Filters, that is. Filters for water, and filters for things a lot worse than what's floating in the water. Had to use up my last two cartridges for the water filters today, someone remind me to buy a couple more here in the next month or two.
There at the end of her life my wife's skin got terribly sensitive, I did what I could to keep her bath water as clean as I could get it, installing a water softener between a pair of high capacity filters. A bit of experimentation and it came clear you can go down to a five micron sediment filter without sacrificing to much water pressure. Fair enough. I've had the softener off-line since she died, no need to feed it, but of course the filters are still in line and they finally blinded out to the crud. If you've ever seen what a five mic filter will pull out of a city water supply you'd go "yuuuuckkkk!" just like I do, and be glad it was there. Ok, enough on trying to sell you on the idea of water filters, most generally you can live without them. But there are other kinds of filters you really do need.
You and I, we really do need stupidity filters in our government. There's more stupidity floating around in government than there is general mud and crud floating in the water supply. Here in my city, sister town to Pleasantville, there's been just a championship example of running a government without stupidity filters on line. For the last two decades this city has been following the national example of appearance is everything, believe outweighs know, and politics out-powers science. And of course it has caught up to them in the form of a water distribution system that is falling right out from under the town. They've made themselves a mess, they really have, it's going to be a grade A ass ripping expensive job to fix what their stupidity and vanity has caused.
Thirty, forty years ago some guys did a good job of designing the water supply for the town. There's some serious engineering in building such a system, and the guys back when did it right. They did it so right their system tolerated being abused by addition after addition being added on, and for twenty years or so it hung tough against the overload. But house by house the backwash of the upper crust migrating back from both coasts trying to run away from the mess they'd made there increased the load to where the old system, ignored and abused the whole while as the tax money dedicated to maintaining the system got siphoned away if not outright embezzled, well, the old system just can't do it anymore. The south-west part of town, the new part where the richy rich folk live, is all but doing without water. Twenty years of patch-work add-ons done cheap rather than done right has caught up to the richy rich people, and the government their culture imported into the community with them.
But never fear, they fixed the problem. The city council fixed it with a vote, and they couldn't have done it if there'd been a stupidity filter in the loop. They voted to lower the minimum acceptable delivered pressure on the city system from 45 psi to 25 psi. Everything is fine now. As a matter of fact, everything is more than fine, really. The cronies of the city government who deal in things relating to water are going to make a fortune, selling the dumb-fuck richy rich people filter systems and booster pumps and pressure tanks like you use on a low capacity water well so the richy rich people can take a shower at the house. No stupidity filters needed on that circuit.
Which reminds me: I need to make a note to buy more cartridges for the sediment filters. Mud I can stop, even if I can't do a damn thing about stupidity.
Gene Wolfe wrote in one of his novels: "Space itself is said to be bound by its own curvature, but there is no limit to human stupidity." I fear that the "stupidity filter" you envision is impossible--because it would have to be spiritual in nature, and despite human's reputed ability to deal in matter, they have not gone far--or rather perhaps have gone far downhill--in dealing with spiritual matter.
ReplyDelete"To err is human; to really f*** things up requires a computer."
My city's water supply has ruined my toilet tanks and bowls with its crud and dirt. What kind of filters did you use? I need to do something!
ReplyDeleteI use what's called a "restaurant" filter... a 20" cartridge style sediment (mud) filter. You'll need a plumber to pipe it into the incoming water line, usually installed in the garage. Should be able to get them through your local water softener folks. DO NOT let them sell you a contract to "Maintain" them, they're easy to change. I'll post a diagram with explanations.
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