Two mini-stories:
water-bottle
In a library. Put my water bottle on the foutain stand and went into the restroom. Upon returning, my water bottle was gone. While I have left it this way many many times, the water bottle always stays there without leaving. Where is it?
I went outside and saw a man leaving. Ran to him and saw my water bottle in his hand. “Excuse me, that water bottle is mine.” “Oh, I thought somebody lost it.”
how much to fix a dripping faucet?
Something is wrong with the faucet. Called a plumber. Arrived one hour late. Check the faucet but cannot fix it because he cannot shut down the water to the house. He just left after charging me $300 and asked me to call the city to shut down the water, and then book an appointment with him.
At that time I am not sure how long it will take the city to come down to shut the water for the plumber to fix my dripping faucet. But the plumber told me that it’s about two weeks.
Two weeks is definitely too long. So called another plumber. This new guy came and checked the faucet. After trying to shut down the water to the house with bare hands and his wrench later, he complained that the valve was too old and he could do nothing about it. My heart sank when he told me to call the city. Again. He charged me the dispatch fee of $50 and went to his vehicle.
So I called the city and begged them to schedule an appointment as early as possible. It was about 10 days later. Then I saw that the plumber was still in his vehicles. So I rushed out and told him about the appointment and asked if he could schedule the second appointment to match with the city’s appointment.
After coming back to the house, I was surprised to find out that the water was shut down. Again, rushed out to tell the plumber. This time the faucet was fixed by replacing two small cartridges. Then the water is turned on with his bare hands. Everything works with another $400 charge.
tweets
If anything could be profitable tomorrow, best to bet on what OTHERS believe to be profitable. Welcome to bubble country. This can work – e.g. railroad bubbles building out infrastructure in 19th C – or produce relatively pure ponzi schemes (tulips, crypto) etc. It’s risky. 4/n (May 2, 2022)
Humans doing the hard jobs on minimum wage while the robots write poetry and paint is not the future I wanted. (May 15, 2023)