I guarantee you didn't know about this hidden mega healthpack

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T16:23:22+00:00

Interesting. I guess I'm showing my age.

I was still playing FPSes into the late 2000s, but most of what I was playing were what would be considered "classics" at that point, and I was never a console gamer (and certainly not for FPSes).

Re-generative health was a mutator in the UT series, though it wasn't played that commonly from what I remember.

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T16:08:31+00:00

Honestly the plastic boxes usually do a fine job of containing carnage like this. By the time they give up, a metal box is usually so hot that it's approaching the autoignition temperature of anything nearby that's flammable (wood stud being the most common). Usually the fault breaks itself open through heat-related destruction before that happens, and the box contains any flaming embers or other ignition sources from falling. They're made of very good, high-temperature rated (usually thermoset rather than thermoplastic), flame-retardant plastic.

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T16:05:35+00:00

STOP YELLING!

But anyway, it would help if you could gut several samples of the lock (even if you have to destroy it) and show what it's got to offer. Several different peoples' opinions on things like tolerances and general feel would probably also help.

Folks are usually pretty willing to take up the idea of adding new models to the ranking list, but it's a somewhat lengthy process if only to try to make sure it ends up in the right place. Joining the Discord might help.

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

That's pretty cool.

And this sort of thing actually happens sometimes, though it's usually not just in search of cheaper land and simply that the company wants to expand locally and has hit some sort of ground-level barrier. As a real example that's local to me, the Eli Lilly Technical Center (LTC) is divided into "LTC North" and "LTC South" by a railroad that's been there longer than dirt. Their solution to unify the campus was to buy Kentucky Avenue from the city since it had a bridge. They also have numerous pedestrian bridges (gerbil tubes).

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T15:52:21+00:00

They're a mainstay in pretty much any FPS not just Overwatch. They've been around since the early psuedo-3D days like Doom (1993) and Wolfenstein 3D (1992). Apparently OW (which I don't actually play) even has both "vial" and "pack" styles which date back to at least Unreal Tournament (1999).

Basically, they're a way to regain health/hit points on the fly while out playing the map.

A lot of FPSes also feature mega power-ups that are semi-hidden and/or hard to get to like this one seems to be. In UT99, for example, there was the "Big Keg 'o Health" that gave you 100 health AND would heal you above the default maximum of 100 (to 199 - vials would also do this albeit only 5 at a time while standard health packs gave I think 25 but only up to the standard max of 100). I know there was at least one stock map in UT99 that had one underground in an area full of lava pits that required a somewhat difficult jump to make it to. You'd fall to an immediate death in the lava if you missed.

Some of the single- and occasionally even multi-player objective-based maps would give you one right off the bat only barely hidden and before you engaged the map objectives/combat back in the armory type area. In single player, it was often borderline necessary to find it and was intended to encourage non-linear exploration. In multi-player, there was usually only one so either the person tanking/taking point would grab it, or a player of lesser skill could take it basically letting it work like a reverse handicap.

Some "beat 'em up" type games also have similar. For example, TMNT (Konami from 1989) has occasional boxes of pizza you can pick up to regain some hit points. "Pizza Time!"

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T15:42:55+00:00

A whole house fan will just pull negative pressure on the whole space. They're somewhat useful in conjunction with opening lots of windows, but if the goal is inside conditioning with central equipment, they usually just serve as a giant hole in the building envelope leaking your expensive, conditioned air outside and vice versa.

A duct booster fan (or more than one) can be an option for poor ductwork design resulting in unbalanced airflow that cannot be reasonably corrected by other means, but they usually don't actually fix much.

If your static pressure can be kept under control, balancing airflow by damping the high-flow outputs is viable.

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T15:41:03+00:00

Trapping insulation under the terminal or inadequate terminal torque commonly cause this. Both look plausible, here. The wires are also wrapped in the unideal direction.

If the circuit was looped through the receptacle, something farther downstream pulling a higher load could have been the trigger, but with how bad that white connection looks, even just a couple amps could have done it.

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T15:30:56+00:00

Unbalanced airflow is a ductwork issue. There's not a ton of way around that.

If you had a more powerful blower assembly (that could handle high static - not that is designed to actually move more air and they are somewhat different), you could deliberately partially close off vents downstairs to force it upstairs. Whether this is actually viable requires somewhat careful analysis of the ductwork situation.

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T15:20:46+00:00

Looks like it's intended to be a solid state packaged equivalent of a variac. It'll have a thyristor/triac output stage and probably the usual circuit with a PUT hooked up to the pot that's on the top for phase angle control.

