Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[AVGresponding]

Every time someone posts a pic of an AVO on here I just see an upside-down light fitting with the lamp removed...

[Cerebus]

In other news:

I've been liking the HP 66312A that I scored a while back so much that I've picked up one of its siblings, an HP 6611C (from an eevblog forum occasional member, via eBay). Should be with me on Friday if UPS have their act together (they probably haven't, I usually get a series of confusing and contradictory updates from UPS revising the expected delivery time of anything coming via them).

I've also got appointments for both my Covid-19 jabs, so if you're in the UK second wave like me (either partially decrepit or broken, or as they prefer to put it, 65+ or with underlying medical conditions) then you should get a letter soon if you haven't already.

[mnementh]

Urrrgh.

After scouring every source available to upgrade my son's PC to something semi-civilized (i7-3770/16GB RAM) and literally not finding anything for less than $220, I gave up and dropped over $700 on a Ryzen 5/3600 build.

I'm typing this on my laptop, which is sitting on the floor where my PC used to be... as I will be kicking my case down to him and upgrading to one which is designed for Dual AiO coolers and has USB-C on the front panel. Stripping out my case will be tonight's father-son time.

The really horrifiying part... the difference between my bare-minimum B550/cheap RAM/Cheap SSD build and the Aorus X570/Ballistix DDR4-3600/Evo970+ build was like $120. The same build was aboot US$480 when I shopped it out before my own build a year and a half ago. 

I sooo wish I had a Saskia within reasonable shipping distance here right now... 

mnem
*punt*

[Saskia]

Here, have a teaser

this is just a jimmy-rigged thing. 2 2070s (one of which I just sold to my boss), 1 3060ti, 1 3080 (TUF GAMING) and a 3090. In the other room there's a 3080 FTW3 Ultra and a VU33P. I got the ok from my employer and for tax reasons (more than 262 Pesos annual profit) I have to open a sole proprietorship which makes all of this stuff tax deductable.

This is an absolutely fucked up business model. But the good thing is that the cards have ample warranty and will be reused for the deep learning projects coming up. So they will be doing some decent work later on in their life.

Will be getting an A6000 later on to do some additional fast paced NLP trainings, but that will not come out of my pocket.

I could have shipped you a PC to Canadia. However with the taxes, duties, etc it would not have been worth it.
And potential shipping damage would have been an issue ...

[mnementh]

I know... I know. Just so frustrating right now, even with the lockdown easing up, every thing you can do to keep from going stir-crazy is sooo fucking expensive.

I do envy you the 3080/3090... but I really want to get into Big Navi sometime soon; AMD's Catalyst OC management is light-years ahead of anything available for NVIDIA, and it just plain fucking works. AMD is supposedly dropping something actually competitive to the 30x0 this summer alongside the Ryzen 4000 Mobile CPUs.

mnem
it's... only... *cringe* money...

[med6753]

There is nothing idiotproof enough to prevent usage by idiots. They are better at being idiots than you will ever be so they will conceive idiotic ways of abusing stuff that you will never be able to imagine even in your wildest hallucinogenic dreams.

Oh I don't know.  There's a misunderstanding here that reasonably intelligent people can't also be idiots too. I'm living proof of that. In fact, I suspect that the higher the notional IQ the greater the capacity for idiotic behaviour - look at Spiro Agnew and [Sir] Clive Sinclair. All you have to do is listen to your "inner idiot" when you're doing the design. "Would I use the jaws of a car crusher to hold this meter while I was testing the crusher's battery? Yes, yes I would."

Yosemite Park Ranger on why the bear-proof trash cans are not completly bear proof bu hard to open.
"There is a big differential between the smartest bear and the dumbest camper"

And a raccoon is smarter than all of them put together. 

[mnementh]

Every time someone posts a pic of an AVO on here I just see an upside-down light fitting with the lamp removed...

      

When I was moving from the old house, I had to shop some replacement lampshades for a hideous chandelier because I broke one doing a bulb change. That search was... extensive. 

As you might imagine, I stumbled across a great many "Novelty" light fixtures in that search... these actually made me laugh. 

mnem
*impairing productivity since nineteen-mumblety-mumble*

[med6753]

There is nothing idiotproof enough to prevent usage by idiots. They are better at being idiots than you will ever be so they will conceive idiotic ways of abusing stuff that you will never be able to imagine even in your wildest hallucinogenic dreams.

Oh I don't know.  There's a misunderstanding here that reasonably intelligent people can't also be idiots too. I'm living proof of that. In fact, I suspect that the higher the notional IQ the greater the capacity for idiotic behaviour - look at Spiro Agnew and [Sir] Clive Sinclair. All you have to do is listen to your "inner idiot" when you're doing the design. "Would I use the jaws of a car crusher to hold this meter while I was testing the crusher's battery? Yes, yes I would."

Yosemite Park Ranger on why the bear-proof trash cans are not completly bear proof bu hard to open.
"There is a big differential between the smartest bear and the dumbest camper"

Well, at least they don't have to deal with the problems the Yellowstone rangers have:

I'm not so sure when he hangs out with someone named "Boo-boo"

[mnementh]

Boo-Boo is the smart one.

mnem
Aside from the toaster incident... 

[AVGresponding]

Every time someone posts a pic of an AVO on here I just see an upside-down light fitting with the lamp removed...

      

When I was moving from the old house, I had to shop some replacement lampshades for a hideous chandelier because I broke one doing a bulb change. That search was... extensive. 

As you might imagine, I stumbled across a great many "Novelty" light fixtures in that search... these actually made me laugh. 

mnem
*impairing productivity since nineteen-mumblety-mumble*

Those are quite creative, and that's certainly the safest place for a skateboard.

