Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

[vk6zgo]

The nearest I saw to that was a 3-position knob on the dashboard, left-off-right. The knob stayed in one place; it didn't move in 1ft radius circles when you changed direction!
It is enlightening to watch old 1960s TV programmes, to see just how empty the roads were back then.

The Austin A30 & A35 had the "knob on the dash" but that was a bit of an outlier.
What I was thinking about was something which was pretty much endemic in early 1950s Brit cars.

DA8D3694-F0D2-4C44-A27A-64AA44BD798E.jpeg

It was more "high tech" as it was self cancelling!

I think the "empty road" effect was a bit of a Brit thing, as back in the day, you had a decent public transport system, & most people seemed to just keep their cars "for a pet", only taking it out on the weekends, or at least that was the case in Southampton in 1971when I spent time there.
Come Sunday & everything changed------ all those nice clean cars went out for a drive.

I remember getting stuck in an unending traffic jam one Sunday between SOTON & Bournemouth, (a distance, according to Google, of 32.2 miles), for hours.
By the time you got to Bournemouth, it was time to turn around & go back!

London was different, of course, with massive traffic on weekdays, & very little on Sundays.
I drove up one Sunday to buy some KFC, as that was one of the few places that had it back then.
The Motorway drive up was quite pleasant, & when I reached the mighty Capital, I wondered where everybody had gone!
You could have fired a cannon down The Strand without hitting anybody--- such a contrast to the weekday bustle.

The 100E Ford Popular played up on the way home, a legacy of the half a bag of sugar some clever chap had dumped in the tank a few weeks previously, but all was ultimately well.
By the way, the "Pop" had the little lever tucked behind the horn button, too!

[tggzzz]

The Austin A30 & A35 had the "knob on the dash" but that was a bit of an outlier.
What I was thinking about was something which was pretty much endemic in early 1950s Brit cars.DA8D3694-F0D2-4C44-A27A-64AA44BD798E.jpeg
It was more "high tech" as it was self cancelling!

My parent's had a late model A40 for many years. https://www.turntwoclassics.co.uk/cars/ ... na/916974/ shows a conventional indicator stick.

I remember going on holiday with three people in the back seat, sitting on a pile of sleeping bags and the like, and then two dogs sitting on top of us.

I think the "empty road" effect was a bit of a Brit thing, as back in the day, you had a decent public transport system, & most people seemed to just keep their cars "for a pet", only taking it out on the weekends, or at least that was the case in Southampton in 1971when I spent time there.
Come Sunday & everything changed------ all those nice clean cars went out for a drive.

I grew up on the very edge of London in the 60s and 70s: go half a mile away and you could walk for an hour without seeing any roads.

The "empty road back then" effect is real. Having a car was only for the middle classes, and a "two car family" was only for the notably affluent.

Public transport here now is pretty shit, but that is because

• far more people have cars, since they have become far cheaper to buy. Previously they were at more than a year's salary, now they are a small fraction of that
• political decisions in the 80s allowing rampant capitalism to "be efficient and extract value for the shareholders". Privatisation has been tolerated - just - because so many people have access to cars. The privatisation is on the verge of starting to be reversed, starting with the railways and water utilities.

I remember getting stuck in an unending traffic jam one Sunday between SOTON & Bournemouth, (a distance, according to Google, of 32.2 miles), for hours. By the time you got to Bournemouth, it was time to turn around & go back!

No change there, then! Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, provided you can avoid the bottlenecks in the New Forest. (For the leftpondians: "New" because the Normans invaders created it in 1079, and those digits are in the correct order).

London was different, of course, with massive traffic on weekdays, & very little on Sundays.
I drove up one Sunday to buy some KFC, as that was one of the few places that had it back then.
The Motorway drive up was quite pleasant, & when I reached the mighty Capital, I wondered where everybody had gone!
You could have fired a cannon down The Strand without hitting anybody--- such a contrast to the weekday bustle.

