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November 3, 2023 – Anthem, Part 1-3

November 3, 2023 /

I didn’t realize this when I picked this book up after “We”. But it almost feels like we are in the same universe. The characters have amorphous names and the language is strange (more on that later). Like We, the characters do not pick their career destinations and small talk is deemed subversive and deviant. There is no unstructured fraternizing and no individualism.

Maybe I am going to drag this out too long. Reading the first three parts puts us almost halfway through the book. I may speed up if it seems like there is nothing unique about my arbitrary divisions. That I will take as I go. There is some good nuggets in this book.

The story’s main character is named Equality 7-2521. Like all citizens, he is born into institutionalism. He is raised until the age of fifteen where he finds his ultimate assignment which is to be a street sweeper. This part seems a a lot like Brave New World. On the job, Equality 7-2521 finds an old tunnel, maybe a subway tunnel. This becomes a sacred space from which he writes his journal i.e. this story.

On the way to his job, Equality 7-2521 sees a girl, Liberty 5-3000 which he nicknamed the “Golden One” and falls in love with without meeting. Because his work is in the same area every day, he passes by her on his way to his job daily. Apparently, women of childbearing age are sent to reproduce at some point in their lives. We know how this civilization sustains itself by descriptions in chapter 2.

The big bang in this section is the dream that Equality 7-2521 has after seeing the Golden One. He dreams about the Unmentionable Times which sounds like some sort of revolution or pre-revolution. A character called the Transgressor is burned at the stake for using the word ‘I’ instead of all the plural pronouns that are used in the rest of the book. Apparently, that is the only crime that carries the death penalty.

Reading this book, it sometimes seems like I am reading a long soliloquy of Golem or Yoda or something. Maybe I got the analogy wrong, but anyway, all of the pronouns are plural. So, if I am not paying close attention to the words, I start to get confused about what is going on because the language is just too confusing.

Now, let us get to the heart of the matter, pronouns. How is it that a person writing 90 years ago understood that by undermining identity, undermines society? I guess maybe the better question is how is it that it is understood and it is still happening? It has to be either stupidity or ignorance.

I shouldn’t have to qualify that you should know that I have a live and let live attitude. But, I think that there is a problem that goes part and parcel with that is today’s pronoun fluidity. I will ignore what I consider normal. I can even kind of understand a he wanting to be called a she and vice versa. It is the they/them that makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I was listening to a podcast about gender identity in the “Art of Manliness” a few weeks ago. I don’t want to turn this into a review of that but the crux of it was that in the 1980s the ratio of males to females in college was roughly equal. Now is about 60% female to male. Corresponding to that, the number of people that identified as LBGQ etc was about 2% in the 1980s. Meanwhile, it is now more like 20%. The point was the feminization of the education system is corresponding to increasing gender turbidity.

I don’t want to get bogged down in analysis of that conclusion. I think that there were some poignant theories and definitely worth a listen. I cannot tell if this is a chicken or an egg scenario and it may be some of both. But, the reality is that this change is effecting ‘maleness’. They are increasingly not exceling in school and in proxy, life. ‘He’, the single, 40 year old living in the parents basement playing video games is a product of failing to thrive in a ‘they/them’ world.

Just like all great, uniformity activities, you have to break the old to build the new. The military does it, politics and cults do it as well. And these are all organizations that put some kind of objective ahead of the individual. Removing individualism and blurred identity are sure tickets to extended manipulation.

End Your Programming Routine: This seems like a good place to end. It also seems like Rand has created another strong work that we have just flat out ignored. But that is OK because it is illegal to be unhappy. And we all want to be good citizens don’t we. As long as authority tells me the right path, then everything is going to be good and I will be happy.

November 2, 2023 – I (used to) Love Clam Dip

November 2, 2023 /

We had a fall storm on the horizon. It has been an unusually pleasant October with highs most days in the 60-80s. Hence I still had the outdoor furniture out. In addition, we really hadn’t had many fires this year, if any. I developed this plan for a last hurrah before I put all the furniture in for the season. I was going to build a fire and we would roast sausages and make smores.

