Conical inductors--still $10!...

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, July 21, 2020 at 6:19:46 AM UTC+10, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 20/07/20 20:46, Dennis wrote:
On 7/20/20 2:00 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:


One of the best electronic engineers I knew did a biochemistry
degree, and then a masters to convert to electronics and systems.
His surname was Bragg, and he had well-known forebears

Sir (William) Lawrence? (I was going to be an X-ray crystallographer until I
realized 2 things. There weren\'t very many jobs and I never had a good mental
model for reciprocal space.)

William Henry and Lawrence were the forebears.

William Henry was professor of Physics in Adelaide (south Australia) around the time my parents were born there. I ran into Lawrence once at the Royal Institution when I was postdoc at Southampton. He knew enough to know that single photon counting was a good thing, but was less clear on why it was - he\'d got into an argument with a phase sensitive detection enthusiast, and I expressed the opinion that they were both over-simplifying what was going on. By that time it was clear that I wasn\'t going to have an academic career, so it didn\'t matter.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, July 21, 2020 at 1:39:05 PM UTC+10, gray_wolf wrote:

On 20/07/2020 8:48 pm, Cydrome Leader wrote:
jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On 15 Jul 2020 14:32:46 GMT, Rob <nomail@example.com> wrote:

jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com <jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com> wrote:
One of my most common causes of writing ECOs against new designs is
that the LEDs are too bright. Gotta do that again today.

It is even more true for blue leds than for green. When a device
has a blue indicator LED, it usually is far too bright. Both my PC
and my router have indicator lights that, when not taped over, cause
a large blue spot to appear on the opposite wall.

Blue seems to annoy people. As LEDs got better, we got complaints from
users, and had to reduce currents. The first blue LEDs, the SiC Crees,
were about right for a panel indicator at 50 mA. Now 1 mA is a bit
bright.

The original SiC Crees had a really nice light blue color too. I still
have one or two samples. They looked unique, like the 1970s or older era
deep red LEDs.


I was reading something the other day about the blue LEDs being harmful to humans.

The blue light they emit tells you that it around midday. Look at it late at night and you won\'t get to sleep as easily as you might.

It\'s not all that damaging.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[server]

On Fri, 19 Jun 2020 06:49:20 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/18/scientists-as-heroes-keep-that-image-public-eye/

That\'s really scary, science as a path to fame, fortune, prizes,
adoration from movie stars.

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2020/07/20/anthony-fauci-to-throw-first-pitch-for-washington-nationals-season-opener/

Another victim of fame.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[server]

On Fri, 19 Jun 2020 06:49:20 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/18/scientists-as-heroes-keep-that-image-public-eye/

That\'s really scary, science as a path to fame, fortune, prizes,
adoration from movie stars.

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2020/07/20/anthony-fauci-to-throw-first-pitch-for-washington-nationals-season-opener/

Another victim of fame.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[whit3rd]

On Monday, July 20, 2020 at 9:40:20 PM UTC-7, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 19 Jun 2020 06:49:20 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

That\'s really scary, science as a path to fame, fortune, prizes,
adoration from movie stars.

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2020/07/20/anthony-fauci-to-throw-first-pitch-for-washington-nationals-season-opener/

Another victim of fame.

Like Marie Sklowdowska, who got a Nobel prize, and was so distracted
by that fame, and raising small chidren, and her husband\'s untimely death,
that she didn\'t get another Nobel prize for eight years.

Fame doesn\'t usually make victims. Fatuous articles on Breitbart are really scary.

 

[whit3rd]

On Monday, July 20, 2020 at 9:40:20 PM UTC-7, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 19 Jun 2020 06:49:20 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

That\'s really scary, science as a path to fame, fortune, prizes,
adoration from movie stars.

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2020/07/20/anthony-fauci-to-throw-first-pitch-for-washington-nationals-season-opener/

Another victim of fame.

Like Marie Sklowdowska, who got a Nobel prize, and was so distracted
by that fame, and raising small chidren, and her husband\'s untimely death,
that she didn\'t get another Nobel prize for eight years.

Fame doesn\'t usually make victims. Fatuous articles on Breitbart are really scary.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, July 21, 2020 at 5:00:48 AM UTC+10, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 20/07/20 19:44, bitrex wrote:
On 7/20/2020 2:34 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 20/07/20 19:19, bitrex wrote:
On 7/20/2020 12:52 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 20/07/20 16:22, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 15:29:29 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 14:52, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 08:42:36 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 01:52, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 08:29:35 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/07/20 00:23, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jul 2020 01:32:33 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 21:42, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 15:54:54 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 15:32, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 14:42:56 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 14:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 07:28:17 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 06:32, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

<snip>

Nonetheless, I sometimes wish I had been a master-of-Xerox-
toner-mechanisms, for example.

A curious resonance. My interview for the first job I got after I\'d finished my Ph.D. included the question \"how does a Xerox machine work\".

I told them - selenium coated drum, coroana charged, exposed to optical image, no charge left in illuminated areas, while the charged areas pick up plastic coated carbon black dust from an air bath, which is then squeezed off onto paper, and fixed by warming the paper enough to melt the plastic.

