As another poster pointed out, ATSC includes time. I've never set the clock on the big LCD that I bought ~8 years ago, but it's always had an antenna hooked up (usually just receiving PBS) and has always managed to sort out its time by itself.
More fun, though, is RDS on FM radio. I had a Blaupunkt car stereo that I pulled out of a car that I was getting rid of. Put the stereo on a shelf in the garage and forgot about it for a few years.
Eventually, I decided to install it in my work truck, which was easy enough.
The shock-and-awe moment was when it was first powered back on. It remembered all of its settings. And then it started playing the CD that was still inside, right where it left off years ago -- just like it had been used yesterday afternoon. Moments later, it set its clock by itself using an RDS feed that it found.
This player, a Blaupunkt Alaska II, was from 1998; 18 years ago.
On the other hand, I've recently been driving a borrowed Ford Flex with the Microsoft Sync navigation gizmos. It has GPS and RDS and Sirius, so there's no fathomable reason for it not to know precisely what time it is for wherever it is. And yet, on Sunday, I found myself adjusting it for DST...
It's not rocket-surgery. I think we just forget how easy it is to have this stuff just work.
I have a completely-restored* Motorola OG Droid sitting in its (expensive!) factory desktop dock, running Dock Clock from the Play store and whatever the latest ancient version of Cyanogenmod was that works properly-ish on it.
It sits on my entertainment center where it is easy to plug in. It varies brightness automatically based on ambient conditions, so it's never a distraction during movie time in the dark, and it's always bright enough during the day.
*Yep, restored. Parts for the OG Droid were always cheap and easy to get, and the device itself very easy to work on, so I found myself accumulating a lot of new and used spares when I still used that phone. Eventually I threw together the best of everything that I had in my collection and made a clock out of it.
**Still wish it ran NTP, though. Or perhaps that it would act as a stratum-2 cellular NTP server for the rest of the network. Alas, nobody seems to care enough to write the code to do this, and I don't have the skills.
DMX512 is no better, being a dumb multi-drop RD-485 serial bus with zero authentication.
I admit that I lack knowledge of BACnet, DALI, or Lonworks, specifically but generally: Industrial control systems don't have authentication.
The chances of the radio console(s) that your local public-safety agencies use of potentially having IP connectivity and default passwords is astonishingly good, for instance.
I saw one instance of this in a town not far from where I live, where the radio system used IP addresses which were in a subnet documented in the manual, and the whole mess of it was cross-connected to the building's (simple) LAN, and where someone had connected an 802.11 access point named "NETGEAR" without even so much as WEP to attempt to keep passerby out.
Toggling the lights and drapes in a hotel seems like child's play compared to mucking about with the operation of fire trucks and ambulances.
It is difficult to imagine the magnificent effect of this burning well at night. The noise of the escaping gas which, at the rate of forty million cubic feet per day, is like the roar of Niagara or like the thunder of a dozen railroad trains, drowning all conversation. On the nights of the first winter it was opened the ground was frozen and the people not being used to it within the radius of half a mile were disturbed in their slumbers, especially when there was a change of wind. The sound under extraordinary conditions of the atmosphere had been heard fifteen miles away, and on a dark night the light reflected on the clouds discerned for fifty miles.
Prof. G. Frederick WRIGHT, who visited on an evening a month after it was opened wrote: âoeAlthough the snow had covered the ground to a depth of several inches, in every direction for a distance of 200 yards in circumference the heat of the flame had melted the snow from the ground and the grass and weeds had grown two or three inches in height. The crickets also seemed to have mistaken the season of the year, for they were enlivening the night with their cheerful song. The neighborhood of the well seemed also a paradise for tramps. I noticed one who lay soundly sleeping with his head in a barrel, with the rest of his body lying outside on the green turf, to receive the genial warmth from the flame so high up in the air.â Cold as it was he slept in perfect comfort, with no danger of suffering so long as he was within the charmed circle.
The daily amount of heat from this single well is said to equal that from the burning of one thousand tons of soft coal.
There also doesn't seem to be much room for advancement these days: If you want to get ahead, it's usually quasi-laterally between companies.
But on the other hand, if folks still can't make it on their own in SF with SF's minimum wage, then maybe there are deeper issues that can't be resolved so simply as "finding a different job."
In a recent "cold" snap in and around Taiwan, people died.
