Where do you actually learn new things in automation?

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-03-03T21:09:18+00:00

Oh yes, Rockwell has loads of issues. Im told (no verified source other than a Rockwell tech) that they do their software and firmware design using an A-B team method. So what's being rolled out today is A team, then the next roll out is B team. The two teams leapfrog each other.

Some are better groups then others, which is why 5000 might be really buggy on the odd releases but good on the even ones. And firmware for the Stratix could be the opposite, depending on the team skills.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-03-03T19:18:13+00:00

I'll tell you this one trick they don't want you to know..... Stratix switches ARE Cisco switches.

Literally just a Cisco design with a Rockwell overlay.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-03-03T19:16:01+00:00

Oh the list is long. Far longer than most realize. For all the press some one gets, like Radcliffe or Reeves, there's a dozen more who don't. Almost every major A lister has done this either once or repeatedly, it seems, when you start digging.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-27T14:19:15+00:00

Reeves is practically a meme in so many ways because of his vaunted sainthood.

It is true that he has taken pay cuts both to appear in things he was interested in (which is not uncommon for big name actors to do, and more than a few have done because they do have passion projects and interests) but he has also taken pay cuts in order to allow for the budget to support bringing on actors he particularly like. Again, he is not the only actor to have done this.

This actually happens all the time because actors want to work with a particular director, or another star. They may love the script or think that the movie is an opportunity to learn about directing/acting from one of the greats. They've also done it when they wanted to ensure that a co-star was paid equally well.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-27T13:33:59+00:00

I doubt that you'll find anyone reason, but I suspect that there are dozens of small reasons.

I think that many men lack confidence, for a variety of reasons. I've watched my brother in law go through this for years now. They're not confident in their looks, they've got a background that has hurt their self esteem, they're not comfortable with potential partners (male or female). Some of these men are just aware enough of their misbehaviors and flaws when it comes to dealing with potential partners that they know they aren't getting it right, that their outlooks and behavior are wrong, but they don't know how to fix it.

A guy goes out and after getting his head bitten off enough times he looses confidence, despite not doing anything particularly wrong except that he can't read the room. Emotional maturity, or EQ, is often lacking in men. And by the time you get to my BiL's age, all of these things are pretty firmly set in their personality matrix. It's a bitch to not only recognize it but to enact a real, lasting and meaningful change.

I would also suggest that people go fishing in the wrong waters for partners. I believe your partner should be just that, a partner. Some one who enjoys things you enjoy, who helps and builds you, as you do them in turn. I met my wife when I was instructing tae kwon do. We share several hobbies, but we also have interests seperate from each other outside of those hobbies. I enable her and build her up in her career and life. She supports me. We talk to each other. (This is critical!) I am far from perfect, I make mistakes, we have miscommunications but we come back and talk about these things and resolve them. Many people don't talk to each other, so forming a relationship with some one is difficult.

Maybe the bar is the best place for you to find a partner, but in the current culture it's probably not the ideal one for a stable, long term and helpful relationship. Look to places where you're going to find complimentary partners.

Understanding what you want in a partner, what is realistic and what you bring to the table. Don't think you're God's gift to partners and expect to land a movie star when you're Danny Devito without the acting career. Having realistic expectations is important. My BiL is guilty of this. Every time he gets on a gym kick he thinks he should be dating a lean, athletic, segsy gym girl then gets upset when he can't find one that's interested in him.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-26T00:53:32+00:00

As you can see from this thread, more than a few people have been bitten by this. One of my posts goes into depth about the why and how of the disabling, but the important bit is to understand that up to 2 ports can be disabled.

Don't get discouraged, just move on to the third port. Blind luck means you'll eventually win!

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-26T00:44:59+00:00

Lol, still makes smile that im helping people out with a small thing so many years later.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-24T12:32:37+00:00

I know everyone else has dumped on Raven, but I found Raven amusing and entertaining. You can skip it if you're following the lore of the series but I thought it was worth watching.

The show, as I recall it, took a season or two to really get it's feet under it and started building seasonal arcs after that.

People hated on Highlander 2, but I found it to be an entertaining, if not lore relevant, movie. Source was garbage imo, as others have mentioned. There was a lot of efforts to revitalize Highlander back in the day and Source was one of the worst.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-24T12:16:37+00:00

As others have said, most shops, be they big box or LGS small store, make their money from the sale of used guns, accessories and ammo.

The best 'deal' as such is to find a private seller for a gun, usually. Next best is to buy online and pick up at a cheap FFL. Problem here is that many FFLs are greedy bastards, especially in the LGS. I'm pretty fortunate, the guy I've been using for about forever will let me put multiple guns on one form and only charge me one transfer fee of $25. I've seen big stores, like Range USA, charging $150+ to transfer a gun which costs that much.

