Typically in fiction, and it doesn’t matter much what genre nowadays, there is some sort of vehicle that makes the whole story possible, whether that vehicle is magic or interstellar travel or vampirism/immortality or whatever, it’s core to the whole thing, and if you ridicule the notion of magic for example someone will ask you what the fuck did you expect, when you picked up a book called the wizard and the unicorn, so why did you pick up the book???
Well, I suppose I was just seeing what it was like…
But in fact this notion of a vehicle of some sort upon which everything rests is not confined to fiction books…
“You can always trust a policeman” was one such vehicle when I was a young boy.. to be fair, it was a far more substantial and roadworthy vehicle back then, but today, well, it’s over there between the wizard and unicorn book, and the vampire and mermaid book, right where it belongs.
And like those genres of fiction, once the vehicle is broken to you, the whole genre is unreadable, and becomes something utterly different to what it might have been before… eg a bunch of tripe for escapist losers who have had a frontal lobotomy.
If any one asked me today my advice would be “Never trust a policeman”, sure, there may be some good ones out there, but there are shelves and shelves of tripe that even a putative good one would have to inhabit, so that begs the question, why would an idealist or someone of firm principles *stay* in the force, even if they joined in a moment of weakness?
The world of finance has its own vehicle, currently it’s mainly a Keynesian jalopy, but the same things holds true, once you lose patience with the vehicle, you lose patience with everyone who doesn’t.
Here then, is a dose of economic and financial and business reality.
Yesterday, Monday the 18th September, I took delivery of my new fibre galvo laser, which I ordered and paid cash for 6 weeks ago, and in between it was being built.
Hilariously today I realised that the 18th of September three years ago was the day I went and collected my first CO2 plotter, which is just about to get a new set of optics and PSU and tube, not bad for three years of use with zero downtime.
So anyway, on the business side of things I have been telling people for a few weeks about the new machine, and the business website has a mention, but it was all a bit vague, it will be here when it is here stuff, because there is nothing worse than breaking promises.
So friday last I get an enquiry, so monday I pop over and pick up a sample, so this morning I run the sample through the new machine, so this afternoon I drop it off, and they like it, a lot, and the price, and everything else.
I do not have a degree in economics or management or any of that stuff, but I have more than a passing familiarity with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Keynesian economics and so on, and NONE OF IT even remotely addresses the paragraph above.
The paragraph above stands alone and separate from the entirely of business and management and economic theory (managers and economists will all lie and say it does not, then fail to show you how such a process is actually described in detail in their theories) and yet it is both a true and valid example of a business and economic event, one that *many* small businesses can relate to.
So where does it leave us?
Well business and economics just got put on the shelf alongside honest cops and wizards and mermaids and unicorns.
I got no time for it, and I got no time for people who do got time for it.
And as you go through life, you find more and more vehicles, the justice system, the democratic system, the monetary system, and on and on and on, and they all have the same shady wonky old jalopies as the economic system.
This then is the real problem with “big data” and mining said data, 5 thousand, 10 thousand, 50 thousand anecdotes like mine above all go into the big data pile, and then you come along and mine it… and… you don’t get the answers you were looking for.
So, either the data is wrong or the mining algorithm is wrong, there simply are not any other possibilities, because only a virgin can ride a unicorn after all…
Only an unbeliever can say listen, 99% of the data is dreck, but there are some pearls amongst the swine shit, so there is no point looking for a ham sandwich with mustard… and in shades of a chatbot that turns into a white power misogynist nazi racist, all by itself, they are having the same problems with elemental AI or smart systems, it all starts out great but you either get a system that sits there fingering its own asshole, or you get a system that starts calling people dindu niggerz, and there is fuck all in between.
None of this AI shit is doing what it is “supposed” to do, which is mining through tonnes of pig shit and coming up with ham sandwiches with mustard… it doesn’t make sense, because lots of people eat fucking ham sandwiches with mustard, so they must be out there somewhere.
Nor can I tell *you* how to do this shit, I can tell you how I arrived at this place and time, but boy let me tell you there was never a master plan, I’m no more suprised that I am here than someone who has walked 5,000 miles, one step at a time, because all those steps followed on from the previous one, and the future is unknown territory, but looking back ain’t…
But what I can tell *you* is that one approach that works when it comes to taking that one step at a time, is making sure that there are plenty of shelves full of dreck that you ignore as avidly as you ignore everyone who reads it and believes it.
