Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

Oh, why, oh why the flying fuck is the input-ground-output pin sequence on LM7815 and LM7915 not the same?

    

Sorry for laughing, but I've experienced exactly the same when I've designed a new PCB for my elrad PSU.

Please note those cables on the left, dangling in the breeze. 

Which simian worked on your kit while you were out of the house?

I've built this thing in 1989 and all I did was designing a new PCB and replaced the big capacitors underneath it. It was a hobby project and one of my first attempts in building a complete device, including the mechanical part.

[McBryce]

To our German friends. Are any of you affected by that flooding? I saw some of the videos and holy shit what a mess. 

I'm in the middle of it but relatively unaffected. The worst of the damage (the stuff being shown on TV) starts about 10 miles west of where I am. I know many people in the area though, so I've been into the area several times in the last few days to help. There's also a lot of damage North east of where I am, where there are more mountains.

Regarding river maintenance and planning: Yes, they usually do have a partial blame in these things. However, the sheer volumes of water that came down go well beyond what any rivers / drainage system could ever handle. Also, many of the houses that were damaged were not built on floodplains and had been built up to 100 years ago. My friends house (which is no more) was on the side of a small mountain, far from the river, but the mass of water coming down the mountain turned the road into a new river.
I had sandbags at the ready and was able to avoid damage, but the water level here was nothing compared to the worst hit areas. We are on a flat area, but also far from and higher than the river. My neighbour had water spraying out of his sockets in the ground floor and the underground car park in our street is under a meter of water (and still full of cars, but none of mine).

McBryce.

[AVGresponding]

Local Knob seller of the last week.

Didn't like the non reserved AUCTION price achieved on time #1 so cancel and relist for three days with no reserve again (I was second highest bidder on time #1)

Complete DOUCHE move didn't like the price achieved on attempt #2 so cancel and repeat for a third go (didn't waste my time)

#3 three day auction with no reserve ..... eBay auction: #265235199211

We should all bid it up to a crazy price and then all cancel on him...

[tggzzz]

That’s pretty funny 

Roughly the title is “client apologist” wrapped in some HR speak. Ultimately this new profession will lead to an “association of apologists” and eventually government department called “ministry of strategic apologetics” and degree courses being spun up suddenly with various skol swilling bearded tramps on Brighton seafront shouting out “I’ve got a BA in apologetics don’t ya know”

They won't be tramps, since there are too many well-paid career opportunities. Bah.

In the 80s a friend working on AI tried to change his job title from "Software Engineer" to "Applied Philosopher", but that was a step too far even for that zany company.

The more I think about it the more I think he had a point, since his job was to answer questions like "what is the difference between a whale and a submarine?". Most softies come across analagous problems in the form of "what do you mean by 'identity' or 'NULL'?", which are multi-billion pound sink holes.

[Specmaster]

Yes, this is true, but I'd have put a far higher bid in which might well have beaten the other bidders top. I was prepared to bi upto £36 for this meter, but we will never know now, but I suspect the low price is a direct reflection of the UK's Freedom Day with many people having to return to work and thus not at home sitting the eBay site all day.

You misspelled FreeDumb Day, when the government is free to blame feckless people for what happens next, and free to dismantle the overstretched NHS because it wasn't fit for purpose.  Cough.

Oh hell yeah, that is the ultimate aim of this stupid move, for sure. Let's hope and pray that the public never ever forget this government's vile acts and oust them from power ASAP.

[Specmaster]

Local Knob seller of the last week.

Didn't like the non reserved AUCTION price achieved on time #1 so cancel and relist for three days with no reserve again (I was second highest bidder on time #1)

Complete DOUCHE move didn't like the price achieved on attempt #2 so cancel and repeat for a third go (didn't waste my time)

#3 three day auction with no reserve ..... eBay auction: #265235199211

We should all bid it up to a crazy price and then all cancel on him...

