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Old November 15th, 2013 #1
Alex Linder
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Default What New Things Have You Learned?

I learned how to make a pizza. I daresay two out of four chefs would prefer mine to a Totinos.

A one-man pizza cooked on the back of a skillet. That's a technique I picked up on the Internet. It actually works. Really well. So you make your dough, and you cut it into four balls, which can be frozen. Then you can defrost them quickly whenever you want a quick pizza. Just put on some pasta sauce and cheese and whatever toppings you have. Roll the dough out with fingers or pin to cover back of skillet, bake at 400 for maybe 15 minutes. Downside is only that none of that shit is really any good for you - dough, cheese, pasta sauce. All cheap carbs. But tasty.

Anyway, the point is, what kind of new thing have you learned how to do the last couple months?

My next thing is processing a deer, hopefully.
 
Old November 15th, 2013 #2
N.B. Forrest
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Last night I learned how to switch back & forth between the DVD and VCR functions of my combo player with an RCA universal remote I bought just for controlling that machine. I'd forgotten how (since I rarely use it, and I lost the manual), so rather than simply getting out of the recliner to push the switch button on the player, I stubbornly & furiously sat there jabbing first one remote button, then another, in myriad combinations.

It turns out the trick if you want to use the DVD is to press the DVD selector button on the remote when starting the player; this is counter-intuitive, since to turn the player OFF, you've got to press the VCR selector; pressing that one on startup makes it impossible to switch functions....

The geeks who make today's electronic gadgets MUST be misanthropes.
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Last edited by N.B. Forrest; November 15th, 2013 at 10:25 PM.
 
Old November 15th, 2013 #3
M.N. Dalvez
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Even if you're using a regular oven and not a wood-fired oven, the best pizza is made on a clay tile - just a little trick I picked up from the Italians in Kal. It cuts all (well, most) of the grease out, and makes the base nice and crunchy without being burned to buggery.

Also: one of the best pizzas is a primavera, which is just a thin base, tomatoes, various thin-cut vegetables, and herbs (oregano is the most important). None of the grease and all of the flavour.

What did I learn? I'm learning a new language right now. So, quite a bit. Including some amusing coincidences.
 
Old November 19th, 2013 #4
Solskeniskyn
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M.N. Dalvez View Post
What did I learn? I'm learning a new language right now. So, quite a bit. Including some amusing coincidences.
What new language is that?
 
Old November 19th, 2013 #5
Lars Redoubt
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Originally Posted by N.B. Forrest View Post
The geeks who make today's electronic gadgets MUST be misanthropes.
It's called Revenge of the Nerds (punishing normal people by making computers, TV:s etc function as stupid as possible).
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Old November 19th, 2013 #6
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I learned that there are few if any niggers in the UP/Upper Peninsula of Michigan; and most of the people up there like it that way too;so I'm buying property up there now.

Money's short,times are desperate, and the women apparently aren't too damn choosy either.
 
Old November 25th, 2013 #7
Crowe
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I recently picked up soldering, specifically electronics. I did a lot of research online before I attempted to fix my old laptop. But I was successful. I took the entire laptop apart completely to look for any reason why it wouldn't post, and on close examination found a spot near the CPU where the solder broke. I had an old junk PC and I pulled the motherboard out and practiced on that first. I have another test subject to try soldering on later - a broken X box 360 (RROD'd). Apparently there is a fix kit for it online, but it requires soldering.

In the last several years I've attempts to learn more about PC hardware, and eventually built my own PC successfully from parts I ordered. It was remarkably simple to assemble. Its just an area of knowledge I think would be beneficial to learn. And learning soldering sorta expands on that a bit. I like to dabble in a variety of trades/skills.

Last edited by Crowe; November 25th, 2013 at 02:36 AM.
 
Old November 30th, 2013 #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crowe View Post
I recently picked up soldering, specifically electronics. I did a lot of research online before I attempted to fix my old laptop. But I was successful. I took the entire laptop apart completely to look for any reason why it wouldn't post, and on close examination found a spot near the CPU where the solder broke. I had an old junk PC and I pulled the motherboard out and practiced on that first. I have another test subject to try soldering on later - a broken X box 360 (RROD'd). Apparently there is a fix kit for it online, but it requires soldering.

In the last several years I've attempts to learn more about PC hardware, and eventually built my own PC successfully from parts I ordered. It was remarkably simple to assemble. Its just an area of knowledge I think would be beneficial to learn. And learning soldering sorta expands on that a bit. I like to dabble in a variety of trades/skills.
Yeah building PCs isn't too hard but you can make some decent extra cash if you can find people willing to let you build them nice computers with 'custom' (aka not that crap from Dell) cases.
 
Old November 30th, 2013 #9
N.B. Forrest
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I learned how to get rid of cherry angiomas, those fugly, bright-red benign moles made up of clumps of blood vessels. I figured why pay a dermatologist hundreds of Simoleons to remove the bastards if I can? Plus, the OTC home "remedies" for them cost $80 a bottle and take days if not weeks, which is almost as bad. It's very simple: I just took a nail, heated it up with a lighter, and applied it Chisum Trail-style; they get black from the soot and scab over, then dry up. One protest moo, then I loosened the lasso on my ankles and trotted off indignantly into the range....

