Something Random

[CougTek]

Out of curiosity, do we have an IRC channel?

The only member I remember having chat with is Time, a few years ago, when I set up a computer on which he could open an RDP session via an Hamachi VPN. It was obvious then that my first langage isn't English as I typed slowly my replies. It was barely faster than if I wrote him a letter. You'd have to be patient to chat with me and probably also with the few other members for whom langage isn't their mother tongue.

 

[Stereodude]

How did I not know about this before?

 

[ddrueding]

My mother-in-law is an idiot. Before I just thought that she was irrational and liked to waste time doing useless things. Nope, an idiot. Crazy considering she was a cardiologist.

She took the kid in the back yard, where I put in a play table with water and sand. She opened it up and added water. Since then, she has changed the kid every 3-5 minutes into dry clothes.

It is 68F outside, and in the direct sunlight on the concrete (where she is) easily feels like 80F.

 

[LunarMist]

How long is she staying? In laws are best taken in small/short doses.

 

[ddrueding]

I entirely agree. The first year she was here for nearly 6 months. The second time was 3 months. This time is 2.5 months (1.5 left). All of these are too long.

 

[Mercutio]

How did I not know about this before?

I don't know but that is clearly a crap-ton of work and probably even scholarship on the part of the people attempting the restoration.

 

[Stereodude]

I don't know but that is clearly a crap-ton of work and probably even scholarship on the part of the people attempting the restoration.

I agree. I don't have it, but from the YouTube video it looks very arduous and time intensive.

You can probably make bank that Disney being the money whores they are will likely release the originals if they think there's money to be made. Reportedly Fox loses the distribution rights in 2020.

 

[snowhiker]

Interesting Leatherman tool. A bit pricy but cool nevertheless.

 

[Stereodude]

Interesting Leatherman tool. A bit pricy but cool nevertheless.

With the watch, maybe. Otherwise, wearing a bracelet isn't my thing.

Also, I did notice the A concourse of the McNamara Terminal of the Detroit airport (DTW) in their promo video...

 

[CougTek]

My mother-in-law is an idiot. Before I just thought that she was irrational and liked to waste time doing useless things. Nope, an idiot. Crazy considering she was a cardiologist.

She took the kid in the back yard, where I put in a play table with water and sand. She opened it up and added water. Since then, she has changed the kid every 3-5 minutes into dry clothes.

It is 68F outside, and in the direct sunlight on the concrete (where she is) easily feels like 80F.

At least she spends time with your daughter. Children don't really see and care about the judgment errors adults do. But they notice the time we spend playing and taking care of them. She might not be a light bulb, but she obviously care about your daughter. I believe there's credit to be given for that.

 

[LunarMist]

With the watch, maybe. Otherwise, wearing a bracelet isn't my thing.

Also, I did notice the A concourse of the McNamara Terminal of the Detroit airport (DTW) in their promo video...

For gay construction workers?

 

[Stereodude]

For gay construction workers?

What about the unhappy ones?

 

[CougTek]

Screw them.

 

[Stereodude]

Screw them.

But without the bracelet what will they use to turn the screws? :rofl:

 

[ddrueding]

At least she spends time with your daughter. Children don't really see and care about the judgment errors adults do. But they notice the time we spend playing and taking care of them. She might not be a light bulb, but she obviously care about your daughter. I believe there's credit to be given for that.

Quite so. Liza is lucky in that all the people who could be a part of her life have chosen to take an active role. It's just unfortunate that they aren't all perfect role models.

 

[Chewy509]

Why does this remind me of the nail gun in quake?

I don't know how to classify this? cool? need, not want, but need one? Or just someone with too much time on their hands?

 

[ddrueding]

Fun. But were I good at tinkering with such things, I'd be pursuing the rail gun with finishing nails or BBs.

 

[LunarMist]

I had my head examined again, but they still can't find anything. Supposedly I am normal. How can that be possible?

 

[Stereodude]

I had my head examined again, but they still can't find anything. Supposedly I am normal. How can that be possible?

Still empty? :rofl:

 

[LunarMist]

Apparent ly some tissues are a little thick, but no pathological features were observed.

 

[Howell]

That's what she said.

 

[LunarMist]

Yes, it is. She's on the younger side, but appears competent.

 

[Stereodude]

So it seems the Gigabyte motherboard in my SandyBridge box decided to die today. It was working fine, I powered it off to swap a drive out of it for testing, and it wouldn't turn back on. The only thing of note that happened during that process is that I touched the case and got a decent shock (static discharge) while it was off. The power supply seems okay. I tried it with another power supply with no luck. I tried clearing the CMOS, unplugging all the drives from it, removing the RAM. All the usual stuff, but it's completely dead. It seems LGA 1155 motherboards aren't exactly common anymore and I have extremely limited limited choices. Especially if I don't want a refurb. The ASRock Z77 Extreme4 looks like the best I'm going to do. At least it has enough PCI-e slots and SATA ports to replace the old one.

