The reason I am the way I am

[LostinTexas]

 I hate computers and electronics. I know more about them than I ever planned to, because of people.

We got a new base station for our security. The old one was giving problems, so here we go. It was acting weird and not doing things it needed to so on the phone with tech. After telling the first three Indonesians that I could write the flash cards they were following and already had done all that and being hung up on, I got an American. Good guy, and gave a hoot. We went through and talked about the error code I was getting, and he said that one was nothing he had heard of. He finally found it and asked if I was handy. Well for a fat broke guy, sure. He told me what we were going to do and how, and I thought to myself, this guy has lost his mind.

The "problem" was the wires on the mother board were twisted the wrong way on the particular unit. REALLY? Yep, took things loose, twisted the wires the opposite way two turns, just like instructed, and things started working. WHO'D A THUNK IT?! Craziest thing I ever saw or heard of, and that is saying something. Seems to be a well known, little known issue. It has worked flawlessly since.

This is the kind of thing that drive a person crazy, and why I had no intention of ever learning the stuff. It didn't work out well, but the intention was there. LOL

[Batesmotel]

I hate computers. Not a Luddite. I just see the world in very analogue terms. 

[DAKA]

5 hours ago, Batesmotel said:

I hate computers. Not a Luddite. I just see the world in very analogue terms. 

Not only computers, Cell phones, and all the computer crap in every new car....just set the shite up so I can drive it and not have to do anything weird.

[gwalchmai]

I used to love computers, because they were obscure, required diligent study to master, and provided the promise of information and enlightenment. Kinda like TV when it first came out.

[Huaco Kid]

1 hour ago, gwalchmai said:

I used to love computers, because they were obscure, required diligent study to master, and provided the promise of information and enlightenment. Kinda like TV when it first came out.

I had magazine subscriptions to learn how to use computers.

[Huaco Kid]

9 hours ago, LostinTexas said:

The "problem" was the wires on the mother board were twisted the wrong way on the particular unit. REALLY? Yep, took things loose, twisted the wires the opposite way two turns, just like instructed, and things started working. WHO'D A THUNK IT?! Craziest thing I ever saw or heard of, and that is saying something.

I once worked on (?, I don't remember what it was).  It obviously wasn't working, full of errors and faults. 

The first thing you do is take the cover off, to gander inside.  It took a while to grasp it....  but when your hands get near it, it starts working.  Pull your hands back, broken.  Over and over again.

Some wiring, that should have been inside some shielding,  had been routed incorrectly.

[LostinTexas]

59 minutes ago, Huaco Kid said:

I once worked on (?, I don't remember what it was).  It obviously wasn't working, full of errors and faults. 

The first thing you do is take the cover off, to gander inside.  It took a while to grasp it....  but when your hands get near it, it starts working.  Pull your hands back, broken.  Over and over again.

Some wiring, that should have been inside some shielding,  had been routed incorrectly.

Probably much the same concept here, just really odd, I think. The reason I don't care much for electronics. Sometimes the smallest insignificant seeming thing can make a huge difference.

[gwalchmai]

Never neglect the hose pipe influence, and if you're like me, the "drafting the DDT sprayer truck" effect.

[Huaco Kid]

8 minutes ago, gwalchmai said:

and if you're like me, the "drafting the DDT sprayer truck" effect.

Ever been gently riding a motorcycle down some sickeningly-humid, dead calm, pre-dawn back road.....

and pass the mosquito-sprayer truck?

[railfancwb]

Computer died several months ago. Don’t use it for much now that I have a smartphone. Needed to do income tax so set up a spare (reconditioned as new in box but obsolete) which I had in hand. Had to connect monitor, mouse, internet, printer… and keyboard.

All the old stuff worked fine… except keyboard. The shift to get @ now gets “ and vis-a-versa. No idea why, as this was not a problem with the other computer while it lived. Thinking maybe I should check all the keys for mysterious swaps. Thinking I should try a different keyboard.

Haven’t thought either think hard enough to bother with them. 

[DAKA]

49 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

Computer died several months ago. Don’t use it for much now that I have a smartphone. Needed to do income tax so set up a spare (reconditioned as new in box but obsolete) which I had in hand. Had to connect monitor, mouse, internet, printer… and keyboard.

