Similar thought..."Your child's right to privacy trumps the inheritance law...however, our right to monetize your information trumps your right to privacy." While there a lot of well-considered points on both sides of the fence here, that seems just a bit hypocritical to me. If facebook is so interested in respecting someone's privacy, perhaps they should start by respecting it themselves. As always, YMMV.
"Not free to falsify credentials" says the guy who comments as AC. How ironic, or is that your real name?
I have TOS too: stop trying to thwart my desire to have some modicum of privacy, or we can't do business.
There's a good reason that the advances have created a negligible difference. The stoichiometric ratio is 14.7 to 1 air/fuel for gasoline. The excess hydrocarbons coming out the engine pass through a catalytic converter that does a pretty good job of oxidizing any leftover hydorcarbons. Regardless of engine efficiency, what isn't burned by the engine is burned in the converter. We can't run leaner if we want to run as cleanly as possible because leaner mixtures burn hotter, which results in oxides of nitrogen and therefore acid rain. We really don't know how to efficiently catylize oxides of nitrogen (this has been a subject of a good deal of research by auto manufacturers and is a big reason why big increases fuel economy are difficult to achieve). If we are able to figure out how to do that, we can run leaner, greatly increasing fuel efficiency, and the numbers in the study will reflect that. Incidentally, those who feel that we could achieve super fuel efficiency if only *insert pet conspiracy theory here* really don't understand the chemistry involved in cleaning up emmisions.
Doesn't take long to decide we like ya, especially if you have special needs (little old church lady, hard-pressed single mom or retiree, just all-around decent person)...of course, we're a small shop. A person who's friendly, not foul-mouthed (remember, professional environment, sometimes with kids around) and shows some self-respect and respect of others gets put on the short list...and bringing Krispy Kremes or the like is always a plus!!;-)
As a professional, I wish more folks knew a few basics like you've mentioned. Word to the wise...you can get an OBD2 dongle on ebay for less than $10US that can talk to an android phone via bluetooth. If you have a program like Torque installed, you can read/clear trouble codes and look at live engine/transmission data. Even if you don't know much, information is power. All you have to do is plug it into the diagnostic port (usually under the dash by the driver's knee), turn the key on (start the engine if you like). A bit of research as a savvy consumer is a wonderful thing. If you have an IDevice, you'd need a wifi-capable dongle, as opposed to bluetooth (a bit more expensive, but readily available too), but the software is available and the final result is the same.
Quick-lube outfits can sure cause problems, though. Poorly-trained kids pushing as fast as they can...loose drain plugs and leakage, etc. We've had to do a lot of follow-up repairs after oil changes...make sure the people you use are thorough in what they do. There are good lube shops out there; choose wisely...
Excellent point...we have such arrangements. On very rare occasions, for long-standing customers, we have retrieved/returned cars. It hurts a bit at $100/hr, but that sort of customer is well worth it. Some even stop by the shop for the ocasional good-natured session of giving us a hard time and receiving the same in kind. Our clients are a great bunch! Loyalty to your shop, and they to you, is priceless!
Experienced mechanic here (35 years)...a mobile mechanic who's well-outfitted can do well for a lot of jobs, but the whole "accurate diagnosis over the phone" thing is a bit disconcerting. We have 10's of thousands tied up in diagnostic gear (scan tools, oscilloscopes, dvoms, etc) and it can still be pretty tough on some jobs to get the car to glitch and figure it out. The folks who make you jump through the most hoops to help them ("can you come to me?", beat you to death haggling, etc) are generally the hardest to please, too. I wish these guys the best, but unless they're cherry picking, it could be a pretty tough gig. As for me, no thanks; I have plenty of work as an independent, and an excellent reputation that I don't want to jeopardize...I can serve the customer much better in a full-on shop.
uptodown.com hosts old versions of several android apps including es file explorer. The page loads in Spanish first, but changing to another language is pretty easily done. Versions of ES back to 1.6.1.6. That old enough for ya? And it's always passed every malware scan I've run. Of course, YMMV, caveat emptor, and all that...
