One year ago today: January 13, 2022, my beautiful silo.
Five years ago today: January 13, 2018, too photogenic.
Nine years ago today: January 13, 2014, illegal wages.
Random years ago today: January 13, 2019, $400,000 +/-.
Downpour since dawn. Good, we might have a nice day afterward. Grits and coffee, that’s all I want on a drizzly day. I’ve a new book on navigation and I guess I have learned a thing or two on the topic. Lesson one is the books don’t make sense until you already know what they are teaching. What a life, I’m learning tunes on bass that were old when I was young, watching “Evil Roy Slade”, and reading a chapter on plotting lines of position. Is this the culmination of my career? The end of a life of trying everything I could with what I had? Maybe, but the one certainty is I’m having another coffee. Good morning, it is 5:35AM.
This gave me opportunity to view some videos, and I found one a bit off topic but that demonstrates the proper way to produce a how-to video on-line. It concerns a mechanical cooling device but the real lesson is the production. Read my lips, Tyler & Josh, your crappy videos need to see this. Your videos, with no narration and festering naygar rap music. Really, though, the most AOL thing you do is not devote 100% of the video to the workings. Draw your damn diagrams in advance, you lazy little pricks. Also shown are some very slick 3D printed components which may cause me to take a second look at how the printers have been coming along.
An idea that comes and goes around here is a real navigational stopwatch. I finally sketched out what I thought it should include and I’ll tell you why I don’t go about building a prototype. While there are dozens of first page ads for “navigational” stopwatches, none of them actually have any advantages for that task. Here are some of the features I would include.
Default to Greenwich Mean Time.Features I would not include are any reliance on satellite or radio signals. No internal calculator for several items, such as GHA. This forces the operator to do these by hand and in any case they could cheat with a regular calculator—which often takes longer than manually. There is probably room for a complete sidereal table. Anyway, the reason for no-build is simple. Ease of copying and a massive Japanese industry that builds calculators by robot. They would wipe you out in a wink. The focus here is NOT on automation, but getting the user to learn the theory rather than how to push buttons. Trivia: the original reason for so many unused digits on the left of your calculator display was caused by the worthlessness of Japanese money. The cheapest calculator of the day cost ¥40,000.
Built in Arc to Time Table.
Backlight that stays on 15 seconds.
Readable in daylight.
“Next Day” warning.
Big digits.
Better freeze function.
[Author’s note: during this investigation, I watched several videos of how the Japanese copied circuits to produce TVs, calculators, and computers, none of which they had developed themselves. I was amused to see scenes with teams of young engineers drawing out the same diagrams and charts I did in 2012, when I first built any models. Of course, I cannot help wondering what might have been had I a fraction of those resources at the same age.]
This cloning of designs is a Japanese specialty. I’m reminded of the first computers on a chip, the 8080 series. The designers put in a number of false connections so anybody copying the chips would fail to notice these went to ground. Clever. Sadly, when I first programmed computers I was just 18 and knew nothing of the chip designs, I did not even know that these were the initial models. All were required to take a computer history and science course before being allowed to submit programs on banks of punched cards. The main thing I learned from such classes is that there were students in the room who had access to resources we did not, and that they actively tried to keep that a secret.
This caused a huge drop-out rate in first and second years. The instructor would walk in and talk gobble-de-gook and the same few students knew the jargon. Several times the assignments were due before I could find out what a Pascal Triangle or a Fibonacci Series even were. There was no library section full of computer books in those days. However, I passed the courses because I was able to come up with solutions in fewer commands, which was a huge marking criteria back when computers were expensive and labor was cheap.
One major shortcoming of early computers was print commands. As much as half my code was often formatting modules to get titles and columns to line up. I might add this was also the point where programmers and coder wannabes often parted. As a programmer, I would design sub-routines to, for example, center a title of any length (up to 70 characters). They kept assigning me lab partners who would hard-code the title for each assignment. Both worked, both got the same marks. But the mess of today is caused by coders. The way I like to describe it is coding is thinking in a myriad of tiny circular thought patterns that it is hoped overlap in a useful manner, whilst programming is the ability to think in one long straight line.
