Many long years ago, there was a large drug store in Kirkwood named Katz Drugs.
Next door was an A&P grocery store.
If you went around to the back parking lot of Katz Drugs, there was house about 20 feet inside their parking lot.
And about 75 feet behind the store.
They had some type of deal where Katz paid for the land and paid the taxes on it, but didn't take the house.
The owner could live there until the day he died. But he could not sell the house.
They never expected him to live to nearly 100 years old, hi hi.
But after he died, they razed the house and installed a large ice making machine in it's place.
One of our employees who became a good friend, lived way out in the boonies. Now although they did have a sewer system, it only fed into a humongous lagoon. Normally the lagoon did not smell, but certain times of the year, it reeked to high heaven. So a company would come out and add some type of bacteria dissolving chemicals and the odor would be gone in a couple of days.
A few years later they had to add a second lagoon further down for that one to feed into. Once they did that, they never had an odor problem ever again. I think it was because someone said it was because it drew water off the first lagoon from a pipe about 8 feet below the surface, and that is why that big pipe came out, went up to the normal water level, and then down to the lagoon. I guess it worked like a trap of sorts.
Reeading on Easter Morning
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Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
Motorola's first big factory was built inside the city limits of Chicago. That's the place that hired me. Their specialty was police communications radios, but during my tour of duty there they also made other things, such as CCTV's and hospital equipment such as the pagers patients use to call a nurse. The electronics industry never was static. It always grew by leaps and bounds so that the manufacturing plant in the city wasn't big enough to meet customer demands not too many years after I was hired in. One solution was to buy 300 acres of farmland northwest of the city. Bob Atcher, the now long gone country cowboy musician, was the mayor of the town in which that land was incorporated. He made a deal with the owner of Motorola, the Galvin Family, so that no taxes had to be paid for ten years (or more; I don't recall how long). Atcher was anxious to get a big corporation within his domain because there would be an immediate need for 3000 workers to fill the factory. That meant new houses had to be built to accommodate the new workers, and those houses were not tax exempt. Then there was the shopping malls and other businesses to support the new population. It worked out famously for both the village and for Motorola.
The farmer who owned all that land did not want to sell at first. Thus a deal was struck. They parceled out about an acre of land near the main highway, fenced it off, and built this farmer a brand new brick ranch. He was allowed to live there (some said tax free because Motorola owned the property) until he died. During that farmer's lifetime an entire city grew up around him. It was amazing to watch as I did when I transferred from the Chicago plant to the suburban one. I didn't work on that campus all 36 or my years with Motorola, but a good portion of that time was spent there. When cell phones started their explosive growth I followed the crowed and transferred to other facilities. After 36 years I was forced to retire and that suburban manufacturing facility, along with corporate HQ, was put on the auction block. Nobody wanted the buildings so they tore them down. I don't know what they did with the vacant land, but I'm sure somebody made a killing. The most impressive memory for me is that I was with the company before and during the greatest expansion of electronic technology Chicago area ever knew. When I left the company it only took a few years for them to collapse completely. They are now back to a building in Elgin, Illinois, about the size of the original one I first worked in. And, all they are making now is police radio communication equipment. Corporate HQ is now in the Merchandise Mart downtown Chicago. And that's it for Motorola.
That'll teach them to force me out.
The farmer who owned all that land did not want to sell at first. Thus a deal was struck. They parceled out about an acre of land near the main highway, fenced it off, and built this farmer a brand new brick ranch. He was allowed to live there (some said tax free because Motorola owned the property) until he died. During that farmer's lifetime an entire city grew up around him. It was amazing to watch as I did when I transferred from the Chicago plant to the suburban one. I didn't work on that campus all 36 or my years with Motorola, but a good portion of that time was spent there. When cell phones started their explosive growth I followed the crowed and transferred to other facilities. After 36 years I was forced to retire and that suburban manufacturing facility, along with corporate HQ, was put on the auction block. Nobody wanted the buildings so they tore them down. I don't know what they did with the vacant land, but I'm sure somebody made a killing. The most impressive memory for me is that I was with the company before and during the greatest expansion of electronic technology Chicago area ever knew. When I left the company it only took a few years for them to collapse completely. They are now back to a building in Elgin, Illinois, about the size of the original one I first worked in. And, all they are making now is police radio communication equipment. Corporate HQ is now in the Merchandise Mart downtown Chicago. And that's it for Motorola.
That'll teach them to force me out.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
I've seen things like that happen in a few industries around where I lived.
Some old businesses, when the kids took over, expanded at an alarming rate.
Many did well, others made their splash then dwindled away.
I tried to do something simple but physical yesterday, and it darn near killed me.
Had my O2 tank on, and sat down on the ground next to my wife's back tire and got the drywall screw out she picked up during the winter. Reamed out the hole and went to put the plug in. This is when I discovered I didn't have the strength I used to have. I would try it, then rest for a bit, try it some more, then rest for a bit. I just hope I got it in far enough since I was having so much trouble. I'm pretty sure I did, so cut off the excess and burned plug for a minute.
Each time I said I rested, it took like 5 to 10 minutes for my heart to slow down and my O2 come back up.
But I really did overdo it on that last thrust of the plug and my heart rate hit 120 and my O2 dropped to 86.
I was so dizzy I couldn't even sit up, so stayed laying there on the ground for about 15 minutes.
Then when I did try to get up, I was like a dunken sailor and fell back down again.
The neighbors saw me and came running. My O2 tank was right at empty, so the frau ran and grabbed another tank for me.
It was a good half hour after that when I was able to get up with help only to be sat down in a chair that managed to break, hi hi.
I didn't go crashing down, because the neighbor grabbed me and got me up on my feet where I just leaned on their fence.
Such a simple job almost turned out to be curtains for me. On the bright side, I won't be asked to do anything physical anymore, hi hi.
Some old businesses, when the kids took over, expanded at an alarming rate.
Many did well, others made their splash then dwindled away.
I tried to do something simple but physical yesterday, and it darn near killed me.
Had my O2 tank on, and sat down on the ground next to my wife's back tire and got the drywall screw out she picked up during the winter. Reamed out the hole and went to put the plug in. This is when I discovered I didn't have the strength I used to have. I would try it, then rest for a bit, try it some more, then rest for a bit. I just hope I got it in far enough since I was having so much trouble. I'm pretty sure I did, so cut off the excess and burned plug for a minute.
Each time I said I rested, it took like 5 to 10 minutes for my heart to slow down and my O2 come back up.
But I really did overdo it on that last thrust of the plug and my heart rate hit 120 and my O2 dropped to 86.
I was so dizzy I couldn't even sit up, so stayed laying there on the ground for about 15 minutes.
Then when I did try to get up, I was like a dunken sailor and fell back down again.
The neighbors saw me and came running. My O2 tank was right at empty, so the frau ran and grabbed another tank for me.
It was a good half hour after that when I was able to get up with help only to be sat down in a chair that managed to break, hi hi.
I didn't go crashing down, because the neighbor grabbed me and got me up on my feet where I just leaned on their fence.
Such a simple job almost turned out to be curtains for me. On the bright side, I won't be asked to do anything physical anymore, hi hi.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
Your story about the tire plug is discomforting to me, but certainly not as shocking as it must have been for you. The discomfort is not so much knowing the pain and agony involved, but the realization that the limits of endurance are not what they used to be. While I have no debilitating heart condition at the moment, it's future appearance is inevitable. Hopefully it's in the far distant future and of short duration.
People of strength and courage get my admiration. You might not think of yourself as being either, but your most recent efforts prove otherwise. First of all a tire with a drywall screw it it would never be repaired by me. I'd never attempt such a project, although you make it sound quite simple. I'd sooner buy a new tire than try to assemble the equipment and knowledge to repair it. Actually, I'd take it to a shop and have them fix it if that were at all possible. You, on the other hand, have the expertise to make such repairs. Because of that inborn talent you were willing to test your limits. Performing that test would require a lot of pre-planning on my part. Do I really want to risk it? I'm certain you didn't bother with such details and just made an attempt to do what you have done so many times before. Call it what you may, but you have spunk and spirit. A minor thing like 27% lung capacity and a damaged hear doesn't stop you from testing your limits. I like that attitude.
No doubt you should not have tested your limits. But you did and you survived, at least long enough to write that previous response. It is a misfortune no matter how you look at it, but know also that your story is inspirational to at least one silly ol' bear. Hang tough my friend. I'm here rooting for you all the way.
People of strength and courage get my admiration. You might not think of yourself as being either, but your most recent efforts prove otherwise. First of all a tire with a drywall screw it it would never be repaired by me. I'd never attempt such a project, although you make it sound quite simple. I'd sooner buy a new tire than try to assemble the equipment and knowledge to repair it. Actually, I'd take it to a shop and have them fix it if that were at all possible. You, on the other hand, have the expertise to make such repairs. Because of that inborn talent you were willing to test your limits. Performing that test would require a lot of pre-planning on my part. Do I really want to risk it? I'm certain you didn't bother with such details and just made an attempt to do what you have done so many times before. Call it what you may, but you have spunk and spirit. A minor thing like 27% lung capacity and a damaged hear doesn't stop you from testing your limits. I like that attitude.
