Hopefully they named the kittens Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Neutron. :)

--Ian

"Wi-Fi? For a garage door opener? Does each individual hair on your nutsack have a unique IPv6 address, or are you using NAT so that the whole scrotum functions as a single entity with one or more subnets beneath it?"

- actual thing I posted in a different forum.

I don't understand the whole "I must maximize the IoT trend such that every single thing which can possibly be connected is connected!" concept.

Is this like the Beanie-Baby thing?


It's ok to live in a word in which you cannot remotely monitor the level of water in the upper tank of the toilet.

For me, the tipping point is the refrigerator that allows you to access a camera showing the contents when you are at the store "to see what you need." Whatever happened to making a fucking list before you left the house?

I should add that the guy I was responding to is someone who I've considered a close friend since 1990.

At the time, he was a hard-core metalhead stoner and I was a serious nerd.

Now, he's an enterprise-scale software developer with a Brady-Bunch family and is also an usher at his church, and I'm a secular-humanist bozo who keeps a TV station and three cable / multicast networks on the air while experimenting with different combinations of naturally-occurring organic compounds.

But... yeah. Jon does have an IoT problem.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1606

--Ian

I sometimes wouldn't mind having a phone alert at 9pm to warn me: "Hey, dummy, it's 9pm, and you forgot to close the garage door for the night!" - and then provide me with an icon to touch in order to close said garage door - live interior garage camera feed optional.

Sometimes a guy just can't remember to close the garage door in the evening when you're halfway through a two-liter of stolichnaya and mountain dew while binge watching honey boo-boo reruns.

It turns out that Chamberlain, the manufacturer of my existing garage door openers, produces this product. Complete with camera.

I learned this while searching for the instruction manual for my aft opener (mfg 2006), to learn how to adjust the "down" setpoint after I had to re-install the chain which it threw and didn't get it back in exactly the right spot. I also now know how to adjust the chain tension.

When this one eventually dies, I believe that I'll most likely replace it with a belt-driven unit.

On the plus side, I also got the forward opener adjusted such that it no longer thinks "Ooh, an obstacle, I'd better retract" when it hits that one rough spot in the track on the way down.


Really?

My process for remembering to close the garage door:

"Am I finished with the garage door being open? If yes, then close the door and verify that it stays closed."

Typically, I am sober enough to perform this complex procedure any time I've had reason for the garage door to be open.

I recently installed a WiFi enable opener from Genie, it is great. I get notifications of door events, know if it is open or closed, and can open it remotely from my phone when my daughter forgets her keys.

You guys have garage door openers? Are you even real men?

You clearly do not have a female living in your residence full-time.

Or a teenager.

--Ian

^ I do not.

But, if anyone here needs to incinerate a horse, it turns out that my alma mater, the University of Florida, has an animal crematorium for sale.

https://m.publicsurplus.com/sms/auct...ew?auc=2937675

You'll need to dismantle it and haul it away yourself, but it's still sitting at zero bids, with four days left on a $200 starting bid.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8b2ee19f2c.png


Funny thing: I remember sneaking through that site on an "urban exploration" tour late one night during my freshman or sophomore year in the mid 90s. There was a small but respectable marijuana crop not far away from it. Obviously someone was tending it, and given the location, I lean towards faculty rather than students.

Who's the equipment dealer around here. Is it @sixshooter ?
I Can't remember sorry if it isn't you.

I got a line on a very cheap JCB. Like $10k less than any other brand for it's year and hours.

Is JCB any good? Can you get parts? Can you service it? Seems like a massive red flag for this equipment to be this cheap, from a very reputable dealer.

JCB is a British manufacturer that uses a lot of British components (such as Lucas electrical parts). They are incredibly unreliable and have a lousy reputation. They have significantly lower value as a percentage of their new price than others. I wouldn't touch it.

JCB = Junk Comes from Britain

P.S. I just sold a new Hitachi wheel loader to a fellow who has a JCB wheel loader that is very new and still under warranty. The JCB is down with engine emissions system problems and has been down for a month. A warranty is only useful if the local dealer has competent technicians and the needed parts available.

Well that's a relief to hear you say that.

I emailed the dealer back and asked the typical "why are you selling a '21 model with 20 hours cheaper than clapped out '14 models from other manufactures with 500 hours? Are parts easy to get? Who services these machines? Then went on to say i typically don't buy foreign equipment except for a handful of things (yaskawa drives) and i'm not to sure a JCB is a proper fit.
He literally didn't answer a single question, or even acknowledge that i sad anything about the JCB. He just sent me a few more listings and prices on other machines. hahah

Thanks for your input.

What type of machine are you considering?

I was looking at a scissor lift and a telehandler.

Equipment is really difficult to find right now. I don't mind financing for something new, but i don't want to wait 9 months to get it.

So, this is something I found interesting:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5cc9e7d56b.png

At a casual glance, I chuckled, assuming it was satire. Eg: pointing out how electric vehicles will remain a non-solution to carbon emissions in the US so long as our energy policy rejects the construction of more nuclear plants in favor of continuing to burn fossil fuels.

But then I noticed the name of the account which posted the image. So I clicked on it.

And it turns out that the image is intended to be completely serious.Their website: Friends of Coal West - Working for a Better Tomorrow Today



(I get targeted by some weird stuff by the FB algorithm. Lately, I've been seeing advertisements for ejection seats for military aircraft. Totally serious.)

But this "trainload of clean electric car fuel" thing.... I honestly cannot fathom who the target audience for that it.

One thing is for sure, I'd love to see the tax returns for "Friends of Coal West." But they provide absolutely no info on their website whatsoever as to the identities of their donors / supporters.

The ads Joe gets vs the ads i get.

haha

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f4f3e5b24b.jpg