Daryl’s Brain

A break from woodworking

This is a debate that is almost as old as humans. I imagine it’s not quite as old as us, just because I would think that the first humans likely either already knew the answer, or really didn’t care. However, I have seen it come up a few times now and thought I would put my two cents into the debate. Before I start, however, I do want to say that I cannot possibly cover the entire topic in a single blog post. So I won’t. I am just basically going to skim the surface. (Which is probably for the best as I am not really qualified to cover it in its entirety.)

First, I guess some definitions are in order. What is meant by “naturally good” verses “naturally evil”? I can’t speak for everyone who debates this topic, but for me, I always interpret it as a debate about the current, natural tendencies of the human being if all things were equal. For example, if a person had enough food to eat, and could spare a little bit for someone who was starving, would their natural tendency be to give that other person food, or would their natural reaction be to hoard what they had in order save it for themselves? What I am *not* talking about is whether the human race, as a specie, is good or evil. If you think that the existence of humanity is something that is universally wrong and contrary to “the nature of things”, then you have more issues to deal with then what human tendencies are. What I am talking about is what we are inclined towards, not the base value of our being.

“Ah,” you say. “But who is it who defines what is good and what is evil?” Excellent question; the answer is that it’s irrelevant at the moment. There are many, many things that are universally considered to be good or evil. Every culture in the world views tripping an old lady on the road as something that is wrong. That said, I am not writing this from the perspective of every culture in the world, I am writing it from the perspective of my culture, and I am Canadian. (While you may disagree with me that Canada, or even North America, counts as a culture, let me assure you that you are wrong.) So for the purpose of this discussion, and to avoid the debate of what the basis of right and wrong is, let’s just use what’s accepted as right and wrong by Canadian standards (which are very similar to, at least, the rest of North America).

“Fair enough,” you say (because, of course, you accept my argument) “But why is this even an issue?” Glad you asked. The answer is that it’s not an issue, it’s an airy fairy, academic debate that has little to no ramifications to your life, or the lives of those around you. For the most part. What really matters is not actually the nature of humanity, but the nature of you and I as individuals. Yes, I guess the nature of humanity plays a role here, but I really don’t care about whether someone else is naturally evil or not, what I care about is whether I am and, if so, what I can do about it.

This is where the debate reveals its reason for existence. You see, if I find out that I am naturally good, then I really don’t have to worry too much about my actions because they should, if I follow what’s in my nature to do, tip the scales for the better when all is said and done. If I am naturally good, then I can look to myself to realize my full potential as a human and become self-actualized. If I am naturally good, then I don’t need any one else’s input into how I run my life. I am my own master; I am a rock; I have no need for anything other than myself. I am, however, human. So this belief is only really sustainable if the same applies to all humans.

If, however, I find out that I am naturally evil, then everything changes. Remember what I just said in the previous paragraph? If I’m naturally evil, then the exact opposite of all of that is going to be the case for me. And if this is the same for all humans, then humanity needs to humble itself and ask for help from something greater then itself.

“Fine,” you say. “So what are the arguments of *both* sides of this debate?” Well, now that you asked that, I must be perfectly honest with you. I am biased towards my own opinion. I say this because I don’t know how well I will do at presenting the side that I think isn’t correct. However, not knowing what I’m talking about has never stopped me before, and it won’t stop me now. So with that I will attempt to detail out the basic arguments for both sides of this proverbial coin.

As near as I can tell, the majority of the arguments about this topic tend to go something like this:

“It’s obvious to me that humanity is naturally good/evil. Just look at all the good/evil that is happening throughout the world? See, that proves it!”

As you might have guessed by the way I worded that statement, I think that this is a very silly argument…for either side. What we do is often very different from what we are inclined to do, and what we are talking about is not what we have learned to do, but what we do naturally; our instincts. What do we instinctively want to do in any given situation? Unfortunately, the above statement comprises the majority of the arguments that you will hear when listening to people debate this topic.

The reason I think that humanities achievements (good or bad) are not a good indicator of what its true nature is, is that one can easily say that we are naturally good/evil, but there’s something acting against/for us that’s causing us to be, at times, evil/good.

