Home Improvement

Tester101

11:24

2

Everything was working last night but no hot water this morning. Things I have checked: gas supply to the house is fine electricity is going to the boiler fuses are good sounds like the water pump is working thermostats click correctly But there is no spark, and not even the usual click for ...

water-heater

Boo. Not enough info in question to answer.

BMitch

12:21

Parenting failure:

0

Q: How would I go about raising light switches so my kids cant keep toggling the light?

My flat at the moment has all the switches at about 1 meter off the floor. Naturally my growing kids are starting to toggle the lighting now that they are tall enough. Is it possible to raise the switches and is it a job for DIY? Can you list out the stages I will have to do including making a ne...

switch

wax eagle

@BMitch srsly

BMitch

Step 1: Reverse ground and hot. Step 2: Replace faceplate with metal version. Step 3: wait for children to learn their lesson. Step 4: Fix ground/hot.

wax eagle

meh, the fact that the guy doesn't realize he can teach his 18 mo old to not play with light switches...

Tester101

12:52

It's sort of concerning to me that the community blindly answers questions, without considering if there are more practical solutions available.

BMitch

@Tester101 I blame the person asking the question. He said "how do I move these switches?" rather than "is there a way to prevent my children from playing with them?"

I debated making a long and detailed set of instructions, intermixed with him passing the child proof light switch covers in the store and dealing with children getting paint all over the house. But then I have to get some work done this morning.

Tester101

Not to mention the fact that we are slowly moving away from our cautious approach to answering electrical questions.

BMitch

Do we have a blog post on standard electrical safety that we can link to?

Tester101

No. The post would have to be far too long.

There are some things the internet can't teach you.

The Evil Greebo

I'm a pundit!

@Tester101 LIES! LIES! DAMN LIES!! STATISTICS!!!!

BMitch

13:03

@Tester101 We're trying to teach parenting over the internet. Electrical safety should be a piece of cake.

Tester101

It's all well and good to tell somebody how to do something in a perfect world, but only experience and training can prepare you to deal with the "real world".

@BMitch I'm not a fan of the parenting site myself, but if you'd like to take advice on how to raise your child from random strangers on the internet. All the best to you.

BMitch

@Tester101 This conversation belongs on skeptics. :)

Tester101

Change out all the switches with Occupancy Sensors?

Just don't lay too still on the couch for too long.

The Evil Greebo

I've got one of those in my bathroom

I'm starting not to like it --- particularly at 3am

Tester101

And tell the cat to stop wondering around at night!

wax eagle

13:16

@TheEvilGreebo yep, not a fan of those for bathrooms. Specially at walmart

The Evil Greebo

stumble stumble groan step FLASH AAHHHH AHHH AHH MY EYES!!!

what i want is a switch that turns on manually but turns off on a timer

i know they're out there, just haven't gotten one yet

BMitch

I hate walking into public bathrooms and waving my hands around in an attempt to get the lights to turn on. I feel like a real fool when I see the manual switch right next to the door.

I also feel bad when the hand waving gets the lights to turn on, and from the stall at the end you hear someone say "Thank you"

Tester101

HAHA

Nothing worse than sitting in a stall when the lights go out.

wax eagle

14:00

@Tester101 srsly

Tester101

Anybody know if pin 4,5,7,or 8 on RJ45 are used for anything?

BMitch

@Tester101 gigabit?

Gigabit and Gigabit+ LAN Notes: While 100M LANs allowed a 2-pair (4 conductor) wiring version (100base-TX) gigabit LANs require 4-pairs (all 8 conductors) which is functionally similar to 100base-T4 wiring. Even if gigabit LANs are still in the future - use 100base-T4/1000base-T (4-pair) wiring. If you still have 100base-TX (or even 10base-T) wiring in a gigabit LAN it will still function but auto-negotiation will limit speeds on those segments to 100Mbit/s.

zytrax.com/tech/layer_1/cables/tech_lan.htm

I used a shortcut to wire my phone/ethernet jacks with a single cat5e. Now I have to rewire them all for gigabit.

wax eagle

14:15

@BMitch we've got a gbig lan here at work (we had to upgrade our phone system when we moved so that they didn't bring the whole network down

Tester101

@BMitch That's why I asked, I was wondering if I could use one cable to supply two jacks.

