Cool and clear, I hope. National map has us on the edge of a rainy area. Usually the edge misses us. I would like to get stuff done without getting rained on.
I spent some more time at my secondary location doing clean up and throwing out stuff. One of the things I un-buried was a shelving unit for my nearby storage unit. I’ll be setting that up today if the rain holds off. That will get some of my ebay stuff out of the house, without it being very far away. Farther than I’d prefer, but keeping it here is not an option at this time. Room needs to be made for GS cookies.
Yep, cookie season is almost here. We thought it would be fully online this year, but I guess not. Soon I’ll have hundreds of boxes of cookies in my foyer and living room. Few of them for me, though.
My auction pickup yesterday was two ham radios. Early 80s, solid units. One was bringing crazy money on ebay. I’ve got some work to do cleaning them up a bit and hopefully doing a little bit of testing. Even as just a ‘parts’ machine, it should bring >$1100, which is nuts. I am selling it, and not keeping it. Need the money, have radios… In fact, I’m toying with the idea of doing an auction in March of all the stuff I’d normally take to the hamfest. I’ll talk to my local auctioneer and see what he thinks.
I’ve got a pickup in Conroe today, it’s stuff for building antennas. I’m hoping to leverage some collapsible flagpoles into decent antennas. They are always in that particular auction and go relatively cheaply.
There has been some discussion in various places regarding alternate comms and news sources. Alex Jones led the way by having his show on shortwave for years. Say what you will about him, a few of his darts have hit the board, and he was deplatformed before it was even a word. He’s still around though. I’m sure his shortwave show contributes to that. In general, I thought the standard prepper recommendation to own a shortwave radio was not particularly useful. The main broadcasters are religious based or state propaganda organs. That said, many of the church people do news and talk too, and it’s possible to learn stuff from propaganda. Given the crackdown on free speech in the US, I’m moving shortwave radio up the list a couple of notches. Lots of good info about shortwave radios and listening on youtube. (yes, evil youtube. support the content creators that are making a living or living their dream on the platform. Use patreon or whatever the creators like, and run adblockers to starve the beast.)
Compromise (or at least the appearance of ‘going along to get along’) is going to be the word-o-the day for a long time. We need to maintain our ability to act, to support those that need support, and we need to get THROUGH this and out the other side, to wherever that may be. There are times when that is not going to look very pretty. I’m sure my tolerance for the necessary levels of compromise will vary and there may come a point where I can’t do it. But given what that would cost me, the current plan is pull back, pull in, and abide. You may evaluate the situation and come to a different conclusion. I may come to a different conclusion at some point too. But I intend to survive this as intact as possible, and I’m PLANNING and provisioning to do that.
Stack it high. Stack it in a bunch of small piles scattered all over. Stack it wherever you can. But STACK up some resources, friends, and knowledge.
nick
REINSTATEMENT OF AUSTIN’S HOMELESS CAMPING BAN COULD BE ON MAY BALLOT
If Austin doesn’t reinstate the ban on homeless camping the state will do it for them.
Contrary to what Austin leaders think, no one has a right to urinate and defecate wherever they want.
Homelessness promoted by Austin has also endangered public safety.
The Governor and the Legislature had the opportunity to squash, among other issues, the Progs antics with regard to the homeless in Austin two years ago but instead chose to cut political deals with Democrats to tighten restrictions on abortion.
Interestingly, one place where homeless don’t camp on the highway medians is in front of Austin Planned Parenthood.
Up near where I live, you can almost see where the city limits of Austin meet unincorporated Williamson County, where law enforcement doesn’t look kindly on homeless camping … for now. The Progs did manage to get rid of the Wilco Sheriff in November.
Yep, cookie season is almost here. We thought it would be fully online this year, but I guess not. Soon I’ll have hundreds of boxes of cookies in my foyer and living room. Few of them for me, though.
My daughter isn’t participating in Girl Scouts this year, but we’ve heard mixed things about the possibility of in-person cookie sales. Typical Austin — one discussed solution was to have Door Dash deliver cookies under some kind of cross promotion deal.
If gas prices really are on the way up, the Brown Truck Shopping Mall and Food Court (Complete With Girl Scout Cookie Booth) TM is going to be in trouble.
Lost our power yesterday. It wasn’t for long. This was the cause.
https://www.wate.com/news/thp-three-injured-in-collision-with-tower-that-resulted-in-widespread-outages-in-oak-ridge/
Some idiot with a truck that was pulling more than it should with single wheel rear wheels, probably on a trailer with no brakes, not paying attention as there is a light at that intersection, goes off the road to avoid a collision as he is unable to stop due to no (or not working) trailer brakes, crashes into a high voltage (161KV) tower leg, which collapses the tower.
