Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

stickguy · March 2019

tjc78 said:
I always liked Vila’s show and TOH. The early 90s had some good projects.

the old Hometime episodes were really good too.

berri · March 2019

That Hometime host seemed to go through the ladies

driver100 · March 2019

jmonroe1 said:

driver100 said:

jmonroe1 said:

driver100 said:
And keep in mind that if you are self-employed, those Edmunds royalties are not taxed by self-employment taxes.
OH NO !! Now you tell me. I'm going to have to refile for the last 3 years. Thanks a lot. :@
jmonroe

I'll have to email the IRS to look into those deductions as well as the other stuff you have been cheating on.....by, your own admission.
They'd never believe a foreigner with an agenda who is going to be deported soon.

jmonroe
They will offer me free citizenship for turning you in.
Do you really want that? Remember, we don't have free health care.

jmonroe

Oh yeh, maybe dual citizenship.

jmonroe1 · March 2019

driver100 said:

jmonroe1 said:

driver100 said:

jmonroe1 said:

driver100 said:
And keep in mind that if you are self-employed, those Edmunds royalties are not taxed by self-employment taxes.
OH NO !! Now you tell me. I'm going to have to refile for the last 3 years. Thanks a lot. :@
jmonroe

I'll have to email the IRS to look into those deductions as well as the other stuff you have been cheating on.....by, your own admission.
They'd never believe a foreigner with an agenda who is going to be deported soon.

jmonroe
They will offer me free citizenship for turning you in.
Do you really want that? Remember, we don't have free health care.

jmonroe
Oh yeh, maybe dual citizenship.

The IRS would never believe a guy who speaks with two tongues.

jmonroe

driver100 · March 2019

ab348 said:
A couple of days ago I stumbled onto several seasons of "Bob Vila's Home Again" on Youtube, full episodes

A new neighbor moved in a few houses away, he is an author and he helped write a PBS TV show about remodelling. Anyone heard of Charlie Wing?

The guy has pretty impressive credentials;

Charlie Wing, a nationally recognized authority on home building and remodeling, home repair, energy conservation and boating, specializes in translating and illustrating technical information into easily understood layman's terms. A PhD graduate of MIT, Principle Investigator in NASA's Apollo Lunar Program, and Physics Instructor at Bowdoin College, he cofounded the nation's first two owner-builder schools, developed the first DOE-approved computerized home energy audit, wrote and hosted the national PBS TV series, "Housewarming with Charlie Wing", appeared on over 400 radio and television shows about energy conservation, served as founding and technical editor for "Smart Homeowner Magazine" and has written and illustrated 30 books. He lives on the Coast of Maine.

Since I know nothing about DIY or almost anything else, I'll have to avoid him in the future.

driver100 · March 2019

jmonroe1 said:

driver100 said:

jmonroe1 said:

driver100 said:

jmonroe1 said:

driver100 said:
And keep in mind that if you are self-employed, those Edmunds royalties are not taxed by self-employment taxes.
OH NO !! Now you tell me. I'm going to have to refile for the last 3 years. Thanks a lot. :@
jmonroe

I'll have to email the IRS to look into those deductions as well as the other stuff you have been cheating on.....by, your own admission.
They'd never believe a foreigner with an agenda who is going to be deported soon.

jmonroe
They will offer me free citizenship for turning you in.
Do you really want that? Remember, we don't have free health care.

jmonroe
Oh yeh, maybe dual citizenship.
The IRS would never believe a guy who speaks with two tongues.

jmonroe

One tongue, same language, different spelling sometimes.

explorerx4 · March 2019

@sb55,
Back in the 70's when I went to school up there, there used to be car races on the lake.
On the weekends you would see headlights on the lake at night.
People driving to/from Burlington/Port Kent?

ab348 · March 2019

Never heard of Charlie Wing. He sounds overqualified to write about driving a nail.

driver100 · March 2019

ab348 said:
Never heard of Charlie Wing. He sounds overqualified to write about driving a nail.

