Cold and damp, but supposed to be clear today. Had all the weather yesterday- warm, cold, windy, wet, sunny, and dry… Just depended on where and when you were.
I did my pickups without incident. Stopped by my auctioneer and got approval to bring stuff by today. I’ll have to go to my storage unit and load up… and clear out the foyer. That will make the wife happier, as GS cookie season is going to start soon, and SHE’LL need the space.
—————–
I’ve decided that I can’t arm wave it away anymore- I’ve got an animal living in my wall in the laundry room. It pushed the dryer vent out to get access, or maybe to escape when I initially walled it in with the poison blocks, a couple of months ago. It’s coming and going freely, and hasn’t died, so I’m betting on possum, not rat, at this point. It’s driving the dog nuts. I didn’t want to believe it, because I couldn’t figure out how it got in the wall alive, but now that I know the vent has been compromised, it makes sense.
Time to move and bait the live trap again. Then fix the vent.
—————–
Probably time to do the bug spray around the foundation too.
—————-
Nothing to report from the dentist visit, except that he’s planting 1 acre of veg garden this year. That’s at his country property. He runs some cattle too, probably for the ag exemption on property tax. He’s still got woods when all the surrounding wind break wooded patches are being turned into housing, so he’s getting all the deer. He’s got a ‘herd’ on his land now, and a problem with poachers. If the trucks stop rolling, his problem will briefly get very intense, then there won’t be any more deer for the poachers to poach. Which is, btw, what I expect to happen anywhere there are rifles and pickup trucks, good ol boys and deer.
Given their nature, there should still be pigs.
—————–
Since I don’t hunt, or fish, or garden, at least not with any real success, I’m stacking cans.
Do I need to mention that you should too?
nick
Since Musk told Iger to go f*ck himself.
The media created The Real Life Tony Stark (TM). They know where he is vulnerable.
There isn’t any such thing as a “harmless” drug. I recently watched weed gummies destroy a friend’s marriage, a club at the temple organizing the buying trips to Vegas.
No one has specified what is meant by “loose”. Is the bolt really loose, as in can be easily rotated, or as in torqued to 48 pounds versus 50 pounds?
It means the workers don’t care. Unions, where worker performance is based on the least capable worker.
Tyler Durden cowardice probably protecting someone big at the AJC.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/georgia-trump-prosecutor-accused-secret-disqualifying-romance-da-fani-willis
Ah, Atlanta. So many “feet of clay” in that city among the icons, especially the males.
Of course, Georgia Libertarians and “Republicans” gave us the mess in the Senate “voting their conscience”.
42F and windy this am… chilly willie at the bus stop. Sun is out and the sky is clear, so that is good.
And coffee is being metabolized as I sit here.
Looks like the start of a good day.
n
So I’m troubleshooting a TV for my client. It’s a “Roku” tv, made by TCL and sold by Costco. In place, it was doing what we might call “boot looping”, where it would start up, display image and sound, then black out and start up again… repeatedly. Not technically boot looping because it made it to picture, and the timing was random.
I haven’t been able to see the problem with it connected in my living room. Internal menus and streaming have worked fine. So I decide I need to see source on the input that was in use at my client’s place. Hah. I’ve got DOZENS of things I can connect, but most are not within reach so I grab a box of Amazon FireTV sticks and Roku boxes.
Programmers are F’ing idiots. Amazon FireTV number one… boots, then pops up a screen telling me about all the wonderful things I can now do with Alexa and my stick… with a continue button. EXCEPT THAT it doesn’t time out and continue if the button isn’t clicked. And I don’t have the remote (blutooth) that was paired with the stick. And I CAN”T pair a new remote because I have to click “continue” to get past the [on startup display…] popup. F me that is some stupid shite there. Unusable device because the programmer never considered that the remote might be different or unavailable.
External Roku stick number one… Boots, asks to pair a remote, succeeds, continues to boot. Asks to connect to wifi, does so, updates, reboots, and starts up fine. Streaming works. But I get ambitious, D/L the media player, and point it at my server. THREE DAYS LATER. (literally, not just a meme) it is 26% progressed of doing something, presumably reading my server’s directory and preparing to list the music and videos on there. This is nuts. My other Roku stick takes about 45 seconds to read the video directory and display the titles. Network issue? Firmware issue? Something else? No way to know. And once started, it either has to finish, or it will start over the next time you select the player. Gah.
