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derFunkenstein
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Thu Sep 14, 2017 2:08 pm

It doesn't matter, he's just going to start posting spam once jbi (maybe) unbans the IP address.
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Heiwashin
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Thu Sep 14, 2017 8:39 pm

Always thankful for a properly functioning circuit breaker. Today i went into the cab to get on my pc but nothing would turn on.

The inverter didn't show an error which meant the breaker on the way out was flipped. I gave it a press, because this happens occasionally with no known reason, and it lasted a short time before dying again.

I guessed my pc was the culprit, just because it's been having a very hard time with the rough environment, and i was right. The power cable has been mashed against the wall so hard, and formed such a stiff 90 degree angle, that you'd think that it was intended to be that way.

I'll go pick up another one in the morning. I just hope that whatever short happened in there didn't take any of my components with it.
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notfred
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Fri Sep 15, 2017 7:53 am

Should be OK because that would be a short on the input to the PSU so the PSU just saw intermittent to no power. Inverter is more the device that would have had the hard time with its output being shorted until it went over the circuit breaker's detection point.
 
Heiwashin
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Fri Sep 15, 2017 1:12 pm

The interesting thing is that the readout on the inverter didn't imply there was a massive current on the line. I suppose it's possible the breaker was tripping near instantly so i didn't have the chance to see an updated value.

I managed to get by a walmart and pick up another cable, but it's the same straight out design that's going to get damaged. Next chance i get i'll pick up a angled plug on amazon.

You'd be surprised how much work has gone into damage proofing everything inside the truck. One time i hit a pothole so big i almost hit the ceiling, and my desktop did hit the ceiling damaging the roof speaker grill.
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Captain Ned
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 10:57 am

What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 11:45 am

Heiwashin wrote:
You'd be surprised how much work has gone into damage proofing everything inside the truck. One time i hit a pothole so big i almost hit the ceiling, and my desktop did hit the ceiling damaging the roof speaker grill.

A desktop PC in the lot lizard box? That's pretty brave. Sure hope that there's no spinny HDs and that the CPU/HSF is positioned to take vertical g-loads. There's a reason (and a price) for high-end gaming laptops.

Not sure if I've asked you this before (and all apologies if I can't remember things), but have the Big 3 (does Volvo make 4??) tractor mfgs and the major truck stops collaborated on a RV park style plugin to replace the big AC "window hose"? Alternatively, does what I remember from my youth (shutting down a diesel engine hurts it - hey not my idea, just what I heard) still rule your world?
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Heiwashin
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 12:05 pm

My fan is not ideally placed but it is the stock one so it's light. Interestingly the most problem causing part is my graphics card. Light bumps will cause the video driver to fail.

As for the" idle air" which is the third party that usually sells the truck stop air, they and their long dead competitors had pretty rough times when the economy tanked and then fuel prices tanked afterwards. You can only find them at maybe one out of twenty stops now, and to use it theyll give you a plate that fits the window same as always really.

The best alternative would probably be for more companies to use electronic power units for the bunks which usually include electric coolers, and then use a wired power solutionv like "shore power". No one can decide if any form of apu is worth the money though. I expect that'll change as soon as the fracing boon wears off.

These days companies encourage turning the truck off as often as possible. A lot of the of quirks trucks used to offer have been fixed. For the most part, no more progressive shifting, waiting for the clutch to cool down before turning off the truck, bumping the rev limiter, so on.

It's pretty much like driving a big car without a synchro these days.

I even have adaptive cruise control which spaces me in traffic automatically as long as I don't need to shift.
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Captain Ned
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 12:27 pm

Heiwashin wrote:
The best alternative would probably be for more companies to use electronic power units for the bunks which usually include electric coolers, and then use a wired power solution like "shore power". No one can decide if any form of apu is worth the money though. I expect that'll change as soon as the fracing boon wears off.

This is what I was getting at. I'm somewhat astounded that the long-haul trucking business has not forced the mega truck stops into providing 50-amp/120V hookups.
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Heiwashin
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 12:46 pm

It would be nice if there was a better solution. I just idle a lot, but it costs me a lot of money. Last time i did the math i came up about 10k shorter in a year because i idle on weekends during the day and warm nights.
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 1:52 pm

It sounds like you need a small diesel fueled generator and a small heat pump hanging out back or down under.
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ludi
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 2:30 pm

Heiwashin wrote:
The best alternative would probably be for more companies to use electronic power units for the bunks which usually include electric coolers, and then use a wired power solutionv like "shore power". No one can decide if any form of apu is worth the money though. I expect that'll change as soon as the fracing boon wears off.

