This should be a quick one, possibly with an update after the initial post.
This past Monday evening, 16-Dec-2019, I went to T-S-K Electronics in North Tonawanda, NY, and took the tests for FCC Technician Class, then General Class, Amateur Radio license. Unfortunately, the Volunteer Examiners (VEs) are not permitted to show you which questions were answered wrong, but they will tell you how many you missed (2 for Tech, 5 for General in my case). When talking about license grants, my Technician course instructor (Kevin Kedzierski, WA2FKV) said the VEs will send out the documents that night, and should start to be processed by the Postal Service on Tuesday. Kevin's prediction was that I would have my call sign by Friday (20-Dec). Well...not to be; although I have proven my authorization to operate, it's not official until a call sign shows up on the FCC's licensing site. (That's actually one of the questions in the Technician Class question pool, how soon after passing your exams are you allowed to get on the air, and the (correct) answer is, when your license grant appears in the ULS database.)
Before someone takes the test(s), they may create an FCC Registration Number (FRN), in lieu of using one's Social Security Number (which I have done). It is that account which you may log into to download a PDF of your license for printing. I've been logging in virtually all week just to see if perchance my application has been processed. Although...when you pass, you get a document called a Certificate of Successful Completion of Examination (CSCE). One of the blanks you can fill in on that form is an email address, which I think the FCC will use once they have made your license grant. Every time I hear that I have new email, I keep hoping that it's the FCC, but at the moment I'm a little skeptical, because one, it's hand-printed on the form (and people screw up my surname, Philipps, all the time, too many Ls and not enough Ps, which is part of the address), and two, because I suspect they wouldn't do anything on weekends (it's Saturday as I write this).
So...I wait for things to happen, over which I have little control obviously. But still, I'm thinking almost like The Chipmonks, with their "hurry, Christmas, hurry past."
UPDATE: 27-Dec-2019, the FCC processed my license application. Hello, world, from KD2TFB.
English is a difficult enough language to interpret correctly when its rules are followed, let alone when the speaker or writer chooses not to follow those rules.
"Jeopardy!" replies and randomcaps really suck!
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23 December, 2019
17 December, 2019
Knowing the Details Is a Lot Better Than Not
I apologize in advance for a bit of rambling, but there's just no good way I know of to write everything I want.
It's one of those unfortunate things that's money-driven (of the many, I know, I know...). In order to display ODB II, you have to have, you guessed it, a display. For almost all passenger vehicles, the only display available is plugging a scan tool into the ODB II port. Boy, I with that wasn't so.
Let's flash back for a moment to when I owned a Plymouth Acclaim. This thing was a beauty with respect to ODB II. Turn the key to the run position three times within 5 seconds of being off, and the malfunction indicator lamp (MIL), a.k.a. "'check engine' light," would start flashing 2 digit codes, and end with the pseudocode 55. Of course, unless you have a ready reference (thank goodness these days for DuckDuckGo, Bing, Google, Yahoo!, etc., but not back then, as well as for cellular data) you'd still be in the dark as to what the two digit codes mean. But at least you can memorize a few of either the more dire or the more benign ones.
Today I had a little bit of a scare. At first I noticed a light was on on my dash which ordinarily isn't on. I don't know why, but for no particular reason, my mind first interpreted it as a brake warning light. But then on closer inspection a few seconds later, I realized it was the MIL. The first thought after that was that the motor could refuse to run at any time, and I'd be stuck. I happened to be on my way to my Amateur Radio FCC license exams (hey! Got two wrong on Technician and five on General, so I am effectively a General and just awaiting my call sign) so was a tad worried about how I would get home (although to a large extent, it's less of a worry because I'm an AAA Plus member). Would it even start after my tests? Would it conk out on the way home?
Turns out, no, it didn't, although my trip home was longer because I decided to avoid a highway (I-290 east for locals to Amherst, NY). Ironically, before going to my exams, I talked, in person, to the manager of the aforementioned repair shop about coming in on the 19th for other work (brakes, battery, and oil change). We had also talked about the possible causes of poor fuel economy, oh the irony (stay tuned :-)). I was thinking, should I just drive the car to the shop and walk home? Geez, Louise, who knows what's wrong? I may not even make it that far. But then after I got home and settled a while, I remembered...a long, long time ago, I can still remember how I--made a trip to Harbor Freight. And I knew if I had a chance, to use that ODB II reader tool I bought....OK, OK, enough with the unrhymed "American Pie" parody :-). I had to think for a second, where I might have put it, lo those many years ago.