Those lines direct from the Bull Run Generating Plant feed a large substation for a large area. Fortunately TVA was fairly quick about rerouting the power and deactivating those lines.
Traffic was a nightmare. That road is the major road in and out of Oak Ridge to/from Knoxville. There are other routes but are a significant detour. Crossing the river limits the number of places because bridges are required. One detour can add as much as an hour to a trip. Of course the local roads leaving were jammed as the time of the accident was when the plants let out work. Normal traffic is backed up. This event required rerouting traffic from a four lane highway to a two lane road.
At work yesterday, one of my wife’s co-workers at the VA shared pictures sent by a “friend” of the scene in a predominantly African American dance club in Downtown Austin, packed to the limits with hundreds of patrons who showed up to see a famous DJ “spinning” in the club Thursday night.
My wife said there wasn’t a mask in sight in the pictures or any of the city’s mandated “social distancing” measures.
Figure another year of virus fun because the general population can’t stop being stupid. Movies are being pushed back again because theaters don’t expect to be open before Fall.
@Ray Thompson
For some time I’ve advocated that people that make bad decisions which result in the theft of time from masses of people be charged with the time they have stolen.
There are roughly 17,000 hours in a year. A busy 4-lane highway can easily have 10,000 vehicles in a couple hours during rush. Force each one to spent an extra hour, that’s better than six months of wasted time. Shouldn’t society expect a penalty in kind?
Programmer releases malware that affect millions of users? Organ donor time. Spam phone calls? bwa-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah. “Yeah, Floyd, you’ll never guess where I got the new kidney. Remember all those calls about auto warranties?”
Considering the state sponsorship of a lot of malware, it might help a few countries get their populations under control. Not practical? How about the next time Section 5 drops a malware bomb and wastes a half a billion users time installing updates, patches and restoring, we round up a few thousand number one sons and send them home? How about we let them know ahead of time that they’re nearing the top of the list?
Hank Aaron, RIP
no words
That kind of thinking should be put in place elsewhere as well. A new government requirement that eats an hour of your time – the government owes you that hour, or equivalent cash.
Speaking of which: it’s car inspection time here, which comes up every 3-4 years. The Swiss are ridiculously picky. Just as an example: Springs in cars are now covered in plastic. Only, the plastic on ours has cracks, so the metal spring is exposed and therefore rusty. No rust is allowed anywhere on a car, so: it’s new springs all around. It’s looking to be about $2.5k in (mostly unneeded) repairs, in order to pass inspection.
As in doing income taxes each year. I spend probably about 10 hours doing my taxes. Could probably do it in 5 hours if I was sloppy. But being sloppy with the IRS has ramifications, unless the error is the favor of the IRS. There should be a line item credit on the forms for time spent doing the forms. At some common rate, say $50.00 an hour.
Especially true for those that cause someone to be late for work and get docked for the time. Truck drivers who get delayed, say for two hours, that is 140 miles at freeway speeds, at $0.40 a mile, works out to $56 per truck that could file a claim.
Problem with that is insurance rates would go up substantially. Having to submit a claim if the claimant would even know the cause and the insurance to claim against, and being able to provide proof. There are also a lot of leaches on society would claim harm when in fact they were on their fat butts watching The View.
As for me, when I pass an accident, and people are standing around, no obvious injuries, I roll down my window and yell “Dumbass”.
Auto inspections are a racket, details at eleven.
Certainly, inspections don’t benefit the owners. Florida is the only state I know of that terminated its inspections. That was after I left in 1972, so I lived inder the boot while I was there. Racket, not Liberty.
I’d rather have the cause locked up than get compensated.
And for the record, I consider the Microsoft Word Ribbon as malware.
@Brad
I’d remove the old spring coating, recoat with a flexible polymer, and dust it up with a drive on a gravel road before inspection.
@JimB
A number of midwest states quit inspecting. Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa, IIRC.
You could perform a service by scanning the card and putting the image up on the internet along with a description of the paper it’s printed on. Redact personal information, of course, but describe the font used for your name and such.
Speaking of alternate energy sources ….
Biden just gave the ChiComs access to the US energy grids.
https://thenationalpulse.com/news/biden-revokes-trump-energy-eo/
Prepare accordingly
drwilliams, I approve your suggestion but disapprove your math. Unless you have a teenager, there’s only about 8965 hours in a year.
(There may be only 8965 hours even if you do have a teen but each one feels much longer.)
@ray:
And if you cease inspections (what we call an MOT test) you’ll have even more idiots driving unroadworthy vehicles, and quite possible causing accidents, or even killing people.
I would suggest involvement in an accident while driving an unroadworthy vehicle, should be penalised with confiscation of said vehicle, plus large fine if any injuries ensue.