If Tesla's electric truck concept goes anywhere, then whatever his charger ends up being ought to become an industry standard. No reason why it couldn't also be used for shore power.

I'm kind of surprised the newest long-haul truck designs haven't already gone to diesel-electric with a battery hybrid system. No new infrastructure needed, would easily adapt to shore power, and shrinking the engine a bit while getting that giant transmission out of the design ought to make up for the battery weight gain.
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Heiwashin
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 3:02 pm

farmpuma wrote:
It sounds like you need a small diesel fueled generator and a small heat pump hanging out back or down under.


We do have a diesel burning heater under the bunk. It gets hot enough to be dangerous so i've never slept cold unless it wasn't on. As for the generator, that's part of the auxillary power unit fuss that still seems to be in debate. Lots of companies pick them up to try to save fuel costs, some end up getting rid of them. My company tried it before i got here and found them not to be worth the trouble. I think the maintenance on generators that would run potentially a hundred hours a month might negate the fuel savings.

I"m not sure what the plans for electric trucks might be but i'd like to run the math on how much power it takes to pull 40 tons up a 7% grade. Since that power usage would be overwhelmingly large, and since we drive extremely long distances on our time limited clocks, my only guess is that the necessary battery bank size would be incredibly expensive, heavy, and dangerous or else you would just be running a diesel generator the entire time anyway.

*edit i just want trucks to be automated. I'd be able to stick around for a while as some sort of load securement specialist, at least until an infrastructure to setup and maintain securement was implemented.
Looking for Knowledge wrote:
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 3:36 pm

Occasionally, I can't resist the urge to click on click-baity links if there's a possibility of some amusement value. I just clicked on one that said "Funny Church Signs". Out of 50+ photos of signs in front of churches, here were the ones I thought were worth a LOL:

"The fact that there's a highway to hell and only a stairway to heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic numbers."

"With all this rain we need an ark. Fear not! We Noah guy!"

"We are still open between Christmas and Easter."
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Heiwashin
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 4:07 pm

The dot needs to hire those guys to come up with clever slogans. I get really tired of the crap that the government manages to put out.

"click it or ticket"

"you just blew 10,000 dollars" (failed breathalyzer)
Looking for Knowledge wrote:
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 4:25 pm

Oh, don't get me started. The "motivational" posters DOE put up when I worked at Fermilab were ridiculous. At least some of them were (unintentionally) hilarious. One of my co-workers actually put up some parody ones (IIRC one of them even stayed up for a few days before someone noticed and took it down).
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Captain Ned
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 4:49 pm

I once saw, some 15+ years ago now, where someone had found an unlocked highway sign and had reprogrammed it to say:

Klaatu
Barada
Nikto

If I ever find myself in such a situation, that is exactly what I will make the sign say.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 5:14 pm

Heiwashin wrote:
The dot needs to hire those guys to come up with clever slogans. I get really tired of the crap that the government manages to put out.

"click it or ticket"

"you just blew 10,000 dollars" (failed breathalyzer)

The best I've seen so far from the VT DOT (What's orange and sleeps 3? A plow truck) is "Drive Sober or get Pulled Over". Some political-level Deputy Commissioner probably got a bonus for that one (and stiffed the plow driver who originally thought it up).
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Heiwashin
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sat Sep 16, 2017 5:30 pm

Another one i saw that made my eyes roll so hard that it was more dangerous than texting while driving would have been,
"Arrive alive, don't text and drive"
Looking for Knowledge wrote:
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Captain Ned
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sun Sep 17, 2017 1:20 am

https://twitter.com/DeborahNetburn/stat ... 9420954624

Dude works for CalTech and worked on Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, AND Cassini. Lucky?? Well beyond lucky. That's a HOF career if there is one in that business.
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Captain Ned
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Sun Sep 17, 2017 1:24 am

Heiwashin wrote:
Another one i saw that made my eyes roll so hard that it was more dangerous than texting while driving would have been,
"Arrive alive, don't text and drive"

The electronic signs on the NY Thruway, Garden State Parkway, and NJ Turnpike all have some variant of "It can wait" aimed at texting. Slap a speed radar into those signs aimed at the left lane that would tell slow & stupid people to move over and society would see benefit.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why I-87 is three lanes from Albany to Lake George (of course I do, it's where the NY state-level congress-critters live during the session), yet it is 2 lanes from Albany until just north of NYC and we are all stuck in the game of which Quebecois trucker's gov't-mandated governor is tuned a little tighter than the others. When passes take 10 miles to accomplish, I start to hope for the day when I can mount anti-tank missiles on my car.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Mon Sep 18, 2017 7:11 pm

My commute this AM (on public transit) was a clusterf*ck. Got to the office about an hour late.

