Things I've learned the hard way . . .(Part 2)

[march.brown]

Brake lines can fail with no warning. Many years ago I was driving down a city street in my old Hornet and as I approached a red light at the intersection, my brake pedal suddenly went all the way to the floor with absolutely no braking. I was fortunate that no traffic was oncoming in the other direction as I sailed through the light in a mild panic. I was able to hobble the car the rest of the way home safely with the hand brake.

In the words of the famous racing driver Tazio Nuvolari when his car lost brakes in a race , "What use are brakes , they only slow you down"
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[Lucciola]

The comparison of "tight" is irregular:

Positive: tight
Comparative: tighter
Superlative: Bolt head twisted off (not tightest!)

Torque wrenches are not necessarily wasted money.

Lucciola

[march.brown]

If you treat your tools correctly they can last forever.

For example , my Great-Grandfathers claw-hammer has been passed down through the family and now lives in my tool-chest ... For about a hundred years it was used daily ... It was apparently bought new in about 1890 ... In all this time , the shaft has been changed about eight times and the head only replaced twice ... Yes , they don't make tools to last like this nowadays !
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[h_nu]

Two people can share a moment and have very different impressions of it. I have seen older people toss out a word or phrase without any thought or recollection of it even a short time later. Words can affect the entire direction of a child's life. I always try to be mindful of the need to be a good example and kind mentor to the young.

[Burgess]

Post # 514 by March_Brown reminds me of this old joke . . . .


An old carpenter was always telling people:


" I've had this old hand-saw since i began my trade, more than 50 YEARS AGO ! "


" Of course, i've had to replace the Blade 3 or 4 times, and the Handle once or twice. "



_

[Monocrom]

Post # 514 by March_Brown reminds me of this old joke . . . .

I've heard the same joke. Only in this version it's an old farmer having a conversation with a fellow farmer.

Older one tells him he's had the same hatchet for 50 years. Younger one asks why he doesn't buy a new one.

Older one says it's a fine hatchet that has served him well. Only thing he's had to do in the way of maintenance is replace the handle 3 times, and the head twice.

[march.brown]

I've heard the same joke. Only in this version it's an old farmer having a conversation with a fellow farmer.

Older one tells him he's had the same hatchet for 50 years. Younger one asks why he doesn't buy a new one.

Older one says it's a fine hatchet that has served him well. Only thing he's had to do in the way of maintenance is replace the handle 3 times, and the head twice.

It just goes to show that the old TOOLS are the best ones.
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[Monocrom]

Indeed!

[PhotonWrangler]

If you see a coffee pot that's been sitting on the burner for a long time with little or no fluid in it, and you pick it up to rinse it out, that sudden shot of cold water might make the bottom of the pot shear clean off.

Physics always wins in the end.

[march.brown]

If you see a coffee pot that's been sitting on the burner for a long time with little or no fluid in it, and you pick it up to rinse it out, that sudden shot of cold water might make the bottom of the pot shear clean off.

Physics always wins in the end.

Tried it with my stainless steel pot and my aluminium one and my enamelled steel one and they didn't do that ... They did make a sort of hissing noise though.
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[PhotonWrangler]

Tried it with my stainless steel pot and my aluminium one and my enamelled steel one and they didn't do that ... They did make a sort of hissing noise though.
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I forgot to mention that the pot was made of glass. Sorry about that.

[whiteoakjoe]

If you walk into a forrest with a flashlight (6P incan) by the time it starts to get dim, you don't have enough light to get back out. At least not without taking a couple of nasty falls. I really remember that every time I walk up a flight of stairs.

[Jep]

what formatting my phones memory card means.

[nbp]

what formatting my phones memory card means.

I learned the same thing.

[Monocrom]

I still have no idea what that is.

[JacobJones]

It means that it will delete absolutely everything. They think it's hilarious to substitute the word delete with format

I found out with a digital camera, ireplaceable memories lost for ever

[Monocrom]

Damn! . . . Thanks for the warning.