No doubt you should not have tested your limits. But you did and you survived, at least long enough to write that previous response. It is a misfortune no matter how you look at it, but know also that your story is inspirational to at least one silly ol' bear. Hang tough my friend. I'm here rooting for you all the way.
Last edited by yogi on 17 May 2021, 15:44, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
It is actually 100 times easier to plug a tire, than to change it!
Just think about all that is involved in changing a tire.
Get the jack from the trunk, figure out how it works and where to put it, then jack up the car.
Find the lug wrench and try to loosen those lug nuts they put on with a jack hammer.
Lift the big heavy tire off the lugs and set it behind the car.
Get the spare tire out of the trunk, which is usually bolted down, hi hi.
Haul it to the side of the car and lift it up over the lugs.
Add all the lug nuts back on and tighten them down nice and tight.
Put the flat tire back in the trunk, the lug wrench back in the trunk.
Jack the car back down and remove the jack, then store it back in the trunk.
Top off the air in the spare tire because it is probably low.
Try to get all the road dirt off your hands before you drive off into the sunset.
Now the easy way!
Stop the car with the nail visible and accessible.
Take plugging kit from the glove box.
Remove nail, install plug, reinflate tire.
No fuss, no muss, no dirt on your hands, hi hi.
I've had to plug a tire before with no plugging tool, did it using only a flat head screwdriver and it worked just fine.
I carry a little T-handle plugging tool in each car along with about 4 or 5 tar/twine plugs ready to go.
We also carry a small air pump in each car too.
I think the reason I had so much of a problem was the frau's car has steel belted radials, which are harder to get the plug through. This is one reason I just left the drywall screw in for so long. The head wore off of it, and if I had added some fix a flat, she could have gone another year on that screw instead of a plug.
The best plugs are the ones that require and injection machine, and they have a mushroom type cap on the inside of the tire, so they are more like a permanent patch. But normal string n tar plugs work just fine and normally last the length of the tire.
Now, if you run them down until their is no tread left on them, and try driving on a gravel road, in that case you may knock a plug in, but even then it would be rare!
As I said, so much easier to plug a tire than change it!
Just think about all that is involved in changing a tire.
Get the jack from the trunk, figure out how it works and where to put it, then jack up the car.
Find the lug wrench and try to loosen those lug nuts they put on with a jack hammer.
Lift the big heavy tire off the lugs and set it behind the car.
Get the spare tire out of the trunk, which is usually bolted down, hi hi.
Haul it to the side of the car and lift it up over the lugs.
Add all the lug nuts back on and tighten them down nice and tight.
Put the flat tire back in the trunk, the lug wrench back in the trunk.
Jack the car back down and remove the jack, then store it back in the trunk.
Top off the air in the spare tire because it is probably low.
Try to get all the road dirt off your hands before you drive off into the sunset.
Now the easy way!
Stop the car with the nail visible and accessible.
Take plugging kit from the glove box.
Remove nail, install plug, reinflate tire.
No fuss, no muss, no dirt on your hands, hi hi.
I've had to plug a tire before with no plugging tool, did it using only a flat head screwdriver and it worked just fine.
I carry a little T-handle plugging tool in each car along with about 4 or 5 tar/twine plugs ready to go.
We also carry a small air pump in each car too.
I think the reason I had so much of a problem was the frau's car has steel belted radials, which are harder to get the plug through. This is one reason I just left the drywall screw in for so long. The head wore off of it, and if I had added some fix a flat, she could have gone another year on that screw instead of a plug.
The best plugs are the ones that require and injection machine, and they have a mushroom type cap on the inside of the tire, so they are more like a permanent patch. But normal string n tar plugs work just fine and normally last the length of the tire.
Now, if you run them down until their is no tread left on them, and try driving on a gravel road, in that case you may knock a plug in, but even then it would be rare!
As I said, so much easier to plug a tire than change it!
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
As I noted earlier, you did what you know how to do best, but I can assure you it's not the easiest way. You seem to have left out a few steps in your plug routine. For example, taking that kit out of the glove box assumes it's already there because you know where to get such things and what to do with them when you have them. Likewise, removing the nail, or screw, sounds simple until you have to do it. Where did the tool used to pull the nail come from? And is everybody tough enough to pull a three inch drywall screw out of a steel belted tire when the car is not on a lift? The air supply is yet another tool acquired somehow from somewhere assuming you know what you need. and where to get it. I understand fully that you have all that equipment, and more importantly you have the skill and knowledge of how to use those specialized tools.
I agree the light weight donut tire is buried in my trunk along with the lug wrench. But, I didn't have to put it there in advance. I also agree 100% that it's a lot easier to insert a plug into a tire than it would be to loosen 5 lug nuts that have been torqued down by a power driver. But then, a short length of steel pipe would fix that problem. As far as dirty hands go, it's hard to believe the plug and play method is a sterile operation. LOL
Back in the old days, when real tires were used for spares, I did change more than a few tires. Those where the days when cars actually had bumpers and you could use a tripod bumper jack to lift 2000 pounds or so. But even then I'd take that tire to the shop and have an expert fix it and balance it. Yes, it was not cheap. The last time I had to use the donut spare was a few years back on the outskirts of DuBuque, Iowa. We happened to be near a Perkins Restaurant and the manager therein was very helpful. He just happened to have a buddy with a tow truck. LOL Well that too was expensive but not what I expected. The donut got us to a tire store where I could replace the damaged tire. You might find it hard to believe, but my hands never got any road grime on them in that process and I exerted no more effort than it takes to drive over to the nearest tire shop. I may be biased, but that appears to be even easier than trying to stuff a tiny hole with tar/twine.
Veering off in another direction, a line of thunderous storms crossed our fair city last night. It wasn't particularly violent as far as storms go, but the lights did go out. It's times like those that I tell myself I REALLY need to get a battery backup for the tower. The laptop never even blinked, but then there was no Internet. To my utter amazement the power was restored in just over 5 minutes. I attribute that quick recovery to the fact that we in this town have smart electric meters and apparently some pretty smart operators at Ameren Missouri. The lappie never turned off, but I had to do a reboot of the tower. All went well except for the mouse. It was doing funky things when I tried to move webpage windows around the desktop. A graceful shutdown and reboot fixed that problem. All went well for about half an hour at which point the dreaded BSOD appeared. I knew immediately why that could have happened, but after yet another reboot I ran a diagnostic tool to examine the BSOD crash report. It had some ominous diagnostic messages. There was no failure of any third party software, which is frequently the cause of blue screens. The executable Ntoskrnl.exe failed -- yes that is the kernel. My heart skipped a beat when I read the diagnostics but I continued using the computer for the rest of the evening. No problems. Some stack that the kernel uses became corrupt (during the power outage) and the heart of Windows didn't know what to do, so it shut down. Since it survived the night I ran the native system diagnostic from Microsoft first thing in the morning. No problems found. So, whatever was corrupt seems to have healed itself. The best part is I didn't have to reboot into a rescue mode to fix it. I don't think Windows keeps old kernels around just in case you might need to go back in time. They do have a Safe Mode, but that's not the same thing. In any case my particular problem self healed. I may make an effort to find an affordable uninterruptible power supply now.
I agree the light weight donut tire is buried in my trunk along with the lug wrench. But, I didn't have to put it there in advance. I also agree 100% that it's a lot easier to insert a plug into a tire than it would be to loosen 5 lug nuts that have been torqued down by a power driver. But then, a short length of steel pipe would fix that problem. As far as dirty hands go, it's hard to believe the plug and play method is a sterile operation. LOL
Back in the old days, when real tires were used for spares, I did change more than a few tires. Those where the days when cars actually had bumpers and you could use a tripod bumper jack to lift 2000 pounds or so. But even then I'd take that tire to the shop and have an expert fix it and balance it. Yes, it was not cheap. The last time I had to use the donut spare was a few years back on the outskirts of DuBuque, Iowa. We happened to be near a Perkins Restaurant and the manager therein was very helpful. He just happened to have a buddy with a tow truck. LOL Well that too was expensive but not what I expected. The donut got us to a tire store where I could replace the damaged tire. You might find it hard to believe, but my hands never got any road grime on them in that process and I exerted no more effort than it takes to drive over to the nearest tire shop. I may be biased, but that appears to be even easier than trying to stuff a tiny hole with tar/twine.