No bother on that one Cobber, 1st it's in Stralia, 2nd he doesn't ship to the UK, 3rd, He might have cleaned the bastard up before saying it's in good condition, 4th, he's taking the Fosters for sure there alright.   

[Specmaster]

The wiring is done. I did a quick power up and I can move the meter off zero but that's about it. Ohms is dead. Tried measuring a DC voltage and no joy. So obviously next step is troubleshooting. Tomorrow's activity.

Mike, I take it that you checked the meter movement is ok and isn't O/C first? I have had a few of these things now and that meter is so often nuked, despite the seller listing them as OK, and I've had to return to sender about 3 times before 1 got one that was OK. Even then, when I got a good one, and serviced it, updated etc, I still was not impressed and flipped it pretty quick.

[med6753]

The other side of the pond checking in. Finally got a decent night's sleep. Waiting for a callback from the dr. They were off yesterday.

Did some basic checking of the Heath V-5 VTVM last night. Both tubes light up so filament OK. The B+ should be between 40 - 70VDC. Measured 66V on both plates of the 12AU7 so that's good. The PSU was modified to delete the selenium rectifier and use a 1N4001 with a 100 ohm/2W resistor in series. I also upgraded the filter cap from 12uf/150V to 22uf/150V.

I probably made a rookie mistake in the wiring to the selector switches. Given the confusing pictorials I'm not surprised. The manual sez if VTVM completely dead to get the DCV functional first and that's my plan. Apply a small DCV to the input and trace it through. I also have the Heath V-7A VTVM to refer to if necessary. The DCV circuit is nearly identical although the ACV circuit is completely different. More later after coffee kicks in.       

[med6753]

The wiring is done. I did a quick power up and I can move the meter off zero but that's about it. Ohms is dead. Tried measuring a DC voltage and no joy. So obviously next step is troubleshooting. Tomorrow's activity.

Mike, I take it that you checked the meter movement is ok and isn't O/C first? I have had a few of these things now and that meter is so often nuked, despite the seller listing them as OK, and I've had to return to sender about 3 times before 1 got one that was OK. Even then, when I got a good one, and serviced it, updated etc, I still was not impressed and flipped it pretty quick.

The meter movement is fine. I was OK before the rebuild and I see no reason why it still isn't OK. It hasn't been overloaded.

[Specmaster]

Fun job of the week...
Still, it's good to know that the designer, who gets paid half again as much as we do, is safe, working from home. There's a fair possibility that I'll call him a useless cunt, the next time I see him.

LOL... I'd be surprised if you didn't roshambo the mutherfucker... 

mnem
 

You mean in the style of Ricky Stocks?

Urban Dictionary is your friend. 

BTW, Roshambo is the correct spelling for this version of the "game". 

mnem
Okay, more like your perverted friend who's right more often than you want to admit...

Nah, I was think more like this, it starts at around 5:20. I did however spell his name wrong it was Ricky Starks, not Ricky Stocks 

[Specmaster]

But wait! --- There's more!

Again, in 1971, my mate & I ran a bit short on money whilst budgeting for our UK trip, so ended up with it being a "working holiday".

One job we had was interesting:

A nice big warehouse was built in Southampton, quite close to the Solent.
As these places do, it had a very large concrete "raft" floor.

Over time, the Solent did what  waterways are wont to do, & liquified the soli under the building.
This resulted in the centre of the floor sagging, but the edges stayed where they were supposed to be.

The result looked like a huge, shallow, "pie dish"!

Our job, along with a bunch of other people, was to move all the heavy stock into the centre of the floor.
Guys with pneumatic drills then cut around the outer edge, so the whole lot could settle back down to the new "ground level"!

It must have worked, as we never heard any more about it.

