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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: December 11th, 2024

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  • Oh that’s a good one. I had a coal stove that had an idle timer (mechanical clock) to keep the fire going when the thermostat wasn’t calling for heat. It stopped working and the factory said they don’t make them anymore, but I could special order a thirty party replacement for $250. I replaced it with an Arduino, a relay shield and a 20 line program for < $10. If I was more electrically inclined, I could have powered it from the stove’s power. Instead, there is a USB cord sticking out the back =]



  • I’ve done similar to a part on my dryer’s control board, and a GPU’s vram. In both cases, there was no diagnostic needed because the part showed some kind of physical damage. You would be surprised how often things can be fixed for 1% the cost of replacing.

    You got it correct there. If it’s junk, open it up, and take a look. It might be obvious. Given the rising cost of stuff like GPUs, this could become more relevant.














  • Not me, but I witnessed it. ~7th grade 2 boys were playing a game between the rows of desks where they interlock the fingers of one of each of their hands. Then, they smack the back of their interlocked hands with their free hand until one of them quits and let’s go. The teacher was walking up and down the rows… apparently okay with this. I’m not sure of the exact sequence of events, but somehow, the planets aligned. One of them quit while the other was mid swing and he slapped the teacher’s ass. Hard. Hard enough that it made a loud clap. The look on that kid’s face… blushing red and turning pale at the same time.