Veering off in another direction, a line of thunderous storms crossed our fair city last night. It wasn't particularly violent as far as storms go, but the lights did go out. It's times like those that I tell myself I REALLY need to get a battery backup for the tower. The laptop never even blinked, but then there was no Internet. To my utter amazement the power was restored in just over 5 minutes. I attribute that quick recovery to the fact that we in this town have smart electric meters and apparently some pretty smart operators at Ameren Missouri. The lappie never turned off, but I had to do a reboot of the tower. All went well except for the mouse. It was doing funky things when I tried to move webpage windows around the desktop. A graceful shutdown and reboot fixed that problem. All went well for about half an hour at which point the dreaded BSOD appeared. I knew immediately why that could have happened, but after yet another reboot I ran a diagnostic tool to examine the BSOD crash report. It had some ominous diagnostic messages. There was no failure of any third party software, which is frequently the cause of blue screens. The executable Ntoskrnl.exe failed -- yes that is the kernel. My heart skipped a beat when I read the diagnostics but I continued using the computer for the rest of the evening. No problems. Some stack that the kernel uses became corrupt (during the power outage) and the heart of Windows didn't know what to do, so it shut down. Since it survived the night I ran the native system diagnostic from Microsoft first thing in the morning. No problems found. So, whatever was corrupt seems to have healed itself. The best part is I didn't have to reboot into a rescue mode to fix it. I don't think Windows keeps old kernels around just in case you might need to go back in time. They do have a Safe Mode, but that's not the same thing. In any case my particular problem self healed. I may make an effort to find an affordable uninterruptible power supply now.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
Well, yes, my cars have all the tools necessary to plug a tire and fill the tire with air.
I also carry at least 2 cans of fix a flat in each car, just in case the air is not holding.
My frau bought a HULU jumper, and later upgraded to a HULU with an air pump.
I would never have bought one myself, but after seeing how good they were, we now have one in every car.
Where did I get the tool to removed the drywall screw. Although I had a pliers in the car, I just used my Leatherman tool I've always carried in my pocket now for over 40 years, maybe even 50 years, hi hi.
Before I met her, my wife always kept a AAA account. One of my banks gave us free AAA roadside service if we had their gold credit card. But that only included a jump or a tow to the closest station, over that we paid for it, hi hi.
I did call AAA once when I was downtown in not such a good neighborhood and my radiator hose decided to break.
I thought for sure the AAA guy would just want to tow me in. But he took a look under the hood, wrapped a fancy sleeve around the radiator hose, and told me to drive to the nearest station. I noticed he did two things, added water, and left the cap loose on purpose so the pressure would not blow his patch off. I ended up driving all the way home without a problem.
I used to own a real plug gun, besides the mushroom style plug gun.
It was so simple to use, a child could do it.
It had a few features that made it worth owning. Like a nail extractor, a screw twister, same tool.
You couldn't make a mistake because a metal sleeve on the piston kept it from pushing the plug in too far.
So all you had to do was remove the nail. use the end like a reamer until it went in, this was easy.
Then, just pull the trigger and pow, it shot the plug in, so all you had to do was pull the plug gun back.
It also had a knife for cutting the excess part of the plug off.
I've had several UPS units and every single one of them gave me more problems than they were worth.
The early cheap ones actually worked better than the newer ones, because they only dealt with the power.
The newer ones would run shut down programs if you plugged in the USB cord.
But the newest and most expensive one I bought, even though we had no power outage, it would just shut down at random times causing a reboot. It was doing this more often than we had power outages.
Many years prior I had an elaborate power supply system for my ham radio equipment. I could run many radios for over 48 hours with that system. I didn't have UPS on the computers at that time though.
Sorry your computer messed up from a power outage, but as you found, a couple of boots and they usually fix themselves.
It's been many years since I've had a kernel panic.
On a side note: Now that Windows 7 is reaching its end of life. I've seen several ads from the medical software companies pushing their MAC versions. One I saw even had a Google OS version, which is a new one to me. I knew Google had their own OS, but didn't know they had one that could be run on home computers. Unless I misunderstood the ad.
Since I'm not interested in medical software, I didn't really read the articles or their ads.
I also carry at least 2 cans of fix a flat in each car, just in case the air is not holding.
My frau bought a HULU jumper, and later upgraded to a HULU with an air pump.
I would never have bought one myself, but after seeing how good they were, we now have one in every car.
Where did I get the tool to removed the drywall screw. Although I had a pliers in the car, I just used my Leatherman tool I've always carried in my pocket now for over 40 years, maybe even 50 years, hi hi.
Before I met her, my wife always kept a AAA account. One of my banks gave us free AAA roadside service if we had their gold credit card. But that only included a jump or a tow to the closest station, over that we paid for it, hi hi.
I did call AAA once when I was downtown in not such a good neighborhood and my radiator hose decided to break.
I thought for sure the AAA guy would just want to tow me in. But he took a look under the hood, wrapped a fancy sleeve around the radiator hose, and told me to drive to the nearest station. I noticed he did two things, added water, and left the cap loose on purpose so the pressure would not blow his patch off. I ended up driving all the way home without a problem.
I used to own a real plug gun, besides the mushroom style plug gun.
It was so simple to use, a child could do it.
It had a few features that made it worth owning. Like a nail extractor, a screw twister, same tool.
You couldn't make a mistake because a metal sleeve on the piston kept it from pushing the plug in too far.
So all you had to do was remove the nail. use the end like a reamer until it went in, this was easy.
Then, just pull the trigger and pow, it shot the plug in, so all you had to do was pull the plug gun back.
It also had a knife for cutting the excess part of the plug off.
I've had several UPS units and every single one of them gave me more problems than they were worth.
The early cheap ones actually worked better than the newer ones, because they only dealt with the power.
The newer ones would run shut down programs if you plugged in the USB cord.
But the newest and most expensive one I bought, even though we had no power outage, it would just shut down at random times causing a reboot. It was doing this more often than we had power outages.
Many years prior I had an elaborate power supply system for my ham radio equipment. I could run many radios for over 48 hours with that system. I didn't have UPS on the computers at that time though.
Sorry your computer messed up from a power outage, but as you found, a couple of boots and they usually fix themselves.
It's been many years since I've had a kernel panic.
On a side note: Now that Windows 7 is reaching its end of life. I've seen several ads from the medical software companies pushing their MAC versions. One I saw even had a Google OS version, which is a new one to me. I knew Google had their own OS, but didn't know they had one that could be run on home computers. Unless I misunderstood the ad.
Since I'm not interested in medical software, I didn't really read the articles or their ads.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
You may be in for a lot of reading about why I regret buying a UPS. LOL Windows 7 officially died last year and there are no longer any support documents from Microsoft published online. Reinstalling it would be a challenge in spite of the images I have stashed away on the NAS. It probably could be done if necessary, but I know from past experience there would be problems if I had to restore Windows in the tower. For that reason I decided to buy a UPS. This one ==> https://www.newegg.com/tripp-lite-smart ... 6842111461
When I did the initial Google search this UPS was priced at $175.99 at NewEgg. I looked around for better deals, but everybody else was selling them for well over $200. Amazon had the identical one for $174. We talked about adaptive advertising in the past and I have no doubt that the Amazon price was altered dynamically while I was searching about for deals. Since I only use Amazon as a last resort, I went back to NewEgg and, damn, the price there changed to match Amazon's price. LOL I note that today, as I write this, the price is $178.99. You may get a different price should you happen to call up the webpage.
Many years ago when Google first released Chromium the OS a free version was floating around the web. I downloaded it and played with it for several months. Some things just didn't work right so I contacted the author for help. He told me there is no help. He used to work for Google which is how he acquired this (Linux) version of Chromium. But, both he and the OS moved on to bigger and better things. Since then I've not seen any home version of the Google OS that can be downloaded and run in Linux. Apparently the only way to get it now is in a Chromebook.
Clearly you have a lot more experience with automobiles and their repair than I ever will have. And, as the saying goes, you can't do the job well unless you have the right tools (or something like that). I know about having the right tools and I did at one point in my life do a lot of my own servicing of automobiles. After a few decades of doing that I retired from DIY servicing. When it came to tires I never thought of fixing my own. I guess in an emergency I might think differently, but to my good fortune I was never stranded due to a flat tire. AAA might be a good thing, but as you point out it's often limited and not always available in spite of what they claim. I never bought into it. Now with clever phones and Google Assistant I can get the same kind of service offered by AAA without paying annual dues.
When I did the initial Google search this UPS was priced at $175.99 at NewEgg. I looked around for better deals, but everybody else was selling them for well over $200. Amazon had the identical one for $174. We talked about adaptive advertising in the past and I have no doubt that the Amazon price was altered dynamically while I was searching about for deals. Since I only use Amazon as a last resort, I went back to NewEgg and, damn, the price there changed to match Amazon's price. LOL I note that today, as I write this, the price is $178.99. You may get a different price should you happen to call up the webpage.