The response was \"you\'ve got the job\" which wasn\'t entirely serious, though I did. I spent most of my time working on unconventional high speed printers for a military digital fax system - part of Project Mallard, which was going to be a joint US,UK, Canadian and Australian digital communications network for their military forces, until the US defence contractors found out about it and realised that it would give some of their market to UK, Canadian and Australian manufacturers, prompting them to get their US congressmen to kill it.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

I made my bed, and I\'m happy lying in it.


Yeah they\'re are a lot of newly-minted EEs that can\'t design circuits or know
what a transistor is but they\'ll get hired. some geek off the street who can do
it is not intrinsically exciting to anyone there. Not been my experience so far,
at least...

If they can\'t design /and/ can\'t analyse, then it
is difficult for me to regard them as engineers.
But there\'s nothing intrinsically wrong with being
a project manager or salesman, provided the engineer
is top dog

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 16:56:10 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

>What are going to whine about after the CDC removes the Pandemic status?

This is cool:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200716-the-people-with-hidden-protection-from-covid-19

If indeed 40 to 60% of the population was already immune to C19, years
ago, then the herd immunity level is low, maybe in the 20% range that
others have estimated.

Makes sense to me. Defense in depth keeps us alive.

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 16:56:10 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

>What are going to whine about after the CDC removes the Pandemic status?

This is cool:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200716-the-people-with-hidden-protection-from-covid-19

If indeed 40 to 60% of the population was already immune to C19, years
ago, then the herd immunity level is low, maybe in the 20% range that
others have estimated.

Makes sense to me. Defense in depth keeps us alive.

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 16:56:10 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

>What are going to whine about after the CDC removes the Pandemic status?

This is cool:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200716-the-people-with-hidden-protection-from-covid-19

If indeed 40 to 60% of the population was already immune to C19, years
ago, then the herd immunity level is low, maybe in the 20% range that
others have estimated.

Makes sense to me. Defense in depth keeps us alive.

 

[server]

On Sunday, July 12, 2020 at 2:10:22 PM UTC+2, Commander Kinsey wrote:
> Why are CPUs only about 80W TDP? Can\'t they make ones with three times as many cores that have 250W TDP like graphics cards?

More transistors & bigger transister nanometers.

GPUs can have more transistors and perhaps bigger ones.

Also perhaps more chips ! =D

Bye,
Skybuck =D

 

[server]

On Sunday, July 12, 2020 at 2:10:22 PM UTC+2, Commander Kinsey wrote:
> Why are CPUs only about 80W TDP? Can\'t they make ones with three times as many cores that have 250W TDP like graphics cards?

More transistors & bigger transister nanometers.

GPUs can have more transistors and perhaps bigger ones.

Also perhaps more chips ! =D

Bye,
Skybuck =D

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, July 22, 2020 at 10:10:35 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 16:56:10 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

What are going to whine about after the CDC removes the Pandemic status?

This is cool:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200716-the-people-with-hidden-protection-from-covid-19

Except that the T-cells that can react to Covid-19 would have been created to attack the corona viruses that cause 15% of common colds.

The old blood samples that reacted against Covid-19 can\'t have been exposed to Covid-19 and are very likely to have been exposed to the corona viruses that cause that 15% of \"common cold\" cases

Everybody should have them, including the people who have died from Covid-19.

If indeed 40 to 60% of the population was already immune to C19, years
ago, then the herd immunity level is low, maybe in the 20% range that
others have estimated.

Except that that choir got 87% infected from a single exposure.

https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/27/thoraxjnl-2020-215091

reports a cruise ship where 59% got infected (despite the passengers being isolated in their cabins early in the cruise).

> Makes sense to me. Defense in depth keeps us alive.

What \"makes sense\" to you is stuff that you can misapprehend as supporting your wishful thinking.

US Covid-19 deaths are now at 144,953 and show no sign of tapering off.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, July 22, 2020 at 10:10:35 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 16:56:10 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

What are going to whine about after the CDC removes the Pandemic status?

This is cool:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200716-the-people-with-hidden-protection-from-covid-19

Except that the T-cells that can react to Covid-19 would have been created to attack the corona viruses that cause 15% of common colds.

The old blood samples that reacted against Covid-19 can\'t have been exposed to Covid-19 and are very likely to have been exposed to the corona viruses that cause that 15% of \"common cold\" cases

Everybody should have them, including the people who have died from Covid-19.

If indeed 40 to 60% of the population was already immune to C19, years
ago, then the herd immunity level is low, maybe in the 20% range that
others have estimated.

Except that that choir got 87% infected from a single exposure.

https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/27/thoraxjnl-2020-215091

reports a cruise ship where 59% got infected (despite the passengers being isolated in their cabins early in the cruise).

> Makes sense to me. Defense in depth keeps us alive.

What \"makes sense\" to you is stuff that you can misapprehend as supporting your wishful thinking.

