INTENSITY²
Politics, Mature and taboo => Political Pundits => Topic started by: Parts on June 29, 2010, 04:38:19 PM
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Things today are built so poorly.. I have gotten stuff right out of the box broken I understand keeping the cost down and all but none of it is made to be fixed. We are supposed to be thinking of a more sustainable economy but what do we do we keep turning out this shit.. I don't even want to to think of the pollution and working conditions in China. So much plastic and shitty metal parts made by the lowest bidder. Today I fixed a power washer with a cracked high pressure pipe you can't get replacement parts either so I salvaged one off another broken washer. Too much throw away shit from china
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It's a lot cheaper to replace some things than fix them. I wonder if the disparity between wages has something to do with it. If you need to pay a technician $50 an hour to fix something, and you can replace it for $100, then why fix it?
That's why I like old stuff. It was built to last.
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I fix it because I enjoy it, I buy old stuff when I can. Got a bunch of Proto tools the other day
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I've heard of those, are they nice? I've got a mix of tools. MAC, Snap-On, some cheap stuff.
I have a pair of vice grips that has a nice textured black finish. I wish they would finish wrenches like that. The chrome looks nice, but it's so damn slippery when you get oil and grease on them.
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I think they make things to break on purpose, becaause it's a little cheaper to make them that way and if they made things to last, people wouldn't buy new ones.
I think they made American cars that way for years and called it "planned obsolescence". That's why we have two Japanese cars now.
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I've heard of those, are they nice? I've got a mix of tools. MAC, Snap-On, some cheap stuff.
I have a pair of vice grips that has a nice textured black finish. I wish they would finish wrenches like that. The chrome looks nice, but it's so damn slippery when you get oil and grease on them.
Proto is nice its the professional grade Stanley made in the USA Blackhawk is another brand to look for they sell them at Grainger
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I think they make things to break on purpose, becaause it's a little cheaper to make them that way and if they made things to last, people wouldn't buy new ones.
I think they made American cars that way for years and called it "planned obsolescence". That's why we have two Japanese cars now.
True, I heard of a shoe factory going down, because the quality of their shoes was too good.
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I get really pissed when the kids get a present that breaks down before it leaves the wrapping.
And I also wonder on how hard it must be to work in a factory for hardly any pay, to make absolute shit.
No pay, and no job satisfaction.
- "What did you do today?"
- "I made crappy things, that will not last for 10 minutes after they are sold."
- "Wow, you must be so proud!"
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Plastics created the throw-away mentality of modern society and they have the double whammy of being toxic to the environment, both creating them and when they decompose. Maybe that's a tripple whammy then.
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Plastics have their place in manufacturing but are overused as to there inexpensiveness. Many degrade with exposure to uv light
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Even the stuff that can be easily fixed is normally tossed instead. People don't want to take the time. I guess in big business you have to ask yourself whether you make a quality item that might cost $20 or $30 more than your competitions thow-away and sell less of them, or make it cheaper and sell more and not have the cost of having customer service deal with replacement parts. Most are picking the later option.
They win, and when most people see the cheap cost they think they win also, but in the end they lose big time.
Still alot of "throw-away" items out there that are fixable, sometimes you can pick something up curbside that needs a part and find it on another one in a week or two with something else broken and cannibalize.
I have a set of Proto torque wrenches and some sockets that have served me well, good quality. I normally snatch up Craftsman, Proto, Snap-on, and S&K when I find them cheap.
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The high end modern bicycles, after a while, you just need a new one, because the parts that need replacing can't be reached without breaking the bicycle down.
I am cycling on a bike from the fifties. It's a repairman's dream to work on it. Because everything can be fixed and adjusted. And it is sturdy as can be too.
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My Mom was a 3rd generation Capricorn. And all 3 generations lived together. The Capricorn's motto is, "Eat it up. Wear it out. Make it do or do without." My grandmother also went through the Great Depression as a widow with my Mom. DH doesn't understand why I mend clothes or shop at thrift and bent and dent stores, hang clothes out to dry, etc. Part of that is my childhood, part of it is being a young adult in the hippie generation and part is not wanting to go back to work.
