Monday, November 09, 2015
Terrifying moment!
Dramatic headline:
Terrifying moment when great white shark attacks cage-divers in South Africa!
Heart-stopping footage shows a great white shark ploughing into a divers' cage in Gansbaai, luckily missing tourists by inches!
Well, okay... but these divers are in a cage. They're WORKING FOR A LIVING, and they know what they're doing.
Why don't we have headlines for other scary activities, like what I was doing earlier today?
Terrifying moment when TOXIC MOLTEN LEAD flowed uncontrollably over TWISTED STRIPPED NAKED COPPER FILAMENTS! Heart-stopping footage shows a SHARP 400 DEGREE IRON penetrating the MOLTEN TOXIC LEAD!
The simple answer is that sharks are natural predators and solder isn't. We have an innate and thoroughly rational fear of sharks.
But in strictly objective terms the scariness is opposite. You can get killed by electrical work. About 450 deaths each year, compared to an average of 0.5 deaths from sharks per year. So you're 1000 times more likely to die from a shock than a shark. (Unless you're in Boston, where FUCKIN SHAWKS and FUCKIN SHAWKS are the same thing.)
What do I think when I complete a junction? "Gray? No, shiny. Melted to both wires? Yup. Good one."
I've never done anything remotely like shark fishing, but I'll BET those dudes are thinking along similar lines. They're mentally checking the qualities of the shark and its suitability for sale. "Smooth? Yup. Scarred? Nope. Good one."
It's a job.
Serious point: I doubt that soldering will ever be terrifying or even appealing as a displayable art. Nevertheless it IS a craft. It's part of MAKING THINGS, and it has its own little satisfactions of sight, sound and smell.
We outsourced electronic assembly before anything else, suicidally giving the consumer radio/TV business to Japan in 1958. We not only outsourced manufacturing, we redesigned things to be disposable instead of fixable.
Russia didn't outsource electronics or ANY of the basic skills of industry. Russia kept making things to be fixable.
Now we wonder why their military is able to function quickly and unconfusedly in Syria. We wonder why their rockets fly and ours flounce. We wonder why our men are drinking death and rioting.
A man needs to make things. If he can't make things he will break things.
Terrifying moment when TOXIC MOLTEN LEAD flowed uncontrollably over TWISTED STRIPPED NAKED COPPER FILAMENTS! Heart-stopping footage shows a SHARP 400 DEGREE IRON penetrating the MOLTEN TOXIC LEAD!
The simple answer is that sharks are natural predators and solder isn't. We have an innate and thoroughly rational fear of sharks.
But in strictly objective terms the scariness is opposite. You can get killed by electrical work. About 450 deaths each year, compared to an average of 0.5 deaths from sharks per year. So you're 1000 times more likely to die from a shock than a shark. (Unless you're in Boston, where FUCKIN SHAWKS and FUCKIN SHAWKS are the same thing.)
What do I think when I complete a junction? "Gray? No, shiny. Melted to both wires? Yup. Good one."
I've never done anything remotely like shark fishing, but I'll BET those dudes are thinking along similar lines. They're mentally checking the qualities of the shark and its suitability for sale. "Smooth? Yup. Scarred? Nope. Good one."
It's a job.
Serious point: I doubt that soldering will ever be terrifying or even appealing as a displayable art. Nevertheless it IS a craft. It's part of MAKING THINGS, and it has its own little satisfactions of sight, sound and smell.
We outsourced electronic assembly before anything else, suicidally giving the consumer radio/TV business to Japan in 1958. We not only outsourced manufacturing, we redesigned things to be disposable instead of fixable.
Russia didn't outsource electronics or ANY of the basic skills of industry. Russia kept making things to be fixable.
Now we wonder why their military is able to function quickly and unconfusedly in Syria. We wonder why their rockets fly and ours flounce. We wonder why our men are drinking death and rioting.
A man needs to make things. If he can't make things he will break things.Labels: Make or break, switchover
¶ 5:05 PM