G.
edited to add:
In UK, we have a driving offence called “driving without due care and attention”. This seems to be to be a classic case – not seeing the light, and hence not obeying it in timely fashion, (attention) and towing an overloaded trailer (due care)
Wate.com are another of those sites selling their click data. Because of GDPR, an increasing number of sites are denying access to European visitors, under the guise of “protecting their European visitors data”. It’s easier than implementing proper cookie filtering – and no, “proper filtering” is not linking to a privacy policy which requires the visitor to individually refuse permission for each cookie. It should be “refuse permission to classes of cookies”, defaulted to No Permission, one of which classes should be “advertising”, i.e. tracking, cookies.
Won’t happen, though. The online advertising industry is too addicted to tracking.
G.
edited to add:
GDPR expressly forbids blocking access unless you consent to cookies. Of course, the EU can’t enforce the rule inside its own borders. What hope is there that an American site will be dinged for this?
Not to mention, the UK is no longer part of the EU, even though the GDPR (or the UK version of it) is still part of UK law. How long for is another question.
And the point about enforcement is true for that UK version as well, with large brass knobs on.
Certainly, inspections don’t benefit the owners. Florida is the only state I know of that terminated its inspections. That was after I left in 1972, so I lived inder the boot while I was there. Racket, not Liberty.
1979. A campaign promise of Governor Bob Graham to cut state spending. His Republican opponent, Jack Eckerd, of Eckerd Drugs fame, advocated leaving the inspections in place in the interest of public safety.
Weird how the parties have changed.
Certain counties reinstated inspections requirements for emissions in the 90s (?). I never owned a car that registered anything on those tests, however. Even my decrepit 85 Dodge Colt passed with flying colors.
@rick:
While grateful for the site search function, it isn’t working as well as it might. Currently, it doesn’t show any posts of mine since Jan 13th. I don’t know whether there’s any way to improve this, and if there isn’t, I’ll live with it. What we currently have is far better than nothing. Don’t break it for the sake of the extra ha’porth of tar.
G.
Oof! That’s moving into used car territory.
In Knee-vada, the State Inspection is emissions only. Now, back in Texas, more detailed *safety* inspections are required. I had mine done at Jiffy Lube, which shows you how valuable that inspection is. MrsAtoz’s relatives routinely pay under the table to get their junkers passed throughout Tejas.
Welcome to the dumbest generation in decades.
Following up on the Hive Minds earlier posts on education. Our 11 year old granddaughter is having problems in *virtual* school in Knee-vada, again. I guess teachers unions are pushing virtual school to totally destroy our next generation. No books are issued. Just watch some crone screeching on the ‘puter. No feedback to parents. Just a call at the end of a grading period: “Your kid is getting F’s”. There is not much you can do at that point. MrsAtoz is going to take her for a week and monitor her habits to see what her mom is/isn’t doing. To add on a level of crazy, granddaughters mom just got certified to teach K-12 in Knee-vada. I’m not sure what is going on, but lockdowns are destroying our kids.
I guess teachers unions are pushing virtual school to totally destroy our next generation.
The teachers didn’t want to be in the classroom this year.
The Catholic school near our house is undergoing a major expansion. They resumed in-person classes in August on schedule.
–something to consider wrt any disaster planning.
n
In Knee-vada, the State Inspection is emissions only. Now, back in Texas, more detailed *safety* inspections are required. I had mine done at Jiffy Lube, which shows you how valuable that inspection is. MrsAtoz’s relatives routinely pay under the table to get their junkers passed throughout Tejas.
Jiffy Lube near my house (North Austin/Round Rock/Cedar Park) stopped doing the inspections for a while so I found another place to get my 20 year-old Solara passed without anyone fussing about the minute power steering leak.
I had more trouble getting my newer Camry through inspection this year because of the parking brake requiring a lot of force on the pedal to engage properly.
Yeah, it’s a lot. Probably around 1/3 the value of the vehicle.
It really is a racket. First, that the inspections are so picky. Then, it’s said that they are a lot pickier if you bring your own car to the inspection point. So you pay the garage to take it in.
I wouldn’t try to “fix” the springs myself – not worth the time and pain, since I don’t have a lift. And at least that’s something I can see and believe, even if “rust on springs” ought to be a total non-issue.
The one item I just don’t quite believe is replacing the front to brake discs, because they are warped. The pads need replaced, I believe that. But warped discs? Seems to me that I would feel that when braking…
Otherwise, two new tires, and the whole car including engine and underbody must be freshly washed before the inspection, and paying the garage to do the presentation.
That sounds like Obola’s *shovel ready* jobs racket.
A Large US Military Convoy Rolled Into Syria On 1st Day Of Biden Presidency
Go plugs! Note the tweet midway “Syrian oil wells that are under the USA occupation”. I don’t know if this is true, but why not? Keep Syria’s oil flowing while choking off the FUSA’s and forcing the “Green New Deal” down our throats.