(I say "cold" even though, IMHO, it wasn't really very cold. But I'm from Ohio, where things don't get properly cold until -10F, and some years -20-25F isn't uncommon. Our HVAC systems, IIRC, are designed to keep the dwelling at 72F when running at 100% duty cycle at -10F outside...and -20F means the best that a well-sized system can accomplish is 62F.)
(And yeah, I'll walk around at 30 degrees in the lightest of jackets, or a light hoodie (I don't dig on sweaters) -- probably with sandals on, because I can. But walking is different from dwelling, as moving is more energetic and warming than sitting or laying, and warm clothes and bedding aren't necessarily common in places that commonly don't need them.)
Came here yet again to say I've now watched the film described in TFA, in Pro-Logic mode, and learned a few things about how they (Lucas, et al) were avoiding the flaws of the system.
First, I did not hear any steering errors at all. (If you ever have, you'll know what I'm talking about -- if not, just wait until it happens.)
Second, this is because they largely treated Dolby Stereo as a 2- or 3-channel system on this film: No matter what is going on on-screen, the sound is almost always largely mixed only Left/Right/Center-ish, or only Center and Surround. This neatly avoids all of the steering pitfalls/inherent errors and further devalues any artificial merit that PL-II might add.
But re-reading your comment: I don't know of a PL-II decoder that doesn't also have a more-basic PL mode. If all you have is PL-IIx/z/whatever, then obviously run what you brung and do what you can with what you have.
Me, I'm sticking with old-skool Pro-Logic for all material that was mixed for Dolby Stereo. It works exactly as I predicted, at least on my Lexicon AVR.
(And yeah, I often play the original Dolby Stereo mix of older movies on DVD through Pro-Logic, too, instead of trusting the later 5.1 remix that is also on the disc.)
Kinda. PL-II (and so on) also separates the singular surround channel into two surround channels, making it essentially a "5.0" matrix.
But one cannot accurately derive 5 channels from 4-channel matrixed source material: Whatever channel separation exists between SR and SL is therefore a lie; a fiction that nobody who created the soundtrack ever heard because it did not yet exist.
But more to the point, Pro Logic is the exactly the same decoding matrix as Dolby Stereo (minus a noise reduction step). The results in terms of channel steering and separation will be as close to what the engineers and producers expected you to hear in theaters as possible, and will be identical to what they accepted when reviewing test prints -- inescapable technical flaws and all.
You can't improve on identical, even if the channel separation sucks compared to more modern techniques.
PL-IIx seems to work pretty well on modern material that has already been downmixed from discrete 5.1 to 2-channel, though...but that's a different game (and argument) entirely. It also seems to do some proper justice to QSound material, even though that was only ever intended to be played back in stereo.
Every print of the film is in Dolby Stereo, which is a 2-channel matrix format that decodes to 4 channels (left, right, center, surround).
Assuming that the group already did the (absolutely required) Dolby A noise reduction step, the resultant audio will be able to be correctly decoded by any Dolby Pro Logic receiver and heard as it was in a Dolby Stereo-equipped theater.
But it's not 5.1, was never intended to be, and from a purist perspective, shouldn't be.
Even hearing it in stereo will be more accurate than any misguided attempt at making a 5.1 mix (in that it is at least similar to what was heard in non-Dolby Stereo theaters).
(And when I say "Dolby Pro Logic," I mean exactly that: Not Dolby PL-II, PL-IIx or PL-IIz, not DTS:Neo6, not [...])
3. Well, power steering and power brakes still have mechanical/hydraulic links between the driver and the wheels. The only difference(s) are whether it is belt driven or electrically driven, and that's a wash IMHO.
I know these things not because I think I'm a better driver than everyone else (studies show: everyone else also thinks they are a better driver). I learned them because my Dad taught them to me eons ago in a fairly narrow wintry parking lot with the family's new, not-at-all paid for vehicle.
Properly driving on ice/snow/(special simulating oil in warm climates?) should be required training, because it teaches basic vehicle dynamics in a way that can never be normally experienced in a real car on city streets, except in emergencies.
And emergencies are no time to learn, but instead are a time to react instinctively.
"OK, adolf. Visualize some marks for yourself way over there, and remember where they are. Now get going smoothly as fast as you can (getting moving at all was lesson 1), and then immediately turn the wheel and tap the brake. Yeah, you're sideways. Remember those marks you set for yourself earlier? Hit them. And then recover, and neatly park right where you started so you can do it again. Try not to hit the curb."
[Try, fail.]
"But dad, I can't."
[Dad demonstrates the maneuver very sideways, but handily.]
