One year ago today: March 5, 2021, that lightning bolt.
Five years ago today: March 5, 2017, flowers that won’t grow.
Nine years ago today: March 5, 2013, my own private spur.
Random years ago today: March 5,, 2005, mankind’s capacity for beer.
TMOR (to my overseas readers), there is no reliable news source left in America, but the worst are the far left New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Time Magazine, basically most of the ones you may have ever heard about. Their brand of tabloid journalism took off when America removed a rule saying they had to mention both sides of a story. I can tell you, this whole WWIII set-up barely affects anything here. It is viewed more as a distraction from the horror story that the stolen election has inflicted on America, and it isn’t working.
For the sheer fun of knowledge, I did a review of the seven types of logic gates. I’ll say something similar to what I have about computer programs, there are seven elementary operations. All other constructs are simply combinations of these basics. Logic was one of the classes I had in grade school where I was swamped by the nodders. Remember nodders, people in the class who don’t get it but they nod like they do so the instructor moves on.
One item that confused me for years after that was how the AND gate was “multiplication”. Actually, it isn’t. That comes from observing the truth table and noticing the “result” is the same if the 0 and 1 are multiplied, but it should be emphasized this is only a training aid. And it works best on binary numbers only. Other than “division” with the OR gate, this method reveals its weakness that the other gates have no corresponding arithmetic. This is the blog th
at dares to feature a truth table on a Saturday morning.
There is one invention I would like to see. A component you can place in multiple parts of a design that slows down the current to the point where the path of electricity can be observed. At any given moment in any circuit, chances are the current is flowing in one simple path at a time. What a boon it would be to physically watch the progress. There are on-line simulations, but they all fall short when diagnosing an actual batch of wiring. My thinking is it could be done with a capacitor that lights up, then closes an internal “relay” to allow the flow to the next such capacitor. A delay of maybe a half-second would be sufficient, then on to the next path and so on. It could be done with LEDs but they all light up instantly unless you go through hoops.
My challenge for today, that is, what I’ll think about when thinking of nothing else, will be how to build the gates both with and without “memory”. I don’t mean chips, but rather maybe the use of flip-flops to capture a key press. As depicted last day, the diode circuits work only as long as the switch is closed, that is, they are not momentary. How to accomplish this without transistors, if it can be done, by nothing but mechanical switches and wiring. Which require a separate power source (such as a NOT gate) and which do not. Let’s ignore the fact that what probably drove Tesla crazy was trying to figure this one out.
Just after sunup, the hillbilly came by to chain up the dog so he could go to the store. Not so fast, I had him help rake the yard, fill the garbage bags, haul them out front, move the birdbath, the swing set, all in return for a breakfast of grits casserole and hot chocolate. The trim the vines, a little shovel work, and we actually got the yard cleaned a bit before 10:30AM, when it got too hot. I told him about the stuff by the fence and he’s going to scrounge me up some pots to transplant my root-bound potted plants.
We moved the yard swing and furniture out to the back, in the process discovering the bench from Tennessee was not aluminum. Just very light steel, which only revealed itself when a couple small corner pieces showed some rust. He found me a washer if we can go pick it up in Lake Wales, but that’s a bit of a drive from here. When he gets back from the store (last time he disappeared for two days), we may see if we can work in the sunlight long enough to sink two or three post holes. This is late spring weather already and it has not rained in over a week.
Poncelet waterwheel
(electricity generator).
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
By noon, I was back indoors. Cash is on the sofa. I checked for news, the only item is that Twitter, to fight misinformation, is doing exactly the wrong thing—expanding the number of fact-checkers. It’s more of what I called “truth by majority rule”. To check facts, you need to hire experts, not spread the chore over more and more meatheads who fall for fake news in the first place. Best Internet quote for today,
"How do you know the feller what wrote the readin', wrote the readin' right?" ~Festus Hagin in Gunsmoke.
