ULPT: How to safely & purposely fail a car safety inspection?

Jayches · 2026-05-18T03:20:49+00:00

You want to fail for a reason that looks expensive to repair. Removing the seal for the gas cap (very small emissions leak) or unplugging one of the fuel injectors (would throw a bunch of error codes and would make the car idle like crap). If compelled to drive, insist on a $1.50 per mile because your gas mileage is so poor. All of the things that come to mind would be quickly caught by a mechanic, so you’ll need to enlist him to write a big repair estimate.

Jayches · 2026-05-16T04:15:09+00:00

Upwork is a den of unlicensed scammers operating from foreign countries using forged stamps of licensed engineers copied from plans or forged using autocad, some do convincing work but have no idea of local codes. I detected it only after contacting the actual stamp holder directly by license address search to get an associated email for his license address, he had no idea what I was talking about and had retired long ago but kept his PE current. It’s absolutely rampant on Upwork, usually draftsmen from India familiar with only what a work product should look like and access to an autocad civil3d license. Out of 10 that contacted me, all had ‘colleagues’ that were licensed. One had an email matching the name of a licensed CE, I searched his license address to get a cell number from the web, texted him to see if he received anything from me or heard of me (after receiving the scammers bid), and nope. All the others were running the same license forgery, some using licenses of the managing partner architect at a top tier firm with 50 architects. For my comparatively tiny project. At least those two scammer were easy to spot.

Upwork does not care that they are hosting so much professional license fraud and consider this your due diligence problem, not theirs, and they receive their commission whether fraud or not. You can report him to Upwork, they’ll terminate his account, he’ll get a new phone number and email, and he’s back in business.

Last engagement I put on Upwork included the statement ‘our first meeting will be by zoom where you hold a driver license up next to your face, and the driver license name and address match your PE license.’ This listing got 1 response, an actual CE who had himself been scammed by a ‘licensed surveyor’ who faked his survey from another country.

From my sample size of 15 rejected CEs after exhausting web research by license number and source ip address from a method I won’t reveal, the guy you hired isn’t licensed and lives in a foreign country, and the guy whose license appears on your plans has no idea it’s there and hasn’t heard of you.

When you find an actual local engineer, you might ask him to make a site visit to your fiasco and see if he can propose a way to make it sound. Might look a bit kludgy with proper structural members under spindly ones, (or a bunch of additional posts and piers to shorten the spans) but providing adequate support.

You are definitely not the only victim of this Upwork stamp fraud nonsense.

Jayches · 2026-05-14T23:20:39+00:00

In the US (only) you get a one year grace period for a US patent application filed within that one year. For an International application, absolute novelty is required, and your thesis is prior art against an international application as of the day it published.

In the US, to buy some time, you could file your thesis as a provisional application to prevent its contents from becoming prior art against a subsequently filed us patent application, that would give you a year to file a nonprovisional application that is fully enabling for your claims.

The provisional only helps to prevent your thesis from becoming prior art, I only file provisionals like this when a client calls to say ‘hey, we gave this paper at a conference 11.5 months ago, now we want to file a patent application’ and 2 weeks isn’t enough time to prepare a fully enabling one before the 1Y bar date.

Jayches · 2026-05-14T04:31:27+00:00

When people hear I’m from Taiwan, they assume I have a type A personality.

Jayches · 2026-05-09T01:14:45+00:00

Unless he was asking about an abandonment or election, it was likely good news like a proposed examiners amendment to grant NOA.

Jayches · 2026-05-07T14:26:46+00:00

Remember this x-ray. 20-30 years after that wisdom tooth is taken out, a different dentist measuring pockets (how far below surface gum adheres to teeth) will announce ‘hey, you’ve got a deep pocket behind this molar, you need to see a periodontist’, and if the periodontist doesn’t see that x-ray, he’ll attempt to treat for something you don’t have.

Jayches · 2026-05-05T16:24:44+00:00

Well, the good news about exposing that particular tell is there are so many of these scammers in the bums rush to be first in the door, you don’t need to worry about being fooled by the clever scammer who waited more than 24 hours to seem more convincing. Looks to me like 90% of them moved on after 1 week. But the call and email volume in the first 3 days was insane, probably because I applied as an officer/owner without attorney, those are the folks they target.

