Member postings for Versaboss

Hi Neil,

Isn't the word 'light' in the sentence above a bit misleading? Afaik a radio telescope doesn't see 'light' in the sense we usually use that word. I suppose the black hole picture is a computer generated picture from whatever electromagnetic waves they received.

If I'm wrong, I am eager to learn more...

Regards,
Hans

Hello all,
I'm glad to report that almost exactly after two months I can hold my missed MEW issue 273 in my hands.
All OK for now, at least until next autumn when my subscription is due again.

Many thanks for all who helped (especially Neil).

Kind regards
Hans

I am very sorry having to add a new chapter to this endless story.
After clearing the issues with my subscription and account I waited for getting the next issues of MEW, but nothing happened. So around the end of October I contacted MTM via the answer form in the account. Quite fast I received a email from a Ms. Buckley with the following statements:

>> I am sorry to hear that you have not received issue 273 I have reordered this again for you today.
>> please allow up to 14 days for delivery to Europe.
>> If there is anything else that I can help you with please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Well, 14 days, ok maybe they send it by horse coach, but better than never.
So after almost less than 14 days I found an envelope in my letterbox, which pleased me no end. But not until I opened it: They managed to send me issue 272 a second time, and not a hint of 273 and 274 (which I believe is already in circulation too).

So I sent another email to Ms. Buckley, which I copy here too:

>> Dear Ms. Buckley,I was very pleased to find an envelope from MTM in my letterbox. But unfortunately I
> was not much pleased when I found out that I received MEW issue 272 instead of 273.
>> I'm very sorry to ask you again to send me issue 273.
>> I take this opportunity also to report that I also have not got issue 274. I have to suppose that there
>> is a big mess with ma subscription.
>> Thank you very much for your help in these matters.

Now I will see what happens after the next two weeks, but I slowly get the feeling that my subscription is for the foxes as we say here.

Kind regards,
Hans

All ok now (I believe...), could even have a look into my account. The mail addr I used for the subscription did not work for the account, strange but I can live with that.

Many thanks for the help

,Hans

With Neil's link above, and using another email address, I could (successfully???) start a new subscription.

Setting up an account (to check at which time the subs starts) was not possible, though. The 'Thank you' email gives no information about this. So I wait with bated breath if the issue 273 lands in my letterbox. If no, then I would need the help of a good-natured soul who would buy it and send it to me. All expenses covered via PayPal...

Regards,

Hans

I repeat: it's not so easy!

When I use the link from MEW272, page 53, I only come to a subscription page for Model Engineer. What has happened with the one for MEW!!! The link contains the letters 'mew'...

Slowly I'm getting really grumpy!

Hans

Ah, it's not so easy...

Yes I got an email with a link for resetting a password (if I have one, what's not so sure). but I was away from home last week ant the email had a terribly small time window of 6 hours...

Now I'm in fear to loose MEW 273, as this has not arrived here and I don't know when my subscription ends.

I'm trying now to get a new subscription with a Gmail address.

Kind regards,

Hans

A couple of weeks ago I got a nice letter from Mytimemedia to renew my MEW subscription.

Unfortunately I misplaced this letter, but that shouldn't be a problem I thought.
Took out my confirmation letter from 2017, where I found my subscription number
(but unfortunately no specification up to which number this subscription runs).
So I went ahead in this secureorder mess, filled out all forms to the best of my knowledge (choosing Continuous credit/debit card),
and finally was greeted with the following message:

"Sorry, we are currently unable to complete your order because either we don't ship to your country
or you have products with mixed payment types in your basket."

As neither of this is true, and I am not able to clear these problems by telephone, I wrote an email to
help@me.secureorder.co.uk.
I received - only a couple of days later - an answer from a Ms. Buckley, which wrote
firstly about a ME subscription (which I don't have), and secondly gave the following advice:

"Subscription xxxxxxxxxx for Model Engineer Workshop was set up as a continuous credit card but unfortunately this was declined on the 5/9 if you
can please call us with new card details we will be happy to put this through for you."

Now it is true that I use a new credit card, but found no way to delete the old number.
So I wrote back to Ms. Buckley, stating that I can't do that by phone, and gave her the correct credit card number.
Should all work now I thought... Again some days later Mms Buckley answered with that remarkable statement:

"Dear Subscriber,
Thank you for your recent email.
If there is anything else that I can help you with please don’t hesitate to contact me."...

So that's going full circle now, and unnecessary to say that nothing works. When I try to open "Myaccount", I'm asked if I hhve a password.

I mark the button 'no', but on the next page I have to enter a password.

In my desperation I tried to buy a new subscription, even if then I get some issues twice.
But this also does not work:

"Not possible to register xxx@xxx.ch. Maybe you have registered already previously?"

So somewhere in the big data mess my email is registered in all eternity.
I seem to remember that some years ago I already went through the same hell.
Now I see only the following possibilities:
- Neil can come to the rescue and clear this mess.
- I use another name/account from my household (SWMBO), but use my credit card.
- I use one of my Gmail accounts (which I don't really use...)
- I use a throw-away email account. Possibly the best, so all further mails from MTM land in the big bit bucket.

Regards, grumpy Hans.

P.S. I've just seen another thread about similar problems, and Neil's answer is exemplary: Just make a telephone call....

Is it so difficult to understand that it's not possible for everybody on the whole earth to make a telephone call, when both parties understand possibly 30% what the other side says...

Edited By Versaboss on 02/10/2018 13:30:11

Edited By Versaboss on 02/10/2018 13:30:50

Well if the 'A' could also be a 'V' (seen from the other side), then it would be Schaublin. Possibly W20?

