Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

BTW there is plenty of TP here now. I even got some kitchen roll. No supply problems I can see. However eggs, barbeque sauces and canned pineapple rings are apparently hopeless  .

You still have my address? Send me a roll or two. I would love to see the look on Custom's face. 

[tggzzz]

...and spots the cluster of red dots on their chests is going to leg it pretty fast (unless they first got taken down by the neighbourhood cats playing 'kill the red dot').

Now that is a neat concept, if a little unreliable.

My daughter doesn't like me using the pointer on my IR thermometer with her Jack Russell. That dog's raison d'etre is to find and chase things, with underfloor rat/mice detection a speciality. Daughter worries that it chasing and not catching the spot will make it neurotic - as if that was likely and as if we could tell a difference

[Specmaster]

And all I want is one freaking roll. 

Article on the reasons for the TP shortage -

The toilet paper shortage is more complicated than you think

Order the industrial/commercial rolls on Amazon, it's there right now.

Well that settles it then, I'm not desperate but if thats the true position, then I'm grabbing the next pack I come across, besides, I don't have 3 shells 

[Specmaster]

Some medical article I was reading the other day was saying one of the possible symptoms or result of contracting Covid-19 could be diarrhoea

Web MD says incidence of 4%, so in the noise, i.e. on any given day if you stopped 100 people in the high street and asked "have you experienced loose bowels today?" 4 of them would say yes. The touting of this as a symptom is more likely to be  a post facto rationalisation of people descending on toilet paper aisles like crows mobbing a dead rabbit.

Yep. This is more likely reality



BTW there is plenty of TP here now. I even got some kitchen roll. No supply problems I can see. However eggs, barbeque sauces and canned pineapple rings are apparently hopeless  .

Hmm, YMMV, I did not see any in Sainsburys yesterday.

[bd139]

Some medical article I was reading the other day was saying one of the possible symptoms or result of contracting Covid-19 could be diarrhoea

Web MD says incidence of 4%, so in the noise, i.e. on any given day if you stopped 100 people in the high street and asked "have you experienced loose bowels today?" 4 of them would say yes. The touting of this as a symptom is more likely to be  a post facto rationalisation of people descending on toilet paper aisles like crows mobbing a dead rabbit.

Another reply to this which popped into my head from the folds of "useless bits of info" grey matter, this is informally attributable to "Lizardman's Constant".

https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/

I believe, although memory is a bit rusty, this was actually formally accounted for when I worked at a major pollster. I wouldn't be surprised if it crept into other statistical analysis doodads and doohickeys.

Edit: another good reference https://everything2.com/title/Lizardman's+Constant

Off to Tesco now to find the rest of the shopping.

@med if you want some bog roll it'll probably take about 3 weeks to get to you at the moment apparently 

Edit: scenes from Tesco 

[Cerebus]

Another reply to this which popped into my head from the folds of "useless bits of info" grey matter, this is informally attributable to "Lizardman's Constant".

https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/

I believe, although memory is a bit rusty, this was actually formally accounted for when I worked at a major pollster. I wouldn't be surprised if it crept into other statistical analysis doodads and doohickeys.

Edit: another good reference https://everything2.com/title/Lizardman's+Constant

Interesting reading.

Of course the particular area we were in was medical symptoms. Some of these are strictly objective (the patient's weight is 73 Kg) and some are partially or even completely subjective on behalf of the patient or medical practitioner ("When asked to grip my finger the patient's grasp was weak").

When it comes to asking patients if they have experienced any of a set of symptoms there are two confounding factors: things that are commonly present (joint pain, headache, muscle pain, etc) in the population on a random basis and things that a patient would normally ignore but gives unusual attention or weight to because they themselves are looking for symptoms. Case in point for the latter, a couple of times in the last week or so I've had a slightly dry, scratchy throat - normally this would result in me getting a glass of water and never even considering that it might be a symptom of something but it's pretty obvious that, at the moment, my mind has gone to the dreaded lurgi.

[bd139]

The same situation as telephone debugging I suppose. Very difficult to get anything subjective out of those sessions so you have to pick carefully through the arguments and divine facts from the cesspool of assumptions. At least as a doctor it's not usually your fault when the patient comes to see you unlike software... 

