Useless Conversation

[Merusk]

Interesting.  I'm sure that may have been a problem in one of my dryers of long ago, if so.  I'm also sure that modern companies have managed to make it expensive as fuck and difficult to replace them, thus rendering a new replacement a necessity.  We had to replace a front load washer recently due to mold build up.  We ended up getting an old school top load to help prevent that.  Shitty technology.  I had a washer/dryer set when I graduated from college that lasted almost 10 years (and we only upgraded because my wife said it was absolutely necessary due to new features  ).  We've bought 2 others since then. 

If you continue to only buy the $300-$400 washers replacing parts becomes cheap.  I just had to replace the door switch on our 10-year-old washer.  Cost me $75 for the part and about 2 hours of time on a saturday to replace.  Belts are about the same.

I've heard nothing but bad stories about the front loaders.  Yeah they save water, but if you don't leave them open to vent they get moldy, or the seals rot out, etc.  Just seems like too much of a hassle out of an appliance that costs 3x as much.

[Samwise]

My front loader hasn't had any issues in the four or so years I've had it.  I like it because the doors being at the same height makes it quicker to move stuff from the washer to the dryer.

[Viin]

As I said a few posts back, HE washers suck. We have a top loading HE washer, which is better than the front loaders, but they still use barely any water and don't agitate worth shit. If you can force it to fill up a decent amount of water it works fairly well - but thats a whole game you have to play if you want to spend the time. (A typical laundry load of shirts gets somewhat clean, but towels or anything thicker like jeans? they might get damp).

Just bought a $350 "traditional" top loader from Lowe's and it was delivered the next day (Dec 24th!).

[ghost]

The washer we got was a Samsung high efficiency top loader.  It has done great so far.  I'll be reticent to go back to a front loader. 

[Viin]

The washer we got was a Samsung high efficiency top loader.  It has done great so far.  I'll be reticent to go back to a front loader.  

We have a Samsung too. I actually like it, except for the fact that it doesn't seem to wash our cloth diapers very well and when I watch it wash towels or jeans there's no agitation going on - just a soaking in cold soapy water. If you do a bigger load of laundry it puts in more water and this isn't as big of an issue. But just enough to fill 1/4th the tub? Doesn't do squat. How new is yours?

[ghost]

Less than 6 months.  I've read reviews about the agitation issues, but ours seems to do okay.

[rattran]

This is an 11 year old Whirlpool dryer, belt looks like about $8, disassembling it to get to the belt took about 8 minutes including looking it up on the tablet. The only hassle is it looks like a 2 man job to install the belt, the tensioner is under the drum, so someone has to support it while you thread it through and around the motor. Surprisingly lint free inside, I guess having a rigid vent was a good idea.

[Abagadro]

Dryers are surprisingly simple. I had the felt O-ring that goes around the drum snap and it took out the hard plastic seal ring with it.  10 minutes of googling, 40 bucks and an hour of install and it has now worked fine for 4 years.

[Sky]

The main thing you have to worry about with appliances is the circuit board going. Mechanical repairs usually aren't a big deal, but replacing a circuit board pushes it into 'replace the appliance' territory for me, depending on what you paid, of course.

My washer is a mechanical one and it's really awesome. I skipped the matching dryer, still not 100% with that decision. The new dryer is ok, but does contain a circuit board. They're both GE or whirlpool, I forget.

Washer and dryer that came with the house were awful. The gasket on the front-load washer wouldn't drain and created the most god-awful stench. The dryer was just cheap, though I did learn a good lesson replacing it. Turns out it was just one leg of the outlet bad, because I put in the new machine and had problems with it. Took the multimeter to the wall outlet and $20 later it was fixed. So if you get heat or LEDs but not both, check the wall outlet.

[ghost]

I'm having some new floors installed at the office and whenever I show up the workers immediately change the radio from whatever station they are listening to (rock or country) to Tejano.   

[rattran]

Part was $8, install was actually pretty easy solo too. So easy that I suspect something else will fail, just out of spite.

[Selby]

Surprisingly lint free inside, I guess having a rigid vent was a good idea.

