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Applied Geometry

Started by Dubya, May 15, 2015, 04:10:15 AM

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Dubya

First you must put on your hard-hat.

No, seriously, dude, this place is a hundred years old and hasn't seen any repairs in the last twenty.

Now, we've got to rip this plaster and lathe down. It's moldy back there. Once that's done, we get to replace any of the studs that are rotted. You'd think that would be easy, but this place has settled over the years. There's not a single straight line left in it, nor one square angle. No two of these studs will be equal.

What's that? It wouldn't be that way in a new house? There's one across the street. Take your tape measure and go find me two walls exactly the same size.

It goes deeper than that. That 2x4 is really a 1 1/2 by 3 1/2.

It's all about approximation.

Because Eris hated that Pythagoras was smarter than her. He had to show off, and us poor grunts who actually do stuff have been paying for it ever since.
"Gold Medalist of the 2015 David Cameron Memorial Barnyard Olympics."

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Dubya on May 15, 2015, 04:10:15 AM
First you must put on your hard-hat.

No, seriously, dude, this place is a hundred years old and hasn't seen any repairs in the last twenty.

Now, we've got to rip this plaster and lathe down. It's moldy back there. Once that's done, we get to replace any of the studs that are rotted. You'd think that would be easy, but this place has settled over the years. There's not a single straight line left in it, nor one square angle. No two of these studs will be equal.

What's that? It wouldn't be that way in a new house? There's one across the street. Take your tape measure and go find me two walls exactly the same size.

It goes deeper than that. That 2x4 is really a 1 1/2 by 3 1/2.

It's all about approximation.

Because Eris hated that Pythagoras was smarter than her. He had to show off, and us poor grunts who actually do stuff have been paying for it ever since.

Preach it.

I do industrial maintenance.  Finagle and Murphy are everywhere.
Molon Lube

Dubya

When I first started working on houses, I assumed that it would be easy. A matter of doing some simple math and some hardcore manual labor.

I was quickly disillusioned as above. I was like  :eek:. What? All that weight is held up by these asymmetrical, warped boards?

But it gets better, as I plan to address later on. All I have time for right now is to say that manmade structures are an attempt to impose order. The results are predictable.
"Gold Medalist of the 2015 David Cameron Memorial Barnyard Olympics."

Junkenstein

You truly have no idea just how much of a fucking understatement that is.

AT ALL.
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Dubya

Back for more!

So, manmade structures are an imposition of order upon the world. This leads to an escalation of chaos, mostly localized in the structure itself. So you get rooms where you should be able to lay tiles out perfectly, for example, but in practice you come up half an inch short on one wall, a quarter on another, and similar phenomena.

Its been my experience that the more precise you try to be, the worse you make the situation in the long run. In practical terms, if you're working on a place and force everything you do to be symmetrical, square and true, not only will it not work with whats already there, but it will look wrong.

On the other hand, if you fudge a bit, and go with the extant mess instead of fighting it, you get the work done much
more easily, quickly and it doesn't offend the eye. Then all you have to do is make sure its not so horribly off that it'll collapse and kill someone.

It seems like this shouldn't work, though. Purposeful disorder is just another kind of order, and, if anything, it should make matters worse. Anyone have any thoughts?
"Gold Medalist of the 2015 David Cameron Memorial Barnyard Olympics."

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

When they took the roof off my house I was like OH JESUS that's all that's holding this thing up?

But then they put a new roof back on and I haven't thought about it since.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."