totm aug 2023 What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?

[CatastrophicFailure]

51 minutes ago, Sorabh said:

A low speed wind tunnel was FINALLY installed in our department! 

Ok, I see a grating where the wind comes in, but how does the wind get out?

of the room, that is...

Also, what’s the plaque on the exhaust assembly say?

[cubinator]

8 hours ago, Sorabh said:

Undergrads students don't need a supersonic wind tunnel.

Are you sure, because I'm trying to do a space shot before I graduate.  

[Delay]

Okay, so hopefully I'll get a new PC by Saturday, let's try overclocking my graphics card slightly. Won't matter too long anywa- WHAT ARE THOSE GREEN THINGS DOING ON THE SCREEN? WHAT'S GOING ON!?

I'm now on my fallback graphics card. Slight upside? I can now play certain games which the other card was incapable of, it just crashed. The downside is that I now only have one monitor instead of two.

[Sorabh]

8 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Ok, I see a grating where the wind comes in, but how does the wind get out?

of the room, that is...

The air flow exit is pointing to the exit/entrance of the room. The exit air velocity is pretty low, so we thought "eh...it won't be that much of a problem, we just won't let students get in the path of the exhaust (which, is just wind, albeit a little warm)." (Well, it was either that or tear down a section of a wall, and we aren't going to tear down a wall, this isn't the late 80s!)

8 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Also, what’s the plaque on the exhaust assembly say?

It has some specs of the tunnel, and the name of the manufacturer.

https://i.imgur.com/SufabZk.jpg  (i can't seem to embed files from this computer!!)

11 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Are you sure, because I'm trying to do a space shot before I graduate.

Not everyone is as sincere as you~

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 hours ago, Sorabh said:

https://i.imgur.com/SufabZk.jpg  (i can't seem to embed files from this computer!!)

That’s... odd.  Copy+pasting the entire link gives an “invalid address” error, but just swapping SufabZk.jpg into a working link gives a 404. 

[Sorabh]

47 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

That’s... odd

Odder still, it works for me.....

[0111narwhalz]

6 hours ago, Sorabh said:

https://i.imgur.com/SufabZk.jpg

It would appear that this link is full of feff^*. Try this instead:

*\uFEFF is a non-breaking zero-width space, and apparently a great way to break URLs.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

9 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

It would appear that this link is full of feff^* [...]

I've noticed this a lot on the forums recently, for example, the "of" in the your post has a zero-width space. Possibly it's being inserted before all "f"'s? I'm going to test it some in the test thread.

[CatastrophicFailure]

31 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

*\uFEFF is a non-breaking zero-width space, and apparently a great way to break

I don’t know what’s more disturbing, that it exists at all, that it happens so much there’s actually a name for it, or that said name sounds so... silly. 

[0111narwhalz]

Just now, CatastrophicFailure said:

I don’t know what’s more disturbing, that it exists at all, that it happens so much there’s actually a name for it, or that said name sounds so... silly. 

I don't know that it happens particularly often, but \uFEFF is the codepoint and "ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE" is the name. Everything in Unicode has one, and everything is in Unicode.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I decided to learn how to program my TI-84+ today, and it turns out that in a addition to being able to do anything you want with programs, you can load custom OS's. And it's approved for use on standardized tests. Maybe they figure writing an OS and implementing symbolic computation is equivalent to just studying for the test.

[Geonovast]

Today I wrote a rudamentary chat system for the service management system I made for work.

As usual I'm sure I did all things in all the wrong ways, but it works!

[razark]

I found out the farkin' bartch hired a lawyer, filed papers,  and is dragging things out even longer, even though things should have been done in June.

[LaydeeDem]

My car ran out of deltaV gas while on the way to get... gas.

[p1t1o]

1 hour ago, Nutt007 said:

My car ran out of deltaV gas while on the way to get... gas.

Did you remember to divert life support to propulsion? (turn off the AC  )

[TheSaint]

8 hours ago, Nutt007 said:

My car ran out of deltaV gas while on the way to get... gas.

I remember during the oil embargo back in '73. My dad couldn't get gas over the weekend because everyone was out. He was friends with the owner of the Shell station up on the main drag by our house, and he told my dad he was getting some gas in early on Monday morning, so he should drop by at about 5:00 and he would let him fill up before he took down the Out of Gas signs. I can't remember why, but I decided to go with him. We got up early, got in the car, and took off. Almost no cars on the streets, it was early and nobody was driving if they had a choice. We got just to the top of a rise, maybe a half-a-mile or so from the gas station, when the car started sputtering and ran out of gas. Dad just kicked it into neutral and started to coast. Coasted through two stop lights. Coasted right around the turn into the station and glided to a stop perfectly in front of the pump. My dad was the coolest.

[p1t1o]

Does anyone know - can it actually harm your car if you run out of fuel whilst driving?

I have my first car and I have...er..."tested" the fuel gauge a couple of times...first there a red light, then a second red light, then the needle is just stuck to zero...but I can apparently still get a few miles out.

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2018 by p1t1o

[TheSaint]

7 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Does anyone know - can it actually harm your car if you run out of fuel whilst driving?

I have my first car and I have...er..."tested" the fuel gauge a couple of times...first there a red light, then a second red light, then the needle is just stuck to zero...but I can apparently still get a few miles out.

Not really. They're pretty resilient. Just refill the tank and floor it while you turn it over. It will sputter a lot after it starts, that's the air purging out of the fuel lines. Let off the gas, but not completely, because that will probably make it stall. When it stops sputtering let the gas off to idle for a few minutes, just to make sure everything is clear. 

[linuxgurugamer]

28 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Does anyone know - can it actually harm your car if you run out of fuel whilst driving?

