If it Was Gone, You Would Miss It

I have been trying to save money by rehabilitating my old motorcycle helmet, and it has been a struggle.

I left it in the garage, and mildew got into the lining. To get it out, I applied dishwashing liquid, iodophor solution, Febreze, and bleach (twice). Finally, the smell went away. But so did some of the glue that held the helmet together. There’s a strip of vinyl that covers the edge of the helmet so it doesn’t rub the wearer’s neck, and it flat fell out. There’s a scoop on the back of the helmet, for funneling air in, and it fell off, too. A couple of other parts also went AWOL.

It’s really annoying. This is an Arai Quantum helmet, and before I bought it, I read that the lining could be removed for washing. And that is true, if by “removed,” you mean “torn out and completely destroyed.” It’s glued in place. So once the helmet starts to stink, you have a real job on your hands. If you were to buy this helmet now, you could expect to spend $350 or more. It’s not a cheapo. You would think this kind of money would buy better quality.

It also has a horrible mechanism for removing the visor. People who have mastered it say it’s simple. The rest of us break things when we try it. And Arai’s parts site doesn’t work. I broke one of the parts; I hope it isn’t important.

I finally found something that will bond the old parts to the helmet. Rubber cement. So I think it will hold up for a few more months. But in case it doesn’t, I’m researching new ones.

If you’re a rider, you may find this useful. It looks like Shark and OGK make better helmets than Arai, and you can get them cheaper if you look around.

There is a lot of controversy about the best way to make a helmet. Different organizations put out different standards. Examples are the Snell and DOT standards. Based on empirical testing, many people now think the Snell standard causes injuries, because the helmets are so stiff, they shoot g-forces directly to the head instead of absorbing them. That sounds reasonable to me. The Snell people are really in a snit about it, though.

I would not buy another Arai helmet. Mine has been falling apart for years. The scoop on the top is held on by tiny strips of two-sided tape. I’m not kidding. And you can imagine how likely you are to find it when it comes off in the rain. Yesterday I glued my scoop back on permanently. I can’t imagine why Arai didn’t do this the first time around. Maybe they have some concern about the glue weakening the helmet. I tend to doubt that this is a real possibility. Losing the scoop, on the other hand, is nearly a certainty.

I may get a Shark RSX. I can get a discontinued model for a little over $200. It has a removable liner, a safety standard I like better, a thicker visor, better comfort, and…other stuff. It’s made in France, but I can get over that with time and therapy. They made a couple of designs incorporating the stars and stripes, and they also have a plain silver helmet which is not offensive.

Ebay has a few used “like new” helmets. Here’s what my MSF instructor told us: do not buy used. If you drop your helmet, buy a new one. Helmets can sustain damage you can’t see. Then when you need them, they fail. I don’t know if it’s true, but I prefer not to find out.

Oddly, the MSF supplied my class with used helmets which had almost certainly been dropped at least once.

I guess we signed waivers.

Interesting factoid: cheap helmets are as safe as expensive ones. The differences are in features and comfort. I have a spare helmet I bought a long time ago because I knew a girl who kept asking for a ride, and I spent $60. Is it a good helmet, apart from safety? No idea. My head won’t fit in it. You can spend $60 and get a safe helmet, or you can spend $400 and get a safe helmet that looks good and isn’t torture to wear.

You should wear a full-face helmet, because impact on your lower jaw can be transferred to the base of your skull, and that will do bad things to your spine. Like severing it.

Won’t do your jaw a whole lot of good, either.

I got the mildew out of my saddlebags and helmet. The gloves, I wrote off. Green isn’t my color anyway.

More useful info a surprising number of people don’t know: you should wear ear plugs when you ride. Because of exhaust noise, right? Wrong. Plugs will still be needed even after the silent fuel-cell motorcycle is perfected. The noise is from the wind. It’s subtle, but still dangerous.

France. I really need to come to grips with that.

I’ll Send Marv Out for an Olive Branch

What a morning. You could say we’re having a bit of a drizzle. By that I mean it looks like dusk outside, the sound of thunder never quite goes away, and you would not be able to walk ten feet out there without getting soaked.

This is Tuesday. Every Tuesday, I have breakfast with my dad at a local deli. We’ll be a little late today. In weather like this you have to wait for a lull so you can brave the little segments between your car and shelter.

