Pop Psychology?

Hindering Further Progress

Or consider the normal mathematics curriculum, which continues relentlessly on its way, each new lesson assuming full knowledge and understanding of all that has passed before. Even though each point may be simple, once you fall behind it is hard to catch up. The result: mathematics phobia. Not because the material is difficult, but because it is taught so that difficulty in one stage hinders further progress. The problem is that once failure starts, it soon generalizes by self-blame to all of mathematics.

Similar processes are at work with technology. The vicious cycle starts: if you fail at something, you think it is your fault. Therefore you think you can’t do that task. As a result, next time you have to do the task, you believe you can’t so you don’t even try. The result is that you can’t, just as you thought. You’re trapped in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

From: “The Psychology of Everyday Things” by Donald A. Norman (link)

Bike mount

Update on the bike mount to lift the choppers. I needed to take the weight of the bike off the wheel to adjust the rear chain or as it turns out to change a front tire (rotten with age). I was not completely sure the design would work. I started with stitch welds attempting to keep things from heating up too much and warping. It cooled off, I welded it up. The bead work is not going to win any awards, some folks might not even recognize it was welding. In fact the welds may not be strong. I completed the welds and walked to turn off the welder. As I approached the welder I could hear the hiss of leaking gas. The line from the argon/oxygen mix was not tight enough in the back of the miller. Argh! I do not know if any gas reached the tip of the gun to shield the welding. I let the mount cool completely then very carefully tested its strength. The lift works, perhaps a short term solution until I can afford a lift table. The one thing in the design which I did not anticipate was the entire mount sliding on the floor when I lifted the bike with the pipe jack. That is better than the bike sliding on the pipe jack so it is the good news as it turns out. The bike is stable, not that I would leave it lifted while not working on it.

Following Instructions

Yep. He's the man!

Floor bike mounts.

Building a brace to hold the motorcycles level. Also with the pipe jack should be able to pick up one wheel at a time to work on them. We will see how well the garage engineering goes.

New project

Finally got the table finished. Really it could use one more complete sanding and one entire clear coat. But I had the deadline was to have the table competed by thanksgiving. Sooo it is close enough.

Ah, Sunday.

Post Dos

The family - minus the dogs of course. I say that because clearly you do not see the dogs in the picture. They were likely at home barking and protecting the back yard. I am unsure of what they believe might happen if some gets too close to "their" yard but they defend it none the less. The dogs that is, not the family. Well wait, the dogs also defend the family and pretty much vice versa.

In any case...happy halloween 2011...now what am I to dress up as???

Post Uno

My lovely wife posts a blog, The Sweet Life. The ironic thing, although I do not read it often as the subject is deeper in life that I tend to wade, is that the title says The Sweet Life but the blog is very complex.

Yes, spelling here is not going to count. Sentence structure is also out the window as is every other rule in life.

Yesterday, we received our very first 'smart' phones with the IPhone 4s. Yes, they are wonderful, they do a ton, as my wife says, 'you could rule the world with these' only if you could stop playing with it long enough...I believe that is why battery life is limited. You will never getting around to ruling the world. Which really, not sure why you would want the job. Sounds very demanding with very little fun.

The question here, even as wonderful as the new phone is...is it yet another item in my life that I think I rule over but in reality it owns me? Ah, think I will go watch 'Fight Club' and feel a big better.