BMitch

I've got it working like that for now, and it's a good solution if you can't fish new cables, but a really bad one if you have access to run a line properly.

Karl Katzke

15:13

Hackity hack, hackity hack... to the tune of yakkity sax

@Tester101 I was laughing yesterday at your "cutting your tape measure" comment, the one that's starred on the right. I have two miter saws; the 10" has a broken brake and no guard. EVERYONE is careful and pays attention around that thing.

Tester101

That's the key to safety. Make it look really dangerous, then people will pay attention.

When people feel safe, that's when fingers are lost.

Karl Katzke

15:29

Hey, so I have a question for the group ... I am in need of an island-style vent hood (one that hangs from the ceiling and does not have a wall to attach to. They're all between $1000 and $2000. I can get an insert-style hood for $500 it seems. Think it's worth it?

Chris Cudmore

@Tester101 Interestingly enough, experienced users are more likely to cut off a finger than inexperienced ones (except for pure n00bs). Once the job becomes routine, you get a bit blasé about safety.

Tester101

15:55

Blog - Stack Exchange: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

Joel Spolsky on September 20, 2012

We’ve all heard the stories of seemingly trivial patents being used to mug technology companies. There was the patent on the “Interactive Web” which a troll named Eolas used to extract $521 million from Microsoft–until a jury in East Texas threw out the patents. There are the four patents Lodsys is using to send threatening letters to software developers everywhere–trivial patents that Google says never should have been granted, in fact, Google and Oracle have submitted mountains of prior art to show that the patents should be invalid. …

Karl Katzke

@Tester101 Can we get AskParents.com: A Stack Exchange to Prevent Bad Parents?

Tester101

Compulsory sterilization

Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced sterilization, programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. In the first half of the 20th century, several such programs were instituted in countries around the world, usually as part of eugenics programs intended to prevent the reproduction and multiplication of members of the population considered to be carriers of defective genetic traits. Widespread or systematic forced sterilization has been recognized as a crime against humanity by the Rome Statute in the Explanatory Memorandum. T...

BMitch

17:00

I think parenting is one of those things that never comes out of beta.

Aaron

17:17

@Tester101 How long are you sitting such that the lights have timed out?

Tester101

@Aaron Too long, apparently.

Chris Cudmore

It all depends on how long the book is that I'm reading. The throne room is the only privacy I get anymore.

wax eagle

@ChrisCudmore reading a book in walmart?

Chris Cudmore

Anywhere I can get away from the kids.

wax eagle

@ChrisCudmore lol, most bathroom doors have locks :P

Karl Katzke

17:27

I actually have some sort of subliminal thing where my bowels relax a bit when I'm in a home improvement store and develop a sudden urge to need to spend some time on the can...

Chris Cudmore

Out of the Lowes, Home Depot and Rona near me, Lowes has the nicest washroom.

Tester101

@ChrisCudmore The bathroom is only a good place to relax, if you have more than 1. If you only have one bathroom, as soon as you get in there everybody else in the house will suddenly have to go too.

wax eagle

@Tester101 bathrooms required are no fewer than n-2 IMO

(n would be much nicer, but is a bit pricey even for a family of 4)

Tester101

@waxeagle So if there are 2 people you don't need a bathroom?

Aaron

So how much can it be a pain to pull off floor and wall tile from a bathroom and then re-tile the floor and put up beadboard on the wall?

I have a feeling there's a concrete subfloor and it's cracked which does not give me happy feelings

Tester101

17:34

wax eagle

@Tester101 minimum of 1 :)

Tester101

n/2?

@ChrisCudmore Nice. diy.stackexchange.com/q/18470/33

Chris Cudmore

@Tester101 It only took 5 minutes to close.

Karl Katzke

@Aaron It's not that big of a pain, just rent a demo hammer with a wide blade for the floor, ... plan on demoing and replacing any wall surfaces that the tile is attached to though. I.e. just tear out the drywall or CBU with the tile attached and replace it.

Aaron

CBU?

Chris Cudmore

17:38

@Aaron Yeah. Demo and replace. Don't try and save anything that's got tile mortar on it.

It's not worth the heartache.

Tester101

CBU

Karl Katzke

@Aaron CBU = Cement Board Underlay

Chris Cudmore

I need a bank in my bathroom!

Karl Katzke

Nooooooooooo kidddddddddddddddddding

Tester101

@ChrisCudmore HAHA, so you can make deposits?

