Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) said:

Finally got the Santa Fe back from the mechanic.

Total bill: $583.00. Or less than half the original quote. He felt really bad about taking 17 days to get the clutch swapped. While it was tore apart, he offered to change the oil, flush the coolant, flush the power steering fluid and swap new front control arms and sway bar end links (parts I had on hand) for no additional cost. We decided to use my clutch kit and flywheel since it was better quality than the one he sourced locally.

When it came time to pay the bill, he knocked the labor down from 7.5 hours to 5 hours and didn't charge any labor to change the clutch master and slave. The clutch master (aka brake master) was a total PITA to swap. He also charged me his cost for the clutch master and slave (about $60).

He also washed it and cleaned the wheels.

I have never had a mechanic that was so honest and with this much integrity. I guess this could go in the minor win thread.

Wait! They made a Hyundai Santa Fe with a manual transmission?

In reply to Sine_Qua_Non :

Yep. The first gen (2001-2006), you could get a 5 speed manual on the FWD 2.4L 4 cylinder models. The 4 cylinder was dropped in 2005. The second gen (2007-2012), you could get a 5 speed manual on only the FWD 2.7L V6 models. I have a 2004 4 cylinder. It is slow by 2004 standards. 140hp only gets you so much.

The 2.4L 4 cylinder is a Mitsubishi 4G64 made under license by Hyundai (called the G4JS). Its also called the Sirius world engine. The Chrysler Cloud cars got the same 2.4L.

If you were crazy enough, you could build a sleeper turbo 4G64 manual Santa Fe monster.

Tore into my Chevy truck this afternoon looking for the short in the turn signals.
Anyone making fun of Lucas has not had an older Chevy and fought Delco-Remy!
I've been disconnecting sub-systems to isolate which harness the dead short is in, to no avail so far.
Then of course the electricity went out so I could not go on-line looking for a better schematic than this lousy Chiltons provides.
Power came back now that it is too dark to continue with the truck, and or course it will rain tomorrow.
These power outages seem to be happening much more frequently.
I am certain this is related to the increased reliance on "Green" (Commie Red!) energy as detailed in my latest rate increase notice.

I have reached to point of looking forward to no longer owning this truck, and getting my small generator working too.

In reply to mtn :

I do have the video from LiveBarn, but I'm not sure how to share it here though. I sent you a pm  

Since the first, and probably only, play off game is Saturday, I doubt anything beyond the local league review could happen.

But I would be curious to get you opinion on what yoinwould have called.  

Saw the Dodge announcement. I have a hot take. 

They ought to be proud of this thing. The event was a lot, but good for them celebrating it. 

But, like creating a beautiful Charger Daytona EV concept and making it louder than their gas cars, Dodge can't seem to help themselves from being the dumb kind of edgy.

So many incredible numbers. Such stats. Incredible engineering...

"Won't save the polar bears."

My dude, what are you doing? Who brought up polar bears? You just said ethanol has a lower carbon footprint. You could have stopped there. Who is your key demographic, friggin seals?

In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :

They know exactly who their demographic is. It's not the people who are worried about the polar bears or the seals. It may well be the opposite of those people. 

The chances of that line being there by accident are close to zero. 

The_Jed said:

Is Canada hiring? I hear they have health care that you can actually use without going broke or sacrificing your children's future...

You have no idea.

*The job market is insane here for what you do, and an ambitious and energetic guy will make 150 grand a year, healthcare included.

*The above is for informational purposes only. There is no intent to convince or suggest that people move from their country with the express intent of finding employment, and/or living in Canada.

This seems to be all I'm doing lately:

Mike (Forum Supporter) said:

Saw the Dodge announcement. I have a hot take. 

They ought to be proud of this thing. The event was a lot, but good for them celebrating it. 

But, like creating a beautiful Charger Daytona EV concept and making it louder than their gas cars, Dodge can't seem to help themselves from being the dumb kind of edgy.

