Crappy Construction: The Four POs of the Housepocalypse

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randomidiot: May 12, 2006; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 11 years!)

kastein posted:

e: from an article I found on the data breach - the 3000 stolen credit cards for sale from the home depot branch (they're pretty sure there are more, but that's all that has made it out so far) had these billing ZIP codes. If your ZIP is among them, check with your bank and check your statement for suspicious transactions.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/hd_rescator_zips.txt

From what I dug up, those are actually the zip codes of the stores that were compromised. And it's generally safe to assume someone shopping at one of those stores is from the same zip code or a neighboring one.

... every Home Depot I shop at resides in zip codes surrounding me. All of those zip codes are on the list. gently caress. My credit union tends to be pretty on the ball though, I get an immediate phone call for suspicious things (like when, for some reason, Steam tried to bill a game purchase from England instead of the US).

# ? Sep 13, 2014 06:57

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# ? May 14, 2024 13:58

kastein: Aug 31, 2011; Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

spencer for hire posted:

I think these are the zip of the Home Depot store.

gently caress. You are right, and the store I usually shop at was compromised.

Goddammit home depot^t :mad:

# ? Sep 13, 2014 14:42

Laminator: Jan 18, 2004; You up for some serious plastic surgery?

oh jesus, my Home Depot was compromised, too. I just got a new card from the Target fiasco, I hope this doesn't turn into that again.

# ? Sep 13, 2014 15:37

Mercury Ballistic: Nov 14, 2005; not gun related

USAA told me no worries, that they would notify me if needed and that I do not yet need to get a new card. They said the same thing after target and then sent me a new card, I expect a similar thing this time. Whatever, I will just monitor my account activity. It has happened before, I am sure it will happen again.

# ? Sep 13, 2014 15:57

FCKGW: May 21, 2006

Laminator posted:

oh jesus, my Home Depot was compromised, too. I just got a new card from the Target fiasco, I hope this doesn't turn into that again.

It appears to be the same malware and methods used in the Target hack.

# ? Sep 13, 2014 17:22

Aoi-chan: Jul 28, 2003

kastein posted:

god dammit

what have i done

e: from an article I found on the data breach - the 3000 stolen credit cards for sale from the home depot branch (they're pretty sure there are more, but that's all that has made it out so far) had these billing ZIP codes. If your ZIP is among them, check with your bank and check your statement for suspicious transactions.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/hd_rescator_zips.txt

Hey, I'm not in there, cool. Now, I wonder where this $90 transaction at JCPenny and $500 attempted transaction at some French gift card website came from.. :suicide:

Question: since this also seems to be the ~~idiot~~ novice home owner thread, I'm essentially house sitting for my parents, and they had a few years ago a fancy electrostatic air cleaner installed. Anyone have experience with one of these? They're older and retired, and I don't like asking too many questions or my dad feels like he needs to come in and fix stuff while I'm at work. I turned it on recently and it just sizzled angrily at me. I believe this means it is dirty. I found the instructions for the thing, and there's like four pages of dire warnings reminding me not to cut myself on the sharp edges or burn myself with hot water. Cleaning it is suggested one of three ways:

Wash in a specially made three feet tall, six inch wide plastic bucket I do not have nor think exists outside the illustrator's imagination. I'm sure a kiddy pool would be fine, but I live alone and don't like being on watch lists.

Wash in dishwasher. Supposedly it fits. I do not have a (working) dishwasher.

Take to self service car wash (lolwhut) and spray clean, being careful to avoid the wax setting. The manual makes a point of this.

All of these seem a little crazy to me. I'd rather just take it out back and hose it off, but then I'm thinking I'm without central air for like the x hours it takes the thing to dry. I'd really rather just use a normal filter I can swap out every three months like a normal person, as this seems like a hassle.

Anyone have advice on cleaning this thing?

Aoi-chan fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Sep 15, 2014

# ? Sep 15, 2014 22:05

PuTTY riot: Nov 16, 2002

Aoi-chan posted:

Hey, I'm not in there, cool. Now, I wonder where this $90 transaction at JCPenny and $500 attempted transaction at some French gift card website came from..

