Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Neomys Sapiens]

Not anything shed justifies a feeling of loss!

[0culus]

Can the preceding discussion please be taken offline? I've just about had it with the constant political bickering that's been popping up every few days in this thread, to the point I'm very close to ending my contributions to this thread and the forum because I don't %#!^ing want to talk about the latest bad news on the 24 hour news cycle. Screw the "it's the pub" argument...it's off topic and really only serves to contribute to personal animosity amongst TEAers. We should not be fostering that environment. Let's talk about the things we enjoy and leave the venting about politics on reddit or your favorite socialcrap.me web service.

[Neomys Sapiens]

I should thank you for that reminder. Originally, I thought along the same line but I bothered too long over that content.

[mnementh]

I am not in any way ashamed of my contributions to this line of discussion; however, I am also not interested in pursuing it further.

mnem
"It's like trying to fuck a alligator; much noise & thrashing about, and no good can come of it." ~me

[Brumby]

From the auction I mentioned....

A BWD 530A single channel oscilloscope?

Oh, OK......

[mnementh]

It's a invalid oscilloscope! We need to get it a little wheelchair and a tiny nurse to push it around so it can try and have some semblance of a useful life!!!

mnem

[Brumby]

Just noticed:  Why is there a dot on the screen when the timebase is set to 1uS/div ?

Methinks the channel excision is not the only issue here....

[Brumby]

Just checked in on the Black Star.... It's up to $71 with just under 2 days to go.  This could slide out of my interest range on price before I'm ready to bid.   

[mnementh]

Been amusing myself by catching up with Adam Savage. Of note, something that might be useful for a zillion electronics assembly and fettling tasks, a form of clamping things that I'd not seen before but that is apparently popular with engravers. It's the last item looked at in this under five minute video. The other holding and clamping things are also good to know about if you've not encountered them before.

https://youtu.be/HrYrcJTv4H4

               

I knew about the ring clamp and Lowell vise; ball vises are awesome, but they're expensive. A decent 5" one starts at US$200-250. Along the same lines I also love and own many pin vises in different sizes and of course, in the same vein, is the Archimedes Drill.

     

We all of course have surgical clamps and 'stats in our tool collections; I also have a pair of 6" alligator ear polypus forceps. However this is an amazing handy tool for all manner of light clamping I've only seen here: https://www.micromark.com/12-Step-Latch-5-channel-Boss-Clamp

In fact, micromark.com is one of those places that a tool-dwagon can get lost for hours wandering about; it's a candy store for grown-ups. 

mnem
*enabler-dwagon*

[med6753]

Can the preceding discussion please be taken offline? I've just about had it with the constant political bickering that's been popping up every few days in this thread, to the point I'm very close to ending my contributions to this thread and the forum because I don't %#!^ing want to talk about the latest bad news on the 24 hour news cycle. Screw the "it's the pub" argument...it's off topic and really only serves to contribute to personal animosity amongst TEAers. We should not be fostering that environment. Let's talk about the things we enjoy and leave the venting about politics on reddit or your favorite socialcrap.me web service.

Fucking amen!     Papa Smurf has just about had it up to his ears too with the political tirades. I'm tired of slugging thru the crap and I'm almost at the same point as Oculus. 

[mnementh]

Then hush, puppie.  We've already moved on; yer just bringin' it back.

mnem
*still browsing micromark.com*

[med6753]

Then hush, puppie.  We've already moved on; yer just bringin' it back.

mnem
*still browsing micromark.com*

Ya think? Until tomorrow...or the next day....when the tirades start all over again. Some of us are saying resist the temptation and ENOUGH. 

[0culus]

Then hush, puppie.  We've already moved on; yer just bringin' it back.

mnem
*still browsing micromark.com*

 

No, we're not over it because we all know damn well you are going to tee off again further down the thread in a day or two. If you want to discuss current affairs, there are plenty of great places to do so that are not EEVblog. Go do it there, and stop ruining this place for the folks that don't want to read it. There's enough stress in the world as it is, can we not have at least one spot to sit back, recharge, and enjoy a common hobby without being reminded of all the crap? Is that too much to ask???

