Yesterday I learned...

It costs $200 for a ISP tech to visit and confirm if my new high speed internet is working. (TWC 300/20mbps) Calling those bastards today to complain. Just flip the damn service on :vash:

And the mazdaspeed upper radiator hose is completely different from a regular one. Was driving home yesterday in traffic and noticed a puff of steam or two. Got out and had a 3ft coolant squirt from a pinhole in the hose. 3 o'reilly stores later, I had a normal miat hose. Cut it to size and used it's 90 degree turn to fix my issue.

Keep a roll of this in your car for emergencies:

https://www.amazon.com/X-Treme-Tape-...dp/B00HWROO7E/

See, here's the ironic part: for general PC use, I prefer 16:10 at 1920x1200 over 16:9 at 1920x1080. And yet it's getting very hard to find 16:10 PC monitors in the size range that I prefer (28-32").

For this application, I'm on a crusade to get rid of all of the old CRT monitors in the TV station. Most of them are old 5" B&W 4:3 NTSC sets, and those are easy- for $470 I can get two 7" LCDs in 3RU, with native HD-SDI input:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f2717e80bc.png


And these are fine for simple confidence monitoring. But larger monitors which are native 1920x1080 are much harder to come by. Best option so far as the BlackMagic 17" 17" SmartView HD, which is $820:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ee7d483134.png



But as I need a lot of them, I don't want to spend $820 each. (Yes, yes, I know the monitors which I'm replacing were several thousand when they were new, but those were acquired over decades, and I want them to all go away in a year.)

https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-MB169B-1.../dp/B013XFJKGI

But YOU will have to find the HDMI/DVI to USB3.0 input adapter because searching only finds the reverse and I don't want to fuck with that rabbit hole of backwards adapters again.

This one says it takes real inputs:
https://www.amazon.com/GeChic-2501C-.../dp/B00H4MWMWQ

oh hell just look here:

Best Portable Monitors 2016 - 2017 | Top USB Powered Monitors

Interesting...

I looked at a bunch of those USB-only monitors, and they're a no-go. They don't actually have a "video" interface per se, rather they appear to the PC to be a graphics card. So unless I want to dedicate a PC to them, with an SDI input, they're no-go.

The GeChic looks interesting. That'd foot the bill, though I'm weary of putting stuff built by totally unknown manufacturers like that in broadcast-critical positions. Not gonna go that route.

Is it worth spending $130 on 2 ticket to see Dave Chappelle live?

Not to me. You can see him for free on the internet.

And he's only funny sometimes. And he's unapologetically a racist dickhead sometimes in his act.

It would be fun to troll the internet with some obscure product requirement that was predetermined to be impossible to find and then post it as a "I wish I had a ____".

And in response I'd simply post this link for you to dick with:

http://www.sid.org/Portals/5/pdf/Tan...ays_DW2013.pdf

I LOLed.

I thought it was. Me and the ex-wife and my best friend saw him back at the end of 2014 and he killed it.

Apparently though by the 2nd show of the night he was wasted and stoned (he was smoking joints on stage) and it wasn't as good according to the people we talked to out later that night.

I saw him in 2014/2015 sometime and tickets were a little bit cheaper. It was a good time. I am not sure if the show will be different enough now to warrant the cost again.

Fun with numbers. This can keep you from doing actual work for a while.

The Effects of Rotational Inertia on Automotive Acceleration

You are welcome.

Hey Joe Perez -- as a broadcast engineer, do you have any interesting insight into Russian TV taking over CSPAN for 10 minutes?

C-SPAN's official explanation is that it was "an internal routing issue" within their head-end. IOW, it wasn't a "takeover" so much as a fuckup at C-SPAN's own network ops center.

I don't have any insider knowledge, but this is a plausible explanation.

In many large network operations (including the WGN America network which comes out of my facility), there is not a discrete master control switcher in the historical sense, but rather Master Control is simply a function of a larger house router which will have hundreds of inputs and outputs and is fully software-controlled.

In my own station, the primary house router is 512 x 512 (it's also trunked to several subsidiary routers ranging from 32x32 to 128x128), and contains all sorts of different stuff- tape machines, satellite receivers, hard-disk playout servers, cameras, graphics workstations, microwave receivers, etc. Probably 75% of the video sources in the building hit the routing system eventually.

In C-SPAN's case, it's reasonable to assume that every single satellite receiver they own is connected as a source into the house router, and that one of those receivers is pointed at RT. Thus, if they are using the house router as the Master Control switcher (or even if the house router is trunked to the MC switcher), then all it would take is the combination of a mistake in the program log and an inattentive MC operator for RT to go out on C-SPAN's uplink for several minutes. It's also possible that the router is inline with the airchain after MC, in which case an errant route could have caused this in a way that wouldn't be immediately obvious if the MC operator wasn't paying attention to the downlink confidence feed. I can attest from personal experience that this is often the case. About a year ago, we went nearly a full hour on WPIX with the audio and video out of sync by about a second, because the MC operator was only paying attention to the line feed and never bothered to look (and listen) to the return. She is no longer employed by WPIX.


Just a guess, but I don't smell a conspiracy or an attack here. This seems like a fuckup on C-SPAN's part.

This seems very plausible and highly disappointing.

That could be all well and good, but I'm going with "The Russians Hacked It"; since they have been blamed for everything else.

Just testing shit for 1/21/17. Two governments for the inflated price of one.

Scotch infused idea for the evening: make an investment cast stainless T25 flanged IWG turbine housing for oem ford ecoboost turbos. This way you can reuse the take-offs and supercores that will eventually find their way into the supply chain, but on a more standard manifold.

ehh? ehhhhh? good idea/bad idea?
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Make it happen: 3D printing moulds for investment casting | 3D Printing Systems Australia

I thought about it on a build for my other car with a welded manifold. I believe they're K03 flange and have an interesting charge piping exit. Ebay prices are $250ish used and <$500new (not sure if new = true BW made).