LOL! There is a video of little kids and wimmenz watching The Camel getting sworn in and crying. It is so staged and fake. A preview of how the MSM is going to treat HeelsUp ™ HARRIS/plugs for the next four years. Once their admin starts effing up, it is going to be funny watching plugs’ reaction when reporters start questioning him. “C’mon, Man, that’s a bunch of malarkey”.
California officials don’t want to ‘confuse and potentially mislead’ the public by releasing virus data
You can’t even make this stuff up. You sheeple are stoooopid! No data for you!
Dear Mr B thanks for supporting the Democrats
https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/22/22244413/amazon-union-vote-decision-appeal-alabama-us-labor-board
and this too
https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/21/22242676/instacart-firing-every-union-employee-coronavirus-pandemic
Springs are one of the most highly stressed parts on the car, and when one breaks it can instantly shred the tire, perhaps sending you spinning off a mountain road and into a chasm. So rusting springs isn’t a trivial matter.
And if you cease inspections (what we call an MOT test) you’ll have even more idiots driving unroadworthy vehicles, and quite possible causing accidents, or even killing people.
Two different issues. First, idiots. Very hard to fix hooman nature. Don’t even want to discuss that. Second, at least here in the US, “safety” inspections have not demonstrated any effectiveness in accident prevention. Yes, common sense would seem to indicate that they should, but there have been studies (perhaps flawed) that fail to show effectiveness. I will be the first to criticize the studies, but it would be hard to conduct a valid study. All studies I have seen simply collect data from nearby jurisdictions, one with and one without inspections. I have heard about, but have not read, studies of before and after data where inspection programs have been started. I believe these also fail to show any significant improvement.
Perhaps most telling are accident post mortems. I have read a couple studies done on cars in junkyards, and the number of failures that caused or contributed to the accident that killed the car was insignificant. The critical systems in modern cars are very reliable. Oh, sure, some things wear out and fail, but these are rarely related to accidents. It is usually the loose nut behind the wheel.
Regarding searching here – yeah, it’s not very useful. You only get a short description of posts that contain your search terms. And there is no excerpt of the text that actually shows the search term. So, not very useful. But it was free.
I did look (once) at other search plugins, and they aren’t very useful either.
A search via the googles/bings/ducks shows better results. I use a search term like this:
bypass panel site:ttgnet.com
…which provides useful results. Although that depends on when the site was last ‘crawled’ by the googles/bings/ducks. It’s probable that the search results won’t included all the comments in the past couple-three days.
Springs in cars are now covered in plastic. Only, the plastic on ours has cracks, so the metal spring is exposed and therefore rusty.
Springs are one of the most highly stressed parts on the car, and when one breaks it can instantly shred the tire, perhaps sending you spinning off a mountain road and into a chasm. So rusting springs isn’t a trivial matter.
Agreed, but covering them with plastic is a formula for disaster. I had not heard of this, so looked it up. Perhaps it is just a type of vinyl paint or powder coating. For decades, coil springs, leaf springs, and torsion bars were left “natural,” protected by the oxides caused by heat treatment. In benign climates, they would not rust, but in corrosive environments they would rust uniformly. Surface rust is not a problem, but if a coating covers most of the spring and has a few cracks, corrosion can be concentrated in that area. Failure can result, but is pretty rare. There are hundred year old cars with their original springs.
Springs can be enclosed in a grease bath, and in fact old leaf springs were done that way until it was shown to be unnecessary. Various metallic platings can work, and so can powder coating, but again this is not usually necessary, and is another thing to fail with potentially worse consequences than nothing.
I submit that this “rusty spring” is just another inspection myth put forward by bureaucrats who know nothing about engineering. What do they do about the cast iron brake discs? Insist they be replaced with stainless ones like on motorcycles? Good luck with that. Motorcycle discs are usually stainless but it took years of development to design alloys and compatible friction materials that worked as well as cast iron.
@SteveF
My keyboard should be locked out in the morning until the breathalyzer shows proper caffeine level.
@JimF
NC did a study some years ago.
Agree with your assessment–spring rust is not a safety concern.
@Brad
Ask the shop for the brake rotor inspection results. They should have runout actual and allowed (about 0.05 mm)
Warped rotors are a racket. The manufacturers have sacrificed the weight to the point where a good firm (not panic) stop will warp the rotor, and there’s not enough metal to machine them. But ask anyway.
@Brad
Ask the shop for the brake rotor inspection results. They should have runout actual and allowed (about 0.05 mm)
Yup. You can guess the answer. Further: warped rotors are not (much) of an issue if the calipers slide in their mounts (piston(s) all on one side of the caliper.) Fixed calipers with opposing pistons are more susceptible. Most modern cars have sliding calipers. Thickness variations in the disc are another issue, and much more important. Easiest way to measure: slowly apply the brake on a smooth road, going from very light to heavier. Any pulsation in the pedal or surging of the car is a suspicion of thickness variation. Check discs with a micrometer. Replace in left and right pairs.
