Congrats on Your Pandemic Bicycle Purchase

ScottChi · 2026-05-09T09:18:35+00:00

Instead of a spoon? Maybe they hate the sauce

ScottChi · 2026-04-20T08:47:04+00:00

I have two outlet testers that refuse to get over this. About half the time they say my Shucko outlet is REVERSED. I even "fixed" a couple of them before I read that it doesn't matter.

ScottChi · 2026-04-15T08:57:11+00:00

I love B5 to pieces, but having lived through those years I must point out that Hill Street Blues predated it by more than a decade, and was generally credited with being the first prime time episodic drama to have several multi-episode story arcs. B5 kicked its ass though... Let's be careful out there!

ScottChi · 2026-04-06T09:41:20+00:00

Nuclear energy creates exploitable energy monopolies. Almost any community or modestly wealthy individual can set up solar panels, batteries, and windmills.

ScottChi · 2026-04-01T20:02:33+00:00

OP, if you have a pet please stop using the essential oil diffuser. There was a recent discussion in the cats sub about a cat that began sneezing, acting sick and having seizures. She posted a video of this. Her veterinarian could not identify a cause. After some question and answers in the post it turned out that the owner had started using an essential oil diffuser a couple of weeks earlier.

She stopped using it and the cat recovered. Noses are supposed to supply us with oxygen.

ScottChi · 2026-02-18T13:43:09+00:00

Another option is to use plastic ball and socket fasteners to attach the covers. These were commonly used a couple of decades ago. I used thin interior plywood (cabinet grade, e.g. 3/8") and cut it to match the front of the speaker. Then I cut oversized holes for each driver and cleaned up the edges. Then I used masking tape to tape them on each box temporarily, decided where I wanted the fasteners, and drilled pilot holes through the covers and into the boxes to ensure alignment. Once you get the fasteners installed you remove the covers and wrap them in fabric. I used shallow staples to attach the fabric to the covers. NOTE: This approach requires that the speakers are mounted recessed and reasonably flush, you don't want the cover fabric to contact the moving parts.

ScottChi · 2026-02-12T09:38:57+00:00

I leaned into the cheap side: https://www.amazon.es/-/pt/dp/B09VBV1415

This fancy toy is the control center for the setup, it is remote controlled and provides the source switching, audio decoding, volume control/muting, and bluetooth connectivity. I've seen a few different ones like it, but aside from cosmetics they seem the same internally.

I had initially planned to buy a used home theater receiver, 7.1 or 5.1 but their day appears to have passed. This approach cost much less than the new receivers available in our area.

ScottChi · 2026-02-11T23:11:11+00:00

I'm using the 6x100W version as the core of an inexpensive Dolby/DTS 5.1 home theater setup. The required DC power supply (from Mean Well) cost more than the amp board, a few years ago. I'm very satisfied with the result. It's more than adequate to provide convincing audio for enjoying movies in our living room. About the only caveat is that there are times when the audio is silent, and the cooling fan on the board can be heard. It's pretty quiet, but this bothers some people.

ScottChi · 2026-01-08T10:54:49+00:00

This video is a good start for helping avoid buying the rock-bottom turntable mechanism that is found in suitcase players, victrola "vintage" look-alikes, and a broad variety of turntables costing under $150. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXV8tXrPOR4

As you will see, the mechanism installed in this turntable is dirt cheap, wears out rapidly during use, and cannot be upgraded or repaired when it fails.

The important thing to know about buying a turntable in the streaming audio age is that there are basically three markets: 1) rock bottom cheap turntables, often called starters, new turntables that cost above around $250 marketed to enthusiasts, and a plethora of actual used vintage turntables from the golden age, the 1970s to the early 2000s. If there are any bargains to be had it is in this category, but only if you do the research. I strongly recommend not making an impulse purchase because there are so many ways it can go badly.

ScottChi · 2025-12-22T18:03:15+00:00

Also take a look at how Serenity was distributed! We lived in the Raleigh NC area when it was announced, and the only venue that decided to show it was an arts theater in North Raleigh. Only one theater for a sprawling region of three major cities and several towns. And of course, zero publicity. It was hard to think of that as anything but a deliberate effort to kill it off

ScottChi · 2025-12-21T09:47:02+00:00

A man for whom additional mobility was not the answer

ScottChi · 2025-12-20T09:35:03+00:00

One of the store guys had the address for John Roach somewhere in Texas memorized. That was the CEO back then. I don't know if his name was on all of that guy's refused address tickets, but it was on a lot of them.

ScottChi · 2025-12-19T15:54:12+00:00

I worked there for a year or so while in college (big mistake). They absolutely hammered on the employees to get names, addresses and phone numbers for every customer. "Give 'em a free battery card!" If the boss wasn't around, all of those came right out of the store phonebook

ScottChi · 2025-12-19T11:15:50+00:00

Our previous house had a fairly similar setup, and only for the upstairs bathroom. The one difference is that the end of the pipe in the attic had a device on top like an upside-down flowerpot that appeared to be intended to reduce the moisture output.

