OT: Bush Thugs Rough Up Grieving Mother of KIA

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that James Meyer <jmeyer@nowhere.net>
wrote (in <86ldl092ka8b7eien9jeinlnbj5cirs0c6@4ax.com&gt about 'Battery
level tester.', on Sun, 26 Sep 2004:

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 11:53:19 +0100, John Woodgate
jmw@jmwa.demon.contraspam.yuk> wroth:


You CAN'T convert your voltmeter circuit directly into an integrating
ampere-hour meter, if that's what you mean by 'battery level meter' and
'battery level monitor'. You could pull it to pieces and use some of the
parts, but an integrating ampere-hour meter is not a trivial project for
you to build.


An integrating amp-hour meter **is too** trivial....

What is trivial for you may well not be for an amateur astronomer. (;-)

Measure the current draw with a current sensor. Convert the sensed
current to an appropriate voltage and use the voltage to drive a small, toy
sized, motor with a gear train on its output. Attach pointers to a couple of
the gears and you will have an amp/hour readout similar to the gas or electric
meter on the side of your house. Reset your meter to zero before use,

Yeah, right! (Hint: that ain't as easy to do as to say.)

always
start your observing sessions with a fully charged battery, and Bob's yer uncle!

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Fred Bloggs]

Rich Grise wrote:

On Saturday 25 September 2004 02:57 pm, Fred Bloggs did deign to grace us
with the following:



Rich Grise wrote:

The ONLY way to overcome this VERY SERIOUS
challenge is to form an INTERNATIONAL COALITION TROOP PRESENCE in Iraq
with REDUCED American military presence.


A better way would be to get the Americans the fuck out of Iraq, and let
them sink or swim on their own. On the way out the door, say, "OK, guys -
here's your freedom - have fun. 'Bye."


Nope - that's the wrong answer. Now that it's started, it has to be
finished. Leaving would be all that's needed for the fundamentalists to
overthrow every government in the middle East, destroy the oil industry,
and murder every American ally in sight including Israel- this is their
avowed intent.


So, based on your fortune-telling of a dire future, you rationalize
killing people in the present, in hopes of not turning their comrades
and relatives against you? That's very insane logic, you know.

Good Luck!
Rich

Here is what you can expect to see in large quantity should the US
withdraw from Iraq:
http://216.117.171.171/video/american.wmv
Just replace the Egyptian with thousands of lower-level provisional
government personnel left behind.
This type of thing happens every day in Iraq, where the insurgents set
up phony roadblocks dressed as Iraqi guardsmen, grab collaborators,
summarily execute them out of sight, and dump them in unmarked makeshift
graves. The individual in the video was suspected of giving location
information on the insurgents to the Americans, for precision bombings
and missile attacks against their "safe houses".
This is the world GWB has created for us, and it will consume our
resources, and best efforts for a long time to come.

 

[Rich Grise]

On Saturday 25 September 2004 10:38 pm, Tom Seim did deign to grace us with
the following:

Fred is definitely right on this one (disregarding the "recklessness"
part). We have to, successfully, finish this. The consequences to do
otherwise are dire.

Define "Success".

Thank you.
Rich

 

[Gareth]

ChrisGibboGibson wrote:

I have a new design of a product that is due to be launched in about 3 months
time. Prototypes worked perfectly first time (always a good sign), beta test
units are in the field operating exactly as they should.

As far as I can tell from searching trade journals, the net, UK and US patent
searches etc nothing like it currently exists. I'll clarify that, there are at
least 30 other units currently being manufactured and sold that do the exactly
same job, but they all do it in a different (but more or less the same as each
other) way. As far as I can tell, my unit does it in a rather unique way. The
result being that it's far simpler to install, simpler to use and the final
result is more accurate. It's also cheaper to produce.

I don't have much faith in the patent system, it seems rather pointless to me
with the man with the fattest wallet winning the court battle. If I was to
publish details on the net, would that qualify as prior art/publication such
that if any one else tried to patent the idea, then that application could be
refused (so we can carry on making them) or at least, the patent would be
cancelled (or whatever the correct phrase is) should an infridgement case be
started.

I am not a lawyer, but you asked for ideas.

I would think that your beta test units would be considered prior art.
However, if someone else patented your technique, then a third party
challenged that patent, I think the fattest wallet principle would still
apply whatever the form of the prior art.

