Why do we have to throw everything away?
Posted 30 Mar 10
Today’s off-topic rant:
Some of the lights in our kitchen stopped working. Not the bulbs, the sockets. When I took them back to the (expensive) lighting store that sold them to us, 4-1/2 years ago, the clerk actually laughed when I wondered whether they’d replace them. In fact, he was impressed the fixtures had lasted even that long — far past their one-year warranty.
And it’s not just one corner-cutting manufacturer. He said they’re all like that.
The irony, of course, is that the failing component probably cost less than a dollar, somewhere in China. For just pennies (okay, maybe a few hundred pennies, but even so) they could build something to last.
I know, I know — planned obsolescence, all that, companies have been shaving costs since the dawn of time. Still.
I’ve been looking for a used table saw lately. Like most machine shop tools, if you can find one made a few decades ago, for similar cost it’s probably better and more serviceable than anything more recent (after minor maintenance, granted).
And don’t get me started on, say, current house-construction methods.
We used to build things to last. Now we buy them to throw away.
This post indexed as: Personal, Technology
Photography Lessons
Posted 30 Mar 10
That is, lessons for writers from the collapse of photography as a profession.
The NYT has a bleak article today on the vanishing — not to say vanished — future of professional photographers. Three factors have converged: the disappearance of buyers as magazine pages are cut; cheap, easy-to-use digital cameras; and the willingness of amateurs to sell their photos dirt cheap.
Today a creative director, rather than hiring a pro for hundreds of dollars, can buy an adequate stock photo for a fraction of that. And increasingly, those stock photos come from hobbyists who’ve placed their snaps on, say, Flickr, and who are happy to be paid anything at all.
“People that don’t have to make a living from photography and do it as a hobby don’t feel the need to charge a reasonable rate,†Mr. Eich said.
Now consider the market for short stories. In the old days, getting published meant sending out your manuscript to New York in a big brown envelope. Each response could take weeks, and you had to pay return postage, too. After a few rejections you’d have to retype the damn thing, what with the dogears and coffee stains. The process was expensive in time, effort and money.
Today? It’s as easy as hitting SEND a dozen times.
But the more important parallel with stock photography: most current story markets pay next to nothing — and writers are still happy to take it.
Decades ago it was difficult to publish, but once you did, you could actually make money. A fair number of authors even supported themselves, as late as the 1960′s or even 70′s.
Now we find the reverse: easier to write and (relatively) easier to get published, but impossible to be paid a living wage.
People still read. They still look at glossy, printed photographs, too. But that sure doesn’t make it easy on the folks who actually produce words and pictures.
This post indexed as: Technology, Writing
Use The Right Word
Posted 16 Mar 10
Okay, sure, I’m more sensitive on the topic than people who don’t get paid for writing. But: a typical English speaker has a learned vocabulary of some 20,000 words. Total English “word units” (that is, counting declined forms, plurals, etc etc all as one) approach four times that. No matter what concept you hope to express, there’s almost certainly one good, precise, well-established word for it.
So why not use it?
Just one example. It is common to hear someone described (often by himself) as a “fiscal conservative” — meaning, in favor of tax cuts. But “fiscal” refers to both halves of the income statement: revenue and expenditures. Using the word properly, a fiscal conservative wants a balanced budget. “Fiscal conservatives,” especially Republicans, often neglect the second half, with problematic results.
Every Republican president since 1974 has increased the annual federal budget deficit: Ford, from $26bn to $275bn; Reagan, from $190bn to $279bn; Bush I, from $279bn to $434bn; Bush II, from a surplus of $90bn to a deficit of $455bn. Carter and especially Clinton cut the deficits: from $275bn to $190bn, and from $434bn to a surplus of $90bn respectively. (all figures in current dollars.)
True, Obama’s deficits are even higher. No need to argue about whether they’re justified or not; my point is simply that you don’t hear Obama describing himself as a fiscal conservative.
It is not an act of political courage to vote for tax cuts. But, in isolation, it is not the act of a fiscal conservative either.
This post indexed as: Personal, Writing
Spring
Posted 11 Mar 10
First juggling of the season this week (can’t do it inside, too much damage would occur, so winter is time off). The new Dube Euro clubs are keen, though it’s a longer adjustment than I expected from my older, heavier, harder clubs. We’re supposed to have goals, right? — so: four by next year, maybe …
Also, the first bike ride (and for some, the first bike wrecks, but if you’re seven you can walk away from what might hospitalize the old guy).
First use of the new computer; not exactly spring related, but good to get done. The actual build turned out to be the easy part. Software, file transfer and configuration took much longer.
First plantings will go into the potting trays this weekend, almost on schedule.
Now that it’s spring, there are so many ways to avoid writing.
This post indexed as: Personal
The Infantryman’s Burden
Posted 01 Mar 10
It’s no secret that US soldiers go into combat with a LOT more personal equipment than they used to. Consider two photos, forty years apart:
It’s mostly armor, of course. And in Iraq, water. Still, even as some items have become lighter — consider the Vietnam field radios, carried by a dedicated radioman, vs. modern electronics — there seem to be more of them.
DefenseTech has an interesting article on this point today. In Afghanistan, where firefights take place across wide ground and at high elevations, the infantryman’s load has become a tactical problem. Moreover, the Taliban figured this out, and have adapted their tactics accordingly: firing at a distance, and moving more rapidly and easily than western forces.
After a description of the Soviets’ response to this same problem in the 80′s, the author makes another point: the US military has been focused on a “platform” response. That means rather than providing soldiers with a lighter, more effective grenade launcher — the Soviets’ solution — we’ve concentrated on big expensive machinery like the Bradley fighting vehicle, or various mounted weapon systems.
This strikes me as an excellent example of why the military-industrial iron triangle is such a problem. Defense companies sell ruinously expensive, overbuilt, wastefully ineffective equipment to an overfunded Pentagon so inefficient it has lost a trillion dollars. At the same time, soldiers on the ground don’t have the cheap, simple tools they need to do their jobs.
This post indexed as: Military, Technology