I think I will have to find a DVD or bluray player and connect that to get an external source that isn’t streaming. Should have been simple. Connect streaming device, stream. Yeah, not so much.
nick
Loose bolt as in nut is a couple of threads away from dropping off.
Link is to picture from Reddit /aviation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1920gmt/photo_of_the_loosened_bolts_found_on_a_united/
Reference Bottom right of door plug.
Ah, torqued to 0.5 inch ounces. Was the loose bolt due to union labor at its finest, where the quality of work is at the level of the poorest performing worker, who cannot be fired. Or was the loose bolt due to vibration? The other bolt is tight so I would think not. Or on the other side of the support piece, there is a nut that was not properly safety wired. Or did the bolts stretch because some supplier is using inferior material (chineseum supplier)? There are two loose bolts in the picture, one that looks tight, and a safety wired bolt which is a movement limiting bolt. a total of four bolts in the picture.
And the very top center of the picture.
Do we know what happened to Lloyd Austin yet? It is more disconcerting to me that the Chain of Command didn’t know Austin was in the IC than it wasn’t in the news. We know the LSM plays down any negativity in the news about the current administration. The SecDef is a critical lind in the NDA.
Probably an SMB disconnect if you are running a new-ish version of Windows on the server. SMB 1.0 has been turned off by defaut in Windows.
Even Samba on Linux disables 1.0 by default as of late.
In theory, the newer versions should be backwards compatible, but that’s in theory.
I have to enable SMB 1.0 on my W11 systems to access the shared network access on my ASUS router. The newer versions of SMB being compatible with older versions is a myth.
>> Do we know what happened to Lloyd Austin yet?
Complications with his/her gender reassignment surgery??
Shoulda used one of them Tony Rockets (TM) ..,
A NASA-funded robotic lunar mission that would have returned the US to the moon’s surface for the first time since 1972 appears to be in jeopardy due to a fuel leak that developed shortly after the private spacecraft’s successful launch (yesterday.)
CYA…
The company says it’s looking at “alternative mission profiles” and “maximizing the science and data we can capture.”
Hey guys, any loose bolts?
The launch was also the inaugural flight of the Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift booster rocket built by the ULA (a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin).
The problem seems to be a fuel leak on the spacecraft itself rather than anything from the rocket itself. Or perhaps the native American tribe that objected to sending human remains to the moon were successful in cursing the craft.
Charleston. Corn Pop knows not to make the press corps. venture too far from Savannah.
The South Carolina Walkin’ ‘Round Money Grab -er- Primary has begun.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-at-black-church-says-republicans-are-trying-to-steal-history/ar-AA1mDw48
Rudder? That’s not important, right??
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-urges-737-max-inspections-possible-loose-bolt-faa-2023-12-28/
Ohh, 2013…so last week…
Coming soon…Tom Hanks in “Apollo 13 Redux”… Only in theaters.
The school is working on its “strategy” for the next 10 years. I was asked for my comments (probably along with a zillion other people). The document is full of endless buzzwords and flowery adjectives. Maybe 1/10 of it has anything to do with actually educating students. The rest is mostly BS. The management priorities are also all too clear: They want to grow faster than other schools, while keeping cost per student lower than other schools. Quantity over quality, which (imho) is exactly wrong.
Yup. The problem is the huge demand for software, and the relatively small number of actually competent software people. Not only programmers, but also requirements analysts (that’s who should have caught the thing about not having a remote) and testers (ditto). Plus, of course, managers who need to understand that decent quality software takes time and costs money.
The all new iPhone Ironman Edition, sponsored by Timex…
https://jalopnik.com/still-working-cell-phone-other-items-from-midair-alask-1851148258
>> The document is full of endless buzzwords and flowery adjectives.
And how many times did they mention AI?
I just received my settlement from the lawsuit against Apple for replacing iPhones sent in for warranty repair with refurbished units. I got a check for $92. I had to send in my iPhone 6S to replace the battery. What I got back was a refurbished phone in better shape than what I sent in to Apple. The replacement onIy took three days. fail to see the issue. Had Apple repaired my phone, it would have been effectively a refurbished phone, same as what I got sent back. I fail to see the issue with the lawsuit except for leach lawyers. Anyway, I applied and got my check. The lawyers got a much bigger check.
