It's the same way in the electronics industry. While IC packaging is mostly hard metric now, there's still a lot of stuff in use with inch specifications (like connectors with pins on 0.050" or 0.100" spacing), or more annoyingly, inch-designed stuff specified in metric (like connectors with 1.27mm or 2.54mm pin spacing). I try to use metric as much as I can, but there's a lot of stuff in PCB manufacturing that is still conventionally specified in mils (0.001"), or even sillier units like copper thickness specified in ounces.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if newly-designed stuff is largely metric by now, but I think that we still field a lot of equipment that was designed even earlier than the HMMWV. I expect that US maintenance folks will be dragging around both inch and metric wrenches for a long time until legacy designs completely leave service and take their inch fasteners with them. A lot of military items have service lives of many decades. As I recall, it's been less than a decade since we made the last push to eliminate the 2.5-ton 6x6 trucks out of active service, which are directly descended from mid-1950s designs. Many of them were still in active service over 30 years after being manufactured. Airplanes can have even longer service lives; aren't we still flying B52 bombers that were made in the 1950s?
Who cares? If we switch to metric tomorrow, your 5/8" head bolt will still be a 5/8" head bolt. You'll still use a 7/16" wrench on a common 1/4"-20 bolt. Conversely, an M3 screw is an M3 screw, even in the USA; it doesn't turn into a 7.6/64" screw when it crosses the border. Fasteners keep their original designations from the units they were designed in.
In any case, even a US-designed and US-made engine from the last few decades may have all metric fasteners, anyway. The mid-1980s GM 6.2 liter V8 diesel engines in several of my trucks have all metric fasteners.
I have a 1986 military-surplus HMMWV. The engine and transmission have metric fasteners, while the body and chassis have inch fasteners. The engine (GM 6.2 liter V8 diesel) and transmission (GM Turbo Hydramatic 400) are based on civilian designs with minor modifications, and inherited the metric fasteners from their civilian counterparts. The body and chassis are a mix of custom-designed parts and standard stuff that's common across US military vehicles (especially many electrical components which are interchangeable across a wide variety of vehicles spanning decades of service). I don't recall what sorts of fasteners are used on other driveline components like the transfer case, differentials, etc., as it's been a while since I've turned wrenches on my truck.
My older US military vehicles use all inch fasteners. I don't have hands-on experience with US military vehicles newer than the HMMWV series, so I don't know if those use inch and/or metric fasteners. Still, I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of US military vehicles and other equipment still in service using inch fasteners.
Remember with digital signaling there is NO room for any of the voodoo audiophiles like to claim. You can either measure the improvement on a scope or it isn't there.
That's never slowed down the audiophiles before. I have a friend who insists that degaussing his CDs improves the sound in some manner that I'm unable to hear because of my "tin ears". He also once described to me the importance of breaking in his audio system's power cables by passing a current through them for a while before use, and the importance of using audio-grade circuit breakers in his house's load center.
So the patient needs to be told in no uncertain terms, "This isn't a drug where you can wait until you start hurting and then take a pill. It won't work, and it is dangerous to take it that way. You must take it on schedule, every day. You can't take extra even if you are hurting. If you miss a pill, don't take extra to make up. If you take more than the prescribed dose, or take it more often than prescribed, you may DIE." And the doctor needs to be absolutely certain that the patient understands this and is capable of complying. If not (or if there is not a reliable care-giver capable of controlling dosing), then the patient should be prescribed a short-acting narcotic (although this carries its own, different risks).
That information was not given to me when I was prescribed Vicodin while passing kidney stones. So, I learned the hard way that if I waited for the pain to start before taking another dose rather than taking it on schedule, I'd be miserable for a half hour before the new dose took effect. In hindsight, I can see how somebody could accidentally overdose in that situation, if they didn't understand that they just need to wait for the pill to take effect or if the pain was bad enough to drive them to desperation.
I took Vicodin when I was passing kidney stones. Once my little unwanted guests left, I felt no need to take any more Vicodin, and I just continued taking the ibuprofen that they also prescribed for another day or two. I guess I'm lucky that I don't seem to have a strong propensity to get hooked on the stuff. The Vicodin seemed to make me pretty sleepy, but I didn't feel particularly foggy in the head when I was awake.
I'm sorry to hear about your chronic kidney stone problem. I had to pass kidney stones once, and it was the worst pain ever. In retrospect, it wasn't so bad once it was diagnosed and I got on the pain meds, but the period from the pain getting unbearable, through the ambulance ride, through waiting in the ER while they diagnosed the problem, to the first shot of painkiller finally taking effect, just felt like an eternity. I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on anybody.
Agreed! If I recall correctly, they did something like this a number of years ago when a surprisingly-large explosion busted a bunch of windows in a nearby town. I hope that this accident will be handled similarly.
