This reminds me of Peter Egan's columns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Egan_(columnist)
For example: https://magazine.cycleworld.com/article/2016/11/1/the-very-l...
A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
91–100 of 190 posts
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
#92This story reminds me that I have a recurring nightmare: I am driving a car and the brakes hardly work at all, so I am in constant fear that something will go terribly wrong. This nightmare was born from a real experience with my first vehicle, a VW micro bus that had horribly squishy brakes.
My driving nightmares, in order: - I am utterly fucking shitfaced drunk and having great difficulty with reality in general - I am completely blind, albeit sober - I am driving from the back seat, for some reason (trying, at least) - I am going uphill, but the hill keeps getting steeper, until finally I am completely vertical, and to my surprise, traffic is passing me - Don't ask me how I know, but I have entered a n…
Are you sure you’re not having flying dreams?
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
#93If this were a 20yo Subaru (chosen simply because it has a shifter that can wear out in a way that roughly replicates these issues) rather than some "high brow" vehicle everyone would screech about how it's unfit for the road.
I owned an '86 BRAT. There was a bushing in the shifter that wore out, and you just about had to open the passenger door to pull the shifter far enough to the right to get it into reverse. A shim from a beer can will fix it temporarily until the shim wears through.
Funnily enough, I did not impress a date by roll-starting it when the starter was intermittently flaky.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should still be able to push start a newer manual transmission car. Put in the clutch, put the key to run, put it in 1st (or so), get it up to speed, let the clutch out, and now the engine is turning, which should turn the alternator/generator which should now be able to run the engine. If your electrical system is really bad, maybe the alternator can't get the voltage high enough to run everything; if your car i…
...which should turn the alternator/generator which should now be able to run the engine. Depends; what's lighting up the field coils in the alternator? A generator, which probably went out of cars in the '60s, sure. But something has to power the parts that create the magnetic field in an alternator, and if the battery's dead... On top of the fact that the coils on top of the plugs these days are more finicky about…
If the battery is dead flat, you're pooched, but you can get way farther than you have any right to push starting a car with an only mostly dead battery because you don't have the (huge) load of the starter motor bringing the voltage down. I've had a couple alternators go and push started the cars they were in until I was able to replace the alternator.
On the basis of this experience, I'm not convinced the alternator actually comes into play in a typical push start. It's usually roll the car, clutch out, lurch and fire, clutch back in and let the engine get to a stable idle. At no point is the engine spinning fast enough to create much electricity with the alternator until after it's actually running. Provided the alternator is working in the first place, of course.
As an aside, in all of the vehicles where I've lost the alternator, the first warning sign has been the radio having a shit fit. I have never once seen the idiot light come on for a bad alternator, which really calls its utility into question.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
#95Sizes up 914
Seems a lot less bother just to pick it up.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
do you still ride?
Only e-bikes in the city, haha! Banned by order of the wife since we have a young newborn. "When the kids go off to college" she says knowing full well that I know that 20 years without and getting on in my sixties will kill me instantly.
If they still let us ride motorcycles hopefully all the cars on the road will have driver assists and all of our incidents will be our own fault.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only e-bikes in the city, haha! Banned by order of the wife since we have a young newborn. "When the kids go off to college" she says knowing full well that I know that 20 years without and getting on in my sixties will kill me instantly.
If they still let us ride motorcycles hopefully all the cars on the road will have driver assists and all of our incidents will be our own fault.
[dead]
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
#98“ Since there is not a clutch safety switch on the starting circuit, make sure to press the clutch down before you try to crank the engine.” Growing up, a friends dad would use this as a ‘feature’ on his Datsun to move the car out of traffic when it wouldn’t restart. Put it in first, release the clutch, crank the starter, and move the car out of the way.
Most (manual) cars of that era could be roll started this way!
Did it many times when a starter or battery died; just need a bit of a hill or a good push.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
#99I feel like this could be adopted for your homegrown "whatever" framework (eg: UI framework, Auth framework, …) Congratulations on getting hired to this team! You probably count yourself lucky, but don't. We had been trying to fill this role for the past 5 months and every candidate would run away as soon as we showed them our homegrown auth framework. But don't run yet please, do give it a try. So, you are still her…
> Make sure you don't have anything else relying on Python because they will probably never work again. This is why when I see some clever open source tool discussed on HN and I go to the repo and see it's written in Python I close the browser window and pretend I never saw it. Yes I know there are ways to protect yourself when using Python in much the same way that lead-lined glove boxes protect you when working wit…
These kinds of histrionics are really uncalled for. Virtual environments are easy to work with. https://chriswarrick.com/blog/2018/09/04/python-virtual-envi... is a solid tutorial.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Make sure you don't have anything else relying on Python because they will probably never work again. This is why when I see some clever open source tool discussed on HN and I go to the repo and see it's written in Python I close the browser window and pretend I never saw it. Yes I know there are ways to protect yourself when using Python in much the same way that lead-lined glove boxes protect you when working wit…
Everybody else uses virtual environments and alternate installations of python instead of using and installing packages in the system python installation. It is not that hard.
That is the incantation.