Retailers and manufacturers. If you still insist on running commercials as if your target audience are blacks and gays, good luck with that. You alienate everyone else. You demonstrate contempt for me and people like me. Bold move, Cotton.
I have been coveting a new graphics card for my main computer for a long time. the cost for a negligible increase in performance just never seemed worth it to me. But then I saw an ad at the local computer store for an NVIDIA 4070 that was reasonable (expensive) and decided to go have a look. While I was there the salesman informed me that the 5070 Ti was also in stock, better, and cheaper than the refurb card I was looking for. So I got it.
I did some research and determined that I would also need an upgraded power supply to power the new graphics card since it requires more than my current current provided can provide.
Got it all hooked up and I can proudly say that on the games I normally play, I noticed ZERO difference in performance. (APPLAUSE)
Using the furmark benchmark app I can see that the performance is actually MUCH better, just not better in any way that I can see.
An added benefit that was not advertised nor discussed anywhere on the internets: Even though the new card, Zotec NVIDIA 5070 Ti (16GB) is rated to use MORE power than the old card, Zotec NVIDIA 2060 Super, in practice, using the same games, it used LESS power. I suspect that it is just more powerful at rendering graphics and can do it a lot more efficiently. So, running games like Fallout4 (modded), World of Warships, Skyrim, and They are Billions, the newer card simply doesn’t even need to work hard to crank out the required resolutions. Looking and temperature and power meters, the new card is literally just coasting to do the same job the old card needed to put in a solid effort to accomplish.
ADDEMDUM: I also notice that since getting the new card regular text gets rendered in such high fidelity that I can see every pixel, and therefore it isn’t as smoothe.
Golly. I should probably post something once in a while.
You may have noticed that for the past several days, Israel has been bombing Iran back to the stone age. I have a few thoughts on what is really going on.
I don’t see how this ends but it cannot go on much longer. The ability of Israel to roam the skies above Iran is limited. They are at the extreme end of their range. The cost of this operation is ruinous financially, even with USA backing.
The new Starwars series from Disney is on Hulu for the next ten days so I thought I would give it a view.
Bottom line: BORING..
I kept waiting for something to happen. I kept waiting for some storytelling. I kept waiting for something to endear me to the characters. I got through the whole first episode and into the second and all I saw were the petty dramas and squabbles that are typical from the sort of people I don’t know in real life. Thus, I cannot relate to any of them. If I did know anyone like that in real life, I would distance myself from them and forget they existed, just like I will forget this series exists in about 30 minutes.
Yes, this is a high budget show. Disney is once against flushing another barrel full of money down another Kathleen Kennedy money pit. There are lots of extras in the background. Lots of props and sets. Lots of people wandering around in costumes to look like alien life. All going nowhere and contributing nothing to the story.
Then there is the flashback scenes of the main character (I think he is the main character, it is hard to tell at this point) going back to his childhood on a forest planet. For no reason given, the whole village seems to be in hiding and there are no adults. Just kids. They also have some sort of pointless drama going on, but we don’t know what it is because the writers chose to use a foreign language with no subtitles. It seems they couldn’t be bothered to write any dialog for those scenes.
The main character is an unlikeable guy who cheats, steals, lies, and doesn’t pay his debts. Nor does he have a job. Just lots of schemes to get money. He might be looking for his sister. It’s hard to tell. Since he literally lies about everything to everyone, I don’t know why the writers would think any of his dialog at a bar he has never been in before, to a prostitute he will never see again, would be honest.
None of the characters so far have anything about them that could convince me to give this turd another 5 minutes to see if it improves.
In short: It is everything I have come to expect from the Star Wars franchise after Disney killed it and re-animated the corpse.
The writers further demonstrate their lack of originality by dragging in the old trope of a robot with anthropomorphic glitches to lend comedy. It didn’t help. It just became another character that the lead character lies to and involve in his questionable schemes.
Haven’t seen any lesbian witches yet, but the show is young. Also, no one has mentioned the force.
I do wonder if the title is a play on words from a writer who is also a computer programmer and combined the logic operators AND and OR. I am definitely not going to watch any more of this hoping to find out.