Many years ago when Google first released Chromium the OS a free version was floating around the web. I downloaded it and played with it for several months. Some things just didn't work right so I contacted the author for help. He told me there is no help. He used to work for Google which is how he acquired this (Linux) version of Chromium. But, both he and the OS moved on to bigger and better things. Since then I've not seen any home version of the Google OS that can be downloaded and run in Linux. Apparently the only way to get it now is in a Chromebook.
Clearly you have a lot more experience with automobiles and their repair than I ever will have. And, as the saying goes, you can't do the job well unless you have the right tools (or something like that). I know about having the right tools and I did at one point in my life do a lot of my own servicing of automobiles. After a few decades of doing that I retired from DIY servicing. When it came to tires I never thought of fixing my own. I guess in an emergency I might think differently, but to my good fortune I was never stranded due to a flat tire. AAA might be a good thing, but as you point out it's often limited and not always available in spite of what they claim. I never bought into it. Now with clever phones and Google Assistant I can get the same kind of service offered by AAA without paying annual dues.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
Looks like a good one, but even so, that's a lot of money for only 5 minutes of power or less. Just long enough to do a controlled shut down, if you are there to do it that is.
The UPS I used for my ham shack was externally connected to 8 deep cycle batteries, so would last for around 48 hours. So naturally was not all in a single unit case, hi hi.
I have a hunch they were talking about what OS's were available on their cloud services?
Well, I grew up with muscle cars and racing. When I was much younger, I've completely rebuilt engines several times, but never messed with transmissions. Had many a trick I used when building and engine for racing. Once I hit about 30 years old, I had enough contacts in the auto repair business I never had to do anything more than change the oil and filter, or perhaps replace a clutch a couple of times. After that, the car has always gone to the shop for repairs.
I had a friend of the family who would tow any family member for only 5 bucks. And when his son took over, for our family members it was only 10 bucks. I think the reason for that special price was because my grandfather may have financed his start up, but I don't know that for certain. I just know he only charged us 5 bucks and everyone else 25 bucks back then.
I have towing on my car insurance for 6 bucks per year, so even though I have to pay the tow, they pay me back. So far I'm still ahead of the game, hi hi. The tow bill after my accident was around 180 bucks to one place, and then another 50 bucks to get it all the way home to a repair shop here, where it was classified as salvage. Even with a new motor in it!
Triple A is so busy in the winter, you are lucky if you can get a tow at all.
The UPS I used for my ham shack was externally connected to 8 deep cycle batteries, so would last for around 48 hours. So naturally was not all in a single unit case, hi hi.
I have a hunch they were talking about what OS's were available on their cloud services?
Well, I grew up with muscle cars and racing. When I was much younger, I've completely rebuilt engines several times, but never messed with transmissions. Had many a trick I used when building and engine for racing. Once I hit about 30 years old, I had enough contacts in the auto repair business I never had to do anything more than change the oil and filter, or perhaps replace a clutch a couple of times. After that, the car has always gone to the shop for repairs.
I had a friend of the family who would tow any family member for only 5 bucks. And when his son took over, for our family members it was only 10 bucks. I think the reason for that special price was because my grandfather may have financed his start up, but I don't know that for certain. I just know he only charged us 5 bucks and everyone else 25 bucks back then.
I have towing on my car insurance for 6 bucks per year, so even though I have to pay the tow, they pay me back. So far I'm still ahead of the game, hi hi. The tow bill after my accident was around 180 bucks to one place, and then another 50 bucks to get it all the way home to a repair shop here, where it was classified as salvage. Even with a new motor in it!
Triple A is so busy in the winter, you are lucky if you can get a tow at all.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
The UPS I bought, and am expecting to be delivered this afternoon, supplies 900 Watts of power for that 5 minutes. If I only use 450 Watts, which is more like what I will be doing, that time increases to 10 minutes. All I intend to back up is the tower, the monitor, and the NAS. You are right to observe that it's a high price to pay for even 10 minutes of extra time, but that is only part of what the system does. It's also a line conditioner and a voltage regulator. That UPS has the ability to protect against power surges, brown outs, and whatever spikes happen to be on the line. In that sense it is working 24/7. They will also supply software to do unattended shutdowns. I know you mentioned that you had problems with that, and I don't doubt it is possible. It could be like HP who makes lovely printers but software from Hell. We'll see how it goes. You will be the first person I complain to. LOL
Speaking of problems with UPS's, did you ever experience problems with your UPS due to EFI and/or RFI emissions. I'm having a hell of a time figuring out exactly where to place this machine so that it causes the least amount of peripheral damage.
The cost of buying a tow truck probably can't be recovered in a single season of business unless you are towing 24/7. There are towing companies that seem to be doing only that, but many trucks are part of another business; usually a repair shop. The incident in Iowa cost me something a bit over $60, and that was on a Sunday. The fellow came out with his girl friend riding shotgun. Who knows what they were doing before they got the call for help. He didn't have to tow us, but he did replace the flat tire with the donut, and filled it with whatever air it needed to go 50 miles. He also gave us a few names of places we could go to get a new tire, one of which was just across the street from where we were. Unfortunately they were closed on Sundays, but we were planning to spend the night in DeBeque anyway. It must have taken all of a half hour to replace the tire. Maybe I paid too much, but I was expecting to pay a lot more. LOL
I have two rose bushes in front of the house and four out back down the hill. The two in front are full of holes in their leaves. In past years we have had problems with Japanese Beetles and more or less solved the problem by hanging traps near the plants. I always thought that was a dumb idea because the traps attract the bugs and their buddies. This year I've not seen any beetles but I do have all those holes in the front plants. Fortunately there is new growth that is doing fine so that the damage should not kill the plant. The plants out back have very little damage and are growing prolifically. They claim the only way to eliminate the beetles is to attack them in their grub phase. In the mean time spraying them with soapy water while they are feeding kills them instantly. Those that don't die need to be picked off the plants by hand. No way José. I'm not touching any bugs on purpose. Besides, they are my wife's roses. It should be her job.
Speaking of problems with UPS's, did you ever experience problems with your UPS due to EFI and/or RFI emissions. I'm having a hell of a time figuring out exactly where to place this machine so that it causes the least amount of peripheral damage.
The cost of buying a tow truck probably can't be recovered in a single season of business unless you are towing 24/7. There are towing companies that seem to be doing only that, but many trucks are part of another business; usually a repair shop. The incident in Iowa cost me something a bit over $60, and that was on a Sunday. The fellow came out with his girl friend riding shotgun. Who knows what they were doing before they got the call for help. He didn't have to tow us, but he did replace the flat tire with the donut, and filled it with whatever air it needed to go 50 miles. He also gave us a few names of places we could go to get a new tire, one of which was just across the street from where we were. Unfortunately they were closed on Sundays, but we were planning to spend the night in DeBeque anyway. It must have taken all of a half hour to replace the tire. Maybe I paid too much, but I was expecting to pay a lot more. LOL
I have two rose bushes in front of the house and four out back down the hill. The two in front are full of holes in their leaves. In past years we have had problems with Japanese Beetles and more or less solved the problem by hanging traps near the plants. I always thought that was a dumb idea because the traps attract the bugs and their buddies. This year I've not seen any beetles but I do have all those holes in the front plants. Fortunately there is new growth that is doing fine so that the damage should not kill the plant. The plants out back have very little damage and are growing prolifically. They claim the only way to eliminate the beetles is to attack them in their grub phase. In the mean time spraying them with soapy water while they are feeding kills them instantly. Those that don't die need to be picked off the plants by hand. No way José. I'm not touching any bugs on purpose. Besides, they are my wife's roses. It should be her job.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
If you only need 300 watts it will run for a half hour.
In my ham shack with all those radios, I had the UPS unit on the other side of the room, then the double row of batteries inside the case vented to outside, and then all the ham gear on the opposite corner of the room. Never did have RF problems with mine.
I only had one car that had what they called a space saver spare, it was the same size as a regular tire, but had no air in it until you hooked the can to it to fill it up. All the rest of my vehicles had the same size tire as was on the car. When I was doing contracting work in my van, often going to construction sites, I carried two spares in the van. One underneath the back, and one inside behind a wheel well. Ironically, I never had to use one, since I had a good plug gun back then. I did have to change a tire in my pickem-up truck though, because I hit a rebar sticking out of concrete and tore a hole in my sidewall. No way to fix that tire!
I used to use a pesticide powder you sprayed on the underside of the leaves of rose bushes. It was just a little small crank blower with a long wand that blew upward at the end. I only had to use it once, and never had problems with our rosebushes again after that in all the years we lived there. I doubt if they make anything like that anymore either. It seems all the pesticides that actually worked were all discontinued, because they were hazardous to the bugs, hi hi.
In my ham shack with all those radios, I had the UPS unit on the other side of the room, then the double row of batteries inside the case vented to outside, and then all the ham gear on the opposite corner of the room. Never did have RF problems with mine.
