Every time I see the mass of multicolored cable bundles behind the dashboards of cars and planes, and also the trouble that folks go to to not only access those areas to begin with (i.e. pretzel sausage origami, plus effectively dismantling the whole interior - stripping away panels / etc.), but to then make tweaks + fixes (i.e. tracing what each cable does and where it goes, etc.), I'm glad I decided to stay away from DIY-ing any stuff like that OR working in fields that do it.
The SWE part of me wonders why they don't just like simplify everything to like aggregate all the cables into bigger feeder boxes for each subsystem that then only export a single cable that goes to a central thing that delegates throughout the rest of the systems... then you'd maybe only have ~5 (?) fat cables to deal with?
Then again, if they did that, that removes a lot of the redundancy and systems isolation (i.e. single direct circuits!) we kindof expect safety critical systems to have 😬
On the Topic of DIY'ing Electrical Wiring / Broken Mechanism Fixes:
And that's not discounting that TBH I don't really have that much aptitude when it comes to trying to fix broken physical-world things...
Software related things when I have access to the source code AND all the necessary tooling / toolchains are another matter though! :P
(But actually, even there, there's a level of pain that I probably wouldn't bother trying to scale these days "for fun / in my free time" (e.g. fixing compiler/cmake + build system + dependency version mismatch bitrot type issues on a random FOSS repo for example) vs just dropping the idea and doing one of the MANY things that are way easier to deal with...)
~~~Anyway, while clearing up a whole bunch of old stuff this summer break, I came across some old "will be fixed in future" projects that I never did get around to figuring out how to fix.
For example, last week, I finally threw out the old broken "silver kettle" egg timer that I'd had sitting around for years and had been wanting to enact a DIY repair on "Some Day (TM)". Well, after having tried unsuccessfully years ago, and not really having the time / inclination to ever since (and also, just opening it up that day, peering inside, and realising that I was still as stumped as ever), it was clear that it really wasn't ever gonna happen. Sad to admit, but yeah... it was in the "too hard" basket :(
The Big Restoration Project Whose Time Is Running Out
On and off over the past year or so, I've also been coming to the sad realisation that this same fate also awaits another one of the treasured things I'd long been hanging onto. A pipe dream that is well and truly out of the question the more I look into more things in adjacent areas and also into the practicalities of pulling off something like that.
I'm referring of course to the long-hanging tentative dream to try to get my first car nicely done up again, and maybe even electrified, so I could keep it around with me for many more years to come. (Also, part of that involved maybe getting an empty section on the edge of town, parking it up in a shed there, and heading out to do a bit of off-road driving around on there from time to time...)
TBH, I've probably known for a while that that plan is probably well and truly thoroughly toast, and it's looking increasingly likely that I'll probably really have to farewell the old car in the next year or two...
Among other signs:
* 1) A few years ago, the empty lot I'd been eyeing up as being perfect for this suddenly got sold, and was converted into a *massive* retirement village. Bugger.
* 2) There was bloody rat infestation in the garage last year. During that, the blasted critter made a nest in the back boot, ate through 6-7 packets of ramen + 1/2 bag of oats + rice + other goodies, and a bunch of other stuff too. It had also tracked poo all throughout the boot and seats. Thus, to kill off that bugger, we then had to put rat poison in, which meant that in addition to the poo, there were now crumbs of rat poison scattered, and we don't know exactly where all of it went either (though I *do* know that it tried to drag it through a hole/gap between the boot and the back seats, as I watched it doing that in broad daylight once)! So yeah, that probably was the point of no turning back when the vermin had done their bit!
* 3) With the trouble I ran into trying to even get someone to just re-upholster my bloody office chair (** see note below), I realised it really wasn't feasible to try and wrangle more of those same types of folks to get all the *other* bits and pieces done. And really, TBH trying to DIY *any* of this was never ever an option. So... yeah 😑
(**) Argh! Of all the firms I contacted, only one said they could
technically do it... but then it was clear they couldn't be arsed to do it as
they kept calling back with increased price estimates to try to put me
off! Gah! You'd think that local small businesses are happy to get new customers... but no... very often, they happily tell potential customers to just buy more cheap crap from overseas instead of using their services to get a better solution!
* 4) I've always had trouble keeping two sets of whatever in functioning order. One would inevitable need to be the primary (that I dealt with everyday), and the other eventually falling into some state of outdated disrepair (or by and large abandoned, seeing almost no use as originally intended).
* 5) The neighbours seem to have also taken up occasionally flooding that garage, so eventually we are gonna have to take everything out to more properly seal it all up + set up better "weather proof" storage systems in there... (Part of the roof did seem to have shown signs of occasionally leaking in some areas too, which doesn't help)
Hence, the inevitable is seemingly looming ever larger + ever present. I've repeatedly tried to put that prospect off for the last few years until a
"less turbulent time" when there are less other distracting /
distressing things to worry about. So, it's probably gonna be time
soon... 😢
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