"You cheated, Dad."
Dad: "It's not cheating if it works."
Not everyone has that Dad. Everyone should, but that's impossible. These things need taught somewhere, by someone, though: We wouldn't have any more Toyota debacles if emergency driving were taught alongside casual driving, though we might have a lot more hooning around corners in relative safety...
(Yeah, the topic is the parking / "emergency" brake. My dad taught me about that, too. I'm a grown-ass man (UID checks out), now, but perhaps it should go without saying that my Dad was driving the S-15 and I was working the parking brake in the Safari to stop both vehicles. I already knew how to do this, calmly and successfully, from lessons decades ago, though I've only rarely had to put it into practice.
Learning vehicle dynamics sets the wheels in motion, though, for doing proper emergency braking -- which should also be taught, for those who are slow learners.
And every. fucking. time. when I had my temps and something went wrong, he was like "adolf, #21054, think about what went wrong back there and how you could've done it better." At first, I had no clue, and had to ask for the answer -- which was provided. Eventually, it became second nature to ask myself what I did wrong automatically, analyze it, and answer myself. And eventually the moves became instinctive and automatic. Two weeks after I got my license, teenager-me was thus trusted to go traverse the US solo to hook up with his out-of-state girlfriend, because he (Dad) -knew- I had this stuff down.)
(I still can't parallel park for fuck, though. Dad never taught me that, and the licensed driver's ed instructor was too micromanaging for me to learn anything. It's only been a couple of decades...)
Yeah, speeds were moderate -- maybe 45 at tops. (Which might be worse than 55 with a single vehicle, with inverse-square law applied, but I don't feel like mathing right now)
And of course I was gentle on it. In an emergency, including when the master cylinder fails in a two-vehicle towing exercise, one should always be gentle with everything. And it was hard work actuating that parking brake pedal, and my knee (which isn't in the best of shape to begin with) was very sore and weak for days. But I was stopping over and over again, not just once: My knee would've noticed that I stopped once but I'd have been able to walk normally if I only had to stop both heavy vehicles once. These repeated stops properly hurt my body, but I still got it done.
And that's the truth. On with the wild conjecture:
If a single vehicle's engine were in runaway mode (which is ridiculously unlikely with a gas-fired thing with a Bowden cable instead of a linkage, unlike any diesel or (some) FBW Toyotas), the last thing I'd do is use a parking / "emergency" brake -- the first thing I'd try to do is disable the engine, and failing that try to disengage the transmission, and failing that I'd use the hydraulic service brakes -- gently but astutely, and only once. Wherever the car stops is wherever the car stops.
This will never happen with a real manual transmission that includes a manual clutch, because you can always disengage a manual transmission both the clutch and the shift linkage fail simultaneously.
But to complete this absurd scenario, once stopped, I'll simply hold my foot on the power-assisted brake and take my time figuring out how to kill the engine (on a ridiculously-overpowered car, this might mean that one or both drive wheels are spinning at around torque converter lockup RPM, but the car will still be largely stationary if being somewhat angry and terrifying. And a stubborn and stuck electronic dual-clutch automatic has probably stalled the engine long ago in these failure modes simply by being engaged with the wheels nearly or completely stopped).
Note that I didn't mention the parking brake in the above three paragraphs: It's ridiculously unlikely that the engine runs away (even on a diesel with a catastrophic turbo failure) and cannot be stopped, AND the transmission cannot be disengaged, AND the service brakes fail.
It could happen though, I guess, in this world of a million monkeys and a million typewriters. And if it does happen, you can bet your ass I'm using everything I have, including dragging my foot Fred Flintstone style. The parking / "emergency" brake might not be able to completely overcome the power of the engine, but it will at least dump some forward speed as heat and lengthen my short life by maybe enough few precious seconds that I can develop a safe crash plan.
Alright, first I want to thank you for participating. I meant to do this before, but forgot. So often an Ask Slashdot happens, and the asker never interacts at all.
I can tell from your description that what you experienced was a surge from line to neutral.
Here's what's supposed to happen in any "surge protector" in this scenario:
The surge exceeds the breakover voltage of the MOV that is across line and neutral (which it must have, as it was the MOVs turning conductive that generated the heat that melted the housing). This does two things: It attempts to shunt the voltage, and also draws lots of current.
