Three Laws Of Practical Engineering
Force to fit
File to hide
Paint to cover
At the steel fabricating plant where I once worked, the difference between a welder, and a welder/fitter, was a ten-pound sledgehammer. Those storage tanks always fit.
Kludge
Noun – a software or hardware configuration that, while inelegant, inefficient, clumsy, or patched together, succeeds in solving a specific problem or performing a particular task.
Verb – the atypical act or action of achieving such a goal
Coined 1960/65 by American author Jackson W. Granholm.
Too often, ivory-tower engineers design things for the perfect, optimum conditions, and ignore reality. If you design something to be foolproof, someone will design a bigger fool. As James Bond said to Q, in one of the movies, “There’s a lot of wear and tear goes on out in the field.”
The concept of ‘Kludge’ indicates an open and adaptive mind, instead of one bounded by unchanging rules and regulations. Larry the Cable Guy may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but you have to admire his Git ’er done philosophy.
I got this challenge done, and I’ve got a couple more, ready to post soon. Y’all come back now, y’hear?
Archon's Den 
My husband is the king of kludge.
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Good for him. Necessity is the mother of invention, and rural folk often have more of both than city people. Poverty is sometimes the driver.
Our back deck drops down two steps to the lawn. The wife isn’t too steady on her feet, so she wanted a handrail put in the center, for when she went out to garden. The local hardware store has a modular system. To buy just the bits and pieces would have cost $389, but there’s some 2X4s in the basement from when we moved in, 18 years ago. It ain’t pretty, but it’s sturdy and functional. 😀
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And there in lies the problem…. I like pretty.
😉
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If something doesn’t work, you just need the right hammer.
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On one of NASA’s moon missions, the astronauts took along one of the new electronic video cameras. When it didn’t function when it was supposed to, one of them banged it with a small hammer from the tool kit…. it immediately worked fine. 😆
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The Fonz!
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Eeeyyy! 😎
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While it’s true that if the only tool you have is a hammer, then all your problems look like nails; it’s also true that sometimes what you really need is a bigger hammer.
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😳
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I enjoy reading these whenever my friend Paul sends them to me.
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Thanx for reading them Tone. 😀 Probably three a week until I die. I’m gonna compose one, advising that I’m dead. Son Matt can post it, and any left unpublished in the cache. 😦
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😀
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[…] recently viewed a video where, for the first time ever, I heard someone actually use the word ‘kludge.’ This is a kludge dish! It ain’t pretty. It ain’t fancy. It ain’t gourmet. It’s just […]
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