R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

One thing our otherwise USA struck visitors for the world cup seemed not to get was the… permeability of American society, compared to any other society on Earth.

As bound up in status and monkey games as we seem to be at times — and as much as I b*tch about that — we are absolutely loosey goosey and easy-going compared to the rest of the west which is in general far more amenable to take people as individuals than the rest of the world. And as crazy as our reliance on credentials and the proper programs and stamps on the proper papers was — I think we’re walking back from a lot of THAT crazy — we have nothing on the rest of the world on that front. We never had.

No? Well, while where I come from seems to be a country of obsessive autists, they don’t take themselves seriously. And they don’t take their obsessions seriously. They might know a thing or two beyond the standard things they learned in school, but no one will take them seriously at it, because they don’t have the credential, and the stamp.

While here… Well, here… The best guy I ever found to help with my civil war (particularly weapons and uniforms) research, back when I thought I was going to do a novel set in that time period was… my plumber. Okay, he was a pretty special plumber, the one guy in the city willing to work on Victorians that had been messed about five ways from Monday by previous owners and had who knew what happen to them. But still… my plumber. He came in, saw some books on my desk (which was in the master bedroom, next to the bathroom) and we started talking. And I found the depth and breadth of his knowledge. He published a newsletter. He had thousands upon thousands of subscribers. And some of them were probably, low key, academics who were plagiarizing his research for papers, wanna bet?

And how many times, on an online discussion, do you ask the world’s weirdest question. Say “Does anyone here know about the pickling techniques for the lesser Georgian peanut (I MADE IT UP. STOP LOOKING IT UP) and get someone who tells you this is his hobby and he’s researched it for the last ten years, because he finds it fascinating? And he’s done real experiments in his kitchen, and–

Do we ask for his credentials? Where he studied? No. We might ask for references, at least if we know we just made up the Lesser Georgian Peanut, but that’s all. And if their references check out, we are sure as shooting going to make them our source for this thing.

Look, part of this is that we are so wealthy — no seriously, in lifestyle just about any American state is better of than 99% of the world — and have been for so long, that we had time for people to develop interests and hobbies away from work. Most of the time — until recently — most people weren’t coming home so exhausted from work that that they couldn’t function. And we eat enough and are healthy enough that we have energy to devote to things beyond mere survival.

Now, if you do the deep dive into this, you’ll find we have other things, mostly derived from the fact that we’re a consumer-oriented society. Just about everyone is trying to sell you something, and they try to push where you’re weak: things that make your life easier and more convenient. Every time I go abroad, one of the things I’ve found is that daily life is less convenient. Even accounting for the fact that of course we don’t know how things work there, it always seems harder to get hold of say ingredients for making dinner, or implements you need to cook, or whatever it is you’re used to being an absurdly easy task.

Granted, our life became a little less convenient after 2020. I’m still salty over the fact that all night diners no longer seem to exist anywhere, or that it’s almost impossible to find a store open at midnight. But still, traveling internally if you forget something, be it underwear or a hairbrush, we can find it at the nearest Walmart. But abroad, even if you know the equivalent of their Walmart (they don’t have an equivalent, not really) it is impossible to find it with any sort of expediency because the store that sells that is only open between three and five PM on even Wednesdays and leap Saturdays. (What’s a leap Saturday? No one knows, so it’s never open.)

Anyway, making our life way easier left us energy and time and enough curiosity to go poking about various hobby horses. All of which of course got exponentially easier with the internet.

But beyond that, there is an attitude that goes with this. It’s not “Well, so and so is an important man. He knows everything about ancient Greek nose picks because he majored in ancient Greek nose picks at uni” but “Hey, this guy has done a deep dive on ancient Greek nose picks, and he has all the references and receipts, and he’ll tell you all about it at the drop of a hat, or even if all hats are glued to heads with hot glue.”

In other words, we Americans recognize people who know things. It’s like “Nerdmaste, the geek in me recognizes the geek in you.”

I think this is why the the internet here has a completely different texture than in the rest of the world. Why we discuss current events, economics, politics and the underpinnings of our society on line. Why places like instapundit exist, aggregating a view of the world away from the MSM. Why… well, why we’re ourselves.

You see, this is important, this willingness to both research anything simply because it interests us, and to respect others for their obvious achievements/research/knowledge, regardless of official approval of such things, is what creates our current society. It is in many ways what made us too hot to hold after the color revolution of 2020. What made our come back work without going hot.

Is it something that can be exported tot he rest of the world? I don’t know. As I said, it has its roots in prosperity and in convenience, and in us being ourselves so long.

But maybe … just maybe, with Elon’s freeing of twitter, maybe we can export a bit of our ability to be unexpected.

Time of export the weaponized tisms. If anyone can do it, we can.

Let’s teach the world what is actually worthy of respect.

136 thoughts on “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”

  2. Wow, this entry is already indexed – when I searched for the lesser Georgian peanut, it was the only hit.

    (What, you expected anything less?)

    Liked by 3 people

  3. Lesser Georgian Peanut (LGP): a fictional variety of hybridized legume developed by George Washington Carver by crossing the peanut with the sweet potato. While the LGP was wildly successful in growing peanuts the size of sweet potatoes, it had the unfortunate effect of growing a peanut shell of proportional hardness. It took the ingenuity of a group of housewives in northern Georgia to come up with a pickling technique that softened the shells sufficiently to be mechanically removeable. Unfortunately, the pickling process also sterilized the seeds. Since the entire crop was subjected to pickling in 1953, that particular hybrid has since become extinct and no one has been able to reproduce Carver’s breeding process.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. I wonder how long it would take for someone to realize that it was a bogus entry? On the other hand, they might think because it’s in Wiki that it’s real. Third hand, once there, if you tried to remove it, the Loonies would be going “REEEEEE! You can’t remove that, it’s SCIENCE!”