If it was my house that got aerated by the Mythbusters cannon, I would propose to the network that appropriate restitution would consist of them tearing down my old house and building me a new cannonball-resistant one. If they want to turn that into a 2-hour episode investigating the myth of "Can you build a cannonball-resistant house?", and make themselves a zillion dollars on ad revenue, then that's just gravy. They get their zillion dollars, I get my rhino-lined concrete house, and everybody wins!
I got my no-code tech license around the same time. I upgraded to extra when the 5 wpm requirement was still in place, but I never worked CW on the air and quickly forgot it. I want to re-learn the code and actually use it sometime soon. Most of my operation is related to my military radio collecting hobby, so I'm missing a lot by not knowing the code.
The no-code Technician class license was introduced in 1992. Prior to that, applicants had to pass a 5 word per minute Morse code test for the Technician class license. More recent changes include dropping the Morse code requirement to 5 words per minute for all classes, followed by dropping it entirely.
So, lots of ACTN-three makes children well-suited for football and the like, while no ACTN-three makes them well-suited for long distance running and so forth. And a medium level of ACTN-3 lets kids play any sport they like. But which gene makes children well-suited for slouching on the sofa while cramming Cheesy-Poofs into their pie-holes?
It doesn't look like a bomb to me; it looks like a mundane pile of sloppy hobby electronics. I recall other bomb scares caused by mundane and innocuous devices, such as an LED display in Boston a number of years ago. Such things are just ordinary everyday items to me, and to a lot of other people. How are we supposed to be able to predict which mundane, everyday objects might look like a bomb to some low-grade idiot who clearly couldn't tell an actual bomb from their own ass?
Hey buddy, why not just ask anybody that's older than say 30, "What did you do before you had internet?" Since internet access from the home isn't that old, i'm sure you can find some things to do and resources to use.
I'm older than 30, and I remember the pre-internet era all too well. Constant crying, and frequent pants-soiling. I couldn't even feed myself.
Then I got my first taste of the Internet when I started college back in '86, and life got so much better!
Slashdot Mirror
Can we make the days about 26 hours long while we're at it? I could use a couple more hours of sleep each day. :)
It's the same way in the electronics industry. While IC packaging is mostly hard metric now, there's still a lot of stuff in use with inch specifications (like connectors with pins on 0.050" or 0.100" spacing), or more annoyingly, inch-designed stuff specified in metric (like connectors with 1.27mm or 2.54mm pin spacing). I try to use metric as much as I can, but there's a lot of stuff in PCB manufacturing that is still conventionally specified in mils (0.001"), or even sillier units like copper thickness specified in ounces.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if newly-designed stuff is largely metric by now, but I think that we still field a lot of equipment that was designed even earlier than the HMMWV. I expect that US maintenance folks will be dragging around both inch and metric wrenches for a long time until legacy designs completely leave service and take their inch fasteners with them. A lot of military items have service lives of many decades. As I recall, it's been less than a decade since we made the last push to eliminate the 2.5-ton 6x6 trucks out of active service, which are directly descended from mid-1950s designs. Many of them were still in active service over 30 years after being manufactured. Airplanes can have even longer service lives; aren't we still flying B52 bombers that were made in the 1950s?
how many mm is my 5/8" head bolt?
Who cares? If we switch to metric tomorrow, your 5/8" head bolt will still be a 5/8" head bolt. You'll still use a 7/16" wrench on a common 1/4"-20 bolt. Conversely, an M3 screw is an M3 screw, even in the USA; it doesn't turn into a 7.6/64" screw when it crosses the border. Fasteners keep their original designations from the units they were designed in.
In any case, even a US-designed and US-made engine from the last few decades may have all metric fasteners, anyway. The mid-1980s GM 6.2 liter V8 diesel engines in several of my trucks have all metric fasteners.
I have a 1986 military-surplus HMMWV. The engine and transmission have metric fasteners, while the body and chassis have inch fasteners. The engine (GM 6.2 liter V8 diesel) and transmission (GM Turbo Hydramatic 400) are based on civilian designs with minor modifications, and inherited the metric fasteners from their civilian counterparts. The body and chassis are a mix of custom-designed parts and standard stuff that's common across US military vehicles (especially many electrical components which are interchangeable across a wide variety of vehicles spanning decades of service). I don't recall what sorts of fasteners are used on other driveline components like the transfer case, differentials, etc., as it's been a while since I've turned wrenches on my truck.
My older US military vehicles use all inch fasteners. I don't have hands-on experience with US military vehicles newer than the HMMWV series, so I don't know if those use inch and/or metric fasteners. Still, I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of US military vehicles and other equipment still in service using inch fasteners.
Remember with digital signaling there is NO room for any of the voodoo audiophiles like to claim. You can either measure the improvement on a scope or it isn't there.
That's never slowed down the audiophiles before. I have a friend who insists that degaussing his CDs improves the sound in some manner that I'm unable to hear because of my "tin ears". He also once described to me the importance of breaking in his audio system's power cables by passing a current through them for a while before use, and the importance of using audio-grade circuit breakers in his house's load center.