Don't try to cut the damn things off, though: I didn't, but I'm told they bleed like hell, forcing a trip to the ER.
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Old December 1st, 2013 #10
Alex Linder
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Bowmont View Post
Yeah building PCs isn't too hard but you can make some decent extra cash if you can find people willing to let you build them nice computers with 'custom' (aka not that crap from Dell) cases.
This seems like an ideal small-town job. Would seem like someone who was any good would have all the work he could handle.
 
Old December 1st, 2013 #11
Alex Linder
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Quote:
Originally Posted by N.B. Forrest View Post
I learned how to get rid of cherry angiomas, those fugly, bright-red benign moles made up of clumps of blood vessels. I figured why pay a dermatologist hundreds of Simoleons to remove the bastards if I can? Plus, the OTC home "remedies" for them cost $80 a bottle and take days if not weeks, which is almost as bad. It's very simple: I just took a nail, heated it up with a lighter, and applied it Chisum Trail-style; they get black from the soot and scab over, then dry up. One protest moo, then I loosened the lasso on my ankles and trotted off indignantly into the range....

Don't try to cut the damn things off, though: I didn't, but I'm told they bleed like hell, forcing a trip to the ER.
Damn. Now that's taking problems into your own hands.
 
Old December 1st, 2013 #12
Nigel Thornberry
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I learned that eating alone in a nice restaurant is considered weird
 
Old December 1st, 2013 #13
M.N. Dalvez
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Quote:
This seems like an ideal small-town job. Would seem like someone who was any good would have all the work he could handle.
It's ideal anywhere, really. Target consumers are mostly 'gamers' and people who don't want to pay $2000+ for a good computer - mind you, those are pretty broad demographics.

I paid $500 in materials for my computer (mate's rates, mind you - I paid him for his labour in beer, at his request) for a computer that would have cost over $2000 - he could have charged much more for it. But one hand washes the other.

So my sons can play their games on it (WHEN I'M NOT WORKING OR USING IT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!), and I can do my work, make phone calls, and store all the media I want.
 
Old December 1st, 2013 #14
N.B. Forrest
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Originally Posted by Alex Linder View Post
Damn. Now that's taking problems into your own hands.
Actually, it doesn't hurt much, and only when the brandin' arn is applied; immediately after that, no problem at all. Any adult can handle it with ease. Cherry angiomas are pretty insensitive to pain; all you've got to be careful about is surrounding normal skin - which isn't....
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Old December 1st, 2013 #15
N.B. Forrest
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M.N. Dalvez View Post
Even if you're using a regular oven and not a wood-fired oven, the best pizza is made on a clay tile - just a little trick I picked up from the Italians in Kal. It cuts all (well, most) of the grease out, and makes the base nice and crunchy without being burned to buggery.

Also: one of the best pizzas is a primavera, which is just a thin base, tomatoes, various thin-cut vegetables, and herbs (oregano is the most important). None of the grease and all of the flavour.

What did I learn? I'm learning a new language right now. So, quite a bit. Including some amusing coincidences.
If it was basically just soldering & assembly, I'd try it myself, but if they asked me to fix any software/virus problem, I'd run like hell.... Totally useless at such things.
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"The man who does not exercise the first law of nature—that of self preservation — is not worthy of living and breathing the breath of life." - John Wesley Hardin
 
Old December 1st, 2013 #16
M.N. Dalvez
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Give it a shot. You might be surprised at how lucrative it is.

My primary insight into business over the past year has been, why work for someone else? Why let the difference between the wage they pay you, and the value your work generates, pad someone else's pockets? Why not be your own boss?

In this case - if you can say to someone, 'You'd pay $2000 for this computer. I can make you the same computer for $1000 (or $1500). Why not? You're saving money, and I'm making money' - well, more often than not, they'll be giving you their business.

It's not so simple as this, of course, but even considering technical support and the like, the figures still add up the right way for both parties. With the money they save, they can easily afford the best anti-virus software. And someone who knows enough to save their computer money in this way, is likely to have the basic knowledge needed to carry out their own tech support.
 
Old December 1st, 2013 #17
Crowe
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Yeah building PCs isn't too hard but you can make some decent extra cash if you can find people willing to let you build them nice computers with 'custom' (aka not that crap from Dell) cases.
I wasn't planning on making money doing it. There are a lot of unforeseeable circumstances that could go wrong that I probably wouldn't be prepared to deal with if I did that as a business. Naturally I'd have to offer some sort of guarantee, and PC parts don't always work, then you have to RMA them and that process could take weeks if you have to mail it to the manufacturer. Its not exactly something I'd like to deal with. I'll do it for me, but I wouldn't want that responsibility multiplied by potentially dozens or more. If I do something like that I'm going to be 100% prepared to deal with any situation that could be thrown at me and go about doing it correctly, or I simply won't do it at all.