Karl Katzke

17:40

I tried getting a loan from my bathroom, but they gave me such a crappy rate...

The Evil Greebo

@Tester101 I shudder to think of the withdrawls

Aaron

profpartha.webs.com/publications/alicebob.pdf

hee hee

"This choice retains the usual roles of women being at the shouting end
S and men being at the receiving end R (Note : No oﬀense meant to
ladies who read this)

Of the 47 middle school students taken to the hospital, about half received injuries that were not life-threatening, and the rest were taken as a precaution, Duncan said

talk about burying the lede in a paragraph

cnn.com/2012/09/28/us/kentucky-school-bus-crash/…

BMitch

18:23

I get the daily news headlines emailed from CNN, and for some reason this story has been repeating every day for the past 2 weeks and is filed under "tech": cnn.com/2012/09/14/tech/social-media/apparently-matters-hot-tub/…

Apparently, if someone talks about it on Reddit, then it becomes a technology story for CNN.

Chris Cudmore

Cool project though. I've got a crawl space under the family room. I could do that too!

wax eagle

@ChrisCudmore was wondering if I could do that with our bed room (maybe after the kids are in college), but quickly realized our bedroom is over the basement and that it's not feasible...

Chris Cudmore

You'd have to build a really strong platform to support it.

Whereas I could get away with cinder blocks on the floor if I needed too.

wax eagle

@ChrisCudmore right. amusingly it's actually more feasible in teh living room where there is only crawl space below :)

Chris Cudmore

My bedroom is on the second floor, so it's a non-starter.

I'm in a back-split.

wax eagle

18:33

@ChrisCudmore ours is built as a single level. The original house is over a crawl space with a sizeable addition built over an ~800 sq ft basement.

Chris Cudmore

Got it.

BMitch

Why can't you guys just build your hot tub on a hill like everyone else? Beer cooler up top, slip and slide in the middle, and splash down in the hot tub at the bottom. :)

Karl Katzke

Yeah, freaking yuppies.

BMitch

less need for structural support, no mold issues, and who cares if the neighbors see you naked.

wax eagle

@BMitch I have enough redneck surrounding me, no need to propagate it myself :P

Chris Cudmore

18:43

@waxeagle Just throw it in the back of the pickup truck.

Aaron

@waxeagle It's always funny whenever we travel to VA and look at all the named highways

Lee, Patrick Henry, etc

The Evil Greebo

if i never ever ever ever have to deal with another problem of parsing incoming emails to determine system actions it will be too soon

Aaron

@TheEvilGreebo why waste time on process engineering? Need something done? Just make the system send someone an email!

The Evil Greebo

@Aaron you're thinking in the wrong direction

email comes IN, system has to respond

Aaron

I'm saying if your process is running on emails from internal sources, you're already doing it wrong

The Evil Greebo

18:56

not if that "internal source" is someone's blackberry in asia while they're at a client site

Aaron

They should go to a ticket request webpage

so you can validate inputs, etc

The Evil Greebo

My goodness but you're full of assumptions about what this process is for

wax eagle

@TheEvilGreebo what is this process for?

The Evil Greebo

right now? wasting the last week of my life, mainly

in this particular instance the user will have received an email saying, "Hey, we're about to send this product notice out to the client"

the email has links into the app to let them request we not do so, but in some cases they aren't able to browse but do need to ask for a delay

wax eagle

@TheEvilGreebo ick

The Evil Greebo

19:01

so there's 2 mailto links for each customer within the email

one for delay, one for cancel

they have to supply a reason, that's in the body - and the subject conveys the nature of the request

the latest joy is the body comes in as html :/

the REAL joy is the guy who put this together for me spent 5 minutes on it from what I can tell, and didn't test it

since i've spent 5 days making it work

the most funnerist part is - this component is a plug in component

every time i try to fix it i have to compile, shut down dev server, copy dlls over, restart dev server, and put the emails back in the queue

wax eagle

@TheEvilGreebo vomit

Karl Katzke

My dad was griping at me last night because he couldn't run software on his mac, and was incensed that he had to pay for an update to Mac OSX ... he was running 10.5.8

I gave him a small sample of my work frustrations and told him to suck it up and drop the $29 or whatever to update.