As a side note, I guess one might say that there’s a third option; that humanity is neither naturally good nor evil. However, this would mean that we ourselves are then the only measure of what is good or evil. If that were true, then we would naturally be good by default because our own actions themselves would be the only moral compass we could follow. Very silly indeed as it means that, if we decided that tripping older people in the streets was right, then that by itself would make it right. I shake my head.

The other argument, well it’s more of a statement, I’ve heard is this:

“Humanity is naturally good/evil, and our evil/good actions are learned behaviours.”

And this, for me, is what brings us to the crux of the matter. A learned behaviour is something you’re taught, not something that comes naturally to you. If one is a learned behaviour and the other not, then that would solve the argument. But how can you know which is which?

And now I come back to my statement before when I said that, whether or not this was “human nature” was irrelevant, because what matters is what is natural to you or I. And this is what will give us the hint as to what all of human nature is like.

As children, did we need to learn to be nice, or did we need to learn to be nasty?

The Complete Imbeciles Guide to Woodworking
(Part IV)

This little project partly falls under the category of setting up shop. The workbench I was assembling was a Christmas present; a Black and Decker Workmate 225. If anyone has purchased one of these, feel free to use my experience to help you set up yours.



Tools Used:

• Those that came in the box
• Two hammers (directions only call for one)
• Clamp (directions did not call for it at all)

Let me just say, intuition will only get you so far when putting together a piece of equipment like this. For me, my intuition directed me to open the box, take out the big metal thing, pop it open (actually pretty simple) and then faded into the background as I looked at the metal frame of the workbench (which pops up and locks into place if you flick the right switches on it, but offers no clues as to the next step). So, on to the directions.

The directions say I will need a hammer, but that a tool is provided for screwing your hands, uh, hand screwing the bolts.

Sidetrack:
I recently was given a box of tools from my Papa, which included a hammer. I don’t know why, but I thought it was cool to see how the handle must have slipped off at some point in the hammers life and he nailed it back on. You can see the heads of the nails in this image with it held up beside a new hammer.

The tool that they provided was a joke tool. It wasn’t indented as a joke tool, but that’s what it was. You can see in the pictures below both the problem and my solution. The problem is that the small size of the tool provides no leverage, so it’s very difficult to tighten the bolt completely unless you do what I did, which is to find something else to provide the leverage. In my case, I used a clamp because it was the closest thing to pop into my head as a possibility.

So, lesson #1, when assembling the Black & Decker Workmate 225, make sure you have a supplement to the piece of plastic garbage that they provide.

Now then, they also said that you would need a hammer. This is because the two wind-up crank-things in the front each have a small pin that you need to hammer into place. The problem is that you have to hammer them into place as part of putting them on and have nothing to hammer ‘against’. You need a hammer because it takes more then just tapping, but if you hammer with full force you knock over the bench while you’re at it.

This picture shows you my solution. I took my second hammer and placed it on the other side of the handle that I needed to hammer so that the other hammer would absorb the shock and provide some resistance. Ideally you would have a sledge hammer, or something with a bit more weight behind it. (This was a trick I learned while working on the hovercraft.) If you are looking at the picture, the little circular thing on the edge of the handle is the pin I hammered in.

So, lesson #2, when assembling the Black & Decker Workmate 225, make sure you have a sledgehammer or some other way to counter the force of your hammering.

The process of setting this up gave me my second and third ‘woodworking’ injury: a hammered finger (hammered twice) and a couple of hammered knuckles. Now that it’s up, I’m a little sceptical of the welding job on the left side (it seems a little more flimsy then on the right) but all in all I’m very happy with it.

The Complete Imbeciles Guide to Woodworking
(Part III)

These next three posts are about three projects that kinda took me by surprise in that I had not counted on having to do them (which is why I mentioned the shelving as the ‘first’ project in a previous post), despite the fact that I did, actually know I had to do them. Okay, Taking down the lights is not so much a “woodworking project” as it is simply a project involving tools. I am going to count it simply because I can, and because it has raised a question that I am wondering if anyone has the answer to.

Tools Used:

• Ladder
• Hammer

First, we did not put up many lights over this last Christmas season, but we did line our garage door with them (along with lighting up two trees that bordered the garage). We had never done something like this before so we had no idea how to put the lights up. I ended up just nailing some small nails into the wood around the garage door, bending the nails, and hooking the lights to these.