The Internet connection keeps flickering. I’m glad I don’t have any great need for it today.

Weather Underground says the local humidity is 100%. Doesn’t that mean we’re under water?

It’s funny how much it can rain here in a short time. The other day, Miami Beach got nine inches overnight. Mike and I grew up in a low-lying neighborhood with bad drainage. We used to take his jonboat out when it rained hard. We rode it up and down the street. The water in my yard got so deep once, my dog–a huge German shepherd–resorted to swimming. Kids went boogie-boarding on the sidewalk.

It’s a wonder we didn’t die of cholera after getting in that water.

It’s tapering off a little. Maybe it’s time to leave.

More: Honesty in Government

I decided to check the water situation, including watering restrictions, online. We’ve had a drought, so there are annoying rules that change a lot. Here’s the URL of a site I was directed to: weuseless.miamidade.gov/home.html.

Isn’t that nice? Government employees, admitting they’re useless.

Another Score

The fishing was great today, although we didn’t make enough of an effort to take advantage. We hit two schools of dolphin in about 2200 feet of water. The first bunch was small. The second were bigger. We weren’t really prepared to deal with a school, so we only boated a few. Val was the only guest, so I didn’t consider it a serious outing.

Here’s the end result:

Got home from sweating on a hot boat…to find that the air conditioning was on the fritz. Man, that hurt. I was really looking forward to hitting that cold air when I walked in, but it wasn’t there. Got a guy coming to look at it. I’m hoping it’s the capacitor on the compressor again. Not sure why they only go out on Saturday.

Other than that, phenomenal day.

Outing Planned

We’re fishing again tomorrow! Looks like Val will be on hand, and he might bring fellow Babalu member Henry Gomez.

The wind is not making me happy. To catch dolphin, you want an east wind. If you can’t get an east wind, you at least want to avoid a west wind. Somehow, the fish know. And one report says the wind may blow from the south-southwest in the morning. That’s almost west.

I consider it a boat ride with my dad and friends. I am too old and fat to do a good job of fishing. I can do a fine job in a small boat by myself, but when you add one or two more people, it’s just too much. No one knows how to rig baits or tie hooks on, so I run in circles all the time, helping everyone else. If something goes wrong with the boat, that goes on my plate, too. So these days I don’t really worry about catching anything. I hope we do, but not enough to pass out from heat stroke.

It’s great to spend time out there with my father. We missed a lot of opportunities when I was a kid. It’s surprising how well you can erase memories like that by doing things together later in life.

“At the Age of Nine, I Realized Wrestling Alligators was More Than a Casual Hobby…”

I have been finishing up my 2011 continuing legal education obligation. It’s a tough ordeal. There are hard choices.

The way CLE works is like this. Other lawyers cover part of their own requirement by performing in CLE lectures, and then the Florida Bar charges you insane amounts of money to watch them. The cost for this stuff is outrageous. You need 30 hours, and one hour can cost $40. There is other CLE out there. Why not use it? Because the bar places its videos in courthouse libraries. I’m not sure why they charge $1200 if you buy it, while sending it to libraries that give it away, but hey, it’s government in action.

To make matters worse, you can’t order 30 hours. You have to take it in chunks. If you take three courses, and the closest you can come to 30 hours is 34 hours, tough. Consider the extra money a donation.

You can find very short, cheap courses to pad the list. This is very helpful. The bar has a one-hour online ethics program for nothing. That will put me within half an hour of my goal.

Guess what I’m choosing to fill that half hour? It’s gut-wrenching. They offer a $35, 23-minute “historical video” about…Janet Reno. The woman who presided over Dade County’s criminal justice system when you could hardly walk out to get your newspaper without getting shot. The lady who was responsible for Waco.

I don’t care. It’s SHORT. The other ones are an hour long. That’s just too much. And a lot of them are about liberal judges. They would just give me ulcers.

This stuff is nearly worthless. When I practice, I don’t rely on superficial videos. I research until I am convinced I can’t be bitten in the rear end by ignorance. There is no comparison. Any lawyer who relies on CLE in a lawsuit deserves to be sued into the dirt. I hope no such person exists. And if you don’t know this stuff from your own research and simply from talking to the lawyers you work with, you should probably turn in your license.