Question: since this also seems to be the ~~idiot~~ novice home owner thread, I'm essentially house sitting for my parents, and they had a few years ago a fancy electrostatic air cleaner installed. Anyone have experience with one of these? They're older and retired, and I don't like asking too many questions or my dad feels like he needs to come in and fix stuff while I'm at work. I turned it on recently and it just sizzled angrily at me. I believe this means it is dirty. I found the instructions for the thing, and there's like four pages of dire warnings reminding me not to cut myself on the sharp edges or burn myself with hot water. Cleaning it is suggested one of three ways:

Wash in a specially made three feet tall, six inch wide plastic bucket I do not have nor think exists outside the illustrator's imagination. I'm sure a kiddy pool would be fine, but I live alone and don't like being on watch lists.

Wash in dishwasher. Supposedly it fits. I do not have a (working) dishwasher.

Take to self service car wash (lolwhut) and spray clean, being careful to avoid the wax setting. The manual makes a point of this.

All of these seem a little crazy to me. I'd rather just take it out back and hose it off, but then I'm thinking I'm without central air for like the x hours it takes the thing to dry. I'd really rather just use a normal filter I can swap out every three months like a normal person, as this seems like a hassle.

Anyone have advice on cleaning this thing?

My parents had one of those in the attic (didn't evenknow about it iirc) and it caught on fire and the whole upstairs filled with smoke.

# ? Sep 15, 2014 22:25

randomidiot: May 12, 2006; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 11 years!)

FCKGW posted:

It appears to be the same malware and methods used in the Target hack.

Yup. Both Home Depot and Target use Windows-based point of sale systems from NCR. Similar hardware, different user interface that likely relies on the exact same backend. A lot of grocery stores use a similar platform as well.

I'd expect to see this stuff become more common - NCR is the second most common brand in large-scale point of sale, trailing behind IBM. NCR's systems tend to run Windows on the POS terminals (IBM used to rely on a System/390 backend for anything with more than a couple of registers, with the POS terminals running some flavor of *NIX; no idea on their newer stuff).

The NCR stuff is a hell of a lot easier to use; IBM's registers have a steep learning curve, but tend to be a lot more powerful (and expensive). NCR stuff is based on common PC hardware, while IBM is ... special snowflake hardware. I think they've moved toward x86/x64 for their latest stuff, but there hasn't been a whole lot of change since the 80s on IBM's large scale stuff, aside from aesthetics and adding stuff like reward cards, integration for online order pickup, etc.

# ? Sep 16, 2014 07:26

ColHannibal: Sep 17, 2007

I once spoke to a guy who did IT for Menards, and he claimed the CEO hated computers and the internet. As a result nothing had ever been updated or secured as no money had ever been spent on such a project. Now this is his word alone, but he says a byproduct of this was some solution some person implemented years ago of each individual register containing an unencrypted text file that records every credit card number swiped in the machine as the registers are not even networked to each other.

# ? Sep 16, 2014 16:10

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

I worked at a Menards store and the computers in our departments (not registers) ran Windows 98. The HR lady at our store was the only one that came close to having a real computer and not a stupid Menards she'll on top of Windows. Which means she got a button in her shell that launched open office. Also our inventory/order system ran in a System V emulator.

So I guess what I'm saying is that nothing surprises me with that company. John Menard is a turd of a man and his son just wants to drive race cars, and someone needs to buy that company and drag it into the new Millennium.

# ? Sep 16, 2014 16:27

ArcMage: Sep 14, 2007; What is this thread?; Ramrod XTreme

Aoi-chan posted:

Anyone have advice on cleaning this thing?

Electrostatic precipitators were always bastards in my experience. If the cartridge doesn't have any fussy wires in or similar then you can most definitely take it out back and hose it off, or possibly just attack it with some canned air if it's not too badly fouled.

If you have a swiffer or something, and it'll fit between the plates, though, that might be perfect.

