i give up

there was once a time where people actually fixed things. not just bought a new one and replaced it, but fixed things. if they didnt make exactly what you wanted, you made it yourself. it was assumed you knew how to look at a problem and solve it. look at old popular mechanics magazines for one example. heck, they practically assumed you had a welder in the garage. and you know what, you probably did.

ah but times have changed. thinking has become a thing of the past. spending is the new thing.

every time i suggest anything requiring some thought or innovation, one of you guys comes out of the woodwork and attacks me for being 'unsafe' or just plain crazy. it gets tiring trying to explain myself to you one track minded idiots that have long since lost the ability to think. maybe there should be a seperate group called alt.home.pay.someone.to.fix.it.cause.i.cant.think.for.myself.

i give up. just toss it and buy a new one. if it doent exist, pay someone to do your thinking for you. i figure at the current rate of knowledge degredation, its only a few years before everything simply becomes disposable anyway. we arent that far off now. the plug and play house and the disposable education.

randy

Reply to
xrongor
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Reply to
Jack Sandweiss

"xrongor" wrote in news:cvmhg0$c6mi$ snipped-for-privacy@news3.infoave.net:

You need to get laid.

Reply to
FlavorFlav

That still takes no brains and dismisses the point.

Reply to
Jack Sandweiss

i didnt mean to come off as bitter as i may have in my original post. ive just gotten a bit tired of being continually criticized for offering something besides 'buy model number xxxyyy and install it with bracket zzzzzz that you can get from

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the other thing that i dont get; i see people spending all this money on tools these days, but it doesnt seem like anybody knows how to use them any more. if it doesnt attach to a cordless drill body, its a mystery. when i was in school you HAD to take a shop class. im pretty sure they've dumped that requirement. between budget cuts and fear of lawsuits...

randy

Reply to
xrongor

You would REALLY enjoy reading "Player Piano" by Kurt Vonnegut. I'm serious.

BB

Reply to
BinaryBillTheSailor

You can't really hire someone to do it for you, although some people hire an assistant.

BB

Reply to
BinaryBillTheSailor

What do you want to make or fix? Here are some of my recent projects that really piss some people off:

pulley contrap to lift framed walls all by myself (told by contractor I was out of my mind...so I fired him)

Hooked up old swimming pool pump to fill heating oil tanks. Was told to switch to propane by ignorant friends and neighbors. Now I have 250 gallons of heating oil and diesel to fuel my truck when the gas lines get outta hand. The heating oil company will truck the oil right to my house.

Decided to build my house all by myself and save a min $40,000. This angered local workers who lusted after a piece of my action. Upside is I now have great tools and can go into the biz myself and drive all these trailer-trash high school dropouts into the ditchdigging business.

Do everything yourself. That way you learn and get quality at the same time. There is nothing a contractor can fix or build that you can't.

The guy who calls you unsafe or crazy is just pissed that you're competing with him for precious dollars. Chances are he is a fat f*ck anyway so just piss on his shoes while he is frothing away.

DF

Reply to
dirt farmer

I don't post here often, but I read as much as I can. I can safely say that I learn something new just about every day. Like you I try and repair just about anything that breaks - sometimes successful, mostly not. It really depends on the item. So many things are simply not built with repair in mind.

The problem here is that many people that ask questions are plainly not too knowledgeable about the subject. It worries me when people are given advice on how to fix electrical or plumbing problems when they clearly have no idea. If someone asks how to install an extra powerpoint, I really think the best advice is "call an electrician". If they need to ask any other advice is dangerous.

I do agree with your general philosophy and would love to see kids given more education in the basics of hand tools ,materials and the basic physics of how things work. Or more importantly, correct techniques of problem solving.

Unfortunately most people just have no idea.

Take my wife.... please.

Reply to
Avery

A little to thin skinned? Don't take it so seriously. Are you not surprised already some of the things we type in front of the screen we would never say face to face to that person we are communicating to?

