Electronic Dialog ’08

Ho ho! Welcome to Electronic Dialog with Hans Cuttler! I’m Hans, and I’m here to answer any and all questions you civilians have about obscure, obscene, and omnipresent technology. My name in Greek means “man of fire,” and I bring a spicy attitude to the keyboard every single [expletive] time. Let’s go right to the letters:

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Dear Hans,

I’ve been restoring my father’s old pickup truck, and I’m up to the coil assembly. Can I connect my adaptive coil handler with copper coils in conjunction with chrome coils? The handler is a 32B bit model, if that helps.

Paul Gettle
Bottleton E.

Paul, throw out that handler right now. It’s probably older than the pickup. The 32B bit model was discontinued in 1980, and even then it wasn’t up to connecting copper and chrome coils. That’s a low end model. You try to connect your coils with that thing, and you’ll just end up blowing the whole assembly.

Like most people, you’re not as adept at adaptive coil handler handling as you should be, but it’s not your fault. The high schools used to teach this kind of thing in shop, and it gave us a nation of handler experts.

I can tell you from experience that what you want to do is get the new GHI bipush adapter. It’s the natural successor to the 32B bit, and should join your copper and chrome coils without incident.

But... if you’re tight for cash and you really need to use your 32B bit — and I can’t stress how much I recommend against doing this — you can coat your coils with a Grade C iron lubrication siphon. If you use a quarter bottle per foot of wire it should be fine, unless you’re using the metric 32B bit. The metric version was a power hog and you can’t use lubrication on it.

Be very careful if you go the lubrication route. The last thing you need is a [expletive] blown assembly.

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Dear Hans,

My new Armalite satellite dish gives me static in sunny weather, and crystal clear reception in the rain and snow! I’ve asked my provider, and they sent a guy three times to no avail. My nephew says that the satellite’s synchronous teleprocessor is jammed, and he reset it. The static went away for a few days, but it came back. Is there a permanent solution, or will I have to keep resetting my teleprocessor?

Florine di Grázio
Route 38 West

The problem is in your teleprocessor, but indirectly. Route 38 is right next to those mountains, and that’s what’s really causing the feedback in your teleprocessor. The weather has [expletive] nothing to do with it.

Armalites all work on the same frequency specified by the FCC, but it’s a junk frequency. Every time you reset your dish, you temporarily shift to an emergency band reserved by the national guard. I don’t know who told your nephew he could go around resetting teleprocessors nandy-tandy, you should only be resetting your dish if there’s a national emergency. Otherwise, you could get a fine.

What you need to do now is file a 89-90 request application for a teleprocessing discriminator with your provider. They’re legally obligated to pass your request to the FCC, who should send you the discriminator. There’ll be an annual $10 fee, but it should permanently filter out frequency echos.

You also might want to consider cable. Most of my friends on Route 38 have cable just because of the [expletive] Armalite lawsuit.

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Dear Hans,

While delousing a wall in my pool equipment shed last week, I found a vintage 1976 Olea Starman™. The box was dessicated and unreadable, but the plastic packaging and instructions were intact.

If I remember right, the Olea Starman was recalled when lab tests found trace heavy elements in certain Star-modules. Has the half-life of the elements rendered the Starman inert by this point? I’d really like to take a crack at this thing — the original paints are included!

Lilly Lyons
Burger Palace, Redshaw County

You’ve got me in a bind, Lilly. I’m hard-pressed to tell any hobbyist not to take up a vintage model, but the Olea Starman was the E.T. of the Starman series. I got my hands on one before the recall, and I can tell you that the instructions were nothing short of useless. Parts were clearly mislabled [sic], and the thrust module was unattachable.

Don’t worry about that whole “heavy element” mix-up. We didn’t know then what we know now about stable transuranic isotopes. Bad as the Olea was conceptually, truth be told, our cars and buildings would be cheaper and stronger if they were made from the same material. Some of Olea’s developers work for NASA today, y’know.

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Dear Hans,

Sir! Here’s the skinny, Hans. I run a professional drill cosy embroidery service, selling drill cosies over the Internet to collectors, craftsmen, even had a few of my wares in the KC 40^th Spectacular two years ago. Lately my inbox is full of complaints from long-time users, saying that the cosies I sold them three or more years ago has contributed to “rust nuggetization” of their drills.

Since my cosies are all made of prolapsed plastate, should I expect more angry letters in the future? My supplier told me that rust nuggetizing only occurs in tropical climates, but I’m seeing it in overwhelming numbers.

Lester M. McHammer
CEO, McHammer Cosy Co.
North Oxglove

*Sigh* Anyone with a cursory knowledge of prolapsed plastate knows it isn’t [expletive] enough for something as intricate as a drill cosy. Frankly, I’m surprised your business hasn’t gone under! I remember hearing about someone at the KC 40^th four years ago using a prolapsed drill cosy, and I remember writing a column discouraging its use.

How is your supplier even getting you the plastate? It’s illegal to import or manufacture domestically, since ’97. The stuff is more toxic than asbestos! You should consider yourself lucky that half your customers still have their original eyes and aren’t on dialysis. I’m no legal [censored], but you should lawyer up.

Incidentally, you can prevent rust nuggestization of the head and handle by underlying the cosy with a lead tarp.

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Dear Hans,

I read your column religiously, but I’ve just got to disagree with your March 18 discription [sic] of a rotated cuff revolver as “akin to the lovechild of a garbage truck and a cotton candy machine”. The rotated cuff revolver may not be pretty, but in the industry it’s a godsend! Do you know how many man and women hours we’ve gained thanks to rotated revolver cuffs? Not even counting the daylight savings!

Rotated revolver cuffs advanced production of the Hemming II hybrid engine from two years to completion to a month and a half. So please, enlighten us on your “holier than thou” attitude toward cuffs. From where I’m standing, you’re just a bitter old fart with no foresight or future in the industry.

Horace de Túmadray
Olathe Landing

You started out pretty solid there, Horace, but then you sort of turned into a [expletive] [expletive]-[expletive] [censored] [expletive] dog-eared [expletive]-[expletive] [expletive]. But I digress.

If you actually read my article instead of wiping your [expletive] dog-eared [expletive]-[expletive] with it, you’d know that the rotated revolver cuff is the pipe dream of a hose-head.

32% of all rotated revolver cuffs are born defective. 18% fail on reentry. And I didn’t just pull those numbers from thin air! Industry experts like Roger Miler and Steven Gustave and Gloria Hemming — yes, that Hemming — all brought those numbers to me. People with firsthand experience, all saying the cost/benefit ratio isn’t high enough for this technology.

Your comments were way over the line. If you were really in the industry, you’d already know that that report on the productivity increase was a complete lie to increase circulation of Heaven: Mark VII magazine. The time to completion actually increased once the bicubic washers were replaced with those cheap rotated revolver cuffs.

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Hans Cuttler writes columns whenever he [expletive] pleases, and is proud to attend and perform at speaking events in countries he is still welcome in.