Rotors can be machined, but it is usually about the same price to just replace them. Most rotors are now made in China, the world’s foundry. Probably why they are so cheap. No EPA there.
When the van went for inspection last year, I had the oil changed too. Lots of “oh woe, you need new rear brake rotors”. Yeah, ok, but not today.
The rotors do have a few grooves. Like mechanical pencil lead size. What do you expect when living a mile of dirt down from the paved road? The front rotors are the same.
Now…. way back when, when I didn’t know better, the Cordoba’s brakes made squealing noises. Yep, wore the pad rivets into the rotors. So much for the little gizmo that’s suppose to make noise before the rivets become part of the braking surface.
The fix was silly expensive and just a bit less if using junkyard rotors. I mean, I’m making $5 an hour, and two weeks pay?
I slapped on new pads. They wore in just fine.
What will the States do about plugs’ EO on transQWERTY allowing biological males competing in female sports? Surely a coalition will sue? I’m glad all my daughters are out of HS. Do we really want boys using the girls bathrooms and locker rooms? Are the States that dependent on Federal $$ that public school can’t make it? Where are the pussyhats? Where are the feminists?
I slapped on new pads. They wore in just fine.
True. There is no need to “turn” or resurface rotors in any way if they worked fine before new pads. Back in the day of asbestos pads, the rotor could take on a very smooth or “glazed” surface. New pads could be noisy without deglazing, but usually weren’t. A simple cure was to scuff sand the rotor surface with 240-400 grit aluminum oxide paper by hand or similar with a small disc in a drill. I favored the hand method as less chance of producing thickness variations.
Nowadays, there is no asbestos. We call the new stuff “next-bestos.” The semi-metallic or ceramic pads do not need deglazed rotors. The old pads leave a scrubbed or even galled surface as you have noted. The new pads are so rough that they scrub the rotors of any glaze. I have one car with almost 200k miles, bought with about 36k miles. Since I have had it, it has had several new front pad sets. Never did anything other than change ’em. It is a good idea (but probably unnecessary) to make gentle stops for about ten miles with new pads. That’s enough break-in. The rear brakes are drum, and the shoes are original. They have about 0.02″ to the rivets, so they should last the rest of the car’s life.
BTW, those scratches you see on your rotors are not (usually) the result of dirt roads. They are caused by the pad material galling the cast iron. Pads vary tremendously now that brakes have been downsized to save weight. I have had some pads that were horrible, and swapped them for better ones. Unfortunately, no way to tell before buying them, other than reviews. Those bad pads rumbled on moderate to hard stops. Swapped to “better” ones, and silence. Rotors also smoothed out. Some pads wear the cast iron as much as the pads. And, paying more doesn’t necessarily get better pads. Crapshoot.
Had just as much trouble with the one motorcycle I owned that had disc brakes. In that case, I sawed a groove in the pad lining to cure noise. How did I know? It was a British bike (Triumph,) and the service manual suggested this. The British knew how to write good service and owners manuals. It is almost as if they were native English speakers. 😉
Makes sense.
They are the factory pads. The van is a 2004 with all of 52,000 miles. Might be a Ford thing.
They are the factory pads. The van is a 2004 with all of 52,000 miles. Might be a Ford thing.
Or maybe not. I doubt many auto manufacturers make their own pads. Our newest car is a 2006 Chrysler Town & Country. It has 93k miles, and started life owned by a company that had the dealer maintain it. The brake pads (this one has four wheel disc brakes) were replaced by the dealer; that’s all the CarFax shows. Most dealers use OEM parts. These brakes rumble just a little on hard stops, but the galling is minor. They do produce a lot of “brake dust.” I will eventually replace the pads with something better, but it is way down my list. They might even wear out first.
I will agree that original parts, the ones that were installed at the factory, are usually very good. The manufacturers have an incentive to use components that are good. They also have the ability to specify and test samples before committing to a supplier, and periodically. The aftermarket, and this includes some stuff in OEM boxes purchased from the dealer, varies. Some independent brands are very good, and some not. Tomorrow, the parts in the box might be different. There is no certainty. Don’t take my word for this. Somewhere, the Car Wizard did a whole video on parts. He decried the state of affairs. As a mechanic, his reputation and success depend on good parts. He said had no secrets, just general guidelines. No take-away. YMMV. Good until you drive out the door. Etc. Too bad, I wish there was better advice.