IIRC the RAC occasionally trots out a statistic to the effect that it takes the same time to cross London that it did in the 1920s. They acknowledge that cars and roads are faster and London is bigger.

I remember a family trip to central London to have an Indian meal, in a subterranean restaurant by Piccadilly Circus.

I also remember my mother being excited by the first MacDonalds during a shopping trip to Croydon. (My, how things change!). She was after the "proper thick strawberry" milkshake she had grown used to in the US. That delight remained undiminished for the next half century, only being frustrated when the MacDonalds ice cream machine was broken. Apparently that is a cause celebre for the "right to repair" brigade!

[Specmaster]

Ok one for the data hoarders here.

I just inherited 24TB (!) of disks full of shit. This is going to be a miserable slog to get through as there is family stuff in there

Please don't leave this shit for other people when you drop dead!

The problem there is that you don't always get a warning that in x weeks or so, your numbers up, so best you get your shit sorted. Mostly it starts off with a mild problem and escalates quickly to the point where you find that you can't sort things out, even if you wanted to. I expect that most people will fall in that category, including your good self

[Specmaster]

The nearest I saw to that was a 3-position knob on the dashboard, left-off-right. The knob stayed in one place; it didn't move in 1ft radius circles when you changed direction!
It is enlightening to watch old 1960s TV programmes, to see just how empty the roads were back then.

The Austin A30 & A35 had the "knob on the dash" but that was a bit of an outlier.
What I was thinking about was something which was pretty much endemic in early 1950s Brit cars.DA8D3694-F0D2-4C44-A27A-64AA44BD798E.jpeg
It was more "high tech" as it was self cancelling!

I think the "empty road" effect was a bit of a Brit thing, as back in the day, you had a decent public transport system, & most people seemed to just keep their cars "for a pet", only taking it out on the weekends, or at least that was the case in Southampton in 1971when I spent time there.
Come Sunday & everything changed------ all those nice clean cars went out for a drive.

I remember getting stuck in an unending traffic jam one Sunday between SOTON & Bournemouth, (a distance, according to Google, of 32.2 miles), for hours.
By the time you got to Bournemouth, it was time to turn around & go back!

London was different, of course, with massive traffic on weekdays, & very little on Sundays.
I drove up one Sunday to buy some KFC, as that was one of the few places that had it back then.
The Motorway drive up was quite pleasant, & when I reached the mighty Capital, I wondered where everybody had gone!
You could have fired a cannon down The Strand without hitting anybody--- such a contrast to the weekday bustle.

The 100E Ford Popular played up on the way home, a legacy of the half a bag of sugar some clever chap had dumped in the tank a few weeks previously, but all was ultimately well.
By the way, the "Pop" had the little lever tucked behind the horn button, too!

You are hitting the nail on the head with this one, public transport was fantastic and affordable back then as long as you lived in one of the major towns, not so out in the sticks, but they still got a reasonable service. Most buses were double-deckers, capable of carrying upto 80 passengers and it not unusual on local town services at peak times to 1, 2 or maybe at times 3 other buses following each on the same route, they would be marked as either "Relief" or "Duplicate" such was the demand for them.

In the mornings and evenings there would also be plethora of "Works" buses going to and from the major employers, in the towns and as you rightly said, at the weekends the cars would come out of their garages and the family would be off for a trip to the seaside and there would be horrendous jams often along the way to boot.

All that changed when the buses were privatised and fares slowly crept up and was not long before it was cheaper for mum and her children to get cheap run around car then pay for the bus fares to town and back. That was for me when the countries decline started, prior to that there was some sort of co-operation between buses and trains so they would attempt to time things right so people could get a bus to the station and get their train for longer commutes.

I used to work for the National bus company back then and such was the co-operation that I was also automatically of the local railway workers social club and the chairman of London Transport used to drive his Rover P4 to our bus garage and park in there while he went and got his British Rail train into London each day.

The roads were also in much condition then they are now, many of the buses used to sport adverts saying that 1 bus could take upto 80 cars of the road, so that also meant that there was saving to be had on road maintenance, proper joined up think back then eh?

