August 30, 2023
Yesteryear
One year ago today: August 30, 2022, hot water tank coincidence.
Five years ago today: August 30, 2018, but who is “she”?
Nine years ago today: August 30, 2014, to the bakery.
Random years ago today: August 30, 2009, eTrade is a setup.
Interesting article, about children who practice their reading to dogs at the animal shelter. Of course, the contingent were there who said they should do the same for lonely seniors. Wrong, the dogs are in no way responsible for their situation. How about you have the seniors read to the dogs? Good morning, it is 78°F and soaking. How about a unique blog mention? Here is a video of my oldest unrepaired roof leak. Note the paint on the wall declaring this to be 2016. It’s the white shed, from the blog that dares to feature a roof leak. Hey, do you have any idea how challenging it is to find unique subject material in a daily blog of any real permanence? There, now you can have a refill.
Depending on how much rain, you may get lots of reading today. Maybe you just like the flow of information. I was reading a lot today. We’ll see where this winds up. I sent e-mails and messages to everyone, knowing the Florida power grid can wink out any time.
We have a ready plan for days like this. I’m going to disassemble the pressure valve from the A/C compressor. I can’t get it to trigger so now I want to open it an see the innards. My reasoning is I can get more of these any time I want in Florida. Do you have any idea how many air compressors must get chucked on a daily basis? Also, I’ve been meaning to read up on the battle near Chinese Farm, you probably don’t know this one. It was the Israeli nickname for an abandoned agricultural station in the Sinai.
During the Yom Kipper war, the Israelis opened a corridor south of the farm and put forces across the canal. My interest was the Egyptian reaction. My opinion is that well-planned as the Egyptian attack was, they had no follow-up plans. They achieved the early goals, then seem to have sat down. Except for an attack by their best tank brigade across the corridor, from further south near Great Bitter Lake. And managed to get nearly completely wiped out.
They sent 94 of their best tanks (Soviet T-62s) north, seemingly without infantry or air support and without scouting ahead. What’s worse, they drove along a small highway that averaged less than 3 miles from the eastern lakeshore. As normal, the reported number of Israeli tanks cannot be trusted, most sources say 14. They sprung a classic trap, emerging hull down, one shot one kill, then back behind the dunes. The Eqyptians quickly lost 60 tanks (about two hours) and then made a run for it. Problem, they hit a minefield which knocked out another 12. The math doesn’t add up, but since only 5 tanks made it back, the Egyptians lost 87 one way or another. (Israel lost 3.)
Driving through rivers down the streets, I got to the library and stayed there until past noon. Had the place to myself. They’ve finally put magazines back on the racks. That’s one industry that really went downhill fast. One of the worst is Reader’s Digest, it’s no wonder I dropped that right after they went woketard. The articles are “detuned” and constantly shoveling climate change, anti-white, LGBTQ, and wind power in every damn article. Plus that “big print” format is now everywhere, it’s another thing I don’t like. I picked up this month’s edition, saw the blurb, “Smart Ways To Be Lazy” and set it right backdown.
That was the first subsciption I dropped over articles with hidden agendas. They once had a spread of great topics but it was around 1990 just before I finished college that they switched to that pseudo-feminist tone on everything. (That’s adult college, guys, I went back after I finished university to get a degree I could use.) Even the mail-in tidbits have the good parts sifted out, worst are Humor in Uniform and All In A Day’w work. I like my humor to be funny, not constant little digs at what I’m supposed to find funny.
I logged on to Tennessee and yes, it is time to close a few underused services. I got notice that my doctor is retiring. The article said after 25 years, which struck me because she’s been my doctor just under 20 years. It just never crossed my mind I was probably her original remaining patient. She’s named a replacement but now I really have little reason to ever go to Miami. This Christmas is 20 years since the heart attack that changed everything. I was in the prime of my life at the time.
A DVD sale and fifty cents is the right price for anything from Marvel. They ceased being an entertainment comic long ago, but they have given us some memorable super heroes. This DVD is called “Elecktra”, says here she has to decide between good and evil. I want to see if she has a body more like Uma or like Scarlett. Back when they were movie stars, I mean. I’m at the part where she leaves the Jap monastery, but no clear views of her shape yet, except the form-fitting red costume. But we experienced babe-watchers have patience.
Picture of the day.
TeePee Curios.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Soon as it dries out, I’ll get you photos of the avocado that sprouted. It seems to know it is in a wee garden of eden there, pampered. The leaves doubled in size the last couple days, though the peach tree did similar enough to fool me. But you gotta see this. Best plant I’ve grown this year anyway. Papayas don’t count. By 4:00PM there is no letup so I continued reading about sensors, this time the finer points about how they interact with computers. I know you often have to slow things down or people get jolted by the reaction.
I find it amusing how this text, published in 2004, reveals how little progress has been made since then. This lack is not the same as the oft-repeated woes of history repeating itself. This is much different, where there is an apparent tendency to outright ignore known important factors. In 1984 I decided to return to computer school, and there was a choice then only of hardware of software. I chose the one that would pay the most, as students did in those days, ahem. It took a while, but I got around to some of the physical aspects, like sensors. I coull not find the picture that fits here, so how about a view of the12-foot high ships wheel from the museum last month. If it’s a repeat, tough.