US Covid-19 deaths are now at 144,953 and show no sign of tapering off.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-07-20 14:34, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 20/07/20 19:19, bitrex wrote:
On 7/20/2020 12:52 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 20/07/20 16:22, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 15:29:29 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 14:52, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 08:42:36 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 01:52, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 08:29:35 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/07/20 00:23, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jul 2020 01:32:33 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 21:42, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 15:54:54 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 15:32, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 14:42:56 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 14:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 07:28:17 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 06:32, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
E.g., why would someone on the dole ever work for
something they
already get free?  It doesn\'t make any sense.

True for some people, false for many more.

Many people feel defined by their work, and feel
pointless without it. Such people have a tendency
to \"give up and die\"  relatively shortly after
retiring.

You seem to understand Theory X companies, but
have no clue about Theory Y companies, as described
by McGregor in the 1950s.

Long before McGregor, Hewlett and Packard knew the
difference instinctively, and created a rather
successful Theory Y company. You may have heard
of it.

\"Theory Y managers assume employees are internally
motivated, enjoy their job, and work to better
themselves without a direct reward in return. These
managers view their employees as one of the most
valuable assets to the company, driving the internal
workings of the corporation. Employees additionally
tend to take full responsibility for their work and
do not need close supervision to create a quality
product.\"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y

Or, as famously noted at the time of Princess Fiorina,
http://www.satirewire.com/news/0105/loyal.shtml

Sure, but a company doesn\'t become a Y just with a
policy statement.
It requires finding and hiring the right workers,
treating them right,
and firing the ones that don\'t work out.

It didn\'t cross my mind anybody could think mere
policy statements could be sufficient.

In HP, the HP Way was continually reinforced and
re-explained by use of Bill and Dave anecdotes,
wheeled out to show how they thought and wanted
things to be done. Apparently when they were setting
up new sites the first hires became a little sick
and tired of them!

OTOH, Princess Fiorina made very animated policy
pronouncements, which nobody could understand.
That\'s one of the things that made me decide
to leave.

I have Packard\'s book, The HP Way. And I have Fiorina\'s
book, The
Journey. The contrast is hilarious.

Not if you were in HP!


HP did that early on. By about 1980, not so well.

HP was /very/ careful about its hiring process, at least
until shortly before Fiorina ascended in 1999.

I interviewed at HP in about 1980. The guy was obnoxious.
He would
have been my boss.

He looked at my resume and said \"The first thing you need
to do is
decide if you are an engineer or a programmer.\"

What I decided to do was walk out.

Snap!

I had an interview at a GEC site in ~1981. After explaining
the hardware and software and systems I had designed, the
HRdroid asked me whether I was \"really a hardware of software
engineer\".

Somewhat surprisingly, I managed not to give him an earful.
I suspect the expression on my face and my answers becoming
terser might have alerted him to his faux pas. The idiot still
offered me a job.

I have a similar story from the 1970s, but it turned out rather
better.

I was applying to a middle size defense contractor in the
Baltimore
suburbs, and the hiring manager looked over my resume, and
asked which
I preferred, hardware or software.  I replied that it was
very useful
to be bilingual, to be able to speak hardware to software
and vice
versa.

A very sensible response of course.

\"My\" GEC HRdroid couldn\'t comprehend anything beyond
square holes, and all round candidates has to be
force fitted into one of the square holes.

If the interviewer asks questions but listens to the
answers and avoids such destructive idiocies, that\'s
just fine.

One technique I developed was to ask ever wilder
questions, with the objective of getting them to
(sensibly) say \"no\". That gave me good insight into
the validity of their \"yes\" responses.

This would be for interviewing, versus being interviewed?

I was thinking of being interviewed. After starting my
second job (at a contract design and consultancy company)
they told me that I asked far more questions than most
candidates. I haven\'t stopped since

I haven\'t found it necessary when I\'m the technical
interviewer; there are other more fun and fruitful way
of smoking out blatherers.

What would that be?

Nothing magic.

I get them to describe what they have done in the past,
listen (unlike a few interviewers!), ask them why they
made their choices, and what they would do differently
next time.

I take them to a whiteboard and design something with them.

So do I, either directly or indirectly. That will be
something that is adjacent to their experience, and/or
something that illustrates how the company thinks/works.

The key word is \"with\"; interviews aren\'t (or at least
shouldn\'t be) willy waving competitions.


One thing you can\'t tell from a resume, or the usual interview, is if
they understand electricity. Lots of presumed engineers don\'t. Most
recent EE grads don\'t.

Wanna make a kid panic? Show him a 2-resistor voltage divider. Even
worse, a batery and a resistor charging a cap.

That\'s one reason why I like to see evidence on their
CV that they have done things on their own, without
it being any part of any course.

Doesn\'t matter what it is, so long as they can describe
what, why, and what they would do differently next time.



You don\'t need to be able to design circuits to get an EE job at most
large companies as a newly-minted EE, seems like it\'s expected that\'s
one of the things you learn on the job.

Not back in my day. I was thrown in at the deep
end on my first day.

I\'ve always had jobs like that, and wouldn\'t have
had it any other way.

