perature in the freezer compartment would
reach about 20°F, which is 20° above the recommended maximum freezer temperature, before the refrigerator would resume cooling. I turned the freezer control to Max but that didn't solve the problem. Also, the refrigerator compartment would often drop below freezing. We got a refrigerator repairman to look at the thing. He and I had an interesting conversation. I mentioned my expectation, from years gone by, that refrigerators would last for many years. Without hesitation or apology, he said, "Those days are gone." I asked him how long it would be before my new refrigerator would fail, and need to be repaired. He said, again without hesitation or apology, that it would be about three or four years. He also stated that the necessary repair parts will cost about three to four times as much as their analog predecessors, as he put it, would have cost, if the parts are available at all. He also predicted that things are going to get worse. He said that a transition is under way to use butane as a refrigerant. He said that the Grenfell Tower fire, in London, was caused by a butane refrigerator that exploded. Freon and tetrafluoroethane don't explode. I don't know if he was correct about the transition to butane, but I've started to think more about refrigerators. That repairman didn't know how to fix my Whirlpool refrigerator. We got Lowe's to replace it. The replacement worked as poorly as did the first one. In addition, it had a misaligned freezer door and a bent leveling foot. We returned it and bought a Frigidaire. That was in the middle of July. As of this writing, the Frigidaire is working better than the Whirlpools did. I can hope. The installer who delivered the Frigidaire refrigerator warned me that refrigerators don't last as long as they used to, in the old days. So far as I can recall, I didn't encounter a refrigerator that failed at any time during the first 65 years of my life. In the last five or so years, I've encountered about seven or eight (I've lost count) instances of refrigerators that failed in one way or another. Such deterioration in quality and life expectancy isn't limited to refrigerators. It's symptomatic of the forced obsolescence that exists with regard to most of the products that we use. There are various examples. Lawn mowers come to mind. When I was young, we never gave a second thought to leaving the gasoline in the lawn mower, or in a gas can, over the winter. We just used the old gasoline and the lawn mower worked. Nowadays, they've changed something in the engines, in the gasoline, or in both, so that I'm forced to buy a new supply of gasoline at the beginning of each mowing season. Otherwise, the carburetor will get so fouled that the engine won't start. Of course, forced obsolescence is notorious as a finely honed tool for increasing the sales of such things as computers and home electronics. How does the Crazy Eddie idea fit into this? Unless I've been deceived by alarmist propaganda, the resources on this planet are being depleted, waste is accumulating everywhere, energy is getting more expensive, environmental degradation is escalating, and the population just keeps growing. It seems to me that, soon, food and water will be available at a rate that's just barely sufficient. Everybody will be kept busy just trying to supply the bare necessities. Just when things are at their most expensive, when resources are getting scarce, when waste is a plague on the planet, when we need to build things to last if we want to have them at all in the future, then the marketers arrange for things to fail prematurely, so that we have to keep replacing them over and over again. To me, that sounds a lot like the Crazy Eddie mentality from The Mote in God's Eye. I believe that there have been many cycles of high tech human societies on this planet in the past, that each such society has failed, and that the records have been lost. I'm afraid that we might be facing the end of the present cycle and that the Crazy Eddies are hastening its demise. I'm not afraid that my grandchildren will have to buy a new refrigerator every four years. I'm afraid that there might not be any refrigerators at all. Additional Suggested Reading A Long Way Down from the Top, Frontiersman, June 2017, page 2 Born to Rave, Sam Aurelius Milam III, Pharos The Mote in God's Eye, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, POCKET BOOKS, New York, October, 1975 More Adventures of the Lone Raver, Sam Aurelius Milam III, Pharos They Can Fool Too Many of the People Too Much of the Time, Sam Aurelius Milam III, Pharos
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Getting Pretty Stupid Sam Aurelius Milam III Nowadays, many people don't know how to use a map. A lot of the young ones probably don't even know what a map is. I'm not talking about some newfangled gizmo that somebody might have recently invented and called a map, like a tablet, for example. A tablet is a pad of paper, bound at the top. If the people who invented that other thing were as smart as they think they are, then they'd have thought of a good name for it, instead of stealing a name that already meant something else. Their respect for word usage is Gone Past Saving. Anything that's code controlled and remotely accessible is hackable which means that, at least potentially, it's also remotely controllable. See my article A Question of Intelligence, on page 1 of the January issue. So consider the Go Pause Stop in a car. When somebody's following its directions, he probably doesn't even pay much attention to where he's going. More likely, he just mindlessly follows its directions. It's a victim or slave mentality. Just