The circuit breaker (ever notice that the power switch on a surge-protected strip usually says On/Reset?) on the power strip is then supposed (via heating, electromagnetics, or both) to detect this excess ("lots") of current, and disconnect one leg of the mains. Once the breaker trips, things are supposed to be fine until reset, and then function normally (though MOVs do age as they get used like this and you should replace/repair the suppressor before absolutely trusting it again).
At least some of these things didn't happen. And sometimes, the MOVs get blown to bits by transient voltage, in which case they can't do anything further to help.
So. As much as I want to, and in fact did, say that a proper mdoern PSU should be reasonably unaffected by a line-to-neutral transient surge, apparently that wasn't the case here: Either its internal protection failed to be effective, or was effective briefly before being overwhelmed by the duration.
It might have sacrificed itself by blowing its own internal fuse: A post-mortem tear down is always a good idea with stuff like this, even if it involves taking it to the alley behind the hotel and paying neighborhood kids to pummel it with cement blocks until it opens. You'll see what's broken/fried/sacrificial, and learn to make better choices next time, and maybe come back and tell us all about it.
That all said: I tender the following three possible off-the-shelf solutions:
1. A Ditek surge suppressor. These are MOV and circuit-breaker based like most, but they advertise having lower breakover voltages than most others and are therefore more sensitive.
2. A Transtector surge suppressor. These are avalanche diode based unlike most, and are advertised to shunt surges earlier, faster and with more current capability than any MOV-based suppressor. They also use circuit breakers instead of fuses.
3. Someone here mentioned, I think, a Belkin design that includes a fuse, which is doubtless also MOV-based. Having a fuse seems low-tech, but fuses are generally -much- faster than circuit breakers and you can tailor the size of the fuse to your expected load, whereas a circuit breaker will always be sized for the maximum ampacity of the entire power strip. You'd want to install the smallest fuse you can get away with (buy a kill-a-watt or other thing that can measure current, too, to be sure). And you'll know if it's too small because it will blow inconveniently and often.
The idea with #3 is that the MOVs shunt the voltage, the fuse blows very quickly (much faster than a breaker), and there is no drama. Fuses are also much simpler and more reliable than $0.50 circuit breakers. Carrying a few extra (or a dozen!) fuses of different values shouldn't be a big deal as they are small and light and often come with appropriate packaging, and if they're AGC fuses (which they probably are) then you can find replacements literally anywhere on the globe.
IIRC, it comes with a 3A fuse. This seems totally appropriate for multinational use of a modern laptop with its 100-200W PSU, along with a small thing or two like a clock and a real cell phone charger.
(I really like #3, having thought this through for a couple of days)
Note, though, that in all cases (and for all countries!) you'll want to buy a 240V suppressor. I stand by and maintain that a global PSU will work with anything even rese
1. Yep, no lever or pedal. Just a switch on a console, with an orange LED and a soft click somewhere in the guts of the vehicle to indicate that I'd done something. I didn't try to activate it in motion, despite it being a rental car.
2. Never use a parking/e-brake brake like that; in an emergency, FFS, never do anything as hard as you can. But yeah, you can GENTLY slow and stop with one if you're not a dolt with it.
3. The hydraulic brakes felt fine. I'm sure it was split into at a front/rear system, just as cars have been for eons. I didn't detect anything strange about them, or the electrically-assisted power steering (which, contrary to popular belief, works just like traditional power-steering, just with a electric motor-driven pump instead of a belt-driven pump).
Slashdot Mirror
As another poster pointed out, ATSC includes time. I've never set the clock on the big LCD that I bought ~8 years ago, but it's always had an antenna hooked up (usually just receiving PBS) and has always managed to sort out its time by itself.
More fun, though, is RDS on FM radio. I had a Blaupunkt car stereo that I pulled out of a car that I was getting rid of. Put the stereo on a shelf in the garage and forgot about it for a few years.
Eventually, I decided to install it in my work truck, which was easy enough.
The shock-and-awe moment was when it was first powered back on. It remembered all of its settings. And then it started playing the CD that was still inside, right where it left off years ago -- just like it had been used yesterday afternoon. Moments later, it set its clock by itself using an RDS feed that it found.
This player, a Blaupunkt Alaska II, was from 1998; 18 years ago.
On the other hand, I've recently been driving a borrowed Ford Flex with the Microsoft Sync navigation gizmos. It has GPS and RDS and Sirius, so there's no fathomable reason for it not to know precisely what time it is for wherever it is. And yet, on Sunday, I found myself adjusting it for DST...
It's not rocket-surgery. I think we just forget how easy it is to have this stuff just work.
