to keep value during the coming inflation. I could easily live there if I had to, it is only a five minute drive from downtown.
I drove past, it is in the same general area as that lady with the barking parrot. If I get motivated, I’ll take a closer look and check out more of the surroundings. Plus I did not check it that was a carport or a Florida room. It it’s a Florida room, there’s your extra bedroom. I’ve made no decisions, but the maximum I would be broke for is one month. What say I go over for another look? The surrounding buildings all have additions and it is kitty-corner from what looks like a developing townhouse area. Moments later, I got an e-mail. The place just sold. Oh well, I was looking when I found that one.
Of all the crazy things to go wrong, my GPS broke off the plug end of the power supply. And it is one of those now-rare USB-B style, of which I have two left but reserved for computer gear. I’ll extract the pieces from the socket, but all GPS units are a millennial design. You can’t fix one thing without breaking another.
Finishing up reviews of my rehearsal videos, I see some real gaps in the presentation. The band is still centered on getting the music rather than how the audience perceives the show. I overestimated the lead player, he knows zero theory and does not appear aware of the close relationship between the guitar and bass strings. Nor can he visualize chords fingering patterns if I show him. He also draws blanks on chord names. Ask him to play Bb and you may get Bm, quite unacceptable, actually.
I hear Clint Eastwood, now 91 years old, has another movie, “Cry Macho”. It is supposed to be free, so I thought to look. Nope, not free at all. How did that rumor get started? The radical left is indulging in some last minute posturing ahead of the claimed audit release, though it could wind up another nothing burger like the last 50+ announcements.
Seacow Head lighthouse.
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The afternoon clouded over just enough to get me out into the shed. I’m doing “small” work now so it may look like nothing’s getting done. I trimmed the window glass, wired the exterior outlet (see pic), and buried the underground cable out to the scooter port. Backfilling the trench took the stuffing out of me. The cables are in place, just no power yet. That new 20V drill I got is a lemon. The chuck loosens by itself and it is only a matter of time before I lose drill bits. The problem did not appear until after the return period expired.
Code says a dedicated line for the A/C unit, but this one will share with the port, the theory being that I can’t work both indoors and outdoors at the same time. None of the circuits I’ve wire have more than 66% of the maximum number of outlets allowed. And all rooms have two separate circuits, some have three.
The government is gearing for another shutdown. Most people could care less. Tomorrow is the slated day for the Arizona audit report to reach the Senate, but it’s been so long I wonder if anybody will notice. On the other hand, if the secrecy has cause the Democrats to be unprepared, who knows if there won’t be a volcano. People with the vax are dying in uncomfortable numbers, though many fanatics like Heisler won’t be missed. (Heilser is the “damn the unvaccinated” lady. She died after her third injection, Karma is a bitch.)
Seagate, the hard drive manufacturer, has released a 20 Terabyte drive. It was available last year only to qualified buyers. It uses “heat-assisted” magnetics. Apparently when writing to the disk, a laser heats the substrate, allowing a higher concentration of bit reversals. The concept was patented in 1954. But until recently it is difficult to imagine why anybody would want that much storage capacity, and by 2030, they predict 100T drives. Plainly, data storage on that scale is not likely to be beneficial to the average citizen.
ADDENDUM
Iron Dome, the Israeli anti-missile system. This is not new technology, in fact the US agreed by treaty to not pursue such technology in 1972. It was quite logical that the weapon be developed elsewhere with US funding. And where better than the perpetual war zone of Israel, who will do anything for money? What’s being developed is faster computer reaction times coupled with laser targeting. Missiles are difficult to hit because the cross-section is tiny when the thing is heading your way.
Thus, you see the videos of the Iron Dome missiles arching high into the sky to pick up the incoming rockets from the much larger side view. The on-board computer needs only two points to establish the trajectory and the intercept. This never works quite right and some rockets will always get through. It is also frightfully expensive. It would be cheaper to track the trajectory back to the launch site as is done with mortar base plates, but then, who wants to spend millions on winning when you get billions for continuing the fight?
The enemy will counter with known means, such as variable flight paths and jamming. For now they are content to launch missiles in mass. They know it costs the Israelis up to 30 times more hard cash to kill each V-2 era rocket they fire, so hitting anything isn’t all that necessary.