[mnementh]

I'm not interested in sterilizing the place, med. I love it just the way it is. You & Oculus are making more fuss than we did, and I love that too.

mnem
*toddles off to ded* 

[Mr. Scram]

And you literally just proved my point; you're so busy "being right" you just can't see how wrong you really are. 

mnem
The ends. ARE. The means.

The point being that you don't get it? Attempting to reduce the amounts of lives ruined or lost is wrong? As is steering the hurt onto people most likely to shoulder it because someone will need to? People are going to get badly hurt. We'll need to deal with it. You need to deal with it. This isn't Disneyland.

[Mr. Scram]

"Flattening the curve" is marketspeak. We are literally allowing marketing people to influence decisions made by ignorant politicians when we need to listen to the medical sector and scientists. The fact we're even allowing these people to use statistical models... their preferred means of making numbers lie... is bad enough; the problem is not the numbers, but that we are again allowing selfish people to plug human lives into an equation where some number of $$$ are more important than people. As soon as you permit that, then you become these two; portrayed as monsters and rightly so:

   

No matter HOW you do the math; it "sometime in the next month or two" is still obscenely too soon. The only reason we're even having this conversation is we all know that the prevailing leadership is not going to provide support for the poor, who are going to start starving to death soon; and we also know that most of the poor are children. It is, of course, so much more important to pour money into internment camps on the Texas/Mexico border. 

mnem
God forbid we should make them give back any portion of the great Tax Heist of 2017.

That's rather contradictory. You talk about financial support because people are starving, yet you say no dollar amount can be attached to human life. The grim reality is that resources are finite. People seem to have a hard time dealing with that fact. We can pour every last resource into what is a matter of diminishing returns and all starve. This isn't a matter of fat cats laughing on top of their piles of money. This is doing everything we can while also making sure there's a life after this crisis and that we can afford healthcare, education and other vital matters and return to a still somewhat recognizable society.

[Mr. Scram]

Then hush, puppie.  We've already moved on; yer just bringin' it back.

mnem
*still browsing micromark.com*

That's what I get for reading things in order. Well, I guess I got the last word in. Moving on.

Been checking computer power consumption last night. Wasn't as bad as I thought. I will need to fabricate another reason for an upgrade.

[Saskia]

@neomys sapiens checking if I can get the power supply you pointed out for a bargain.
And rearranging some computing stuff.

[tggzzz]

Anybody wanting to discuss covid will find sci.electronics.design to be a fruitful forum, with the added benefit of contributions from Win Hill (of TAoE fame).

Discussions of covid here will make me disappear, and I would prefer that doesn't happen.

[bd139]

Wake up, crawl into living room, Covid has infected TEA thread again, go back to bed.

Edit: fuck, have run out of coffee  . Monday sucks so far.

[Mr. Scram]

Anybody wanting to discuss covid will find sci.electronics.design to be a fruitful forum, with the added benefit of contributions from Win Hill (of TAoE fame).

Discussions of covid here will make me disappear, and I would prefer that doesn't happen.

The issues seems that some people come here to escape the Covid news, while others come here to discuss it. I don't mind trying to keep in the other threads of this forum, though.

[beanflying]

And the Irony is there has been 20+ posts from Cops or perceived Criminals over it and if left alone by the thought police the topic would have moved on already as it does in this thread.

Get out to your sheds/shacks/workshops or corners of your Lounge rooms and make or let the smoke out of something.

Either that or I will start bitching about Australia Post taking 10 days NOT to deliver a parcel from 300km away   

[Zucca]

ok, overbid on that powersupply behemoth. oh well. Continue with Korad ...

Somehow I want to help too,

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/agilent-hp-6624a-netzteil/1358739871-168-9098

Don't know if you have enough space but with 250€ you get 4 DC outputs. It could be interesting.

[med6753]

I wake up to see that cooler heads have prevailed and we all agree:

Covid discussions: NO
Political tirades: NO

If these subjects rear their ugly heads again I will no longer participate in this thread. And that's not a threat. 

Bd....I got plenty of coffee.     

[bd139]

Got coffee now too. Stumbled over the road to the shop like a zombie