Job interview help! Good analog primer?

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

congratulation from the Pope, and will be a former champion sumo
wrestler and/or ballerina." Few hiring managers succeed in matching

I was just told that my 20 years + would be acceptable if I had obtained a
BS about 20 years ago.

Ah, you see - if only you had that ballerina bullet point on the
resume, it would have swung the issue in your favor.

 

[Bob F.]

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" <larwe@larwe.com> wrote in message
news:608b6569.0405141150.213eb0e0@posting.google.com...

the superfluous initials,

I think you should demand an apology from my mother (who chose Lewin),
my father (whence R.W.) and my godfather (whence A). Warning: My
godfather is Sicilian, and my father is dead, so I don't think you're
likely to get much joy there.

My _physical signature_ (on checks, contracts, &c) is Lewin A.R.W.
Edwards. Typing it like that is, for me, very nearly as much an
automatic gesture as signing it like that. It's not a name embellished
with titles or genealogical information (e.g. "Dr. Monseigneur Fredick
W. Dunsford-Smythe III, M.D."), it is simply no more and no less than
my name. You begrudge me seven bytes of initials and punctuation? What
if I stop posting from larwe@larwe.com and instead set up a mailbox
for myself at my zws.com domain, called a@zws.com? I realize that only
saves six bytes, but maybe I can lose the space between A.R.W. and
Edwards, to even the score.

the annoyingly verbose posts, the cloyingly

You know (temporarily being completely serious here), I find the
insufficiently verbose posts annoying. A thread that consists of one
person asking "what transistor is good here", a second person saying

<Pointless blather deleated>

Don't you have a job interview to prepare for? Apparently not given your
long-winded responses. Get cracking and start cramming EE knowledge! All
of us previous posters can't wait to hear how this turns out...the big 2'nd
interview!!!

Oh yeah, don't forget to study up on the flux-capacitor.

 

[Alan Balmer]

On 12 May 2004 21:12:03 -0700, larwe@larwe.com (Lewin A.R.W. Edwards)
wrote:

"Bob F." <bobf@phantom.com> wrote in message news:<40a2955b$0$90380$39cecf19@news.twtelecom.net>...

(numerous pieces of humor). See my response to Legris, but I'm not as
irritated at you as I am at him.

The price of fame - it attracts the ankle-biters ;-)

--
Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
removebalmerconsultingthis@att.net

 

[Pete Fenelon]

In comp.arch.embedded Bob F. <bobf@phantom.com> wrote:

Oh yeah, don't forget to study up on the flux-capacitor.

And remember how to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow? ;P

pete
--
pete@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas"

 

[Anthony Fremont]

"Bob F." <bobf@phantom.com> wrote

Don't you have a job interview to prepare for? Apparently not given
your
long-winded responses. Get cracking and start cramming EE knowledge!
All
of us previous posters can't wait to hear how this turns out...the big
2'nd
interview!!!

Oh yeah, don't forget to study up on the flux-capacitor.

Very nice Bob, I see that you are as personable as Joe. After reviewing
your "corporate" website www.phantom.com I'm not surprised by your
behavior. I also see that you don't quite rate well enough to get your
own bio page blurb. How come?

 

[Terry Given]

"Alan Balmer" <albalmer@att.net> wrote in message
news:33q9a0hcfs65jnrapjidgmejv2kpecp6kg@4ax.com...

On Fri, 14 May 2004 19:52:10 -0700, "Terry Given"
the_domes@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

I have done worse though - written out a couple of careful, well
thought out answers to questions, then deleted them after realising that
the
ideas are good enough to make money from..

And have you then gone on to make money from them?

Good ideas are easy to come by, but often the best use of them is as
currency in a free exchange with your peers.

Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting

A very good question. Since having one of the ideas about a week ago, I've
clocked up around 25hrs chargeable time, so yes, I have made money from it,
just not a fortune. This particular idea arose from thinking about how to
test circuits in spice, and realising that expensive test gear, whose
behaviour is easy to describe mathematically, can be incorporated into a
spice simulation very easily.

Not a revolution at all, but a good enough thought at the time that I
dropped what I was doing (writing an s.e.d. reply) , and started developing
a few goodies, to help with a little 10kW smps project I am working on. Not
only do I get paid for doing it, but it all helps me get closer to "right
first time" designs, saving me time (in practice, allowing me to use that
time to fix other problems and my customers money (in practice, I'll keep
the money


The other idea - well, since having it, i've found myself a business
partner, organised some finance and set up a company. Next step is to flesh
out the product range, before separating the research and design elements,
identifying critical paths and developing project plans (without, I might
add, a single gantt, pert or MS project chart). Then, detailed costings,
competitor analysis and then the real work begins. Worst case, we'll lose a
little bit of money (perhaps $10k - its not a capital intensive product, and
NRE is mostly IP, rather than, say, tooling). Best case, in 5 years time the
company will be worth a few million. That, to me, seems like a risk worth
taking, and is after all the reason I dont work full-time.

