Midatlantian

This is for a 1 Ghz Mac Powerbook. (Yes, I know it is time to replace it! But perhaps not quite yet.....)

The part of the screen that goes bad is very well defined. It starts exactly along one line that goes horizontally across the screen. Above that line all is completely normal, below is very unstable.

When this happened, and I flexed the hinges of the screen, it seemed to stabilize back to (nearly) normal for a few seconds, but it soon became completely unstable again.

This morning it is again OK. At its worst, I could still see the image on the screen, but it was too "wavey" and "flickery" to actually be able to read anything.

Could this be an inverter-board problem?

Thank you for any ideas / suggestions.

Or if someone might have replaced it with normal water?

Pure water has a resistance of 18 M-ohm per centimeter, but there are levels of quality for deionized water, down to 200 k-ohms per centimeter.

What resistance level is 'sufficient' for a car battery?

Is there another way, besides measuring the resistance, to tell if water has been deionized?

Thank you.

There seem to be lots of them on the outside (not axle-side) of the tube, and occasionally one leaks air. They are patchable. The tubes are not so old, and do not appear to be dry-rotted. This is on a 700 mm x 32 mm wheel on a road bike. I do have a puncture-resistant strip inside the tire.

Is this just 'wear and tear"?

Many thanks.

I'm trying to replace a 7 speed mountain bike cassette. I've got the tools, and more or less know how to use them. The old one came off OK. The new one fits on, but then I try to tighten it, the screw-in end goes in freely, bit stops screwing in before the cassette is tight. There might be 1 mm of play. Could this be a wrong cassette? Or is there some trick I do not know - maybe a spacer that is required. I replaced the old cassette, so I am reasonably certain I did not lose anything from the way it was set up - and working - before.

I am changing the cassette just to have a wider range of gears.

Thanks for any help.

Does anyone know of any interesting tricks to find a buried curving pipe somewhere in the middle.of a 180 foot length without having to dig it up from the ends?

The 6" pipe carries water from a stream into a man-made pond. It is about 180 feet long. It appears to be buried at about 18 inches - perhaps 2 feet deep. From trying to push drain rods through it, I think the blockage is at about 30 feet in from one of the ends. I've tried digging where I think the pipe might be, but without success.

I know the pipe is not straight, and there are 10" tree trunks that it must negotiate.

Really, it could be anywhere within a path that is 30 foot wide. When I try to dig in search of the pipe, the holes quickly fill with first water then mud.

Thanks for any helpful suggestions.

I looked up Avogadro's Number on the internet, and was surprised to find that the answer varied. It all began as 6.022141... * 10^23 but there is often an 8th and 9th significant digit, and that varied wildly.

Does anyone know why? Isn't this a sort of accepted, if somewhat arbitrary, number?

"Why do frozen peas stick to your finger? What's the scientific explanation for it.?"

Could Yahoo have a bug in their calculator?

With Epson printers - and probably the others too - there is a certain number of copies or a certain age after which the programming in the chip says "I'm dead". You can get software to reset this, but if you do not, there is nothing you can do to continue using the printer.

Does anyone know if Macintosh computers have any such inbuilt programming? I have had a few older laptops do a 'final fail' with what I considered to be very suspicious messages, but I'd be pleased to know if anyone has a real answer.

Thanks for any help you can give.

I've got an OLD 5 speed freewheel on an old 27" wheel on an old racing bicycle, The freewheel has a raised ridge that the tool is supposed to lock to, but the ridge sheared off long ago, and I need to replace a few spokes on that side of the wheel.

A bike store suggested cutting the cog wheels off with an angle grinder, then using a vise to remove the inside part, but I do not have an angle grinder. I have some other ideas but would like comments:

1. Have the inner part and outer part of the freewheel spot-welded, then just hammer it off. Will spot welding get the hub or housing too hot? Will it damage it?

2. Use carb cleaner to flush the grease from the freewheel bearings and shoot in superglue or epoxy glue. then hammer the assembly off.