The road less travelled.
I’ve talked before about the dangers of wimminz with big hoopy earrings, asymmetrical hair styles, red / pink / multicoloured hair, skanky tats (there is no other kind) and so on, and there are parallels to that.
Do you really want to use some of your limited time on this planet listening to someone who owns an apple device, or the latest and greatest note8, or who drives an EV, or any other of a screed of other things? It is a valid question.
YouTube suffers the same fate, it’s a monoculture on any and every subject you care to name, and even if that wasn’t bad enough, 99% of it is flat out wrong… I’ll give you a real world example.
Guy asked me for some advice yesterday, he is looking to build and get into his own little CNC milling centre, desktop / hobby style.
Back when I was in IT I’d tell people they had everything bass ackward, 1 buy the software you need, 2 buy the operating system to run the software, 3 buy the hardware to run 1 & 2, and you’ll be a happy camper.
Told this guy the same thing, FIRST buy your cutting tools, your ball and end mills, from there you will know chip load, from there you will know material removal rates vs rpm, from there you will be able to specify your spindle and the loads on it, and from there you can specify your gantry and steppers / servos whatever, and from there your control systems.
There is no method more wrong than going out and buying the first thing that sounds good, you’ll end up with something that isn’t rigid enough to be any use, or isn’t accurate enough to be any use, or isn’t powerful enough to be any use, or doesn’t do the material you want to do… gua-ron-fucking-teed… but be my guest, go out and piss your money away.
Then maybe you can make a shill review video saying how fucking good your piece of junk is, without ever actually showing a video of it doing what you claim it can do, in detail.
AvE had a nice video recently about a kickstarter laser engraver, gordon gecko arduino style galvo and software to make up for the lack of an f-theta lens (any beam steered by a galvo, as opposed to a plotter mechanism, has to deal with a varying distance between the laser source and the work, simple pythagoras, and the *only* way to maintain focus is a very very expensive f-theta lens… ) you can’t fucking focus a diode in software, unless its kickstarter.
What was *terribly* depressing for me was all the comments from so called laser experts who allegedly use lasers in anger every day.
Not one cunt said hang on just a fucking minute, 800 mW in an exposed beam is a Class IV laser device, and there isn’t a Class V, so it’s at the most dangerous level already, because anything that can literally blind you for life before your blink reflex can kick in in 0.025 seconds is Class IV… so EVERY cunt within 100 yards or so should be wearing suitable protective goggles (pets and livestock too)
https://www.thorlabs.com/newgrouppage9.cfm?objectgroup_id=762
Not cheap, that is what I was told by someone who had just spent £250 on fancy designer spectacles from Specsavers, so they bought some goggles for 35 bucks on ebay…
MINE have a fucking certificate of conformance, his do not, so they aren’t the same thing, and, more vehicles ahoy, you have to wonder at the fucking mentality, 250 quid on designer frames, 150 quid for pukka protection is too much, so 35 bucks later you can end up blind for life… or worse still, blinding some other cunt.
NOBODY in ANY youtube video of a fibre galvo or arduino cnc laser engraver is wearing suitable protective gear.
I can tell you right away that as little as 20 watts of focused fibre laser power hitting metal creates a point of intense light that rivals and electric arc in intensity.
I was a marine engineer in a previous life so I ***KNOW*** what heavy IR and UV radiation from an arc feels like on my skin, I can tell you for a fact that 20 watts of focused fibre laser on metal makes a very easily noticeable similar effect on the skin of my hands etc, and even behind expensive certified correct wavelength OD 8 (0.000001% transmittance) I still avoid exposure, look away, use my hand to shield, don’t have reflective shit around, and only relax when the fucking solid covers are down.
I always had the same attitude to guns, every fucking gun is loaded, and never ever ever put your finger anywhere near the trigger unless you intend to shoot … something our UK armed po-po could do with learning…
Playing the stock market is the same, sure, it’s not a bullet that can kill you in an instant, or a beam of radiation that can blind you in an instant, but it can wipe you out and put you on the street or in debt for life in an instant.
It’s just another vehicle.
I have just been informed by a mate that his barely teen daughter is turning into a crazy slut before his eyes, it’s already game over, she is already unfuckable even years before she is theoretically fuckable, another vehicle consigned to the scrapheap, along with the wizards and vampires and honest po-po and economists and managers and data miners and a hell of a lot else…
Bring it on.