So, as far as projects go, this one was pretty stupidly simple. All I did was get the ladder, and use the claw end (does it have an actual name?) and removed each nail one by one as I moved the ladder. The question that has come up, however, is this:

Does anyone know if there is a trick to removing a nail while standing on a ladder without dropping the nail?

Did I mention that these lights were bordering our garage? We (and the tenants downstairs) often drive our vehicles in and out of our driveway which is right in front of our garage. So, had I known the answer to the above question it would have saved me half an hour of looking for the dropped nails. I do hope I got them all.

Wow. Two blog posts right after each other. What’s going on?

Well you see, I have some time off right now (Christmas holidays and all) so I have time to just think about things. I also have time to do some things, like organize my “workshop”. If you read part one of the woodworking series you will know that I decided that the first step to “becoming a wood worker” for me is going to be setting up my workspace. Well, the first step to setting up my workspace is to clean the garage and clear enough space so that I am able to set up my workspace.

Cleaning

Kids, don’t let your parents fool you. Cleaning is dangerous. I just got my first woodworking related (indirectly related, anyway) injury while sweeping away the leaves that managed to blow into our garage while we drove our car in and out. There is a piece of metal sticking out of one part of the broom and it poked me in my index finger and drew blood. Ok, it wasn’t very much blood and as far as an injury goes it’s pretty lame. But it was my index finger! The one I use all the time! (Which is why I was using it when it was injured.) Well, nothing for it but to “suck it up and be a man”.

Next Challenge: Small Space

So, if there is actually anybody reading this who is paying attention to what I’ve been saying, then I probably don’t need to say this next part. My guess is, however, that if anyone is reading this at all they are probably just skimming through it because it came up in a Google search and really is not at all what they were looking for. So, I will go over my first, biggest challenge: lack of space.

As you may have gathered from what I’ve said previously (or from the random pictures of my future work area that I will be spattering throughout this post in a sad attempt to make it more interesting) I am going to be setting up my workshop in our garage. It’s a two-car garage, so normally there would be ample space. However, we actually use our garage to park our car in (unlike most people in our neighbourhood) in addition to using it for storage space. This means that I will not have a lot of room to set things up.

If you look at the pictures you can see that I’ve attempted to pile all our stuff in one corner of the third of the garage that I will have to work in. Fortunately, it appears that my parents and in-laws are both forward-looking kinds of people, so my recent Christmas gifts included books and magazines like:

• Setting up Shop
• Space-Saving Mobile Workcenters
• Hard-Working Shop Essentials
• The Small Workshop

So, my next challenge is not only going to be setting up shop, but doing so in a small space which I will be sharing with ’stuff’ and a car. (Hey, “Stuff and a Car” would make a great title for something!) Which brings me to my most recent revelation.

I was thinking that my first big-ish project was going to be the aforementioned coffee table. However, in the interest of A) practice, B) space, and C) making something no one cares to look at, I think I am actually going to start with building some shelving and storage for the garage. My wonderful intuition tells me that this should be great practice.

But one step at a time. For me, my next step is going to be actually setting things up.

It all started with…well, really it all started way way back when I took a work aptitude course through the Salvation Army (sometime around 1997 or 1998), but it all resurfaced when Stela mentioned that she would like a new coffee table.  I did not want to spend the money on a new coffee table, so I jokingly said I should make one.  The idea got lodged in my brain and refused to leave.  This lead me to write this year’s Christmas list as the following (in part):

• Tools to work with wood:
  • Full sized saw (I have a little one)
  • Plane (the tool, not the vehicle)
  • Sandpaper
  • Wood glue
  • Saw Horses (or something to set up a work area in general)
• Wood.  To make things from.  (Like a coffee table.)
• My work area all set up
• Plans for making a coffee table from wood

Thanks to the many people in my family I actually got much of the above, including a box of tools from my Papa which filled in some of the items I will need but didn’t know existed.  Of course, not being a woodworker, there’s a lot that exists that I have no idea about.  For example, my brother said I need a router.  I have a router.  It’s connecting my home network to my modem and allowing us wireless access.  Apparently he meant a different kind of router.

