[ExI] The Magpie Whisperer

Tue Jun 22 19:48:12 UTC 2021

Spike, you are just too smart. You knew I was going to come at you about
the tires after I suffered world class humiliation about reading a book
about cod.  However, your knowledge has been useful and mine is just
interesting.  You just might know more than I do about buying used cars
(for me, that has been one of the necessities of life).

If I need to do something useful I get my neighbor to do it.  He knows
everything.  My iPhone expert is 13.    bill w

On Tue, Jun 22, 2021 at 1:43 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
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>
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> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
>
>
>
> >…They are not a clue that kittens are made by injection molding.  ;)
>
>
>
> That depends on the breed.  The rare show-quality Abyssinian Bobtail
> Moldcat is made that way.
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>
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> >>…There’s a point to all this, which I will reveal if anyone is still
> reading about something as apparently simple as a used tire (which isn’t
> simple at all) and asks what is the point of all this, because it has
> everything to do with used RVs.
>
>
>
> >…Go on, you want to tell us anyway.  :)  Adrian
>
>
>
> Adrian, you know me well sir.  I spend all these years looking carefully
> at everything around me, gobbling up arcane info in places like ExI-chat
> where most of us have interesting thoughts and observations.  It is such a
> tragedy to not pass along our arcane wisdom to you young fellers.
>
>
>
> Lockheed Sunnyvale where I worked for many years offered a little perk to
> the employees: we could park an RVs back in the back lot where it was free,
> fenced, gated and perfectly safe.  Lots of proles put boats, campers back
> there along with old cars (which they dreamed of restoring someday (but we
> know that for most of us, someday never comes.))
>
>
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> Boats and campers are two good examples of a toy that people buy when they
> are young, but quickly discover are far more complicated and expensive to
> operate than they thought, because their friends who had a boat or camper
> didn’t really explain that part.  Boats take a loooootta lotta effort to
> haul to the site and launch, then one quickly realizes that once the boat
> is out in the lake or at sea… there’s nothing to do.  Catch some fish
> (maybe.)  Go fast.  Check out the shoreline.  Dive off the side and swim.
> Get back in.  Get a horrifying sunburn.  Copulate if the conditions are
> agreeable.  OK did all that, now what?  Discovery: boating isn’t as fun as
> you thought.  Boat falls into disuse.
>
>
>
> Camper: go camping, discover the commercial campground is more crowded,
> more dangerous, with far less to do and with far worse air quality (from
> campfires), more noisy at night than one’s own neighborhood, but still
> worse… the family’s individual enthusiasm for camping varies widely.
> Result: one or more family members finds whiney excuses to not go, camper
> falls into disuse (except for the classic use for many of them parked back
> there: employees would sneak out into the back lot and use the RV as a
> secret meeting place (details not available (and unnecessary
> (clarification: I never used mine for that purpose (not kidding, I didn’t
> go there (but plenty of RV owners did.))))))
>
>
>
> Very well.  Prole wants a camper, wonders which one would be best, so he
> checks out a key, goes out to the back parking area, discovers thousands of
> these things have accumulated over the decades, very literally thousands.
> That lot back there is an RV graveyard.  Many haven’t had new tags in 20
> years, which is not an exaggeration at all, for busy young people bought
> them, then discovered camping wasn’t their thing, or the spouse at the time
> didn’t like it much, so it was only kept for… well, that, and even then,
> people get busier in their middle years and don’t even have all that much
> time for… that.
>
>
>
> Result: camper is bought, falls into disuse after a year or two.  Campers
> have a plastic vent cover or two (mine has three.)  Those translucent
> covers are plastic, so they degrade in the sun over time, and after a few
> years, a decade or less the once-flexible plastic is UV degraded and is as
> brittle and delicate as a potato chip.  Wind comes, they break off, rain
> comes in, rots whatever below the vent, which is usually a bed.  The front
> vent is over the dining/cooking area, so the wood floor rots there too.
> After 15 years of non-use, a typical RV needs so much refurbishment, its
> value is near zero.
>
>
>
> What has all this to do with mold vent sprues, the young people asked.
>
>
>
> Glad you should ask.  If you go to the RV lot, you can find 40 year old
> RVs with the most recent tag 20 yrs ago.  So you already know it has been
> out of service a long time, and the original owner has likely passed on,
> but examining the tires will tell an interesting story.  On some of those
> 40 year old RVs, the tires are flat (all of them) the tread is unworn and
> the outboard mold vent sprues are still present.  They snap right off if
> you bend them.  That indicates two things: unworn tread means the RV was
> never driven far.  The presence of outboard sprues indicates that after the
> RV was older than just a few years.  Other than its use for…that… it was
> seldom used for anything.  It was a total waste of money.
>
>
>
> This can all be discovered with a little knowledge of how rubber ages and
> a careful examination of a tire’s mold vent sprues, which is actually
> fascinating.
>
>
>
> Result: before I agreed to buy one 14 yrs ago, I made dang sure I would
> use it.  My camper is on its third set of tires, 4th set of vent covers,
> has 436 camping nights in it and has traveled 84000 miles.  So… we get our
> money’s worth out of that camper.  But many, if not most RVs are almost a
> total waste.
>
>
>
> Now Billw of course can get revenge on me for all the trash I gave that
> lad for reading a book about… cod.  (About cod!  (oh mercy, cod he reads
> books about.)) Well, cod just don’t interest me much.  But about those
> little rubber whiskers on tires he waxes eloquent.  Those are more
> fascinating to me than the real purpose for which a lotta Lockheed people
> really used those RVs.  Tragic.
>
>
>
> spike
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