December 22, 2022

Yesteryear
One year ago today: December 22, 2021, donated to the city.
Five years ago today: December 22, 2017, nothing interesting left on-line.
Nine years ago today: December 22, 2013, new (in 1960).
Random years ago today: December 22, 2007, the Oz in China.

           Looks like I’ll need a second day to decompress, what with tree limbs falling and I see I forgot to lock the red shed but nobody noticed. Mr. Red and Mr. Downey are back and I’ll get them some extra treats later. For now, peace and quiet and playing a little bass. I found the “missing” Crate amp, it was behind a sheet of plywood I’d moved, duh. Now I’m missing my Nautical Almanac. I’m watching a new (relatively) documentary on the Rommel war in North Africa, hoping for a more balanced presentation after all these years. But no, they still push the Britannica version. They don’t want you knowing Rommel was drastically under-equipped and outnumbered the entire time.

           Once again, they parrot the lie that it was Allied reconnaissance that spotted the German supply ships and not one single German figured out the Allies were reading their code. And the Big Lie that the British defeated Rommel at el Alamein because of the impassable”Quattara Depression, you know, like the impassable Ardennes Forest. More like Rommel did not have the gasoline to drive around the flank. There is no way he made a frontal attack unless he had no other choice. That may have been the case since his supply bases were 2,000 miles away. What’s more, the Brit defenses at Alamein were exact copies of earlier German plans—the Germans had planned only for a short war that had not allowed the enemy to catch up in this manner. The theory that Germany was bent on world conquest was manufactured by the Allied newsreels.
           This Timeline version persists in the farce to build Montgomery as a great leader. He was singularly unpopular and I laughed when they said he sealed the breach in the German breakthrough in 1941. He just happened to be where the Germans attacked and they simply flowed around his fixed emplacements. That would not seal a bottle of cat piss.

           For those who spotted that my Nautical Almanac must be outdated, yes, but it is still excellent for practice. Besides, just find the latest GP if you would and use that same offset for this year’s locations. It does not change that much.

           Let’s check the Caltier Fund. Y’day was the first auto-debit monthly investment. I see the transaction went to their regular contribution in-screen, so there was nothing automatic about it. Chances are they are working on that, but if I had not double-checked, it would just sit there blocking other transactions for what looks to be a ten-day turnaround. I’m putting in the minimum $50 per month until we find out how things work over there. You, by the way, should undergo this process with every investment. There is no such animal as a care-free investment space. Of course, you can ignore the fund and trust them, also known as doing an Enron. No matter what the fund website says, go back and check your actual balance at the bank.
           The principle at work here is that if the bank makes mistakes, technically 50% of them should be in your favor. They never do, so quit calling it a mistake. Always confirm every transaction of your investment accounts. We have now achieved 4% of our investment goal with this fund. While the figures I give you are not exact, they are representative of what you could expect if you paralleled what is happening here. The purpose of this fund is so that if we do buy a property, there will always be money to pay the property taxes—within the standard parameters that if taxes go higher than we can pay, others will be living under bridges by then.

           Checking the job calendar, I need to run the bug spray around the perimeter. It needs doing year round in Florida. And run the chain saw. Yep, I got chores with that today, I told the tree guy to just drop the branches where his rope didn’t reach. Just the birdfeeders, so I’m off light today. What’s that chirp? Ah, Mrs. Downey. In other news, the FBI itself is recommending use of the same ad-blockers I was using six years ago. Some geeks in Philadelphia are installing free payphones in bookstores.
           What’s this, the FCC took my advice and went after phone companies that provided the service. I further said get those banks and credit card collaborators, but the FCC is too stupid to go about it. Well yes, as a matter of fact, we did notice the car warranty calls did drop off a month ago. Fry them bastards. (Be aware large fines before have simply gone unpaid and the robocallers just start new companies.) Miller, the Amish farmer targeted by the FDA has been allowed to resume operations. But this is far from the “win” being touted by some. He is still out the money for the lawyers, lost sales, lost time, and the fines are only suspended, not overturned.

Picture of the day.
Marble quarry, Greece.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           What, another day and I’m not decompressed from the trip? The good news is that things have not turned cold and that rainstorm to the south missed us. Mind you, it got pretty wet overnight. By north fence needs repair so here I am, trying to get motivated without success. Here’s a clip from the microscope recorder and it turns out unsuitable. The base is too fragile to record a decent amount of steady movement. However, is this not an ideal project for the Arduino?

           They say these servo-motors are accurate to 2 to the 10th power. It would mean designing a type of sled that moves very accurately and steadily where told, and my guess is most of that would horizontal or vertical. Then the microscope itself. I described how the focus depends on the distance from the lens. This adjustment reminds me of those stereoscope lenses the RAF used to examine reconnaissance photos back in the war that crushed Germany for no good reason, it turns out.

           I drank the last of my coffee running some navigational formulas late into the evening. I can hone in on the results but I can’t find my Almanac yet. Three readings, all in the Pacific early into tomorrow morning. I’m also wondering why nobody makes a stopwatch specifically for celestial navigation. I searched only a few minutes, but from experience we know going beyond that leads to millennial-grade sucker ads and stupid people sites. A watch that displays GMT and can be frozen for recording and pick up again. I wonder if that could be done on an Arduino as well?
           Get back to me after I’ve had time to ponder. I’ll at least sketch out the flowchart for an adjustable base, in my mind’s eye it would look much like an Etch-a-Sketch, but heavier duty using fine thread bolts as the actuators. Any way, my three GHA readings were

187.0° 39.0’ at Dec 23°26’S
187.0° 46.9’ at Dec 23°26’S
214.0° 25.9’ at Dec 23°25’S

           What does this information reveal? Other than my astonishing accuracy, I mean, Ken. First, they are hour angle readings, in this case GHA for Greenwich Hour Angle. There is no east or west, as all these start at 0 and go around to the west back to 360. It corresponds to longitude, but it is not the same thing. We are seeking the Geographic Position of the Sun, not our own location. Also, the Declination is S for South, meaning we are in the middle of winter. Yet you can see by the last reading the Sun is creeping back north toward the Equator. Declination corresponds to latitude, but again, not the same thing.
           I’m reading more about a method called St. Hillaire. It seems based on taking six readings at sunrise or sunset, picking six bodies in the sky at various angles. Draw your sitings on a map and work out your position by how they all intersect. I must try that. Hint, if you duplicate my research, you get much better results using the search term “stopwatch celestial navigation” than with the terms individually. My hobby includes finding the nearest address to the GP, but again the page latlongdata dominates the searches and it is the most idiotic waste of time. It gives no instructions on the format it wants when you enter the equivalents of latitude and longitude. You can trick it, but the best I can do is a point in the Pacific west of the midpoint between Wake Island and Midway Island, early tomorrow morning.

Last Laugh