I only had one car that had what they called a space saver spare, it was the same size as a regular tire, but had no air in it until you hooked the can to it to fill it up. All the rest of my vehicles had the same size tire as was on the car. When I was doing contracting work in my van, often going to construction sites, I carried two spares in the van. One underneath the back, and one inside behind a wheel well. Ironically, I never had to use one, since I had a good plug gun back then. I did have to change a tire in my pickem-up truck though, because I hit a rebar sticking out of concrete and tore a hole in my sidewall. No way to fix that tire!
I used to use a pesticide powder you sprayed on the underside of the leaves of rose bushes. It was just a little small crank blower with a long wand that blew upward at the end. I only had to use it once, and never had problems with our rosebushes again after that in all the years we lived there. I doubt if they make anything like that anymore either. It seems all the pesticides that actually worked were all discontinued, because they were hazardous to the bugs, hi hi.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
All the things I want to connect to the UPS are physically close to each other. It's convenient but also necessary because the Isobar surge supressor to which everything is connected is hanging from the back of an old glass cabinet I'm using more or less as a rack mount for various items. To my surprise I found out that the Isobar strip is made by the same company that manufactured my UPS, Tripp-Lite. Apparently they make a ton of network, server, power management, and other computer related equipment. The second surprise I discovered is that the Tripp-Lite factory is located in Chicago about one mile away from my aunt's old house - the one we talked about having wooden sidewalks. Because I know the UPS is actually a switching power supply when running off the batteries, I am a bit concerned about how it might affect my router with any radiation. There is no published specification for that kind of thing so I contacted the tech support people at the factory for some enlightenment. As of this writing I'm waiting for their response. Between the tower computer, the router, and the smart phone all within inches of each other, I'd say there is already a large dose of EMI/RFI filling my command and control center. The UPS will just add to that. I was also concerned about the batteries, but apparently those are sealed and not going to contaminate my work area unless some kind of disaster happens. They claim the batteries have a 3-5 year life expectancy, which I thought was rather short given
that they are seldom used. I guess they are always being charged, however.
Back in the olden days when I had a garden, I used a rose dust made by Ortho to keep the fungus off the rose bushes. Never had a problem with bugs up north, but that black spot fungus did nearly as much damage as the leaf eating Japanese beetles do down here. To be honest roses are a pain in the butt to maintain but they are gorgeous when flowering. You are right to point out that most of the effective insecticides have been banned due to environmental considerations. I never was too keen on using chemicals for anything but fertilizer, and I'm totally unfamiliar with the ecology of O'Fallon. Thus I prefer organic methods when I attempt to do anything at all down here, and I don't do a lot. But, as I pointed out earlier these roses are my wife's desire so that it is best to keep the lady of the house happy.
Also back in the old days people were serious about clean air, or so it seemed. Laws were passed to get automobile mileage up into the stratosphere and to clean up the exhaust. This effort, of course, added a ton of costs to the manufacturing process. They did quite a bit to achieve the goals and comply with the laws, but there really isn't much that can be done to improve the efficiency of gasoline internal combustion engines. Thus the desired mileage was often a matter of reducing the weight of the car, and the load on the engine. This is when thin sheet metal became popular for the bodies and those heavy full sized tires got replace with donuts. I guess every pound they could eliminate helped, but I knew several people who simply bought a full sized tire and kept it in the trunk as a spare. The donuts are only intended to travel 50 miles @ 50mph. After that you should replace the tire. They are freaking useless as far as I'm concerned, but I can't deny that the donut in the old Saturn saved the day when I was stranded in Iowa.
that they are seldom used. I guess they are always being charged, however.
Back in the olden days when I had a garden, I used a rose dust made by Ortho to keep the fungus off the rose bushes. Never had a problem with bugs up north, but that black spot fungus did nearly as much damage as the leaf eating Japanese beetles do down here. To be honest roses are a pain in the butt to maintain but they are gorgeous when flowering. You are right to point out that most of the effective insecticides have been banned due to environmental considerations. I never was too keen on using chemicals for anything but fertilizer, and I'm totally unfamiliar with the ecology of O'Fallon. Thus I prefer organic methods when I attempt to do anything at all down here, and I don't do a lot. But, as I pointed out earlier these roses are my wife's desire so that it is best to keep the lady of the house happy.
Also back in the old days people were serious about clean air, or so it seemed. Laws were passed to get automobile mileage up into the stratosphere and to clean up the exhaust. This effort, of course, added a ton of costs to the manufacturing process. They did quite a bit to achieve the goals and comply with the laws, but there really isn't much that can be done to improve the efficiency of gasoline internal combustion engines. Thus the desired mileage was often a matter of reducing the weight of the car, and the load on the engine. This is when thin sheet metal became popular for the bodies and those heavy full sized tires got replace with donuts. I guess every pound they could eliminate helped, but I knew several people who simply bought a full sized tire and kept it in the trunk as a spare. The donuts are only intended to travel 50 miles @ 50mph. After that you should replace the tire. They are freaking useless as far as I'm concerned, but I can't deny that the donut in the old Saturn saved the day when I was stranded in Iowa.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
Well about the only thing I know about UPS units is they are in fact always running on the batteries to a certain degree.
I think that is how they stabilize the output, and prevent power spikes.
Not sure but I think it is akin to how a cars electrical system works. The battery is the buffer between the alternator and the rest of the circuit.
The power supply unit will be encased in metal, and the whole UPS unit may have a metal housing.
Neat that they are a home town company for you!
Being in the greenhouse industry my whole life, we never used most of the chemicals that farmers and people use in and around their homes. They are to dangerous to use in enclosed spaces like a greenhouse for one.
That being said, we did use very deadly gasses we would fill a greenhouse with to kill certain pests. But as I said, these were gasses used while the individual greenhouse was sealed up for the night. Most of them were gasses already found in our atmosphere, sucked out of the air and concentrated for use, and then it dissipates back into the air again, so the balance of nature is technically not changed.
As an example: The Oxygen Concentrator I use, takes air from the room, passes it through zeolite which momentarily traps nitrogen and allows purer oxygen to be pumped out. However, they way the machine works is half of that oxygen is pushed backwards back through the zeolite to blow the nitrogen back into the room. So it is actually the same air coming out as going in, but not enough to change the amount of nitrogen in the room. And by the same token, of the condensed oxygen we are breathing in, half of it is going back into the air when we are not breathing in.
My grandfather was concerned about air pollution, which although rural at the time, he built a 100 foot tall Weiderholt chimney for our coal boilers. It was believed at the time that if you get the smoke and fumes up that high, they would dissipate before reaching lower levels again. But there wasn't a hundred factories all within 10 miles of each other either.
Most of the laws and requirements passed by poly-TICK-ians regarding air pollution. The majority of them did more harm than good, and have even caused other problems later one down the road.
Many of the things they did were only a farce to add regulations, fines, and collect more in taxes, but did nothing for the problem.
Here is an example:
Back in the late 1960's, the government made it mandatory that all cars be equipped with a pump that blew air into the exhaust pipe. There's no such thing as perpetual motion, so those air pumps required energy to run, namely robbing the horsepower from your cars engine. So in reality, the cars all now got less gas mileage so were adding more pollutants to the air.
Here is how their scam worked, and they called it emissions testing.
They stuck a sniffer up the exhaust pipe to measure the amount of pollutants coming out of the exhaust pipe.
For some odd reason, they believed that dilution is the solution to pollution. They must have heard that from an aquarist.
In any case, anyone with half a brain could realize that yes if you add air to the exhaust pipe and then took a reading of the exhaust, it would be diluted with the air you added to it.
Since I drove racing cars, we removed and/or disconnected those horsepower robbing pumps.
And when it came time for an inspection. You simply put a scuba tank in the trunk of your car with a hose going into the exhaust pipe and turn on the scuba tank during the test. Heck crack that valve wide open and you could have next to no pollution they way the did the test.
They did much the same thing with the effluent from factories into a river.
Let's use paint as an example:
You cannot dump a gallon of paint into the river, as that would be polluting the river.
However, the way the law read, you could take four gallons of water from the river, dump the gallon of paint in with the four gallons and then you would be legal to dump that five gallons into the river and not be polluting.
I hope you can see that no matter how you look at it, you are still dumping a gallon of paint into the river.
But hey, the law is the law, right!
I think that is how they stabilize the output, and prevent power spikes.
Not sure but I think it is akin to how a cars electrical system works. The battery is the buffer between the alternator and the rest of the circuit.
The power supply unit will be encased in metal, and the whole UPS unit may have a metal housing.
Neat that they are a home town company for you!
Being in the greenhouse industry my whole life, we never used most of the chemicals that farmers and people use in and around their homes. They are to dangerous to use in enclosed spaces like a greenhouse for one.
That being said, we did use very deadly gasses we would fill a greenhouse with to kill certain pests. But as I said, these were gasses used while the individual greenhouse was sealed up for the night. Most of them were gasses already found in our atmosphere, sucked out of the air and concentrated for use, and then it dissipates back into the air again, so the balance of nature is technically not changed.
