Sunday 11 December 2011

African humour....

Monkey is sitting in the tree pulling on a joint he has just lit, when Lizard arrives there. Lizard says: "What you doing, Monkey?"

Monkey says: "I'm smoking some zol. Come up and have some." Lizard climbs up the tree, sits next to Monkey, takes the joint from him and has a few pulls. After a while, Lizard says he is thirsty and Monkey advises him to go down to the river and have a drink, Lizard does this, but he is so goofed already, that he moers into the water and is quickly whisked away by the current.

Crocodile sees he is in trouble, swims over and gently scoops Lizard onto his snout and swims back to shore with him. As he puts him down on the bank, Crocodile says to Lizard: "You look a bit funny. What's wrong with you?" Lizard says he and Monkey have been smoking zol. Crocodile says: "This I want to see for myself!".

He scuttles up the bank and through the bush to the tree where Monkey is still sitting. Crocodile calls up to Monkey and says: "Hey Monkey, what you doing?" Monkey, who is now totally goofed, peers down at Crocodile through hazy eyes and slowly says:

"Bro', how much water did you drink?"

Poxy clocks

After this weekend’s exertions, sleep came easily on Sunday as well as last night. I struggled to watch BB5, brushing my teeth during the advert breaks just so it would be one less thing to get in the way of precious sleep, head resting wearily on the top of the sofa, eyes closing, fighting the constant battle of, “Can’t I really be arsed to watch the rest?” verses “Can I be bothered to move?”.

I relented, switched off the TV, turned off the lights and headed into the bedroom where my head touched the pillow and I was away into dream world.

03:04 AM

Never a sight you want to see. The orange numerals burning themselves into your brain. Numerous slurred swear words followed then the thoughts started. I hate it when that happens, you want to get back to sleep but you can’t. Your brain won’t bloody well shut up long enough for you to fall asleep.

“I can’t believe she is being such a bitch, what did I do??”

“Do I need a piss? Maybe I should have a piss just in case. I don’t want to get up. But I do need a piss, but I don’t want to get up, but I need a piss”

“What should I cook for Hannah tonight?”

“Shuddddup and get to sleep”

Apparently a good solution to this is to keep a pen and paper by your bed to write all your thoughts down on, but just like I couldn't be bothered to get up, I couldn't be bothered to find a pen. I'm also not sure how useful it would be to write, "Do I need a piss?" fifty times.

Argh, hate it. Now I’m a tired (and therefore unpleasant to be around) Tilesey, but I am lunching with Miss Austin which is always entertaining and gossip filled…. And I finally have some decent gossip to share! Ha!

Oh ferchissake!

Turns out the bunched panty crowd now has an issue with backpacks. They think the idea of carrying around 10 to 20% of ones body weight is somehow detrimental. Well, I guess we have to make sure America's children need to be ensured the softest possible life.

Backpackers typically carry 30% of their bodyweight for 20 to 25 miles a day, for weeks on end, and they do it or fun. I doubt that 10 to 20% is much of a problem.

Lynn White...tried to pick up her son's middle-school backpack..."I thought 'Oh my gosh, I can't even put this on the table,' " For Christ's Sake, Lady, hit the damn gym. I don't mean Jazzercise, I mean start pushing some heavy metal around.

I found the tidbit that it was the overweight, inactive kids that tended to have back pain. In fact, I seem to recall that about 30% of American school kids are technically overweight, 30% of the kids in the article suffered back pain, and that the study showed a large overlap between those two groups.

Oh, and there were 247 kids were hurt in backpack related incidents. 247 out of 10 bazillion kids. Fuck gettin' meth of the streets! It's obvious that something has to be done about the menace of book carrying gear!!

So let me get this straight. Americas schools are falling behind, and something has to be done. Making the school day longer, or eliminating summer vacation is right out, so teachers assign more homework. Now the goddamn blissninnies are bitching that their kids get too much homework, and it's hurting their backs?

It's the fat kids that have trouble with backpacks, and it's likely that those same fat kids are the ones sitting in front of the tube until their brains run out their ears. I see only one solution; More Weight. If we can't get the fat fucks to work out, we'll work em in the hunded yards between the bus and the fucking Playstation. 100% bodyweight, here we come.

The cost of "quality"

While I haven't had my hands on one, what I've read about them implies that, like most German designs I've worked with, the product is over-toleranced.

It's fairly easy to design a product "line-on-line." That is, you assume that every part will be made exactly to the nominal dimensions on the drawing. For instance, if the design calls for a 1/2" slot, the designer assumes that the slot will be exactly .5000 inches, every time, on every gun.

The problem is that in reality no two parts are the same. There is some range in that dimension resulting from the manufacturing process. If the process is in control, that dimension should have a normal distribution (a bell curve) centered on the nominal dimension. If the part is milled, a fairly typical capability would be +/- .005" on features less than three or four inches in size. That is about the thickness of a piece or two of xerox paper. The normal distribution means ~2/3 of the parts will be +/- .0016". ~97% of the parts will be +/-.003".

If the tolerances on the drawing demand it, the manufacturer can take their time, and reduce the manufacturing capability to +/- .001", assuming that the machine and setup can handle it. Of course, this requires more time and expense. A manufacturer will only go to this trouble if the design demands it, because it's expensive.

In general, if the tolerance is less than +/- .001", the part will have to be ground or EDM'ed. Both of these processes are fairly slow, and very expensive. If the product was designed line-on-line, with no tolerances and an inadequate amount of effort was put into exploring the design to account for variation in the components, the manufacturer will be forced into using very expensive means to manufacture the components, or extensive hand fitting will be required to make up for the inability of the manufacturing process to meet the requirements of the product.

A design that is tolerant to variation is called robust. I don't think the Korth design is robust.

That Korth uses both expensive, slow manufacturing methods, and handfitting indicates to me that the design is not robust. Now, I'm not saying they aren't good guns. They may be just as strong, durable and reliable as anything else out there. I'm saying that I suspect a less than robust design has forced Korth to charge exorbitant amounts of money for their product, because they aren't capable of making a less expensive gun.

Just a little Update

As you, my singular reader, may recall, I've decided to hike the Appalachian Trail. I've received a box full of guidebooks, and I am shopping for gear.

I've noticed an interesting quirk in my shopping for this stuff. My urge is to shop for a backpack first, when I really need to buy the pack last. I need to buy the smallest lightest pack that will carry all the gear I need. I'm definitely one of those bigger is better kinda guys. Let me tell you, an expedition sized internal frame pack can weigh 8 pounds. My target weight for my backpack and all contents, minus food and water is somewhere around 25 pounds. A pack suitable for 25 pounds of gear only weighs about 3 pounds, and may not need a frame of any type.

I'm pretty sure I am going to eschew a tent, and go for some sort of hammock or tarp. The entire length of the trail is dotted with shelters separated by an easy day's walk. 'm going to need two different sleeping bags. The Georgia Spring/Maine Autumn bag, and a South in the Summer sleeping bag. Those light weight summer bags are right about a pound.

What I'm really crazy about are the little alcohol stoves. i found one that's titanium,, weighs about an ounce, and has little legs for a pot holder and stability. It costs about $30. Yay!

I'm having way too much fun with all this.