Percussive maintenance is a real thing!
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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I was just about to say that
I worked on something that literally said "to test this thing, hit it here with a screwdriver" because it was known to be a point where a soldered joint would fail
I used to bash the shit out of some stuff with a hammer to prove my diagnoses. It wasn't working anyway, so I couldn't break it more, and I was usually proved correct when I was able to replicate the failure
The whole "well, it's already broken: what's the worst I can do?" is such a liberating position to be in.
I have learnt how to fix a whole lot of things after realising that
Or, I learnt other things that can go wrong, without consequences
However, there's: "it's not working right" and there's "it's not working"... It's usually important to recognise that difference
"it's not working right" is conversely a terrible position to be in, you can't leave it as it is but you also risk fucking it up further by trying to fix it
Intermittent faults are the absolute worst
Was doing this with my car fob for a while before I finally broke down and re-soldered the battery contact terminal to the board yesterday.
Also doing it to my cars blower fan for the AC. I have the replacement fan motor, but it hasn't been annoying enough yet to mess with replacing.
And now interplanetary percussive maintenance is a thing too.
Punching over IP
Next step: roll this out over the internet.
Actually, scratch that, that would make some teenage-run Discord servers become online Fight Clubs.
Let them fight!
Roll it out with sabers instead far more civilized, we aren't trench fighters. Alternatively if you want a more lethal option rig it up with a 32. Caliber revolver like that batshit insane mouse trap.
U gotta account for the different air density and effects on sound due to that
I love that guy.
Peter Stormare
In everything he has done
If it’s stupid and it works, it’s still stupid but at least it worked.
Nah. At that point it only looks stupid.
If a Mars lander hits itself with a shovel and no one is around to hear it ... does it make a sound?
It does (ok, one catch: if there's an atmosphere), sound has physical nature. The trick is in asking whether music/art/languages exist after any sentient life is gone
Can't sound transfer through the casing even if it's not vibrating air in the process?
I think I've got your point: that's not whar we call sound, but yes, the showel and casing will reverberate
No, there is a well-known experiment: take something that produces sound, put in a glass, suck air out. Won't hear a thing
No, sound is a sensation. Sonic disturbances aren't sound unless someone hears them. That's why sonic frequencies outside the hearing range aren't sound.
You should read Berkeley's Three Dialogues to properly understand the meme.
So, ultra-not-sound. Thank you, o wise one (/s, of course)
Is NOBODY else curious where the shovel came from??
It's a mars robot designed to take samples...
lies!!!
It took me a while to think about what you are even implying and came to the conclusion that this is proof of a mars civilization. Either a human mars colony or a native species. Eitherway NASA is hiding it and I was complicit by suggesting an alternative explanation
And slander!
Slander is Spoken
Libel is Literary
Did Keiko tell you that one too?
From Earth, probably
I can only imagine the euphoric mixture of dread and excitement that the engineer who came up with that one must have had right before presenting it to the rest of the team. The realization that all hope for normal solutions had been lost and abnormal solutions were needed, combined with the requirement of absolute confidence in these facts to present this to managers. I am jealous, this is a feeling most engineers only get a few times in their careers.
I am sorry but this is a ridiculous consipiracy theory, I have never met a single engineer in my life who wouldn't be laughing maniacally (all fear irradiated in a recursive, exhaustive employment of their analytical mind to a hypothesis, plan and then blueprints) as they stumbled out of their cubicle hole they had imprisoned themselves in for the last 8 hours to their coworkers respectful, knowing but still mildly concerned distant acknowledgement brandishing an attitude and persona that looks to the untrained eye COMPLETELY like somebody impersonating Charlie from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, but the room of fellow scientists and engineers know the engineer has either truthfully reached a point where their idea is shit and they have lost their sanity and ability to state why or they have just pulled the funniest joke on everybody else they ever will in their entire career in the process of saving the day. Somehow, if you could freeze time and ask everybody in that room to bet which eventuality will reveal itself to be true, nobody in the room would bet that the engineer had lost their sanity, no matter the crazed performance in front of their boss and basically everybody else important to their stupidly narrow niche of engineering, they trust the engineer's desire to make amazing shit happen implicitly for no more complex reason their life is if nothing else proof of that axiom being the core of their organism...... and look now.... they have the same wild look in their eye of "....ha good jok.. wait no.. that is a dumb idea but... oh I am going to be SO annoyed if this ends up actually working but ok... give me a pen and paper!!!!!!!!".
I imagine to an untrained eye this might appear quite like a complete outbreak of madness, but I don't see how it could have happened any other way.
Not a bad option. A service call from the NASAA would take over a week. Easily.
can't believe they were pushing shovelware in mars
Percussive maintenance is a time honored tradition
Self-help for mechs! If only it were that easy for us as well...
I’m sure the local hardware store has a shovel you can use.
A daily shovel to the face keeps one's sanity in place?:))