Maybe the ethics stuff is useful. After all, what lawyer, in the course of his practice, researches the counterintuitive and seemingly capricious reasons the bar uses to punish its members? CLE taught me that you can actually be disbarred for rudeness; I would never have guessed that from what I’ve seen. Most lawyers behave just fine, but jerks are not rare.

I’ve noticed a difference between doctors and lawyers. Maybe I’m wrong; I don’t know too much about medical education. Lawyers almost automatically lionize any low-life bottom-feeder who makes money in tort cases. If you win lawsuits and make big money, you are considered worthy to teach other lawyers. I don’t think doctors idolize other doctors just because they’re rich. I’m pretty sure a doctor has to be good at what he does in order to be asked to teach. You don’t have to be a great lawyer to make money; aggression, narcissism, and a strong stomach will take you a long way.

I did a few tort cases when I worked with my dad, but I don’t think we would have gotten rich from it, had we continued. The reason is that we automatically turned down unsound cases. That’s no way to build a tort practice. Tort lawyers don’t just make money from winning good cases. They make money scaring innocent defendants with bad cases. Like I heard a lawyer say in a CLE recording today, these days, a trial lawyer is lucky if he does two or three trials a year. Most cases are settled. And a really bad case will often get you some “get lost” money.

I had a case where I told the client to go away, as soon as I learned he was lying to me about what happened to him. I could have held on and tried to squeeze cash out of the defendant; it was a losing case, but they would probably have paid me several thousand dollars, in order to avoid paying more money to their own lawyer. As John Edwards demonstrates, not every tort lawyer cares whether a case is well grounded.

I can’t believe I’m going to pay to watch Janet Reno. I may need to spend a little extra. On a pint of tequila, to get me through it.

Fish Fotos

Got some more photos from last weekend’s fishing trip. Note my stylish boating garb.

Pressed Down and Shaken Together and Running Over

My old man wanted to fish, so fish we did. Did we have a good day? You could say so.

Maybe a cellphone shot of the blood in the cockpit will give you an idea.

That’s Val Prieto on the right. Evidently he thinks wearing a belt will queer the fishing.

It’s really sad that the sticks in the mud who make the fish rules put a size and bag limit on dolphin. Had they not, we would have come home with maybe 50 of them. I’m not even sure how many schools we hit. At least four. Maybe six. It got to the point where I was secretly hoping the fish would go away. We caught fish after fish, and because the fish know the size limit is 20″, about 90% of them were 19.92″ long. Over the side they went. By the dozen. I think. I’m not sure. I’m still wiped out. I just got back. There is fish blood on every part of me that was not covered, and some parts that were.

The day surprised us. We started with a school that produced one keeper, and then we had like four hours of nothing. We were so desperate, we started casting at a floating pallet, trying to catch ocean tallies and tripletails. The tallies were too small to eat, and here is the pathetic tripletail I caught. I’ve seen oscars that were bigger.

We were sort of heading in when we decided to try some patches of sargassum in about 1100 feet. We hooked a huge cow. Val’s 88-year-old godfather was with us, and he’s not doing well, and he got to reel it in, which was nice. It was well over three feet long. Judging from past fish of similar length, I’d say it weighed 35 pounds. Maybe 30. That’s a big dolphin. She brought a school with her, but they were tiny. When that school pooped out, we hit another and another. By the end of the day we had the cow plus five little fish.

I still have to wrap my share in foil and freeze it. Here’s a photo of the fish. That’s a 50-gallon cooler. The fish had to be bent to fit.

Saw a sailfish and a bunch of tuna jumping, but we couldn’t troll up anything but dolphin.

I have to go drink more water. I’ve been chugging tiny bottles of store water all day and my mouth is still dry. Kind of warm out there, and I’ve been busy.

Better fish photos later.

If it Moves, Outsource It

I am loving this. Reader Sally V. sent a link to a hilarious story indicating that outsourcing may be part of the solution to our health-care problems. In other words, as we have seen in other industries, when Americans charge too much, somebody else undercuts them and provides something better and cheaper.

Let’s see. Cars. Tech support. Machine tools. Electronics. Appliances. Cement. Can you believe we import cement? If we can profitably import something that heavy and cheap, we are in deep trouble.