I wanted to keep the menu very simple. I wanted everything outside around the fire. So, what goes well with fire roasted sausages, but potato chips. I wanted some dip too so I picked some up at the store. Since my vegetarian son is in Taiwan, I could get clam dip and not feel guilty about not getting a second option.

I while I was starting the fire, I opened the bag and scooped a few chips. We had a late breakfast and I was already planning on getting a late start to dinner. I was also doing some painting at the same time and I needed to get to a stopping point before dinner took over. That dip was terrible. It was bland and gelatinous.

When we finally settled down for dinner, I scooped a few more chips and no I wasn’t imagining it, the dip was downright disgusting. How can this be so bad? I flipped to the ingredients and then the answer was instantly clear. This is a toxic stew of garbage.

Here is an example recipe

  • 8 oz cream cheese , softened
  • 1/4 cup sour cream
  • 1 clove garlic , minced
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried parsley flakes (or 1 teaspoon fresh chopped parsley)
  • 1/2 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
  • Dash Tabasco or favorite hot sauce
  • 1, 6.5 oz can minced clams drained but juice reserved

I realize that if I were to expand this list to the ingredients to include those in cream cheese and sour cream, it would become something different, slightly longer. But really there is not excuse for the number of thickeners, extenders and modifiers that is in this store bought dip. I would venture to say that this does not qualify as food even though it may be edible.

I should have known better. About six months ago I purchased a different brand French Onion dip. It was equally terrible. These were not the chip dips of my memory. They were smooth, tangy and slightly addictive, certainly not bland and repulsive.

We very rarely ever had chip dip growing up. When we did, it was Christmas or something like that. So, it could be that my memory of what it was and what it actually was are two different things. Honestly, I don’t think so because just looking at the dip in the container looks wrong. I guess I will never know, but I suspect the contents have changed significantly over the years.

End Your Programming Routine: Honestly, I am going to be polite if I see this stuff put out in other venues. That being said, this is one of those things that you are better off making it yourself or not at all. I am eating some instant noodles as I write this right now. They are also terrible. But I did not expect them to be good. Disappointment is a far stronger emotion than dislike. Don’t buy chip dip.

November 1, 2023 – Bluetooth… Who Knew?

November 1, 2023 /

I am in the midst of a network transition. I am going to talk about that next week. This old PC that I use day after day has a wireless card that I installed when it was new (we are talking 2012, how about that). I never use wireless because everything that I have that I can reach a wired internet connection is not on wireless.

This comes from a long standing reliability belief with wireless. The microwave interrupted it, the signal was spotty in being connected and not. The wireless n protocol on my old router was in draft form and only worked with devices from the same company. I just believe in bypassing all of that futzing and plug it in.

I was looking at Linux supported wireless network cards because I was was wondering why the wireless did not work on that particular computer. That is when I came to the realization that Bluetooth capability came with the wireless card. And, if I added a new wireless card, then I could broadcast from my computer to the stereo system without having a 20′ RCA cable.

You know that I think cable is superior. But then the problem is how to switch between the native audio output and the secondary output. I have tried it and it is kind of messy because one is labelled headphones and the other is not. It doesn’t always work like it is supposed to and then things get jumbled up with various programs taking precedent over output choice.

I made the leap to update the wireless card. I rationalized it to myself as another bolt on to manage the network that I have as well. Based on my success, I will also add one to my Linux machine. At $30, it is a pretty inexpensive add on for that flexibility and capability. That would also give me another operating system to help with troubleshooting.

I have disabled wireless administration to the router. It is one of the security measures that I have in place. That way, only machines physically plugged into my network have the capability of making changes. Wired will remain my primary connection, but it also gives me some additional troubleshooting capacity for faulty switches as well. There are plenty of devices that are only wired to the switches like TVs and X-box.

It has been quite a while since I was in the hardware game. I needed to educate myself as to what the system requirements actually were. I knew from the TV tuner foray that I had an extra PCIe slot. But I certainly didn’t know what a PCIe -1X versus a PCIe-16x slot was. Nor did I know if I had a spare USB connector on the motherboard. It turns out that I did and so the installation was pretty easy for a Windows machine and plug and play installation. I also needed to manually install an optional OS upgrade for Bluetooth to make it work. Once I figured that out, I was off and running.