Catching up after a trip to Laguna Nigel (south of LA) for my older brother’s funeral. (Acute luekemia: diagnosed on a Thursday, gone on Saturday.) Nice funeral (funny memories from the kids), and got to see all the siblings (all 9 of us were there ). Plus lots of my brother’s children and their kids, whose names I will not remember. Long drive home – two days, about 20 hours total. But weather held to just cloudy and drizzly; I was between storms, so just a few inches of snow on the ground around Mt Shasta and north. Big snow on Saturday night, but roads were mostly dry by today.
Trip had a few interesting things happen. We brought along the wife’s power chair (I was overruled when I said to leave it at home, as there wouldn’t be much need for it during the short trip. But, it was loaded on the back on the powered wheelchair lift that hooks onto the 2″ hitch.
Noticed at one of the rest stops that the platform was sagging – it should be parallel to the ground for clearance. Got to Euguene OR for a gas stop, and while exiting the freeway, the bottom frame started bending so the back end hit the roadway. Two blocks to the gas station and it was fully dragging.
Unloaded the chair, and stored it in the hotel lobby next door (with permission). Quick trip to Target (it was nearest) and got a set of four ratchet straps. MacGyvered the straps to hold the platform vertical. That worked so we could stop in Roseville CA (near Sacramento) to drop off the chair at youngest daughter’s house, then continued with the lift stored in vertical position. The welded joint had rusted/failed/cracked with the weight of the chair. Was able to load it up for the trip home with the ratchet straps for support.
Repair will require some welding. Or maybe a replacement. You can often find used hitch-mount power lift wheelchair ‘racks’ for much less that the $2500 of a new one. Our current one was used, and has lasted 10 years. Not sure if welding a metal patch plus re-doing the broken/cracked connection will be worth it. More research upcoming.
Forecast for a couple of inches of snow here at home (Olympic Peninsula WA) Fri/Sat.
But I digress….
Anyhow – the ‘catching up’ part relates to Nick’s Targus bag failure. I recall that Targus has lifetime replacement on their bags. Get to their website, and email them with details and get a new equivalent bag. I did that once about 5 years ago with minimal hassle.
@Ray – regarding iPhones – apparently they are quite sturdy: one fell out o f that plane, and was found in OR. Survived a 16,000 foot drop:
Story here.
(Heh – ‘in airplane mode’ …)
“It’s not the drop, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”
-Tom Horn
Gee, how did you guess?
Heck, they have even started a new bachelor’s degree “business AI”. Dumb, if you ask me, but there you go…
Development managers in Austin? Good luck with that.
Roku has their name a building about mid-way between Downtown and my house. It may be a writeoff, however, like a lot of big companies’ offices and even the Army with their “Futures” Command.
Qualcomm used to be in the same building with an actual engineering staff, but Apple picked them clean of any real talent ~ 2017, when Cupertino got serious about ARM.
Garlic and a few other things can grow botulism at sous vide temperatures. There are ways to get around it, but for longer cooks it can be hard.
Companies are spending insane amounts of money on the hardware.
Any tech which may allow management to fire people gets attention.
I casually looked up sous vide and garlic. I’ve heard of the botulism problem because sous vide doesn’t use high heat and is on the edge of just right to make nasty things grow. I don’t know from experience. Sounds like something the folks that hate crock-pots would say.
But mostly, it’s about the flavor. Garlic powder is gonna garlic powder forever in a known way. Fresh garlic in sous vide tastes different. The article didn’t say “bad” just “different”. Just like chopping up or smashing fresh and browning in a bit of oil changes the taste.
You can brown your garlic and onions when making spaghetti sauce or just toss the garlic and onions in raw into the pot with the tomatoes. Different flavors.
No one has specified what is meant by “loose”. Is the bolt really loose, as in can be easily rotated, or as in torqued to 48 pounds versus 50 pounds?
All 737s are made of aluminum. Aluminum has a high coefficient of expansion with regard to temperature. A few cycles of 100 F ground temperature to -40 F at 40,000 feet will cause those bolts to loosen without the proper lock washers and such.
