I can take any side of an issue. If I can't, I really don't believe I have a right to an opinion. Most people don't, because most people don't think.
Thinking is a developed skill. Puzzles, especially story problems, can help. Most people avoid story problems and they do cross word puzzles or word searches, or whatever. Yeah, those can be useful in developing specific skills in language relating, but, they don't help thinking.
So, thinking...what is the most important part of thinking? The truth is, the most important part of thinking is knowing what one does and does not know.
Suppose I write a blog or a discussion board post discussing a psychiatric paper from the early 1900s on homosexuality. I do that a lot, take a position in a discussion and occasionally people help me learn stuff. More often, some moron without any thinking skills just becomes angry and goes off on a rant, or sometimes I piss of a moronic fascist hacker who has taken it upon himself to become a "New Age Inquisitor".
The world is filled with morons, and guess, what? You can't avoid them so don't even try.
There is an old saying, "steel sharpens steel", and occasionally I find someone with a brain who can discuss an issue and then I might learn something.
Over the years, I have watched as the Internet has become less and less a place to exchange ideas and more and more of a place where ideology is monitored by fascists of one kind or another. Discussion is one of the great learning tools and people don't use it, instead, people make assumptions about what they know, anything that conflicts with what they "know" is "wrong" and anyone who disagrees with what they "know" is a horrible person.
Then there are people with concepts of "respect", or "honesty" in discussion and if someone violates these rules, usually, once again by disagreeing with the "moderator", the ability to learn is compromised.
I believe this is because people go to schools and listen to idiots lecture and those idiots chastise whoever disagrees with them, so people never learn how to use discussion as a learning tool. All people know how to do is regurgitate what they have consumed from lecturers. This is true of reading as well.
See, the lecture or the reading is a story problem. Generally a single perspective in a world of perspectives. The listener or reader needs to place the information in context with other perspectives to develop an opinion or understanding.
Instead, people don't care about understanding, they just champion whatever opinion someone told them to have, then they think anyone with a different opinion is "wrong".
The thing is, people are more than a single opinion or even a group of opinions. people are hopes and dreams and opinions and fears and thoughts.
So, our "learning" process destroys the ability to learn to think. We can't discuss or become better at what we do. Instead, we are building an idiocracy, and have been for hundreds of years.
Wednesday, July 01, 2015
Honda 1979 CX500 Headlight, Sealed Beam to H4 LED conversion
My daughter moved a ways away so I blew money I had put away for tuition on a motorcycle so I could drive out there more often this summer. The bike is a Honda 1979 CX500 and it runs okay. There is a harmonic shimmy occasionally, so I probably should replace the swing arm bearings. The bike has a shaft drive and I haven't done that on a bike with a shaft drive, so, haven't done that yet. It rides okay.
Somehow, in 36 years no one managed to do a sealed beam to H4 headlamp conversion and the low beam was burnt. This is a real simple, fairly cheap thing.
First, I needed the conversion light. I bought a IPCW CWC-7006 7" Plain Round Conversion Headlight from Amazon. Under $15 bucks. Search around, you might find one cheaper.
Second, I needed an H4 bulb. That I ordered from eBay, 22watt, from China, about $6. 22W White H4/5730 CREE LED Fog Light Bulb 1000LM High Low Beam Headlight
Again, look around because I wasn't exactly trying to do this super cheap. I was just trying to avoid the scam artists selling "conversion kits" on eBay for $60 bucks. Maybe I should put together a few "conversion kits", add some instructions and sell them. Nah, I am not interested in ripping people off.
There is a difference between the conversion headlight and the sealed beam, there are stand-offs and the stand-offs on the conversion are higher than on the sealed beam. I thought about hack sawing them off, but, didn't need to, so I didn't.
There are eight screws to deal with, all phillips head. You will need both a #1 and a #2. I used a screw driver with switchable heads. Remove the three screws holding on the headlight assembly.
