Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[EEVblog]

Ok the archiver script crashed at page 2106. Will debug it tomorrow. Looks like either I pissed gnif off or there was a network bork.

Gorilla servers just bought the backup/mirror forum server back online today (how long has it been?) so maybe something happened there.

[bd139]

Possible. Thanks for the tip off. It may have been this end as well as I was running it off my laptop. I didn’t investigate further as i went to bed 

[VK5RC]

Urf had my covid jab yesterday finally after four weeks of finding a slot that worked. Feel like I’ve been run over by a bus this morning. Anyone else get that? Was AstraZeneca one.

I'm scheduled for next week.

Some peoples in my family had flu like symptoms after the jab. But was not AstraZeneca though.

I got my first dose of Pfizer. Sore shoulder for a couple of days and tired, but not feeling run over. Overall, wasn't bad.

The 'gossip' is that the first dose of the Astra-zenica is usually the worst and the second of the Pfizer is usually more aches but it varies like crazy.
Good to get the vaccination happening so that we can get on with living.💉👍

Not sure how places like India get on - a big issue.

I had the A-Z a week ago - bit flu like for a day but fine after.

[VK5RC]

Mountain bike TE but definitely TE.
 A power meter bike pedal! 😁 Really a force and rotation sensor in a compact unit. The sensors are in the shafts and the pedal body can be swapped to adapt to the different cleat systems eg spd, look keo, shimano sl.
The nice part is that it 'plays well with others' , eg various phones/strava/bike computers /smart watches ect. 😁
A bottle of the evil wine that us devious Aussies are dumping on the unsuspecting world🍷😈😂, You will all soon be under our control 🍹🤣

[beanflying]

Mountain bike TE but definitely TE.
 A power meter bike pedal! 😁 Really a force and rotation sensor in a compact unit. The sensors are in the shafts and the pedal body can be swapped to adapt to the different cleat systems eg spd, look keo, shimano sl.
The nice part is that it 'plays well with others' , eg various phones/strava/bike computers /smart watches ect. 😁
A bottle of the evil wine that us devious Aussies are dumping on the unsuspecting world🍷😈😂, You will all soon be under our control 🍹🤣

Think I will stick with the Strava 'faked power'. Your Pedal is worth more than I paid for my Merida Roady 

[VK5RC]

Don't tell SWMBO!
I am not sure how they will handle the rough and tumble. I will find out one way or the other 😁

[bd139]

I had the A-Z a week ago - bit flu like for a day but fine after.

Yeah same here. Felt like crap yesterday. Absolutely normal today 

Had the proper munchies yesterday.

[med6753]

Based upon experiences here as much as I'd like to get the covid shot and be done with it I don't need any additional medical issues right now. So I'm going hold off until after I get fixed up later this month.

I'll continue with my "social distancing" which includes remaining a hermit and staying far away from the unwashed masses. I hate people. 

[nixiefreqq]

Based upon experiences here as much as I'd like to get the covid shot and be done with it I don't need any additional medical issues right now. So I'm going hold off until after I get fixed up later this month.

I'll continue with my "social distancing" which includes remaining a hermit and staying far away from the unwashed masses. I hate people. 

hey med

my advice would be to go get the shots.  swmbo and i both got the pfizer.   first shot my arm was sore as hell - swmbo nothing.  second shot nothing for me but swmbo was slightly flu like for two days.   but no big deal.  so we are now invincible, dine out, and if necessary could leap over tall buildings.

BUT.....you should do whatever works for you.

ps  also suggest you paint the soldering station blue.  am very surprised it has not happened already.

[Specmaster]

Based upon experiences here as much as I'd like to get the covid shot and be done with it I don't need any additional medical issues right now. So I'm going hold off until after I get fixed up later this month.

I'll continue with my "social distancing" which includes remaining a hermit and staying far away from the unwashed masses. I hate people. 

Sounds like a good strategy to me.

[Specmaster]

Based upon experiences here as much as I'd like to get the covid shot and be done with it I don't need any additional medical issues right now. So I'm going hold off until after I get fixed up later this month.