        Like

    2. “One vital observation made during the project was how well the LGP contributed to soil rejuvenation on former tobacco lands. Andersen theorized (Andersen, 1939) that the bacterial combination encouraged by the quasi-legume was far more efficient than even that associated with current legume crops to return nitrogen to the soil. Upshaw, in contrast, suggested that the combination of peanut-favoring bacteria and plowing in the greater amount of above-ground growth, was the more likely reason (Upshaw, 1941). The onset of WWII and reduction in available experimental acreage prevented further testing of these hypothese (see McGruder and White, 1953b)”

      Liked by 4 people

    3. Note that the Lesser Georgian Peanut is separate and distinct from the Lesser Peanut of Georgia, the country not the state, which was a failed horticultural hybridization and development project along the same lines the western success, originating in Tbilisi and reaching culmination just before the 1917 Revolution and imposition of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. The initial results achieved were very positive, but the the foundational researcher, Boris Kerelsidze, was forced into exile by the Bolsheviks with his brother, nationalist and anti-Soviet campaigner Leo Kerelsidze, and all the experimental samples and research notes were eaten by starving New Soviet Men.

      Like

  4. I’ve actually seen the results of local enthusiast researchers sifting into the footnotes and references of professional scholars. I run a tiny micro-local publishing concern which has been around now for more than 40 years. One of our specialties was publishing and printing local histories, most usually researched and authored by an amateur historian with an obsessive interest in some aspect in their little home town, or an ancestor of theirs. They have mined and refined the historical aspects, doing the initial groundwork in various archives or personal documents which they happened to have access to or an interest in.

    For example: There is a detailed two-volume history of a little town to the north of here which goes for quite astonishing sums on the rare-book market. A biography of a WWII Army nurse who escaped from Corregidor in 1942, the memoir of another WWII veteran who flew transport planes over “The Hump” in the CBI theater. A series of books on the ACH massacre of German Unionists on the Nueces as they tried to escape from the Confederacy. A republication of a volume from 1935 marking the centennial history of the town of Goliad.

    And so – our books turn up in footnotes or as references in books by the professional historians, which gratifies and amuses me no end.

    Liked by 5 people

    1. Do not think it is being used now, but I know that “Annie’s Story” slipped into more than a few PNW “women’s studies” as an example of early 1900’s living from a woman view.

      Um, “Annie’s Story” written by paternal grandmother, edited and published by her two daughters after her death for distribution to all the grand, and great-grandchildren. It does cover her life and perceptions from 1908 to 1987, birth to death.

      I remember overhearing a discussion (okay they did not actually ask for my input, but …). Discussion moved into territory where grandma mentioned a particular holiday, where “most of oldest son’s family was there”. Sisters and I still have debates on which one of us was missing. Logically could have been anyone of us. I mentioned this to the group. Got asked “what would I know about it, I was not in the class”. Well no. But the editors got my name wrong in the family tree (middle name, but still, they should have known). I had been hearing her stories, by the time she died, for 30 years.

      One of the editors above, spanned into amateur local historian on the Applegate Trail, and Jesse specifically. Writing her own book. She is currently passing on the research and methods to the next, younger generations, interested in carrying on the work and archives. Not sure if interested party is next generation on the family tree, or two generations down. With the intergenerational mix, it is hard to tell, given niece/nephews can be same age or younger, than great-nieces/nephews; or cousins (once or twice removed).

      Like

      1. We’ve got similar stories and a book or three (can’t recall the author’s name), with local history info from various long and medium term residents (medium == 35 years, roughly). One is a novel from Rick Steber (he may also have done Stories Along the Redacted) about the Klamath Indian Reservation Termination. $SPOUSE has the hard copy, it’s been towards the bottom of my TBR stack. Maybe it deserves an upgrade.

        Completely different topic: @dep729, what’s the status on your valve procedure? My blog reading has been massively curtailed. (No internet beyond cell phone when we evacuated, and Chrome on a cell phone does damage to my blood pressure…)

        Other topic: We had some mild thunder last night. Most of the small strikes were north. One a couple miles north, and I’m acquainted with the people who got one. Fog and a bit of smoke make eyeball checking out of the picture, but FireCom is quiet, so the prayers might be getting answered. We had a trace of water. I’m hoping they’ll be able to declare our portion of the fire contained. It’s been maybe 6 days since we’ve had activity near the town, but we’re still in Stage 3, GET OUT! Which is being ignored by people who didn’t leave or came back. (Raises hand.)

        Like

        1. Fire news: A forestry college classmate is part of the Camp crew on Wrights Spring Fire. FWIW, one of the reasons he is not on a line crew (anymore), is that he is 75 … That he is still deployed to the camp crew organization, is admirable.

          Regarding my procedure. Just found out, yesterday, that my procedure is at 5:15 AM, Aug 21, next Friday. Which means I could go back on blood pressure medication until this Tuesday, and blood thinner medication until this Saturday. Bad news, two days running, both Wednesday and Thursday (please not today again!), I’ve had afib incidents. I know my surgeon wanted me rescheduled for as early as today after canceling Monday. I do not know why the delay or if reporting Wednesdays afib put me earlier on the schedule than others. Do not know, but pretty sure surgeon was setting his schedule appropriately, but there is the matter of the appropriate OR schedule, other surgeons, and patients. Neither hubby nor I actually expected a date as early as today, but not knowing was getting a bit worrisome. My attitude is I really, really, do not want to have to do this. But, since it has to be done sooner rather than later, lets get it done now!

          Like

          1. Barring disasters (looks south west), I should go in Oct 27. Lots of preop stuff, and I did a calendar for when I have to stop and restart each medication. (Nine different prescriptions, of which two or three keep me alive. Sigh.)

            So far, I’ve not had the day of a surgical appointment change, but the time will be unknown til late. At the worst case, I’ll know Monday what time to show for my Tuesday procedure. (And I have to go to the hospital for an INR test on Monday. A neighbor will drive me in Tuesday, even if it’s to be there by 6:30AM. I’ll owe him big time. Return trip will be via established medical transport because my ortho procedures don’t always follow the doc’s expectation.)