Yes, the better sous-vide recipe sites online will indicate stuff like that, usually as “danger zone” or the like. It makes sense as they don’t want to get sued for food poisoning by a reader.
Think of this way: would you take a piece of steak, put it in a Ziploc, put that on the dash of your truck, with the windows rolled up in Texas in summer, and leave it there all day, and then eat it?
(Sez the man who kinda did that once with a lasagna, and mostly got away with it … but not completely).
Nothing to report from the dentist visit, except that he’s planting 1 acre of veg garden this year. That’s at his country property. He runs some cattle too, probably for the ag exemption on property tax. He’s still got woods when all the surrounding wind break wooded patches are being turned into housing, so he’s getting all the deer. He’s got a ‘herd’ on his land now, and a problem with poachers. If the trucks stop rolling, his problem will briefly get very intense, then there won’t be any more deer for the poachers to poach. Which is, btw, what I expect to happen anywhere there are rifles and pickup trucks, good ol boys and deer.
Given their nature, there should still be pigs.
Much better than long pig. I watched the first hour of the 1972 crash of the rugby team in the Andes mountains last night on Netflix. I won’t watch more. That was rough.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16277242/
Do we know what happened to Lloyd Austin yet? It is more disconcerting to me that the Chain of Command didn’t know Austin was in the IC than it wasn’t in the news. We know the LSM plays down any negativity in the news about the current administration. The SecDef is a critical lind in the NDA.
Prostate cancer complications.
Catching up after a trip to Laguna Nigel (south of LA) for my older brother’s funeral. (Acute luekemia: diagnosed on a Thursday, gone on Saturday.) Nice funeral (funny memories from the kids), and got to see all the siblings (all 9 of us were there ). Plus lots of my brother’s children and their kids, whose names I will not remember. Long drive home – two days, about 20 hours total. But weather held to just cloudy and drizzly; I was between storms, so just a few inches of snow on the ground around Mt Shasta and north. Big snow on Saturday night, but roads were mostly dry by today.
Sorry to hear that. Wow, that was quick.
So you are one of ten, that must have been an interesting upbringing.
My middle brother drove back from Colorado to Texas over the weekend. Raton Pass had eight inches of snow in it, he did not like that at all since he beat the snow plows there. His Jeep Grand Cherokee AWD did good at 30 mph in the snow.
I went through Raton pass when the USAF sent me from Colorado Springs to San Antonio. It was in March of 1973 with a lot of snow. I was doing fine in my VW Beetle until some train with a snow plow on the front, going the opposite direction, parallel to the road, blasted past and blew a large quantity of snow on my vehicle. I wound up going the opposite direction from what I intended. Scary experience with the loss of visibility and spinning. Was it one, or two, times. I don’t know. The roads were no longer cleared in spots from the direction the train came as the snow from the tracks was now on the road. I was able to get turned around and toddle on my way without a need for changing my underwear.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had a procedure for prostate cancer. He was admitted to Walter Reed due to a urinary tract infection some days later. He was in the hospital for EIGHT DAYS. Had one of us mere mortals been afflicted with the same infection, we would have been sent home the same with a prescription for antibiotics. If not by the hospital, at least by the insurance company or Medicare.
That movie is to provide context for the Netflix teen drama “Yellowjackets”.
I figured “Yellowjackets” went away in the purge of “Get Woke Go Broke”.
Melanie Lynsky, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci and actresses playing their younger selves. “Yellowjackets” is supposed to be a teen drama, but I’ll bet a lot of Boomer and X-er Pedo types are watching, which probably explains why it is still around.
“NASA delays 2 Artemis moon missions citing safety concerns”
https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/nasa-artemis-moon-18598838.php
My source says supply chain issues.
“This is how much a Whataburger will cost you outside of Texas”
https://www.chron.com/culture/article/whataburger-prices-rising-18598140.php
“The cost of a Whatameal can exceed $9 in some states.”
All together now … Bidenflation ! ! !
What? SLS needs yet another launch tower?
I swore I remember Juliette Lewis from “Pump Up The Volume”, but that wasn’t her.
Like the other actresses, Lewis is famed for freak show roles, but she was in “Cape Fear” and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”.
“Gilbert Grape” has a really disturbing climax if you find cannibalism a little too cliche. The flick also has Leonardo DiCaprio’s first big role.
