Geeking out with mechanical musical computers in the very best way:
Update
1 year ago
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
What Day Is This?
We're short-handed and over-projected at work. We had people on vacation and that was pretty well covered -- until one of the operating techs when to the doctor for a checkup and got an ambulance ride and immediate surgery. Prognosis is good but returning to work is weeks away.
That left Engineering with more tasks to cover than we have people. There was no one move that could be made to cover what needed to be covered. There were, however, a lot of little ones-- Everyone picked up a little overtime, an hour or so per day wherever our skill sets fit.
But we were still short. We needed to cover multiple locations at multiple different times of the day, doing everything from sitting at a console recording video and remotely steering cameras to supervising a crew doing dangerous work high above ground. We needed someone with a wide array of skills. Someone who could work three hours here, catnap, and go work two hours there, with a stop at a third location later. Someone who could use some overtime pay.
It turns out that I am someone. Where I will be at any given time is difficult to predict -- home? Work? The North Campus? It should all add up to at least my normal hours plus a little extra.
I'm using Blogger's scheduled posting ability to at least give my writing here some semblance of regularity.
That left Engineering with more tasks to cover than we have people. There was no one move that could be made to cover what needed to be covered. There were, however, a lot of little ones-- Everyone picked up a little overtime, an hour or so per day wherever our skill sets fit.
But we were still short. We needed to cover multiple locations at multiple different times of the day, doing everything from sitting at a console recording video and remotely steering cameras to supervising a crew doing dangerous work high above ground. We needed someone with a wide array of skills. Someone who could work three hours here, catnap, and go work two hours there, with a stop at a third location later. Someone who could use some overtime pay.
It turns out that I am someone. Where I will be at any given time is difficult to predict -- home? Work? The North Campus? It should all add up to at least my normal hours plus a little extra.
I'm using Blogger's scheduled posting ability to at least give my writing here some semblance of regularity.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Toughness
There are all kinds of toughness or backbone. At one time, I worked for a company that had been founded as a family firm in the late 19th Century and was still largely controlled by family members. They're still around, but they recently ran out of patriarchs and are now pretty much just another corporation.
But back in the day -- starting several generations back -- one august pillar of the community followed another, well-fed, soft-spoken, hard-bargaining men in suits who actually were pillars of their community, endowing the local college, taking on major charitable projects, and running all the branches of their company in an old-fashioned, frugal but not grasping manner. By the time things came down to the last of them sitting in the CEO's chair, none of them had needed to do a moment's hard physical labor in their lives. It showed -- co-workers were known to remark that shaking hands with the Big Boss was like touching as baby's bottom: he didn't even have a writer's callus!
And, as people who do some degree of physical work for a living, they looked a bit down on him for it. About the most effort he'd ever gone to was reading contracts.
One Autumn, he visited all of the corporation's facilities and gave short talks -- pep talks, really, appreciations of his employees and of the company, and he shook hands with everyone who attended. Everyone. Without exception. Shook hands, smiled, looked us in the eye and said a word or two, often addressing people by name.
No one questioned it at the time. He was known to do similar things on occasion, though this was a bit more personal than usual.
Three or four months later, a memo came out: the CEO had passed away. He'd been ill for over a year, it said. Cancer. He'd had an inoperable tumor.
Now tell me, just how tough did that soft-handed man have to be, to visit every person and place in his company, tell us what a fine company it was, how good its continued prospects were, how our efforts had helped make it what it was, look us in the eye, smile and...say goodbye without ever letting on anything was wrong, without ever tearing up or saying, "...this will be the last time..." or showing anything but good fellowship?
I don't know that I could do it. Could you? Not every kind of toughness is obvious at first glance.
But back in the day -- starting several generations back -- one august pillar of the community followed another, well-fed, soft-spoken, hard-bargaining men in suits who actually were pillars of their community, endowing the local college, taking on major charitable projects, and running all the branches of their company in an old-fashioned, frugal but not grasping manner. By the time things came down to the last of them sitting in the CEO's chair, none of them had needed to do a moment's hard physical labor in their lives. It showed -- co-workers were known to remark that shaking hands with the Big Boss was like touching as baby's bottom: he didn't even have a writer's callus!
And, as people who do some degree of physical work for a living, they looked a bit down on him for it. About the most effort he'd ever gone to was reading contracts.
One Autumn, he visited all of the corporation's facilities and gave short talks -- pep talks, really, appreciations of his employees and of the company, and he shook hands with everyone who attended. Everyone. Without exception. Shook hands, smiled, looked us in the eye and said a word or two, often addressing people by name.
No one questioned it at the time. He was known to do similar things on occasion, though this was a bit more personal than usual.
Three or four months later, a memo came out: the CEO had passed away. He'd been ill for over a year, it said. Cancer. He'd had an inoperable tumor.
