One year ago today: February 7, 2024, my best bluegrass jam.
Five years ago today: February 7, 2020, early fence damage.
Nine years ago today: February 7, 2016, a month at home.
Random years ago today: February 7, 2007, anonymous costs $60, cash.
We are treated to the news Musk will, at his own expense, air five 30-second spots on the SuperBowl concerning the corruption he has uncovered at USAID. I’m glad I’m not a liberal. And moments later, we are stranded. The Hyundai won’t start. Something wrong with the battery, but I know if there is, something else is causing the problem. After trying all that I knew, including a boost, the thing will not turn over. Solenoid? I knew this old van was not going to last, but I just needed another week.
Nowhere, that’s where we got today. Seven and a half hours and we have no vehicle. This was a chance I too eyes wide open. And I knew I should get that scooter in operation. The money for the new KIA transmission does not clear until next Monday. Here’s the details.
Borrowing the neighbor’s van, I replaced the battery. That should have been a forty minute task, but I forgot it was Wal*Mart. Ninety minutes later checked the post connections and turned the key. Being an old robot guy, I know you don’t just fix a part, you determine what caused the old part to fail. Now I get a faint click, what points again at the solenoid. Except, I can’t find it. Turns out they now built it onto the side of the starter, which is bolted to the transmission bell under the front end. Behind an exhaust pipe. Of course, this is one week after I failed to find the place that installs tow hitches and I’m 11 miles from the Hyundai shop.
Helper, Utah.
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By 2:00PM I had the van up on blocks and the old starter loose. But it has a single weird connection I can’t get at without taking off part of the exhaust piping. Knowing better than to work in the fading light, let’s read the latest on the USAID Democrat Massacre. There you have it folks, a $400,000 payment to the Gallup Poll, who will never be trusted again. An almost 100 year old business down the shit tank for peanuts.
The Voyager program confirmed the icy surface and later probes say the subsurface is an ocean of water. My theory is that with the presence of the right materials, life will spontaneously evolve like any other natural formation. But I would also like to see certain religious fanatics put in their place. Sadly, while I found a lot of enhancements on existing theories I’ve known for thirty years, such as the Drake formula, I found no breakthroughs. Some of the exoplanet studies were novel, but I cut each off at the first mention of climate change, greenhouse gasses, not waiting for them to work in gender studies or land claims.
Instead, I looked more at computer clock signals. Their rising edge reminds me of the quiescent zone on transistors, so I’m hoping to clear up what might later throw me off track. Aha, so that is how an edge detector works. I’ve seen several diagrams over the years that showed this but not one of the described why—a perpetual problem with computer and electronic texts. I now understand how the computer knows which operation to conduct next. I’ll never use that, but knowing how it works gives me a better understanding of latches.
And I finally learned why the first digital addition circuit was called Model K. The guy built it at his kitchen table. While I had the advantage of knowing it could be done, I tried (unsuccessfully) to build this circuit years ago when I did not know about Model K. If this afternoon is the gauge, my understanding of computer mechanics is roughly where the field stood in 1940. I am definitely going to go back and rewatch a couple documentaries on relay circuits with this newer understanding. I can visualize the circuit so I’m sure somebody has built it. This link shows a relay computer but I could not build that.
The legendary first computer, ENIAC, used so much power there was a rumor the town lights dimmed when it was switched on. That’s false, it had its own power supply. It seems the bad guys are not just shredding documents ahead of Trump, they are also encrypting files to be resistant to quantum computers. I do not know what form that would take but it reinforces my contention that collecting and storing this information is difficult and costly—so the fact nothing has happened yet is ominous.
Long ago I noticed that the difference between squared numbers is a pattern of odd numbers. By extension the huge prime numbers used for encryption also exhibit a pattern, in this case a remainder from division. I’ve never done this, but I read about it—and that is where these quantum computers are used. Coupling them with A.I. produces a realm I can’t even imagine. But I don’t lack imagination, you know I once speculated that the total mass of meteorites that land in Africa is the same as other continents, although the fewest numbers of them land in Africa.
ADDENDUM
Trump is reinstituting the death penalty for certain horrendous crimes. The majority support this, but not one of the politicians who were provably destroying this country has been arrested. It is disgusting to see fired Democrats on talk shows expressing concern how their staffers will pay for food and rent just like the taxpayers they’ve been ripping off for decades. America says, let them starve, we just do not care any more.