You talking about the Ford 100E made me remember that I learned to drive in one of these and they were terrible when it rained as they had the awful vacuum wipers which almost stopped working when the engine was working hard and went like the clappers when you were stationary

Also the old sugar trick, there was one new estate in town back then that the mums took exception to the new bus service going through their estate and they would dump bags of sugar into the diesel tanks while the pretty ones kept the drivers distracted at the terminus. We were for ever taking the breakdown truck out to recover the buses before the sugar could be sucked into the engine.

[bd139]

Ok one for the data hoarders here.

I just inherited 24TB (!) of disks full of shit. This is going to be a miserable slog to get through as there is family stuff in there

Please don't leave this shit for other people when you drop dead!

The problem there is that you don't always get a warning that in x weeks or so, your numbers up, so best you get your shit sorted. Mostly it starts off with a mild problem and escalates quickly to the point where you find that you can't sort things out, even if you wanted to. I expect that most people will fall in that category, including your good self

My shit is actually sorted and lined up. Everything I have ever done is in under 100Gb and that can be shrunk to about 15Gb with instructions provided which will remove anything specific to me. There is one external backup drive, legacy contacts are set up and my eldest has instructions on what to do and how to access anything. There is a spreadsheet of assets and values.

[bd139]

Can I bequest to my ex, since she got a portion of my retirement pension, that she go shit in her hat?

I escaped that penalty on, quite literally, the last hour of the last day it was possible. My lawyer hand-delivered the relevant piece of paper to her lawyer.

You could bequest her the hat, but not her shit.

Ah that sucks. I heard that so many times so did a lot of planning and analysis up front. Timing is everything. I got away with everything because there was a larger shinier thing for her to chase at the time. She naively waltzed into a sealed consent order, the shiny thing didn't pay off and then I cashed everything out immediately afterwards

[bd139]

Ok one for the data hoarders here.

I just inherited 24TB (!) of disks full of shit. This is going to be a miserable slog to get through as there is family stuff in there

Please don't leave this shit for other people when you drop dead!

Why not? There are such things as mischevious wills, which might involve people squabbling for ever over nothing much, or involve unpleasant penances to get the prize. It could be a puzzle they have to solve. It was a thing in the Victorian age. Actually, leaving a mischevious will could be a fun way of telling people what you really think of them. There's no one I'm close to I detest so much.

Without that, there's usually a load of shed load of shit to be sorted through when people cash their chips in, even if you weren't close.

If you have unpleasant relatives, set up the will so they have to agree on how to divide parts of the will. Phrases like "I leave my jewellery equally to X and Y, to be divided as they see fit" can come in useful.

If you want to piss someone off, don't omit them from the will since that will allow them to challenge its validity. Instead specifically name them and leave them a low value item (brownie points for ensuring they don't want it )

My wishes will be simple and evil.

1. All assets are to be sold and the funds raised added to a pool and distributed to the three children.
2. I wish to be cremated.
3. My ashes are to be shoved through the letterbox of TBD so they can never get rid of me.

TBD being one of three people. Not sure who I hate the most yet. I will think about it.

[tggzzz]

My wishes will be simple and evil.

1. All assets are to be sold and the funds raised added to a pool and distributed to the three children.
2. I wish to be cremated.
3. My ashes are to be shoved through the letterbox of TBD so they can never get rid of me.

TBD being one of three people. Not sure who I hate the most yet. I will think about it.

I wish to be fed to daughter's dog. Suspect I'll be fed to worms and bacteria.

Insufficiently evil

Why not split yourself three ways?

Since vacuum cleaners are very good nowadays, would it be better if you fertilised their garden? If you let them know, then every flower would remind them of you.

[bd139]

My wishes will be simple and evil.

1. All assets are to be sold and the funds raised added to a pool and distributed to the three children.
2. I wish to be cremated.
3. My ashes are to be shoved through the letterbox of TBD so they can never get rid of me.

TBD being one of three people. Not sure who I hate the most yet. I will think about it.

