Tag Archives: China

LJ – Cheap Chinese Plastic Crap

Posted on by
Reply

From 12/14/2007

It all began earlier tonight. We drove into our driveway with our fake christmas tree in the front window stooped over like a drunken sailor. We discovered to our chagrin that this plastic base had warped and cracked from the stress of holding up this fake tree and all it’s ornaments and had toppled while we were out.

I had a flash of handiness and decided to haul out to the garage and set up the power miter saw. Once I figured out how to get the spring arm to pop up so I could use it it was just a matter of finding two 2×4’s that were long enough. I found two, exactly 16” long. I left one alone and cut the other in half, allowing for the 2×4’s width, which is 3.5. Silly wood. So I cut the 2×4’s to shape and headed downstairs. How to get these to turn into a christmas tree stand was a challenge. I needed something with strength to hold all the pieces together. The perfect way would be to cut a groove into both original 2×4’s so they would fit together like a matched set, but I don’t have a radial arm saw to accomplish that feat, so instead, and without the next option which would have been nails and metal brackets and reinforcing triangles I decided to toenail the pieces together, used up about 15 nails, not a pretty or proud job, but it did the trick. I thought about drilling the hole for the post that the fake tree was going to fit into and it hit me, I just needed another 2×4 small piece on top that could ride over the base and keep it together. I pounded 15 more nails into the bastard and at that point it was acceptably together.

Then came the hole. I had regular drill bits that went up to “big size” but that wasn’t anywhere near the hole I needed to make. I found a kit with hole bits and pulled the 3/8ths, the 5/8ths, and the 7/8ths bits. I ran upstairs and put the bits in the dead plastic stand and the 7/8’s just barely fit and rotated around. The post was just shy of 7/8ths. I got my “dangerous and cheap” drill since my cordless drill is deader than a doornail and put the bit in, then went to town. It dug out a nice pretty hole right in the center where I wanted it. I shook the drilled wood out and brought it upstairs. The tree? Fwomp! Down into the hole nice and easy, like it was meant to be there. The wooden stand? Pleasantly hiding just underneath a christmas tree skirt.

That sum-bitch won’t fall over now! Of course if anyone with an ounce of woodworking skills or handiness took at look at it they’d likely puke a little in their mouths. Nails jammed in, some pounded down with about 1/4” of their heads laying on the wood (I got impatient) and still other ones with nice round impact impressions of the hammer I used to drive the nails. It’s NOT PRETTY, but dammit, it’s solid and I dare say could survive a hurricane, especially since I unloaded about 35 nails into the damn thing, it’s 80% 2×4 and 20% nail. 🙂

I am quite proud of myself, even if it’s an eldritch horror of woodworking. 🙂

Tech'now'ledgy Expo

Posted on by
1

I attended for a little while the Tech’now’logy Expo that TotalTech puts on every year. In attendance was my friend Matt Merrill with CDW-G and Chris Doemel with Apple.

They are pretty much two out of maybe a handful of vendors that I do not want to pitch into a swirling abyssal vortex. The expo itself was a little lean on actual vendors, but HP and Dell were there, and my CDW-G vendor was flogging Lenovo pretty hard. I hadn’t the heart to really bust down Lenovo despite it being a cross between an IBM Stink-Pad and Cheap Chinese Plastic Crap. I can’t really get down on Lenovo too harshly, at least there wasn’t a Lexmark pusher there! Lexmark gets pitched into that aforementioned vortex.

Apple was pleasant as usual. I really love the company, and AppleCare itself can’t be beat, but my previous run-ins with Apple Sales has left me feeling a little quixotic. They aren’t as hold-your-hand as the rest of Apple is, but they are attentive and the reflected glory from the mothership in Cupertino does them a lot of good, but while I’m seeking out the ARD Development Team for body-breaking hugs, the sales team has always left me feeling rather tepid. They respond very positively when you tell them you’re sending clients their way, but everything else isn’t really that exciting for them, which I totally understand, but it is a little surprising that sales isn’t as rabid as the rest of them are.

Something that is coming up is iOS management. I’ve got a new systems contact at Apple, a fellow by the name of David Seebaldt. Should be interesting to see what he is going to recommend for us. Currently we’ve got 6 iPads in play and 3 iPhones. I fully expect that level to rise with time. I think one of my first queries will be why iPhone, and no other iOS device displays a single-Library preference. iPod Touches, iPod Nanos, and even iPads can touch as many iTunes Libraries as they like, but iPhones? One central library, the first one they see, and that’s it. It’s as if the iPhone imprints on the first Library it sees and that’s it for life. Odd.

I certainly hope that they get more foot traffic, because the lunch-time period wasn’t so rah-rah-rah.