No, it's talking engine bay temp (that's where lots of PCMs are, you know) Underhood temps can get pretty high when you factor in summer heat in the desert, sitting at idle, with a 6-900 degree exhaust manifold sitting just inches away (yup, they get THAT hot!). And while cabin temps in a parked car with rolled-up windows in the summer in the desert don't quite hit 260, the do get really hot. A PCM mounted inside the vehicle has to be able to tolerate that, too. And yes, while the engine is running, it has to be able to deal with this. Although the cabin cools down quickly when you get in and open it up or turn on the a/c, the little nooks where they mount the PCM don't get the airflow and cool down a bit slower. Plus, the case is still really hot, so the internal temps of the PCM remain high for quite a bit. The environmental conditions these things are exposed to is insane.
I use OBD Guage on a lifedrive and on my laptop for basic stuff; it's easier than pulling out my "real" scanner with all the cables. It's a nice basic program that does data stream, snapshots, acceleration tests, reads and clears codes, and some other stuff. For hardware, I have a cheap ODB2 bluetooth dongle I got off ebay for 30 bucks that talks to the palm and lappy. It has about 25 feet of range, which is great when you have to work under the hood while watching the data. Best part--no cables to drag around. It won't talk to ABS or airbag computers, though. Still, for engine control diagnostics, it's about all most folks would ever need, as it does read all the popular protocols. The have a pocket pc version too. Since most folks here already have a pda or smartphone or laptop, the final cost is about 30 bucks and a 2-week wait as they ship from China.
http://www.qcontinuum.org/obdgauge/
I gotta agree with the Captain on Clam here, but with a twist. I run a v-lited vista install without IE and a lot of the other junk. Other than a hardware firewall and the vista firewall, I don't have any protective stuff on my system and never get an infection. How do I know? From time to time, I boot from my Ubuntu thumb drive, update clam, and scan the system from outside windows (I don't trust a scan from within the os, but that's just me). So far, system's stayed clean, but I'm careful about where I browse (no porn or warez). I also turn off flash and/or javascript on many sites--I put buttons for that on my toolbar in Opera. It's funny, I've found about half or three quarters of the microsoft updates don'd apply to my system, since they're for systems I've removed and replaced with other options--Opera and FOSS stuff.
No, I bet his caffeine content is fine. The 68K transistors would refer to the 68000 procs from Motorola which were 16- or 32-bit depending on configuration. Some of them could be switched at boot time by holding one of the pins high or low (I forget which...where are those old data sheets I have on those?) Of course the 65xx series and the 6800 series were 8-bit, however, they didn't have close to 68K transistors. But GP is right on, 68K transistors for a 32-bit architecture.
Right there with ya, friend; I don't use XP myself. It's a pain to fresh install something that heavily patched. But if you're forced to install XP for granny or something, like your original post seems to indicate, slipstreaming is the way to go. Saves a LOT of headaches. Another approach that's worked for me in the past is to nlite the thing and rip out a lot of the heavily patched subsystems and replace those with OSS equivalents. Of course, don't do THAT for granny. That helps a lot if you want to get rid of about 25-50% of the updates. BTW, you can do that for Vista and 7 too w/vLite...built a version of Vista that boots in 30 seconds on my laptop and installs from a thumbdrive in 12 minutes. Still not as useful as most Linux distros outta the box, but it's a real improvement over stock MS installs. No cruft (well, for MS anyway) and rock stable. All drivers and updates there from the get-go and a wee bit over 700 megs for the install iso fully patched. If you gotta run windows, it's nice...
I feel your pain, but if you're not slipstreaming the stuff in before the install (writing a batch file for this is TRIVIAL), you're doing it the hard way. No reboots beyond the standard installation reboots, either. MUCH easier. Just sayin...but yeah, if that's what you use it for, that's a pretty good definition of obsolete.