I wish to be fed to daughter's dog. Suspect I'll be fed to worms and bacteria.

Insufficiently evil

Why not split yourself three ways?

Since vacuum cleaners are very good nowadays, would it be better if you fertilised their garden? If you let them know, then every flower would remind them of you.

I like that one.

I just want to make someone's day a little worse who deserves it

[tggzzz]

My wishes will be simple and evil.

1. All assets are to be sold and the funds raised added to a pool and distributed to the three children.
2. I wish to be cremated.
3. My ashes are to be shoved through the letterbox of TBD so they can never get rid of me.

TBD being one of three people. Not sure who I hate the most yet. I will think about it.

I wish to be fed to daughter's dog. Suspect I'll be fed to worms and bacteria.

Insufficiently evil

Why not split yourself three ways?

Since vacuum cleaners are very good nowadays, would it be better if you fertilised their garden? If you let them know, then every flower would remind them of you.

I like that one.

I just want to make someone's day a little worse who deserves it

There's a cruder and more immediate version if they have a front lawn. Don't write a word in weedkiller, but do write one in lawn greener/fertiliser
Even after cutting the grass, the word remains as a darker green inscription.
Not cutting the grass highlights (literally!) the word.

[bd139]

I wish to be fed to daughter's dog. Suspect I'll be fed to worms and bacteria.

Insufficiently evil

Why not split yourself three ways?

Since vacuum cleaners are very good nowadays, would it be better if you fertilised their garden? If you let them know, then every flower would remind them of you.

I like that one.

I just want to make someone's day a little worse who deserves it

There's a cruder and more immediate version if they have a front lawn. Don't write a word in weedkiller, but do write one in lawn greener/fertiliser
Even after cutting the grass, the word remains as a darker green inscription.
Not cutting the grass highlights (literally!) the word.

Remind me never to get on the bad side of you

[Robert]

I've not much data, couple of TB. Most of thet is PDF manuals, books and periodicals and seperate from personal stuff.
There is a lot of physical TE etc which concerns SWMBO. Two garages, a workshop, attic and 1/2 ISO container storage unit
The storage uint is all binned up in Really Useful Boxes, numbered with pictures of contents. I've suggested those can go direct to RAMCO or other auction house for direct sale as indiviual lots or 2 or 3 at a time.
A list does exist of TE and there is a plan to put coloured dot stickers on high value items etc.
The geiger counters and radioactive sources are another issue...

[tggzzz]

The geiger counters and radioactive sources are another issue...

Interesting; how intense?

A schoolfriend had a fob watch that was significantly more intense than the school's radioactive sources. It went to Harwell.

I only have a lump of sodium, some unadulterated sodium chlorate, some potassium permanganate (more than in the chemistry sets I had as a kid), and some magnesium powder.

Disposing of the Mn will be fun and easy. Disposing of the Na will be fun and less easy to do safely. Lobbing it off the end of a pier comes to mind I imagine bd will have some ideas, but I'll listen to anyone

[Robert]

Hmm have you heard of EPP Regulations?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... precursors.

My radioactive sources are all legal in the UK. Activities vary from less than a microcuries to several curies. Intensity again varies. The most "radioactive" in the common usage sense are Radium 226 luminised aircraft instruments. I strongly recommend only having hermetically sealed examples if you must have one. The Radium emits Radon 222 gas then through Polonium 218, Lead-214, Bismuth-214, Polonium-214 to Lead-210 over abour an hour. The Lead 210 contamiates surfaces and has a 22 year half life. Very messy.
Correctly disposing of Ra 226 in the UK is dificult and expensive...

Robert.

[Zenith]

I only have a lump of sodium, some unadulterated sodium chlorate, some potassium permanganate (more than in the chemistry sets I had as a kid), and some magnesium powder.