Damn. How could I forget Lewis in “Natural Born Killers”.
Lewis on screen invokes that mental image of the ultimate Bad Daddy in “Natural Born Kilers”, portrayed by Rodney Dangerfeld.
Sometimes I wonder if the X-er women with serious cases of TDS don’t see Rodney’s face when they look at Trump.
RIP Jack Roy.
Shoot, save the gasoline and come to Burnet, Texas.
Crappy article with poor editing. But I’ll take a stab and say the authoress was hired for her name and sex.
The price of a burger in 1950 is totally irrelevant fluff to help fill a web page.
>> What? SLS needs yet another launch tower?
Lockwashers.
@Mr. Lynn: Happy anniversary and congratulations on 42 years wedded bliss.
Just got caught up, after lurking for a few days.
That battery likely had a weak cell or was sulfated. If the 10 volts was under light load, it was probably a shorted cell. If it was a heavy load, such as the starter, the battery was sulfated. The voltage under no load can tell which, but in either case, replacement is the only option. 3 years in your climate is pretty common, but that could be doubled. I just got ten years from a flooded battery in my PU. It was two years old when I bought the PU. It developed a shorted cell in spite of good care. Read on.
The main reason for short life is heat. Lead acid batteries were modified to avoid high ambient thermal runaway way back in the 1970s, but that didn’t change the way their lifetime is shortened by high temperatures. Sustained temperatures above ~80F shortens their life from ideal. If a battery is located in the engine compartment, it is exposed to temperatures as high as 200F during hot soak after the engine is shut off. That is a killer. While the car is in motion, air flow and good heat shielding can keep the temperature to only a few degrees above ambient. Can, if there is good cooling design. Note that some cars supply cool ram air to the battery area, and shield the battery from engine heat. Some. One not very convenient thing to do is to open the hood for an hour after the car is parked. Not convenient, and there can be other issues, such as theft. A stolen battery doesn’t work at all for its original owner.
If the battery is in the trunk or somewhere else away from the engine, matters are better, and worse. Yes, no engine heat is good. No, the battery will not cool much below the inside temperature of the car, bad when parking outside in the sun. Notice how semi tractors put their batteries in a box under the cab alongside the frame. They tolerate the longer cables to the starter for a reason. The box sometimes has a reflective barrier to protect from the heat radiated from the pavement, and is shaded from direct sun. This is probably the best possible place for a battery, but it is not practical for passenger vehicles.
The next reason for short life is lack of maintenance. There is no such thing as a maintenance free lead acid battery, when used in modern cars. Charging with a constant regulated and temperature compensated voltage is called float service. The voltage is a compromise, and for reasonable values will result in chronic undercharge and sulfation. Life in this situation will be 2-4 years. The solution is to bring the battery to full charge at least once a month, preferably once a week. Driving cannot do this. This can double the life of the battery. Charging can be done with any of the myriad of little computer controlled automatic chargers. Some are better than others, but I have no recommendations. If the car is driven daily, get a charger that can run through all its cycles in the time the car is available. Ironically, that means you can use one that only puts out an amp if the car is available for several days at a time, but for less than 24 hours, I would recommend one that puts out around 5 amps. More important is that it compensates for temperature and tightly regulates the float voltage after completing the absorption charge, so it can be safely left on the battery for days if desired or forgotten.
Then there is the battery itself. Here, it only matters whether it is flooded or Absorbed Glass Mat (AGM.) Each has slightly different characteristics. The AGM battery is sealed with a pressure relief vent that should not open under normal operation, keeping water at the original amount. If it is overcharged with too much current, the vent can open and water can be lost. This can’t be replaced, so the battery will fail if enough water is lost. The flooded battery can tolerate overcharge and water can be replaced. Note that many flooded batteries, although vented, do not have easily accessible cell caps. However, they can be opened and water added if necessary. Which is better? Tough question. With good care, the AGM battery can last longer than a flooded battery. With abuse, especially overcharging, AGM batteries can die very early. Not a simple tradeoff. Flooded batteries require a little more maintenance, but can tolerate overcharge better.
