How (and why) to Ramble on your goat sideways
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We'd probably have already switched to Bitlocker but 90% of our Windows machines are 7 Pro and we would need upgrades to Enterprise. Might happen next time do a mass upgrade -- cost of Enterprise licenses would be offset by dropping Trend.
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Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 34,402
Total Cats: 7,523
From: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
And not a moment too early. We had *JUST* finished hanging the new monitor in the news set and powered it on when the news director came rushing into the studio saying that we were going live in five minutes.
This man is placing a *LOT* of faith in a monitor mount that I rigged up out of a couple of pieces of box tube, some folded sheet metal, and some non-Grade-8 bolts from Lowes:
This man is placing a *LOT* of faith in a monitor mount that I rigged up out of a couple of pieces of box tube, some folded sheet metal, and some non-Grade-8 bolts from Lowes:
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Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 8,146
Total Cats: 1,087
From: Lake Forest, CA
Killing people is also banned, so I'm very confused.
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Joined: Sep 2012
Posts: 4,560
Total Cats: 1,143
From: your mom's house phoenix, AZ
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Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 8,146
Total Cats: 1,087
From: Lake Forest, CA
WHAT? No. People don't break laws. We need to make more laws so we can be safer.
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Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 18,643
Total Cats: 1,870
From: Beaverton, USA
All the QI your heart desires. I've been "watching" this non-stop at work. I put it in the background and listen to Stephen fry's soothing voice talk about gay sex.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMP...8bYU8qWWJtxlFQ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMP...8bYU8qWWJtxlFQ
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Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 34,402
Total Cats: 7,523
From: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Destroying the Death Star was a huge mistake
By Matt O'Brien December 4 at 9:09 AM
It was as if a million voices suddenly cried out in terror, and begged for a bailout.
Now, that's what happened when the first Death Star destroyed Alderaan, but rather what did when the Rebel Alliance destroyed the second Death Star. Well, at least according to an academic who has spent way too much time thinking about the Star Wars economy.
The problem, according to Zachary Feinstein, is that technological terrors don't come cheap. Or, as a certain Sith Lord might put it, the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the financing it takes to do that. In the case of the Death Stars, if you assume their costs were in line with an aircraft carrier's, that was somewhere in the neighborhood of $193 quintillion for the first one and $419 quintillion for the second. That probably would have been too much for the Empire to afford—21-figures is a lot of money on even a galactic scale—especially when it would have been wary of raising taxes too much and fueling more discontent. (As much as you might want to forget, it was the taxation of trade routes that started pulling the Old Republic apart). The upshot is that the Empire must have built the Death Stars with borrowed money.
Make that a lot of borrowed money. Even if the Empire had rather optimistically paid back half of what it owed on the first Death Star, that would still leave $515.5 quintillion in debt—or around 11 percent of galactic gross domestic product. We can get that last number by assuming that the Death Star cost as much relative to its economy as the Manhattan Project did to ours. So, as you can see, that's no moon. It's the mother-of-all financial crises just waiting to happen. Think about it like this. The second Death Star's destruction not only meant the end of the Empire's dreams of planetary genocide, but also of the Empire itself. There wouldn't have been anyone left to pay the banks back the $515.5 quintillion they were owed or to guarantee their deposits.
The banks, of course, couldn't repel losses of that magnitude. So it would only be a matter of time until their depositors found their lack of capital disturbing, and the resulting bank run brought down the entire galactic financial system. Unless, that is, they got a bailout. The problem here, though, is that the banks wouldn't have just faced losses on their Death Star loans. All this political uncertainty would have sent all risk assets down and made people pull their money out of the banks preemptively. That means it would take a bailout of something like 15 to 20 percent of galactic gross domestic product to prevent a complete collapse. And that's money that the pitiful little band known as the Rebel Alliance wouldn't have had.
The lesson, then, is that it's harder to win the peace than it is to win the war. Getting rid of the Empire wouldn't have been enough to bring back the Republic so long as the galaxy was stuck in "an economic depression of astronomical proportions." The fact is that financial crises almost always increase support for far-right parties, which, in a galaxy far, far away, would most likely mean an inter-species war. It wouldn't take much of that for Imperial nostalgia to start kicking in. And considering that the Empire seems to have come back in the new movie, something like that must have happened.
Don't underestimate the financial power of the Dark Side.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...a-huge-mistake
By Matt O'Brien December 4 at 9:09 AM
It was as if a million voices suddenly cried out in terror, and begged for a bailout.
Now, that's what happened when the first Death Star destroyed Alderaan, but rather what did when the Rebel Alliance destroyed the second Death Star. Well, at least according to an academic who has spent way too much time thinking about the Star Wars economy.
The problem, according to Zachary Feinstein, is that technological terrors don't come cheap. Or, as a certain Sith Lord might put it, the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the financing it takes to do that. In the case of the Death Stars, if you assume their costs were in line with an aircraft carrier's, that was somewhere in the neighborhood of $193 quintillion for the first one and $419 quintillion for the second. That probably would have been too much for the Empire to afford—21-figures is a lot of money on even a galactic scale—especially when it would have been wary of raising taxes too much and fueling more discontent. (As much as you might want to forget, it was the taxation of trade routes that started pulling the Old Republic apart). The upshot is that the Empire must have built the Death Stars with borrowed money.
