Day Off

Mike didn't send me a picture of his mower, so I went looking for one. Found lot's of pictures of Toro mowers, but they are ubiquitous, something this orange '49 Jacobsen two stroke reel mower is not.

Michigan Mike reports:

55 today. Life lessons continue. Major lessons are of little consequence, decisions made long ago determined those outcomes, more or less a payload at this point, like a turtle in a rocketship.

I have the leisure to examine a technical memory and maybe understand better what memory actually is.

The simple case is this: I pull started my old lawnmower, then the wheel fell off, fixed the wheel (the stud snapped off, it was an age thing more than neglect), then the lawnmower would not start. Always reliable machine, odd. 2-stroke Toro. Found it in an alley 20 years ago gummed up as all consumer 2-strokes are from too much oil in the mix.

With the additional wisdom available in the new age, I immediately went by habit to my browser and searched "no spark", forgoing my own knowledge to prefer an easy answer, but it was not forthcoming. Mopingly disassembled the top covers and removed the coil to replace it, to match pictures and number on the net. Decided to check continuity, and finding instruction that warned severely against trusting an "auto-ranging" an ohm meter over an induction coil, I doubted the validity of my test but discovered an intemittant break by twisting the spark plug cap.

I pulled the cap off the wire and only then recognized the fix I had put in 15+ years ago. I felt quite stupid that it had not occurred to me. It could have been fixed without any disassembly.

So much I do now requires sitting down, thinking, drawing, napping, waking, drinking tea, drawing again, puttting it aside for a couple of days, and if I'm lucky enough to remember what it was needing to be done, re-examining it and still counting on doing it wrong.

As I work up to reassembly of the mower, I found this article, and the most salient quote from it:

"Results from the experiment. Some teachers refused to continue with the shocks early on, despite urging from the experimenter. This is the type of response Milgram expected as the norm. But Milgram was shocked to find those who questioned authority were in the minority. Sixty-five percent (65%) of the teachers were willing to progress to the maximum voltage level."

Shockers shockingly shocked. Heh,