Monthly Archives: September 2024

Friday Notes (Sep 27, 2024)

Maybe it’s a hold-over from school days, or maybe it has to do with fall (my favorite season), but the year really does hinge on fall and spring for me. You’d think spring would be the logical year start, but I see September as the turnover point. Summer’s over, another (school) year begins.

In any event, it’s fall when I most often find myself thinking about, and planning, the year ahead. The last few years I’ve made a lot of progress but have slacked off the past year. For the coming year, I’ve decided to throw away a lot more stuff.

Including some piles of notes, but for now it’s time for Friday Notes

Continue reading


Coach, the Mechanic!

Best campaign ad ever:

First time a campaign ad has made me smile rather than grimace.

Vote Blue, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.


The Half-Year Pivot (again)

Once again we pivot into the dark half of the year. Here in the northern hemisphere, anyway. Folks below the equator are enjoying the opposite pivot, the good one into light.

The Autumnal Equinox is my least favorite Solar Occasion (today: 12:44 GMT, 7:44 AM CDT). It means winter is coming. I can deal with the cold, but the short days and long dark nights, that’s tougher.

Continue reading


CJ68: The Graphic

As I posted Tuesday, I finished the software for my virtual CPU on Monday, but now I’ve finished the most important part: the project graphic.

Now that I’m done, the project is obsolete, and it’s time to start the next version, cj68 vII. The other protocol would be to bump the number, but cj69 might lead to smirks.

Stay processing, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.


The Harris-Trump Debate

Last night’s debate between Vice-President Kamala Harris and The Convicted Felon was a world apart from the first one with President Joe Biden. It was a clear victory for Harris and just as clear a loss for the Mango Mussolini. He’s never seemed more incoherent or filled with lies than last night.

Those nasty immigrants eating people’s pets in Peoria. Or wherever. It matters not what city it supposedly was — it’s an utter, complete, racist lie. On the sick theory that repeating a lie often enough, no matter how outrageous, can make it believed.

I found Harris’s opponent so hard to listen to that I started beering myself. After the debate, I (drunkenly) expressed myself on the Substack Notes feed. I had a good time venting and thought to share my “tweets” here. WARNING: Language! This is me unfiltered and off-the-cuff.

Continue reading


CJ68: My Virtual CPU

Long distance runners talk about “hitting the wall” — the point where their body runs out of resources, making it almost impossible to continue. I hit an intellectual wall late Monday night. Fortunately, I not only finished the race but went an unexpected extra mile. (And now my brain circuits are fried.)

Not an actual race (beyond a vague self-imposed deadline), but a hobby project like one of those ships in a bottle. A painstaking and challenging task in the name of fun and exercise of acquired skill. But no race, no ship, no bottle. This was a software project.

My inner geek rampant, I built a virtual 32-bit CPU (in Python).

Continue reading