I have a completely-restored* Motorola OG Droid sitting in its (expensive!) factory desktop dock, running Dock Clock from the Play store and whatever the latest ancient version of Cyanogenmod was that works properly-ish on it.
It sits on my entertainment center where it is easy to plug in. It varies brightness automatically based on ambient conditions, so it's never a distraction during movie time in the dark, and it's always bright enough during the day.
*Yep, restored. Parts for the OG Droid were always cheap and easy to get, and the device itself very easy to work on, so I found myself accumulating a lot of new and used spares when I still used that phone. Eventually I threw together the best of everything that I had in my collection and made a clock out of it.
**Still wish it ran NTP, though. Or perhaps that it would act as a stratum-2 cellular NTP server for the rest of the network. Alas, nobody seems to care enough to write the code to do this, and I don't have the skills.
DMX512 is no better, being a dumb multi-drop RD-485 serial bus with zero authentication.
I admit that I lack knowledge of BACnet, DALI, or Lonworks, specifically but generally: Industrial control systems don't have authentication.
The chances of the radio console(s) that your local public-safety agencies use of potentially having IP connectivity and default passwords is astonishingly good, for instance.
I saw one instance of this in a town not far from where I live, where the radio system used IP addresses which were in a subnet documented in the manual, and the whole mess of it was cross-connected to the building's (simple) LAN, and where someone had connected an 802.11 access point named "NETGEAR" without even so much as WEP to attempt to keep passerby out.
Toggling the lights and drapes in a hotel seems like child's play compared to mucking about with the operation of fire trucks and ambulances.
Violence is normal and accepted. Everyone knows that.
Sex is abnormal and shunned. Everyone also knows that.
Also, nakedness leads to sexiness, so we can't have any of that either.
But evisceration and mutilation? That's fine. People do that all. the. time.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Actually I was multitasking pretty well on a first-gen iPod Touch back in the day.
No big deal.
Never ascribe to hardware limitations that which can be adequately explained by the presence of Apple's marketing department.
So is Linux a kernel, a userland, or both?
No vehicles in sight, except for the mowing tractor. No road signs nearby, either.
It was Australia. Rabbits are ridiculously common there.
It's an odd game, it is habit-forming, and it gets easier as it gets played... It should be part of a high school geography or social studies class.
And there goes my afternoon.
Feedlot? John Deer tractor mowing? White lines instead of yellow? A squished rabbit on the road?
(I wasn't sure until I saw the rabbit.)
And what a spectacle that would be!
It's been said that the hole is leaking 2,500M BTU/hr.
In 1886, a burning gas well in Findlay, Ohio was said to be working at a rate of about 200M BTU/hr. Here is what was said of this relatively "small" fire at the time:
It is difficult to imagine the magnificent effect of this burning well at night. The noise of the escaping gas which, at the rate of forty million cubic feet per day, is like the roar of Niagara or like the thunder of a dozen railroad trains, drowning all conversation. On the nights of the first winter it was opened the ground was frozen and the people not being used to it within the radius of half a mile were disturbed in their slumbers, especially when there was a change of wind. The sound under extraordinary conditions of the atmosphere had been heard fifteen miles away, and on a dark night the light reflected on the clouds discerned for fifty miles.
Prof. G. Frederick WRIGHT, who visited on an evening a month after it was opened wrote: âoeAlthough the snow had covered the ground to a depth of several inches, in every direction for a distance of 200 yards in circumference the heat of the flame had melted the snow from the ground and the grass and weeds had grown two or three inches in height. The crickets also seemed to have mistaken the season of the year, for they were enlivening the night with their cheerful song. The neighborhood of the well seemed also a paradise for tramps. I noticed one who lay soundly sleeping with his head in a barrel, with the rest of his body lying outside on the green turf, to receive the genial warmth from the flame so high up in the air.â Cold as it was he slept in perfect comfort, with no danger of suffering so long as he was within the charmed circle.
The daily amount of heat from this single well is said to equal that from the burning of one thousand tons of soft coal.
This, exactly.
There also doesn't seem to be much room for advancement these days: If you want to get ahead, it's usually quasi-laterally between companies.
But on the other hand, if folks still can't make it on their own in SF with SF's minimum wage, then maybe there are deeper issues that can't be resolved so simply as "finding a different job."
I think any person should be able to afford to make it on their own, given good work ethic, no matter their skillset.
In a recent "cold" snap in and around Taiwan, people died.
