Humor Random Comments Thread

[PhantomCruiser]

I received it early, so I figured why not unwrap it early. Inspecting what'll be out new Bravo LP turbine comes next.

 

[Capt_hensley]

Is this really so unreasonable?

Alienware 18 Laptop....
Fastest I7 or I9 available, real non-mobile processor, no overclocking
64 gig main ram, fastest available
three integrated 18" minimum Ultra HD IPS monitors
best nVidia video cards available, supports 6 monitors, 3 integrated, 3 external Ultra HD IPS monitors at least 16gb ram min.
nVidia 980M or better x3 with 1080p minimum resolution (think Matrox C680, but with 16gb memory)
2 Internal, 1 is removable, all SSD drives, 512 gig each = 1tb internal storage, 4 E-Sata ports Left or rear panel
Integrated USB 3.0 or greater, 4 ports on left side minimum
Integrated Dual layer Ultra BDE Burner on left side, tray loading
Integrated Dual Cat5e 1gb Ethernet ports on left side or rear panel
Any battery with 10 hours duty life at maximum load
Integrated 8-10 type smart media reader, right side
Three port audio left or rear panel
Integrated Wireless
Integrated Bluetooth
No operating system installed, 1 MS license for win7 Pro or win10 Pro
1 license for MS office PRO with Visio and Project 2013 or better(not negotiable)
1 license for Adobe CS6 or better(optional)
5 year parts and labor warranty, with AD and drop protection
This system would constitute the best gaming or CAD/CAM design Laptop available
Under $4000.00 USD price tag.

In this day and age, I don't think so!!!

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I received it early, so I figured why not unwrap it early. Inspecting what'll be out new Bravo LP turbine comes next.

Great pics. Who's the vendor? Siemens?

 

[Andy44]

No, it is the whole zone where the maintenance takes part - its sticky blue mats everywhere from the foreground to the turbine cases. There are used for removing possible contamination from shoes and wheels and for avoiding early maintenance of the floor below.

Listen, buddy, don't tell me which zone is for stopping and which is for loading!

I know what this is really about... You want me to have an abortion.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Great pics. Who's the vendor? Siemens?

Sure enough. Siemens and Westinghouse has a little mafia going on here it would seem. I'm more familiar with GE turbines, but for the most part aside from terminology they are the same.

Bull Run (where I loved life in the Fossil world) had a GE turbine with a Westinghouse Ovation control system.

Watts Bar has a hodge-podge control system and we just recently implemented a Foxboro DCS for some of our Aux feedwater system (and a few others). We'll do more DCS eventually, but probably never for the reactor controls.

Refueling cycle 13, ready or not, is going to roll right over us. Well, me anyway. With luck I can keep my sanity and not nudge an idiot manager off the roof or something (the temptation is great, must not listen to the voice).

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Sure enough. Siemens and Westinghouse has a little mafia going on here it would seem. I'm more familiar with GE turbines, but for the most part aside from terminology they are the same.

Bull Run (where I loved life in the Fossil world) had a GE turbine with a Westinghouse Ovation control system.

Watts Bar has a hodge-podge control system and we just recently implemented a Foxboro DCS for some of our Aux feedwater system (and a few others). We'll do more DCS eventually, but probably never for the reactor controls.

Before I got into teaching engineering I used to work for Alstom and did some consulting for power industry customers, including a lot of GSI-191 resolution work with PWRs. I love seeing me some steam plant hardware. I wish I could get more of my students out into that sort of stuff. A lot of local coal plants have shut down recently and the nuclear plants have had stiff re-licensing challenges. But we're burning gas like no tomorrow so we can still get our students out in combined cycle plants.

With luck I can keep my sanity and not nudge an idiot manager off the roof or something (the temptation is great, must not listen to the voice).

Some people are like a Slinky - they're completely useless, but it makes you smile when you push one down a flight of stairs.

 

[Urwumpe]

Partial blackout at work... We are now in the 5th hour without telephone, computers or even just doors. And we are getting more and more bored, because no manager dares to take the resonsibility to sent us home. Sadly the problems have hit the whole Volkswagen plant so there is no estimate when we can restart and fix our servers.

 

[Athena]

Sadly the problems have hit the whole Volkswagen plant so there is no estimate when we can restart and fix our servers.

