Shop Truths, Phrases, Tales; and Outright Lies

[PJs]

TM, Hopefully I didn't stick too big a pin in the idea of this with my rant on privacy for profit. I do think these kinds of books are a foundation to who we've become and may help some of the new gen pique an interest to see how things work in a fundamental ways. They were part of the training that pretty much anyone could take and come away with some skills and wherewithal. but mainly a foundation to grow from.

Glad you got a copy C-Bag and may get one for myself. It's also wonderful that it is recognized as being culturally Important. Most of my early learning in electronics came from Navy manuals and the Radio Amateur's Handbook. To give a clue I built my first O'scope out of scrounged parts and a 3FP7 scope tube I got at the surplus for $3, based on the info in them when I was a freshman or sophomore in HS. It definitely wasn't Osha Approved (no OSHA then but I knew better than to get near the HV when it was on from the books as well. Think their still in the shed if I didn't loan them out or give them to some young gun over the years.

~PJ

[C-Bag]

At $29 for hardcover it was half of what dealers wanted for used! I guess they want hard copies out there stashed so if there is a collapse the info is still there. Unlike digital.

It will be interesting to read a systematic method as everything I've learned has been piecemeal learn as you go and I know there are big chunks of the basics missing.

[Frank S]

Ya know I am about to decide that there is nothing left private any more. I could launch this into the rant to beat all rants on the subject of privacy for profit but Pj has already stated how I feel without my having to type a single word.
On the subject of collecting or building a library of useful and in many cases needed information. I guess that I am unwillingly starting on my 3rd or 4th such libraries
My first one was started way before I started middle school and by the time I went into the Army had grown to a respectful size. it pretty much filled every crawl space and the attic of my Grandpa's 2 story house when the house was sold no one thought to retrieve the many boxes of literary and technical books I had accumulated. By the time I got out of the Army I had a nice library started which I shipped back to the States from Germany in my household goods while in storage about 60% of my household goods was destroyed in a fire at FT Sill Ok. a large portion of the damage was centered around the carton containing my library not all was lost and the Government was good enough to replace much of the damaged books so library #2 continued until some 15 years later when a divorce consumed it in it's entirety. I spent 20 years building #3. The engineering and technical data section alone occupied a 10 ft long by 9 ft tall section of my several book cases and that was only about 30% of the total size I am also an avid science fiction reader another these took up another 30% the rest was a Hodgepodge of everything else. I suppose that one still exists but I don't have it since it along with everything else of mine and my wife's stuff never returned from Kuwait.
I've tried building up one in digital format, starting with tape drives 5 1/4 floppies 3 1/2 " floppies, scuzzy, hard drives CD's DVD's flash drives you name it I think I have tried most media devices past and present. None are as good as having the books but as I have learned the hard way there is only 1 real storage device that is reliable and the older I get the less reliable it is becoming. With all the advancements in technologies there still is not one which can be used to download the things we have learned over the years into a sure fire permanent yet retrievable storage device.
Maybe we should focus on etching every tidbit of knowledge in actual stone or something else that will last for 1000;s of years.

[C-Bag]

I agree Frank. There IS no privacy anymore. It's why I refuse to carry a cell phone and only use it for emergencies. Also don't let my GPS and iPad "use my location". But it's probably being sent anyway.

I feel like that old 60's poster with the mouse standing there flipping off the eagle as its diving down on it. I'm careful about what I download and try not to sign up for stuff unnecessarily. Try to look close and pay attention. But I can't always tell beforehand what I'm getting into. It's sad the net has turned into a data mine field. And while I am totally ambivalent about Amazon and eBay I keep finding what I need there so just like our present political situation I hold my nose and take the leap. Whatchagonnado?

[PJs]

Yup, Privacy went out the window 20 years ago when the DMV got FED permission to use SS numbers...then the medical/insurance (mediaeval, legalized gamblers) got a hold of them...securely of course. Lest we forget Y2K and what was really behind that curtain besides panic. Now they are taking DNA samples without our knowledge or consent of our Gkids at birth...wonder what that's for(¿) probably to use with the camera's on every street corner...circumcision is never painless even if you look away. OK Nuff!

Frank: Well put and thoughtful! I'm with you on libraries but have fortunately held onto my core books over the tragedies. Nearly all Heinlein, complete Richard Bach (all signed), EE Doc Smith, physics/math, engineering, philosophy (Whitehead 2nd ed.), extensive esoteric's, etc, plus a few juicy reads like Ludlum (signed)...Love my books, the smell, the act of reading them...all of it. Then there is the stacks next to my chair and bed...Oh no.

I too have gone through the archival stuff with every generation of OS and use a tablet sometimes now for things like a quick read of the Skylark series for the umteenth time (some great adventuresome stuff in those volumes and get something new every time). It's interesting that the repositories of information have morphed as well, from the burning of Alexandria to the Library of Congress and now Google...and hopefully here in this great repository of spew and wherewithal by some very bright lights still energized by knowledge and sharing it freely with those that want to learn and grow.

I know you are right that the real repository is in our noodles and it unfortunately fades with time and tribulation. I do like the idea of carving rocks but it won't fit on a google watch very well... What was it Blaise Pascal said about sitting quiet in a room?

One final thought from one of my favorites. I was privileged to stay in a hotel (now a BW) in Magdeburg on Goethestraße dedicated to his work quite a few times and once in the Goethe suit at the Westin in Berlin, now in famous movie.

