Refrigerator Repair

Insignia™ - 165-Can Built-In Beverage Cooler - Stainless Steel

As part of the big 2024 remodeling project, we got a mini-fridge for the kitchen. Because it's the cool thing to do, I guess. It lasted for a year and then it crapped out. I could just buy a new one, they're only $400, which is a chunk, but doable, if I have to. But I really don't want to because a fridge ought to last longer than a year, and it's a nice machine, it would be shame to throw it out. Since it's got an electronic control panel, the problem is probably in the electronics, which means it should be fixable. So five months ago my wife and I carried it out to the garage and set it on a table where, intermittently I would poke at and see if it had decided to start working. 

QP2-4R7 4.7 Ohm 3-Pin PTC Starter/Start Relay and Overload Kit

The first suggestion I ran into was to replace the starter relay. It looks cheap and easy, lets give it a shot. Does Amazon have one? Of course they do, $7. Easy enough to install, they just clip onto the compressor. Only problem was getting the plastic cover off. It was big enough to hold like ten of these relays. Very weird. Anyway, replacing the relay didn't help.

Industrial Silver Conductive Paste

So I got out the multi-meter and started probing the wires connected to the controller. Pretty good wiring diagram. The two sensors both read about 2500 ohms which seemed reasonable, so I got the idea in my head that the connections to the sensors inside the fridge were suspect. Ran into the same problem with the controller on my water heater. The connectors look fine, but maybe they are losing contact when they get cold, so maybe a little conductive past would help. $9 from Amazon. Very messy. The kit comes with syringe full of viscous goop and two super fine needles which means that when you push on the plunger the needle comes off the syringe and the goop goes sideways and makes a mess. Still, I managed to get some on the pins and plugged them back in, but it didn't help.

ACTIVLIFE for Temperature Sensor

Now I try measuring the resistance of the sensor where it connects inside the fridge and found that it was open. Apparently my earlier measurements were wrong, probably the wrong wires. Anyway, new sensor from Amazon, $32. Plugged it in and bingo! We're running.

New Ear

Still Machine - Echoes Within (Official Music Video)
Someoddpilot Records

I dunno about this tune. It's not pop-rock with snappy lyrics and a cool beat. Atmospheric is what I say now. We shall see. But this story on Willamette Week is why I'm posting the tune:

Portland’s Salvo Beta Releases New Music for the First Time in Decades by Daniel Bromfield

A cochlear implant has inspired Sean Wolfe to try making music in a new way.

Salvo Beta, the project of Portland electronic musician Sean Wolfe, just put out its first new music in nearly 25 years. And in order to make it, Wolfe had to learn to hear music in a totally new way.

His two remixes of the Chicago band Still Machines’ song “Echoes Within” are directly inspired by his experience with a cochlear implant, or CI—a surgically implanted prosthesis he received in 2024 after losing most of the hearing in his right ear.

“There’s basically a wire with a bunch of electrodes, and each electrode only triggers a certain frequency band,” Wolfe explains. “The in-between sounds are kind of weird.”

In order to achieve the desired effect on the remix, Wolfe manipulated a Moog synth sound through spectral shaping, a production technique that allows producers to alter individual frequencies. The result sounds something like a bell pinging underwater; the post-punk source material is clear, but the music sounds waterlogged.

“One of the things that really kind of shaped how I started making the music is inferring how frequencies can be shifted and perceived by someone like me, who has one of these CIs,” he says.

SPLC - Southern Poverty Law Center

Southern Poverty Law Center Headquarters Building, Montgomery Alabama

Seems the SPLC has run aground. The Daily Wire has two stories:

• How A Guilty Verdict Could Push The Southern Poverty Law Center To The Brink Of Ruin by  Cameron Arcand
• SPLC Raged At PayPal For Helping Fund Charlottesville Rally — While Bankrolling One Of Its Planners by  Zach Jewell

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of charlatans. The SPLC did some good work in its early days, but the last 20 years or so have seen them run off the rails and into the swamp of depravity.

Farm Life

An Aberdine bull

Joseph Moore has a good post about farm life:

Snakes. Update.

Robbery

Brinks Armored Car - AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

Armored Car robberies seem to be on the rise, at least in Philadelphia. Looking at what Google tells me, it looks like there are, on average, there are roughly 35 armored car robberies each year in the USA. Now look at this story:

Two Armed Robbers Steal $1.8 Million From Brinks Armored Truck in Philadelphia by Bryan S. Jung

It lists at least six armored car robberies in Philadelphia in 2025. Can't say as I am surprised. Squeeze the proles enough, the pressure will get high enough that some of the them are going get squeezed out at high velocity and start bouncing off the walls.

Problem is nobody knows what to do. What we need is some kind big enterprise that will soak up a huge number of man hours. War has traditionally been the project of choice. Our military uses good number of people, but there are bunch who the military won't accept, for one reason or another. Doesn't mean they aren't capable of violence, does mean their vector is not under the control of the government.

Modern Life

Bustednuckles

Education & Discipline

Found this in a story from Willamette Week:

Teachers whom OJP [Oregon Journalism Project] spoke to say there’s a high level of workplace dissatisfaction, despite the funding increase from the Student Success Act. They say inflation consumed much of the increase and classrooms are crowded and often unmanageable because of legislation limiting disciplinary action that may be taken against students.

Most of the story is about politics and money, but this one line was the only mention of trouble in the classroom.

I am all in favor of only allowing students in the classroom who want to be there, and excluding unruly students. What to do with the excluded kids? Put them in the bullpen. Staff the bullpen with guards armed with firehoses.

I wonder just what is legislation limiting disciplinary action that may be taken against students? Google gives us the kind of usual gobble-de-gook. I suspect corporal punishment is right out:

As of 2024, corporal punishment is still legal in private schools in every U.S. state except Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, legal in public schools in 17 states, and practiced in 12 of the states.