One year ago today: April 27, 2022, proof of insulation.
Five years ago today: April 27, 2018, the unexplained . . .
Nine years ago today: April 27, 2014, no cash.
Random years ago today: April 27, 2020, my orange-yellow soil.
What are slow days like around here? We are about to find out, I’m still not up to speed. There is no consensus on what the top 100 hobbies are, but mine are not on the list. Meteorite hunting and sunrise photography rate higher than anything I do. Phooey sites that say reading is the number one hobby, I am too often the only person in the room reading. But nothing like an economic downturn to realize so many things I do call hobbies could make money if I put myself to it. I can code, bartend, bake, pet sit, paint, tutor, and play music. But my days of chainsaw carving and hatchet throwing are limited. (I don’t rate music and investing as hobbies.)
The Budweiser company continues to lose unbelievable amounts, a lesson to America about basing your advertising on fads. If only Joe Sixpack could get that fired up about some of the real issues. A lot of it is the bandwagon effect ramped up by the Internet clone crowd. They cannot follow enough trends. They are the ones that oppose the military, but are the first ones to cry for help when the invasion begins. Quite the generation. Why become a brain surgeon when you can become an actor and play one on TV?
The word is the next election will be the deepfake at its best. My advice to the GOP is forget the meetings and debates and platforms. Spend the money targeting the crimes you can do something about: harvesting and stuffing. I saw that fake photo of the cops chasing Trump. When I linked to DALL-E on this computer, the trial version just displays a blank white screen. Nor is their “token” based pricing system clear to people who don’t know the jargon. If I wanted money, I’d make sure even the Cari B fans in the audience could understand me.
A slight overcast got me outside, mostly in the shed. The box lid I built is now stained to sort of match the box, I unclamped a lot of lumber, and put a big pot of chicken and corn on to boil. Help yourself. I found the energy to build a couple small items for the house, like a rack of hangers for my work clothes, which tend to get thrown on the floor since I’m wearing them again tomorrow. I don’t mind dusty shirts and slacks. Sawdust, I mean. What is that fantastic aroma? Oh, that. I’m cooking the chicken and the corn in the same pot.
Here’s some pictures of boxes. That’s what I wound up doing most of today. The open box looks like a bit of a treasure chest, full of hole saws. The second panel shows the lid stained to match and with attached hardware. Plus some decoration. Remember, I’m learning more than just the box joinery. I did not say I was good at it. Notice the latch is off the center line? Don’t ask. I still have nothing but trouble with the hinges. You know that Dremel tool I so rarely use?
Fire Station #2
Gurely, AL
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A box for the battery charger. It is larger, like a footlocker. So, something did get done today after all. It’s not done but what’s there took only two hours instead of the usual six. Fewer cuts, more experience, and that table saw made up a lot of the saving. I’d wanted to put the charger and the load tested in one storage container, but no matter how you twisted them around, there was no dimension where they’d fit without one being unweildy. So I opted for the charger and a small storage space. These devices are notorious for tangled cables. The fence on the saw needs adjusting, it is slightly off square but might be something else.
[Author’s note: this box may be too large for the task. Don’t worry, there is always some use for sturdy boxes around here. They still have to be easy enough to carry. This is the largest box I’ve every built and it reflects nearly the best of what I’ve learned. The total time was about a third of what it was like when I began.]
The box is large enough to also stow a set of jumper cables. The idea is not so much protection as to keep unruly cables in check. Battery gear is known for tangled cables. This box is not meant for general transportation, but to keep things in one place. I should put wheels on it. The good news is the assembly phase took just two hours instead of most of a day. The boxes look better from a distance but I think the improvements are evident. The unit is probably much stronger than it needs to be. The idea is I want them to be stackable and to be able to stand on them if need be.
Toward dark, I finished digging the post hole for the lean to. It is too handy a workspace, all along the south side of the old sheds. It is just a roof, but it is shady and waterproof and best of all, 16 feet long. I also took out the chain saws, checked the oil, and ran the gas unit for eight minutes, making another slice on the old trees with the intention of eventually getting rid of them. The chain saw upkeep is monthly but I’ve notice the chain gets a slight film of rust. I like my nice chain saw, so that may demand more regular attention.
The problem is twofold. One is fixing the lens in place. It requires glue. This does not work on lenses with even slightly different curvature. If the glue is strong enough, blurs the vision. I tried to get around this by gluing only the upper outer edge so the dot of glue was not visible unless you looked up and to the side. No luck. Searching is maddening because all you get are repair kits for frames or gluing lenses into said frames. Yes, I’ve considered putting window tint on prescription lenses, but that’s not what I’m after.
We have another critter in the shed, meaning there is a hole I cannot find. Since that is the only place to store emergency food, unless I want to completely strip the siding and put it back, the solution could be to build storage boxes. Funny how that works.
This picture of the lean-to for the table saw was taken to show JZ how the posts line up. He thinks this requires a lot more work than it is, as in transits and string lines. This shows a perfectly aligned post I did with just my eyeball and a four-foot bubble level. It is not close, it is exact. And the lighting is great as well. his shows me pointing to the new pole way in the background.
More coffee has me finally relaxed and here is a video that says John Lennon especially hated five musicians. Let’s watch this and see if I agree, because I also think certain musicians were scumbags because they blocked the path of more talented people.
Paul McCartney. I agree. His music is spastic.
Blood Sweat & Tears. Agree, that shit was not rock.
Joan Baez. Semi-agree, she was okay but I could not name one song.
Frank Zappa. Indifferent. Again, I could not name one of his tunes.
Bob Dylan. Agree. Highly overrated anachronism from the beatnik era.
ADDENDUM
Am I getting anywhere with A.I.? No, but there is movement. Most of the on-line trials do not at all like ad blockers and anti-malware. I may have to try this from the library. Anyway, I’ve gotten through tutorials that are really advertising in a pretty bad disguise. A.I. is supposed to “amplify” what I do, and I’m amused by people who say A.I. is doing 80% of their work. It must be pretty crappy work. Here is an example of an A.I. request and reply. Slick, but what is it good for?
INPUT: Explain the plot of Cinderella in a sentence where each word has to begin with the next letter in the alphabet from A to Z, without repeating any letters.
OUTPUT: A beautiful Cinderella, dwelling eagerly, finally gains happiness; inspiring jealous kin, love magically nurtures opulent prince; quietly rescues, slipper triumphs, uniting very wondrously, xenial youth zealously.
All the sites have experienced some form of negative feedback, as they continually stress their software is immune from “disallowed content”. Duh, okay. Forget the tutorials, they are millennialized sales pitches. Here’s an example that does not answer the topic in the title, a product called GPT-4. It can apparently write code but the only code I’d be interested is in Arduino.
Looking at some of that code, the majority of it seems to be drone swarms. And the swarms are used for, you guessed it, advertising. We might as well call the next batch the advertising generation. That’s all they seem fixed on for making money. Google is their hero and advertising is their god. It’s the best they can come up with judging by what’s transpired since 2005. And economy based on selling each other ads, let’s see how well that works for them. Around a quarter million tech jobs have disappeared in the last year. Not layoffs, the jobs are gone, the contemporary term is “extinct”. And with A.I. looming, nobody is safe.
My take? Well, a look through the product shows the shallowness of creation these days. There must be little incentive to get better at anything. It just gets copied by A.I and quantity takes over from quality. There are European countries that want copyright information displayed by every A.I. that uses said material. This is where I again think that is wrong. While there should be some method to indicate the presence of material, it should be up to the reader to view it at his discretion. Otherwise it is intrusive advertising.