Oh, and no one auto manufacturer has consistently excellent parts, not even Rolls Royce. I mention them, because they were once the epitome of goodness and satisfaction (that ought to stir up some RR lovers/haters.) The Car Wizard buys RR parts from the aftermarket because he trusts it more than RR. Sad, but true. In fact, he said he buys very few OEM parts, but for various reasons including cost and quick delivery. Nothing is simple. Remember that the next time you take your car to the dealer or the guy on the corner.
Oh wait. Some will say they have excellent experience with their favorite shop. Great. Remember, a good shop is like a good dentist. If you find one, treasure it and go back. Often.
Please CMIIW but I believe these are true hearing aids and not just amplifiers. Starting at $700/pair.
From their FAQ – just need to sign their waiver:
Federal law restricts the sale of hearing aids to those individuals who have obtained a medical evaluation from a licensed physician. Federal law also permits a fully informed adult to sign a medical waiver statement declining the medical evaluation.
https://www.ihearmedical.com/
I’m sure not as full-featured as some costing a lot more but perhaps better than nothing for those in need but with limited funds.
Now who needs a cognitive test?
https://nypost.com/2021/01/22/schumer-says-senators-will-decide-if-trump-incited-erection/
Psst, Chuck, the answer to the last question is always “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.”
A new government requirement that eats an hour of your time – the government owes you that hour, or equivalent cash
As in doing income taxes each year. I spend probably about 10 hours doing my taxes. Could probably do it in 5 hours if I was sloppy. But being sloppy with the IRS has ramifications, unless the error is the favor of the IRS. There should be a line item credit on the forms for time spent doing the forms. At some common rate, say $50.00 an hour.
Just wait until you have to fill out the new Federal Wealth Tax (Federal Property Tax) paperwork. Everything you own will need to be listed and valued. Including your bank and IRA account.
I submit that this “rusty spring” is just another inspection myth put forward by bureaucrats who know nothing about engineering. What do they do about the cast iron brake discs? Insist they be replaced with stainless ones like on motorcycles?
Brake discs are made with plenty of extra thickness, whereas with springs if you tried to make them thicker to reduce the stresses you’d make them too stiff.
Now, I’m not arguing this is worth getting the government involved. I read at one point that the state of New Jersey was the only state in the US to mandate wheel bearing inspection and that as a result more wheel bearings were replaced in New Jersey than in all of the other states combined. Still, when I found the springs rusting on my car a few years ago, I got curious, did a search and found plenty of stories of broken coil springs, probably having a lot to do with corrosion, and decided that $80 for a pair of new springs was worth the peace of mind. Now, it did sound like at least 90% of the time the broken spring didn’t cause any actual problems: the break is usually close to the top or the bottom (where most of the rust was on mine) and nothing much happens as a result of it. And that’s Internet pricing; retail pricing, as in what a mechanic will charge you, could easily be twice that. Then maybe double that number again to include labor, which in my case I was doing anyway so didn’t enter into the equation. (You don’t usually need a lift to replace springs, but do need a spring compressor, plus enough savvy to use it safely.) Add in the cost of inspections and the usual government ****, and I can easily see it not being worth it.
But from an engineering perspective it’s a complicated thing: the issue isn’t just rust eating through the spring the way it would eat through any other piece of steel but also stress corrosion cracking, where being under constant stress (as car springs are, even when parked) accelerates the corrosion at the tip of the crack, or at least can do so with some steels (especially with chlorides around).
By the way, I think that when brake discs warp the first time they get a bit of heat in them, it’s because of the manufacturer shipping them with built-in stresses due to poor heat treatment. Heat them up and some of the stresses get relieved while others remain, so the disc warps.
Hey did someone mention that they needed ball wide mouth lids and rings? They are in my grocery store, and I can send some if you want…
n
I think it was Jenny and regular lids, Nick.
But with the scarcity of the regulars, getting 5-6 dozen of the wide mouth and then being on the lookout for jars would be an option.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9112391/Larry-King-dies-age-87-poor-Brooklyn-kid-legendary-TV-host-conducted-50-000-interviews.html
–I guess keeping the vulnerable isolated at home doesn’t work that well… nor does locking them up under house arrest at care homes either for that matter.
I never cared much for Larry King, but then I don’t really get talk shows. I care very little about what some celebrity has to say.
n
We’ve got jars too.
n
Huh, what changed?
–‘cuz some of us have known this since forever….
n
“That thing in your pocket is a weapon being used against you”
https://gunfreezone.net/that-thing-in-your-pocket-is-a-weapon-being-used-against-you/
“A D.C. woman said an agent visited her neighbor and called her, telling them investigators were tracking people whose cell phones connected to wi-fi or pinged cell phone towers near the Capitol during the riots.”
Almost as if it was planned.
“Biden Suspends Federal Oil and Gas Permits, Because Climate Change”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/21/biden-suspends-federal-oil-and-gas-permits-because-climate-change/
“(Reuters) – The Biden administration has temporarily suspended oil and gas leasing and permitting on federal lands and waters while it evaluates the legal and policy implications of the program, according to a Department of Interior memo.”