Why this talk about overcharge, when I said chronic undercharge is the cause of early failure? Avoiding undercharge requires frequent charging, with some overcharge inherent. Also, 12 volt batteries can eventually develop a cell or two that are weaker than the others. The only way to avoid this is to apply an equalizing charge before this happens. This deliberate overcharge will consume some water, which can kill an AGM battery. Flooded batteries can have their cells topped off with distilled water. Equalization is a bit complicated, and beyond this brief discussion, especially with modern cars. It is best avoided. If a cell gets weak, the battery needs to be replaced. Frequent charging with a smart charger can prevent this.
@rick, sorry for your loss, that must have been shocking. I have a chair carrier that has a fold down ramp, new with some shipping scrapes, if you are anywhere near Houston… IDK if by “powered chair lift” you mean a lift for a powered chair, or a lift that is powered… but it is yours if you want it.
@jimB, thanks for the battery info. Haven’t heard from Dadcooks in a long time, despite pings. IIRC he spent time underwater with batteries in the Navy, so used to contribute on the subject. If anyone knows the ins and outs of lead acid batteries, I’d imagine the US Navy sub service does… FWIW I’ve got most of my standby power batteries on a NOCO Genius battery charger/conditioner/maintainer… Time to check on them and rotate stuff around.
n
Sorry for your loss Rick.
Were you Northbound or Southbound when you stopped in Eugene?
If you’re in that part of Oregon and have trouble again, Medford is home to the Lithia dealer group and has a lot of auto infrastructure.
Until recently, however, Eugene did not have Tesla chargers. Target put those in.
The Colonists are coming for Burnet.
@Nick and @Greg: thanks for the kind thoughts. It was quite sudden. He was otherwise healthy and active at 82: a good healthy diet, not overweight, etc. Didn’t think he’d be the first of the 10 siblings to go.
I was southbound at the time of the power trailer platform failure. Stopped at the Arco at the first exit (east side, next to McD’s) on the north side of town. I think there is a Harbor Freight on that main E/W street, but I didn’t see it until leaving. Went to the Target down the street and got the ratchets. Used those to McGyver support to prevent the sag. That got me back on the road.
On the trip back, I put some L-brackets top and bottom at the joint, but they aren’t really heavy-duty enough for support; they bend under the weight of the “Jazzy” power chair. I added the brackets to prevent total detachment at the two joints during the trip home.
As for a replacement lift @Nick – the one I have is a Harmar AL500 (link) , It has four ratchet hooks to hold the chair, and a 12V motor to lift it up/down. Folds up vertical when not in use. Use the 2″ hitch mount, and I already have the 12V wiring direct from the vehicle battery (fused, of course). Has worked well over the last 10 years.
The issue is wear and a bit of rusting out of the frame at the two joints, due to normal flexing as you travel down the road. Started failing on this trip – noticed it ‘sinking’ at one rest stop, and just got worse. Was glad it failed when it did – I would have been stuck on the road – didn’t even have a rope in the car for a temp support. (I thought I had a rope…although I do have a roll of duct tape.)
Appreciate the offer – but it’s a 6 day drive to Houston (did that last spring). And, in the winter. I have chains for the car, but don’t really want to use them. That would be a long trip – and shipping would be expensive due to the weight, I’d think.
I’ll be able to get a welded patch for a temporary fix. And then keep an eye on FB Marketplace and Craigslist for one that is slightly used. Cost will probably be $400-800, as opposed to a new one at $2500. Unless wife’s medical insurance will cover a new one.
Wife is normally stay at home, and we only use the Jazzy about once a month for a shopping trip to Hobby Lobby/etc (her hobby is scrap-booking). Although even those shopping trips are not necessary – she is quite adept at on-line ordering of things. I’ve got literally a ton or two of scrapbook supplies in the upstairs of the house. And she hasn’t been creating scrapbook pages; but that hasn’t stopped her from ordering more stuff. <sigh>
I haven’t mentioned what a revolving p.o.s. Win10 is since last year.
Every time it fails to wake from sleep* I imagine the M.I.B. scene when the jeweler dies and the faceplate pops open to reveal the tiny alien at the controls.
Except it’s Bill Gates sitting at the OS controls abusing himself with a magnifier and tweezers, too busy to take care of business.
*The only key or key combo that produced a response was F7. I assure you that I was relieved to know I could still access caret browsing.
forgot: shift-Send 500 volts to programmer.
@Rick
Condolences. Glad you made the trip safely.