Actually, the Skylark uses a steel shift cable, so yeah, it's mechanically linked. Just not by a more traditional hard linkage. Most cars have done that for a LONG time. The trans options on that vehicle are a 4T40E or a 4T60E, depending on the engine. Both are electronically controlled, but both use a steel shift cable to move the manual valve (that's what determines what range you're in). Look under the hood/bonnet, driver's side, on top of the trans, you'll see it. If it fails, you could be left in any range, not just neutral. But you're right, Ford does work essentially the same way. And all the car manufacturers do some really cool stuff as well as some really bone-headed stuff. Most of the rants I see here against US cars may reflect personal experience, but usually they relate to a fairly rare failure or a lemon. Truth is, they ALL work pretty well, and they ALL break. ALL manufacturers produce lemons from time to time. Personal experiences of a consumer aren't numerous enough to be statistically significant, although they are all most of us have. Most mechanics I know have biases, too. The failure rates aren't as different as most people believe. And the best car is one you like that works for you and you're confident in. Niggling cable point aside, parent is pretty much on the money.
You make some very valid, well-thought-out points. Didn't consider boiling brake fluid (shame on me). Much of what I said applies to the vehicle in question, and is not accurate for some newer vehicles.
A lot of what you said is exactly why I'm not a fan of drive-by-wire. An electrical failure can stop being an inconvenience and become life-threatening in a hurry if the situation goes sour. While it's true that there is double or triple redundancy in these systems (for instance, multiple potentiometers reading the accelerator pedal position) the redundant parts are often subject to identical wear and usually fail within a short time of each other. It's not out of the question that they could fail at the same time. On some newer vehicles, for instance, there is no linkage between the driver and an automatic transmission; the range selection (P, N, D, etc) is controlled electro-mechanically. Although this doesn't apply to the vehicle in question, it could lead to a situation where the driver couldn't pull the vehicle out of gear if/when such a system failed. Not likely, but very possible.
The freaky sensation you mentioned you experienced with your ABS is pretty common, been there myself. ABS works by alternating lockup (they typically target a 10% lockup timewise) and unlock, but without loss of full system pressure. It feels like a braking loss and can be very disconcerting. You don't really lose all braking even in the unlock phase, though; the system simply releases enough to see wheel spin again. It does this by dumping the pressure back to the input side of the ABS pump, and the same motor that runs that pump controls the bleed valving. When the system goes down or detects a failure, the ABS system goes inert and basically becomes a very expensive brake line. In that mode, it has no effect on braking at all. No pump, no bleed.
The buses can be problematic, as you mentioned, but the problems are usually caused by corrosion at connectors and grounds. In this respect, American manufacturers are far and away better than their European and Japanese counterparts; the connectors are MUCH better protected from moisture intrusion and corrosion. The electrical systems are much more robust and they suffer less from over-engineering, IMO. Trying to troubleshoot an aging Benz or Bimmer can be a nightmare when you're dealing with electrical issues as they are more prone to corrosion in connectors (not trying to start a holy war here, just my experience of many years; each manufacturer has strengths and weaknesses). Pinching wiring between a frame member and a cross-member during a repair is fairly common, though, where the tech doesn't pay attention. It's possible for a bus to fail "on its own", but in practice, it's pretty rare.
You're sure right about the difficulty getting wiring schematics and diagrams. I use two programs that update quarterly and provide all info available for every US market (my current location) vehicle from 82 to current, but they cost several thousand dollars a year each. Without that, I couldn't function. It can be a real pain...
I think your last paragraph is one of the most insightful I've ever read on/. regarding manufacturers. They're cheapskates; that's how they stay profitable. It's another reason why fanboi-ism is just silly. While some of my conclusions differ from yours, I can't say you're wrong, that's for sure. We armchair quarterbacks will never know what really happened. It's obvious that you're pretty sharp on this subject, though. Real gearheads are hard to find on/., based on all the flawed car analogies I see here. Wish I could buy you a beer and chew on some of the possibilities presented in this story. I'm sure it would be interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
Similar thought..."Your child's right to privacy trumps the inheritance law...however, our right to monetize your information trumps your right to privacy." While there a lot of well-considered points on both sides of the fence here, that seems just a bit hypocritical to me. If facebook is so interested in respecting someone's privacy, perhaps they should start by respecting it themselves. As always, YMMV.
Actually, not true. He said, "I HATE POPCORN!!!"
"Not free to falsify credentials" says the guy who comments as AC. How ironic, or is that your real name? I have TOS too: stop trying to thwart my desire to have some modicum of privacy, or we can't do business.
Not at all!! The submitter works in the Department of Redundancy Department!!
There's a good reason that the advances have created a negligible difference. The stoichiometric ratio is 14.7 to 1 air/fuel for gasoline. The excess hydrocarbons coming out the engine pass through a catalytic converter that does a pretty good job of oxidizing any leftover hydorcarbons. Regardless of engine efficiency, what isn't burned by the engine is burned in the converter. We can't run leaner if we want to run as cleanly as possible because leaner mixtures burn hotter, which results in oxides of nitrogen and therefore acid rain. We really don't know how to efficiently catylize oxides of nitrogen (this has been a subject of a good deal of research by auto manufacturers and is a big reason why big increases fuel economy are difficult to achieve). If we are able to figure out how to do that, we can run leaner, greatly increasing fuel efficiency, and the numbers in the study will reflect that. Incidentally, those who feel that we could achieve super fuel efficiency if only *insert pet conspiracy theory here* really don't understand the chemistry involved in cleaning up emmisions.
Doesn't take long to decide we like ya, especially if you have special needs (little old church lady, hard-pressed single mom or retiree, just all-around decent person)...of course, we're a small shop. A person who's friendly, not foul-mouthed (remember, professional environment, sometimes with kids around) and shows some self-respect and respect of others gets put on the short list...and bringing Krispy Kremes or the like is always a plus!! ;-)
As a professional, I wish more folks knew a few basics like you've mentioned. Word to the wise...you can get an OBD2 dongle on ebay for less than $10US that can talk to an android phone via bluetooth. If you have a program like Torque installed, you can read/clear trouble codes and look at live engine/transmission data. Even if you don't know much, information is power. All you have to do is plug it into the diagnostic port (usually under the dash by the driver's knee), turn the key on (start the engine if you like). A bit of research as a savvy consumer is a wonderful thing. If you have an IDevice, you'd need a wifi-capable dongle, as opposed to bluetooth (a bit more expensive, but readily available too), but the software is available and the final result is the same.
Quick-lube outfits can sure cause problems, though. Poorly-trained kids pushing as fast as they can...loose drain plugs and leakage, etc. We've had to do a lot of follow-up repairs after oil changes...make sure the people you use are thorough in what they do. There are good lube shops out there; choose wisely...
BTW, we eat the 100/hour when we deliver, we don't charge the customer...
Excellent point...we have such arrangements. On very rare occasions, for long-standing customers, we have retrieved/returned cars. It hurts a bit at $100/hr, but that sort of customer is well worth it. Some even stop by the shop for the ocasional good-natured session of giving us a hard time and receiving the same in kind. Our clients are a great bunch! Loyalty to your shop, and they to you, is priceless!
Oh, and as for the expense of towing to a shop, AAA can be your friend, in the US at least...10 bucks a month well-spent.
Experienced mechanic here (35 years)...a mobile mechanic who's well-outfitted can do well for a lot of jobs, but the whole "accurate diagnosis over the phone" thing is a bit disconcerting. We have 10's of thousands tied up in diagnostic gear (scan tools, oscilloscopes, dvoms, etc) and it can still be pretty tough on some jobs to get the car to glitch and figure it out. The folks who make you jump through the most hoops to help them ("can you come to me?", beat you to death haggling, etc) are generally the hardest to please, too. I wish these guys the best, but unless they're cherry picking, it could be a pretty tough gig. As for me, no thanks; I have plenty of work as an independent, and an excellent reputation that I don't want to jeopardize...I can serve the customer much better in a full-on shop.
will it still look someone puked their guts out after binging on a bucket of Jolly Ranchers?
uptodown.com hosts old versions of several android apps including es file explorer. The page loads in Spanish first, but changing to another language is pretty easily done. Versions of ES back to 1.6.1.6. That old enough for ya? And it's always passed every malware scan I've run. Of course, YMMV, caveat emptor, and all that...
except for a tenth of a percent, and they'll have the opposite response...their aggressor response increased beyond madness, and they've become...nah!
No, it's talking engine bay temp (that's where lots of PCMs are, you know) Underhood temps can get pretty high when you factor in summer heat in the desert, sitting at idle, with a 6-900 degree exhaust manifold sitting just inches away (yup, they get THAT hot!). And while cabin temps in a parked car with rolled-up windows in the summer in the desert don't quite hit 260, the do get really hot. A PCM mounted inside the vehicle has to be able to tolerate that, too. And yes, while the engine is running, it has to be able to deal with this. Although the cabin cools down quickly when you get in and open it up or turn on the a/c, the little nooks where they mount the PCM don't get the airflow and cool down a bit slower. Plus, the case is still really hot, so the internal temps of the PCM remain high for quite a bit. The environmental conditions these things are exposed to is insane.
I use OBD Guage on a lifedrive and on my laptop for basic stuff; it's easier than pulling out my "real" scanner with all the cables. It's a nice basic program that does data stream, snapshots, acceleration tests, reads and clears codes, and some other stuff. For hardware, I have a cheap ODB2 bluetooth dongle I got off ebay for 30 bucks that talks to the palm and lappy. It has about 25 feet of range, which is great when you have to work under the hood while watching the data. Best part--no cables to drag around. It won't talk to ABS or airbag computers, though. Still, for engine control diagnostics, it's about all most folks would ever need, as it does read all the popular protocols. The have a pocket pc version too. Since most folks here already have a pda or smartphone or laptop, the final cost is about 30 bucks and a 2-week wait as they ship from China. http://www.qcontinuum.org/obdgauge/
I gotta agree with the Captain on Clam here, but with a twist. I run a v-lited vista install without IE and a lot of the other junk. Other than a hardware firewall and the vista firewall, I don't have any protective stuff on my system and never get an infection. How do I know? From time to time, I boot from my Ubuntu thumb drive, update clam, and scan the system from outside windows (I don't trust a scan from within the os, but that's just me). So far, system's stayed clean, but I'm careful about where I browse (no porn or warez). I also turn off flash and/or javascript on many sites--I put buttons for that on my toolbar in Opera. It's funny, I've found about half or three quarters of the microsoft updates don'd apply to my system, since they're for systems I've removed and replaced with other options--Opera and FOSS stuff.
No, I bet his caffeine content is fine. The 68K transistors would refer to the 68000 procs from Motorola which were 16- or 32-bit depending on configuration. Some of them could be switched at boot time by holding one of the pins high or low (I forget which...where are those old data sheets I have on those?) Of course the 65xx series and the 6800 series were 8-bit, however, they didn't have close to 68K transistors. But GP is right on, 68K transistors for a 32-bit architecture.
A lot of folks calculate Jesus' birth at 2BC, which is even funnier and more ironic.
Unless, that is, the decade, century, and millenium actually started in 2001. In which case, this whole discussion is a year premature
Right there with ya, friend; I don't use XP myself. It's a pain to fresh install something that heavily patched. But if you're forced to install XP for granny or something, like your original post seems to indicate, slipstreaming is the way to go. Saves a LOT of headaches. Another approach that's worked for me in the past is to nlite the thing and rip out a lot of the heavily patched subsystems and replace those with OSS equivalents. Of course, don't do THAT for granny. That helps a lot if you want to get rid of about 25-50% of the updates. BTW, you can do that for Vista and 7 too w/vLite...built a version of Vista that boots in 30 seconds on my laptop and installs from a thumbdrive in 12 minutes. Still not as useful as most Linux distros outta the box, but it's a real improvement over stock MS installs. No cruft (well, for MS anyway) and rock stable. All drivers and updates there from the get-go and a wee bit over 700 megs for the install iso fully patched. If you gotta run windows, it's nice...
I feel your pain, but if you're not slipstreaming the stuff in before the install (writing a batch file for this is TRIVIAL), you're doing it the hard way. No reboots beyond the standard installation reboots, either. MUCH easier. Just sayin...but yeah, if that's what you use it for, that's a pretty good definition of obsolete.
