Test Equipment Anonymous

mnem
You're all overthinking this. It really does make sense once you meet the locals...

.

nixiefreqq wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 11:39 am

AVGresponding wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 5:08 pm To which the conspiracy nuts reply, "You can't hide the truth from us, we know you have/are aliens!!!".

Of course, if you said, "There are no aliens, don't be silly" they'd reply "You're hiding aliens, don't deny it!!!".

And, if you replied, "Yes, we've been playing canasta with the aliens" they'd reply, "Stop trying to hide the REAL aliens from us!!!".

"No Comment" is something you're told to say for good reason; there's no reasoning with these loons.

i can neither confirm or deny any of the statements above.

Me either

What, if you have too many cables, too many connectors of all kind and too much time to kill?

Well, then you could probably do something like this:
https://moeilijklastig.nl/verloopjes/

Those look like something from Simon Travaglia's toolbox. (BOFH)

mnem
"So I propped a 8" hard drive above the door (where all 8" hard drives should be kept), and waited..."

One of my favorite YT channels is the one of my mechanics, a Swiss guy which is doing a lot of impressive restorations.

https://www.youtube.com/@mymechanics

Now he started restoring a Datsun 240Z from 1973. The car is coming from California and was sold to an European car dealer after 40 years standing in a garage.

This is part one - disassembling the whole car:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B13vXFj37RI

He definitely does amazing work! The screws are bad. I make new ones. <heads to lathe>

-Pat

Do you remember those 3D display thingies from Star Wars?

Someone has build a similar 3D display. One can not buy it but one can build one by yourself.

How-to DIY one:
https://www.hackster.io/mac70/star-wars ... lay-3b1829

YT video which shows a working protoype:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTe0p5BMEBM

BU508A wrote: ↑Fri Jun 23, 2023 7:16 am Do you remember those 3D display thingies from Star Wars?

As someone that has been taking stereo photos since 1984, all such displays are crap

Pet peeve: people that refer to them as holograms. If you can show a picture of a candle flame or outdoors, then it isn't a hologram.

<Pet peeve about people measuring time in mhos or samples omitted>

tggzzz wrote: ↑Fri Jun 23, 2023 7:23 am

BU508A wrote: ↑Fri Jun 23, 2023 7:16 am Do you remember those 3D display thingies from Star Wars?

As someone that has been taking stereo photos since 1984, all such displays are crap

Pet peeve: people that refer to them as holograms. If you can show a picture of a candle flame or outdoors, then it isn't a hologram.

<Pet peeve about people measuring time in mhos or samples omitted>

They call it "volumetric display" not hologram.

The Economist about AI:

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation ... ma-shalizi

They describe AI as a monster like a Shoggoth from the H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu universe.

Quote:
"But what such worries fail to acknowledge is that we’ve lived among shoggoths for centuries, tending to them as though they were our masters. We call them “the market system”, “bureaucracy” and even “electoral democracy”. The true Singularity began at least two centuries ago with the industrial revolution, when human society was transformed by vast inhuman forces. Markets and bureaucracies seem familiar, but they are actually enormous, impersonal distributed systems of information-processing that transmute the seething chaos of our collective knowledge into useful simplifications."
[...]
"It is in this sense that LLMs are shoggoths. Like markets and bureaucracies, they represent something vast and incomprehensible that would break our minds if we beheld its full immensity."

BU508A wrote: ↑Fri Jun 23, 2023 7:29 am

tggzzz wrote: ↑Fri Jun 23, 2023 7:23 am

BU508A wrote: ↑Fri Jun 23, 2023 7:16 am Do you remember those 3D display thingies from Star Wars?

As someone that has been taking stereo photos since 1984, all such displays are crap

Pet peeve: people that refer to them as holograms. If you can show a picture of a candle flame or outdoors, then it isn't a hologram.

<Pet peeve about people measuring time in mhos or samples omitted>

They call it "volumetric display" not hologram.

Yup, but here's an example of my general statement: https://hackaday.com/2023/05/05/hologra ... ith-esp32/

BU508A wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 7:10 pm One of my favorite YT channels is the one of my mechanics, a Swiss guy which is doing a lot of impressive restorations.

https://www.youtube.com/@mymechanics

Now he started restoring a Datsun 240Z from 1973. The car is coming from California and was sold to an European car dealer after 40 years standing in a garage.

This is part one - disassembling the whole car:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B13vXFj37RI

It just makes me feel tired----I have done many of those things with less deserving cars over the years-----I wish I had those hours, days, & weeks back!
Cuddling SWMBO would have been much more rewarding.

vk6zgo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 24, 2023 1:34 am

BU508A wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 7:10 pm One of my favorite YT channels is the one of my mechanics, a Swiss guy which is doing a lot of impressive restorations.

https://www.youtube.com/@mymechanics

Now he started restoring a Datsun 240Z from 1973. The car is coming from California and was sold to an European car dealer after 40 years standing in a garage.

This is part one - disassembling the whole car:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B13vXFj37RI

It just makes me feel tired----I have done many of those things with less deserving cars over the years-----I wish I had those hours, days, & weeks back!
Cuddling SWMBO would have been much more rewarding.