Me too. With my new astronomy and physics bachelor\'s degree, and a
hobby background in electronics. I got hired to do 2/3 of the timing and
frequency control electronics for the first civilian direct-broadcast
satellite system. I\'d heard of PLLs but had never actually come across
one to know what it was. Talk about drinking from a fire hose.

The times I\'ve made the most progress in my life are the times I jumped
off a cliff--that satcom job, getting married, going off to grad school
in another country with a family to support, yada yada.

It\'s been a good ride so far.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-07-20 14:34, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 20/07/20 19:19, bitrex wrote:
On 7/20/2020 12:52 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 20/07/20 16:22, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 15:29:29 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 14:52, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 08:42:36 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 01:52, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 08:29:35 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/07/20 00:23, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jul 2020 01:32:33 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 21:42, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 15:54:54 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 15:32, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 14:42:56 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 14:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 07:28:17 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 06:32, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
E.g., why would someone on the dole ever work for
something they
already get free?  It doesn\'t make any sense.

True for some people, false for many more.

Many people feel defined by their work, and feel
pointless without it. Such people have a tendency
to \"give up and die\"  relatively shortly after
retiring.

You seem to understand Theory X companies, but
have no clue about Theory Y companies, as described
by McGregor in the 1950s.

Long before McGregor, Hewlett and Packard knew the
difference instinctively, and created a rather
successful Theory Y company. You may have heard
of it.

\"Theory Y managers assume employees are internally
motivated, enjoy their job, and work to better
themselves without a direct reward in return. These
managers view their employees as one of the most
valuable assets to the company, driving the internal
workings of the corporation. Employees additionally
tend to take full responsibility for their work and
do not need close supervision to create a quality
product.\"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y

Or, as famously noted at the time of Princess Fiorina,
http://www.satirewire.com/news/0105/loyal.shtml

Sure, but a company doesn\'t become a Y just with a
policy statement.
It requires finding and hiring the right workers,
treating them right,
and firing the ones that don\'t work out.

It didn\'t cross my mind anybody could think mere
policy statements could be sufficient.

In HP, the HP Way was continually reinforced and
re-explained by use of Bill and Dave anecdotes,
wheeled out to show how they thought and wanted
things to be done. Apparently when they were setting
up new sites the first hires became a little sick
and tired of them!

OTOH, Princess Fiorina made very animated policy
pronouncements, which nobody could understand.
That\'s one of the things that made me decide
to leave.

I have Packard\'s book, The HP Way. And I have Fiorina\'s
book, The
Journey. The contrast is hilarious.

Not if you were in HP!


HP did that early on. By about 1980, not so well.

HP was /very/ careful about its hiring process, at least
until shortly before Fiorina ascended in 1999.

I interviewed at HP in about 1980. The guy was obnoxious.
He would
have been my boss.

He looked at my resume and said \"The first thing you need
to do is
decide if you are an engineer or a programmer.\"

What I decided to do was walk out.

Snap!

I had an interview at a GEC site in ~1981. After explaining
the hardware and software and systems I had designed, the
HRdroid asked me whether I was \"really a hardware of software
engineer\".

Somewhat surprisingly, I managed not to give him an earful.
I suspect the expression on my face and my answers becoming
terser might have alerted him to his faux pas. The idiot still
offered me a job.

I have a similar story from the 1970s, but it turned out rather
better.

I was applying to a middle size defense contractor in the
Baltimore
suburbs, and the hiring manager looked over my resume, and
asked which
I preferred, hardware or software.  I replied that it was
very useful
to be bilingual, to be able to speak hardware to software
and vice
versa.

A very sensible response of course.

\"My\" GEC HRdroid couldn\'t comprehend anything beyond
square holes, and all round candidates has to be
force fitted into one of the square holes.

If the interviewer asks questions but listens to the
answers and avoids such destructive idiocies, that\'s
just fine.

One technique I developed was to ask ever wilder
questions, with the objective of getting them to
(sensibly) say \"no\". That gave me good insight into
the validity of their \"yes\" responses.

This would be for interviewing, versus being interviewed?

I was thinking of being interviewed. After starting my
second job (at a contract design and consultancy company)
they told me that I asked far more questions than most
candidates. I haven\'t stopped since

I haven\'t found it necessary when I\'m the technical
interviewer; there are other more fun and fruitful way
of smoking out blatherers.

What would that be?

Nothing magic.

I get them to describe what they have done in the past,
listen (unlike a few interviewers!), ask them why they
made their choices, and what they would do differently
next time.

I take them to a whiteboard and design something with them.

So do I, either directly or indirectly. That will be
something that is adjacent to their experience, and/or
something that illustrates how the company thinks/works.

The key word is \"with\"; interviews aren\'t (or at least
shouldn\'t be) willy waving competitions.


One thing you can\'t tell from a resume, or the usual interview, is if
they understand electricity. Lots of presumed engineers don\'t. Most
recent EE grads don\'t.

Wanna make a kid panic? Show him a 2-resistor voltage divider. Even
worse, a batery and a resistor charging a cap.

