Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Vince]

ALSO... in English you say (normally)  " a 10 year old kid (for example) "    NOT a 10 yearSSS old kid ", that had me baffled at first ! 

In the north of England they do it the other way around: "Ah've bin workin' at t'factory for ten year" instead of "ten years".

There you go ! 

So next time one complains about French I will tell him to .... GO PISS UP A ROPE as Med would say ! 

[tggzzz]

ALSO... in English you say (normally)  " a 10 year old kid (for example) "    NOT a 10 yearSSS old kid ", that had me baffled at first ! 

In the north of England they do it the other way around: "Ah've bin workin' at t'factory for ten year" instead of "ten years".

The "ten year old kid" example is even more perfidous, because you can also say "The kid is ten years old".

Yebbut those are northerners, and therefore inherently uncouth and barely able to speak the Queen's English, like wot I do.

[Cerebus]

There is something to be said for adding adhesion by mass, certainly, although my pessimistic hunch is that it fast becomes a losing game.

You don't improve adhesion by adding mass, the frictional forces producing adhesion are directly proportional to mass. More mass -> more inertia/momentum to deal with -> more friction required. More mass produces more friction in direct proportion to the amount of inertia/momentum it adds - the outcome is a zero sum improvement. The trick is that reducing unsprung mass relative to total mass is easier for a larger car than it is for a small car and that does improve the ability to "keep the rubber on the road".

[Specmaster]

Whats happened on the computing front, it wasn't all that long ago that I recall folk were looking for the kick arse AMD Ryzen CPU's towards the top end of the family, coupled with the fastest RAM modules and one of the very best graphics cards, top end MB's and either the very quietest fans for cooling and/or plenty of bling in the cases and internal lighting, oh yes and the meanest of power supplies. Now it seems that people are happy with ex corporation laptops that more than likely have been baked, running for hours on end, maybe left in cars even where the temperature could rival those found in saunas, and or possibly been clogged up insides with fluff and dust etc due to idiots using them on their laps, or even beds etc, without providing them with a hard flat surface to ensure adequate flow of cooling air both internally and also of course around the outside and beneath to wick away the heat build up 

My laptops are both new, in warranty and are both Ryzens with 24Gb of RAM, Radeon graphics and 1TiB SSDs and they plug into my dock and instantly turn into a desktop with nice 4K monitor keyboard and mouse 

Needed my desktop specifically for games, F360 and running virtualisation workloads. Prior to that I was using a solitary i5 T470. Demand for games and F360 has now declined and I do my compute remotely for perhaps £50 a year total for which it’s not worth spending on hardware for. My use case changed basically.

As for the old stuff at 3 years it’s probably less likely to drop dead than new ones from experience. There’s a very high early failure rate of laptops and desktops in <1 year.

I shall be keeping my desktop going, I may update the MB to one that can take a Ryzen and then grab myself one of those, as for everything else, I'm happy with what I have. Whats not to like when you have 32GB ram, 500Gb SSD for Windows, 3TB of general storage, 1GB Ethernet network and graphics card with DVI, HDMI and Display ports with a dedicated 2GB of video RAM. Just would like to add some more punch to the processing side of things.

[McBryce]

Price tag implies it's for a pack of 10 units though !  I assume you only need one ?!

That's the subtle difference between "10 Pieces" and "10 Piece". 10 Piece means you get 10 bits with it, not 10 rachets.

McBryce.

The French have always had a problem with plurals. 

English: Man, men.
German: Mann, Männer.
French: Homme, hommes.

In only one of those languages is one of those pairs of words pronounced the same, despite being written differently. You can't tell if the Frenchman is talking singular or plural unless you also get the define article as well: l'homme, les hommes (or "les hommes, eh" if it's Canadian French).

When I was initially learning French we were being taught to read, write and speak at the same time. I was constantly tripping up over the fact that the written plural was, for the most part, formed just like an English one but not pronounced.

If you think that's complicated, try Irish (Gaeilge):

English: Man, men.
German: Mann, Männer.
French: Homme, hommes.
Gaeilge: Fear, Fír

Woman/Women: Bean, Mná.

Which is really good for confusing the tourists, when F and M are on the toilet doors and the American tourists think it's "Male" and "Female", when in fact it's the other way around "Fír" and "Mná"

McBryce.

