Item the 1st: I had the occasion to escort a certain someone with acute abdominal pain to the emergency room recently. Had all the hallmarks of an appendix issue, so off to the emergency room early on a Friday night. Fortunately, it was early Friday, so not quite the zombie apocalypse I expected. In any case, after about 10 hours and being chastised by the Karen night physician for drinking some water after the MRI without permission, she did end up having an inflamed appendix and she was admitted and off to surgery the following morning. But I’m not here to talk about the surgery, which went well, but rather the aftermath, a 1.25 day hospital stay. That’s were this rant starts.
Given the nature of the operation, she was restricted to a liquid diet. First – you know how they have those little white boards on the wall for each patient; “floor nurse, your nurse, fall risk, liquid diet, etc”. Well on her board, it said ‘diabetic’. She is nowhere near diabetic. So I asked the nurse why? “I don’t know…” (shuffles papers) “…I don’t see why…” (shuffles more papers)… “I’ll check”. I think the label stayed up until just before she was discharged. Not sure how that gets recorded with no basis. But that’s still nothing. The rant really starts when her first lunch comes. Remember, they think she’s diabetic. Lunch consists of: Jello cup – 2nd ingredient, sugar. Can of Schweppes ginger ale – 2nd ingredient, high fructose corn syrup – e.g. sugar. ‘Cranberry juice’ – second ingredient, sugar. And a cheap ass tinfoil wrapped bullion cube cup of ‘beef’ broth – at least no sugar. Now keep in mind, this is for someone they think is DIABETIC. SMDH. I asked the nurse about it: “Yeah”, shrug, “it’s weird, I don’t agree”. Next meal time – exactly the same thing. Even without the diabetic aspect, how do we expect any sort of health or control of ‘health care’ costs when, in the freakin’ hospitals, you serve unhealthy garbage that will ultimately result in you coming back with some other chronic condition in the future. Hey, wait a second…
And because I dislike post “Pyromania” Def Leppard and they are, in general, a meh pop-boys-band, alternate music.
Item the 2nd: And the requisite Brigg’s item. In class 28 he makes the claim that “randomization does nothing”. This is in the context of study design, as in you assign study participants onto the treatment arm and placebo arm randomly. Randomization is a common practice in studies with the idea being that there can be selection effects that you are not aware of that might impact the same metric that you are measuring for the outcome of your study. One simplified example (akin to the example used in the lesson) is suppose on recruitment day you assign the first 50 people through the door to the treatment group and the next 50 to the control. But maybe the first 50 people are early risers who generally to to bed early and have a good nights sleep while the next 50 are late risers who went to bed late and had poor sleep? If the treatment under test is say an insomnia intervention, you will very likely find a benefit even if there is no benefit from your intervention.
Brigg’s even admits the validity of that concern: “True. But then if you suspect this controllable, measurable attribute is important then you could (a) measure it and (b) control it.” He then goes through some math to demonstrate that randomization does not “change our knowledge of hidden attributes” and provides a bit of ‘R’ code than runs a sort of Monte Carlo simulation. The code basically generates many realizations of a sample and and either assigns the sequence of realizations either randomly to 2 groups or by simply taking the first N elements of the realization and assigning them to group 1 and the second N to group 2 and showing that the distributions are the same – “randomization does nothing”.
I honestly don’t understand his point here. “Measure and control it” – you simply can’t do that for all possible things that might bias your hypothesis testing. Simple obvious things sure; but what defines obvious? What if you, brilliant though you are, miss something? That’s what randomization gets you. NOT insight into what any particular hidden bias is or how it operates – that’s all his mathematical argument demonstrates after all – “randomization does not change our knowledge of hidden attributes”.
We are not seeking any knowledge about hidden attributes, rather we are seeking to distribute the potential impact of those (totally unknown, perhaps unknowable) attributes across both cohorts so that any bias introduced by them into the metric we are seeking to measure doesn’t only affect one cohort. And I think randomization DOES give you that. I’m not sure what he’s getting at here.
As a sub-random-thought: I know I’m always picking out problems/issues/attacking with many of these and responses to people here in general in the comments; please don’t interpret as only having negative views all the time, though that may be the case, just seems to be the way my brain works – the things I don’t understand or think are wrong are going to occupy most of my somewhat limited brain power, almost by definition.