That\'s one reason why I like to see evidence on their
CV that they have done things on their own, without
it being any part of any course.

Doesn\'t matter what it is, so long as they can describe
what, why, and what they would do differently next time.



You don\'t need to be able to design circuits to get an EE job at most
large companies as a newly-minted EE, seems like it\'s expected that\'s
one of the things you learn on the job.

Not back in my day. I was thrown in at the deep
end on my first day.

I\'ve always had jobs like that, and wouldn\'t have
had it any other way.

Me too. With my new astronomy and physics bachelor\'s degree, and a
hobby background in electronics. I got hired to do 2/3 of the timing and
frequency control electronics for the first civilian direct-broadcast
satellite system. I\'d heard of PLLs but had never actually come across
one to know what it was. Talk about drinking from a fire hose.

The times I\'ve made the most progress in my life are the times I jumped
off a cliff--that satcom job, getting married, going off to grad school
in another country with a family to support, yada yada.

It\'s been a good ride so far.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-07-20 14:34, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 20/07/20 19:19, bitrex wrote:
On 7/20/2020 12:52 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 20/07/20 16:22, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 15:29:29 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 14:52, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 08:42:36 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 01:52, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 08:29:35 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/07/20 00:23, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jul 2020 01:32:33 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 21:42, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 15:54:54 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 15:32, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 14:42:56 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 14:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 07:28:17 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 06:32, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
E.g., why would someone on the dole ever work for
something they
already get free?  It doesn\'t make any sense.

True for some people, false for many more.

Many people feel defined by their work, and feel
pointless without it. Such people have a tendency
to \"give up and die\"  relatively shortly after
retiring.

You seem to understand Theory X companies, but
have no clue about Theory Y companies, as described
by McGregor in the 1950s.

Long before McGregor, Hewlett and Packard knew the
difference instinctively, and created a rather
successful Theory Y company. You may have heard
of it.

\"Theory Y managers assume employees are internally
motivated, enjoy their job, and work to better
themselves without a direct reward in return. These
managers view their employees as one of the most
valuable assets to the company, driving the internal
workings of the corporation. Employees additionally
tend to take full responsibility for their work and
do not need close supervision to create a quality
product.\"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y

Or, as famously noted at the time of Princess Fiorina,
http://www.satirewire.com/news/0105/loyal.shtml

Sure, but a company doesn\'t become a Y just with a
policy statement.
It requires finding and hiring the right workers,
treating them right,
and firing the ones that don\'t work out.

It didn\'t cross my mind anybody could think mere
policy statements could be sufficient.

In HP, the HP Way was continually reinforced and
re-explained by use of Bill and Dave anecdotes,
wheeled out to show how they thought and wanted
things to be done. Apparently when they were setting
up new sites the first hires became a little sick
and tired of them!

OTOH, Princess Fiorina made very animated policy
pronouncements, which nobody could understand.
That\'s one of the things that made me decide
to leave.

I have Packard\'s book, The HP Way. And I have Fiorina\'s
book, The
Journey. The contrast is hilarious.

Not if you were in HP!


HP did that early on. By about 1980, not so well.

HP was /very/ careful about its hiring process, at least
until shortly before Fiorina ascended in 1999.

I interviewed at HP in about 1980. The guy was obnoxious.
He would
have been my boss.

He looked at my resume and said \"The first thing you need
to do is
decide if you are an engineer or a programmer.\"

What I decided to do was walk out.

Snap!

I had an interview at a GEC site in ~1981. After explaining
the hardware and software and systems I had designed, the
HRdroid asked me whether I was \"really a hardware of software
engineer\".

Somewhat surprisingly, I managed not to give him an earful.
I suspect the expression on my face and my answers becoming
terser might have alerted him to his faux pas. The idiot still
offered me a job.

I have a similar story from the 1970s, but it turned out rather
better.

I was applying to a middle size defense contractor in the
Baltimore
suburbs, and the hiring manager looked over my resume, and
asked which
I preferred, hardware or software.  I replied that it was
very useful
to be bilingual, to be able to speak hardware to software
and vice
versa.

A very sensible response of course.

\"My\" GEC HRdroid couldn\'t comprehend anything beyond
square holes, and all round candidates has to be
force fitted into one of the square holes.

If the interviewer asks questions but listens to the
answers and avoids such destructive idiocies, that\'s
just fine.

One technique I developed was to ask ever wilder
questions, with the objective of getting them to
(sensibly) say \"no\". That gave me good insight into
the validity of their \"yes\" responses.

This would be for interviewing, versus being interviewed?

I was thinking of being interviewed. After starting my
second job (at a contract design and consultancy company)
they told me that I asked far more questions than most
candidates. I haven\'t stopped since

I haven\'t found it necessary when I\'m the technical
interviewer; there are other more fun and fruitful way
of smoking out blatherers.

What would that be?

Nothing magic.

I get them to describe what they have done in the past,
listen (unlike a few interviewers!), ask them why they
made their choices, and what they would do differently
next time.

