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RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 5:16 pm
by BBfanboy
Didn't know that Orm - thanks for bringing it up.
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 7:09 pm
by rustysi
ORIGINAL: JocMeister
ORIGINAL: wdolson
I worked with a guy who had worked in a cal lab for the Navy for a while. He said one time they received some capacitors that were so large they had to be transported on a flatbed semi. Capacitors can charge up from static electricity so big ones like that have shorting bars for traveling. On this occasion one of the bars had fallen off in transit and without thinking he decided to put it back on. As soon at the circuit was complete, the bar vaporized in his hand. He was just lucky the current didn't flow through him.
As an Electronic Engineer I usually work with fairly low voltages and don't usually encounter dangerous voltages, but I have dealt with a few mishaps. I'm very careful around electricity, especially house wiring.
Bill
I was hit with 65A/400V between the hand and elbow once. It wasn´t very pleasant at all...
Years back slipped while working on some equipment, took 300VDC up the arm across the chest down the other arm. Thought I was done, couldn't get off. Luckily got loose. Turned the end of my pinky black where it exited.
I guess that explains a lot.[:D]
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 7:57 pm
by Zorch
When I was a very young rascal, I couldn't locate the light bulb socket to screw in a replacement (because it was dark and the socket was over my head and I was very short). So I felt for it with my finger...
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:19 pm
by geofflambert
ORIGINAL: wdolson
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
Sounds like Amazons. To try and match Bill or even surpass him, my mother was entirely sane from any point of view. My father was not. Before he was unhinged and violent sounding (but I think it was bluff). It was miserable for myself and my brother. Then he went through electroshock treatment. Afterwards he acted like a normal human being, but every bit as intelligent as he was before, which was substantial. Without direct experience, I'm sure I'd say that electroshock was madness in and of itself. Afterwards, you couldn't ask for a better dad.
A
My SO (MA in Psych and a DV perpetrator counselor as well as a lawyer) said it sounds like he may have been bipolar. She has taken a lot of guys who are violent at home and turned them around. When we see someone violent on TV she usually comments, "I have a group for that".
Bill
He was diagnosed as manic-depressive (same thing) and he'd make violent threats and scream and shout, but he wouldn't have hurt a fly. He got really mad at me once and smacked me with a rolled up newspaper, thankfully there wasn't a fly on me at the time. My mother used a yardstick. [X(] Ouch.
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:25 pm
by geofflambert
ORIGINAL: BBfanboy
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
But are there any two legged cougars prowling? Do you have the neighborhoods where they can be found?
I suggest you ask Cap Mandrake for his home address and then go door-to-door selling your services as a gardener. No need to bring
your own hoe.
Cap says the HOA president is also hot, so you should ask her if you can park your van in her driveway.
I dated a woman on and off for a couple of years and she had a personalized license plate that said "LOVAHO". My parents did not approve.
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:28 pm
by geofflambert
ORIGINAL: wdolson
I worked with a guy who had worked in a cal lab for the Navy for a while. He said one time they received some capacitors that were so large they had to be transported on a flatbed semi. Capacitors can charge up from static electricity so big ones like that have shorting bars for traveling. On this occasion one of the bars had fallen off in transit and without thinking he decided to put it back on. As soon at the circuit was complete, the bar vaporized in his hand. He was just lucky the current didn't flow through him.
As an Electronic Engineer I usually work with fairly low voltages and don't usually encounter dangerous voltages, but I have dealt with a few mishaps. I'm very careful around electricity, especially house wiring.
Bill
I once knew an electrician named Hans Otto Ahrenfest. He had been the Attorney General of Lichtenstein in an earlier life. He said any electrician who tells you he's never been shocked is lying.
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:37 pm
by geofflambert
ORIGINAL: Orm
ORIGINAL: Yaab
Texas School Of Philosophy? Cynical ranchers, stoical cowboys...
No. From the TV Western
Bonanza where their ranch was named Ponderosa. The show was also known as
Ponderosa.
I have a friend who lives right about where the red x is.

RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:42 pm
by geofflambert
I was a self-employed contractor way back and we were asked to bid a job with a strange lady. I asked Mr. Ahrenfest what he knew about her. He said "No! No! No! In my black book I have a red star next to her name and that doesn't stand for Christmas! [:D] Apparently she was in the habit of stiffing contractors.
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 12:29 am
by BBfanboy
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
I was a self-employed contractor way back and we were asked to bid a job with a strange lady. I asked Mr. Ahrenfest what he knew about her. He said "No! No! No! In my black book I have a red star next to her name and that doesn't stand for Christmas! [:D] Apparently she was in the habit of stiffing contractors.
So that means she
wasn't a cougar? Did you ask Mr. Ahrenfest if he enjoyed being stiffed? Why else would he want to find her name again quickly via the prominent red star?
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 12:36 am
by wdolson
My ex-brother-in-law's father was an electrician and worked on Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. His wife (my ex-BIL's mother) was visiting one day while he was wiring up the big lights. Someone turned on the power while he was up there and he got knocked out. He dangled from his safety line for about half an hour until they could get to him. Everyone thought he was dead, but he recovered and died of old age.
Bill
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:32 pm
by geofflambert
Enough voltage. Here's a female red-bellied woodpecker. You can tell it's female because the red band would go all the way to the beak on a male. I had to really crop and shrink this a lot to get it on the forum.

RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:32 pm
by geofflambert
more

RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:33 pm
by geofflambert
more

RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 6:03 pm
by Revthought
ORIGINAL: warspite1
ORIGINAL: RichMunn
Wales had a very good Baseball team, which often beat England (as it happens) in front of big crowds. Possibly an omen for the European Championships!
Not a patch on cricket, of course.....
[:D] [;)]
warspite1
What!? Baseball! In the UK! Whatever next? Fetch me my angry trousers - I'm madder than I've ever been [:@]
Re the football, I lay good money that Wales will beat England - especially if Rooney starts....
It would be great to see both qualify (and Northern Ireland) and for Gareth Bale to have a fantastic tournament.
I wasn't aware the NFL had pulled the trigger on locating a single franchise in the UK, let alone 3. And why are they playing games so early in the year? They're really putting their talent at risk of injury. [:D]
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 6:33 pm
by geofflambert
It's a conspiracy to reduce salaries before the season starts.
They've placed grassy knolls on the field to increase the likelihood for injuries.
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 10:46 pm
by BBfanboy
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
It's a conspiracy to reduce salaries before the season starts.
They've place grassy knolls on the field to increase the likelihood for injuries.
[X(] And snipers on the grassy knolls too??? [X(]
(If you don't catch the reference, read up on JFK's assassination and the ensuing conspiracy theories.)
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 1:18 pm
by geofflambert
From one of my backyard feeders:
The bird on the left is an adult female brown-headed cowbird. Rather than building a nest and tending to the eggs and chicks, she lays her eggs in the nests of birds of other species.
Let the other mama birds do all the work. Unlike the cuckoo, her hatchlings do not push their competition out of the nest.

RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 1:23 pm
by geofflambert
Can you see which egg here is not a robin's egg? If you come across something like this, please do not remove the cowbird egg. This is how they've evolved and it's perfectly natural.

RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 3:57 pm
by Revthought
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
Doesn't the cowbird chick grow like twice as big as the Robin and the Robin chicks end up starving to death as a result?
Edit
Never mind, I guess not. Do you think the Cowbirds grow up thinking they're Robins? That would get a little confusing during mating season. [:D]
RE: OT Things to ponder
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 4:27 pm
by Lecivius
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
I dated a woman on and off for a couple of years
I'm still trying to picture this [X(][X(]
[:D]