What You've Done Today - Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life

[LadyCrimson]

Hubby's got an extra long weekend and we're contemplating buying/playing Tiny Tina's Wonderlands during it. A game I'll likely find a bit annoying/disappointing and wouldn't care to buy/play it solo, but where playing it with your spouse might make it relatively awesome despite that.    At least it's several bucks cheaper for its Steam-release intro period.

Also:
Hubby drives/runs down to the other house to do some junk-yarding/deal with a neighbor/fence issue: I expected him to be gone overnight.
Hubby calls me same afternoon: "I'm done, want to come home, leaving now."  - eg he finished quickly and just wanted to get back vs. waiting until morning/better traffic to drive.
Hubby later that evening: "Home is where the wife is."

"Growing old together" ... yeah, I, at least, am loving it.

Edited June 27, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[ShadySands]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Well, what kind of animal?

I've found that human and dragon aren't the right answers

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

We're finally getting rain here, so maybe my apartment won't burn down next week.

11 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

I've found that human and dragon aren't the right answers

Then the question is wrong.

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, ShadySands said:

I've found that human and dragon aren't the right answers

admitted for a job we knew we had no chance o' getting hired, we answered as follows: tardigrade. 

we pointed out to the interviewer that we were likely the toughest sob she had ever met or would ever likely meet... evar. spent a couple minutes explaining why we were toughness personified. weren't complete serious; thought we were just kinda being an arse, but were fun as we had nothing to lose anyways.

...

we got a job offer. go figure. however, we were later informed our tardigrade response were most certain not the correct response. offered in spite o' our answer.

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

[Amentep]

7 hours ago, Malcador said:

Well, what kind of animal?

Albatross. Conversation went something like this:

"If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?"

*long awkward pause*

"I...I cant think of an animal. My mind is blank."

"Take your time."

*even longer, more awkward pause*

"...uh...albatross."

"Beacause they can fly for hours with no land to rest on?"

*awkward pause*

"Because I thought of Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and its literally the only animal I can think of but I didn't want to say it because the albatross doesn't have a positive connotation in the story."

*more awkward silence*

EDIT: and before it's asked, yes I couldn't remember the word dog or cat or parakeet  or any common house pet.

[Gorth]

<insert clip of Monty Pythons Albatross skit here>

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

48 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Albatross. Conversation went something like this:

"If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?"

*long awkward pause*

"I...I cant think of an animal. My mind is blank."

"Take your time."

*even longer, more awkward pause*

"...uh...albatross."

"Beacause they can fly for hours with no land to rest on?"

*awkward pause*

"Because I thought of Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and its literally the only animal I can think of but I didn't want to say it because the albatross doesn't have a positive connotation in the story."

*more awkward silence*

EDIT: and before it's asked, yes I couldn't remember the word dog or cat or parakeet  or any common house pet.

Wow, I've really dodged some bullets lmao 

[Malcador]

50 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Albatross. Conversation went something like this:

"If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?"

*long awkward pause*

"I...I cant think of an animal. My mind is blank."

"Take your time."

*even longer, more awkward pause*

"...uh...albatross."

"Beacause they can fly for hours with no land to rest on?"

*awkward pause*

"Because I thought of Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and its literally the only animal I can think of but I didn't want to say it because the albatross doesn't have a positive connotation in the story."

*more awkward silence*

EDIT: and before it's asked, yes I couldn't remember the word dog or cat or parakeet  or any common house pet.

I was expecting something involving a savage vengeance you wreaked on a mariner.

[Hurlshort]

3 hours ago, Amentep said:

Albatross. Conversation went something like this:

"If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?"

*long awkward pause*

"I...I cant think of an animal. My mind is blank."

"Take your time."

*even longer, more awkward pause*

"...uh...albatross."

"Beacause they can fly for hours with no land to rest on?"

*awkward pause*

"Because I thought of Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and its literally the only animal I can think of but I didn't want to say it because the albatross doesn't have a positive connotation in the story."

*more awkward silence*

EDIT: and before it's asked, yes I couldn't remember the word dog or cat or parakeet  or any common house pet.