Pull the connector from the back of the sealed beam. This connector works fine for the H4 bulb, just don't get a high wattage bulb. If you do, you could burn the connector and the alternator. You could try wiring in a ceramic socket, but, I wouldn't bother. The alternator specs won't handle the load. I suggest LED.
The sealed beam is in a retaining ring inside an adjustment ring. Remove the two pivoting screws, don't lose the stamped steel "nuts". Loosen the headlight adjuster screw on the outside of the retaining ring. You need a #1 phillips here. Don't lose the spring or the little square nut.
I like using a paper bowl or a small can or something to put my bits and pieces in. Lay them carefully in the grass, whatever.
There are two screws holding the sealed beam into the retaining ring. #1 phillips.
Now, if the locater tabs are too big, cut off with a hack saw. These help position the headlight in the correct orientation, so leave some stubs and file them all down so they are the same height. I wouldn't do this unless you have to, I suggest avoiding cutting stuff up.
Swap the sealed beam for the conversion light. Rotate the conversion light around so the locater tabs fit in the correct places in the mounting ring. Slip the retaining ring on and replace the two screws.
Put the light assembly in the adjuster, put in the pivot screws first. The top pivot screw mount is also a tab for the head light mounting screw. Make sure the pivot screw goes in the "middle" hole. Those stamped steel nuts are a pain, but, play with them and they work. You could try replacing them with real hex nuts, but, I wouldn't.
Push the assembly down against the adjuster spring, spin the nut down a ways and eyeball how even the adjustment looks. You can use a screw driver to fine tune it.
Put the H4 bulb into the light. There are some wires that snap loose, you might need a screw driver to push them down, then in, towards the opening. Remove the shipping cap. Put the bulb in, use a screw driver if you have to. Just be careful. Attach the socket.
Test the light, everything working? Proceed. Not, sit down and cry for a while, then dust yourself out and figure out what is wrong.
This is the hard part. I think the conversion light is slightly deeper than the original so, create a "nest" in the wires for the light plug, and shove the thing together.
Put the two lower screws in first. It might take some real force to push this together, if it takes too much, work on the next some more. Once the lower screws are both in about half way, put in the top screw. Now tighten everything up, tight.
Test the light a second time, everything should work peachy keen.
Somehow, in 36 years no one managed to do a sealed beam to H4 headlamp conversion and the low beam was burnt. This is a real simple, fairly cheap thing.
First, I needed the conversion light. I bought a IPCW CWC-7006 7" Plain Round Conversion Headlight from Amazon. Under $15 bucks. Search around, you might find one cheaper.
Second, I needed an H4 bulb. That I ordered from eBay, 22watt, from China, about $6. 22W White H4/5730 CREE LED Fog Light Bulb 1000LM High Low Beam Headlight
Again, look around because I wasn't exactly trying to do this super cheap. I was just trying to avoid the scam artists selling "conversion kits" on eBay for $60 bucks. Maybe I should put together a few "conversion kits", add some instructions and sell them. Nah, I am not interested in ripping people off.
There is a difference between the conversion headlight and the sealed beam, there are stand-offs and the stand-offs on the conversion are higher than on the sealed beam. I thought about hack sawing them off, but, didn't need to, so I didn't.
There are eight screws to deal with, all phillips head. You will need both a #1 and a #2. I used a screw driver with switchable heads. Remove the three screws holding on the headlight assembly.
Pull the connector from the back of the sealed beam. This connector works fine for the H4 bulb, just don't get a high wattage bulb. If you do, you could burn the connector and the alternator. You could try wiring in a ceramic socket, but, I wouldn't bother. The alternator specs won't handle the load. I suggest LED.
The sealed beam is in a retaining ring inside an adjustment ring. Remove the two pivoting screws, don't lose the stamped steel "nuts". Loosen the headlight adjuster screw on the outside of the retaining ring. You need a #1 phillips here. Don't lose the spring or the little square nut.