"Considering that you haven't dropped a dime on or had a single problem with that laptop for the past four years since you bought it... "

Aaron

At least they finally dropped PPC support

The Evil Greebo

@waxeagle tell me about it. i've tried to get this thing running in debug mode on my box with no joy, and I didn't have the time needed to figure out how, so instead, of course, I've spent 3x as long doing it this way...

wax eagle

@TheEvilGreebo roight.

The Evil Greebo

19:10

the sad thing is the whole rest the app was done with solid TDD practices, 2000 unit tests and a few hundred integration tests

Karl Katzke

@TheEvilGreebo Happens. You should have the fun I'm having right now, spinning up a private cloud and integrating most of the bits (ganeti, gluster) ourselves with our existing monitoring and tools.

The Evil Greebo

and you know where I've spent MORE TIME TROUBLESHOOTING is in the one NON TESTED app

Karl Katzke

Gee, go figure.

The Evil Greebo

head desk slam

Tester101

19:46

@jeremyw.sherman Find a local electrical supply shop, they've got all the cool stuff.

Karl Katzke

hey, speaking of supply shops ... I've had an interesting experience recently. I can walk into any electrical supply and any plumbing supply and any commercial lumberyard or paint supply ... and as long as I don't waste their time and know what I'm buying, they will sell to me and "pretend" I'm a contractor, even giving me wholesale prices. Except at tile suppliers. THEY want me to go through a retailer and pay the markup.

Which I don't mind doing, except that bag of the medium-bed modified thinset I need from wholesaler: $7-10. Bag of that same thinset from my local supplier: $40-60.

Tester101

@KarlKatzke Bringing in a box of donuts from time to time, won't hurt either.

Aaron

Yeah, as long as you're not buying a huge amount of stuff and don't waste their time, they dont' care

Karl Katzke

I went in with a list, had a truck outside waiting for them to drop the pallet on the back... it was a decent amount, but I'm about to tile 1500 sq ft of house with porcelain and DITRA, so I was getting it all at once. :-P

Dealer's Electric here in town had no problem selling me a 500' spool of 12-2 romex and a bunch of AFCI breakers. :-P

And I'll bring donuts to places that'll sell to me... usually the 2nd time I show up. My paint shop gets donuts and they serve me at the pro desk because I don't need a "designer's" help to pick colors or finishes.

Daltile can do the umentionable with their products -- sideways.

*unmentionable

Chris Cudmore

20:06

@TheEvilGreebo That's kind of like developing components for Sharepoint.

Aaron

20:34

Is the Stack Exchange podcast ever going to restart?

BMitch

no idea, looking kinda dead, but that's more of a [mso] question

well shucks, I was hoping mso would automatically link

Niall C.

[metaso] --> Meta Stack Overflow

BMitch

20:49

^-- now you've got me curious, how do you escape the brackets around metaso?

BMitch

21:01

Ah, backticks, got it. Being blue has it's advantages. :)

Niall C.

21:24

[chat-faq#formatting] --> chat faq :P

Hmmm, is this guy trying to do a ninja bump on his question?

BMitch

@NiallC. Looks like it to me, what's the proper response? Public shaming or close the question for being about a hobby project?

Or maybe we should just edit a dozen questions each until he gets bumped off the front page

Niall C.

@BMitch LOL!!!

I'm typing a comment in between ROFLing

Hi @davec. Please don't make trivial edits just to bump your question. If you have substantial new information to add, please do so, but what you've done just annoys people. — Niall C. 9 secs ago

Hopefully that's not too menacing

BMitch

21:39

Ok, titles fixed, time to look through the tags :)

Niall C.

I just got the Announcer badge for what appears to be the link I posted here:

8

A: What's the least intrusive way to find out what's in a wall?

A stud finder is completely non-intrusive and will give you a good idea of how the wall is built. Run it horizontally back and forth at several different heights to map where the studs are, then run it vertically within your newly-found stud cavities to see if there's any lumber going between th...

BMitch

I've gotten something like that before, I don't even remember where I posted the link

Niall C.

Are we getting Announcer/Booster/Publicist for internal links now?

BMitch

21:54

Ok, that's my handful of edits. I may need to change my name to karma. :)

Aaron

22:44

@NiallC, you should only get it when you share out your individual link for a question

For that one mine says:

aaa hxxp://diy.stackexchange.com/a/3259/3912

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