I'm up with the chickens, which means very early. Looking out over the property toward the eastern horizon of the world, I see the roseate fingers of dawn working their way up the backside.
For me, this is the time of day to get an early start if one is to be had. Because if I wait until it's later, the time for an early start will have passed. So here I am.
The minutes I have -- each one is precious. So precious, in fact, that it's getting to be true that each minute I use doing one thing is one I'm stealing from something else. It's a fierce schedule I'm keeping. I'm wearing too many hats. I'm juggling a lot of duties these days in the business of industry.
There will be quite a few orders -- accounts payable and accounts receivable, as well -- in my mail, I'd guess. These won't be just for me (I'm serving as an agent for some of my neighbors), even though I'm working on some of my own industries, and there likely will be some bills coming in from neighbors for supplies and other help they've given me. Fortunately I'm able to balance out those with a few accounts receivable that I have in everyone else's mail, so they'll also be up early trying to get off their payments to me before sending out their own bills.
These days, with all this fierce activity, juggling all these duties, wearing so many hats, seeing that the work of industry grinds on, I'm getting a first hand understanding of the old phrase "cash flow." I'm getting a first rate education on the subject. Back before I had a hand in the flow of cash, I used to picture it (the phrase) in very literal terms, such as cash flowing through a pipe somewhere. In my defense, at the bank they literally did have cash in a container being shot through a pipe, some sort of pneumatic sending/receiving device that, now that I think of it, would make a terrific knock-off for someone in this neighborhood, like me, if I had the time...
Anyway, in addition to all those matters, I still am something of a spokesman for the Residential Industrial Movement, answering various press queries about how things are going, and who else they can talk to, who there would be who has a few minutes time to talk to them. Because that's the way it is for most of us -- everyday we're looking at a fierce schedule, we're juggling a lot of duties, and we're wearing a lot of hats. I have neighbors who are so busy they're barely able to mow the little tufts of grass left on their property or change their pants. They're either out oiling a forklift or buffing their signage if they can find a spare second to do it.
And I'm trying to be faithful to this, writing the blog, trying to document the whole thing, with the belief I have that there's someone out there with enough time on his hands that he can read it. It's a real sacrifice for me, so obviously I hope it's not in vain. All the duties I'm juggling, I can barely spare a moment. The fierce schedule I'm on, it's go go go! And all the hats I'm wearing, it's getting to the point where it's almost too many. And yet I press on, getting up early, getting an early start on the day, hoping that everything will get done that needs to be done.
Does it wear on me? I'd be a liar if I just gave a flat "no." It's wearing on me somewhat, I'll leave it at that. It could be that I've bit off more than I can chew. I hope not. I'm definitely going to keep trying. I'm not giving up. But at some point I can see that I might have to pare back on some of it. Certainly the accounts payable and the accounts receivable stuff has to be kept up. I need to pay for my goods and supplies or they won't send them to me. And everyone else has to pay me or I won't be sending them anything either or doing tasks for them. So those two things are inviolable. What there is that might be pared back, that's for another day to decide.
The Residential Industrial Movement goes on, ever onward and upward, a fierce schedule for all involved, with lots of hats and duties.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Industrial Strength In Numbers
Since yesterday I've been celebrating my accomplishment both in numbers and years. With my 100th industrial post -- in the process of 101 right now -- I've been reflecting on the great significance of both numbers and the passing of years they represent.
When you have a significant number like that, and you know it also is applied to time, as in a century, it's really something to consider. Because, as numbers go, it's right up there, showing that the thing in question has been sustained and is long lasting; it's not fly by night or a mist that dissipates with the morning sky's blast furnace.
101 is auspicious as well, because it holds promise for the future. To me, 100 is more essentially the end of a series, then it takes that extra 1 to make it the beginning of something. But we go both ways on this, as is easy to see when we count decades as starting with the 0. Another way for me to explain my feelings on this is that 0 has put you to the line -- like the finish line, but 1 is the beginning of the race.
Whatever the feeling of the numbers, they do represent a great deal of time that has passed -- in this case 100 years -- with me remaining and abiding, not looking too shabby for such an enormous span. Frankly, I still feel fit as a fiddle, like I could easily write another 100 posts without slowing down or showing my age. I still feel young at heart, at least, and in this day and age that counts for a lot more than you'd think!
There's a lot of rusted out cylinders, especially to be found at industrial sites. Maybe they were used for storage of something 100 years ago. Animal musk at a tanning factory or the sharp ends of barbed wire clipped off before shipping out the finished spools. Neither one has a short half life, so it'd be easy to seal off the cylinders and just forget them. Workers retire, then die, and the upcoming generation doesn't know what to do, so they do nothing. Then you have a century of rust and decay and next thing you know it's both toxic and unpleasant. But I go on, no worse for the wear!
To me, 100 is a good industrial strength number. That's why we celebrate it. It hasn't got the unfulfilled promise of 99 and it's not feeling its oats like the more vigorous 101. It has arrived and it stands there proud, standing there actually long enough for a sculptor to have plenty of time to etch it in stone, if that's what the moment seems to call for. That's why there's so many commemorative 100's around. They breed like rabbits.
Anyway -- so be it. 101 is here. 101 is passing, industry remains, and the future appears like it might turn out to be bright.
When you have a significant number like that, and you know it also is applied to time, as in a century, it's really something to consider. Because, as numbers go, it's right up there, showing that the thing in question has been sustained and is long lasting; it's not fly by night or a mist that dissipates with the morning sky's blast furnace.
101 is auspicious as well, because it holds promise for the future. To me, 100 is more essentially the end of a series, then it takes that extra 1 to make it the beginning of something. But we go both ways on this, as is easy to see when we count decades as starting with the 0. Another way for me to explain my feelings on this is that 0 has put you to the line -- like the finish line, but 1 is the beginning of the race.
Whatever the feeling of the numbers, they do represent a great deal of time that has passed -- in this case 100 years -- with me remaining and abiding, not looking too shabby for such an enormous span. Frankly, I still feel fit as a fiddle, like I could easily write another 100 posts without slowing down or showing my age. I still feel young at heart, at least, and in this day and age that counts for a lot more than you'd think!
There's a lot of rusted out cylinders, especially to be found at industrial sites. Maybe they were used for storage of something 100 years ago. Animal musk at a tanning factory or the sharp ends of barbed wire clipped off before shipping out the finished spools. Neither one has a short half life, so it'd be easy to seal off the cylinders and just forget them. Workers retire, then die, and the upcoming generation doesn't know what to do, so they do nothing. Then you have a century of rust and decay and next thing you know it's both toxic and unpleasant. But I go on, no worse for the wear!
To me, 100 is a good industrial strength number. That's why we celebrate it. It hasn't got the unfulfilled promise of 99 and it's not feeling its oats like the more vigorous 101. It has arrived and it stands there proud, standing there actually long enough for a sculptor to have plenty of time to etch it in stone, if that's what the moment seems to call for. That's why there's so many commemorative 100's around. They breed like rabbits.
Anyway -- so be it. 101 is here. 101 is passing, industry remains, and the future appears like it might turn out to be bright.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
This Industrial Century -- 100!
The spread of the Residential Industrial Movement, starting to fulfill the ultimate but unrealized promise of industrialism in the world, has been a beautiful thing.
It's been so beautiful that I feel I'm now in a position to declare this "The Century of Industrialism." There, having done that, I can point out the beautiful 'happenstance' that this is my 100th industrialism post, a century, literally a hundred years of posts.