I'll continue with my "social distancing" which includes remaining a hermit and staying far away from the unwashed masses. I hate people. 

hey med

my advice would be to go get the shots.  swmbo and i both got the pfizer.   first shot my arm was sore as hell - swmbo nothing.  second shot nothing for me but swmbo was slightly flu like for two days.   but no big deal.  so we are now invincible, dine out, and if necessary could leap over tall buildings.

BUT.....you should do whatever works for you.

ps  also suggest you paint the soldering station blue.  am very surprised it has not happened already.

Having the jab does not automatically make you invincible, tests show that the pfizer jab can be as low as 77% effective and upto 98%. I'm not aware of any vaccine that can provide you with 100% effective protection.

I do agree however that you are better off getting the jab and then carry on with social distancing etc until as we have the virus beaten if you really want to be certain to be safe.

[Saskia]

@med I can relate. Practicing social distancing as well, even though I did pick up a Streetfighter II arcade 1up gizmo https://www.amazon.de/-/en/ARCADE1UP-Retro-Arcade-Slot-Machine/dp/B07G1Y6XJS/ in very good condition for 120 Pesos.

Nice addition to the lab ...

If you want to hit someone in the face but cannot afford the fine ...

[Cerebus]

The intent is to work through these and turn them all into blobs in sqlite which are linked to a post as “true attachments”. Once that’s done we have proper integrity of the dataset in one place.

Don't forget your de-dup/1st normal form or Mnem's repeated reuse of the same images over and over will take up 98% of your storage space. 

[Specmaster]

Courier problem avoider but could have been so bad. I decided to flip that B&O stereo system that I repaired recently and put it on eBay at a bargain price, priced it to go (on 2nd thoughts I did price it way too low) but it was in for £160 and the buyer offered £140 and after some haggling agreed £150. Now this was some big arsed chunk of stereo equipment that also had a delicate sliding glass door on the front, so demanded some serious protection for the shipping.

I had to remove the door and also the carry handle which also housed the active FM aerial and wrapped them up in such a way to afford them with the maximum protection for the journey along with the main body, so that meant a lot of bubble wraps around each item, all in a large strong tri-wall cardboard box with bucket loads of packing materials in-between each item and the outer wall of the box, so the box was pretty big. I sent it via Hermes using the Parcel2GO service and purchased their 2 to 3 service, paid for guaranteed delivery by the 4th May (a bit of a con really considering the expected delivery date with the service I paid for was 29th April, but of course you don't find out the guaranteed date is far later than the target date, until you accept it).

As it turned that was a pretty wise choice to insure it for the full amount. The 29th came, and the tracking still showed it was in transit. At the end of the 29th, tracking showed it was the local dept, but there was going to be a slight delay in delivery. On the 30th, that message was gone, and it was back in transit. Over the course of the following days and the weekend it made its way to the national sorting hub and sat for there for days including the 4th of May.

The buy was getting concerned and rightly so, but we were in contact with each other during this period, and on the 4th I contacted the booking agent, after going through all of their automated options and failing to find a way of speaking to a human  . I noticed that they had a Twitter account, so I used that to message them. They set up a trace on the parcel via Hermes and discovered that they had lost it, and asked me for photos of the parcel, all the eBay details etc, and so I duly sent them the info required. Next I get a message to say that had found it and that was going to be delivered on the 6th of May, which did happen.

I have now claimed my carriage costs to be refunded, which they have agreed to and that will take a few days to sort out, apparently.

Now I'm wondering if the parcel was intercepted on route because you have to declare the contents when booking it and armed with its insurance value, give a pretty good clue as to the quality of the item within, or am I being a bit too presumptuous here? Thoughts?

I mean it was a pretty big box as you can see from the photo used as POD by the courier, how could you lose that???

At the end of it all, the buyer seems happy with it all and said that the packing did its job and everything is fine with the stereo and has left me excellent feedback, and I have done the same for them. 
 
 

[bd139]

The intent is to work through these and turn them all into blobs in sqlite which are linked to a post as “true attachments”. Once that’s done we have proper integrity of the dataset in one place.