Reply to
yaofengchen

I admire your spunk and ability to think of new ways to do things cheaper. But - it sounds to me - that you are breaking the law by using home heating oil to run your diesel truck. I realize that heating oil and diesel fuel are the same thing except for one thing - the color. The government places a high fuel tax on diesel fuel. This is the reason that home heating oil costs so much less - it does not have the road tax on it. I forget what color dye they put in the heating oil - but if you get caught with the wrong color in your truck - it is a big fine.

The reason I know this is because one of my friends during the 1978 energy crisis - bought a VW Diesel - I forget which model. Anyway - we were paying like 80 cents a gallon for gasoline - and he was running on heating oil that cost around 30 cents a gallon. We were waiting in gasoline lines on odd and even days. He simply had a petcock on his heating oil tank in the basement - fueling his VW diesel in the privacy of locked basement by gravity from the fuel tank.

He would have gotten away with it - if he would have kept his mouth shut

- but he kept bragging in the faculty room to a bunch of disgruntled teachers - and someone turned him in. They came to the house - checked the fuel in the VW - then sampled the fuel in the home tank - then photographed his little "filling station." Not only did he pay a hefty fine - but he became national news during the energy crisis. He was scorned by many unhappy motorists.

I was not the guy that used the heating fuel nor was I the guy that turned him in - but I can understand both sides.

Harry

Reply to
Harry Everhart

I think a big part of the problem is that it's often cheaper to buy a new one made in China than it is to fix things. That plus most people are too lazy or stupid or intimidated to fix things themselves. Personally, I'm closing in on 40, and I'm still learning quite a bit about how to fix everything. Between my 10 year old car and my vintage

1950 house I'm renovating I've learned quite a bit. Haven't needed a contractor yet except for one minor thing and my car hasn't seen a shop for years except for tires.
Reply to
scott_z500

"I think a big part of the problem is that it's often cheaper to buy a new one made in China than it is to fix things."

Being able to now buy mass manufactured things so cheap that it's not worth fixing a lot of things that were repaired in the past isn't a problem, in most cases, it's progress. If you look at what it would cost to repair many things today, it's not worth it. Even if you do the labor yourself, after you take it apart, lots of times it requires a part and they usually aren't cheap, you have to figure out where to get it, etc.

Reply to
trader4

Waah.

Poor baby.

Does hims want hims banky?

Reply to
Matt

I bet you had to walk up hill both ways in a blizzard wearing just a wind breaker to get to school.

I'm 25 years old and I took shop class in 7th, 8th and 9th grade and enjoyed it very much. However, with education budgets being so tight lately, I'd much rather see the money go towards reading, math, science and the arts. If you want to blame anyone, blame today's fathers for not teaching their sons how to be handy, mostly because they don't know themselves. For that, I blame *YOUR* generation.

Come to think of it, I also blame computers, the bomb, the Jews, North Korea and Celine Dion...but mostly I blame *your* generation.

Greg M

Reply to
Greg M

I had a 350 $ microave going bad, seeing a new one was only 36$ there was no reason to even hassle or consider fixing the old unit. A repair would have been 100$

Do you fix an old electronic apliance for twice the cost of a new unit, sometimes, sometimes not. I just fixed an old 19"tv for more than the cost of a new one . 8 months later I see I waisted time and money as the repair failed. So many things today imported crap that repairing them is not worth it. It all depends on the product to be repaired. Today many products are crap and cheaply priced , driving the "throw away " trend.

Reply to
m Ransley

Man, you would *love* Mexico (I did)! They fix everything, throw away virtually nothing. You can even go to a local market and buy used screws and bolts.

-- dadiOH ____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06... ...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at

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Reply to
dadiOH

"Greg M" wrote

So who taught you how to reason?

Reply to
John B

Wow....

I never saw Tom go off before! Pretty cool.

Reply to
Matt

When oil begins to get scarce, it will be survival of the fittest. I like to have options available.

By the way I don't have the truck yet. But I've been looking at the Ford F250.

DF

Reply to
dirt farmer

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