Now tell me, just how tough did that soft-handed man have to be, to visit every person and place in his company, tell us what a fine company it was, how good its continued prospects were, how our efforts had helped make it what it was, look us in the eye, smile and...say goodbye without ever letting on anything was wrong, without ever tearing up or saying, "...this will be the last time..." or showing anything but good fellowship?
I don't know that I could do it. Could you? Not every kind of toughness is obvious at first glance.
Monday, October 09, 2017
Breakfast Steak
It's self-indulgent to take a nice, two-inch thick filet mignon and cut it into two thinner breakfast steaks, but it certainly is good!
Slow-cooked, mostly covered, with fresh mushrooms and served with cherry tomatoes and a fried egg, it's very nearly (I left out the potatoes and bacon) a "full Bobbi breakfast," which is similar to a Full English Breakfast, only not exactly.
Slow-cooked, mostly covered, with fresh mushrooms and served with cherry tomatoes and a fried egg, it's very nearly (I left out the potatoes and bacon) a "full Bobbi breakfast," which is similar to a Full English Breakfast, only not exactly.
Sunday, October 08, 2017
Saturday, October 07, 2017
It's The Weekend And Mom's Back In The Hospital
You can guess where I'll be spending part of my day off.
I might spend some of it at Doc-In-A-Box, too. My own woes, minor though they are, do not seem to be getting better.
I might spend some of it at Doc-In-A-Box, too. My own woes, minor though they are, do not seem to be getting better.
Friday, October 06, 2017
It's A Derpfire
I've been feeling lousy for the last week and a half -- allergies, flu shot, another kidney stone, I don't know and I'm not going to list my symptoms; I pay people to doctor at me, dislike it intensely and I don't want Random Internet Diagnosis. thank you.
But it's jaundiced my mood, so when I read Facebook Commandos exhorting Not One Inch and furiously excoriating the NRA for "caving in on bumpfire stocks," I just want to backhand the dumb clean off of 'em.
Alas, it doesn't work that way. But they do not understand the fight they're in. Bumpfire hardware was pretty much doomed at the first images of the hardware the Las Vegas mass murderer used, and that was just the thin edge of it; AR-15s and other rifles that look like military rifles, "high-caliber"* rifle ammunition, semi-autos -- they're all in the spotlight and the gun-banners are braying for blood.
Bumpfires were never anything more than a nose-thumbing, combining the ammo-eating expense of full-auto with the accuracy of a broken squirt gun. On principle, I dislike throwing anything at all to thewolves jackasses, but if it'll buy a little time to regroup and salvage what we can, it's worth giving up -- among other things, the SHARE Act is likely going to need a kick-start, from the way "good, solid" GOP Congressinvertibrates have been hemming and hawing over it.
All of a sudden, thanks to one lunatic of a hobby gambler, a guy with a nice, comfortable two-airplane kind of life who decided to go kill a lot of people who never did him any harm, us working types with about $0.09 to spare if we skip lunch, are in another blamed fight over common, ordinary rifles and accessories that are in wide use. That's a real fight, and a bitter one. Many of the high-profile antis are staring retirement full in the face from smooching distance; they're spoiling for a big fight and would love to "leave a legacy" way bigger than outlawing a stupid toy. Let's not let them.
_________________________________
* Yeah, I don't get it, either, some halfwitted portmanteau of "high power" and "large caliber" which is then applied to the .223, a small, medium-power round. And what's that tell you about the attitude of those who seriously use that term for .223 towards the .308 Winchester for your deer rifle, or anything of like size and power? Nothing good.
But it's jaundiced my mood, so when I read Facebook Commandos exhorting Not One Inch and furiously excoriating the NRA for "caving in on bumpfire stocks," I just want to backhand the dumb clean off of 'em.
Alas, it doesn't work that way. But they do not understand the fight they're in. Bumpfire hardware was pretty much doomed at the first images of the hardware the Las Vegas mass murderer used, and that was just the thin edge of it; AR-15s and other rifles that look like military rifles, "high-caliber"* rifle ammunition, semi-autos -- they're all in the spotlight and the gun-banners are braying for blood.
Bumpfires were never anything more than a nose-thumbing, combining the ammo-eating expense of full-auto with the accuracy of a broken squirt gun. On principle, I dislike throwing anything at all to the
All of a sudden, thanks to one lunatic of a hobby gambler, a guy with a nice, comfortable two-airplane kind of life who decided to go kill a lot of people who never did him any harm, us working types with about $0.09 to spare if we skip lunch, are in another blamed fight over common, ordinary rifles and accessories that are in wide use. That's a real fight, and a bitter one. Many of the high-profile antis are staring retirement full in the face from smooching distance; they're spoiling for a big fight and would love to "leave a legacy" way bigger than outlawing a stupid toy. Let's not let them.