That whole process sounds risky as hell to me, beneath the slab's saggy part could be a huge void as a result of the ground being liquified and one day that could just give way and the lot disappear into a huge sinkhole 

[Specmaster]

That’s pretty funny 

Roughly the title is “client apologist” wrapped in some HR speak. Ultimately this new profession will lead to an “association of apologists” and eventually government department called “ministry of strategic apologetics” and degree courses being spun up suddenly with various skol swilling bearded tramps on Brighton seafront shouting out “I’ve got a BA in apologetics don’t ya know”

Thats almost as good as the government hiring someone to look for Brexit positives, the salary was pretty good though IIRC, but seriously who in their right mind would take that job 

[Cerebus]

That’s pretty funny 

Roughly the title is “client apologist” wrapped in some HR speak. Ultimately this new profession will lead to an “association of apologists” and eventually government department called “ministry of strategic apologetics” and degree courses being spun up suddenly with various skol swilling bearded tramps on Brighton seafront shouting out “I’ve got a BA in apologetics don’t ya know”

This already exists, just not in name. It seems that whenever anyone fucks up nowadays a formulaic and insincere apology is all that is forthcoming, the concepts of actual restitution, repentance and, god forbid, actually fixing something seem to have become forgotten arts.

BTW You're going to need another word, "apologetics" already exists, and "apologist" in the same sense:

apologetics | əpɒləˈdʒɛtɪks |
plural noun [treated as singular or plural]
reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine: apologetics for the slave trade are quite out of order.

[beanflying]

Its ok we Aussies reduced the average IQ of England today and sent Katie Hopkins back. How in the hell the muppet was even allowed into the country in the first place is farcical. Clearly prime material for a top posting 

F'ing Big Brother 

[Cerebus]

That’s pretty funny 

Roughly the title is “client apologist” wrapped in some HR speak. Ultimately this new profession will lead to an “association of apologists” and eventually government department called “ministry of strategic apologetics” and degree courses being spun up suddenly with various skol swilling bearded tramps on Brighton seafront shouting out “I’ve got a BA in apologetics don’t ya know”

They won't be tramps, since there are too many well-paid career opportunities. Bah.

In the 80s a friend working on AI tried to change his job title from "Software Engineer" to "Applied Philosopher", but that was a step too far even for that zany company.

The more I think about it the more I think he had a point, since his job was to answer questions like "what is the difference between a whale and a submarine?". Most softies come across analagous problems in the form of "what do you mean by 'identity' or 'NULL'?", which are multi-billion pound sink holes.

Back in the 80s, when I was working in AI, to explain what we did to one liberal arts academic I had to resort to saying "It's kind of applied epistemology", which did the job, and is a little closer than "applied philosophy".

[Cerebus]

Its ok we Aussies reduced the average IQ of England today and sent Katie Hopkins back. How in the hell the muppet was even allowed into the country in the first place is farcical. Clearly prime material for a top posting 

F'ing Big Brother 

Dammit! There was a time where when someone was transported they stayed transported. I suppose we'll have to try Virginia next...

[tggzzz]

Its ok we Aussies reduced the average IQ of England today and sent Katie Hopkins back. How in the hell the muppet was even allowed into the country in the first place is farcical. Clearly prime material for a top posting 

F'ing Big Brother 

Agreed on all counts.

Next question: what happened to the average IQ of Australia?

Feel free to apply PoMo LitCrit to that, e.g. https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html
How to Deconstruct Almost Anything--My Postmodern Adventure
Chip Morningstar, Electric Communities
"Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right." -- Donald Norman
This is the story of one computer professional's explorations in the world of postmodern literary criticism.
....
It is clear that the forms used by academicians writing in this area go right off the bogosity scale, pegging my bogometer until it breaks. The quality of the actual analysis of various literary works varies tremendously and must be judged on a case-by-case basis, but I find most of it highly questionable. Buried in the muck, however, are a set of important and interesting ideas: that in reading a work it is illuminating to consider the contrast between what is said and what is not said, between what is explicit and what is assumed, and that popular notions of truth and value depend to a disturbingly high degree on the reader's credulity and willingness to accept the text's own claims as to its validity.
...
The Pseudo Politically Correct term that I would use to describe the mind set of postmodernism is "epistemologically challenged": a constitutional inability to adopt a reasonable way to tell the good stuff from the bad stuff.