I like using a paper bowl or a small can or something to put my bits and pieces in. Lay them carefully in the grass, whatever.
There are two screws holding the sealed beam into the retaining ring. #1 phillips.
Now, if the locater tabs are too big, cut off with a hack saw. These help position the headlight in the correct orientation, so leave some stubs and file them all down so they are the same height. I wouldn't do this unless you have to, I suggest avoiding cutting stuff up.
Swap the sealed beam for the conversion light. Rotate the conversion light around so the locater tabs fit in the correct places in the mounting ring. Slip the retaining ring on and replace the two screws.
Put the light assembly in the adjuster, put in the pivot screws first. The top pivot screw mount is also a tab for the head light mounting screw. Make sure the pivot screw goes in the "middle" hole. Those stamped steel nuts are a pain, but, play with them and they work. You could try replacing them with real hex nuts, but, I wouldn't.
Push the assembly down against the adjuster spring, spin the nut down a ways and eyeball how even the adjustment looks. You can use a screw driver to fine tune it.
Put the H4 bulb into the light. There are some wires that snap loose, you might need a screw driver to push them down, then in, towards the opening. Remove the shipping cap. Put the bulb in, use a screw driver if you have to. Just be careful. Attach the socket.
Test the light, everything working? Proceed. Not, sit down and cry for a while, then dust yourself out and figure out what is wrong.
This is the hard part. I think the conversion light is slightly deeper than the original so, create a "nest" in the wires for the light plug, and shove the thing together.
Put the two lower screws in first. It might take some real force to push this together, if it takes too much, work on the next some more. Once the lower screws are both in about half way, put in the top screw. Now tighten everything up, tight.
Test the light a second time, everything should work peachy keen.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Bad management and restructuring
I want to do a quick blurb about bad management and corporate restructuring.
Bad managers cut costs by laying off people, closing remote operations, etc, without examining the real basis for the underlying profitability issues.
Typically there are three or four costs, employee specific costs, remote operation costs, corporate overhead costs and materials costs. The key is to look at these costs individually and accumulated. A lot of lazy accountants are too stupid to understand statistics so they work off of median and mean, which are easily generated numbers. The good bean counters work off of modalities, which tell us a lot more about what is going on.
For example, what is the individual performance modality? This is where we take all the workers and create a histogram of their gross income generation. In production, this is pretty much equal. But, in other businesses, this can be radically different. This modality curve defines my minimum expectation for worker income generation. The curve should be skewed to the high side, meaning that the modality will be below the average gross income generation. This is because high performers skew the curve.
What is the cost per income generating employee of the remote office? Again, I would do a histogram of all the remote offices and look at the modality, not the mean or the median.
Corporate cost per employee should be the lowest of these three numbers, if it isn't, corporate costs need to be reduced.
This is actually basic processing statistics, the modality becomes critical and the mean/median are only important in their relationship to the modality of the process.
Looking at the modality curve, the analyst has to compare the width of the modality curve to 2 sigma. Using the lower of 2 sigma or the width of the curve, it is fairly easy to set up lower and upper boundaries for process control, everyone producing below the lower boundary is let go, every remote office which costs more than the upper boundary of their modality curve is restructured to reduce costs.
The total of the employee, remote operation and corporate overhead costs must be lower than the low boundary of the individual employee income generating modality. This way, income generation is protected, costs are cut and profits increased.
Once individual performance standards are determined using modalities, everything else becomes obvious. Then management can look at high performers and figure out what they are doing, then train others so that the modality begins shifting closer to the mean. Done right, continuous improvement strategies result in process optimization.
This is all basic, Business 101, Processing 101, stuff. The problem is, people are usually too arrogant to pay attention to the basics and figure they can do things better than the last thousand people who did it.
So, when you hear about a corporation that is restructuring, are they protecting gross income generation? Are they protecting the corporate overhead (their salaries and perks, executive dinning room)?
