Coders Edge

Modern Application Development

The Screw Box Must be sorted.

Why? Because it makes all of this hardware so much more useful! Which brings me to the reason for the picture below: I am doing a project at home of sorting out all of the hardware in my garage. I quess when planning a move the first step in inventorying of all of the various things that one has. Sorting the screwbox is not a simple process.

Box of unsorted screws, nails and other hardware poured out onto a cabinet-top

small plastic multi-bin container with sorted items in the bins.

Now we know where all the items are. It is easier to do an inventory. If we need new screws or hardware we can check here first to see if we already have something of interest.

This is great for home or for a garage, but at a business the costs and logisitics of sorting out piles of hardware might make it more efficient to bring in a junk or metals dealer and have them take the unsorted lot at a price per pound. And then, when one needs hardware, one makes a manifest, puts out for bid from suppliers, and then get's product delivered for just-in-time use. Having such a plan for a home garage is unlikely.

The point: the sorted thing is more valuble than the unsorted. The sorted thing gives a lot of advantages to the user of the product, be it software tools or be it nails and screws.

The screw box is a guy thing for the most part. Yes, there may be women who also do this, it is women who are guys. What I mean by this is that it tends to be more guys or folks who do guy things. A metric of the guy thing: there are many multiple screw boxes with in the guy place. All of those boxes of screws. All of those very many useful items. A resume is like that too. How does a head hunter know that this person is a screwbox or if the person is just a screw?

OK, that last comment was a little bit mean. And I'm not trying to be sexist when I say that the screw-box is a guy thing. As I recall my mom also had a box for tools that she kept in the kitchen closet. The joke that she always mentioned was Fibber McGee's Closet, which was from an oldtime radio show. I didn't ever hear the show. Oh, maybe a sound track once . . . not sure. When the door opens all of the things inside loosen and fall out in a calamtous roar of clanging and ringing and crashing of metal and wood and plastic. Not nice. Giant lobster pot falls from the top of it all and smashes Dude on the foot. It's a guy thing? It's a lack of organization thing.

It has been said (it's a motto of some group, I think . . . maybe . . . ) that "Organzation is the Key to Success." Folks that would quote that to you might also have quotes about kites as well. Rationalism, really, it's the thing that emerged . . . in the past . . . made the world better. Made us understand why the rivers are sometimes dry. Made us see that when faults slip and giant energies are released that it isn't the hidden hand. Made us try to end our cycle of viciousness. Kill all the prophets. No, don't do that.

The organized screw box will be more useful. But still it might fall to disuse. I lingered over some items. I'd long ago purged off most of my electronics equipment. Finding old motors made me long to learn Mechanical Engineering and Machine Design. It made me pine for those rah-rah Engineering U days of Lowell and the flooding river and trickster guys ready to build it if you'll buy.

Alas, I'm an engineer not a business man. I don't do sales well. I've never even put up an Ebay auction though I'm told it's easy money. Cost of product, cost of insurance and shipping, the time involved . . . there has to be a high profit/transaction ratio. I'm wanting to do this.

Yes, I'm wanting it. Modivation: greed and need. I'd like to make a killing. I'll make secret profits and off-shore it all to do-gooder charities. I'll funnel the money off to my own private accounts by letting out no-bid contracts to shell companies run by a Human clone (so he can't be traced). I'll invent a time machine, go back in time, patent the idea of patenting ideas, come back to the present day and then make everybody pay me for everything always and I'll be the king of everything . . .

Of Course none of that will happen

OK, in any case, as you may know reading this esoteric blog, I also enjoy creative writing.

Go Out and use your new tools.Build things that make the world better for you and yours.

OK, the above is a little bit like bait. There are certain topics that make many people auto-respond (with very little cerberal activity). When a writer knows about such topics and then breaches them anyway . . . he/she is 'baiting' the reader. In the modern age-o-blogs we have the comments section. The comments section serves many purposes. Mostly it allows people who need to vent a vent for their rantish thought. Many people don't understand that the thoughts that htey form in their head are not necessarily anything that they would agree with if they think it though. In many cases the thoughts are the result of unrealistic expectaions based upon magical thinking. In that case it is best to let the thoughts rest (in hidden blog format, off-line). Then go back at them later and look at them. Like if you were commenting on [Hot Button Country]. You can't just put up smack talk about ethno-religious or national identity without getting a lot of flack back. You will be flamed. All of your servers will be over whelmed.

The curious thing about the comments in many of these articles is that the writers of them may, in fact, just be baiting the other commenters and readers of the article. Usually if there is any story even a little bit politically modivated there are almost automatic responses immediately in any comments section saying It is all [insert poltical people the commenter loaths]'s fault. And then immediately after that there is a flurry of other posts from the other side of the political swamp and they will say Silly commenter, you are wrong. No it's your guy.

This goes on for a while sometimes. I don't know, nor have I tried to figure out what these flame wars are for. But after a time the thred is ended. There might be some automatic setting that kicks in that says 'topic is stale'. Such a setting would be customized for the topic. So, for example, if you wanted to flag a discussion as 'stale' if no one has read or responded to it in T, where T is the time period. Or the condition could just be a triggered moment. After this moment the thread will no longer accept comments.

Don't flag me Stale

Keep doing it. Keep it going on. Always learning, always doing new things.

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  WP July 27, 2011

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