[ncbill]

While driving through the sketchier side of town remember turn signals don't apply, and red lights are just a suggestion.

At least on the part of other drivers!

[Jep]

lol @ me thinking, formatting, it sounds cool, lets try that. was laying in bed next to the wife playing with new phone and let out a LOUD 4 letter word, she did not appreciate but was understanding lol. 3 yrs worth, almost 4gb of pics.vids.music.etc.. oh well, fresh start i suppose.

[Monocrom]

Sometimes folks you know will get angry over things that just don't affect them in any way.

The Pizza place in my old neighborhood is still there. Run by two brothers. One night, I told one of them that I was in the market for a new car. Told him how I tried on a Chrysler Sebring sedan at the N.Y. International Auto show. Despite finding it comfortable to sit in, controls laid out in a way that made sense, and a reasonable price-tag; I had decided against it for its lack of performance. You would have thought he was the owner of a Chrysler dealership that was on the verge of bankruptcy, considering how he reacted. He was genuinely angry. I thought he was going to throw me out of the place. I doubt he had recently been told by a Chrysler salesman that his credit wasn't good enough for him to buy one of their vehicles. (I know for a fact that the pizza place was very successful. Something you learn as a long-time regular.) He calmed down a bit, I got my order, and left. After that, he was fine again. No issues any other time I walked in. But I decided not to ever talk to him about cars again.

At a previous job, we had a patrol vehicle that would often run 24 hours straight for several days. Quite common when you have only one patrol vehicle at a 24-hour post. It was rare that it ever got shut off. One day, out of the blue, a long-time co-worker and a guy recently transfered started asking me if I turned off the patrol vehicle during the 15 minutes each night before I'd get relieved. The 15 minutes I spent in the parking lot just sitting around, waiting to be relieved. Obviously, I didn't. It was the middle of Summer. Did both of them expect me to sweat to death in that thing with the engine and air-conditioning switched off?? Apparently they did! The long-time co-worker was just a bit annoying every time he asked. The new guy was absolutely intolerable. I'll never forget one time when he asked me for the 5000th time, I said "yes, I turned it off." And he looks at me as if I had gone out with his daughter, brought her back home an hour late, and she was wearing her shirt inside out.

It's not as though these two guys were paying for the gas in the patrol vehicle out of their own pockets. Not as though the vehicle belonged to the two of them. In fact, most of the time, I was the one stuck with taking the patrol vehicle out every weekend to get it fueled up. (Even though that was the responsibility of whoever worked the morning shift that day.) You're not supposed to show up for work and then immediately go back out to re-fuel the thing. The client hated it whenever that was necessary for me to do.

I had no clue why these guys were getting so upset over a vehicle they didn't own, didn't cost them anything to run or fuel up, didn't cost them anything to fix when it broke down. Honestly, didn't cost them anything in any way, shape, or form. Yet apparently they expected me to switch off the engine and sweat to death for 15 minutes if not longer. (Getting relieved late was a constant issue for me. And both of those co-workers were guilty of that. If it was just 5 or even 10 minutes late, I wouldn't care.) I got paid peanuts from the security company I worked for. Actually, we all did. It struck me as incredibly stupid that these guys were getting angry over something that didn't concern them (nor their wallets) in any way at all.

When a co-worker starts behaving in such a ridiculous manner, never a good idea to confront them on it. Smile, nod, and go on with what you've been doing. Even our Site Supervisor who was actually in charge of the patrol vehicle told me to not worry about it when I brought their complaints to her attention. She did the same thing too! Even admitted to me that it was ridiculous of them to expect me to sweat to death while waiting to be relieved. She left the vehicle switched on during her shift, and she was fine with me doing it during mine.

It's not as though you can be prepared for those times when a friend or co-worker gets angry with you over something that doesn't affect them in any way at all. Just a strange and totally weird reaction to be aware of.

[march.brown]

Sometimes folks you know will get angry over things that just don't affect them in any way.