            Like

            1. LOL, on the medication stuff. I do the same. It is on phone calendar, with alerts. On the fridge calendar (so everyone else knows, although that is full of scribbles, including 4 pet veterinarian visits this *Thursday, that I do not have to take them to).

              Friday, Aug 7, reschedule. Got that in advance. Monday, Aug 10, cancellation. We got that 90 minutes after check in and pre-op start with CNA (not invasive stuff with RN). Surgeon came in with RN, asked where we lived (10 minutes away, if Beltline is behaving; i.e. close). Surgeon was relieved. Would have proceeded if we had come into town far, but was not his preference since that meant a 4 PM start, if we were lucky. We agreed to a reschedule.

              (*) Hubby and son get that joy.

              Like

    2. I have a locally done book on railroad logging in our area. One picture in it is of the mill our property was part of. Pretty sure I could duplicate that viewpoint with a bit of time. (Note the joys of finding 50-100 year old trash from the company town and the freelance picnic/party grounds after most buildings were burnt to demolish. Lots of stray nails, oh my.)

      I’ve seen pics from another book, but have to go to the county museum to find out the title. That’s got closer pictures of the mill setup. We have a Xeroxed copy of a pic of the mill from the table land above the river. No details; but there were a lot of cabins and a dorm or two. The stable wasn’t demolished and is now a neighbor’s house.

      Like

  5. Americans started having hobbies pretty early, because tinkering and small piecework could be useful. Maybe because the US didn’t have lords and landlords demanding extra bits of work? Maybe because the frontier was boring when not deadly?

    And you could trade little hobby things with people, or give them as gifts, when you did not have money for storebought, or lived too far out. Whittling, making toys, making dolls.

    Liked by 6 people

    1. Missed. If they needed something on the frontier, either they made it, came up with a work around, or they did without. Too often the first two options were required for survival. Maybe not that handmade doll out of scraps, except for parental sanity.

      Like

        1. Give him a stack of rocks and tell him it’s the universe, which as all are aware is turtles all the way down.

          Like

  6. US universities /still/ seem to have some thing that you can learn inside certain ones that you would not learn the same way outside of the university. However, some of those are ones that the military, for example, can also teach very well. If in also a different way.

    I recently learned that John Ringo’s mortar adventures were against the recommendations of the recruiter, who really wanted to make him a satellite tech the way that the ASVAB said.

    (This is funny in hindsight to me, because I think Ringo had been a formative experience in my early attempts to understand the adult world. )

    Anyway, maybe an advanced degree in satellite tech topics could be worth that, instead of getting the undergraduate degree, and going directly to OJT. And maybe the basic degree might be worth getting directly instead of doing a term as a military tech first.

    But, when you look at weird obsessives, some times what you can directly test indicates that they are worth more than some of the degrees in that area.

    Arguably the original source of evidence for the utility of degree was partly or wholly weird obsessives, who participated in formalizing it that way.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. The actual more narrow technical topics taught as engineering – optics or EE or aero and such, are still valid within their boundaries as long as grade inflation is dealt with effectively. The “we’re not a trade school” faction of academia’s ever expanding expansion of general education and non-core requirements, however, are what made several of the MSEE-yet-uneducated-dufus job applicants whom I saw when I was on interview panels back in the day into an actual thing. They had obviously scraped through the engineering core on inflated grades, while absorbing the dreck from the rest of their education like a sponge. I was not a technical interviewer, but I talked to those in teh debriefs, and those kids would have had to spend a year or so post-hire getting them up to new-hire engineer standards in spite of their masters degrees.

      Don’t get me wrong, skills like teaching engineers to be able to write in understandable english is an area I’d certainly call a shortfall in engineering education, needing more, not less, emphasis, and there’s no harm in some basic business classes, but the rest of the “well rounded education” crap universities add on as degree requirements is stuff they can learn on their own time, not mandatorially added to their student loan balance.

      Like

      1. Yes, I think we may be in fairly complete and vehement agreement on the general situation.

        There is amusing room for disagreement still on some very narrow specific cases.

        Would you mind if I quoted you? I am considering quoting you, if I ever pick certain fights later on.

        Liked by 1 person

  8. Michael Bellesisles (“Arming America,” 2000) built his academic career on asserting that “gun culture” was a product of the Civil War, that private gun ownership was rare in the colonial era, and therefore the 2nd Amendment should not apply to private gun ownership. Clayton Cramer, an amateur historian with few academic credentials (although I believe he was working on his master’s thesis in history at the time) thought “That doesn’t sound right,” and spent hundreds of hours in research to expose Bellesisles’s fraud. He discovered, among other things, that the records Bellesisles had claimed to consult either didn’t exist, didn’t exist where he said they did, or said the opposite of what he claimed. To their credit, the history establishment actually listened (eventually), and Bellesisles is now considered an embarrassment. Moral: People whose living depends on their expertise often lie; passionate amateurs seldom do.

    Liked by 11 people

    1. If ‘private gun ownership was rare in the colonial era’ there wouldn’t have been a Revolutionary War. One of the main triggers of the Revolution was British attempts to take all those guns from the unruly colonists. Most of the cannons used by the Continental Army were privately owned, until they started winning battles and capturing British guns. Hell, most of the ships were privately owned. There wasn’t a government to provide arms and supplies to the C.A. so where else could they have come from?

      Dedicated Leftroids seem completely impervious to the notion that ‘Experts!’ might be lying to us. Look at the outcry over exposing Fauxi’s lies, or the election fraud of 2020.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Indeed! If they agree with the expert, then the credential is all the proof they need. On the other hand, no amount of proof (even from experts) will dissuade them from their views. It’s a religion.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. The Left is secure in their belief that their Credentialed Class will reliably provide the -Proper Answers- for the -proper- outcomes. Do not annoy them with your facts or arguments, you uneducated uncredentialed serfs.

        And does that not -exactly- fit observations of the antics of the Left?

