That is neither flippant, nor glib.
Thank you.

I am sorry for your loss and for your suffering.

Take comfort in knowing that you are admired and valued by many people all around the world whom you have never even met.

Chalk me up as another that admires your resilience and resourcefulness and values your contribution to our community. That's a huge load of shittiness, and I am sorry.

All that crappiness means you have exhausted your bad luck for the near future. Things can only look up from here.

Thank you for your kind words.
My problems pale in comparison to a loss of life obviously, but all of this just sucked whatever energy and enthusiasm I have, at least for today.
I need to get back on the proverbial horse tomorrow.

On a brighter note, I did notice a very encouraging feature of this turbo setup I am building...
The assembly is bolted on the engine, oil feed and return lines are connected on both turbos, they are just not connected to the intercooler at this point.
As I was revving the engine past the 1200-1300 rpm mark, I started noticing a pretty serious whoosh of air from the turbo outlet.
I connected a vacuum pump to the bypass valve and activated it out of curiosity, to isolate the small, high pressure turbo, and the flow at those low rpms just amazed me.
Much more than my MP62 ever put out, and somewhat cooler, like 40C...

This is by no means a scientific way of comparing two different forced induction systems, but the rev range...
It will be a pretty sweet setup when I finish this engine.

Silver lining and all.

This is over my head, and kindly need your help, guys...

https://www.miataturbo.net/engine-pe...4/#post1503350

Post #31

Thank you!

Just got the bill for my second surgery, the one where they placed all the stents.

$128,000 for the stents themselves, $204,000 for the entire surgery. No wonder health insurance costs so much.

Someone has to pay for @ridethecliche's quest to ruin a Miata.

Holy shit...

@y8s, I told you Nitinol was expensive...

Seriously, this is highway robbery.
Hope you never have to through such an ordeal again.

I certainly didn't have to pay that much. $80 was my co-pay, which was cheaper than the hotel we stayed in afterwards. Insurance paid about $23,000, and the rest was "adjusted".

And, quite frankly, while it did involve some pain and some recovery time, it was nothing like the alternative, so I am thankful that I was able to participate in this study. I hope it saves many other people from the pain and trauma of the traditional surgery in the future.

That's amazing, and tops my record. My surgery only totaled around $40,000.

No, it's not that expensive. Our healthcare system is just dumb.

Devil's advocate:

Is it?

How many of that specific stent do you figure the company sells per year?

What do you figure were the R&D costs to develop it, the ongoing costs to comply with all of the requirements and regulations to manufacture it, and the legal costs to defend the company against claims arising from its occasional failure?


I'm not defending the system as a whole, merely trying to suggest that there are externalities to the healthcare system proper which cause it to spend money in ways not directly associated with patient care.

Divide B into A.

Legal costs are probably the biggest problem. Seems like a less litigous society might not have the same costs.

y'all should go watch "The Bleeding Edge" lol

Downloading now.

In a strange way, I miss the days when I spent 90 minutes each morning and evening on a train. It gave me more time to digest this huge glut of media.

There are huge amounts of gamesmanship because our healthcare system is not a free market system.

Seeing as at least two of the stents were custom manufactured just for me, based on CT scans of my anatomy, just 2. Hopefully, forever.

The other 5 stents are standard, off the shelf ones used in all sorts of vascular surgeries. So, probably many thousands per year.

For years, I've been trying to remember the source of a quote.

"Once, I built a raft out of dead monkeys. I had no wood, you see."

I think it was something stupid, like Beavis while in character as Cornholio. But it's driving me mad.

Does anyone recognize this?

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-l...e-date/2860983

3:03

So I just got done watching this.

Basically, we have several different stories in which a medical device or procedure greatly improved the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of people, but produced significant complications or adverse reactions in around 0.05% - 0.1% of patients.

In most human endeavors, that would be considered a massive success.

But in medicine, that tenth of a percent seems to want to deny the benefits of the treatment to the 99.9% of everyone else for whom it is safe, effective, and often life-saving.

I'm no stranger to bizarre and all-consuming medical problems. My sister has Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic disorder which has so very many different effects that you should just google it. She's had many, many surgeries, including a double lung transplant, and is on more medications than a typical 80 year old diabetic with hypertension. She has already way outlived the actuarial tables, so statistically speaking, she should theoretically drop dead later this evening or early tomorrow morning. (I'm hoping that she doesn't, but that's what the numbers say.)

But, at a certain level, that's just how life is. Some people draw the short stick, and get totally and repeatedly fucked up the ass by it. In my family, that's just normal.


What disturbs me is when other short-stick patients, whose misfortune is due to a roll of the dice in the medical world rather than a roll of the genetic dice, make it their life's passion to ensure that none of the hundreds of thousands of people who could otherwise benefit from the treatment which by sheer and massively improbable coincidence happened to harm them, can do so.