Can’t see much from the photos of the lift at the link. Looks like the tubing has open ends. If true they are probably uncoated inside and allow moisture to enter, as well as road spray containing salt in the season. If I bought such new or used I would disassemble, run a wire brush through the inside, and give it a spray of Galvalume. Squirt an ounce of silicon sealant into the top end of each tube, tape it shut, and stand them on the sealed end to cure. Repeat with the other end before reassembly. If you don’t replace the bolts with stainless, give them a good coat of oil.
If you leave the lift mounted tape the electrical connections. I use 3M Electrical Rubber splicing tape to keep the elements out.
I haven’t mentioned what a revolving p.o.s. Win10 is since last year.
You are going to love Windows 11. Much more of the same with several Apple user interface items ripped off.
I was looking at an online local auction last weekend. The auction date is still more than a week out–one of the rare times I actually looked far enough ahead. (I ran a search for a particular item, then stepped back and looked at the whole auction). Lots of tools and supplies, some hobby stuff that I’m going to watch on the day, and it’s located close enough that I can go to the preview next Sat.
The previous comment about the 3M rubber splicing tape brought the “supplies” part to mind. This particular auction had many topically organized shelves. In addition to tools, lots of supplies like sprinkler parts, hose fittings, cleaners, lubricants, etc. Anything automotive in a spray can is now $4-15. A shelf with a dozen cans can represent over $100 if you go to replace. I was looking at a photo that had two $15 cans of lubricant that were easy to identify. It’s on my list for preview day to do a quick shake to see how much is in those cans. If they’re half full that’s $15 value tight there that saves me that much out of pocket*, so the rest is gravy.
Tapes can offer the same opportunity. The 2″ 3M RST is over $20 a roll. A small box of industrial tape products can easily be over $100.
Same for small hardware. You may be well-stocked but do you have friends and family members that are just starting out? I have a 24 drawer parts cabinet full of fasteners that came to me in an auction bundled with items I wanted. They sell for $35 new, but you can’t get much for a used one. I have a much larger version as well as a two vintage pik-a-nut cabinets (one I got in h.s. the other that came from dad’s shop. I relabeled a bunch of the boxes to hold automotive metric fasteners as well as several types of plastic clips). This newly acquired cabinet is spare and looking for a new home.
*I collect and read company histories. I think it started in college with Krupp, DuPont, and I.G. Farben. At an estate sale about 40 years ago where I picked up several histories of small REC’s, and “The 3M Story” (published in the 1950’s, since reprinted in softcover and easy to find). Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing started with sandpaper, but one of the early additions was tape, and the first product was masking tape. The sandpaper salesman visiting body shops saw how much difficulty they were having turning the standard black factory finish into the two-tone custom paint jobs hat were very popular. Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing made sandpaper by coating an adhesive onto pape backing to hold the grits, and Dick thought he could make a tape to help the painters. Dozens of revisions later he had developed a paper tape that was “creped” to make it able to conform to curves, but the adhesive was failing. After the latest batch fell off, again, the body shop owner allegedly told him to go back to his “Scotch” bosses and tell them to put more stickum on the tape. He did, the tape was successful, he took orders, and then he had to figure out how to make a lot. He also had the brand name for the tape: “Scotch”.
Ecuador descends into CIVIL WAR: President orders troops onto the streets after cartel thugs with grenades and bombs seized state TV news studio
n
Meanwhile, closer to home, winter is happening in some parts of the nation. Being that it’s January, this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Being that it IS a bad storm, preps should come into play.
If you are affected, stay safe and ignore my snark.
n
I often buy boxes of supplies or whole shelves of “garage stuff” at estate sales. I do the same in the kitchen pantry and kitchen drawers too.
People forget what a roll of foil costs, or a box of ziplok bags…
Little fasteners, odd sizes, “junk drawer” stuff, all have saved me countless hours and dollars at the BOL. I brought my several coffee cans of random fasteners from my garage (where I throw everything in the naive belief I’ll sort it some day), and I was able to find a screw or bolt that fit just right for whatever needed fixing that day.
Same has happened with cans of stuff, plumbing parts, and electrical fittings.