# ? Sep 16, 2014 16:32

Aoi-chan: Jul 28, 2003

FISHMANPET posted:

So I guess what I'm saying is that nothing surprises me with that company. John Menard is a turd of a man and his son just wants to drive race cars, and someone needs to buy that company and drag it into the new Millennium.

Interesting. I'm familiar with them from visiting relatives in northern Illinois, but they just recently expanded in a big way down here, opening three or four huge stores. I've been using them a bit now and then (most recently for a gas can because the ones meeting the new requirements at Lowe's felt like junk, same for the only pitchfork they carried). Maybe I'll just stick to Tru-Valu.

# ? Sep 16, 2014 17:45

Bad Munki: Nov 4, 2008; We're all mad here.

Menard's is Harbor Freight in a Home Depot size building.

# ? Sep 16, 2014 18:52

Aoi-chan: Jul 28, 2003

Bad Munki posted:

Menard's is Harbor Freight in a Home Depot size building.

Harbor Freight serves its purpose, though. That one bent metric box wrench that you need for a project and never again.

# ? Sep 16, 2014 19:00

Bad Munki: Nov 4, 2008; We're all mad here.

Right, I meant it with both the good and the bad. There are certain things I don't mind buying at Menard's (and Harbor Freight.) Mostly things with no moving parts like hammers and wrenches, or things that are more or less consumable. And there are other things I would never in a thousand years buy at Menard's or Harbor Freight, like things that have fast moving spinny bits powered by relatively strong motors.

# ? Sep 16, 2014 19:10

Missing Name: Jan 5, 2013

some texas redneck posted:

From what I dug up, those are actually the zip codes of the stores that were compromised. And it's generally safe to assume someone shopping at one of those stores is from the same zip code or a neighboring one.

... every Home Depot I shop at resides in zip codes surrounding me. All of those zip codes are on the list. gently caress. My credit union tends to be pretty on the ball though, I get an immediate phone call for suspicious things (like when, for some reason, Steam tried to bill a game purchase from England instead of the US).

I used a debit card at one of those stores, does that count :downsgun:

Checking back in on the Hoodwinked House, the attic has been a conducive environment for ice damming and more halfassed work. We'll see if a September 18th update or so is simply "fell off catwalk lost fingat"

# ? Sep 16, 2014 19:41

dietcokefiend: Apr 28, 2004; HEY ILL HAV 2 TXT U L8TR I JUST DROVE IN 2 A DAYCARE AND SCRATCHED MY RAZR

Missing Name posted:

I used a debit card at one of those stores, does that count

Checking back in on the Hoodwinked House, the attic has been a conducive environment for ice damming and more halfassed work. We'll see if a September 18th update or so is simply "fell off catwalk lost fingat"

Surprised that house hasn't burnt down yet for mysterious reasons. Haven't looked at updates on that place in a while... since looking for a house myself I don't enjoy bringing on a possible panic attack. I did enjoy the great foam explosion incident.

http://youtu.be/6NPD4NorVFs

# ? Sep 16, 2014 19:59

My Lovely Horse: Aug 21, 2010

My landlord is finally fixing my nonexistent noise insulation issue, after two years, and two weeks before I'm due to move out. Before rather than after, because the next tenant is keen to go in on the 1st. So I get to live on a construction site for a few days. They are paying me back the rent for those two weeks and I'll be out of town Thursday-Sunday so it might not be all that awful, but I still can't help but feel apprehensive that some unforeseen issue will turn this into a disastrous venture.

Will see if I can get some pictures of things like "air where any insulation material at all should be" but I'm afraid it's going to be terribly unexciting.

e: I'm alternating really badly between "huge mistake, I sold out my evening peace and quiet" and "they'll have it half done over Thu-Sat and anyway I'm preparing a move, I wasn't going to have any peace and quiet"

Yeah, not happening. "Huge mistake" won out in the end.