Item the 3rd: For something lighter; Anybody here got performance anxiety? No? Just me? Or I mean just this other person I know… Anyway – by performance anxiety, I mean ‘inability’ to urinate in a crowded public restroom. If I really gotta go, I can ‘overcome’ it; but if not I’m generally going to stand there holding my schlong and waiting until the person next to me is done/gone. Now perhaps this could be due to some unrecognized child-hood trauma, but I prefer to think of it as a high level evolutionary adaptation that makes me superior. You don’t want to be distracted and in a vulnerable position with some other dumb primate next to you – you need to be able to react quickly. So don’t put yourself in a vulnerable position until your secure. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it – I’m the ultimate in evolutionary advantage! Who’s with me?! Anyone? … never mind.
My secure what?
Scrotum?
Wait, are there honey badgers about?
“Measure and control it” – you simply can’t do that for all possible things that might bias your hypothesis testing.
Or you could just bend the data to your will.
Speaking of “academic studies”…
A Harvard professor known for researching honesty before being accused of extensive data fraud has been fired, the first time the Ivy League institution has dismissed a tenured instructor in about 80 years.
Francesca Gino was initially put on administrative leave by the Harvard Business School (HBS) in 2023 after multiple allegations of falsifying data related to her research, which focused on ethical behavior. On Tuesday, a university spokesperson confirmed that Gino’s tenure had been revoked, terminating her employment.
Honest? Honest as the day is long.
I can’t even. Can you imagine all the fraud still hiding in plain sight?
https://i.redd.it/w8kw8hxnubxe1.png
My wife was surprised of the unwritten rule that you don’t strike up a conversation in the men’s room, what you see on TV notwithstanding.
I remember in Asimov’s Caves of Steel, his society had a strict “no noise” taboo in the community washrooms. The protagonist remembered one time when he was a young boy stubbing his toe and yelping in pain. When he and his father got back to their apartment, he was given a beating for violating the taboo.
I like to use the sorting and selection of urinals as a prime example of emergent order. At no point has anyone taught their children the rules explicitly, but nearly all men know them and follow them. Women seem to be completely ignorant of the process.
Neph, I always get 100% on those urinal tests even though I never stand.
Just explain that it’s the same process everyone uses in other public places like a bus or a movie theater.
I’ve seen the same, thing, Neph.
An, err, TOK, I think you’ll find urinals work a lot better if you stand in front of them rather than sit on them.
Oof, TOK, forgot about your disability. Now I feel bad.
Don’t feel bad that was funny!
So an idiot is barely separated from a chess player?
A savant if you will.
Keep telling yourself that, JI.
I’m sending that to my nephew to see if he gets it.
And it’s perfectly okay to continue a conversation into the men’s room. It’s not okay to strike up a new one.
–86 Rules of Boozing [original] (Rule 22 was removed from the updated rules, and 23 was moved to rule 10.)
https://youtu.be/UXGcgqv4c8M
you simply can’t do that for all possible things that might bias your hypothesis testing
Isn’t that one of his major points – that the way we do hypothesis testing looking for statistical significance is fundamentally wrong?
Maybe, but I didn’t get that from this article. He didn’t talk about statistical significance or hypothesis testing that I recall, just that “randomization buys you nothing”, specifically, “knowledge of hidden attributes”. I not sure how his ‘trivial’ point about what randomization can and can’t do demonstrates that our approach to statistical significance is fundamentally wrong. I happen to think it is, at least in practice, but I think that’s somewhat orthogonal to randomization.
Interestingly, the initial statements made sure to specify it was a White male.
Yes. P-values are bullshit – “statistical significance” is a contrivance of the frequentists.
Unfortunately, Fisher and Popper were both loudmouth academics who shouted down any who dared disagree and frequencies along with falsification became the standard for “science” – and so we’ve had a hundred years of bullshit and still can’t figure out why we’ve had no major breakthroughs in most fields in decades.
There might be something coming on this subject in a few hours…
Well, considering the only significant disagreement with Popper was some know-nothing who had to wave a poker around to make his point…
But, sure, we should base all knowledge on guess work, and never by checking the logic of it.
