Random Thought Thread

jlauffer said:
Agreed, which seems strange with how you can basically find videos online to fix/do anything these days.

Recently my home subwoofer started popping and cracking. It's 20+ years old so not too big a deal if I had to get a new one. But googled it and found a video of someone with the same problem, which turned out to be a bad capacitor. Took mine apart and same issue...swollen cap.

Before (can see it swelled to the point of breaking the glue):

View attachment 1893890

After (since they were 20+ years old, replaced both), and we're rocking again!

View attachment 1893894
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Yup.

You can learn sooo much on the internet. As I posted a few weeks back, had the same thing with my Samsung plasma TV (3 failing capacitors).

Websearched the issue, and immediately pulled up details on the cause, a workaround, and a fix. Looked into the details of the fix and found all the photos of exactly which capacitors needed to be replaced, where they were located, what capacitors to buy to replace them with, and ordered the replacements... then continued using the workaround for a couple years 🤣🤣🤣.

When the workaround finally stopped working and i actually got around to doing the fix, it was a, "Why the heck did I wait so long? The amount of time wasted using the workaround was more than the 45 minutes it took to fix it".

Over the years, I've found some wacky fixes I would've never thought of or tried on my own. Had a Dell XPS laptop that started having issues. Web search pulled up a French forum. Used Google translate to translate it, and discovered that it was an issue with the graphics card and the Ball Grid Array chip.

The recommended solution was to open the laptop. Remove the graphics card, wrap it in aluminum foil and bake it in the oven for 5 minutes at 275f. My first thought was, "Uhhh... bake my graphics card? It's the internet. I realize some jokers have a weird sense of humor, abd will offer bad advice to see if someone's dumb/gullible enough to follow it. Is this one of those?"

Turns out, it wasn't a joke. The poor heat dissipation in that XPS model, led to the graphics card getting really hot. The heat and thermal cycling of the BGA chip would eventually result in the pin connections getting loose, with intermittent connectivity, causing the issues. Baking the card, helped reseat it. I figured, "Well, it isn't working as-is, and it's out of warranty. Don't have anything to lose". It worked.... for about 6 months.

I guess once it started having issues after 2-3 years, the baking was just a temporary solution. Allowed me to get everything off the laptop and onto a new laptop though (and I continued using the XPS for another year and a half. I just had to bake the card about every 6 months 😂
 
tinfoil hat timmy said:
my wife makes a fantastic rice pudding.

I guess the next question is raisins or no raisins?
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I'd have to sample both...

...as the proof is in the pudding.

(My late paternal grandmother made a mean rice pudding. Most of her cooking was of the Greek / Turkish persuasion. Beans and rice was a culinary experience.)

I tend to be a purist...a la no raisins.
 
20220807_223535.jpg

Look at this cool picture I took last night at 10:30 with my phone. I guess there was a smudge on the lens that created a streak on the moon over the view of the Atlantic Ocean from an area of the North Carolina coast that faces due south.

Drinking beer and hanging out with my twin brother, who I don't get to see very often anymore.
 
20220808_100714.jpg

This is my favorite beach in North Carolina because the water isn't as muddy as it is on most of this part of the coast.


We used to come here every year with the kids, but we missed the last two years due to pandemic issues. This is our first time back since the boy got big.
 
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