        Like

        1. Hardly a failing unique to the Left, I’m afraid. My experience points to it being more a human thing; Lord knows I’m certainly not immune.

          Like

    3. I knew Be-lie-als work was trash from the outset from one thing: He claimed that estate records* showed that only a few and/or inoperable firearms were bequeathed to heirs and assigns which proved that gun ownership was uncommon. Any honest person in the least familiar with gun culture would know that when Grandpa got too old/infirm to drill or hunt, any working firearms would be passed on to those more capable of making use of them.

      Still wish I hadn’t been overseas when stepdad passed suddenly from a heart attack. I was supposed to get a Ruger Mk I, Blackhawk, & Mini-14, and a Boys ATR. Instead, his Texas cousin came up and basically cleaned out the gun closet.

      I wonder if ATF was ever notified about the transfer of ownership of the Boys . . .

      *If, as noted elsewhere, those records actually exist.

      Like

      1. I’ve personally seen a number of wills from the 18th / early 19th century that say something like “to my grandsons Bob, Tom, and Will 5 shillings each, and grandson Jack has already received my old musket as his share.” So your instincts are correct. :)

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I have no doubt “all my worldy possessions” or “every thing”was counted as “Nope. No guns.”

          Like

      2. My dad’s guns gradually disappeared….probably being pawned by my brother or his “friend.” Our son was supposed to inherit Dad’s reloading rig, but when we went down to get it it had “disappeared.” Someone must have broken in and stolen it! (The “friend,” eventually got arrested for hiding stolen appliances in the garage. My brother got arrested at the same time for possession of cocaine. We know because he called us asking for help).

        So many painful memories.

        Like

        1. Due to circumstances my father gave all his guns including the double barrel that I wanted, to one brother in law. He was a hunter and a shooter and his son was too so….then BIL lost his mind during Bush 2, doubled down on Lightbringer, and went down into darkness over Trump. Guns vanished into buy back program.

          There are days I think mind control is real

          Like

    4. I know Clayton slightly; I am mentioned as a contributor in a couple of his footnotes in other papers.

      Internet research is easily a team project.

      Like

  9. On my cross-country (cross-continent for you Europeans) trips the last several summers, I realized that Americans have created museums for just about everything. Did you know there’s a tire museum? that, in addition to the Rock & Soul Museum, the Civil Rights Museum (in the former hotel where MLK Jr. was assassinated), and the Blues Hall of Fame, Memphis has a metal museum? Even Chattanooga, beloved of LibertyCon attendees, in addition to the railroad museum featuring a running steam locomotive, has a pinball museum and a towing museum. Yes, apparently a guy in Chattanooga invented the idea of the tow truck to pull someone’s car out of the river. That’s not even counting the wacky ones like the world’s largest ball of twine in Colorado IIRC, of fond memory and other such oddities. Then there’s the Charles Schultz Family Museum in Santa Rosa, CA that features a wall removed from the house where the family used to live in Colorado Springs. Schultz had drawn all his favorite characters on the wall of his daughters’ bedroom for their amusement, and it was salvaged when the house was renovated.

    God bless America!

    Liked by 3 people

    4. I hadn’t had a chance to go there in 10 years, but Collier Memorial State Park mostly survived the arson fire during the 2020 Summer of Love. (Antifa/BLM tried a mostly peaceful protest in Flyover Falls, only to find they were outgunned. Plan B was to start a bunch of fires in the state. The 242 fire got 400 acres of the park. And a fish hatchery, plus a bunch of tribal land. Ochit if the arsonists ever got caught by non-LEO.

      Collier has a pretty amazing logging history museum, ranging from horse power to (from what I’ve read) modern day. I had a few times running one of the steam engines, and participated in one or two of the boiler inspection/live steam test in the spring. That was a lot of fun.

      Not a museum, but the Early Day Gas Engine and Tractor Association (Edge/TA) usually has steamups or threshing bees around the country. Locally, there is/was one Memorial Day, and another Labor Day. The latter I assume will be canceled (or moved) due to the fire. The local hardware ranges from steam power to mid-50s or so. Maybe some newer equipment, it’s been a while.

      Liked by 1 person

  11. I feel like, but can’t yet prove, that prior to the 2nd World War, most of the experts in the US were simply passionate amateurs rather than ctedentialed.

    I think the Manhattan Project changed that, and got the US government deep into finding scientific research. And that may have been what shifted things from garage mad scientists to the credentialed elitist thing we’ve got now.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. The Reader notes that Eisenhower warned us. From his farewell address.

      “Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

      The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

      Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

      He would have perfectly understood what happened during Covid.

      Liked by 3 people

        1. They quote whatever’s convenient. I’m seeing that portion deployed against AI and data centers.

          Like

    2. Post WWII government grants led to the widespread adoption of peer review.

      But as to the garage mad scientist, I’m doing my level best to bring it back.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. My wife has a story about the reviewer that pushed to have his unrelated paper added to your citations.

          Like

          1. The bigger problem is when the pool of “peer reviewers” is prescreened to only include the ones who will confirm your conclusions. See Mann, Michael.

            Like

  12. I was told a story about Walmart trying to open a branch outside Frankfurt, Germany. This faced immense local opposition but they finally managed to do it. IT seems that the sticking point was Walmarts greeters who smiled and said hello when you entered the store. The local merchants tried to prevent the greeters and when that failed Walmart was able to keep the greeters but they weren’t allowed to smile since being friendly was considered not social, which is also the reason why German shops close at 5 and aren’t open on Sunday. The notion that some germans might like to work at night or on the weekends is also non social.

    I don’t really go to Walmart but I think that the greeter thing might be obsolete now that Walmart is run by managers rather than founders. The split between managers and founders is fundamental and anyone (e.g.,) analyzing companies really needs to look at it. An awful lot of the stupid stuff large institutions do can be explained by the incentives their leaders have,

    Liked by 5 people

    1. The most horrifying realization is that the boss in Dilbert is not an idiot.

      Rather, he is responding rapidly and effectively to the incentives that his management has provided, whether those responses are beneficial to the company or not.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I realized early on in the corporate life that most people saw themselves as Dilbert when they’re really the pointy headed boss. I aspired to be Wally, though I never managed it. I suppose I was the pointy headed boss myself. SIgh.