Ram seems to have a reasonably high failure rate compared to a lot of other parts, and its not uncommon at all to get sent a bad stick of ram from newegg, and it can be a pain in the ass to troubleshoot. You're lucky if the bad ram stick keeps your PC from booting, then its just a process of elimination, but its not always that easy. They have machines that can test ram more accurately and efficiently, but they're relatively expensive. Any PC shop worth their salt has one though.

Those are just problems a DYI person has to deal with when building PCs, is that its much more likely you will get a part that is DOA. Then you gotta figure out which part is bad. I had 1 bad stick of ram, and also my PSU didn't have enough volts on the 12v rail. It was on the low side, so I had to RMA that too. Assembly is very easy, troubleshooting bad parts is a pain in the ass.

I've built 2 PCs, and both times I did it, I got parts that were DOA. So, either I'm the unluckiest SOB in the world, or my experience is sorta typical. The PC I helped a friend of mine build had a bad motherboard. Bent pins inside of the CPU socket. They were bent to total hell, like whatever Chinaman was working QC that day must have forgot his glasses. Asrock we're actually assholes to deal with about it too, because they insinuated that I must have damaged it. But its absolutely impossible I could have damaged it as all I did was pop the cover off the socket. They ended up sending me a new one, but it arrived about a month later. If that is typical of what I'd have to deal with on a consistent basis, then there there is no damn way I'd do this for a living. I mean, what the hell am I gonna tell a customer if they give me a bad motherboard, then wait 3-4 weeks for the new one, just to find out I got a bad stick of ram too, and then another 3-4 weeks to get that shipped? Definitely not a position I want to be in.

Last edited by Crowe; December 1st, 2013 at 02:46 AM.
 
Old December 4th, 2013 #18
Fred Streed
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I've built several computers, desktop computers not laptop, although I've taken a few laptops apart to upgrade memory or swap out dead parts. The only desktop I ever bought was my first one, the rest of them I've built. If I can do it then almost anyone should also be able to do it. It is software I hate. I have used Linux operating systems for most of them I have built. Sometimes Linux can be pretty geeky to set up, and I'm not much of a software geek so it can be challenging. But once Linux is up and working it rarely causes problems, and I don't have to worry about a virus. I usually go with SUSE for a distro but have also used others, the old Dell Latitude D610 laptop I'm typing this on uses a stripped down distro called Puppy Linux. Boots in under a minute and is stable as a rock. I won't use that jew crap called Ubuntu or some such nigger name.
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Old December 4th, 2013 #19
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This year I learned how to make sauerkraut, cheese, and sausage at home. Hasn't yet, but we will see if any of it kills me as none of it is the refrigerated kind, all just stored in cool dry dark storage at about 55F.

 
Old December 7th, 2013 #20
Crowe
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I've built several computers, desktop computers not laptop, although I've taken a few laptops apart to upgrade memory or swap out dead parts. The only desktop I ever bought was my first one, the rest of them I've built. If I can do it then almost anyone should also be able to do it. It is software I hate. I have used Linux operating systems for most of them I have built. Sometimes Linux can be pretty geeky to set up, and I'm not much of a software geek so it can be challenging. But once Linux is up and working it rarely causes problems, and I don't have to worry about a virus. I usually go with SUSE for a distro but have also used others, the old Dell Latitude D610 laptop I'm typing this on uses a stripped down distro called Puppy Linux. Boots in under a minute and is stable as a rock. I won't use that jew crap called Ubuntu or some such nigger name.
The PC I got has a SSD in it, and at the time the motherboard I was using had a new technology where the SSD can be used as a cashing device. Its a Z68 motherboard. SSDs are considerably faster than mechanical HDDs, but the issue comes down to space. It was a pain in the ass to get SSD caching setup. I actually had to reinstall windows about 3 times to finally get it done correctly. The instructions out there on the internet weren't always correct, or they were convoluted. So it took a decent amount of research to figure out how to make it work. 1 month ago, my SSD quit working on me, and then it was a royal pain in the ass to recover my files, but I managed to recover the bulk of my files. About 2 years of life out of the SSD, which is about average life out of an SSD from what I've heard.

Going from no SSD to just a 7200RPM HDD, is a noticeable. Boot times were twice as fast with the SSD, as well as loading times in general. And I could open up, lets say firefox immediately after booting up, and it would pop up immediately, whereas I have to wait a couple secs for windows the load the startup programs, which loaded instantly when on the SSD cashing device.

Also some of the newer Intel processors have stock clocks that are far lower than their capabilities. The one I'm using is an I5 2500k, and its stock clock is only 3.3ghz. I went in the bios, and bumped the multiplier up to x42, or 4.2ghz without modifying the voltage or anything, and its been stable ever since. I found out by doing some research that its common that processors of that model can be bumped to 4.0-4.4ghz and be stable without even modifying the voltage.

You don't need to be a geek to figure out hardware. The real geeks are the ones writing computer code, and that may as well be rocket science as far as I'm concerned. Me? I'm just a high-tech redneck.

Last edited by Crowe; December 7th, 2013 at 04:58 PM.
 
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