_________________________________
* Yeah, I don't get it, either, some halfwitted portmanteau of "high power" and "large caliber" which is then applied to the .223, a small, medium-power round. And what's that tell you about the attitude of those who seriously use that term for .223 towards the .308 Winchester for your deer rifle, or anything of like size and power? Nothing good.
Thursday, October 05, 2017
I'm Sure I Have Something Trenchant And Pithy
...Wait, wait.... Nope. Don't seem to. Be nice to one another. And to yourself.
Wednesday, October 04, 2017
Thoughts In The Aftermath
In the wake of terrible events like the recent mass killing in Las Vegas, the people with an axe to grind are out in huge numbers, from Concerned Citizens to Internet Experts to elected and appointed officials.
Grant them this -- they want to Do Something. For the majority of them, it's an emotionally-driven urge, which, sadly, rarely carries much logic along in the headlong rush to render aid. Heart-rending, but rarely helpful.*
So let's review: in the attack at Las Vegas or anything similar, the only effective response the victim pool can make is to get elsewhere, as quickly as possible; in a crowd, this carries additional risk. Getting under effective cover -- something that might actually stop or at least seriously slow incoming fire -- is good, but many people in Las Vegas accepted concealment instead. If carefully chosen, it's some help because it removes you from the shooter's view. But when the shooter is simply sending fire into a large area, it's not much protection. The fellow out in the open who stood up, took a sip of his beer and flipped a middle finger at the source of fire probably (and inadvertently) made a correct assessment that it wasn't going to materially increase his risk, It was not a situation in which shooting back was an option. The only carried item that would have been of any use would have been a first-aid kit.
Once the event is over and the killer stopped, the social engineers start to opine. I have yet to hear an original suggestion; it's always more of the same things either side offers up. Let's try facts instead -- here's a correlation study between civilian gun ownership and murder rates, per state. The quick read is, they're not. It's not "more guns, more murder" and it's not "more guns, less murder."
There may well be things we can do -- but effective programs would be focused on people, not hardware. That's the conclusion of Leah Libresco, formerly a writer at FiveThirtyEight and who still says, "I don't want a gun in my home." She wants fewer murders, and in the course of researching how that might be accomplished, came to interesting conclusions.
The journalistic and social-media response to a madman or criminal with a gun mirrors the response of the prospective victim: it focuses on the gun. Been there, done that, the muzzle looks big enough to walk down when it's pointed at you: you see that thing rather than the person holding it. --But it's not made nicer if the aggressor has a club or a knife or brute force; it's only better if the aggressor is never there.† Less lunatics, less crime; less desperation and hopelessness, less crime. More education, less crime.
Start there. Start with that, not reheated ideas from political hacks. Armed drones, attacks on Constitutional rights, DHS screeners at every high-rise hotel...? Fantasy. It's what people do instead of hard work. It's what people do instead of calling up their weird uncle and seeing if he sounds okay. It's what people do instead of helping a ne'er-do-well young relative to seek work or training.
What will you do?
___________________________________
* I've already been taken to task for not assuming each and every one of 'em is a Nancy Pelosi or worse, out to take all our guns and generally be evil. While there is no shortage of politicians who would sleep far more soundly if they could disarm the citizenry and who look on us as something between insects and cattle, don't confuse them with the lady down the street who weaves daisy garlands and wants everyone to Get Along. Most people's intentions are good, even when they are short on facts and logic.
† And in second place, if you were not there, either. "Don't go to stupid places with stupid people, especially at stupid hours" is a rule that would have spared me no end of trouble, had I followed it.
Grant them this -- they want to Do Something. For the majority of them, it's an emotionally-driven urge, which, sadly, rarely carries much logic along in the headlong rush to render aid. Heart-rending, but rarely helpful.*
So let's review: in the attack at Las Vegas or anything similar, the only effective response the victim pool can make is to get elsewhere, as quickly as possible; in a crowd, this carries additional risk. Getting under effective cover -- something that might actually stop or at least seriously slow incoming fire -- is good, but many people in Las Vegas accepted concealment instead. If carefully chosen, it's some help because it removes you from the shooter's view. But when the shooter is simply sending fire into a large area, it's not much protection. The fellow out in the open who stood up, took a sip of his beer and flipped a middle finger at the source of fire probably (and inadvertently) made a correct assessment that it wasn't going to materially increase his risk, It was not a situation in which shooting back was an option. The only carried item that would have been of any use would have been a first-aid kit.
Once the event is over and the killer stopped, the social engineers start to opine. I have yet to hear an original suggestion; it's always more of the same things either side offers up. Let's try facts instead -- here's a correlation study between civilian gun ownership and murder rates, per state. The quick read is, they're not. It's not "more guns, more murder" and it's not "more guns, less murder."
