Shocking Contraption

Time out for oozing contraption repair

Shocking
Contraption
Oozes inside the Big Brain's Laboratory

We knew plumbing was different from country to country but the reality of coming face to face with those startling differences on Monday and discovering a contraption that was oozing in the Big Brain's Deck Lab was shocking. Hidden in the deep dark recesses where only strange creatures forage for unmentionables, we found this oozing contraption (see photo). Follow this blog to keep your own brain from going bonkers if you ever come face to face with one of these!

We're glad this plumbing was NOT on the cryo chamber on the Big Brain machine or the world might be frozen over today and you could go to work by snow mobile or ice skates! The contraption by the lab wall sprung a major leak and the entire external laboratory lab deck filled up overnight with water like a giant holding pond! Of course, it had rained the night before and it seemed this was the result of excessive rain and wind. But that was not the case.

Closer inspection revealed a simple metal water faucet mounted on the brick wall, with no threads of any kind at its end. Attached to it was a contraption with a water hose on the end, press fit, no threads. How was that possible? It had leaked overnight. To repair, the water source was turned off and the contraption was removed with four simple Philips screws and then disassembled completely. It appeared simple... with several parts, until it was noted that the screws had non standard heads that fit no screwdrivers in the world despite their appearances. Working with standard pliers, needle nose pliers, and an arsenal of  other tool box drivers, the contraption was finally removed.

Oddly enough, the contraption was merely press fit to the faucet. How could that work? Stay tuned as the weirdness just continues to increase.

Next, a rubber o-ring was found that needed replacing. Behold, the goose chase was on, trying to locate this o-ring. Going to 15 stores, including every hardware and plumbing store within a radius of 2 miles produced nothing that was the same size as the original. Going back, the old ring was inverted and put back into the contraption, and remounted back onto the faucet.

In the process we did buy an assortment of similar but different o-rings, teflon tape, tools and other plumbing fittings, and as fate would have it, all were useless...

The discovery moment was when playing a bit with the contraption. The Big Brain does NOT recommend you play with your contraption. Hidden beneath it's odd gripping useless jutting out prong was a few embedded threads. So it would be possible to press attach the assembly and connect with the screws, then tighten it a bit, by hand. There was no wrench to fit such a weird contraption. With inverted o-ring, and a new press fitting, and a bit of tightening, success was achieved.

If you are every traveling or living in other countries, be aware of the dreaded contraption that may be lurking within the deep recess of only God knows where. Knowing a few simple things about its weirdness may keep your own brain from going bonkers!

Search for Dry Dock

THE SEARCH FOR DRY DOCK

YIKES!!! I don't know if the the Big Brain is angry, upset, or fully cognizant of what happened. The emotion chip is not yet fully installed. Maybe that's a good thing.

Will the Big Brain hide under the bed like da-Chong, a big BS1 Bug?

It has rained day and night here for three weeks, mostly nonstop. As a result, there's a water leak!!! A pan can catch the temporary drips, but these drops could be highly damaging and deadly harmful to the Big Brain. Did we remember to waterproof the Big Brain??? I wonder why that was never suggested when the project was getting started. What if the Brain fell into a swimming pool or a bottle of soft drink fell into it the boards and Propeller processor arrays? What if the Brain went outside for a Robotic Blob Walk and it started to rain? Or the ceiling dripped!!! The drip will need to be fixed immediately and the brain may end up hiding under layers of plastic wrap until the repair work is completed. So now there's a delay for Big Brain to fully move into its snugly Crypt, at least until we can guarantee a dry dock. In the mean time, the Brain will fully operate on main floor, using a rigged bi-parted home station. This may be comprised of rows of cardboard boxes placed end to end to act as big lab benches. Currently a wood bench, inverted by 90-degrees, is in use.

If the Brain must hide under the plastic wrap, it reminds me of the fictional story by Franz Kafka, "The Metamorphosis," published in 1915. It's a story of a traveling salesman that awakes to find himself transformed into a giant bug and ends up hiding under the bed! On the surface, Gregor’s story seems simple enough. He wakes up, he’s a bug. (Kafka establishes early on that his transformation is not a dream.) But what kind of bug is thisungeheueren Ungeziefer? Translations vary from “gigantic insect” to “monstrous vermin”; at one point a maid calls him a dung beetle, and Vladimir Nabokov has drawn a very helpful picture. Most people think of a cockroach, which is more an instinctual reaction of disgust than anything else. However, the physical details are unimportant, and Kafka insisted that published editions of The Metamorphosis contain no actual illustrations of the bug. What matters is that the main character has become something despicable, horrifying, and yet kind of funny – a scurrying little chaos hiding behind the bedroom door. Link