I take them to a whiteboard and design something with them.

So do I, either directly or indirectly. That will be
something that is adjacent to their experience, and/or
something that illustrates how the company thinks/works.

The key word is \"with\"; interviews aren\'t (or at least
shouldn\'t be) willy waving competitions.


One thing you can\'t tell from a resume, or the usual interview, is if
they understand electricity. Lots of presumed engineers don\'t. Most
recent EE grads don\'t.

Wanna make a kid panic? Show him a 2-resistor voltage divider. Even
worse, a batery and a resistor charging a cap.

That\'s one reason why I like to see evidence on their
CV that they have done things on their own, without
it being any part of any course.

Doesn\'t matter what it is, so long as they can describe
what, why, and what they would do differently next time.



You don\'t need to be able to design circuits to get an EE job at most
large companies as a newly-minted EE, seems like it\'s expected that\'s
one of the things you learn on the job.

Not back in my day. I was thrown in at the deep
end on my first day.

I\'ve always had jobs like that, and wouldn\'t have
had it any other way.

Me too. With my new astronomy and physics bachelor\'s degree, and a
hobby background in electronics. I got hired to do 2/3 of the timing and
frequency control electronics for the first civilian direct-broadcast
satellite system. I\'d heard of PLLs but had never actually come across
one to know what it was. Talk about drinking from a fire hose.

The times I\'ve made the most progress in my life are the times I jumped
off a cliff--that satcom job, getting married, going off to grad school
in another country with a family to support, yada yada.

It\'s been a good ride so far.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 22/07/20 04:01, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-07-20 14:34, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 20/07/20 19:19, bitrex wrote:
On 7/20/2020 12:52 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 20/07/20 16:22, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 15:29:29 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 14:52, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 08:42:36 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 01:52, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 08:29:35 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/07/20 00:23, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jul 2020 01:32:33 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 21:42, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 15:54:54 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 15:32, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 14:42:56 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 14:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 07:28:17 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 06:32, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
E.g., why would someone on the dole ever work for something they
already get free?  It doesn\'t make any sense.

True for some people, false for many more.

Many people feel defined by their work, and feel
pointless without it. Such people have a tendency
to \"give up and die\"  relatively shortly after
retiring.

You seem to understand Theory X companies, but
have no clue about Theory Y companies, as described
by McGregor in the 1950s.

Long before McGregor, Hewlett and Packard knew the
difference instinctively, and created a rather
successful Theory Y company. You may have heard
of it.

\"Theory Y managers assume employees are internally
motivated, enjoy their job, and work to better
themselves without a direct reward in return. These
managers view their employees as one of the most
valuable assets to the company, driving the internal
workings of the corporation. Employees additionally
tend to take full responsibility for their work and
do not need close supervision to create a quality
product.\"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y

Or, as famously noted at the time of Princess Fiorina,
http://www.satirewire.com/news/0105/loyal.shtml

Sure, but a company doesn\'t become a Y just with a policy
statement.
It requires finding and hiring the right workers, treating them
right,
and firing the ones that don\'t work out.

It didn\'t cross my mind anybody could think mere
policy statements could be sufficient.

In HP, the HP Way was continually reinforced and
re-explained by use of Bill and Dave anecdotes,
wheeled out to show how they thought and wanted
things to be done. Apparently when they were setting
up new sites the first hires became a little sick
and tired of them!

OTOH, Princess Fiorina made very animated policy
pronouncements, which nobody could understand.
That\'s one of the things that made me decide
to leave.

I have Packard\'s book, The HP Way. And I have Fiorina\'s book, The
Journey. The contrast is hilarious.

Not if you were in HP!


HP did that early on. By about 1980, not so well.

HP was /very/ careful about its hiring process, at least
until shortly before Fiorina ascended in 1999.

I interviewed at HP in about 1980. The guy was obnoxious. He would
have been my boss.

He looked at my resume and said \"The first thing you need to do is
decide if you are an engineer or a programmer.\"

What I decided to do was walk out.

Snap!

I had an interview at a GEC site in ~1981. After explaining
the hardware and software and systems I had designed, the
HRdroid asked me whether I was \"really a hardware of software
engineer\".

Somewhat surprisingly, I managed not to give him an earful.
I suspect the expression on my face and my answers becoming
terser might have alerted him to his faux pas. The idiot still
offered me a job.

I have a similar story from the 1970s, but it turned out rather
better.

I was applying to a middle size defense contractor in the Baltimore
suburbs, and the hiring manager looked over my resume, and asked which
I preferred, hardware or software.  I replied that it was very useful
to be bilingual, to be able to speak hardware to software and vice
versa.

A very sensible response of course.

\"My\" GEC HRdroid couldn\'t comprehend anything beyond
square holes, and all round candidates has to be
force fitted into one of the square holes.

If the interviewer asks questions but listens to the
answers and avoids such destructive idiocies, that\'s
just fine.

One technique I developed was to ask ever wilder
questions, with the objective of getting them to
(sensibly) say \"no\". That gave me good insight into
the validity of their \"yes\" responses.