There may well be things we can do -- but effective programs would be focused on people, not hardware. That's the conclusion of Leah Libresco, formerly a writer at FiveThirtyEight and who still says, "I don't want a gun in my home." She wants fewer murders, and in the course of researching how that might be accomplished, came to interesting conclusions.
The journalistic and social-media response to a madman or criminal with a gun mirrors the response of the prospective victim: it focuses on the gun. Been there, done that, the muzzle looks big enough to walk down when it's pointed at you: you see that thing rather than the person holding it. --But it's not made nicer if the aggressor has a club or a knife or brute force; it's only better if the aggressor is never there.† Less lunatics, less crime; less desperation and hopelessness, less crime. More education, less crime.
Start there. Start with that, not reheated ideas from political hacks. Armed drones, attacks on Constitutional rights, DHS screeners at every high-rise hotel...? Fantasy. It's what people do instead of hard work. It's what people do instead of calling up their weird uncle and seeing if he sounds okay. It's what people do instead of helping a ne'er-do-well young relative to seek work or training.
What will you do?
___________________________________
* I've already been taken to task for not assuming each and every one of 'em is a Nancy Pelosi or worse, out to take all our guns and generally be evil. While there is no shortage of politicians who would sleep far more soundly if they could disarm the citizenry and who look on us as something between insects and cattle, don't confuse them with the lady down the street who weaves daisy garlands and wants everyone to Get Along. Most people's intentions are good, even when they are short on facts and logic.
† And in second place, if you were not there, either. "Don't go to stupid places with stupid people, especially at stupid hours" is a rule that would have spared me no end of trouble, had I followed it.
Tuesday, October 03, 2017
Doctor, Doctor?
I'm off to the ENT this morning, to see if there's anything obviously wrong inside my sinuses, causing my bad headaches, etc. Slight chance of it -- but I'm not getting my hopes up.
Ms. Tamara is holding the fort, so you'd better be good.
ETA: And the attempt was totally thwarted by my digestion. This is getting out of hand.
ETA: And I ended up spending the day home, sick.
Ms. Tamara is holding the fort, so you'd better be good.
ETA: And the attempt was totally thwarted by my digestion. This is getting out of hand.
ETA: And I ended up spending the day home, sick.
Monday, October 02, 2017
Horror In Las Vegas
As I write this, people in Las Vegas -- and around the nation -- are reacting to a horrific act: an outdoor country music festival was sprayed with what appears to be automatic weapon fire from high up in a nearby hotel. Over a hundred were injured and around fifty people are dead. How many were hurt by bullets and how many by the ensuing panic is unknown.
Police located the source of the shooting and report one man,* who they describe as a "lone wolf" killer, is dead. They're seeking his "female companion," who may be anything from willing accomplice to first victim.
And that is exactly as much as anyone knows. Hours of television and page after page on the Web are filled with "more information" that amounts to trivia, lurid photographs and cellphone videos of the shooting and aftermath, speculation and empty blather. Bear in mind that early information past the most basic facts is frequently wrong.
We can count on the usual sources trying to exploit this heinous act to push their own causes.
Facebook, where I first saw mention of this when a friend reported himself safe, is filled with offers to help, many from people quite close by -- offers of food, water and shelter. Those are the sorts of people you are surrounded by: decent people. Caring people, who want to help. Killers -- and those who exploit their crimes -- are a tiny minority of humanity. Don't let 'em win. Don't be hypnotized by the horrible aftermath of a dreadful crime.
____________________________________
* They've released his name. This blog, as a matter of policy, does not name mass killers.
Police located the source of the shooting and report one man,* who they describe as a "lone wolf" killer, is dead. They're seeking his "female companion," who may be anything from willing accomplice to first victim.
And that is exactly as much as anyone knows. Hours of television and page after page on the Web are filled with "more information" that amounts to trivia, lurid photographs and cellphone videos of the shooting and aftermath, speculation and empty blather. Bear in mind that early information past the most basic facts is frequently wrong.
We can count on the usual sources trying to exploit this heinous act to push their own causes.
Facebook, where I first saw mention of this when a friend reported himself safe, is filled with offers to help, many from people quite close by -- offers of food, water and shelter. Those are the sorts of people you are surrounded by: decent people. Caring people, who want to help. Killers -- and those who exploit their crimes -- are a tiny minority of humanity. Don't let 'em win. Don't be hypnotized by the horrible aftermath of a dreadful crime.
____________________________________
* They've released his name. This blog, as a matter of policy, does not name mass killers.
Sunday, October 01, 2017
Yes, Here I Am
And pondering -- "I saw all the rain down in the woods," is unequivocal but, "I saw all the trees down in the woods," is either a description of a nature walk or a clear-cut statement.
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