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[dragdeler]

eh

[Grim Portent]

Had a bit of an issue at my dentists today, which will hopefully come to nothing. Was getting a root canal done and the rubber spike that gets used to fill the root in wound up sticking out of my tooth and into the bone/tissue above it. Looked fine on the first x-ray to check the length, wound up getting partially shoved up and through during the actual filling procedure and showing up on the final x-ray to check how it went.

It might wind up irritating the tissue, in which case I think the tooth needs to come out, but hopefully it'll settle down just fine and won't need any more work done.

[Frumple]

Leg has broke off my glasses, now being held sorta' together with duct tape. Friday at earliest before I can do anything about it. Probably going to cause headaches, blegh.

Frame had a good run, I guess. Thing's at least six, seven years old, probably older. Gone through hell, pretty sure it's been run over before... flex frame titanium stuff is pretty damn sturdy. Finally gave out, though

[martinuzz]

My city just bought the old Philips family estate for 29 million euros. That's a lot of money even though it was sold way below market value.

The municipality is planning to eventually open the park up to the public. It is larger than Amsterdam's Vondelpark, the same size as London's Hyde Park.

I'm in between this being a 'things that made you mildly pleased' and 'mildly upset' on this one.
Parks are nice, but 29 million could have done a lot of good in other areas. That size of a park is also kinda out of league for our country's 5th largest city (population somewhat over 200000).

Leg has broke off my glasses, now being held sorta' together with duct tape. Friday at earliest before I can do anything about it. Probably going to cause headaches, blegh.

Frame had a good run, I guess. Thing's at least six, seven years old, probably older. Gone through hell, pretty sure it's been run over before... flex frame titanium stuff is pretty damn sturdy. Finally gave out, though

Titanium flex stuff is amazing. I had the leg break off one of mine after 5-6 years, and was lucky enough that my optician still had a spare leg lying around in a fellow franchise holder two cities away. That saved me a lot of monies, titanium flex does not come cheap, but lasts long enough to warrant the price difference. Not to mention that my metal allergies kinda demand titanium.


EDIT: Heh, amongst the people that also showed interest to buy the property were Bruce Springsteen, Bill Gates, Russian olicharchs and Saudi sjeiks. The current owner bought the property from the Philips family in 2007, after Frits Philips died age 100 years in 2005.
He decided to sell to the city of Eindhoven way under market value because he felt that considering the history of Philips and Eindhoven that was the right thing to do. Philips Lighting literally designed and built half of my city, DAF trucks built the other half.
Some say that Philips was such a considerate and benevolent mogul for his employees and their families because he was a full nephew of Karl Marx.

[Frumple]

Yeah, it's a bit more expensive up front, but... it's only like 3-4x, iirc, and prior to starting to use them, it wasn't uncommon for me to break two or three flimsier frames per year. So it basically price matches in a year or two, and lasts closer to a decade. The cost evaluation is pretty straightforward, heh. Vimes boot stuff embodied, basically.

e: though replacing the leg is an idea, now that you mention it. The specific break is amiable towards it (the part that holds the screw split off the move-y bit), and I think I've got an old frame around that might work. Gonna' check that out.

e2: sorta worked, kinda'. other leg is mostly attached, better than duct tape anyway

it just took like a half hour and was possibly the most frustrating thing I've done in the last two or three years, fuck all tiny screws bloody hell

[martinuzz]

Job well done!

[JoshuaFH]

I went to my Ping Pong Club today, and I'm still just getting my ass beat by everyone. I've been taking it in stride, but it really is feeling like I've been playing this game every Sunday for months, maybe a year or more, and I'm still just fucking shit and making rudimentary mistakes all the time, my stamina is so shit that I have to take a 10 minute breather on the bench after just warming up. I'm just so frustrated with my utterly shit physical ability and my complete dedication to being a half-assed loser. I'm starting to feel like someone that lives in their head all the time like I do just can't get good at any sport or physical activity.

Even though everyone there is really positive and nice, it just felt like there was a heckler in my head for my entire time at the club. I had to leave early cause I was seriously starting to lose my cool, and I didn't want to look like a sore loser asshole in front of the guys I've been slowly building up a friendship with for what feels like years now.

I can sympathize. When I started my job here, people were big into Ping Pong. I'd barely played. But they were so hard up for opponents they were willing to play anyone and be patient.

It took me a solid year of playing a few hours a week before I started to develop actual skills. And don't let anyone shame you on the physicality; an intense match of ping pong is demanding, ESPECIALLY when you're always on the defensive. Competent players understand the conservation of energy. If you're moving to each side of the table on every return, you're working 2x as hard as they are. It's just like Tennis in that regard. If they have to sprint to each side of the court on every exchange, they're going to be winded in a minute or less. Playing from the middle, positioning yourself where it's going to be ahead of time, all these things save you energy.

Bottomline though, you do have a heckler in your head: your ego. You've got this desire for competence and your heckler doesn't let you forget even a single mistake.