Like something one of our industrial brethren would make -- perhaps a redesigned rivet meant to last 10 times longer than the older, less reliable ones -- my own achievement has been both been creative and has given new hope to men everywhere.
Before, industrialism was the sole domain of the major industrial powers, who kept their power by exploiting and denying the rest of us. That left the rest of us to take what was left over, which generally turned out to be nothing. Then -- I'll just call it inspiration ... The inspiration was given for something new. At first it was a reaction against industrialism, a call to arms. Once arms had been brandished, we turned the tables on the powers and set down industrial roots of our own!
That was the major turning point. We put the old adage into practice, that what was good for the goose was good for the gander. As far as we were concerned, turnabout was fair play. We confronted the industrial powers at first with blunt force, which only made them tougher. Then we regrouped and showed up to play on their turf, having as our operating principle the very simple principle that 'We can do the same thing!' If they can have industries of their own, then all of us can have them!
So we have made great strides in the last century! It's gone much faster and smoother than you'd think.
Now we have the future to look forward to. And we can rest easier at this point, knowing that the future will also be something we build. What we've done in the past, we shall see, will only be prologue to a new future that stretches out before us and will reveal greater successes and opportunities. The major industrial powers, in the days when they covered our eyes, told us our best days were behind us, but now we know ... the future is endlessly bright, and from this point nothing bad will ever happen again.
We honor the true heroes of this movement. The true hero is not me, even though I had a big hand in getting this thing off the ground. I was the one who saw the problem and happened upon the solution. But had it not been me, it could've been someone else. The fact that no one was stepping up to the plate makes it look like it was meant for me to do. But truly, it could've been anyone else.
Be all that as it may, it turned out that I did it and got it done. So now we turn once again, to honor the true heroes of this movement, the millions of backyard industrialists who are churning out an endless stream of appliances, parts, equipment, and goods. Keep dreaming. Let the next 100 years be as great as the last! And we'll meet you over there somewhere, on the brightest shore that we can imagine, the other side of the future where everything is a reward of some sort.
It's been so beautiful that I feel I'm now in a position to declare this "The Century of Industrialism." There, having done that, I can point out the beautiful 'happenstance' that this is my 100th industrialism post, a century, literally a hundred years of posts.
Like something one of our industrial brethren would make -- perhaps a redesigned rivet meant to last 10 times longer than the older, less reliable ones -- my own achievement has been both been creative and has given new hope to men everywhere.
Before, industrialism was the sole domain of the major industrial powers, who kept their power by exploiting and denying the rest of us. That left the rest of us to take what was left over, which generally turned out to be nothing. Then -- I'll just call it inspiration ... The inspiration was given for something new. At first it was a reaction against industrialism, a call to arms. Once arms had been brandished, we turned the tables on the powers and set down industrial roots of our own!
That was the major turning point. We put the old adage into practice, that what was good for the goose was good for the gander. As far as we were concerned, turnabout was fair play. We confronted the industrial powers at first with blunt force, which only made them tougher. Then we regrouped and showed up to play on their turf, having as our operating principle the very simple principle that 'We can do the same thing!' If they can have industries of their own, then all of us can have them!
So we have made great strides in the last century! It's gone much faster and smoother than you'd think.
Now we have the future to look forward to. And we can rest easier at this point, knowing that the future will also be something we build. What we've done in the past, we shall see, will only be prologue to a new future that stretches out before us and will reveal greater successes and opportunities. The major industrial powers, in the days when they covered our eyes, told us our best days were behind us, but now we know ... the future is endlessly bright, and from this point nothing bad will ever happen again.
We honor the true heroes of this movement. The true hero is not me, even though I had a big hand in getting this thing off the ground. I was the one who saw the problem and happened upon the solution. But had it not been me, it could've been someone else. The fact that no one was stepping up to the plate makes it look like it was meant for me to do. But truly, it could've been anyone else.
Be all that as it may, it turned out that I did it and got it done. So now we turn once again, to honor the true heroes of this movement, the millions of backyard industrialists who are churning out an endless stream of appliances, parts, equipment, and goods. Keep dreaming. Let the next 100 years be as great as the last! And we'll meet you over there somewhere, on the brightest shore that we can imagine, the other side of the future where everything is a reward of some sort.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Industry Is Nature's Way
With the dawn of a new day, I stepped outside to let Underbrush pee and poo and I noticed the sun coming over the horizon. To the east, that's the direction I was looking.
Looking up at that fiery orb -- old Sol -- it occurred to me that the sun was the constantly stoked blast furnace in nature's industrial section. And that, really, when you think of it, that's all there is, one big natural industrial section, producing, presenting, and ultimately consuming everything. It's like biting your own lip; you're feeding on yourself.
Back inside, I made some coffee, and that went OK. In the kitchen the light was on, a weaker version of the blast furnace in the sky. But here in my international blogging citadel, the other room, the light isn't so good. The other day I moved a stand-up lamp from next to my desk to next to my bed, so I could read for a few minutes at night before bed. That means the lighting near my desk is very poor. But, no matter, I just pushed the curtains aside to let in the light from our common blast furnace. Problem solved!
The more I think about industry and industrial works, the more I see how right it all is. Before, we were in our normal, ho-hum residential areas, clipping the bushes, whacking the weeds, edging our sidewalks (personally, I wasn't, since the sidewalk doesn't go by our property), and keeping our lawns mowed to no real purpose, since all we were doing with it was letting it grow so we could mow it again. Our lives were empty. Then, with the Residential Industrial Movement, we finally put our properties to some use, replacing the emptiness with industry. Now we're happy!
What caused the big switch? My belief is that we're finally a little more in harmony with nature and nature's way. Because, as it turns out, nature is industry. The bees show it, cramming themselves in a hive, stepping over one another on their way in and out, making honey, then selling it to bears. That's why bears hibernate, to give bees more time to get honey manufactured. And we can easily see there's no slowdown in the construction industry, if we start including all the animal and insect construction going on in good times and bad. Nests, mud homes, holes in trees, dams ... the list goes on of all the places that are being built.
Take a look, those of you who are ignorantly yearning for empty green space: Nature will show you! We're here to be industrious, to manufacture and present our goods on the open market. From the time we get up till nightfall, when the blast furnace is still roaring over China, that's what life is meant to be!
So I'm up for the day. Thinking about what I can do, whether it's making a tire, generating electricity, or building a house. We're all part of nature and we all need to fit in.
Looking up at that fiery orb -- old Sol -- it occurred to me that the sun was the constantly stoked blast furnace in nature's industrial section. And that, really, when you think of it, that's all there is, one big natural industrial section, producing, presenting, and ultimately consuming everything. It's like biting your own lip; you're feeding on yourself.
Back inside, I made some coffee, and that went OK. In the kitchen the light was on, a weaker version of the blast furnace in the sky. But here in my international blogging citadel, the other room, the light isn't so good. The other day I moved a stand-up lamp from next to my desk to next to my bed, so I could read for a few minutes at night before bed. That means the lighting near my desk is very poor. But, no matter, I just pushed the curtains aside to let in the light from our common blast furnace. Problem solved!
The more I think about industry and industrial works, the more I see how right it all is. Before, we were in our normal, ho-hum residential areas, clipping the bushes, whacking the weeds, edging our sidewalks (personally, I wasn't, since the sidewalk doesn't go by our property), and keeping our lawns mowed to no real purpose, since all we were doing with it was letting it grow so we could mow it again. Our lives were empty. Then, with the Residential Industrial Movement, we finally put our properties to some use, replacing the emptiness with industry. Now we're happy!