Speaking of Bluetooth and USB, the card I chose had Bluetooth 4.2 standard. There are options out there with Bluetooth 5.X and you may wonder what the difference is. Bluetooth 5 is better and faster with more range, but you do need a USB 3 connection on your motherboard. Defining all of that today is too technical but if you are in this position, seek research on the internet as to what ports and connections you have before ordering. I will say, having the the best versus none, go with what you can get. It also costs more for that extra bandwidth and range which is a big turn-off for me and techno junk.

Doing some advanced reading, I can’t say that the Linux installation will be as smooth. But that is OK. I need to continue to challenge myself in that operating system if I am to ever learn it. I finally got the software installed SDR/scanner. It took quite a while because I chose to watch baseball instead of working at it. It can be done, I am confident in that fact.

End Your Programming Routine: If you have some technology over ten years old, it may benefit you to update hardware if it makes sense. This was less about adding wireless network then getting Bluetooth. Honestly, I have tried both wired and wireless and things were pretty much the same except that I saw one hiccup streaming a song on wireless and several with the Bluetooth stream itself. This will continue to keep me wired but maybe in my lifetime it will get there.

October 31, 2023 – Reigning Horror King

October 31, 2023 /

Before there was binge watching TV shows, there was binge reading of authors. I guess that was always something that I have done. My earliest reading accomplishment was finishing the Hardy Boys series. In middle school, the author Dean Koontz came into fashion.

At one point, I had read every book that he had published. That count was fifty some odd books. When you read these serial authors, I find that the books are pretty easy, quick reads. Another author I have read a lot is James Patterson. An average is 300 – 400 pages and these are things that can be read in hours. I could often finish a book in an out and back plane ride (hence why I read so many).

I wouldn’t say that the books are formulaic exactly, it is just that the story line is simple. There isn’t a lot of thinking that is required to follow along. Reading those kind of stories is pleasurable but it starts to lose it zeal if that is all you ever do. Then you start to look around for what can last longer, has more pages or is more complicated. This leads to other authors.

Authors like Koontz and Patterson I would say write in the thriller genre. Thrillers involve action like murder and then all of a sudden murder kind of borders on horror. So what is the difference? In a lot of ways, not much. I would say the primary difference involves supernatural or urban legend aspects aside from just a lot of crime (and blood).

In my opinion, the king (sic) of horror today is Steven King. King’s career started in horror that lead into a more diverse body of work. I started to read King as a supplement to the quick reads of Koontz. One of the first books that I read was “It” and I did so because it was over 1000 pages.

The first published work from King was Carrie. But the 1970s and 1980s was a solid string of novels that really hit the bestsellers list: “Salem’s Lot, Pet Cemetery, Cujo, The Dead Zone, Christine” and probably his biggest hit “The Shining”. He also wrote and directed his own movie called “Maximum Overdrive” featuring a soundtrack exclusively from AC/DC, now that is cool.

I realize that King has ventured out of the horror genre exclusively and into his seventies now, his work is evolving. Yes, he is still putting out fiction but the burning drive has quelled somewhat. That being said, he is still active and has created a number persistent pop culture classics. I think that you would be hard pressed to meet someone older than 30 that doesn’t know “The Shining”.

I think that King has mastered creepy. Most of what he does is not gore like slasher films. This makes his movies a good choice to watch as a family for Halloween. We watched the movie “Misery” a couple months back and this is another good choice. There have been so many books adapted to movies, including non-horror movies like “Stand By Me” and “Shawshank Redemption”. For his classy and proliferation of content as well as versatility I have nominated him Today’s Horror King.

End Your Programming Routine: My favorite book from Steven King is actually “The Stand”. If you haven’t read it, this is a dystopian story more along the lines of “The Walking Dead”. Admittedly while that book makes my recommended reading list, horror is not really my favorite genre and by proxy, I do not really relish most of King’s work. I simply respect the quality and the uniqueness.