(I say "cold" even though, IMHO, it wasn't really very cold. But I'm from Ohio, where things don't get properly cold until -10F, and some years -20-25F isn't uncommon. Our HVAC systems, IIRC, are designed to keep the dwelling at 72F when running at 100% duty cycle at -10F outside...and -20F means the best that a well-sized system can accomplish is 62F.)
(And yeah, I'll walk around at 30 degrees in the lightest of jackets, or a light hoodie (I don't dig on sweaters) -- probably with sandals on, because I can. But walking is different from dwelling, as moving is more energetic and warming than sitting or laying, and warm clothes and bedding aren't necessarily common in places that commonly don't need them.)
Came here yet again to say I've now watched the film described in TFA, in Pro-Logic mode, and learned a few things about how they (Lucas, et al) were avoiding the flaws of the system.
First, I did not hear any steering errors at all. (If you ever have, you'll know what I'm talking about -- if not, just wait until it happens.)
Second, this is because they largely treated Dolby Stereo as a 2- or 3-channel system on this film: No matter what is going on on-screen, the sound is almost always largely mixed only Left/Right/Center-ish, or only Center and Surround. This neatly avoids all of the steering pitfalls/inherent errors and further devalues any artificial merit that PL-II might add.
But re-reading your comment: I don't know of a PL-II decoder that doesn't also have a more-basic PL mode. If all you have is PL-IIx/z/whatever, then obviously run what you brung and do what you can with what you have.
Me, I'm sticking with old-skool Pro-Logic for all material that was mixed for Dolby Stereo. It works exactly as I predicted, at least on my Lexicon AVR.
(And yeah, I often play the original Dolby Stereo mix of older movies on DVD through Pro-Logic, too, instead of trusting the later 5.1 remix that is also on the disc.)
Kinda. PL-II (and so on) also separates the singular surround channel into two surround channels, making it essentially a "5.0" matrix.
But one cannot accurately derive 5 channels from 4-channel matrixed source material: Whatever channel separation exists between SR and SL is therefore a lie; a fiction that nobody who created the soundtrack ever heard because it did not yet exist.
But more to the point, Pro Logic is the exactly the same decoding matrix as Dolby Stereo (minus a noise reduction step). The results in terms of channel steering and separation will be as close to what the engineers and producers expected you to hear in theaters as possible, and will be identical to what they accepted when reviewing test prints -- inescapable technical flaws and all.
You can't improve on identical, even if the channel separation sucks compared to more modern techniques.
PL-IIx seems to work pretty well on modern material that has already been downmixed from discrete 5.1 to 2-channel, though...but that's a different game (and argument) entirely. It also seems to do some proper justice to QSound material, even though that was only ever intended to be played back in stereo.
Kinda...
Every print of the film is in Dolby Stereo, which is a 2-channel matrix format that decodes to 4 channels (left, right, center, surround).
Assuming that the group already did the (absolutely required) Dolby A noise reduction step, the resultant audio will be able to be correctly decoded by any Dolby Pro Logic receiver and heard as it was in a Dolby Stereo-equipped theater.
But it's not 5.1, was never intended to be, and from a purist perspective, shouldn't be.
Even hearing it in stereo will be more accurate than any misguided attempt at making a 5.1 mix (in that it is at least similar to what was heard in non-Dolby Stereo theaters).
(And when I say "Dolby Pro Logic," I mean exactly that: Not Dolby PL-II, PL-IIx or PL-IIz, not DTS:Neo6, not [...])
How do you get 5.1 surround sound from a 2-channel film soundtrack while preserving it as an archivist?
Answer: You don't.
I keep trying that, but it only seems to work on keeping new memories from being stored, and has nothing to do with erasing old ones.
I stand corrected.
Is there still a mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the steering rack?
Also, if that car were built as you say, I am impressed. It had good steering feel, appropriate heft, and ok feedback (though less than I prefer).
3. Well, power steering and power brakes still have mechanical/hydraulic links between the driver and the wheels. The only difference(s) are whether it is belt driven or electrically driven, and that's a wash IMHO.
Oh. I want to add:
I know these things not because I think I'm a better driver than everyone else (studies show: everyone else also thinks they are a better driver). I learned them because my Dad taught them to me eons ago in a fairly narrow wintry parking lot with the family's new, not-at-all paid for vehicle.
Properly driving on ice/snow/(special simulating oil in warm climates?) should be required training, because it teaches basic vehicle dynamics in a way that can never be normally experienced in a real car on city streets, except in emergencies.