I have my first car and I have...er..."tested" the fuel gauge a couple of times...first there a red light, then a second red light, then the needle is just stuck to zero...but I can apparently still get a few miles out.

 

 

 

Most cars have an electric fuel pump.  Just get some gas, turn on the ignition, wait a few seconds and then start it.

[CatastrophicFailure]

13 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Most cars have an electric fuel pump.  Just get some gas, turn on the ignition, wait a few seconds and then start it.

This. 

Tho @p1t1o c’mon, man we need details!  You never forget your first.

[StrandedonEarth]

46 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Does anyone know - can it actually harm your car if you run out of fuel whilst driving?

The biggest hazard with older cars is whatever crud has built up in the bottom of the tank. Sediments can plug up the fuel filter, while water can cause corrosion or get past the piston rings into the oil. Lowers fuel levels also allow more condensation in the tank  

Another issue with 80-90s era fuel injected cars is that the fuel pump is in the tank, submerged in fuel. The fuel keeps the electric pump cool. If you were in the habit of driving around with less than a quarter tank all the time, the pump could burn out, for a $700+ repair bill. I heard that from a few mechanics. 

I don’t think it’s an issue with newer cars. 

[TheSaint]

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

The biggest hazard with older cars is whatever crud has built up in the bottom of the tank. Sediments can plug up the fuel filter, while water can cause corrosion or get past the piston rings into the oil. Lowers fuel levels also allow more condensation in the tank  

Another issue with 80-90s era fuel injected cars is that the fuel pump is in the tank, submerged in fuel. The fuel keeps the electric pump cool. If you were in the habit of driving around with less than a quarter tank all the time, the pump could burn out, for a $700+ repair bill. I heard that from a few mechanics. 

I don’t think it’s an issue with newer cars. 

Well, remember, the fuel pump draws from the bottom of the tank, not the top. So anything that sinks to the bottom of the tank is going to get sucked into the fuel pump almost immediately after it goes into the tank. Unless you're buying your gas from a guy on a street corner, it's pretty well filtered before it gets into your tank (because the gas station doesn't want crap clogging/jamming their pumps either). Whatever little bit makes it past that gets taken up by your fuel filter pretty easily.

(I had a great conversation with a guy on a truck board once. He had just changed his fuel filter out at 230,000 miles. For fun he cut the old one in half with a cutoff saw, and he was aghast at how dirty it looked. He was all, "I can't believe Toyota calls the fuel filter a 'lifetime-of-the-vehicle' part!" My response was, "Well, just remember that, as far as Toyota is concerned, the lifetime of the truck is about 200,000-250,000 miles. And then they want you to throw it away and buy a new truck.")

Water can be an issue in large quantities, but remember that water is heavier than gas, so any small amounts that get in your tank generally go straight into the fuel pump and out through the engine.

I've heard that about old fuel pumps, don't know how true it is. We had legendary levels of trouble with 1980s-era cars in our family, but none of it was related to fuel pumps.

[p1t1o]

13 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Tho @p1t1o c’mon, man we need details!  You never forget your first.

Of my car? Sure, its a little grey Fiat Abarth 595, whom I have named "Beep-beep". Its a lease so not technically fully "mine" but its apparently the best way to own a car these days. It costs me the same monthly cost as the bus/train to/from work was costing me (shows the state of public transport in the UK).

Its not my first time driving btw, been driving since about 1999 but this is *my* car not my Dad's

Looks almost identical to this (No stripe on mine and my brake calibers are grey):

 

The car I would call my "first" car, that I learned in and drove regularly would be my Dad's old  1989 BMW 320 which looked very similar to this:

 

 

And this is big - I have literally just realised (because I was googling the picture and I remember the registration number to get the right year) that it was a decade old when I started driving it - I knew it was oldish but not THAT old! It ran like a dream! (until the head gasket blew whilst I was driving it, writing it off, so that explains that....)

Learn something new every day!

Oh and she was called Julie.

Edited September 21, 2018 by p1t1o

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Of my car? Sure, its a little grey Fiat Abarth 595, whom I have named "Beep-beep".

Aw yeah, running the tank dry ain’t gonna hurt that thing. Tho best to avoid it anyway, for obvious reasons. 

4 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

It costs me the same monthly cost as the bus/train to/from work was costing me (shows the state of public transport in the UK).

As a bus driver, this astounds and confuses me.  

6 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

until the head gasket blew whilst I was driving it, writing it off, so that explains that....

Straight six? Surely the head gasket isn’t that hard to replace... right? 

[p1t1o]

30 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Straight six? Surely the head gasket isn’t that hard to replace... right? 

Thats what I thought later on, at the time I was 17-18 and pretty green about things. But it was pretty old and a BMW, the value of the car could easily have been less than the cost of an official replacement (my folks are not mechanically minded enough to go unofficial) but we probably could have had it swapped out somewhere for a reasonable price. But again, it was pretty old, I think maybe 150,000 miles on it? Would have been nice to have fixed it up to last a couple more years though.

It was an old company car that my Dad purchased, it got a lot of use. Next company car was a 330 touring, which was fast. We drove it to the Alps a couple of times, glorious.

Unfortunately he left the company a couple years later so no more company cars  and only drove my Mum's Ford Ka since then, up until now.

 

32 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

As a bus driver, this astounds and confuses me.  

It was the train mostly - £12 return train ticket plus 2x£1.50 on the bus, every day (season ticket for the train would have saved me...5%? but without any flexibility, ie: no savings if Im on holiday or if Im not working from the office).

So about £15 a day, or about £300 a month. Car lease costs roughly £190 a month, insurance £80 and petrol about £80 a month too. So the total cost is a little more but then I use it for much more than just my work commute.