Due to pressure of writing I haven't browsed the blogosphere as often as I'd like to over the past few days, so there will be fewer entries than usual in this week's roundup. On the other hand, they're good ones.
# # #
In an Around The Blogs segment a few weeks ago, we noted that Karl Denninger had some trenchant thoughts on time and life in the context of the Easter Vigil. He's done a follow-up post, titled simply 'Time'. Money quote:
Huge percentages of the population ... fail at various tasks or barely [eke] by not because they're stupid, not because they're not capable, but because they refuse to master and accept responsibility for time management.
Very true. His entire article is worth pondering, IMHO.
# # #
Blackfork brings us useful firearms training tips and practical advice from his cousin Wallace. I concur. Recommended reading for all firearms owners and those who'd like to become one.
# # #
Eric S. Raymond is confronted by an over-enthusiastic and definitely unconventional fan. All I can say is, if I ever meet one like that, I'm either running or screaming, and I'm not sure which comes first!
# # #
Mr. Garabaldi brings us many maxims about flight and travel. An example:
"It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, 'As pretty as an airport'." -- Douglas Adams
Uh-huh. BTDT.
# # #
The Feral Irishman (site sometimes NSFW) compares and contrasts genuinely musical lyrics to the atrocity that is rap 'music'. If you want to see and/or hear the abomination to which he refers (which I most emphatically DO NOT recommend), you'll find it here. All I can say is, if there were ever any further justification needed for the summary punishment (with extreme prejudice) of hardcore and gangsta rap 'artists', I think that music video provides it.
# # #
My friend Matt G. comments that he's sick and tired of people trying to co-opt interest groups like the NRA for their own political ends. He just wants to talk about guns.
# # #
Patriotic And Proud has the perfect illustration for what I've said all along - that both major political parties, Democratic and Republican, are not trustworthy and don't have the interests of the American people at heart. I think this image should be on billboards near every election station this fall.
# # #
Chris Byrne destroys my self-control with the ultimate hot dog. Gee, thanks, Chris. There went my diet!
# # #
Joel finds an even lower form of humor than the pun.
# # #
Jeff Soyer discusses the Wilhelm Scream, and brings us a compilation of its history.
# # #
John Robb points out that many jobs are being permanently eliminated by the changing nature of work. Here's an excerpt.
Technological change is rapidly killing entire industries and job categories without replacing them ... [The greatest job losses] will occur in the industries that are completely gutted from the arrival of products and services that make them obsolete.
As this trend strengthens, we may see results similar to what we saw with the agrarian economy. If that occurs, the extreme endpoint of this decline may be a world where most of the commercial activity in goods and services we see today — from education to health care to manufacturing to transportation to retail to legal services — is accomplished by less than 1% of the people it used to require.
That means only 1 of the hundred jobs being done currently will be left ... we may find ourselves more than half of the way there within twenty years.
There's more at the link.
Scary stuff, but I think very real. Recommended reading, particularly if you rely on employment to survive and/or have kids who'll be entering the workforce soon.
# # #
Finally, Joe Huffman points out that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's famous quotation from 'The Gulag Archipelago' sounds more and more as if it might be true of the growing 'police state' in the USA, never mind the USSR. I can't argue with him.
# # #
That's all for this week.
Peter
The John Robb article was interesting, but have some caveats. I've been an architectural draftsman since 1986, starting out on 'the boards'. The task was far more challenging back then, using pencils and pens straight edged tools to draw your lines. Lettering was hand done or using a Leroy tool, took far more time than today.
ReplyDeleteCAD has taken over. Computer drafting is far easier, you type your commands which measure space far easier than back then. Lettering - select a font - done.
But ...
The computer only draws as good as the person's knowledge behind it. The computer does not understand the sequence of materials needed to build and it does not comprehend that the omission of a connection can bring an assembly down much faster. The operator tells the machine what to put down - that will never change. Much like owning a M$ makes them the equal of a skilled operator.