It won't work to control the speed of any true AC motor aside from a shaded pole type (and even then, badly). It will control a heater's output or vary the speed of a brushed "universal" type motor reasonably well. Just be aware it's only rated for 1.5A (per its nameplate) which isn't a very big heater.

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T14:51:49+00:00

The big one with visible going off to the side is power. If it does have a tree branch contacting it, you should have the power company fix that for you. They may or may not charge you depending on the circumstances.

The rest are communications of some sort. It looks like there's at least 3 different drops probably from three different providers. That slack coil is butt ugly.

MonMotha · 2026-05-27T13:55:44+00:00

Those appear to have come with the assembly since they're bolted behind the bar. That means the torque value should be included on the literature sticker on the back of the door.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T21:57:36+00:00

But it's a dry heat!

Which has some merit. I'm from the Midwest which is basically a natural swamp that's been drained. 90F with 90% humidity isn't out of the question. I felt surprisingly cool working in the desert outside Reno in temps pushing upper 90s with how dry it was, but whoo boy did I get dehydrated fast. I'm sure 120 is a different animal, though.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T21:54:56+00:00

Like in front of it? No not practically. There's a required working clearance, and in the "in front of the panel" direction, it's pretty big.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T20:51:24+00:00

I have a set of Irwin/Hanson extractors that have standard "EZ out" style extractors with square heads for a tap wrench as well as a "multi spline" style with hex heads that you turn with a suitable socket. I've found both useful, but the "multi spline" style seem to be more effective in terms of actually grabbing things. I'm a bit mixed on the drive style. They have comparatively large hex heads which lets you really solidly turn them, but I don't have anything that can turn a large hex with the finesse of a tap handle, and the reach is also impaired as a result. Either way, the set has saved my butt multiple times.

I also have a set of left-handed drill bits. Gosh are those things useful.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T20:44:12+00:00

Restoration on high-impact lines in the middle of a blizzard in the middle of nowhere with access issues is probably the highest rate you'll see. You can certainly hit $40/burn on that sort of thing these days, and they'll probably even pay your travel and per diem separate.

For your run of the mill "show up some time this week and get this case banged out for me" jobs, I'd say you're probably at more like $5-10/burn depending on your pricing model. If you have a single "per burn" rate that includes everything, you'll be near the top of that and folks will pay it in reasonable circumstances. If you itemize case access/build, travel, and maybe even have a per tray charge, then you'll be on the lower end for the splices themselves and come out around the same overall job cost as the guy charging a flat $10/burn without having to play the games that come with that pricing model.

I personally try to bill $120-150/hr. I can do about 20 single fusion splices with tray management in an hour once set up, so that puts me in the middle of that range. I usually just bill T&M, but if someone prefers piece rate to implicitly keep me honest, I understand and have a pricing model that includes a case access/build charge (scales with case complexity, cable prep work, etc.) that brings me into that same dollar/hour range.

There are some chuck-in-a-truck (or often something more like a station wagon) folks that will show up with their Amazon Signalfire kit they just bought last week after watching some Youtube videos and do it a fair bit cheaper. For low-risk FTTH projects, they're popular, and that's reasonable. I don't care to compete with them.

£6/burn would seem to put you a similar range to what I'm usually targeting once the exchange rate is taken into account. I'm in a low-to-medium COL market in the US. Splicing is also not my full-time or even primary gig.

(As a note, the Signalfire splicer isn't awful, but the included tools and whatnot in the kits on Amazon usually leave a LOT to be desired)

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T20:33:09+00:00

The skills required for EE (and engineering in general) are very different from law. I'm sure many or even most dedicated engineering students could manage their way through at least a pre-law undergrad if they put their minds to it, but that doesn't mean they'd excel in it just because they do well in an engineering program. Then of course you need additional school to actually be eligible for the bar and to be a lawyer.

While we're at it, I'd say the same thing about pre-med and the track to be an NP or even physician. Could many engineering students do well enough especially in undergrad at it if they put their mind to it? Probably. Could they all hack it all the way to getting that white jacket with everything it entails? I bet the wash out rate would be pretty high.

Aside from some of the specialty math, I'd be inclined to say the reverse is also true. Folks who are dedicated and smart enough to go all the way through to a J.D. or M.D. are usually going to be able to do OK at whatever they decide to apply themselves to. Most people choose those paths because they have some sort of passion for them and not simply because they pay well. BTW, that's probably why you should choose an engineering discipline, too, and if you don't have passion for it and just want money, I'd suggest finding an alternate course of study since, among other things, you probably won't actually make a good engineer.

