One year ago today: June 7, 2025, hmmm, Mars navigation.
Five years ago today: June 7, 2021, some empire.
Nine years ago today: June 7, 2017, rare, I talk method.
Random years ago today: June 7, 2012, he keeps offering food.
A generic morning but I have some results of an experiment. Remember the Vivatar cam that takes the time-lapse photos, but is too crazy to use for much else? This is a series of 316 photos taken from its AVI format. It runs and then shuts down by itself. It still has battery power and plenty of memory. These are the parameters I set out to test. It maxes out at 49MB per file. That is twice the capacity I can attach to an e-mail, so I use that as an arbitrary limit.
As ever, I’m testing for facts not in the manual, so I’ll aim the camera at a clock to see how long things take. If it will not capture clouds, it will probably do fine for medium distance crowd or nature takes. This may be the best I can get you unless my own battery gets to charging up a lot faster. Hang on a second, I just ran the numbers. Those clouds must be low-res, yet I am certain I set the icon correctly. This time I substituted the smallest 8GB card and triple checked hi-res. It is set up in the kitchen and I’m going back to sleep. I never totally awoke today.
California is gone. The nation witnessed total Democrat corruption with 33,000 votes for their candidate appearing at the last moment. They rubbed America’s nose in it, for they know they have the opposition divided into factions, with each one thinking they are alone. However, it is also proof the Democrats have no other tricks and will try the same thing in other States where it is unlikely to work, at least not peacefully.
Why is Trump seeming to ignore all this ballot-cheating? My answer is that he is not. He is very aware of what is going on and is allowing it to go unhindered. Why? Because he know Americans are disgusted by such a crime—but feel powerless to confront it. I say Trump is purposely allowing the process to continue. It exposes the pattern, the Republican candidate wins on election day, letting the Democrats calculate how many votes will overturn that lead.
Then in come the mail-in ballots. And that is exactly the point. Using the mail for criminal activity is illegal and can get you twenty years. I think it is called wire fraud. When you think about it, the FBI have raided several offices and grabbed such records. But, it’s just my guess.
The book, “Gold Coast Pioneers” may get another read from me. Not the boring plot, but because toward the ending, there are some real estate descriptions that I did not piece together at first. The industry is a racket and I’d like to know more. In the early Ft. Lauderdale days it was cutthroat. Agents did not care about selling to families, they wanted to flip and Hortt (the author) often talks of traveling thousands of miles by train to hook up with wealthy families he met on cruises and conventions.
There are several spots where he uses obscure real estate laws to shaft others as all part of the game. Such as the time he had a sale annulled because the owner asked his neighbor to accept a deposit if it arrived while he was away. Hortt had the transaction canceled because the neighbor was not a registered real estate agent. I think I’ll enjoy re-reading this from a different perspective.
Santa Fe Swap Meet Drive-in.
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I admit, my life has slowed down to the boredom point. Boxes and time-lapse, and I’m caught in this loop. I have two options, rest or mild activity and neither is producing results. Mind you, I’ve witnessed that in others neither of these are perilous to life, that is, for many that is their life. Was in Albert Schweitzer who said there are only three ways to assist others. Example, example, and example. I was in the shed again, then got some yard work done but not much. Raking and trimming, ho-hum.
The poly finish I picked up y’day is shown on these boxes. It sure spruces up what are ordinary wood. These units did not want or need any stain or poly, but my theory is all experience with this finish work is valuable down the line. These two boxes are for speaker cables and fresh batteries, that is, practically junk boxes. Pretty, huh? I slapped on a coat of the poly, which I sometimes call varnish just because.
Yet, we’ve been through periods of inactivity in this blog before, long medical recoveries and a few broke stretches. I wrote two letters and took a closer look at Jenga blocks. Jenga? Yes, it turns out to be the oldest items I have around here that were laser etched. The exact dimensions are 2.956” x 0.997” x 0.581” and the logo is burned 7/1000 of an inch deep. None of these observe the Golden Ratio. I have some similar size blocks from Dollar Tree, a quick drill hole and a Bible verse turned them into key fobs.
