Ain’t that the bomb,,,

Mike mentions it in his post that leads directly back to Kim du Toit, a blogger from my foggy past while on Blogger,,,

THIS IS AMERCIA where no one knows how to fix anything anymore,,,,

And you can drop the blame for that right in the laps of Corporate America,,,, Notably, the car makers,,,(though they are not the only ones to blame,,,  The whole Planned Obselesence thing is very much to blame,,,)

I have to poke around inside of controllers and such when I am doing installs on powered gates, and I can tell you, that there is ZERO chance of repairing most of our units. How can you swap out a blown capacitor in a unit SEALED UP in PE or Epoxy? You can’t, you end up needing to replace entire components/boards.

I recall when my EX picked up a new 2005 MiniCooper S and I popped the hood,,,, (I wanted to see an inline 4 with a supercharger bolted on it) My question at the time was “Where the F is the engine?!?!?” It was encased in all of these plastic doohickies to make the engine compartment ‘streamlined’ and appealing to those that aren’t used to that view. (and one reason I still love classic motorcycles, that big honkin’ engine wrapped so lovingly in a barely there frame but ALL OF IT right out there for the world to see,,,) And finding parts for that vehicle? HA!!!! couldn’t even get brake pads for it, DEALER ONLY!!! and if I had done the work: No Warranty work EVER again,,,, And even the techs at BMW (you did know that minicoopers are made by BMW now, right?) told me, “everything is pod swaps, you can repair nothing on this car.” When EX wanted the cruise control installed (she paid for it but it didn’t come on it) they swapped out a pod on the column and suddenly the car had full cruise control, they did nothing extra nor added a thing under the hood (and where they would have put it there, I have no clue,,,,)

Shit is planned to fail, Just like the keypad I just had to replace at a clients location,,,, 2 year warranty, keypad was 26 months old, and suddenly couldn’t keep power from the batteries; it was burning through a battery every four days,,,, And its not like they were special Lipo batteries or anything, just standard off the shelf 9v. The new unit even came with one; a Rayovac (I didn’t even know that company was still around!!!)

I know it could be dropped in the lap of ‘Capitalism’, that this was inevitable, but I hate to go down that road because I think capitalism is where our future needs to be. (TRUE free-market capitalism, not this over regulated one shade away from full blown socialist Cronie Capitalism shit we have now.) I had that Old Soutbend 9″ and it will be 100 years old in four years. (and the guy that bought that was happy as hell to get it,,, saddens me that I felt the need to part ways with it,,,,) and will likely last another 100 (or more) if taken care of. That sort of manufacturing will likely never come back because the original company can’t make any money off its products after the initial purchase, and there is only so many buyers for each product,,, This country (or any other for that matter) hasn’t made stuff like that in 60 years. The cars from the 70’s are getting to be rarer than the cars from the 50’s and early 60’s (because they rust away faster,,,) The old engine blocks hold up better (IMO) because of better alloys of steel and aluminum.

Hell, I see it everyday at work, the steel I weld on today requires more care to work, not just because its thinner, but because there are other materials in it, like high sulfur content (you can smell it) or worse, high levels of TIN within the steel itself (sparky sparky, watch the pipe go POOF!!!)

Remember the Car Buyback (cash for klunkers)under Oblammy-o-boy? Guess where all that steel went? CHINA,,,, and who is selling it back to us with very little quality control? CHINA,,,, and I would bet they had better control over all that steel they used to build up thier Naval vessels. They bought that shit at firesale prices and we are buying it back at serious markup, BUT, it isn’t the same quality, not even close,,,

TIA,,,, *sigh*

and we let it happen, and in some ways ASKED for it, because everyone wants a deal when they are spending that hard earned money,,, And thats is part and parcel of why Corporate types want Planned Obselesence, to keep the money flowing IN, and keep the coffers full by not needing to replace stuff under warranty because it (most likely) WON’T fail until after that point,,,, Those days of heavy machine tools for the home user, like the Southbend Lathes, are long gone. The “Muscle cars” of today won’t hold together like the ones earlier,,,

And Harley is talking about phasing out their STANDARD, into ‘all electric’,,,,

Aw FUCK NO!!!! Talk about a ‘killer deal’, as in ‘it will be the death bell for HD as a company’,,, S&S will have to fill the bill for aftermarket stuff for those already out and running,,,(and I am not a Harley fanboy, Owned one, granted, an AMF POS, but hated it,,, I loved my Yammy Virago 920 though (heavily coustomized by yours truly),,, and if I could find another,,,,)

