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.