What caused the big switch? My belief is that we're finally a little more in harmony with nature and nature's way. Because, as it turns out, nature is industry. The bees show it, cramming themselves in a hive, stepping over one another on their way in and out, making honey, then selling it to bears. That's why bears hibernate, to give bees more time to get honey manufactured. And we can easily see there's no slowdown in the construction industry, if we start including all the animal and insect construction going on in good times and bad. Nests, mud homes, holes in trees, dams ... the list goes on of all the places that are being built.
Take a look, those of you who are ignorantly yearning for empty green space: Nature will show you! We're here to be industrious, to manufacture and present our goods on the open market. From the time we get up till nightfall, when the blast furnace is still roaring over China, that's what life is meant to be!
So I'm up for the day. Thinking about what I can do, whether it's making a tire, generating electricity, or building a house. We're all part of nature and we all need to fit in.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
This Industrial Heaven
There are those who say we can find perfect fulfillment by our openness to what is given in life, seeing that we ourselves are given. It's what they call the essential nature of grace, that many, going down a blind path, conceptualize and unwittingly turn away from.
All that is well and good as far as it goes, of course. But a more mature approach sees the true fulfillment in nothing so spacious, ambiguous, and undefinable. Instead, we see the real fulfillment in simply hammering away, getting in there and doing something. Working with our hands, letting our mind lead us in the experience of production. Being industrious.
Before I got into industrialism, looking back on it now, I can see I was just as unhappy as millions of others. I would try to find the elusive prize in nature, or I'd try to open myself, like I said above, to things that couldn't be adequately pinned down. And again, like many, I saw there was always more promise than delivery in that life.
But then I came to realize that the true heaven is the heaven of our own making, by building, horsetrading, selling, and the other experiences of industrialism. This industrial heaven is one that is not far off in the future never to be attained in fact, but it's right here, right now, attainable by every man.
If you've got the hunger for it, this freedom ... If you've got the desire to go beyond, to attain the promise ... then, really, I have to say, get on board. It's here for every man, every man who's willing to work for it ...
What you do is what the others of us in the Residential Industrial Movement are doing: You come up with some kind of industrial works right where you live -- whatever you choose -- and you plug yourself into it immediately, without delay. You come up with something that's either being made already or something that you've just now dreamt of. If it can be made, make it and sell it!
The outcome is a lot like the promise of art, without the great need for talent or existing museums to hang your masterpieces in. The promise of art is that you'll have fulfillment beyond measure just by daubing some paint randomly on a canvas like any monkey can do. Of course that's ridiculous. But this -- all the aspects of this industrial heaven as I've described them -- is true, 150% true! And within reach.
I know a guy -- nobody could do a thing with him. He was in his '40s and was still a juvenile delinquent. The guy was so bad you wished a terrorist would kill him. Art therapy, music therapy, religious intercession, and even the threat of prison -- tough love -- did him no good. Before long, he was getting tattoos and just generally making a nuisance of himself. It was so constant his caregivers never got breaks. He'd spit at you ... or worse. Most of them resigned or themselves had to be committed.
Then this guy -- Life itself hated his guts -- got a taste of industrialism. One of his neighbors, not really trying to spur him into action, consciously, showed him he could do things with his hands. This guy put his hand to a small task -- in this case it was cutting out pieces of wax paper to be used as the membrane in hearing aids. And just like that, he was hooked. Within a week he had a whole industry on his lot, including the smokestack (!), and he's been making "baker's dozen" egg cartons ever since, an ingenious innovation of an old standard, with a space for a 13th egg!
His story is a happy one. He loves it. And we wish him well.
All that is well and good as far as it goes, of course. But a more mature approach sees the true fulfillment in nothing so spacious, ambiguous, and undefinable. Instead, we see the real fulfillment in simply hammering away, getting in there and doing something. Working with our hands, letting our mind lead us in the experience of production. Being industrious.
Before I got into industrialism, looking back on it now, I can see I was just as unhappy as millions of others. I would try to find the elusive prize in nature, or I'd try to open myself, like I said above, to things that couldn't be adequately pinned down. And again, like many, I saw there was always more promise than delivery in that life.
But then I came to realize that the true heaven is the heaven of our own making, by building, horsetrading, selling, and the other experiences of industrialism. This industrial heaven is one that is not far off in the future never to be attained in fact, but it's right here, right now, attainable by every man.
If you've got the hunger for it, this freedom ... If you've got the desire to go beyond, to attain the promise ... then, really, I have to say, get on board. It's here for every man, every man who's willing to work for it ...
What you do is what the others of us in the Residential Industrial Movement are doing: You come up with some kind of industrial works right where you live -- whatever you choose -- and you plug yourself into it immediately, without delay. You come up with something that's either being made already or something that you've just now dreamt of. If it can be made, make it and sell it!
The outcome is a lot like the promise of art, without the great need for talent or existing museums to hang your masterpieces in. The promise of art is that you'll have fulfillment beyond measure just by daubing some paint randomly on a canvas like any monkey can do. Of course that's ridiculous. But this -- all the aspects of this industrial heaven as I've described them -- is true, 150% true! And within reach.
I know a guy -- nobody could do a thing with him. He was in his '40s and was still a juvenile delinquent. The guy was so bad you wished a terrorist would kill him. Art therapy, music therapy, religious intercession, and even the threat of prison -- tough love -- did him no good. Before long, he was getting tattoos and just generally making a nuisance of himself. It was so constant his caregivers never got breaks. He'd spit at you ... or worse. Most of them resigned or themselves had to be committed.
Then this guy -- Life itself hated his guts -- got a taste of industrialism. One of his neighbors, not really trying to spur him into action, consciously, showed him he could do things with his hands. This guy put his hand to a small task -- in this case it was cutting out pieces of wax paper to be used as the membrane in hearing aids. And just like that, he was hooked. Within a week he had a whole industry on his lot, including the smokestack (!), and he's been making "baker's dozen" egg cartons ever since, an ingenious innovation of an old standard, with a space for a 13th egg!
His story is a happy one. He loves it. And we wish him well.
Monday, July 12, 2010
The Puzzle Of Industry
Here's one I call "The Puzzle of Industry." The thoughts I have are like a thousand separate pieces on a table, each one not necessarily oriented the way it needs to be to form a coherent whole when attached.
Is there any better illustration of chaos than the un-put-together puzzle? There's not. Maybe the raging, roaring sea. That would be a good illustration of it. But if you're like me, you have a hard time picturing the raging, roaring sea; I live inland, and even though I've seen an ocean, it was from the shore and I couldn't comprehend the size. So it's a toss up of those two things, the sea and a puzzle. I'll take the puzzle since we actually have puzzles around the house.
I'll run and get one right now. OK, here it is. Jiggle the box and hear the pieces, already chaotic, becoming more chaotic the more I shake it. They have no orientation except a random, crazy, nutty one, oriented to one another in no reliable way.
The same thing is true of industry, not strictly but sort of. Like I was pointing out some months ago, there does appear to be some relation of industry and the railroads. And of course industry has traditionally been relegated to the edge of town, which then, because of growth, eventually puts it closer to downtown. There's the spatial elements of industry that goes along with the puzzle illustration.
Then there's the idea of having the various industries relate to each other. The way it's worked ever since we came up with transportation more advanced than the burro is that one thing doesn't have to be next to the other, except obviously the tracks or road. The place that makes steel girders can be far away from the skyscraper construction site. Or in terms of one industry relating to another, the steel girder place can be clear across town from the rivet manufacturer.