What does that leave? Lap dances? Government? I guess you could say Barack Obama is outsourcing government to Tehran and Gaza, but the decisions are still filtered down through a lot of overpriced dead wood here in the States. It would be cheaper to have Abbas and Ahmedinejad run the country directly. No more $50,000 dinner dates for Obama and his wife.

Here’s the story. Guatemala has hospitals as good as our own, staffed by doctors trained in the US and Europe. They don’t have our Democrat-supported, parasitic tort problem. They are more efficient, because efficiency is too much to ask from the richest country in the world. And they need our business, and they are not taking our fees and dividing them up among strangers who don’t pay their bills. Or maybe they are, but the bite is much smaller.

You can fly there and live like a king while you get top-notch treatment, and when you come home with a nice tan, you’ll still be ahead by thousands of dollars. It’s cheap, even if they overcharge. What’s not to like?

I checked out medical tourism back when I was having gall bladder pains. I am not actually cheap, but I do resent paying more than I should. And American medical costs are obscene and unfair. Overseas treatment is a very good deal. You can go to places like India, for example. That may sound scary to you, but before you judge, maybe you should ask yourself how many turbans and dots you’ve seen at your local hospital. The Indians are not stupid, nor are they lazy or ignorant.

I guess medical people who read this will post self-serving comments, claiming I’m unpatriotic or that I need to support our ailing system with my dollars or that overseas care is risky. But the fact is, American doctors and hospitals charge much more than they’re worth, and they are not really better than foreign providers. I didn’t cause this problem. They did. Why should I put up with it? Buy your Mercedes honestly, if you want to keep me coming back.

I’ll give you an example which I have mentioned before. I had a kidney stone in 2003. I went to the emergency room. They gave me either an MRI or a CAT scan; I can’t recall which. I was there for maybe twelve hours. Cost? Over five thousand dollars. Treatment? None. They treated the pain (incompetently) and sent me home. I had to get leftover pills from someone else’s old prescription in order to get through the weekend.

Now, you can say I’m not a doctor, and that I don’t know what I needed. But that’s a stupid argument. Sometimes you have to be a doctor to know whether medical tests are justified, and sometimes you don’t. If I sprain my finger and someone tries to biopsy my liver, I am perfectly qualified to say he’s a crook or an idiot.

You don’t need expensive scans to diagnose kidney stones. Many, many thousands of patients have been sent home without even an x-ray. Doctors told them to wait and see if their stones passed. When they didn’t pass, the patients got surgery. In the meantime, they got antibiotics and painkillers. Today, they can give you an abdominal x-ray known as a KUB. Kidney stones show up on x-rays. I had a KUB in 2003, and it cost $250.

Where did the decision to get a KUB come from? A know-nothing disgruntled patient with no MD? No. It came from my urologist. After my hospital visit, I followed up with him. He gave me Percocet and Levaquin, and he told me to go home and pass the stone. After that happened, a lab looked at it for $40. He looked at the result and suggested a second expensive scan to make sure I was okay. I asked if that was absolutely necessary. He said a KUB would also be okay. The message was, “You can have a $5000 test or a $250 test. Either will work. Gosh, which would you rather have?”

If I hadn’t asked about the necessity of the scan, guess what would have happened? Five grand, down the toilet. For no reason whatsoever. I probably didn’t need the KUB, for that matter.

The urologist ended up charging something like $300, total. He even gave me sample antibiotics, for nothing. The hospital and drugstore got all the rest. And the hospital did very little for me. They even did the KUB. Maybe he got a kickback, but the fee went to the hospital.

I had a second kidney stone later, because I stupidly insisted on drinking huge amounts of tea in combination with dairy products. This time I called the urologist first, because it happened on a weekday, and I didn’t have to go to the ER. He has a receptionist who is so nasty she probably needs therapy. After thirty seconds on the phone with her, I decided not to get treatment. And I was fine. Saved six grand. Risked absolutely nothing except a little discomfort.

The purpose of the scan was to make money for the hospital, pure and simple. And it’s very typical.

Here’s a fun story. The brother of one of my college buddies became an ENT, and early in his practice, he learned he shouldn’t tell people not to get surgery. People came in for second opinions, and he told them they didn’t need to be cut up. The local doctors sat him down and told him he was not going to continue interfering with their cash flow. After that, he changed his ways. He’s not the only doctor in the US who has colleagues like that.

