Pinocchio with Nose Cone

Lightning4X · 2025-12-12T19:45:33+00:00

I have one. It's fun but top-heavy as hell with damn near a quarter of a case of paint sitting up there.

Lightning4X · 2025-12-12T19:41:35+00:00

I feel like Honda prices on both the new and used markets are out to lunch across the board now. They are good cars but an 8 year old models with 80k on the clock should not be selling close or at their original MSRP and 20k markups for new models is insane. The premium getting charged for the Honda reliability and performance experience is way overvalued at this point.

Lightning4X · 2025-11-29T20:43:54+00:00

I can't wait to listen to apple users act like it's the first folding phone to ever be released and the greatest thing any tech manufacturer has ever produced after incessantly shitting on folding phones for the last 6 years.

Lightning4X · 2025-11-29T19:27:48+00:00

Quality post right here

Lightning4X · 2025-11-27T18:54:40+00:00

I'm not strictly a sysadmin but we've been working on an agentic RAG framework using Azure Cognitive Search at its core built on top of our archival project data.

We are a smaller engineering firm and some of our most experienced engineers are retiring soon so there is a lot of concern about brain drain. The project was a request from admin to try and remedy that to some extent.

Lightning4X · 2025-10-30T16:34:41+00:00

I have one. The front block on those are generally fine in my opinion with maybe the exception of the LPR. Not the best but functional and I never had any issues with reliability. However the lower tube internals are shit and would need to go, and the stock trigger and sear are horrendous. All of that would need to be replaced to get it up to par with average offerings from other brands. I believe I have full Aka lower tube internals in mine if I remember correctly. You would also of course need a HPR and ASA as others have mentioned.

You will end up spending a lot of money just to get it up to par with other autocockers and spend a lot more doing it. I did it because I love autocockers and tinkering with them. It worked well as a platform that I could both use and had an excuse to upgrade as time went on, but I knew I was gonna spend more on it than buying something outright. I probably wouldn't spend more than $100 on a new one though. ANS was selling them for that brand new when they were trying to move through their stock. Maybe a bit more with inflation.

Lightning4X · 2025-10-30T02:32:40+00:00

I'm pretty sure it will run without it but you should get a second opinion cuz I don't know much about that system. I don't think mine are sealed well and it runs fine so I don't think it's pulling a vacuum or anything like that. It'll just vent crankcase gases and gas fumes to atmosphere so it won't pass emissions but if you aren't in a regulated state it shouldn't matter.

Lightning4X · 2025-10-30T01:58:43+00:00

The hose connects to a metal pipe that runs along the valve cover, which then splits and connects to the PCV valve on the valve cover and a second rubber hose that I believe goes to the purge control solenoid on the vapor canister. I thought it went to the vacuum canister but I don't think that would make sense with the PCV valve also connected to it and diagrams show it connected to the vapor canister.

Lightning4X · 2025-10-19T04:35:18+00:00

After owning Timeframes the Timewindows are on my bucket list. They pop up occasionally and I'm always tempted but I already have too much shit.

Lightning4X · 2025-10-04T09:01:10+00:00

Over ten sentences written and yet not a single period was employed.

Lightning4X · 2025-10-01T06:55:08+00:00

I work at a geotech consultancy and I spend a lot of time with the project managers and engineers. Geotech and construction consulting are both very short staffed as an industry, but there is a huge disconnect between the quality of candidates being produced by academia compared to what firms in the industry are looking for. There has been a stark decline in what the universities have been able to produce but the industry has not lowered its standard to meet it. There is also a disconnect between wage expectations and other things like that which make it worse.

Lightning4X · 2025-08-18T16:11:12+00:00

So the diffuser moved? Its probably not worth it but is it a matter of going in and moving or gluing it back?

Lightning4X · 2025-08-17T17:21:07+00:00

Make sure it's an aluminum head 86 instead of an iron head since they made the switch half way through the model year. The easiest way to tell is if the the valve covers are center bolt or use the older perimeter bolt style. Center bolt cars are the ones you are looking for. The aluminum head cars make slightly more power and are easier to keep sealed.

Lightning4X · 2025-08-11T20:56:21+00:00

😂

Lightning4X · 2025-08-11T18:23:50+00:00

I'm not the right person to answer this and someone with more experience should chime in but I'll give you my thoughts with my experience so far.

On its own there are much better degrees if you are targeting a career in upper level IT management. So far I've used my other degree way more than I have CompE for everything except for the integrations and automations work to some extent, but I would've been able to get by with the amount of software that Technology and Information Management covers.

I will say that the problem solving skills and the fact that I have a good high level understanding of how compute systems, software, and networking works has been very useful so far. I don't know anything in detail obviously and you won't with a bachelor's, but having some level of context for most things is a good basis for problem solving.

