One year ago today: January 16, 2023, injecticide?
Five years ago today: January 16, 2019, another closed tower.
Nine years ago today: January 16, 2015, a turreted Hummer.
Random years ago today: January 16, 2004, when I worked payroll.
Let’s get some work done. A warm front has moved in and it is Festus Tuesday, It’s 5:30AM and we know it will be a good day already. Too early to run power tools, I used the breakfast hour to download the latest Arduino IDE. For those unfamiliar, I’ll take time to describe this. The Independent Development Environment is a mini-word-processor that specialized for code, in this instance, the C+ style Arduino code. It does things like check your logic and displays keywords in a different color. When done, you use a USB cable to load the code onto your microcontroller. One of my idiosyncrasies is I will often stop once the code works, never getting to the circuitry or device, it’s just me.
I’m going to give you a link to the most comprehensive Arduino website, encouraging you to take at least a five-minute browse. You should be aware of how these things are progressing. Of the hundreds of options, I linked you to the hardware page, as that is the most recognizable. If you can find it, I still used the Arduino Uno R3 (revision 3) because, if you notice, the Atmega (the big long chip) is removeable. These are getting rare, they want you to waste money on a SMT (surface mount technology) version which ties up an expensive board for every copy. I’ll explain.
If you program a successful “sketch”, you no longer need the full version of the Arduino to operate it. A basic board with a few components will run the sketch at 1/6th the cost, all you do is remove the Atmega chip and put it on the other board, replacing the original with a new blank chip. This also solves the problem of “storage” so you don’t have to load the sketch off your computer every time you want to demo it. What’s more, since there is no easy way to know what is loaded loaded on an Arduino, the clones are easier to label and keep separate.
The bewildering array of boards and shields (we used to call them baby-boards) typifies what is going wrong with the system. Wrong? Yes, the presence of these specialty one-purpose products defeats the purpose of the microcontroller to teach the user how the operation works. This is part of the larger problem with all code—the lack of standards, far from “sharing”, can make using the code downright dangerous. The club used to call this OPC for “other people’s code”. The second danger is it creates a class of users who have very little idea of how the infrastructure is put together. Think of it as a room full of expert drivers, none of whom can change a tire.
For that (tire-changing) matter, I am the opposite, the guy who won’t go past something I don’t understand. Looking over their tutorials and website for what they call professional coding, looks like I am beyond, beyond, beyond what they consider an expert “technology partner”—because they don’t understand I’ve never used most of their hardware. You should drop every menu on the page just to see what direction things are going, and read the Edge A.I. report. Written last year, it peels a few layers of how A.I. can and will be used against you.
In case you didn’t know, the 5G communications network has built-in enhancements for A.I operations specifically for this purpose, although I’ve never heard yet of any being activated. The point is, it is there, so go ahead, use your smart phone for anything and everything, you don’t need any privacy. Not unless you were driving with your phone in your pocket to the grocery store past the Capitol on January 6th, 2020, anyway.
Heads up- most of those special-purpose shields are in a category that Arduino calles MKR. Methinks that is a sales ploy to the Maker Faire crowd. Many of the shields match items shown on the Maker website and featured at shows. They are relatively rare in Florida due to lack of attendence. The last time for me was on Colonial Drive in Orlando, years ago. The $25 - $30 admission fee is a barrier to many. They also made parking a hassle on purpose and the excursion cost overall too much, you can read more on October 22, 2017, the last major event for me before the Reb reappeared and changed my world.
I have a budget carried forward since 2019 (of $240) for Science fairs I never bothered with. The school fairs are not so great any more, being mostly kits and store-bought apparatus. This money will get invested after five years, it’s a budget rule, so spend it. What was the name of that science fair that kid from Sarasota won $15,000 over a stupid cardboard cutout? I’ll get back to you if I recall, the event is in Lakeland.
Morning news, Trump completely dominates Iowa, once a Democrat stronghold. I remind the reader I do not endorse Trump, but I will support any cause, issue, or person that gives libtards a headache. You bring something along that does a better job of it than Trump, and I’ll blog about that. Overnight, Smarmi, who was losing badly in the polls, has withdrawn and will now support Trump. Don’t fall for it, these people never backtrack, they just move on to the next item in their playbook.
English car boot sale.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Owners of the LG “smart” washing machines report the devices are sending 3.6GB of data “back to headquarters” per day. I remembered the science fair mentined this morning, it is the Florida State engineering and science fair, which explains the suspended budget—the damn thing was cancelled in 2020 over COVID. Low on bread, I drove downtown and wound up shopping for two hours, then stopping for coffee, now $4 at the Mongolia. But I treated myself to a new toy, a pair of digital calipers that went on sale at Harbor Freight. I got home zonked, I mean really tired. So when it started to rain, I was quite happy to call it a day. Maybe I’ll build a box later. My only plan is a Festus episode. I can’t blame this on age, I’ve had lots of lazy spells before.
Here’s a view of the most recent Arduino IDE screen. It has been slightly streamlined (6 buttons instead of 7) and has some default text. I bumped into Wilford, so we went downtown for a few. Turns out he has a Raspberry Pi (microcontroller) and slammed into the same learning wall I did ten-twelve years ago. Everybody you ask for help on this topic tries to sell you something. He confirms there is no place or society he’s ever found in central Florida that has ever shown interest in this field. But he says he knows enough people who are interested to form a group. I’ll think it over, but if I did not say, the shift has been toward sales to kids as a toy rather than a serious tool. Strange, because this device requires a huge academic ladder to make it do anything useful.
The housing price drops in Tennessee tapered off in the last month, but today another batch came through with an average $26,000 discount. It’s like a wave, but this did not happen in 2006 so I’ve nothing to compare it to. Entry level housing is still over $300,000 so it feels like something has to give. That’s an observation, but I bought a booklet on advice for millennial house-buyers. It shows a growing wait-and-see trend that was not present in my 40s. Back then, it was common for people to just decide they were going to buy a house and start checking what was out there. Now it is more like I’m not buying unless I get a real deal. That causes somewhat of a clash with real estate companies who have not adapted to the change.
From the incoming stats, most people are finding it tough to get a job that pays even $25 an hour, the minimum to buy even the cheapest city homes.
ADDENDUM
What is the mystery picture?. It is a coffee table covered with sand art. Look closely and you can see the ball bearing drawing the troughts. Underneath the table is an Arduino controlling a gantry with a powerful magnet. It draws the bearing through the sand to create a variety of patterms. You can find more of these projects at this Arduino blog. The blog is very well-written, though it does present a flowery impression of a technology that is soon to be weaponized. Yes, the Arduino is fully capable of A.I. implementation.
Speaking of weapons, the US Navy in the Red Sea, where it has no business being, just shot down an attack by less than 30 drones costing less than $9,000 apiece. Reportedly the Navy fired 260 missiles to stop the attack. The missiles carry a price tag of $1 million each. That’s not including the sailors, the ships, the meals, the satellite WiFi, the medical, the future pensions, or the sex change operations.
While an “air force officer” (Madisson March, 22) won the Miss America title, Miss Teen America (Hanley House, 16) is proof of why those contests were split into separate categories. Nowadays it is called “body count”. In other news, several sources claim the Democrats are planning a last minute switch of Biden to Michelle Obama as the 2024 candidate. The comments on Gab show a split whether that would man her the first woman or the second black man as President.