When you apply for a patent the examiner searches previous patents for
similar ideas. As far as I know, the patent examiner does not search
the Internet. Therefore, if you apply for a patent, your idea should be
seen by any patent examiner processing applications for similar ideas.
This should prevent any patents on your idea being granted. However, if
you publish your idea on the Internet, the examiner may not see it, and
the patent may be granted, though of course it could still be challenged.

If you do apply for a patent and it is granted, as far as I know, you
don't have to defend it in court if you don't want to. You could ask
for a fair royalty payment and hope that other party agrees to pay
(either because (s)he is an honourable person or because (s)he believes
that a court battle will be more expensive). Someone may even see your
patent, when it is published, and approach you asking if they can make
your device under licence. Or you could just ignore any infringements,
though, I think, this could weaken any future claims of infringement.

Patents also have some indirect value, for example it may look good on
your CV.

The downside of a patent application is, of course, it will cost money.

I don't know which country you are in, but there is some useful
information here on UK patent applications.

http://www.patent.gov.uk/

As I said, I'm not a lawyer so I may well be wrong about the above.

Gareth.

If I patent the idea then I have to tell everyone how it works, if I go the
route of publishing it here, then the same applies, if I do nothing, then I
accept there are far cleverer people than me out there who could probably work
out how it works in a matter of days once they saw that the idea does actually
work (I suspect other people have thought of it in the past but dismissed it).

Ideas ?

Input ?

Gibbo

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To reply to me directly:

Replace privacy.net with: totalise DOT co DOT uk and replace me with
gareth.harris

 

[Rolavine]

From: Spehro Pefhany
On 25 Sep 2004 11:08:41 -0700, jdurban@vorel.com (Product developer)
wrote:
John Kerry has invented the ubiquitous JK flip-flop.

I miss the gaffs of Gore so I re-printed some of my favorites. And to
think how much they pick on Bush...

Does repeating lies make you feel better?

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/quayle.htm

I was going to attack jdurban for his Quayle Quotes being foisted off as

Gore's, but you beat me to it. You were a lot nicer than I would have been,
Sperhro your soft protest was an act of great restraint, and I will try to
learn from it.

Still waiting for jdurban's apology for posting such obvious nonsense?

Rocky

 

[Rolavine]

From: John Larkin

Kerry should have let it go. The entire Demo convention was a
stunningly goofy band-of-brothers, reporting-for-duty cartoon.

From now on, to save time could we just call this absurd assertion Larkin's
Milarchy.

Rocky

 

[Rich Grise]

On Saturday 25 September 2004 11:57 pm, Kevin Aylward did deign to grace us
with the following:

How about providing a mechanism that achieves it?

I have. Repeatedly. You are programmed to deny/reject it, since it's
bigger than your brain. It's bigger than my brain. It's bigger than
all of our brains put together, and therefore, incomprehensible to
a clock.

Thanks anyway,
Rich

 

[Dirk Bruere at Neopax]

John Woodgate wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Guy Macon <http@?.guymacon.com
wrote (in <10l0heb5t6sppd3@news.supernews.com&gt about '[OT]: Ping Kevin
Aylward - re your "scientific paper"', on Tue, 21 Sep 2004:


The above would seem to apply if I was arguing that we have free will,
but I am not doing that. I am arguing that whether we have free will is
an unanswered question. Let me ask you the same question I asked Kevin;
if, as you claim,


I don't claim ANYTHING in this discussion. I am putting forward my
interpretation of Kevin's thesis, in the hope that people may begin to
understand it, even if they don't accept it.


free will has been proven to not exist, why do so many
intelligent and educated people consider the question of free will to be
an unanswered question? Why don't they accept the proof?


You may well ask. Many people say that 'they just feel that there must
be something more'.

The problem is simple.
Either ones choice is determined by initial conditions, in which case free will
is an illusion - or - there are truly random factors which make prediction
impossible even in theory. However, flipping a coin is not most people's idea of
free will either.

The MWI of QM may provide an alternative according to Deutsch in that we make
every possible choice.

Another alternative is that we are involved in a temporal feedback loop on the
QM scale which makes the system inherently unpredictable. Which is my view of
free will ie we get a brief look ahead in time sufficient to make the whole
choice thing non-linear and non-deterministic.

