I read a story about a university IT guy with a professor complaining that he couldn't access any websites hosted more than 100 miles away. (Or thereabouts, I forget the exact numbers.) Which is obviously nonsense; computers don't know "miles", only network relays. Long story short, an idle timeout variable had been set to 0 milliseconds, so any connection that took 1+ ms failed, so you could only connect to systems…
Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
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Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#22The president of Pontiac got involved? An engineer spent multiple days on the problem? X doubt
Many years ago I was at a small group meeting with Terry Myerson who ran the Windows phone org and had just assumed responsibility of the entire Windows org. I had a Nokia 1520 (the giant phone) and he asked me what I thought of it. I said I loved it, and then complained about how it kept on dropping bluetooth with my car's head unit, a new Subaru STi.
The next day there was an engineer sitting in the back of my car with a bunch of test devices capturing traces of the BT comms with the head unit. Apparently Subaru didn't sell enough units to warrant its own certification process for BT so this was the first time engineers had looked at it. IIRC it did get better a few updates later; it was maddeningly unusable out of the box.
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#23I have an 83 Land Cruiser and knew immediately what the problem must have been related to from the outset. It actually has a fan that will kick on when the engine is turned off and the car parked to blow on the carburetor and cool it off. Incidentally, I still don't believe a word of this story (at least as it's told here). The short delta of time difference between walking _further_ into and out of a store would not…
Is that what that's for? My Mini Cooper does the same, sometimes. I assumed it was something to do with the engine space being so small and cramped, so the fan had to continue for a bit after shutdown to prevent residual heat from getting to the electronics or something.
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#24I read a story about a university IT guy with a professor complaining that he couldn't access any websites hosted more than 100 miles away. (Or thereabouts, I forget the exact numbers.) Which is obviously nonsense; computers don't know "miles", only network relays. Long story short, an idle timeout variable had been set to 0 milliseconds, so any connection that took 1+ ms failed, so you could only connect to systems…
Related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37576633
And we've come full circle, since I presume OP found this article linked from the comments on that one.
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
GM cars are notorious for (sometimes) developing strange problems that would have you think they are possessed with the devil. (Despite post-1990 GM cars being near peers to Japanese cars for reliability overall)
I learned a lot of things from my father. Unfortunately a lot of them were what not to do. Don’t buy cheap tools that you’ll have to replace three times in the lifespan of one that costs 50% more. And don’t buy GM. Mechanically they may be reliable, but 90’s GM forgot how to make paint stick to metal and had to pay to repaint a massive number of vehicles that simply pealed if parked outside for too long. How? And the…
Why in the world did GM make a car with the name Citation? Are there any good connotations of that word?
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#26Oh man, I'm currently fighting a problem with a mid-70s coupe that's driving me equally batty. Randomly during longer trips, the car will just die for no discernible reason. It's the Car of Theseus at this point with how much I've replaced, but the issue persists, and the nature of these intermittent problems makes debugging a nightmare. More puzzling still that the car starts up fine after a short nap.
What brand model is it?
Mercedes 450SLC
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I learned a lot of things from my father. Unfortunately a lot of them were what not to do. Don’t buy cheap tools that you’ll have to replace three times in the lifespan of one that costs 50% more. And don’t buy GM. Mechanically they may be reliable, but 90’s GM forgot how to make paint stick to metal and had to pay to repaint a massive number of vehicles that simply pealed if parked outside for too long. How? And the…
Why in the world did GM make a car with the name Citation? Are there any good connotations of that word?
It's also the name of a brand of private jet, and of what used to be the most successful racehorse in the world.
I'd guess both the car and the plane owe their names to the horse.
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#28> Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at
the front of the store for quick pickup.
Vanilla is the most popular flavor? That makes me skeptical of the whole story. ;-)
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#29This reminds me of a GM minivan that my youngest brother-in-law drove, back in the '80's. He'd gotten it from his father, who was a career GM automotive engineer - and complained that, occasionally & randomly, it would not start. It seemed like the minivan's whole electrical system was dead... Brother-in-law was known to be "not so good" with cars - so his automotive engineer father didn't take the complaints serious…
I'm going to armchair and guess that your brother needed a new battery.
My (GM) car gets really funky startup behavior when the battery gets old. It will often turn the starter fine, but the electronics can get stuck in weird states until I disconnect the battery (essentially a hard reset).
Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37576633
And we've come full circle, since I presume OP found this article linked from the comments on that one.
I'd actually read the story years and years ago, thus the poorly-remembered details. Total coincidence that it was posted here today. Unless someone here read one article and was inspired to post the other :)