And emergencies are no time to learn, but instead are a time to react instinctively.
"OK, adolf. Visualize some marks for yourself way over there, and remember where they are. Now get going smoothly as fast as you can (getting moving at all was lesson 1), and then immediately turn the wheel and tap the brake. Yeah, you're sideways. Remember those marks you set for yourself earlier? Hit them. And then recover, and neatly park right where you started so you can do it again. Try not to hit the curb."
[Try, fail.]
"But dad, I can't."
[Dad demonstrates the maneuver very sideways, but handily.]
"You cheated, Dad."
Dad: "It's not cheating if it works."
Not everyone has that Dad. Everyone should, but that's impossible. These things need taught somewhere, by someone, though: We wouldn't have any more Toyota debacles if emergency driving were taught alongside casual driving, though we might have a lot more hooning around corners in relative safety...
(Yeah, the topic is the parking / "emergency" brake. My dad taught me about that, too. I'm a grown-ass man (UID checks out), now, but perhaps it should go without saying that my Dad was driving the S-15 and I was working the parking brake in the Safari to stop both vehicles. I already knew how to do this, calmly and successfully, from lessons decades ago, though I've only rarely had to put it into practice.
Learning vehicle dynamics sets the wheels in motion, though, for doing proper emergency braking -- which should also be taught, for those who are slow learners.
And every. fucking. time. when I had my temps and something went wrong, he was like "adolf, #21054, think about what went wrong back there and how you could've done it better." At first, I had no clue, and had to ask for the answer -- which was provided. Eventually, it became second nature to ask myself what I did wrong automatically, analyze it, and answer myself. And eventually the moves became instinctive and automatic. Two weeks after I got my license, teenager-me was thus trusted to go traverse the US solo to hook up with his out-of-state girlfriend, because he (Dad) -knew- I had this stuff down.)
(I still can't parallel park for fuck, though. Dad never taught me that, and the licensed driver's ed instructor was too micromanaging for me to learn anything. It's only been a couple of decades...)
Yeah, speeds were moderate -- maybe 45 at tops. (Which might be worse than 55 with a single vehicle, with inverse-square law applied, but I don't feel like mathing right now)
And of course I was gentle on it. In an emergency, including when the master cylinder fails in a two-vehicle towing exercise, one should always be gentle with everything. And it was hard work actuating that parking brake pedal, and my knee (which isn't in the best of shape to begin with) was very sore and weak for days. But I was stopping over and over again, not just once: My knee would've noticed that I stopped once but I'd have been able to walk normally if I only had to stop both heavy vehicles once. These repeated stops properly hurt my body, but I still got it done.
And that's the truth. On with the wild conjecture:
If a single vehicle's engine were in runaway mode (which is ridiculously unlikely with a gas-fired thing with a Bowden cable instead of a linkage, unlike any diesel or (some) FBW Toyotas), the last thing I'd do is use a parking / "emergency" brake -- the first thing I'd try to do is disable the engine, and failing that try to disengage the transmission, and failing that I'd use the hydraulic service brakes -- gently but astutely, and only once. Wherever the car stops is wherever the car stops.
This will never happen with a real manual transmission that includes a manual clutch, because you can always disengage a manual transmission both the clutch and the shift linkage fail simultaneously.
But to complete this absurd scenario, once stopped, I'll simply hold my foot on the power-assisted brake and take my time figuring out how to kill the engine (on a ridiculously-overpowered car, this might mean that one or both drive wheels are spinning at around torque converter lockup RPM, but the car will still be largely stationary if being somewhat angry and terrifying. And a stubborn and stuck electronic dual-clutch automatic has probably stalled the engine long ago in these failure modes simply by being engaged with the wheels nearly or completely stopped).
Note that I didn't mention the parking brake in the above three paragraphs: It's ridiculously unlikely that the engine runs away (even on a diesel with a catastrophic turbo failure) and cannot be stopped, AND the transmission cannot be disengaged, AND the service brakes fail.
It could happen though, I guess, in this world of a million monkeys and a million typewriters. And if it does happen, you can bet your ass I'm using everything I have, including dragging my foot Fred Flintstone style. The parking / "emergency" brake might not be able to completely overcome the power of the engine, but it will at least dump some forward speed as heat and lengthen my short life by maybe enough few precious seconds that I can develop a safe crash plan.
I'm using it.
Did I miss anything?