[tggzzz]

That’s pretty funny 

Roughly the title is “client apologist” wrapped in some HR speak. Ultimately this new profession will lead to an “association of apologists” and eventually government department called “ministry of strategic apologetics” and degree courses being spun up suddenly with various skol swilling bearded tramps on Brighton seafront shouting out “I’ve got a BA in apologetics don’t ya know”

They won't be tramps, since there are too many well-paid career opportunities. Bah.

In the 80s a friend working on AI tried to change his job title from "Software Engineer" to "Applied Philosopher", but that was a step too far even for that zany company.

The more I think about it the more I think he had a point, since his job was to answer questions like "what is the difference between a whale and a submarine?". Most softies come across analagous problems in the form of "what do you mean by 'identity' or 'NULL'?", which are multi-billion pound sink holes.

Back in the 80s, when I was working in AI, to explain what we did to one liberal arts academic I had to resort to saying "It's kind of applied epistemology", which did the job, and is a little closer than "applied philosophy".

Possibly, but epistemology is a bit too "meta".

[BU508A]

Its ok we Aussies reduced the average IQ of England today and sent Katie Hopkins back. How in the hell the muppet was even allowed into the country in the first place is farcical. Clearly prime material for a top posting 

F'ing Big Brother 

What intelligent person would watch that voluntarily?   

[beanflying]

Its ok we Aussies reduced the average IQ of England today and sent Katie Hopkins back. How in the hell the muppet was even allowed into the country in the first place is farcical. Clearly prime material for a top posting 

F'ing Big Brother 

Agreed on all counts.

Next question: what happened to the average IQ of Australia?

Some idiot in a State Government ministerial role deemed her to be able to 'add value' to the economy and then got her an exemption to enter the country. Seriously BB adds zero to anything let alone the economy. Cement shoes and dropping out a door on the way home would be a win for all.

[mansaxel]

The Pseudo Politically Correct term that I would use to describe the mind set of postmodernism is "epistemologically challenged": a constitutional inability to adopt a reasonable way to tell the good stuff from the bad stuff.

Oh, indeed. But in trying to understand post-modernism one must keep a few things in mind;

• It is by and large a French invention
• France is a very centralistic country, governed from the centre
• The fact that France, at all, works in spite of that, is because the French largely ignore the governing from above.
• France also has produced a set of highly dogmatic and fragile structural schools of thought which can work if closely adhered to, but break when ignored; notable examples include Académie des Beaux-Arts and the Maginot Line
• The post-modern school is a reaction to this tendency, and must be understood as some petrified Sturm und Drang to be comprehensive.

I'm not much for it, but will give the post-modern philosophy a point in its nut-kicking of pompous institutions. Shame it had to become one, and take critical thinking with it in decay.

[Specmaster]

Its ok we Aussies reduced the average IQ of England today and sent Katie Hopkins back. How in the hell the muppet was even allowed into the country in the first place is farcical. Clearly prime material for a top posting 

F'ing Big Brother 

No you got that wrong, we sent her to you because A/ we don't want here and B/ we thought we have to put up with her for long enough so you might like her as part of the trade deal, so I'm afraid that you have to keep her or else the deal is off 

[BU508A]

Now I understand.

NSFW
https://youtu.be/eRIdtMlqwNA

[med6753]

Now I understand.

NSFW
https://youtu.be/eRIdtMlqwNA

Up to this point I had no idea who she was. Is she actually for real or is it just an act?  She would be welcomed with open arms by the KKK and I'm sure she'd have some choice words if she saw Jo and I together. May she rot in hell.   

[Specmaster]

Now I understand.

NSFW
https://youtu.be/eRIdtMlqwNA

Up to this point I had no idea who she was. Is she actually for real or is it just an act?  She would be welcomed with open arms by the KKK and I'm sure she'd have some choice words if she saw Jo and I together. May she rot in hell.   

Sadly, she is for real