Anyway, so now I have everything (and then some) except the wood, this mysterious router thingy, and the set-up-work-area.  Fortunately, Stela needed a new coat.  This means that I now have the amount of money that went towards the coat to be able to purchase wood guilt-free.  So basically I’m all set.  Because I am a software developer I also figured I should blog about this (as you may have guessed by now).

Background

I think a little bit of my background is in order here.  It all started way back when my great, great grandparents got busy and produced my great grandparents, who decided to follow suit and produced my grandparents.  On both sides of my family tree woodworking is very prevalent.  Not only were both my Papa and Grandpa woodworkers, but I think that their fathers were also woodworkers (I could be mistaken there).  On top of that, my father is very wood-workingly-inclined, as is my brother.

I’m more of an idea person.  While I can tell you what the shapes of all the different types of screwdrivers are (maybe not all…most?), I can not -unlike my 3-year-old nephew- name them all.  If you said to me “pass the Philip’s head”, I would look at you blankly until you said something like “it’s the [fill in shape here] one”.  This whole woodworking thing seems to have skipped over me.

However, what I do have on my side is the fact that I work by intuition.  Some things feel right (or not) and I can make my decisions about what to cut, how many nails are needed, or what tool to use based solely on what feels right to me.  Intuition is wonderful that way.  Right?

Well, regardless, I’m fairly certain that cleaning the garage and setting up a work area is the first step.  (See how helpful my intuition is?)  So, that will be where I start.  Stay tuned for where I will end up.  (And, no.  No one is taking bets as to whether that will be the hospital or not.)

Well, I almost made it through the Christmas season without engaging at all in my Christmas rant.  Almost.  I did, this morning, feel the need to correct two people on the bus as to when the twelve days actually were, but apart from that I did not rant at all to anyone.  (Well, about this topic, anyway.)

Before the new year starts and the Christmas season ends, I do feel the need, however to state, for the record, what my New Year’s Resolutions will be.  Chances are, if you are reading this, then you know me.  If you know me, then you’ve probably heard one (or more) of my many, many schemes and world-saving ideas.  If you’ve heard at least one of these and did not walk away from me thinking I was a complete moron, then you probably have figured out that I have a tendency to start things and not finish them.

My New Year’s Resolution is this: to FINISH one thing I have already started.  Just one thing.  Doesn’t matter what.  I just want to start the cycle of completion.  Who knows, I may even enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that you get when you are done.  I will end this post with a quote from my favorite ants:

If you take a long vacation
Without making preparation
For the coming winter when you go
When you get back from your going
And the winter winds are blowing
There’ll be nothing left to eat but snow.

We don’t pretend it’s easy but at time it can be fun
And you’ll never feel a feeling that’s as good as the one that you feel when you’re done.

- The ants of Antsilvainia

“So,” Mark started, and then paused.  “They do exist?” He asked, unable to mention what they really were.

“Yes” came the typically short answer.  John looked up at his partner in crime.  The look on Mark’s face said he needed more than that.  “Think of them like aliens. Most people can deal with it better in those terms.”

“Aliens?  I don’t think so.  They’re too…” Mark searched for the right words as the events of their recent, close encounter ran through his mind.  His hands reached up to massage his scalp as his words stumbled over his memory.  “They’re just, it’s just that, well, they’re not alien enough.”

The old beggar stopped sorting through the items they had pilfered and looked Mark strait in the eyes.  There was another pause before John looked away, almost as an act of mercy, and pretended the rags he was wearing needed adjustment. “I think you might mean that they’re too alien.”

Mark started to object but closed his mouth quickly.  I think this is the most he’s spoken since this whole thing began he thought, and he could tell that there was more to come.

“Think about the aliens you’re used to seeing on the tely in the theater.  What does everyone say they are like?”

“Well, that’s not exactly a real question.”  Mark’s subconscious was grateful to be focusing on anything but what had just occurred.  “It’s all just speculation, after all, but they’re nothing like us.  And they’re definitely not…”

“Do they have colour?”

“Well, yes, of course they do. Everything has colour.”

Already he starts to forget. “Do they have bodies?”