To be fair, if the interviewer doesn't understand the albatross metaphor, do you even want to work with them?

[Gromnir]

44 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

To be fair, if the interviewer doesn't understand the albatross metaphor, do you even want to work with them?

is possible the interviewer did in fact understand the metaphor and were giving amentep the chance to choose some other explanation, any other explanation, for why he would choose albatross as his answer.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[xzar_monty]

1 minute ago, Gromnir said:

is possible the interviewer did in fact understand the metaphor and were giving amentep the chance to choose some other explanation, any other explanation, for why he would choose albatross as his answer.

I was also thinking we certainly cannot conclude they didn't understand the metaphor. May have even been trying to help out, as you suggest.

[bugarup]

12 hours ago, Amentep said:

I was once asked in an interview what kind of animal I saw myself as.  That didn't go well.

I was asked once in a "Semi-annual conversation with your friendly neighbourhood HR" what superhero I aspire to be like. The Dude instantly sprang to mind but fortunately my wisdom attribute was high enough to keep it to myself. 

[Guard Dog]

In my profession there are no "wise old men/women". Nobody knows everything, no one is an expert and on any given day you might see something no one has ever seen before. Here is a great example. I do RF Performance work for a company that designs, sells, and maintains private 5G networks. Mostly to Universities and various government entities. My job is to optimize performance on completed projects. The weird problem happened on a pretty large customer facility. It was strange enough I had to go see it for myself.  The radios our networks use operate in the EHF band. Just under 40 GHz. Our radio signals have a wavelength of just over 7mm. That means the radios have a very short "footprint" (how far they can transmit and have the customer handset reply) so we need a lot of them. We have four positioned new the entrance of an auditorium type building at the facility in question. These radios are dropping attachments like crazy and driving up reselection and foreword error correction on surrounding nodes (this is a bad thing). I had the vendors replace everything, I had them work with me over the phone trying to tweak alignment and placement. Nothing worked.

I came out here yesterday to look for myself. I meticulously went through the engineering again. There is a thing you learn in EE called the Friis Transmission Equations. You can use it to calculate important stuff like free space path loss, etc. Here is the thing... what is actually happening does not conform to Friis. The ratio of transmitted power to received power is off based on radio F, expected path loss, and antenna aperture. Now ordinarily we'd just conquer the problem by increasing radio power. But these radios are not on a tower, they are close so people. So transmit power is kept very low for safety.  

Here is the thing, the entrance area to the building is enclosed on three sides and has four revolving doors that lead into the building. The building is soft top (Teflon) "dome" auditorium and is pressurized inside to 1.1 ATM. Every time the doors revolve the pressure inside the dome "normalizes" (meaning increases) the pressure in the partially enclosed entrance area because Robert Boyle said it does.  Now, what affect does atmospheric pressure have on radio wave propagation you may ask? If you'd ask me yesterday I'd have said none. But RF tends to behave in somewhat unpredictable ways in EFH. About 10 years ago Oxford did a study that showed at 29 hg (1 ATM) and humidity < 30 changes in atmospheric pressure did affect path loss changes in UHF radio signals. It amounts to .01% for every 2 hg change. But UHF radio has a wavelength of 1 m  at the low end and a .01 change in path loss of a 1 m radio signal is statistically negligible. And besides, where on earth at ground level does atmospheric pressure change so rapidly. Constant pressure is one of the things that makes the Earth so awesome. Well, I'll tell you where: in the partially enclosed entrance area of the building I came here to see! AND a .01 path loss in a 7mm wavelength radio signal is statistically significant. In fact it accounts very closely to the path loss deficit I'm observing. How freaking cool is that?

Now, how the heck to I solve this?

 

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

Now, how the heck to I solve this?

 

That'll fix any pressure issues. Well, any pressure at all, even!

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

Now, how the heck to I solve this?

Can you change the doors?

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

Now, how the heck to I solve this?