Don't buildings like that have a backup generator in the basement, or something like that?

 

[Urwumpe]

Don't buildings like that have a backup generator in the basement, or something like that?

Yes and multiple power sources from the grid. But still things can fail here massive, because of the complexity. We have electricity here in some circuits (light for example) but many digital systems are dead.

 

[Andy44]

That's why you keep a deck of cards or a good Star Trek novel laying around your desk...or, as I sometimes do, math problems relevant to work...because I am a giant dork.

 

[Urwumpe]

That's why you keep a deck of cards or a good Star Trek novel laying around your desk...or, as I sometimes do, math problems relevant to work...because I am a giant dork.

Sadly all I had for literature was a "Clean Code" book.

But I will deposit a "Munchkin" game there for the next one, the last major black out in Wolfsburg happened just one year ago, there are some serious bugs in the power distribution here - the cause of the 2014 blackout is still unknown. While the first analysis tracked the fault down to a failed longitudinal coupling, it does not explain well, why all four generators in the powerplant went down and had resisting a restart for hours.

Todays blackout was caused in the electrical substation near the old powerplant here, which took a substation further in the east of the city with it...for fixing this, power from the north was routed to the city. But when the demand for power rapidly increased, additional electricity had to be routed into the city from a substation in the southwest... which caused another short blackout.

The repeated blackouts in 40 minutes had been too much for many backup systems.

 

[Scav]

the cause of the 2014 blackout is still unknown. While the first analysis tracked the fault down to a failed longitudinal coupling, it does not explain well, why all four generators in the powerplant went down and had resisting a restart for hours.

There's a possible explanation:

http://youtu.be/Qfu1Ux1tX6A?t=52

 

[Urwumpe]

The perks of being a server software developer now: You suddenly understand authentication good enough to make TortoiseSVN stop asking you for the password four times per update.

Finally I can really work with it again.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Ugghh, car is starting to show its age, with a vengeance. Blew the head gasket earlier this summer, got that fixed ($1800). Yesterday I drove to a mall for some clothes shopping, returned to my car and it wouldn't start.

I got a jump, which got me started and running, so I figured dead battery (5 years on it, made sense). I went to the Sears auto repair section and the clerk verified that they had the battery in stock. I had the right socket for the battery posts in my tool kit, but I couldn't get one of the clamps loose with the hand driver, and the auto repair section of Sears won't lend a tool even for 2-seconds, because lawyers. So I had to buy a cheap socket driver at Sears, finally got the battery out, and walked it over to replace it with a new battery. Figured I was golden.

Well, the clerk went out back to get the battery that the computer said was in stock, and came back after 20 minutes indicating that they could not find the battery. He double checked the computer, the manager came out, and the rest of the staff started searching for these batteries. After about 10 minutes of this, I gave up hope, called AAA, and explained the situation. They said they could deliver a battery within 4 hrs. Great, fine...I'll just live at the mall for the rest of the day. Too bad they don't have arcades like when I was a kid, but whatever.

10 minutes later, one of the staff comes running out with the correct battery - it was mislocated behind some other batteries. I call off AAA, buy the new battery, install it. Vroom! All good. I drive home.

Today I was tooling down the highway and suddenly the radio just shut off. I turned it on again, and it just shut off again. The "That's weird..." thought bubble popped up over my head, and as I pondered that, the air conditioner quit, followed by the cabin vent fan, then the headlights, and the cabin switch lights.The check airbag light illuminated, then the CEL. The engine started missing. Yep, dead alternator.

I just barely got it back to my driveway, but the new battery was stone cold dead, so I just had it towed to the shop. Luckily my wife's teaching schedule is such that she can get me to my classes before she has to go to hers.

I feel like I am buying a new car, one piece at a time. :huh:

 

[Andy44]

Ugghh, car is starting to show its age, with a vengeance. Blew the head gasket earlier this summer, got that fixed ($1800). Yesterday I drove to a mall for some clothes shopping, returned to my car and it wouldn't start.

I got a jump, which got me started and running, so I figured dead battery (5 years on it, made sense). I went to the Sears auto repair section and the clerk verified that they had the battery in stock. I had the right socket for the battery posts in my tool kit, but I couldn't get one of the clamps loose with the hand driver, and the auto repair section of Sears won't lend a tool even for 2-seconds, because lawyers. So I had to buy a cheap socket driver at Sears, finally got the battery out, and walked it over to replace it with a new battery. Figured I was golden.