Have we found a washing machine? If so, let’s go look again when the hillbilly gets back from the store. Last time, it took him two days. This time, I got him to do some work first. The big news today is the MSM took money from the Biden administration to push the COVID narrative and people are furious, but I’m appalled. We all know this was happening on day one, why are so many just hearing about it now? It’s not just the media that is seriously screwed up. How about the dismal pricks who design these “easy open” “reclosable” battery cases? I griped about this before, but the latest millennial model requires a knife blade to get at.
There is talk that a new Missouri law requires the release of a list of 900 persons who went around reporting lock-down violators. I can only hope it is true, few things I loathe more than clowns who pay too much attention to what others do. If it leads to retaliation, so be it, and let it set a precedent. It is the only way some people learn to respect the privacy of others. Hey, I’m ex-phone company, I know fifty ways to upset people who stick their noses into my affairs.
Another item is the kerfuffle over the MSM being paid millions to promote the COVID narrative. Everybody knew this since day one, so why is it just a news item today? I first figured this out in the early 80s when I lived north of Seattle, where we got as much Canadian news as American. Why is Democrat bribery of the MSM just making news item today? The "liberals" are not a political party, they are a societal cancer. When they get into power, they do not focus the coffers on public good, rather focus on how to slander opponents, arrest dissenters, churn out indoctrination, and install their operatives at every level in the government supply chain. That is the real threat and it is only wayward mentalities that call it “communism”. It is evil incarnate, not some political philosophy you’ll find in some textbook. That crap is only the gangster’s excuse.
One possible explanation is the radical left thought they had their agenda in place and the conservatives complacently let the little things go, thinking nothing would happen to themselves. Thus, it was politics as usual until Trump came along. The Democrats had a huge war chest of stolen taxpayer money but squandered it fake hoaxes and impeachments. Once the money was gone, the MSM had no other revenue source except to start reporting real news again--but not too much in case the pendulum swings again. All of a sudden, these countless half-wits on both sides had to start paying attention again and have not yet grasped how far behind they are in the world. Suddenly all the blatant palm-greasing is news to them.
ADDENDUM
Virtual Private Networks are not complicated and in fact may be the simplest procedure possible on the Internet, myself I advised from day one that it should be a standard. Google said otherwise and I’ve warned against Google also since day one, those people are not bloody human. The VPN servers are placed all over the world, which only makes sense because of politics since one server properly protected, could do the entire job itself if its location could be spoofed.
Here are the facets of VPN that I do not like:
a) it is a service that you must pay extra for it, and electronic payment always poses an identity theft risk. All claims you are protected from identity theft by VPN are therefore ultimately bogus.
b) While VPN data is encrypted, it is done at server level, so the “last mile” to your house is in plain text and vulnerable to hacking. The only current exception is the service called Protonmail, which works only with email, not Internet traffic. There are others, but you can’t use them.
c) There can be no doubt all VPN providers track and record usage, it is only a matter of time before that is abused or made mandatory
d) Certain events lead me to believe all VPN encryption has long been compromised. In the alternative, many countries have made VPN illegal, so you can expect that threat from all governments. Do not come to rely on VPN.
Having said all that, the other commonly asked question is what about the Dark Web. Nothing to it, folks, it is simply the 95% or so of the Internet that cannot be found by search engines. While I prefer to never put sensitive data on-line in the first place, many operations simply disable the option. Library catalogs, internal parts lists, stuff like that. And yes, that is what a lot of ransomware seek out. They can still be found by anyone with enough time and an idea of where to look.
Is the Dark Web illegal? Nope, just like a knife, it depends on how you use it. One important component of this is the use of cryptocurrency. Myself, I blame Paypal for the rise of this usage due to their false promise of keeping on-line transactions anonymous or “same as cash”. You know that tale from the trailer court. It was never said officially, but Paypal got big by making this promise. They wiped out dozens of other companies when Paypal was adopted by eBay. Shortly afterward, they began to demand your identity. And that left the Dark Web was the only alternative to having your money tracked by strangers—for any purpose, whether that stranger is the feds, the Mafia, or a serial killer. Folks, you cannot crowdsource intelligence.