Federal Budgets

Posted on by
Reply

Watching bloggers go bonkers reporting that Social Security may be cut to balance the government’s budget has me laughing all the way to Apocalypse. What is it that people thought? Social Security is a time-shifting Ponzi Scheme that isn’t illegal because the government runs it. It gratifies the liberal in me and makes absolutely no sense economically especially when we have an upside-down-triangle shaped population as ranked by age (thanks WW2 baby boom!).

When people catch wind that an entitlement as big as Social Security or one as fundamental as Medicare is threatened everyone instantly closes their eyes and power-stuffs their head into the sand – wham wham thhhwap plork!

I tweeted a while back that it would be an interesting time when the government was faced with Social Programs vs. Military Spending. This particular versus is an insidious one, because if either side wins it’s an economic apocalypse. It’s a Catch-22 as well, since you can’t keep this kind of spending going forever, eventually China will go apeshit and demand that we take the borrowing we’re fleecing them for seriously. In many regards, USA(SSI vs. DoD) Vs. China. If we cut Social Security we’ll have outrage, panic, and most likely a spike in heart attacks. If we cut Medicare we’ll have a lot of dead elderly as medical care will become catastrophically unaffordable. If we touch military spending then we’ll harm the military-industrial complex and the massive flow of cash out of the DoD and back into the general economy will squelch and then we’ll have another economic collapse. So, if we all play a very good game of pretend, we can ignore that problem as long as none of us do any kind of simple mathematics. That is until China can’t stand the Catch-22 they are in with us and stop lending us money. They know that it’s disaster if they stop, but eventually they’ll have to, and then we’ll stop buying all that cheap chinese plastic crap and their economy will tumble as well.

This is epic level drama whore material. “May you live in interesting times!” Indeed a blessing and a curse! Afghanistan nearly broke the Soviets, and it’s going to break us. What’s the practical upshot? Massive hyperinflation as the US Treasury prints billions of worthless dollars in a last-ditch effort to keep the mighty US economy from total collapse. Those of us who are filthy debtors are going to be the only ones dancing in the streets as our debt, which is not keyed to inflation quickly pay off the numbers, and then we’ll follow the rest of you down the whirling economic toilet hole that is our collective future.

All it takes is time. In the meantime it will be interesting to see how the Federal Government responds to these ever-mounting pressures. Which will buckle first? Entitlements or Defense? Anyone care to toss the dice?

Chainfire

Posted on by
Reply

It all started with a comic exchange about the fetish that some southerners have to mowing their lawn. That they do so in conditions that make sitting on a rain-soaked lump of steel during an electrical storm appear to be exclamations to evolution to come and weed them out of the gene pool. It struck me that these people could be riding along, get hit by lightning and then the tractor they are sitting on could explode and shoot a gout of flaming gasoline onto their house setting that on fire.

That started the idea that I’ve had for a long time. That there exists situations where the worst possible thing could actually ignite a chain of comically bad consequences. One of my favorites starts with a teeny Earthquake and then proceeds to lead to one path for the Apocalypse. It all starts with a 9.5 Earthquake under New Madrid, Missouri. That of course annihilates New Madrid (see ya) and the energy released causes the San Andreas to finally let go, which would of course need to be more than a 10 on the Richter scale. That pushes the western ridge of California into the Pacific, and pretty much all of California is annihilated (oops, bye bye) and of course the lateral shift would push a huge mass of water out and that would initiate a real Tsunami, so Midway and Hawaii would see maybe a little rise in water level, but Japan… oh… bye bye. The energy released for both faults going off so close together causes Mt. Hood to erupt (bye Oregon) and the differential in magma + the earth ringing like a bell from both events sets off the Yellowstone supervolcano. It’s 600,000 year store of pressure is released, perhaps 15 on the Richter scale opens up something fantastic right under Yellowstone. So immediately we’ve lost California, Missouri, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Hawaii might be under seawater, and Japan would definitely also be lost. The supervolcano rages for maybe a month, shooting millions of tons of ash and pyroclastic material high into the atmosphere. The Jet Stream takes all this fine particulate material and pushes it all the way out to Newfoundland. The dimming of sunlight causes an epic crop failure, the pyroclastic grit causes all dwellings in the precipitation path to collapse from the weight and then as people drive around with the grit in the air they destroy all the mechanical modes of conveyance through abrasion and failure leaving us in scattered communities only bridged by people willing to walk outside. Without a rebreather-kit the grit would likely lead to widespread development of Mesothelioma in anything that breathed the air. The United States practically starves to death, the US Economy collapses, which then sets off China as their currency collapses (debt based on the full faith of  a place that no longer exists, really) and that would affect every other world economy, leading to an extinction-level event. Practically the only really safe people would be aboard the ISS. As of today, that would be six people left.

Dear Dr. Hawking, it’s a damn shame nobody is listening to you. I hope the people up in the ISS have a woman and a way back down, up there. 🙂