I'm not unsympathetic to people who were injured by a medical device or procedure. I understand what it's like to be in a "my life totally sucks because of X medical condition" situation. I just wish that it was possible for a sense of perspective to enter the dialogue.

That was probably the original genesis of the phrase.

In my memory, it was spoken more calmly, and followed by "I had no wood, you see."

Also, I haven't watched SNL since the Aykroyd / Belushi era.

This applies to everything in our polarizing times now.

For example, your sister puts my better half's struggle into perspective. Also that's incredible and heartbreaking at the same time, goes to show how strong the will the survive is ingrained in our DNA.

It's taken two years, multiple tests, blood work, Xrays, etc, to find out she has been diagnosed with a severe form of RA. Unfortunately, the insurance companies force people to use an old chemo medicine, to ensure it doesn't work, before allowing them to use the biologics like Humira.

I'm thankful that I'm able to have her on my insurance even though we aren't married, domestic partner and all that. Those pens are HORRIFICALLY expensive. And within a few months we will see if she needs to go from 1 every 2 weeks, to 1 every week. They are something like $2000 EACH and we don't even have a co-pay for them.

Here you go. "Everything"...
https://www.miataturbo.net/insert-bs...e2/#post795071

It was definitely in reference to some kind of Beavis and Butthead, but you're on your own beyond that.

Congrats !!! :party:

Yay!
I am really happy for you.

Roger that.

He'll be wrestling steers before you know it.

The Future of Public Transit by Cato Event Podcast
https://player.fm/1tEqln #nowplaying

^ Returns an error.

And what's funny is that the error is kind of relevant to something which happened to me today. I signed off on a purchase order from one of my engineers to procure a new set of four 12AT7 vacuum tubes.

The last time I checked, the year was 2018. Why, oh why, am I buying fucking vacuum tubes?

Remember the movie "Back to the Future Part III"? Yeah. That came out in 1990, and the fact that vacuum tubes were required to repair the time machine was a gag even back then. People who were born AFTER that joke was funny are grandparents now. (Hopefully not too many of them, but the statistics say that they exist.)

Answer: because we have some esoteric piece of sound-processing equipment in the band-mixing studio which uses them. And, apparently, it would be completely impossible to create television without that specific piece of equipment.

TUBES!

Have I sufficiently conveyed how annoyed I am by this?

Hey, some people pay $10K to buy home stereo amplifiers with tubes in them.

Also, on the not-quite-so-insane side, ISTR that solid state basically doesn't exist for big-ass RF transmitters? Don't you have some of those in your building too? Or are they up on a nearby mountain? Do they have mountains in Chicago? I guess not.

--Ian

I had to look up the word esoteric. First time I've ever seen that. I feel dumb. I also feel dumb because I have two tube amps in my house.

:eek4:

I have an old '70s tube amp for my guitar. It has a warmer sound.

I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with the link. It's an interesting discussion and I wanted to share it.

Edit: I think I fixed it

The Future of Public Transit by Cato Event Podcast
https://player.fm/1tEqln

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...90f6c46ee6.jpg

*I know they're glass, but the repetitive use of tubes reminded me of this.

I am having the welder guy here at work make end tables out of the square tubing I originally purchased for a Locost project many years ago. The dream is dead.

It used to be.

In the analog era, big UHF transmitters routinely operated at 1 Mw or more. To do that required a Klystron, an inductive output tube, or a travelling-wave tube, which are more like linear accelerators than triodes. They create a focused electron beam and then modulate it with electromagnets. (A conventional grid would be instantly vaporized at those power levels.) These were "tubes" in a sense that most people wouldn't recognize. Giant metal cylinders with plumbing fittings on them.

With DTV, we can run much lower power levels, so it's become practical to use solid-state amps. There are still a lot of tube-based transmitters in service, but nobody's building new ones anymore. AM transmitters were the first to go solid-state (they've been making those since the 80s), then FM and VHF went solid-state in the 90s, and UHF, radar and satellite transmitters have been migrating to solid-state since the early 2000s.

I do still have three TWT satellite transmitters left in service, and I've submitted a capital request to replace them next year.

Aside from that, both of my on-air transmitters are solid-state. This is accomplished by simply arraying large numbers of small amplifiers, and combining them. As a result, the solid-state transmitters are still a lot larger than their old tube-based ancestors, and ironically, the first ones were actually somewhat less efficient. But the increased power bill is more than offset by the improved reliability and decreased maintenance cost.

Here's my main transmitter at Sears, which outputs 20.5 Kw:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7fa895d3a6.png

Each one of those horizontal modules is a pull-out tray which contains six small amplifiers which are combined together to make around 400-500 watts per tray. Then all sixteen trays in each cabinet get combined together to make around 6,500-7,000 watts per cabinet, and then the three cabinets get combined to make the final 20.5 Kw. (The left-most cabinet is just the modulators, controllers, and first-stage amps.) This unit around 18 years old. Newer transmitters are more efficient and smaller, particularly the ones which use water-cooling of the amps.

