May 15, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: May 15, 2022, just a flu, guaranteed.
Five years ago today: May 15, 2018, millennial “sizes”.
Nine years ago today: May 15, 2014, that function is added.
Random years ago today: May 15, 2008, nerve-grating big bands.

           I got all the cats fed and tidied up a bit. That’s it. I worked in the yard but not much to show. When that happens we revert to formula. I tell you what happened and you decide what kind of day it was. Howie’s truck was not in the driveway, so I went out to feed the cats. Now that they know who I am, it was cat city. But then out the door comes Howie with more food. Turns out his truck is across town and his daughter gave him a ride home last evening.

nbsp;          See, I even got you a shot of the cat’s water bowl. It was either that or a portrait of my coffee maker. Let’s test your survival savvy. That water has to be changed daily despite it being in a covered area, because tiny bits of sand and gravel get into the pan. How? The answer is raccoons.

           It’s too large a topic for here, but the servo motors mentioned last day are those whining things you hear in remote control toys and such. They are a motor that responds to PWM, that’s our old friend pulse modulation. The white plastic piece standard so hobbyists can connect control rods or strings at various standard radii. A robot man is likely to remove that to have access to the rotating hub via a microcontroller. RadioShack is gone but in normal Internet fashion, you can get the parts they used to sell for twice the price. These now retail for $20 each, that’s almost triple.

           They’ve cried wolf a lot but apparently some documentation has appeared that a known group of politicians and bureaucrats conspired to create the Russia Hoax. But, as I’ve said, there is nobody you can call who will arrest them. What’s growing nicely is the support for the Marine, who has achieved hero status. There will be heap big trouble if they persecute him, only fanatic leftists can see it was self-defense, the guy was threatening to kill people. They cry it was the system that let him down, which is ridiculous. He’d been arrest 42 times most for similar violent behavior.

           The Netflix version of “Cleopatra” featuring an all-Black cast, has received the lowest ratings in history. Nicknamed “Cleofatra”, the production has done practically the impossible by coming in lower that historic flops like “Ishtar”. The movie is part of an on-going trend to glorify sub-Saharan Africans as the source of all human achievement, known as “blackwashing”. In Toronto, the “Anti-Capitalist” coffee shop shutters up after a year—they advertised pay-what-you-can for coffee, hoping to make it up by overcharging for other menu items. I guess they forgot is was Canada, where 1/3 of the population is on welfare.
           America is treated to the spectacle of vets being ousted from hotels to make room for illegal immigrants. Lab grown meat is shown to release more toxic chemicals into the environment that the real meal.

           Two things found. My PVC cutter, the one I gave up trying to find and bought another. It was in the shed, in a box on a storage shelf of other things. How did it get there? I would not have put it in such a place. I figure, since it went missing around the time the hillbilly was here, it was a combination of events. Sometimes, I would throw tools in the red shed when caught in a flash rainstorm. If he was in there and knocked them off the shelf, he might not even have know what it was, but it’s a tool so he set it up on the upper shelf. Things are known to fall off there and wind up in a box. It looks in good condition.
           Next, fishing through the box of RadioShack leftovers, I find I am the owner of two 5.1v Zener diodes. And Zener is a proper nown. These are model !N4733A, which presents another problem. They are tiny but have 47A and 33 stamped on them, but only under 10x magnification. How to tell them from regular switching diodes? There is a small Z symbol, sort of, but not very useful.

Picture of the day.
Eastern Wyoming. I think.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Gathering up all the pieces around the sheds, I soldered together an 18-foot power cable. And found out my trusty old robot soldering gun is finally giving out. That was the unit with the power boost, you could squeeze the trigger harder and get at seconds of super heat. I then trimmed the cross-braces for the north fence. At this point I realized I don’t fit in the space on the other side, where it is necessary to fasten the pickets much nicer than they are. The hillbilly has not been around since last week, usually meaning he’s made some money.

           I fastened in two of the braces and a rail that will act as a guide to raise the fence to nine feet tall, giving even more privacy from the street. The squirrel baffle is done on the ball feeder, which I see has been dented somehow. For not moving fast enough, I missed some great footage of Mrs. Red. Here she is sitting in deep water getting a good soaking. Usually the birds flutter in the water. Mrs. Red covered herself deep, getting truly wet. And I missed the shot. All I got was the last few seconds, but note the wet feathers.

           Two hours later, there she goes again, the Mrs. It is not the hottest day but it appear she is dunking into the cool water. When the fountain is off she spritzes, but when running, she gets in past half-way. There’s a bird that does not get waterlogged. This time the camcorder was connected to the office computer so I missed more classic shots. We also have a new but rare visitor, most black with a white spot on the wings. Keep checking.
           The second squirrel “Chinese hat” is outside the main backyard window now. It may have to be positioned, they usually do. In this configuration the pieces overlap, something I’ve noticed other people do not do. So this might be the world’s first double-baffle system on a blog. The ball feeder had to be moved where it is now visible. This is needed as when too low, the birds don’t like to have to fly up underneath and it also blocks their view of nearby cats and elephants.

           What’s this, a growing number of reports that Starbucks won’t accept cash. Actually, with the caliber of people they hire there, I’m not surprised but that isn’t the issue. Starbucks is already unpopular for overcharging for a shitty product and for destroying the American tradition of the free refill. And that Marine who was charged with manslaughter over self-defense has a burgeoning list of supporters. Is this the incident we’ve been awaiting? The video of the chokehold went viral, so when the media cut it short, there were plenty of copies showing the bag guy clearly breathing a minute later. Until further notice, he died of an overdose.
           Even so, there sooner or later has to be a case of whether or not one can act in self-defense, and there is really only one possible outcome. The Democrats want victims to submit to violence waiting for police that may never arrive. Also, this would send a dangerous message to others not to render assistance no matter how dire somebody else needs it. The guy who started Google has disappeared moment before he subpoenaed to testify about Epstein Island. Um, I say he is in Jerusalem.

Last Laugh