Yup.  I ran a hard vent on mine out the garage and it's SO clean inside compared to the old flex line that I used years ago.  And those front loader\HE ones suck.  I had a Neptune at the old house and I left it for the new owners because of how much I disliked it.  It wasn't even in the contract, but I didn't care.

And Merry Christmas to me, the car my girlfriend has been driving had the alternator die 2 days before Christmas so she's in a rental while I'm out of town.  $500 for the alternator and $150 to install it plus a new battery made my Christmas bonus go bye bye really fast.  I swear I'm selling this car now.  My older cars only cost $70 for the alternator and an hour of my time.

[Sky]

And Merry Christmas to me, the car my girlfriend has been driving had the alternator die 2 days before Christmas so she's in a rental while I'm out of town.  $500 for the alternator and $150 to install it plus a new battery made my Christmas bonus go bye bye really fast.  I swear I'm selling this car now.  My older cars only cost $70 for the alternator and an hour of my time.

Jeebus. I don't think I've paid more than $40 for an alternator at the junkyard. Hate to think about repairs to the FJ, the first really modern vehicle I've owned. My next truck will be built before the mid-70s.

Also +1 for the rigid dryer line. I have a flex metal one I've been forgetting (for three years) to replace with rigid. At least it beats flex plastic, if you have one of those get rid of it immediately. The flex metal one I have is awful when I have to remove it for cleaning, you'd think with all the swearing every time I have to re-attach it, I'd grab a couple pieces of rigid.

[Furiously]

Yea, it stinks when the dealership is the only place you can get a part.

[Selby]

Yea, it stinks when the dealership is the only place you can get a part.

Yeah, in this case you can get a rebuilt from a parts store for about 1/2-2/3 of the cost, but the life of them is about 1/3 of the dealer's version, it made sense to just pay the extra $200 and get another 4-5 years out of it.

[Minvaren]

Based on the events of the last day or two, I'm throwing BusinessObjects in with Lotus Notes and Small Business Server for "arcane installation and upgrade procedures." 

Oh, and on the dryer front, I found my dryer's heat started working again (on low, at least) for some reason.  Now the 15 minutes tumbling after the spin dryer gets everything but the heavy cotton shirts quite dry.

[Chimpy]

Dear god, minivan, just add something adobe in there and your nexus of suck will be complete.

[Sky]

Oh, and on the dryer front, I found my dryer's heat started working again (on low, at least) for some reason.  Now the 15 minutes tumbling after the spin dryer gets everything but the heavy cotton shirts quite dry.

Check the wall outlet! If that's kosher, check the breaker to make sure both poles are getting full power.

[Chimpy]

If it only heats at one temp, it is quite possibly the thermostat inside. My mom's dryer when I was in college had that happen.

And in other useless conversation....damn me for looking at Amazon's year end sale.

12" DeWalt Compound Miter Saw for $226   (Sliding is like $440). I am sure I am going to bite the bullet and buy one. But I would have been blissfully ignorant without it if I had not seen that.

EDIT: Shit, just checked and the double bevel non-sliding is $359. WHY OH GODS OF INTERNET WHY?

[bhodi]

My Folks got a new computer with came pre-installed with windows 8. So I had a go at setting it up for them.

Windows 8 is a complete shitpile and I can't believe anyone OKed it. It's beyond confusing and I, as a seasoned techie, had to resort to googling basic shit like 'How do I switch between programs'. It's an utter failure of usability. The fact the new scheme thing only sort of covers half the shit you want to do is a travesty. Installl a new printer? There's no way to add the printer in devices, you have to go into the desktop to run the installer. There were a ton of instances where you just have to check in two places for what you want to do.

And the aesthetic is completely different. Why is minimize in the lower right? Just that they wanted to be different. Since it forces you to switch back to the 'old' it's extremely jarring every single time. I can't imagine trying to explain this shit to the folks. I just told them to use the desktop.

[MisterNoisy]

My Folks got a new computer with came pre-installed with windows 8. So I had a go at setting it up for them.

