roseburg

It would be really interesting to see how many negative stories about Tesla each media company has produced. CNBC has got to be in the lead.

The old local news model is dying because it's top heavy and has enormous overhead. Local news isn't dying though, and is as valuable as ever. It's just in the process of completely changing.

One person can now do more with 1/1000th the budget of a local Newspaper with the barrier to entry being hard work, good writing skills, social media savvy and a love of the place they are covering.

More money to these organizations will just keep them on life support longer. Now if they changed their model 100% that would be a completely different story.

The future of journalism will be a lot of small teams (1-4) of writers/journalists/personalities running their own show in their city or state.

The financial woes of the old news industry is a symptom. A change is needed.

Most departments are understaffed. Turns out all the negative press against police is having long term impacts on how many kids want to grow up and become a police officer.

Also property crimes always take a backseat to more violent crimes.

We have been seeing massive fishing net globs come ashore for the past few years on the Big Island of Hawaii. It's getting worse. My boys and I personally dragged a large chunk ashore this past year. They are extremely heavy and take a lot of work to move and dispose of all the netting. Here's the image: https://imgur.com/12U4FXg

This is the latest, the largest tangle of net researchers have seen wash ashore. http://www.fox8live.com/story/37529263/its-huge-40-ton-mass-...

It's a labor shortage more than anything else they listed. It's not an energy boom, weak dollar, Trump etc.

The question should be "why is this a surprise?"

Does our culture esteem people that work with their hands? Do parents encourage their children to aspire to learn trade skills? Does our educational system encourage students to learn trade skills and explore the trades as highly viable alternatives to going to college?

We've looked down at the trades and blue-collar work for decades. The evidence is everywhere. Of course there is a shortage, students have been listening to the adults in their lives, their peers, media outside of Mike Rowe etc and have heard the message loud and clear.

Solutions; I see two things that need to happen.

First, we need to reach and communicate to students and adults across the country that trade skills are valuable and a career in the trades is an outstanding option.

Create a more efficient, affordable and accessible resources for people to learn trade skills, no matter their location, age, income, nationality etc. We need to make it 10x easier for people to learn the skills that are in demand.

I’m working on both those solutions at Tradeskills.io 
 Definitely a lot to figure out!

Supply shortage of workers, plain and simple.

A. Takes time for new workers to be adequately trained.

B. Takes even longer to get people that have been raised to look down on the trades to change their worldview and all of a sudden consider working with their hands, no matter how much money is involved.

I think it's both the dog and the owner and our culture that looks down on the trades, or blue collar work. Kids are being raised and taught to work hard so they can avoid working with their hands. Trade jobs are almost seen as a punishment and schools do nothing but funnel all students into the college pipeline.

In the vision of life that is projected for students, the trades do not find themselves anywhere in that vision. It should come as no surprise that we have a shortage right now, it should only surprise us that it's not worse. Immigrant labor has long hidden the fact that American's are raising their kids to avoid the trades, and we will all pay the price for it.

Online! We are building Tradeskills.io to make it easier for people to explore and learn trade skills online. I would love to hear more about the types of things you are now interested in learning since purchasing a home! I can be reached at [email protected]

:) They are having to pay higher wages. The wealthy in bigger cities are able to absorb these higher costs. It has a much bigger toll on the middle class in smaller cities because they have the same shortages, but less money to pay the increased costs.

There won't be more competition in the short term because still, only 3% of graduating high school students are even considering a career in the trades. It's going to take quite a while for the ship to turn around.

I would simplify it and say that learning trade skills is a better investment for most people than attending a 4-year college. Trade skills can be learned at a young age, right from home, where there is room and time to explore and enjoy the learning process. Why we wait until after high school to teach kids in-demand skills boggles my mind. All the pressure in the world arrives after high school. It's time to start paying the bills and to grow up. It's no wonder most kids go off to college because they have zero marketable skills upon hs graduation and college is a way to get an extra 4 years to acquire some skills.

The sad part of that is all the kids that get caught up in the college wave. They get pressured to go to a 4 year school, take on a mountain of debt for a degree (if they are fortunate to graduate) they most likely won't use. So many students would be better off exploring the different trades and finding one that they really enjoy. There are hundreds of them.

I've been working on a project lately to help people explore and learn the trades online. Tradeskills.io It started as a side project for me a number of years ago teaching people how to get into the appliance repair trade. I've had over 600 students all across the country and Canada go through my training. The trades can be learned online and I think tech will need to play a big part in this area of education in the coming years.