Bayesians are pseudoscientists, like many-worlds devotees.
More: the driver’s been charged with attempted murder and drug crimes; so perhaps, driving under the influence.
As to why his ethnicity was released so quickly, here’s the BBC take:
“It was striking how quickly police shared the man’s nationality and ethnicity.
The decision shows lessons have already been learned from the Southport attacks last summer, when online speculation and disinformation filled a void after the same force released little detail about the 17-year-old they had in custody.
Usually when a suspect is arrested, police forces in England and Wales just give out the age of the person and where they were arrested.
But at 19:53 BST yesterday, the force emailed out a press release including the suspect’s age, nationality and ethnicity.
It was a clear attempt to damp down inaccurate speculation on social media that the Ford Galaxy driving into Liverpool fans was part of an Islamist terrorist attack, or was in any way linked to migrants.”
And there you have it: identify him so as to protect migrants.
“I’m not here to talk about the surgery, which went well, but rather the aftermath, a 1.25 day hospital stay. That’s were this rant starts.”
I went through that exact experience with my wife roughly 15 years ago. The the advantage being Mrs. Sensei is an RN who worked the floor at one point in her career. In addition to some “professional courtesy” she also knows what all the procedures are behind the scenes.
I was out for a bit, came back and perused the comments from the last thread.
there were a number of philosophical things I want to address, particularly regarding epistemology but now I cant remember them. I got to the end and what I will address is all this talk of pissing. No, I cant piss with some dude standing right next to me. I dont know why and I dont care. Go away.
I piss sitting down at home. My wife, oddly enough, has an aversion to sitting on someone else’s urine. This thing is not a sniper rifle, so I sit down. Everyone else’s toilet, tough shit. I mostly piss outside anyway.
While we’re on the subject… being disabled, often the process requires a bit of extra equipment, so I’m always sitting. I have many stories about a concert venue or airport where there is only one handicapped stall, and it happens to be the only one occupied, and it’s by someone who decided to make a leisurely time of it.
/struggles to avoid referencing the IT Crowd
I’m Disabled!
“I mostly piss outside anyway.”
When the occasion presents, I find pissing outside is more satisfying, myself.
You keep using those words…
The governors of New York, New Jersey and other states announced Friday they were joining California to form an “Affordable Clean Cars Coalition.” In the announcement, the governors blamed the federal government for “creating needless chaos,” but notably avoided any policy commitments, belying the cold feet several of the states developed this spring over the mandate.
“We will continue collaborating as states and leveraging our longstanding authority under the Clean Air Act, including through state programs that keep communities safe from pollution, create good-paying jobs, increase consumer choice, and help Americans access cleaner and more affordable cars,” the governors said in a joint statement.
Just as likely as government mandated “affordable” housing.
Or “Affordable (Health) Care”?
I bought yet another car last week. My wife and I now own 5 vehicles. The goal is to own enough vehicles now so that I never have to buy a new one in the future after government completes the destruction of the auto industry.
Of course, they’ll just make mine illegal to register when I really need them.
Or make each registration increasingly more expensive…
After the Motor Law you will ride like the wind. Always in a Rush.
“Government officials announce…”
Me: “You are never going to leave us alone, are you? No matter the situation you are going to come up with some way to fuck with us and fuck with us and keep fucking with us forever, never relenting, that’s it, isn’t it? You just cannot help it and you will never quit. Fine. Have it your way.”
*shoves pol over railing or out window or down stairs*
I just can’t understand why the voters don’t see that their “leaders” despise them.
This shit is a prime example. Every phrase in that “joint statement” is a bald-faced lie.
Because they hate the “other guys” even more.
My first thought is “What? How is Mass not part of that nonsense?”
I had to click through to see that they, of course, are.
MA has bigger plans for fucking you over on vehicle use.
“The cuts were immediately consequential to health officials in Milwaukee, who are currently dealing with a lead exposure crisis in public schools. ”
Crisis. Lead was banned from paint in 1978.
Perfect Ars Technica headline:
CDC can no longer help prevent lead poisoning in children, state officials say
https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/05/cdc-can-no-longer-help-prevent-lead-poisoning-in-children-state-officials-say/
I didn’t realize lead poisoning was a communicable disease…
Hasn’t stopped the CDC injecting itself into gun control.