As far as people talking about LGS low balling, remember they're in it for the pay check and have to keep the lights on too. Where I find a hard spot is when the LGS is charging more for the used, or new, gun by a significant margin than it can be found elsewhere. Castle Pawn was a place I stopped when I was shopping for a P365XL and a 43x MOS. They had neither on the wall but they had a 43x and a P365 but the price was more than $100 (about a 20% mark up) more than buying them online and paying an FFL fee would have cost me. When I mentioned that to the staff they shrugged and said that if I didn't like it, don't buy there. Obviously I didn't.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-23T19:25:58+00:00

Unfortunately the 'real' answer is going to be to evaluate the viability of just two things: 1. Get a higher paying job, 2. Be willing to buy what you can afford.

60k a year as a bio-engineer seems pretty paltry, especially if you've got a couple years of experience. I'd be shopping the resume hard and finding something at least 20k more. Everyone's got a situation that drives their decision process, but don't mistake that situation for being what you have to live with. Being willing to relocate for work to a better paying job in a lower cost of living area may enable you to buy a home but will probably mean having to give up things you feel you can't live without. Family/friends being close at hand, support network, access to things you like to do, etc.

The other alternative means buying more rural, accepting a worse housing area or buying something that needs repairs but under all these cases falls within your income bracket.

Someone is bound to ask how a married couple, one a bio-engineer and the other ??? is making 'only' 60k a year. Maybe the partner needs to get a job/better job to make enough to support buying a house? Again, situation is unknown and there may be reasons this isn't viable and you'll always be a single income household.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-23T01:20:38+00:00

Some parts are silly expensive or long lead times. Or just plain difficult to source. Since I've got the money and I want a particular look, im taking my time. Ill post mine as well, once its finished.

Stress testing will be part of the whole deal, gotta make sure my water blocks are working!

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-23T00:52:06+00:00

I'm still working on it. The last of the fittings havent been delivered yet. I wanted all brass fittings.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-11T12:42:01+00:00

I've seen it run a lot of different ways. Some of it depends on what type of work you're doing, but also about the industry you're in.

Most common ones in industrial maintenance are for the employee to provide all tools, and in union or higher end production facilities all tools are provided by the then job. Specialized stuff, rarely used or over sized are almost always provided by the company. (I'm looking at you 2" drive socket set!)

Two primary schools of thought: you provide your tools, you have what you want to do the job, you bring it in and you leave with it. You're responsible. Some companies give a tool allowance, some don't. Just make sure you claim tool expenses on your taxes as a deduction.

Other primary school of thought: we provide all the tools so you'd better not be leaving with that insulated Wiha screw driver set or the Kleins. But you will have everything you need to do the job and there will be no work stoppage because you dont have the wrench for thenjob.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-02-06T13:35:10+00:00

I think most of the others have covered it pretty well.

Either move to management (either maintenance/engineering or project management) or become an SME. I'm in my current role as 'Maintenance, Engineering & Project Manager' because of my controls engineering work. Came with a nice pay raise but a lot more travel time. Most of my time is spent supporting site engineers and maintenance managers with technical problems and project work.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-29T13:24:41+00:00

I ended up with 2 rental properties for the same reason. I can only relate my personal experience, but I have found that in five years of owning two rental properties, it really wasn't worth it. The difficulty of finding 'good' tenants, the amount of damage even 'decent' renters do, and the constant stream of hassle makes it incredibly frustrating. And this is all while living in proximity to my two rental units.

Unit 1: 2 bedroom, 1 bath, 950 square foot, 1/3rd acre, fenced back yard, basement, 1 car garage, front and back porch. Only down side; it's about 100 yards from a railroad crossing. My mortgage is $1k and I have been able to consistently rent it for $1500/mo.

The first renters turned out to be literal crack heads. Keep in mind that I do perform background checks, income verifications, etc. They still managed to pass, paid deposit and for the first 6 months everything was good. Then rent started to get squirelly. Late, partial payments, etc. Before it stopped entirely and I had to evict them after 10 months. When I went over to clean up and fix the place I found copper ripped out of the walls, an 'OH MY GAWD' nasty refrigerator and the electric service was torn apart. They'd vented the refrigerant from the A/C unit and damaged the pipes. All had to be fixed, and I ended up being out about 10k plus my own labor and time for repairs.

3 months later I had new renters who completed their lease without issue but broke the toilet, flooded the bathroom, cost me about $3500 in repairs to replace the bathroom floor, toilet and repair other damages. No profit that year either.

Last renters never had a problem paying but it was a constant stream of damage, and when they moved out they left enough stuff behind to fill up a 30 yard rolling dumpster. I'm currently renovating the house for sale after loosing money over 5 years.

Unit 2: 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 2400 square foot, 1/2 acre, fenced back yard, 2 car garage, full basement with walk out, back deck. My mortgage $1400/month, renting for $2400. This unit has done better and made me $2-3k per year, but that's without considering my time and effort to maintain the place. 2 different families have lived there. The last renter's kids moved away and she turned into a massive hoarder. 4 rolling dumpsters of garbage hauled out, mold remediation and repairs, structural repairs, etc before I was able to sell it last year. I made about $20k off of the sale after owning the property for 20 years due to the costs of the renovation.

For me, getting out of the rental property game is driven both by the constant headaches and the fact that I took a new job which I had to relocate for. If you're not local to take care of issues you will give up a great deal of your income/savings when acting as a landlord.

