Hacking for my Sanity

[techieMoe]

I recently purchased a mid-range washer/dryer set from Sears. I needed them and the price was within my budget so I bought them, had them delivered, and didn't think much about it until I ran the first load of clothes through the dryer.

I purchased a Kenmore 400 Series and this model does not allow you to control the volume of the end of cycle buzzer. Apparently the folks who made the thing expected every one of their customers to be stone deaf and/or dry their clothes inside of a concrete bunker. The buzzer is so loud it wakes up the neighbors in the apartment next door.

Needless to say I was not happy to find out there was no "official" way for me to turn the damned thing off. I tried my best to ignore it until one night my roommate decided to dry a load of clothes at 3am, and the buzzer woke me up from a deep sleep. I was unable to get back to sleep that night and felt like warmed over death the next day.

Through some Googling I came upon a forum where someone with similar frustrations was asking the same question: how do you turn it off? A helpful appliance tech posted pictures and a diagram of what to do (basically, you just unplug the power to the buzzer and tape up the leads so you don't short it out).

With a wrench and some electrical tape I'm now free to dry my clothes whenever I choose with no buzzer. What creative non-computer-related hacks have you all done out of desperation or otherwise?

[nachos]

I was at a 4th of july Halo party at a friends house. We had set off fireworks, yadayadayada. We ran across a problem after trying to put the game into the xbox. The disk wasn't recognised. Even after running it though a disk cleaner. I read somewhere that using a green sharpie would boost your sound quality, I knew that the myth was bunk, but I thought "what the hell, I have nothing to loose except traveling 10 miles back to my house for the OTHER disk". We couldn't find a green sharpie, but did find a green crayon. I drew a green circle over the beginning of the disk where the laser reads first, lo and behold, it worked. We played halo for the rest of the night. I don't know if that counts as non-computer or not. its a gaming console. meh, I thought it was cool.

[rudie_rage]

my cat was pacing at the window of my apartment and knocked my computer speakers off their shelf... when they hit the ground they sheared the volume dial right off the mini-amp inside and they stopped working. I opened them up and saw there was a 2x3 grid of connections under the broken part. So i plugged them in, grabbed my trusty screwdriver, and started jumping connections. I found if i connected two on one side I got left speaker, if i connected two on the other side I got right speaker, and if i connected the middle two I got FM radio :P

I was laughing so loud when I realized what I did. I still dont know the technical details of how that works.

Anyway I got new speakers because the old ones were crap, but I'll still solder those back together. They will work fine, they just wont have a volume knob. Will have to control through comp.

[lightsycle]

My wife and I just recently move into an apartment that has central heat, but not central air. So I had the bright idea of trying to use the blower to circulate the air in the house while using the AC. I was able to find the correct wires and jump them, and hey, it worked, however, the blower comes on in high speed and makes a horrible racket. When it heats it uses low speed, and is almost silent. Needless to say the noise is not tolerable, and I really want my deposit back when we move out. So I guess I will have to do without cool air circulation for now. AND I just got fired over a hat

[rudie_rage]

AND I just got fired over a hat

..... (waiting for an explanation. Seems like a story of its own)

[lightsycle]

