Rick's b.log - entry 2024/09/17

Sometimes I impress myself

But I noticed this.

I was sitting in the break room enjoying the tea in the little pink plastic beaker that I brought from home, with the teabag having remained in place for the twenty minute journey. I brought out my phone, connected to the FDJ website, and looked to see about playing my usual turn on Euromillions. Except, I'd already put my backpack in my locker and my bank card was in there. Oh balls.

Wait, maybe... 49... or was it 47? Four something. Then something else. Then something other. Before long I had a bank card number that the app didn't highlight in red (numbers transposed, dummy!) along with an expiry date and the little security number on the back.

Aaaand....

My account was credited, so I could sort out the lottery and get that Tuesday task out of the way.

But I remembered my bank card number. If I had to tell it to you, like you held a gun to my head and said "your number or your life", it would be a "shoot me now". As I write this text, the only thing I'm certain of is that it begins with a four. As do most other Visa cards (MasterCard with 5).
But kick it over to my subconscious (or, in the morning, my barely-conscious), it tapped out the numbers from some memory of having done it a bunch of times in the past...though looking at the card in those times.

So, yeah, that impressed me.

And yes, I'm quite aware that dying horribly in a car crash is orders of magnitude more likely than winning the lottery. It's about one in a hundred and thirty nine million (1 in 139,000,000) that I'll scoop the jackpot. Apparently there's "only" a 1 in 22,000,000 chance of the Pope making me a saint. Well, not me specifically, because I'm not Catholic and I don't believe in that tempermental little sky fairy, but you get the point, I'm six times more likely to be sainted than minted.
I have a 1 in 112,000,000 chance of being crushed by a vending machine. This is a stat I found on the internet. Enquiring minds...
More upsetting is that while I have a 1 in 11,000,000 chance of dying in a plane crash (unless it's a Boeing), I actually have a greater chance (1 in 10,000,000) of being killed by a bit falling from a plane (probably a Boeing).
Upping the odds, it's 1 in 2,000,000 to be struck by lightning.
And a rather astonishing 1 in 700,000 chance of being struck by a meteor. You'd think this might turn up on the news more often (cue comments about mass conspiracy to hide The Truth).
And, well, there's only a 1 in 48,000 chance of dying in a work related accident. Perhaps this isn't the time for me to point out that today I moved a 1,200KG container of highly corrosive pH14 cleaning liquid and lifted it up two metres to place it on a retention container. Oh, and I work with pressurised machines and... yeah...

But, you know, this thing called "hope" is pretty potent. We all dream of saying "screw this, I'm outta here". With €37,000,000 (or whatever it is right now) that would become an option. And then...? Well, I don't tend to think that far because reality is, unfortunately, more potent than hop and dreams and, as messed up as my dreams can be at times, reality always finds a way to top those.

Carte Gris?

Dehumidifier redux

Hooking the old wire to the new.

After an hour, the power brick was barely above ambient, though my temperature gun finds it hard to get a reading from dark object. The connection, on the other hand, read 41.7°C which was abnormal.

It couldn't continue like that, so I hacked the end off the cable (but kept enough to recover it for powering my oscilloscope as the current plug is a little too loose - things can always be recycled!). I butted the cables up together and soldered them for a good sound connection.

I guess this means I can't send the PSU back? 😉

Take a moment to look at that picture. Notice the big-arse cable from the original power supply, and the cheap rubbish cables from this Chinese power brick. This Chinese power brick is rated as being capable of three amps (at 3/4.5/5/6/7.5/9/12V) but I'm not sure I'd trust that wire.

A quick measurement and it showed the voltage, that was 9.1V floating only dropped to 8.9V when running the dehumidifier. Bloody hell, that screw-connector thing was dropping a volt!

A bit of electric tape to join it all back together and, job done. My dehumidifier is working once again.

This is known as an "Engineer's Fix".

Okay, I have just gone and checked. The power brick is slightly warm, but much cooler than the original would have been by now. The wire join is cold. And the dehumidifier has already sucked about 15ml of water out of the air.

The power brick "claims" to be capable of 3A. The dehumidifier only needs around 2.5A, so it isn't pushing the power supply to the limit. I suspect this might have been a potential issue with the original supply, no headroom. It could do 2.5A and it was always running at maximum capacity.

I'm going to stop talking about the dehumidifier now because I find the word "dehumidifier" really annoying to have to keep typing. I don't know why, but it seems like "dehumidifier" is a spikey and not particularly pleasant word. Not like, say "swoosherdrip" or something. That's a nice word, pleasing to say as well. Try it. Maybe I'll call it a "swoosherdrip" from this point on?

Rescuing the rose

Rose cuttings.

Potatoes

So I went and loosened the earth around two plants. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll find a couple of decent sized ones?

Spunta had other ideas.

<dora>Can you say "prolific"?</dora>

That's about 3KG of potatoes, from two plants. Holy Eff. This, with the spuds I hoiked up a while back, is only one row. There are seven (eight?) rows.

I put four of the big ones into the halogen cooker.

Cooking by LIGHT!

As for the rest? Well, I guess I'll be having chips tomorrow, then? ☺

Outside

Anyway, it was a lovely clear sky and 21°C, though in the sun it felt a fair bit more. Now, do I want to sit inside with the Pi?

Sitting outside to write this.

Upsides? Lovely weather. Nice and warm. A bit of sun. Scenery. Quiet.

Downsides? Some bastard bug bit me on the finger. I have a large hard lump that just itches enough to remind me it is there. Could be worse, but... grrr... we're losing bees and butterflies by the billion, but the bugs you wish never evolved are thriving. There's definite unfairness in the world.

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David Pilling, 18th September 2024, 02:20

Thing about odds like those is that they are too small to worry about - unless your number is up. Then with unerring motion you will go into that tiny fragment of phase space.    These things are not random, it has to be the plane with the loose bolt that flies over.    I got a humidity meter in the same space as the dehumidifier. No surprise humidity is lowest after leaving it running overnight with no humidity generating activity going on. That thing they call Stoßlüften works, open the doors/windows humidity drops.

David Pilling, 18th September 2024, 02:22

"1 in 700,000 chance of being struck by a meteor." - how big though.

Rick, 18th September 2024, 20:40

It looks like it's about 1 in 1,600,000 for being killed by a meteor.  The reason the 700,000 figure is so low is because a global extinction event pulls the odds right down (to 1 in 75,000, about twice as risky as an earthquake) not because it's going to happen, but because it'll wipe out eight billion people. Statistics are funny like that. 😉    Either way, it looks like I'll get bashed on the head by ten lumps of space rock before I win the jackpot... statistically speaking, of course.

Rick, 18th September 2024, 20:41

See also: https://www2.tulane.edu/%7Esanelson/Natural_Disasters/impacts.ht m

Rob, 20th September 2024, 00:39

I can still remember my first Barclaycard number, 1980s, back when it was 13 digits (4-3-3-3 digits) rather than the 16 digits today (of which I can only remember my current account's card.) I try not to save card details on websites, so type it in a lot instead, so I guess repetition drills it into my memory. Plus, each new card the bank sends, only the last couple of digits change (incrementing number+check digit)

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