My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Sep 17, 2014

# ? Sep 16, 2014 20:09

MH Knights: Aug 4, 2007

FISHMANPET posted:

I worked at a Menards store and the computers in our departments (not registers) ran Windows 98. The HR lady at our store was the only one that came close to having a real computer and not a stupid Menards she'll on top of Windows. Which means she got a button in her shell that launched open office. Also our inventory/order system ran in a System V emulator.

So I guess what I'm saying is that nothing surprises me with that company. John Menard is a turd of a man and his son just wants to drive race cars, and someone needs to buy that company and drag it into the new Millennium.

Farm & Fleet 4 lyfe! I look at some of the stuff at Menards and it just instinctively doesn't feel right. Like it is the goatee'd evil mirror universe twin of what I wanted and when I get home it is going to try and kill me.

# ? Sep 16, 2014 23:08

Fruits of the sea: Dec 1, 2010

So my parents' house has been undergoing a much needed renovation, including all new insulation, outside doors, paint and new upstairs and downstairs bathrooms.

It all looks great for the most part but the bathroom fixtures are a bit... odd. Like, imagine a bathroom being built with by an alien with good intentions, but no idea how human physiology worked.

The flush handle is installed upside down, so you have to sort of flop it upwards for anything to happen.

These shower handles are also installed upside down.

The doors on the cabinet swing open towards the middle. Whyyyy

A toilet roll holder placed perfectly for contortionists and people with dislocated shoulders.

Apparently one of the toilets was also in the process of being installed at a 45 degree angle to the wall until my mom interfered.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 00:14

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

That reminds me of a book someone was telling me about, where humans find a bunch of alien craft basically in tact, but no aliens. They have no idea what the aliens look like, the only thing they can figure out about their appearance is that their butts are different than ours because none of the seats work for humans.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 00:29

Hermaphrodite: Oct 2, 2004; Luckily, I CAN go fuck myself!

Can you find out which book that was? Sounds fascinating.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 01:49

rekamso: Jan 22, 2008

Fruits of the sea posted:

The doors on the cabinet swing open towards the middle. Whyyyy

That is intentional so that you can open them slightly and get a nice angle on the mirrors.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 02:38

Nostalgia4Butts: Jun 1, 2006; WHERE MY HOSE DRINKERS AT

Hermaphrodite posted:

Can you find out which book that was? Sounds fascinating.

i would like to read the alien butt book as well.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 02:40

PainterofCrap: Oct 17, 2002; hey bebe

FISHMANPET posted:

That reminds me of a book someone was telling me about, where humans find a bunch of alien craft basically in tact, but no aliens. They have no idea what the aliens look like, the only thing they can figure out about their appearance is that their butts are different than ours because none of the seats work for humans.

The Heechee Saga

https://www.goodreads.com/series/49899-heechee-saga

Yeah this is an excellent series by Pohl. I have to pick it up & read it again, it's been 20-years.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 03:07

kid sinister: Nov 16, 2002

Fruits of the sea posted:

A toilet roll holder placed perfectly for contortionists and people with dislocated shoulders.

From the thumbnail it looks like they have an eternal flame in their crapper.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 03:13

Splizwarf: Jun 15, 2007; It's like there's a soup can in front of me!

Around here, we already have Harbor Freight in a big building: Northern Tool. :downs:

Hanging flush levers are pretty common. Did it not work? I don't see what's upside down about the shower handles, is there lettering on the assembly or something? Toilet paper holder is a bit high but doesn't look unusable.

Splizwarf fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Sep 17, 2014

# ? Sep 17, 2014 04:28

TooMuchAbstraction: Oct 14, 2012; I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.; Fun Shoe

Splizwarf posted:

Toilet paper holder is a bit high but doesn't look unusable.