Medical care is too expensive. That’s the plain truth. It could be cheaper, but providers don’t care enough to make their prices fair. So if I can get better treatment in Guatemala, for less money, I’ll do it. Contrary to what gadget-crazy doctors may say, you don’t always need The Most Expensive Machine in the Hospital or The Machine That Goes “PING” to cure your constipation or warts or strep throat. They overtreat us because it makes them more money. If they can’t spend my money wisely, I may as well go to a nice hospital on the beach and recuperate with a pina colada in each hand.

The great thing about this plan is that liberals can’t interfere with it. They are not allowed to meddle with anything that makes health care cheap, even when it goes against their agenda in some fundamental way. Example: they won’t touch Canadian pharmacies. The excess money drug companies charge here in the states presumably goes to subsidize the lower prices they charge in places like Mexico and Bangladesh; it’s welfare, which liberals love. But if they try to explain that to greedy retirees who want cheap pills, they’ll get absolutely nowhere. Medical tourism is probably unstoppable, and it’s a great thing. It could destroy the monopoly that makes American health care overpriced, and it will probably improve the quality of care. Competition has a way of making things better. Look at the difference between a 2009 Ford and a 2009 Toyota, and compare it to the same difference in 1980. Ford still loses, but the margin is much smaller.

America is in a steep decline, but the free market is as strong as it has ever been. It is an eternal, fundamental principle of the universe. Like thermodynamics, it has an existence independent of our own. It existed before we did, and it will exist after the earth disappears. In the end, it always wins. If it sends me to sunny Guatemala instead of the Miami Heart Institute, so be it. I will manage to cope.

Sometimes Works Better in Theory

You know how I always talk about the problem of black anti-Semitism? Here’s a great comment I just received.

When has Minister ever caused you damn jews ever harm, you are just upset that his words about you ring true. There is an old Negro saying ” If you throw a rock into a pack of dogs the only one that will holla is the ONE THAT GETS HIT.’ QUIT CRYING YOU GUYS HAVEBEEN BUSTED!

That came from “Mr. Lee X Slave.” He has a swell blog where you can read about his admiration for that idiot, Farrakhan.

This kind of garbage is not rare. The web is packed with it.

This is what happens when an entire race is exempted from criticism.

Mancow and Hitchens Say So

I saw something interesting on the web last night. Looks like Eric “Mancow” Muller submitted to waterboarding and decided it was torture. After six seconds. That’s how long he lasted before giving up and asking to be released. And Christopher Hitchens, who was also waterboarded, agrees. Hitchens won’t even say how long he lasted. He’s embarrassed. Muller was trying to prove waterboarding is not torture. Now he is sure that it is. That proves his sincerity, when he says torture is the right word.

This is not a big surprise to me. What surprises me is that conservatives keep claiming it’s not torture. It is wrong to compare it to certain things our enemies have done, such as lowering live people into plastic-shredding machines, but that doesn’t mean it’s not torture.

A long time ago, I read that the CIA record for withstanding waterboarding was something like 20 seconds. I mean that a CIA employee who was voluntarily waterboarded lasted that long. After I saw that, I was content to agree that it was torture. Anything so unpleasant a serious government intelligence operative (no doubt trying to win a bet and impress his buddies) can’t stand it for half a minute is probably torture.

I’ve joked about how great it was that we were waterboarding the inbred idiots who were trying to destroy our cities, but I never said it in a serious way, because I thought waterboarding was a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn’t have joked about it, but hey, I’m human, and this isn’t the New York Times, and I’m no journalist. This is just a blog. I have joked about cancer and blindness and AIDS and God only knows what else, and so have most Americans. Doesn’t mean anything.

Now conservatives look silly, because people who mean well are using stupid phrases like “having a little water poured up your nose” to describe waterboarding. I can’t understand why waterboarding is so unpleasant. It doesn’t sound all that bad. But it’s clearly a terrible experience, and we ought to admit it.

I remember reading Jacobo Timerman’s books. He was an Argentinian Jew. He as kidnapped by his government, and they tortured him by applying electrodes to his bare skin and cranking up the voltage. I believe this is totally harmless, from a physical standpoint, because the amperage is tiny. Doesn’t sound all that bad, does it? But when he described his response, he said you don’t shout when they turn on the power. You howl. Apparently, the pain is so great, your self-control completely disappears instantaneously. So you don’t have to do anything invasive or disfiguring to torture a person. A little water may be more than sufficient.

