April 21, 2025

Yesteryear
One year ago today: April 21, 2024, a navigation error found.
Five years ago today: April 21, 2020, memories of my best year.
Nine years ago today: April 21, 2016, tomatoes are okay.
Random years ago today: April 21, 2008, through the Everglades.

           Lacking pics for you, this is an animation of the RAM memory I’m looking at this week. It’s for amusement, I doubt there any functional device that works like this. Nor does it show the decoders that control the strobes. What? It’s easy, if watch how the row and columns ineract. The CAS and RAS mean column address strobe and row address strobe. A column is selected, the a moment later some of the rows, which flashes or “strobes” individual memory cells.

           I did not know that Samoans and other Islanders had been prevented from fishing their own waters. Trump just put a stop to that. Other countries were using the ban to send commercial trawlers to the best banks. And where are these loud-mouths who a week ago said tariffs woult ruin our economy? Have they all “died suddenly”, ha-ha? The desperate left is once again hauling out their FEMA camp threats, a repeat of 2016, 2020, and 2024. When they get back in power they will punish all who opposed them. We have become Canada. And some dude named Francie died over in southern Europe. Good morning.
           An unusual e-mail arrived this morning from an old friend. I used to hang around in my early teens with him and his brother. We were poor and we talked about it a lot. Well, his brother took after me and he did not. His brother is a millionaire out west. On the other hand, the email was about how he had to rivet parts of his car together so they would not flap in the wind. Both of the brothers finished university in their early twenties. I did not graduate for another ten years and financially, wound up somewhere in the middle. I just find that more than coincidental.

           No more is heard of the Mexicans stopped in Coloration with 180,000 rounds of ammunition. Over the past 36 months, a third of the film industry has moved out of Los Angeles due to restrictions and high labor costs. Even IBM admits work-at-home is a bust and orders workers in three days a week. Remember how Hertz rentals demanded your social security number and a ton of other private data? Well, it isn’t yours no more. Some California hacker got the crosswalk speakers to play Elon speeches.
           One more thing, Trump had best get a move on, time’s a-wasting and the deportations aren’t happening. The longer he lets things drag out, the more time the enemy has to rally and plan. Still not underway this morning, I threw on a DVD called “Observe and Report”, it’s a sort of comedy spoof on this mall cop with a crush on the skank at the cosmetic counter. I get the message of the movie, but also a hoot of a time at how the dude so perfectly portrays the pick-up methods of losers. It’s such a classic I don’t know if the scenes are meant to be funny. He laughs at her stupid comments and laughs when she does, exactly the say men who never get any go about things. Just now she barfed from taking his meds and he kisses her anyway, something about how this takes their relationship to the next level.

           I’m not sure who to believe, but several medical journals are reporting that life expectancy in the vaxxed has dropped from 78 years to around 49 years. That’s a whopping 39 year drop, but folks, it was time to cull the herd. And here’s a video for people who can’t read cursive or drive a standard who think they can maintain the American infrastructure once the Boomers are gone.

Picture of the day.
Poker cheat sheet.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           There’s plenty of chores needed work today, but instead I went out to the big workshed and worked mostly on one box. It’s one I tried to make as best I’ve learned and I’ve also learned there is no perfect box. It’s still a nice little unit. It has an extra purpose. I’m going to comb over it and log everything that is wrong and if there is a way to correct it that is within my means. I made this box special for something. In the month that’s passed, I’ve forgotten. All the boxes are overkill for tools and such, but it makes for a charming display.

           Have I a favorite yet? Yes. The rulebook says that thicker wood is for bigger boxes, that it does not look right below a certain dimension. To date, I’ve made around eight boxes that disobey this rule of thumb. The result is a small super-tough box. I use them for instruments and tools that would otherwise be throw in a drawer. What is that racket? Two woodpeckers dueling over the birdbath. No, I’m not springing for second unit, you kids can learn to share. Back to the boxes.

           This photo demos what I mean. These boxes are too small or bulk storage of anything much. But now think of loose drill bits, electrical connectors, and how about tat glass cutter visible on the left? The inherent strength of the pieces is evident and how this happened was secondary. My aim at the time was to figure out the corner joints and how to install the hinges. It made sense to build a series of small boxes for practice. Then I progressed to stain and latches, then handles. I kept them because they were handy with a bit of charm.
           And just what is that charm? Well, look at the boxes again. Now think of those drill bits and tidbits and stuff you have that came in flimsy plastic cartons or trays. Sure, you could replace the chintzy plastic with some chintzy wood “cigar” boxes. Those get misplaced and thrown into drawers same at the plastic. But I have never misplaced anything kept in one of these boxes. They demand to contain valuable articles and that’s the charm, there you go.

