One year ago today: February 18, 2023, pioneers of the unrepairable.
Five years ago today: February 18, 2019, chicken pot pie.
Nine years ago today: February 18, 2015, hard disk spyware evidence?
Random years ago today: February 18, 2004, over $16 billion, wow.
This morning I get a blast of messages this blog has been reviewed somewhere. None say the location, but I’ll presume somebody typed “court” instead of “park” and caused a ruckus. Then again, this is post number 7,078 and I’m getting another bloom from Singapore. Hello, out there, can somebody drop me a comment why all the interest. I’ll say again, this blog does not represent the say an average America spends his days. This country is currently full of lazy, overweight, sluggish people who blame their troubles on everybody else, so a blog like this is a rare find.
That means I’ve likely driven past both these natural wonders unawares. This photo shows the prominent feature is a microwave tower. It’s now past noon and staying wet, or I’d go for a drive. Instead, I viewed videos of box-building techniqes, all show the quality is largely determined by experience. My average box measures less than 10” wide, 4 or 5” deep, and 3-1/2” high because that’s the size of the lumber. I’ve never been really to downtown Sarasota and it’s only 50 miles from here. They have a huge lab and instrument store, the kind of place I like to just look around. It’s revealing to see on-line prices for [coronary] stents ($1,600 each) and brain tissue slicing blades ($50 each) but I doubt I’d pay $365 for a pair of scissors.
Dang this rain, and unusually, the temperature is dropping, we are now in the mid-fifties. Seattle weather. Y’know, there is a toy store in Lakeland that crops up in some of my electronics searches. It’s got a weird name, ah, I just remembered. Intergalactic Plastics. It’s on the road to the Prez’s place, but he canceled rehearsal to take his family to the park. Ha, and it rained, but what say if the place is open on Sundays, we go for a look-see. Our budget is $45 club money. Who knows, maybe they have iron filings. I’ve seen their sign but it looks more like a comic book store. It says they trade anything but I’ve got a hunch they don’t need any papayas.
Ulan Bator airport hotels.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
By mid-afternoon it’s too cold to for box-making. Checking the news, Russia made good it’s threat to chuck out the World Health Organization. The radical left is going ballistic. Again, I say, their mode of cheating only works when the count is relatively close. Trump is too far ahead for that now. They would need convoys of fake ballots. And as it is, by mid-week there may not even be any trucks entering New York. Thousands of truckers and companies have declared a boycott over the fake Trump trial.
I think this display of a model castle might have been some kind of game board. I didn’t stick around to find out. No real toys, no electric trains, no meccano, no model airplanes. The message is no modern violence, but medieval violence is just fine. They had some art supplies, but just for painting dolls. I’m not saying it is wrong, just not for me. If these people ever get in charge, this country is doomed.
I’m listening to The Dillinger audio-book. It’s one excellent exposure of how deep the corruption goes in Mexico, but I didn’t know he was ever there. I’d say the criminals of the early 20th century were a different type than today. Not as motivated by greed and likely not unemployed scum who hated society. There are so many embellished legends including some that say it wasn’t him the FBI shot down. The audiobook has him in a mining camp in Mexico where he’s got a half-Chinese-half-Mexican gal stringing him along. It’s very well-researched, but I get vibes saying it is a Michener-like tale, that is, real facts but fictional people.
Keep an eye on those truckers, most of whom support Trump. They have annonced a boycott of New York and there are instructions on-line how to avoid buying products that are shipped from there. This could get serious fast as New York has not been able to sustain itself without massive outside help since the 1970s. I have little faith it will work, as only independent truckers can refuse a load. I just watched a great video of a crowd chanting “FJB” as he tried to give a speech at the White House.
Wide awake at midnight, I watched some videos on a hand-held 3D scanner, a brand called Shining Einstar. Nice but the best video had no narration. The product gives good results but it costs a thousand dollars. What’s this coming in? A Russian reconnaisance patrol claming they knocked out a [German] Leopard [tank]? If so, I’ll bet it was the Mark I and had most of the internal gear turned off. Poon is getting blasted out of the water by Trump in her home state. He’s so far ahead the liberals have not even tried to cheat using ballots.
However, the left has had 40 years of rightist complacency to hone the system in their favor. Recently, the Republicans lost a couple key positions through schedule manipulation—a dastardly tactic I first encountered at 19 years old in university. They hold votes and pass legistlation at times most inconvenient for any no-voters to be present. Like holding an emergency meeting on Christmas Eve to pass spending bills. It’s a well-know story of how I returned to campus with the exact amount of tuition onto discover the fee had been raised by (I think) about $13 which I did not have.
Some of you remember this tale from the trailer court. While the bulk of students were away at summer jobs, the tiny summer group (de facto rich kids) using a slight change they had made the year previous, were able to form a quorum and vote in this extra fee to convert the library to braille for the benefit of the two legally blind students out of 9,000. To hell with the legally poor, such as myself. I almost missed a semester, that’s the time Bob the Pollack sneered, “Just put it on your credit card.” It would be another nine years before I got a credit card.
ADDENDUM
“The Benefits of Insomnia.” I should write the book. If you are new here, I should explain I have a mild case and so do my brothers. However, at a very early age, I learned it is no good to sit around and worry about it. Grab a book. Mind you, this only works if you have real insomnia, not an extremely guilty conscience. This evening I chose my old electronics book with the upside-down cover and what do you know.? There were two chapters, pages 233 through 307 on a closely related topic to transistor biasing. With titles like “transistor behavior at low frequencies”, you had to pretty much know what you were looking for. I’m by no means fluent on this, but here are some items I learned today.
1. Every transistor amplifier configuration requires a minimum of three matched resistors at the emitter, base, and collector.. My textbook was published in 1972. This picture carries descriptive markings and arrows to the Q positions. If you hate graphs, transistors are not your friends. The highlighting is due to the source, they are often copies of material used for explanations within the club. The meanings are mostly internal, but can often be determined from context.
2. PNP is the most common configuration (see, a good guess from last week).
3. there is a convention to using subscripts that I have never seen described anywhere before, so much for the experts.
4. I never did believe Q was the transistor symbol because “any other suitable letter was already taken.”. The source is more likely a calculated mid-point or average spot that functions best for a given transistor. If you look at most of the characteristics charts (from the data sheet), you find it is labeled Q for quiescent point.