“Of course an alien would have a body, but it wouldn’t be like ours.  It would…”

“What did they make you think?” John was starting to get a little impatient as Mark’s memory faded.

“What kind of question”

“Think of what you just saw!”

The verbal slap in the face brought Mark’s mind back to the alley where it had happened.  Time stretched out as the part of him that strived to answer every question forced its way past his refusal to accept the very thing it sought.  Colour?  The thought almost made him cry.  Body? His hands were trembling.  I, he tried to breathe. I am, only short breaths were manageable.

John saw the moment for what it was.  “They are innocent.”

Mark’s body began to convulse.  For fifteen minutes John held the weeping Mark.  Had anyone seen them they would have wondered at a young professional being comforted by a dirty homeless man with an obvious odor issue. They would have pondered the missing footwear from either of the men.  They likely would have even called the police, especially if they noticed either of the men’s wounds.  But this was not a place where anyone went.  Not anyone respectable, in any case.  Not here, and especially not now.

When Mark did, finally, look up he did not care about his surroundings in the least.  Well, not right away.  He was looking, instead, to John who had resumed his fussiness over the stolen goods.  “What do you mean by innocent?” His hand wiped his eyes clear.

Stillness.  Mark knew now to wait.

“Do you have any children?” John asked.

“Yeah, Sarah.  She’s just a year old now.” Mark couldn’t help but smile at the thought.

“When you saw her for the first time, what did the sight of her make you think?”

A slightly puzzled look crossed Mark’s face.  “Well, to be honest one of my first thoughts was that I was going to have to cut back on all the overtime I’ve been putting in.  You know, so I could spend more time to be with my family.”

“So seeing her, in all her innocence, made you want to be a better husband and father?  Be a better person?”

“Yes.  That’s exactly it.”

“Why would you want to be a better person, if not that you were already failing at being the person you thought you should be?”  Again there was silence.  “You see, this is what innocence does to us humans.  It reveals our faults, our failings. If another human can invoke such feelings, how much more a creature of pure innocence?”

Mark was at a loss for words.  He had never thought of such things before.  Finally, he asked “what do they do?  I mean, why were they there?”

“They have their orders.”

“Orders?”

“Yes.  Just like your child will obey you, until such a time as she thinks she knows better anyway, so too they obey their father.  It’s the nature of innocence.”

Mark thought about all that had just happened.  As John finished packing what they would need, Mark looked around.  “Wait.  Where are we?”

“Whatever we have that we do not need is theft of the poor.”

This was a statement made by Father Lawrence in one of his Coffee Cup Commentaries that hit home for me.  He was trying to summarize some of John the Forerunner’s teachings and was talking, specifically, about Luke 3:11 which says, in part:

“The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.”

Another example mentioned here was where we are told that if we see someone without shoes we should run home, get our extra pair, and give them to the person.  (I forget the exact reference.)  What struck me was that this was not a “sell all you have” command (given to those for whom wealth is a stumbling block to salvation), nor was it the “go the extra mile” command (given to those of whom help is asked/required/demanded); it was a separate command that was given to the general public as a statement of how they need to behave on a regular, day to day basis.

Notice how John specifically singles out the person with multiple tunics, and *not* the person who only has one.  In the example of the shoes (I wish I remembered that reference) we are to run home and get our extra pair, not give them the ones on our feet right there and then as we will need them to be able to go home for the extra ones without causing harm to our own feet.  I have a habit of thinking in terms of “giving until it hurts” or sacrificing of what I have no matter the cost, but that’s not what’s being asked of us.  We are being asked not to give up what we need for the sake of others, but to give of what we have extra of.  Which brings me back to the quote:

“Whatever we have that we do not need is theft of the poor.”

North America (and indeed a lot of western culture in general) is almost entirely built upon the premise of having what we don’t need.  Take that to its logical conclusion: North America is almost entirely built upon the premise of robbing from the poor.  As we approach Christmas we are going to be bombarded with advertisements telling us that we should buy things that we don’t need or won’t ever use and trying to convince us that this is the true spirit of Christmas.

How ironic is that?  Businesses are trying to tell us that the true spirit of Christmas is to rob the poor.

