Useful Thoughts and Actions Taken

Jim Dude: Writer of the software Asterisk and The various projects thereof

Jim Dude and the Asterisk software – he is in a wheel chair

Just got off of the phone with Jim Dude.  He is quite a character and I will be talking to him more.   Sold a microcontroller board to him as I was moving out of Saint Louis.

Research Links

Asterisk was a functional concept, but had no real way of becoming a practical useful thing, since it didnt, at that time, have a concept of being able to talk directly (or very well indirectly for that matter, being that there wasnt much, if any, in the way of practical VOIP hardware available) to any Telecom hardware (phones, lines, etc). Its marriage with the Zapata Telephony system concept and hardware/driver/ library design and interface allowed it to grow to be a real switch, that could talk to real telephones, lines, etc.

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Saint Louis County Personal Property Tax Links

When living in Saint Louis, Missouri you pay for the priviledge.  You pay a 1% income tax.  You also pay a personal property tax every year. It is not cheap supporting all this corruption you know!  

I am filing my "return" today.  Not sure why it is called a return as they do not return anything.  They send you a form that lists the property including cars they think you own and ask you to add anything else you might now own.  You have to file by April 1 or they assess you a late fee.  As all I own is a car mine is rather simple.   I am also including a change of address form.  I have already faxed this form to them on 2.10.2014 but just to be sure I am including with my return also.  I hope this is enough to prevent them from sending another bill after this last one arrives early next year in January 2015.

I called in to see if the SSN was absolutely necessary.  The lady advise me that it was not and that they need the SSN only when you are new to the city.

Because of all this it is probably recommended to mail in my license plates. Otherwise these government lifers will probably keep billing me ad infinitum.

Research Links

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Art: The Breeze in the Trees

In summer of 1993 I took a trip to Zion National Park with 2 friends.  While they were still sleeping in the cabin I went outside to draw this.  I am not the greatest artist so when anything remotely comes out ok I am happy.  I just found this in my map case that has been riding around in several different bought and sold cars over the past 20 years.  OMG yes 2 decades 5 used cars came and went and this managed to stay with me.

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago