Humor Random Comments Thread

[Fabri91]

So, since this is the RCT, a bit of randomness: there is a small fish hatchery in my town which is essentially a volunteer-driven project to restock various rivers here and in Switzerland. Since my father works there quite a bit, I also lend a hand occasionally.

Three years ago a small cat appeared there, in the middle of an extraordinarily rainy summer. The first day we tried shooing him in the direction of some nearby houses, thinking he got away from there. But the next day he was still there, having managed to somehow stay dry.

Having no collar or other ID on him, it was decided to let him stay at the hatchery since it's far away enough from any road to be safe for a cat and essentially in the middle of the woods.

To this day we have no idea where he sleeps, but anyway, meet Tigger:

 

[Notebook]

Looks like a happy moggie, beware they have no interest in science...

 

[Andy44]

That's a very good photograph.

 

[Fabri91]

He does tend to like cameras - link to album.

 

[steph]

Nice photos. Good camera too, I think some of them were done with low apperture :thumbup:

Kinda reminds me of my previous cat, he always had that slightly reserved look to him. My parents have two, both of them very sociable. It's getting almosyt annoying, I can't take photos of them while "in the wild" since they're cozying up at my feet the moment they notice me around. Best I can do is some burst photography while they're coming towards me :lol:

 

[C3PO]

Have you tried taking pictures of small children? :lol:

It's amazing how some things can be adorable and frustrating at the same time.

 

[Urwumpe]

Have you tried taking pictures of small children? :lol:

It's amazing how some things can be adorable and frustrating at the same time.

Its simple. Be fast and delete 99% of all pictures. :lol:

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Just did the accessory belts on my 05 Honda Civic. I wish I had tiny hands. It seemed like I spent the whole day putting either my hand or a tool into the engine compartment, but couldn't manage to do both at the same time.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Just did the accessory belts on my 05 Honda Civic. I wish I had tiny hands. It seemed like I spent the whole day putting either my hand or a tool into the engine compartment, but couldn't manage to do both at the same time.

Well, part of that is the fact that it's a relatively modern car, which means that the engineers cram as much as they can into the smallest space that they can... because it fits in the CAD program!

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Well, part of that is the fact that it's a relatively modern car, which means that the engineers cram as much as they can into the smallest space that they can... because it fits in the CAD program!

That and they didn't pick up on spring tensioners until the 8th generation (2006 on). It takes about 5 minutes and a 19mm socket to do my wife's 2004 Corolla serpentine belt. The 2005 Civic has these miserable wing-nut tensioners that are simple enough in theory; you just loosen the pivot bolt and lock bolt on your alternator and power steering pumps, give the wing nut a twist with your hand, and off you go. Ha ha ha! Nope. They haven't figured out how to put corrosion and seized bolts in the CAD programs either. Thank goodness someone decided to put a 12mm hex base on the wing nut so you can actually get a tool on it, as getting pliers on the wing nut wasn't happening because I couldn't get both the pliers and my hand in to work it. Basically had to take the whole tension adjuster assembly off, wire wheel the threads, and reassemble so it would actually turn.

Next up are the control arms, bushings, front brakes, and ball joints. I hit everything with a good dose of PB blaster tonight so hopefully those bolts won't give me too much of a fight. Got my breaker bar and cheater pipe ready.

 

[Andy44]

My air conditioner broke Friday morning. It's been about 95°F here for the last week, so that's bad. The repairman came Friday and had to order a circuit card which won't be here until tomorrow at the earliest, but he was thankfully able to jumper the unit so it works in the meantime. Of course, yet another unexpected bill to pay.

Every summer and every winter, in the most extreme temperatures, I wait to see if my A/C will fail or my pipes will freeze, and in between the extremes I get to fight the occasional ant invasion or deal with some other silly unforeseen problem.

Home ownership is nice, but it's an endless string of repairs and headaches sometimes.

 

[Urwumpe]

First day of work after two months parental leave. And nobody here to tell me what I should do. Looks like I arrived more unexpected than I expected.

And can it be that the AC is simply needed because many houses in the USA are wooden structures that quickly heat up in the sunlight? I never considered 35°C outdoors a reason to have an AC at home, I never get more than 26°C indoors in the late afternoon thanks to the good insulation.

(Here I am in an office building with "some sort of a AC that only works when you don't need it", and already have 26°C, while it is just 20°C outside. It would be almost better without.)

 

[Linguofreak]

First day of work after two months parental leave. And nobody here to tell me what I should do. Looks like I arrived more unexpected than I expected.

And can it be that the AC is simply needed because many houses in the USA are wooden structures that quickly heat up in the sunlight? I never considered 35°C outdoors a reason to have an AC at home, I never get more than 26°C indoors in the late afternoon thanks to the good insulation.

I don't know about Andy, but here in Dallas the average nighttime lows this time of year are around 25C, so assuming the frame of the house cools off to ambient firing the night, you're starting it at 25C and warming through the day, and July and August have average daily highs of around 35C, and generally a few days near 40. Things are just plain unsurvivable without AC.

In Denver, where I grew up, the average nighttime low in July is less than 15C, and the average daily high is around 30C. You'll get a few days around 35, but not the long streaks of 35+ you get in Dallas. And given the chilliness of the typical nighttime low, you can just run a fan in the window after sunset to cool the house down, and the structure of the house will keep the interior cool through the next day. You can't do that here :-(

 

[Thunder Chicken]

My reward for doing preventative maintenance on my Civic: the radiator fan died. Motor's dead and the fan itself came off the shaft. Preemptively fix X and Y, item Z breaks unexpectedly.

People ask me when I'll be buying a new car; I respond that I already am, I'm just doing it one part at a time.

 

[Andy44]

Nice tribute to Neil Armstrong here:

 

[Ravenous]

Nice tribute to Neil Armstrong here:

How Neil Armstrong Cheated Death Multiple times Before Apollo - YouTube

I've always loved the tale of that X-15 flight, it getting too high and Armstrong landing a very long way from where he planned...

I think someone once wrote it was the longest drive the recovery vehicle ever had to make! (Apparently for remote landings, the recovery vehicle was usually flown out with other equipment in advance.)

 

[Urwumpe]

I've always loved the tale of that X-15 flight, it getting too high and Armstrong landing a very long way from where he planned...

Didn't he land on Rogers Lake (on which Edwards also is located) in a northern direction after the most dramatic "overshoot", which required him to fly straight for a much longer time before doing a huge high-speed turn and then Armstrong landed smoothly on Rogers with the last bit of maneuvering energy left?

He was especially praised for staying calm and focused during the incident, despite already seeing the pacific ocean ahead of him.

 

[jedidia]

Everybody's on vacation, and I find myself in the position of having to decide whether to introduce some questionable architecture or start refactoring, which will make me overshoot the sprint.

I hate making decisions without having anyone to consult. :uhh:

 

[Urwumpe]

Everybody's on vacation, and I find myself in the position of having to decide whether to introduce some questionable architecture or start refactoring, which will make me overshoot the sprint.

I hate making decisions without having anyone to consult. :uhh:

Well, if I am working agile, I NEVER overshoot a sprint. I don't even think about it. I rather take a blame for questionable architecture or dubious implementations. Or for missing features in a sprint review.

I would leave refactoring to the next sprint then and make sure your product owner knows why you are doing it and why feedback from the sprint retrospective requires you to refactor an implementation.

 

[jedidia]

Well, we're the product owner, so that pressure isn't that bad...