There is a cost to storing the stuff but it’s far outweighed by the second time you don’t have to go to the store and take an hour or more out of a job…
It’s a cheap way to build resilience.
n
@Lynn
I bought my first Mac in 1986. Corporate would not buy them , but a FatMac with a hard drive running Excel (which initially had no traction against Lotus) was briefly the best engineering tool since sine tables. Lots of guys bought them and the distinctive backpacks (I still have one) were easy to see coming in every morning.
I could speak MSDOS, but early Windows was a bad joke (bundle the mouse even if the OS can’t use it, Bill). In the 90’s I had an industrial lab that was running the Mac II family running System 7.1 with networked 600dpi HP printers–I ran AppleTalk one weekend, and yes, it worked the first time. (Okay, maybe the second.) PC:printer was 1:1, so a lot more expensive per seat.
I added a dark side box to my desk when I started my own company and had to work with Windows users. Windows XP/Win7 was pretty good, and unfortunately, the high point. Everything since has at least a 10x suck factor.
The OS should handle files and provide interoperability between applications. Win10 is a piece of crap. It fails it’s primary purposes, it is buggy, a resource hog, and the primary vulnerability to thieves and whoremasters.. It provides no significant advancement and retreats in significant ways. Microshaft knows that they have nothing to sell, so the entire thrust of OS development is to pander to copyright holders, spy on end users, and require continual updates on a monthly license model to keep incompetent pedos in blow and boys.
I have been acquiring parts, and I intend to set up an alt-office with a late 90’s model Apple Quadra to run System 7.5 and Word 5.1. It will also home a 15″ MacBook Pro with external monitors.
@Nick\
“I brought my several coffee cans of random fasteners from my garage (where I throw everything in the naive belief I’ll sort it some day), and I was able to find a screw or bolt that fit just right for whatever needed fixing that day.”
I keep several old aluminum cake pans in the shop. One use is to dump a can of fasterners to make it easy to sort through and dump back in the can.
And yes, I also buy the old 1# coffee cans when I find them.
Someday I’m going to produce one of those “Make it from Pallet Wood” videos for a wooden organizer 36″ wide x 12″ deep (matches the gray parts cabinets) x ? tall. The drawers will be sized to hold Altoid boxes* on edge for small parts. If you’ve ever tried to get the last #4 x1/4″ screw out of a plastic parts drawer, you know why.
*I picked up a couple hundred from a hoarder’s estate more than ten years ago, because a friend of a friend was making art projects with them. A lot more of that going on now as people with worthless Harvard degrees are trying to find something to make lunch money, but there are also things like this:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/819359367/seven-star-altoids-tin-tray-insert
that make me think that I should build a couple jigs and spend a Saturday gang cutting a $25 box of 1000 tongue depressors into $1200 worth of custom inserts.
‘Unsolvable’ Code Hidden in Antique Dress Pocket Is Finally Cracked
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/unsolvable-code-hidden-in-antique-dress-pocket-is-finally-cracked-180983550
No, it wasn’t “cracked”.
Someone made some good deductions and looked for the codebook in the right place.
>> Had one of us mere mortals been afflicted with the same infection, we would have been sent home the same with a prescription for antibiotics. If not by the hospital, at least by the insurance company or Medicare.
The well-armed guard at the hospital’s only entrance would have turned you away after tossing you a Baggie with some generic white pills. And no soup…
https://youtube.com/shorts/KAmaJkME2m4?si=8xlQx7LMwMLIP6Ve
I have posted before about my altoids tin “everyday survival kit”. The tin is just about the perfect size for something to carry with you…
I’m still running win8.2 on this machine, and win7 on my toughbook. Kids have chromebook pos laptops for school, and wife has a loaded up win10 engineering laptop she uses for work. I agree that win7 was the peak, 8 had the beginnings of the tiles crep, which I’ve hidden as much as possible, but it still jumps out at me every few days.
I’ve got a box of appletalk hubs, and other stuff, startalk? generic versions? at my secondary location, buried deep in a stack… My HP inkpens for the plotter and old clicky keyboards are in the same stack. Might even be an intergraph card somewhere.
n
btw, you can buy altoids tins without candy, but they are cheaper in the grocery store. Just pour the candy right into t he bin…
Otherwise they are more than a dollar each, and always useful.
n
Rick, condolences on your brother’s death. Glad you were able to resolve your technical problems to complete the trip there and back.