Category: Observations

Posted on

22° Halo

Red at night, sailors’ delight.

Red in the morning, sailors take warning.

Bird on the wing, it’s time for spring?

Swings in temperature? It’s an Al Gore lecture.

Blood moon – werewolves soon.

Okay, I’m getting silly now and making some of these up. But weather encourages superstition, with all its violence and unpredictability. And Al Roker. Fuck that guy. There’s no way he’s human. Humans don’t smile like that. Humans aren’t that ecstatic to look at a Doppler map first thing in the morning.

Anyway, so one of these portents of climactic evil is the Moon Ring. I remember these well from the Lubbock years, probably because the sky was very open and clear, and as such these events were dramatic. Also since they indicate fronts, it always meant tornadoes.

Ohio isn’t quite as tornado-y (although it’s certainly getting there). But nevertheless these are still cool. Here’s a picture from a few days ago:

November 13, 2024

And it did indeed rain for a day following that. So there’s some potential truth in the old adages. But really, it’s just the coolness factor.

And if you want to read way too much about their formation, they’re called 22° halos, because that’s the geometric alignment at which they form, via suspended hexagonal ice crystals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22%C2%B0_halo

And here’s one from last year that I apparently never posted:

November 24, 2023

As both of these were in the month of November, I think their appearance indicates something much simpler – it’s getting colder.

But still cool.

–Simon

Posted on

Vise Vise Baby

I like old tools. They’re my primary focus when antiquing. They have an individual history with their prior owners, which I don’t know about but enjoy imagining, and I feel a sense of purpose when I buy one and add to its legacy. Plus they’re usually made better than their contemporary counterparts, have already proven their durability, and cost less.

And so it was that with the Veterans Day holiday, I went antiquing with Liz and acquired this bench vise:

I wanted to replace the cheap clamp-on that I had been using, which would never stay in place no matter how hard I cranked down its grips. Now I have a bench-mounted beast. 3 5/8, 2″ bolts say that it’s not going anywhere! I even added lock washers.

The old vise.

And for the second best part: researching the crap out of it! Starting with the cast printing, which reads “THE DESMOND STEPHAN MFG. CO.”

The Desmond-Stephan Manufacturing Company was founded sometime over 100 years ago1. It’s odd that I can’t find an exact date of incorporation, even on their own website2. I’m guessing that they don’t use it as their established date because they were probably a family business when they started operations and tax codes back then were somewhat different and they didn’t get an EIN until much later – ergo they don’t view that as their start date and want to proudly claim their lengthier history.

The vise design and manufacturing actually predated them anyway, having been the property of Simplex Tool Company, later Simplex Corporation, and was sold to Desmond-Stephan in 1931, who continued to make the vises until 1964, when they in turn sold the rights to Ridge Tool Company3. I’m assuming then that my particular vise was made by Desmond-Stephan during this 1931-1964 time period.

My vise, with a single-swivel base and a 3.75″ jaw width, is also conveniently listed in a company catalog from 19414. It has a listed price of $15. Adjusted for inflation using CPI, that’s around $320 today5. I got guud dearl!

Additionally, just for more historical nerding out; The Desmond-Stephan Manufacturing Company; which is in Urbana, OH; was just today at the time of me writing this post coincidentally featured in the local news’ callout that Ohio Magazine named the city as one of Ohio’s 5 best hometowns6. So we get a little bit of local Americana as part of the story too.

So there we have it: a chance find on an antique tool for a good price and made by a local company that’s apparently in one of Ohio’s best little towns to grow up in. I will feel honored the next time I have to cut a board or sharpen a lawnmower blade.

(Or dispatch of a murderous sentient doll.)

Can you believe Apple won’t let me take a screenshot of content I’ve purchased through them? I had to get creative with getting this pic.

–Simon

1https://www.cepohio.com/key-industries.html

2http://www.desmond-stephan.com/

3http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=11518

4https://archive.org/details/desmondstephanmfgco1941/page/n3/mode/1up

5https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

6https://www.whio.com/news/local/these-are-best-hometowns-ohio-new-ranking-shows/GFZ3MGKEMVFMTC3QCS2SYMWVTE

Posted on

Slack Fill

We’re all familiar with bags of potato chips, having cried out in irritation upon opening a large puffy bag of salty cholesterol, only to find a lackluster final count of individual product settled in oily mylar at the bottom of the false abyss.

Boo! Hiss!

And we accuse Lay’s of shrinkflation, and they say “Nuh uh! We didn’t do that.”

And we post pictures of historical trends in product reduction, and they say “We didn’t decrease the percentage of product to packaging ratio.”

And then we say “Nuh uh! You totally did!”. And while not experts, none of us buy into 1.034569 ounces being a standard serving size, to which Lay’s replies “Okay, we reduced size but it was to be more aligned with healthy serving size diets. See, we’re actually looking out for your wellbeing. You’re welcome.” And we might almost believe that, were it not for the price increase alongside product size reduction.

But potato chips are just the most obvious example, because the size reduction also made slack fill more obvious. When a bag was big and product content was 50%, we didn’t notice as much because faces could still be stuffed. When bags shrunk 30%, it didn’t matter if product content may have actually remained at 50%, because faces couldn’t be as effectively stuffed. And then we noticed!