Alright, first I want to thank you for participating. I meant to do this before, but forgot. So often an Ask Slashdot happens, and the asker never interacts at all.
I can tell from your description that what you experienced was a surge from line to neutral.
Here's what's supposed to happen in any "surge protector" in this scenario:
The surge exceeds the breakover voltage of the MOV that is across line and neutral (which it must have, as it was the MOVs turning conductive that generated the heat that melted the housing). This does two things: It attempts to shunt the voltage, and also draws lots of current.
The circuit breaker (ever notice that the power switch on a surge-protected strip usually says On/Reset?) on the power strip is then supposed (via heating, electromagnetics, or both) to detect this excess ("lots") of current, and disconnect one leg of the mains. Once the breaker trips, things are supposed to be fine until reset, and then function normally (though MOVs do age as they get used like this and you should replace/repair the suppressor before absolutely trusting it again).
At least some of these things didn't happen. And sometimes, the MOVs get blown to bits by transient voltage, in which case they can't do anything further to help.
So. As much as I want to, and in fact did, say that a proper mdoern PSU should be reasonably unaffected by a line-to-neutral transient surge, apparently that wasn't the case here: Either its internal protection failed to be effective, or was effective briefly before being overwhelmed by the duration.
It might have sacrificed itself by blowing its own internal fuse: A post-mortem tear down is always a good idea with stuff like this, even if it involves taking it to the alley behind the hotel and paying neighborhood kids to pummel it with cement blocks until it opens. You'll see what's broken/fried/sacrificial, and learn to make better choices next time, and maybe come back and tell us all about it.
That all said: I tender the following three possible off-the-shelf solutions:
1. A Ditek surge suppressor. These are MOV and circuit-breaker based like most, but they advertise having lower breakover voltages than most others and are therefore more sensitive.
2. A Transtector surge suppressor. These are avalanche diode based unlike most, and are advertised to shunt surges earlier, faster and with more current capability than any MOV-based suppressor. They also use circuit breakers instead of fuses.
3. Someone here mentioned, I think, a Belkin design that includes a fuse, which is doubtless also MOV-based. Having a fuse seems low-tech, but fuses are generally -much- faster than circuit breakers and you can tailor the size of the fuse to your expected load, whereas a circuit breaker will always be sized for the maximum ampacity of the entire power strip. You'd want to install the smallest fuse you can get away with (buy a kill-a-watt or other thing that can measure current, too, to be sure). And you'll know if it's too small because it will blow inconveniently and often.
The idea with #3 is that the MOVs shunt the voltage, the fuse blows very quickly (much faster than a breaker), and there is no drama. Fuses are also much simpler and more reliable than $0.50 circuit breakers. Carrying a few extra (or a dozen!) fuses of different values shouldn't be a big deal as they are small and light and often come with appropriate packaging, and if they're AGC fuses (which they probably are) then you can find replacements literally anywhere on the globe.
IIRC, it comes with a 3A fuse. This seems totally appropriate for multinational use of a modern laptop with its 100-200W PSU, along with a small thing or two like a clock and a real cell phone charger.
(I really like #3, having thought this through for a couple of days)
Note, though, that in all cases (and for all countries!) you'll want to buy a 240V suppressor. I stand by and maintain that a global PSU will work with anything even rese
Recently towed a loaded, disabled GMC Safari across town and about 15 rural miles with a chain, behind a loaded GMC S15.
Part way through the trip, the brake master cylinder on the Safari turned into a leaky mess and failed to be effective.
For the remainder of the trip, I was stopping both the Safari and the S15 using only the Safari's mechanical parking brake.
Drama: Zero. Smoking brake linings: Zero. Locked wheels: Zero.
I'm sure you're about to patiently explain to me that this is, was, and will always be impossible to accomplish. I'll wait.
1. Yep, no lever or pedal. Just a switch on a console, with an orange LED and a soft click somewhere in the guts of the vehicle to indicate that I'd done something. I didn't try to activate it in motion, despite it being a rental car.
2. Never use a parking/e-brake brake like that; in an emergency, FFS, never do anything as hard as you can. But yeah, you can GENTLY slow and stop with one if you're not a dolt with it.
3. The hydraulic brakes felt fine. I'm sure it was split into at a front/rear system, just as cars have been for eons. I didn't detect anything strange about them, or the electrically-assisted power steering (which, contrary to popular belief, works just like traditional power-steering, just with a electric motor-driven pump instead of a belt-driven pump).