One year ago today: December 25, 2022, I’m dormant again.
Five years ago today: December 25, 2018, I can see Venus.
Nine years ago today: December 25, 2014, when $8.99 was expensive.
Random years ago today: December 25, 2003, I survived.
I got e-mail Xmas cards this morning. Not a couple weeks in advance, some folks won’t like that, but the world is never going back. The Internet has destroyed tradition as we knew it, as the saying goes, the XYZers are re-writing history, complete with spelling & grammar mistakes. Good morning, it’s December 25 and my bread dough is not risen, and I think it a good day to put more siding on my lean-to. What’s a holiday if you don’t get something done and get out of the house for a few hours?
That’s why I was up early, with the headphones, drilling that “Seminole Wind” song into my brain for next Wednesday’s Jam. Hey, they are the ones that wanted to play it despite knowing I did not care for the song. I’ve arranged four different motifs, beginning the song with the actual piano line on the bass, then following with a Mozart treatment of the first verse, how it builds a slow crescendo to the chorus. Then I double-time it with what I call “Mel Bay” passing notes. This punches up the chorus which is followed by an instrumental break, where I know the guitar players think they chord well, but Iearned the chords on the bass, similar to the intro to Ami Stewarts, “Knock on Wood”. Should they decide to repeat the break, I can play my specialty, the melody line on top of the bass line.
The for the final round, I drop the bass to the simplistic notes of the “guitar version”, which will emphasize what a weak job they are doing, but it’s also what they are expecting the bass to play, judging by the past few jams. I’m already getting questions, this is not work, I’m telling you I thoroughly enjoy arranging music this way, and my ability to bass solo most of it has paid off handsomely over time. First question, what is “Mel Bay” bass. He’s a guy who wrote a lot of early “how to” books and he’s got roots in the jazz era that he was never able to shake off. (This photo showing a book for $2.50 shows he’s been around a long time.)
The second change is how I change the number of notes, adding or dropping them depending on the style of a given song. Mention Bradford again, because this always throws him. Why? Because he knows the guitar style runs off by heart but can’t snap out of that form. I’m not playing guitar, dude. The Prez caught on quickly that I will often play fakes if I think the guitar player hasn’t learned his part and tries to follow me. Examples would be playing walkdowns when the opposite is expected, and pressing notes on strings that I am not plucking. Another favorite is “pushing” the chord changes when a guitarist starts showing off. I can’t explain that easily, but you play the upcoming tonic note a 32nd ahead of the beat. There, Merry Xmas because I feel much better now because I felt like writing. Checking on-line, I see the same Mel Bay books are still available, but with woketard titles like “Killer Technique” and “Extreme Blues Bass”.
I miss having extra time for my older hobbies like navigation. In today’s addendum, I look at pulse jets, invented in 1906 in Russia. Tomorrow, I’ve scheduled a look at phased arrays, an oddball device that I just want to know about. I’ve looked at multiple sensors before. Phased arrays are a method of “focusing” the rays from sensors which emit a signal and detect the echo. While I had the idea of measuring the timing of the echo, I got no further than averaging the readings from two echos. My concept of phased arrays at this time is somebody has figured out how to average lots of echos. Because with one echo, it is tricky to figure out where it came from. Think of throwing a rock in the pod, the waves go out in all directions. The returning wave does the same, result, inaccuracy.
Bird’s nest soup.
(About $210 per bowl.) Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Being this is the year I admit I’m old, I went all out for my solitary Xmas chow. Yeah, I could go to Nashville or Miami, but you know, sometimes I’m not in visiting mode. If I want company, I can find it, one of my treasures is the social opposite of solitude. Maybe I’ve given up on finding worthwhile groups in the things that interest me. Tell you what, let’s check the Chamber of Commerce for clubs in Lakeland. There’s a rifle club, the Methodist Church, the Police Athletic League, plus a community awareness chapter and a place to play bridge. I’ll stick with the Arduino.
It rose to a balmy 72F, so I grabbed the shovel, rake, & broom and spent my Xmas afternoon uncovering the neighbor’s septic tank. It’s a topic of which I know nothing. This photo shows it is a small size metal tank. I swept away surface dirt but could not see any hinges. There is no odor and I did not find any of the roots which he says are the problem. Roots have to come from somewhere, right? And the nearest tree is 25 feet away. Have you ever heard of Doctor Pooper? I’m aware these tanks have what is called a leech field. That’s the aroma if the tank gets full. Nothing seems out of place and there is not a hint of smell.