Disposing of the Mn will be fun and easy. Disposing of the Na will be fun and less easy to do safely. Lobbing it off the end of a pier comes to mind I imagine bd will have some ideas, but I'll listen to anyone

Chuck the sodium into a largish body of water. It will turn into sodium hydroxide as it rushes about and it may go boom. The sea would do. Chemistry teachers have caused serious accidents, by using a piece the size of a pea in a glass vessel full of water. I had a chemistry teacher who did the reaction outside, using a plastic bowl of water into which big lump of sodium was placed using a long string.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UsRiPO ... TooMuchJam

The magnesium can be mixed with a metal oxide, say FeO to make thermite, always fun. Flash Powder, used at one time for flash photography, but also used in petards, is potassium perchlorate and aluminium powder. You could improvise with magnesium and sodium chlorate.

There are endless fun applications of potassium permanganate.

[bd139]

The geiger counters and radioactive sources are another issue...

Interesting; how intense?

A schoolfriend had a fob watch that was significantly more intense than the school's radioactive sources. It went to Harwell.

I only have a lump of sodium, some unadulterated sodium chlorate, some potassium permanganate (more than in the chemistry sets I had as a kid), and some magnesium powder.

Disposing of the Mn will be fun and easy. Disposing of the Na will be fun and less easy to do safely. Lobbing it off the end of a pier comes to mind I imagine bd will have some ideas, but I'll listen to anyone

Cerebus will probably know the most evil way of disposing of sodium. I have an acquaintance who is a top tier conspiracy wanker. I would probably dunk it in his fish tank.

[tggzzz]

Chuck the sodium into a largish body of water. It will turn into sodium hydroxide as it rushes about and it may go boom. The sea would do. Chemistry teachers have caused serious accidents, by using a piece the size of a pea in a glass vessel full of water. I had a chemistry teacher who did the reaction outside, using a plastic bowl of water into which big lump of sodium was placed using a long string.

My chemistry teacher shaved some off, and gave it to each of the pupils; yet another way of making a "squeaky pop" in an upturned test tube.

Can't remember the size, but it wasn't large

I ought to measure guesstimate the size of my lump, and calculate energy that would be released. It would be good to reuse formulae that I last used half a century ago.

[tggzzz]

The geiger counters and radioactive sources are another issue...

Interesting; how intense?

A schoolfriend had a fob watch that was significantly more intense than the school's radioactive sources. It went to Harwell.

I only have a lump of sodium, some unadulterated sodium chlorate, some potassium permanganate (more than in the chemistry sets I had as a kid), and some magnesium powder.

Disposing of the Mn will be fun and easy. Disposing of the Na will be fun and less easy to do safely. Lobbing it off the end of a pier comes to mind I imagine bd will have some ideas, but I'll listen to anyone

Cerebus will probably know the most evil way of disposing of sodium. I have an acquaintance who is a top tier conspiracy wanker. I would probably dunk it in his fish tank.

I went to a demonstration at the Royal Institution, where a stoichiometric mixture of acetylene and oxygen was detonated in a glass (milk?) bottle. The bottle was turned to glass dust I doubt the fish tank would suffer exactly that, but I'm not sure how much would be left.

But most aggie chemicals seem to be hazardous to aquatic life, so you have many alternatives

[AVGresponding]

I wish to be fed to daughter's dog. Suspect I'll be fed to worms and bacteria.

Insufficiently evil

Why not split yourself three ways?

Since vacuum cleaners are very good nowadays, would it be better if you fertilised their garden? If you let them know, then every flower would remind them of you.

I like that one.

I just want to make someone's day a little worse who deserves it

There's a cruder and more immediate version if they have a front lawn. Don't write a word in weedkiller, but do write one in lawn greener/fertiliser
Even after cutting the grass, the word remains as a darker green inscription.
Not cutting the grass highlights (literally!) the word.

Another, better reason, for doing it this way, is that should you be caught, you are unlikely to be charged with criminal damage, though you still might be charged with a breach of the peace, which is generally a lesser offence.

[Cerebus]

The geiger counters and radioactive sources are another issue...

Interesting; how intense?

A schoolfriend had a fob watch that was significantly more intense than the school's radioactive sources. It went to Harwell.