Look at the financial services corporations that the United States bailed out and then handed over the future of health care to with "Obamacare". Most of these guys didn't change their overhead, they depended on charity to protect their overhead.
Income in the States is multi-modal, there is a "line" with multiple "bumps" in it. Each "bump" is a curve modality.
So what did those political decisions do? Well, they reduced the amount of the three lower income modalities in the United States, which decreases the amount of money consumers have to spend in a consumer drive economy.
In other words, by implementing Obamacare and other corporate protections, the Obama Admin is protecting the high income modalities and damaging the lower income modalities.
Bad managers cut costs by laying off people, closing remote operations, etc, without examining the real basis for the underlying profitability issues.
Typically there are three or four costs, employee specific costs, remote operation costs, corporate overhead costs and materials costs. The key is to look at these costs individually and accumulated. A lot of lazy accountants are too stupid to understand statistics so they work off of median and mean, which are easily generated numbers. The good bean counters work off of modalities, which tell us a lot more about what is going on.
For example, what is the individual performance modality? This is where we take all the workers and create a histogram of their gross income generation. In production, this is pretty much equal. But, in other businesses, this can be radically different. This modality curve defines my minimum expectation for worker income generation. The curve should be skewed to the high side, meaning that the modality will be below the average gross income generation. This is because high performers skew the curve.
What is the cost per income generating employee of the remote office? Again, I would do a histogram of all the remote offices and look at the modality, not the mean or the median.
Corporate cost per employee should be the lowest of these three numbers, if it isn't, corporate costs need to be reduced.
This is actually basic processing statistics, the modality becomes critical and the mean/median are only important in their relationship to the modality of the process.
Looking at the modality curve, the analyst has to compare the width of the modality curve to 2 sigma. Using the lower of 2 sigma or the width of the curve, it is fairly easy to set up lower and upper boundaries for process control, everyone producing below the lower boundary is let go, every remote office which costs more than the upper boundary of their modality curve is restructured to reduce costs.
The total of the employee, remote operation and corporate overhead costs must be lower than the low boundary of the individual employee income generating modality. This way, income generation is protected, costs are cut and profits increased.
Once individual performance standards are determined using modalities, everything else becomes obvious. Then management can look at high performers and figure out what they are doing, then train others so that the modality begins shifting closer to the mean. Done right, continuous improvement strategies result in process optimization.
This is all basic, Business 101, Processing 101, stuff. The problem is, people are usually too arrogant to pay attention to the basics and figure they can do things better than the last thousand people who did it.
So, when you hear about a corporation that is restructuring, are they protecting gross income generation? Are they protecting the corporate overhead (their salaries and perks, executive dinning room)?
Look at the financial services corporations that the United States bailed out and then handed over the future of health care to with "Obamacare". Most of these guys didn't change their overhead, they depended on charity to protect their overhead.
Income in the States is multi-modal, there is a "line" with multiple "bumps" in it. Each "bump" is a curve modality.
So what did those political decisions do? Well, they reduced the amount of the three lower income modalities in the United States, which decreases the amount of money consumers have to spend in a consumer drive economy.
In other words, by implementing Obamacare and other corporate protections, the Obama Admin is protecting the high income modalities and damaging the lower income modalities.
Constitutional Equality
Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and the rest of these morons are really missing the point of our constitution and the intention of the founding of the United States.
Our Declaration of Independence stated it very well when Thomas Jefferson, and others, wrote: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Like most people who have ideals, this nation has constantly failed to live up to these ideals. The nation was born into genocide and slavery, fought an unconstitutional war to eliminate slavery, has dealt with segregation, discrimination, prejudice, intolerance, hatred, all institutions based on the ideals of superiority instead of our original stated intent of equality.
Over the centuries this nation has constantly moved towards the ideal of equality our Founding Fathers envisioned. That is how it should be.
