April 29, 2022

Yesteryear
One year ago today: April 29, 2021, remember the hard-drive “shortage”?
Five years ago today: April 29, 2017, $10 million, up front.
Nine years ago today: April 29, 2013, It’s not the Italians.
Random years ago today: April 29, 2012, a techno-day.

           The guitar player who disappeared since last Sunday has turned up again. It’s the nature of this trade. Says he was sick, but he was trying out another band. I’m not worried, as there are no suitable groups to just team up with in Polk County. Every one of them is an over-promise under-deliver situation, yet the market is so tight I don’t anyone for following up every contact. Most guitarists I meet consider a duo a step down in the world rather than a shift due to changing demographics.

           After that rain it was a great morning, enough to get me out there to finish the insulation, the heat barrier, and get some of the protective siding back in place. These are temporary slats, shown here, to keep the coverings in place until enough pallet wood comes around. Radio reception was superior so I listened to an oldies station, where all the advertisers were not only local and friendly, but chock full of integrity. There’s a lot of integrity out there these days.
           Like me, you may be following the silo work but I want it to be over. We’re getting there. Here is a view of the completed insulation and the foil barrier. This west wall would bear the brunt of most hurricanes and it is as solid as can be, with metal straps on every major joint and stud.

           Eggs have skyrocketed from 97¢ to $2.60 per dozen as the government hands us the story of chicken flu, which nobody believes or cares. It just signals they are up to something. They actually consider the fiasco they’ve made of the pandemic hoax to be a success and seek to repeat it. Did I mention my six-hour scheduled work last day. Nope, I’m not ready, I’m back to waiting until my innards tell me time to start. I had to take half a day to recuperate, but I used the time to study Qbasic graphics and try to install a DOS emulator.
           Qbasic is a subset of MicroSoft’s QuickBasic. It is like working with electronics, every thing fancy can be done by smaller, simpler steps. It is easy to tell what point the MicroSoft mentality took over. You know I’m not a fan of “fall through” programming and the later command reflect the “Redmond Blight”. Many of the commands in these older languages have a list of parameters. Every one should be specified, but in MicroSoft-think, you just leave out what you don’t want. In computers, that kind of thinking is ape-shit.
           The next guy comes along and sees the blank. Does that mean something, or did the last guy forget? The example here is the PRESET command. If you want the color to stay the same, you leave the third parameter blank. Sorry, Gates University, I’m a real programmer. If you want it to say the same, you spell out a command saying so. Even if you want the computer to do nothing, you issue a do-nothing command. But I understand how those mental midgets like to think they are men of mystery. The best kept secret of the computer world is that programming is relatively easy, the missing ingredient is imagination.

Picture of the day.
Texas dust storm.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Another shot of the silo showing the completed tarpaper and temporary straps to hold everything in place, just in case things act up. This has to be finished as far as safety goes because Tennessee is beckoning and the summer inferno is approaching. You’re familiar by now with how the siding progresses and this is getting near done. I can’t promise the next project will be any more captivating. This hurricane is a major addition to the property.

           Each of these slats is held on with just two screws. I began putting solid strips across the bottom but got a reminder it was siesta time and zonked out until 10:15PM. That’s your big Friday night after retirement. Did I say the neighbor at the back is doing some work on his yard but gosh, the guy is not looking well. The word is gaunt. I’m glad he’s moving about and his hobby is painting, which he does on commission. That’s impressive to me as to me it is just wall art, nothing new in a thousand years.

           Now it’s approaching midnight and I’m wide awake. I followed a couple of sites that delve into QBasic graphics but it’s the usual. The easy stuff is too easy, the advanced is too hard. There is a club that dabbles in 3D art and another specializing in screen mode 13, the only one capable of 256 colors. I’m not promising I can program this A.I. but the knowledge is fascinating. Screen mode 13 corresponds roughly to lo-res SVGA monitors, for those who recall that grade of equipment.
In case I use the terms, here’s a refresher. The symbol I use to represent objects are called sprites. Tessalation is the repetition of a small pattern to cover the whole screen, like tiles. The term sprite implies a tiny icon, so I’m likely to just call mine a “dot”. They are generally meant to be moved around the screen and form the basis of many early computer games.

           This isn’t a tutorial on QBasic. It’s a log of my progress and what I encounter. I’ve underlined my sharp distinction between coding and programming and here is an example. In C+ code, you rarely are concerned with how data is stored. As long as it is in the same directory, it generally works. To me, that is a huge potential problem, especially for trusting that your save commands will do a proper job of this. QBasic stores info in either data statements or files. I have a predilection for data statements because they make a program self-contained. Others dislike them because they make the code less versatile and can make a drastic increase in size. But you don’t have to write instructions to go open another file to get things working.
           Hence, I must relearn data storage, which I do each time I need it. In this case, I prefer arrays because if you code it right, you can get a sort of schematic of your graphics. I found a DOS virtual machine that requires 433 billion bytes of storage, almost eight times the size of my original computer just for that one application. Conservation of memory is still a guiding principle in the way I program. Storage has become cheap, but it is still unwise to waste it.

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