All the old stuff worked fine… except keyboard. The shift to get @ now gets “ and vis-a-versa. No idea why, as this was not a problem with the other computer while it lived. Thinking maybe I should check all the keys for mysterious swaps. Thinking I should try a different keyboard.

Haven’t thought either think hard enough to bother with them. 

I had that happen with one of my Chromebooks .. bought a $15. aux wireless keyboard ......VOILA..

[railfancwb]

4 hours ago, Huaco Kid said:

I had magazine subscriptions to learn how to use computers.

Likewise. Bill Gates, with his ever more complex Windows, helped convert me from a C/PM semi-guru  to an adequate user. Retirement and lack of use have made me a marginal user at best. 

[gwalchmai]

I once got a job mostly because I mentioned I had CP/M (Hiya, Gary!) experience. The office had a bunch of Morrow MD-5s (Hiya, George!) using WordStar and VisiCalc. I had vastly exaggerated my proficiency and had to do a monster weekend cram to get down to speed. Worked out OK, though.

[Fog]

I've gone from building them and programming them to thinking I can get along fine without a computer. No smart phone either. 

They make me busy, but not sure they are adding value to my life.

[tous]

7 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

I once got a job mostly because I mentioned I had CP/M (Hiya, Gary!) experience. The office had a bunch of Morrow MD-5s (Hiya, George!) using WordStar and VisiCalc. I had vastly exaggerated my proficiency and had to do a monster weekend cram to get down to speed. Worked out OK, though.

You're really old.

<--- even older

 

[janice6]

On 4/17/2022 at 4:41 AM, DAKA said:

Not only computers, Cell phones, and all the computer crap in every new car....just set the shite up so I can drive it and not have to do anything weird.

Among the safety elements in my car is the ability to put on the brakes automatically when an object is to close to the front end or the back end.

Now, every time I back out of my sloped driveway, the intrepid safety system slams on the brakes when it sees the transition from my concrete driveway to the blacktop street.

I tell people that I have so many safety features in my car that work without my guidance that I now don't have to concern myself with the traffic or the roadway.  My car is in charge and I'm just riding to the mortuary in it.

[LostinTexas]

19 hours ago, Fog said:

I've gone from building them and programming them to thinking I can get along fine without a computer. No smart phone either. 

They make me busy, but not sure they are adding value to my life.

In many ways, not so much.

I enjoy my time here and visiting. I LOVE being able to youtube appliance and other small problems and repair for next to nothing, sometimes nothing. I like looking up obscure facts, and other things that do make life better, or less expensive. LOL

As Janice6 noted, they do have some redeeming qualities, and as long as it works, it is great. I wonder what will happen if it gets contrary. Well I don't wonder what, but do wonder how.

It is a time suck, and takes away from real people interaction, if you let it.

[Batesmotel]

I drive a 1993, 2000 and a 2005. I don’t want a new car. Too much crap trying to drive for me. I’m looking for a clean, mid 70s F250. My mechanic will drop in rebuilt engine, transmission and axels with brakes. No computers. Should be good for 250K miles. 
 

My wife just bought a 2017 Toyota Tundra because that was the last year that you can turn off the center screen. All the later ones keep the screen on all the time. Massive distraction. 

[Walt Longmire]

51 minutes ago, Batesmotel said:

I drive a 1993, 2000 and a 2005. I don’t want a new car. Too much crap trying to drive for me. I’m looking for a clean, mid 70s F250. My mechanic will drop in rebuilt engine, transmission and axels with brakes. No computers. Should be good for 250K miles. 
 

My wife just bought a 2017 Toyota Tundra because that was the last year that you can turn off the center screen. All the later ones keep the screen on all the time. Massive distraction. 

93 F250 4x4 low miles, 04 Super Duty V10 6 speed manual low miles, and my 2009 F150 Lariat Crew. It will do all kinds of things and some I don't want it to do. Yesterday I was out cruising a gravel road slowly. If I rode the brakes to slow it down, it went into some kind of limp mode where it starts misfiring like hell. It will respond to a slide in the ice quicker than I can though.

[pipedreams]

3 hours ago, LostinTexas said:

In many ways, not so much.