[capt bullshot]

Here, have a teaser

They must be faster than the speed of light with all the photons leaking out of the boxes 

[Saskia]

@mnem shipping 10 kg to Canada 52€ , 20 kg is 72€

Taxes, etc extra ...

I could send you a mini ITX machine (i7 9700, 32GB, SSD)
 ...

[bd139]

Here, have a teaser

this is just a jimmy-rigged thing. 2 2070s (one of which I just sold to my boss), 1 3060ti, 1 3080 (TUF GAMING) and a 3090. In the other room there's a 3080 FTW3 Ultra and a VU33P. I got the ok from my employer and for tax reasons (more than 262 Pesos annual profit) I have to open a sole proprietorship which makes all of this stuff tax deductable.

This is an absolutely fucked up business model. But the good thing is that the cards have ample warranty and will be reused for the deep learning projects coming up. So they will be doing some decent work later on in their life.

Will be getting an A6000 later on to do some additional fast paced NLP trainings, but that will not come out of my pocket.

I could have shipped you a PC to Canadia. However with the taxes, duties, etc it would not have been worth it.
And potential shipping damage would have been an issue ...

Blimey that’s a shit load of flops in that cluster!

[mnementh]

@mnem shipping 10 kg to Canada 52€ , 20 kg is 72€ Taxes, etc extra ...   I could send you a mini ITX machine (i7 9700, 32GB, SSD) ...

Thanks... but the convenience of Amazon's return policy along with two-day delivery made the decision to buy locally a no-brainer. And the difference between that and NewEgg was aboot $20 over the whole order. Even taking advantage of some sales on the US Newegg/Amazon sites, the duty charges made the final cost in my cart punitive. Local sales taxes were not as bad... but still painful. But if something gets sent back, at least I don't have to pay duty on the warranty replacement.

I sure am glad I built my machine when I did.

mnem
 

[tggzzz]

Here, have a teaser

They must be faster than the speed of light with all the photons leaking out of the boxes 

Right colour for Cherenkov radiation!

[Saskia]

I love the smell of plutonium in the morning ...

[Brumby]

Here, have a teaser

* sigh *

Makes me want to step out and build the rig I'd like to put together.  Primary role for it is CAD, secondary is video editing/mucking about.  The support bits I can handle, I just need mainboard, CPU, RAM and graphics card ... which requires funds I don't really have.  (I daresay, a not uncommon situation.)

Still off work (which doesn't help), but leg is sloooooooowly getting better.

[Brumby]

I love the smell of plutonium in the morning ...

I've never been that close to plutonium to find out what it smells like.

[bd139]

Lucky you! 

[Saskia]

@Brumby sorry 'bout that ... I came into possession of this stuff more or less by accident ...

and I know that at current market prices that's quite a sum sitting there ...
My boss was not so lucky, he did get none of those cards whatsoever so I am helping him out ...
as for the rest, it was a more or less stoopeed coincidence with an Asus 2070 going up in smoke that lead to my buying the 3060ti.
Curiosity led me to the FPGA, and its mining turnaround then got me to buy the rest of the cards
Albeit at an elevated price.
However I will use them for the deep learning stuff that is about to come up in my job, and my new boss is trying to bump me to architect.
Which would help me out. In the mean time I need to cover for hubby, and the additional 1k$/month is enough to subsidize him and keep him afloat.
May sound strange, but I don't want to go back to having to eat Nisshin Ramen noodles for sustenance. It just does not cut it ...

[vk6zgo]

Bugger.

It lasted a few minutes upright* then we had an uncontrolled combustion event.

*Well, at a bit of an angle.  Apparently the landing legs did not deploy - so it sat on its arse for that time.

Can you say "Boom!" boys and girls?

I have to be honest here... whenever I see one of these flying septic tanks, I think back to the o-o-o-old Flash Gordon flicks, and the ships that were obviously made of toilet paper rolls covered with aluminum foil. If there ever was any real-world evidence for the "Moon Landing Hoaxers", it would have to be all this. 

mnem
*currently building a gaming PC with my son*

Well, the movies were made by "Septic Tanks!"

[Brumby]

@Saskia   That's OK.  I was just musing about a build I've been looking at on and off for a while now.  Get some ideas in mind and then price changes, new releases and financial realities bring me back to earth.

I'll get there.

[Specmaster]

Here, have a teaser

* sigh *

Makes me want to step out and build the rig I'd like to put together.  Primary role for it is CAD, secondary is video editing/mucking about.  The support bits I can handle, I just need mainboard, CPU, RAM and graphics card ... which requires funds I don't really have.  (I daresay, a not uncommon situation.)

Still off work (which doesn't help), but leg is sloooooooowly getting better.

Good to hear your leg is getting better, soon be up about again like it never happened 

[bitseeker]

Together with the 8060A I got an AVO Multiminor and a Hung Chang toy. The Hung Chang is never coming close to being used; it's down right dangerous.  The Multiminor looks superficially OK, but is as of yet untested; my plan is to assess it this weekend. In the repair queue I've also got a Model 7 Avometer that looks OK from the outside but is somehow broken; no reaction on any range is detected.

None of these will be turned into a lamp.

 

As far as the telephone; I've got an Asterisk PABX at home where one of my Grandstream ATAs has support for pulse dialling, including the Swedish system where -- properly -- 0 is less than 1.

0 < 1. Cool and makes sense. But how many pulses does 0 generate? Less than 1?

[beanflying]

NI/Labview webinar that might be of interest to some. Mid Next week https://events.ni.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x506902abcd