This would be for interviewing, versus being interviewed?

I was thinking of being interviewed. After starting my
second job (at a contract design and consultancy company)
they told me that I asked far more questions than most
candidates. I haven\'t stopped since

I haven\'t found it necessary when I\'m the technical
interviewer; there are other more fun and fruitful way
of smoking out blatherers.

What would that be?

Nothing magic.

I get them to describe what they have done in the past,
listen (unlike a few interviewers!), ask them why they
made their choices, and what they would do differently
next time.

I take them to a whiteboard and design something with them.

So do I, either directly or indirectly. That will be
something that is adjacent to their experience, and/or
something that illustrates how the company thinks/works.

The key word is \"with\"; interviews aren\'t (or at least
shouldn\'t be) willy waving competitions.


One thing you can\'t tell from a resume, or the usual interview, is if
they understand electricity. Lots of presumed engineers don\'t. Most
recent EE grads don\'t.

Wanna make a kid panic? Show him a 2-resistor voltage divider. Even
worse, a batery and a resistor charging a cap.

That\'s one reason why I like to see evidence on their
CV that they have done things on their own, without
it being any part of any course.

Doesn\'t matter what it is, so long as they can describe
what, why, and what they would do differently next time.



You don\'t need to be able to design circuits to get an EE job at most large
companies as a newly-minted EE, seems like it\'s expected that\'s one of the
things you learn on the job.

Not back in my day. I was thrown in at the deep
end on my first day.

I\'ve always had jobs like that, and wouldn\'t have
had it any other way.

Me too.  With my new astronomy and physics bachelor\'s degree, and a hobby
background in electronics. I got hired to do 2/3 of the timing and frequency
control electronics for the first civilian direct-broadcast satellite system.
I\'d heard of PLLs but had never actually come across one to know what it was.
Talk about drinking from a fire hose.

The times I\'ve made the most progress in my life are the times I jumped off a
cliff--that satcom job, getting married, going off to grad school in another
country with a family to support, yada yada.

It\'s been a good ride so far.

I\'ve been influenced by Frank Herbert\'s “And always, he
fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course,
warning \'That path leads ever down into stagnation.”

After a few years in my first job the company was sold
and my (very small) division disbanded. I had a choice:
- stay on the site in a very humdrum jub
- intolerable travel to another site, to an unknowable
job

I decided on the \"intolerable\" option, that /required/
I make a choice. If the job was good I would would move
there. If merely OK, then I would move somewhere else.

It was OK-ish, so I moved elsewhere, with an excellent
outcome. Yes, I was lucky, but I actively searched for
that luck!

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 22/07/20 04:01, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-07-20 14:34, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 20/07/20 19:19, bitrex wrote:
On 7/20/2020 12:52 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 20/07/20 16:22, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 15:29:29 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 14:52, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 08:42:36 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/20 01:52, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 08:29:35 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/07/20 00:23, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jul 2020 01:32:33 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 21:42, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 15:54:54 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 15:32, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 14:42:56 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 14:26, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 07:28:17 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 16/07/20 06:32, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
E.g., why would someone on the dole ever work for something they
already get free?  It doesn\'t make any sense.

True for some people, false for many more.

Many people feel defined by their work, and feel
pointless without it. Such people have a tendency
to \"give up and die\"  relatively shortly after
retiring.

You seem to understand Theory X companies, but
have no clue about Theory Y companies, as described
by McGregor in the 1950s.

Long before McGregor, Hewlett and Packard knew the
difference instinctively, and created a rather
successful Theory Y company. You may have heard
of it.

\"Theory Y managers assume employees are internally
motivated, enjoy their job, and work to better
themselves without a direct reward in return. These
managers view their employees as one of the most
valuable assets to the company, driving the internal
workings of the corporation. Employees additionally
tend to take full responsibility for their work and
do not need close supervision to create a quality
product.\"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y

Or, as famously noted at the time of Princess Fiorina,
http://www.satirewire.com/news/0105/loyal.shtml

Sure, but a company doesn\'t become a Y just with a policy
statement.
It requires finding and hiring the right workers, treating them
right,
and firing the ones that don\'t work out.

It didn\'t cross my mind anybody could think mere
policy statements could be sufficient.

In HP, the HP Way was continually reinforced and
re-explained by use of Bill and Dave anecdotes,
wheeled out to show how they thought and wanted
things to be done. Apparently when they were setting
up new sites the first hires became a little sick
and tired of them!

OTOH, Princess Fiorina made very animated policy
pronouncements, which nobody could understand.
That\'s one of the things that made me decide
to leave.

I have Packard\'s book, The HP Way. And I have Fiorina\'s book, The
Journey. The contrast is hilarious.

Not if you were in HP!


HP did that early on. By about 1980, not so well.

HP was /very/ careful about its hiring process, at least
until shortly before Fiorina ascended in 1999.

I interviewed at HP in about 1980. The guy was obnoxious. He would
have been my boss.

He looked at my resume and said \"The first thing you need to do is
decide if you are an engineer or a programmer.\"

What I decided to do was walk out.