Make that a lot of borrowed money. Even if the Empire had rather optimistically paid back half of what it owed on the first Death Star, that would still leave $515.5 quintillion in debt—or around 11 percent of galactic gross domestic product. We can get that last number by assuming that the Death Star cost as much relative to its economy as the Manhattan Project did to ours. So, as you can see, that's no moon. It's the mother-of-all financial crises just waiting to happen. Think about it like this. The second Death Star's destruction not only meant the end of the Empire's dreams of planetary genocide, but also of the Empire itself. There wouldn't have been anyone left to pay the banks back the $515.5 quintillion they were owed or to guarantee their deposits.
The banks, of course, couldn't repel losses of that magnitude. So it would only be a matter of time until their depositors found their lack of capital disturbing, and the resulting bank run brought down the entire galactic financial system. Unless, that is, they got a bailout. The problem here, though, is that the banks wouldn't have just faced losses on their Death Star loans. All this political uncertainty would have sent all risk assets down and made people pull their money out of the banks preemptively. That means it would take a bailout of something like 15 to 20 percent of galactic gross domestic product to prevent a complete collapse. And that's money that the pitiful little band known as the Rebel Alliance wouldn't have had.
The lesson, then, is that it's harder to win the peace than it is to win the war. Getting rid of the Empire wouldn't have been enough to bring back the Republic so long as the galaxy was stuck in "an economic depression of astronomical proportions." The fact is that financial crises almost always increase support for far-right parties, which, in a galaxy far, far away, would most likely mean an inter-species war. It wouldn't take much of that for Imperial nostalgia to start kicking in. And considering that the Empire seems to have come back in the new movie, something like that must have happened.
Don't underestimate the financial power of the Dark Side.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...a-huge-mistake
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Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 5,718
Total Cats: 830
From: Detroit (the part with no rules or laws)
I found out today that this is actually a big deal. Like GM starting to make a lot of their **** of aluminum and we're in the aluminum business kind of big deal.
So here's today's story.
I ended up building this yesterday:
At 7am this morning i was told that one of our process tanks needed to be chilled to 65F +/- 3F. (it's ambient temperature is 75F) *okay challenge accepted*
Management wanted to install a heat exchanger in a tank TODAY. Okay fine, i'll need some stainless or we use our spare HX. They wanted to use PVC and i argued for an hour straight with the plant manager, next guy down, and my boss*. I begged them to reconsider since i know / knew it wouldn't work. They didn't cave. So i spent about 5 hours running a cooling loop through the tank and into another rinse tank. (this is city water turned on, basically dumping down the drain)
We let the cold water run though this for 2 hours and it didn't drop the tank temp even 1 degree. IN FACT, it only dropped it .2F. Keep in mind city water right now is around 40F.
So 5 minutes before i left i was told(by management) we needed to install our spare SS HX into the tank because the PVC was not working. So that's what our second shift guy is currently doing.
I have a feeling that Monday i'll be planning a cooling loop from our chiller glycol system. 18F glycol will make that tank freeze if need be.
I know other people go through the same **** (do what i say because i said so), but it happens WAY to often around here. I really need to move up in my line of work.
In other news, i got a substantial raise today.
*My boss also says that, in order to transfer heat effectively the rate of flow through heat exchanges needs to be slow enough that the heat has time to transfer. He said that if the fluid moves to fast it doesn't have time to warm or cool the moving fluid.
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Waterjet intensifiers sometimes use city water as a chiller, with a CNC controlled bleed screw.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is there's a large market for turning that open loop water wasting loop closed with waterjet chillers.
There are some out there cheap, they aren't much more than an AC compressor on top a 55 gallon drum.
Doesn't much help working with ******* retards though, I gave up on that couple years ago and don't regret it one bit.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is there's a large market for turning that open loop water wasting loop closed with waterjet chillers.
There are some out there cheap, they aren't much more than an AC compressor on top a 55 gallon drum.
Doesn't much help working with ******* retards though, I gave up on that couple years ago and don't regret it one bit.
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Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 5,718
Total Cats: 830
From: Detroit (the part with no rules or laws)
That's a pretty good idea.
I'll probably use what i already have. Buy a simple $1500 pump and motor setup and run 18F glycol through the SS HX. Using the already existing temperature controller to control a 3 way valve with bypass, blah blah.
This company likes to knee jerk react to issues that come up like this. Instead of saying, "we need 2 weeks to test, plan, and implement a system that will work for your requirements" they just say "yes, consider it already done".
A common saying around the plant: "here we go again, wiping our *** before we ****"
I'll probably use what i already have. Buy a simple $1500 pump and motor setup and run 18F glycol through the SS HX. Using the already existing temperature controller to control a 3 way valve with bypass, blah blah.
This company likes to knee jerk react to issues that come up like this. Instead of saying, "we need 2 weeks to test, plan, and implement a system that will work for your requirements" they just say "yes, consider it already done".
A common saying around the plant: "here we go again, wiping our *** before we ****"
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