I’ve thought about this a little, and it seems to me that the level of discourse on the subject is pretty low. People aren’t saying anything really intelligent. Just “torture bad” or “water up nose okay.”

I’m not sure I would back a total ban on torture. I would have to know more about it. I believe we should consider the possibility that the morality of torture depends on the circumstances. For example, I would not back torturing an enemy soldier to find out where his army planned to hit our troops, even if thousands of lives were at stake. But what about a terrorist who knows which Manhattan address is the location of a Muslim atom bomb? What if you had a few hours to get that kind of information? Would you seriously expect to rely on things like sleep deprivation and insults?

We should probably have one set of standards for uniformed enemies and another for terrorists who target civilians for no legitimate military purpose. We have long accepted the notion that ordinary soldier-to-soldier warfare has rules, even when a nation’s autonomy is at stake. But when an illiterate boob in a khaffiyah decides to roast several hundred thousand civilians alive, maybe he should be deemed to have given up his rights under the usual rules.

Think about this. Imagine you are attacked by a violent criminal, and you believe you’re in danger of serious injury, which, under the law, includes sexual assault. The law says you can do absolutely anything to that person, to incapacitate him and prevent the harm. You can push a knife through his eyeball. You can throw boiling oil in his face. You can set him on fire. You can park your car on him. Anything. His suffering isn’t even a legal consideration. Whatever means you have at hand, you are allowed to use, provided what you do is reasonable and not excessive under the circumstances. Maybe a person who tries to murder or maim a large number of noncombatants should have no more rights than a rapist or mugger.

But if that is true, even then, it is only true when no other methods will work.

Perhaps refraining from torture isn’t the way to maintain the moral high ground. Maybe the reasons we do it are what properly distinguish us from the backward savages who are trying to exterminate us.

Let’s Have Your Opinions

I’m thinking of upgrading my math software, even though I almost never use it. A very long time ago, I bought Mathcad and Maple. I also got the academic version of Mathematica. Now Mathcad is offering a very cheap upgrade, and if I get it, it will preserve my eligibility for future upgrades.

I am considering getting this software because my old version of Mathcad was fairly intuitive and easy to use, and on the rare occasions when I feel like doing a calculation, it’s a nice thing to have.

I know I have some readers who are scientifically inclined. Do any of you know whether the current version of Mathcad is any good?

You Wimps

Everyone is whining about how I’m going to burn the house down with my new air conditioner, so I guess I’ll give in, to placate them. Pansies.

Actually, I realized that converting my 40-amp circuit to a 60-amp circuit would be fairly easy. I’d have to replace the Romex from the box to the garage, and I’d have to replace six feet of conduit, and I’d have to run a few more feet of conduit, and then I could finish the job with a 20-amp breaker and a socket. This would be very safe, and I wouldn’t have to drill any holes through the foot-thick, solid concrete wall. And there would be no issues with power. This circuit would have my 24-amp compressor and a 9-amp air conditioner on it, so even with starting loads taken into account, it would never trip. And I won’t have to use wire nuts, because the line will fork into two #8 branches. I can screw the #6 directly to the poles or whatever they’re called in the disconnect box. I hate wire nuts.

As Og pointed out, a 60-amp breaker for a 9-amp air conditioner may not be the best possible answer. So the additional breaker will be a nice addition. I should get one for my lathe while I’m at it. Can’t hurt.

I wonder what 30 feet of 6-3 Romex costs. Probably seven thousand dollars, since copper seems to be taking forever to respond to the huge drop in metal prices. I wonder what I’ll do with the 8-3 I’m taking out. I already have twenty feet or so that I don’t know what to do with.

I like big wire. I’d rather pay more now that watch the house burn later.

I got a fun Ebay package today. My solid carbide half-inch center-cutting four-flute cutter arrived. I fondled it for quite a while. It’s used, but I could not see any wear on it. I thought these things were supposed to be insanely expensive, but I think I spent fifteen bucks including shipping. I ought to be able to amass a good starter set for under a hundred bucks. And it’s carbide! American-made carbide! Cool!

