Apparently, the culture that invented gunpowder and paper, and built the Great Wall, cannot grasp the concept of putting cord-locks on drawstrings. Even though they make the cord-locks too.
The list of other items with drawstrings upon which this bit of exorbitantly-priced high-tech do not appear is staggeringly long, even though the technology has existed since the 1970s.
Fortunately, I have a solution. For the exorbitant price of 25¢ extra@, I now own several pairs of sweatpants that will no longer self-deploy to the floor when I'm working out outside. For which providence, my neighbors and random automobile travelers on my route offer their thanks.
It's a pity no one in China every had this sort of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup chocolate-and-peanut butter epiphany, and did it themselves, all on their own. Maybe in 50 or 100 years...
Imagine their shock in a couple of more centuries, when they perfect the concept of dipping the fraying ends of drawstring, paracord, shoelaces, etc. into Plasti-dip, too! Which, FFS, can even be found at China Inc.'s Horror Freight retail chain. 's magical mystery, clearly.
14 comments:
I have no doubt the Chinese are perfectly capable of creating quality products but if gullible stupid America is willing to pay them for crap products they are quite happy to provide us with crap posing as products.
You should get some suspenders, for that sophisticated look.
Lol!
Merry Christmas Aesop
@Dan,
There's nothing crap about the sweatpants.
They simply lack the 25¢ inclusion that would keep them up over my ass when running or riding a bike for distance. Which is simply unadorned stupidity on their part.
@Phil,
Merry Christmas to you, too.
You bought the sweat pants, so they are "good enough". By the way, the cord locks are in "Notions" and the dip stuff is in "Home Repairs".
If you don't care, they have saved cash on the 100,000 pairs of pants that they produced. If you do care, get off your butt and do something about it. I almost always have to adapt my purchases since my body doesn't conform to any of the usual body sizes used by the manufacturers. I feel like the calico cat, made of leftover parts.
Good reminder. My old suspenders look like they have seen better days.
they're incapable of independent thought, its truly astonishing to witness
The cord locks I bought a few years ago fail to have a textured surface to grip the drawstring, so they tend to slip. Yes, I got them to put on the drawstring of my sweat pants, also.
Flex Seal also works on the ends if you don't have the Plasti-Dip handy.
I believe Dan is spot on in his observation.
I saw a comment elsewhere that I heartily back -
Could ziplock and the cereal companies make a deal?
My tortillas, fake sugar, and cat food all come with some form of resealable bag.
But cereal...
I have no doubt the Chinese are perfectly capable of creating quality products but if gullible stupid America is willing to pay them for crap products they are quite happy to provide us with crap posing as products.
-- my experience with chinese manufacturing and my (limited) time in china says that's not quite right. I used to work for a company making very high tech products, and we had a product line that was made in china to meet a price point. We sent engineers to live there and ride herd because they couldn't do good work. They did "good enough" work and couldn't understand why that wasn't ok. The cast parts would be literal "pot metal" with no idea of metallurgy from batch to batch. They couldn't hold tolerance on machined parts. Assembly was sloppy and inconsistent. The amount of re-work was substantial.
When I was there, I had a university professor tell me that chinese people WILL NOT pay for quality. It's all about appearance (probably goes back to the idea of "face") and cheapness. He was paying for the system we were installing with funds from his own research, and HE couldn't get them to do work to any sort of standard.
A culture of 'good enough' will kill a culture of 'gotta be good'. See Kipling's Sons of Martha for the deep western cultural reasons why the west was different.
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Some of the Malt-O-Meal bagged cereal does.
I'd more put it as "communist craftsmanship", as pretty much everything made by Communist tends to be a bit problematic. Even the AK is more reputation than actuality.
Merry Christmas, Aesop!
First off if the drawstring is made of nylon a simple wave of the lighter on the ends will melt it to a simple glob that does not unravel. Add a simple knot and problem solved.
I always have a can of plasti-dip in the homestead. So many uses.
Fingernail polish topcoat does pretty well on drawstrings and shoelaces.
I like the solution!
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