Here’s my plan. Pop the lid just enough to see what is going inside. If there are any roots, that is where they must be. Why? Because the roots work their way into the piping through joints, and this is a solid piece of PVC. You can see it in the picture. If the tank looks “full” it should be of decomposable matter. Doctor Pooper is what they call an accelerant. It super-charges the bacteria in the system, which liquefies solids, sending them on to the leech field. I think, once again the on-line instructions are written by simpletons who assume you know what they are thinking. On the other hand, I know what you are thinking. What sort of yahoo fixes a septic tank on Xmas Day? The kind who does not know how to waste time, that sort. The only things I touched were my own yard tools.
ADDENDUM
You’ll get extra reading today because I’m comfortably at my desk on a holiday. The Arduino book is handy, and I’ll momentarily tell you about a project I would likely undertake if I had some help. An Arduino FSR is a “force sensitive resistor”. You press it, the resistance goes down, but they are notoriously inaccurate. Tension sensors are expensive. I can imagine several mechanical ways to regulate the way rubber bands unwind but have no way of testing them for this idea. Read on.
Did you know the plans to build a pulse-jet on-line are amazing? You can buy scale models on-line (but I wouldn’t). The decent models start at nearly $1,000. I am, however, fascinated by how cheaply they could be built. Watching several recent posts because 3D printing has made several changes possible to the all-important vane structures, I’m surprised how easy it would be to use 3D printouts to create moldings for the few metal parts needed for intake and combustion. A certain amount of tooling is still needed for which a cheap lathe would work. I could not build one (but I could learn), it seems to me with drone technology this weapon could be revived.
I was impressed by some technology changes and how adaptable this would be to mass production, particularly of small models, say three feet (one meter) long, using mostly plywood as in the original. Rather than actual vanes flapping, it looks like they laser cut a spinning shaft which allowed a constant “spiral” of fuel-air mix into the combustion chamber. The samples given on-line were generally overbuilt and designed for long term demonstrations. A weapons grade unit need only last maybe an hour. I saw several models started with a blast of compressed air. No carburetor is needed, just a feed nozzle. As long as the craft stays reasonably upright it might not even require that.
Since there is a spinning shaft, a small generator could replace the spark plug battery. I wonder if an ordinary bottle of compressed butane, for portable stoves, could be used to supply an entire weapon with a motor pipe that snaps on to the nozzle? I’ve seen on video that used a Bic lighter. Years ago I saw blueprints for the V1, if I can find them again. I’d like to price out what it would cost to construct a scale model of the size mentioned here. Also seen online, the CSV file to print parts 3D, and a variety of plans for materials like paper, cardboard, foam board, and plastic. No links, you can find them yourself everywhere.
For those curious, an actual pulse jet motor that could realistically power a full size V1-style missile sells for around $50,000. That’s 1% of the cost of the smallest, weakest, commercial jet engine, a turbine type. The small engines seen on RC aircraft are priced around $1,500 each, making that a fairly dedicated hobby. Such prices are part of the reason I don’t know a lot about drones. But I have toyed with small TV cameras enough to know they can be used for target acquisition.
I ran across a new term, “dethermalizer”. As usual, many for sale but very little info on how they work. From what I gather, it is used to prevent free-flight model airplanes from getting lost. These are designed to shut down after a fixed time for retrieval. Gas or rubber bands do that for you, but the newer types with battery or capacitor power are unpredictable. So dethermalization is any gizmo that shuts it down when you want rather than when the battery or capacitor gets low. I would understand this from resistor-capacitor circuits and there is one model that used a replaceable fuse that burns itself out.
For reading down this far, here’s another one of those ideas I came up with myself, that is, I have no prior knowledge that led to the idea if it has ever been done before. If I had the financial incentive to build a cruise weapon out of non-strategic material, I would not use a motor at all. So here is the million-dollar idea. Using a microcontroller, is it possible to regulate the power of ordinary rubber bands? There are countless sites showing various methods of winding and braiding the rubber, but they all have the similar characteristic of over-powered initial flight, then progressively gliding as the bands unwind. The record for powered flight is around 4 minutes, at the championships in Johnson City, Tennessee. Sound familiar? That’s the place mentioned in the Darius Rucker tune, “Wagon Wheel”.
There are longer, unpowered flights, but you could say the same for paper airplanes. Their common characteristic is zero payload. I’m suggesting there could be an Arduino way to optimize flight time. I’ve thought of governing the propellor, but another idea is rubber bands in series or parallel. As one band wears down, it kicks in the next. I don’t know, but there has to be a sensor for this kind of thing. The fundamental concept here is that the propeller is governed to turn at the speed that maximizes distance. After that, let the engineering types worry about thrust and drag. One thing, with my method, you could have a simpler ratio between distance and cargo weight.
I’ve devised a small test platform with roller skate bearings. Not really having time, I mostly just look at it and ideate. One plan might be to have the elastic turn something besides the propeller, but each stage adds friction.