Windows 8 is a complete shitpile and I can't believe anyone OKed it. It's beyond confusing and I, as a seasoned techie, had to resort to googling basic shit like 'How do I switch between programs'. It's an utter failure of usability. The fact the new scheme thing only sort of covers half the shit you want to do is a travesty. Installl a new printer? There's no way to add the printer in devices, you have to go into the desktop to run the installer. There were a ton of instances where you just have to check in two places for what you want to do.

And the aesthetic is completely different. Why is minimize in the lower right? Just that they wanted to be different. Since it forces you to switch back to the 'old' it's extremely jarring every single time. I can't imagine trying to explain this shit to the folks. I just told them to use the desktop.

I don't mind Windows 8 on a notebook with a touchscreen or a x86 tablet/convertible, but they really need an 'always use desktop mode' option when it's being installed on a non-touchscreen/mobile device.

[ghost]

It's actually very similar, in a lot of ways, to GNOME 3 which is also a complete shitpile.  I actually don't mind either of them that much, but it's interesting that people have had to come up with all sorts of ways to work around the poor decisions of both GNOME 3 and Windows 8.

[Yegolev]

Semi-related, some friends and I have given up on Gnome since they seem to want to take over the entire OS.

[Engels]

Semi-related, some friends and I have given up on Gnome since they seem to want to take over the entire OS.

I'm glad I have the Cinnamon desktop environment on my Linux Mint build (close relative of Ubuntu)

[ghost]

I was under the assumption that GNOME was working towards being their own OS.  It's too bad that I hate KDE so much.  Cinnamon is okay, I guess.  Mint has done a good job with their OS.

[ezrast]

Linux desktop environments truly baffle me. Like, I get why you'd want to come up with a cohesive set of system tools on top of what is considered base Linux, but I don't get why every single group who does that then ties it all to an ugly-ass, gimmicky, barely functional window manager. I can't get away from Fluxbox, myself.

[Yegolev]

My assumption has always been that the DE teams want to be the one that becomes the DE which puts linux into the homes of regular jackoffs.

Trouble is that regular jackoffs are now using tablets and phones.

[Chimpy]

Finishing up my last day at the public library in a couple hours. Not sure what I am going to do with Saturdays and evenings off 

[Yegolev]

If you have a 360 and Borderlands 2, you can let me drive you off a cliff.  It's fun, I swear.

[Ironwood]

Windows 8 is a complete shitpile and I can't believe anyone OKed it. It's beyond confusing and I, as a seasoned techie, had to resort to googling basic shit like 'How do I switch between programs'. It's an utter failure of usability. The fact the new scheme thing only sort of covers half the shit you want to do is a travesty. Installl a new printer? There's no way to add the printer in devices, you have to go into the desktop to run the installer. There were a ton of instances where you just have to check in two places for what you want to do.

Oh, it's worse than you think.  There's a chucklefuck in charge of this business who thinks it's a good idea to put this shit in for clients, despite it being so utterly shitty.  So we have to support it, even though it doesn't work, and advise on it, even though we won't touch it.  If you have a business, don't touch it.  It's actually WORSE than if you're a home users, since half the shit simply isn't there.

Hugely avoid.  Windows 8 is a complete shitpile.  As someone said.

Also, Office doesn't work on it.  Microsoft Office.  Yeah.

[Paelos]

I'm getting a new laptop this weekend, so thanks for the heads up. If anybody offers me Windows 8, I'll throw the device at them.

[Minvaren]

Oh, and on the dryer front, I found my dryer's heat started working again (on low, at least) for some reason.  Now the 15 minutes tumbling after the spin dryer gets everything but the heavy cotton shirts quite dry.

Check the wall outlet! If that's kosher, check the breaker to make sure both poles are getting full power.

I'm presuming it's breaker box related; as I have an FPE panel that I'm getting bids on to replace, and the dryer is 2 feet from the breaker box.

[Sky]

I have an FPE panel that I'm getting bids on to replace

Oh hell yes. You can't do that soon enough.

[Furiously]

Yea I had one in my house and when I replaced it I found two breakers melted together.

[Lantyssa]

My assumption has always been that the DE teams want to be the one that becomes the DE which puts linux into the homes of regular jackoffs.

I think it's that command line guru's don't know the first thing about a good GUI.