“brutal cuts”
Nope. Can’t finish the first sentence.
I keep hearing this but I never hear where the source of this lead is. Pipes? Bullshit. Paint? Bullshit.
How about this? The lead exposure crisis is completely fabricated and you fuckers are lying sacks of shit? That is my guess. We aren’t giving you the money.
The last serious case of lead poisoning I know of was the only one for some years. It was an indoor shooting range that did not have proper ventilation and the victim was the range assistant who had been breathing lead dust 8 hours per day for a year. Drink lots of milk. Calcium displaces lead in the body. Well, the milk only works with that kind of lead poisoning. There is another more acute lead poisoning. Milk doesnt help with that one.
Wow. That article is a real doozie. Written by someone from the WaPo moonlighting?
Beth Mole is the most liberal technocrat at Ars. That says something.
Her COVID coverage has been something to behold.
Anybody that was following CA auto emissions prior to the Feds saying “no” is likely part.
How’d that get here. That was for “affordable EV” comment!
EV’s are not affordable and never will be. There was an article linked to in the last thread the premise of which is ‘The elite have internalized the notion that America is a future failed state’ and so are going all in on the biggest scams they can cook up…global warming, open borders, EV’s, and cootie bugs. Basically they have a doom mentality and are cooking up ‘The Gods are angry!’ scams.
I wonder if pointing out that they are also cooking up a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy might wake them up. It is absurd and I am wondering how they fell into that trap.
That was my link.
I do find the Suthen catnip!
And yet it is still somehow believable that kids are eating paint in schools that have not been painted in decades.
I have never seen a kid eat paint. I can imagine an infant doing it, but school children? Has anyone here ever seen kids eat paint, or is this one of those ‘razor blades in apples’ things?
As I recall, the original scare was toddlers that basically put anything and everything in their mouths and try to eat it.
Mostly related to kids in poverty living in bad houses or going to daycare in bad buildings.
“Sugar of lead” is a real thing.
Remember all that money they were given for remediation of lead paint? Well, they didn’t use it for that.
I am reminded of public housing projects that are falling down despite the billions that are spent on them every year.
Somehow the money just goes *poof*.
What if you, brilliant though you are, miss something?
Did he suggest any negative aspects to randomization? Because, otherwise, it surely helps with the “unknown unknowns”.
It seems to me that “randomization” is a self-defeating concept that ignores its own ignorance; I think that may be Briggs’ point.
To use your example, if you’re trying to conduct an experiment intended to measure the effects of some intervention and the experiment requires separating groups into cohorts, you can only provide “randomization” against effects already known. i.e. You can’t possibly “randomize” against/for impacts you don’t yet know.
Without having read the article (naturally), I think you’re right. The code ‘experiment’ PutridMeat describes appears to prove that – the randomization doesn’t do anything that splitting by arrival order does, statistically speaking.
I think the code already randomizes, by construction, prior to assigning to the different realizations. If you randomize an already randomized distribution, yes it doesn’t do anything. So again, I just didn’t see the point of that exercise as far as a proof of the ‘uselessness’ of randomization in real-world experimental design. The purpose, to the degree I understand it, of randomization, is not to reveal insight into a hidden/unknown variable, but that seems to be idea that the article is disproving.
I can sort of see the point, but something I’ve found useful in math or physics problems is to test the limits/extremes and see what the implications are as a tool to look at the the general case.
In the cited example, suppose it’s a placebo vs placebo trial, unbeknownst to researchers. If you don’t randomize, you will find a significant benefit to the intervention even though it is impossible for one to exist, whereas if you randomize, you will, correctly, find a null result. That’s the extreme, obvious thought experiment. So randomization *has* bought me something in mitigating against an impact I don’t yet know about. If it works in an extreme, yet very plausible, experimental setup, simply demonstrating that, mathematically, it provides no information about ‘hidden attributes’, doesn’t really make a convincing case that it “does nothing”, i.e. is useless.
I’m certainly not arguing that randomization provides any additional knowledge about hidden attributes – nothing in the example implies I know anything more about the sleep habits or efficacy of the intervention if I randomize.