Yes, the circular logic applying the Separation of Church and State is flawed. There is no foundation for a majority intent for such a Wall when States had State sponsored religions. We accept this Unconstitutional Wall because the majority believe in equality.
Yes, Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant who suspended the Constitutional and fought an Unconstitutional War to end legalized slavery in the United States. We support and supported that decision because the majority believe in equality.
In 1964 over half the Democrats and 3 Republicans voted against the Civil Rights Act, but, that act passed and Lyndon Johnson signed it (under duress) because the majority believe in equality.
Yes, we have also elected horrible presidents, like Andrew Jackson, who acted out their genocidal fantasies causing the deaths of thousands, if not millions. Yes, we have enacted horrible discriminatory laws which destroyed thousands, if not millions. Yes, the United States is directly responsible for at least two genocides that have killed millions of ethnic peoples.
Time and time again, the majority has eventually rejected these behaviors and the majority has supported actions which have supported the legal equality of all peoples.
It is true we do not always live up to our ideals and this is evident in the political popularity of closed minded bigots and the glorification of genocidal president Andrew Jackson on the $20.
I have faith in the people of the United States because, while we have a history of genocide and discrimination, we have a long history of the majority supporting the belief that all people are created equal.
I believe God wants equality. I believe God wants us to treat others as we treat ourselves, to love others as we love ourselves and as long as the majority of the people of this nation continue to move to support the ideal of equality, I believe God will protect us.
Our Declaration of Independence stated it very well when Thomas Jefferson, and others, wrote: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Like most people who have ideals, this nation has constantly failed to live up to these ideals. The nation was born into genocide and slavery, fought an unconstitutional war to eliminate slavery, has dealt with segregation, discrimination, prejudice, intolerance, hatred, all institutions based on the ideals of superiority instead of our original stated intent of equality.
Over the centuries this nation has constantly moved towards the ideal of equality our Founding Fathers envisioned. That is how it should be.
Yes, the circular logic applying the Separation of Church and State is flawed. There is no foundation for a majority intent for such a Wall when States had State sponsored religions. We accept this Unconstitutional Wall because the majority believe in equality.
Yes, Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant who suspended the Constitutional and fought an Unconstitutional War to end legalized slavery in the United States. We support and supported that decision because the majority believe in equality.
In 1964 over half the Democrats and 3 Republicans voted against the Civil Rights Act, but, that act passed and Lyndon Johnson signed it (under duress) because the majority believe in equality.
Yes, we have also elected horrible presidents, like Andrew Jackson, who acted out their genocidal fantasies causing the deaths of thousands, if not millions. Yes, we have enacted horrible discriminatory laws which destroyed thousands, if not millions. Yes, the United States is directly responsible for at least two genocides that have killed millions of ethnic peoples.
Time and time again, the majority has eventually rejected these behaviors and the majority has supported actions which have supported the legal equality of all peoples.
It is true we do not always live up to our ideals and this is evident in the political popularity of closed minded bigots and the glorification of genocidal president Andrew Jackson on the $20.
I have faith in the people of the United States because, while we have a history of genocide and discrimination, we have a long history of the majority supporting the belief that all people are created equal.
I believe God wants equality. I believe God wants us to treat others as we treat ourselves, to love others as we love ourselves and as long as the majority of the people of this nation continue to move to support the ideal of equality, I believe God will protect us.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Gay Marriage and Religious Freedoms
The ruling on Gay marriage is going to get interesting, especially in light of the opinion presented by the Texas State Attorney General regarding the right of government employees to refuse marriage licenses on religious grounds.
This opens a can of worms, for example, prostitution was used as a form of religious worship for many thousands of years, and there are religions in the United States which engage in Temple Prostitution, can Police Officers, and other officials, refuse to enforce laws against prostitution?