This is one thing I've learned recently. Time is precious. Spend it well.

This French guy is amazing! He has build several pieces on his lathe out of walnut and maple wood, showing spacetime.
Now he has build three coffee tables which are for sale on Etsy.

Video on how he his making those coffee tables:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhSf-FYugIM

Here he is building a table which "shows" a bended spacetime, including an Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky-bridge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XlTkGEO564

And I do like his humor.

vk6zgo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 24, 2023 1:34 am It just makes me feel tired----I have done many of those things with less deserving cars over the years-----I wish I had those hours, days, & weeks back!
Cuddling SWMBO would have been much more rewarding.

In the UK, up until the 90s when it started to fade out, because the nature of cars was changing, a lot of private individuals did quite ambitious jobs on their own cars, including rebuilding engines and gearboxes, and taking off the body and rebuilding the chassis. I rebuilt a VW engine. It was all part of keeping a car on the road at a reasonable cost. I got the impression that this was not something that happened in France or the Netherlands. I don't know about the rest of the world. Maybe those hours, days, & weeks were invested wisely at the time.

There was an interest in kit cars. These were usually based on a standard car with different body and often a souped up engine.

There was also always an interest in vintage cars. I remember a teacher who around 1960 restored I think it was a 1908 Peugeot, which he bought for £10. What he bought was a patch of nettles with recognisable bits of 1908 Peugeot in it. It was a beautiful thing when he'd finished with it. I heard it ended up in a museum in the USA.

About 10 years back I was returning on the ferry from France, and was talking to a chap with a 1931 open top Rover. He said he had a few such cars. I asked him how he approached things like replacing piston rings. He said that was fairly easy, you could often find a modern one which needed machining down, but failing that, just machine them from suitable cast iron pipe. From what I could gather, he had a well equipped machine shop.

I think you'd be a fool to tackle something like a Bugatti, unless you'd served your time on less exalted cars from the 60s and 70s.

I can see the appeal of vintage cars and I know a few people who are into it, but I prefer vintage electronics. Although I don't mind the welding, electrics and mechanical work, I hate body work. I don't really have the space to do it comfortably anyway. The vintage TE doesn't cost that much, so if it's a write off, which has rarely happened, it doesn't hurt. If I get fed up with it, I can put it aside for a time. In the winter, I can do it in comfort, rather than messing about in a cold garage. Part of what I like about it is the deductive process of working out what's wrong with it. Most of the stuff I buy has some sort of problem.

Since getting first wheels I've had time under the hood on most of them.
Mk 1 Cortina was first and motor didn't last long with the heavy foot of a youngster however even at those tender years mucking with motors at a younger age and a few contacts in the automotive parts industry had me rebuild it and it went for a a good while longer until I could afford better.
A Mk3 1600 crossflow Cortina was next and I don't remember doing much to it other than normal maintenance, oil changes, points, plugs and checking valve clearances.
Then came a Mk3 2L as all young fellas need more poar and although needing to replace the OHC and doing the customary valve job while at it, it served me well until marriage came along.
As a 2 car couple and me working at home one had to go so they ended up both going, hers was a Mini 1000 and my was I glad to see the end of that and my poor knuckles still thank me for it !

For a few years we had a Mk2 Escort Sports, again a 1600 crossflow that was considerably more peppy carrying less weight and std with extractors. Tripping it could return 38mpg however it was lacking a 5th gear which I was sorely tempted to change out the box for something better suited to open road work. Only plugs, points and oil for that little guy that served us well.

Next was a mistake, no not the first planned child but the Suzuki Jimmy that not only spewed it's camshaft under warranty but was totally unsuited for a young family so had to go. Bye bye to our first ever new car purchase.

A year old 6cyl 3.3L Holden Commodore wagon was next and we filled it with kids and put a lot of miles on it before doing a shortblock rebuild, head job etc. For a while the gearbox howled like a banshee but a full bearing replacement sorted that. IIRC we put 3 clutch plates in the thing in the time we had it.

There was always spare room in the 4 car garage so a Series III Landrover project was taken on as a utility vehicle for the growing tribe and our hunting/fishing adventures but it became very evident this class of bomb isn't up to much in the way of tripping.
Many many mods were done on it however they also exposed flaws in its design for highway work which also needed sorting.
It was 6cyl 2850cc Holden powered with an aftermarket Yella Terra head of a high torque/towing design with extractors so to make the best use of its torque an overdrive was fitted yet with the std 4.7 diff gears it still revved higher on the road than was comfortable for a 6cyl. After a successful hunt for a pair of 4.2 ratio Rover car diff gears and the subsequent transplant this now much improved Series III was much more useful and reasonably economical too.

Then with a change of circumstances it was time to update the straight 6 Commodore wagon with another Holden, a new V6 sedan as the kiddies were getting their own wheels so there was no need for all the room in a wagon to carry all their crap too.
Now with 3 cars, the Landy and 2 Holdens, one had to go but which ?