My own sense is that the whole thing is a hodgepodge, again like the puzzle in the box. With the big difference being that you can easily pick up the puzzle pieces and move them around on the table. But when a steel girder factory puts down roots, it's tough to move it. If they see it's got a bad location, they just have to deal with it. The rivet guy learns to live with it too. We all do.
It'd be better if we could've had a super mind with clairvoyance, Einstein in a sweat house, look down the corridors of time and see precisely what needed to go where, then sketch it out on a sheet of paper which could've been fed into a super computer to coordinate the whole thing. The problem with that is that the corridors of time never end, so it's tough to foresee what industry will be like a thousand years or a million years from now. So we're left with a hodge podge. Although some of the kids I saw on Jeopardy's "Kid's Week" shows might be about smart enough to come up with something. Except by now it's too late.
The same thing has essentially happened with the Residential Industrial Movement. Instead of taking it slow and sketching out a master plan -- which would be a lot harder when the industry you have is of your own choosing and necessarily is located on the land you already own -- everyone just dove right in and started manufacturing.
The puzzle piece jiggling goes on, a chaos, as it always has and always will.
Is there any better illustration of chaos than the un-put-together puzzle? There's not. Maybe the raging, roaring sea. That would be a good illustration of it. But if you're like me, you have a hard time picturing the raging, roaring sea; I live inland, and even though I've seen an ocean, it was from the shore and I couldn't comprehend the size. So it's a toss up of those two things, the sea and a puzzle. I'll take the puzzle since we actually have puzzles around the house.
I'll run and get one right now. OK, here it is. Jiggle the box and hear the pieces, already chaotic, becoming more chaotic the more I shake it. They have no orientation except a random, crazy, nutty one, oriented to one another in no reliable way.
The same thing is true of industry, not strictly but sort of. Like I was pointing out some months ago, there does appear to be some relation of industry and the railroads. And of course industry has traditionally been relegated to the edge of town, which then, because of growth, eventually puts it closer to downtown. There's the spatial elements of industry that goes along with the puzzle illustration.
Then there's the idea of having the various industries relate to each other. The way it's worked ever since we came up with transportation more advanced than the burro is that one thing doesn't have to be next to the other, except obviously the tracks or road. The place that makes steel girders can be far away from the skyscraper construction site. Or in terms of one industry relating to another, the steel girder place can be clear across town from the rivet manufacturer.
My own sense is that the whole thing is a hodgepodge, again like the puzzle in the box. With the big difference being that you can easily pick up the puzzle pieces and move them around on the table. But when a steel girder factory puts down roots, it's tough to move it. If they see it's got a bad location, they just have to deal with it. The rivet guy learns to live with it too. We all do.
It'd be better if we could've had a super mind with clairvoyance, Einstein in a sweat house, look down the corridors of time and see precisely what needed to go where, then sketch it out on a sheet of paper which could've been fed into a super computer to coordinate the whole thing. The problem with that is that the corridors of time never end, so it's tough to foresee what industry will be like a thousand years or a million years from now. So we're left with a hodge podge. Although some of the kids I saw on Jeopardy's "Kid's Week" shows might be about smart enough to come up with something. Except by now it's too late.
The same thing has essentially happened with the Residential Industrial Movement. Instead of taking it slow and sketching out a master plan -- which would be a lot harder when the industry you have is of your own choosing and necessarily is located on the land you already own -- everyone just dove right in and started manufacturing.
The puzzle piece jiggling goes on, a chaos, as it always has and always will.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Industrialism: Man's Birthright
My forays into the thought and philosophy of industrialism have now reached the peak, I seem to perceive; if, however, there are other unimagined peaks to be discovered later, I will count that a blessing. But at this point, I have reached the top (insofar as I can discern), and am of a mind to survey the vast and beautiful territory ranging all around me.
It is an awe-inspiring thing for me to dwell on the subject simply for moments, let alone the many hours and whole days I have to do so. That, I am not ashamed to say, is almost too rich even for me. I know plenty of other people who would be instantly consumed by one hint of this joy, who would be swept away by even a whiff of the experience. It's like biting into a piece of really expensive chocolate; you know that some guy in a really tall white hat spent hours mixing the ingredients from an old family recipe, and he's good enough to have his own show on the Food Network, if only he had a single impure thought.
I've been at the depths, that's for sure; I've hit rock bottom a few times, like when the major industrialists had me confined (they thought) in an ongoing situation of virtual house arrest. I had to sneak out in Grandma's clothes, pushing my bicycle silently for several miles before I was free to wheel off and find a internet hot spot to write my posts. Those were the days of suffering in relative obscurity, a flickering beacon of light in a dark world. Although, who knew, I can look back on those days now and see I was actually very happy. It's a great thing -- it's a lot easier to see this in hindsight -- to be alone in a pursuit.
Being alone like I was, at the time I was begging for someone else to get on board ... safety in numbers and all that. But no one would. It felt very bad at the time. Now, thinking back, how sweet it was ...
Anyway, time passed, and I underwent a kind of conversion, no longer being against industrialism per se, but seeing industrialism's true bloom as being every man's birthright. It turned out that what I was railing against, unknown to me at the time, was the idea that only the major industrial powers should have the power. That gave them too much power and put the rest of us at a terrible disadvantage. Our birthright was being denied.
Then came the Residential Industrial Movement, announced not so much as a doctrine but as a flash of insight. It boiled down to this: If every man can't have his own industry, why should anyone have one? Or, maybe I could say it more positively: If some men can have their own industry, the rest of us can too. That's still a little clumsy. How about: Industry, to be good, has to be open to all of us! That just about covers it.
And now I know just how true it is! I've seen throughout our neighborhoods, all the times I've been out nosing around all the residential industrial sections, the happiness of production. We now have the means of production and the ability to produce. We're putting out goods left and right, and it's a joyous thing. No man forgets the thrill of his first truckload of goods heading to a flea market somewhere to be picked over and to have something bought. It might be a dozen disposable diapers or spare parts for a 1940s lawn mower that you've decided to manufacture, it doesn't matter.
Yes, I've reached the top of the top. Insights are flowing like the old fashioned drinking fountains in the park, the ones that ran all the time. You stop, you get a drink, you look back and it's still coming out. If there's joy, blessing, and victory unknown beyond this point, please spare me until I'm ready to incorporate it into this already quivering organism. It's all too much!
It is an awe-inspiring thing for me to dwell on the subject simply for moments, let alone the many hours and whole days I have to do so. That, I am not ashamed to say, is almost too rich even for me. I know plenty of other people who would be instantly consumed by one hint of this joy, who would be swept away by even a whiff of the experience. It's like biting into a piece of really expensive chocolate; you know that some guy in a really tall white hat spent hours mixing the ingredients from an old family recipe, and he's good enough to have his own show on the Food Network, if only he had a single impure thought.
I've been at the depths, that's for sure; I've hit rock bottom a few times, like when the major industrialists had me confined (they thought) in an ongoing situation of virtual house arrest. I had to sneak out in Grandma's clothes, pushing my bicycle silently for several miles before I was free to wheel off and find a internet hot spot to write my posts. Those were the days of suffering in relative obscurity, a flickering beacon of light in a dark world. Although, who knew, I can look back on those days now and see I was actually very happy. It's a great thing -- it's a lot easier to see this in hindsight -- to be alone in a pursuit.
Being alone like I was, at the time I was begging for someone else to get on board ... safety in numbers and all that. But no one would. It felt very bad at the time. Now, thinking back, how sweet it was ...
