Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Terry01]

Things calming down now so should be back with the soldering iron in hand in a couple of weeks. Have some stuff on the watch list already

Good to hear buddy! Glad things are calming down for you 

[Brumby]

I, too, noticed the aberrant positioning of the TEA thread and was considering posting something to correct it - but I didn't really have much to post about.

Things calming down now so should be back with the soldering iron in hand in a couple of weeks. Have some stuff on the watch list already

Good to hear.

[med6753]

Things calming down now so should be back with the soldering iron in hand in a couple of weeks. Have some stuff on the watch list already

That's good news. I had company all weekend so no TEA for me. But tomorrow back into it. 

[Specmaster]

Yep, I'm hoping to have my soldering iron in my hands tomorrow for real, although I have been using it on and off over the holidays repairing and modifying Christmas lights etc. 

[med6753]

Actually I'll post something now TEA related...sort of.

Christmas present from the lady. A Dremel tool. Never had one and I don't know how many times I could have used one. Now I have one. This one is battery operated and it's currently on charge. Speaking of the battery....I'm a little dismayed that it still uses Ni-cads rather than Lithium. So I have to deal with battery "memory" and typically short life span of Ni-cads. But I'll make due.

[Martin72]

Call me mad but I can´t await going back to work on january 2nd..

[med6753]

Call me mad but I can´t await going back to work on january 2nd..

You can go in my place. I have to go into work tonight (Sunday) which totally sucks.  Then I'm off Monday night and back to work Tuesday night.

[Specmaster]

Actually I'll post something now TEA related...sort of.

Christmas present from the lady. A Dremel tool. Never had one and I don't know how many times I could have used one. Now I have one. This one is battery operated and it's currently on charge. Speaking of the battery....I'm a little dismayed that it still uses Ni-cads rather than Lithium. So I have to deal with battery "memory" and typically short life span of Ni-cads. But I'll make due.

They are really handy, I purchased a clone version from Lidl and I don't know how many times it has saved the day, from cutting and grinding away metal to make things fit to polishing, cleaning and cutting plastics etc. Even over the holidays, while not officially allowed to engage in full on TEA activities, it proved useful in modifying a dimmer switch plate to allow a dimmer module fit onto a plate it was not designed for in order to preserve the single supplier / look for the electrics in my sons new flat. That's something that would not have been possible without the dremel 

[Specmaster]

Be on the lookout for eBay scammers over the holiday period, I have already had to make a claim after eBay suspended a sellers account after I had just made a purchase (another Amazon Echo to go with the one my son got me for Christmas). I had my refund from EBay within minutes and no it looks like its going to happen again, yep I was trying to buy another Echo 

The payment is still showing as pending and I paid for it hours ago, I have to admit I did think it was dodgy, selling an item (new) that is £90 from Amazon for just £29 but hey, stranger things have happened before so I thought, why the hell not, I'm covered by eBay anyway and you never know, I might just get the Echo after all, They really are a wonderful little system, handy background music, good tone and volume and if you have 2 or more they can be used as intercoms as well, even make telephone calls over the internet all by just using your voice to control, them, very handy. 

[med6753]

Be on the lookout for eBay scammers over the holiday period, I have already had to make a claim after eBay suspended a sellers account after I had just made a purchase (another Amazon Echo to go with the one my son got me for Christmas). I had my refund from EBay within minutes and no it looks like its going to happen again, yep I was trying to buy another Echo 

The payment is still showing as pending and I paid for it hours ago, I have to admit I did think it was dodgy, selling an item (new) that is £90 from Amazon for just £29 but hey, stranger things have happened before so I thought, why the hell not, I'm covered by eBay anyway and you never know, I might just get the Echo after all, They really are a wonderful little system, handy background music, good tone and volume and if you have 2 or more they can be used as intercoms as well, even make telephone calls over the internet all by just using your voice to control, them, very handy. 

Call me paranoid but I have a big time problem with a device listening (and possibly recording) everything I say. 

[Mr. Scram]

Call me paranoid but I have a big time problem with a device listening (and possibly recording) everything I say. 

Twenty years ago it was the fever dream of people with tin foil hats, now people are willingly spending their own money on them. I can't say I understand it, other than maybe a novelty factor for a week or so.

