Rocket J Squirrel

Today I had 2 Casablanca ("Isotope" model 59020) ceiling fans installed in 2 bedrooms in my house. They work fine. But after several hours, a buzzing or humming starts to come from my ceiling or attic. This did not happen before the fans were installed.

The buzz does NOT come from either of the fans, but rather from above the ceiling in the hall. If I cut the circuit breaker to one of the bedrooms, the buzz stops. If I restore power, the buzz does not immediately restart, but returns a few hours later.

These Casablanca fans have battery-operated transmitters which replace the standard wall switch previously used to control the now-replaced plain old ceiling light. The black wires are spliced together in the switch box so the fan always has power. The fan is controlled solely by the battery-powered transmitter (which is not wired to anything other than ground).

What else is on the same circuit, you ask? A few electrical outlets, a couple of hall lights, nothing out of the ordinary.

What could cause a buzz to come from the attic after several hours of power having been restored?

My web programming skills have gotten rusty. I wonder whether anyone can help me with this.

I frequent a site which uses vague timestamps like "one day ago". You can only see the precise timestamp by hovering over the element. In particular, they look like this:

<time title="10:01 am PST January 22, 2014" class="timeago" datetime="2014-01-22T18:01:37Z">1 day ago</time>

Is there some client-side magic to cause the title attribute to display instead of (or in addition to) the content? Maybe some user.js magic in Firefox, say?

I have hairy legs. A couple of years ago, I noticed a new hairless patch about 6 inches by 4 inches on the outside of my right thigh. I asked a couple of doctors about it, but neither had an explanation.

Out of the blue, it recently occurred to me that the hairless area is exactly where my iPhone 4S sits in the right front pocket of my pants.

Is this plausible? Could prolonged exposure to cell phone radiation kill hair follicles?

I've stopped carrying the phone in that pocket in hopes that the hair will regrow. But nothing yet, after about a month.

And maybe there's a market for radiation-proof pants pockets.

When I start my in-ground spa (which is a section of my in-ground swimming pool), no air comes from the jets, only water. If I blow some air into the intake using my shop vac, the air continues to be properly sucked into the jets for as long as I keep the spa running. It is like I have to "jump start" the air bubbles. What could be causing this to occur every time I run the spa?

I have a problem with a recessed can light. The trim around the light is held in place by two springs. One of the springs got knocked loose. While attempting to replace the springs, I stretched them too far. Now the trim dangles below the ceiling.

I wonder if it's possible to find replacement springs? They're pretty unique looking, with strange curves.

I am confused about an IRA recharacterization. In 2010, I distributed $16,000 from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. In March 2011, I recharacterized $2,900 (plus earnings = $3,065) back into a traditional IRA. I reported this recharacterization on my 2010 tax return using TurboTax, whose Form 1099-R screen allows entries to quantify and explain recharacterizations. My 1040 showed $16,000 total and $13,100 taxable IRA distributions.

It was my understanding that if I recharacterized prior to the tax filing deadline, that the amount recharacterized would not be counted as 2010 income. Was I mistaken in that? The IRS is claiming I under-reported my income by exactly $3,000 and wants more money. In the meantime, my 2011 1099-R shows a non-taxable distribution (code R) of $3,012.

I'm confused. I thought this was supposed to be handled for tax year 2010. What did I do wrong?

I recently replaced a 24-year-old GFCI outlet with a new one, Leviton model 7599. In my 1987 home, this is the only GFCI, with other protected outlets wired downstream of it. I am 100% sure the new GFCI is wired correctly. I triple-checked it while installing. The green LED on the Leviton is lit, meaning "OK". Test and Reset buttons work correctly. My 3-LED circuit tester shows correct wiring both at the GFCI and at the downstream outlets.

The problem is that a grounded fluorescent shop light downstream of the GFCI trips the GFCI. Thinking the fluorescent fixture was defective, I swapped in a different one. Same result. Every time I turn on the fluorescent light, the GFCI trips. This did not occur with the old GFCI. But the old one was worn out and having trouble staying engaged, so I replaced it. The old one appears to be Eagle brand. Both old and new are rated 15A at the outlets and 20A downstream. The GFCI and its downstream outlets are on a 20A circuit all by themselves.

I have tested both the local GFCI outlets and the downstream outlets with other grounded and ungrounded appliances. They all work fine. Only the fluorescent shop lights trip the GFCI.

If I lift the ground from the shop light with a 2-prong adapter, it works fine. If I restore the ground, the GFCI trips. Now, I'm not quite sure why a fluorescent shop light needs a ground in the first place. But I sure am curious why a fluorescent fixture would consistently trip a GFCI.

Can anyone explain?

All of the current big-screen TVs seem to have mirror-like reflective screens. I can't control the lighting in my TV room very well, so I would like to have a TV with a matte screen. Can you point me to a 65" 3D HDTV with a matte screen available in the US? Price doesn't matter; quality does.