I can get you a better deal than that. Say, $0.70 per picowatt. But only in bulk. :)
So the patient needs to be told in no uncertain terms, "This isn't a drug where you can wait until you start hurting and then take a pill. It won't work, and it is dangerous to take it that way. You must take it on schedule, every day. You can't take extra even if you are hurting. If you miss a pill, don't take extra to make up. If you take more than the prescribed dose, or take it more often than prescribed, you may DIE." And the doctor needs to be absolutely certain that the patient understands this and is capable of complying. If not (or if there is not a reliable care-giver capable of controlling dosing), then the patient should be prescribed a short-acting narcotic (although this carries its own, different risks).
That information was not given to me when I was prescribed Vicodin while passing kidney stones. So, I learned the hard way that if I waited for the pain to start before taking another dose rather than taking it on schedule, I'd be miserable for a half hour before the new dose took effect. In hindsight, I can see how somebody could accidentally overdose in that situation, if they didn't understand that they just need to wait for the pill to take effect or if the pain was bad enough to drive them to desperation.
I took Vicodin when I was passing kidney stones. Once my little unwanted guests left, I felt no need to take any more Vicodin, and I just continued taking the ibuprofen that they also prescribed for another day or two. I guess I'm lucky that I don't seem to have a strong propensity to get hooked on the stuff. The Vicodin seemed to make me pretty sleepy, but I didn't feel particularly foggy in the head when I was awake.
I'm sorry to hear about your chronic kidney stone problem. I had to pass kidney stones once, and it was the worst pain ever. In retrospect, it wasn't so bad once it was diagnosed and I got on the pain meds, but the period from the pain getting unbearable, through the ambulance ride, through waiting in the ER while they diagnosed the problem, to the first shot of painkiller finally taking effect, just felt like an eternity. I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on anybody.
One dollar per picowatt?
"a passel of USB sticks" WTF is a "passel"
Some of the hallmarks of good communication skills are having a large vocabulary, and knowing how to add new words to it.
Definition of passel
Wow, I never thought I'd actually encounter somebody more cynical than I am! :-)
Agreed! If I recall correctly, they did something like this a number of years ago when a surprisingly-large explosion busted a bunch of windows in a nearby town. I hope that this accident will be handled similarly.
...make lemonade!
If it was my house that got aerated by the Mythbusters cannon, I would propose to the network that appropriate restitution would consist of them tearing down my old house and building me a new cannonball-resistant one. If they want to turn that into a 2-hour episode investigating the myth of "Can you build a cannonball-resistant house?", and make themselves a zillion dollars on ad revenue, then that's just gravy. They get their zillion dollars, I get my rhino-lined concrete house, and everybody wins!
So there I was, sitting at my computer and watching porn. Naked, of course. All of a sudden, my boss walked into my cubicle!
Boss: What are you doing?
Me: Working on a spreadsheet.
Boss: Great! Keep up the good work.
Whew! Saved by the privacy monitor!
clouds.... DOWN?
(are you in australia?)
W... h... o... o... s... h...
I got my no-code tech license around the same time. I upgraded to extra when the 5 wpm requirement was still in place, but I never worked CW on the air and quickly forgot it. I want to re-learn the code and actually use it sometime soon. Most of my operation is related to my military radio collecting hobby, so I'm missing a lot by not knowing the code.
Technician was always (?) code free.
The no-code Technician class license was introduced in 1992. Prior to that, applicants had to pass a 5 word per minute Morse code test for the Technician class license. More recent changes include dropping the Morse code requirement to 5 words per minute for all classes, followed by dropping it entirely.
So, lots of ACTN-three makes children well-suited for football and the like, while no ACTN-three makes them well-suited for long distance running and so forth. And a medium level of ACTN-3 lets kids play any sport they like. But which gene makes children well-suited for slouching on the sofa while cramming Cheesy-Poofs into their pie-holes?
The problem with the toolbox analogy is that your screwdriver never has to interact with your hammer.
If your screwdriver came with a lifetime warranty, then it is a hammer.
It doesn't look like a bomb to me; it looks like a mundane pile of sloppy hobby electronics. I recall other bomb scares caused by mundane and innocuous devices, such as an LED display in Boston a number of years ago. Such things are just ordinary everyday items to me, and to a lot of other people. How are we supposed to be able to predict which mundane, everyday objects might look like a bomb to some low-grade idiot who clearly couldn't tell an actual bomb from their own ass?
Hey buddy, why not just ask anybody that's older than say 30, "What did you do before you had internet?" Since internet access from the home isn't that old, i'm sure you can find some things to do and resources to use.
I'm older than 30, and I remember the pre-internet era all too well. Constant crying, and frequent pants-soiling. I couldn't even feed myself.
Then I got my first taste of the Internet when I started college back in '86, and life got so much better!
Ditto.
60k a year with no benefits is pretty bad.
It's pretty bad if you're paying taxes on it. I doubt that these employers will be filing W-2 forms, though.