- Feature Articles
- CodeSOD
- Error'd
-
Forums
-
Other Articles
- Random Article
- Alex's Soapbox
- Announcements
- Best of…
- Best of Email
- Best of the Sidebar
- Bring Your Own Code
- Coded Smorgasbord
- Mandatory Fun Day
- Off Topic
- Representative Line
- News Roundup
- Editor's Soapbox
- Software on the Rocks
- Souvenir Potpourri
- Sponsor Post
- Tales from the Interview
- The Daily WTF: Live
- Virtudyne
Admin
Thats not because of natural causes tho. its usually because buildings near one building were shorting a lot of things to ground and near the second building few things were shorting to ground. But few amps? guess some underground power cable were eaten by a rat or something.
Admin
Yes, that's how you get ripple pickups (that monotonous low-hertz buzz you can hear over the speaker, for example). Had that often with cable tv - one connection to the ground would be for the cable network, another connection to ground would be for power and both would be several meters apart. Enough for there to be enough of a potential gradient that you can actually hear.
That's why such things like a "galvanic isolation" were invented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_isolation
Admin
Admin
OK, here's what I think the author was trying to get across. I'm guessing that the computer the son used for gaming was left on in a room no one used. The circuit breaker that was flipped on turned on power to that room, causing the computer to come back to life. The cable tied together was then being used for the first time since the incident that tripped the breaker and cut the cable and caused the other damage. The manner in which the cable was "fixed" was causing all sorts of havoc on the network.
Admin
I don't understand what people mean by "original Memes". They just occur. You don't "produce" them intentionally.
I haven't seen any of the above species before.
Have I stumbled upon some sort of a meme breeding grounds? Or an evil meme splicing laboratory?
Should I expect to see this comment in a mutated and disfigured form a few articles later?
Admin
Don't make it weird, bro.
Admin
Yeah. Like last week when we were talking about douching. Does anyone remember that?
I was informed that "douchebag" doesn't refer the hygienic product itself, but the used liquid leftover from it's use.
Now that I'm thinking about it - what if you drank the fluid?
Or, like, what if you saved it over the months until you had a bunch of it and just chugged it? Or baked it into a cake or something and served it to people? Like Hannibal Lecter covertly feeding people other people except instead of human meat it's used vaginal cleaning juice?
Anyway, yeah, memes just pop up.
Admin
Ok, I won't make you call me "daddy".
Admin
Or BPL. His head with assplode.
Admin
Ooh, too literary allusions for one article. Well, if you count movies as "literary".
Admin
Yes. It's one of the requirements to qualify for articles of incorporation in Delaware.
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
Priceless. The first two are, of course, not incompetence.
Admin
OK, I'm baffled. Those cables are clearly four sets of twisted pair -- i.e. network cables. If I recall correctly, cables like that can sometimes carry low voltage DC to remote devices distant from power plugs. But line voltages? It'd be really dangerous and the legal liability when you eventually killed, maimed or just shocked someone would probably be substantial.
Wiring two cables together that way (one wire nut is missing BTW) isn't exactly recommended. But I wouldn't be surprised if it worked on good days, and if it didn't (a very likely outcome) it would be pretty much like any other bad network cable that has been bent, spindled or mutilated I should think.
So, I can't make head nor tail out of the story.
Anyone care to straighten me out?
Admin
Admin
I wish those who think they live outside of ivory towers but actually don't would get off their high horses. So what you seem to be saying is that connecting main power line (at several thousand volts) from the hydel-power-plant to my computer will not in fact blow it to kingdom come? Read what you're saying first mate.
Admin
Admin
After the third obnoxious, completely unexplained "Thump" in today's article, I had to paste the article into Word and delete all of them to force myself to continue reading it.
Admin
Seriously, any forum that doesn't moderate comments eventually is overrun by kooks, kids, or krackpots who drive away the interesting posters. Then everyone stops reading the forum (except a few kooks etc). Then advertisers stop advertising. Then Alex starves to death.
Some will contradict me, but I think that would be a bad outcome.
Admin
The important detail omitted from this story is that mains frequency in the country where it took place is 0.1Hz, which explains why the "thump" only happened every 10 seconds or so.
Also it's 72,000 volts.
On second thought, maybe no explanation has been given for why it kept happening every 10 seconds.
Admin
Admin
Wow, a memefest and noone's said brillant yet.
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
<3 <3 <3
Bromance. Gotta love it.