In addition, as I have mentioned before, the legal incorporation of the "freedom of religion" clause in the First Amendment to the states is actually unconstitutional, based on circular logic and is justified by the personal writings of someone who was not involved in the writing of the Federal Constitution, but, who was involved in the Virginia State Constitution and whose personal correspondence reflected that. All the rulings incorporating the very specific , "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion..." to the various states will eventually be over turned.
In case anyone didn't actually ever learn to think for themselves, the Reynolds ruling applying the prohibition of establishing religion to the various is states is circular logic. SCOTUS used a law that prevented them from making a law (Congress shall make no law...) to make a law (ie, you can't make a law) that they were specifically forbidden from making. Pretty stupid actually.
So, states can have state sponsored religions, just as they had at the time the Constitution was ratified. Jefferson's wall has no real foundation and will crumble eventually. That could mean a state in the U.S. with Sharia Law....
However, Jefferson also points out something else interesting in the Danbury Baptist letter, the difference between social responsibility and religious responsibility. " I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
For example, can civil servants refuse to work on Sunday? Can someone have a natural, religious, right that opposes their social duties? Can a fireman, police officer, correction officer, etc, refuse to work on Sunday?
The answer is, people are hired with the understanding that they can perform the job for which they are employed. If someone's natural, religious duties prevent them from performing the position in which they are employed then they should seek employment in a position which is compatible with their religious beliefs.
If someone cannot work on Sunday, they shouldn't take a job where they have to work on Sunday. Replace Sunday with Sabbath if you like.
I believe SCOTUS will have to, eventually, rule that people who accept civil service positions where they are required to perform duties which may conflict with some religious beliefs are free to either accept the position or reject the position, however, they cannot accept a position knowing that they will be required to violate some of their religious beliefs and then refuse to perform duties, which are required by their position, based on their religious beliefs.
It will be interesting, and fun, to see how all this plays out in the courts.
This opens a can of worms, for example, prostitution was used as a form of religious worship for many thousands of years, and there are religions in the United States which engage in Temple Prostitution, can Police Officers, and other officials, refuse to enforce laws against prostitution?
In addition, as I have mentioned before, the legal incorporation of the "freedom of religion" clause in the First Amendment to the states is actually unconstitutional, based on circular logic and is justified by the personal writings of someone who was not involved in the writing of the Federal Constitution, but, who was involved in the Virginia State Constitution and whose personal correspondence reflected that. All the rulings incorporating the very specific , "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion..." to the various states will eventually be over turned.
In case anyone didn't actually ever learn to think for themselves, the Reynolds ruling applying the prohibition of establishing religion to the various is states is circular logic. SCOTUS used a law that prevented them from making a law (Congress shall make no law...) to make a law (ie, you can't make a law) that they were specifically forbidden from making. Pretty stupid actually.
So, states can have state sponsored religions, just as they had at the time the Constitution was ratified. Jefferson's wall has no real foundation and will crumble eventually. That could mean a state in the U.S. with Sharia Law....
However, Jefferson also points out something else interesting in the Danbury Baptist letter, the difference between social responsibility and religious responsibility. " I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
For example, can civil servants refuse to work on Sunday? Can someone have a natural, religious, right that opposes their social duties? Can a fireman, police officer, correction officer, etc, refuse to work on Sunday?
The answer is, people are hired with the understanding that they can perform the job for which they are employed. If someone's natural, religious duties prevent them from performing the position in which they are employed then they should seek employment in a position which is compatible with their religious beliefs.
If someone cannot work on Sunday, they shouldn't take a job where they have to work on Sunday. Replace Sunday with Sabbath if you like.
I believe SCOTUS will have to, eventually, rule that people who accept civil service positions where they are required to perform duties which may conflict with some religious beliefs are free to either accept the position or reject the position, however, they cannot accept a position knowing that they will be required to violate some of their religious beliefs and then refuse to perform duties, which are required by their position, based on their religious beliefs.
It will be interesting, and fun, to see how all this plays out in the courts.
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