It's above and behind the toilet bowl. You'd have to twist around to reach it, or else have freakishly flexible shoulders.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 04:35

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

PainterofCrap posted:

The Heechee Saga

https://www.goodreads.com/series/49899-heechee-saga

Yeah this is an excellent series by Pohl. I have to pick it up & read it again, it's been 20-years.

gently caress yeah read Heechee (again). It's... actually a series that is more about human psychology and relationships and tragedy and loss and all that sticky human stuff, but with this underlying premise (we discover an asteroid base full of alien ships, and you can activate them to go to where they were programmed to go, but who knows what you'll find there - maybe valuable alien technology, maybe nothing at all, or maybe death) that is really compelling.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 04:49

Minarchist: Mar 5, 2009; by WE B Bourgeois

Hermaphrodite posted:

Can you find out which book that was? Sounds fascinating.

I got in too late to say it was Gateway and its sequels :negative:

Buy this book! It's everything we know about the alien Heechee! 200 blank pages

It's a bit dated for science fiction (the narrator's AI psychologist is coded in BASIC ) but its a good read. The random classified ads stuck in between chapters are awesome.

code:

GILLETTE, RONALD C. Departed Gateway sometime in last year. 
Anyone having information present whereabouts please inform wife, Annabelle c/o Canadian Legation, Mars. Reward.

OUTPILOTS, REPEAT winners let your money work for you while you're out. Invest mutual funds, growth stocks, land, other opportunities. 
Moderate counseling fee. 88-301

PORNODISKS FOR those long, lonely journeys. 50 hours, $500. All interests or to order. 
Also models wanted. 87-108

Minarchist fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Sep 17, 2014

# ? Sep 17, 2014 05:07

iForge: Oct 28, 2010; Apple's new "iBlacksmith Suite: Professional Edition" features the iForge, iAnvil, and the iHammer.

A friend is flipping a house and asked me to come by and fix up some wiring. I found many many things, these are just the pictures I took today. I will be rewiring so much of this house it hurts to think about it.

This exhaust fan made the bathroom smell like smoke when it was running, I removed it and it will be replaced with a new one.

Some of the wiring for the aforementioned exhaust fan.

Found this behind drywall in the bathroom. This fed power to the switch that controlled the exhaust fan. The hot lead was barely hanging on under that wirenut.

Yep, a little tape and its good as new... :stonk:

More to come...

iForge fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Sep 17, 2014

# ? Sep 17, 2014 05:44

Aoi-chan: Jul 28, 2003

Bad Munki posted:

Right, I meant it with both the good and the bad. There are certain things I don't mind buying at Menard's (and Harbor Freight.) Mostly things with no moving parts like hammers and wrenches, or things that are more or less consumable. And there are other things I would never in a thousand years buy at Menard's or Harbor Freight, like things that have fast moving spinny bits powered by relatively strong motors.

True story: once I was putting up some storm windows and needed to shrink the plastic, and my dad told me Harbor Freight had a heat gun on sale for like $20 and I went and looked at it and was like cool gonna buy it and then remembered I had a hair dryer and it actually has things like electrical protections built in to it and stuff and I laughed and went home.

Seriously, there's just some things I can't bring myself to do.. They stay in business so I guess their power tools don't actively kill people.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 07:43

ColHannibal: Sep 17, 2007

Aoi-chan posted:

True story: once I was putting up some storm windows and needed to shrink the plastic, and my dad told me Harbor Freight had a heat gun on sale for like $20 and I went and looked at it and was like cool gonna buy it and then remembered I had a hair dryer and it actually has things like electrical protections built in to it and stuff and I laughed and went home.

Seriously, there's just some things I can't bring myself to do.. They stay in business so I guess their power tools don't actively kill people.

Hey my harbor freight work bench is great after I bought new bolts,nuts and, surface from Home Depot.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 07:50

Not Wolverine: Jul 1, 2007

Aoi-chan posted:

True story: once I was putting up some storm windows and needed to shrink the plastic, and my dad told me Harbor Freight had a heat gun on sale for like $20 and I went and looked at it and was like cool gonna buy it and then remembered I had a hair dryer and it actually has things like electrical protections built in to it and stuff and I laughed and went home.

Seriously, there's just some things I can't bring myself to do.. They stay in business so I guess their power tools don't actively kill people.

100F is totally the same as 1000F.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 13:10

Ashcans: Jan 2, 2006; Let's do the space-time warp again!

