Rant of the Day v2.

[Pontius Navigator]

I said the other day that Mrs PN received a hospital appointment and a cancellation in the same envelope last month for the 18th of this. Today we received a new appointment for the 20th. WTF. As she has since gone private, seen the consultant, had the investigation, and had the post op debrief today, she rang up to cancel the appointment for the same consultation that was requested in July.

"Oh, you should not have got that letter. It's been cancelled"

Is it medical staff or administration?

Today she got a new appointment for April. Rather than waste time cancelling we shall wait for them to do it.

[Ex-Ascot]

My bloody bank account has been blocked because I haven't replied to letters sent to us in Greece. They now require me to show myself and passport on my smart phone. I said what if I didn't have one. They said that I have to go into my local branch. Oh yes I will just pop up the road. Anyway my local branch closed down about 10 years ago.

[Woody]

MrsWoody can never complain about my DIY skills, or lack of, again

[llondel]

[Ex-Ascot]

5 phone calls to the RBS. They said that if we couldn't get the stupid phone app to work we had to go into our nearest branch. After 9 attempts I think we have got it to work. They wouldn't give me a supervisor or senior manager. They said none available. *****. All pissed or at lunch.

[PHXPhlyer]

Called my mobile phone provider to complain yet again about my 5G home internet service.
The service is practically unusable from late afternoon til mid evening with no ability to stream TV and worse than dial up speeds for internet browsing.
The nice customer service lady told me that I might want to explore my options to find a new provider as she didn't foresee any improvement in the near term.
While not exactly the answer that I wanted to hear, at least she was honest.
My only viable option is to return to my previous cable internet provider at approx. $20 / month more for a supposed 100 meg download. They advertise Gig speeds but I probably won't want to pay what they are asking for that.
Good news is that I still have my cable modem and wireless router.
The bad news is that I cannot connect to their website to check options on account of my current crappy to nonexistent service.

PP

[ExSp33db1rd]

Ok you digital age geniuses ( geneii ?) 2008 Honda Accord Euro, 2.4 ltr.

For awhile now we have been experiencing the "Help ! Stop ! You're about to do inestimable damage to the engine," warning light llluminating, sometimes at start-up and sometimes enroute. Initially went to the MWD ( Man What Does i.e. the local Honda servicing agency, not some friend in his backyard shed.) ) and enroute to him the light went out. ( Murphy at work ? ) Over the past 18 months or so this has happened repeatedly, along with all the computerised info. usually presented in the centre of the speedo instrument mostly being scrambled and / or replaced by flashing lights, but occasionally correct, and as the MWD has repeatedly been unable to find any fault I had decided to live with it and on the rare occasions when the mileage shows up I have recorded it on a car worksheet, currently showing 132,102 Km, less than 10K km/yr.

Bur... today when I started up every warning light imagineable screamed at me, and there was no power steering. Mrs. ExS had an appt. to make, so I decided to wrestle the car to her meeting, ( a potential Darwin candidate ? ) during which the power assist came good but the auto gear shift stopped working, so I was stuck in top gear regardless of the gradient or necessity for a lower gear. Dropping Mrs. ExS off I went straight back to the MWD, during which time the gear change started working again and most of the lights went out.

Some 5 hours later the MWD has just returned the car with everything as normal. He reckons that the battery was not properly accepting a charge, tho' the alternator was working as normal, and after replacing the battery discovered that problems still arose due to a faulty earth strap, also replaced. He reckons the variable battery performance has been fooling the electronic controller that affects everything it has dominance over, but I'm not convinced.

My thoughts ...... whereas a faulty battery, and or earth strap, might affect starting, once the engine is running shouldn't the alternator / dynamo whatever by-pass the battery and if working properly also provide enough current to satisfy all the modern electronic gizmos that seem to be part of todays cars ? MWD reckons he has tested all the digital age circuits and bits, but I'm not convinced.

Whereas we have over 120 years of learning the cunning ways of the mechanical bits and pieces of cars, the electronic gizmos new being fitted are a whole new learning curve, and we are still innocents abroad. I'm not convinced that my problem lay (still lies ? ) with a simple battery charging rate and earth strap problem. Hope I'm wrong, time will tell. Thoughts ?

[TheGreenAnger]

Your Calcomp plotter parallel port followed on from RS232 driven printers which followed on from 20ma current loop devices. Still got a 20ma current loop cable in a box somewhere. Used it to hook a TTY to a PDP11, in my lounge at the time.

I've used 20mA current loop stuff more recently than that. I did have an ASR33 once, used to use it with my BBC Micro. Everyone in the house knew when I was printing something on it, too.

Dot matrix printers, UART'S, RS232 comms, BBC Micros, Vax PDP's...

And here's the rant - A cornucopia of this kind of technology for me since 03:00 hrs this morning... log tracing a corrupted encrypted connection on a client's data feed. Now fixed, I need some more sleep. Damn technology.