He also writes about boating. To make a living at being an author the book is just the way to lead you into more lucrative work. Hard to make a living writing books on how to launch your own rocket.

driver100 · March 2019

All those wires reminds me of a friend who went to community college for 2 years - took electrical and passed.
He applied for a job at a steel company. they said they couldn't hire him. He asked why. They said because he was color blind. They didn't notice at the technological institute!
He got a job at city hall working in drafting with 20 other guys. Someone told him to get into sanitation, there were only 3 people ahead of him. He transferred into sanitation, one guy ahead of him left, another dies, another transferred and he quickly became head of sanitation for a city of 300,000.

tjc78 · March 2019

@driver100

You can’t make that up!! Probably was bringing in 150k a year too.

driver100 · March 2019

tjc78 said:
@driver100

You can’t make that up!! Probably was bringing in 150k a year too.

Probably close to it. Also great retirement with inflation factor, and he retired at 55.

jmonroe1 · March 2019

driver100 said:

ab348 said:
Never heard of Charlie Wing. He sounds overqualified to write about driving a nail.
He also writes about boating. To make a living at being an author the book is just the way to lead you into more lucrative work. Hard to make a living writing books on how to launch your own rocket.

That book is proof as to why you shouldn't do electrical work if you are color blind. I see a yellow crimp-on splice on a blue wire and a blue crimp-on splice on what looks like a greenish wire. Good way to cause a short and burn something down.

jmonroe

explorerx4 · March 2019

@jmonroe1,
Maybe that should be Charlie Wing-It.

Mr_Shiftright · March 2019

I have an interesting story about over-qualified people and cars:

I had an acquaintance in Colorado who was part of my network of "go-to guys" for various types of expertise dealing with automobiles. "Karl" was a real character, but an absolute whiz with automatic transmissions. He really helped me when I was car-flipping for a living part-time while working on my other projects.

The interesting story he told me concerned how to up-sell people with transmission work. He said the easiest people to fool were scientists from nearby companies and institutes in the area.

This didn't make sense to me, but as he explained it--these scientists were so used to working with incredible tolerances that Karl could show them a transmission part with a mark or wear-sign on it that made absolutely no difference and was of no consequence whatsoever to the reliability of the transmission--but that would make a huge difference in a space rocket, jet fighter or some precision measuring device.

Karl made a lot of money that way. Fortunately, it was hard to up-sell me, because when he showed me some mauled part, I'd just say "Looks fine, Karl, let's go with that". I have to say, I never heard any actual complaints about the durability of his rebuilds.

jmonroe1 · March 2019

explorerx4 said:
@jmonroe1,
Maybe that should be Charlie Wing-It.

I agree.

jmonroe

jmonroe1 · March 2019

Mr_Shiftright said:
I have an interesting story about over-qualified people and cars:

I had an acquaintance in Colorado who was part of my network of "go-to guys" for various types of expertise dealing with automobiles. "Karl" was a real character, but an absolute whiz with automatic transmissions. He really helped me when I was car-flipping for a living part-time while working on my other projects.

The interesting story he told me concerned how to up-sell people with transmission work. He said the easiest people to fool were scientists from nearby companies and institutes in the area.

This didn't make sense to me, but as he explained it--these scientists were so used to working with incredible tolerances that Karl could show them a transmission part with a mark or wear-sign on it that made absolutely no difference and was of no consequence whatsoever to the reliability of the transmission--but that would make a huge difference in a space rocket, jet fighter or some precision measuring device.

Karl made a lot of money that way. Fortunately, it was hard to up-sell me, because when he showed me some mauled part, I'd just say "Looks fine, Karl, let's go with that". I have to say, I never heard any actual complaints about the durability of his rebuilds.

