Dawn Patrol
19:55 Saturday, 12 August 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 80.89°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 3.44mphWords: 231
It's been about a week now where the morning low is 79°F or higher, with the humidity above 90%. The heat index is only a couple of degrees higher than that, but you can add 10° to that in direct sunlight. So if you want to walk at something approaching a "vigorous" pace, you want to do it before the sun gets very high.
This means it's pretty dark for birds, so I've been carrying the Olympus E-M1 Mk3 with the mZuiko 12-100mm/f4 lens. It's got a little bit of reach for tight cropping, but not enough for closeups. Mostly I use it for landscapes, or flowers.
But I've been playing with handheld high-res lately. I've been making 50MP images, because that's what I'm accustomed to with the moon. I'm a little embarrassed to admit you can make 25MP jpegs from HHHR as well. You may be asking why, given that the sensor's native resolution is 20MP, what's the advantage of a 25MP image?
You gain better noise and dynamic range, by a couple of stops at least. Not that this exposure shows that. I've put some pics up on Flickr that similarly don't really exhibit that, because I'm just playing around right now, getting familiar with the feature in this context.
✍️ Reply by emailDistractions
20:06 Saturday, 12 August 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 81.23°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 990
I've been playing around a bit with the HP-75C. I received a replacement battery pack, which takes AAA NiMH batteries. I'm disappointed that it doesn't seem to power the computer. I haven't investigated the matter further, I've been using the wall wart instead. Previously, the wall wart wouldn't power the computer with the original NiCad pack in place. It does work on the wall wart with the AAAs installed, so I'm not sure what's going on. I haven't put a meter on it yet. It hasn't stopped me from playing around with it.
Yesterday I did a little comparison between the HP-75, HP-71 and a TI-74 BASICALC calculator. The TI is roughly contemporaneous with the two HPs, appearing in 1984. I wrote a little BASIC program to sum the digits from 1 to 100, displaying each intermediate result. The HP-75 chugged along at a pace where I could view each result and register what the number was before the next one appeared. The HP-71 was positively glacial, which surprised me. The TI blew through the program so fast I had to add a PAUSE statement at the end to see the total!
That prompted a digression down a processor history rabbit-hole. Apparently it's been well known since the beginning that the HP-75 was faster in many respects than the HP-71. It has a genuine 8-bit cpu designed as a general purpose digital computer. The processor in the HP-71 is the Saturn, a 4-bit calculator chip, which went on to serve in various HP calculators up through the HP-50 (2006), and lives on today in emulated form, vastly faster, in the HP Prime on an ARM Cortex processor. The TI uses a TI cpu, the TMS70C46. I don't know if it went on to any other products. TI used the Motorola 68000 in its later TI-92 calculator, and a Z-80 in the TI-89.
I thought I was pretty much over my calculator obsession, but the HP-75 seems to have re-ignited it. I've since bought some more old crap I'm unlikely to ever need.
So that was the topic of this morning's walking reflection. I haven't really needed a calculator since the Naval Academy. At least, nothing more than a standard 4-function handheld, and seldom not even that, since I do most of those things in my head unless it's a long chain. At Annapolis, I had a TI-56(?), something below the 59, no card reader. It was programmable with a modest number of steps. I recall I only programmed it a few times, mostly for working homework problems quickly where I could check the answers against those in the back of the book. Mostly it replaced log and trig tables.
Some mids had HP calculators with their bizarre "reverse Polish notation." Most of us had TIs though. I think they were more affordable and I know they were available in the Midshipman Store. I don't remember if HPs were carried. The HPs looked as different as they operated, green and tan versus TI's black. The HPs seemed to have better keys though, and that huge ENTER key.
After I was commissioned, I went on to some Navy schools, one for Combat Information Center Officer, and there we were introduced to the HP-67/97 and the Navy's "tactical program library." We got to play around with them a bit and they seemed exotic to me, a little exciting. I don't think we had one aboard GLOVER when I was CICO.
When I went to ASW school, we played around with the HPs again, and a Sharp handheld computer that was intended to replace the HPs. It had a little micro-cassette drive and thermal printer. We used them for "target motion analysis." You'd enter a series of passive bearings from a sonar contact into a program, alter course and enter some more. The handheld would output the data that defined an ellipse, where the target was likely to be. You could then have your helo fly out to search that area. Pretty cool stuff. We did have the Sharp handheld onboard, but we never seemed to use it, not having a towed array.
