One year ago today: May 18, 2024, many tubes, few gigs.
Five years ago today: May 18, 2020, thermal chimney experiment.
Nine years ago today: May 18, 2016, WIP
Random years ago today: May 18, 2021, it means air distance, duh.
I was awake late reading about clocked circuits. Nothing to them but I’ve never built one. It’s a latching memory gate that updates itself when it receives a clock pulse, but I don’t have anything that can deliver a clean pulse. So I read until I found a diagram for such a circuit, I want something that I can stop and step with a push button. It must not use a 555 chip or an op-amp. The unusual result was a site that shows how to take the circuit board out of a quartz LED clock and tap it for a one-second pulse. Interesting.
These are a pair of flawed boxes, I keep those aside for things like tube storage. Not all units even make it to this stage. The boxes are still sturdy and show a mature design that can be used for several models by changing the lumber brand or material. These are the thicker fence panels. The longer side pieces, if you really look close, have begun to cup slightly despite having been carefully picked from the lumber pile to be straight and have no knots in the center and test less than 12% humidity. If it remains this hot and muggy, I’ll look closer at the problems, including which problems can be ignored.
China and Russia have announced joint plans to build a power station on the Moon’s south pole (that at the top when you look at it in the sky). Slated for 2036, it is nuclear powered and built by remote controlled lunar rovers. The equipment is to be lifted by five rockets beginning in 2030. NASA continues to squander resources on dozens of smaller inconsequential projects such as “teaching humans how to live and work together”. And a shuttle replacement called the Dream Chaser so that idiotic space station can keep flying in circles doing nothing.
News from the Mexican boat crash, 2 dead, 22 injured. The Mexican government blames US for posting the bridge height in standard instead of metric. Some smart aleck posted that quip about it being a Mexican navy so everybody would know that no cartel drugs were involved. This is interesting, a survey of dating sites. Seems women who have very little chance of getting dates go on-line and regularly reject 80% of male profiles outright. Apparently they like to think they are still attractive enough to get offers. Their own profile, it says, is “entirely a list of what they don’t have at home.”
Jayne Mansfield.
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It’s the first summer heat wave and I ducked indoors. Goodie, you get more theory and this afternoon, we analyzed box technology. These boxes are a fairly universal design of my own. They can be stacked any direction and even used as drawers if you want to build the carcass. There are two types with the same joinery and dimensions, the ones this morning are the thicker fence pickets. Most of the 20 boxes using this template are the thinner pickets—and all of those got snapped up for local storage as soon as they got built. The dimensions are very close to the “golden ratio”.
That’s because the price of the dowel is prohibitive. I’ve already looked at a couple of options to make my own. I have plenty of pipe, but that takes away from the “feel”. I’ve imagined another hollow handle from plastic conduit, with a removeable end cap for items like screws or thin blades, though I’d have to completely test that first. That model needs a special board on the ends for the handle. Using the holes shown here just makes the box too shallow and unbalanced.
Charring the wood (yaki sugi) is not the cheapest finish, but the labor or staining the wood makes it comparatively so. Bryne’s “cheese logo” is also still on the table. That’s branding or stenciling some orchard or logo on the box. He’s probably right, that tourists grab that stuff. I have not tinkered with a lid on these boxes. I have the technology to make a sliding type of top, like a large pencil box.
That’s in the future. I’ve decided I’m unhappy with the jig from last day, it does not hold the box in place, rather just one corner at a time. What holds these boxes square is the bottom plates, which at this time must be custom shaved to fit each box. A regular jig always seems to make them a kerf-width too big or small. As for the logo, the branding iron seems slow not even accounting for the need of a heater.
Aside, the tech of the branding iron was an eye-opening in itself. The irons range from fire-heated to electric to models that freeze. My goal is more toward distinctiveness, so I even looked at smaller “steak” or “steakhouse” irons, but even those run close to $100. That approaches the price of a decent laser engraver which would offer more versatility. Find some local orchard that went bankrupt years ago and fake their label. More about that in a moment.
Today was a good look at this whole process of charring the wood and branding it. One way or the other, it would cost around $250. That’s not out of reach. I found sites that go beyond the plumbing torch finish. Some stain the wood, other char it until it crinkles. Then they wire brush it and stain it. I’m not into that kind of labor-intensity.