One of the topics I wrote was the operation of sensors, although most we know today did not even exist—but that’s the point here. This is the brand of information that gets ignored by today’s coders because it is “old”—as I’ve heard them refer to anything before 1998. That’s when I began to notice the appearance of computers with bad software. I’ll isolate the sensor to make my point. I wrote that there were four stages to a proper “computer button”, was the term back then. As you read this, think of the people inside a Tesla that is spinning out of control as they look for what this blog calls “the brake button”.
My four steps were:
1) Pressing the button activates a light.
2) The light remains on.
3) The switch is de-activated.
4) The light goes dimmer or brighter for the duration.
There can be any number of variations, but it was clear I meant that a feedback loop (another term I don’t know if still used) applied to the button as well as the process. So it could be a bell, or a motion, something that the user knew his input had been recognized. Now think of today when you push a button and nothing happens. You would keep hitting that button and I believe that’s what was happening as the Tesla went off the cliff.
My warning here is not that the button had no feedback, but that whomever coded the button must not have bothered learning a single aspect of the process beyond the screen graphics. We’ve seen this before. The screen displays as if the command was successful, but there is no real feedback link. For all the operator knows, each second push turns the feature back off. In my design, the switch can only be reactivated by a successful conclusion of the command. Yet today’s coders do not even consider this to be a consideration. Scary, and the airliners continue to vanish.
It is not like these people are not exposed to the right ways, but that they don’t learn by it or something. When they start their car, all the dash warning lights activate momentarily. I’ve talked drivers who think that means something is wrong, or in the alternative, have no clue that it is a self-test. My theory on this is that wrong schooling has removed these people for any sense of attachment to the outcomes of their actions, focusing on teaching them how to avoid responsibility through built-in denial. When is the last time you heard anybody under 20 say they didn’t know something—except as an excuse to get out of it? Right, it never happens.
Thus, there is a book written twenty years later that reveals a disjoint between thought and performance. Add on another twenty years and you get today. These people take so long to realize they’ve been screwing up that now they can’t correct themselves and will defend their right to continue screwing up. There, I can’t make it much clearer.
Which brings up a secondary topic. Explaining things to bad people. Huh? Think of this scenario, somebody you encounter won’t perform even their own job unless you give them the quick explanation of how it goes. In the past decade, these types have appeared just everywhere. So what’s the problem? It’s that they’ve put a twist on it. They know the quick explanation must necessarily contain gaps and omissions—and they turn that back on you. I know this is nothing new, but I’m referring to the immensity of the crowd that deliberately takes that path. Want to find them by the thousands? Go on social media, make a general statement.
How about the riot in England? All Africans stabbing and slashing each other. Now the government wants to take away all knives and machetes except kitchen implements. See how that works? First, they had to take all the guns away. What’s significant is the almost complete news blackout. And zero pictures. I know they’ll show because these days everybody has a camera, but it shows that where the Internet can supply instant information, it can also be worked the other way.
In a revealing development, the FCC created a rule that ISP (Internet Service Providers) must, in their advertising, That is, they must spell out exactly what the true cost of the service is so the customer knows exactly what he will be paying. And the ISPs are howling in pain. It’s too expensive, it’s too difficult, it’s too honest. We had this conversation back in the 2004 - 2006 era when I attempted to find out once and for all what a web page costs to set up and operate. Who remembers that?
The days of advertised “Your Own Website $99” and all you got was a generic template of a home page. So many customers asked for the true cost that I decided to check with people who had, at the time, newly opened web business sites. There were no straight answers. The closest I was able to get was a lady who had put her bath product shop on-line and had spent $12,000 before the thing was running. And she had to hire somebody to maintain it. Commerce on the Internet was designed as a rip-off from the word go.
In fact, to this day I could not tell you what a working, interactive web business page costs. I wrote a number of critical posts on this topic, of which
July 12, 2005 is typical. And it also contains a chilly forewarning of allowing faggots to get near schoolchildren.
ADDENDUM
Having a couple letters to write, I was going to pop downtown. Instead, it was over-40 Florida fun time and I wired up most of a small FM transmitter. I happened to have most of the components and once I got started, well, you know. Taylor has not been around lately and you know how fussy I am. Couple that with the total lack of either variety or quality in Florida and I was glad I have hobbies that require such concentration. Sorry, Taylor.
The gadget is from an on-line search where I will often look for something with the fewest number of parts. This was one of the winners. They still have to wait their turn and often the biggest challenge is finding all the parts. I remember around a month ago finding a 100Ω resistor and thinking, what is that ever good for. Then today I need two of them. Can’t find any at all. This shows a tiny (1/4 watt) 67 Ω paired with a 22 Ω, the values are rarely exact. This measures 89.9 with is close enough to the allowable error margin.
It’s not done, as I still have to find or fake a variable capacitor. The nice ones are rare as hell these days. Visible are spring connections that would be removed when the circuit tests out. It takes any input signal and uses a 9-volt battery to transmit the sound around 10 feet. This one is down-rated to accept a microphone. Most microphones, compared to other electrical components produce a very weak signal. That is why I have another small project, a 15 Watt amplifier.
Last Laugh