They are rising all across the country because there is a big shortage, and it's only going to get worse. Boomers are retiring faster than they are being replaced.

Optimum employment? When someone wants to get a project built in Portland Oregon the wait time this past year was about 3 months until you were lucky enough to land a contractor. Contractors can't find enough skilled help so everything takes longer.

There is a shortage of trades workers, and it's only going to get worse because the bulk of the workers are currently older and are retiring much, much faster than they are being replaced. We are just at the beginning of a crises level shortage. Labor prices will continue to rise and this will be absorbed by everyone.

I use this every day and it saves us a trip to our PO box unless we have something important to pick up. Snapping a picture of packages would be a huge upgrade.

I also find this fascinating. I just signed [email protected] I also have another use case I'd like to bounce off you if you could shoot me an email. Thanks!

Author here, you are absolutely right. Want to see me angry? You should have seen me when I found out my 90 year old neighbor lady is on her second Whirlpool made vertical modular washer in the past 5 years. (top loading washer with the led lights on the control panel) Not everyone can afford to be ripped off and sold garbage washing machines that WILL break within 3 years.

I think your power tool analogy is a good one. Same with most consumer goods, people know that when they are buying a plastic version of something that it likely won't last, so they wrestle through the tradeoffs.

I was going to say that when a dryer is taking too long to dry, but it's still heating up, it's not broken. It either needs to be cleaned because it's blocked up in the lint chute, or the ducting from the dryer to the outside of the house is blocked somewhere. It probably only took them 20-30 minutes to refurbish the old dryer and it will be good for another 5-10 years.

What I shared above is very common knowledge in the repair industry, so odds are the Sears person that came out was either on his first day of the job or didn't even look at the machine. Sadly this happens a lot.

Speed Queen probably makes the highest quality machine right now. Then he's correct that it's then commercial machines. But those are very expensive and enormous in size making them impractical for consumer use.

The business model right now is really built upon the fact that there are very few appliance manufacturers left. Consolidation has taken away the competition and it seems like those remaining have set the bar pretty low. I think they know if they make a cheap dishwasher that lasts 3 years, that person will have to buy another machine. Throw in new models each year and consumers have no hope of keeping track of what brand is good and who they should trust. Confusion reigns when it comes to buying appliances. So people don't hold the manufacturers accountable. I see a lot of similarities with the mattress industry.

In the old mechanical brained dryers a simple set of thermostats regulated the temperature. They can be purchased for $5 on ebay to replace if they act up. A new computer brain? $100-$200

Thanks!

I've thought quite a bit about it. I think the demand is there now for well-built machines as people are realizing now that their old machines were built much, much better and lasted longer. Before now, people really didn't have a contrast for those machines, so they really didn't understand how good they had it.

If someone was able to buy the patent for Whirlpool's direct drive machine, that would be ideal, then just start manufacturing those things again. People would weep tears of joy if they could buy those machines again, not exaggerating.

As far as design, there are only two designs that have ever been used. The top loader with the tall agitator and newer top loaders have the low profile agitator.

I'm still not quite sure why Whirlpool stopped making their direct drive top loaders. It was the biggest step down in quality I think I've ever seen. Machines went from lasting 8-12 years before needing some routine maintenance to mostly breaking within the first 3 years on the newly designed Vertical Modular Washers.

With enough resources and determination, the appliance industry could be turned on it's head, at least starting with washers and dryers.

Yeah, you were wise to listen to him. Another tell is to go into used appliance stores and see what they carry the most of. Most used appliance shops won't even bother refurbishing many machines now because it's not cost effective and they don't trust that they will make it out of their warranty before breaking.

Dishwashers, stay away from Frigidaire entirely. They are made disposable. 2-3 years is the average life before needing a repair. I've had the best experience with Whirlpool dishwashers. KitchenAid has gone downhill in the past 5 years or so, in terms of quality.

It's just shiny. Cosmetic only. All the parts and design elements haven't changed in decades for dryers.

Fancy dryers dry faster only because the fancy washer is spinning the clothes faster at the end of the cycle. The technology inside clothes dryers hasn't changed in 30 years, even in the fanciest models. Look up the parts, they still use all the parts and design from models 30 years ago. It's actually comical. Source: I repair dryers.

They haven't found a better way to convert electricity into heat, or a faster way to use a flame to dry the clothes. Even old dryers had moisture sensors to turn the machine off once it sensed the clothes were dry.