“So what do you do if you are a soon to be unemployed fossil fuel worker? Biden has a plan – Biden thinks you should “learn to code”, get a job with a big tech company.”
What an asshole !
Seven states don’t require any inspections. Two do only under certain circumstances, a number only require a VIN inspection if you bring a car in from out of state, a few only have the federal emissions tests.
Home from my errands. Started to get heavy mist when the sun went down. Overcast during the day but no rain.
Shipley’s donuts for breakfast. Low carb power bar for lunch. Leftover chinese for dinner. Kings.
n
“First Look: Southeast Dallas’ Shipping Container Housing Project”
https://www.dmagazine.com/commercial-real-estate/2021/01/first-look-southeast-dallas-shipping-container-housing-project/
“Designed by Merriman Anderson Architects, the project is repurposing 300 square-foot shipping containers into 19 one-bedroom affordable apartments.”
Future design of a PRC, public residential complex. Except no new paint, no parking lot, no parking lot, no HVAC, etc. Hopefully electricity and clean water though.
$900 per month for 300 sqft?
The house next door to me was bringing only $1850 for 2400 sqft in a nice residential neighborhood.
n
$900 per month for 300 sqft?
The house next door to me was bringing only $1850 for 2400 sqft in a nice residential neighborhood.
n
You gotta pay extra to live in a hot rusty metal box in Texas.
My wife is charging $750/month for each of her 2 bedroom / 1 bathroom 700 ft2 duplexes in Dallas. They are over 100 years old now.
““Release Them All, Immediately” – Joe Biden Orders ICE Agents to Release All Illegal Aliens in Custody”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/release-immediately-joe-biden-orders-ice-agents-release-illegal-aliens-custody/
“In Joe Biden’s first day in office, the Department of Homeland Security issued a sweeping directive to ‘halt all deportations’ for 100 days.”
“However, Joe Biden took further action to release illegal aliens in custody; it was not mentioned in his order to halt deportations.”
“An internal email to ICE officers reveals Joe Biden ordered more than 14,000 illegal aliens in custody to be released.”
Elections have consequences. Of course, if Biden was a repuglican, the federal laws would apply here.
Yeah but who pays that rent? Not the person living there. They get taxpayer help to meet that price and get a sh!tty place to live. The landlord makes good money and probably makes a wonderful donation to the politicians that helped make it happen.
Maybe I have a sh!tty mood this week.
A few of you mention what you’ve been reading.
I’ve been reading the Harvard Bookshelf. I expect to skip several items because I’ve previously read them and maybe a few that interest me not at all. Other than that my plan is to chew through it from beginning to end, taking however long it takes.
Ben Franklin’s autobiography: Interesting. Should be intelligible to any American. (“Should be”. Given the appalling public school education which most Americans receive, I wouldn’t bet much on anyone under 50 having the background knowledge to understand it. -grimace-)
John Woolman’s journal: Not all that interesting. I didn’t know beforehand who John Woolman was and read only a two-paragraph biography I found online. That wasn’t enough to give me much of a feel for why I should care about this guy’s journeys hither and yon, leaving his wife and family behind as he pushed abolition of slavery and a few other causes. Also, the version of English he used was sometimes hard to make out because some words have changed meaning in the past couple centuries. In principle I could read a fuller biography of the dude and learn some more about the people and situations around him and then reread his journal and get more out of it. In practice, it’s not happening.
William Penn’s thoughts on many subjects: Interesting. Recommended. There’s a lot of good advice there. A few clunkers, too, because of philosophical differences or changing times. And also a few items that I couldn’t make any sense out of, on account of language difficulties.
Currently on Plato’s/Socrates’s Apologia, which I’ve read several times before but which is worth a reread.
I’ve also read a bit of fiction, a few short stories and novellas. Plus one short novel which ended abruptly, apparently to be continued in volume 2, which may appear someday, and which annoyed me because there was no advance indication that this was not a complete story. Plus, interleaved with reading the Harvard collection, so far the first few chapters of Donald Hoffman’s Case Against Reality, which is interesting and conceivably important but of little practical value in day-to-day life.
Anyway, that’s all the leisure reading for the past two or three months. I may have mentioned a time or two that I’ve been busy.
EDIT: Rick, the plugin which adds the “tag” to the Amazon link has a glitch. It mangled the “a href” tag, by itself or in combination with the comment editor plugin. I think I hand-edited the link back into shape.
“According to Breitbart News, 71.45% of the illegals currently in custody are convicted criminals and a danger to society.”
It does not say how many of the 14,000 are violent criminals. But based on recent history, it will be a matter of weeks before one of those released commits murder.