Nice story and I can understand how some professions can get to hung-up with tolerances because I have seen it first hand myself but what does that have to do with being color blind ?

jmonroe

explorerx4 · March 2019

@jmonroe1,
I based my comment on your expertise(not to be doubted), not mine.
Almost electrocuted myself once.
Prefer battery powered tools ever since then.

jmonroe1 · March 2019

explorerx4 said:
@jmonroe1,
I based my comment on your expertise(not to be doubted), not mine.
Almost electrocuted myself once.
Prefer battery powered tools ever since then.

How hard did you have to work at that ? Double insulated power tools have been around for more than 40 years.

jmonroe

explorerx4 · March 2019

Not sure. All I know is when I plugged the drill into an extension cord that had a bare wire(didn't notice it), I felt the current going up my arms and couldn't separate the drill from the cord.
Luckily, the cord was plugged into an overhead box and while I was jumping around, I stepped on the cord and pulled it out of the box.
This was 25 or so years ago and I might have been using an old drill.

andres3 · March 2019

https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/tsftables/Fatalities and Fatality Rates.pdf

One interesting thing to note is the table linked above from the notorious NHTSA uses death occurring within 30 days after an accident. This seems perfectly reasonable as sometimes you don't immediately succumb to your injuries from a collision.

There's a rumor (haven't found it yet), that the NHTSA also has studies that take deaths at the scene only, and it skews the data drastically perhaps. I would find any such study to be highly deceptive. What if someone died 10 minutes into their ambulance ride? That wouldn't be counted? I'd find such a study to be intentionally biased and outright deceptive. It isn't reasonable.

30 days, that's reasonable.

suydam · March 2019

tjc78 said:

dino001 said:

imidazol97 said:
I just saw an article about how the IRS tax refunds are now equal to last year--I assume in total amounts.

The problem with all the political hand wringing over the earlier data is that it's like a CR poll--the data isn't sufficient to mean much. It might have been correct, but not proven.

"Tax refunds increased by 17 percent last week and are now at the same level as last year, according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin/"

The other factor to taxes is that many don't understand the block aspect of the various marginal rates.
Best I saw last year was a bar graph with multiple blocks representing the various tax rates stacked on top of the deduction with the vertical axis being the total dollars earned and then next to the blocks maximum in each stack it showed the total taxes that would have been paid.

The other is loaning the government money. I erred when I kept my withholding the same from my major sources. And I failed to take into account that I was having Fed withholding on RMD's. My bad.
It's much much worse. Most media and run story that since the refunds were lower, somehow people's taxes must be higher. Of course raging financial illiteracy of the general population and its average math skills on levels between preschool and first grade don't help in understanding that you pay taxes in your paycheck, not just around April 15. Some (many) people truly believe that just because their refund is lower (or "worse", they owe more), it must mean the taxes went up.
I had to do some digging to figure it all out, but in the end we made more money in 2018 and paid less taxes. We saved about 40% of that in the form of lower withholdings (no dependents changed), then the rest we got back in a refund. I'll take it!

You will like it for a couple of years until the middle class tax cuts disappear, while the ones for corporations do not. https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/20/pf/taxes/tax-cuts-temporary/index.html

andres3 · March 2019

I found the study. Turns out the guy was deceived by Table/Figure 1, which is meaningless. Funny the NHTSA leads with that meaningless data.

Table 2/Figure 2 tells the truth. Rates still went down in 96, both rural and urban.

Figure 3 is very very interesting as well.

abacomike · March 2019

explorerx4 said:

Not sure. All I know is when I plugged the drill into an extension cord that had a bare wire(didn't notice it), I felt the current going up my arms and couldn't separate the drill from the cord. Luckily, the cord was plugged into an overhead box and while I was jumping around, I stepped on the cord and pulled it out of the box. This was 25 or so years ago and I might have been using an old drill.

Explorer, I am glad you are still with us after that episodic experience. But you have to look at the brighter side of that experience - whenever you make a mistake or use poor judgment which causes severe consternation, just remind the folks around you that you came face-to-face with many volts of electricity that seared through your body which has caused residual effects that surface every now and then with senior moments and brain farts. Boy how I wish I had a fall-back position like that to use when I put my foot in my mouth or screw things up royally.