Joe does it bother you that the horizontal front covers have slight variations in their gray?

Also once I got a pretty solid tour of the Stanford Linear Accelerator and got to put my hand on the copper tube of one of the accelerators. They also had plenty of klystrons there. And Very Thick concrete doors. Neat tour.

More sunlight hits the left side of the transmitter than the right, so the plastic front covers fade at different rates. From time to time, we pull a module out for service, and replace it with a spare. The removed module, once repaired, becomes a spare. So when it eventually goes back in, it goes into a different slot. So, over the years, the modules have all migrated semi-randomly around the various cabinets.

I've only ever visited one accelerator. It was a fairly small linear unit, deep in the bowels beneath the physics building at the University of Florida. During one of my overnight explorations, I found that the door was unlocked and nobody was there, so I just kind went in and of wandered around. That's what I loved about being on a college campus in an era before RFID card readers and magnetic locks were ubiquitous. It was easy to explore interesting stuff.

There is a small nuclear reactor in the same basement, but the door to it was locked.

I got to tour the particle accelerator in the basement of the Loma Linda cancer treatment ward. It's a used Russian accelerator. I think it would have frightened me during the cold war to know that the Russians were going to nuke my dad's balls one day.

Coincidentally, the very best vacuum tubes are surplus Soviet CRT tubes. I built a good hi-fi tube amp, and that's what I use. You can hear the difference in vinyl color on multi-colored records. Sounds like a million rubles.

It's interesting you say that. A lot of radio stations which still have tube-type FM transmitters have switched to buy new Svetlana tubes as opposed to rebuilding their old Eimacs.

What's funnier is that Voice of America has an internal policy against purchasing Russian tubes for their transmitters.


FM tubes aren't quite as crazy as UHF tubes. My last FM transmitter used a 4CX15000A, which is a fairly conventional grounded-grid tetrode.

http://cupcakecarnival.net/gallery/m...serialNumber=2

(The metal rings at the bottom are the "pins")

https://semispares.com/wp-content/up...7c613bc098.jpg

Typical filament current on these is about 160 amps at 6 volts. The power cables feeding the base of the socket were... large.

Saw a Nissan Cube today. Yep, it’s still hideous.

VLF array about an hour from my house. 1,000kw.

Naval Radio Station (T) Jim Creek


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ff1e33a2fb.jpg

6V @ 2,220A. Spicy.

Current power ratings for the antenna are right around 1.2GW. I'll have to keep an eye out for modded delorians around Arlington...

**edit** wait- megawatts, not gigawatts. Phew. that was a close one. Man, the metric system is hard.

Yeah, I was just about to ask you about that. 1 Gw of RF output would set the air surrounding the antenna on fire.

hello comrade, my old friend.

WE HAVE A WINNER!

YOU JUST FOUND THE MARBLE IN THE OATMEAL!

My wife still doesn't understand why I refer to Costco as spatula city.

:bowrofl:

NASA just issued a warning...
Apparently, a mini ice age, expected to last about seventy years, could be upon us as early as 2021, or sooner.
And, we all drive convertibles.
Damn.

Global warming cooling warming cooling warming cooling climate change.

And they keep saying the seas are rising 0.03 inches per year because the ice caps are melting.

Link?

Everything I can find is 3+ years old and the words "mini ice age" were never used by the original authors of the scientific paper. More like speculation that continued reduction in solar activity to could lead to a drop in temps.

Some people have cooler last names than others.

swearing in ceremony

Just got finished with a roofing company rep who mistakenly tried a hard sell on me. Anyone that knows me would know that this is about the worst tact you can use, as I go into full defensive mode.
Anyway, we were talking metal roofing on a roughly 1350 square foot cape cod house. A tad under 20 squares of roofing, for those with knowledge of roofing material coverage, or about 2000 square feet.

33 freaking grand for a damn roof. Really? When I choked a little on the price, he immediately knocked 9 grand off the top if I signed right then. And he said all this with a straight face, too.
Naturally, I told him there was absolutely no chance I was interested at that price. My exact words were, " you're wasting your breath, it ain't gonna happen".

That's $33,000 for about 2000 square feet, or $16.50 a square foot. For a damned roof. I'm still shaking my head.

Yeah, that's ridiculous.
My metal roof cost about a third, and it's almost double that size.
You need to find an Amish crew.

+1 on the Amish. We had a 20x12' Pergola installed last summer by a local Amish shop, about 1/2 price of anything else out there, large wood stained nicely, custom cut/framed to the house by 2 highschool-ish age amish kids and a driver. Math for cuts done by hand on pencil/paper scrap. More accurate than the Solidworks model I made to visualize what we wanted. Done by lunch.

Ryan, find me an Amish crew for Spring patio/deck things unless that legitimately sounds fun to you.