The Record Player Supplants The CD Player

A CD Boombox is difficult to find, so I offered to help someone buy one. Here are two related thoughts that stuck with me:

First, is that record players have supplanted CD players. My local Walmart still sells CDs but not CD players. Yet they sell LP records and record players.

I searched for a recording of Erik Satie's Gymnopedie No. 1 for another friend. Several on Archive.org were analog recordings that were digitized from vinyl – the incessant scratchy noise drove me bonkers! One recording even had a skip! Doesn't the scratchy noise bother people? This is why I jumped onto the CD bandwagon in the 1980s. Does modern equipment have a way to suppress it, like the Dolby Noise Reduction⁰ used on tape? If so, it would require new vinyl pressings with pre-emphasis, which would sound strange on legacy turntables.

Second, it's also difficult to find a new computer with a CD/DVD drive. Of the 41 Dell desktops I viewed, only 14 can be equipped with an optical drive.¹ And none of the 67 laptops have one – Dell doesn't even offer an "optical drive" filter to narrow the search results.

Lacking a RW optical drive, it's not possible to back up a music collection by RIPing CDs. The cynic in me thinks the entertainment industry wants to phase out CD drives to make it difficult for consumers to copy music and movies.

I suspect that newer generations think it's normal to pay for online content, and for subscriptions to content they've already bought. They might not realize they don't own the content – instead, they pay to merely consume it. You could counter, saying that I don't own the content on my CDs and DVDs either. And I know that. But I've paid for it once, and I can listen repeatedly without paying again.

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⁰ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_noise-reduction_system

¹ The Dell Pro line of workstations and desktops were excluded from this assessment.

Find and Replace in Blogger's Post Editor

There are a few web pages that list the keyboard shortcuts that can be used in Blogger's post editor. Many of them are the standard windows shortcuts such as cut, copy, paste, redo and undo. Two of these web pages are included below.

Others relate to formatting and are what you'd find in a Word Processor. I'm referring to bold, italic, underline. And Ctrl + k also works to create a hyperlink.

I wasn't surprised that Ctrl + f opens a textbox into which the user can enter a search term. This is typical in many applications. If you're using the HTML editor, first click in the post editor to focus it -- the cursor needs to be there, otherwise the browser's find tool will search the entire page, ignoring the editor content.

If you need to search for the next occurrence, Ctrl + n will not work; it will open a new window instead. If you need to do a lot of searching, it's better to copy everything into a proper editor, or use the Atomic Chrome extension with Emacs. Or try the workaround I describe below.

Out of curiosity I pressed Ctrl + Shift + f thinking the shift key modifier would do something extra. I was right, but it doesn't search for the next item. Instead it allows you to perform a search and replace, which does provide a means to step through each occurrence.

Here's how it works. Press Ctrl + Shift + f, enter the Term to search for in the "Replace" box, then enter into the "With" box the text that would replace it. If Term exists, four buttons appear:

• Yes, which performs the replacement just on the highlighted Term and no others
• No, which skips to the next Term, if any
• All, which replaces all instances of Term with whatever you entered in the With box
• Stop, end the process, leaving replacements in place.

The Find and Replace Actions: Yes, No, All, Stop

If you're brave enough, you can use this find and replace as a regular find tool that jumps to the next occurrence with each click of the No button. If you're really afraid of making any changes, know that you can enter the same text in both boxes, Replace and With. So even if a replacement occurred, nothing would change.

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Use Google Keyboard Shortcuts

Blogger Shortcut Keys List

No News is Bad News

This morning's Yahoo News headline:

"Breaking News: Hormuz closes again as more talks planned in Switzerland"

That's not news; it's just a prediction that came true.

Add Chopsticks to Your Toolbox

Have you ever tried to retrieve a small part from deep within a chassis? You might've wished you had a long slender pair of tongs, pliers or tweezers to reach down and grab it with. You do. That tool is a pair of chopsticks.

It helps if you know how to use chopsticks, but don't worry if don't. It's easy to fashion them into a pair of "tweezer-sticks" as shown in Figure 1, below. All you need is an elastic band (aka rubberband) and a make-shift fulcrum, such as the wrapper the chopsticks came in (rolled up into a compact wad).