You are one lucky guy, explorer, whom I am envious of due to that jolt of electricity. What a guy!

Can I borrow that story from you to use in severe stress situations?

andres3 · March 2019

I HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING:

1) Am I the only one that noticed the goal posts keep moving?

2) First it was the false statement that fatality RATES went up when speed limits were raised after the Federal 55 MPH experiment.

3) Now, it's grasping for straws with talk of medical advances, car safety advances, and other tidbits that don't change significantly from year to year.

4) I can grasp for straws in the opposite direction, and argue that cell phones and modern technology have increased death rates. These are probably far BIGGER straws than #3.

jmonroe1 · March 2019

explorerx4 said:
Not sure. All I know is when I plugged the drill into an extension cord that had a bare wire(didn't notice it), I felt the current going up my arms and couldn't separate the drill from the cord.
Luckily, the cord was plugged into an overhead box and while I was jumping around, I stepped on the cord and pulled it out of the box.
This was 25 or so years ago and I might have been using an old drill.

I'm sure that event raised your blood pressure for a while. As for the drill, if the housing was made of plastic and metal it was NOT double insulated. Double insulated drills are all plastic except for the chuck which has metal jaws but could have a plastic collar if it has a keyless chuck. Of course you should never have your hands near the chuck when you are using the drill anyway for obvious reasons. One time I saw a guy using a double insulated drill go through dry wall and hit a 220 volt feed for an electric oven that was protected by a 50 amp breaker. Before the breaker tripped, the cable ate up about 3/8 of an inch of his 1/4 inch drill bit. He studdered out a few cuss words then went to the mens room. He never probed a wall for a stud with his drill after that. Safety first is always the best rule when working with power tools.

jmonroe

henryn · March 2019

Mr_Shiftright said:
I have an interesting story about over-qualified people and cars:

I had an acquaintance in Colorado who was part of my network of "go-to guys" for various types of expertise dealing with automobiles. "Karl" was a real character, but an absolute whiz with automatic transmissions. He really helped me when I was car-flipping for a living part-time while working on my other projects.

The interesting story he told me concerned how to up-sell people with transmission work. He said the easiest people to fool were scientists from nearby companies and institutes in the area.

This didn't make sense to me, but as he explained it--these scientists were so used to working with incredible tolerances that Karl could show them a transmission part with a mark or wear-sign on it that made absolutely no difference and was of no consequence whatsoever to the reliability of the transmission--but that would make a huge difference in a space rocket, jet fighter or some precision measuring device.

Karl made a lot of money that way. Fortunately, it was hard to up-sell me, because when he showed me some mauled part, I'd just say "Looks fine, Karl, let's go with that". I have to say, I never heard any actual complaints about the durability of his rebuilds.

Reminds me of the story in Car and Driver, many decades ago, about the "GFUB" unit.

snakeweasel · March 2019

andres3 said:
I HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING:

1) Am I the only one that noticed the goal posts keep moving?

2) First it was the false statement that fatality RATES went up when speed limits were raised after the Federal 55 MPH experiment.

3) Now, it's grasping for straws with talk of medical advances, car safety advances, and other tidbits that don't change significantly from year to year.

4) I can grasp for straws in the opposite direction, and argue that cell phones and modern technology have increased death rates. These are probably far BIGGER straws than #3.

Who said fatalities went up?

ruking1 · March 2019

https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Between motorcyclists & pedestrians 12,365 fatalities 2016 nation wide.

driver100 · March 2019

jmonroe1 said:

driver100 said:

ab348 said:
Never heard of Charlie Wing. He sounds overqualified to write about driving a nail.
He also writes about boating. To make a living at being an author the book is just the way to lead you into more lucrative work. Hard to make a living writing books on how to launch your own rocket.

