Watching The Trades

In the past, when ever I heard the term “Feng Shui” I would automatically dismiss it out of hand. I am not going to design my house to harness the mystical forces that will bring me good luck anymore then I am going to carry around a good luck charm. But lately I have been wondering if I should be so quick to dismiss “Feng Shui.”

In the first place, I have great amount of respect for other traditional design practices and I despise those “modern” architects who go out of their way to make their buildings “non-traditional”. To my mind, if people have done things a certain way for thousands of years, you should really think hard before doing it a different way.

Good design is timeless. If you have a house design that is not similar to anything that has come before, then it is almost certainly a bad design. No one is smart enough to come up with a good idea that is totally new.

That is not to say that I think that traditional design principles should be considered hard and fast rules that are never to be broken. I understand why people in cold climates traditionally had few or no windows. But that does not mean I feel bound to emulate them when building in cold climate. If the traditional builders had access to modern windows, they would have put more of them in.

But that is an exception that proves the rule. Generally, traditional= timeless, and complete originality=stupidity that people in the past did not do for good reasons.

So why then am I so down on the traditional Chinese design philosophy known as “Feng Shui?”

Mostly I think it is because most of my knowledge of “Feng Shui” comes via Hollywood leftist types who love the mystical aspects of “Feng Shui”. Hence, they play up the mystical aspects and down play the practical aspects of “Feng Shui”. This has given me the impression that “Feng Shui” is an entirely a mystical thing.

But I am starting wonder if there are a lot of practical ideas buried in “Feng Shui” that have been obscured by the mysticism. The first thing that makes me think that this might be the case is that Chinese architecture is far more pleasing to my eye than modern architecture. Given my views on modern architecture, that is not saying much. Still, the old school Chinese designers must be doing something right.

Also, I have read some “Feng Shui” ideas recently and they were not as ridiculous as I expected. Take this idea for example,

Then: make sure never to build at the head of a T-junction. It is a very bad thing to have a road pointing directly at your front door. Chi must twirl and flow, but it should never approach your house like a spear! If this is the situation anyway, a mirror on the front door or a fountain may bring some relief.

I wouldn’t want to live in a house that was at the head of T-junction. To my mind, the reason for not wanting to live at the head of a T has nothing to do with Chi and everything to do with how the eyes of the people coming up the T would be fixed on my house. Given that I did live at the head of a T, I have to wonder if a mirror would help much.

Yet, I would not dismiss the mirror idea entirely. For one thing, I can see how a mirror would draw the eyes of people coming up from the T away from the windows of your house and thus give more privacy. People have a natural tendency to look at reflections. A fountain would also draw the focus of the eye away from the house. Looked at that way, it is an interesting solution for the problem of having your house at the head of a T.

But I am of two minds. You can make almost anything make sense if you try hard enough to rationalize it. Do people truly get things out of “Feng Shui” or are they just imputing things to it?

I would lean towards “just imputing things” except for the fact that I do feel that certain elements of traditional Chinese style work very well. So I have to wonder how much the codified instructions in “Feng Shui” have to do with those elements that I think work.

A long time ago I read that Bruce Lee revolutionized Kuong Fu by getting rid of all the mystical aspects of it and focusing on the practical. Maybe all “Feng Shui” needs is its own Bruce Lee.

This was originally posted at the Ethereal Voice.

I always thought that the reason Sheet Rock screws had so little pull out strength had to do with the type of metal they were made out off. Shows how little I know. Apparently, their weakness has to do with the nature of there thread. From McFeely’s list of Standard Thread Styles…..

Double Lead: Two threads are wrapped around the shank, as illustrated by the blue and red colored threads. One revolution advances the screw 2 pitch lengths advantageous on long screws or in situations requiring rapid assembly. Drywall screws typically use this thread since pull-out strength isn¹t as important as speed. These screws lack the pull-out resistance of “Deep” threaded screws. Typically, #8 and #10 screws 4″ and longer use this thread because of the increased strength afforded by the larger shank diameter.

Needless to say, the whole concept of pitch lengths was new to me as well. This is also from McFeely’s list of Standard Thread Styles….

Pitch is equal to 1 divided by the number of threads per inch. For a screw with 10 threads per inch, one revolution will advance the screw 1/10″ into the wood.

This post originally appeared on my ape man blog.

Why don’t European tradesmen use pickup trucks? As best as I can tell from what I read, European tradesmen use a mixture of small vans and one ton (and up) trucks. The half ton and three quarter ton pickup trucks that are widely used in America are almost unheard of in Europe. Why is this?

This question has been really bothering me lately. It seems like somebody somewhere should have come up with a reasonably good answer by now. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case.

I think the main obstacle to the serious study of this question is the fact that everyone thinks that the answer is obvious. If I were to ask any economist that question, they would tell me that the answer was “high gas prices and narrow streets” without even stopping to think. But while this answer is perfectly fine for explaining why your average European consumer does not drive a truck, it does not explain why the trades do not make more use of pickup trucks in Europe.

To state the problem as simply as possible: High gas prices and narrow streets should pressure tradesmen to use the smallest possible vehicle. But given the vehicles that European tradesmen are reported to use it would seem that they are using vehicles that are too big for the job on a regular basis. As best as I can tell from what I read, Europeans will use a one ton flat bed for a job that could be done by a half ton pickup truck. This does not square with the idea that they should feel immense pressure to use the smallest possible truck.

The idea that a half ton or three quarter ton pickup truck is the most gas efficient vehicle for many trade jobs is a hard sell in some circles. So many people nowadays are buying these trucks for reasons that have nothing to do with economics that they have become a symbol of excess. This obscures the fact that American tradesmen (as opposed to the general consumer) generally use the most economically efficient vehicle to do their job. (more…)