So many incredible numbers. Such stats. Incredible engineering...

"Won't save the polar bears."

My dude, what are you doing? Who brought up polar bears? You just said ethanol has a lower carbon footprint. You could have stopped there. Who is your key demographic, friggin seals?

My beef was with Dodge too, and the plethora of "news" outlets which just use the copy they provide.

I think I counted three uses of "aerospace quality" and I am sick of it. It's meaningless. Stop it. Either provide a material specification and hardness, or maybe just a resulting tensile strength, or skip it altogether. You just make yourselves stupid.

Cost for the replacement tags on my car: $650.00. Friggin' Iowa man.

I just found out that Relaxium will help you fall asleep "140% faster".

I guess I have no business being disappointed given how lame a$$ the product name is but really, do we need to do this, I guess so...

There are four levels of data (nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio) and ratio data has a natural zero point such as zero distance and, wait for it, zero time.

Unless we've found a workaround for the immutable property of time's arrow, time can't be reduced by more than 100%.

I get that Hollywood types aren't known for being very mathy but isn't the FTC supposed to review commercials for "Truth in Advertising"...how did this E36 M3 get OK'd?

berkeleying cats.

I have three barn cats and it's not out the ordinary to not see two of them for weeks on end. They're just not social.  I'm doing some electrical repair in the house, and at the point where I'm closing up the basement ceiling. So I go out this morning to cut a piece of plywood - instead of drywall so I can have easy access in the future if need be, and hear a very rough sounding meow. I trace it to the room where I keep my bikes and open it up. Out comes a very skinny, not very good looking, normally robust cat. I have no idea how, or how long he was locked in there, I don't remember the last time I opened that locked door, but can definitely trace it back two weeks thanks to a pic I took. There's no way he could have lived that long in there without food or water, but he doesn't look good. I make sure he has access to food and water, go back in the house, button up the ceiling, and get ready for my doctor's appointment.

I also have three cats in the house and it's not out of the ordinary for one to completely disappear if there's anybody but us in the house - he's a textbook fraidy cat, and PW was babysitting this morning. So while I was in the waiting room at the doctor's office I get a frantic series of texts from PW. There's a lot of noise coming from the area under TV in the living room, and one of the cats is missing... Guess who jumped up into the basement ceiling while I was out cutting material, and didn't get out before I buttoned it up?

berkeleying cats.

In reply to RX Reven' :

Hmm.

A question, how much faster is "twice as fast" expressed as a percentage?  If twice as fast as 10min is 5min, is that 100% faster?

I am not defending using precise numbers for vague concepts, but at the same time, 100% better fuel economy is not the same as 100% less fuel consumption.

slefain said:

This seems to be all I'm doing lately:

Lately?  It's been this was since I bought that engagement ring in 1985.

" My teeth are a zillion shades whiter." 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to RX Reven' :

Hmm.

A question, how much faster is "twice as fast" expressed as a percentage?  If twice as fast as 10min is 5min, is that 100% faster?

 

I am not defending using precise numbers for vague concepts, but at the same time, 100% better fuel economy is not the same as 100% less fuel consumption.

It's all about the directionality of the calculations (what will be the numerator and what will be the demonator)...going from 20 mpg to 40 mpg is a 100% improvement in miles per gallon (mpg) but you've only reduced gallons per mile (gpm) by 50%.

I'm fine with marketing people cherry picking the most flattering way to express the numbers but "140% faster" is impossible since time is ratio data and as such has a zero value "it used to take me 30 minutes to fall asleep but now that I'm taking Relaxium I fall asleep INSTANTLY" = 100% faster, not 140% faster...you can no more fall asleep in less than zero time than you can clear the quarter mile in less than zero time no matter how much NOS and how many gear shifts Dom is throwing at the problem.

TLDR:  Time is ratio data, it has a rational zero value, you can go twice as fast, you can go ten times as fast, but you can't reduce your lap time by more than 100%.  