Anyway, time passed, and I underwent a kind of conversion, no longer being against industrialism per se, but seeing industrialism's true bloom as being every man's birthright. It turned out that what I was railing against, unknown to me at the time, was the idea that only the major industrial powers should have the power. That gave them too much power and put the rest of us at a terrible disadvantage. Our birthright was being denied.
Then came the Residential Industrial Movement, announced not so much as a doctrine but as a flash of insight. It boiled down to this: If every man can't have his own industry, why should anyone have one? Or, maybe I could say it more positively: If some men can have their own industry, the rest of us can too. That's still a little clumsy. How about: Industry, to be good, has to be open to all of us! That just about covers it.
And now I know just how true it is! I've seen throughout our neighborhoods, all the times I've been out nosing around all the residential industrial sections, the happiness of production. We now have the means of production and the ability to produce. We're putting out goods left and right, and it's a joyous thing. No man forgets the thrill of his first truckload of goods heading to a flea market somewhere to be picked over and to have something bought. It might be a dozen disposable diapers or spare parts for a 1940s lawn mower that you've decided to manufacture, it doesn't matter.
Yes, I've reached the top of the top. Insights are flowing like the old fashioned drinking fountains in the park, the ones that ran all the time. You stop, you get a drink, you look back and it's still coming out. If there's joy, blessing, and victory unknown beyond this point, please spare me until I'm ready to incorporate it into this already quivering organism. It's all too much!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
The Brotherhood Of Industrial Man
The brotherhood of man has been the ideal every man has sought throughout history but has always been denied.
Going back, way back, of course there were Cain and Abel, who were denied it. It might've been they hadn't yet realized that smacking someone with a cudgel would be fatal. Whatever it was, one rash smack and the whole thing was over, no brotherhood of man. And it marked Cain for life.
Since then, we became more familiar with the ways of cudgels, adding to our arsenals every weapon known to man, including the hoe, the rake, and the shovel. There have been times when it's been all out war, with many falling on the battlefield and being left for dead. Some indeed did die. Others crawled away to nurse their wounds in solitude, avoiding others, becoming hermits, still with a sense about the brotherhood of man in their hearts without any longer having any conscious desire to attain it.
I was the same way -- ending up here at my grandmother's house, becoming the man of the house by process of elimination, after Grandpa died. Then the rest of the family got older and feeble and couldn't make it back as often. My high school friends got married, had kids, and moved on. Then I became acquainted with a few people at church, but for the most part they're such fanatics that it's hard to be around them. That's the way it turned out.
But I have eyes, I could always see what was going on around me. People were content to do the whole residential thing, tending their lawns, waving as they drove by while also locking their door. Most people bought a TV and so they confined themselves to their house to sit in cobwebs while the TV flashed strange colors and lights around the room, making a weird silhouette of them behind, while they would occasionally laugh if they saw something funny.
I would go outside once in a while and look up at the sky. Then I'd look down and go back in. That's what you do when there's a yearning in your heart that you can't speak with your tongue. And the yearning was this, for the brotherhood of man.
And who knew how it would come about? It happened basically by accident, or accident and a combination of divine whim. It took the Residential Industrial Movement to finally make it happen. I was down in the mouth about the major industrial powers, so I and a few neighbors responded with creating our own industries. The idea caught on, swept the nation. They've tried to hush it up and fight it, but that's tough to do; once you have your own tire factory, all you can think of it making tires ... and friends.
You need friends, obviously, because you want to sell tires. Or diapers. Or shoes. Or hospital beds. Or the button panels for elevators. Or vats. And those friends need friends. Everyone suddenly needs friends, not just for selling to, but for buying from, to help with defense against the major industrial powers, etc. It all builds on itself.
I realized all this when the community came together to build Ted Spooner's first vat. We were no longer sitting on our couches alone and sad. We were together as the brotherhood of industrial man. Finally, we had something in common -- a common humanity worth celebrating!
Going back, way back, of course there were Cain and Abel, who were denied it. It might've been they hadn't yet realized that smacking someone with a cudgel would be fatal. Whatever it was, one rash smack and the whole thing was over, no brotherhood of man. And it marked Cain for life.
Since then, we became more familiar with the ways of cudgels, adding to our arsenals every weapon known to man, including the hoe, the rake, and the shovel. There have been times when it's been all out war, with many falling on the battlefield and being left for dead. Some indeed did die. Others crawled away to nurse their wounds in solitude, avoiding others, becoming hermits, still with a sense about the brotherhood of man in their hearts without any longer having any conscious desire to attain it.
I was the same way -- ending up here at my grandmother's house, becoming the man of the house by process of elimination, after Grandpa died. Then the rest of the family got older and feeble and couldn't make it back as often. My high school friends got married, had kids, and moved on. Then I became acquainted with a few people at church, but for the most part they're such fanatics that it's hard to be around them. That's the way it turned out.
But I have eyes, I could always see what was going on around me. People were content to do the whole residential thing, tending their lawns, waving as they drove by while also locking their door. Most people bought a TV and so they confined themselves to their house to sit in cobwebs while the TV flashed strange colors and lights around the room, making a weird silhouette of them behind, while they would occasionally laugh if they saw something funny.
I would go outside once in a while and look up at the sky. Then I'd look down and go back in. That's what you do when there's a yearning in your heart that you can't speak with your tongue. And the yearning was this, for the brotherhood of man.
And who knew how it would come about? It happened basically by accident, or accident and a combination of divine whim. It took the Residential Industrial Movement to finally make it happen. I was down in the mouth about the major industrial powers, so I and a few neighbors responded with creating our own industries. The idea caught on, swept the nation. They've tried to hush it up and fight it, but that's tough to do; once you have your own tire factory, all you can think of it making tires ... and friends.
You need friends, obviously, because you want to sell tires. Or diapers. Or shoes. Or hospital beds. Or the button panels for elevators. Or vats. And those friends need friends. Everyone suddenly needs friends, not just for selling to, but for buying from, to help with defense against the major industrial powers, etc. It all builds on itself.
I realized all this when the community came together to build Ted Spooner's first vat. We were no longer sitting on our couches alone and sad. We were together as the brotherhood of industrial man. Finally, we had something in common -- a common humanity worth celebrating!
Friday, July 9, 2010
Residential Industrialists Finish First Spooner Vat
We're declaring that "by proxy" Old Man Spooner "did it himself," and finished off his company's first vat.
The fact is, he did it with a little help from his friends, but, no matter, we aren't looking for any credit. As far as we're concerned, the first completed Spooner vat was done by him and his family, the first Spooner vat being accomplished in-house.
Old Ted dreamed big when it came to the promises of the residential industrial movement. The rest of us have been generating electricity, stamping out shoes, manufacturing tires, assembling and packing disposable diapers, making X-ray machines, etc. -- mostly easy stuff. But Ted and the whole Spooner family bit off a much bigger piece of the industrial chew, electing against all odds to make vats.
Vats are the stuff of industry, you might say they're big behind the scenes. But there's very little obviously glamorous about the vat. They never give them away on "The Price Is Right." They're seldom rolled out with fanfare like the new models of cars in the fall, with showgirls. The Sunday paper ads never have this week's bargains on vats and accessories. Even the trade magazines by and large have turned a blind eye to the vat. The assumption has always been, you need one, you get one, no questions asked.
