Incandescents

Hey look y’all! Another lightbulb post!

You bet! I have much jesting, at the expense of Baby Boomers and my wife.

***

Okay, so this is just one of those filler posts I come up with in winter.

But even in the mediocrity of suburban creativity can one ruminate.

One can also be that shameless self-promoter who constantly hyperlinks his own prior blog posts.

***

All right, the point. Here it is…

Yep. One such bulb remained, still functioning I might add. Note that it’s not a GE.

I have a Sunbeam Mixmaster in the basement, replaced by the Kitchen Aid. It still works, too.

But all bulbs grow dim with time, even if they don’t catastrophically fail as designed by Capitalistic anti-competitive anti-consumer anti-environmental bla bla bla grumble grumble and such….

Ahem.

It needed replacing. I didn’t even know it was incandescent until I looked. And I’m fairly certain it’s the last of its kin to leave this house, excluding the appliance bulbs which necessarily must remain incandescents.

Farewell, ye old supposed invention of Thomas Edison, who didn’t really invent the lightbulb bla bla bla history facts….

And despite the bleeding heart left-wing environmentalist Democratic bla bla bla guns immigrants hard work kids these days Hillary is really a man moon landing faked … conspiracy to rid them from the world, in some small way, I’ll miss them.

–Simon

January 12, 2022

Don’t Want to Work

Spring is a ways off, and that limits the amount of available content I have for a post. And my last 3 involved vacuum cleaners, lightbulbs, and fanciful theoretical mathematical models, soooo I think I need to change direction for a bit and diversify.

So I’ll do what everyone else does to fill empty blog space: complain about something, using an inflammatory title!

Here’s what I’ve chosen: “People just don’t want to work anymore.”

We’ve all heard it. Online, by coworkers, by disgruntled consumers.

This phrase, generally uttered in exasperation by a ~~Baby Boomer~~ socioeconomic superior who’s currently unable to receive a service of some kind due to limited staffing, assumes an obnoxious smug self-importance that the world has the audacity to not cater to his every whim, or at least not in a timely fashion. And, that this current state of affairs is the result of younger people being too lazy to work hard enough to achieve the high status of becoming the served, rather than the server–that is, how the above complainer feels he has achieved said status.

Rephrased: “I suffered some bad jobs and now I have a good job and now other people need to suffer those bad jobs for my benefit.”

This term gets too much use today, namely because of a certain recent “leader”, but it applies: this is narcissistic thinking.

This present situation is, of course, a result of COVID-19’s economic impact. The jobs in question that people don’t want to work are the jobs that suffered greatly reduced demand from quarantines. The businesses, as businesses do, simply reduced their staff as a result to balance the books. Once quarantines lifted, demand increased, but the former workers didn’t want to go back to those underpaid customer-facing jobs.

The reasoning is slightly more complicated than people not serving you because they’re lazy. I figured this logic chain to be fairly obvious, but it’s apparently not. So to appease you ~~self-righteous wealthy Republican Boomers~~ judgmental privileged whiners, I’ll offer you just want you want: a service. I will explain your logical error.

Three points:

People don’t want to work crappy jobs. Workers are still eager to fill higher-paying professional positions. No one wants to be the employee that has to deal with the above ~~Boomer~~ irate customer storming around complaining about staffing shortages. (And that employee, despite doing exactly what the raging ~~Boomer Karen~~ customer wants (working a crappy job), will still receive the brunt of these laziness accusations that don’t even apply to him.)
Impacted workers, living temporarily on emergency government assistance, suddenly had a lot of time on their hands to shore up the skill gaps keeping them out of professional careers. Now that they’ve done so, there isn’t much desire to return to jobs beneath their new qualification levels.
Of course people don’t want to work. Who does? People want meaningful careers, vocations, callings…whatever. But those things don’t pay the bills, so people work jobs. CEOs don’t stay in their positions until retirement. They make their millions and move on. Is that because they don’t want to work, either?

Ultimately though, the main point, and philosophy by which you should start to live, is…

It’s not all about you!

–Simon

July 7, 2021May 15, 2023

Models

My theory (which is not terribly PC) of the modeling industry is that because it’s based on the stereotypical premise of high employment of homosexual men designing clothing, that the clothes being designed are either for homosexual men, or women who they want to look like homosexual men (i.e. thin and lacking feminine curves).

Granted my search was likely a big factor in the image results.

I was trying to find a penguin print pattern shirt to replace one my dad had bought for himself about 30 years ago in New Zealand, which had finally worn out. Personally, I found the shirt funny and eccentric (perfect to suit my father), but not particularly gay. The internet, it seems, disagrees:

Only one of the above results even sports penguins, so maybe “penguin” has another meaning.

And don’t blame me. This isn’t being offensive. It’s extrapolating objective observational data from search engine algorithms that I didn’t design.

Maybe Dad needs to choose a different power animal.

–Simon

June 30, 2021May 15, 2023

Noise Pollution Debits

According to generic web searches, a riding mower with blade engaged emits between 87.7 and 95.4 decibels.

According to the CDC’s Occupational Noise Exposure whitepaper, the foundation for OSHA standards, the maximum allowable time that should be spent in such an environment at this sound range is 4 hours to a mere 37 minutes and 48 seconds.

Consider the louder end of this range. A neighbor mowing 50 feet away at 95 decibels would drop by roughly 24 decibels to a perceived volume of 71 decibels–approximately the sound of a normal talking voice.

So, if you’re one of these lawn-riders, for the duration of your landscaping endeavors, your neighbors hear the equivalent of some guy in your face going: “Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

And if you’re also of the persuasion that you should mow at a slow meandering pace to maximize the possibility a passerby will notice that you have the means to spend a couple thousand dollars on a luxury power equipment item, you’re extending your exposure time.

And, if you’re also one of those aging men who think it’s cute to hold your young son/grandson while piloting your luxury power equipment item at a slow meandering pace, you’re also exposing him to unsafe noise levels.

Point being, you’re annoying your neighbors and likely damaging your multiple peoples’ hearing.

And you’re a douche.