TMA later became hot again with the introduction of the Harpoon and later Tomahawk over-the-horizon anti-ship missiles. How do you target a weapon beyond active sensor range? By plotting electromagnetic emission intercepts. HF comms, mainly.
We did have an HP 9830 "calculator" aboard GLOVER for deployment. Ships that didn't have Naval Tactical Data System computers could receive a teletype broadcast of link track data that was human-readable, and plot the information on a plexiglass "vertical plot" using grease pencils. It was definitely non-real time, and when there were a lot of tracks the poor Operations Specialist who had to do the plotting was quickly task saturated. The HP 9830 received the teletype signal from radio central and ran a program called ECLIPS, which I think stood for "electronic calculator link processing system," which could parse the Link 14 messages and display them on a miniature vertical plot on a small CRT without getting task saturated. I can't say it was ever terribly useful, but I thought it was cool.
It seems I developed a certain fascination with HP products along the way, although I couldn't afford any back then.
I finally bought an HP-41CV in 1983 or 84 when I was on shore duty and badly managing my money. I still have it, it's in the drawer next to me. I learned enough RPN to use it, and played with a few programs; but it hasn't been of much real use in all the time I've owned it. Still think it's pretty cool though, and it still works too.
Scratching old itches. I guess that's what I'm doing these days. Gets expensive.
✍️ Reply by emailLeadership
06:45 Monday, 12 August 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 77.18°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 117
There are so many wonderful history lessons that Heather Cox Richardson offers in her blog. And she finds the best quotes.
[T]he true measure of the strength of a leader is not based on who you beat down. It’s based on who you lift up.
Kamala Harris
I love the contrasting parallelism. I did something similar four years ago. "Lock more people up/Lift more people up." They did it with two contrasts "beat/lift," "down/up." I went with only one, but with alliteration!
I think Kamala Harris has a better shot than that Dave Rogers guy did. That is, if the archaic and undemocratic relic, the Electoral College, doesn't bite us in the ass.
✍️ Reply by emailIt Ain't the Heat
09:36 Monday, 12 August 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 85.24°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 83% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 432
It's the humidity.
AKMA usually offers a daily report on his 2-mile run (Major props!), but what caught my eye today was his comment on the temperature. He called it a "hot morning," at 19°C (which I used Spotlight to tell me was 66°F)!
England's climate and Florida's are vastly different, even in a world that has a new climate everywhere. We all acclimate, to one degree or another (no pun intended), to the prevailing climate where we live. Heat does affect performance, both from the thermodynamic efficiency perspective, and the subjective experience of heat.
I got up this morning at 0515 and checked the temperature, it was 77°F (25°C) but 95% humidity! I was just glad it wasn't 80°F. When you step outside first thing in the morning and it's warmer than it is in the house, it's just depressing. And the humidity just feels like this oppressive blanket weighing on you.
But, I went out with the sticks. I didn't get a good pace going, though I felt like my form was doing better. Mile 3 was my quickest at a 17':33" pace (kicked it up a bit for the last quarter mile to 17':12"). Not my best effort with the sticks, but not my worst either.
I did see a meteor not long after starting out, so that was a bonus.
The sky was looking pretty when I got home, and I often think of putting up the drone to grab a shot; but I'm usually just spent. I take off my shoes, grab a cold drink, plop in my chair in my office, turn on the ceiling fan and read my feed or watch YouTube until I dry out.
I do like using the trekking poles. I can feel it in my arms and my upper body, and I think it helps keep my spine more vertical. It does alter my gait somewhat, and I feel some stiffness in my ankles and the lower parts of my calves I don't normally experience. I still keep a death grip on the handles and I haven't made any progress in trying to relax them.
This is the part of the summer when it's just oppressively hot and humid without relief, even in northeast Florida.
I've got to look at the tides here and figure out a good time to put the new kayak in the water. I'll want to do that early in the morning, because I think that'll be better for seeing birds. I hope to get that accomplished this week.
✍️ Reply by emailThe Silence of Privilege
10:26 Monday, 12 August 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 87.08°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 440
That whole "Let's build a community, but make certain topics off-limits, or behind a content warning" thing is still under my skin.
