Just Saying -- the soapbox thread

[somnif]

How did you go about adding tap tempo to the blueprint? I know the PCB has pads for tempo, but I thought that was never used in that project?

To quote the Patreon files on the Blueprint:
"Blueprint - There are resistor icons on the circuit board marked JUMP and TAP. Use a jumper to connect the JUMP parts for a standard delay configuration. To connect the PT2399 delay chip to an existing tap tempo circuit (must be designed specifically for the PT2399), but a jumper in the TAP parts instead (leave the JUMP parts empty). You can then use the 6 pins at the top of the board to connect to the tap tempo circuit. From left (#1) to right (#6), the pins are momentary SPST switch for tap tempo (connect other side to ground), ground, +5V, CV from B50K pot, and the last 2 pins connect to the digital potentiometer to set the delay time."

[benny_profane]

How did you go about adding tap tempo to the blueprint? I know the PCB has pads for tempo, but I thought that was never used in that project?

To quote the Patreon files on the Blueprint:
"Blueprint - There are resistor icons on the circuit board marked JUMP and TAP. Use a jumper to connect the JUMP parts for a standard delay configuration. To connect the PT2399 delay chip to an existing tap tempo circuit (must be designed specifically for the PT2399), but a jumper in the TAP parts instead (leave the JUMP parts empty). You can then use the 6 pins at the top of the board to connect to the tap tempo circuit. From left (#1) to right (#6), the pins are momentary SPST switch for tap tempo (connect other side to ground), ground, +5V, CV from B50K pot, and the last 2 pins connect to the digital potentiometer to set the delay time."

Ah gotcha. Thanks, I didn't know that.

[alanp]

Had a silly idea at work today... what are your entries for the following three sportscars?

Been thinking about a custom car for a week or so, and think I might be onto something...

The basic appearance and chassis would be Mercedes 500K styled -- running boards, long bonnet with louvers, that sort of thing -- while the brakes, steering, that sort of thing would be all modern, to a degree. For the drivetrain, I'm picking a Japanese straight six, maybe Nissan or something. The idea here is easily available, lots of power, easily modifiable. If there is spare money, then supercharged -- I don't want a turbo, as it conjures up images of boyracers, here.

[Leevibe]

I think you're basically describing doing a restomod. I think the idea is very very cool.

[nzCdog]

Had a silly idea at work today... what are your entries for the following three sportscars?

Been thinking about a custom car for a week or so, and think I might be onto something...

The basic appearance and chassis would be Mercedes 500K styled -- running boards, long bonnet with louvers, that sort of thing -- while the brakes, steering, that sort of thing would be all modern, to a degree. For the drivetrain, I'm picking a Japanese straight six, maybe Nissan or something. The idea here is easily available, lots of power, easily modifiable. If there is spare money, then supercharged -- I don't want a turbo, as it conjures up images of boyracers, here.

Have a look in the facebook buy/sell groups.  I know of plenty of guys who've tried these sort of lofty projects, only to run out of steam and flick the on after a lot of the hard work has been done. 

[nzCdog]

Just saying... I won an auction for a box of 65 old Valve/Tubes @ $1.50.  A good excuse to finish my valve-tester project and comb through them

[alanp]

I agree with everything in this video.

[TFZ]

I don't know. Last time I went shopping for a bigger electronic appliance was a washing machine. Went in there, looked at the three options in my price range, asked one question to a sales person, decided and paid, had it in my car 5min later.

Might be down to cultural differences. I've had several americans tell me they felt neglected or even offended from the service by the staff they received in german shops or restaurants. Me, I'm just happy not being bothered unless I actually want something.

[Muadzin]

If I go into a store I don't even want to see a sales person until I actually need something. The last thing I want is for them to hover nearby like vultures waiting for their prey to die. Stay the hell away from me, if I need a vulture I'll let you know. Go play poker in the backroom, or chat with the nice lady behind the cashier or something. Oddly enough, there's a curious inverse ninja thing happening with sales persons, because when you actually need one there's usually no one to be found. I reckon the sure fire way to not be bothered by them is to appear to be wanting to speak to one. They'll scatter more quickly then rats or cockroaches in a room when you suddenly turn on the lights.