[mansaxel]

So next time one complains about French I will tell him to .... GO PISS UP A ROPE as Med would say ! 

With English, one learns that it's a patchwork of exceptions, and memorises them.

With French, once you learn the reasonably consistent mapping of sound to spelling, it's about memorising the strong verbs and the occasional "Œufs" and you're good.

In German, you learn the rules, and once you can decode the sentences to place things in their right class and rôle fast enough, you can at least do the listening side of speaking the language.  A lot like Latin, actually.

Swedish is a lot of exceptions. And 4 genders. I don't know how to learn it, because I was brought up with it. The other 4 mentioned above I have some experience of getting used to. And I learned Danish by reading Donald Duck and watching TV. Literally. They call Goofy "Fedtmule".

[bd139]

I shall be keeping my desktop going, I may update the MB to one that can take a Ryzen and then grab myself one of those, as for everything else, I'm happy with what I have. Whats not to like when you have 32GB ram, 500Gb SSD for Windows, 3TB of general storage, 1GB Ethernet network and graphics card with DVI, HDMI and Display ports with a dedicated 2GB of video RAM. Just would like to add some more punch to the processing side of things.

Yeah makes sense to me. The Ryzen + B550 combo is a winner at the moment on the desktop. If I was going for another desktop it'd be a Ryzen 5600G + ASRock B550 board. Quite frankly the dedicated GPU market can piss up a rope

[tggzzz]

And I learned Danish by reading Donald Duck and watching TV. Literally.

I had an uncle, who thought he was King Edward IX, who had learned >50 (maybe 100) languages simply by reading them in the book that is translated into almost all the world's languages, i.e. the Bible.

When he went to a wedding in Gujarat, he was apparently able to talk to all the locals in Gujarati.

[cyclin_al]

I spent the afternoon over at North Weald Airfield and just after I parked up at the side of a taxiway this came and parked next to me. I have since discovered that this is kept at a large house not to far away from me.

Used to hear that classic Bell 47 sound as a kid all the time. Now it's rare. That example is in real good shape.

That one is particularly rare.  Look at the tail number ... then go look up your american comedy tv ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M*A*S*H_(TV_series)

[BU508A]

And I learned Danish by reading Donald Duck and watching TV. Literally.

I had an uncle, who thought he was King Edward IX, who had learned >50 (maybe 100) languages simply by reading them in the book that is translated into almost all the world's languages, i.e. the Bible.

When he went to a wedding in Gujarat, he was apparently able to talk to all the locals in Gujarati.

Sounds like he was a kind of Savant.

[Specmaster]

Yeah, sometimes having a bit of heft to a car is a good thing as it tends to hold the car in contact with the road surface, whereas a car that is lightweight can often catch air over bumps and that will cause total braking distances to increase.

But, the laws of physics say that retarding an object is going to require force corresponding to its mass. This means that the heavier car is going to be harder to stop than the lighter one, all other things being equal. There is something to be said for adding adhesion by mass, certainly, although my pessimistic hunch is that it fast becomes a losing game.

In the braking on wet tarmac situation, it almost totally comes down to not locking the wheels, because the friction of a freely skidding wheel is, as is universally known, much lower than a wheel that has grip and rotates. Hence, the ABS implementation is the crucial part.

Even if the ladies and gentlemen from Stuttgart don't make them like they used to (the W124 is by some people described as the last "built to spec, not to a price" model), they still turn out mighty fine cars. Am not surprised that it came out in top for braking.

I have heard that before about the W124 and I also think that it is one of the better looking cars they produced, just lacks the modern creature comforts. A few years ago when I was just starting a new job, my company car was on order (VW Passat B4) but was being made to order as I wanted some factory fitted options. I had to have a comparable car on loan until the VW was ready, and so I was provided with a C class for 3 months, and after I got past the initial excitement of sitting behind that famous 3 pointed bonnet (hood for you Americans), emblem I started to discover just what a turd the C class is. When the Passat arrived, I was glad to hand back the C class I can tell you and over the next 9 years I had 2 more Passats and they were a far better car in my view. They lead me onto having the Škoda Superb range from then on as they were in fact re-bodied Passats on stretched floorpan with even more space and creature comforts, and I'm now on my 4th one, they are lovely cars.

[bd139]

And I learned Danish by reading Donald Duck and watching TV. Literally.