Sometimes the weirdness of the world needs to be celebrated.
https://youtu.be/7RujKG9hmCY?t=767
Traditional mongolian band playing in china “Santa and Jinglebells”. Their music is very nice and surprisingly accessible.
n
Yeah but who pays that rent? Not the person living there. They get taxpayer help to meet that price and get a sh!tty place to live. The landlord makes good money and probably makes a wonderful donation to the politicians that helped make it happen.
No more Section 8 for us. They trash the house and do not pay their portion of the rent. We only rent to people who can pay the full amount on their own. I have cleaned my last rent house after the Section 8 tenant left unannounced and could be bothered to take the trash out for the last month or three. Dozens of garbage bags full of writhing cockroaches that you carry to the curb, feeling them run around inside the bags.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing)
I’m getting periodic audio glitches during youtube playback. It was a problem before, then went away, and is back. This is on my main machine, win8.2, in ffox. I’ve tried updating ff.
I suspect that something else is causing the playback glitch because when it happens page scrolling freezes, and mouse movement freezes. SOMETHING is basically locking up the whole pc for a split second every 15 or 30 seconds. It’s not regular.
Windows logs the audio glitches..
KS Endpoint Glitch: BASE Output Unexpected Buffer Completed: pCAudioBasePin=[0x3f4ce102b0] LockedDataPointer=[0x3f4cb40100] bLockedEqualsUnrolled=[false]
KS Endpoint Glitch: RTREN WritePos Exceeds TotalPos yadda yadda….
Roughly 30 seconds apart in the log, can be less.
Anyone got any ideas where to look?
As I said, I think the audio glitches because of something else….
n
I’m getting periodic audio glitches during youtube playback. It was a problem before, then went away, and is back. This is on my main machine, win8.2, in ffox. I’ve tried updating ff.
I had to put audio boards in both of the home PCs last year due to their motherboard audios failing.
https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Blaster-Audigy-Performance-Headphone/dp/B00EO6X4XG/?tag=ttgnet-20
or
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EO6X7PG/ (I bought this one for both)
I actually think it’s something else hammering the machine. The audio glitching is just a symptom. The mouse freezes momentarily and so does a page scroll (If I’m doing either thing when it happens.)
n
How old is the CPU? How much memory?
Windows is bloatware. FF too.
@Nick
You could try running task manager and see if you see a spike in CPU or memory.
Performance & Resource Monitor might show the culprit.
Also check temps.. https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html
FF always used a lot of memory for me. Currently using Brave and it’s much lower.
I’ve been watching the Resource Monitor and while there is often a spike on network, it’s not very big, and doesn’t show what caused the spike.
While looking at running processes, I see that windows search indexer is loaded and running. Even though I’ve got search indexing de-selected on every drive. And I notice something from MS, xboxstat, which a bit of googling reveals as a massive resource hog for some people. All it does is gather usage stats when someone uses and xbox controller with their pc. Except that that can’t REALLY be all, or it wouldn’t need a whole processor to itself as some people experience. It wasn’t using much, but I killed it anyway.
And the glitches were still happening.
So I rebooted, and there were several windows that took a while to close, but only popped up briefly – too briefly for me to see what owned them. Maybe something going on there.
After rebooting, with the xboxstat process killed, I’m not getting any glitching.
Who knows how long it will last this time, but at least for now I can listen to music again, and there aren’t any annoying pauses in moving the mouse.
I wish I knew if that was the issue or if it was just coincidence.
n
maybe it’s time to try Brave again. It’s been three years since I gave it a shot, according to Add/remove programs.
n
Nick, your problem describes my experience with Mint. Every so often, Thunderbird would go wild and saturate the system for about ten minutes. Everything else, even on the other three cores, slowed way down. Also, whenever I started up from Hibernate (or a full restart,) the file search indexer saturated the system for a few minutes, even though I never used it and had it turned off. I was afraid to kill it. I had enough trouble with stability.
Been using Windows 10 for over a month, and so far no issues. Very low resource usage and solid stability. Need more time to get used to it, and then I will do a brief report here.
Using Win10 on one work and 3 of my own PCs. Very few problems I can recall over the last 6 months that are not the fault of some other software running on the PC, and that is typically on the work PC (I work for a bank, so god only knows how much security software is running in the background).
As for recent reading (we are locked-down up here in Ontario until early February) so other than work not much else to do. I have finished re-reading all my William Gibson, from Neuromancer right through the Bigend trilogy (9 books). worth the re-read as I picked-up details I missed the first time though. I am now reading “The Black Swan”. A good read for anyone who preps as it is all about low-probability but high impact events – essentially what you prep for. About 1/3 of the way through. He has personal experience of this: Lebanon (the Levant) was relatively peaceful for 1300 years. Then in seemingly an instant, it turned into war-wracked mess.