I'm looking for some automatic backup software to run in the background and back up my 2 Windows XP computers at the file level.

That means I don't want any program which stores its backups in any proprietary format. I want to be able to go to my networked backup drive and see individual files.

I've been using the Iomega software which came with my NAS drive, but it truly sucks and is no longer supported. Looking for an alternative.

Free would be great, but I'd be willing to pay money for an easy to use, unobtrusive program which will back up files and folders I specify, in the background, without popping up windows and hanging waiting for my answers to a lot of questions.

I'm going to upgrade my home wireless network from G to N. I see many dual band routers which add a 5 GHz range to the older 2.4 GHz range. I have a houseful of 5.8 GHz cordless phones. Will a 5 GHz home network interfere with the phones?

I have a Kenmore under-sink reverse osmosis unit. This unit has a pre-filter and a post-filter which use identical paper filter inserts. Instructions say to replace both the pre- and post-filters every 6 months.

But wouldn't it be logical to assume that the post-filter should last much longer than the pre-filter? Shouldn't I be able to leave the post-filter in place longer? Or is it a question of the actual longevity of the filters and they disintegrate or something after 6 months of use?

7 years ago, I put exactly $100,000 into a brokerage account. I traded in and out of stocks and ETFs. The account grew to $140,000 in that time period. (I pulled out the $40k gain this week.) How do I calculate my return on investment? IRR? ROI? Annualized? Did I do well? Or poorly?

Bonus points for something I can use in Excel or Quicken.

I am trying to stay current with the US Congress's action (or lack thereof) with respect to the Estate Tax. I am finding it difficult to locate a source online which shows the current status of any legislation related to the tax. Do you know of any?

I haven't yet begun my 3D HDTV expedition, but my impression is that all current TVs have shiny reflective screens (as opposed to the more matte screens of yesteryear). I find reflective screen terribly distracting. My TV room has no back wall (only an arch), so I have trouble controlling ambient light.

Do you know of a 3D HDTV, preferably plasma over 52", with a non-reflective screen?

I have a 2007 Trek Pilot 5.0 carbon frame road bike. This bike uses a threadless stem. I would like to lower the handlebar a bit by removing one of the carbon spacers between the stem and the headset.

There are 3 bolts in evidence: two clamp bolts which hold the stem to the steerer, and the stem expander bolt on the top cap.

It appears all I need to do is loosen the 2 clamp bolts and remove the top cap, pull the stem off the steerer, remove a spacer, and reassemble. (I will keep the front wheel on the ground so the fork doesn't fall out.)

Is that right? Is it that simple? Or are there some "gotchas" I will run across? Thanks for any advice. The books and manuals I have looked at are all pretty vague and unspecific about this.

When I access Facebook today (7/21/10) via Firefox 3.6.6, all I get is a blank white page. If I switch to IE, Facebook is fine. Anyone else seeing this?

... in your car? I find I'm tempted to pull my car into the slipstream of a big tractor-trailer on the freeways to get some draft! Must... not... do... this!

My Ultegra rear derailleur shifts perfectly in both directions, but is recently making alarming noises when I ride over bumps. It rattles and clanks and sounds like the chain is going to fly off.

If I stop and then continue, all is well. Riding on flat roads - no problem. It's only sudden bumps which cause the rattling.

I can't see anything wrong with it visually. The mounting bolt is tight. The components have about 2,000 miles on them and never had this issue until recently. The bike is a 2007 Trek Pilot 5.0.

Does anybody recognize this symptom?

I understand that using a wireless repeater on my home WiFi network will slow throughput by one half for those devices which connect through the repeater.

My question is: if my device is connected to the wireless router but is still within range of the repeater, will the repeater slow my connection to the router?

My D-Link home router is showing dozens of these status messages per minute. I've searched the web but can't find any definitive answer as to what they mean or how to make them go away.

The destination port always seems to be port 80 (HTTP). The source port varies across the 2000s and the 4000s. I have run WHOIS and see that some of the destination hosts are from Akamai and GoDaddy, but many are not. What's going on here?

Here is a small sample. 192.168.1.2 is the LAN address of one of the computers on my home network.

[INFO] Mon May 17 14:26:10 2010 Blocked outgoing TCP packet from 192.168.1.2:2580 to 184.51.159.40:80 as FIN:ACK received but there is no active connection

[INFO] Mon May 17 14:26:10 2010 Blocked outgoing TCP packet from 192.168.1.2:2443 to 96.17.111.34:80 as FIN:ACK received but there is no active connection

[INFO] Mon May 17 14:26:10 2010 Blocked outgoing TCP packet from 192.168.1.2:2583 to 174.35.52.132:80 as FIN:ACK received but there is no active connection