I had an uncle, who thought he was King Edward IX, who had learned >50 (maybe 100) languages simply by reading them in the book that is translated into almost all the world's languages, i.e. the Bible.

When he went to a wedding in Gujarat, he was apparently able to talk to all the locals in Gujarati.

Sounds like he was a kind of Savant.

Might have been lucky. My grandfather did something similar on a smaller scale and got stabbed in a bar in Hungary 

[tggzzz]

And I learned Danish by reading Donald Duck and watching TV. Literally.

I had an uncle, who thought he was King Edward IX, who had learned >50 (maybe 100) languages simply by reading them in the book that is translated into almost all the world's languages, i.e. the Bible.

When he went to a wedding in Gujarat, he was apparently able to talk to all the locals in Gujarati.

Sounds like he was a kind of Savant.

He had a lot of time on his hands: he became schizophrenic at university, and was kept in a hospital until he was in his mid 50s. His only "vice" was occasionally going to Windsor Castle to sit on the throne. The guards grew to recognise him, and call the hospital to take him back. When the medication had improved he made a deal with the doctors: he would take his medicine and not go to Windsor, and in return he could live in the community with the Gujarati family. Not all "care in the community" cases end so well.

Everybody liked him, he had a delicious sense of humour.

[mnementh]

...they will have to pull down millions of homes and rebuild them to give each household the means of charging their EV vehicles...

Why do you think they're already chasing private vehicles from bigger towns and cities in Europe? 

Ralf

Yes, I'm well aware that the big squeeze has already begun, it has over here as well. To see if I'm right or not, we shall have to wait and see what happens. Governments have had "U" turns before.  Most people are totally unaware that E5 fuel is being replaced in the main part by E10 fuel in the UK this summer, which is suitable for many cars pre 2002 vintage, which will still have to use E5. A car that cannot use E10 fuel will be forced to use E5 and it will cost most motorists with 50Litre tank around £15 extra to refill their tanks each time.

I'm all with BD and Cerebus here -- there is scant need for private motoring in urban areas. Do note I actually drive when I go to work, which is about once a week these days. That's simply because I can, and then can leave public transport lesser occupied for those who can't.

I long for this to end. When I can take public transport, I have 2h of reasonably peace and quiet in which to read and write.

There is at the moment, because of the way we have chosen/permitted society to become structured.

Thirty years ago my local big supermarket was Sainsbury's and it was in the local High Street - we could and did get a single bus to shop there and could have walked it if we didn't have too much shopping to carry. Today my local big supermarket is still Sainsbury's, but is seven miles away in a retail park, it is not a single bus ride and it is not walkable even by the greatest stretch of the imagination -  I drive there. The local High Street hasn't moved but is now moribund and half dead.

My first full time programming job in the seventies I walked to and from each day, or caught the bus if the weather was awful. I haven't had a job in the last 40 years that didn't involve a minimum of 20 miles of travel each day (whether public transport or driving) and most were further.

Much has to change before we can dump the need for individuals to travel significant distances each day for the necessities of life.

Exactly this!!!

Back in school days, we would run or take the bus to the grocery store, then call for a taxi for the short ride home with all the groceries.
I cannot even remember the last time I saw a taxi on the road...
For just a couple of items, all that was needed was a backpack and a bicycle.

Nowadays, the employer chooses a stupid location that is cheap for them, and then does not allow EV charging.  It all leaves the employees with no choice (ICE vehicle), an extended commute and shouldering much higher costs.  On the way home, one now has to drive through a massive "retail park" to find the groceries. 
My guess is the cost to society is much higher this way, where the focus is on transferring the costs to someone else, rather than reducing the overall costs.

... all bits and pieces of the puzzle.  Who knows what the complete puzzle looks like?

The end result being our entire planet reduced to a borg cubicle ship, that's what. 

EDIT: The entire corporate model revolves around turning everything into the end result of money, and aggregating that money unto the corporation while a) paying absolutely the least money out in human salaries necessary for a productive society, and 2) passing on all costs for that profiteering to the people they're not paying and their children.

In essence, they are a legal construct equivalent to the real Pirate Code: "Take all that you can and give nothing back."

mnem
 

[Andrew_Debbie]

my Lotus Elite having even more Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious  than normal.