Could I have blossomed into a first-rate programmer as a career? We’ll never know, I had to go to work and did not graduate with a computer degree until I was over 30. That meant all available jobs had been filled by ten crops of coders and the tragedy of C+ was firmly entrenched. The funny part is C+ was full of attempts to go back and re-create general purpose modules—but forgot to enforce a set of simple standards and the result was an even greater mess. An example of such a rule is I would have insisted each sub-routine had one variable in, one variable out, and they had to match format or set off a flag. Integer in meant integer out. If you wanted it changed, you sent the result to a procedure specifically designed for that purpose. Subroutines had to carry meaningful variable names and could not be nested or linked to higher levels—and they had to be placed all together in one section of the code, preferably at the end.
Ideas are not short around here but I never did find anyone with basic production facilities and an ounce of entrepreneurialism. Not even close. I have the Arduinos but nothing to couple them to unless I make massive investments, and I’m too old for that. I wonder what would happen if you connected an Arduino to one of those old sock making machines. I watched a lady using an old device and after 15 minutes you wonder why she doesn’t just knit the socks by hand. I also saw a toy steam engine build, surprised to learn that since they are made in Germany only (due to safety concerns), there are no rejects. The staff is so highly trained every unit is good. I got a Wilesco for Xmas when I was four or five years old and did not know what to do with it. Soon as you ran out of the fuel tablets, like anything else around the farm, there was no money for more and the thing went to rack & ruin. Nowadays, you must be 14 to buy toy steam engines, in theory.
The biggest market seems to be Australia, where they collect them. They are marketed in the US as “mid-life crisis toys” and are not cheap. The better models are $600. As usual, because I completely understand the working principle, the odds of me having one drop to zero. I’m especially intrigued by the ratios of the connecting rod that drives the internal intake and exhaust ports.
Flax braiding machine.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Here’s a view of some nearly frozen papaya. It’s the latest view of what’s happening in the back yard. She dropped down to near freezing overnight but I figure these species have had a few million years evolution to deal with that.
That was the guitar player on the phone. He’s sounding rough but says the fever has broken. Really rough as in that guy’s not singing for a while yet. They got him on painkillers I do not recognize, so I advised him chicken soup and lots of herbal tea. The hint of good news is others whom he had contacted before me are letting him down. I’ve grown so weary of the time-wasters in Polk, I kind of told him how it would go. And seems I’m batting 1000 so far. For example, I warned him about the religious freak who could only practice in the church and the cat pee guy who answers every ad.
I’m back. The whole bass line is a boogie piano riff, identical chords all through with a couple variations behind the chorus. I had time to go over it a few times with “the treatment”, where I play the scale tones that make the chord variations as passing notes. Neat sound, a driving piano-type drive. That’ll get ‘em either listening or dancing.
That was JZ checking in. There’s a chance he may get out this way after all. I know if he stays out of Miami for even a few months he’ll realize what a third-world shit-hole it has become. He’d find a nice girlfriend here in no time, probably a wife. I can only wish him the best on that count because he does not know what he is missing. There’s entertainment at the old club in Bartow tonight, I might drive over there just to see. That was his favorite spot around here in the good old days. And the beers are only $3.50 as opposed to $9 where he lives. The nearest honky-tonk left is the Last Chance and that’s close to 30 miles.
The temperature dropped below my even go outside range, so I read, got some music study done, and searched for historical videos. The result was trivia. Did you know laser disks stored analog data? BASIC, the computer language, was not usable on all DOS computers of the day, I did not know that. And I heard a new term today, “vaxholes”. New to me.
ADDENDUM
Here’s a small problem, literally. For a while I’ve been dismayed by small screwheads getting stripped even when embedded in soft plastic, as seen in part of the microscope photo. Finally, I was able to get enough magnification to see the driver bit may be the problem. Visible no only are the marks where the bit is scoring the metal, but there is a flake of screw metal stuck on one of the blades. I did not suspect this. Examination of the lesser used sizes shows no such damage. If it is my smallest screwdriver, that’s a pity as you cannot buy just that one. It’s the whole set or nothing. And I’m not positive this is the problem.
Meanwhile, I’ve resorted to using larger bits to remove entire backplates when a coin battery needs replacing. I have a matching set of timers that require LR41 batteries, which I cannot find and they all have these stripped screws. Let’s see how I solve this one.
