September 29, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: September 29, 2022, glorious dead calm.
Five years ago today: September 29, 2018, $430 in lost supplies.
Nine years ago today: September 29, 2014, lentil soup.
Random years ago today: September 29, 2008, we’re busy, not rich.

           Just now I confirmed that Google has again screwed the pooch. They have changed the linking format to older picture uploads. You can see the placeholder, but not the picture. All this without warning and without being asked, it’s another millennial thing. Who needs “old” information anyway.

           Since they can’t make any old money, they’ll create new money and lose their souls. Alas, the links are changed so that the only cure is to go back and re-up every photo and there is physically not enough time. That, guys, is why you should read as much of this blog as you can while you can. This month was another “bloom” with readership up by thousands. But it seems to be winding down. Thanks for the boost, Singapore.
           The second debate was a media disaster. They are admitting to a drop of 30% in viewers, meaning the reality is far worse. The Democrats, RINOs, and woketards are on the retreat everywhere—but be careful. They are trained to attack. Myself, in an activity of equal gravity to anything Biden will do today, am going to sink another fencepost. I cannot believe how well my old system is bearing up. You do know I was condemned to piling lumber and such things in my youth, work known to bring on ailments later in life. Waking up with energy is always welcome around here.

           Hmmm, I have an extra $28 in the household kitty, let’s zip over to the Thrift. My computer speaker jacks quit working (I have Realtek drivers) and nothing seems to get them back. I did delete the Win update 1033, but I doubt that’s related. The internal speaker works, but nothing on the front or back panel, it only detects input devices. It’s not that these things break down, it’s that after 30 years these millennials still can’t build one that works right. Before anyone thinks I forgot this picture, it is a set of parts bins that are self-closing. Yep, ingenious, when you leave the bin open longer than needed to grab something, it slowly closes by itself. If it had not rained us out, I would have installed it.

           I poked around the Thrift for an hour, then said forget going downtown and headed home. If Taylor wants any action, she’ll have to find her own way here. See the pot? I’m pouring dyed water in to try to find the pinhole leak. The dye is called “Kool-Aid”. Yep, I knew there was likely something wrong but did not find it until I left it on the stove overnight. Somebody boiled it dry and donated it. Florida has a lot of that brand of scumbag.

           I spoke too soon, the Singapore bloom is over. This morning registered less than 150 hits. True, that’s not bad by overall blog standards, but you can’t been 4,000 per day. All told, in 70 days I got an extra 163,000 clicks. But this is a finicky business and it is back to my small but loyal following. I found and unusual contraption that may help me with my microscope stand. It’s some kind of Ryobi tool attachment. It has a knob to adjust something, I want it to adjust the height of my specimen from the hand-held. Give me a chance to take some very careful measurements and I show you what I have in mind.
           Confirmed, Singapore has probably moved on. Blog clicks today fell by 99.6%. Maybe we’ll never know what that was all about. A Canadian lady who writes travel blogs went to Niagara Falls and says it’s a rip-off. She published photos of the water foaming with pollution but the real disappointment was the view. She said you could not enjoy it because of the crowds. She reports there is only one vantage point so you can’t get a clear view of the falls unless you are in the front rank. Parking cost an Alamo-like $15.

Picture of the day.
The Eye of the Sahara.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           The spotty rain did not cool down the atmosphere as usual, the inside of the house is a sauna. Don’t tell me we have another weather pattern on the way, I’ve got work to do. Thinking in the rain I can manage, but muggy Florida afternoons are meant for iced tea in the shade.or equivalent. This is one of three shovel blades I have that I’d like to repurpose. How about some help with the ideas? I already thought of a large novelty windmill but that is beyond my skillset. The best working concept so far is giving me something to ponder over coffee refills.

           Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s latest survey show Biden is so far behind Trump that they censored the results. They admit only to a 10 point (percentage) lead by Trump at 52 against 42, but that is a bald-faced lie. Biden is jeered everywhere he sets foot and Trump continues to spiral upwards. This, despite the media’s know complicity in making the contests sound 50/50, that is, in the cheating zone. I doubt that 25% of any group would vote for Biden, whose family will go down in history as this country’s biggest disgrace. I’m surprised they don’t bump the guy off.

           Equipment problems. My Gigrac has a problem. One of the fans cuts in and out and I don’t know if that is normal. It wants to play at half-volume, so something is out of whack. I strung the gear out in my kitchen and went over every setting. These days it is expensive to repair anything. I wonder if the Reb wants her old unit after she gets the Harbinger? There was a mobile home in Clarksville on its own land that sold for $25,000 two months ago. How did my filters not pick that one up? Anyway, prices continue to drop, though only at the high end where the speculators are getting burned. The mobile home just came back on the market for $119,000. Please, please let there be a major panic.
           My internet “modem” is also acting up. That’s the cell phone device. The battery did not last a year. If you leave them plugged in, they eventually swell up. I was careful to have this one drain completely at least once a week, it should have lasted five years at least. This is how the system shafts you. I have a check in the mail that is now 38 days overdue. I’ll be fine, but notice how things pile up? It’s hard not to conclude it is a conspiracy.
           When I built the box for my small PA speaker, the one the rat chewed a hole in, there was a 3” Altec Lansing speaker I left out. Since it was not to be used as a PA, who needs a tweeter, though I wondered why they would put such a heavy magnet on such a small unit. I looked up the model and it is rated as a “full range woofer”. That’s new to me. I’ll do some of the speaker math from what we learned y’day and see what it sounds like. Because I may take the 12” speaker out of my old BA112 that has not worked right in that leaves the amp unit for me to tinker with—and remember my plan to make a battery powered bass? This might be an opportunity to learn what not to do.

ADDENDUM

           I had time to test the Ryobi attachment and I don’t need it. It turns out the handheld microscope (Carson) is fairly well focused in the 1/4" space around the plastic collar on the device. I need only find something that compensates for that tiny range. However, this activity raised some questions about Carson. Here is a panel of two photos showing the same area at minimum and maximum magnification, as labeled. Does that bottom panel look 20 times larger than the top? I’ve never been good at judging these things, but to me it looks, oh, say just over twice as large. That’s going by the width of the stems on the lettering. I get it that optical dimensions are exponential, but I’ve seen pics of microbes at 1000x and this does not compare. I would expect to individual fibers in the paper.
           Because this discrepancy is so large, I will repeat the experiment in the morning in case I’ve made some glaring error.

Last Laugh