        Liked by 4 people

        1. I probably came closest Alice in temperment. Just please, don’t let me be Tina the tech writer.

          Like

        2. At work, currently, I am the slightly crazy guy that everyone seems to turn to when the fecal matter impacts the rotating impeller. The fact that I don’t know everything seems to get quizzical looks. Even more when I explain, carefully, that no, I actually cannot be in three (!) places at once to do the job of four persons and complete the task of three shifts in less then one. Or when the announcement that OT is getting cut back causes me to cancel my after work plans (No OT= you will never sleep again, your OT is mandofun now).

          My aspirations are currently similar but likely land somewhere around the unseen janitor that never gets screen time.

          Like

          1. These days at Day Job I am more like The Garbageman – there are arcane and deeply obscure philosophical bits of knowledge that are sometimes required to move the strip forward, and when I become aware of these I appear and I pipe up, but otherwise I exist in the background doing mundane background stuff.

            Liked by 1 person

        3. While the Reader always laughed at Dilbert and was the pointy headed boss for a while, he always aspired to be this guy – The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail.

          “I don’t think Dave ever thought of himself as an efficiency expert, but every job he ever held, he simplified. His successor always had less work to do than his predecessor. That his successor usually reorganized the job again to take three times as much work, and as many subordinates, says little about Dave’s oddity, other than by contrast. Some people are ants by nature, they have to work. Even when it’s useless. Few people have a talent for “constructive laziness.” And so ends the tale about the man who was too lazy to fail. Let’s leave him there, in his hammock under the shade trees. So far as I know, he is still there.”
          ― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

          Like

          1. The job hubby worked at they got paid OT over 8 hours salary a day. That is 8 straight hours, no cut out for lunch. Some locations the overtime was built in, regardless of the work load, log yards open 6 to 6, or later if logs got dropped after 6 PM. Some yards, it was 7 to 3 or later if logs got dropped off late enough, or enough loads that the one assigned there stayed to clean up. One job hubby had the job dialed back to 8 hours. No more needed. When reassigned, his replacement had the job working 10 hours; as had his predecessor. No additional load count or logs per load, or drop timing. The third party company providing hubby services did not get paid more because they get a flat contract fee per person assigned. In addition telling whomever was assigned there to “hurry up” is considered “bad form”. Hubby could no more milk a job for the OT, even if we needed the extra income, than a scorpion could change its nature.

            Like

        5. I acquired a fair amount of system admin knowledge by osmosis* on our Unix boxes. Not sure the department manager appreciated my response to his wonky PC.

          “Sorry, I don’t do Windows.”

          (*) Later by book and much reading of the man pages. RFTM FTW!

          Like

      2. No, he’s actually an idiot. However, he’s also a parasite, and he’s working for a large bureaucratic type business that has a certain amount of slack to accommodate parasites….. so far. Companies accumulate parasites as they get larger.

        Like

    2. Was in a local Walmart a few days ago and was surprised by the number of employees I saw. They were everywhere. And yes, they had greeters.

      Like

      1. Our Wal no longer has greeters. They do, however, have receipt-checkers who offer appropriate salutations upon departure.

        Like

    3. The ones I see mostly face inward, and greet those departing with “Show me your receipt.”

      Like

  13. One of the big fortification and artillery guys in the Revolutionary War (Knox, maybe?) was self-taught and like 25 years old.

    He also was besties with the future Count Rumford, who acted as a nerd spy for the English. Knox thought for sure his buddy was as staunch a patriot as he was, but no.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Sounds like Knox. IIRC, he ran a bookstore pre-Revolution, and encouraged the British officers to stop in and show off their knowledge. 😁

      Like

      1. Later on, Knox was Secretary of the Navy, about which he knew nothing seems to be a pattern, the question came up about pay and Knox, knowing nothing, set the pay for an ordinary seaman at about the level of an ordinary workman. The British were still paying their seamen on the scale set in the reign of James II and were appalled, especially as the desertion rate from the British to the Americans was very high.

        Like

    2. Knox was the guy who ran the cannon transportation project from Ft Ti to Boston in the middle of winter over mountains that really didn’t have any roads to speak of.

      Like

  14. Look, part of this is that we are so wealthy — no seriously, in lifestyle just about any American state is better of than 99% of the world — and have been for so long, that we had time for people to develop interests and hobbies away from work. 

    Isn’t that why there were so many scientific things happening the England in the 1800s?

    Because there were guys with sufficient wealth and leisure to take up hobbies and start exploring and asking questions and running experiments?

    But here, instead of it being minor lords, it’s… nearly everyone.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Actually, there’s a fat but good book called The Enlightened Revolution about just that. England and Scotland between 1740s and 1800s reached a bit of a peak in social mobility and respect for talent. That, combined with other things, made room for people like Josiah Wedgewood, Joseph Priestly, James Watt, and others to work, get funds, and be accepted by “the better sorts” for their skills. I had not realized until I read that book that, among other things, only in England and Scotland were engineers NOT in the military. Especially civil and nautical engineers. Prussia, France, engineers were default military first. Not in Britain.

      Like

    1. Bingo! He saw something in a movie, or maybe in a game, and thought “I wonder if there’s anything about donkeys instead of camels.” Or “I wonder where all the empty wine jugs came from since that’s all desert?” and was off.

      Liked by 3 people

      2. And they’re as likely to start singing the praises of some random media that actually gets it right as they are to complain when of course nobody gets it right.

        Like

  16. There’s a restaurant I know of called Jamal’s Family Restaurant and nobody knows when it’s open.

    My dad once went in and ordered because he chanced on it while it was open, and everyone in there stared at him wondering what he was doing there.