As an example: The Oxygen Concentrator I use, takes air from the room, passes it through zeolite which momentarily traps nitrogen and allows purer oxygen to be pumped out. However, they way the machine works is half of that oxygen is pushed backwards back through the zeolite to blow the nitrogen back into the room. So it is actually the same air coming out as going in, but not enough to change the amount of nitrogen in the room. And by the same token, of the condensed oxygen we are breathing in, half of it is going back into the air when we are not breathing in.
My grandfather was concerned about air pollution, which although rural at the time, he built a 100 foot tall Weiderholt chimney for our coal boilers. It was believed at the time that if you get the smoke and fumes up that high, they would dissipate before reaching lower levels again. But there wasn't a hundred factories all within 10 miles of each other either.
Most of the laws and requirements passed by poly-TICK-ians regarding air pollution. The majority of them did more harm than good, and have even caused other problems later one down the road.
Many of the things they did were only a farce to add regulations, fines, and collect more in taxes, but did nothing for the problem.
Here is an example:
Back in the late 1960's, the government made it mandatory that all cars be equipped with a pump that blew air into the exhaust pipe. There's no such thing as perpetual motion, so those air pumps required energy to run, namely robbing the horsepower from your cars engine. So in reality, the cars all now got less gas mileage so were adding more pollutants to the air.
Here is how their scam worked, and they called it emissions testing.
They stuck a sniffer up the exhaust pipe to measure the amount of pollutants coming out of the exhaust pipe.
For some odd reason, they believed that dilution is the solution to pollution. They must have heard that from an aquarist.
In any case, anyone with half a brain could realize that yes if you add air to the exhaust pipe and then took a reading of the exhaust, it would be diluted with the air you added to it.
Since I drove racing cars, we removed and/or disconnected those horsepower robbing pumps.
And when it came time for an inspection. You simply put a scuba tank in the trunk of your car with a hose going into the exhaust pipe and turn on the scuba tank during the test. Heck crack that valve wide open and you could have next to no pollution they way the did the test.
They did much the same thing with the effluent from factories into a river.
Let's use paint as an example:
You cannot dump a gallon of paint into the river, as that would be polluting the river.
However, the way the law read, you could take four gallons of water from the river, dump the gallon of paint in with the four gallons and then you would be legal to dump that five gallons into the river and not be polluting.
I hope you can see that no matter how you look at it, you are still dumping a gallon of paint into the river.
But hey, the law is the law, right!
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
I will honestly say that I don't know anything about the circuitry inside the UPS I purchased. That's one reason I contacted tech support and they did replay. They didn't give me the answer I was looking for, but then I could have phrased my inquiry differently. There are two types of EMI/RFI. There is the static kind that travels along the chases and line cord wires. Then there is the radiated type. Good grounding and some chokes in appropriate locations would take care of most if not all the static EMI. The radiation, however needs a shield to contain it. The housing for the UPS I have is mostly metal but there are a lot of holes in that metal to provide an airflow for cooling. The tech people simply fed back the instruction manual where it tells you to be absolutely positively certain that the socket you plug this thing into is grounded properly. I'm certain all the wiring in my house is grounded per code and that should take care of any static EMI. I know nothing about the radiated energy and that could be an issue because the UPS is about one foot away from the MAGNETIC hard drives in my tower. Not all drives are shielded on all the surfaces so that it could be a problem if the radiation is too high. I'm also concerned about RFI interfering with the router channels, but those are up in the GHz range. I kind of doubt the UPS would be radiating anything like that, but it is possible in that the switching is basically a square wave with lots and lots of harmonics. Anyway, I'll be attempting to hook it all up this afternoon. So, if you don't hear from me for a few days it's because my hard drives have been degaused. LOL
The a/c voltage regulation does not require a battery, but that would probably be the cheapest way to go about it in the UPS I purchased. Basically a reference voltage is required and the output is measured against that reference. Adjusting the output so that it remains constant can be done in many ways, and a switching DC circuit is probably a cheap and effective way to do it. If I really cared about it I probably could get a schematic from the guys who sold me the UPS. For now I'll just be happy if I can be assured there is no radiation hazard.
None of the clean air and anti-pollution laws I can remember were designed to eliminate the dirty air. The intent was to slow down the rate of increase of the pollution. Because all the world economies were expanding at the time, some red flags were raised regarding the rapidity of the accumulation of contamination. You are absolutely correct to point out that the same amount of toxic chemicals will be consumed, and in fact that amount will increase dramatically over time. However, if you pollute the river with a gallon of raw paint, that river will become useless. If, on the other hand, you toss diluted paint at a 5:1 ration into that river, it will take longer for it to die. The same can be said about automobiles with gasoline engines. It wasn't the air pumps that cleaned the exhaust as much as it was the catalytic converters. Be that as it may, the same amount of gasoline was being tossed into the air. The cleaner (not pure) exhaust would take longer to do it's dirty work. The solution, of course, is not to dilute the byproducts of energy conversion. In the case of the river a replacement for paint must be found. Automobiles are going electric which will eliminate the exhaust problem, but we both know other problems will ensue to replace them.
The a/c voltage regulation does not require a battery, but that would probably be the cheapest way to go about it in the UPS I purchased. Basically a reference voltage is required and the output is measured against that reference. Adjusting the output so that it remains constant can be done in many ways, and a switching DC circuit is probably a cheap and effective way to do it. If I really cared about it I probably could get a schematic from the guys who sold me the UPS. For now I'll just be happy if I can be assured there is no radiation hazard.
None of the clean air and anti-pollution laws I can remember were designed to eliminate the dirty air. The intent was to slow down the rate of increase of the pollution. Because all the world economies were expanding at the time, some red flags were raised regarding the rapidity of the accumulation of contamination. You are absolutely correct to point out that the same amount of toxic chemicals will be consumed, and in fact that amount will increase dramatically over time. However, if you pollute the river with a gallon of raw paint, that river will become useless. If, on the other hand, you toss diluted paint at a 5:1 ration into that river, it will take longer for it to die. The same can be said about automobiles with gasoline engines. It wasn't the air pumps that cleaned the exhaust as much as it was the catalytic converters. Be that as it may, the same amount of gasoline was being tossed into the air. The cleaner (not pure) exhaust would take longer to do it's dirty work. The solution, of course, is not to dilute the byproducts of energy conversion. In the case of the river a replacement for paint must be found. Automobiles are going electric which will eliminate the exhaust problem, but we both know other problems will ensue to replace them.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
RFI doesn't get through those holes due to the skin effect. So you should be safe there!
I had a simple analog Veriac my house line passed through on the way to my radio equipment.
I could adjust the voltage up or down by hand via the big knob on the top.
Our house line voltage could swing between like 90 and 130 volts, and the output of the Variac would only drift by about 1% of the setting. If I had it set at 120 volts, and the 110 volt line dropped to 100 volts, my output voltage would be 119.9 and if it dropped down to 90 volts the output would be 119.8
I think it had to do with the number of turns on the coil that buffered the voltage changes.
Now wait a minute. If you take 4 gallons of water out of the river and mix in the 1 gallon of paint, then dump it back into the river, you are still adding 1 gallon of paint to the river. Diluted or not, it is still the same amount of paint going into the river.
In the case of the air pumps, they were polluting the air more by causing the cars to burn more gas to run the air pump.
I remember all the con jobs about catalytic converters, they convert the exhaust to harmless CO2 and Water.
Take note of that word harmless they used to get those pushed through.
With the rise of CO2 our trees are much greener and producing more oxygen than ever before.
O2 reading taken in our forests over the years, have proven that the increase in O2 levels has risen a little bit more than CO2 levels have risen. O2 is good!
All this Carbon HOAX Tax, and the associated regulations, fines, laws, licenses etc. are just that another HOAX perpetrated by our government.
Carbon is an Element that can neither be created nor destroyed.
The amount of carbon we had 10,000 years ago is the same amount we have today, and the same amount we will have 10,000 years from now, and nothing can change that. But leave it to the government to come up with another HOAX to Tax it, etc.
I had a simple analog Veriac my house line passed through on the way to my radio equipment.
I could adjust the voltage up or down by hand via the big knob on the top.
Our house line voltage could swing between like 90 and 130 volts, and the output of the Variac would only drift by about 1% of the setting. If I had it set at 120 volts, and the 110 volt line dropped to 100 volts, my output voltage would be 119.9 and if it dropped down to 90 volts the output would be 119.8
I think it had to do with the number of turns on the coil that buffered the voltage changes.
Now wait a minute. If you take 4 gallons of water out of the river and mix in the 1 gallon of paint, then dump it back into the river, you are still adding 1 gallon of paint to the river. Diluted or not, it is still the same amount of paint going into the river.
