Category Archives: Weird

Technology and Society, Weird

New Computer Problem

46 Comments

That is, it’s a problem with a new computer build. When I hit the power-on switch, I just heard a pop, and then I smelled burnt electronics. Fortunately, I didn’t see or smell any damage to anything else in the chassis. Never had a PS fail right out of the box like that, but it’s clearly dead, because the fan won’t start when I jump 15 and 16 on the main connector. Guess I’ll have to RMA it to Newegg.

[Update after a trip to Best Buy]

New power supply (Corsair) fired up with no issues, all fans running. Now to figure out why it’s not doing a POST.

[Sunday-morning update]

OK, the machine is not providing video output. It’s not the graphics card, because I swapped it out with a known working one. So now I have to suspect the motherboard itself, though it is starting, and the CPU fan is running.

[Late-morning update]

OK, I went through this checklist, and now it won’t run at all. Nothing happens when I hit the power button.

[Update a while later]

OK, here’s the situation. There is an eight-pin and four-pin ATX connector next to each other on the board for the CPU. The new power supply doesn’t have a four-pin connector. It has an eight-pin, with several other eight-pins with a detachable two-pin (making them a six-pin). I tried plugging the six-pin into the four-pin connector, and that’s what made the motherboard fail to start. If I remove that second connector, and reset the CMOS, it will start again. How essential is getting power to that four-pin connector on the board, and how do I do it with this power supply? It clearly isn’t getting graphics from the existing set up, even though the fans and LEDs are running.

[Update a few minutes later]

For the curious, this is the board.

[Update a few more minutes later]

OK, in doing a search, I found this discussion at Reddit. It’s not very encouraging.

[Update a while later]

This seems stupid, but if I were to buy this Athlon, maybe it would solve the problem long enough to update the BIOS?

[Update mid-afternoon]

I read the first page of reviews on the board, and no one mentions this problem (though a lot of complaints about the LAN connector and the BIOS-reset button).

[Monday-morning update]

I’ve given up on the machine. I’m going to RMA the motherboard back to Newegg, and get an MSI at Best Buy.

[Bumped]

Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Weird

“Transphobic” Lesbians

9 Comments

This is getting ridiculous. If I don’t want to sleep with a guy who thinks he’s a woman, it’s not because I’m “transphobic.” It’s because I am extremely heterosexual, and have not only zero, but negative interest in physically interacting with, or even looking at male genitals. Now if it’s an attractive woman who thinks she’s a man, that’s a different story, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to engage in sexual relations with people who are funny in the head.

Business, Technology and Society, Weird

Weird Internet Issue

13 Comments

My desktop has quit communicating with Slack (slack.com). I can access it from a laptop, but not from my desktop. It acts like a DNS issue, but I can ping everything except it. It just started doing this a couple hours ago, and I didn’t change anything. Any ideas?

[Update a while later]

[root@localhost ~]

# ping slack.com
PING slack.com (54.87.197.95) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
— slack.com ping statistics —
14 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 13292ms

Same thing happens when I ping the address directly. So it’s not a DNS issue. Very strange that I can get to it from the Windows laptop, but not the Linux desktop.

[Update late afternoon]

It’s back up. I guess I was one of the one percent.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Aaaaaaand it’s down again. At least now I know there’s nothing I can do about it, and no point in wasting time trying to figure it out. I just have to hope that they’ll get it sorted.

Business, Space, Weird

Top Fifty In Space Tech

15 Comments

This is kind of cool, but that and five bucks will get me a double quarter pounder with cheese.

And if that’s really Marcia Smith, it’s definitely a new look for her. They have Elon, but I think that leaving out Gwynne was a miss.

[Update a while later]

Per the discussion about Mickey D’s prices, I never order a meal, just the sandwich.

Business, Weird

Crazy Business Practice

20 Comments

So I need to replace the front passenger door for the BMW. I look online, and find this site. They have several for sale, in Adelanto, available for local pickup (it’s about an hour and a half drive), and the price is great.

The only problem: I don’t know what color any of them are (the car is silver). So I call the phone number, and after being on hold for almost an hour, finally get someone. I ask if I can drive up there to check them out, to make sure the one that I’m getting will match. She says, no, I can’t look at them until I buy one, and they don’t accept returns for the wrong color. She had no explanation for why this was the policy, but it makes no sense to me. So not sure what to do now, other than buy one, hope for the best, and be prepared to paint it.