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My Mom was a 3rd generation Capricorn. And all 3 generations lived together. The Capricorn's motto is, "Eat it up. Wear it out. Make it do or do without." My grandmother also went through the Great Depression as a widow with my Mom. DH doesn't understand why I mend clothes or shop at thrift and bent and dent stores, hang clothes out to dry, etc. Part of that is my childhood, part of it is being a young adult in the hippie generation and part is not wanting to go back to work.
Except for the Capricorn pat I grew up the same way fuck when I lived ith my mom in florida we didn;t even have a car and just a 13 inch black and white tv with rabbit ears
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My Mom was a 3rd generation Capricorn. And all 3 generations lived together. The Capricorn's motto is, "Eat it up. Wear it out. Make it do or do without." My grandmother also went through the Great Depression as a widow with my Mom. DH doesn't understand why I mend clothes or shop at thrift and bent and dent stores, hang clothes out to dry, etc. Part of that is my childhood, part of it is being a young adult in the hippie generation and part is not wanting to go back to work.
:plus: for thrift...I need to learn that, I'm a waster myself.
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My Mom was a 3rd generation Capricorn. And all 3 generations lived together. The Capricorn's motto is, "Eat it up. Wear it out. Make it do or do without." My grandmother also went through the Great Depression as a widow with my Mom. DH doesn't understand why I mend clothes or shop at thrift and bent and dent stores, hang clothes out to dry, etc. Part of that is my childhood, part of it is being a young adult in the hippie generation and part is not wanting to go back to work.
Except for the Capricorn pat I grew up the same way fuck when I lived ith my mom in florida we didn;t even have a car and just a 13 inch black and white tv with rabbit ears
I remember those TVs. We had two: one about 13" and then a big one on a wheeled cart in the living room! ;D
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When you're ready, learning thrift will come. :asthing:
It took me a long time because I was making big bucks (and spending same) as a professional until I crashed with not being able to manage the job with the autism and ADD. I retired early, one step ahead of the pink slip. Still took me a while after that to re-invent a thriftier me, probably re-cylce myself is a better word than re-invent.
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Even with money I am cheep as hell
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Even with money I am cheep as hell
My Mom's mom never went past 2nd grade, was widowed with a 3 year-old child worked in cigar factories and coffee roasting plants, never owned a house or car, paid cash, had a pension when she reitied in the 1960's of about $36 per month plus Social Scecurity and had 6 figures to the left of the decimal point in the bank when she died. She knew thrift like the back of her hand.
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My Mom was a 3rd generation Capricorn. And all 3 generations lived together. The Capricorn's motto is, "Eat it up. Wear it out. Make it do or do without." My grandmother also went through the Great Depression as a widow with my Mom. DH doesn't understand why I mend clothes or shop at thrift and bent and dent stores, hang clothes out to dry, etc. Part of that is my childhood, part of it is being a young adult in the hippie generation and part is not wanting to go back to work.
Except for the Capricorn pat I grew up the same way fuck when I lived ith my mom in florida we didn;t even have a car and just a 13 inch black and white tv with rabbit ears
I remember those TVs. We had two: one about 13" and then a big one on a wheeled cart in the living room! ;D
At my friend's place they had only a black and white TV. I was about 9/10 when I visited and was shocked to see that this is what they had. I was used to coloured on a big screen (our TV was one of those big in-cabinet ones that the cats used to love to sleep on). I couldn't stand to watch black and white shows.
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Also grew up with tiny b/w tv, but tv wasn't important, and those were the days when people had to have a giant disc in the yard to get more than three or four channels. First color tv was a wedding gift.
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That's a nice wedding gift, wow. Back in the early 80s we only had 3 channels, now there's heaps that are free-to-air.
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That's just nostalgia talking. You only remember the good products from the past, all of the crappy products have broken down or been thrown away over the years. Or so I heard from reddit.
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That's just nostalgia talking. You only remember the good products from the past, all of the crappy products have broken down or been thrown away over the years. Or so I heard from reddit.
Some memorable bad products:
foam hair rollers
vinyl large clown bop bags
tupperware (it always turned milky and smelled)
aluminum tumblers (brightly coloured)
Dippity Doo (think super glue for hair)
inflatable petticoats (had a vinyl tube you blew up in the hem)
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That's just nostalgia talking. You only remember the good products from the past, all of the crappy products have broken down or been thrown away over the years. Or so I heard from reddit.