Surely some government agency is out there to protect us from these shenanigans!

And indeed there is: the FDA:

So presumably, while shrinkflation is totally legal, slack fill isn’t necessarily, so if indeed the percentage of potato chips has remained constant, then Lay’s is in the right, despite the public’s resentment on limited face-stuffing. But they’re still jerks.

Anyway, on to the next point. One might notice that nowhere in this document is the word “medicine” used. Obviously prescriptions wouldn’t fall under this, but one might assume that OTC medications – a consumer retail product – would. And yet, it doesn’t.

Even ignoring the packaging waste, it’s rather egregious that everything in the left highlighted box easily fit into the bottle on the right. And there were already prior pills still in that bottle!

So why don’t these anti-consumer rules apply to medicine? Why did the FDA, whose very name has “Drug” in it, make this decision? I don’t know, because I can’t find any such explanation on their website. Someone tell me if you find out. Until then:

Fuck you, FDA

Fuck you, Lay’s (Frito-Lay/Pepsico)

And fuck you, Astra AB/AstraZeneca

And maybe Costco too, because they might have had a hand in it.

–Simon

Posted on

EDC

How much thought do you give to the contents of your pockets on a daily basis? Probably not much, because most normal people organically adapt to a practical loadout without much consideration. If I leave the house, I have my phone, keys, and wallet as minimums. Because I’m likely to need those items. I don’t need a schematic.

But prepping has now infiltrated our pants. I need to carry, at a minimum apparently, a small version of every possible tool I might need in the remotest of circumstances. I might need to break a window, bandage a gunshot wound, and set off a visual SOS beacon…on my adventure to Home Depot to buy a 2×4. Suburbia is a jungle!

I mock these dweebs and the EDC community. Being prepared is one thing, but obsession only leads to anxiety. Why do people post pictures of the items they regularly carry? How starved are we for acknowledgment as to solicit feedback from an anonymous public on my Swiss Army knife?

After leading a comfortable life there appears to be a need for street cred. So you completed medical school, and that required sacrificing a particular lifestyle – one that demanded some ruggedness and the potential for violence, so you’re not a real man. So you buy a gun and carry a knife. You know you’re a poser, so you overthink what this missing lifestyle entails and emulate it, but because you know you’re not genuine you need the validation. It’s compensation.

This is why normal product searches have turned into exercises of lexiconical stupidity. I wanted to buy a pocket flashlight because, as a homeowner, I always seem to need one on hand. There’s always a dark crevasse that something rolled into, or that contains a screw I need to tighten, or a deer that needs to be scared out of my vegetable garden at night. But could I find a pocket flashlight that met my desired specs? Not at first. Because I had to search for “tactical” flashlight. As if I’m going to whack a Taliban in the skull with it. Again, suburbia is indeed quite the jungle! Or, sandy battlefield.

So let’s all just stop with the nonsense please. I carry a folding pocket knife, not because of those marauding Taliban. And it doesn’t need to be named “The Stabinator 3000” or some other retarded name. It needs to cut boxes and packaging and garden produce. It doesn’t need to be a self-defense tool, and neither does my flashlight. Sigh.

Anyway, here’s what I got:

To its credit, it was not marketed as tactical, though it was the marketing term I used to find it.

Sigh again.

And it fits nicely against my tactical keychain in my tactical cargo pants.

EDC! Sigh.

–Simon

Posted on

Age and Economics

385 words, 2 minutes read time.

Now that I’m 40, I’ve done some reflecting. In all, I don’t have too many complaints when I really think about it. I mean, America’s golden age – at least in recent history and the era we still seem to consider the gold standard (hehe) – was the 1950s and 60s, and a time in which the war and postwar generations saw large economic growth.

Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/economic-growth-rate

Just look at those GDP spikes, compared to 2007, when I entered the workforce full time! Sure there were some recessions, and the Boomers still whine about how bad interest rates were in 1980 (and how so many of them were almost drafted for The Vietnam War), but look at the growth recovery following each of those events, compared to the 2008 Great Recession.

Recession of 1953

Inflation and rising interest rates:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1953

Recession of 1958

Sinking car and house purchases:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1958

Early 1980s recession in the United States

Inflation and oil energy dependency:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession_in_the_United_States

2007–2008 financial crisis

Unsustainable and predatory financial lending practices:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_financial_crisis

And studies which I won’t bother to cite because you have a search engine too have long mockingly laughed at my generation’s plight, as those who enter the workforce in a recession are doomed to never make much money. And yet, here Liz and I sit, apparently as 12%-ers. And also apparently I’ll be a multi-millionaire at retirement according to projections. And like most of my generation, I normally don’t discuss my financial situation, because we just don’t want to get into it with a boomer. But sometimes I think it’s healthy to brag about one’s accomplishments and this one in particular is contrary to everything I was told was going to happen, thanks to boomer generational masturbatory article headlines (“Your kids are lazy and won’t get a job and they’re moving back home to take your money”).

But I started off on a tangent. I meant to post some cheap laughs at becoming older, but I’m apparently so adversarialy positive about my situation that I got distracted with everything good that’s happened on my journey to becoming middle-aged.

Oh well. Fodder for my next post I suppose, since I’m almost hitting 400 words here! Next time – how long it takes to grow out a damaged fingernail! Woo!

–Simon