October 30, 2023 – Trick Or Treat 2023

October 30, 2023 /

This week is a grab back of various topics. I did have one thing to say that I determined wasn’t enough duration for one podcast and so I just kept adding topics until the episode was too long. When you ring the doorbell and say trick-or-treat in theory, you could get either. I will let you decide what you are getting with each topic.

October 27, 2023 – Anthem, Introduction

October 27, 2023 /

And we are back to an old friend. We have now moved on to Anthem by Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged and Anthem cannot be more different from an outward appearance. Anthem is described as a novella. My copy is barely over 100 pages and I was planning on breaking it up into four groups. The first three chapters are going to be almost half the book (and about one chapter in Atlas Shrugged).

I got to thinking that it is interesting that both Rand and Zamyatin were Russian ex-pats writing at the same time on very similar subjects. Maybe, just maybe there is something to the similarities, just saying. It seems like people experiencing the same situation and writing their thoughts have come to very similar conclusions.

Sometimes I have read the book, sometimes I haven’t before I start writing the introduction. In this case I read the first chapter to get a sense of what is going on. I don’t like to be influenced by what others think it is about or concepts but it is also hard to introduce the book without having any prior knowledge.

I plan on breaking the book into four segments plus a conclusion. That means that we will finish this series in the beginning of December. Not to spill the beans but the next author will be a new one for me. I have a reserve of books that I have not yet read and I am trying to vary the authors a little bit even though there is more Rand in the future (already have the book).

This is another dystopian, science fiction story. We will talk all about what is in the book from a concept and a story line next week. I didn’t know this, but when I was reading the plot summary in Wikipedia, there is reference to We as the only related work. I suspect that it may be because the main character’s name is a number sequence. It also takes place in a dystopian future, etc.

The story was originally conceived as a play, then it was going to put in a periodical. Finally, it was published in the United States after the success of Fountainhead. Reading the history in Wikipedia, Rand tried to persuade Disney to make an animated film using stick figures. That would have been really interesting.

I am leaning more and more on moving away from the dystopian genre exclusively. Maybe, I will move from Friday book reviews even. I really enjoyed 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Atlas Shrugged. But, it started to slip with Lord of the Flies. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy checking these things off of my list but it is starting to feel like a chore trying to extract things week over week. I will leave it open for now. I do want to get through this one and the next one before I make the decision. For sure, I will continue to read and review books, it just may not be in one genre and chapter a week.

End Your Programming Routine: I am even struggling to get through the introduction. It has taken me three days to write this. But what do you write about a book that you don’t know anything about? Maybe I shouldn’t do these series before I have actually read the book? You get the point. Next week I will have more substance.

October 26, 2023 – How Many Pumps for Accuracy

October 26, 2023 /

Hopefully, my zeal for experimentation and data translates into interest. I know that not everybody is like me. But, I get excited when people are excited about what they are doing. It really doesn’t matter what the topic is, I find it fascinating when people are into their thing. I may not want to do it, but I enjoy the enthusiasm.

The truth is, I wrote the article “I Hate Pumping” a few weeks ago prematurely. It was always my plan to test accuracy of BBs based on the number of pumps. I should have written after I collected all of the data first but I was in a little bit of a funk. I was getting ready to hunting and was suffering a little bit of brain fatigue. I needed something on the spot and I didn’t have time to do all the work.

My creativity seems to go in spurts. Right now, I am flush with ideas and time is getting a little less constraining. Now that the sun is going down with some evening left, I have time to read, think and tinker in the evening whereas in the summer it seems like it is go until you drop. I have several weeks of topics (that I think are good) in the queue. So, I want to close the loop on this testing for you.

Let me start with what I was trying to accomplish. Using the Crossman 1000 and shooting BBs, what does the number of pumps do to velocity? I did a series on pellets many months ago but I wanted to use BB’s this time because my preferred rifle, the Crossman Optimus only shoots pellets and I have a whole bunch of BBs. After understanding the pump to energy curve and knowing how many pumps would be adequate energy to dispatch pests, I wondered if this was even an accurate platform with BBs.

