What made me happy today?

Just now stumbled onto Classical Gas by Mason Williams being used as an episode opener on a mindless escapist mini-seried called The Last Frontier.

It's like a wormhole from this evening to the 1960s.
 
Rath Darkblade said:
Ye gods, I still remember the Enron scandal ... and the Arthur Andersen scandal ... and the Kenneth Lay scandal. (Yes, Virginia; there was a time before 9/11). Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of crooks.
Click to expand...
Back before Worldcom augured in I had four of their T1 circuits. We were overbilled every month and our payments were never credited without showing proof. I was never late or behind even though Worldcom started every billing cycle saying we were. I'm convinced my little business was one of the thousands of helplessly small customers they played accounting games with. At the end of our contract I got all my overpayments refunded. I think that was because there were people at Worldcom trying to shut down the fraud against management wishes.

On top of that, we were on networking Worldcom shut down for a week to resolve problems related to a trading network they rolled out for the Chicago Board of Trade. Curious? Here's more info - MCI Worldcom's Network Nightmare
 
About a year ago, I got a Thinkpad X220 for £49 just to see why people liked these Thinkpads so much. They've got a bit of a cult following. It was also a nice excuse to install Libreboot. Flashing BIOS chips looked fun.

Then I got it and found out that the previous owner spilled milk inside. It was working but the smell was... not good. So I took it apart and cleaned it all out. Then I put it back together. It worked for like two seconds before the display went out, never to come back on again.

I later found that I inserted the display connector just very slightly crooked. Inserting correctly was not enough to fix it, so damage happened. I was really busy with university at the time so I just cut my losses and stored it away.

Today, I felt really inspired to try and re-visit it. I took it apart and inspected the board. It had lots of fuses (I have never seen so many fuses in a motherboard). Most importantly, I found two near the display connector. They were both blown.

The thing you are supposed to do in this situation is solder new ones in. But instead, after checking that the fuse inputs are not shorted to ground, I risked it and bridged them with solder instead. I connected it back on and boom, the display worked! Such a happy ending after a sad one.

Just to note though: Never do what I did. Bridging the fuse pads was risky. They are there to essentially prevent fires. And that's why I responsibly powered it off quickly. I'll order new fuses for it. I mean, since it works, immediate danger is probably minimal. But if there is a future fault (like a capacitor deciding to die and short itself to ground), then fire hazard happens. So, I'll be a responsible person and put new fuses in.
 
big soft moose said:
awhile back i hadone of those as my work issue laptop, it was a nice machine...
Click to expand...

It would seem that people agree with you because those things can go for as much as £200 now. The cheapest one I could find on eBay was £70. The rest of them have crazy prices. The "cheap" one has 15 watchers on the listing.

I either got a good deal back then or prices have just gone nuts. I think people need to calm down. Those things are thirteen years old.
 
Stopped by the local farmers' co-op today to scoop up some loose hay, to use for covering a small planting of garlic bulbs. The guys simply directed us to a shed where we gathered up all we wanted. "Otherwise we just recycle it," they said. The bright autumnal morning sun, the smell of hay, even the pickup trucks in the yard, reminded me of my childhood in a small Nebraska town, where my best friend's dad owned the local grain elevator, and we often hung out there. What a rush of great indescribable sensations.

Of course, my friend's dad later went to prison for playing fast and loose with the individual farmers' accounts, but that's another story, irrelevant for today's purposes.
 
My communism test score is 32%

Here's the link if anyone else wants to try it (24 questions)

www.idrlabs.com

Communism Test

This test will determine whether you agree with communist doctrines.
www.idrlabs.com www.idrlabs.com
 
I got 33% and was struggling to answer some of the questions. I had a lecture at university focused on language and communication in business setting, in one of the classes we learned about Hofstede's cultural dimensions that can be used to measure e.g. collectivism or individualism in nations (and businesses?), a lot of what I learned in that class was new to me (don't have a background in business or communication or pr) Anyways that's what the test reminded me of.
 
I've been reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, which considers communism and McCarthyism among its themes. She is a remarkably talented writer.
 
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