Tim Hunkin is a professional tinkerer. His YouTube videos series The Secret Life of Components are excellent primers to the hidden lives of machines – their components.
A few notes on chains:
For us engineering noobs, the chain is associated with the bicycle. But oh it’s so much more. Tim Hunkin demonstrates the variety of their uses. Old fashioned arcades. Pulleys. And even a giant metal clock.
Belleville washers are “dished” spring washers. They look a bit like Satellite dishes. These help with torque.
The advent of the “Bush” chain was revolutionary. Bush chains are the modern chain. Their pins are able to slot all the way through the bush. This allows the chain handle greater loads.
They were invented by Hans Renold who founded the Renold Chain Company in 1880. The Renold Chain Company is still in operation.
Found this one late. Will add to the original list of seven.
The decay of the body is irreversible. Death is non-negotiable. After that, what’s left? Stories. But not just the stories as the story tellers remember them and then recounted them to others. The stories that people adapt from other people’s stories which then are retold, remade, and handed down until only their essence remains.
Almost two decades after the production of Bottle Rocket he (Wes) speaks of the movie with great affection, as well he should. It’s a special movie. Audacious yet gentle. It’s got a loping rhythm that reminds me of what it’s like to stroll around Dallas in the early summer at dusk. Everything is kind of turning all blue. You can hear the cicadas whirring.
There are few perfect movies. This is one of them.
– Matt Zoller Seitz
The Royal Tenebaums works because as hilarious as it sometimes is, in its heart it’s a drama rather than a comedy. And it’s not remotely kidding about the traumas that it shows us. There is a very specific darkness at the heart of this film, divorce. The bomb that detonates in the prologue.
– Matt Zoller Seitz
It feels lived in. Why? Maybe because it treats all of its characters as if they were real people. People whos dreams and fears actually matter.
– Matt Zoller Seitz
It was in the reign of George III that the the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now
In all of these moments you’re aware that you’re seeing something that was made by people, and the movie is ok with that. It not trying to fool you. There’s nothing smooth about these stop motion animals. Wes is not taking his cues from Pixar here. He takes his cues from Willis O’Brien the stop motion animator who created King Kong. He takes his cues from Ray Harryhausen, who followed in Willis O’Brien’s footsteps. Jason and the Argonauts were a big one for Wes growing up.
The movie carries itself as a knockabout comedy-romance, a mere diversion, but it lingers in the mind, by communicating that the right choice is one based on empathy and attention and understanding. Not mindless obedience to ritual or an ostrich like evasion of unpleasant truths. The relationship between tradition and innovation. The old guard and the new. Is ongoing, never fully settled. Sam and Suzy’s ardor is funny because they aren’t fully grown yet, but it’s powerful because they’re doing almost everything else right. Each one is headstrong but not averse to bending if it will make the other person happy. It can be likened to a negotiation, or better yet a dance.
Matt Zoller Seitz
The decay of the body is irreversible. Death is non-negotiable. After that, what’s left? Stories. But not just the stories as the story tellers remember them and then recounted them to others. The stories that people adapt from other people’s stories which then are retold, remade, and handed down until only their essence remains.
I was really not a good drawer. I wasn’t the worst in the class, but I was by no means ever the best in the class, whatever class. Even in the little architecture school there were five or six people who could draw better than me. They could certainly draw trees and birds and you know, all that stuff. I was a rather painful drawer.
– Peter Cook
Inspiring to learn architect Peter Cook was not the best artist in his classes growing up. He toiled to improve his drawing. He called himself a “painful” drawer.
“I’m still not fluent. If you were watching me drawing then, I’m using a straight edge. I’m using aides. I’ve got lots of tricks of the trade by now.”
– Peter Cook
Fascinating how Peter describes drawing like a language. He uses the word “fluent”.
He still believes he’s not “fluent”. But Peter is open to using tools to overcome his artistic limitations.
Robinson lived a tortured life. His parents died while he was still a young man. He battled alcoholism. He was in love with his brother’s (Herman) wife Emma. And worked probably the worst day job of all time – 10 hours a day walking the darkness as a New York Subway time-checker. He once went an 11 year stretch without publishing a poem. And when finally published, the critics ridiculed his poetry. But despite life’s beat-downs, he found the fortitude to keep writing.
The entire conversation will expand your mind, but I wanted to capture Adam’s suggestions for being a productive writer:
COWEN: You’ve written an enormous amount. Just this last week you had a major piece come out in the Guardian, one in London Review of Books. Your books are very long. What is your most unusual writing habit?
TOOZE: I’m not sure it’s unusual, but I think it’s the writing habit that many people have who do write a lot. I write every day, basically. I haven’t always found writing easy at all. I’ve been to a lot of therapy of various types to stabilize myself emotionally and psychologically. I still do. It’s very important for me in handling the stresses that arise in writing.
And one of the things I realized in the course of that is that, actually, rather than thinking it was something terrifying that I had to steel myself to do, the best way to think about it was as something I do every day, so it’s like exercise. If I have the chance, I like to exercise. It’s a puzzling activity. I just treat it almost as a game, rearranging the words, trying to fix things.
I’ll say to all of my grad students, you can do that for 10 minutes every single day, regardless of what else is going on in your life. You can always find that 10-minute slot. So that is the thing that I make sure I do. And that means even big projects slowly move along because then, when you get the big slice of time, the three or four hours at the weekend or something, it’s actually top of stack. You know where to go because you’ve been puzzling away at it and chewing on it every day, even if it’s only for 10 minutes.
COWEN: I give the exact same answer, by the way.
Not ground breaking advice by any means. But it applies well, specifically to editing.
10 minutes of edits a day and eventually you’ll have a finished piece.
Also, Adam’s suggestion for the best way to travel through Germany:
I would say travel. Get on the train. Unless you’re a car nut, and you want to experience the freedom of driving a Porsche at 200 miles an hour, which you can do if you do it at 2:00 am. The roads are clean enough, and they’re smooth enough.
But other than that, ride the train. Sit in an ICE going at, absolutely no kidding, 200 miles an hour, powered by solar power, and watch your coffee not even vibrate. It’s absolutely stunning. They have to put speedometers into the trains to make people aware of how fast they’re going.
Floodlights and Goalposts 