Here’s a glitch only money, imagination, or experience can solve. The key fobs shown were all cut on identical wood blocks on with the same settings. Never mind the slight misalignment, I’m concerned about the difference in color and clarity. While the top logo is black, which I wanted, the others are a faded brown. I will clean the lens and write some advice. The lens is quite easy to clean on the Wainux, just unscrew the cap and Q-tip the glass.
Advice. Once more, I step in with a warning that a millennial will NOT tell you what is wrong with a machine.or process. True, America has always been bad for that, but at least the seller could usually be compelled to honesty. GenXYZ has instead perfected the evasive answer. Some say go on-line and listen to the professionals. Ah, but that just leads you to liars of a different sort. My advice is go to a trade show like I did and see for yourself. Most people will finally just give up listening and buy a cheap laser like I did.
But I had an advantage—I knew in advance what material I wanted to burn, namely wood. I also knew I did not need the laser to make cuts, just burn a “brand”. At the show, I asked to watch the laser burn a pencil, so I knew how long for things like the setup, positioning, and time. These are elements you cannot trust most anyone these days to be forward about. One thing never mentioned was diode lasers (the one you can afford) will not etch clear or reflective materials. That’s my advice—have somebody show you if what you want is even capable.
Then, another look at COBOL. I aced that course though it was obsolete when I took it. Those were the days when you had to score above 110 to even get a job interview, a requirement few coders today could manage, even with their fake enhanced IQ marks. But the real killer was the psychological profile which I called the “astronaut test” because only one type of human being was ever able to pass it. What changed the criteria (for the worse) was object-oriented coding.
This was touted as “shared” computer coding, but it reality it meant the end product contained the accumulated logic errors of every idiot on the team. These came in two forms. The usual is the inherited property mistakes, and the equally invisible blunders I used to call “personality errors”. I meant it in the sense these were flaws that could not be fixed by smarter or more capable programmers later. One day, somebody will discover this and write a book.
The last factor is the complexity of banking itself. Each bank has its own internal system and the big banks have millions of hours of those quirks build into their code. The tendency of object-oriented code is, over time, toward the average, so there is no such thing as a contemporary language that could begin to address the understanding that programmers of the past required to generate the code.
There is no such thing as an object-oriented language that could begin to allow for those long-forgotten interrelationships in way COBOL was written. What's this picture about? Just now I’m looking at a catalog for college-wear, mostly t-shirts, cut-offs, and crewnecks. What you’d expect teens to wear. Except all the female catalog models are clearly in their late twenties and early thirties. They don’t know any COBOL either, I’ll bet.
ADDENDUM
A.I. has invaded some of my favorite puzzles, not to be confused with games. Some of my current likes are Puzzmo’s Circuit and (when I have time) Spelltower. These have been corrupted by bots, so I play them not be the champion, but to see how many other champions I’ve beat. You can never be the champ when solve times are less than four seconds, less time that in takes to move the mouse around. Or people who get 18-letter words for 7,100 points (gentlemanlinesses) or the opposite clearing the board in four minutes using nothing but 3-letter words. However, it is possible to beat them some of them, so I no longer go for top score, but rather the number of "champions" I beat. It has never been less than 3 and one time I hit 100. Average is 12.3, I'm consistenly better than twelve millennials using A.I. apparently. That's me, IRL.
Few things reveal the decline of the American medical profession than surveys of second opinions. Tampa radio reports that 80% of second opinions now differ materially from the first. Anything above 8% is considered a major alert. I never had time for a second opinion. But I’m here with a mug of coffee to tell the tale. I bought what I thought was a pack of K-cup hot chocolate. Instead it was chocolate flavored coffee. It is pretty bad, but makes tolerable iced coffee. So I can ponder medical opinions with an 80% error rate in comfort.
Tampa is also some prize-winner for off-beat call-in programs. Today, it was about childhood trauma. This one guy was at a sleepover, but in the morning, neither of his parents wanted to go pick him up. He wound up staying with the neighbors for thirteen days. Harsh.
Hmmm, I went to back up some backups and noticed my flash drives have files that will not copy. Normally, this is an annoyance, since they themselves are copies. But now I’m curious which files and why. It is some file or files buried in large folders, I would have to isolate them by trial and error.