That book is proof as to why you shouldn't do electrical work if you are color blind. I see a yellow crimp-on splice on a blue wire and a blue crimp-on splice on what looks like a greenish wire. Good way to cause a short and burn something down.

jmonroe

Most book covers are done by the "in house art team".......Charlie probably didn't have any say in the cover. And, it isn't exactly the kind of cover that you would put on a best seller. And maybe boat wires are different than home wires.

And if you aren't careful....I found the picture of me in my Batman costume.

snakeweasel · March 2019

driver100 said:

And if you aren't careful....I found the picture of me in my Batman costume.

Now that I gotta see.

explorerx4 · March 2019

@jmonroe1,
That drill had no plastic, solid metal housing.
Only one of my lives' that I've used up.

driver100 · March 2019

snakeweasel said:

driver100 said:

And if you aren't careful....I found the picture of me in my Batman costume.
Now that I gotta see.

You asked for it!

driver100 · March 2019

explorerx4 said:
@jmonroe1,
That drill had no plastic, solid metal housing.
Only one of my lives' that I've used up.

Glad you are still with us explorer. You probably did quite the two step when you got that jolt.

driver100 · March 2019

btw....I am thinner than that picture would indicate. I cropped the bottom and that widened the middle.

snakeweasel · March 2019

driver100 said:
btw....I am thinner than that picture would indicate. I cropped the bottom and that widened the middle.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

abacomike · March 2019

driver100 said:

And if you aren't careful....I found the picture of me in my Batman costume.
Now that I gotta see.
You asked for it!

That’s disgusting!

jmonroe1 · March 2019

explorerx4 said:
@jmonroe1,
That drill had no plastic, solid metal housing.
Only one of my lives' that I've used up.

It's good to know you only used one your lives. Not like the cat on Christmas Vacation who spent all of his at one time chomping on an extension cord for the Christmas tree lights. Now you know why double insulated tool housings were developed. Back in the day it wasn't all that uncommon to hear about deaths due to the use of faulty power tools.

jmonroe

jmonroe1 · March 2019

driver100 said:
btw....I am thinner than that picture would indicate. I cropped the bottom and that widened the middle.

Sure, you're the only one who gets negative results from photo-shopped pictures. BTW , since @snakeweasel put you up to this, both of you get your dues bumped up.

jmonroe

jmonroe1 · March 2019

abacomike said:

driver100 said:

snakeweasel said:

driver100 said:

And if you aren't careful....I found the picture of me in my Batman costume.
Now that I gotta see.
You asked for it!

That’s disgusting!

Couldn't have said it better myself.

jmonroe

oldfarmer50 · March 2019

ruking1 said:
For me, it’s all about EYE contact. If a crosser doesnt make eye contact with a turning or even a perpendicular / straight on driver, discretion is usually the better part of valor. In the worst case, a crosser should try to avoid being dead right.

The safety agencies have done studies which they do not want to take public but crossing in a legal crosswalk is probably more dangerous than jaywalking, because a Jay Walker is paying attention.

Before I cross I always look around because I don’t expect someone else to care as much about my welfare as I do. It amazes me that so many people almost dare you to hit them these days.

I like your idea about baseball cards in the spokes of EVs. I wish I had the presence of mind to yell that at the Tesla that almost got me recently.

sb55 · March 2019

explorerx4 said:
@sb55,
Back in the 70's when I went to school up there, there used to be car races on the lake.
On the weekends you would see headlights on the lake at night.
People driving to/from Burlington/Port Kent?

They just reported that Lake Champlain is completely iced over. But, there are pressure cracks here and there. For those who have never seen one, think plate tectonics, when the ice moves one sheet goes over and one sheet goes under. Like this:

driver100 · March 2019

jmonroe1 said:

abacomike said:

driver100 said:

snakeweasel said:

driver100 said:

And if you aren't careful....I found the picture of me in my Batman costume.
Now that I gotta see.
You asked for it!

That’s disgusting!

