Products > Test Equipment
Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
bd139:
My pile of D83’s is sitting in the hall waiting for the motivation to overcome some nasty hurdles too. Don’t sweat it :-+ Take a break and come back to it when you’re ready. However don’t do what my father did and take a break on everything and drop dead thus requiring a large skip :-DD
Been too busy to post today. I had to rewrite a chunk of stuff in C instead of python so been busy. This was expected. The joy of python is that it is designed for rapid prototyping and then you can replace the slow bits and bits that eat too much memory with C after profiling.
Sold my weller iron as well. It actually paid for half the price of the Metcal after fees and delivery which is a good win.
mnementh:
--- Quote from: Cerebus on July 05, 2018, 12:58:46 pm ---
--- Quote from: mnementh on July 05, 2018, 02:24:36 am ---No, not the Royal Navy (Even though the merchant marine of the time sometimes thought of themselves that way) those taxes taxes went directly to shore up the East India Tea Company, who also had exclusive rights to all tea sales in the colonies. The colonies were the victims of a particularly pernicious monarchy-mandated circle-jerk without having a seat at the table, which is what eventually resulted in all that unpleasantness in the Boston Harbor back then.
As with all matters of import (or matters of taxation and export), if you want to know what really happened and why, FOLLOW. THE. MONEY.
--- End quote ---
It's funny how countries schools never teach their children the inglorious parts of their history. In British schools we're told lots of good things about ourselves but not about the grossest parts of our history. So, Winston Churchill is a hero, not the man who ordered the massive use of chemical weapons against Russian revolutionaries in Emtsa in August 1919, or their use against Iraqi Kurds in the early 1920's. The huge war crime of the fire bombing of the civilian population of Dresden by the RAF got no mention in my history lessons. I've never know a Briton who knew about these things from school history lessons.
Similarly I've never know an American who knew the fully story of the prelude to the US Revolution from what they had been taught in school. In US schools, little or no mention is made of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which established a line down the Appalachians which was supposed to be the limit of British settlement in North America, leaving the area to the west of the Proclamation Line for the Native Americans (and Spanish territory from the west coast inland). European scholars conclude that it was objections to this restriction that ultimately sparked the American Revolution ten years later, not a principled stand against "No taxation without representation". American scholars, for some reason, take the exact opposite position. On the "follow the money" principle, which is more likely a motivator, skipping a bit of tax*, or a massive land grab for the purposes of property speculation.
* 18th century taxes were generally negligible compared to modern levels of taxation and the tax on tea, a highly taxed luxury good, was 3d a pound versus a price of 24d a pound including tax (12.5% gross, 14.28% net). There was no Income Tax in Britain until 1798, when it was at the staggering level of 0.83% for income over £60 a year (£7140 present value).
--- End quote ---
That tax structure was lifted from your domestic usage; the taxation on goods shipped over here was taxed as if imported (yes, that's right; taxed at a British territory, on goods "imported" from British merchants), and that taxation was based on presumed value, which was a figure often created out of whole cloth by the merchants themselves who, like the East India Tea Company, received almost all of those taxes back as subsidy, or who were reporting back to their investors so that they could keep the seed money flowing. These figures had as much to do with reality as our FBI's accounting of the "street value" of drug seizures. :palm:
On top of this, those taxes were paid AT THE DOCKS, (docks that were built by colonist labor, using indigenous materials, and managed by colonial property owners in all levels except the highest, where the money was) to his Majesty's agents backed directly by British soldiers. Importers with subsidy by the crown like EITC were exempted from slip fees, which was where those property owners made their profit from the operation of those docks.
These people could see with great transparency the "glass ceiling" where all the money went up, and only a few crumbs came back down to them... and guess who it was that organized that little excursion?
That "Royal Proclamation" was made well after the fact; the Spanish expansion had already met up with considerable opposition from the descendants of many of the colonial settlers (most of whom were offspring of one variant or another of boatloads of religious zealots like John Calvin) moving Westward, and it was made entirely to appease and support the Spanish, not in any way for the "natives" who were caught in the crossfire and neither side considered them as anything more than vermin to be exterminated. Those "settlers" considered themselves to be the "true natives" as they were born here, and they were on a mission from God, and as such refused all other directive save those passed down by their wingnuts religious leaders, even the orders of their titular King.
Getting back to the "Rebellion" and our "founding fathers"... A few scant decades after these men of property and good standing risked everything they had, mortgaged entire estates the size of counties to fund "the King's Colonies" over here, he starts using those colonies as a dumping ground for boatloads of every undesirable he could think of. Britain ran most of our ancestors out of the country literally at gunpoint; either because they were criminals or so fanatically religious that even the sociopathically repressive culture of the time couldn't stand them.
