One year ago today: August 19, 2023, 43 years experience, folks
Five years ago today: August 19, 2019, English Cherry 233.
Nine years ago today: August 19, 2015, I still prefer wood.
Random years ago today: August 19, 2013, the peak of ripeness.
What a fiasco in Chicago. Even curiouser is the rioters (pardon me, mostly peaceful protestors) who showed up were formerly supporters the Democrats counted on. This is all proof to me that dinosaur minds like the left just cannot keep up with the times. And those times mean the Internet peels away time-lag they rely on for their mechanations to take root. They are embarrassing themselves but they know of no other ways. The people who say walls don’t work are erecting chain link fences around themselves for protection.
Closing the books for the last trip to Tennessee reveals the cheapest journey there since 2020, but also the shortest. Not counting the doggie fence ($160), this round trip rang up at $569. That’s still half again what it cost back in 2019. Here’s me pointing at the map, that has become the most traveled long-distance corridor in my life. I’d have to total things but I’ve been there around 20 times and then lost count. The average trip in 2023 – 2024 cost more than $1,000 each. Does this mean I've spent more travelling to see an old flame than I spent buying this house? Yes, why do you ask?
I thought it would take a little longer to get old. That fence tuckered me out—but the good news is it was spread over five days. Lest we forget one of the mandates of this journal was to record such changes as the past 15 to 18 years has shown we don’t know which tiny changes are significant. I have one for you. In the past year my diet has changed slightly away from rice toward potatoes. It’s no a potato a day, but two every second day, no average. Yours, from the blog that dares to feature a pomme de terre in it’s opening.
Here’s something. The Hyndai van had a slight “medicine” smell on the interior, so I left the back hatch open for the past three days. Four of my neighbors saw that and came over to check if I was okay. May Miami, Florida, never get this far north. It’s early morning and I’m contemplating a day trip to some town I’ve never been before around here. Check back. On days this slow, it is hard to ignore all the politics flying around.
Just in case anyone thinks because I’m not out galavanting that things aren’t getting done, here is a batch of the tubes from this week, awaiting shelves to be built in the silo. (Reminds me or an aerial view of Soviet-era workers apartments.) The atmosphere on-line has also evolved. I realize I’m up against two categories of sellers. The ones who, like me, know nothing about the tubes, and the other a group of experts who can tell by looking. They can be rapid to clue you in if you post something wrong. Wait, I deserve a little credit in that my postings have steadily gotten better.
Here’s something I could take many ways. You may be aware this blog is not the full amount of writing I do most days. There are letters and personal accounts that are best kept alone. Noticeable are a lack of photos of the Reb & I, yet you can be sure they exist by the thousands, and of course, Americans are wise to never discuss their income. Today I glanced over ten year old photos to notice I’m wearing the same outfit as today. That’s how little I value fashion. If it’s comfy, fits okay, and can either melt into a crowd, or if on stage, draw one, then it is fine by me. My shirt and slacks today are at least ten years old. I like that shirt.
To top the morning, got a craving for radishes. I’ve never been much on eating raw veggies, but you can’t cook radishes. I remembered a farmer’s market near Bartow, so I drove out there. The area east of there I don’t know but there is a spot called Alturas regularly in the news. That’s not the one in California. Out here it is one store. It’s half-way to Lake Wales and there is nothing around but more farmland. I threw $30 gas in the van and drove for two hours, just me and the radishes.
Market, Juchitan de Zaragosa.
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Just me and the birds, most of the day. I’ve replace my grits and saw the culprit rat. He crawled up the back of the fridge coils and ate through the paper container. Got five packs of my powdered milk, too. The excitement quota these days is right off the charts. The lightest moments were NPR radio trying to spin anything positive on on Harris and Biden, failing horribly. The Democrats know Biden is sinking them and America for the most part, hates Harris. Their desperation to find anything with traction has resulted in their MSM doctoring video recordings. You can see the jump shots where they made Rogan appear to endorse Harris.
The caption on this photo of the Democrat convention states this is the actual turnout for the event. The eerie absence of the other hoopla surrounding this even plus that stunt at the sandwich shop is really exposing their tactics. All they are really accomplishing is teaching the voters what to watch for. It’s insufferable what they are up to, even getting their fake scientists to predict that sunspots may cause a major Internet outage right after October 24. They are trying the monkeypox scare again but that has already fizzled.
ADDENDUM
Texas Instruments has become just the next company to announce a chip factory. You hear the note of scorn because these stories have become so regular we’ve quit keeping score. My reasons are documented. Each round of chips follows the course of Moore’s Law, except with dollars. As chip performance skyrockets, so does the cost of the factories. And the lifecycle of such places is becoming ever shorter. My solution is not hardware, but better software. The industry has trapped itself by building chips for speed rather than efficiency. I’ve designed (but not built) dozens of small circuits using existing chips to emulate the hardware.
Certainly, I am no engineer, but believe that vast savings could result by pouring resources into chips that match the software, not the other way around. Then, once a given procedure proves it can handle the task, countless copies can be made at almost no cost. If you say watch out, because bad software is a hallmark of the latest code-mongers, I say you are right but not considering the source. Today’s coders are incentivized to product code that only looks like it is working.
I don’t, but probably should) publish some of my code listings. While I’m stuck using what hardware I have and its crappy “C+” coding, it would be not as relevant as to what I just described. What a chip maker would advocate is to add as many integrated circuits as needed, I would minimize that by better software. It’s just an approach I’ve had for many years and would like to pioneer something. But instead, I had to go to work for a living.
