Things Breaking

[Frideswide]

My plate - hope superglue can mend a broken heart.

how did it go?

 

[XEPER_]

or you are creating a poltergeist

Yes, perhaps. Our silly arguments are like the constant mental state of the teenage girls in all those famous cases, right?

 

[Bud Bangle]

how did it go?

Could never trust it not to break again mid-meal and reluctantly consigned it to the dustbin a couple of months ago. Will never dance the Sega again (sniff).

 

[Frideswide]

@Bad Bungle

 

[Bud Bangle]

Awww - there's always tomorrow.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

Regarding the PK theory for breaking objects, that seems reasonable: humans might be emitting "destructive" energy for lack of a better word and the environment or something in it, does like likewise. However, I do wonder how often random breakages, many of which may be polt-like, happen in relatively peaceful moments, like post #54 on the previous page.

 

[escargot]

 

[AgProv]

Now and then I've heard of similar happening to other people, where they say a gadget just will not work for them, and I believe every word. Been there!

With me at school it was classroom compasses. At first I thought I'd got wise, and the kid tasked with handing them out was giving me the crappy set. I even tried tightening the screw that held the two halves together. No, it still got partway round a circle then collapsed. Very frustrating. Ones I used at home - no problem. Then one day I took my own home compasses into school, anticipating a maths lesson. The compasses that worked at home... failed. Something in the school? (Big draughty old Victorian primary next to the church).

As an adult - those bloody bloody bloody self-service machines in supermarkets. Every bloody time. They must hate me.

Incidentally - isn't the classic story about things "breaking" in a fraught and tense atmosphere, about that time when Jung and Freud were in a heated argument and a bloody great bang happened inside the bookcase?

 

[catseye]

As an adult - those bloody bloody bloody self-service machines in supermarkets. Every bloody time. They must hate me.

The self serve machines aren't yet really fit for purpose. I can never get them to work properly for me either and I am often to be found standing in front of one shouting "I do this for a JOB! I know how you WORK!" but every single shop has it's own version and they all work differently - which seems unnecessary to me. Have one type, have them all work the same way, keep it simple. But the scales aren't good enough yet and that's where the error usually comes - the weight of something you are buying hasn't been correctly entered on the system so it errors out and needs an assistant to override or check.

We're still about five years away from the tech being good enough for general use.

 

[escargot]

Incidentally - isn't the classic story about things "breaking" in a fraught and tense atmosphere, about that time when Jung and Freud were in a heated argument and a bloody great bang happened inside the bookcase?

Yup, it has been mentioned before.

Here's an extract from a book, The Portable Jung, edited by Joseph Campbell, which describes it.
(I have re-paragraphed it for ease of reading.)

The following year 1908 Jung attended in Vienna the First International Congress of Psycho-Analysis; and it was there that he met the greater part of that distinguished company which in the next years was to make the psychoanalytic movement known to the world.

The next spring 1909 found Jung once again in Vienna and on this occasion Freud—his elder by nineteen years—confided to him kindly that he was adopting him 'as an eldest son, anointing him as successor and crown prince.'

However, when the anointed later asked what his adopting elder's views might be on precognition and parapsychology, Freud replied abruptly: Sheer nonsense!—'and in terms' states Jung, 'of so shallow a positivism that I had difficulty in checking the sharp retort on the tip of my tongue.

'I had a curious sensation,' Jung continues in his account of this first real crisis in their friendship.

'It was as if my diaphragm were made of iron and were becoming red-hot—a glowing vault. And at that moment there was such a loud report in the bookcase which stood right next to us that we started up in alarm, fearing the thing was going to topple over on us.

I said to Freud: 'There, that is an example of a so-called catalytic exteriorization phenomenon.'

'Oh come,' he exclaimed. 'That is sheer bosh.'

'It is not,' I replied. 'You are mistaken, Herr Professor. And to prove my point I now predict that in a moment there will be another such loud report!'

Sure enough, no sooner had I said the words than the same detonation went off in the bookcase.

Freud only stared aghast at me. I do not know what was in his mind or what his look meant. In any case, this incident aroused his mistrust of me, and I had the feeling that I had done something against him.