I found out that pumping the maximum twelve pumps is a chore but it was also pretty wild after the initial five attempts. To boil it all down, is it even worth it to shoot BBs? Looking at the picture, I think that you can see nine pumps is a significant improvement in accuracy over 12, it looks like seven is slightly better, five looks pretty dialed in and three starts to wander again.

This is good news. If the results would have all been like twelve pumps, I would have given up. Five is also a far cry from twelve pumps in the effort department. Looking at the energy data, I am not sure the energy is adequate for pests at five pumps, but that is OK, BBs are far cheaper to shoot if we are just talking about practice and trigger control and I have a lot of them around. The most important thing for practice is that it will hit where you aim.

Of course, now I will not leave things here. I am going to try a new series with my son’s Crossman 760. I did a baseline test months ago with pellets and found that rifle to be vastly inferior to the potential velocity. Ten pumps (the max) was equal to about four pumps on the Crossman 1000. What I am now trying to establish is that is it the velocity that stabilized the BB or is it rifle specific?

That being said, expect another one of these with a new set of data. This time, I promise that I will wait until I have everything completed. But like I said above, I need to do a better job closing the loop with subjects that I introduce. Maybe I should introduce a new category like ‘Results’ to share my conclusion. That will keep me more honest when using it and then I can write the post in a more scientific fashion. I will think on that.

End Your Programming Routine: Based on my results, BBs can be accurate without needing Popeye’s arms. That being said, not all tools are best suited for every job. Where I have settled is that I should be able to adequately shoot BBs with five pumps for practice. Stayed tuned for another analysis on potentially why five pumps is the best.

October 25, 2023 – I Used to Be a Watch Guy

October 25, 2023 /

I think that I was about 6 years old when I got my first watch. I am pretty sure it was inexpensive and you had to wind it every couple of days. Like many things a grade schooler possesed, it was not treated that well and was often dead. I wore it until the band broke and then it ended up in my junk box for many years.

Believe it or not, this was before digital watches were popular. When I was in fourth grade, the calculator watch came out. Oh man, that was the coolest ticket for a Christmas present, but good luck at $50. A few of the predictable people got one, then there was the concern about cheating on math test. My brother and I knew that we were never going to get one of those, so we coveted the Iron Man Casio watch. Never got one of those either.

The calculator watch fad was short-lived and then the Swatch watch was now in vogue in 6th grade. I did have one of those. Once again, the battery died or the band broke, I am not sure which. They were all plastic and really didn’t hold up well to pre-teen boy’s life.

I am not sure that I remember every watch I have ever owned, but I certainly have my adult ones. One of them (not pictured) my wife bought for me in 1994, I put a new battery in the watch and added a new band and gave to my son a few years ago. That one seems to be lost to time. But other than that, below is my current selection. Each one of them, a certain state of disrepair.

From the left, that is a 1992 vintage, department store “Guess” brand watch. It had a dead battery and a broken band. I think that it has always been a black band, because the other one I gave to my son had a brown band. I alternated between the two in college. I have to say, I like the look of a leather band, but I am sure that I am on my fourth or fifth band on that watch and I stopped wearing it (both black and brown) when I got the second watch.

The second from the left is also a “Guess’ watch that I got in 1998ish. It had a metal band in an attempt to combat the six month, leather swap. That watch got some abuse. It was covered in polymer multiple times and you can see that crystal is even damaged at about one o’clock. I stopped wearing it when I got the third watch in about 2001. Also, a pin was raided from it to keep the third watch going at some point. Recently, I added the web band to get it up and going again. This is going to be my work watch.

The third watch is a Bulova. It was expensive. It is made of Titanium so it is light and smooth. I wore that watch until February 2019 when it stopped working. I sent it in through the jeweler and they said that the gears have worn to the point that it is not keeping time. They can be replaced at a cost of $200. Of course, I got that news the week after I left my job and I did not think it was prudent to spend money on such a luxury item. To this day, it sits broken.

The last watch got lots of use in 2015-2017. It is a Garmin GPS watch that tracks where you have been. I used it mostly for timing when I was training for my half-marathon. I actually wore it as a watch some too, But, two things were wrong, when the GPS is active, it eats the battery and by the end of my half marathon, it would die and the second was the silicone band started disintegrating.