The Pizza place in my old neighborhood is still there. Run by two bothers.

We got bothers in the UK too.
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[Monocrom]

We got bothers in the UK too.
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LOL

That's too bad. On a completely unrelated note, having a rare typo slip past you no matter how often you proof-read your posts.

[Jay R]

Formatting is a bit like emptying a filing cabinet. You take everything out and chuck it on the floor then you get the folders and the A-Z index cards and put them all back in the correct place ready for the next lot of filing. Everything else goes in the bin.

There are different formats for memory cards ( Styles of filing ) so if you take a memory card out of one thing and place it in another it may insist you format the card so that the new equipment can use it though this is rare as most devices use the FAT32 format.

The problem with memory cards and digital cameras nowadays is that you can easily fit 10,000 pictures on a single card. People have lost years of memories because they don't back up the pictures out of their camera.
Once a month I copy all pics from my camera to the laptop (keeping them on the camera as well), every few months I back up my laptop to a hard drive and a few times a year when I visit my parents I take the laptop and back it up to a hard drive at their house. Even if my house burns down with everything in it, I won't lose the pics and video of my 5 year olds life.

Oh, and I also take the best of the pics, print them out and put them in an album.

[Monocrom]

Formatting is a bit like emptying a filing cabinet. You take everything out and chuck it on the floor then you get the folders and the A-Z index cards and put them all back in the correct place ready for the next lot of filing. Everything else goes in the bin.

There are different formats for memory cards ( Styles of filing ) so if you take a memory card out of one thing and place it in another it may insist you format the card so that the new equipment can use it though this is rare as most devices use the FAT32 format.

The problem with memory cards and digital cameras nowadays is that you can easily fit 10,000 pictures on a single card. People have lost years of memories because they don't back up the pictures out of their camera.
Once a month I copy all pics from my camera to the laptop (keeping them on the camera as well), every few months I back up my laptop to a hard drive and a few times a year when I visit my parents I take the laptop and back it up to a hard drive at their house. Even if my house burns down with everything in it, I won't lose the pics and video of my 5 year olds life.

Oh, and I also take the best of the pics, print them out and put them in an album.

Just seems that modern technology for taking pictures, and enjoying them for years to come, has made the process more complicated than it used to be.

[ElectronGuru]

Just seems that modern technology for taking pictures, and enjoying them for years to come, has made the process more complicated than it used to be.

Isn't that what technology is for?

But formating problems are just scratching the surface. There will soon be specialties, devoted to recovering data from obsolete media. Just imagine trying to get photos off a zip drive in 50 years.

[ElectronGuru]

Just seems that modern technology for taking pictures, and enjoying them for years to come, has made the process more complicated than it used to be.

Isn't that what technology is for?

But formating problems are just scratching the surface. There will soon be specialties, devoted to recovering data from obsolete media. Just imagine trying to get photos off a zip drive in 50 years.

[EZO]

Isn't that what technology is for?

But formating problems are just scratching the surface. There will soon be specialties, devoted to recovering data from obsolete media. Just imagine trying to get photos off a zip drive in 50 years.

What the heck is a Zip Drive?.................Just kidding.

Actually, I still have a bunch of SyQuest disks full of data kicking around....and the drive needs a SCSI connector! And zip disks too. One of these days I will have to go through everything and see what's worth transferring or even keeping at all and since many of the files other than photographs will require obsolete software to run.

[ElectronGuru]

I still have a bunch of SyQuest disks full of data kicking around.

I was going to say SyQuest but thought it was too far back as an example! I still occasionally plug in a usb or firewire and breath a sigh of relief, no SCSI ID to set.

[march.brown]

Never get caught with another mans wife if you suffer from Asthma.
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[Monocrom]

Never get caught with another mans wife if you suffer from Asthma.
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Reminds me of a guy from long ago who broke a rather big rule when it comes to cheating . . . Don't mess around with the wife of a Vietnam vet with a gun collection.