One year ago today: October 9, 2018, wanting, expecting, demanding.
Five years ago today: October 9, 2014, WIP – needs reposting.
Nine years ago today: October 9, 2010, bingo was a success.
Random years ago today: October 9, 2015, weird washing machine.
A strange aspect of modern “design” is the propensity to change things in one’s favor. Like the cash register receipts that list the details in the order the cashier works, with “change due” being the bottom figure. Convenient for the minimum wage cashier, not so much for the accountant, but receipt designers are not paid to think ahead. And don’t you love the way they print the date in random locations? That is so totally millennial, but it gives the impression that crowd are the first dumb-bunnies who came along. No, no, here is one that’s endured. “Medium” glue. What the hell is that?
Later, I’m returning the glue. It is only for CPVC, which is half my installation. The primer is for both types, but not the glue, duh. And it seems “medium” applies to pressure. It is rated “up to 6 inches”. What the double hell is an inch of pressure? The package also states temperature up to 110°F, which doesn’t seem all that hot to me. Oatey, here’s your product back. Go have a warm bath, but don’t let the water get over six inches deep or you’re just asking for trouble. And don’t drain the tub. That’s PVC under there.
Score! The plastic pedestal on my kitchen computer was cracked, so I bought a used flat screen. I made sure it had the patch cables. A month later I unpack it and find whoever gave it to the thrift was a no-tech. Wound in there with the others was his $20 gold-plated HDMI cable, the exact one he needed to connect the screen he’d just bought. Here’s a picture of the ends, a pic that barely passed the censor because of the other scene in the background. My more avid readers will spot that as the lawn swing up in Tennessee. With part of my ever-present cheerleader squad on duty.
And I’m still learning gif technology. I can hear some millennials snickering and asking what’s the big deal? You download an app and make the gif. The difference is, I’m learning. When you use the app without learning, well, that’s how rumors get started that your co-workers delinquent brat is a “whiz kid”. Remember those, and how they grew up to become telemarketers and mall cops? Here’s my question for them about what I learned today.
What happens when you insert a gif into a Microsoft Word Document? Anybody who’s done it will say nothing. It appears as a static jpeg. This is about the level most of the whiz kids can take things. Is it a jpeg? Nope. When you save the file, it gobbles up as much memory as the original gif. That’s the difference, kiddos, between learning and just going through the motions. Oh, and if newer versions of Word exist that do play gifs, I don’t want them. Because you only think they are just playing the gifs. I don’t allow people like Microsoft put any such thing on my computers. And that’s why identify theft and privacy are not big problems around here. Why play gifs when Microsoft can play the millennials?
New York fashion crime.
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Here’s some action. Fitting the new PVC to the old iron using a Fernco coupling. I formerly hesitated to cut any iron but once I got over that things sped up. If you are keen-eyed you can see how the iron on the extreme right acquired a downward slope over the years. I had to leave a small dip where you see it, but that spot is between two traps and drains grey water only. Remind me to never buy that gel PVC glue again. It’s bad enough that Oatey doesn’t make the brush long enough to reach the bottom of the can, but once the lid is opened, the stuff dries up too fast even on the shelf.
There should be another nearby picture to give a better perspective of this rubber coupling before I cut the pipe. And that was a dirty 20-minute job. I got rid of around half the angles that were all over the place in the old system. They did it to save money, sure, but unlike PVC real skill was required to do the hook up. I decided to rip out the old plumbing just y’day so this sets me back a day. Strange maybe, but probably attributable to the robotics club, my box of fittings worked out almost exact from three years ago when I bought everything on sale. I’ll have less than five feet of pipe of any length left over and one small drawer of elbows and such.
And that’s another thing. He says when we were at the Lanai Kai with all those women at our table, I told him if he picked one up he’d have to get his own room. Nonsense. What I actually said was if she was staying at the hotel, use her room. And if her roomie didn’t want to stay, she could crash in his bed. And trust me, that’s all she’d do. None of the women were remotely my type.
And Charla came up with some advice on the fruit trees I had sort-of planned for the yard. She said don’t. The way I travel, if I’m not there when the fruit ripens and hits the ground, the flies and insects will take over. So, can I plant trees that don’t have fruit? Pecan maybe, I don’t know. I can figure why Agt. R never had the problem. Turns out he has never been away from home in his life. Except for a stint as a delivery driver, he’s not even been on a weekend out of town since he got married some 25 years ago.
ADDENDUM
I watched a documentary on Iran. It’s the old theme how they are the powerhouse of the Middle East and they will determine destiny. A dozen experts talked the place up but absent was any level-headed assessment of the complete lack of a modern infrastructure to do much except start wars. You would be hard-pressed to find any Iranian products on a store shelf or name one major accomplishment from out of there. The persistent school of thought for Americans who even think about the area is that once the oil is cut off, they will revert to herding sheep and growing figs, which without subsidies they take a loss.
No, I’m not an expert, but take a look at what’s happening. Before oil, the entire area had a primitive economy that has not changed in thousands of years. The leading nation was Egypt because they nationalized a canal the French dug. America has seen such places come and go, depending on how well they built a viable, sustainable economy when times were good. To date, the only success story would be Israel, the 51st state. Bottom line, the world is weaning itself off oil. Every other month you hear or read of another nation passing the mark where renewable energy meets more than half their needs. From here, it seems the one Arab nation that has tried develop is Saudi Arabia. But they have not even achieved an industrial revolution.
There is also an overdue breakthrough. Those American inventions that changed the world arose under similar circumstances, that is, a better way of doing things. Lately, we’ve been slow to the punch. The portrayal of big oil as quashing alternative energy isn’t accurate enough. My suspicion is that they are a big motive behind the search but want that kept low-key. My hopes for the electric car are the same as when I was 8 years of age—not in my lifetime. Yet instinct tells me that is where the invention will occur, as in not necessarily the car, but related to it.
When it happens, there will be chaos in the Middle East. No way they can sustain what they’ve been up to, what with ski slopes in the desert. The collapse will be rapid if you ask me, and those with any real money or power will be first to flee. Many of the so-called royal families have members still alive who remember they herded goats until the British showed up. And even that was due the Brits only needed oil because it saved weight over coal that could be used to put thicker armor on their battleships. At the end of that era, it was pure luck the American auto market took over the demand.
This is also another instance where success and modernizaton are achieved only by adopting Western technology. Nothing is home-grown. And despite a thousand or more year’s head-start, their biggest exports seem to be poetry, philosophy, and more recently, university students who rarely return. Even India and China have done more with less. Even they had to reluctantly do something the Arabs won’t even consider. That is to admit their culture and religion is not all that compatible with their goals if they want to compete with other nations.
Any one of a dozen inadequacies could trigger the end of their westernized and democratized minorites, but I predict it will be the end of oil that wipes them out. And I half expect to hear of a real breakthrough any time. Not that the millennials have produced any geniuses, but because enough brute force is seeking a solution. The West may not be united but all of them dislike oil for some reason or other. They are all weary of pouring a billion dollars a day into the desert.
There are forward-thinkers and revisionists in the east, but once again it is a measure of how well they’ve copied the West instead of developing a new set of values and beliefs that stand a chance of being accepted by their citizens.