Literally half way through typing that I'm getting dragged into exactly that argument as well due to a cruel case of irony 

[grizewald]

I'm presuming that those are opioids of some sort. Opioids are respiratory depressants, that is they reduce the neurological impulse to breathe. Not the thing to be taking when you've got a disease with serious respiratory effects. Let me stress that again, do not take any opioids if you've got a respiratory problem except on direct medical advice, and even then question them about the respiratory depression effects.

They are indeed time release opioids (oxycodone). Designed to release 10mg over 10 - 12 hours, along with 50% naloxone to prevent constipation and abuse. I'm well aware that opioids are respiratory depressants and I can promise you that if I was experiencing even the slightest symptom of respiratory problems that I would absolutely not take any.

The headache that I have is murderous and paracetamol doesn't even touch it. So, in the absence of contraindications, I'm OK with taking such a low dose so that I can actually sleep at night.

[tggzzz]

BTW there is plenty of TP here now. I even got some kitchen roll. No supply problems I can see. However eggs, barbeque sauces and canned pineapple rings are apparently hopeless  .

Hmm, YMMV, I did not see any in Sainsburys yesterday.

Last week I got 24 rolls in an Aldi, and could have got more. At least that stopped my mother worrying unnecessarily.

In general it may be worth trying small shops; the local Polish contingent seem to be well stocked. But then I'll take any excuse to avoid Drossco.

[tggzzz]

The headache that I have is murderous and paracetamol doesn't even touch it.

Is it necessary to discover if something treatable is causing the headache?

[Specmaster]

At least as a doctor it's not usually your fault when the patient comes to see you unlike software... 

I like that, thats quite a good quote 

[mnementh]

No I'm close to the river but not that close. We've got an alley behind the house and gardens and I'm on the end of the block. So what happens is people wander out of the alley and up the path that runs through the back of all of our gardens because it's shorter and then get to mine at the end which has an inconvenient gate. The nicer bastards open the gate and just leave. The idiots will quite happily ninja kick their way through the gate (we're on the third gate now)  . I don't want to leave the gate open as it'll encourage people to use it and tramp through the garden. So this is an experiment to attempt to screw up their eyes a bit. If you shine a torch on them through the window they usually leg it so this may work. I suspect it's 2-3 usuals and the occasional wanderer.

What about an MP3 player that contains the sounds of an ill-tempered Dobermann that gets activated by a PIR sensor? Random play would be recommended. The other option would be to make the gate more inconvenient and more robust - my dad went that way in a similar situation - there is a night when the local youth does all kinds of annoying stuff, one of them was removing the gates and "rearranging" them throughout the village. In Bavaria its called "Freinacht", maybe that tradition is also known in other countries. Making the gate extra sturdy and locking the pintles in place with cotter pins stopped that foreve, at least for us.

Rainer

I was thinking similarly; only that electronic "shutter" sound every pocket electronic gizmo makes when it takes a picture.

As for your "Freinacht", the US has/had a similar tradition known as "Devil's Night" on the night after Halloween. It was mostly targeting the homes of those who were stingy on candy the night before with soap scrawls on windshields and TPing trees; even by my youth the practice of egging houses/cars was considered egregious and worthy of litigation.

This said... your gate-swapping thing sounds like one of the better harmless pranks that "once upon a useta was" would have elicited little more than a "knowing eyeroll" amongst the adults of any community that still had any sense of community... *sigh*

mnem
"The more civilized humanity grows, the less civil we become." ~grand-momma Katherine

[Cerebus]

I'm presuming that those are opioids of some sort. Opioids are respiratory depressants, that is they reduce the neurological impulse to breathe. Not the thing to be taking when you've got a disease with serious respiratory effects. Let me stress that again, do not take any opioids if you've got a respiratory problem except on direct medical advice, and even then question them about the respiratory depression effects.

They are indeed time release opioids (oxycodone). Designed to release 10mg over 10 - 12 hours, along with 50% naloxone to prevent constipation and abuse. I'm well aware that opioids are respiratory depressants and I can promise you that if I was experiencing even the slightest symptom of respiratory problems that I would absolutely not take any.

The headache that I have is murderous and paracetamol doesn't even touch it. So, in the absence of contraindications, I'm OK with taking such a low dose so that I can actually sleep at night.

For those of us who remember Hill Street Blues: "You all be careful out there."

[mnementh]

RF riddle of the day. CMU200.