I thought I dispensed with it when I pointed out the self-aggrandizing delusion that any such thing would be a "community," rather than just a house party where "my house, my rules" was the order of the day.
Because, whether anyone likes it or not, we exist in a community already. And by choosing to not talk about certain topics... POLITICS... we ignore our duty to our community.
Is it comfort or cowardice? Is it fatigue or fear?
Whatever it is, it's only the privileged who can embrace silence.
Anyway, at risk of making someone uncomfortable, Kottke pointed to this piece today, and it's right on point. This whole, "Can't we all just get along?" vibe is an appeal for silence. I struggle with the whole "enemies" idea, because a lot of my neighbors are MAGA Trumpers.
So far, I'm uncertain whether I should be feeling more optimistic because I'm not seeing the usual MAGA indicators, but it may be simply too early. The flags haven't blossomed from the houses. A guy who had his TRUMP/PENCE bumper sticker on the back window of his car until 2023 hasn't replaced it with at TRUMP/VANCE sticker. But the lady who sells MAGA merch at the roundabout on Palm Valley Road was there last weekend, so there's that.
I am encouraged by Kamala Harris' reception, and Tim Walz for just being Tim Walz. And I hope that Trump's age and increasingly incoherent rants are beginning to make some Republicans think twice. They may still vote for him, which is sickening, but maybe they're not so eager to advertise it anymore, given how cruel and unhinged the whole thing is.
Mitzi texted me this video from Bryan Tyler Cohen, interviewing Heather Cox Richardson on Facebook. I was actually able to open it, to dismiss the "login or sign up" barrier, and watch it this morning. It's also right on point.
You can regard the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision as the "Enabling Act" of the Republican Reich. We're this close to becoming an authoritarian state. And I think Richardson is right, that we find ourselves at a place, politically, where most of us don't have the language to talk about it, because it's so far outside the norm of what we're used to. Forget the "Overton window," we just don't know how to talk to fascists because we never expected them to be winning an election in America.
Another reason for the privileged appeal for silence.
Fuck that.
✍️ Reply by emailUnashamed
11:43 Monday, 12 August 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 89.92°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 72
Say what you will about The Lincoln Project, but I've given them money. I would've left out the "earned" part. You don't "earn" a gift. But otherwise, I love it.
✍️ Reply by emailBuckaroo Banzai
07:06 Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 67.1°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 6.06mph
Words: 400
We finished a re-watch of Season 4 of Only Murders In the Building the other night, and browsing around Hulu for something else to watch I noticed Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which I'd never seen before. So, into the queue it went, and we watched it last night.
I'm not a huge Wes Anderson fan. I'm conscious that I'm watching a Wes Anderson film the entire time, I never really get into the movie. I feel like I'm just watching a Wes Anderson performance, and he doesn't seem that interesting because it's always the same schtick. I never have that problem with Quentin Tarantino. I know I'm watching a Quentin Tarantino movie, but it's not intrusive the way Wes Anderson's style just sort of screams, "LOOK AT ME! I'M WES FUCKING ANDERSON!"
At some point in the movie, there's a clip from an old Steve Zissou documentary where he's in the Antarctic or someplace and everyone's kind of partying and he tells everyone to be quiet. He hears an animal crying somewhere out there in the ice.
And that's when it twigged for me. I was watching a Buckaroo Banzai remake by Wes Anderson. I mean, Earl Mac Rauch should've received a writing credit, or at least an "inspired by."
When the end credits rolled, it was just overt. It didn't feel like homage so much as appropriation. "Great artists steal," and all that.
I don't know. I liked parts of the movie, especially the sets. But once I was aware of the Banzai ripoff, I was even less into the movie as I kept looking for more ways Anderson ripped off Banzai, and did it in a way that seemed disrespectful to the original.
It's a shame too, because I love all the actors, and the sets were cool. The scene near the end in the mini-sub was pretty interesting in the post-TITAN era. "Are we safe in this?"
"Probably not."
I did a quick search this morning, and the similarity hasn't gone unnoticed. But the web sites that seem to have any writing about it are just ad-infested assaults on the eyes, so I didn't pursue it any further.
Anyway, disappointed. Wes Anderson movies often make me laugh, which is, I suppose, their point. But this one just made me a little mad, and I felt bad when I laughed.
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