Actually, the Skylark uses a steel shift cable, so yeah, it's mechanically linked. Just not by a more traditional hard linkage. Most cars have done that for a LONG time. The trans options on that vehicle are a 4T40E or a 4T60E, depending on the engine. Both are electronically controlled, but both use a steel shift cable to move the manual valve (that's what determines what range you're in). Look under the hood/bonnet, driver's side, on top of the trans, you'll see it. If it fails, you could be left in any range, not just neutral. But you're right, Ford does work essentially the same way. And all the car manufacturers do some really cool stuff as well as some really bone-headed stuff. Most of the rants I see here against US cars may reflect personal experience, but usually they relate to a fairly rare failure or a lemon. Truth is, they ALL work pretty well, and they ALL break. ALL manufacturers produce lemons from time to time. Personal experiences of a consumer aren't numerous enough to be statistically significant, although they are all most of us have. Most mechanics I know have biases, too. The failure rates aren't as different as most people believe. And the best car is one you like that works for you and you're confident in. Niggling cable point aside, parent is pretty much on the money.
You make some very valid, well-thought-out points. Didn't consider boiling brake fluid (shame on me). Much of what I said applies to the vehicle in question, and is not accurate for some newer vehicles. A lot of what you said is exactly why I'm not a fan of drive-by-wire. An electrical failure can stop being an inconvenience and become life-threatening in a hurry if the situation goes sour. While it's true that there is double or triple redundancy in these systems (for instance, multiple potentiometers reading the accelerator pedal position) the redundant parts are often subject to identical wear and usually fail within a short time of each other. It's not out of the question that they could fail at the same time. On some newer vehicles, for instance, there is no linkage between the driver and an automatic transmission; the range selection (P, N, D, etc) is controlled electro-mechanically. Although this doesn't apply to the vehicle in question, it could lead to a situation where the driver couldn't pull the vehicle out of gear if/when such a system failed. Not likely, but very possible. The freaky sensation you mentioned you experienced with your ABS is pretty common, been there myself. ABS works by alternating lockup (they typically target a 10% lockup timewise) and unlock, but without loss of full system pressure. It feels like a braking loss and can be very disconcerting. You don't really lose all braking even in the unlock phase, though; the system simply releases enough to see wheel spin again. It does this by dumping the pressure back to the input side of the ABS pump, and the same motor that runs that pump controls the bleed valving. When the system goes down or detects a failure, the ABS system goes inert and basically becomes a very expensive brake line. In that mode, it has no effect on braking at all. No pump, no bleed. The buses can be problematic, as you mentioned, but the problems are usually caused by corrosion at connectors and grounds. In this respect, American manufacturers are far and away better than their European and Japanese counterparts; the connectors are MUCH better protected from moisture intrusion and corrosion. The electrical systems are much more robust and they suffer less from over-engineering, IMO. Trying to troubleshoot an aging Benz or Bimmer can be a nightmare when you're dealing with electrical issues as they are more prone to corrosion in connectors (not trying to start a holy war here, just my experience of many years; each manufacturer has strengths and weaknesses). Pinching wiring between a frame member and a cross-member during a repair is fairly common, though, where the tech doesn't pay attention. It's possible for a bus to fail "on its own", but in practice, it's pretty rare. You're sure right about the difficulty getting wiring schematics and diagrams. I use two programs that update quarterly and provide all info available for every US market (my current location) vehicle from 82 to current, but they cost several thousand dollars a year each. Without that, I couldn't function. It can be a real pain... I think your last paragraph is one of the most insightful I've ever read on /. regarding manufacturers. They're cheapskates; that's how they stay profitable. It's another reason why fanboi-ism is just silly. While some of my conclusions differ from yours, I can't say you're wrong, that's for sure. We armchair quarterbacks will never know what really happened. It's obvious that you're pretty sharp on this subject, though. Real gearheads are hard to find on /., based on all the flawed car analogies I see here. Wish I could buy you a beer and chew on some of the possibilities presented in this story. I'm sure it would be interesting.