I get off the bus at the local commuter train station, and the platform is crowded. Like, really, stupidly crowded.

Someone comments that there hasn't been a train in nearly an hour. A train finally pulls in, and people are cramming in like sardines, since there's like 3 trains' worth of people waiting on the platform. I decide to wait for the next train.

The next train pulls in. Instead of taking on passengers, it disgorges its entire passenger load from the two stops upstream and pulls out empty, leaving the platform as crowded as it was when I first arrived.

Third train doesn't stop, in spite of an audio announcement to the effect that the next inbound train is arriving.

At this point I'm wishing I'd driven to the station instead of taking the bus. The commuter shuttle buses only run TO the station in the AM, and FROM the station in the PM, so I'm basically being held hostage by Metra's incompetence. If I'd had my car there I could have turned around and told my co-workers I was working from home today (Monday is not normally a day that people work from home, but we've got some flexibility for situations like this).

Fourth train arrives, already mostly full. About 3/4 of the people on the platform manage to cram themselves in. The last few to board decide "f*ck this", and get off again before the doors close. (I'm still standing on the platform where I've been for the past 30+ minutes, having declined to participate in these "commuter bonding exercises".)

Fifth train (since I arrived at the station) finally comes, and even seems semi-normal (other than being a car or two short).

Metra's explanation was "mechanical failures".

Good lord, if things are this bad when the weather is still nice, I shudder to think what this winter is going to be like, when they typically have most of their equipment problems.

Oh, and for whatever reason, the station reeked of raw sewage. More "mechanical failures", I guess. Though it was much worse inside the station building, so I guess I can't blame the holding tank for one of the train's on-board restrooms.
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derFunkenstein
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Tue Sep 19, 2017 2:50 pm

A parent emailed the general help address for our mobile app (listed on Google Play) asking for a report of their student's data. The email didn't include the student's name, the district's name (because we support hundreds of them), or anything even remotely identifying. But even if it did there's no way. Just no way. What she's asking for is confidential.

I told her that the district controls distribution of data. She should contact her kid's school and work that out. Apparently she did, because her response was "That's about as helpful as they were thanks a lot". I don't know what she expected, but apparently this wasn't it.

Like, really, you want some third-party contractor just handing out confidential data? You just sent an email to a random address asking for a copy of your kid's grades? Parents aren't our customers; the school district is. It's the district's data. If that was you, I'm not sorry that I shared your story. You're a moron. :lol:
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Heiwashin
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:16 pm

I bet she's a fun wife.

I mean, she nagged a stranger...
Looking for Knowledge wrote:
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Captain Ned
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:30 pm

Heiwashin wrote:
I bet she's a fun wife.

I mean, she nagged a stranger...

Hey, work the consumer complaint line in my office for a day. You'll be mainlining Scotch by noon.
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:36 pm

I once had someone e-mail me at my personal e-mail address, to ask if I could provide an updated firmware image for a specific model of DSL modem made by a company I had worked at briefly 15 years prior.
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derFunkenstein
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:46 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
Heiwashin wrote:
I bet she's a fun wife.

I mean, she nagged a stranger...

Hey, work the consumer complaint line in my office for a day. You'll be mainlining Scotch by noon.

I am beyond thrilled to not be in support anymore. I'm still in a customer-facing position from time to time, but only when stuff needs escalated.
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:56 pm

It has been a long time since I've been in a truly "customer-facing" position, unless you count product demos and debriefings with test pilots (after test flights that used our stuff) when I worked in the defense sector. Far cry from supporting the general public.

These days I'm pretty sheltered. I'm nominally in R&D, but I also answer to L3 customer support when they hit an issue they can't figure out (those are considered "high priority interrupts").
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:34 am

https://xkcd.com/1891/

(really liked today's)
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Redocbew
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Wed Sep 20, 2017 2:22 am

I'm now officially a member of the mechanical keyboard cartel. This is my first new keyboard in I honestly don't know how many years, so I now I suck at typing again. :lol:

I'm sure that'll pass quickly though. It's this one with MX Blue's... http://techreport.com/news/32507/kinesi ... for-action

Now I need to do the o-ring mod. :P
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ludi
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Re: DYMT: Imi's Legacy

Wed Sep 20, 2017 10:48 am

Whilst searching for something else job-related, I stumbled upon an official State of Oklahoma regulatory/qualification manual that is published mainly in...Comic Sans.
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