Well, the clerk went out back to get the battery that the computer said was in stock, and came back after 20 minutes indicating that they could not find the battery. He double checked the computer, the manager came out, and the rest of the staff started searching for these batteries. After about 10 minutes of this, I gave up hope, called AAA, and explained the situation. They said they could deliver a battery within 4 hrs. Great, fine...I'll just live at the mall for the rest of the day. Too bad they don't have arcades like when I was a kid, but whatever.

10 minutes later, one of the staff comes running out with the correct battery - it was mislocated behind some other batteries. I call off AAA, buy the new battery, install it. Vroom! All good. I drive home.

Today I was tooling down the highway and suddenly the radio just shut off. I turned it on again, and it just shut off again. The "That's weird..." thought bubble popped up over my head, and as I pondered that, the air conditioner quit, followed by the cabin vent fan, then the headlights, and the cabin switch lights.The check airbag light illuminated, then the CEL. The engine started missing. Yep, dead alternator.

I just barely got it back to my driveway, but the new battery was stone cold dead, so I just had it towed to the shop. Luckily my wife's teaching schedule is such that she can get me to my classes before she has to go to hers.

I feel like I am buying a new car, one piece at a time. :huh:

I hear you, man. My truck is 10 years old.

I am keeping up on the maintenance and, doing the math, I know that getting things fixed costs less in terms of money than buying a new one, but it's a matter of down time. When one thing after another breaks down it can be tough to get through that tough time.

Thing is, I hate some of the features on newer vehicles. No, I don't need everything to have computers in it and be connected to the internet, thank you very much. And there are the little things, like being able to use the lighter jack to charge my phone when the ignition is off. Can't do that with the newer vehicles. Not sure I could get the kind of seats I like, even.

So my old vehicle soldiers on, while I watch it like a hawk.

 

[jedidia]

I hear you, man. My truck is 10 years old.

That ain't old in my book... :blink:

 

[Urwumpe]

I hear you, man. My truck is 10 years old.

My Golf IV made it to 16 years in my family before selling. And yes, it was getting old by then and requiring the hands of somebody more capable than me in terms of fixing hardware. A Golf made 1,000,000 km a few days ago, BTW, there was a small ceremony at Volkswagen last week.

I also had alternator issues once with my old Polo car... was on the Autobahn when the battery light got on. Luckily, the exit that led directly to my favorite car mechanic was already in sight in that moment, so I only needed 5 minutes until my car was parked in front of the garage.



Monday and all computer issues continued from Friday. But we are slowly making progress, thanks to making our office look like a Space Shuttle fit with RCO.

 

[Andy44]

That ain't old in my book... :blink:

Let me amend that: 180,000 miles and 10 years.

When I was growing up a car at 100,000 was due for replacement. They go a lot farther these days if you care for them.

I've driven this truck across the continent 3 or 4 times in addition to all the "local" driving I do. I have parked it on the shores of two oceans.

My dad bought a Jeep around the same time I bought this truck and he barely put 30k miles on it.

I drive a lot.

---------- Post added at 09:02 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:57 AM ----------

I also had alternator issues once with my old Polo car...

I once had a VW Scirocco which I was very fond of. It was my first car and I drove it all over the place, but the one recurring issue I had with it was electrical problems.

Too bad it got destroyed when somebody rear-ended it one rainy day. The car's final act was to protect me from the impact by collapsing like an accordion behind me. Good thing nobody was in the back seat; it was crushed up against the front seats. My own seat back broke and I was laying horizontal, and the high head rest allowed me to walk away with some minor whiplash instead of a broken neck. I remember Black Sabbath was playing on the Blaupunkt radio, which was ejected from the dashboard and found on the floorboard...

 

[APDAF]

Well most cars nowadays are build only to last ten years max before the CPU kill switch is triggered, atleast that is whqt my uncle says.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well most cars nowadays are build only to last ten years max before the CPU kill switch is triggered, atleast that is whqt my uncle says.

Your uncle might then explain why only few people remember the British motorcycle industry and all British cars manufacturers are owned by Germans...