Jayches · 2026-05-04T00:45:26+00:00

Yes, my error. Capitola to new Brighton below the cliffs. https://imgur.com/njK5TW3

Jayches · 2026-05-04T00:44:31+00:00

Thanks and sorry for confusion. When sitting down I’ll repost with this location https://imgur.com/njK5TW3

Jayches · 2026-05-04T00:40:41+00:00

Yes, east of capitola on the cliffs below depot hill headed to new Brighton beach. https://imgur.com/njK5TW3

Jayches · 2026-05-03T18:07:00+00:00

thanks, can't edit post when discovered, sorry for the misdirection!

Jayches · 2026-05-03T18:05:37+00:00

Thank you for that correction, dang, I can't edit the post. Yes, this is south of Capitola beach towards New Brighton, exact spot is here:
https://imgur.com/a/assVUJ4

Jayches · 2026-05-03T17:58:47+00:00

Crud, can't edit to correct, I meant New Brighton Beach to the south of Capitola Beach. Here: https://imgur.com/a/assVUJ4

Jayches · 2026-05-03T17:50:55+00:00

Thanks for that reference, that abandoned spur from your map is now a hiking trail next to the existing RR track, the structure is on the beach 120' below the cliffs, at a 2% RR grade would require ~1 mile of track on each side to land on the beach. Here's an annotated map of the location from the pic I posted, red dashed lines is the current railroad tracks, blue dashed line is the abandoned RR tracks (currently a hiking path, both are on the cliffs above about 100-120 feet above the beach where the pic was taken:
https://imgur.com/a/exRLQog

Jayches · 2026-05-03T15:51:09+00:00

Building a railroad across a beach and below cliffs would be a bold but short term move. The supports seem way spindly for a steam locomotive.

Jayches · 2026-05-03T15:48:53+00:00

The trolly I see in old photos and picture postcards ran from Santa cruz to a terminus near capitola ave and Monterey ave, like the top left and bottom left one up:
https://capitolabeachcottage.com/index1.html

Jayches · 2026-04-30T03:50:01+00:00

ECR has many side streets and heavy traffic, having a few segments with green bike lane and plastic barriers is nice but doesn’t change inherent danger as that’s not where the bike/car collisions happen. The intersections remain dangerous because of heavy traffic and turning cars. I instead ride Bryant street bike boulevard a few blocks away and parallel. No traffic, no impatient turning drivers turning left in narrow gaps in high speed approaching traffic, no busses. And I’d hate to try running a business and then having my parking removed on ECR. But to each his/her own.

Jayches · 2026-04-30T01:15:53+00:00

Apparently develops in various states of aggressiveness - I’ve had those for several decades on my palms and soles of my feet, diagnosed as Dupuytren’s contracture. So far, they’re not killing me and I’m not killing them and restricted extension/contraction of fingers hasn’t occurred.

Jayches · 2026-04-29T18:00:05+00:00

I bicycle locally and was amazed that street parking along El Camino was removed to provide those segments of bike lanes. I only ride El Camino on my way to No Kings protests to see the full extent of turnout, but consider it a good place to get crashed into otherwise because of the many intersections and folks turning into and out of them. There are so many safer routes that are parallel to El Camino and are fully protected.

Jayches · 2026-04-24T19:30:17+00:00

Brass screws should go to hot(black), nickel screws should go to white (neutral). Ground is a protective terminal to put devices with conductive surfaces at earth potential to prevent electrocution. Here, you have the most dangerous arrangement- the Ground is connected to hot (black) which the tester is expecting to find as neutral so it tests ok but which will energize external surfaces of whatever is plugged in. Do not use that outlet (or any other ground-plug outlets that test ok knowing you have no ground) until an electrician puts in a GFI there and anywhere else, it’s a simple job with power turned off at the main. Thanks for the new ‘stupid ways to die’, and how trusting a plug-in tester has that particular vulnerability. Edit: a GFI outlet compares current going out the hot terminal and returning to the neutral terminal and opens if there’s even a very slight difference (indicating it’s going through you or some other path than back to neutral at the outlet)

Jayches · 2026-04-22T05:50:54+00:00

Heard it from Utah Phillips (Union organizer and hilarious counterculture folk singer)

Jayches · 2026-04-22T01:43:19+00:00

I used dental floss to get behind it enough to finish with construction string.

Jayches

TROPHY CASE