It Couldn't Hurt To Ask

For some time now, I've been looking lackadaisically for fiber optics cable in relatively short lengths (under 30 ft.). All the searches I've managed sell new cable, shrouded, with connections.

My project requires only the fiber optic portion of the cable to transmit ambient/projected color light through a decorative installation. Brother metalmensch suggested dumpster diving at tech firms, but my days of acrobatic trespass and theft are quite over.

I'm posting this to take the high ground. Do any Dear Readers work at a facility that occassionally scraps broken FOC and would be willing to part with it through me instead of Mr. Landfill? Should the provided supply work in the installation, I would be happy to credit you or your firm for the donation.

This is important, folks. This could be art.

Information No One Can Use

I like opinion polling. I've said this before. Just ten minutes ago, though, I got yet another example of bad opinion polling, this time over the issue of a new transportation ballot coming down the pike.

My problem is not with the ballot itself. It addresses a laundry list of needed infrastructure improvements for the area, stuff like bridge fixing and rail extensions. Needed stuff, trust me. The phone poll, however, asked only if I would vote on the measure without giving me the opportunity to voice my opinion on any specifics of the measure I find objectionable.

I'll distill the gist of the poll with a bit of factually ficticious fluff.

"Sir," the pollster says, "Prop None restores confidence in society, cures cancer, and makes babies smile. It is funded by draining just a bit of your Precious Bodily Fluids (one tenth of one percent by weight) each night. Would you be Very Likely, Somewhat Likely, Somewhat Unlikely or Very Unlikely to vote for Prop None?

"Next question. If passed, Prop None will restore confidence in society by fully filling all potholes to and from every one of your most commonly traveled routes and simultaneously reducing the number of cars directly in your path every time you drive; it will help you maintain your ideal weight while allowing you to eat all you can; it will shoot beams of sunshine to areas previously ungraced by warm solar goodness; and yes, it will cure cancer and make babies smile. Would you be Very Likely. . . .?

"Next question. If passed, Prop None will do all I mentioned above and make babies well behaved, productive and happy members of society, eliminating the need for pacifiers, pills, child protective services and the bribes needed to get children to do chores, which they will willingly, under Prop None, do. This benefit to society will in time trickle upward as the happy babies study hard and remove all obstacles facing society today, including hunger, poverty, war and unsightly body stains. Would you be Very. . . . ?"

Throughout the poll, never did the pollster ask how objectionable I found the process of Precious Bodily Fluid Drainage -- nor could I specify that I wished to keep my PBF intact, and that they really should find a better funding mechanism. I even stopped the pollster and specifically asked him to do just that. Couldn't. Wasn't on the screen.

Folks, we've been through this before. Auto excise taxation sounds a death knell for any project put to modern voters. It is backward, possibly causes increased pollution and consumption by discouraging the purchase of newer, cleaner transportation technology, makes children frown, causes cancer and generally sucks.

But whoever funded that research poll -- that public opinion research poll -- won't learn that, will they? Well, that's not true. They won't learn until after the votes are counted, and then, yet again, it will be too late.