With a 100Hz span (1kHz too), I get this:    (Attachment Link)    No, no modulation is applied.   10kHz and everything else looks fine. Except that it's 10dB off (too low)    (Attachment Link)    The 10dB offset is also present in the selftesting routine on all frequencies and attenuations....    (Attachment Link)    But oddly *not* on the power meter    (Attachment Link)

Some attenuator contact welded closed or burned open...? I find the EXACTLY 10dB discrepancy highly suspect in that direction.

So these assholes are still hoarding it. I don't get it.

Monkey see, monkey do; do not engage brain, do not pass Go.

All the TP is missing so people who have a perfectly adequate supply still get more because they believe the absence suggests scarcity, which makes TP scarce, which means that the next guy sees the empty shelves and thinks ... repeat ad nauseam.

Edited to add: It can even affect the sane and rational among us. I've got at least a month's worth of TP, perhaps two - bought before the hoarding started. Even I am beginning to think, "You know, if I see a pack of our usual stuff perhaps I ought to get some, just in case the craziness continues" and if I do yield to that impulse I'll perpetuate the situation. Considering that I am demonstrably more rational than 99% of the rest of humanity it's easy to see how it snowballs.

So your loyal subjects tell you.

As for hoarding... I guess it does depend on your situation. My wife just braved Costco for our usual monthly run... she found they had the mega-packs of TP & PT & got one of each, even tho we still have ~1.25 of the 20-packs of TP I bought a few weeks ago (we were down to like 2 rolls of PT). A family of 4 goes through the stuff pretty quick; especially when we're all stuck at home. I don't think it's unreasonable to keep ONE FULL 20-pack of TP in reserve for the foreseeable future.

mnem

[drussell]

As for hoarding... I guess it does depend on your situation. My wife just braved Costco for our usual monthly run... she found they had the mega-packs of TP & PT & got one of each, even tho we still have ~1.25 of the 20-packs of TP I bought a few weeks ago (we were down to like 2 rolls of PT). A family of 4 goes through the stuff pretty quick; especially when we're all stuck at home. I don't think it's unreasonable to keep ONE FULL 20-pack of TP in reserve for the foreseeable future.[/i][/b] :-/

There is plenty of toilet paper around, the problem is that there is a huge glut of the commercial stuff that is just sitting in warehouses.  If you check your local commercial/industrial/restaurant supplier, they have more commercial-type toilet paper than you could ever use. 

The problem is that with people staying at home, residential-style toilet paper use essentially has doubled since nobody is at school, or the office, or the hotel or bar or whatever.  All the people who stocked up with panic buying started the shortage, but the reason the shortage hasn't been backfilled is simply because those fluffy, comfy-brand residential lines were all already running at capacity (nobody wants to warehouse something like toilet paper, it's usually essentially a JIT delivery with predictable demand) while there is now a huge glut of commercial-style stuff.

Seriously, if you can't find toilet paper or paper towels in your area, go get a case of commercial rolls and a box of those cheap brown foldy-style hand-drying paper towels or something.  They're dirt cheap and you can always still use them for something if you get some of the puffy, kushy residential-style (expensive) products.

[GreyWoolfe]

Since there was much talk of food yesterday and I am caught up reading, I made beef stew yesterday with appropriate amounts of carrots, celery, onion and skin on small red potatoes, along with appropriate amounts of seasoning.  Dinner last night and just had leftovers for lunch.  yum.

[Cerebus]

At least as a doctor it's not usually your fault when the patient comes to see you unlike software... 

Save that death from iatrogenic causes has been estimated to run at 230k to 284k annually in the USA. Compare with 647,457 per annum from heart disease, and 599,108 from cancer, and 169,936 from accidents. Yup, in the US (and probably elsewhere) Doctors are the third largest cause of death.

[kleiner Rainer]

As for your "Freinacht", the US has/had a similar tradition known as "Devil's Night" on the night after Halloween. It was mostly targeting the homes of those who were stingy on candy the night before with soap scrawls on windshields and TPing trees; even by my youth the practice of egging houses/cars was considered egregious and worthy of litigation.

This said... your gate-swapping thing sounds like one of the better harmless pranks that "once upon a useta was" would have elicited little more than a "knowing eyeroll" amongst the adults of any community that still had any sense of community... *sigh*

mnem
"The more civilized humanity grows, the less civil we become." ~grand-momma Katherine

mnem,

as long as nothing gets damaged or destroyed, its fun. Sadly, in the last years this developed into vandalism, and the mayor`s office had to remind the youth that any vandalism will be prosecuted.