XOXOXO
Admin
This article needs to be updated for the limeys. I've been here in England for close to 7 years now, and I still can't remember how to convert from volts to IEUs (Imperial Electric Units).
Admin
The surface of the Earth is not all at the same potential, and there will naturally be notable voltages between distant locations.
One of the reasons for this is that the ground is a rather poor conductor and copper wire is a rather good conductor. The two are not in contact throughout, and mains electricity is AC. Thus capacitance alone can create a significant potential difference, without the need for any physical copper-to-ground contact anywhere.
Any electrician worth their salt knows that exporting the CPC outside the equipotential zone can be quite dangerous, even when the equipment and wiring is in perfect condition.
Perhaps surprisingly, Wikipedia isn't all that inaccurate about earthing systems - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthing_system
Back on topic, the bit of the story that had me wincing were the wirenuts. Those are quite simply the most evil invention ever in the history of electricity. I'm really glad that they're banned almost everywhere outside of North America.
Admin
So what's it like, then? Sounds a little gross to me, give me a bottle of beer instead, thx.
Admin
Mildly amusing.
Of course you need the halfpennies-to-guineas conversion factor before you start, not to mention you need to know the number of grains in a peck of imperial standard sand. Most people, journalists in particular, find they have to convert to standard units, for example, lengths in terms of double-decker buses, areas in terms of football fields (or Wales, that's always a popular unit), or weights in terms of blue whales.
Now, how many of your feet in a pound again?
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
etc....
Admin
Usually the machines will start responding again a few seconds or minutes after breaking the loop. But I recall seeing a Win 9x machine that needed a push on the reset button after the network had had a loop.
Admin
"We have run every test we could think of. We do not know the cause but it is probably a virus spamming the system", a fellow IT technician, stated.
...
"Ah ha", Drew thought, "We have found the culprit". He asked one of his co-workers where the cable had come from.
"Oh, The Boss’s son asked us to set up a cable last summer," came the answer, and Drew winced.
No offence, but these articles could really use a proofread and/or editing job. This one almost felt like reading bad fanfiction.
Admin
Direct Ethernet-to-mains connection is a bit much, but I was party once to something slightly more subtle.
This was before I transitioned from design engineer to full-on IT geek. There was a Sun workstation with EDA software in my office, hooked up to "thin Ethernet" (coax)--that should give you an idea of how long ago this was. The thing started rebooting pretty frequently--in fact, I'd start something running on it, turn around to my "main" desk and do other things--and then later when I swiveled around to face the machine--there it was, freshly restarted! Not very useful when one is doing lengthy SPICE runs or logic simulations.
Turned out the problem was that the building had "through-the-floor" wiring, with outlets in the cubicle walls hooked up to "tombstone" outlet boxes sticking up from the floor. The one in my cube was right next to the table the computer was on, just a little in front of it. As it happened, the electrical code for the city this was in allowed for wiring in "commercial" spaces with the only ground connection being via the conduit joints--and that tombstone on my floor had become a little loose. When I pushed my chair back from my desk, often one of the casters would hit the tombstone and momentarily break the ground connection. We disconnected the Ethernet cable and measured an intermittent 60 volts AC, open circuit, between the cable shield and the third-wire "ground" when we wiggled the tombstone. That was either tweaking a watchdog timer or making the power supply have enough of a hiccup to reset the machine.
Admin
Admin
He should name that cable, "Thumper."
Admin
These "killers" remind me of situation encountered by a friend who worked as an engineer at a radio station.
After fixing a tape deck amplifier, he noticed an unlabeled jack for a 1/4" plug (headphone plug) on the chassis. He plugged his headphones in to see what he could hear.
After restoring power to the entire station (!) because it blew the building breaker, he opened the chassis to see what was hooked to that plug, only to find it was direct-connected to the 110V AC input.
"Fire blew out of every crack and opening in the chassis," he told me, "Fortunately, the headphones were hanging around my neck instead of on my head."
Admin
mmmm. meatspin. <whack whack whack>
Admin
Admin
I entirely believe this article... I had electrical contractors move a bunch of labeled ports in a patch panel without telling me. Since they swapped a spare inter-building link with a regular wall socket, we ended up with a switch patched into a switch twice.
2 hours after arriving at work the next day, I finally tracked it down to that one cable. Thankfully though, I was able to narrow it down to just the one building (which I disconnected) within a few minutes, so most staff were working during that 2 hours.