Just a suggestion: play for fun. Don't play to get better, don't play to win, don't play to fit in. Have fun with it! Do silly shit. Play 3 feet back from the table. Go for the ones that you maybe should just let go. That's when I stopped being so hard on myself is when I just started enjoying it, whiffs, nets and all. And when you do well.....study. Think about why it worked. How the paddle sat in your hand when it went right. How the ping pong ball felt on the paddle when your slice came out just right or it had just the right tilt to get it where you wanted it to go.

You're just completely right Nenjin. I've been at it so long without expectations of getting better, that once I finally started getting a little better and actually getting compliments from the guys there, it might have gotten to my head a little.

I have so far to go still. It's a road that extends past the horizon and keeps going. It's just always feels like a road I have to travel alone and that makes it feel so much harder and longer.

[TD1]

All sages agree that advancement comes down to one sentiment: 'improve yourself.'

[Rolan7]

I wonder if there's a diagnosis for preferring your tech to be.. never broken, but always fragile.

Me, I desperately want my tech to keep working.  But I worry that I picked up some habits from my father.  I'm not talking about overclocking here, though he dabbled in that.  More that... the computers he ran and we (bro and I) used were generally exposed, laying on tables.  I don't remember what they lay on.  I think it was cardboard, neutral material?  Which is fine, good even, except that I half-remember getting mildly shocked sometimes.  Not painful, more like warning-level.

"Why would Rolan get shocked by using a computer?"  Well the keyboard and mouse were safe.  But this was Win 3.1/95/98.  Computers crashed a lot- save early, save often- and bro and I learned early how to reset a computer.
A button?  No no, these were bare motherboards.  You put whatever metal is convenient (generally a paperclip) against the correct jumpers.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I was getting midly-zapped.  It wasn't the jumpers, or the keyboard obviously.  Was it just in my head?  Was it resetting the IDE cables into those giant metal blocks of hard drive?

All I know is that as a child I woke up in the dirt next to an electric fence once with no memory of why I was there, and since then I have been cautious about electrical charges.  I'm glad modern computer tech is a lot safer to handle.

Edit: Corrected clothespin to paperclip.  Also I'm certain that I was sometimes interacting with metal cases which built up a charge.  I have no idea how that would happen.

[King Zultan]

Why were you using a computer with out a case?

[Rolan7]

It wasn't such a big deal back then.  There was still a CPU fan, with extensive heat-sinks, but there wasn't such a need for a case to direct air.  even now I doubt such measures, though rationally I know they're important.

I'm talking late nineties here.

Though I ran my twenty-fifteen computer with a panel off until twenty-eighteen-nighthteen.  It's all about how hard you push them, and whether you clean them when they're off.

Laptops be different.

Edit: I'm scared to try to fix my laptop because I've tried it in the past.  Things are fitted together very exactly.  It's the "There's always an extra screw" effect taken to 11.  Every time I do maintenance, the whole thing is a bit more frail.

Drunkedit:  I'm discrediting all the times I've reseated a cable, which would definitely fix my keyboard issue.
And yet, pulling it all apart would hurt its integrity.  Even as I fixed the problems.

[King Zultan]

I guess I didn't have as much trouble with the win98 computers I've owned that I had to keep them open.


I found that when it comes to laptops it helps to get a hold of a service manual PDF.

[wierd]

It wasn't such a big deal back then.  There was still a CPU fan, with extensive heat-sinks, but there wasn't such a need for a case to direct air.  even now I doubt such measures, though rationally I know they're important.

I'm talking late nineties here.

Though I ran my twenty-fifteen computer with a panel off until twenty-eighteen-nighthteen.  It's all about how hard you push them, and whether you clean them when they're off.

Laptops be different.

Edit: I'm scared to try to fix my laptop because I've tried it in the past.  Things are fitted together very exactly.  It's the "There's always an extra screw" effect taken to 11.  Every time I do maintenance, the whole thing is a bit more frail.

Drunkedit:  I'm discrediting all the times I've reseated a cable, which would definitely fix my keyboard issue.
And yet, pulling it all apart would hurt its integrity.  Even as I fixed the problems.

The secret to this, is to take a piece of duct tape, make an inside-out loop of it, so the sticky is facing out, then stick it to the table.  As you disassemble the laptop, place the screws head-side down into the sticky.  You will not lose any this way.  Put them down linearly in order of removal.  Always work in an orderly manner, starting in one corner, and working in a consistent clock direction.  When you re-assemble, go in the opposite, orderly direction.


As for service manuals--- I find that a good teardown video is more than adequate most of the time.

[EuchreJack]

Leg has broke off my glasses, now being held sorta' together with duct tape. Friday at earliest before I can do anything about it. Probably going to cause headaches, blegh.

Frame had a good run, I guess. Thing's at least six, seven years old, probably older. Gone through hell, pretty sure it's been run over before... flex frame titanium stuff is pretty damn sturdy. Finally gave out, though

I can sympathize, same thing happened to me.
Once I finally got to Wal-Mart when the guy was actually there, the replacement frames cost me $20 and took 20 minutes to get them.  I feel exceedingly stupid to have waited like 2 weeks to get around to it.  My old pair was from there, so they had the same/similar frames in stock.

[Frumple]

Yeah, going to the place I got them from would be ideal... but like I mentioned, I've had the frames for like a decade. I don't remember where I got them from :V