Just as an aside, since double placebo made me think of it again; if you conducted the COVID-19 intervention studies exactly as they were run but placebo vs placebo, you’d get exactly the same result they got – one placebo has a very high initial effectiveness followed by a slow decline in effectiveness, with the speed and magnitude of decline dependent on the exact duration of enrollment. That realization alone should have been enough to throw that whole intervention out.
You don’t randomize “for” or “against” anything. That’s not the purpose.
Thanks – that’s a more succinct statement. Just because randomization doesn’t give you ‘knowledge of hidden attributes’ doesn’t make it useless.
UK police immediately dismissed terrorism as a motive, so I naturally believe this was terrorism.
“More than 50 people were injured when a car plowed into a crowd on Water Street in the city center just minutes after the conclusion of the parade.”
Just a spirited Man U supported.
Yeah. Clearly just football on football violence.
And therefore not terrorism!
As though white, male Marxists (or fascists) never exhibited terroristic tendencies.
Serious question – are they even allowed to identify the race when it’s not a white man? Because they never do.
In the Southport case didn’t they just flat out lie and say it was not an immigrant?
See my comment above for BBC speculation.
Of course they can, if he is Irish.
Anybody here got performance anxiety – neah I just prefer to wait for a stall as long as it takes rather than use a urinal. just personal preference.
Item the 1st – this is why you need an American NHS.
I’d almost – ALMOST – trade an NHS (we’re not terribly far from that anyway) for separation of nutrition and state. No more “food pyramid” or plate or whatever they’re calling it these days, no requirements on institutions to implement a ‘standard of care’ vis-a-vis ‘nutrition’ in prisons, military, or health care facilities. You’d probably improve overall health even if the actual quality of medical care went down.
Fool’s deal. Health being tied to nutrition you’ll get it force fed to you.
Can I add another random thought? I had some in-laws over yesterday, and my brother-in-law showed me some AI-generated sample videos. These were fully clothed, but suggestive AI “women” asking you to chat in that breathy voice. The extra fingers and all the usual flaws were gone, the quality was good. We discussed that this would soon be the end of OnlyFans. Why work with real women when you can cut them out, charge the same, and generate AI “models” that basically cost nothing? Especially when you can get that AI model to spy on someone’s computer and figure out exactly what to say to them?
Oh goody. AI models breathily mouthing the words of STEVE SMITH.
My oldest is a serious phone addict. If she had an AI boyfriend, she would have no reason to get out of bed. Applying the psychological tactics of social media to this is going to be dangerous.
Space pope approved.
Found one: https://x.com/FutureStacked/status/1927271534285996393
Yeah. That’s not creepy. Not creepy at all.
I keep seeing advertisement thumbnails on my YouTube pages done with pointillism with explicit porn images. Who clicks on that?
Just saw one of very explicit fellatio advertising for outdoor camping gear. WTF?
AI is convinced that sex is a foolproof method of commanding our attention?
What Suthen is trying to say is that he now has to find someone who wants to take camping gear off his hands. New in box.
I watched the publicity release of the new Google video AI. It was astounding. Sure, sure it was all polished up and shit, and some of the freeze frames when I paused showed typical AI weirdness, but I’m pretty sure I just watched the death of Hollywood.
As always, the bad cat has some interesting thoughts on it on SubStack
As soon as I closed the door, the sparks really began to fly. Turns out she was right about putting an aluminum pie plate in the microwave.
Speaking of cars, I watched a repair shop (no clue who/where) video last night about a BMW hybrid. Dealer quotes ~$27k but they ferret out the malfunction and fix it for under $10k; what a win. Blown fuse in one of the many control boxes. Same old story. Cars are a nightmare of complex technology and software, and have become essentially disposable.
Let’s hear it for sustainability.
I’ve said it before, but it’s amazing how BMW has gone from an object of desire as a youth to a “would not buy” today.
I would say that about any German car at this point.
I have a 2017 BMW with 80k miles on it and the repairs are getting more and more expensive, but I hate shopping for cars.
I’d take a Porsche.
I wouldn’t say no to an ’06 M3 manual with low miles, in Laguna Seca blue…
I’m looking to buy a new car next year and what scares me is not only the prices, but just how technological these cars have become. It’s like driving a computer on wheels.
Yup.