Eventually the memory cells kicked in long and hard enough so that I could retrieve said ODB II scan tool, and I did hie to the waiting Elantra with it. Drat. I bought the tool when I had a Lumina sedan; I didn't know eactly where Hyundai chose to hide their connector. But eventually I found it. But alas...it'd also been so long ago that I did not remember how to use the darned thing! Back into the house I did go, once again to consult first the product documentation, and then Google University. Hint: it doesn't quite work right unless the key is in the run position. (Hey! Shout out to you Cen-Tech manual writers! How's about bolding some "quick start on using our product" instructions on that one? I gave up after trying to read your "how to use this tool" section). One nasty neck kink later trying to look up under my dash for the ODB II connector, and I was in like Flynn.
Hmmmm....the display shows "A/T". Oh, no...my transmission is toast? Well, no...that's just a discovered "query-able" endpoint as I might call it (not sure what the formal term would be; I tend to think in more general IT/client/serer terms as that is my profession). Thankfully there was nothing to read under "A/T". "Engine" on the other hand...that was a P0455. OK I'll spare you the extra Googling and just tell you it's a large evaporative system leak.
So no, it was highly unlikely the engine would just quit. It would cause a decrease in fuel economy, because those fuel vapors are no longer being collected in the canister for that purpose, they'd just go, unburned, wasted, into the air. If I did give into my fears, I would have walked home in the mid December cold for nothing.
Alas, the reason information is withheld is no doubt economic, possibly in two ways. First, it's more expensive to incorporate a display into a car, at least one from the 2008 era when this car was made. Not only that, but then there would need to be extra time for programmers to make that display useful, much as Plymouth had to have done. And people's time costs money. Second, you think some segments of the car repair industry wants such empowering information? I hate to be cynnical, but Idunno, there could be big repair sort of like there is big oil and big pharma.
So...armed with the knowledge of what the implications of a P0455 are, I can more confidently go on and do some errands, and not...welll....cower in fear? Maybe that's a little harsh. But nonetheless, once again, knowledge is power.
English is a difficult enough language to interpret correctly when its rules are followed, let alone when the speaker or writer chooses not to follow those rules.
"Jeopardy!" replies and randomcaps really suck!
It's one of those unfortunate things that's money-driven (of the many, I know, I know...). In order to display ODB II, you have to have, you guessed it, a display. For almost all passenger vehicles, the only display available is plugging a scan tool into the ODB II port. Boy, I with that wasn't so.
Let's flash back for a moment to when I owned a Plymouth Acclaim. This thing was a beauty with respect to ODB II. Turn the key to the run position three times within 5 seconds of being off, and the malfunction indicator lamp (MIL), a.k.a. "'check engine' light," would start flashing 2 digit codes, and end with the pseudocode 55. Of course, unless you have a ready reference (thank goodness these days for DuckDuckGo, Bing, Google, Yahoo!, etc., but not back then, as well as for cellular data) you'd still be in the dark as to what the two digit codes mean. But at least you can memorize a few of either the more dire or the more benign ones.
Today I had a little bit of a scare. At first I noticed a light was on on my dash which ordinarily isn't on. I don't know why, but for no particular reason, my mind first interpreted it as a brake warning light. But then on closer inspection a few seconds later, I realized it was the MIL. The first thought after that was that the motor could refuse to run at any time, and I'd be stuck. I happened to be on my way to my Amateur Radio FCC license exams (hey! Got two wrong on Technician and five on General, so I am effectively a General and just awaiting my call sign) so was a tad worried about how I would get home (although to a large extent, it's less of a worry because I'm an AAA Plus member). Would it even start after my tests? Would it conk out on the way home?
Turns out, no, it didn't, although my trip home was longer because I decided to avoid a highway (I-290 east for locals to Amherst, NY). Ironically, before going to my exams, I talked, in person, to the manager of the aforementioned repair shop about coming in on the 19th for other work (brakes, battery, and oil change). We had also talked about the possible causes of poor fuel economy, oh the irony (stay tuned :-)). I was thinking, should I just drive the car to the shop and walk home? Geez, Louise, who knows what's wrong? I may not even make it that far. But then after I got home and settled a while, I remembered...a long, long time ago, I can still remember how I--made a trip to Harbor Freight. And I knew if I had a chance, to use that ODB II reader tool I bought....OK, OK, enough with the unrhymed "American Pie" parody :-). I had to think for a second, where I might have put it, lo those many years ago.