    The joke now is that it is a restaurant specifically for Jamal’s family.

    Liked by 2 people

          1. The bookshelves were full of desirable books because they never sold any. Except to me, the one time they were open and the back table was coated with cards and money. And surrounded by genuine article thugs and a mean little old lady thugette.

            Like

    2. I’m pretty sure it is Marc MacYoung who wrote of accidentally going to a Japanese restaurant with no customers but a few burly men in suits in a booth. TL;DR – Yakuza, paid and left quickly.

      Like

      1. Classic joke:

        I confused jacuzzi and Yakuza. Now I’m in hot water with the Japanese mafia.

        —

        In these situations, it’s best to leave quickly to avoid the risk of sudden-onsen lead poisoning.

        Liked by 1 person

    3. We had a pizza joint in our little town (2000 or so at the last census) go under. I opined that it was their hours. They were often closed when the hours on the door said they ought to be open. And then I called to order a pizza according to the hours on their website and the guy who answered the phone absolutely pulled attitude with me over it. Because I believed the website. It was good pizza, but for heaven’s sake. I’d rather heat up a frozen pie than put up with that b.s.

      Gee, wonder why they went outta business?

      Like

  17. Colleen McCullough, in her writings about her Masters of Rome series, wrote that when researching that (very well-researched) series, she had found that one great source of information about the Roman military was wargamers’ publications. The wargamers were obsessive about getting things right, and wrote very clearly, intending their writings to be read by non-specialists.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I bought two issues of Strategy and Tactics magazine because it has the only good, accurate, and concise account (with fantastic maps!!!!) of the Winter War between Finland and the USSR I have found. That’s also how I learned about the Chaco War in South America.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Wow, S&T! I haven’t thought about them in decades. Subscribed for years. When I finally switched to a lifetime subscription (for $300??) they folded 2 issues later.

        But I pored over those issues and games obsessively.

        Like

        1. ??? Strategy and Tactics is still around! Check the magazine stand at any large chain bookstore, and you’ll probably find it.

          Like

  18. There is more knowledge available to tinkerers now on YouTube than there has ever been at any time before this in history. Never mind the rest of the Internets.

    I mean, you can watch Frank Klausz make a dovetail joint the fast way. He shows you the tools, how they work, and all the tricks for how to do it PRODUCTION style. If you needed to make a bunch of dovetails by hand, to make money, you can.

    All that knowledge used to be jealously guarded guild secrets. Now there’s a whole industry devoted to giving it away in the hopes that you’ll watch it.

    The secrets of machining metal with old manual machines, but also the new CNC stuff. For free.

    To the point where I, old guy with some tools, could construct a computer controlled lawnmower in my garage, and it would work. Or a hot rod, or a fancy credenza, flying drone, book binding machine, rocket, whatever might take my fancy.

    Some guy in Kenya can do the same thing, watching on his phone. And eventually he will, to solve some problem he has.

    For example: I was scrolling YouTube and saw a little item a couple days ago that exemplifies the hidden genius of your general issue gearhead. It’s a little 3D-printed rubber squeegee about 2″ long that has a section of tube that fits over your riding glove. For use in the rain, fog or sleet, when riding your motorcycle, when your visor clouds up. Swipe your hand across your visor, now you can see.

    It’s minimalist genius. The perfect thing to solve a life-threatening issue. If you can’t see, you’re gonna die. Squeegee ring. Perfect!

    A guy trying to make and market that will face some serious headwinds, due to how things are these days. He will need to be a very talented dude. And if he succeeds, some Chinese Temu dude will rip off his design and crush his price.

    But now that I know about it, I can print some. If I have no printer, I can have one of my fellow nerds run a few off for me. Or if I am a recluse weirdo that never talks to anyone (ahem) I can drop a file at Send-Cut-Send and they’ll make it for a small fee.

    Rinse and repeat for any issue you might have. I think that life has the potential to get a lot better for everybody thanks to this.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Today I needed to disconnect the fuel lines from the fuel pump in my van. The manual (I bought the factory service manual shortly after buying the van) calls for a special tool with a long part number.

      I searched on Yoo-Toob. Found a video showing how to make a workable substitute out of a Sharpie pen cap. Tried it. After a lot of fiddling and cursing, it worked. I now have the new fuel pump installed in the gas tank.

      Next I have to cut the old electrical connector off and install the new one (that came with the pump) so I can plug it in. Came back in the house to get the soldering iron and shrink tubing. Yeah, they provided crimp connectors. I don’t trust ’em, especially up under the van where they can get wet and dirty and who-knows-what.

      Re-connecting the fuel lines is dead easy — just push until it clicks.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Back in 2016 we were at a camp in Alaska doing maintenance and the ladies’ project was to build Leopold benches. I had helped build them, once. The other two ladies didn’t know what a Leopold bench was. (The guys, BTW, were replacing a cabin roof. I helped).

        We struggled, and managed to turn out a bench in two days. Then it hit me: “YouTube!” I looked up Leopold benches and behold! the second video showed us exactly what we were doing wrong and how to do it right. From that point on, our build rate went from one in two days to two per day, and we wound up making a couple of extra benches when we’d filled the camp quota.

        Like

      2. The GM fuel pump line clamps sliding things are a pain to release. There are inexpensive tool sets in colorful plastic made in the Middle Kingdom available on the ‘zon that work, and prevented much swearing when I did the new fuel pump job. More swearing was required getting the tank back up into the vehicle, but eventually things reassembled correctly and all is again well in fuel pressure land.

        Like

    2. Update: the gas tank is back in place. Engine runs. Don’t see any leaks. Gas gauge reads about 3/8 which I think is a little high. First thing I found on the old pump was a wire broken off from the fuel sender, which caused the gas gauge to always read over full even when the tank was empty.