[bamslam69]

If I go into a store I don't even want to see a sales person until I actually need something. The last thing I want is for them to hover nearby like vultures waiting for their prey to die. Stay the hell away from me, if I need a vulture I'll let you know. Go play poker in the backroom, or chat with the nice lady behind the cashier or something. Oddly enough, there's a curious inverse ninja thing happening with sales persons, because when you actually need one there's usually no one to be found. I reckon the sure fire way to not be bothered by them is to appear to be wanting to speak to one. They'll scatter more quickly then rats or cockroaches in a room when you suddenly turn on the lights.

Similar goes for some waiters at restaurants. As soon as you arrive, they're circling like mosquitos.
When it comes time to get the bill, or another drink.... they have tunnel vision, and look straight past you.

[alanp]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxFhbqvEd2w

It's interesting to listen to this performance, and then listen to the Urban Hymns version. The male voice changes drastically, even for decades after puberty finishes.

[GermanCdn]

So, Update to plagiarism in the Bio class I teach. Turns out, I did have someone submit a copy for their last lab report.

But they did so in such a blindingly stupid way that they almost got away with it.

See, we use an online drop box for submissions, and it has automated similarity checking. Its not very "smart" but it spits out a similarity percent score, and typically anything less than ~25% or so is fine (as you end up "copying" common lab jargon and works cited and whatnot). Anything in the 30-40% range I tend to manually scan to see if anything is hinky (not uncommon when we used shared data sets and they just copy/paste them straight in), and higher than that we usually have people copying/sharing whole sections.

Well, I had one student who had an 18% similarity score on their paper. I didn't even bother opening it to scrutinize, just treated it as clean and moved on to grading things (he's near the bottom of the pile). Today I get a call from my lab director telling me to take a closer look. Turns out, he submitted another students paper, word. for. word.

As in, he didn't even bother putting his own fecking name on the thing.

But because he submitted it first, his was treated as the "original" and the student who ACTUALLY wrote the thing got flagged with a 100% similarity score. Now 100%'s are normal when both partners submit the same paper, but these two don't even have lab on the same day, let alone the same section.

I like to think that I'm awake enough that I would have noticed Luis had signed his work "Victoria" when I eventually got to his, but there is a chance I might have missed it, and if that had happened, he would've gotten a pass.

I'm honestly a little flabbergasted. Dude's never been a top student, and his normal partner had asked to work alone on this particular assignment (not uncommon), but I hadn't expected the guy to straight up pull a "dis is mine". Its... really really stupid.

Way late to the party on this one, but it reminds me of a group project I had in university.  It was in Thermodynamics IIRC, and we had to work in groups of four.  The Project was worth 50% of the final grade, and the final exam made up the other 50%.  No interim marking, no interim tests or exams.  And that year the exam went closed book, because the previous years class caught on to the fact that the professor was too lazy to change the types of questions in the exams, all he did was change the numbers within the questions, so they copied out the answer keys from the previous years exams and worked the methodology forward, substituting the new values as they saw fit.  That class ended up scoring way too high on the curve and made the prof look bad, so he needed to correct that with my class.

Like most pack animals, we grouped up with people we knew, and we had one guy who just really couldn't be bothered to participate.  He'd found a member of the opposite gender who was willing to tolerate him and let him run the bases from time to time, so he spent most of his time with her and none on the project.

At the end of the project, we peer scored the team, which would have a direct influence on their grade (i.e. if you scored someone with 100% participation, they would received 100% of whatever the final grade was directly, if you scored them 50% they'd get half the marks, etc).  Given that we had three people who'd done the work and one who did not, we all scored the non performer at zero or something close to that.

