#crimping

Another way of lets call it recruiting men, besides pressment, was the shanghaiing or crimping. Shanhaiing got its name in the middle of the 19th century and that only because Shanghai was often the destination of the ships with the abducted men. While in the case of pressing, a group of ships went out and collected men (one could protect oneself with a letter from the government), in the case of shanghaiing the man was the victim of a crimp

Crimping or shanghaiing was usually trickery with the help of a crimp. A crimp (most a civilian) would lure a man by buying him cheap liquor and getting him to spend all his money. Then, stripped of his meager savings, he would be obliged to pack back the debt. The crimp would deliver the drunken new seaman to a waiting ship and take an advance on his wages. The crimp would collect his debt and might receive a bonus or fee from the captian. The seaman would now be obliged to work for the ship to earn back the advance, enforcable at law. 

Shanghaied men coming aboard by Bill Pickelhaupt (x)

Alternatively, he might just put a marked coin in the person's pocket or drop one in the tankard and as soon as the man picked it up, the crimp would have his next victim - after all, he took the coin to sign on a ship. In very hard cases, it is sometimes necessary to strike in order to help the new sailor to his happiness. 

A readout of a crimp, mostly these were found at ports and dockyards, 19th century

These techniques had been known since the 18th century and were very popular in America, as the pressgang of the British was all too well known and considered inhumane and unfair. Now one can argue whether kidnapping and trickery was a better alternative. But it was not only the Americans who did it. It took place everywhere and was a feared practice alongside the press gang.

After 2.5 years of my climbing journey I managed to do my first V9/7C today!!! This was the last thing I expected today because I’ve been climbing the past 4-5 days straight trying to increase my endurance for sport climbing. Went out today to support some friends for their first time bouldering outside and decided to give this a burn given my fingers were exhausted from the week. On my 2nd go, I sent it!! It’s not the most magical boulder problem out there because it’s short and has 2 moves essentially but that single move off the start was really hard! The crimps you start on were laughably small, I want to say maybe 3-4mm on the left hand. Really happy about my finger strength and completing my first of the grade

Why? How often does this happen to you: you’re at a news studio when the RG6 connector on the satellite uplink fails. Looks like some corrosion got into the cable from the time the Community Events Cruiser was looking into free pancake breakfasts. Maybe a little bit of maple syrup got slopped on the floor then, and now the cable is toast. You need to make a new one, and lucky for you the back seat is full of raw co-axial cable. The only thing you don’t have is a crimper. Boom - you just saved the day.

Want another reason? Let’s say you want to crimp, oh I don’t know, Weatherpack connectors. They’re pretty common in bad American cars. You could do it with a pair of pliers and a squint, but to really be sure you want the proprietary crimper set. Even if you’re going to China for your crimper, the shitty little piece of stamped-steel garbage that will barely last an entire ECU’s worth of crimping costs fifty to seventy bucks. That’s like, seven pizzas. And every different cable family needs its own expensive crimper - sometimes thousands of dollars. You come out way ahead if you can just squeeze the pin between your thumb and forefinger, squint at it, and bellow “by the infinite power of Beezlebub, I declare this pin crimped!”

Also? He’s trying really hard at the beginning of that episode, looking up at Howard adoringly, wanting to make him tea, supporting his latest scheme. Even with Sandstorm there’s a “gifted child” vibe to the way he handles the situation. He’s having a great time on an adventure with Howard and it shows.

But there’s a shift half way through the ep, the peacock feather scene, you know the one, and it’s like watching Series One Vince becoming Series Two Vince in real time. Of course, it’s not a complete shift, but this episode feels like a turning point, where S1 Vince is replaced by S2 Vince. Even the soup crimp, that’s some proper S1 crimping, and it’s the only crimp in the second series, (is it?) and it’s very much in the ‘Tundra’ style. I wonder if Vince was waiting for Howard to confess his love again afterwards. I know I was.