[Specmaster]

I know what you mean, and it does in deed listen but it is supposed to only record after it hears its trigger which is by default "Alexa" and I doubt that thats a word to word crop up normally very often in most people's conversations. It does provide you with a recorded log which you can delete and there is also a microphone mute button that cuts the microphone off o you can have privacy.

Edit.
That said, you can never have complete privacy, even with a fixed landline, there are ways of turning the microphone on, even with the handset switched OFF, the same goes for mobile phones, and they can listen in to what you are saying anyway by means targeting the glass in your windows with a laser beam and recording the reflected signal  Unless you're plotting to overthrow some government of rob a bank I think your pretty safe though.

[Martin72]

You can go in my place

Mhh..better not. 
But in common, my working place is "fantastic" for those who won´t do straight and boring work - We´re a small Company, all departments working together in a very narrow way, especially developement and testfield where i am into it.

[Specmaster]

Be on the lookout for eBay scammers over the holiday period, I have already had to make a claim after eBay suspended a sellers account after I had just made a purchase (another Amazon Echo to go with the one my son got me for Christmas). I had my refund from EBay within minutes and no it looks like its going to happen again, yep I was trying to buy another Echo 

The payment is still showing as pending and I paid for it hours ago, I have to admit I did think it was dodgy, selling an item (new) that is £90 from Amazon for just £29 but hey, stranger things have happened before so I thought, why the hell not, I'm covered by eBay anyway and you never know, I might just get the Echo after all, They really are a wonderful little system, handy background music, good tone and volume and if you have 2 or more they can be used as intercoms as well, even make telephone calls over the internet all by just using your voice to control, them, very handy. 

Turns out that the sellers account had been compromised, bloody scammers, thats another claim gone into eBay today from me then  Last time I checked before eBay pulled the page down, they had sold 24 of these speakers in 24 hours and the money is still showing on my account as unpaid, so eBay have been working hard today trying to spot these suspect accounts and stop them ripping people off. 

[Mr. Scram]

I know what you mean, and it does in deed listen but it is supposed to only record after it hears its trigger which is by default "Alexa" and I doubt that thats a word to word crop up normally very often in most people's conversations. It does provide you with a recorded log which you can delete and there is also a microphone mute button that cuts the microphone off o you can have privacy.

Edit.
That said, you can never have complete privacy, even with a fixed landline, there are ways of turning the microphone on, even with the handset switched OFF, the same goes for mobile phones, and they can listen in to what you are saying anyway by means targeting the glass in your windows with a laser beam and recording the reflected signal  Unless you're plotting to overthrow some government of rob a bank I think your pretty safe though.

g
Even if all that is correct and the technology is flawless and without bugs, the commands you willingly give are recorded and beamed back to whoever runs the back-end of that particular assistant. As far as I'm aware, all the big parties doing voice recognition store these recordings and the information therein. I'm finding that I'm increasingly uncomfortable with ever more companies building ever more detailed profiles, which inevitably leads to them knowing more about you than you do yourself in many areas. Knowledge is power in very real ways and as data mining becomes more sophisticated, it turns out some very interesting deductions can be made from seemingly very mundane information. As with all information you can only let the cat out of the bag, but puttin it put it back in isn't really an option.

[beanflying]

Call me mad but I can´t await going back to work on january 2nd..

This is the first year I haven't worked in some form or another between Christmas and New Year in well over 15 years.  The business I worked for when I had a real job did shutdown maintenance over this time so even us collar and tie lot got our hands dirty. Since then I have had tourist based businesses so it's has been peak Summer lunacy by the beach.

Not working this week either unless I get a breakdown call. 

[Martin72]

Last year I had to work for the first time since 15 yrs between christmas and new year….cruel...
The 10..12 days in between were traditionally planned for chill out.

[beanflying]

It used to work out well as I took Summer holidays at the end of January when the crowds had gone prices got lower and the weather in this part of the world is even better. The best bit about working Christmas New Year was the phones barely rung at all.

Off to mail some British Resistor Porn in a plain brown envelope. 

[Specmaster]

I know what you mean, and it does in deed listen but it is supposed to only record after it hears its trigger which is by default "Alexa" and I doubt that thats a word to word crop up normally very often in most people's conversations. It does provide you with a recorded log which you can delete and there is also a microphone mute button that cuts the microphone off o you can have privacy.

