The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Aphorisms

Words to design by, live by, work by …

  • Monthly Aphorism: On Money

    • Money changes everything

    As evidence, read any of the myriad stories about folks receiving a huge slug of windfall cash that subsequently destroys their life. You won’t find many success stories, although that may be a sampling problem.

    My buddy Aitch observes that a corporate implosion often occurs just after completion of a shiny new headquarters building in a far-off location. That construction marks the revenue peak, not necessarily the point where profit margins stabilize.

    And, of course, carpet-bombing a company with C-notes doesn’t guarantee future success, as witness recent developments in the solar power field.

    But the lure of easy money can be exceedingly hard to resist…

        Oh Lord! Let me prove
    Winning a Powerball game
    Would not change me. Much.

    Government-run gambling boils down to a regressive tax on folks who weren’t paying attention during the probability and statistics part of math class. The fact that (some part of) the “profits” go into school budgets  demonstrates that irony remains an integral part of the modern world.

  • Monthly Aphorism: On Complexity

    • When faced with a problem you don’t understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.

    Heinlein, of course: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

    Yes, this algorithm can stall you at a local maximum, but that’s better than remaining stuck in the starting gate while you’re thinking too much.

    In less high-falutin’ terms: Don’t just sit there, do something!

  • Monthly Aphorism: On Preventing Problems

    • You get one chance to throw the snake over the side

    The Great Greene grew up in the Midwest, with the type of summer job one might expect of a teen in an area surrounded by grain fields. One summer he found himself standing knee-deep in the wheat pouring into a cart beside a combine harvester, tasked with shoveling grain into the corners to level the load.

    In addition to combines, the fields were full of rattlesnakes.

    A rattlesnake adopts a characteristic pose when it senses a predator: body coiled, head and tail up, rattle vibrating vigorously. The smaller critters that dine on rattlesnakes (evidently, young rattlesnakes are tasty little pushovers) have figured out, over the course of their long shared evolutionary history, that such a display means this isn’t an immature rattlesnake and they should move along, move along. Raptors pay no attention, having invented the whole death-from-above thing long before we figured out powered flight.

    Combines, having not evolved alongside rattlesnakes and being entirely unaware of the threat display, also pay no attention and simply sweep the entire snake into the threshing machinery, where the snake’s characteristic writhing-ball-of-fury reponse to an attack only serves to give the machinery a better grip. The rattlesnake emerges from the combine’s front end as a snakeskin belt surrounded by gibbage.

    The combine’s sorters and sieves and transports that separate grain from straw don’t work well on rattlesnake remains, to the extent that much of the snake emerges from the conveyor belt as a damp blob dropped atop the pile of grain in the cart.

    In addition to leveling the grain, the Great Greene was responsible for tossing debris over the side. He observed that the machinery downstream of the combine couldn’t do much more than sort out the larger chunks (it’s not like you can wash grain), so if he missed a snake the smaller bits were certain to wind up in your breakfast cereal bowl.

    He said he got most of them…

  • Monthly Aphorism: On Non-Economic Repairs

    • The skills we acquire fixing stuff that we don’t care about serve us well when we have to fix something that actually matters

    Courtesy of John Rehwinkel.

    A long time ago, I read this in E. E. “Doc” Smith’s The Skylark of Space:

    He could study safeblowing fifteen minutes and be top man in the field

    Even back then, I knew knowledge didn’t work that way. If your fingers haven’t done it, you don’t know how to do it. The more you do it, the better you get.

    Go fix something!

  • Monthly Aphorism: On Negotiation

    • Never negotiate a biz deal with a stranger using email

    In the course of half a dozen volleys, the two of you will wedge each other into corners from which there is no possible retreat or compromise.

    Even if you both think the venture would be a Good Idea and even if you both think it’d be fun & interesting, you’ll find perfectly valid reasons to call it off.

    Selah.

  • Monthly Aphorism: On Repairs

    • Always test your brakes

    Our house has a long driveway that slopes downward to the (very busy) street in front. Every bike ride begins with a ceremonial checking-of-brakes as we start rolling.

    Once in a very great while, someone finds a brake that doesn’t work as well as it should. It’s much better to discover that fact at the top of the driveway than at the bottom…

    The newest driver in our household learned to tap the van’s brakes much in advance of traffic signals and stop signs, rather than waiting until the last possible moment. She also glides the van to a smooth stop, much as my father taught me back in the day; for a while, he was the chauffeur for a (perhaps the) rich guy in town and learned all about smooth driving.

  • Monthly Aphorism: On Improvements

    • You can rub and you can rub, but you can’t shine shit.

    Eks tells me that was one of his grandmother’s favorite sayings.

    He introduced me to the concept of a “used-car polish”: high shine over deep scratches. Sometimes, that’s exactly what the job requires.

    There’s also the notion of making a silk purse from a sow’s ear (attributed variously to Jonathan Swift and Anon), which someone actually did: render the ear down to a gel, extrude thread, loom cloth, and sew up a purse. Yes, it can be done, but there’s a practical limit in there somewhere.

    Contrary to what you might think, this has nothing to do with a certain Thing-O-Matic. A bit of laparoscopic surgery on our front yard just revealed that our septic leach field has filled with gunk; it’s 56 years old and hadn’t been pumped for two decades before we bought the place. The next week or two should be interesting: I can do the diagnosis, but I can’t handle this repair.