Now soon to be doing rural contracting I mistakenly sold the Landy which certainly would have been more useful however the old Holden wagon had a lot of luggage space for all my tools so I worked from it for a few years until Tautech began to grow and more circumstance (read cash) presented itself.
Bye bye VK6, replaced with a Toyota Hilux Surf, a 3L turbo diesel 5 door SUV that is my primary runaround today.
However the Surf hasn't been without issues mostly arising from a shit fan coupling allowing the engine to overheat and crack the head. Grrr.
Fan coupling is an easy fix described in the link below however the damage had already been done.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/aus80/h ... t1160.html

As it used zero cooling fluids I kept driving it....gently for a good while which was a bad mistake that didn't drive home until after replacing the head to find the radiator was all but completely blocked with combustion contaminants from the cracked head.
Finally fixed last week with a new radiator !

So there you are, 50 years of motorings trials and tribulations and self mechanicing all the way !

In a similar vein to the new version of Hotel California recently posted, I came across this version Pink Floyd's "Wish you were here".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jqXZTxLzPo

I noticed in Bishkek that they had lots of OLD cars. Because you could fix them yourself. And they were cheap.

Seemed to be mostly old VWs, Audis and Toyotas. The taxi from the airport was a Ford Fuckarse which had 300k on the clock and more holes than metal in it. Apart from that a hell of a lot of Ladas were still on the road. Or at least ghosts of the former vehicles.

Every windscreen was cracked in the entire country

Some selected photos...

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 7:23 pm Apart from that a hell of a lot of Ladas were still on the road.

The supply must run dry sometime soon. You only have to watch a single "Russian Car Crashes" YouTube video to discover quite how fragile they are. Not only does every other crash involve an old Lada, the remains of the Lada afterward are not "beyond economic repair" they are "beyond repair, even if you have a fortune to spend on it and your life depends on it". e.g.

Cerebus wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 9:14 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 7:23 pm Apart from that a hell of a lot of Ladas were still on the road.

The supply must run dry sometime soon. You only have to watch a single "Russian Car Crashes" YouTube video to discover quite how fragile they are. Not only does every other crash involve an old Lada, the remains of the Lada afterward are not "beyond economic repair" they are "beyond repair, even if you have a fortune to spend on it and your life depends on it". e.g.

That being said, they were basically just a Fiat 124 and later ones a Fiat 125 but were actually stronger than the Fiats as they were 105kg heavier due to using a thicker gauge steel for the body and drum rear brakes instead of discs that the Fiats had.

Cerebus wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 9:14 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 7:23 pm Apart from that a hell of a lot of Ladas were still on the road.

The supply must run dry sometime soon. You only have to watch a single "Russian Car Crashes" YouTube video to discover quite how fragile they are. Not only does every other crash involve an old Lada, the remains of the Lada afterward are not "beyond economic repair" they are "beyond repair, even if you have a fortune to spend on it and your life depends on it". e.g.

That'll undoubtedly get "repaired" and put back on the road. Most of the worst Russian car crash vids I've seen involve western "premium" brands (and alcohol, at a guess), and mostly because of the much higher speeds they are capable of.

Cerebus wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 9:14 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 7:23 pm Apart from that a hell of a lot of Ladas were still on the road.

The supply must run dry sometime soon. You only have to watch a single "Russian Car Crashes" YouTube video to discover quite how fragile they are. Not only does every other crash involve an old Lada, the remains of the Lada afterward are not "beyond economic repair" they are "beyond repair, even if you have a fortune to spend on it and your life depends on it". e.g.

I worked with someone who'd been in the RAF in Cyprus and he said they never scrapped a car there. If one had been in a bad crash, they'd straighten it out with Acrow jacks. He had a Fiat 500 with pistons that were holed by the ignition being over advanced. He thought it would be new pistons. The local garage said it was ridiculous to waste a good set of pistons like that. They filled the holes with aluminium weld and he drove it the rest of the time he was there.

Cars in some places are very expensive, labour is cheap and vehicle safety standards don't exist. One possible fate for the Lada in the photo is to cut off the back part and weld it onto the front end of a similar car which has had a bad rear smash.

Cerebus wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 9:14 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 7:23 pm Apart from that a hell of a lot of Ladas were still on the road.

The supply must run dry sometime soon. You only have to watch a single "Russian Car Crashes" YouTube video to discover quite how fragile they are. Not only does every other crash involve an old Lada, the remains of the Lada afterward are not "beyond economic repair" they are "beyond repair, even if you have a fortune to spend on it and your life depends on it". e.g.

Think it's funny I had a picture of the same car in the same colour

AVGresponding wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 5:27 am That'll undoubtedly get "repaired" and put back on the road. Most of the worst Russian car crash vids I've seen involve western "premium" brands (and alcohol, at a guess), and mostly because of the much higher speeds they are capable of.

Ladas seem to be mostly magnets for lorries, usually careering over from the other side of carriageway. The 'premium' brands seem to like having head-on crashes, possibly in some modern automotive version of Russian Roulette, or T-boning one another at junctions.