Maybe I (and others as well) am jumping the gun saying “no one can fix anything”,, many many ‘shadetree’ mechanics in the world so someone can fix ‘something‘ obviously. The fact that there are places like Rock Auto tells me there is still a market for those that DO FIX IT,,,

BUT, I wonder how many are still able to machine parts from scratch, even just simple bearing faces of bronze.,, things that made owning my own Engine Lathe worthwhile. (big honking machine but no shop to put it in,,, ) Things you would be hard pressed to do on a Harbor Freight bench lathe with its plastic gears and 1/10HP motor,,,, (and have you noticed the total lack of knowledge of what constitutes and engine/motor,,,, I saw an electric car add touting the ‘dual engines’, one for each drive wheel,,,,, WTF?,,, There is a VERY real difference between the two,,,)

And there is a reason I started that whole learning process back in 2008, for machining, foundry, casting and other aspects of the metal industry. I was certain we were going full ‘Endarkenment’ within the decade,,,, That we have not,,,, No words,,, but full incredulous awe that the bankers have managed to keep collapse scheduled to ‘tomorrow, sometime, but tomorrow never comes,,,’ It will, when there is nothing to hold the center together, and as fast as this machine is spinning, the shits gonna come apart eventually,,,,

Hell, even if the collapse keeps getting stalled, there will be a time where people at this level are scraping the barrel bottoms and people such as myself are going to keep things running, or at least limping strongly,,,,(just take a look at Cuba,,,)

same thread, different course,,, Had a conversation with the emp of a client while I was out there installing/programming thier new keypad. He brought up the ‘there isn’t anything new under the sun’ thing, mostly about how much of the modern day conveinences we take for granted are tech that is over one hundred years old. Our Electric Grid,,, New bells and whistles to control it, direct it etc, but the base,,, The generation of,,, All over 100. Our engines in our cars/trucks. New bells and whistles to make them more efficient, higher tolerances and (questionably) better longevity (at least in the short term, maintanence-wise) but, when its comes down to it, its still “suck squeeze bang blow‘ . Now, it could be pointed out that we also have all this great tech now days that is closer to a decade or two in age, but reality,,, Our computers are still based on simple switches: on or off, and there were computers back in the early parts of the last century that operated on the same points. Granted they were dumber than a pocket calculator and bigger than a megaplex warehouse,,, but the basic concept,,,, Still the Same,,,, even the phone in your hand that you might be reading this on uses that simple on/off switch set-up to display these ‘printed’ words.

We may see a breakthrough with Quantum Computers,,, Dunno, too early yet IMO,,, But there are inroads being made. Time will tell.

The point though,,,, We are and have been living on the shoulders of Giants for a long time, but no one has created anything TRULY new in a long ass time. Watt was one of the first and great (debatable of course, we could go months and gallons of beer talking/arguing the finer points), and reciprocating motions are still in play to this day, even if the application has seen evolution that would astound him.

And there were giants that were ‘removed’ from the game and no one really knows what direction they were headed in. I mention Tesla (the man, not the car) as one, and maybe he was onto something and that his notes and records dissappeared so completely,,,, And this whole DAARPA thingamajig that the ‘tin foil hat wearers’ keep talking about,,, There was records of Tesla creating something was supposedly capable of that sort of feat,,, Makes one wonder if the notes are still alive and active in some lab somewhere,,, Dunno, I am just some blogger dood that makes words for fun and welds to pay the bills,,,, a VERY tiny fish in a great BIG murky ocean of bigger fish…

To be honest, I know about enough to spot the bullshit (like perpetual motion designs,,,) and question that ‘we know it all’ (never, not possible,, and more we have no clue we don’t even know about.,,) And maybe we took the wrong turn at some point and the tech we use is LOCKING us at this stage,,, Again, DUNNO.

What I do know, TRUE INNOVATION is a very very rare spark, but when it happens, it usually disrupts entire world societies, and maybe, just maybe, we are on the verge of a major breakthrough, like ‘warp drive’ or somesuch,,,,

OR, they already made the breakthrough, and the World Governments are trying to keep it hush hush since it would mean an end to their powerhold,,,,

Too many aspects, and all Story fodder for books past and future

and Truth is ALWAYS stranger than fiction,,,