There I was jobless and watchless. That was when I started just using my phone. I really didn’t have anywhere to be so why not? A few weeks ago, several things started to come together. My wife was doing Christmas shopping (and she is dying to buy me a smart watch so I am less likely to miss calls and text messages) as well as me cleaning up old phones and tablets and junk. She said “you used to wear watches” and in my zest to purge junk, I wondered if any of these watches were viable still or can I get rid of them, win either way.

I bought some batteries to see if the first two had the same fate as my Bulova. So far, so good. Then I put my Garmin on the charger. Sure enough it has been going for three weeks on that first charge. It used to be, I would buy my replacement bands at the department store that the watch came from (that doesn’t exist anymore). Now, with the world of Amazon, a whole world of generic or off-brand bands are available, including even the Garmin.

I am going to be a watchman again. Albeit they are inexpensive or outdated watches, I like the idea of looking at my wrist again instead of digging out my phone. My work day consists of rolling out of bed and having a clock constantly in front of me but it is so much more convenient when I am travelling or not working to look at a watch rather than a phone. I also think that watches dress up or down situations as well.

End Your Programming Routine: Maybe ‘The Art of Manliness’ is rubbing off on me too much with style topics? But, it seems to make sense to me to either use the items or get rid of them. Hanging on to non-functional is the opposite of logical. Now that I am not leaving the house everyday, I really have less use for a watch but I am looking forward to putting these things into service again.

October 24, 2023 – Game Over

October 24, 2023 /

Just like I said in the podcast yesterday, I got pretty ahead of posts so I could take time off and go hunting. Consequently, I have stuff piling up behind me that I want to write about. Today is really more of an update than anything earth shattering. I feel like I need to get better at following up on things that I have previously stated.

A picture is worth 1000 words. As you can see from the photo on the left, I got my target. I think that it does a good job illustrating the final state without getting too graphic. As it turns out, it was a rat. I kind of feel bad for the guy because I saw very little evidence of the creature other than something was trying to get into pantry items. Usually I can at least identify the species by to poop it leaves behind. Not this guy, he was pretty tidy about his invasion.

In fact, the first couple of days that I had set the traps out, I put them next to the flour that he had spilled by getting into the package. I was going to get around to cleaning it up with the vacuum but I figured in the meantime, he might come back to it. In about two days, the flour was all gone without me having to clean it up.

After I threw away the punctured bag and he cleaned up the mess, he moved on to some sleeves of crackers. I moved the traps in and within three days it was over. I was pretty surprised at how big it was. And fortunately, it was trash night so disposal was pretty fast and easy.

Two days later was the anticipated solar eclipse. You can see from my picture on the right what we had. The forecast was already iffy, it rained most of Friday and it was going to rain at some point on Saturday. My picture was taken at totality, but with the fog and the clouds, no chance. I tried really hard to see if I could even notice a difference with the amount of daylight, but I could not.

I knew it was a risk, the weather that is. In fact, the forecast for the day that I am writing is clear in the low seventies. That is pretty unusual for mid-October, but the reality is that to get that temperature, the wind is from the southeast and with that is also moisture (or humidity). It has been at 100% all morning. Even more so than that, we have thick fog just like on the day of the eclipse.

I haven’t spoken with my dad yet. They were still hunting on the central part of the state during the eclipse. I had even purchased some special glasses to give to them so that they could view the eclipse. But, I forgot to leave them. When I do find out if it was possible, I don’t think that I will update you on that conversation. My point with that is re-enforcing what I was saying in the last post. If it isn’t a lot of effort to see an eclipse, you should do it. But, if it requires a three hour drive for a maybe, then I probably wouldn’t.

End Your Programming Routine: Part of my point today was to say that patience is a virtue. I think that we all hope that pest don’t do a whole bunch of damage. But when they do, we have to deal with it. Funny thing, our pest guy came by before I started going after the rat. He asked “any problems?” and I said no without a thought in my mind. I could have called the service, it is part of what I pay for. That being said, the best person and tactic for the job is me because I am in the basement five days a week. I can observe and react and ultimately get my target.