One year ago today: January 9, 2023, sawdust vacuum, 1st anniversary.
Five years ago today: January 9, 2019, I’m still “a safe date”.
Nine years ago today: January 9, 2015, misplaced superiority complexes.
Random years ago today: January 9, 1980, I once worked for Halliburton.
Yep, 45 years ago I worked for Halliburton, also known as ‘Halli-bortion”. I quite after a co-worker got both his feet blown off when a supervisor told them to clean some tanks with long metal poles. Under a power line. I was just out of college and needed the job. This was the one that taught me obeying the rules got you shafted because the old farts knew the rules better than you did. Everybody was on call, so the old guys changed their phone numbers. I was out on maybe ten oil rig jobs, which were not bad, but I could not stand the people. Just one loser asshole after another, in unlimited supply. Good morning, let’s hope the rain quits long enough to get some rafters in place. Let’s see how I do now that I have experience.
The shed took more work than anticipated but all the hard part is done. I canceled Festus Tuesday for a cranky reason. I had a Yueng-Ling in the fridge, ice cold, for my reward. Finally, by late afternoon, I got the tools put away and just needed to lock up. I set the beer on the saw table. I told you it was windy. I got one swig. Intending to go downtown, I opted for a nap first and never got there. However, in true woketard logic, California is announcing that statistics show shoplifting is way down. Simple, if it is no longer a crime, it does not get reported. Sort of like how there is no prostitution in Thailand and no government corruption in Canada.
Somehow I found time to read some Arduino library code. These libraries typify what is wrong with today’s “programming” environment. The lack of standards and controls means it is very risky business to blindly accept what are basically subroutines written by strangers. This was also part of the downfall of Arduino because it allowed the rise of competing products that were easier to hard code. As soon as you hear of “constructs” and “instances”, that’s your first clue the code is rotten. It must have worked at some point in the past under the right circumstances, but it is still rotten.
One of the worst characteristics of libraries is how it allows the writer to invent commands on the fly. There is nothing to prevent a different writer from assigning the same command to something else. I’ve seen at least 40 conflicting uses of the term “ButtonPush”. The same goes for variables. While other languages have a similar problem, the variables are normally safely contained in subroutines, rather than “included” into the operating loop. (Note that I do not code for a living, so forgive any programming terms I may throw into the mix.)
Here’s a test of whether you might make a coder or a programmer. I’m reading up on the sonar sensors after discovering they can operate in three modes, I just prefer the PWM. It is customary, but bothersome, to present the range in both imperial and metric. The return time of the pulse is measured in milliseconds. Here is where the test begins. There are two routes you could take. One is to compute the distance in inches, then covert the inches to centimeters (or vice versa). Another is to take the return time and make two separate calculations, one in each standard. Which one would you choose? Why?
A coder would take the easy way, the first one. A programmer chooses the second. It’s the “why” part that signifies the difference. In the first case, you used a formula to calculate one scale, then a second formula to convert it to the other. Example, 1 inch is 2.54 centimeters. A programmer knows that most formulas are approximations, and using one on another is compounding your error. Even worse, a computer does not know what 2.54 is, it converts it to binary, and anyway, it is really 2.5399999619. A programmer would know that 2.54 was a compromised definition established around 1960—and that there is no need for this lack of precision in the computer age.
Worse, if you go on-line, it is difficult to avoid the 2.54 people and their erroneous rounding. Most conversion sites are even worse, because they use a fraction of a meter to derive the constant and that works out to an even worse.2.54000508 cm/inch. That “good enough” attitude is just one item separating the two approaches, the sad part being most coders are blissfully unaware there even is a gap. (And pointing it out can irk them to no end.)
M&M store, Las Vegas.
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Here’s a great photo of what a $15 million dollar solar energy farm looks like after a Texas hailstorm. Since nothing else happened this afternoon, I’ll tell you an old, old tale from the trailer court. Nothing ever happened in the small town I grew up in. So it as a big event the summer I was eleven when three new families moved to town. They all had last names starting with “Par”. Pardell, Parcel, Parmont. It was an invasion of the “Pars”, I was certain of it. Now, two of the families had girls, who were in my class. My favorite was Cathy Pardell. See, these were big city girls, her dad was the guy who ran the train station. The local girls paled by comparison. They smelled like soap, but the city gals had perfume.
Well, at the granary, Sheila was pretending to cry, just like the other times. Huh? That’s correct, the girls would always pretend to cry in case they were caught. The problem was Doug would not believe she was faking. I don’t know if he ever told his father, but I’m certain he did. If he did, nothing ever happened, but he was never invited again. Geraldine later married a local boy with an unpronounceable last name, and became a director with the school board.
Who remembers the big African Killer Bee scare? They were found in Texas, or something. Anyway, the bees have deadly stings, but they can’t fly worth a damn. If you get attacked, run in a straight line for about a quarter mile, preferably against the wind. The bees will quit.
JeePee, the turtle that receives more mail than any other, finds that may expand to a newsletter. It seems to take forever to get things done in Tennessee when I’m not there, but I still would like to subscribe to that A.I. avitar service. The thought of this blog as a podcase ws one idea. The letters JeePee create another option. I’ll let you figure it yourself. Think of all the publications of trivia that you’ve encountered. What do they have in common? They don’t explain the trivia in any detail. Classic example, the bushmen and their language which includes tongue-clicking sounds. This is (as far as I knows) the only blog that ever explained why. Because the sounds do not scare the animals.
So, toy with the idea of trivia with a little depth. For sure, that depth would have to be carefully controlled. As you know, so many ideas around here are not followed up. Usually because there is always another roof that needs repair. Imagine, at my age, I was up on the roof twice today.
Those sonar PING sensors that were $15 each when I first looked at them are now $1.50 on Amazon. And HP has again been sued over their ink cartridges, a product I began to warn against in 1986. Stay away fro HP, these lawsuits are only beginning to uncover the real story. HP is the mafia of the printer industry. Their most common scam—and it is perfectly legal—is to cease manufacturing a cartridge, forcing users to buy a whole new printer, then cranking the price of the new cartridge. HP suck and I have not had any of their products around here for more than twenty years. Note, HP calls this cartridge lock-in “dynamic security”.
NASA used to have space exploration as its priority. Some think it still is, but that was before the spaceship crews got “diversified”. That has changed. Now that there are astronauts other than educated White males, who accept risk as a factor in space travel, the priority is now “crew safety”, resulting in the next Moon landing being pushed back to almost 2027. the astronouts are now mostly just passengers and are required to sign disclaimers and contracts. What a joke.