For another hour under the coolness of the A/C, I took a look at the smallest laser ingravers that would do a “wood brand”. I called them “keychain lasers” and once again a complete lack of knowing anybody anywhere (including the people you’d expect to know) have any clue about this tool. I’ve never seen one (until now) of these mini-lasers, but have seen the size of the boxes they ship in. Turns out they are a family of small desktop 3W and 5W lasers designed for trinkets. The on-line videos, all millennial-grade, went through lengths to no mention how long things took, meaning they are slow as hell. I found several with a work size of around three inches by three inches. Logo size.
Next, a search on e-bay shows these have been around long enough to have many used units in new condition. One thing about e-bay, you won’t last long selling junk there. I have not spent my “weekend” trip money and by next month that means $323 unspent dollars. The decision is do I want the laser engraver or trip to Micanopy’s heralded pioneer museum? Both are just well-earned adventures for me and once again, I would attain a skill that nobody, but nobody I know or met has ever even tried. Story of my life, people who do anything worthwhile that could share the way I do are always over some distant horizon. And the rest wonder why the world never gives them a break.
For the record, the laser engraver I liked best was called a Wainlux K10. My spider sense tingled when a single word at the tail end of one video mentioned the user’s gateway. I will not connect anything that requires on-line registration to use. But right now, I’m going to run through my new bass list and zero in on presentation. Yes, this is where I add non-musical aspects to the show and also why guitarists with big egos don’t like me. Relax, the other 80% of guitar players like me just fine. These are nothing more than showy techniques that enhance the presentation. For example, “Okie from Muskogee” is on the list with its four-note bass line. How to possibly deliver the wow with that? It’s called experience, grasshopper. I put my left knee on a chair, turn my bass vertical, and play it with the exact rehearsed motions a stand-up bassist would use. It’s a hoot, except to said guitar heroes.
Um, this can sometimes backfire, just a bit. I do have four “stage shirts” with designs that range from palm trees to western embroidery, depending on the gig. Others have tried to copy but show up in costumes which become sweaty in no time. My shirts are carefully chosen for light weight and all cheap thrift store selections. You don’t want to be wearing cowboy outfits on stage. Later, I got mostly done when my old bass nemesis reared up.
This is where the phono jack cuts out or crackles. Over the years the whole assembly has been repaired and replaced. The joints are soldered to the highest robot club standards. Then like a ghost, the problem appears, but only when the plug is reassembled onto the bass in the now generous space routed out. Take it apart, and the thing works perfect. This phenomenon is over twenty years old.
ADDENDUM
Some more research is due concerting the NOT gate. It’s a logic gate that inverts the in put signal. Like many, I considered it an extra, at best a method to correct an earlier design mistake. I noticed it was often used in logic gates. Still, I figured if they made a proper gate, they would not later have to invert it. Now, I see there is more to the NOT gate as things get down to the very low level and fast speeds of the circuit. The gate also introduces a slight delay when memory latches are used. (A latch is simply a circuit that remembers whether is was last on or off, your computer is full of them.)
That big pounding machine noise across the way has now been in operation four days. I can only hear it in the kitchen or outside, but I’ve notice that is the source of the “phone ringing” sound I can hear under the house. Acoustics.
And last, buried way down here, I got a job offer. I never did cancel my resume with the temp service in Miami. I quickly spotted the upsurge in offers and demands for people who know how to operate spreadsheets as a management tool, but none of the jobs paid enough to even move the needle. You are not going to hire anyone with thirty years experience for $60 per hour. What’s changed is the job environment. If you’ve ever worked in a cube, you know there is a pay rate above which the company will not pay unless they own you.
This usually takes the form of requiring you to be in the office where they can keep an eye on you and devise management tricks to ensure your “mind is on the job”. And if you do well, they just pile more work on you. Now, if I could work to quota, that is, once I complete the task for the day, I’m off. I did this for years at my old company, where the standard was to enter 200 records per day. The non-typists rarely met that, whereas I could regularly be finished by 10:30AM, certainly before noon. You see the potential conflict is they still wanted you there, “on the job”.
I did not reply to the offer, but I know somebody willing to do the work by contract. Note for the record, the offer also specified that one must be an expert on Windows XP. You know I cannot read stuff like that without a chuckle. It’s a black eye for MicroSoft, who quit supporting XP in hopes of burying it. But it was the last stable product they ever released, which is why it is still working today.