My new tablet has over 200 hp!
My goal is to never purchase a car manufactured after 2019. The 2019 Rogue is pretty simple, but there is still a bunch of horseshit that I hate.
There is an autobrake function that has only engaged twice in 5 years. Both times due to icing of the sensor causing the vehicle to brake hard enough on slippery roads to then engage the anti-skid.
The 2017 Titan has parking sensors. One or more of them fail when the temps get over 85 degrees and issue false alarms. Starting in about a month, I will disable the sensor every time I get in the truck until fall when it cools off.
Fuck that shit.
I watched it. Love the shop’s name. Fluid Motor Union.
I am picking up my “new” 2004 Saab this weekend.
It was fairly complex for its time, but my 2005 that died was mostly easy to work on.
Our newest car is my wife’s 2011 Camry with 90,000 miles on it.
We had to replace 2 cars within 6 months.
I hate car shopping.
if you conducted the COVID-19 intervention studies exactly as they were run but placebo vs placebo
As an old friend used to say, “You don’t ask a question you don’t want to hear the answer to.”
Tying to Ozy’s point about science and law and never asking a question you don’t already know the answer to.
Even without the diabetic aspect, how do we expect any sort of health or control of ‘health care’ costs when, in the freakin’ hospitals, you serve unhealthy garbage that will ultimately result in you coming back with some other chronic condition in the future. Hey, wait a second…
They tried serving wholesome healthy food, but the patients refused to eat it.
What do we expect, when the dieticians at the hospital are most likely trained using the “food pyramid” or whatever junk they’re pushing now.
To be fair, I have had my fair share of hospital stays recently and the goal tends to be “eat anything you can keep down and allow to digest”.
I don’t know, the crapiness of ‘hospital food’ is well enough established that it’s a meme. So, if your(‘re) in a hospital (or military or prison), your(‘re) going to be complaining about the crappy food anyway. Might as well be complaining about something that’s not going to kill you (if I may be so melodramatic).
Last time I was hospitalized (Gall bladder removal) I wasn’t allowed to eat before surgery, and they discharged me before the first meal I was allowed afterwards, so I didn’t get to find out.
I was in the hospital for a couple of days earlier this year, and the food wasn’t bad. Edible, anyway.
For $27k for two days, ‘edible’ is a low damn bar…
Well actually – the food at the hospital that did the wife’s hip replacement is excellent. She didn’t even mind being kept an extra day.
food … hospital … is excellent.
Excellent in what sense? Flavor, presentation, health? I have no doubt that hospitals can and do make palatable food, I’m less sanguine on the health quality aspect of it. Of course I also recognize that I’m a bit of a food NAZI and what I’m convinced is healthy vs very bad for you in the long run is quite the opposite of what a lot of people think. But I’d hope that something like 80% of calories from sugar we can agree on being not ideal, ESPECIALLY for someone the hospital staff has (erroneously) tagged as diabetic. It might be palatable (and easy to prepare en masse and store), but it isn’t good for you.
She had options to choose, and the preparations were tasty and generous. I couldn’t speak to pure nutrition, but then I don’t believe we have a single path to good nutrition. We have what does or does not work for each of us.
Last time I was in the hospital for a few days, the food looked good, but I was amazed at their ability to remove all flavor.
Probably needed salt.
I’ve always been NPO when ever I’ve been in the hospital, transitioning to to a clear liquid diet. I would be able to leave once the liquid diet was “processed.”
Does vodka, gin or rum count as a clear liquids?
Not all Rum.
UCS:
Well… ACKSHUALLY… 🙂
In the cocktail world, vodka, gin, rum, and tequila are all considered clear spirits.
We’re talking about the hospital world, not the cocktail world.
Ackshually they are traditionally WHITE spirits. get on out of here with that woke clear nonsense.
Yeah, that is one thing they all have in common. They don’t want anyone to have salt.
I watched it. Love the shop’s name. Fluid Motor Union.
It just showed up on my channel.
They tracked down the fuse by cross referencing the number on it, because BMW didn’t show it as a separate replacement part. Why would they, when they can sell the control module complete, for thousands of dollars? In retrospect, this reminds me of when we used to joke long ago about how it would cost hundreds of dollars to replace a $.25 light bulb buried in the dashboard of a car. Prices have gone up.