But being the stuff of industry, you can't walk into a factory or an industrial section very far without coming across a vat. Because you need somewhere to put it, whatever it is. In a processing plant for animals, for example, you need somewhere for the various parts to go, heads, feet, insides, etc. You might fill a vat and roll it into cold storage or immediately wheel it down to the train yard, emptying it with the help of a big machine that comes down, clamps on to the side posts and pulls it up, allowing gravity to do its job to completion.
The fact is, though, as many vats as there are, they're very tough to make, if you haven't got exactly the right formula or plan or equipment or parts to do it. And that was the problem at the Spooners. Ted was trying to make them, I'd say on the cheap, with parts and tools that weren't necessarily made for that purpose. Where would he get the parts? And even if he could find the parts, it's tricky. If you don't get the sides welded together just so, they're going to fall apart, leak, or be ultimately unusable. So it took quite a while and he had very little to show for his efforts.
And then it happened. Even though "Safety First" is a motto we've all heard, there was a major injury, with three sides of one vat falling every which way with Ted right there in it. And strapped in a welding helmet like he was, of course he couldn't get his bearings or recognize just what was going on. All he knew was the crushing weight was very very heavy, much too heavy for a few of his old bones to withstand, and that meant something had to give. He might've died, but thankfully he pulled through, sustaining only some major crushing to his lower extremities, as well as two broken arms, a battered neck, incidental abrasions, and a headache to boot.
At that point, the Spooners might've easily given up and left the residential industrial movement, going back to backyard gardening and tending their koi pond, and nobody would've blamed them. But thanks to their selfless neighbors -- showing the true spirit of cooperation, unlike the major industrial powers, for whom the survival of the fittest is the creed -- everyone pitched in, bringing welders, welding helmets, heavy duty coveralls, matches, etc., and the first vat was officially assembled and left shining brand new at the end of their line.
Ted was wheeled in in a hospital bed that some of the folks to the south had made and lent him. Then the rest of us parted, revealing to him the vat setting there in all its glory. He looked at it with a smile, showing pride. One of his arms seemed to stir, which Mrs. Spooner noticed. She reached down and lovingly helped his hand make a "thumbs up" and lifted it about an inch off the bed. Shouts of appreciation were heard for miles around.
Then each man returned to his home, feeling warm inside.
The fact is, he did it with a little help from his friends, but, no matter, we aren't looking for any credit. As far as we're concerned, the first completed Spooner vat was done by him and his family, the first Spooner vat being accomplished in-house.
Old Ted dreamed big when it came to the promises of the residential industrial movement. The rest of us have been generating electricity, stamping out shoes, manufacturing tires, assembling and packing disposable diapers, making X-ray machines, etc. -- mostly easy stuff. But Ted and the whole Spooner family bit off a much bigger piece of the industrial chew, electing against all odds to make vats.
Vats are the stuff of industry, you might say they're big behind the scenes. But there's very little obviously glamorous about the vat. They never give them away on "The Price Is Right." They're seldom rolled out with fanfare like the new models of cars in the fall, with showgirls. The Sunday paper ads never have this week's bargains on vats and accessories. Even the trade magazines by and large have turned a blind eye to the vat. The assumption has always been, you need one, you get one, no questions asked.
But being the stuff of industry, you can't walk into a factory or an industrial section very far without coming across a vat. Because you need somewhere to put it, whatever it is. In a processing plant for animals, for example, you need somewhere for the various parts to go, heads, feet, insides, etc. You might fill a vat and roll it into cold storage or immediately wheel it down to the train yard, emptying it with the help of a big machine that comes down, clamps on to the side posts and pulls it up, allowing gravity to do its job to completion.
The fact is, though, as many vats as there are, they're very tough to make, if you haven't got exactly the right formula or plan or equipment or parts to do it. And that was the problem at the Spooners. Ted was trying to make them, I'd say on the cheap, with parts and tools that weren't necessarily made for that purpose. Where would he get the parts? And even if he could find the parts, it's tricky. If you don't get the sides welded together just so, they're going to fall apart, leak, or be ultimately unusable. So it took quite a while and he had very little to show for his efforts.
And then it happened. Even though "Safety First" is a motto we've all heard, there was a major injury, with three sides of one vat falling every which way with Ted right there in it. And strapped in a welding helmet like he was, of course he couldn't get his bearings or recognize just what was going on. All he knew was the crushing weight was very very heavy, much too heavy for a few of his old bones to withstand, and that meant something had to give. He might've died, but thankfully he pulled through, sustaining only some major crushing to his lower extremities, as well as two broken arms, a battered neck, incidental abrasions, and a headache to boot.
At that point, the Spooners might've easily given up and left the residential industrial movement, going back to backyard gardening and tending their koi pond, and nobody would've blamed them. But thanks to their selfless neighbors -- showing the true spirit of cooperation, unlike the major industrial powers, for whom the survival of the fittest is the creed -- everyone pitched in, bringing welders, welding helmets, heavy duty coveralls, matches, etc., and the first vat was officially assembled and left shining brand new at the end of their line.
Ted was wheeled in in a hospital bed that some of the folks to the south had made and lent him. Then the rest of us parted, revealing to him the vat setting there in all its glory. He looked at it with a smile, showing pride. One of his arms seemed to stir, which Mrs. Spooner noticed. She reached down and lovingly helped his hand make a "thumbs up" and lifted it about an inch off the bed. Shouts of appreciation were heard for miles around.
Then each man returned to his home, feeling warm inside.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Industrial Turnabout Is Fair Play
The standards conclave had just adjourned and the delegates had started to scatter to the four corners ready to ply their industrial trade, when, lo and behold, the vultures swooped in.
We proffer our apologies to actual vultures, because as scurrilous as an actual vulture is these guys are 10 times worse. You probably guessed who I'm talking about, patent attorneys with their infernal papers.
The way it works really is that the patent attorneys sit in their luxury citadels somewhere while a combination of process servers and law enforcement comes in to do their dirty work. So we're not diverted or distracted about who to blame. And even saying that, the patent attorneys aren't 100% to blame, since they represent the major industrial powers, somewhere in even better luxury citadels.
But if we can take out the middle man, then of course we're free to continue on on our merry way, which is for the best. Because we're not doing anything wrong.
The whole system of patents has become corrupt to the point that, given the choice, they would stymie Edison himself! Because nowadays men are patenting glimpses of ideas they had one day while sitting in the course of a particularly strenuous bowel movement! Seriously! To legally come up with a new refrigerator design these days you'd literally have to make it look like a tuba, that's how many "ideas" they've left out there for the rest of us!
But they didn't anticipate what the residential industrial movement would do, which is to create our own bureau of residential patent attorneys, certifying them according to their own ambition and our need. We simply established our own law, that proxy trespassing is illegal, not to jail those who serve papers but the ones who've commissioned them.
Even now we have black hooded residential enforcement officers scouring the country, searching for patent attorneys and their industrial power masters, to jail them in our own residential jails and to try them. We know what they look like as they sip drinks in their citadels, maniacal and bleary-eyed.
This is going to be a game changer, because the rules and numbers are now on our side!
We proffer our apologies to actual vultures, because as scurrilous as an actual vulture is these guys are 10 times worse. You probably guessed who I'm talking about, patent attorneys with their infernal papers.
The way it works really is that the patent attorneys sit in their luxury citadels somewhere while a combination of process servers and law enforcement comes in to do their dirty work. So we're not diverted or distracted about who to blame. And even saying that, the patent attorneys aren't 100% to blame, since they represent the major industrial powers, somewhere in even better luxury citadels.
But if we can take out the middle man, then of course we're free to continue on on our merry way, which is for the best. Because we're not doing anything wrong.