Aoi-chan posted:

True story: once I was putting up some storm windows and needed to shrink the plastic, and my dad told me Harbor Freight had a heat gun on sale for like $20 and I went and looked at it and was like cool gonna buy it and then remembered I had a hair dryer and it actually has things like electrical protections built in to it and stuff and I laughed and went home.

Seriously, there's just some things I can't bring myself to do.. They stay in business so I guess their power tools don't actively kill people.

I have bought a number of cheap tools from HF, and the quality is obviously not great but it's fine if you need something uncomplicated for a specific project or if you don't actually do a lot of work. Things like hammers, rasps, clamps, etc. I bought a throatless shear from them as well and it served surprisingly well cutting sheet metal for a few years before I gave it away. I suspect that it couldn't have handled thicker metals like a brand-name would have, but for hacking up some 18/20g it was great and probably a fifth of the price.

I would definitely think hard before getting anything that plugged in though. I'm sure a bunch of the stuff is fine, but no one wants to be the unlucky guy who gets a drill that comes apart at full speed.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 14:13

neogeo0823: Jul 4, 2007; NO THAT'S NOT ME!!

As a person who worked at HF for a year, only buy poo poo that has a warranty attached. Seriously. You'll pay $10 more, sure, but you can bet your sorry rear end that that thing WILL break in a week and you'll need to return it. Never buy anything that's from their kitchen and hobby sections. Never buy electronics. The less complicated an item, the safer it is to buy. Buy the tools that have the lifetime warranty on them. Buy the storage units and benches if you can be careful enough not to hit it with something and bend it.

The thing you almost never see are the returns. Sure, you might see a cart with a few items in it behind the register, or a shelf unit with some clearance stuff that's missing pieces. Those are the things that haven't made it back to The Bin yet. The Bin is always at least one, but sometimes as many as 6(!!! For our medium sized store) pallets with waist high heavy duty cardboard bins nailed to them that get filled to the top with broken and returned items that get shipped back to the manufacturer every month. Yes, every month. However many pallets that it ends up being.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 16:18

Fruits of the sea: Dec 1, 2010

Splizwarf posted:

Hanging flush levers are pretty common. Did it not work? I don't see what's upside down about the shower handles, is there lettering on the assembly or something? Toilet paper holder is a bit high but doesn't look unusable.

The smaller handle for the bath faucet is placed unintuitively, above the larger handle for the shower. They both only turn downwards, between 90 and 270 degrees. That's precisely the opposite of how a normal shower handle would be expected to work. Still usable, it's just contrary to normal design conventions. Same with the flush lever. The only levers I've seen that pull downwards are the European style attached to a chain connected to a tank in the ceiling.

I suppose the inwards opening doors would make sense for a vanity cupboard, except the mirrors are so small that it's impossible to get a good look at the sides of one's face for shaving or whatever.

There isn't anything faulty with the construction per se, but just an extra 2 minutes spent thinking about what it would be like to actually use the fixtures would have made a big difference. As it is, the bathrooms are going to mildly confuse all our houseguests.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 16:47

BonerGhost: Mar 9, 2007

Fruits of the sea posted:

As it is, the bathrooms are going to mildly confuse all our houseguests.

They'll live longer. Research shows that animals living in environments that change frequently and test their cognitive abilities have longer lifespans than those living in boring places.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 17:48

ColHannibal: Sep 17, 2007

Well I am discovering how hosed my plumbing is, plumber finding junctions going copper to PVC and weird things like the water heater run off tied into the AC condensate drain.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 17:59

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# ? May 14, 2024 13:58

Slanderer: May 6, 2007

Crotch Fruit posted:

100F is totally the same as 1000F.

Seriously, using a hair dryer instead of a heat gun seems like a lot of wasted effort. I've gotten two cheap heat guns over the years, and one broke from a failed thermal fuse, but the other is still going.

# ? Sep 17, 2014 18:13

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Crappy Construction: The Four POs of the Housepocalypse

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