Captain's Phlog                                     2020.02.27
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Thoughts on GopherTime, My Emulator, The Pandemic, ...more?

**GOPHERTIME**
It's 4:50 EST in the midst of GopherTime. Many people my age 
begin needing less sleep. Many of my acquaintances piss and 
moan about this to no end like they're 20-somethings having 
trouble adulting after an evening on the town. Grow up. For 
me, I'm reveling in the miracle of having two more hours 
every day in which to do... stuff.

I've opted to insert these two extra hours between 05:59:59 
and 06:00:00. In common parlance one might say I wake up at 
4am now. Unless my faithful companion is in the midst of a 
bout of dementia triggered anxiety and needs me to be 
present with her, this has become "Gopher Time".

Am I reading your latest Phlog Post? I hope so. My usual 
route takes me to Circumlinar & SDF's Latest Phlog Entries 
and the Bongusta! & Moko-Pona aggregators. <<Shoutout to 
awkward.company, I await more leftist content my comrade!>>

**MY EMULATOR**
Let me take a moment here to plug some new content on my 
root gophermap. I decided that I would try learning C 
(again) by picking a larger multi-faceted project rather 
that hammering on countless, pointless 'exercises'. Enter 
the "Little Man Computer". The LMC was one of those classic 
attempts (ca 1968) to introduce machine execution via 
Anthropomorphic description. You can learn just about 
anything you want to about LMC "Ver. 68" from it's Wikipedia 
entry. It was typical of these efforts I feel. The Little 
Man had a wall of Mailboxes, a Calculator, and a Boss to 
tell him what to do. The machine used Harvard Architecture 
and Calculations, I/O, & addresses were base 10.

My version (LMC Mk.V) is byte oriented with a Von Neuman 
architecture and is Touring Complete. I've added a handful 
of instructions but it's still a RISC machine like the 
original. Rom is mapped to the lowest 0xFF bytes and 
contains a boot loader that accepts binary files as well as 
room for future system-wide data. I'm writing some simple 
routines to check its functionality at this point but dream 
of writing a 4K BASIC. I code like a Cave Man with a 
hangover so we'll see how far I get on THAT idea. :-D 

**PANDEMIC**
It's 05:30 EST, Wednesday. It's -2C and I can hear the rain 
in the gutters... not a good combination. It's also 19:30 
Thursday in Seoul. Uh. I worry for my friend and his family. 
There's nothing I can do to protect them. Soon, as their 
healthcare system becomes overwhelmed, there will be nothing 
anyone else can do for them. Their fate rests in their own 
vigilance and blind luck and I want to puke. It's coming for 
'Murica too. My wife and I have plans in motion though I 
feel that less than 1% of the population in my provincial 
backwater are even thinking much about it. Dark Thoughts. 
Stay focused on Vigilance and just let the Fates do what 
they would. 

I think I would like to write a post on my (fairly personal) 
plans for when this thing hits "The North Country". It might 
help our mutual mindset. But I don't know if I'm just coming 
off as an alarmist, or prepper, or jumping the gun. I'd ask 
for your input on this [thenumberSixtyTwo]connolly[circleA]
gmail[period]com if you're so inclined.

It's 05:57 EST and time to rouse my wife and pour her coffee.

Remember to Smile Today!
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