Here is a candid of the new front forks, brakes, and tire on the scooter. Not shown are the new brake cables, ignition relay, carb tune-up, and paint touch up. I awoke this AM to the sounds of a telemarketing call. Gee, since they can’t call until before 8:00, why was I still in bed? Somehow, I’d like to think that is more my business than that of the National Election Committee.
They can stick their important message where it feels good. Did you know 92% of consumers view commercial telephone calls as an invasion of privacy? Even such drastic stats aren’t enough to get the message through the thick heads of telemarketers. Don’t give me that crap that electioneering is targeted and not random-dial telemarketing. My number is unlisted. We need another Reagan in the White House to send them packing. If they complain, so what? They’re just losers anyway. Speaking of deadbeats, have you seen the latest retirement stats? Only 4% of oldsters will have enough money by 2018. Tough luck. My take on that is they enjoyed the good life for the past forty years while their parents ran up the bill. I grew up with rich kids who were convinced they deserved every last thing they got because they were better than the rest of us. Turns out everything from the color TV to the new banana bike to the fancy job was bought on credit. Now it’s payback time. So get on with it.
Ah, the wonders of DRM (Digital Rights Management). This is not a set of laws, but a set of restrictions used by publishers to limit what you can do with their content AFTER you thought you paid for it. These are the people that want to delete what you bought after you read it twice or 60 days, whichever comes sooner. And it would be a crime to let anyone else read it after you are finished. Why? Because accorded to DRM, you are only renting the book. Today came news that Amazon deleted a woman’s Kindle, including what she paid for, and froze her account. Without explanation. We have seen the future.
In case you are wondering how things ever got this bad, go back two paragraphs. Why work hard for a nice house, or nice car, or nice job? Tehy can borrow the money now and once they have nice things, they can pay it back because by that time they’ll be happier and have more income, see? Actually, this is why they can’t have nice things. And they’ve bred more generations of dummies.
I mean, have you seen the top video on youTube? A retarded lady at a gas pump and a guitar player diving into a frozen swimming pool. There is not a single intellectual topic in the rankings. America has taken mankind’s most important invention and used it to entertain goofs. And if you don’t like the word “retarded” all I can say is “gotcha”!
It follows that I dampen my sympathy for the two Russian punk rockers who received sentences in Siberia. They were 22 and 24, which is a pity, but then I learn at the time they did the deed, they had children around 4 years old. That’s plain irresponsibility. The time to protest political systems is before you have someone to think about besides yourself. Maybe the stretch in prison camp will help them focus. I said “maybe”.Two nice new things I saw today were home made Xmas ornaments. Some were folded paper but I liked the crocheted snowflakes. No link, as the site visited demands a registration to even look and I don’t support such thinking. There’s a variety of patterns elsewhere ranging from little Xmas trees to crocheted coverlets for glass ornaments, but the starched snowflakes were my favorites. Yes, I know how to crochet. Doesn’t everyone?
You know I love anything that upsets the existing order of things when I think the order is wrong. I watch for such articles and today jimmyr linked to a 3D printer. I love it! Lab equipment is horrifically overpriced. Here’s an article about the possibility of printing your own beakers and slides. Will this hurt the establishment? Yes, but they had it comin’.
Here is a shot of the Mendel RepRap, shown here set up to begin printing the parts to make a copy of itself. That’s correct. Except for the print head and microcontroller, this printer is mostly tubes and plastic joints. About a thousand bucks, and they throw in a free gear extruder during this promotion.You know, you might want to take a moment and visit the RepRap site. It contains many gems of knowledge directed toward the facts you want to know. Take clothes pins. This common article represents a huge global industry as most of the costs are wasted in distributing the product. These printers will do away with that. Eyeglass frames? Print ‘em up. Custom cases for electronics? Easy. I’ve got one those 91 piece domino sets with pieces missing. That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout, baby. If I could think of a paying commercial purpose, I’d probably buy one of these printers this week.
[Author’s note: there is more than just the price holding me back. The workings of these printers is, thanks to robotics, so easy for me to understand that I doubt they can be resisted in the marketplace. Plus, here I’ll describe an obscure personal reason I hesitate. I grew up in an atmosphere without privacy, so everything I was first at was visible to droves of lazy copycats and jealous hicks. Unless you’ve been the victim of this, you can’t imagine the difficulty of, say, I started a band. I now, much later, understand I was “paying the price of the commanding lead”.]What I really want is a 3D printer that I call the “teleprinter”. It has two cases and works like a photocopier. I put a model in one case, which scans it with a laser. I push a single button, and a duplicate appears in the other case. I looked at laser scanners and the hand-held models are $30,000. But there are cheaper products. Who knows, maybe I’ll be the guy to invent the teleprinter.
Other items I personally think are highly overpriced that could be printed? Prescription eyeglasses (including prescription sunglasses) and condoms (on demand, preferably). For some reason in my head I see a link between these 3D printers and a knitting machine I saw when I was a kid.
Trivia. Did you know the incredible total of phone numbers on the Do-Not-Call Registry? And did you know there is a Do-Not-Track list in the making? The problem is, the advertising industry that collects your on-line behavioral data is fighting like hell against it. The law says they would have to put an icon on your screen when they are tracking you. You would have the “right to refuse”, but the industry maintains they have a right to track so you only have the right to delete the icon. None of the articles researched gave the names or photos or home phones of any persons in the “advertising industry”.
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