The whole system of patents has become corrupt to the point that, given the choice, they would stymie Edison himself! Because nowadays men are patenting glimpses of ideas they had one day while sitting in the course of a particularly strenuous bowel movement! Seriously! To legally come up with a new refrigerator design these days you'd literally have to make it look like a tuba, that's how many "ideas" they've left out there for the rest of us!
But they didn't anticipate what the residential industrial movement would do, which is to create our own bureau of residential patent attorneys, certifying them according to their own ambition and our need. We simply established our own law, that proxy trespassing is illegal, not to jail those who serve papers but the ones who've commissioned them.
Even now we have black hooded residential enforcement officers scouring the country, searching for patent attorneys and their industrial power masters, to jail them in our own residential jails and to try them. We know what they look like as they sip drinks in their citadels, maniacal and bleary-eyed.
This is going to be a game changer, because the rules and numbers are now on our side!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
A Perfect Fit For Industries
I called for a coming together, a joining of hearts and minds, the best minds of the neighborhoods. My purpose, to see if we could work together and make everything fit in the output of the residential industries.
If things don't fit together, that's no good. It'd be OK for artwork, nailing, bolting, gluing, hooking any assortment of random parts together, everything dangling there, preferably moving slowly in the wind. But for something with an end in the consumer market, small scale or large scale, it has to be appropriate for the consumer's use, fitting in the hand if that's its purpose or meshing in harmony with other parts and components if it's part of a larger whole.
The call went out, first for everyone's feelings on the subject, that when the conclave commenced we would be that much farther ahead. I also asked, based on the honor system, for delegates to be selected among the various neighborhoods and industrial divisions.
We chose my own half acre for the gathering, securing the services of a residential tent-maker to pitch us one of his finest products wherein we would proceed. He knew a guy a few blocks up who makes chairs, and he was happy to put his products on display by allowing the gathering to sit on them, beaming with pride. Anything else we needed for this affair we either secured from various residential sources or found in the garage or basement.
Then we depended on our own pooled intelligence, going by the principle that if you have a large enough group someone there is going to know it. It works with trivia, usually, so it also works with other things. The finest minds of our neighborhoods -- working in common cause -- rose to the occasion.
A lot of it was a matter of dividing up the industries in their groups, then keeping those who may span different industries toward the edges. At some point we lost our individuality and became more like a gigantic single organism with a brain that functioned in a top notch capacity at the highest speed and efficiency for computing, calculating, and problem solving. It was amazing, we thought alike. We got thirsty at the same time and had to answer nature's call en masse.
I gaveled the meeting to order. That was the easy part. Every eye was on me. I eyed my notes tentatively. Then I set them aside and spoke from the heart. Acclaim was received, with applause. The general session got underway. Then the divisions were made. Business followed. Decisions were made. A spirit of friendship and mutuality prevailed. With a long day together, everything was settled.
From this point on, the residential industrial movement will have no trouble putting out products that the public will be happy to buy and use.
With that, I asked for a motion to adjourn. Everyone was eager to get going, to return to their homes and factories to bring forth their products in the days lingering ahead. Now we would have the utmost confidence that things were being made that were entirely good. Cars would look good. Hospital beds would roll down the hallway smoothly. Disposable diapers would not sag even when full.
Every eye was on me for what I was called by acclaim to do, gavel the session closed and bid everyone safe travels and good fortune for the future.
If things don't fit together, that's no good. It'd be OK for artwork, nailing, bolting, gluing, hooking any assortment of random parts together, everything dangling there, preferably moving slowly in the wind. But for something with an end in the consumer market, small scale or large scale, it has to be appropriate for the consumer's use, fitting in the hand if that's its purpose or meshing in harmony with other parts and components if it's part of a larger whole.
The call went out, first for everyone's feelings on the subject, that when the conclave commenced we would be that much farther ahead. I also asked, based on the honor system, for delegates to be selected among the various neighborhoods and industrial divisions.
We chose my own half acre for the gathering, securing the services of a residential tent-maker to pitch us one of his finest products wherein we would proceed. He knew a guy a few blocks up who makes chairs, and he was happy to put his products on display by allowing the gathering to sit on them, beaming with pride. Anything else we needed for this affair we either secured from various residential sources or found in the garage or basement.
Then we depended on our own pooled intelligence, going by the principle that if you have a large enough group someone there is going to know it. It works with trivia, usually, so it also works with other things. The finest minds of our neighborhoods -- working in common cause -- rose to the occasion.
A lot of it was a matter of dividing up the industries in their groups, then keeping those who may span different industries toward the edges. At some point we lost our individuality and became more like a gigantic single organism with a brain that functioned in a top notch capacity at the highest speed and efficiency for computing, calculating, and problem solving. It was amazing, we thought alike. We got thirsty at the same time and had to answer nature's call en masse.
I gaveled the meeting to order. That was the easy part. Every eye was on me. I eyed my notes tentatively. Then I set them aside and spoke from the heart. Acclaim was received, with applause. The general session got underway. Then the divisions were made. Business followed. Decisions were made. A spirit of friendship and mutuality prevailed. With a long day together, everything was settled.
From this point on, the residential industrial movement will have no trouble putting out products that the public will be happy to buy and use.
With that, I asked for a motion to adjourn. Everyone was eager to get going, to return to their homes and factories to bring forth their products in the days lingering ahead. Now we would have the utmost confidence that things were being made that were entirely good. Cars would look good. Hospital beds would roll down the hallway smoothly. Disposable diapers would not sag even when full.
Every eye was on me for what I was called by acclaim to do, gavel the session closed and bid everyone safe travels and good fortune for the future.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Kids Get In On The Industrial Act
It's always been cute to see kids out selling lemonade on the sidewalk.
I remember trying it a couple times myself with lemonade and Kool-Aid. A kindly adult would come along, feel sorry for us and buy a drink. Then I'd feel very self-conscious, knowing these were pity purchases and give up. It was embarrassing. It takes a real tycoon type, like Donald Trump probably when he was a kid, to sit there and not feel embarrassed and even jack up the price.
But there's different kinds of kids just like there's different kinds of everything else, insects, trees, or cars. And I get the impression that today kids -- maybe through a lack of known ancestors who went through the Depression -- would just as soon you gave them your entire wallet and skipped the drink. They're a lot wilder.
That's not to say we haven't got good kids. Some of the kids on my block are probably good kids. They're like us in certain ways, they take after their parents. They're not rebellious until they're about 16. After that, they'd just as soon stab you in the back. Now, with all the residential industrial activities, my advice to parents would be to keep all your patents in a safety deposit box, because your kids could very well steal them and leave you without rights.
But when they're young, they're a little more innocent, and so their little activities are cute. But even then they can kind of give away the family secrets, if you know what I mean.
I saw an example of this yesterday. Some of the kids from way up the block, over toward the southeast, had a little stand outside, a table, and were selling X-ray machine wheels. Isn't that cute? It would be, except there's some family secrets being given away. One, now I know that someone up there's making X-ray machines. And two, they must be pretty far along to be down to the wheels already! (Or, I know, maybe they started with the wheels and are working up, since if you built it top down it might be pretty heavy and tougher to get wheels on.)
But there they were, as innocent as anything, with a little table and a pile of freshly manufactured wheels, selling them one for 15 cents or two for a quarter. I picked up a couple, and I might surprise their parents later on with the news, that their little darlings are giving away the family business before it even gets off the ground!
