Today’s fun. Removing the valve cover on a GM 1.5L Turbo (LYX) engine to search for broken metal parts. The reason is because we had a vacuum pump fail which is mechanically driven and connected to the exhaust camshaft. I replaced it with a genuine GM part, and it failed again about 10 days later. For those that don’t know, a failed vacuum pump means you lose power assisted brakes on this car. You can still stop the car, but it’s entirely by how much power your leg can put into the brake pedal. Anyway, I’m just making sure there aren’t metal or composite pieces that belonged to the pumps still there that might be causing issues. This car does have electronic parking brakes, which I discovered can also be used to slow the car reasonably quickly, if needed, when the vacuum pump fails. A comment about plastic parts in engines.. they suck. The issue is the plastic gets brittle after a while, and I broke a PCV pipe by pulling it slightly. I can get a replacement pipe for about $53, but since PCV isn’t pushing a lot of pressure, I’ll just find a way to reconnect the two pieces. I’ll probably wrap it in electrical tape then put shrink tubing over that. It should hold and withstand the heat OK.

Self portrait. Now you all know what I look like.

Today’s office. Yes, that’s cardboard for a mousepad. Whatever works.

Listening to the recent podcast with @Max and @Efrat Fenigson, I’ve learned that I am indeed a cypherpunk. Listening to Max describe it checked all the boxes for me. I never gave what it meant to be a cypherpunk much thought before, but now I know. Great podcast!

You’re gonna love our pizza. GN.

Paperclipai is giving me troubles with installation. Tomorrow is another day. Swearing at the system isn’t getting it done this time.

Well that was a fun day of fixing AES67 audio issues on my home network and audio systems. I think I got it working mostly well now. It seemed like the biggest issues stemmed from my homegrown AES67 player, but I think I also had some issues on the network with the switches not being configured to honor DSCP colors so everything went in the same queue. Fixed. Anyway, I’m tired. Tomorrow is another day, God willing. GN all.

I don’t know if this saying was actually said by Dr. Allan Greenberg, but it doesn’t matter because this is what I believe 100%. I believe this speaks a lot of truth.

I’m not a fan of the CCP, but President Xi’s airplane practically flew over my house an hour ago. Had I known, I would have gone out for a look. They were broadcasting ADS-B the whole flight.