      Liked by 2 people

  19. OMG

    You should hear my sister and BIL. They went on an European trip to Italy. Actually, they have caught the travel bug and take a lot of world trips to Europe, Asia (where she broke her ankle on an off ship excursion), and even African Safari. But I digress. This is the trip that taught them both to have carry-on, which my BIL hates with a passion (wants hands free). Prior to this trip the only carry-on was for their medications (OTC or prescription, he is a T2 diabetic). This trip, their checked luggage did not make most of the trip with them. If I remember correctly, it caught up with them just a few days before they headed home. Finding basics, and the tour staff helped, was “interesting”. To put it mildly. As in almost impossible. Not helped that sister is not exactly “tiny” girth. Height not a problem for either of them. BIL OTOH, based on size, should not have had problems finding basics. Lesson learned. They have two carry-on these days, with not only medication, but at least half the trip, or a week at most, of (hand washable) undergarments, one or two sets of interchangeable outerwear with what they have on (giving 6 changes of interchangeable hand washable clothing). Then they have one check luggage with the rest of their clothing (with room for return trip for everything, including the carry on if room after any souvenirs; trip home, who cares if luggage takes a bit to catch up?).

    Even our less “exotic” trips. Shopping groceries in national park gateway groceries. Both Canada and the US. There is a reason why online advice for some western tourist destinations are to “fly into” … (Boise, or Salt Lake, for Yellowstone/Tetons, Rockies, etc.), hit up Walmart/Kroger affiliate, etc. Before driving to final destination. Not even Safeway in Jackson, had what we needed (not wanted, needed). A large variety of everything, including snack foods and drinks. But we have learned to bring a cooler with the lunch meats and cheeses. Non-refrigerator drinks also packed in the back. From home. It is not the cost (or sales tax), it is finding it. (Do not care if they have Tillamook cheddar cheese, I just want medium cheddar.) Note, I, we, are spoiled. I have overheard a lot of out of country tourists exclaiming excitedly over the variety and amount of selections. Not quite sure how the year-round-gateway community residents deal. Sigh, I do know. They drive to Idaho Falls, or other “large town”. Just as Cottage Grove, etc., locals drive to Costco, one of the Fred Meyers, etc., and stock up. Still compared to the rest of the world, they have this option.

    Like

    1. And people wonder why on our Big Road Trips we not only have a cooler, but also a handy 12 volt freezer with an auxiliary battery…

      My wife’s packing of our snack bags is also genius.

      I miss it greatly if I have to fly…

      Like

      1. We just use a standard *collapsing cooler. Ice is cubed ice in double bagged freezer gallon Ziplocks. Used to use re-freezable blocks but a lot of hotel room freezers no longer have internal freezers. But they do have ice machines somewhere on the premise. Do have to double check room refrigerators JIC someone turned one down to try to create a freezer. Bit irritating to have soda cans burst in the middle of the night/morning.

        I do not care if my Sparkling Ice is cold. Hubby likes his Pepsi cold. The lunch meat and cheese? As long as it does not get too warm or hot, putting it in cold storage overnight is fine. Hubby doesn’t like sauces, and I have learned to do without, so no mayonnaise to worry about. The bagged ice is a bonus. Traveling there (not a problem coming back), we can swap/refill ice at night if/when we stop, again in the morning before leaving, and we do not even have to unpack the cooler out of the car.

        (*) Should we ever fly, could pack this into the checked bag. If checked bag does not show up? Oh dang it. But not that big of a deal. More irritated at lost of checked suitcase itself. Got the cooler at Costco. Could use one that is about 1/3 to 1/2 the size, but haven’t seen one yet. The other collapsing item is a standard reusable shopping box like “bag” (Kroger & Albertsons both have them) for non-cold items, like bread. Ever get where one of is entitled to carry on, personal item, and a “medical” carry on. Believe me, I will use the cooler as the medical carry on. Reorganize after arrival. Work? IDK. Do not fly enough to even guess.

        Like

    2. We’ve been home waiting for the RV to be fixed. Beloved went to the facility to pick it up and was delayed because another RV was “almost finished” and blocking the way.

      He was chatting with the owner when the technician told him, “You bought a Bosch.” Oh well, I’ll just change the plug. Beloved instantly said, “It’s German, it probably uses 220 voltage.” He had a time getting the two of them to understand the amperage didn’t matter, it was the voltage. But the technician checked. The RV owner (who hadn’t known any better) and the repair facilitiy’s owner both thanked my beloved for preventing a minor disaster.

      Like

  20. Jon Parshall and Tony Tully upended our understanding of the Battle of Midway with Shattered Sword. Parshall emphasizes that, for all his work and experience, he is not a trained historian. Bruce Catton never finished college and worked as a journalist, but his Civil War studies and writing brought the conflict to life seven (I think) times.

    Like

  22. This lady calls a plumber to fix a leak under the kitchen sink. He comes in, takes a look under the sink, thinks for a minute, selects a wrench, gives the pipe a twist and says “that ought to fix it.” She thanked him profusely and asked for the bill. He said $500. She said wow, my husband’s a doctor and he doesn’t make that kind of money. The plumber replied “lady, when I was a doctor, I didn’t make that kind of money either.”

    Only in America

    Liked by 1 person

  24. Everybody who uses any sort of public roadway knows my professional job better than I do. Just ask them. I’ve grown used to people telling me the simple solutions to traffic problems while in my mind I’m silently ticking off the dozens of “yes, that could be done, but then this happens, and this, then this…” which if presented would be evidence of my ignorance / obstructionism / etc.

    For a while I’ve been at the stage on the Dunning-Kruger curve where I grasp just how little I do know, even after nearly four decades of hands-on experience, and I know I don’t have all the answers, but at least have knowledge and experience on what might work and what really hasn’t.

    There are numerous organized groups of “roadgeeks” where people interested in road transportation congregate. About 35 years ago in misc.transport.road it was mostly enjoyable interacting with people who were very interested in the field and sharing information as a practitioner. And several of them when they found out you could get paid for it had the discipline to get a degree and registration and have become valuable colleagues while keeping their passion for the topic.