I've used this tool to...

• get a pebble from out of a garbage disposal
• pick spent blossoms, a Maple tree seed or a hungry beetle from potted plants when the growth is too dense to get my fingers through
• remove part of a Pop-Tart from a toaster (Figure 2)

I have, in fact, used a pair of twigs for a crude application of this idea, such as when I picked up a dead mouse that was in a flower bed.

But if you need to remove a wedding ring from the glowing coals of a charcoal grill, be sure to soak them in water beforehand.

Hiring Boom

 I saw this at the top of the requirements section on a job description:

"...willing to design stuff that blows up other stuff and people"

Thank you for the candor, but no.

Small Wins -- What Can You Do In Five Minutes?

During a networking presentation, the speaker spoke about Small Wins. I liked the idea of filling in spare time by engaging in partial tasks that can lead to a big goal. The idea is to make a list of tasks you can do in five minutes. That way you can be ready for those spare moments that popup.

While the tasks are “supposed to be” in support of a goal, I prefer to figure out what I can do in five or fifteen minutes. For real. I might think I can shave my face in fifteen minutes. But in reality I can achieve that only if I don’t bother to:

• wait for the water to heat up
• foam up the shaving soap with the brush
• thoroughly clean up after myself

I need 20 minutes for my complete shaving process.

I‘ve included below my list of five-minute “wins.” In some cases I’ll need to have materials or supplies nearby to achieve them. For example, in order to water plants, I keep bottles of water near a few of my thirstier plants.

Items at the bottom of the list in square brackets are for 15 minute gaps.

• Water a plant
• Drink a glass of water
• Splash cold water on my face
• Make tea
• Do a breathing exercise
• Do pushups
• Chill out
• Compare my online calendar with my weekly planner
• Play Wordle or Connections [occasionally I’ll need 15 minutes for this]
• Wipe down a counter top or table top
• [Load / unload dishwasher]
• [Make coffee]
• [Brush the cat]
• [Do crunches]
• [Take a quick walk around the yard]
• [Weed the garden]

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Here are some links to review:

• https://aldohappy.com/small-wins
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/possibilitizing/202410/why-we-should-cheer-for-lifes-wobbles
• https://realitypathing.com/best-ways-to-recognize-and-celebrate-small-wins-with-appreciation/
• https://www.lifehack.org/396379/how-celebrate-small-wins-achieve-big-goals

It Starts With a Small Favor

One time the boss asked me to sketch a new product concept in our CAD program.  After an hour or so, I'd print out a paper drawing and hand it to him.

After a few weeks he stops by and asks, "How's the project going?"  "What project?"  Apparently the little favor I did, the sketch I provided, was supposed to be /my/ new project.  I was supposed to test it and get it working and make imporvements on it (in between all the other products that customers were paying for).  This wasn't the first time I was expected to be a mind reader, but it was the most egregious example.

My job, as it was explained to me when I started, was to design and order photomasks for a new IC.  I'd also provide notes on the fabrication requirements, both backend and frontend.  After that, it was somebody else's problem.  This was easy work, and I was able to fit in with only a little training.  I had time to devote to professional development, which was lacking.

At one weekly status meeting someone reported a problem with one of the chips I designed.  Suddenly everyone was looking at me.  They expected me to know what was going on and hoped I had devised a solution, Apparently, again, I was supposed to be responsible for all aspects of its manufacturing and testing.  But I wasn't even aware that it started production.  My only response was "I don't know" sung to the tune of "How the hell should I know?"  Again I was faulted for my lack of mind reading skills.

This is how things go in a small company that lacks a mentorship program.  If someone had provided a little guidance and explicit expectations, on day one, I might've developed into the ideal engineer.

Unfortunately, this happens at home, too.  "I want to paint the window sill on the porch.  Can you buy paint for me?" my wife asked last week.  Now she's saying that it's a big job and that she might have to hire someone to help.  So the todo list that she wrote today included, "Help me paint the window sill."  I'm assuming I'll have to do it myself.  But this bothers me because you're always paint the trim last, and the entire porch needs painting.  Not only is she manipulating me into doing the job, she's manipulating me into doing it wrong.

Does this happen to anyone else?  What are your experiences?