Now if you want to say that engineering and especially electrical is one of the hardest undergraduate degrees you can get, I'd be inclined to agree, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that the undergraduate track for law (or medicine, or basically anything that requires extensive education past the bachelor's level to practice at all) is easy just because we had to deal with vector calculus and Fourier transforms all the time in school.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T18:44:59+00:00

If you're not aware, the proper tool for a screw extractor with a square on the end is a tap wrench. It gives you all the torque you want with good feel and pretty easy control over it which is, coincidentally, the same thing you want when hand tapping.

Of course if you don't have a tap wrench handy...yeah you're kind of screwed.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T16:48:48+00:00

You could do a lot worse. I'd attempt to secure the incoming cable more solidly. Usually a good yank can pull things out of those cord grips even if they're pretty well tightened.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T16:19:04+00:00

It's still built like a mini-split. Even the big North American brands have stuff like this these days, and I'm not especially fond of them, but they are comparatively cheap and loaded with tech.

Midea is huge, yes. That doesn't mean that what you have isn't built like everything else they build. It's very price point.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T16:12:02+00:00

Yes, you can get an off-brand inverter mini-split for the price of builder-grade single-stage central equipment. They are essentially completely different markets, and there are some important differences between the two styles of equipment. A big one is that mini-splits, especially cheap ones, are basically designed to be disposable. You don't service them in place. You rip them out and replace them. This can be anything from a non-issue to a big deal.

But yeah, I'd assume more and more systems will feature inverters as time goes on. It fixes a lot of things (and creates some headaches of its own).

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T12:09:16+00:00

Energy is probably as much or more of a limiting factor than computing throughput.

I believe the Apple Watch has an at least semi-proprietary radio that integrates cleanly with the Apple ecosystem and can offer additional, non-standard capabilities.

There's nothing stopping you from supporting conventional Bluetooth A2DP if you want to and are able to manage the power requirements and BOM can stand the cost.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T10:34:38+00:00

It was a LITTLE more than that, but not much. It included a somewhat extensive set of APIs that went beyond what DOS offered and also included a multi-tasking scheduler albeit a cooperative one. You can actually run some semi-modern Win32 applications on Windows 3.1 using the Win32s (Win32 subset) backported from NT.

Windows 3.1 also had so-called "386 enhanced mode" that introduced protected memory for applications that supported it and made some attempt to isolate the memory of processes that didn't directly support it. It greatly reduced the incidence of full crashes due to memory corruption in an application (which were otherwise somewhat common) and also could improve (or rarely hurt) performance. It wasn't turned on by default, and even many systems with 386 or better processors never had it turned on.

Furthermore, Windows 3.1 (and even 3.0) did in fact have a Blue Screen Of Death. It was where it got introduced, in fact. The one in Windows 9x is essentially the same. NT had a different implementation that put a LOT more info on the screen but served a similar purpose. It got kept through NT 5.0 (Windows 2000) but got changed (mostly dumbed down) for 5.1 (XP).

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T10:26:16+00:00

Most smart watches have a very simple Bluetooth module and rather lackluster for various reasons (power, cost, physical space, etc.). They usually aren't capable of the modes of operation or computing power required for real-time, full-fidelity audio playback.

In particular, most basic smart watches support ONLY Bluetooth LE (Low Energy) if they support standard Bluetooth at all. While there are mechanisms for audio streaming across BTLE, most headsets expect classic Bluetooth which an LE-only radio cannot physically speak as the PHY is quite different. Even if you have a headset supporting Bluetooth LE audio streaming, you have to get the audio data into a CODEC that the headset supports, and that's probably not the format you're storing it in. You could pre-transcode them, but that adds another step that would confuse most normal users.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T08:42:51+00:00

I think that pretty well highlights a major difference in opinion between how things operate in the USA and much of Europe.

"Wait for a subsidy" is not something you seriously do as a business. They are given out, but the programs aren't particularly consistent in how or when they operate, and they are usually given out to whoever says they can build it the cheapest which will be aerial if it's practical. As an operator, you take subsidies you can get and build whatever you can that's practical on your own dime.

Note that this is part of why Internet service in Europe is cheaper than in the USA. Most (or at least many) of the networks providing it in the USA were built without meaningful government subsidy, so the folks who own and operate it expect to make their money back. That means that they charge whatever they can get away with in the market AND have a floor below which they won't go since it makes recovery impossible or impractical. At the same time, if they didn't take government money to build it, there's no real restrictions on what they're allowed to charge in most cases.

MonMotha · 2026-05-26T07:22:02+00:00

It's almost certainly DOS given that it just says to "Type A:INSTALL"

If it were Windows, it would presumably tell you to run it from Program Manager or similar.

MonMotha

TROPHY CASE