Some memorable bad products:
foam hair rollers
vinyl large clown bop bags
tupperware (it always turned milky and smelled)
aluminum tumblers (brightly coloured)
Dippity Doo (think super glue for hair)
inflatable petticoats (had a vinyl tube you blew up in the hem)
My mother used foam curlers, and taught me to use them as well. :rollingpin: :nerdy:
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My sister and I had a black and white TV in our room. I didn't mind it. There was no remote control.
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aluminum tumblers (brightly coloured)
Do you still have those? My mum brought her set along on a family picnic not too long ago and one of my sisters said that they were worth quite a bit now.
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aluminum tumblers (brightly coloured)
Do you still have those? My mum brought her set along on a family picnic not too long ago and one of my sisters said that they were worth quite a bit now.
No. I'm not sure if we had them or not. I always remembered that they were awfully cold whenever I used one.
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That's just nostalgia talking. You only remember the good products from the past, all of the crappy products have broken down or been thrown away over the years. Or so I heard from reddit.
Some memorable bad products:
foam hair rollers
vinyl large clown bop bags
tupperware (it always turned milky and smelled)
aluminum tumblers (brightly coloured)
Dippity Doo (think super glue for hair)
inflatable petticoats (had a vinyl tube you blew up in the hem)
A couple more
Lead tinsel
Tools handles and other things made of Butyrated plastic that smell like vomit as it ages
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I love finding some of that crappy stuff. I snatch up those aluminum tumblers and the matching ice cream bowls anytime I see them.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_nkw=vintage+tupperware&_sop=16
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=vintage+tupperware&_sop=16&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xvintage+bascal+tumblers.TRS0&_nkw=vintage+bascal+tumblers&_sacat=0
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=vintage+tinsel&_sop=16&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR1.TRC0.A0.H0.Xvintage+lead+tinsel.TRS0&_nkw=vintage+lead+tinsel&_sacat=0
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Is the lead tinsel actually lead? Allowed to be sold?
Mum's cups are somewhat different to what I saw on eBay - they have 4 (I think) lines etched around them near the top.
Some of the Tupperware, wow. I remember using that as a kid.
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Is the lead tinsel actually lead? Allowed to be sold?
Mum's cups are somewhat different to what I saw on eBay - they have 4 (I think) lines etched around them near the top.
Some of the Tupperware, wow. I remember using that as a kid.
It did have lead in it, lead foil...which gave it weight and made it drape better and last almost forever. We used to have a massive bag of it, and I used to glob it on the tree until you could barely see the lights when I was a kid, it was forgiving stuff, not like the plastic stuff now.
I don't know if they ever officially banned it...they basically told U.S. manufacturers/people you need to make it from something else, it's a health risk and it kind of disappeared like orange Tang. It's still made in other countries.
You can't sell anything "currently" under recall on Ebay, but once recalled items sometimes turn into sought after collectibles years later and are allowed...and manufacturing standards change on things...like electric blankets. Normally sellers state "does not meet current manufacturing/safety guidelines"...and "this was a recalled item...sold as a collectible only".
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Is the lead tinsel actually lead? Allowed to be sold?
Mum's cups are somewhat different to what I saw on eBay - they have 4 (I think) lines etched around them near the top.
Some of the Tupperware, wow. I remember using that as a kid.
It did have lead in it, lead foil...which gave it weight and made it drape better and last almost forever. We used to have a massive bag of it, and I used to glob it on the tree until you could barely see the lights when I was a kid, it was forgiving stuff, not like the plastic stuff now.
I don't know if they ever officially banned it...they basically told U.S. manufacturers/people you need to make it from something else, it's a health risk and it kind of disappeared like orange Tang. It's still made in other countries.
You can't sell anything "currently" under recall on Ebay, but once recalled items sometimes turn into sought after collectibles years later and are allowed...and manufacturing standards change on things...like electric blankets. Normally sellers state "does not meet current manufacturing/safety guidelines"...and "this was a recalled item...sold as a collectible only".
:2thumbsup: we did the same thing, you could throw it on the tree from across the room :LOL: The manufacturers took it off the market voluntarily in the early 70s with the governments prodding, my dad stocked up on it so we had it for a few years after. I always look for it at estate sales but have yet to find any.