    These days, I don’t interact anymore. It’s part of the coarsening of most social media where disagreement results in insults, name-calling, and in some cases a remarkably fast cancellation. In general, people aren’t willing to listen to experts, in great part because “experts” (not me, of course) have not covered themselves in glory in imposing their views and vision on the citizenry.

    Through all of it, I try not to take it personally, and just muddle through.

    Like

    1. The new Beltline Delta Interchange. Primarily East Beltline to North Delta (1), and North Delta to West Beltline. Sold as “improving” Beltline flow. Um. No. It did not. Not even in the least.

      It did not hurt Beltline east to Delta south (which says something). Did improve Beltline east to Delta north. No change to Beltline west to Delta north or south. Did improve Delta north to Beltline west, if only because it got traffic off of Delta north bound, until the longer exit ramp gets horribly backed up. But, did it improve either Beltline east or west during clog? No. Laughably no. Not even close.

      Nothing will improve that section short a three lanes approaching and going over the Willamette. Now? More like 4 lanes over the Willamette, now. With one west lane dedicated between Delta north to Division and River Road exits; and one east lane dedicated between River Avenue over the bridge to Delta South/North exit.

      The other intersection improvement was Irving/River Road/Hunsaker. Supposedly to improve intersection safety. Response to that is “What the hell?????”

      Not an expert. But have no idea why they did what they did on either sections.

      Like

    2. Couple jobs ago, I sold traffic lights. Fascinating industry.

      Things I remember about dealing with the general public in that role:

      -we told our salesmen not to visit active job sites – the contractors didn’t want to hear public complaints about ‘guys getting paid to just standing around’

      -territory included:

      –Chicago, where we had to sell specially stamped wire that the local scrapyards knew was ‘arrest on sight’, as it was _only_ for the city.

      –St Louis, who sent police escorts with the traffic techs in some jurisdictions

      –Minneapolis, where the union electrician contract said they would not work if it was colder than -20°F. I was amused by their choice of temperature cutoff.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. I will try to refrain from complaining overmuch about traffic engineers. My only request is that the in-duh-vidual who sets the pattern of the traffic lights at the intersection be required to travel through that intersection on his/her commute for the next 30 days.

      Like

    4. I had a stupid joke to mind “we won’t have problems with roads if we replace automobiles with ballistic projectiles launched by 300 Tesla magnetic fields”

      Then I segued into researching magnetic fields, then got distracted and wandered off.

      (One of the NIST suggestions for exposure thresholds is 2 Tesla. )

      Like

      1. We sometimes have to explain to other engineering types that the fluid particles we have to work with have collision deductibles. And that too energetic a collision can result in an utterly destroyed extended family.

        Like

  25. My grad school advisors warned us students over and over to never, ever dismiss “the little grannies in tennis shoes” that we might meet in public record offices and archives. The genealogists turned up very, very important stuff IF we were willing to hush and listen, or ask about their work. “Why duplicate their labor?”

    This saved me soooo much digging several times. “Have you looked at thus-and-such yet?” Or “Oh, those maps are not filed under that, they are filed under this. I found them when I was looking for grandpa’s homestead site, the one that’s supposed to be under that big reservoir out in the country? It’s not, it’s actually—“ And she was off for five minutes. I took lots of mental notes until she finished her stories and returned to what she was hunting for.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. One of the greatest things to happen on the internet in recent years, was the connecting of Japanese and Americans on Twix.

    We found out not only how similar we are, but how interested we both are in our differences.

    We really are cousin cultures in many ways.

    Like

  27. In reference to the road engineer, I noticed a couple of things when I was commuting daily. During rush hour on I70, drivers acted like prey when they approached known cop hidey holes. The patterns were discernable and resembled patterns from nature shows I watched with my kids.

    Another one I noticed was on I270 southbound. No matter how light or heavy the traffic or the road conditions, people slowed way down due to perceived dangers because of trees, curves etc. Even when empty people slowed down. A couple of times when the road was empty I managed to force myself to drive the posted limit but I was afraid to. There was something about it that said you will die

    Like

  28. On amateurs….I read and watch Graeme Handcock on occasion, which lead me to this….why did our apparently barely out of hunter gatherer stage ancestors build huge stone buildings, dig enormous under ground dwellings and so on. I see why guys like Von Daneken invoked aliens. To me it makes no sense

    Like

    1. It could, possibly, coincide with the invention of marriage and weddings.

      A suitable venue must be provided somehow.

      Like

  29. I know the foremost authority on Mongols of the Chingis Khan era. One that actual scholars are referred to. He’s a bone harvester for a medical company. Want to know about names of the period, he’s the guy. Want to know about fabric woven by the Mongols, he’s the guy. Want to know why you don’t brew cumus in Florida though how to do it in Mongolia, he’s the guy (and it took over a year to get the smell out of his apartment.)

    Subject matter experts. We have them all over the place. And we don’t hide them.

    Liked by 1 person

  30. One of the big things about Americans in general is that we came from people that had to Learn Things. From how to build a log cabin to raise crops to raise kids, clean wounds, cook food on a smoky fire, make tools, fight off terrible people, etc, etc, etc…

    Most Europeans didn’t, because keeping the peasants from getting ideas was a very important thing. And they still think that way, and that’s why they’re importing a whole new peasant class (they think), because the current one is starting to not like what they have.

    And Americans will build things. We’ll build little lending libraries. Sheds that…well, they didn’t fall over this winter, so maybe it’ll last to next winter. Maybe. Houses. Businesses. Museums for the weirdest things. Institutions.

    As long as we keep building-bigger, taller, better every year-America still lives.

    Liked by 1 person

  31. Considering the basic stock of U.S. citizens, there’s no wonder the uncertified experts on just about any subject abound. The original settlers, and many that came afterward, where the sharpest knives in the drawer, drawn by a hunger for exploration, and fiercely determined to increase their knowledge unencumbered by the whims of people in power.

    Like

Comments are closed.