Anyone read this book? Sounds interesting: Publishers Weekly review: Philosopher and motorcycle repair-shop owner Crawford extols the value of making and fixing things in this masterful paean to what he calls manual competence, the ability to work with ones hands. According to the author, our alienation from how our possessions are made and how they work takes many forms: the decline of shop class, the design of goods whose workings cannot be accessed by users (such as recent Mercedes models built without oil dipsticks) and the general disdain with which we regard the trades in our emerging information economy. Unlike today's knowledge worker, whose work is often so abstract that standards of excellence cannot exist in many fields (consider corporate executives awarded bonuses as their companies sink into bankruptcy), the person who works with his or her hands submits to standards inherent in the work itself: the lights either turn on or they don't, the toilet flushes or it doesn't, the motorcycle roars or sputters. With wit and humor, the author deftly mixes the details of his own experience as a tradesman and then proprietor of a motorcycle repair shop with more philosophical considerations.
the lights either turn on or they don't, the toilet flushes or it doesn't or, in the case of Eytalian electrics, the toilet flushes when the lights turn on.
Sounds like shades of "Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance".
I much prefer working with my hands than sitting in a stink'n office.....but needs must. Why are his hubs brown? I found the Zen book totally boring.....
nothing to see here . . .
An equally valid question would be "why is any part of the bike brown?" And another: "why is such a scruffy example of an R60/2 on the cover of a book extolling the author's alleged talents?" IIRC, no publisher wanted to touch the Zen book when the author had finished it. More than a tad off the wall . . .
He has reduced his target market by not having a Harley on the cover... s'pose he wrote the book as there was not enough demand doing /2's...
All our trades are polluted with technology,OSH,ISO and PC these days,and ''today's knowledge worker'' who never uses their hands is quick to step in with complaints about poor workmanship.What about sheetmetal Dodgy? That seems to be one of the few old skills trades left - surely a machine doesn't markout,cut and fold a duct these days....?
it is true that we are heading into a world where people don't do manual work...for themselves....i know a guy who has never changed a tyre...in the states there is a company that reads manuals for everything...so you don't have to...just ring them and they will explain how the...washing machine/dryer/phone/cd player etc etc etc....works.......so you don't have to know.....
surely a machine doesn't markout,cut and fold a duct these days....? .... with air conditioning duct, there is a cad drawing done on a computa...then fed into a machine...a coil of galv steel is set up and away it goes....they have been around for some time, but really only good for long runs.
Eight years ago I had dealings with an engineering company in Auckland when I was selling bearings and transmission equipment. They were building roll-formers with computer-controls which were connected to CAD software, and supplying them to shed manufacturers in the USA together with huge roll-forming equipment to form the corrugated cladding. One of those roll-formers barely fitted into a 40ft shipping container. I bought a pair of utility shed kitsets from them which we had designed at their office one morning. I knew what dimensions I wanted, where the doors were to go, the pitch of the roof etc, so the guy entered all the parameters into the program. After we'd finished the design, he pushed the "GO" button and the computer spat out the assembly plans, while the roll-former spat out the frame with every screwhole and notch in the correct place and every item cut to the correct length. I built one of the kitset sheds at our previous property and it was a piece of cake to assemble. I still have the second kitset in storage.
why am i not surprised you have a "spare" shed in the shed....... kitchen manufacturers have used the same technology for years to make custom wood kitset kitchens...
I still have the second kitset in storage Max Shedroom has sheds stored in sheds.... opps just got caught laughing at the screen.....managed to explain that away
I found the Zen book totally boring..... Read it 3-4 times. Certainly thought provoking and some interesting takes on the way we look at things. especially like the first few pages when he talks about car drivers living in a TV compared to motorcyclists who live the trip through sights, sounds and smells.
