Art & Inspiration Do you ever wonder about really smart guys?

They say we learn from our mistakes. I've made so many, I should be a genius by now.
There I go again, thinkin'.

I don't like to think I'm smart. I'd rather assume I'm a fool and act accordingly and take the necessary precautions... LOL.

But a lack of money can be a great motivator to be inventive and think outside the box. We all know that. We're hot rodders. We enjoy coming up with solutions. And most of us don't have money to burn.

I had to reach 20 ft up to do some exterior work on my friend Judy's restaurant. And I needed to be able to change position and climb up and down many times. Didn't want to spend the money or have the desire to wrestle around with a scaffold. Sure wasn't going to do it on a ladder.

Proof that I haven't killed ALL my brain cells... yet. Mostly proof that I hate to spend $ when I can make something better myself...sometimes. Judy's John Deere and some lumber. Kinda proud of my little invention. Mostly just glad I came up with a solution so I was able to be safe and do a good job. Lot's of grinding and filling! You guys know...a good paint job is all in the prep-work. Holy shit...the prep work! Thought my arms were gonna fall off...lol.



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Gimpy, respectfully, if you want to know the difference between skill and ability, when it comes to the stick.....well, I live in a logging town, the truck drivers here traverse on some pretty weird stuff called roads. Over the road drivers are no match for these very skilled and truly professional stick users. No truck company in the world will design trucks to replace their skill and ability, we ARE getting dumber, people like you design with that in mind, trying to prevent us from thinking and making the wrong decisions.
Years ago, no matter who you were, you had to learn how to operate a car, any car, now we don't even need a key, I don't need to think, I just need to learn to use a phone, ( I refuse), not saying these are bad things, but we are losing ourselves to our machines, like it or not. Kudos to those smart guys figuring out how to keep us from being human, and making mistakes.

 

There were many cases of
really smart fellows that failed to demonstrate their postulations, due to rather naive experimental procedures. For example, Galileo and his cronies thought that light did not propogate instantly, but at some finite speed. (Now known to be 186,000 miles per second,) So, in the early 1600s, he says "I'll go up on this hill, you go up on that hill. I'll look at my clock, and light my lantern. When you see the light, you light your lantern. When I see it, I'll check my clock for the elapsed time, and we can then calculate the speed of light!"

 

I like the fold up ladder addition. Nice touch

 

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm

The Museum of Retro Technology

 

You know, most of this thread sums up what happens when you live in a society that rewards innovation. And some of it is just crazy stuff!

 

Automating a logging truck would actually be easier than driving a car in rush-hour traffic. We already automated the building-size mining trucks.

There just isn't a sufficient profit motive.

The future is coming.

You can greet it, or hide, but either way, it will come.

Very curious that you brand people who have been freed from things which have no extant value to humanity, so they can work on things that do, as stupid.

 

"There just isn't a sufficient profit motive."
Ding ding ding...there it is.
Gotta be able to hike up the prices somehow. And all under the guise of being concerned about our welfare.

 

Same guys who decided to make it just as difficult as possible to work on a car.
Too difficult...costly...frustrating to fix...
Most people are just gonna buy a new car. Good for sales.

Used to be, at least the latest and greatest was actually the latest and greatest. Now it's just the latest and most fkng complicated we've been able to figure out how to make it...so far...

 

I have got some shocking news for you. You might want to sit down.

Every single corporation exists to make money, without exception.

I know, shocking, right?!

Some are chartered to make just enough to cover expenses, the rest have a fiduciary responsibility to their owners, or shareholders, to turn a profit.

All corporations exist to do something useful to humanity to earn money.

Keeping folks from inadvertently offing each other is a perfectly valid business plan.

 

I thought this thread was about smart people.

 

Longitude

 

I’m still trying to figure out what any of it has to do with traditional hot rods............

.

 

It's just old men, yelling at clouds.

 

When I was a young man just starting as a mechanics helper one of my mentors told me " If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread we can make a mechanic out of you".

 

Smartest guy I ever knew's son called me Dad.

 

Benjamin franklin.... lightening rod, yes, stove, yes, bufocals, yes. Light bulb, no , sadly officially twas thomas. Alva, edison. I pretty sure he borrowed heavily from tesla tho.... beSt reguards b.