I remember trying it a couple times myself with lemonade and Kool-Aid. A kindly adult would come along, feel sorry for us and buy a drink. Then I'd feel very self-conscious, knowing these were pity purchases and give up. It was embarrassing. It takes a real tycoon type, like Donald Trump probably when he was a kid, to sit there and not feel embarrassed and even jack up the price.
But there's different kinds of kids just like there's different kinds of everything else, insects, trees, or cars. And I get the impression that today kids -- maybe through a lack of known ancestors who went through the Depression -- would just as soon you gave them your entire wallet and skipped the drink. They're a lot wilder.
That's not to say we haven't got good kids. Some of the kids on my block are probably good kids. They're like us in certain ways, they take after their parents. They're not rebellious until they're about 16. After that, they'd just as soon stab you in the back. Now, with all the residential industrial activities, my advice to parents would be to keep all your patents in a safety deposit box, because your kids could very well steal them and leave you without rights.
But when they're young, they're a little more innocent, and so their little activities are cute. But even then they can kind of give away the family secrets, if you know what I mean.
I saw an example of this yesterday. Some of the kids from way up the block, over toward the southeast, had a little stand outside, a table, and were selling X-ray machine wheels. Isn't that cute? It would be, except there's some family secrets being given away. One, now I know that someone up there's making X-ray machines. And two, they must be pretty far along to be down to the wheels already! (Or, I know, maybe they started with the wheels and are working up, since if you built it top down it might be pretty heavy and tougher to get wheels on.)
But there they were, as innocent as anything, with a little table and a pile of freshly manufactured wheels, selling them one for 15 cents or two for a quarter. I picked up a couple, and I might surprise their parents later on with the news, that their little darlings are giving away the family business before it even gets off the ground!
Monday, July 5, 2010
How Industry Has To Work Together
But whether I personally know what's happening or not, I do know what I read in the residential newspapers, that the residential industrial movement is sweeping the nation. I know there's at least a dozen tire factories in my little town alone! And that's just one sector of the overall industrial world. There's so much everything else being churned out by men in their garages and yards that it can't even be calculated. You really notice it when you go to buy something from a neighbor and it's a buyer's market. I can get all the tires I want straight from the factory wholesale, with so much competition that the price is kept very low. And remember, I've got a proposal on the table for my own tire factory!
Making tires, though, is the easy part. They come in about 40 standard sizes, although that could change at any time if the residential car manufacturers come up with new sizes. And that's what I wanted to address today, to sketch out ever so briefly ... standards and making things fit together.
At some point the residential industrial powers are going to have to work together just like the oppressive major industrial powers have over the years. Their advantage has come from over a hundred years of entrenched development, whereas we're jumping in fresh in already established markets with all kinds of standards that have had plenty of time to evolve.
I was thinking of this yesterday. I was out nosing around the local hospital as kind of a spy, looking for things that might be manufactured cheaper to undercut the big boys. Some of the designs appeared very specialized, like the fixtures they have dangling from the ceiling in the emergency rooms and other wards. Then some of them are quite predictable, like the circular design of the wheels on various carts and beds. I could be stamping out wheels everyday, but they need to fit!
I was able to take one picture on the sly (see above). I feel this one picture illustrates the conundrum that's occupied me for the last day. That bed clearly has numerous pieces that have to fit together. And I believe the manufacturer probably got pieces from other manufacturers, meaning they all had to work together to get it done. You don't just have one manufacturer out there saying, "I feel like making pieces for the bottoms of hospital beds" without knowing precisely how it's supposed to fit in the overall design.
In the residential industrial movement, it's my belief that to this point we've been "catching as catch can" on some of these issues. But before long, it's going to be very necessary to work together, if we want everything to fit together. Disposable diapers have been easy. It's nothing but plastic, tape, and some kind of smushy soft stuff in the middle. No one cares how it looks put together. It's even cute if the baby has a baggy diaper hanging practically to the floor. But hospitals aren't so easy to please!
If we're going to be making hospital beds, as well as everything else the major industrial powers have been making for them, we're going to have to work together. That is clear. So let's do it! Let's work together. Starting ... right now.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Our Declaration Of Industrial Independence
We the People ... are sick of all the King Georges of the world, which is our July 4th term for the major industrial powers.
So, by the power vested in me by divine right, along with my fellow subjects (or citizens), we make a necessary explanation of our revolt, the best we can do off the top of my head this early in the morning. That's only fitting, we believe, just so we can set the record straight and hopefully divert as much incoming fire as we can as well as guff.
As is known by the various states -- past, present, and future -- we have suffered grievous afflictions aplenty from the oppressive hand of the major industrial powers, all the King Georges of the world.
They have polluted our towns and communities. They have exploited our people. They have claimed real estate and zoning privileges by both hook and crook. They have the legal system in their back pocket through corruption at all the many echelons. In short, it's a mess.
This we have endured long enough, and we have been left very little choice about what to do about it. Therefore, in deliberate assembly, and looking to a future with brighter horizons, ourselves being made of sterner stuff, we have declared and shall again declare our independence today and henceforth from these King Georges, the major industrial powers.
What we shall raise up in their place is industry as was intended by our Creator, along with the inalienable rights and appurtenances pertaining thereunto, world without end, in flagrante delicto. To wit, residential industries, owned and governed by every man after his personal choice.
Each man shall possess and perpetuate the several industrial arts according to his own lights and those bestowed upon him as a free entity. There will be no more "them's the breaks" from the entrenched industrial powers. In the stead of this, they will be brought down, and must be brought down into the dust, and/or hanged by their several necks until they are finally, utterly, and severally dead.
By our own hands we have affixed our several signatures, knowing that our fates are in the hands of fate and an all-seeing benevolent God, having one eye and being perched at the crowning block of a mighty pyramid.
D.B. Kundalini
Alice Slump
Joe Butler
Ted Spooner
Ike Bisom
(Hundreds of other signatures have been redacted, perhaps thousands.)
So, by the power vested in me by divine right, along with my fellow subjects (or citizens), we make a necessary explanation of our revolt, the best we can do off the top of my head this early in the morning. That's only fitting, we believe, just so we can set the record straight and hopefully divert as much incoming fire as we can as well as guff.
As is known by the various states -- past, present, and future -- we have suffered grievous afflictions aplenty from the oppressive hand of the major industrial powers, all the King Georges of the world.
They have polluted our towns and communities. They have exploited our people. They have claimed real estate and zoning privileges by both hook and crook. They have the legal system in their back pocket through corruption at all the many echelons. In short, it's a mess.
This we have endured long enough, and we have been left very little choice about what to do about it. Therefore, in deliberate assembly, and looking to a future with brighter horizons, ourselves being made of sterner stuff, we have declared and shall again declare our independence today and henceforth from these King Georges, the major industrial powers.
What we shall raise up in their place is industry as was intended by our Creator, along with the inalienable rights and appurtenances pertaining thereunto, world without end, in flagrante delicto. To wit, residential industries, owned and governed by every man after his personal choice.
Each man shall possess and perpetuate the several industrial arts according to his own lights and those bestowed upon him as a free entity. There will be no more "them's the breaks" from the entrenched industrial powers. In the stead of this, they will be brought down, and must be brought down into the dust, and/or hanged by their several necks until they are finally, utterly, and severally dead.
By our own hands we have affixed our several signatures, knowing that our fates are in the hands of fate and an all-seeing benevolent God, having one eye and being perched at the crowning block of a mighty pyramid.
D.B. Kundalini
Alice Slump
Joe Butler
Ted Spooner
Ike Bisom
(Hundreds of other signatures have been redacted, perhaps thousands.)
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