My wife and I recently moved from Victoria to Langley where I encountered, for the first time, the modern, suburbian garage.  To understand the evolution of the garage, we must first understand where it has come from.  Basically, a suburban garage’s purpose was to either to park a vehicle to keep it protected from the elements, or to park a bunch of junk to keep it protected from an over-enthusiastic, garbage-throwing-away spouse.  With the advent of modern suburbia, this role has changed.

The difference between classic suburbia and modern suburbia is such an important factor here, that I must highlight the differences before going on.  Classic suburbia can be thought of as a large area divided into parcels of land called yards, on which houses (and the odd park) were built.  Modern suburbia, however, can be thought of as half the “large area” divided into houses that have a thin border of a yard in name only.  If you were to stand between two houses in modern suburbia and stretch out your arms, there’s a good chance you would be able to reach the exterior walls of both houses.

The concept of cramming as much house as possible onto a yard has not, however, increased the number of rooms in any given house, or, rather, it hasn’t increased the number of usable rooms.  Now you have things like a “great” room that is really just a living room, but used less so it looks nicer.  The same thing applies to the “formal dining area.”  You also have the basement suite, which would be usable if anyone could afford the house they just bought, but they can’t so it gets rented out.

In fact, apart from the common oversight of the chapel, there are several rooms completely *missing* from a modern suburbian home:

• The unfinished basement.

  No one seems to have an unfinished basement anymore where they can set up the kid’s toys to keep them busy until dinner.

• The workshop.

  While not really a missing room of the house itself, classic suburban homes have always had enough yard to accommodate this should the occupants desire it.  Now, however, there are little plastic buildings, slightly larger then a dog house, that accommodate the mower, weed-whacker, and sprinkler.

• The entryway.

  This former room has been completely assimilated by the rest of the house and now just opens up into whatever area of the house the front door happens to be attached to.

• A games room.

  Okay, this may not be missing, per say, but I am very surprised that houses this large do not accommodate this.

These missing rooms, combined with the absence of a real yard, are the main contributing factors to the evolution of the modern, suburbian garage.

Think about it.  What is a garage on a home like this if not just a smaller unfinished basement that happens to be on ground level and has a really big door and poor lighting?  But really, it’s so much more.

No one in modern suburbia uses their garage to park their car, that’s what the driveway is for.  (Well, there are a few.)  No one even uses their garage to store their junk.  (Again, a few exceptions do exist.)  No one uses their garage for what it was intended for.  So, what do they use it for?

1. Workshop.

   Many people use their suburbian garage as a workshop.  This can be a workshop where you build things (due to the lack of an actual workshop), or a workshop where you work on your special vehicle/project (due to the lack of space available in the driveway ‘cause that’s where the car goes…not to mention the lack of parking that’s a result from the proximity of all the houses).

2. Lounge for the grownups.

   With the garage door open parents are able to keep track of their kids more easily who are playing on the streets and sidewalks due to the lack of a real yard.  This has resulted in the advent of the modern suburbian lounge garage.

3. Storage of non-junk items.

   Due to keeping the garage door open all the time, and the proximity of all the houses, everyone can see into everyone else’s modern suburbian garage.  As a result, what is stored in the garage is usually nothing near junk…that’s in your walk in closet or spare bedroom closet.

4. Entryway.

   Yes, in some cases the garage has evolved into the main (not the “great”) entryway.  This is due to keeping the garage door open all the time, and some (though, not many) places to put things when you walk in through that area.

5. Games room.

   As a result of not having an unfinished basement for the kids, the kids get actual living room.  (We wouldn’t want them playing in the great room and a garage is no place for a kid to play.)  With the kid’s toys in the living room, where do the grownups go to play?  Heh…the modern suburbian garage, of course.

If you think any of this isn’t true, feel free to stop by our place for a visit.  Preferably between 5 and 8 PM so that more people will be home at the same time.

Apparently, if your voicemail gets hacked and is used to make $60,000 worth of long distance calls, you will still be responsible to pay $7,000 of that simply because it is deemed to be your responsibility to establish a password that is not easy to guess.

My question to the phone companies is this:

“How do you expect us to create strong passwords when all we can use are 4 – 6 numerical digits?”

This policy is absurd!