 

I don't think anyone is calling any body else stupid. I do believe that this is probably not the best forum for your gospel. I also believe that you are very intelligent, a little arrogant maybe but that is mostly the norm here. Trying to preach to people who worship the past and enjoy working with their hands about the coming glory of automated cars is a lost cause. Telling us that it's all about saving humanity and not about money.........well you better stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

 

I disagree with your statement. It is possible that at their formation, corporations were designed with the intent to make a profit while doing something useful for, not to, humanity. When they find that their product has been dropped from number one in the market to number two by another corporation's efforts, they find a way to reduce their cost of the product which results in a product that is inferior to the original. Take Sears and Craftsman tools, for instance. I bought Craftsman when I was a young man because they were good tools and Sears was confident enough about their product that there was a lifetime warranty included which was a real selling point. I never had a problem with tool return until the Sears Corporation was taken over by people who did not care about the quality of their product and started stipulating the conditions of return. You could no longer take a broken tool in and receive a new one, your return was decided by someone in sales who may, or may not, have the knowledge of the tools use. Today, Craftsman tools are sold in several outlets other than Sears and there is no longer a lifetime warranty. The corporation is only about making money, they don't care if what they sell is useful to humanity, be it robot cars, tools, life insurance, medicines or anything else. I'm sure that you, being in the industry that you are, have read the book or seen the movie, " I, Robot ", by Isaac Asimov. The world he describes, with thinking macines who are given all the responsibilities of humans by the people who made them, would terrify me. When the machines can repair themselves, what need is there for us?

 

I like hot rods......

 

I am not building the technology that I am building because people are lazy. I am building it because people are dangerous. Maybe you don't care, but I am trying to save lives, by creating new technology.

 

Jonestown was Flavor Aid, not Kool Aid.

 

My company may be in it for the money, but I'm not.

If I were just working for the money, I would pick something that paid the same, but didn't have me working 100-hours-a-week, on the hardest things I have ever done.

I have options.

I am not trying to sell you guys on this, just to point out that creativity and innovation aren't dead, and that people are not necessarily getting dumber.

There have always been dumb people. They have always been a fairy large percentage of the population. That's how population distribution works.

There are just a whole lot more people now.

 

Then there was Ike Newton, who when he ran into a problem he couldn't solve, took time out from describing how the physical universe works to sit down and invent the mathematics of calculus to solve the problem.

 

I wonder more about all the stupid people.

 

Wow, that is a cynical philosophy. I can head that way too, not being critical. But I believe what is being talked about is Capitalism vs. Socialism. In the opposing system - Socialism - the individual is subservient to the collective. Every individual is tasked with providing for the State. Read writings of William Bradford about Plymouth Colony and it was set up like that initially. The result is no one wanted to work for something that others took benefit from. They were starving to death. Socialism. Bradford in desperation decreed that every family would be granted ownership of private property to do with as he wished, live or die he was on his own. The result was the colony prospered to the point they began exporting their produce and all became prosperous. The true story of the first Thanksgiving is they were giving thanks to God for revealing the principle of Capitalism, and self reliance.

The Sears story is one of bad management. In a Socialist system, Craftsman Tools would be mandated as the only tools you could buy and the Central Planners would assign workers to make the tools good again. In our Capitalist system (or whatever is left of it), If Craftsman wants to demise, so be it, there are a dozen hungry companies out there who will want to make a better quality crescent wrench. The incentive is to excel at what you do, make a better mouse trap that will benefit your fellow man, and then reap the rewards for your hard work. Everyone benefits. Sears, GM, Montgomery Ward, Texaco, all once Dow blue chip companies lost that vision, sat back on their laurels and went away. Better alternatives have taken their place, the overall wealth of society has increased, and society is the better for it. The alternative is Venezuela with its planned communal system where everyone suffers and wealth is destroyed.

This post is definitely going to be erased by the moderator!!

 

Yup, politics.

 

When I worked for a major pet food company, we had a machine that regularly busted a 2 - 1/2" shaft. Once when we were changing it out a new kid said why don't you just : bla bla bla. When we got done laughing at him. One old timer said that won't work , but if you........ So anything that makes you think can bring innovative changes. Just need to listen to dumb ideas.

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Problem is, you can't patent an idea. You have to prove it will work.

 

Any way you slice it, smart people become smart through experience, or.....experiences, either way, they happen because good enough isn't good enough for them. Kinda like us, the rat rod crowd isn't welcome here because they don't fit our mentality and generally don't appear to fit our mold of the version of good enough. We build on past experience, the way it was, people before us who innovated, made old parts faster and better, we fit that mold, using equipment and parts created by us as a group to go faster and look better, better bodies, better stronger parts, even though the average hot rod can be severely embarrassed by the average production car, we take pride in our ability to create something unique.
Better products and ideas come from those not happy with the current model, inventors who see past the good enough mentality, we on this board fit that mode, including you gimpy, kudos for your efforts, kudos to those here who build cars, using their minds for something other than cheering on their favourite team with a beer in hand in front of the tv.