"For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~PJ

[Toolmaker51]

got the glaring problems (they warn of that in the write up)[/U] right where I need to get a clue

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Yup, when I read that at the other site, plus appears on Cramazon, and laughed out loud. They are what, editor's? Process Engineers? Journeymen? Programmers? or just Armchair Single Point Threaders. They didn't care to mention even a single example, just discount what some found 'culturally significant'. Now, that's what I'd call a discrepancy! Funny, howsa 'bout typos, misprints or out-dated terminology?
Or could it be we have no duplication of individual resource-background-experience. Guaranteed not. So, if comfortable with personal abilities, that glare is interpreted and distilled according to conditions at hand. That's what machine work is all about. Watcha' need, whatcha got, make it work.
I entered and won one second place, three firsts, in four successive San Diego Surface Line Weeks. Sailors competing in fire fighting, damage control, replacing valve packings...things that keep damaged ships afloat. My event was Lathe Operation. They could work just as accurately; but setup and planning (like in production) were my advantage. I also was able to determine at my second entry, dead soft aluminum was supplied for material -gummy as you know what. You started with a blank HSS bit. Common angles only plow that stuff. Guys couldn't recognize the issue, mainly they run cast iron, tobin bronze, red brass and stainless for stems etc. My CO's would enter our teams, everybody's rate listed Hull Tech, Machinist Mate, Electricians and so on, and lil' ol' Quartermaster me. Usually a couple WTF's? or huh's at least. "He's a Reservist". Blank Stare. Many servicemen are good at their rating, maybe joined after high school and the first exposure to tradework. And no other viable experience. Reservists have 2 brains, usually differ in civilian occupation and USN rate. Yup, I was sorta a ringer. Still fair, everyone a work week type of guy.
My FAVORITE trophy. 2001 & certainly way less than 30 of these still around; sure bet only one in Missouri!

Apparently both of you are after personal copies, glad my endorsement was helpful. You'll see what I mean when you crack them open. Perfection like a Harley-Davidson service manual. Not theory; application. No hype, no advertising other than photo or chart credits, even carefully worded gender ID. Use of terms is spare, but appear in the male form to maintain an 'economy in language'.

Rather to be; than appear.

[C-Bag]

It is odd that they couldn't be bothered to fix a culturally significant tome. What I remember reading was blurred pages, stuff that had to do with either editing or producing the book. And no author credit. Intreaging. I also got the How to run a lathe by O'Brien. Yeah, I'm a noob.

I was a little shocked and gratified when in aircraft school they made it clear from the git go that as a A&P you are EXPECTED to not rely on your memory but to refer to the manuals about anything you were not absolutely positive about or done a million times. And the bigger shock was a A&P was not ranked as a skilled tech because it covered too many areas!

"Whatcha need, whatcha got, make it work." Indeed. I did get this from another forum. But what keeps me here is the civil nature of the experts with more focus on the aforementioned quote and less on you got foreign junk, were not trained and working in a shop, along with the implied therefore you are an idiot.

The imparted nuggets of enlightenment are more appreciated than you guys can know because the vast proportion of the folks here only lurk and carry those nuggets away silently. Not me obviously

[Paul Jones]

Toolmaker51, PJs,and C-Bag,

Thank you for the link and information about the "Digital Public Library of America". I used Wikipedia for the Cliff Notes background on https://dp.la/ . Looks like they have the right intentions and another source of information. Just for a test, I searched on the word "metal Lathe" and a few references were from 1940's to 1960's, no surprise there, and then "8080 microprocessor", with references centered on 1975, as expected, and then "steam engine", and bingo the mother lode of hits from 1629 to today, with the majority from mid-19th century to early 20th century (e.g., year 1900 with 90 items). I will add this to my list of websites for research the old fashion way before Google invented Google search. Thank you for the information.

Paul

[C-Bag]

Welcome to the cul de sac party Paul!

Thanks for the check on DPLA. You and Wiz are much more 'puter savvy than I and was thinking I didn't know enough about it to go messing with it. Especially after getting whacked by a particularly nasty virus a couple of months ago. Not to mention I've had some kind of mysterious surge in spam to my email.

That tip alone about steam was enough to make me wade back in again. I would appreciate if you do get some kind of deep background on DPLA that changes their status of trustworthiness please give us a headsup.

[Paul Jones]

C-Bag,

I will see what I can find out with DPLA.

If you ever have any doubt about what you are clicking on an Internet link then DON'T CLICK ON IT. It is not worth the risk. This also applies to your smart phones as well. Also, it is a good idea to Google yourself at least once a month with all different combinations of names and addresses of yourself and family members. You would be surprised at what is already out there. Too late for us to be off the radar.

I have been using computers since 1968 when punch cards and punch tape were about as fast as you could get in trouble with a computer on a machine rated at 1 MIPS and had some core memories. In graduate school we got sick and tired of spending our research grant for computer time at the campus data center and built our own room full of Data General minicomputers and peripherals for running computer simulations. I have a MS and PhD in geophysics and all my computing was performed on the Data General equipment. Later working in oil and gas exploration I had data processing algorithms that sometimes ran in cpu months on supercomputers (many geophysical equations require complex numbers so you have both the real and imaginary parts to compute and has to be done in floating point double precision because of round off problems after billions of multiplies and divides). The real trick to supercomputing is optimizing the I/O (input/output) because the computer can become data starved and you have to get clever with the I/O channels to maximize throughput. Today I have a laptop with a solid state disk and an Intel core i7 chip and I feel like I have my own supercomputer right on my lap. The solid state disk (no mechanical hard drive with rotating disk) really helps the cpu perform its job and really useful in cloud computing.

Anyway, I probably bored most of the readers but I am amazed as to how advanced computers have become over the years.

Paul