Snap!

I had an interview at a GEC site in ~1981. After explaining
the hardware and software and systems I had designed, the
HRdroid asked me whether I was \"really a hardware of software
engineer\".

Somewhat surprisingly, I managed not to give him an earful.
I suspect the expression on my face and my answers becoming
terser might have alerted him to his faux pas. The idiot still
offered me a job.

I have a similar story from the 1970s, but it turned out rather
better.

I was applying to a middle size defense contractor in the Baltimore
suburbs, and the hiring manager looked over my resume, and asked which
I preferred, hardware or software.  I replied that it was very useful
to be bilingual, to be able to speak hardware to software and vice
versa.

A very sensible response of course.

\"My\" GEC HRdroid couldn\'t comprehend anything beyond
square holes, and all round candidates has to be
force fitted into one of the square holes.

If the interviewer asks questions but listens to the
answers and avoids such destructive idiocies, that\'s
just fine.

One technique I developed was to ask ever wilder
questions, with the objective of getting them to
(sensibly) say \"no\". That gave me good insight into
the validity of their \"yes\" responses.

This would be for interviewing, versus being interviewed?

I was thinking of being interviewed. After starting my
second job (at a contract design and consultancy company)
they told me that I asked far more questions than most
candidates. I haven\'t stopped since

I haven\'t found it necessary when I\'m the technical
interviewer; there are other more fun and fruitful way
of smoking out blatherers.

What would that be?

Nothing magic.

I get them to describe what they have done in the past,
listen (unlike a few interviewers!), ask them why they
made their choices, and what they would do differently
next time.

I take them to a whiteboard and design something with them.

So do I, either directly or indirectly. That will be
something that is adjacent to their experience, and/or
something that illustrates how the company thinks/works.

The key word is \"with\"; interviews aren\'t (or at least
shouldn\'t be) willy waving competitions.


One thing you can\'t tell from a resume, or the usual interview, is if
they understand electricity. Lots of presumed engineers don\'t. Most
recent EE grads don\'t.

Wanna make a kid panic? Show him a 2-resistor voltage divider. Even
worse, a batery and a resistor charging a cap.

That\'s one reason why I like to see evidence on their
CV that they have done things on their own, without
it being any part of any course.

Doesn\'t matter what it is, so long as they can describe
what, why, and what they would do differently next time.



You don\'t need to be able to design circuits to get an EE job at most large
companies as a newly-minted EE, seems like it\'s expected that\'s one of the
things you learn on the job.

Not back in my day. I was thrown in at the deep
end on my first day.

I\'ve always had jobs like that, and wouldn\'t have
had it any other way.

Me too.  With my new astronomy and physics bachelor\'s degree, and a hobby
background in electronics. I got hired to do 2/3 of the timing and frequency
control electronics for the first civilian direct-broadcast satellite system.
I\'d heard of PLLs but had never actually come across one to know what it was.
Talk about drinking from a fire hose.

The times I\'ve made the most progress in my life are the times I jumped off a
cliff--that satcom job, getting married, going off to grad school in another
country with a family to support, yada yada.

It\'s been a good ride so far.

I\'ve been influenced by Frank Herbert\'s “And always, he
fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course,
warning \'That path leads ever down into stagnation.”

After a few years in my first job the company was sold
and my (very small) division disbanded. I had a choice:
- stay on the site in a very humdrum jub
- intolerable travel to another site, to an unknowable
job

I decided on the \"intolerable\" option, that /required/
I make a choice. If the job was good I would would move
there. If merely OK, then I would move somewhere else.

It was OK-ish, so I moved elsewhere, with an excellent
outcome. Yes, I was lucky, but I actively searched for
that luck!

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 22/07/20 04:01, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-07-20 14:34, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 20/07/20 19:19, bitrex wrote:
You don\'t need to be able to design circuits to get an EE job at most large
companies as a newly-minted EE, seems like it\'s expected that\'s one of the
things you learn on the job.

Not back in my day. I was thrown in at the deep
end on my first day.

I\'ve always had jobs like that, and wouldn\'t have
had it any other way.

Me too.  With my new astronomy and physics bachelor\'s degree, and a hobby
background in electronics. I got hired to do 2/3 of the timing and frequency
control electronics for the first civilian direct-broadcast satellite system.
I\'d heard of PLLs but had never actually come across one to know what it was.
Talk about drinking from a fire hose.

My first job involved that newfangled digital logic; easy.

It also involved creating a test set for the newfangled
multimode optical fibres that were just being installed
between exchanges. My knowledge: zero.

I ended up with a receiver with 180dB electrical (90dB
optical) dynamic range, using a large photodiode (BPW34)
and a LF351 based transimpedance amp. To recover the
signal I decided I couldn\'t predict how a PLL would work in
a range switched design, so I made a filter with a Q of 4000
using 10% components. The noise equivalent power was 1pW.

I\'ve always wanted to revisit that N-path filter for RF work,
since it has interesting properties. When I finally looked,
I found the Tayloe mixer had been patented, dammit.