Sure, they risked it all in pursuit of massive profits... but what they saw was, at just the point where all their risk should start paying off, a monarchy taking most of that profit for themselves with new taxes and tariffs that were JUST FOR THE COLONIES, nobody else, and leaving them nothing to pay off their own debts back home, much less the massive profits that were promised.
So, like most such events... our "Rebellion" was a mix of starvation and feast, of greed (on both sides) vs desperation. And as always, "History" is "His story" as told by the "winners".
My mother was a proud student of HISTORY... and instilled in me a love of such things.
But as she said many times... "History has very little to do with what you read in history books."
A'aight... I'm late for lunch. Think I'm gonna set fire to some dead cow and hope it doesn't catch.
mnem
"Time is an illusion... lunchtime, doubly so."
mnementh:
--- Quote from: med6753 on July 05, 2018, 05:55:12 pm ---
--- Quote from: nixiefreqq on July 05, 2018, 04:10:07 pm ---
--- Quote from: med6753 on July 05, 2018, 02:54:35 pm ---Sometimes you have to accept defeat. I just spent hours putting the vertical board back into the 465 and the result is the scope is in worse shape than when I started. Channel 1 trace but no response to any input. Channel 2 no trace at all. I checked and double checked all connections and they're OK. I'm in no mood at this point to try to toubleshoot this mess. But I'm not scrapping it, although tempted. I'm putting it away and I'll come back to it another day. It's rare that I can't fix a piece of equipment but this 465 is kicking my butt. So to avoid doing something stupid it will be put away...for now.
--- End quote ---
hate to say this.......and you will probably curse my eyes for suggesting it......BUT.....maybe you should consider getting a second 465 for module swapping and signal cross checking.
two of everything is almost a TEA minimum.
ok, now you can hunt me down and kill me like a dog.
--- End quote ---
No I won't.....because I had the same thought! A true TEA addict. :-DD
The 465 is securely tucked away in the bottom of the scope cart waiting for the day when I pull it out and we do battle again. :box: ;D
--- End quote ---
I have a 454 and a 2230 that both mostly work which you can add to the pyre... err, pile... :-DD
mnem
Just the cost of postage, brother. You know you want to... >:D
Cerebus:
--- Quote from: mnementh on July 05, 2018, 06:14:51 pm ---On top of this, those taxes were paid AT THE DOCKS, (docks that were built by colonist labor, using indigenous materials, and managed by colonial property owners in all levels except the highest, where the money was) to his Majesty's agents backed directly by British soldiers. Importers with subsidy by the crown like EITC were exempted from slip fees, which was where those property owners made their profit from the operation of those docks.
--- End quote ---
My dear chap, that is the fundamental nature of how taxation works. Somebody from the Tyrant/Dictator/King/Government turns up and demands, on the basis that you own some property/have been paid for some work/want to buy something, that you give them money on a more or less explicit threat that violence will be done to you unless you hand over the dosh. It's just that nowadays the uniformed men with weapons only turn up after the Tyrant's/Dictator's/King's/Government's courts have committed you for non-payment. It hasn't really changed at all.
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: nixiefreqq on July 05, 2018, 04:10:07 pm ---
--- Quote from: med6753 on July 05, 2018, 02:54:35 pm ---Sometimes you have to accept defeat. I just spent hours putting the vertical board back into the 465 and the result is the scope is in worse shape than when I started. Channel 1 trace but no response to any input. Channel 2 no trace at all. I checked and double checked all connections and they're OK. I'm in no mood at this point to try to toubleshoot this mess. But I'm not scrapping it, although tempted. I'm putting it away and I'll come back to it another day. It's rare that I can't fix a piece of equipment but this 465 is kicking my butt. So to avoid doing something stupid it will be put away...for now.
--- End quote ---
hate to say this.......and you will probably curse my eyes for suggesting it......BUT.....maybe you should consider getting a second 465 for module swapping and signal cross checking.
two of everything is almost a TEA minimum.
ok, now you can hunt me down and kill me like a dog.
--- End quote ---
Pah! That's for wimps. Real Men (TM) simply look at the schematic and think.
Inspiration:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lpY-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT18&lpg=PT18&dq=%22richard+feynman%22+repair+radios&source=bl&ots=tpQ8qk5B7S&sig=on4QeG40j2Rlm_UUSIY3nac1CvE
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