Edit.
That said, you can never have complete privacy, even with a fixed landline, there are ways of turning the microphone on, even with the handset switched OFF, the same goes for mobile phones, and they can listen in to what you are saying anyway by means targeting the glass in your windows with a laser beam and recording the reflected signal  Unless you're plotting to overthrow some government of rob a bank I think your pretty safe though.

g
Even if all that is correct and the technology is flawless and without bugs, the commands you willingly give are recorded and beamed back to whoever runs the back-end of that particular assistant. As far as I'm aware, all the big parties doing voice recognition store these recordings and the information therein. I'm finding that I'm increasingly uncomfortable with ever more companies building ever more detailed profiles, which inevitably leads to them knowing more about you than you do yourself in many areas. Knowledge is power in very real ways and as data mining becomes more sophisticated, it turns out some very interesting deductions can be made from seemingly very mundane information. As with all information you can only let the cat out of the bag, but puttin it put it back in isn't really an option.

You are of course quite correct, even something as mundane as shopping is really big bucks to some companies and in these big dept stores you are tracked every single step you take. They can tell your route through the store, right down to which isles you walked, where you stopped and looked at something and by the combination of cameras and sensors, even tell what it was that you stopped and looked at and that even is down to the precise second. Most of us carry a mobile phone, or wear a smart watch, even a fitness tracker such as a Apple Fitbit which all have the ability of identifying you to these covert means of surveillance.

[bd139]

A thought for the evening on that.

I don’t mind being tracked. Its easy to manipulate to give you a good alibi

[Terry01]

Actually I'll post something now TEA related...sort of.

Christmas present from the lady. A Dremel tool. Never had one and I don't know how many times I could have used one. Now I have one. This one is battery operated and it's currently on charge. Speaking of the battery....I'm a little dismayed that it still uses Ni-cads rather than Lithium. So I have to deal with battery "memory" and typically short life span of Ni-cads. But I'll make due.

They are awesome wee tools, you'll love it I am sure!
I upgraded from the plug in job to lithium a month or 2 ago and it really does make it handy for so so many more jobs not being tied to a socket. I got the middle 10.4v model (I think it is) but you can get higher again 12 or 14v I am sure.
I used mine for polishing all my meter screens and so long as you just use the weight of the tool and don't press on it they really do come up like new quick smart.
I use it for cutting and grinding stuff too within reason and find it quite impressive for the compact size of it!

You can also buy loads of accessories and attachments for it too at reasonable money so it becomes loads of tools all in 1.

I think you'll be impressed too. 

[djos]

Call me paranoid but I have a big time problem with a device listening (and possibly recording) everything I say. 

Twenty years ago it was the fever dream of people with tin foil hats, now people are willingly spending their own money on them. I can't say I understand it, other than maybe a novelty factor for a week or so.

I was in the same boat until I realised they are the perfect companion for a home automation controller and dramatically improved the WAF of our whole system. We have 7 of them last I checked. 

That and I've loved start trek since I was a kid so being able to say "alexa, lights on" when I walk into a room is a childhood fantasy come true! 

Ps, I refuse to have google devices in my home, they know enough about me via my chrome use!

[Specmaster]

Hmm, the home automation is something that I'm not really bothered about and the switching modules are still currently way to large to fit into a standard switch box, behind the plate and the sockets are equally very large adaptors and reasonably expensive at the moment although I expect prices will come right down in time. Factor in as well that you net the Echo plus models with the built in home hub for the control, which is almost double the cost of the echo. Min you I would not rule the conversion at a later date so I can become a true coach potato 

I'm looking for a second echo 2nd generation at the moment because it would be a great help to as the one who has to do the weekly shopping, if SWMBO could just Alexa to add items into the shopping list as she runs out of them, it would save me a fantastic amount of time toing and froing the bloody shops as she suddenly remembers that she needs X and Y at the last minute when preparing the meals. Also it can double up as a 2 way intercom between her downstairs and me upstairs in my lab. Further units may well be added in at a later stage and possibly some automation as I'm a lazy bastard anyway. 

[beanflying]

Before you commit to much of your home automation to WiFi have a listen to Jonathan Oxer's thoughts on it. This isn't a big brother issue just some common sense reasons not to. Lots of great content on his channel on the subject btw.

[Specmaster]

A thought for the evening on that.

I don’t mind being tracked. Its easy to manipulate to give you a good alibi

While the tracking via mobile could be manipulated by giving your mobile to someone and telling them where to go with it, the video part is not so easy to overcome so an albi may be a bit more difficult to concoct