Regards, Hans

Go ahead with anodising, it's not too difficult!

I remembered that (quite some time back) I put a picture from my first trial in my album. A small test piece, coloured with magenta Inkjet ink. I added now another two, showing parts from my tonearms. The blue parts are also done with inkjet ink, blue this time

The parts on the other arm are coloured with products from The German firm 'Electronic Thinks'
Black and Titanium colour, which is more like dark Bronze.

**LINK**

Here you can get all what you needs for your anodising projects.

Btw. I made some tests with those textile colours, but no success. It seems that only one of the different Dylon (?) products can be used, and it seems this one is difficult (or impossible) to find.

OK, here then the pictures:
Sorry for the dust, i did my best to clean all before taking the pics, but with flash one sees the smallest speckle...

To continue with the thread drift. if you allow:

I always wondered what units one has to use for E=mc^2 to get a meaningful result. In SI units it would mean E in Joule, mass in kg, c in metres per second... but is this correct?

Regards, HansR.

Hi all,

it's a bit depressing to read about all that successful cataract operations. So I can keep the balance to show one which went belly-up.

About 5 years ago my eye doc found it necessary to talk me into a cataract surgery. I had the usual fears, but finally succumbed and went ahead. But afterwards I had the feeling that something was wrong. Straight lines were not straight, circles were more like eggs, all persons on TV had flat head sides etc. etc. Naturally I immediately cancelled the second surgery date. A long series of tests followed, culminating in a second surgery in which the glass body in my eye was removed. Unfortunately the success was almost nil.
One of the tests was a laser scan of my retina. This is what it looks now:

The upper wavy line is the retina surface. Maybe you can understand a bit what kind of 'picture quality' results from that. A further problem is that part of my short-sightedness was corrected with the artificial lens, so I have now two very different apparent picture sizes in my eyes, which somehow the brain tries to overlay. Estimating distances is quite difficult now.

I don't want to bring panic an all those who stand for that decision, but unfortunately the docs never tell what can go wrong. 999 out of 1000 come out well, but if you happen to be the one...

Kind regards,

HansR.

Roderick is absolutely correct, Castolin/Eutectic 1801 is equivalent to the famous Easyflow. Luckily it is still available without problems here in Switzerland. Maybe you will get it back after Brexit?

Regards, HansR

I don't want to clutter thhe ER thread with unrelated stuff, but want to clarify something.
R. Anderson wrote:
>Forget the link., I have just tried to store the pdf and have found out that Dropbox ended support for XP on the 29th Aug. So I cant add new files, and cant access me ones already in there unless I upgrade windows They can poke that right up .<

When reading what Dropbox sent out in this mail, they say that 'support for the desktop application for XP' has stopped - whatever that is.

However, at the end of the mail they write also, that one can still access Dropbox data 'from their website'.

That's what I did just some days ago. Log in on the website, and after getting accustomed to the forms I had no problems to upload some files. I think that could be important to know for other guys like me who stubbornly stay on XP.

Regards, HansR.

...or Sieg as Seig, as so many ignorants do here?

Regards, HansR.

Neil, for your information - and for others maybe hitting on the same problem - I can report that I could enter my subscription successfully, using my laptop with Windows 8.1 and Opera 38.0.
I can only speculate it is a strange interaction between Windows XP and an older version of Oper (12.17).

No reason to dismiss that combination, nonetheless.

Regards, HansR.

Oh well - the same problem as Vincent's has hit me also today. Browsing through the answers, I don't see what cured it for him, finally (I did not tick 'rest of the world' !).

Trying to subscribe via the button on this webpage results in the same error message, but the price is about 2£ higher...

>>> Sorry, we are currently unable to complete your order because either we don't ship to your country or you have products with mixed payment types in your basket.
Please call Customer Services on 0844 543 0064 (UK), +44 1604 251043 (International) to complete your order.
<<<

Nasty, really, as I have MEW since issue 0 (or maybe 3),. And mixed payment types? what would that be?

First thought was : oh, another Opera problem. So next try with Firefox, but again the same.
As I think I would hardly understand someone over the phone, I think my next option would be filling out the form and make a visit on the post office.

How progress is wonderful - I can't remember when I had to do that last time.

Regards, HansR.

I think I wrote this in another -earlier - thread about anodising, so I keep it short.

Here, Sulfuric acid (concentrated) is available in shops called Drogerie; according to my translator this might be chemist or drugstore. Similar to a pharmacy, but without prescription medication.

In shops of the do-it-yourself type, department for swimming pools, there are products for lowering the pH of the water, Here again, pH- liquid is sufluric acid of around 12 +/- 2 %.There is also a cristalline pH-, Sodium hydrogene sulfate (NaHSO4), which is also suitable for anodising. The Na ions don't do any harm...

As an aside, inkjet printer ink is suitable for colouring. Be prudent with the Dylon dyes, there is only one type suitable. Don't ask how I know, what I bought was totally crap for that purpose.

Regards, HansR.

Bit off topic, I know...

But I was quite surprised to see that - again - an article features these (in)famous SEIG lathes

Regards, HansR.

May I (once again I think) recommend SolveSpace

**LINK**

Not a 'real' CAD program with all bells and whistles, but very suitable for such small drawings.

Yes, it is necessary to read a bit in the manual and doing the examples, but it is very easy in most cases. Help is available from the author directly if necessary.

I would gladly demonstrate it if speelwerk's drawing had dimensions...

Regards, HansR.

Edited By Versaboss on 18/05/2016 23:40:40