One year ago today: April 22, 2022, the sad truth.
Five years ago today: April 22, 2018, an okay gig.
Nine years ago today: April 22, 2014, very disturbed individuals.
Random years ago today: April 22, 2023, the original birdfeeder.
A glorious morning, with birdies and a mild haze that, if we are lucky and it stays, I’ll guarantee to finish the silo roof. The birdies have not yet taken to the new feeder, time permitting I will attach some wooden perches. That’s worked before when they don’t like metal. A hearty breakfast and an hour researching REITs. The TURO van is on hold, as similar units rent for $40 per day. It would have to be rented 100 days just to gross the purchase price, then there are the $700 fees the government tacks on to new registrations. Working backwards, I would have to buy something for $3,944 to break even in six months. After that, there would be only $33 income per day at best. Rack up TURO to an ongoing study at this time.
Even then, I barely managed to glue some boards up and set up some saw ponies. No obstacle courses for me today. Half a gallon of peach tea, and I put some screens over the woodpecker cavities, see if that cuts down on squirrel activity. I haven’t been really out on the town in a month, maybe that’s the boost I need. I wound up putting five hours into the yard. Shown here is a wooden perch to see if the birds take to it. They’ve ignored feeders before due to metal perches. Not the woodpeckers, they go ballistic for the blueberry suet.
As the morning warmed, I glued more boards together. Then cut the tin for the silo roof, which broke my best jig saw. I had the piece fastened and used a metal cutting bit, however the action split the e-ring that holds the blade clamp in place. I do not know if that is reparable. Further, I was unable to find a fuel pump anywhere around here, so the quest continues. The extra time was used looking at more REIT, which the market pronounces “reet”. Most I reject outright because it is not clear how they make money. Too much jargon in the explanation. I read the reviews, which confirmed I’m not the only one.
Shingles. It would be an easy job but I’d need a helper to get it done in any reasonable time. The question is how much do I want to sink into this place? It will outlast me now, unless I live to be 90. I don’t want to be replacing shingles at that age. Tomorrow I’ll get after some accurate measurements and come up with a cost. I’m probably looking at a thousand bucks, though I heard a guy in the northeast end has “7 “ for sale. Does he mean squares or bundles? I don’t think he knows.
Rumor has it in the near future the only way to know you are not talking to an A.I. bot is to get it to say the n-word.
The Getty Masoleum.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
I don’t have enough tin. Here is the almost complete silo roof. I’m undecided about submitting it to Southern Living for this year’s novelty décor. I call it “Japanese Prison Camp.”. A return to true minimalism. There’s a small patch remaining in the extreme lower right, which I may patch with scraps. Sheet metal is my least favorite type of work. You can easily see the brighter pieces I fastened down today. While up there I may have found the last squirrel hole. Sneaky, it was hard to see from the ground. I screwed down a pallet slat, which I know they can’t gnaw through without showing. Catching up on these projects has used up a lot of the materials. Much more and I’ll have to begin buying at current prices.
NPR radio makes fools of themselves. They canceled their Twitter account because that service rated them as government funded. NPR blew a fuse. Son of a gun, their revenues suddenly dropped so badly they have had to apply for federal funding. I know, what a bunch of ass-clowns. Another funny was the way they do their surveys only in places known to give positive responses. There was not one good thing said about them on-line through all of this. If that’s any indication, NPR should not be expecting anything like the support they’ve been faking for years.
Forget going out. A quick siesta turned into a snooze, a sandwich, and watching a documentary on Vauban, the French fortress engineer. I don’t care for the way the French names are pronounced, you can’t make out who’s who. No wonder they lose wars. It’s like so, the enemy can’t figure out the names either, so they wind up attacking where the French least expect. Even funnier is these millennial narrators hooked on phonics. Circumference becomes “sir-kum-FEER-ance”
Once again, I’m likely to stop after I’ve designed and understand a circuit. One I would like to build soon is something not covered in the books. I’ll give you the parameters and a chance to ponder this on your own. PWM is the way DC voltage is varied. Unlike A/C, you can’t just transform it up or down. The way it is done is flashing the voltage on and off. A 12V battery can then be used to fun a 6V motor by using a 50% duty cycle. Again, figure the rest out yourself.
My question involves frequency. Technically, a light switch that you flip off and on once per second has the same duty cycle as a transistor that flashes it a million times per second. I want to know how this works with small drive motors. On-line I found a circuit that says it will vary the frequency. For clarity, most projects keep the frequency the same and vary the duty cycle. I want to investigate keeping the duty cycle at 50% and changing the frequency. Let’s see how far I get. There is zero time allocated for this project.
What I really want is a heads-up display of song lyrics that I can wear on stage like eyeglasses. There are actually several models out there. As usual, I don’t know a soul who knows how to work them. It is a 30-year age gap before anyone I know has clues about these gadgets and as luck would have it, they lack the skills to teach it and generally only know how to play games with the technology. The type that get as far as the unboxing video.
ADDENDUM
There was no outcry over Biden adding 1% to the mortgage fees of people with high credit ratings. It is idiotic how Americans cling to the belief they have nothing to hide. How does the government even know their credit score? Did they apply for a loan? Well, let them suffer, as should anyone who borrows money. My issue was with the legal point that people cannot be compelled to testify against themselves. Sadly, it does not say they can’t be tricked into it, and that happens all the time. Ask yourself why business records must be kept for 7 years, or why ID expires. Who remembers the Reynolds’ case over in England?
He’s the photographer who took pictures of killing girls who responded to his modeling ads. Until one was the daughter of a police detective. Reynolds got life, but that’s not the issue. Reynold’s was tricked into letting the police have his computer, thinking nothing was on it that related to the murder.
Wrong. It was introduced in court and allowed as evidence that Reynolds’ log showed he spent several hours on-line every day looking death sex and snuff sites—except on the exact date and time of the murder. That slot was the only gap in his timetable. Of course, he should fry, but the point is he would not have surrendered his computer had he known the consequences. There is a saying in computer forensics that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You just keep digging until you find what you want. Look at BTK, didn’t have the sense to use a new, blank disk.
And that is precisely my point. Had Reynolds been deceived into providing evidence against himself? The law says that isn’t supposed to happen, even if the accused wants to do it
. Also, I advocate that any confessions signed when the only witnesses are police be disallowed.