           I have some later versions out in the shed, I’ve made a few other types of charm. One is slightly heavier duty hinges, you can sort of see than on the box on the left. I work with brass finishes wherever possible, but this hardware gives the boxes even more of a stout appearance, or I should not say appearance because they really are that durable. There are boxes of similar size for sale at Wal*Mart, but I don’t think you would dare stand on them. My boxes have survived such treatment, kind of by accident, but you don’t want to hear about how that came about, move along, nothing to see here.
Another unorthodox feature is no golden ratio. My boxes are intentionally much longer than they are wide, like the Melanie song. This is the shape of many tools, objects with handles, writing implements and rolled up documents. It’s probably not a market niche, but yes, I would sell you one of these boxes for about ten bucks.
           Later, I examined eleven defects in my latest box. Most solutions were to build jigs, pay more attention to details, and finish the interior of the box before assembly, the exterior after.

ADDENDUM
           There are more articles appearing about the discovery of coacervates on a distant planet, the dimethylsulfide I mention on the 18th. I’ve often mentioned my big disappointment will be not living long enough for life to be discovered on Mars. This matter is a coacervate, it intensely has my attention. Coacervates “co-ASS-er-vates” are a strange property of matter that would take too long to describe here. Do you recall that experiment in the last century where building blocks of organic matter were produced by an electric current in a lab? That is where I first learned of this property. I’ll do my best to explain.

           Whenever liquid water has existed a long time, there is a natural tendency for single molecules floating around in it to become more complex. This eventually forms molecules complex enough to exert influence on their surroundings. Water is ionic and forms a type of loose framework. Other molecules dissolved in water often find their way into this structure. At that point, water can begin to hold large number of these molecules in relatively fixed positions at fixed distances from each other. How are we doing so far?

           When the concentration of these molecules is just right, they begin exert a cumulative effect, a characteristic associated with life. They can form a “barrier” that allows some materials through, but not others, all of this by ordinary properties of the matter itself. What is not known, but is imaginable, is what would happen if substances like this ever came into contact with organic building blocks produced by lightning bolts which are common on planets with an atmosphere. Like Mars, Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus.
           If even once, over these infinite trillions of instances, just one of those boundaries began to admit those atomic components that can fuse into a copy of itself, you’ve got life. The barrier that selectively allows such osmosis is the coacervate which contains the dimethyl sufide . Put in other terms, its presence is a 97% confirmation of life. But not 100%.
           For the record, I have read two short books and around seven articles on DNA in my life. I have therefore studied the topic, but mostly at the cellular, not molecular, level. I forget most of the terms but would recognize them again. My goal was to learn enough to follow the science of extraterrestrial probes, with a passing interest in deep sea life.

           A little more research into the Samsung RAM chip shows the following pin-out. I can kind of parse the information better. I see there is a 12-pin address decoder (A0 – A3) which I don’t follow, since the chip doesn’t need that many. The workings are clearer, what a treat this would have been to learn back in college. Here’s a graphic I ran across about how the RAM needs to be recharged. If the capacitor drops below half, the value changes to zero. Unlike transistors, the circuit does not require power to stay at zero.
           And let’s see where 11:54:44 GMT puts the Sun on this date—in 1981. 11°54.5’N by 378°01’W. This puts the Sun almost at noon in Greenwich. Had I been in Florida that date, my Sight Reduction inputs would have been AP 11°N by 82.01° W and MA 03°E. That’s in the Gulf. The nearest town is Kabrousse, in Senegal. It is the closest place in Africa to South America. It is 43 feet above sea level and some rebel called Diatta was born near there in 1920. The place is quite modern-looking by African standards and bnb rates seem to be around $400 per week.
           Beware of cow poo on the beaches. In 1981, I was living northwest of Seattle. And this morning the 1981 Almanac was the first free issue on my search results. Other than the ocean beaches, which are much the same in every tropical area, there seems to be nothing to do in Kabrousse unless you are young enough to create your own fun.