No Wonder Apple is Doing Well

My computer has been driving me nuts. It used to boot in 30 seconds, and now it takes all day. I found one of the reasons, and I thought I’d share it with you.

Windows XP has a feature called “search indexing” or something similar. It makes your computer root through its hard drive all day, looking for stuff and recording in it in order to make searches faster.

I am finally ready to assert, without reservation, that Microsoft’s people are hopelessly incompetent. I used to think the bizarre problems with their products had to be justified by considerations lay people can’t understand, but that’s not true. These people are just second-rate. The search thing is proof. No one in his right mind would put a thing like this in an operating system. How many times per week do you search your computer? I probably do it twice. If it’s slow, I don’t care. What I do care about is having my CPU run at 99% for half an hour, slowing everything to a crawl, so searches will be faster. It’s just plain stupid. You don’t have to be a computer whiz to realize how dumb this is. It’s like paying a maid to dust your entire house five times a day. The benefit can’t begin to measure up to the cost.

The thing that really used to make me question their ability was the unbelievably bad and unreliable networking software, coupled with help files so weak it is completely pointless to try to use them. But this is even dumber. It’s like something GM or Chrysler would do. The people at Apple are bumblers of the first order, but they can’t top this.

Well, maybe they can. I’m sure an angry Mac user will chime in. They exist. The Kool-Aid doesn’t work on everyone.

If you open the “Run” window and type “services.msc” and hit the Enter key, you’ll get a long list of things your computer does without asking you. Go down to the search indexing entry, stop it, and disable it. Your computer will run like Bill Gates chasing somebody else’s money.

I wish I had Windows 3.1. It was much better.

Tower of Pallets Yields Monstrous Machine

The lathe is here! The Rodeway truck arrived while I was trying to eat breakfast.

The palleting was terrifying. Like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. The seller put a pretty lame pallet under the lathe, and the Rodeway guy stuck a second pallet under one side of the first pallet, and when the lathe got here, it was wobbling around like one of those weighted Bozo punching bags.

It looks like I won’t be renting an engine hoist. The Rodeway guy kindly removed the lathe from the palleting and put it within inches of its final destination. He scared the crap out of me, rocking the lathe around and yanking things out from under it. On more than one occasion, it started to fall toward him–all 1000+ pounds of it–and he reached out and steadied it with his hand. I would have been fifty feet down the driveway before it hit the ground.

The minute he offered to get rid of the wood, I started calculating his tip. And every time he nearly got killed, the figure went up. I was terrified the whole time. I can’t believe it didn’t fall on its face.

It managed to hit the wall once, with the corner of the chip pan. But everything is okay.

I can’t say it’s in the condition I anticipated. It has obviously been used a good deal; there is wear around the spindle. There’s a big piece missing from the base of the headstock. But I have no reason to think it isn’t in good functioning condition. I couldn’t find any signs of wear on the ways, although they’re hardened, so I probably shouldn’t have expected to see wear.

I also ordered a set of new NSK mikes with it. It’s very odd. The box is beat-up on the outside, but the mikes are still packed in greasy bags. It’s as if someone had a bunch of boxes in a warehouse and forgot about them. I also got a test indicator. I was expecting some magnetic bases, but they’re not here.

Later today the VFD should arrive. Then I have to figure out how this thing works.

I had him leave it about fifteen inches from the wall, so I could get behind it to fix it up. Once I think I’m in the clear, I’ll back it up to where I can get my car in the garage. Believe it or not, it’s possible to scoot it short distances without too much effort, and without danger of tipping it over.

I guess there will be no need to bolt it down. But I should look into some decent feet for it, because I’ll have to level it before long.

It doesn’t take up as much room as I had thought. That’s a blessing. I guess I chose the right size.

Time to go sit quietly and be amazed at the crazy thing I’ve done.

And we Don’t Even Have the Holy Hand Grenade

Mish Weiss has been treated with steroids. I don’t really understand it. I think they help her maintain her appetite.

Once or twice, she has freaked out and started throwing things. This is supposedly related to the steroids, although that could just be her cover story. Since then, others have compared her to the Hulk.

Mish also likes Pop Tarts a whole lot, although that is not really related to steroids. Today someone sent her this photo:

I didn’t think it captured the Mish I knew, so I fixed it up. And you can see it here.

While you’re there, say hi to Mish.