Don't forget your de-dup/1st normal form or Mnem's repeated reuse of the same images over and over will take up 98% of your storage space. 

Yes that was actually a prime motivation for it like this  . All inbound binaries are going to be sha256’ed.

Imagine how many gazillions of megabytes will be saved by just the rabbit hole image 

[Specmaster]

The intent is to work through these and turn them all into blobs in sqlite which are linked to a post as “true attachments”. Once that’s done we have proper integrity of the dataset in one place.

Don't forget your de-dup/1st normal form or Mnem's repeated reuse of the same images over and over will take up 98% of your storage space. 

Not sure that med does reuse the same images, is it not the case that people just click "quote" and then don't delete his photos so his photos just seem to be repeated often by default?

[AVGresponding]

Courier problem avoider but could have been so bad. I decided to flip that B&O stereo system that I repaired recently and put it on eBay at a bargain price, priced it to go (on 2nd thoughts I did price it way too low) but it was in for £160 and the buyer offered £140 and after some haggling agreed £150. Now this was some big arsed chunk of stereo equipment that also had a delicate sliding glass door on the front, so demanded some serious protection for the shipping.

I had to remove the door and also the carry handle which also housed the active FM aerial and wrapped them up in such a way to afford them with the maximum protection for the journey along with the main body, so that meant a lot of bubble wraps around each item, all in a large strong tri-wall cardboard box with bucket loads of packing materials in-between each item and the outer wall of the box, so the box was pretty big. I sent it via Hermes using the Parcel2GO service and purchased their 2 to 3 service, paid for guaranteed delivery by the 4th May (a bit of a con really considering the expected delivery date with the service I paid for was 29th April, but of course you don't find out the guaranteed date is far later than the target date, until you accept it).

As it turned that was a pretty wise choice to insure it for the full amount. The 29th came, and the tracking still showed it was in transit. At the end of the 29th, tracking showed it was the local dept, but there was going to be a slight delay in delivery. On the 30th, that message was gone, and it was back in transit. Over the course of the following days and the weekend it made its way to the national sorting hub and sat for there for days including the 4th of May.

The buy was getting concerned and rightly so, but we were in contact with each other during this period, and on the 4th I contacted the booking agent, after going through all of their automated options and failing to find a way of speaking to a human  . I noticed that they had a Twitter account, so I used that to message them. They set up a trace on the parcel via Hermes and discovered that they had lost it, and asked me for photos of the parcel, all the eBay details etc, and so I duly sent them the info required. Next I get a message to say that had found it and that was going to be delivered on the 6th of May, which did happen.

I have now claimed my carriage costs to be refunded, which they have agreed to and that will take a few days to sort out, apparently.

Now I'm wondering if the parcel was intercepted on route because you have to declare the contents when booking it and armed with its insurance value, give a pretty good clue as to the quality of the item within, or am I being a bit too presumptuous here? Thoughts?

I mean it was a pretty big box as you can see from the photo used as POD by the courier, how could you lose that???

At the end of it all, the buyer seems happy with it all and said that the packing did its job and everything is fine with the stereo and has left me excellent feedback, and I have done the same for them. 
 

To paraphrase Joseph Heller and Kurt Cobain, "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't trying to steal your shit".

[Cerebus]

Yes that was actually a prime motivation for it like this  . All inbound binaries are going to be sha256’ed.

This is one of those times that a fuzzier, content-aware method of hashing might be better than a 'hard' SHA256. You could easily end up with a zillion copies of the same image that differ only by a bit here and there. I wouldn't put it past some of the image hosters to do tiny little things to images along the way in the way of watermarking, recompressing and the like. I wouldn't put it past a bastard like me to do it as a denial-of-storage attack.

Of course finding and applying such a hashing method could become a rabbit-hole all of its own so I'd argue that KISS is the way to go at the moment, but bearing something like this in mind as a possibility for a future iteration and keeping it in mind in how you build things might be a wise precaution.