Other than that, I do have to agree that:

Good ideas are easy to come by, but often the best use of them is as
currency in a free exchange with your peers.

except, of course the "easy to come by" bit. Mediocre ideas are easy to come
by, and bad ideas abound; good ideas are less common, and great ideas few
and far between.

 

[Joe]

Paul Keinanen wrote:

On Thu, 13 May 2004 22:07:16 GMT, maxfoo
maxfooHeadFromButt@punkass.com> wrote:


Very strange...
Why would they want you to know RF?
We try like heck to keep the firmware and digital guys as far away from RF as
physically possible...


Unfortunately some radio receivers and transmitters appear as if they
were designed by firmware or digital hardware guys :-(.

Knowing something about RF is a good when dealing with EMC and
transmission line issues. For instance the firmware guy could
frequency modulate a long external clock line with a dither signal and
thus, keep the radiated noise density low enough, to hide it into the
thermal noise.

Paul

Actually clock signals might not be the biggest noise source.
Many MCU got build-in crystal oscillator and the clock signals
on those pins are quite near to sine wave (quite low harmonic
and hence low interference). It is outputs like LCDs, LEDs,
buzzer /speaker that generate most noise that reduce receiver
sensitivity. When doing PCB layout, put those things away
from your antenna, and you might need EMC suppressors (RC network,
or filters) at the MCU outputs.

Joe

P.S. Lewin, good luck with your job interview!

It maybe too late now, but I like the book
Electronic Communications
Modulation and Transmission (2nd Edition)
by Robert J. Schoenbeck
ISBN 0-02-946552-4

Some examples are a bit outdated but it has got good
illustrations on many circuits.

 

[CBFalconer]

Alan Balmer wrote:

"Terry Given" <the_domes@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

I have done worse though - written out a couple of careful, well
thought out answers to questions, then deleted them after
realising that the ideas are good enough to make money from..

And have you then gone on to make money from them?

Good ideas are easy to come by, but often the best use of them is
as currency in a free exchange with your peers.

Hear hear. If I were in any sort of hiring position I would be
much more likely to hire someone who expounded their ideas, rather
than those who hid them and hoped for incestuous breeding. In
addition, a few criticisms usually improve a good idea, and may
supply a painless death for a bad one.

The critical thing is to have the ideas in the first place.

--
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

 

[Paul Keinanen]

On Sun, 16 May 2004 16:55:19 +0100, Joe
<joe_y@invalid_address.nospam.com> wrote:

Actually clock signals might not be the biggest noise source.
Many MCU got build-in crystal oscillator and the clock signals
on those pins are quite near to sine wave (quite low harmonic
and hence low interference). It is outputs like LCDs, LEDs,
buzzer /speaker that generate most noise that reduce receiver
sensitivity.

And what happens to the spectrum of those radiated signals when you
frequency modulate the main clock or constantly vary the prescaler to
these signals or add a random number of NOP instructions into the
software main loop driving the LEDs etc .

Paul

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Fred Bloggs <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:

EXCELLENT RESPONSE! It is not like he is trying to review or "brush up",
but the effort is more along the lines of acquiring material for an act.

You realize that the majority of college students today seem to view most of
their entire college education likewise, correct? But this fits in well
with the general trend of companies today that rattle of a litney of
experience 'requirements' when very few are often truly needed (does the guy
designing some GUI for your product REALLY need a BSCS? Does your
administrative assistant really need a degree in anything at all?).

But I'm just bitter, I've never had particular difficulty getting jobs,
it's just sad to see the general state of employment affairs in this country
today. There are, of course, many notable exceptions -- truly outstanding
companies that ask for what they really need and only hire those who possess
such skills or can reasonably be expected to learn them on the job.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Fred Bloggs <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:

Nah- it's called being realistic- most of your riffraff generation
signed up for an EE major to get a "high paying" job- and aren't worth a
sh_t- 80% are out of the industry within the first five years of
graduation.

Moving into sales (possibly a decent position), FAE (bad), or field service
(almost as bad) positions.

I'd say that 90% of the present undergraduate population
wouldn't have qualified for *any* education beyond high school by even
1960 standards...they just don't have the endowment or work ethic to
succeed in a legitimate curriculum.

Yes, but 90% of jobs don't require anything more than what a 1960 high
school graduate already knew, in my opinion.

 

[L. Fiar]

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" <larwe@larwe.com> wrote in message
news:608b6569.0405140418.49947999@posting.google.com...

How about the Radio Handbook?

William Orr?

That's the one... William I. Orr, W6SAI.

So, do you know how well it went?