Eventually the memory cells kicked in long and hard enough so that I could retrieve said ODB II scan tool, and I did hie to the waiting Elantra with it. Drat. I bought the tool when I had a Lumina sedan; I didn't know eactly where Hyundai chose to hide their connector. But eventually I found it. But alas...it'd also been so long ago that I did not remember how to use the darned thing! Back into the house I did go, once again to consult first the product documentation, and then Google University. Hint: it doesn't quite work right unless the key is in the run position. (Hey! Shout out to you Cen-Tech manual writers! How's about bolding some "quick start on using our product" instructions on that one? I gave up after trying to read your "how to use this tool" section). One nasty neck kink later trying to look up under my dash for the ODB II connector, and I was in like Flynn.
Hmmmm....the display shows "A/T". Oh, no...my transmission is toast? Well, no...that's just a discovered "query-able" endpoint as I might call it (not sure what the formal term would be; I tend to think in more general IT/client/serer terms as that is my profession). Thankfully there was nothing to read under "A/T". "Engine" on the other hand...that was a P0455. OK I'll spare you the extra Googling and just tell you it's a large evaporative system leak.
So no, it was highly unlikely the engine would just quit. It would cause a decrease in fuel economy, because those fuel vapors are no longer being collected in the canister for that purpose, they'd just go, unburned, wasted, into the air. If I did give into my fears, I would have walked home in the mid December cold for nothing.
Alas, the reason information is withheld is no doubt economic, possibly in two ways. First, it's more expensive to incorporate a display into a car, at least one from the 2008 era when this car was made. Not only that, but then there would need to be extra time for programmers to make that display useful, much as Plymouth had to have done. And people's time costs money. Second, you think some segments of the car repair industry wants such empowering information? I hate to be cynnical, but Idunno, there could be big repair sort of like there is big oil and big pharma.
So...armed with the knowledge of what the implications of a P0455 are, I can more confidently go on and do some errands, and not...welll....cower in fear? Maybe that's a little harsh. But nonetheless, once again, knowledge is power.
English is a difficult enough language to interpret correctly when its rules are followed, let alone when the speaker or writer chooses not to follow those rules.
"Jeopardy!" replies and randomcaps really suck!
27 September, 2019
Amazon Is Getting Really Smart: Amazon Locker
About a year or so ago, while shopping on Amazon, I first saw a delivery option of "Amazon Locker," or for the rest of this post, "AL" for short. If you've ever heard of the term "porch pirate," you'll know that this no-additional-cost service was designed to combat just that. I don't think I have to worry about this personally because of the character of the neighborhood I live in, but I imagine there are quite a few people to which this happens all too frequently (thank you, oh so much, Mark Rober). (OK, OK...I'll admit, crime can happen anywhere, so no neighborhood is totally safe or free of it.) There's quite a few things that I have ordered that make me worry about someone coming along and just helping themselves to it, not to mention leaving cardboard boxes out in the rain (which is another problem AL solves).
With Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods, that was a natural choice for one of my area's first ALs. It is really nice and fairly well secured (6 digit code required for retrieval). I have retrieved many an item from there over the past months, but going to Whole Foods is kind of out of my way. So imagine my surprise when I was wandering through Rite Aid on my way home from my employer's office looking for something to treat my nascent cold and I see an Amazon logo.
What's more, there was a label "Aldo" on it. Aldo. Why "Aldo" of all things? This is the really smart part: it looks like newer ALs have names. Amazon is thinking I'll do exactly what I did, seeing a new (to me) AL, go home and search for it on Amazon's site. When I did, I could correlate the name seen in person on the Locker with the one on the Web site. And that's a good thing too. I would have guessed Rite Aid's address to be on Sheridan Dr. Since it turns out it's actually on Evans St., I would have been looking for "Sheridan" in the listing of search results for ZIP code 14221. But there it is in the list: "Amazon Hub Locker - Aldo". Also in the listing is Karriem, Langu, Minerva, and Aliva. I don't know what the variety of names that they use is, but if each has a unique name, all the better. As well, consider that for my part of the world, these names are not common, but they look enough like names for them to be at least a little memorable. You're not wondering, was the name I saw John? Nancy? Bob? Sally? Greg? Diane? Mike? Darlene? No, at least for me it's esoteric, so possibly more memorable.