In the case of the air pumps, they were polluting the air more by causing the cars to burn more gas to run the air pump.
I remember all the con jobs about catalytic converters, they convert the exhaust to harmless CO2 and Water.
Take note of that word harmless they used to get those pushed through.
With the rise of CO2 our trees are much greener and producing more oxygen than ever before.
O2 reading taken in our forests over the years, have proven that the increase in O2 levels has risen a little bit more than CO2 levels have risen. O2 is good!
All this Carbon HOAX Tax, and the associated regulations, fines, laws, licenses etc. are just that another HOAX perpetrated by our government.
Carbon is an Element that can neither be created nor destroyed.
The amount of carbon we had 10,000 years ago is the same amount we have today, and the same amount we will have 10,000 years from now, and nothing can change that. But leave it to the government to come up with another HOAX to Tax it, etc.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
Your variac would be an excellent example of how to regulate A/C without the use of a reference battery and feedback circuitry. I'd guess the line voltages around here are pretty stable, but that's not why I bought the UPS. Brown outs and power surges are not good for computer equipment, but it's been a very long times since I've seen either of those; certainly not while I've been here in Missouri. The transients on power lines is a different story. I'd guess any thunder storm would cause havoc in terms of spikes in A/C voltage. Fortunately they are typically of short duration, but they can be lethal to sensitive equipment. That's why all my computer equipment was connected to an Isobar surge suppressor power strip. When I purchased the UPS little did I know the same people who made the UPS also make the Isobar. LOL The UPS is a much better line conditioner than the power strip could ever be. Given the price differential I would expect a LOT more protection with the UPS.
The power lines are only a problem when the mains go out, but even more dangerous when the power comes back on. There could be some tremendous voltage surges when powering up a grid in spite of Ameren's best efforts to control such things. In my case the power has gone out several times here in O'Fallon. Each time the computer was unaffected, but that was pure luck. The last outage actually corrupted the OS kernel. Fortunately it wasn't permanent damage, but it raised a red flag to tell me that I might want to do something to protect Windows 7 (given that I'd like to keep it a few more years).
I got a UPS that I knew was more than I needed in terms of power output capability. It's a 1500VA or 900 Watt output device when it's running from internal batteries. That battery voltage, by the way, sits between 24-27 volts DC when fully charged. I managed to install the UPS and it's management software, which required Java RTE be installed. That' pissed me off because I deliberately eliminated it a few years ago due to security issues. But, this software will run on Windows, Macs, and Linux (Fedora and Free BSD) which all can run Java. A USB connection is required to accomplish the management and a whole bunch of statistics can be read. That would be useful if I was running an enterprise of some sort, but pretty much overkill for the home environment. I was very surprised to learn that I'm only using 130 Watts of power sitting here writing this to you. That power usage includes the computer tower, the LCD monitor, the cable modem, the LAN router, and the NAS. All things considered I would have about 45 minutes of runtime if the power goes out. My connection to the Internet would be preserved, assuming the cable network did not go down in the general outage. Plus, if I'm not around to shut things down, the software will do it for me. I realize that is where you had problems, and I don't look forward to testing it out in real time.
You certainly have some interesting experiences and comments regarding the environment and government regulations. I can't go much further with my own comments because I don't do conspiracy theory debunking very well.
The power lines are only a problem when the mains go out, but even more dangerous when the power comes back on. There could be some tremendous voltage surges when powering up a grid in spite of Ameren's best efforts to control such things. In my case the power has gone out several times here in O'Fallon. Each time the computer was unaffected, but that was pure luck. The last outage actually corrupted the OS kernel. Fortunately it wasn't permanent damage, but it raised a red flag to tell me that I might want to do something to protect Windows 7 (given that I'd like to keep it a few more years).
I got a UPS that I knew was more than I needed in terms of power output capability. It's a 1500VA or 900 Watt output device when it's running from internal batteries. That battery voltage, by the way, sits between 24-27 volts DC when fully charged. I managed to install the UPS and it's management software, which required Java RTE be installed. That' pissed me off because I deliberately eliminated it a few years ago due to security issues. But, this software will run on Windows, Macs, and Linux (Fedora and Free BSD) which all can run Java. A USB connection is required to accomplish the management and a whole bunch of statistics can be read. That would be useful if I was running an enterprise of some sort, but pretty much overkill for the home environment. I was very surprised to learn that I'm only using 130 Watts of power sitting here writing this to you. That power usage includes the computer tower, the LCD monitor, the cable modem, the LAN router, and the NAS. All things considered I would have about 45 minutes of runtime if the power goes out. My connection to the Internet would be preserved, assuming the cable network did not go down in the general outage. Plus, if I'm not around to shut things down, the software will do it for me. I realize that is where you had problems, and I don't look forward to testing it out in real time.
You certainly have some interesting experiences and comments regarding the environment and government regulations. I can't go much further with my own comments because I don't do conspiracy theory debunking very well.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
Now that you mention it, I'm pretty sure my old UPS was also a 24 volt system, because the two storage batteries were wired in series. Not the one in my ham shack though, because the entire bank of batteries were wired in parallel.
But then too, the big inverter box was 12 volt to 120 volt.
I sure you will love having a UPS unit!
Well, I'm sure you remember the air pumps they put on cars back in the late '60s early '70s.
Even if you didn't know how the testing stations tested the exhaust output back then.
It's not a conspiracy theory when you have all the facts!
But then too, the big inverter box was 12 volt to 120 volt.
I sure you will love having a UPS unit!
Well, I'm sure you remember the air pumps they put on cars back in the late '60s early '70s.
Even if you didn't know how the testing stations tested the exhaust output back then.
It's not a conspiracy theory when you have all the facts!
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
I worked in electronics all my professional life. It was mostly DC communications equipment that ran off 5 or 12 volt supplies. That, of course, was all solid state and after the vacuum tube era where the circuit voltages were substantially higher. As you might suspect there were any number of supply voltages, both positive and negative, to drive the circuitry, but it seemed as if 12 volts DC predominated. This made sense for automobiles and their communications devices, but a lot of Motorola products were used in environments outside the mobile world.
I had a buddy who worked for AT&T long lines and we would frequently chew the rag about each others' experiences. It seems as if the telco's never heard of a 12 volt battery. They used -24VDC (I'm pretty sure it was negative, but not positive) in their switching and relay banks. The battery backups were typically located in the basement of the building, the entire basement. I believe he explained why 24 (and 48) volts was necessary, but I've long forgotten the reasons. When I discovered the battery inside my UPS was 24 volts, it reminded me of those AT&T long line stories I heard from my friend. I'm guessing it has something to do with the output capability in terms of watts. Maybe you need more and bigger batteries if the voltage is reduced to 12 volts. I'm not sure how that all works. Batteries these days are not what they were like when I was a technician.
The management software for the UPS is very straight forward in spite of it's reliance on Java. I think I put it through all it's paces the past few days and I'm fairly impressed. It can collect data about everything that has to do with the input and output and will save it in CSV format should I want it that way. It draws graphs for everything too, which is where I believe Java comes into play. One of the interesting things I noted was the AC frequency. Over the past few days it varied from 59.9 to 60.2 cps. That's not much and certainly won't affect any of the equipment connected to it, but I was surprised to see it vary at all. I was under the impression that the 60 cycles was rock solid and that they did all they could to keep it that way. The Voltage dropped down to 117 Sunday when everybody turned on their air conditioners. During the day, as in right now, the line voltage flips between 120 and 121, which means it's probably really at 120.5 and the UPS can't decide which one to display. LOL I also noted that there is no data I could locate for phase, which probably doesn't figure into my leg of the mains feed anyway. Who cares if the mains are out of phase when the UPS is running off battery anyway?
I had a buddy who worked for AT&T long lines and we would frequently chew the rag about each others' experiences. It seems as if the telco's never heard of a 12 volt battery. They used -24VDC (I'm pretty sure it was negative, but not positive) in their switching and relay banks. The battery backups were typically located in the basement of the building, the entire basement. I believe he explained why 24 (and 48) volts was necessary, but I've long forgotten the reasons. When I discovered the battery inside my UPS was 24 volts, it reminded me of those AT&T long line stories I heard from my friend. I'm guessing it has something to do with the output capability in terms of watts. Maybe you need more and bigger batteries if the voltage is reduced to 12 volts. I'm not sure how that all works. Batteries these days are not what they were like when I was a technician.
The management software for the UPS is very straight forward in spite of it's reliance on Java. I think I put it through all it's paces the past few days and I'm fairly impressed. It can collect data about everything that has to do with the input and output and will save it in CSV format should I want it that way. It draws graphs for everything too, which is where I believe Java comes into play. One of the interesting things I noted was the AC frequency. Over the past few days it varied from 59.9 to 60.2 cps. That's not much and certainly won't affect any of the equipment connected to it, but I was surprised to see it vary at all. I was under the impression that the 60 cycles was rock solid and that they did all they could to keep it that way. The Voltage dropped down to 117 Sunday when everybody turned on their air conditioners. During the day, as in right now, the line voltage flips between 120 and 121, which means it's probably really at 120.5 and the UPS can't decide which one to display. LOL I also noted that there is no data I could locate for phase, which probably doesn't figure into my leg of the mains feed anyway. Who cares if the mains are out of phase when the UPS is running off battery anyway?
