Re: DPO's

[Tom Harais <tjhemh@domain.elided>]

Howard:

That's right.  In accounting, red is "negative" or a loss position and
black is "profitable".

But like all those rules, it can be wrong.

I once (Mr. Nice guy) provided a jump to a young lady in a brand new Nissan
300ZX twin turbo in the parking lot at work. She was as "hot" as that car
if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I did red-to-red and then black on my car's battery to ground in
her engine compartment. Next thing I know, there is smoke coming out of all
her electronics under the hood.

I yanked the ground clamp off and pulled the positve off her battery. I
looked very closely at the battery and could see a '+' sign, right at the
terminal where the black cable was and a '-' sign right where the red cable
was. 

At this point, sweat is pouring out of my brow as I'm thinking I just fried
her ignition system, she chimes in, "It's not supposed to smoke like that
is it? I think I'll call my husband on the cell phone."

I just told her, "try it again". And she did.

Thing fired right up and off she drove.

I ran like hell to my car, threw the jumper cables into the back seat and
high tailed it out of Dodge before she got to her house and told her
husband how I smoked all her electronics like that.

I haven't connected a jumper cable by the red-positive, black-negative
assumption since. I always look for the symbols on the post on the battery
first. You never know how it might have been wired.