There is zero hope of this ever getting better. Even market dynamics of more content creators = less revenue per creator is not working because computers can help “create” massive cut-paste videos that get by on harvesting the pennies a few million at a time. YouTube needs to seriously look at their business model and come up with something better before they are mired in so much obscure dreck that the sort of people who might actually buy products from advertisers just go away.
If the YouTube audience gets trained that ads on YouTube are all scams, then legit advertisers will not buy YouTube ads for fear of being tarred with the same brush.
The Trump administration is doing a fine job moving forward on all the things we elected them to do. All the things except one: Still no arrests of the criminals who have been hiding in our government for the past 4 years. No Epstein arrests. No arrests for child sex trafficking at the border. No arrests for weaponizing the Justice department or FBI. No arrests for pillaging the national treasury for personal enrichment. Nothing.
You are claiming to be an open and transparent government. Get this done soon to restore faith in the government.
The new 4Runner, being the off Road edition, did not come equipped with running boards. After copious research into the matter, I selected the cheapest ones money can buy. Total price for these was under $300, shipping included. I like the step-up style and they help to make the look more complete. Installation was easy, taking less than 1 hour and needing no assistance. The 4Runner come pre-drilled for running boards and the ones I selected claimed to be a good fit for the 5th Gen 4runner, ORP. The only tools needed were a few metric sockets, a metric open end wrench. The parts were all clearly labeled to indicate where to position them (driver side, front bracket, etc) and the instructions were straight forward.
You can see by the bolts below that the bolt holes were slotted to permit some positional flex before tightening in place.
The picture below shows the running board is positioned all the way in the rear, up against a perpendicular bracket coming off the body.
The front of the running board shows that the overall length of the running board is about 1 Inch too long. You can see that it doesn’t go all the way up to the splash guard, but it does hang below the black plastic corner that is just above it. This causes the running board to hang slightly off-level. The gap between the body and the board in front is just slightly more than at the rear.
Not that anyone would notice it. Good enough for the price. I suppose they have to make some compromises in their design to make a product that will fit as many models as possible. The cost of their competitors was between $500-$1,500. “Rock-sliders” were the more expensive ones since they were generally built more ruggedly, but at a tradeoff of not have the step up.
The rear perpendicular bracket is held on with just a few bolts. I don’t know what it’s purpose it (OEM on 4Runner). But if it were not there, the whole running board could move back about 1/2 inch and then be level. the slotted bolt holes do leave some give in the adjustments but it’s too cold outside to play with this any more. I’ll look at it again in the spring. When I look at it again, I will likely apply some lock tite as well.
Amazon Prime isn’t happy ruining the franchise for Wheel of Time or Lord of the Rings. Now they are going back in time and ruining a series that is already in the can. The BSG series aired from 2004-2009 on Sci-fi network. I was feeling the need to start a new binge watch for the holidays and my eye scanned the offerings on Amazon Prime. First option I discovered was not actually an offer, but an offer to buy, rent, or otherwise pay money for the privilege of watching it. Um, no thanks. Dear Amazon, I get Prime to stream stuff that you have, not stuff you want me to buy. Then I see the BSG series and think to myself, that should do.
I get my popcorm and tall frosty drinks ready and queue the first episode. WTF? It seems the first episode is sometime in the middle of the series when the colonials are already on the run. I check the metadata. Season 1, episode 1. No error there. Why is this starting in the middle? I don’t know who these characters are and the script is pretending like I should care about them already. It’s just random action and drama thrown together without the foundation being laid.
Unwatchable.
Why do streaming services do this sort of thing? What business decision makes them wonder how many customers they can convince to cancel Prime? Why is anyone hiring writers and directors to re-edit old classics and turn them into ransom notes of filography?
I just returned from a long road trip. In that trip, I used my 2022 Toyota 4runner Off Road TRD, Premium (ORP). I wanted to archive the results for posterity.
Trailer: Uhaul 6×12, 2 axle. Trailer weight empty: 2200 lbs. Trailer weight loaded: 5100 Lbs. Tongue weight about 600 lbs. Weights verified by truck scales.
The 4runner is rated at 5000 lbs towing weight with class III receiver hitch. It has built in towing hookups, both 7 pin and 4 pin connections so no adapter needed. The 4runner has a built in transmission cooler that routes hot trans oil into a circuit through the main radiator. This is somewhat useful in that transmission oil temperature is regulated by the thermostat using the engine coolant. Throughout this trip, at all speeds, conditions, and road grades, the engine temperature on the temperature gage never altered from the same normal I experience when I am not towing. So this system is adequate and no added trans cooler is needed.