I enjoy my time here and visiting. I LOVE being able to youtube appliance and other small problems and repair for next to nothing, sometimes nothing. I like looking up obscure facts, and other things that do make life better, or less expensive. LOL

As Janice6 noted, they do have some redeeming qualities, and as long as it works, it is great. I wonder what will happen if it gets contrary. Well I don't wonder what, but do wonder how.

It is a time suck, and takes away from real people interaction, if you let it.

Sometimes a bit of snooping and looking at YouTube can solve problems.  Had a dryer go out and they wanted to sell me a new one.  Ended up it was a bad electrical connection.  Electronics again, small circuit board controlled the digital screen which stopped working.  It was connected to to the rest of the machine through a wide flat electrical cable with all the little pin on the plugin.  Press on the connector one way the machine works, the other way it failed.  Took a piece of duct tape to solve the problem.  Been three months and still working great.

The same with the toilet that was supposed to flush a bucket of golf balls, it started requiring 2-3 flushes.  YouTube gave me the answer, pour a couple spoons of CLR or lime-a-way in the overflow tube and let it work.  It cleans out all the little hole around the inside of the bowl rim and presto it was fixed.  Suggested doing the same with tablespoon of dish soap from time to time to clear out the gunk that builds up.  That saved me some bucks on a service call.

 

[jfost11]

The battery crapped out in my 2011 SUV last year. It was still under warranty so I pulled it and went to the store for a free replacement. The last time it went out was on the way home from our vacation. I left the car running in July heat with the whole family inside in the A/C and used jumper cables between the terminals on the car and the new battery so it would stay running. This time, since the voltage was gone from all the modules, they all set a low power code and I ended up having to pay $200 for the dealer to reset every module in the car. The traction control, abs, all wheel drive, and stability control were all non-functional and flashing warnings the whole way to the dealer. The only electric function the thing had was the power steering. 

[Huaco Kid]

Replaced a small mechanical (not even electronic) part this week.  Powered equipment down, removed cover, replaced part, reinstalled cover,  flip switch on....

nothing.  dead.  in the water.

Get DVM, find out power supply is dead.

It's 100% not my fault,  but very much my fault.  I touched it last.  It had been running for ten years and now it's dead.  Now they need to overnight a new pcb. 

One piece of equipment can take an entire plant offline....  Until 11am the next morning.

Lots of grouchy big-wigs shooting me the evil-eye.

[tous]

When in doubt, blame the Moomins.

 

[Batesmotel]

14 minutes ago, tous said:

When in doubt, blame the Moomins.

 

I blame anything Finnish. Long story. 

[Borg warner]

I had a DNA test done and found out I have a lot of Neanderthal genetics. That's probably why I am the way I am. I don't hate technology I just like (and understand) Mechanical technology a lot better than electronics and I actually Like SOME capabilities that electronics makes possible.

But I'm convinced that the people (Nerds, Geeks) who design electronics ar so enthralled with it's many possibilities that they simply LOVE to make everything more complicated than it needs to be. One thing I'm good at with the computer is graphics. I have an art background and back in the 60's and 70's I was silk screen printer and then lter got into the construction trades and then when I retired I started doing art again but it digital art created on the computer and then printed and framed.

But I never used Photoshop because it was designed by computer nerds and was too complicated. So what I did was I used a combination of two very simple graphics programs, Windows Paint and GIMP both of which have since been "improved" and "upgraded" with newer versions that are more complicated and break up my creative "Flow" when I'm working on a project, and with the older programs I have total mastery over my tools and I've learned ho to do things with them that most people have never done. I also have become fairly skilled at painting and drawing with the mouse.

Attached are two"paintings" I did using windows paint and GIMP. one of the  paintings I "painted" the sky by putting different dot patterns on the computer screen and then stretching them across the screen 500 per cent horizontally and maybe 200 per cent vertically and stretching them even more, blending all the colors together and then cutting and pasting different sections together and just playing around with it untll I got the effect I wanted,and then did a drawing from a photo i had of a guy holding a mirror and made the mirror into a picture of the picture by copying and then shrinking the picture and flipping it on it's side.

The second painting is a drawing I did of the skyline of Lake Coeur d'Alene In Idaho and "Painted another sky but now one that was so colorful because I intended to flip it an make it a reflection of the sky in the Lake, and I alos use a program in GIMP to stretch it and fade it so that the lake at the bottom of painting was larger than the sky making the mountains surrounding the lake look further in the distance.