Tell them to open some windows

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

In my profession there are no "wise old men/women". Nobody knows everything, no one is an expert and on any given day you might see something no one has ever seen before. Here is a great example. I do RF Performance work for a company that designs, sells, and maintains private 5G networks. Mostly to Universities and various government entities. My job is to optimize performance on completed projects. The weird problem happened on a pretty large customer facility. It was strange enough I had to go see it for myself.  The radios our networks use operate in the EHF band. Just under 40 GHz. Our radio signals have a wavelength of just over 7mm. That means the radios have a very short "footprint" (how far they can transmit and have the customer handset reply) so we need a lot of them. We have four positioned new the entrance of an auditorium type building at the facility in question. These radios are dropping attachments like crazy and driving up reselection and foreword error correction on surrounding nodes (this is a bad thing). I had the vendors replace everything, I had them work with me over the phone trying to tweak alignment and placement. Nothing worked.

I came out here yesterday to look for myself. I meticulously went through the engineering again. There is a thing you learn in EE called the Friis Transmission Equations. You can use it to calculate important stuff like free space path loss, etc. Here is the thing... what is actually happening does not conform to Friis. The ratio of transmitted power to received power is off based on radio F, expected path loss, and antenna aperture. Now ordinarily we'd just conquer the problem by increasing radio power. But these radios are not on a tower, they are close so people. So transmit power is kept very low for safety.  

Here is the thing, the entrance area to the building is enclosed on three sides and has four revolving doors that lead into the building. The building is soft top (Teflon) "dome" auditorium and is pressurized inside to 1.1 ATM. Every time the doors revolve the pressure inside the dome "normalizes" (meaning increases) the pressure in the partially enclosed entrance area because Robert Boyle said it does.  Now, what affect does atmospheric pressure have on radio wave propagation you may ask? If you'd ask me yesterday I'd have said none. But RF tends to behave in somewhat unpredictable ways in EFH. About 10 years ago Oxford did a study that showed at 29 hg (1 ATM) and humidity < 30 changes in atmospheric pressure did affect path loss changes in UHF radio signals. It amounts to .01% for every 2 hg change. But UHF radio has a wavelength of 1 m  at the low end and a .01 change in path loss of a 1 m radio signal is statistically negligible. And besides, where on earth at ground level does atmospheric pressure change so rapidly. Constant pressure is one of the things that makes the Earth so awesome. Well, I'll tell you where: in the partially enclosed entrance area of the building I came here to see! AND a .01 path loss in a 7mm wavelength radio signal is statistically significant. In fact it accounts very closely to the path loss deficit I'm observing. How freaking cool is that?

Now, how the heck to I solve this?

 

GD its obvious, the XKF frequency needs to set at 0.233 degrees north and the particle disruptor needs to be aligned  at 12 units to the gain, not the loss, of the radio antenna. Then you turn the switch and it should be 100%

Have you tried that ?

[Guard Dog]

40 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Tell them to open some windows

Love it! Plus I can frame it as a cost savings for them. Look at how much they will save in cooling costs when the air volume of the building is reduced by 70%!

[Guard Dog]

45 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Can you change the doors?

I wish. The only thing in my control here are those four radios. And I can't move them without 1) getting approval from the facility, 2) completely re-engineering everything and 3) rework the construction from my budget which is pretty small. I'm going to have to come up with something out of the box or increase antenna downtilt and live with a the coverage gap. Probably the latter.  

[uuuhhii]

just know that windows 11 are a thing now

really really don't want to switch os again

xp to windows 10 was awful

[Malcador]

Round of layoffs at work, odd though to cut people on a Tuesday.

[Gromnir]

3 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

 

Now, how the heck to I solve this?

 

might be worth checking hospitals to see how they deal with a similar if unrelated problem. due to construction or the recent pandemic, rooms or sections o' the hospital needs have functional decompression chambers added to the existing structure. scale is gonna be different 'cause in a hospital is typical an isolated floor pressure as 'posed to an entire building. you need a permanent solution and there will be aesthetic considerations, but am s'posing is worth looking into hospital solutions.

HA! Good Fun!

