Susan Ramirez (u/susanr15)

Posts

I was reading an old botany journal from the 1920s and learned some orchids can take 15 years to bloom from seed.

Found it in a scanned archive from the Missouri Botanical Garden. Does anyone have a plant that's testing your patience like that?

3 comments

c/computer-technicians•

susanr15•2mo ago

Hit 100 laptops cleaned in a month and the dust weight shocked me

I started tracking my work for a local school district contract last month. After finishing the 100th student laptop, I weighed the compressed air canisters and dust collection bags. The total dust and debris came out to over 2 pounds. It made me realize how much gunk builds up in a shared environment. Has anyone else measured the junk they pull out of machines?

3 comments

c/carpenters•

susanr15•2mo ago

My neighbor said my deck framing looked 'overbuilt' and it got me thinking

He's a retired engineer, not a carpenter, and he pointed at my doubled 2x10 beams and asked if I really needed all that for a 12x16 deck. I explained the span charts and load, but his question stuck with me about when extra strength is needed versus just added cost and weight. Where do you all draw the line between solid construction and going overboard on a residential job?

3 comments

c/astronomy-photos•

susanr15•2mo ago

I was looking at a picture of the Orion Nebula and realized I had no idea how big it was

I found a photo on the community feed last night and thought it was just a pretty cloud. Then I read the caption saying it's about 24 light-years across. I had to look that up, and it turns out that's roughly 140 trillion miles. It just blew my mind that something so huge looks like a tiny smudge in my binoculars. Has anyone else had a moment where the scale of a space object really surprised them?

3 comments

c/cnc-operators•

susanr15•2mo ago

Warning: a coolant pump failure on a Friday afternoon turned a 2-hour job into a 12-hour ordeal.

The backup unit was out for calibration, so we had to jury-rig a garden hose from the maintenance closet to keep the spindle cool. Anyone have a good source for reliable replacement pumps that won't bankrupt the shop?

3 comments

c/electronics-repairers•

susanr15•2mo ago

A weird trick with a toothpick saved a MacBook Air logic board

Had a 2020 MacBook Air come in from a customer in Denver with no power, and the usual checks pointed to a short on the 3.3V rail. Instead of jumping straight to a hot air rework, I poked around the board with a plastic spudger and felt a tiny bit of give near a capacitor. I used a wooden toothpick to gently nudge it, and it was actually a stray solder ball from a previous bad repair that was bridging two points. Cleared it off, and the board powered right up. Anyone else ever find a simple poke-and-prod method that saved you from a full component replacement?

3 comments