Mark came to me last evening holding the handle to the sliding glass door in the bedroom. It fell off and broke into two pieces. No problem, I thought, I've seen these for sale at the big box lumberteria. So I went online and yea, they have them, for $58!
I searched some more and discovered the handle is made by PrimeLine and is model number C-1280. With those two pieces of information, we can search for the exact handle we are looking for and filter out a lot that don't fit. Amazon has the whole set for $28 which is a big improvement, but we only need the outside handle - the inside part didn't break and in fact, is still attached to the door.
eBay to the rescue - someone is selling just the outside part for $12 - a good chance to use up my PayPal bucks - thanks reader!
Why did it fail? I suspect it was my fault. On these vinyl sliding doors, the handles come loose as the vinyl frame compresses. So I tighten it - too much - and the pot metal breaks. Lesson learned - for $12.
Of course, the Internet also sucks. One gets a lot of anxiety and angst from it. People spend too much time online, convinced they need to "keep up" with "what is going on" when in fact what is going on, on the internet, is largely fake.
If you read something online, particularly on social media, first ask yourself if what you read was generated by a troll, a bot, or an AI-generated karma farm. It could also be posted by a teenager or middle-schooler or even some crazy person off their meds. You have no way of knowing. A lot of what you read online isn't "real" and even "real" postings are skewed by online demographics.
One reason Reddit is so depressing, for example, is that a lot of depressed people are on it. If I had to construct a profile of a "typical redditor" based on r/all it would be an IT geek who spends all his free time gaming, sending out for doordash and then bitching when it sucks. This is not a slice of everyday people.
Online "surveys" are thus just stupid. Elon Musk makes a big deal about having a "vote" as to whether Alex Jones should be allowed back on the site. Of course, the "vote" is only people on Twitter and even then, only a small slice of people who give a damn about the issue - that and bots of course. It is faux democracy at its best.
No doubt, Republicans will propose replacing the electoral college with Twitter voting, except that the electoral college does still work to their advantage.
The Internet is not reality. Facebook isn't reality, nor is Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Tick-Tock, or any other social media site.
Sadly, it seems many people today - most, in fact - prefer living in the alternate reality and echo-chamber of the Internet. And this has driven the world slowly insane.