Streetwiseguy said:

" My teeth are a zillion shades whiter." 

Marry me; I'm a good cook and I wrench well.

I forgot my lunch. So I stole snacks out  of my kid's snack bag.

Tonight was a E36 M3 show.

My sister brought her car over because dad thought it needed an alternator and it also needs motor mounts.  Cool.  Get the front end torn apart so I can pull the alternator out, replace the right side mount, and get the new alternator in.  By now it's late and we're hungry so we decide to call it quits and go for tacos.  Car is still making its nasty whining sound, so I think it's actually the power steering pump.  Grr.

So we go over to the Mexican place.  She drives her car and I follow in der Scheißwagen with my daughter.  About a quarter of a mile from the parking lot the display goes red and shows the charging failure indicator.  With no power steering, I pull in to the parking lot.  Serpentine belt is shredded and gone.  berkeley.

It's after 2100 and O'Reilly's closes at 2200, but they won't answer the phone and since my water pump is driven by the serpentine, I'm not thinking that driving it the three-ish miles from the restaurant to O'Reilly's to the shop is a good idea with absolutely no water circulation at all.

My sister offers to drive my daughter and I home so we have tacos and go out to get in her car.  She starts it up and her battery light is now on.  I ask her about it and she said that she noticed it before and said something but I didn't respond so she figured it wasn't a big deal.  I never heard her say anything about it, but I must have just not heard her over the other noise in the shop.  So we go back to the shop and have my wife come to pick up my very tired daughter.

I put the multimeter on the battery and it's showing 12.9 volts.  That's not a battery that just went four or five miles with headlights on and no charging.  Started up the car and it's pushing 14.4 volts.  I am assuming that it is a bad rebuild.  By the same guy that gave me a bad rebuild starter for that same car a couple months ago.  So out goes the alternator and in goes the old one.

So I'm going to order up a power steering pump for her, she's going to take that alternator back, and I'm going to have to have der Scheißwagen towed over to the shop tomorrow morning so I can put a new belt on it.  I have no idea how or why that belt failed.  It only has about 12000 miles on it, give or take, although I did have a bad alternator on there for a while and maybe it damaged the belt?

My boss provides zero feedback, no coaching and hasn't given me an evaluation in the 11 months that I've had this job. 

I have high production numbers and rarely bother him but yesterday he said that he assumes that I'm doing things completely wrong because of how productive I am.

WTF?

I need to get out of here.

RX Reven' said:

I just found out that Relaxium will help you fall asleep "140% faster".

I guess I have no business being disappointed given how lame a$$ the product name is but really, do we need to do this, I guess so...

There are four levels of data (nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio) and ratio data has a natural zero point such as zero distance and, wait for it, zero time.

Unless we've found a workaround for the immutable property of time's arrow, time can't be reduced by more than 100%.

I get that Hollywood types aren't known for being very mathy but isn't the FTC supposed to review commercials for "Truth in Advertising"...how did this E36 M3 get OK'd?

I read an audiobook, which I cannot recommend, which essentially plays out Rokos Basilisk, which I never really thought of as being that impactful anyway. The AI at one point was asked to estimate its IQ, and it said it was "orders of magnitude above the most intelligent humans", and was further instigated to make an estimate despite the IQ scale going high enough, and so estimated 850 or something.

Which means the superintelligent AI didn't know what "orders of magnitude" means.

Maybe better than people who should know better talking about "exponential growth".

Told the local "Mow N Blow" guy the next time he blew all the yard trimming and leaves into the street over to my side, I was going to put it all right back on this customers' lot. And this morning I did. I already had the city go after a local apartment complex that was blowing ALL their fall leaves into our street every two weeks. It ends up clogging the street drains and making the whole street look bad because it also spreads out the trash they don't bother to pick up.

So many rants... lots of relatively minor stuff, but it definitely adds up. This year has been the worst for us, and it's not even a quarter of the way done. The current top one...