An hour before the final exam the grades were posted for the group project, and my team scored 98%, so all we really had to do to pass the course was not spell our names wrong, which was a good thing because the final was brutal.  I remember it well because we couldn't leave the exam room before the first half hour had expired, by the 28 minute mark I had barfed up all the knowledge I could, checked the spelling on my name and my student number, and handed the exam in right at the 30 minute mark (it was a three hour exam slot).

My underperforming team member saw me get up and he followed quickly there after.  When he got out of the exam hall he said "Good thing we aced the project."  To which my response was "Yeah, good thing"

Needless to say one of us had to retake the class the following year.

[GermanCdn]

As for the Netherlands differing from Germany in this regard, the Germans seem more traditional when it comes to money. Maybe its because of the hyper inflation thing they had after World War 1? They're only now thinking about getting rid of their 1 and 2 cents coins and rounding up or down on transactions. In the Netherlands we've been doing that for as long as I can remember. I can't remember ever having seen a 1 cent coin when we still had our own currency. We got them back when we switched to the Euro but they quickly disappeared again. If you still get one chances are you get one that was coined in Germany and that person did some shopping in Germany.

(Again, I should visit here more often)

Yeah, the whole paying in Germany thing can be a be of a PITA, especially for us auslanders (I've been in Germany for the better part of the last 13 months, working on a project that's a one hour flight from my home).  I routinely carry cash for small transactions, but prefer to use my MC for meals, if for no other reason, than it guarantees I get a receipt, which is not always that common otherwise (my accountants have a real hate on for "non receipt" expenses, yet HR refuses to let me go on a per diem, even though that would make everyones life a lot easier).  Problem is, most restaurants where I am won't take credit cards unless you run up a bill past 20 Euros, and I typically don't eat a single meal in the day that cost 20 Euro (meals here tend to be on the large and affordable side, and 20 Euros would be like a main, a litre of beer, and dessert, and I am having a hard enough time keeping my weight stable without adding all those calories), so then it's back to cash.

And the one, two, and 5 cent coins drive me nuts.  You can't use them in vending machines, they are a hassle to carry, and given that I am typically here for 40 days at a time, by the time I leave there's a half pound of coins that the cleaning lady gets to keep.

[Muadzin]

(Again, I should visit here more often)

Yeah, the whole paying in Germany thing can be a be of a PITA, especially for us auslanders (I've been in Germany for the better part of the last 13 months, working on a project that's a one hour flight from my home).  I routinely carry cash for small transactions, but prefer to use my MC for meals, if for no other reason, than it guarantees I get a receipt, which is not always that common otherwise (my accountants have a real hate on for "non receipt" expenses, yet HR refuses to let me go on a per diem, even though that would make everyones life a lot easier).  Problem is, most restaurants where I am won't take credit cards unless you run up a bill past 20 Euros, and I typically don't eat a single meal in the day that cost 20 Euro (meals here tend to be on the large and affordable side, and 20 Euros would be like a main, a litre of beer, and dessert, and I am having a hard enough time keeping my weight stable without adding all those calories), so then it's back to cash.

Yeah, nobody uses credit cards in daily life over here. I only use mine to pay for the odd stuff where I can't pay online via paypal, or to pay for my ZIN membership.

If you're still in Germany and near the Netherlands, I'm in Nijmegen. Feel free to visit.

And the one, two, and 5 cent coins drive me nuts.  You can't use them in vending machines, they are a hassle to carry, and given that I am typically here for 40 days at a time, by the time I leave there's a half pound of coins that the cleaning lady gets to keep.

I had a friend who collected those old coins. All Dutch 5 cent coins. He had like 20.000 when I helped him move. Those jars he kept them weighed like a ton of bricks each.

[GermanCdn]

If you're still in Germany and near the Netherlands, I'm in Nijmegen. Feel free to visit.

Thanks, leaving Deutschland on Thursday this week, and I'm hoping not to have to come back again for extended periods of time, as I've been away from home 210 out of the last 300 days.  That being said, I'm home for a whole five days this time, and then off to China for a week.