Couldn't have said it better myself.

jmonroe

Just because you can't look good in a batman suit!

driver100 · March 2019

sb55 said:

explorerx4 said:
@sb55,
Back in the 70's when I went to school up there, there used to be car races on the lake.
On the weekends you would see headlights on the lake at night.
People driving to/from Burlington/Port Kent?
They just reported that Lake Champlain is completely iced over. But, there are pressure cracks here and there. For those who have never seen one, think plate tectonics, when the ice moves one sheet goes over and one sheet goes under.

We have guys back home that drive their trucks or Skidoos out on the ice for one reason or another....every year a few of them go through the ice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nooCOo1CBy8
I wonder if his insurance will pay......for his stupidity.

venture · March 2019

jmonroe1 said:

driver100 said:

ab348 said:
Never heard of Charlie Wing. He sounds overqualified to write about driving a nail.
He also writes about boating. To make a living at being an author the book is just the way to lead you into more lucrative work. Hard to make a living writing books on how to launch your own rocket.

That book is proof as to why you shouldn't do electrical work if you are color blind. I see a yellow crimp-on splice on a blue wire and a blue crimp-on splice on what looks like a greenish wire. Good way to cause a short and burn something down.

jmonroe

Oddly enough I bought some of those crimp on wire connectors yesterday. The ones I bought were different colors and it said certain colors were for certain size wires. Has something changed or are we talking about different things?

snakeweasel · March 2019

driver100 said:

sb55 said:

explorerx4 said:
@sb55,
Back in the 70's when I went to school up there, there used to be car races on the lake.
On the weekends you would see headlights on the lake at night.
People driving to/from Burlington/Port Kent?
They just reported that Lake Champlain is completely iced over. But, there are pressure cracks here and there. For those who have never seen one, think plate tectonics, when the ice moves one sheet goes over and one sheet goes under.
We have guys back home that drive their trucks or Skidoos out on the ice for one reason or another....every year a few of them go through the ice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nooCOo1CBy8
I wonder if his insurance will pay......for his stupidity.

https://fox6now.com/2016/02/06/breaking-several-cars-fall-through-ice-at-lake-genevas-winterfest/

houdini2 · March 2019

driver100 said:

snakeweasel said:

driver100 said:

And if you aren't careful....I found the picture of me in my Batman costume.
Now that I gotta see.
You asked for it!

Whenever I see that bat man logo, I can also see a wide open mouth with 2 teeth at the top and 4 teeth at the bottom. Some can see it, others can't.

houdini2 · March 2019

oldfarmer50 said:

ruking1 said:
For me, it’s all about EYE contact. If a crosser doesnt make eye contact with a turning or even a perpendicular / straight on driver, discretion is usually the better part of valor. In the worst case, a crosser should try to avoid being dead right.

The safety agencies have done studies which they do not want to take public but crossing in a legal crosswalk is probably more dangerous than jaywalking, because a Jay Walker is paying attention.
Before I cross I always look around because I don’t expect someone else to care as much about my welfare as I do. It amazes me that so many people almost dare you to hit them these days.

I like your idea about baseball cards in the spokes of EVs. I wish I had the presence of mind to yell that at the Tesla that almost got me recently.

Don't waste you BB cards, just use an old deck of playing cards.

houdini2 · March 2019

sb55 said:

explorerx4 said:
@sb55,
Back in the 70's when I went to school up there, there used to be car races on the lake.
On the weekends you would see headlights on the lake at night.
People driving to/from Burlington/Port Kent?
They just reported that Lake Champlain is completely iced over. But, there are pressure cracks here and there. For those who have never seen one, think plate tectonics, when the ice moves one sheet goes over and one sheet goes under. Like this:

Formed a nice little chain of mountains there SB. Plate tectonics indeed.

abacomike · March 2019

driver100 said:

driver100 said:

And if you aren't careful....I found the picture of me in my Batman costume.
Now that I gotta see.
You asked for it!

That’s disgusting!
Couldn't have said it better myself. jmonroe
Just because you can't look good in a batman suit!

No, I wouldn’t want to - the bulges would all be in the wrong spots and I couldn’t live that down!

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