Thursday, April 8, 2010
Crash
Iowa man sent me a link to a story in The NY Times that contained this clip. The weird thing is that this was a produced by an agency that is funded by the insurance companies, not by the US government. Everybody complains about the government making all these rules, but here we have business pushing for those rules. People just like to complain.
Most people would expect a head-on collision at 40 MPH to be a disaster. It would be a miracle if you walked away from it. But walking away is the probable outcome if you are driving a modern car.
People are generally very materialistic. They look at the material destruction resulting from a crash and immediately think of the loss in terms of their pocket book. They don't see the damage to the people involved. For some reason that's private, or too grisly to be shown. But it's the damage to the people that is significant. Cars can be replaced without qualm: they don't have any feelings*. People are another matter. America is like Disneyland in that respect: anything really bad gets shielded from public view.
*Problem with believing that inanimate objects have no feelings is that it is hard to reconcile with the number of times I have taken apart something that wasn't working, found nothing wrong, put it back together and it started working. My theory is that the device was just feeling neglected.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Tweeters
I don't have a cell phone, I don't use Twitter or Facebook or any other social networking software. I still have a landline, though I have been wondering if a cell phone might be cheaper, but that would mean calling Verizon and that would mean an hour of my day shot to heck dealing with their robo-cop menu system, their plethora of conditions and qualifications, all just to find out how much my landline actually costs. And then there would another call to Verizon Wireless to get hooked on with the cell phone network. Bah. And who knows if it would save me any money. With the way they bundle things, there is no telling how much anything actually costs anymore.
Somewhere along the way I ran into the phrase "Everything you know is wrong" and it happened to hit me just at just the right time and I agreed. Wikipedia attributes the phrase to a Firesign Theater album from 1974, and the time frame is about right. A couple of years later I finally decided my old man was right and I went back to college and got a degree.
I think that phrase is what got me started on trying to figure out how the world works. I think I sort of have it figured out now, and it isn't pretty. So maybe I'm a little more serious/highly stressed than most people. Or maybe I'm just Mr. Cranky.
Syaffolee was writing about Twitter and the title of this song popped into my head and the rest, as they say, is history.
Freefall MOAB
This is a video of a bomb drop. The bomb is MOAB - the Mother Of All Bombs. The interesting thing is how long the bomb is in freefall, which tells us how high up it was when it was dropped. Which makes me wonder what kind of camera they were using to make this video.
Amusement
Via a link from Grouchy Old Cripple, via Dustbury. This animation is worthy of mention because all of the activities are synchronized. They aren't really are running separately, it's a GIF, and the whole thing is only a few frames, I'm thinking a couple of dozen at most, but because there is so much going on all the actions look independent. Or maybe I'm just impressed because my mind can't grasp the whole thing. Near as I can tell, it was created by Diane Baugh of Kaukauna, Wisconsin, who does not seem to have a presence on the internet, which is a pretty amazing fact all by itself. That's two (2!) amazing things in one post! You should be feeling really amazed now.
Update February 2017 replaced missing image.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
China
I was poking around the web and I came across these pictures of workers in Chinese factories. I had always imagined more of the utter chaos model of production: people working their fingers to the bone putting little do-ma-flatchers together, bosses running around screaming di-di-mao, boxes piled higgeldy-piggeldy up to the ceilings, frayed wires dangling, dim lights, etc. Instead we have these orderly, clean, well lighted, enormous rooms filled with people and modern equipment. Of course, it could still be hell-on-earth for the workers, but it certainly upset my imaginary Chinese factory.
Most of the photos are from Work in China - photographs by Edward Burtynsky
Being as we (the US) are China's biggest customer, they have also been affected by our economic crisis. We aren't buying like we used to, so many of their factories have been shutting down, putting Chinese people out of work.
For some time the PRC (People's Republic of China) has been holding the value of the yuan artificially low, which means the goods they produce are really cheap, so we buy from them instead of making them ourselves. China's fearless leaders can get away with this as long as their workers are willing to work for a pittance, and apparently they are, being as China is still mostly a subsistence agrarian economy. At least I think it is. True, they have a large middle class now, and they buy more Buicks than we do, but they have almost three times as many people. So if they had a middle class as big as our entire country, and the rest of the country was still peasants, it would still be a mostly agrarian economy.
I am not sure what advantage the PRC gets from holding the down the value of the Yuan. They get fewer dollars for what they sell, but possibly they are able to continue making and selling stuff even when other people try to compete. By selling it cheaper than everyone else, they drive everyone else out of business, and when the rest of the world's production capacity is destroyed, China will rule the world! Bwah ha ha ha! That sounds like something their evil Communist overlords would like. On the other hand it sounds a little too obvious for inscrutable orientals.
Most of the photos are from Work in China - photographs by Edward Burtynsky
Being as we (the US) are China's biggest customer, they have also been affected by our economic crisis. We aren't buying like we used to, so many of their factories have been shutting down, putting Chinese people out of work.
For some time the PRC (People's Republic of China) has been holding the value of the yuan artificially low, which means the goods they produce are really cheap, so we buy from them instead of making them ourselves. China's fearless leaders can get away with this as long as their workers are willing to work for a pittance, and apparently they are, being as China is still mostly a subsistence agrarian economy. At least I think it is. True, they have a large middle class now, and they buy more Buicks than we do, but they have almost three times as many people. So if they had a middle class as big as our entire country, and the rest of the country was still peasants, it would still be a mostly agrarian economy.
I am not sure what advantage the PRC gets from holding the down the value of the Yuan. They get fewer dollars for what they sell, but possibly they are able to continue making and selling stuff even when other people try to compete. By selling it cheaper than everyone else, they drive everyone else out of business, and when the rest of the world's production capacity is destroyed, China will rule the world! Bwah ha ha ha! That sounds like something their evil Communist overlords would like. On the other hand it sounds a little too obvious for inscrutable orientals.
Quote of the Day
The old sheriff was attending an awards dinner when a lady commented on his wearing his sidearm. 'Sheriff, I see you have your pistol. Are you expecting trouble?'From Snig's Spot.
'No Ma'am. If I were expecting trouble, I would have brought my shotgun.'
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