[Guard Dog]

4 hours ago, Gromnir said:

might be worth checking hospitals to see how they deal with a similar if unrelated problem. due to construction or the recent pandemic, rooms or sections o' the hospital needs have functional decompression chambers added to the existing structure. scale is gonna be different 'cause in a hospital is typical an isolated floor pressure as 'posed to an entire building. you need a permanent solution and there will be aesthetic considerations, but am s'posing is worth looking into hospital solutions.

HA! Good Fun!

It's a good suggestion but it won't help in this instance. Hospital and other indoor applications use a DAS (distributed antenna system) concept. A single radio carrier will have multiple antennas. Think of it like multiple sprinkler heads that all get their water from the same pipe. Whereas the 5G concept with massive MIMO is more like multiple water hoses zip tied together but each hose has a different water source. If EHF 5G were to be brought inside a building then each radio becomes it's own "cell" with hand-off and reselection challenges to be worked out. Plus the higher the frequency the lower the power has to be at user level. Outside the radios are mounted no less than 3m from the closest a human could pass to to them. in EHF each reduction of mounting height means a reduction of ERP (effective radiated power) by 3 dB (50%). So if they were any lower the power would need to be attenuated so much they wouldn't work at all. That's why DAS systems are so much more efficient for indoor use. 

[Gromnir]

21 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

It's a good suggestion but it won't help in this instance. Hospital and other indoor applications use a DAS (distributed antenna system) concept. A single radio carrier will have multiple antennas. Think of it like multiple sprinkler heads that all get their water from the same pipe. Whereas the 5G concept with massive MIMO is more like multiple water hoses zip tied together but each hose has a different water source. If EHF 5G were to be brought inside a building then each radio becomes it's own "cell" with hand-off and reselection challenges to be worked out. Plus the higher the frequency the lower the power has to be at user level. Outside the radios are mounted no less than 3m from the closest a human could pass to to them. in EHF each reduction of mounting height means a reduction of ERP (effective radiated power) by 3 dB (50%). So if they were any lower the power would need to be attenuated so much they wouldn't work at all. That's why DAS systems are so much more efficient for indoor use. 

was thinking specific in terms o' your pressure problem. in spite of being large environmental controlled buildings, hospitals need keep airborne pathogens from circulating or escaping. pressure changes need be controlled in specific rooms and areas o' a hospital. your problem is related to the normalization o' pressure whenever a doorway is utilized, which is exact the problem hospitals need address albeit not 'cause o' concerns 'bout radio. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Guard Dog]

I think I figured out a work around. In radio physics antennas are polarized in a certain way. The antenna's polarization is basically the direction of signal transduction. Our network is using cross polarization. That means we are transmitting four 100 MHz carriers vertically polarized and four 100 MHz carriers horizontally polarized. That way we maximize BW. We get two carrier blocks of the same frequency on the same antenna. Doing some experiments today and the problem is mitigated when one block of four carriers or the other is locked. I think the reason for that is we use a software algorithm called XPIC (cross polarization interference cancellation) that, coupled with the high order of radio carrier modulation, places some unforgiving signal to noise ratio demands on the system. Free space path loss is a measure of how much the air in the antenna far field attenuates the radio signal expressed as a ratio so that goes right to the heart of SNR. 

Locking a carrier comes with a price though. 256 QAM (Quadrature amplitude modulation) gives us 8 bits per symbol, 256 symbols per wave cycle gives is 2kb per cycle. 2kb per cycle means 800 MB throughput x 4 = 3.2 GB throughput. x2 with XP enabled = 6.4 GB shared over all users walking in and out of the auditorium. By shutting down XP I'm cutting that in half. BUT... 3.2 GB that isn't dropping at a 7% rate (anything more than 2.8% drop rate is unacceptable) is better that an unreliable 6.4. 

Will it work? Don't know. Seems to but I need at least a week of data to make a determination. My brain is exhausted and I have a headache from squinting at a spectrum analyzer all day. I'm going to get a big steak for dinner than drive home. No G on this trip so meat is back on the menu boys!