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
My first car, a '46 Ford Deluxe had a 6 volt battery, positive ground.
My '55 Ford Custom had a 12 volt battery, and I think it was still positive ground at that time.
Then all after that were 12 volt negative ground.
I had a trolling motor for our boat that used both 6 volt for low speed and 12 volt for high speed.
They accomplished this by adding a screw tap to the battery for the 6 volt feed.
My uncles tour fishing boat had 4 batteries, 1 6-volt, 2 12-volt, and 1 24-volt. Which I think were just two small 12-volts in a larger case, so was about the same size as a 12-volt battery. 1 of the 12-volt batteries was for the starter motor on the outboard engine. All the other batteries were used for the trolling motor, but were still charged up from the outboard when it was running.
Almost all the doorbells I installed in houses were 24 volt, and furnace thermostats were 48 volt. That's going back a lot of years though, hi hi.
Almost all of the emergency exit lighting I worked on used single 1-1/2 volt batteries connected in series to get up to 12-volts.
They were all wet-cell batteries, but used a gel so they didn't evaporate so fast. Royal pain the arse to work on too. But they did save money since you only had to replace a bad single cell battery from the bank of batteries.
Back when 100% of your power came from dynamo's from the electric company, they were rock solid 60 cycles.
But since other sources are now a part of the grid, some of which is coming from household solar panels, etc. It can vary between 58 and 62 as you noted. About the only thing this would affect are the old analog electric clocks which relied on the solid 60 cycle feed to remain accurate. But today's electronics convert they cycles way up there to like 30,000 cycles, then step them back down again at the output to a solid 60 cycles, especially for TV monitors and computer devices.
Most residential homes are fed with two 120 volt lines, 180 degrees out of phase, so combined they make 240 volts.
In some commercial areas 208 triple phase is common, the results are lower electrical costs, but cannot be broken down to 120 volts, but you can get 138 volts and use a step-down transformer to get it down to 120 volts. But normally they just run another pair of 120 volt lines to the business for everything except what runs on 208 volts.
My machine shop had 208 triple phase, so that is what all of the motors on my equipment were.
Then when I closed that shop down, I couldn't use the equipment myself at home.
I replaced the motors on a couple of them I wanted to use, but the rest a of the machines I sold.
My wonder plants building had 440, 220, 110, and a weird one 238 we didn't use.
In fact, we only used the 220 and 110. The 220 was NOT two 120 volt lines, but a single 220 volt line. Designed for commercial business and high intensity lighting which we had for the plants. Needless to say, 220 single phase was much cheaper than 240 volts from two 120 volt lines 180 degrees out of phase.
In the shop, we had an unusual UPS system for the cash register. I still never understood why though. It was installed along with the cash register and the company maintained it. They also supplied the paper rolls and ink rollers.
My '55 Ford Custom had a 12 volt battery, and I think it was still positive ground at that time.
Then all after that were 12 volt negative ground.
I had a trolling motor for our boat that used both 6 volt for low speed and 12 volt for high speed.
They accomplished this by adding a screw tap to the battery for the 6 volt feed.
My uncles tour fishing boat had 4 batteries, 1 6-volt, 2 12-volt, and 1 24-volt. Which I think were just two small 12-volts in a larger case, so was about the same size as a 12-volt battery. 1 of the 12-volt batteries was for the starter motor on the outboard engine. All the other batteries were used for the trolling motor, but were still charged up from the outboard when it was running.
Almost all the doorbells I installed in houses were 24 volt, and furnace thermostats were 48 volt. That's going back a lot of years though, hi hi.
Almost all of the emergency exit lighting I worked on used single 1-1/2 volt batteries connected in series to get up to 12-volts.
They were all wet-cell batteries, but used a gel so they didn't evaporate so fast. Royal pain the arse to work on too. But they did save money since you only had to replace a bad single cell battery from the bank of batteries.
Back when 100% of your power came from dynamo's from the electric company, they were rock solid 60 cycles.
But since other sources are now a part of the grid, some of which is coming from household solar panels, etc. It can vary between 58 and 62 as you noted. About the only thing this would affect are the old analog electric clocks which relied on the solid 60 cycle feed to remain accurate. But today's electronics convert they cycles way up there to like 30,000 cycles, then step them back down again at the output to a solid 60 cycles, especially for TV monitors and computer devices.
Most residential homes are fed with two 120 volt lines, 180 degrees out of phase, so combined they make 240 volts.
In some commercial areas 208 triple phase is common, the results are lower electrical costs, but cannot be broken down to 120 volts, but you can get 138 volts and use a step-down transformer to get it down to 120 volts. But normally they just run another pair of 120 volt lines to the business for everything except what runs on 208 volts.
My machine shop had 208 triple phase, so that is what all of the motors on my equipment were.
Then when I closed that shop down, I couldn't use the equipment myself at home.
I replaced the motors on a couple of them I wanted to use, but the rest a of the machines I sold.
My wonder plants building had 440, 220, 110, and a weird one 238 we didn't use.
In fact, we only used the 220 and 110. The 220 was NOT two 120 volt lines, but a single 220 volt line. Designed for commercial business and high intensity lighting which we had for the plants. Needless to say, 220 single phase was much cheaper than 240 volts from two 120 volt lines 180 degrees out of phase.
In the shop, we had an unusual UPS system for the cash register. I still never understood why though. It was installed along with the cash register and the company maintained it. They also supplied the paper rolls and ink rollers.
Re: Reeading on Easter Morning
The world of AC power is mostly some manner of magic in my mind. I've studied the theory and understand that as well as anyone, but in practice things just don't follow the rules. LOL I guess I spent too much of my career analyzing DC circuitry to understand AC. All that RF i dealt with was AC and it all made sense. When it comes to supply lines from the power grid, and Mother Earth being conductive, that's where physics stops making sense. You've explained it to me a few times, and so have a few engineers. Yes, it works, but it is not theoretically possible in my mind.
My cousin married an electrician who at the time was working at the nuclear power plant in Braidwood, Illinois. He didn't have any fascinating stories to tell but he is also a person that tried to make sense of AC supply lines for me. One day my cousin got a call from the hospital her hubby was taken to. It seems as if he was zapped with 440 VAC, and lived to tell about it. The amazing part of the experience, so he says, is that the current went through his body into the ground he was standing on. I'm pretty sure he was wearing special shoes, but for some reason that didn't insulate him as was expected. He got a sore arm once in a while, but otherwise he seemed pretty normal.
The UPS under my desk is doing well three days after installation. About the only notable evidence of its presence is the odor it emits; fresh electronics running warm and cooking whatever components are inside that black box. Either that will dissipate after some time or I will get used to the new smell in the CCC. I'm pretty sure that we will never have another power failure so that the workings of the UPS can be tested. Oh, I can unplug it from the wall, but that's not the same. It has a self-test function that can be run on a schedule. All that does is turn on the battery circuit to be sure that works. If it fails it screams at me, and I can get it to send me an e-mail too. I could have it shut down the computer after a certain time, but I'm hesitating to set that up. Windows goes into a sleep mode and I'm not sure it can be shut down gracefully from there. It has to be woken first from what I understand, and the UPS isn't quite THAT smart.
My cousin married an electrician who at the time was working at the nuclear power plant in Braidwood, Illinois. He didn't have any fascinating stories to tell but he is also a person that tried to make sense of AC supply lines for me. One day my cousin got a call from the hospital her hubby was taken to. It seems as if he was zapped with 440 VAC, and lived to tell about it. The amazing part of the experience, so he says, is that the current went through his body into the ground he was standing on. I'm pretty sure he was wearing special shoes, but for some reason that didn't insulate him as was expected. He got a sore arm once in a while, but otherwise he seemed pretty normal.
The UPS under my desk is doing well three days after installation. About the only notable evidence of its presence is the odor it emits; fresh electronics running warm and cooking whatever components are inside that black box. Either that will dissipate after some time or I will get used to the new smell in the CCC. I'm pretty sure that we will never have another power failure so that the workings of the UPS can be tested. Oh, I can unplug it from the wall, but that's not the same. It has a self-test function that can be run on a schedule. All that does is turn on the battery circuit to be sure that works. If it fails it screams at me, and I can get it to send me an e-mail too. I could have it shut down the computer after a certain time, but I'm hesitating to set that up. Windows goes into a sleep mode and I'm not sure it can be shut down gracefully from there. It has to be woken first from what I understand, and the UPS isn't quite THAT smart.