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Thats quite a funny mental image, throwing tinsel onto an xmas tree from across the room.
Could probably make it from just a strip of lead metal with a blunt knife and a hammer. Pb is so soft and malleable, you could just whack it with the knife using the hammer to cut in the frondy bits, then whack the entire strip repeatedly with the hammer to flatten it out, perhaps cutting more fronds in the side strips when its thinned out and there is more space to do it. And if you bugger it up or don't have a long enough piece you could always melt-cast it from a block, or just bits of roofing lead, skimming the top with a bit of scrap metal to strip off the oxide layer. You can melt it with just a blowtorch. Or you can buy electronic solder-pots online for a bit over a tenner UK, I've got one that I use for lead casting, and casting other low melting point metals or alloys, as well as first melting a suitable metal (mine goes up to 500 or 600 'C, I forget which now,) in it, then using pliers, putting in a ceramic or carbon (the latter heats up especially well) crucible, for melting things like alkali metal hydroxides, with suitable protection from air hacked up plus a tank of argon to fill the air-shield, and a couple of electrodes and power supply for electrolysis, although one must be pretty careful with both the bath temperature (you let the metal melt, shove in the crucible, then turn the power off completely to let the metal solidify and lock the crucible in place, then turn it on but keep it below the MP of the metal hydroxide). Before reading of non-electrolytic processes for alkali metals using magnesium dust in a thermite-like reaction, then grinding the cement-looking magnesium oxide/alkali metal slag up to powder in a blender purged with argon, and boiling it in 1,4-dioxane, produced using hot, concentrated drain-cleaner sulfuric acid (since this is a distillation process, one can use bog cleaner grade sulfuric) and ethylene glycol (again, use antifreeze grade, just use the concentrate type sold for adding water and making up one's preferred concentration.
Works for making sodium metal in bulk without the finnickyness of electrolysis using just caustic soda, magnesium powder (ebay, cheap as) and a bit of magnesium strip to ignite the thermite mix, a steel container to contain the mixture and something like a steel plate and cement block to hold the top on to prevent the mixture from boiling off the sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium etc (lithium IMO would be problematic because of the dioxane stage, since molten alkali metals are evolved, and unlike the other alkali metals, lithium, when molten according to my reading, melts through glass), and the 1,4-dioxane, made from antifreeze and bog cleaner plus a distillation. of the dioxane (and removing the polymerized glorp during the dioxane synthesis)
Pretty neat, the 1,4-dioxane even provides a protective vapor blanket (topping off with inert gas isn't a bad idea though) to help prevent contact of alkali metal and air. Which would be disastrous. (and with something like caesium....well kiss goodbye to your head, never mind your flask! *still hasn't forgotten that youtube video he saw of a lump of Cs being thrown into a bathtub full of water.....or the resultant detonation and hail of bathtub-shrapnel or the way the water was thrown meters into the air*...that, in a glass vessel and flammable ether solvent would be ugly and no mistake :autism:)
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Some new stuff, just arrived today. New Buchner funnels, glass frit (all no.3 frits), all 24/40 joint size, vacuum takeoff for vac filtration. New Erlenmeyer flasks, again, 24/40 joint size, as is my typical joint size for most of my glassware, came with a bunch of (plastic, so limited use, I rarely have use for plastic ones, I typically only use stainless steel ones) keck clips, and some rubber hose. came free with it, as did a small handheld pistol-grip vacuum pump with top-mounted vacuum gauge, for use in vacuum filtrations)
And something else that came for me, (the bottles all contain the same thing, 1-diisopropylaminoethanol, 120ml in total. Going to make myself some Hunig's base (diisopropylethylamine, a sterically hindered, non-nucleophilic base, very useful for catalysis of alkylations and acylations of amines because of its non-nucleophilic nature and high degree of steric hindrance it won't quaternize, and diisopropylaminoethanol ought to be the perfect precursor for making Hunig's base, via iodination or bromination, reacting with elemental bromine should do the trick to form the bromoethane then amination with ammonia. Wouldn't work for most tertiary amine syntheses but diisopropylaminoethylamine ought to be an exception, due to the non-nucleophilic character, meaning an SN2 nucleophilic addition won't progress further to the quaternary ammonium salt, which happens with most amines, since susceptibility increases, in the direction 1'>2' and most '3 amines, meaning that its difficult to alkylate primary and secondary amines to form tertiary amines because you get overalkylation, typically ending up with a quaternary ammonium halide.)
