What Made you Smile/What Ticked you off Today?

[marurun]

marurun: I hit the motherload!

My father has in his study a large assortment of random junk and crap all over the place. The box caught my eye. And I was absolutely shocked at the condition. My father bought it probably 15 to 20 years ago. I have 15 black MDs too. Shit!

What made me smile today? Finding 20 year old tech in mint condition!

That’s awesome! You could probably still use it as a fine recorder today. Although I don’t know what the life of MO discs are…

[Gucci]

That’s a good question regarding the life of those discs. I’m assuming that since they have been unused and in that state for such a long time, I hope that they are still good. They have been in a location where temps and humidity do swing but I don’t know much about how disc rot comes about.

Does the fact that they are enclosed in that floppy disc-like housing help or hurt the disc from, say, and archival standpoint? Who knows.

I know the battery for the unit is most likely shot. It is a 20 year old battery, give it take a couple of years. But from what I was able to gather about the thing, the unit can actually operate on three AA batteries with that add on regardless of the charge on that lithium battery.

I plan on messing with it next week when I’m off from work.

[marurun]

That’s a good question regarding the life of those discs. I’m assuming that since they have been unused and in that state for such a long time, I hope that they are still good. They have been in a location where temps and humidity do swing but I don’t know much about how disc rot comes about.

Does the fact that they are enclosed in that floppy disc-like housing help or hurt the disc from, say, and archival standpoint? Who knows.

Keep in mind that MDs are magnetic. They're read and written with a laser, but the disc itself is coated with magnetic material. Also, while the case protects against handling, I don't know that it would do anything for long-term storage. Some random reading (unsupported by data) is that a blank MD can retain its life for 50 years, and Sony claims something recorded on a disc can last 30 years. That's not bad, really.

[SamuraiMegas]

I have realized I may not be an animal person. i'm getting sick and tired of being waken up 20x a night by dogs/cats, especially when I sleep like shit regularly. Luckily after next week my room mate's mom will be picking her dog back up & I'm back home so that means no more cats in my face 24/7.

[REPO Man]

Crazy-ass weather in the past week. It literally shut down the highway north of Rodanthe.

Another flat tire. I swear, it must be something on the south side of my porch. At first I parked it by the side of the steps and I ended up with two flat tires, each days apart, and literally the day after my dad replaced one of the tires, he claimed to have a flat tire. And he parked his bike right where I usually do.

So I started parking it on the porch on the north side, but with all that nasty north wind I decided to put it on the other side of the porch. And the next day? ANOTHER GODDAMN FLAT!

I thought it was just something in the dirt that my tire kept snagging on, seeing as how it'd explain literally two flat tires, but then what happened with the last flat tire? If it was something on the ground it wouldn't have had anything to do with it.

[marurun]

Don't buy your bike tires off the back of some dude's truck.

[REPO Man]

I don't. Who actually does that? I buy my replacement inner tubes from my local Ace Hardware, which only sells Bell brand tubes. Some time ago I bought a Slime inner tube for my bike, so when I get my old tube replaced I probably won't need to worry as much with random flats.

[Limewater]

Are you getting blow-outs while you're riding, or is the tube just flat when you go out in the morning?
Did you try pumping the tube back up after you found it flat?
Are you sure you don't just need new rim tape and possible spoke adjustment? Given what you describe, and assuming it's not just some joker letting the air out of your tires, I'd look for a spoke poking in on the inner tube.

[REPO Man]

Well, that wouldn't explain how after I started parking the bike on my porch (and carrying the bike to and from the porch to the road), I wouldn't get flats, but only after parking it on the other side of the porch did my tire go flat.

More than likely it's something on the south side of the porch since I never had this problem until sometime after parking on the south side of the porch.

As for blow-outs, I don't think so. In fact the tire would be decently inflated when I got back to the house but it'd be flat the next day.

And then there's a few months ago, when I got to work and the tire was fine but was flat by the time I got off work.

[Limewater]

Losing air slowly overnight or during your shift points to a pinhole leak. This would point to either bad rim tape, leaky fill valves, or possibly something embedded in the tire that is putting pinholes in your inner tube.

Or maybe somebody just likes letting the air out of your tires and is scared to climb into your porch to do it.

This is probably a solvable problem. Check out this discussion thread:

https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-mech ... t-why.html