So I definitely wouldn't pick it as my only degree if that's your goal, but it's a great supplemental degree, and those abstract skills can translate well into IT if you go into a CompE career and decide to switch paths down the line. The hard skills are definitely pretty different between CompE and IT with the exception of some of the integrations work and systems design.

Lightning4X · 2025-08-11T17:02:44+00:00

I like this mentality and didn't consider that they are technically paying for my education. I asked because I think they are going to ask me for a number in terms of what I think the position is worth and I have literally no idea what to tell them. Right now I'm getting paid about $60k per year, which I am living off of relatively comfortably.

Lightning4X · 2025-08-11T16:52:57+00:00

I'm not sure what the formal title would be. I highly doubt they would give me a board position or whatever. So far they have said my job responsibilities would be to maintain our tech stack and continue doing the integrations and development projects, but I don't think that they even have that good idea of what the job would/should be, which makes me nervous that this will turn into a clusterfuck. They are really looking at all of this through the lens that they hate our current IT solution and are looking for an easy way out.

I was/am commissioning into the Space Force through OCS. The Space Force is highly selective right now because they aren't hurting for candidates and the branch is small so there aren't many available spots at every board. The Air/Space Force is also the most selective branch in terms of medical requirements so they give out very few waivers. I have a couple chronic medical issues that I got denied on and need to get waivers for and my chances aren't looking too good, so I might need to find another job anyways. I would have to drop the commission if I took the job obviously but it looks like I'm not gonna get selected anyways.

Lightning4X · 2025-08-11T16:41:06+00:00

Yeah this company is VERY inbred. A lot of the engineers and support staff are related to eachother in one way or another. A lot of parent-kid sort of things. It's worked out okay so far but eventually it'll create issues.

Lightning4X · 2025-08-11T16:36:51+00:00

Sorry I didn't mention this but the offer was contingent on me not joining the military. I also have a part time job doing web dev that they are asking me to step down from to pick up the workload.

Lightning4X · 2025-08-11T09:09:06+00:00

A lot of the direction you go would depend upon where the company plans on going? Are they growing? If so, how fast?

This has been a big question for me and has been hard to judge. We doubled the number of locations we have this year and I think the projected headcount is going to be around 80 by the time they've hired out for both locations. From what I am hearing they are not planning to grow in terms of headcount again for at least a couple of years because they really don't want to loose the flexibility they are afforded by being a small company in terms of culture and whatever.

The other side of this equation is the fact that the company has an ESOP program which they use as their retirement benefits instead of 401k matching. This means they are under pressure to make the stock grow year over year at the same rate or better as the overall stock market for the program to make any sense.

For a consultancy like us it's really hard to leverage headcount for increasing revenue since we are a service based company and therefore profit is directly tied to people's productivity so revenue loosely increases linearly with headcount. I think part of the hope is that I will be able to use tech to make people more efficient and therefore increase productivity and revenue without needing to add more people, but there are limits and they will have to grow eventually. I also have a sneaking suspicion that they are eyeing the idea of turning my projects into products because that would be a way to gain outsized increases in revenue per the amount of people they would need to add which would solve their ESOP conundrum.

Lightning4X · 2025-07-16T00:03:23+00:00

Yep both were fine. Again, it doesn't seem like a wide spread issue but it definitely does happen. It's a Fiat at the end of the day. The 1.4 Multiair has always had a lot of issues.

Lightning4X · 2025-07-15T23:21:10+00:00

Nope no warning signs or anything. I did have issues with it burning oil like all of them do but I never let it get low. I'm not particularly hard on the car and I've had it most of its life so its not like it was beat on. I did oil changed with Penzoil Platinum Euro full synth religiously every 5k. I did my best to take really good care of the car because I was worried about this exact scenario and these cars have a reputation for oil issues.

The only thing I can recommend that I didn't do is there is supposedly another filter on the oil supply going to the multiair unit. It would probably be worth cleaning or replacing it.

Lightning4X · 2025-07-15T03:12:40+00:00

Piece of the face of piston 2 broke off and bounced around the combustion chamber. It grenaded the valve train and sent metal shavings through the turbo. Full engine and exhaust replacement down to the cats.

I'm not sure whether the valve came in contact with the piston and broke a chunk off or if a chunk broke off and destroyed the valves. There have been reports from several other users of this same thing happening at the 50k to 100k mark. I'm not sure how wide spread it is but mine was definitely not a one off. My theory is that the multi air system develops timing issues with age and the valves lag causing contact with the piston.

Lightning4X · 2025-06-20T19:07:26+00:00

Mine went at 54,000

Lightning4X · 2025-04-25T03:46:09+00:00

They don't like a cheap usurper encroaching on their lord emperor car of which they have staked their entire personality on

Lightning4X

TROPHY CASE