Cipher in use - Ci01-va-va-va-va-lo-lo-va-va-va-va-va-va-da-da-va-va-do-do-lo-lo-lo-lo-da-da-do-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo
09/02/2023 03:15:36 Action fMain : cmbCiphers_SelectedIndexChanged - enter
09/02/2023 03:15:36 Info Current cipher - Ci01-va-va-va-va-lo-lo-va-va-va-va-va-va-da-da-va-va-do-do-lo-lo-lo-lo-da-da-do-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo
09/02/2023 03:15:36 Query ADONET : GetDataReader_Sql - enter
09/02/2023 03:15:36 Query ADONET : GetDataReader_Sql - exit
09/02/2023 03:15:37 Query ADONET : QueryScalarVector - enter
09/02/2023 03:15:37 Query ADONET : QueryScalarVector - exit
09/02/2023 03:15:37 Info Datagrid results all set
09/02/2023 03:15:38 Action fMain : cmbCiphers_SelectedIndexChanged - exit
09/02/2023 03:15:38 Info Functions list initialised

[4mastacker]

ExSp,

although my Honda is a lot younger than yours, it has a (not so) smart battery (a deep charge unit?) which apparently tells the the gubbins in the car when it needs a top up charge, otherwise such gismos as the auto stop/start won't work.

According to the manual, the auto stop/start won't work if the engine is cold, the air con is on and a host of other conditions. But it does. After having had the car back to Honda umpteen times and a battery change under warranty, I've given up with it and now don't care if the bloody system wants to work or not.

There's too much tech in modern cars. I don't need a warning horn and flashing icon to tell me that I'm changing lanes, I've got the Mk 1 eyeball to give me that information. Then there is the tyre deflation warning which harps on as tyres get worn... all switched off as they are a distraction.

Bet there wasn't any these problems when folks drove 'orsencarts.

[Pontius Navigator]

ExSp, while the alternator will indeed provide 12 v wiggly amps it dies this only to the 12v battery. If said battery chose not to pass on all 12v then chaos ensues.

Now hybrids, including Toyota hybrids suffer battery issues that occasionally produce rather less wiggles than the systems require. What happens then is random fault lights display, external lights flash but the system will not start.

Sounds as if your MWD has finally nailed it

[OFSO]

My Ford tells me if the stop/start is disabled and why. Engine warming, cabin warming or cooling, power steering, cat regeneration....

Talking of which, I discovered that the cat had been locked in the garage since yesterday afternoon. Didn't make itself known until today, but was in need of regeneration.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Pontius ............ makes sense, but didn't know that.

At least I don't have Stop/Start or lane infringement to worry about, car built before they got involved with all that nonsense.

Thanks.

[1DC]

The stop start stopped working in my Jaguar when it was about three years old,apparantly because the stop start battery wanted renewing. This battery costs about 400 quid. I decided at the time that it was pointless replacing something that would make the stop start work because I never noticed wether it worked or not. Come to think of it I don't know if it works in Mrs 1DC's Lexus either!

[TheGreenAnger]

The stop start stopped working in my Jaguar when it was about three years old,apparantly because the stop start battery wanted renewing. This battery costs about 400 quid. I decided at the time that it was pointless replacing something that would make the stop start work because I never noticed wether it worked or not. Come to think of it I don't know if it works in Mrs 1DC's Lexus either!

I worked on the first embedded (dare I say, sophisticated) software that went into Jaguar cars back in the late 1980's, so don't blame me for your current travails. My forte was the lighting circuits, which was a step up from Lucas, the high priests of darkness!

Cars, like everything else are only going to become even more of a black box to the consumer. Gone are the days when you could clean the points on your Triumph Herald, slap your girlfriend's bum and still be happy and sure of the ride to come.

[1DC]

The lights haven't gone out yet GA

[TheGreenAnger]

The lights haven't gone out yet GA

I hope so 1DC.

[ExSp33db1rd]

........Gone are the days when you could clean the points on your Triumph Herald,..........

Or even refill it with petrol. A local guy just poured some $500 of petrol on to the forecourt of his local service station, put the nozzle of the pump into the fishing rod holder of the boat he was towing instead of the fuel tank filler hole. ( Don't ask, yes, one might have thought he would have noticed, not sure of the detail, maybe he set it to continue secure in the knowledge that a full tank would trip off the pump, then walked away ? ) Spoiled his day, and the Forecourt !

[4mastacker]

There's a report in our local rag this morning about Trumpton being called to clear up at a local supermarket's filling station because of a spillage. The report sez about 20 - 30 litres were spilt when someone tried to fill their car. Silly 2@t should have put the fuel in the tank- how on earth did they not notice that amount of fuel spilling around their ankles? The filling nozzles at that supermarket are super sensitive to back pressure and will click off even when you've just started filling.

[Pontius Navigator]

ExSp, AFAIK our pumps don't have a click on.

4ma, was it a Tesla?

[Pontius Navigator]

........Gone are the days when you could clean the points on your Triumph Herald,..........

Or even refill it with petrol. A local guy just poured some $500 of petrol on to the forecourt of his local service station, put the nozzle of the pump into the fishing rod holder of the boat he was towing instead of the fuel tank filler hole. ( Don't ask, yes, one might have thought he would have noticed, not sure of the detail, maybe he set it to continue secure in the knowledge that a full tank would trip off the pump, then walked away ? ) Spoiled his day, and the Forecourt !

I had a report of low voltage on my Merc, I had occasion slow starting. Took it into Kwikfit for a new battery. I confess I had not searched online. Anyway they questioned why I wanted a new one rather than a hard sell .

Anyway I explained and they searched for the correct one. Apparently the only spec for my car was for a stop/start one even though my car did not have that facility. Even so I was pleased with a price around £150.

If Mrs DCs Lexus it like my Toyota you have no option to switch off the stop start, nor do you even notice except when accelerating hard.