Oh, a Lotus man ?!
Actually other than the early '90's Renaults, my other passion is the Lotus Esprit. Moving to the UK for 3 years definitely fueled the fire as I was able to see them in real life and get some rides with coal owners met on the Yahoo group/ mailing list back then. When I moved for a year to Saint-Ives / Cambridgeshire to do my industrial placement, I was not that far from the Lots factory, so I would sometimes drive there in the middle of the night on a saturday. I would visit the local dealership in Cambridge, and he would arrange a visit of the factory !  Guy was cool. said I was too big to fit in an Esprit, which was correct and he would tel me "You are French why don't you go after an Alpine instead ?!". Replied to hell with that Alpine junk, it's a POS and looks ugly ! I had only eyes for the beautiful Azure Blue / Magnolia Esprit S4s he had in his showroom !   
20 years later still very much in love with them. modern cars ha ve not put a dent in my love for them, just the other wayt around. The crappiest anbd ugliest the modern cars become, the more and more I appreciate the older early '90's cars !

I never knew about Lotus cars until doing a contract with Honeywell / AlliedSignal Aerospace, right around the time when Honeywell took over.
One of the full-time guys had a yellow Europa; very rare for any Lotus to be seen in the GWN.
Since becoming aware of Lotus, I have been drooling over photos of the Exige.  I have never seen it in real life.
About the only way to get a Lotus into Canada is ordering the parts kit and building a Caterham 7; even then it is not quite a real Lotus.

We rented a Catherham 7 SV in a Scotland.  It was amazing.  I've never driven anything like it.  I had a Miata and it just doesn't compare.

If you ever come over here, rent one.  You will not regret it.


Once you are in the 7 it is comfy.  But getting in is not easy.  Oh and the top does not keep you dry.  The doors leak.  The top leaks.  It is VERY LOUD.

The one we rented had a 1.8L Rover motor and a close ratio 6-speed.   Had to relearn how to shift.

It rained most of the day, but it got dry enough near the end to put the top down an mount a camera on the roll bar:

https://youtu.be/r1EV3YYv208

You are VERY close to the ground.  My camera was up on the roll bar and had a better view of the road ahead then I did. 

[mnementh]

I spent the afternoon over at North Weald Airfield and just after I parked up at the side of a taxiway this came and parked next to me. I have since discovered that this is kept at a large house not to far away from me.

Used to hear that classic Bell 47 sound as a kid all the time. Now it's rare. That example is in real good shape.

That one is particularly rare.  Look at the tail number ... then go look up your american comedy tv ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M*A*S*H_(TV_series)

I think that is not either of the real ones; more likely a fan reconstruction with vanity air license. One of the original two showed up on eBay a while back; it has been restored to TV Show condition with stretcher pods and its original license:



https://silodrome.com/mash-bell-47-helicopter/

mnem
 

[med6753]

Jackpot!  It pays to have a good parts stash. This is the vertical board out of deceased "Curly" 485. It has NINE 155-0078-10 custom IC's that I need to repair ONE on the 7A24 plug-in. But I'll probably harvest all nine of them off the board anyway.

I was out on Ebay and some clown wants $40 USD for just one of those IC's. His balls must drag on the ground and make him angry 

[Cerebus]

If you think that's complicated, try Irish (Gaeilge):

English: Man, men.
German: Mann, Männer.
French: Homme, hommes.
Gaeilge: Fear, Fír

Woman/Women: Bean, Mná.

Which is really good for confusing the tourists, when F and M are on the toilet doors and the American tourists think it's "Male" and "Female", when in fact it's the other way around "Fír" and "Mná"

McBryce.

Along with the circumlocutions to avoid saying "yes" or "no", which have spilt over into Irish English.

Fred: "Padraig, are you coming for a beer?"
Padraig: "That I shall."
"Are you trying to say 'yes'?"
"That I am."
"Are you ever going to learn to just say 'yes' or 'no'?"
"That I shall never do."
"Bloody Irish"
"Perhaps we are a mite wordy, but who has the beautiful redheads and the 'gift of the gab'? That is us, my friend, that is us."

Ireland: 1, England: nil.

[mnementh]

...His balls must drag on the ground and make him angry 

mnem
*snerk... snerk... snerkity-snerk...*

[mansaxel]

There is something to be said for adding adhesion by mass, certainly, although my pessimistic hunch is that it fast becomes a losing game.