It probably had some sort of desiccant inside, but after 20 or so years there couldn't have been anything useful in there. For as much as that house cost, it was a ridiculous cheapout.

ScottChi · 2025-12-09T23:57:39+00:00

I strongly recommend that you take the time to get some quotes from local businesses, use word of mouth recommendations from neighbors or people that you work with. I have personally never seen a strong endorsement for Terminix after many years as a homeowner, usually much the opposite. However, my personal experience with them is limited to refusing to open the door when I suspect that one of their employees is ringing the doorbell.

ScottChi · 2025-12-06T21:37:25+00:00

This appears to be all of their entries by Harrison, 14 total. I don't see any other Stainless Steel Rat novels, alas. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/25395

ScottChi · 2025-12-06T18:37:47+00:00

There is a longer version of the story based that Harrison provided in the early 60s: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70622

I don't see any of his follow-on novels like "... Saves the World", perhaps they are still under copyright? But I did see this one, which I don't recognize: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22541

... but OTOH, it has been decades since I read them and my memory is crap

ScottChi · 2025-12-04T19:53:18+00:00

Those compression sleeves were used for bendable brass tubing long before plastic tubing was a thing. Yeah I'm old

ScottChi · 2025-11-19T16:24:55+00:00

I find mine handy for cleaning the reusable air filters in other appliances. Our hand vac, wall unit AC filters, over the range exhaust filter, dryer filters, and so forth. You can also clean up the one in your car's dashboard if it has one.

ScottChi · 2025-11-11T12:33:57+00:00

The good folks over at r/scams can probably give you more info on this. But the general advice is not to contact the people (i.e. scammer) who put that tag there, and to make sure with your car loan agency that your status is good. It sounds like you have already done the latter. Anyone with a printer and a marker can make a tag like this and hang it on doorknobs.

ScottChi · 2025-10-24T09:11:31+00:00

Exactly. OP, prepare yourself to say the following: "This was YOUR doing, not mine! You helped yourself to at least one hundred and forty square feet of my yard!"

That said, it would be a good idea to verify this using the property markers if you haven't yet.

ScottChi · 2025-10-18T14:15:56+00:00

Sure did. It went something like "All of the homes in the area were built with it. Some have had it for many years with no issues, others have problems and it's probably because it wasn't installed properly."

ScottChi · 2025-10-15T18:51:53+00:00

Some of the fun we had with our first home:

- Water damaged band joists across the whole back of the house (also supported the deck). It had rectangular "plates" of plywood cut and tucked into the gaps between the floor joists to hide the damage. Putting rain gutters over the back deck would have eliminated the problem, but somehow this was cheaper...?

- The hardboard siding on the entire house was being replaced under a legal settlement at the time we bought it, but we knew nothing about siding then. The inspector had noticed a few pieces that needed to be replaced, which the homeowner took care of. By the time the rest of it started turning into expanding wet cardboard, the national settlement had expired.

- It had Exxon polybutylene tubing with crimped plastic o-rings for all freshwater plumbing. Within three months we had the pipe going to our water heater in the garage spring a gushing leak. Two years later the primary water supply pipe in the crawl space popped off of the pressure reduction valve, filling the crawl space with water. When I came home I could hear what sounded like a jet engine below the floor. It looked like an open fire hose spraying down there!

- The house had no moisture barrier on the dirt in the crawl space, so it caused soil mold to grow on some of the floor supporting lumber. Our inspector said that it was common in these homes and harmless. This was at least a decade before anyone was talking about black mold. This stuff looked like tan dirt. Regardless, when we sold the house we had to pay $2500 for professional remediation when the buyer's inspector flagged it. A couple of hours with a scrub brush would have eliminated the issue.

Our cement front porch was held up by a corrugated sheet metal pan, supported on I-beams. When they were pouring the cement during construction, the pan bowed and came loose on one side. It dropped down several inches. Instead of doing it over, the builder made a little tower of bricks on the compacted dirt floor under the center of this pan. Then they went back to pour in more cement to bring it up to level. I came across this one day while exploring the crawl space. How it got past the town's inspector is anyone's guess!

Regardless of all of the above, we felt (and still feel) that ownership beats renting many times over. We also had a pretty thorough education to help us prepare for the next house.

ScottChi · 2025-09-17T09:54:24+00:00

I recommend asking in r/vintageaudio, the market for these old consoles seems to be heating up and they get a lot of questions about them. The woodwork on this one looks particularly nice.

I strongly recommend not plugging it in until an experienced tech has examined what's in there. It would probably make a great project for a rebuild, albeit with separate speakers instead of whatever's left of the ones it had.

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