obey, even if it's only a machine that's giving the instructions. However, is it only a machine? I saw some cop show recently where somebody hacked the navigation system in a car and directed his intended victim into an ambush. The victim didn't even know that he was being misdirected until the shooting started. What an idea. Wouldn't that be convenient for the various government agents? Not only can they use the navigation system to locate their intended victim, they can use it to send him to wherever they want him to go. Here's my advice. Get rid of the Goofball Paralyzation Scheme in your car, and get a map. The map can't be hacked. It can't remotely reveal your location. It can't be remotely controlled. It'll give you a good excuse to stop and rest, while you look at it. While you're stopped, stretching your legs, you can ponder the meaning of GPS. Initials and acronyms can mean different things. When the Gizmo Promoting Servitude tells a driver that he's arrived at his destination, it might not be talking about geography at all. It might be talking about mentality. At what mentality has he arrived? For a Generally Precautionary Suggestion, see the title of this article. Letters to the Editor Dear Sam.... I am happy that Mr. Outman has an outlet to allow his good articles to be shared. Most of my writing efforts have gone into brief and writ writing.... —a prisoner Hi Sam, Greetings to ya all from Arkansas! Hey if a man is charged with a serious crime of murder, and the state deemed him to be mentally ill because he claims that he had obeyed the Voice of God to commit the horrible murder, then isn't everyone who believes in God, and who seeks guidance through prayer mentally ill as well? And if we the American society claim to protect people's religious freedom, then should this same society have the right to declare that one person's irrational beliefs are legitimate and commendable while another person's are crazy? You see, how can a society actively promote religious faith on one hand, and condemn a man to prison for adhering to his faith on the other? Are people who believe in divine guidance, or who believe that God sends guardian angels to protect them mentally ill? Is their not billions of people on this planet who were all taught from birth to believe in God and a spiritual world? Are people who practice in exorcisms mentally ill because they believe in evil spirits? And if our society creates laws based upon old ancient biblical references such as homosexuality, a sin punishable by death, then why isn't this society arresting and executing all homosexuals? But the most famous execution of the history of earth was of Jesus Christ, and he turned it into one of the greatest symbols of hope.... But imagine this, who wants to spend their last days on earth in a state owned nursing home or hospice facility that looks and feels like a prison, and you and everyone there is on death row? —Howie Religion has been the most bloody and brutal influence in the known history of human society. It has caused more harm than all other institutions put together. It's the best known example of "man's inhumanity to man". Its pervasiveness in all known human societies is a sad comment on human nature. Being religious isn't the same thing as believing in God. Religion is a usurpation of the belief in God by the use of which the members of the clergy maintain their power over their gravy trains, that is, their congregations. —editor
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Acknowledgments My thanks to the following: SantaClara Bob; Betty; and Eric, of Ione, California. — editor Websites http://frontiersman.org.uk/ http://moonlight-flea-market.com/ http://pharos.org.uk/ http://sam-aurelius-milam-iii.org.uk/ http://sovereign-library.org.uk/ Engineers Blonde Jokes Frontiersman Availability — Assuming the availability of sufficient funds, subscriptions to this newsletter in print, copies of past issues in print, and copies of the website on CDs are available upon request. Funding for this newsletter is from sources over which I don't have any control, so it might become necessary for me to terminate these offers or to cancel one or more subscriptions at any time, without notice. All past issues are presently available at the address shown below. Contributions are welcome. Cancellations — If you don't want to keep receiving printed copies of this newsletter, then return your copy unopened. When I receive it, I'll terminate your subscription. Reprint Policy — Permission is hereby given to reproduce this newsletter in its entirety or to reproduce material from it, provided that the reproduction is accurate and that proper credit is given. I do not have the authority to give permission to reprint material that I have reprinted from other sources. For that permission, you must apply to the original source. I would appreciate receiving a courtesy copy of any document or publication in which you reprint my material. Submissions — I consider letters, articles, and cartoons for the newsletter, but I don't pay for them. Short items are more likely to be printed. I suggest that letters and articles be shorter than 500 words but that's flexible depending on space available and the content of the piece. Payment — This newsletter isn't for sale. If you want to make a voluntary contribution, then I prefer cash or U.S. postage stamps. For checks or money orders, please inquire. For PayPal payments, use editor@frontiersman.org.uk. In case anybody's curious, I also accept gold, silver, platinum, etc. I don't accept anything that requires me to provide ID to receive it. — Sam Aurelius Milam III, editor
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