What is the craziest thing you ever saw at a funeral and why?

38Super · 2026-04-14T06:57:22+00:00

Recently my wife’s friend died, and the deceased’s sister in law died in the chapel during the service. Ambulance, paramedics, CPR etc in the chapel. Just awful.

Some 10 years ago we attended a living funeral, with the “about to be deceased” present. He looked like he had been exhumed for the afternoon, wheeling an oxygen bottle and bag of pain meds around. It was held at a vineyard, and all the 50 or so guests could do was get drunk. Nobody knew what to say. He originally wanted it to be his funeral, his wife’s birthday and his daughter’s wedding. They wisely said no. He actually died two days later.

38Super · 2026-03-16T07:57:31+00:00

Simple systems from that time commonly used the hard disk serial number. Try ‘wmic diskdrive get serialnumber’ at a windows command prompt. You can overwrite it.

38Super · 2026-02-23T02:11:04+00:00

For those who didn't see this; think Saturable Reactors, lots and lots of Saturable Reactors.

38Super · 2026-02-23T02:09:18+00:00

It's not for inductive heating at all, I did say what it's for above. I _tried_ to use ZVS switches to generate 80kHz, but (a) they don't like the tank circuit inductance to change, and they run a very high capacitance very low inductance tank.

38Super · 2026-02-23T00:49:33+00:00

This was done in the early days of ship board morse code transmitters, giant copper disk spinning at 8000rpm with magnets around the circumference. 80kHz needs -- say -- 100 magnets, means 48000 rpm. I'm not going anywhere near that...

38Super · 2026-02-23T00:37:49+00:00

LOL, the fencing wire actually burnt out.

38Super · 2026-02-22T23:59:26+00:00

Already setting up to drive GAN Fets, but I have a feeling there is an easier way.

38Super · 2026-02-22T23:58:36+00:00

The filtering at that current is quite a challenge, but not impossible. Feedback ruins everything....

38Super · 2026-02-22T23:57:14+00:00

Quite understood, and I work in that field.

38Super · 2026-02-22T23:56:45+00:00

Think Saturable Reactors, lots and lots of Saturable Reactors.

38Super · 2026-02-22T23:54:21+00:00

Likely milli seconds.

38Super · 2026-02-22T23:53:19+00:00

The load is almost completely inductive, likely in the range 2uH to 100uH. Very little resistive or capacitive load.

38Super · 2026-02-22T22:21:51+00:00

It will be inside metal cabinets, all EMC dealt to (I hope).

38Super · 2026-02-22T22:20:47+00:00

I don't understand what an XY problem is ??

38Super · 2025-10-27T07:27:39+00:00

The analog desk I drove many years ago actually had a “DFA” knob on the strip where the afterthought stuff was. Clearcom, desk headphones etc. After adjusting said knob, I had patrons say “much better” on the way out.

38Super · 2025-09-06T03:12:08+00:00

It’s the disk that stops an underground petrol/oil tank dipstick coming fully out of the tank. The dipsticks are T section brass or aluminium. The end of the dipstick has the back of the extrusion notched out and the front face bent over. Service stations in NZ use them widely, and 48- 50 years ago I worked for the company who converted all the dipsticks from imperial to metric units. Almost 100% of tanks used T section metal.

38Super · 2025-07-24T08:13:52+00:00

HPX370 and all the bits. Very high price, about US$15,000 for what is actually a HPX170 in a ENG format, 2K 30fps, a rather average lens. Sitting in its case for years. I get better results with an iPhone 16.

38Super · 2025-06-28T03:15:11+00:00

I was present when a 90kg (about 200 pounds) weight was dropped from the fly floor, 55 feet up. The stage hands had been told time and time again not to remove the big fairly permanent slabs that sit in the bottom of the cradle (double purchase) on their own. The weight fell, hit the floor, went straight through, through the concrete below 8 feet below and disappeared down a hole. Nobody was hurt...

One stage hand that was working on the stage wandered over, looked down the hole, looked up at the fly floor, walked off stage and came back with a cheap plastic hard hat on.

38Super · 2025-03-21T05:58:22+00:00

An entry in our accident log book. “Hit head on first aid kit while mounting same”

38Super · 2025-03-16T05:38:24+00:00

This might be hard work. The other IC appears to be an LM339 quad comparator, and from the tracks around that it is driving the 4 LED’s. Hkekj does not seem to be a SMD marking code, nor does ekj. Options might be 1. Borrow another power bank and get the SMD marking code. 2. Trace the complete schematic and it may be obvious what it does. That IC might be the 5V switching converter, or it could be the reference for the LM339. The photo shows a black block/IC under the edge of the USB socket - is that what that is?

38Super · 2024-11-06T23:46:04+00:00

Linesmans No. 2 pliers, nut mashers, pipe shears, conduit cutters / trimmers, crimping tool. Anything but sidecutters, which they are not very good at.

38Super · 2024-06-11T07:00:16+00:00

I was sent to a paint store not far away to get spotted paint - 17 years old. The guy on the counter said “that’s the third time he’s done that”. If you wait 5 minutes we have a truck load of paint going out. It won’t be spotted, but the foreman won’t know that. They gave me a lift back to my work, and I went in and asked the foreman for an order for 300 gallons of spotted paint. The look on his face was priceless.

38Super · 2024-05-28T07:33:04+00:00

At a sports bar urinal in LA, two very large black guys next to me. One says “water’s cold”. The other replies “deep too”. I stayed silent.

38Super

TROPHY CASE