I had just got hired on at the local cable company. I discovered that one of my trainers was in the Army reserves, so I was talking to he about it, having wanted to be a SEAL in years gone by, and still would like to be...but that is another story. My trainer had previously told us that he suspected there were bugs in the training facility. He told me that if I did actually join, not to tell the company until I was sworn in because they would try to fire me if they found out before I joined, and that they were after him for every little stupid thing since he told them that he had enlisted. I was given uniforms, polos and jeans. I was asked if I wanted a hat, first I was reluctant because I had hats. My black and white urban camo boonie kept the sun and the rain off better that any ball cap, but I said yes and took the hat. After the first week or so of classroom teaching I began to mingle with the techs. Thursday, last week, some guy told me I couldn't wear my earing, which is a captive ball hoop, or my eyebrow ring out in the field. Not knowing who he was I disregarded it, knowing how new-hies are taken advantage of all the time. The next day I went to HR, and they confirmed that I could wear neither in the field, being that I was a field tech. Some OSHA ********. Later Friday that same guy pulled me aside, and said "Didn't I tell you about that stuff yesterday!" I told him that I didn't know who he was, but that I had just talked to HR, and Monday I would come in without them. He was like no take them out now. My eyebrow has take about a year to heal, and is not quite done yet, so I didn't want to take it out at work, but I did anyway. That was not the reason they gave for firing me tho... On two separate occasions I wore something on my head other that the afore mentioned ball cap into the building. Both times I was told they were not approved head gear, and promptly removed them. One was my boonie hat and the other was a black headband. Never was I told I was to wear this hat and only this hat into the building, and the hat wasn't even issued, it was optional. They fired me because I wore the wrong had in the building and someone went to HR about it. This is the first time I have been fired ever, and for the stupidest reason I've ever heard. Not even suspended, or warned, just outright fired!

[Oxygen]

I had just got hired on at the local cable company. I discovered that one of my trainers was in the Army reserves, so I was talking to he about it, having wanted to be a SEAL in years gone by, and still would like to be...but that is another story. My trainer had previously told us that he suspected there were bugs in the training facility. He told me that if I did actually join, not to tell the company until I was sworn in because they would try to fire me if they found out before I joined, and that they were after him for every little stupid thing since he told them that he had enlisted. I was given uniforms, polos and jeans. I was asked if I wanted a hat, first I was reluctant because I had hats. My black and white urban camo boonie kept the sun and the rain off better that any ball cap, but I said yes and took the hat. After the first week or so of classroom teaching I began to mingle with the techs. Thursday, last week, some guy told me I couldn't wear my earing, which is a captive ball hoop, or my eyebrow ring out in the field. Not knowing who he was I disregarded it, knowing how new-hies are taken advantage of all the time. The next day I went to HR, and they confirmed that I could wear neither in the field, being that I was a field tech. Some OSHA ********. Later Friday that same guy pulled me aside, and said "Didn't I tell you about that stuff yesterday!" I told him that I didn't know who he was, but that I had just talked to HR, and Monday I would come in without them. He was like no take them out now. My eyebrow has take about a year to heal, and is not quite done yet, so I didn't want to take it out at work, but I did anyway. That was not the reason they gave for firing me tho... On two separate occasions I wore something on my head other that the afore mentioned ball cap into the building. Both times I was told they were not approved head gear, and promptly removed them. One was my boonie hat and the other was a black headband. Never was I told I was to wear this hat and only this hat into the building, and the hat wasn't even issued, it was optional. They fired me because I wore the wrong had in the building and someone went to HR about it. This is the first time I have been fired ever, and for the stupidest reason I've ever heard. Not even suspended, or warned, just outright fired!

That does not sound like a company I'd like to work for, I think they may of done you a favour.

[rudie_rage]

lightsycle: That really sucks big time. Its pretty sad when people power trip like that. I mean, its a cable company. Wow.

techieMoe: Sorry for hi-jacking your thread :P Hopefully you get it back.

[techieMoe]

techieMoe: Sorry for hi-jacking your thread :P Hopefully you get it back.

No worries. That was kind of the point. I wanted to hear other people's stories. I was also curious about the hat.

[Freston]

Firefox hangs sometimes with my mplayer plugin. It resolves itself, but takes about 20-30 seconds to do so.
'cuz I always have a Konsole open, I rather ps | grep firefox ; kill -9 id_of_firefox-bin and start over. It's faster and I don't like waiting.

Funniest thing. My systems monitor showed a connection downloading all kinds of stuff to my computer. Happa! sudo netwatch! Google IP. Request server information.


Turns out: I had a life radio stream in my Amarok playlist by accident and I had muted the sound rather than stopped the playlist.

Again the diagnosis was human error, but I felt like a hacker reaching that conclusion