 

[LunarMist]

So it seems the Gigabyte motherboard in my SandyBridge box decided to die today. It was working fine, I powered it off to swap a drive out of it for testing, and it wouldn't turn back on. The only thing of note that happened during that process is that I touched the case and got a decent shock (static discharge) while it was off. The power supply seems okay. I tried it with another power supply with no luck. I tried clearing the CMOS, unplugging all the drives from it, removing the RAM. All the usual stuff, but it's completely dead. It seems LGA 1155 motherboards aren't exactly common anymore and I have extremely limited limited choices. Especially if I don't want a refurb. The ASRock Z77 Extreme4 looks like the best I'm going to do. At least it has enough PCI-e slots and SATA ports to replace the old one.

Why don't you buy a Haswell CPU and board? You can probably reuse the RAM.

 

[Stereodude]

Why don't you buy a Haswell CPU and board? You can probably reuse the RAM.

Because I'd have to buy another CPU and use up another Windows license. This i7-2600k works just fine.

I went to MicroCenter, picked up a Z77 Extreme4, and have it all working now. Windows no longer thinks its activated, but apparently MS will allow for the replacement of failed mobo since the license otherwise is tied to the motherboard.

 

[LunarMist]

Because I'd have to buy another CPU and use up another Windows license. This i7-2600k works just fine.

I went to MicroCenter, picked up a Z77 Extreme4, and have it all working now. Windows no longer thinks its activated, but apparently MS will allow for the replacement of failed mobo since the license otherwise is tied to the motherboard.

Great.

Interestingly enough, when I switched from that defective 980X system to the 5930K, I was able to reactivate the Windows 7 with the new board/CPU/RAM. Perhaps it was because the SSDs, optical drives, hard drives, etc. were the same. I was rather surprised though.

 

[time]

I had an Intel-branded Sandy bridge board die completely just a couple of months back. I was able to reactivate Windows 7 with the Haswell/Asus H97 combo that replaced it, although like Lunar, I re-used the SSD boot drive.

 

[ddrueding]

Powers out. I only have ~3 hours of UPS for everything before I kick into the emergency system (12hr UPS for modem/router and a laptop). Then I get the genset out.

 

[LunarMist]

Powers out. I only have ~3 hours of UPS for everything before I kick into the emergency system (12hr UPS for modem/router and a laptop). Then I get the genset out.

The generator doesn't kick in automatically?

 

[ddrueding]

Power outages are so rare here it isn't worth it to have one wired in, though I'll probably put in the hook up for that when I put in solar. This was the first power outage in years, and it only lasted about 25 minutes.

 

[Mercutio]

It's not unusual for me to have three outages a week in the spring and early summer. Lots of wind and lots of old trees equals lots of time in the dark. I have UPSes but past a certain point there's just not much I can do about it.

 

[ddrueding]

This is the windiest it has been in a number of years. I decided to remove the trees on the property that were >15' when we moved in, and I pay to have my neighbor's trees pruned if they get close to my property (with their consent of course).

 

[LunarMist]

Power outages are so rare here it isn't worth it to have one wired in, though I'll probably put in the hook up for that when I put in solar. This was the first power outage in years, and it only lasted about 25 minutes.

Oh, somehow I thought it was work related.

 

[ddrueding]

Nope. All my work sites of any significance have auto-switching UPS and gensets with giant fuel tanks. The batteries are only ~15 minutes (long enough to troubleshoot the genset or get some gas worst-case). Normally the generator goes from off to producing power in ~30 seconds, and auto-tests every Friday @ 1PM.

 

[CougTek]

Nope. All my work sites of any significance have auto-switching UPS and gensets with giant fuel tanks. The batteries are only ~15 minutes (long enough to troubleshoot the genset or get some gas worst-case). Normally the generator goes from off to producing power in ~30 seconds, and auto-tests every Friday @ 1PM.

That's odd, we test our generator every Friday at 1pm too. It must be the default setting.

 

[LunarMist]

That's odd, we test our generator every Friday at 1pm too. It must be the default setting.

Tuesday at 10AM.

 

[Stereodude]

Test as in fire it up, or actually fake a power failure and make sure everything works and switches over automatically as it's supposed to?

How pissed off does everyone get when something fails and they lose their work?

 

[LunarMist]

Test as in fire it up, or actually fake a power failure and make sure everything works and switches over automatically as it's supposed to?

How pissed off does everyone get when something fails and they lose their work?

Normally a weekly test is not the whole facility on the system, but the generators starting and running for time under some other load.
If there are $250-500K in time and materials lost, somebody is not happy. That's why they have generators.
Servers, instruments, and data acquisition PCs are on local or area/group UPS systems.

 

[ddrueding]

At the work facilities with such equipment there is usually a power failure every quarter or so, and that is more frequent than any testing I'd bother with. The most common issue with the system is a mechanical with the generator. The most common minor issue is someone plugging their computer into the white (generator only) outlets instead of the red (battery-backed, continuous) outlet. My biggest headache is when people decide to plug space-heaters or coffee machines (or other high-draw, low priority items) into the battery system.

 

[CougTek]

Only our servers and a few (five I think) other computers are on the UPS/generator combo. The weekly test only involves running the generator for ~10 minutes. We've had a short outage last week and the entire building went dark, except for the servers. The power protection does its job.