Some internet people recommended using the non-overdrive setting on the transmission to reduce the amount of shifting. This was not a noticeable problem. I left the transmission setting on the normal “D” selection and had no troubles.
The route: 5600 miles. 2800 with loaded trailer and the rest without the trailer. Several mountain passes and steep grades. 1000 miles each way across the Great Plains.
Observations:
Overall assessment: Very acceptable. I would do this again without any concern for the 4runner being able to handle it.
The vehicle: 2015 Mercedes Benz ML-250 Bluetec diesel. The car has symptoms of grating clicking sound when the car accelerates or is going uphill. Additional symptom is leaking oil. Many of the online sources for this are very good on YouTube. The problem is that there are very few videos about the ML-250. Most are about the ML-350. No problem, these in fact turned out to be nearly identical. As usual, I won’t rehash what is already in the videos.
The picture below shows a rectangular weep hole, pointed at the screwdriver tip along the seem in the case, that is the source of the oil leak. The point of that weep hole is to let leaking oil escape when the interior seal fails. When that happens, you must remove the transfer case from the transmission to get at that seal.
Then to remove the transfer case, there are 8 special star-hex bolts. These are a number 12. I had one that had a mildly rounded off head and a number 14 was a better fit. The two bolts at the top of the case are pretty much inaccessible. To get to them, you need a wrench that turns back onto itself. I tried using a crows foot. of course, they don’t make those in star-point sockets. The 10 mm crow’s foot has a close fit, but couldn’t really grip the bolt and only served to round it over. Internet guys recommended this doohicky from China Freight.
Total fail. Then I remembered that I had a welder and could create tools at a whim.
A very cheap set of crows foot wrenches from China Freight sacrificed themselves for the cause of science.
First three attempts failed, but the fourth attempt resulted in the device below, which when hooked to 2 long extensions and a regular ratchet wrench got the job done. I cannot emphasize enough that all 8 of these bolts were EASY to remove. If they have been over-torqued, lock-tited, or corroded, they would not have been possible to remove without dropping the whole transmission.
Opening up the case as we can clearly see the chain is very loose and has stretched over time. That is the cause of those clicking sounds. Under tension, the chain slips over the top of those gears. You will also note that the remaining oil in that case is brown. It should be red. This transfer case is supposed to be filled with ATF fluid. What is in there smells like 30 wt motor oil.
The new chain fit in there very snuggly with no drooping at all. When I put this in, I was careful to ensure the white marks on the case were still lined up. The upper half of the case has a magnet that need to be cleaned and put back in. I used a smidge of RTV to keep it from falling out when I re-assembled the case.
Then, as the instruction said, put everything back together, using RTV (silicone sealant). Follow the instruction on the package. Then torque the case bolts back on at 22FT-lbs. While this was on my bench, I also filled it with about 1/2 L of ATF fluid.
Now I need to remove and replace that leaky seal. In the picture below, you can see the leaky oil inside the case. That is confirmation that this seal is what was leaking. You can also see the snap ring with the blue and green marks on it. Normal sized snap ring pliers or needle nose will not work. Just do like I did and run back to China Freight for the big wall of pliers and grab the big-ass snap ring pliers. I bought the last one, but they will likely restock at some point.
Here you can see the difference in flexibility of old and new chains. (new on is on top).
Then after some lifting toting and grunting on my back, the resealed and rebuilt transfer case gets put back in where it belongs and all is well. Once installed, I removed the fill plug to check the proper level of fluid was present. 1/2 L was just the right amount. The parts I skipped over were not very important and the YouTube videos covered them very well. It is also worth noting that having the rear wheels off the ground will assist you in re-aligning the drive shaft bolts. If they are off by just a little bit, they will not go back together.
Total cost of parts and special tools was about $100. The MB dealership will not do this work. It doesn’t price out enough labor to make it worth their effort. Their repair is to replace the entire transfer case for estimated cost of about $10,000. They won’t replace that $20 seal or that $60 chain. Their motto is: If you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t have bought a luxury automobile. Go back to Chevrolet, Peasant.
genericviews.wordpress.com 