(http://oi68.tinypic.com/ezenaq.jpg)
(http://oi68.tinypic.com/2l9nrdc.jpg)
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A pair of gas-inlets. CBF taking a picture unless anyone is curious and wants to see them, since they are basically a wide, short glass hollow column a few inch long, with male and female joints top and bottom respectively, and a hose-barb in the middle.
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A pair of gas-inlets. CBF taking a picture unless anyone is curious and wants to see them, since they are basically a wide, short glass hollow column a few inch long, with male and female joints top and bottom respectively, and a hose-barb in the middle.
You describe them well. :)
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I have a hand vacuum pump just like the one in your photo, I use it mostly to bleed brakes
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I have a hand vacuum pump just like the one in your photo, I use it mostly to bleed brakes
Mity vac...had one too. Gave it to my BIL a few years back since him and SO started doing all the brake jobs. Used the hell out of it when I ran the VW's.
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Heh I used to have one of those too, the OTC brake bleeder kind, fucking thing was only fit for salvaging the vacuum gauge from it, the gauge seal broke and it won't hold a vacuum anymore. Complete heap of steaming police officer, first time it was used it bloody broke, and it was only being used for a vac filtration through a fucking buchner. Not what you'd call hard vacuum. Just fell to bits, total sack of dog shit. Hopefully this one, that came with a filtration funnel itself as a freebie along with the funnel and an erlenmeyer.
And ren-lol, well there really isn't much to describe about a gas inlet. Its about 3 inches give or take of hollow glass tubing with a 24/40 joint either end, male and female, and a hose barb poking out the middle. Not what one could call the most sophisticated piece of equipment in the lab, or the hardest to find or priciest. Bought a pair of 'em for about the price of a burger and a large coke, inc. shipping. Total cost a few dollars. Although thats one of the few times the chinese haven't undervalued the shipping. Not like I was buying another Kipp gas generator, or a large multi-necked flask, or anything really exotic. They are just a couple of cheap and simple, although perfectly functional pieces of glassware for pumping gases out of a flask used to generate them, and the top joint allows for a pressure-equalized addition funnel for when one is generating something gaseous with a liquid and a solid, the funnel (got a pressure-equalized funnel of that sort too although it isn't new) is similar to a separatory funnel, with a stopcock and a ground glass joint at the bottom, only it also has a sidearm that connects to a short stem just above the top of the joint fitting and leads back up inside the funnel so that when adding a liquid you can do it with the addition funnel stoppered and clipped without having to worry about the liquid draining only until a vacuum is created above the surface of it, stopping any more from coming out properly, which happens with separatory funnels. The equalizing tube allows a return flow from the system as the liquid drips or pours out of the bottom, as one sets it to do depending on what you might be doing and how fast you want the gas to be flowing.
Useful for things like piping chlorine gas into things, with say, potassium permanganate in the generator flask, tubing on the hose barb leading to a glass pipette with the bulb taken off so it bubbles through into whatever it is you want to be filling with chlorine, and adding hydrochloric acid via the pressure-equalized funnel. Quite convenient, and sure beats something like using a plastic bottle with holes burnt through it and tubing epoxided on, squirting in the acid with a syringe (I don't mean the likes of the kind used for injecting people, this one is all made of glass and holds about 150ml, nearly a foot long and a couple of inches wide, and the cannula needles for it, those are at least a foot long from attachment point to the sharp end. Although I do have smaller glass ones, 10 and 30ml ones, but still, even if they weren't used repeatedly for all manner of potentially poisonous things and corrosives, and the odd poisonous corrosive, then that would be a HUGE volume of fluid to inject a person with, the needles are big and wide bore and would hurt, and shit, who the devil would want to shoot up with a long, flexible, bendy, wide needle tip thats a foot long or close to it?
And I'd hate to see the heroin habit on some poor bastard if they needed a bit under a third of a liter of water to dissolve the amount of gear they'd be shooting...christ, it'd fell an elephant. And withdrawals, that is something you don't even want to think about, damn. Opiate withdrawals usually aren't fatal, but that just might be.