But alas, as you might imagine, there are some minor downsides. For one, there are limitations on the size of things that will ship there, which you will find at checkout time. Certain classes of goods (hazardous materials, shipped from other countries, etc.) cannot be shipped to one. Sometimes at the time of your order, it will be predicted that there will be no more locker space left. You're automatically limited by the hours of the retailer, but in Rite Aid's case, that's 0800 to 2100, quite a wide range indeed. You have 3 days to pick up, after which time your order goes back. At least at my Whole Foods, I've never gotten the barcode on an iPhone or 8" Android tablet to work. But all these niggles pale in comparison to the assurance that stuff will not be setting in my driveway, open to anyone who might see it and be inclined to help themselves, as well as generally being guaranteed the boxes will not be soggy. (well...you never know due to package leaks, flooding, overhead plumbing gone wrong, etc.)
I hope as many businesses as possible strike deals with Amazon for these alternate pickup arrangements (looks like they also have "Amazon Hub Counter," which as it sounds, you pick up from a person instead of just electronically unlocking a locker). Then it won't matter much where I'm going, there will be one close by. The businesses can benefit too. Like Rite Aid, put it far from the entrance, and you now have potential customers seeing your wares as they go to pick up their Amazon stuff. There's still those impulse buys that will happen, even if it's cheaper on Amazon :-).
English is a difficult enough language to interpret correctly when its rules are followed, let alone when the speaker or writer chooses not to follow those rules.
"Jeopardy!" replies and randomcaps really suck!
With Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods, that was a natural choice for one of my area's first ALs. It is really nice and fairly well secured (6 digit code required for retrieval). I have retrieved many an item from there over the past months, but going to Whole Foods is kind of out of my way. So imagine my surprise when I was wandering through Rite Aid on my way home from my employer's office looking for something to treat my nascent cold and I see an Amazon logo.
What's more, there was a label "Aldo" on it. Aldo. Why "Aldo" of all things? This is the really smart part: it looks like newer ALs have names. Amazon is thinking I'll do exactly what I did, seeing a new (to me) AL, go home and search for it on Amazon's site. When I did, I could correlate the name seen in person on the Locker with the one on the Web site. And that's a good thing too. I would have guessed Rite Aid's address to be on Sheridan Dr. Since it turns out it's actually on Evans St., I would have been looking for "Sheridan" in the listing of search results for ZIP code 14221. But there it is in the list: "Amazon Hub Locker - Aldo". Also in the listing is Karriem, Langu, Minerva, and Aliva. I don't know what the variety of names that they use is, but if each has a unique name, all the better. As well, consider that for my part of the world, these names are not common, but they look enough like names for them to be at least a little memorable. You're not wondering, was the name I saw John? Nancy? Bob? Sally? Greg? Diane? Mike? Darlene? No, at least for me it's esoteric, so possibly more memorable.
But alas, as you might imagine, there are some minor downsides. For one, there are limitations on the size of things that will ship there, which you will find at checkout time. Certain classes of goods (hazardous materials, shipped from other countries, etc.) cannot be shipped to one. Sometimes at the time of your order, it will be predicted that there will be no more locker space left. You're automatically limited by the hours of the retailer, but in Rite Aid's case, that's 0800 to 2100, quite a wide range indeed. You have 3 days to pick up, after which time your order goes back. At least at my Whole Foods, I've never gotten the barcode on an iPhone or 8" Android tablet to work. But all these niggles pale in comparison to the assurance that stuff will not be setting in my driveway, open to anyone who might see it and be inclined to help themselves, as well as generally being guaranteed the boxes will not be soggy. (well...you never know due to package leaks, flooding, overhead plumbing gone wrong, etc.)
I hope as many businesses as possible strike deals with Amazon for these alternate pickup arrangements (looks like they also have "Amazon Hub Counter," which as it sounds, you pick up from a person instead of just electronically unlocking a locker). Then it won't matter much where I'm going, there will be one close by. The businesses can benefit too. Like Rite Aid, put it far from the entrance, and you now have potential customers seeing your wares as they go to pick up their Amazon stuff. There's still those impulse buys that will happen, even if it's cheaper on Amazon :-).
English is a difficult enough language to interpret correctly when its rules are followed, let alone when the speaker or writer chooses not to follow those rules.
"Jeopardy!" replies and randomcaps really suck!
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