[med6753]

Well it appears that me and the Type 547 are going to have a long and bloody battle. I swapped the +100V 6080 regulator tube with the +225V 6080 and as soon as the time delay relay clicked the 2 cathode resistors that I replaced yesterday turned cherry red. So that tells me that the +100V 6080 was dead and I have potentially damaged the +225V 6080. Oh crap. And it also tells me that there is one hell of a short on +100V bus that is not apparent when power is off. The reason? The time delay relay switches the +100V to the rest of the scope only after the power up delay. So I have to get on the +100V bus after the relay with an ohm meter.

I don't have replacement 6080 tubes so off to Ebay. Gonna order 2 just in case. Also going to order a couple of other tubes in the PSU that I don't currently have replacements.

So for now this project is going on the shelf.

[mnementh]

The intent is to work through these and turn them all into blobs in sqlite which are linked to a post as “true attachments”. Once that’s done we have proper integrity of the dataset in one place.

Don't forget your de-dup/1st normal form or Mnem's repeated reuse of the same images over and over will take up 98% of your storage space. 

Yes that was actually a prime motivation for it like this  . All inbound binaries are going to be sha256’ed.

Imagine how many gazillions of megabytes will be saved by just the rabbit hole image 

Wait... I deliberately take the time to post as inline images to save loading on eevBlog servers; are you saying your DB needs to treat each instance of an attachment as a separate payload...? Or are you trying NOT TO have it do that, and it's effing with your head...?

See, this 3 monkeys fukkin' a football level of BS is exactly why I said "Poor bd and his Death by Millimeters TEA thread database"...   

mnem

[mnementh]

...Now I'm wondering if the parcel was intercepted on route because you have to declare the contents when booking it and armed with its insurance value, give a pretty good clue as to the quality of the item within, or am I being a bit too presumptuous here? Thoughts?

I mean it was a pretty big box as you can see from the photo used as POD by the courier, how could you lose that???

At the end of it all, the buyer seems happy with it all and said that the packing did its job and everything is fine with the stereo and has left me excellent feedback, and I have done the same for them. 

To paraphrase Joseph Heller and Kurt Cobain, "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't trying to steal your shit".

Rule #2 of the Smugglers Blues: Any shipment you walk away from is a good one.

mnem
Even paranoids have enemies.

[Cerebus]

The intent is to work through these and turn them all into blobs in sqlite which are linked to a post as “true attachments”. Once that’s done we have proper integrity of the dataset in one place.

Don't forget your de-dup/1st normal form or Mnem's repeated reuse of the same images over and over will take up 98% of your storage space. 

Not sure that med does reuse the same images, is it not the case that people just click "quote" and then don't delete his photos so his photos just seem to be repeated often by default?

Med ≠ Mnem.

[mnementh]

Med ≠ Mnem.

You should be very, very thankful of this. 

mnem

[Cerebus]

Wait... I deliberately take the time to post as inline images to save loading on eevBlog servers; are you saying your DB needs to treat each instance of an attachment as a separate payload...? Or are you trying NOT TO have it do that, and it's effing with your head...?

Until it retrieves the binary content of a link it knows nothing about it. The assumption that there is a one-to-one, time invariant, mapping between a URL that looks like it might be the URL of a non-changing image and its actual content would be a false one. Vis:

[bd139]

Yes that was actually a prime motivation for it like this  . All inbound binaries are going to be sha256’ed.

This is one of those times that a fuzzier, content-aware method of hashing might be better than a 'hard' SHA256. You could easily end up with a zillion copies of the same image that differ only by a bit here and there. I wouldn't put it past some of the image hosters to do tiny little things to images along the way in the way of watermarking, recompressing and the like. I wouldn't put it past a bastard like me to do it as a denial-of-storage attack.

Of course finding and applying such a hashing method could become a rabbit-hole all of its own so I'd argue that KISS is the way to go at the moment, but bearing something like this in mind as a possibility for a future iteration and keeping it in mind in how you build things might be a wise precaution.

Again I did consider that but it brings in OpenCV and the like and then things get complicated and expensive to run. Storage is at the end of the day, fairly cheap so it's probably easier to just skip the issue. I'm going on my own behaviour here which is linking the same imgur link.

Incidentally I'm using PhotoSweeper for this on the Mac which is quite nice for a tenner.