The (mis)adventures of myself and hot tubs for our rental cabin has been well documented here- heck, I think I made a build thread for the rebuilding the original one (that now serves as our home hot tub). Last year, the rental company noted that the smaller, used plastic-shelled one that we'd eventually gotten for the cabin was leaking, and the guy who works on the hot tubs out there told us that him trying to find and fix the leak would likely run up a bill more than buying a new one because of how bad the access to some of the piping was on the older models like ours. OK, fine- not thrilled, but earlier this year when Costco had a sale on them we bought a new roughly equivalent-sized one. It was delivered to the cabin company and their maintenance guys took care of schlepping it up the 50-odd stairs to the cabin deck and hauling the old one down for me to pick up later and bring home to try and repair for if we ever get something build on our other property. 

A week or so after they get the new one put in and hooked up (the maintenance guys hooked the electric up themselves- it's not rocket science; and if it had required that, I woud have done it myself) I get a text from the office manager that it looks like the new one is leaking. WTF?!? She says, "They think it may just be a loose fitting, I'll have maintenance take a look at it." After some head-scratching on my parts as to what the heck kind of fitting could be loose on a brand new hot tub, a light bulb goes off in my head and I message both the office manager and the maintenance guys, "I'm wondering if perhaps the hot tub was shipped with the drain hose not tightly capped so water didn't collect in the pipes during shipping and freeze- I'd suggest checking that." Radio silence in response. Another week goes by- office manager texts me, "Do I need to have XXXX (their hot tub guy) look at the hot tub at your cabin? Housekeeping says it still looks like it's leaking." Me: "I thought maintenance was going to look at it, did that ever happen?" Again, nothing.

This last weekend- 3 weeks or so after the hot tub was first delivered and hooked up, we go out to the cabin for the weekend for the first time with Baby Bat- and lo and behold, the hot tub is indeed leaking a lot. Like, they clearly refilled it shortly before we got there and by the morning (on a night where it got below freezing...) it was mostly empty. So when it warmed up a bit the next day and I wasn't going to have to worry about freezing my fingers off, I go out to pull off the access panel to take a look and see if I can figure out the problem. Before I even get the first screw off, I can clearly see that it's dripping from below a notch in the cover- and reach in and pull out the drain hose... which has a very loose cap on it. Tighten up the cap, dripping stops. 

So, this brand new hot tub spent nearly a month sitting out leaking most of the water out, through multiple nights where it was below freezing and water could have frozen in the pipes and broken something, because not one single person in the company who we pay 40% of the nightly rental fee on the cabin (plus the cleaning fee they charge the guests) could be arsed to check the most bloody simple and obvious thing that I LITERALLY told them to check weeks prior. NOT the best move when it's time for us to sign a new rental agreement... Sadly, for better or worse, going with any other management company would likely not bring in nearly the number of nights of rentals that they do.  

"Professional" car haulers who cannot deal with a car that would just be driven home if it needed no work at all. 
Over two days the load has been refused twice.
Car starts fine using a remote starter which is in place, steering is unlocked.
At only 1400# it could be pushed onto the truck by a couple of teen girls!
If it is not delivered by the weekend I will do the 1,000 mile round trip and just go get it myself using my 81 C30.

Peabody said:

The_Jed said:

Is Canada hiring? I hear they have health care that you can actually use without going broke or sacrificing your children's future...

You have no idea.

*The job market is insane here for what you do, and an ambitious and energetic guy will make 150 grand a year, healthcare included.

 

*The above is for informational purposes only. There is no intent to convince or suggest that people move from their country with the express intent of finding employment, and/or living in Canada.

I guess it's time to take the Red Seal test.

I actually tried to immigrate to Canada without a Red Seal certification during the winter of '14 then again during the following spring. Lol


I didn't really have the time or energy to jump through hoops or study for and take any tests when I was working that E36 M3ty "relief" schedule.