Rainer

[Cerebus]

Since there was much talk of food yesterday and I am caught up reading, I made beef stew yesterday with appropriate amounts of carrots, celery, onion and skin on small red potatoes, along with appropriate amounts of seasoning.  Dinner last night and just had leftovers for lunch.  yum.

Food's important, and around here (this thread) it's not helped by the fact that there's a lot of trenchermen/trencherwomen around (polite term for greedy pigs). Plus of course with bugger all else to do it's only too easy to turn to food for entertainment.

[kleiner Rainer]

As a new member of this forum, I want to confess my addiction: collecting, repairing and using old measuring instruments. Here one of my nicest objects. And as you can see, I included a pocket calculator, guaranteed without the key that should not be mentioned. In fact, with no key at all...

Rainer

[mnementh]

Some medical article I was reading the other day was saying one of the possible symptoms or result of contracting Covid-19 could be diarrhoea

Web MD says incidence of 4%, so in the noise, i.e. on any given day if you stopped 100 people in the high street and asked "have you experienced loose bowels today?" 4 of them would say yes. The touting of this as a symptom is more likely to be  a post facto rationalisation of people descending on toilet paper aisles like crows mobbing a dead rabbit.

Another reply to this which popped into my head from the folds of "useless bits of info" grey matter, this is informally attributable to "Lizardman's Constant".

https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/

I believe, although memory is a bit rusty, this was actually formally accounted for when I worked at a major pollster. I wouldn't be surprised if it crept into other statistical analysis doodads and doohickeys.

Edit: another good reference https://everything2.com/title/Lizardman's+Constant

Off to Tesco now to find the rest of the shopping.

@med if you want some bog roll it'll probably take about 3 weeks to get to you at the moment apparently 

On the other hand, I do enjoy picturing someone standing in a voting booth, thinking to themselves “Well, on the one hand, Obama is the Anti-Christ. On the other, do I really want four years of Romney?”

 

I'll see your lizardman and raise you a fictitious Raymond. 

"They are not perhaps likely to be your favorite poems, but an imaginary poet appearing on the internet just to spite psychologists has a good shot at being my favorite poet."

mnem

*urrrrp*

[grizewald]

The headache that I have is murderous and paracetamol doesn't even touch it.

Is it necessary to discover if something treatable is causing the headache?

It may be, and if it doesn't pass in the next few days, I'll probably need to think about that. But, headache is a symptom which together with fever and joint pain, would imply that I have influenza or COVID-19. I'm fairly certain I know what the answer will be if I talk to my local doctor's office - Stay at home, make sure you stay hydrated and see how you are in a week's time. Call the emergency services if you start to have trouble breathing.

I'm sure every medical service in the country has more than enough on their hands without me bugging them about something which is hardly life threatening.

I'm only 55 years young, so I'm not exactly in a risk group.

[Mr. Scram]

Anyone here dead yet? Be sure to let us know when you are.

[Addicted2AnalogTek]

I've taken the last five days off work, so I've finally had some time to spend on some repair projects. 

First up was the Tek 485 options 4/78 which was rather uneventful. The channel 2 first stage amplifier IC was dead, I replaced a few dipped tantalum caps, and on the +50V rail U2042 was dead. After those issues were resolved, I calibrated the scope.

Second up was the other 485.  After some troubleshooting, I decided to sideline the project for now. Something is wrong with the CRT circuit and I don't feel like dealing with it just yet as I'd likely need to open the 485 I had just calibrated to do some comparisons.

Third project, which has been in pieces for almost a decade, is about to be posted in the "repair" section, but here's a teaser while I finish the first post:



Does anyone care to take a stab at what project #3 is?

[bd139]

Since there was much talk of food yesterday and I am caught up reading, I made beef stew yesterday with appropriate amounts of carrots, celery, onion and skin on small red potatoes, along with appropriate amounts of seasoning.  Dinner last night and just had leftovers for lunch.  yum.

Food's important, and around here (this thread) it's not helped by the fact that there's a lot of trenchermen/trencherwomen around (polite term for greedy pigs). Plus of course with bugger all else to do it's only too easy to turn to food for entertainment.

(Attachment Link)

Guilty as charged officer.  I’m still undoing that monster kebab which was mostly entertainment