Drill holes along the edge between the free-rotating part of the freewheel and the part screwed onto the axle, insert strong sheet metal screws to stop it from rotating while I hammer it off.

The man who gave it to me said that he had used it to train for Tour de France in the late 40s, so at least it WAS a great bike. Even with several spokes missing, the rim rolls true. So I do not want to trash it.

Any ideas would be great.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

One plant is about 25 feet high, others are at least 12 feet high. In one case, the stalk also broke from high winds. Might these recover in the spring? Temperatures have been into the low to mid 20s.F, -5 C. which is very unusual here.

Thanks for any help.

I'm too often on roads with hills in excess of 35% grades, and I want to put MTB gears on the chain-set of my road bike - I will have a 22 tooth front cog-wheel and a 32 tooth rear - but that will mean a LOT of torque on the rear wheel. Will I start breaking spokes?

Many thanks to anyone who really knows about this....

Can I add grease to a wheel bearing without knowing exactly what kind of grease was on the bearings before? Can you mix bearing grease? If you should NOT mix them, is there any way to tell what sort of grease is there?

I've often heard that bearings most often fail just after they've been repacked, due to the risk of leaving a small ungreased area on a surface somewhere.

Thanks for your help.

I mean that the bushings that let it slide to a center position are frozen, not the piston. The brake pads are pretty equally worn, so I think it is not a long term problem. The car has not been used more than 4000 miles in the past 3 years, so it has been sitting a lot.

Of course, I would prefer not having to remove the brake line to take the caliper away from the car, and have to bleed the system.

thanks for any suggestions.

On a bicycle with a rear gear freewheel or cassette, one screw adjusts the limit of the outward shift - to the smallest gear on the rear cassette or freewheel.

One screw adjusts the limit of the inward shift - to the largest gear on the rear cassette or freewheel.

But there is another adjustment screw that limits how the derailleur rotates on its mounting screw. What is that for, and how does one adjust it correctly?

Many thanks for any help you can give.

I'm used to renting a car, and finding quiet corners to camp in the Greek islands. Is Crete too built-up/busy for that in the second half of October? Can you offer any suggestions/advice?

I'd guess the mountains would be a bit chilly in late October, and I'd prefer not being to far from beaches. Lastly, would you choose Iraklion or Chania to arrive?

Many thanks for any suggestions. I suspect that selcting a best answer will be difficult!

This is for a 20 year old 323 Mazda. It has failed its MOT (inspection) because of moderate corrosion on the original pipes, And I'm told they are generally replaced with copper now. Is that a good thing?

Thanks in advance for any help.

This is a fairly complicated question for someone with a lot of bicycle experience. I have an old dawes racer. It has a label that it is a Reynolds 5?1 frame. I cannot read the middle digit, but assume it is a 3, that is: a 531 Reynolds frame.

It broke on the freewheel side of the frame just before it connected to the rear wheel, Just above the slot for the rear wheel with the threaded hole for the rear derailleur below it,

There is a small triangular section, a bit over an inch on each side, that connects this 'part' of the frame to the main frame tubes, and both sides ofthis little triangle broke, again, just after the tubes, well, just past where they stop being tubes and become flat and join this triangle arrangement.

Can I have this welded? Maybe the inside of the triangle could be filled in with metal, but would it be strong enough to trust?

I have JUST put new drive cogs/chain/freewheel and shifters on the bike, and I would very much prefer not having to start over!

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Thanks in advance for any help!

"Good Company"

I sleep in a room at the top of the house

With a flea and a fly and a soft-scratching mouse,

And a spider who hangs on a thread from the ceiling,

Who gives me each day such a curious feeling

When I watch him at work on his beautiful weave

Of his web that’s so fine, I can hardly believe,

It won’t all end up in such terrible tangles,

For he sways as he weaves, and spins as he dangles.

I cannot get up to that spider, I know,

And I hope he won’t get down to me here below,

And yet, when I wake in the chill morning air,

I’d miss him if he were not still swinging there,

For I have in my room such good company,

There’s him, and the mouse and the fly and the flea.