I get why a BMW service center doesn’t want its techs troubleshooting individual components in modules for a given failure. The goal should be to swap out the offending module and get the car back to the customer.
The Tech is not likely able to diagnose a component issue in a modern ECU or other control modules.
The time to diagnose a component issue could cost close to the time it takes to replace the $1K module compared to $150/hr of diagnostic time.
I don’t think most techs are trained on hybrid or full EV yet. I imagine each shop has their tech that handles “those cars”, so taking out a fuse and replacing it without additional training or knowledge on the reason behind the failure could be dangerous.
I liken it to maintaining an arcade in the 1990’s. If a pinball machine stops working properly, you shut it down, get the tech in, he or she swaps out the board having the issue, gets the machine back up ASAP, then takes the board back for diagnostics and repairs. In the case of the car, the last stage never happens.
The last stage needs to happen, because if you keep getting the same fault, you can fix it in future iterations.
Also, core charge and remanufacture/refurb rather than the customer purchasing the full retail cost of the module.
The last bit is done by BMW and is sent to the supplier, but it is not likely repaired after getting to the field. The Tier1 supplier typically then swaps out the failing component, determines if the board works, then does the following:
if working; documents the failure then pushes the component maker to determine why it failed. Supplier then analyzes the failing component and provides a report on cause. If this is a PPB level failure the issue is documented and likely nothing else is done. If it is a PPM level failure then much more extensive actions are taken
If still failing; the tier 1 supplier looks at what other issues could be causing the failure : Software/firmware/other hardware/cosmic ray/booger/etc. Possibly an answer is found, but unless more units fail then it is likely only documented and saved for future reference
Hilarious. Org changes announced last week with a “details” meeting today. 15 minutes, no Q&A, no real details shared, “more to come later”, and conducted in Teams for ~1000 people without being locked down. Total shitshow. Someone decided to go full sarcasm at the very end and the meeting was ended abruptly by the VP who isn’t used to getting pushback. I’m not sure if I should be embarrassed by it or laugh at how predictable it was. 🍿 🍿 🤡
The VP deserves far worse for wasting the time of all those people with a no-details details meeting. A multi-hour heckling session that the VP must attend, can’t mute and can’t have distractions from at a minimum. Record it and sell copies, you’ll ahve a guaranteed revinue stream.
The goal should be to swap out the offending module and get the car back to the customer.
Complexity and expense for their own sake makes a bad business model. The automotive industry is going to implode.
The increasing complexity is required to keep up with increasing regulations, while minimizing costs, and maintaining competitiveness.
Because of this you get thinner oils to reduce friction losses, gasoline direct injection to allow increased power with decreased NOX, start stop, etc.
Good example:
The ratings for crash safety require the passenger compartment to be stronger and resist collapse during a crash
This requires thick A pillars and high belt lines to strengthen the passenger compartment
This creates blind spots in front, side, and the rear of the car
Sensors and cameras replace the inadequate mirrors to compensate for above; while providing a selling point for the suburban mom driving a suburban as a minivan
The advent of mobile phone use in vehicles push the safety regulators for hands off/touch screens .
The sensors, cameras, and now screens get bigger in the car. This creates more distraction and more systems
The sensors are now coupled to active protection/Autonomous driving features (lane departure, automatic braking, parking, etc)
All of the above additional complexity happened in the past 20 years and all are potential sources of failure, safety issues, and increased costs
My red dot screws on my practice Shadow 2 sheared off in the middle of a practice Saturday. That was fun.
Now I’m the proud owner of some very expensive US-made M3x8mm 12.9 hardened alloy flat-head screws, and an even more expensive Wiha inch-pound torque driver.
Hopefully I can get the broken screws milled out of my slide quickly…
Every project or problem is an opportunity to acquire a new shiny tool.
See: my new, extremely well machined and chromed Moen faucet stem puller.
Haha! And did it work, or did the stem fracture like it normally does anyway?
:: Thinks wistfully of pulled pork claws sitting in kitchen drawer ::
TOK:
It’s OK to want to be Wolverene!
(You can skip to 1:20 for the prime bit).