You don't improve adhesion by adding mass, the frictional forces producing adhesion are directly proportional to mass. More mass -> more inertia/momentum to deal with -> more friction required. More mass produces more friction in direct proportion to the amount of inertia/momentum it adds - the outcome is a zero sum improvement. The trick is that reducing unsprung mass relative to total mass is easier for a larger car than it is for a small car and that does improve the ability to "keep the rubber on the road".

Of course. Thanks for telling me I was right in hunch but wrong in terms. Or: I get to bask in the end result but the path before is slightly less stellar 

[Cerebus]

There is something to be said for adding adhesion by mass, certainly, although my pessimistic hunch is that it fast becomes a losing game.

You don't improve adhesion by adding mass, the frictional forces producing adhesion are directly proportional to mass. More mass -> more inertia/momentum to deal with -> more friction required. More mass produces more friction in direct proportion to the amount of inertia/momentum it adds - the outcome is a zero sum improvement. The trick is that reducing unsprung mass relative to total mass is easier for a larger car than it is for a small car and that does improve the ability to "keep the rubber on the road".

Of course. Thanks for telling me I was right in hunch but wrong in terms. Or: I get to bask in the end result but the path before is slightly less stellar 

I can never figure out which I dislike least: Being right in the wrong way or wrong in the right way. 

Edit: Chapman was dead right about removing mass, but getting unsprung weight down at the same time is a right royal PITA. Witness the spindly suspension on the Caterham/Lotus 7 as proof:

[med6753]

If you think that's complicated, try Irish (Gaeilge):

English: Man, men.
German: Mann, Männer.
French: Homme, hommes.
Gaeilge: Fear, Fír

Woman/Women: Bean, Mná.

Which is really good for confusing the tourists, when F and M are on the toilet doors and the American tourists think it's "Male" and "Female", when in fact it's the other way around "Fír" and "Mná"

McBryce.

Along with the circumlocutions to avoid saying "yes" or "no", which have spilt over into Irish English.

Fred: "Padraig, are you coming for a beer?"
Padraig: "That I shall."
"Are you trying to say 'yes'?"
"That I am."
"Are you ever going to learn to just say 'yes' or 'no'?"
"That I shall never do."
"Bloody Irish"
"Perhaps we are a mite wordy, but who has the beautiful redheads and the 'gift of the gab'? That is us, my friend, that is us."

Ireland: 1, England: nil.

Whenever the thought of Irish redheads come to mind I always think of Maureen O'Hara. Even as a kid she made me feel tingly. 

Luckily the gift of gab has been bred out of me. I'm a man of few words, straight and to the point. 

[med6753]

Now finally Chapman has decided to offer Torx bits. Took them long enough. Two years ago they did not.

That's curious because I've had that set in excess of 4 years. 

[McBryce]

If you think that's complicated, try Irish (Gaeilge):

English: Man, men.
German: Mann, Männer.
French: Homme, hommes.
Gaeilge: Fear, Fír

Woman/Women: Bean, Mná.

Which is really good for confusing the tourists, when F and M are on the toilet doors and the American tourists think it's "Male" and "Female", when in fact it's the other way around "Fír" and "Mná"

McBryce.

Along with the circumlocutions to avoid saying "yes" or "no", which have spilt over into Irish English.

Fred: "Padraig, are you coming for a beer?"
Padraig: "That I shall."
"Are you trying to say 'yes'?"
"That I am."
"Are you ever going to learn to just say 'yes' or 'no'?"
"That I shall never do."
"Bloody Irish"
"Perhaps we are a mite wordy, but who has the beautiful redheads and the 'gift of the gab'? That is us, my friend, that is us."

Ireland: 1, England: nil.

Funny that, with the yes and no. We do actually have words for yes and no. Yes: Sea (pronounced "Sha"), No: Níl (pronounced "Neal"), but they rarely get used. Today when speaking English you will hear people using "Indeed" instead of yes and I won't even start on how we say no, it's usually a whole explanation of why the answer is no.

McBryce.

[Cerebus]

Whenever the thought of Irish redheads come to mind I always think of Maureen O'Hara. Even as a kid she made me feel tingly. 

I saw Angela Scanlon on the telly the other night and I have to admit to salivating a little, wolf like.