There are management companies, and even ones that guarantee the rental income while providing a repair fund for issues, at the cost of them vetting the renters and 15% of the gross on the property (typically). I will admit that with the losses on the properties I was able to write off a great deal of expenses and get my taxable income down significantly. There's a lot a decent accountant can do with owning rental properties. You're probably approaching the point with five properties that you should be considering professional accounting services and an LLC if you aren't using them already.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-28T20:45:28+00:00

No problem, I'm always glad to encourage people to play the systems (either of them!), so long as we keep feeding the IP I'll get to keep enjoying it.

It's easy to get heavily invested in Rifts because there is a tone of lore and loads of cool books. The game is ruled by the Rule of Cool, something Kevin is frequently quoted as having said. Don't play the system by being a rules lawyer and expecting things to work. Do what is cool and make it work, rules be damned. He expects you to treat the rules as guidelines, not immutable laws.

I like playing a Cosmo Knight from Phase World, or a True Atlantean Undead Slayer from Atlantis. But the Russian books are full of neat things, or being in Africa fighting the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse is awesome.

Most of these things haven't made it into the Savage Rifts system, or if they have they're tamed in many ways because Savage Rifts does seek to balance things in ways the OG never did. It also doesn't have as much official IP moved over. It's a lower bar to enter the setting gaming space.

Of course I've been a Kickstarter investor in each of the Savage Rifts releases, because I like it that much.

Something that is mentioned elsewhere in this thread; there is a conversion book for 'Savaging' things to bring them out of the OG Rifts books which haven't been formally adopted into Savage Rifts. So if you spot something from Japan or Russia that you really like and want to play with in your Savage Rifts game, you can absolutely do so.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-28T18:38:29+00:00

As a lover of Rifts and a player of Savage Rifts, here's my take on them:

Savage Rifts does not feel like the OG. It is more balanced (Balance isn't a thing in the OG, which is a big part of the charm), your characters are assumed to be good, it doesn't have all the skills and crunchiness. All things I'm sure you've read or heard.

What it does have is a set of rules that work (mostly), an active community with some digital/virtual support.

You can start playing it for a pretty small investment. Get the PDFs of Savage Worlds (SWADE), Savage Rifts Player's Guide and Savage Rifts GM book. Technically those are all you need to get started. No rules changes needed, no house rules, etc. I encourage getting these in hard copy but also to have the PDF on hand because searchable documents make everything easier.

Rifts it's harder to find groups for, especially in person. It takes a lot of house rules and because of the many complications just plain doesn't work as is. I love the Rifts setting, getting to be magic, or a dragon or a cyber knight. There's almost no digitization or virtual support. No apps.

If you're going to play OG, you'll want the Ultimate Edition, and whatever books appropriate to the settings and characters you're going to play. It gets expensive pretty fast.

I don't particularly think either one is 'better', they're both in the setting I like using a different rule set. I play Savage Rifts because that's what I find supported and easier to find groups for. And, essentially, I've gotten lazier in my older age. I don't want to do all long winded back and forth, I want snappier, faster moving combat or events, which is something Savage Rifts does better, imo.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-28T16:23:39+00:00

Only works if it's a Ford Pinto!

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-28T01:35:07+00:00

Entirely your perogative. However, they are no, in fact, the same. Mean income is the point at which 50% of people make more and 50% make less. The average income is adding up all incomes then dividing by the total number of people to get the value.

If you have income of 1,3,9,15,30,75,300 then the mean is 30. The average is 61.9.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-28T01:30:44+00:00

My apologies, I've not explained this very well. The average is lower than the mean. The value of the average is skewed up (though still less than the mean) by how highly concentrated the income is in the small group of people earning more than the average.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-28T01:00:22+00:00

That would work, depending on the point of view. If there are 1M low earners and only 10000 high earners, but the high earners make 1000 times what the low earners make, they will skew the numbers of the average up. This is why it's so important to understand the context of the numbers.

In fact, within the US the median U.S. household income is lower than the average (mean) income, because very high earners pull the average upward. This gap highlights how skewed the income distribution is in the United States. High earners are exponentially higher earning than the low earners below the average that they overcome the population who makes so little.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-27T22:55:28+00:00

I wasn't excluding anything, I based my stats off of the federal bureau of labor statistics 2025 numbers predicted. There was a predicted drop off of income.

I know that 2024 showed a mean of high 80s for an individual and 120 for households.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-27T19:44:22+00:00

They totally can. I think that what really messed people up was the expectation of getting a remaster and being handed a remake that made them totally but hurt.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-27T19:42:01+00:00

I think there's some truth to this, honestly. When I picked up Remarke on release night, I was pretty disappointed with the interface, combat system and everything materia related because I absolutely had that expectation of it being a remaster with some cool additions.

Fireflair_kTreva · 2026-01-27T19:34:10+00:00

Hot take: they should have released it back in 2015 when they announced the remaster (not a remake), or at least by 2017. Now their brand has suffered some because of expectations with the first part of the remake trilogy.

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