Does your dot have the mounting bosses to keep strain off the screws? the SIG dots are smooth on the bottom so there’s no way I’d use one (plus it makes the DPP mounting plates not work even though people tell you it uses the same “footprint.”)
South Park SHAKE WEIGHT Commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjKRvdNswhk
And the dumbest silicon valley startup since the Juicero
https://feno.co/
LMAO I have a dentist appointment in 15 minutes and will ask my dentist if he recommends it.
AI: I see AI assembled and submitted YouTube videos. Went there just now to find examples and first page….thumbnail for a short depicting fails with some black dude going down on a white girl. Video is 100% old fat guys slipping and falling on docks and boats.
AI confused about ‘man in a boat’ euphemism?
I saw an “America’s Funnies Home Videos” generated by AI. Hilarious.
This isn’t the roll I saw earlier for the new Google video AI, but it has a lot of the same scenes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmsK_Ym8kD4&t=9s
Never mind. That one sucks – riddled with ads and crap.
Oh, just go to the gato post. He has some good examples, and some thoughts.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/will-ai-shrink-the-world
I think the days of trusting photos and videos is over. But did we ever trust photos and videos? Should we have?
Polaroids, yes.
Any photo that you also possessed the negative for perhaps.
That ended with digital.
Tried explaining what I was talking about to someone just now and they completely missed the point and started ranting about my examples.
No, this isn’t about sex or Marilyn Monroe, it is about AI. No, it isn’t what I see about them, I am talking about what they see when they look at us. They are telling us that in their efforts to manipulate us. How much are they right about?
We are heading to a time where it will be a crime to NOT have cell phone with you and turned on at all times. Gov won’t surveil you directly but will buy surveillance data from private companies bypassing your constitutional rights.
And the vast majority of the population will cheer this on.
And bill us for it?
“Why would you want encryption? You don’t have anything to hide, do you?”
pay the private company, subsidized by the gov, paid by your taxes.
Everyone takes a cut along the way.
And, of course, “free” ‘phones to those unable to afford their own.
It started with Obama phones, now we have Kamala phones that cackle instead of ring.
Babylon Bee on point.
Biden, Macron Team Up To Form Support Group For Battered And Abused World Leaders
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-macron-team-up-to-form-support-group-for-battered-and-abused-world-leaders
I saw video of the shot to the face, but I hadn’t see the bloodied flight attendant getting into MSM.
https://x.com/CaptKylePatriot/status/1927091446705799528
Um…
I’m pretty sure that’s the edge of a yellow and red scarf peeking out from under her hi-viz vest
Yeah, the flight attendant shows approximately zero signs of having a severe injury.
Scarf:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W57vqIvZ7hU&t=43s
Got it.
She seems mighty calm. That makes more sense.
Hopefully I can get the broken screws milled out of my slide quickly…
Sometimes you can remove a broken bolt by using a center punch to tap it around. For a 3mm you’d have to use a dental pick or equivalent.
If you can get it loose by tapping it you can superglue a toothpick to it and spin it out. 3mm is a bear. Very small.
No kidding. I was just cussing a 4mm the other day on my weedeater. I think 3mm is over the line into ridiculous.
Maybe some uv cured stuff? Like Bondic?
I’m gonna take it to Dad’s shop next weekend and mill the broken screws out with a carbide cutter, then run a tap through to clean up the threads. Hopefully.
I have an insane set of Allen keys for some of my automation. I think the smallest is 0.4mm. The set looks like someone’s clipped some stands of hair next to beading wire.
And the vast majority of the population will cheer this on.
Being connected 24/7 makes life so convenient!
Plug in.
increasing complexity is required to keep up with increasing regulations
Top Men must justify their existence.
I get why a BMW service center doesn’t want its techs troubleshooting individual components in modules for a given failure. The goal should be to swap out the offending module and get the car back to the customer.
Manufacturers make their living selling parts. Why would they do anything else?
Dealers make their money in their service departments, too. Can’t nobody pay for their Aruba vacation with 15 minute board swaps.
I see you have never received a mandatory $200 diagnostic fee (2 minutes of scanning and looking up stuff on the computer). Plus the 2 hours of labor at $200/hr to pull the module, swap it, and take a test drive.
$600 for 1 hour of total labor.