I only have a lump of sodium, some unadulterated sodium chlorate, some potassium permanganate (more than in the chemistry sets I had as a kid), and some magnesium powder.

Disposing of the Mn will be fun and easy. Disposing of the Na will be fun and less easy to do safely. Lobbing it off the end of a pier comes to mind I imagine bd will have some ideas, but I'll listen to anyone

Cerebus will probably know the most evil way of disposing of sodium. I have an acquaintance who is a top tier conspiracy wanker. I would probably dunk it in his fish tank.

The most energetic would be to finely divide (i.e. grind) it in an inert atmosphere (argon say) and then rapidly combine the dust with liquid fluorine. The resulting sodium fluoride could be safely disposed of as household waste, if you could find it.

[tggzzz]

Cerebus will probably know the most evil way of disposing of sodium. I have an acquaintance who is a top tier conspiracy wanker. I would probably dunk it in his fish tank.

The most energetic would be to finely divide (i.e. grind) it in an inert atmosphere (argon say) and then rapidly combine the dust with liquid fluorine. The resulting sodium fluoride could be safely disposed of as household waste, if you could find it.

Is that find the NaF, or find the house?

I remember Na as being soft and "smeary", so I'd be surprised if you could grind it. But what do I know.

What's the easiest way of getting elemental F? I'm sure you could from hydrogen fluoride, but I'm saving that as a substitute for Dignitas

Ob reference: https://www.science.org/topic/blog-cate ... -work-with
It is a drolly entertaining way of idling away a few hours. Much better than yoootoob.

[Cerebus]

Cerebus will probably know the most evil way of disposing of sodium. I have an acquaintance who is a top tier conspiracy wanker. I would probably dunk it in his fish tank.

The most energetic would be to finely divide (i.e. grind) it in an inert atmosphere (argon say) and then rapidly combine the dust with liquid fluorine. The resulting sodium fluoride could be safely disposed of as household waste, if you could find it.

Is that find the NaF, or find the house?

Either. Both.

I remember Na as being soft and "smeary", so I'd be surprised if you could grind it. But what do I know.

Soft at room temperature.

The melting point of sodium is a mere 98ºC. Take it bit further away from its melting point and it would get a bit more tractable.

What's the easiest way of getting elemental F? I'm sure you could from hydrogen fluoride, but I'm saving that as a substitute for Dignitas

Getting someone else to make it. I hope to never be in a situation where I have to handle or process fluorine gas. I suspect the simplest method of preparation would be electrolysis of a molten fluorine salt.

[Zenith]

What's the easiest way of getting elemental F? I'm sure you could from hydrogen fluoride, but I'm saving that as a substitute for Dignitas

Ob reference: https://www.science.org/topic/blog-cate ... -work-with
It is a drolly entertaining way of idling away a few hours. Much better than yoootoob.

Some Youtube videos are better than others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtWp45E ... odicVideos

I was surprised at just how reactive it is. Fluorine is not something to mess about with.

[Cubdriver]

Definitely not. There was a lot of hydrofluoric acid used at National Semi and the treatment just for being exposed to it was miserable - the affected area was to be coated in cold calcium gluconate for I forget how long, and if you were exposed badly enough that it got near bone you’d need to go for calcium shots which I’m told were excruciating. I never saw anyone exposed that badly, but as a first aider did treat a few production techs for splashes using the calcium gluconate. They did not enjoy it at all (but would doubtless have enjoyed the shots even less).

Lots of nasty stuff goes into semiconductor manufacturing.

-Pat

[tggzzz]

Just so. Arsine AsF₃ being another.

My father was quite happy to bring home some conc HCl and iron sulphide in his coat pocket, and for me to stink out the kitchen by mixing them. He said he was frightened by HF, and wouldn't go near it, even at work.

The "things I wouldn't work with" sub-blog starts at things like HF, and goes on to things like, IIRC N₇ (!). There are frequent references to large craters and to what to do when you see people running out of a laboratory.