--
Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millenium
http://www.theconsensus.org

 

[Paul Burridge]

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 11:37:01 -0700, Guy Macon
<http://www.guymacon.com> wrote:

Kevin Aylward <salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk> says...

I responded in this manner to *this* particular post. Feel free to
search my other 10,000 posts and note how rarely I personally insult
people.

Here are hundreds and hundeds of examples of you insulting people:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=ignorant+author%3A%22Kevin+Aylward%22
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=idiot+author%3A%22Kevin+Aylward%22
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=stupid+author%3A%22Kevin+Aylward%22
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=moron+author%3A%22Kevin+Aylward%22
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=fuck+author%3A%22Kevin+Aylward%22
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=bloody+author%3A%22Kevin+Aylward%22

..and those are just the first six words I checked. I can find many
hudreds more if you wish.

I see he's described himself as 'Warden of the King's Ale' - whatever
the hell that is. 'Wanker of the First Order' seems more appropriate.

--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

 

[Mark Zenier]

In article <MPG.1bbe7c811ca7bb90989719@news.individual.net>,
Chaos Master <renan.birckREPLYTONEWS.REPLYTONEWS.REPLYTONEWS@gmail.com> wrote:

YD writes within:

[ANADISK]

People also use it to copy non-DOS disks for HP test equipment.

Mark Zenier mzenier@eskimo.com Washington State resident

Haven't tried it yet but I did find a d/l in
http://www.8bit-micro.com/anadisk.htm

I think that 'dd' may do the same, on Linux:

linux# dd if=/dev/fd0 of=~/floppy.ima

More parameters may be need.

It does a "raw read" of the floppy disk. Input device (the 'if' argument) is
floppy drive and output device (the 'of' argument) is the file name for output

No, there was a linux package that could do the strange sort of things if
you rolled your own, but anadisk will read and create stuff with different
sector sizes on the same track and missing sector numbers. Whatever the
the PC controller was capable of reading.

Mark Zenier mzenier@eskimo.com Washington State resident

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that ChrisGibboGibson
<chrisgibbogibson@aol.com> wrote (in <20040926094507.22383.00001038@mb-
m17.aol.com&gt about 'Patents, Prior Art, Publication and Usenet.', on
Sun, 26 Sep 2004:

I don't have much faith in the patent system,

Very sensible. You need pots of money to bring an infringement action.

it seems rather pointless
to me with the man with the fattest wallet winning the court battle. If
I was to publish details on the net, would that qualify as prior
art/publication such that if any one else tried to patent the idea, then
that application could be refused (so we can carry on making them) or at
least, the patent would be cancelled (or whatever the correct phrase is)
should an infridgement case be started.

Yes. But also put all the data in an envelope and send it to yourself
(or your lawyer if you have one) by Recorded Delivery, so that it gets
an official, independent date-stamp. DON'T OPEN THE ENVELOPE!

If I patent the idea then I have to tell everyone how it works, if I go
the route of publishing it here, then the same applies, if I do nothing,
then I accept there are far cleverer people than me out there who could
probably work out how it works in a matter of days once they saw that
the idea does actually work (I suspect other people have thought of it
in the past but dismissed it).

Yes: if you don't patent it, it can legally be reverse-engineered. You
could apply for 'design registration' and there can be 'copyright' on PC
boards and control panel artwork, but these all add complications.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[YD]

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 20:30:11 +1000, Clifford Heath
<no@spam.please.net> wrote:

Rex Allers wrote:
The html source doesn't look particularly complicated.

I don't know whether it means anything, but there is a <div> inside
the <head> section, which is illegal. Some browsers will assume that
the <head> should have finished, and the <body> tag has been dropped,
and switch into body mode. Anyhow, that might confuse it.

Didn't notice that when checking the source. Anyway, Mozilla displayed
just fine. None of those I asked could replicate the problem, using
several browsers on diverse platforms. One hint is that some network
admins consider thumbnails a security risk and filter them out at the
proxy to intranet. Doesn't seem to be the case here though.

- YD.

--
Remove HAT if replying by mail.

 

[Fred Bloggs]

Tom Seim wrote:

Fred Bloggs <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message news:<4155E9B4.7080302@nospam.com>...

Rich Grise wrote:

The ONLY way to overcome this VERY SERIOUS
challenge is to form an INTERNATIONAL COALITION TROOP PRESENCE in Iraq
with REDUCED American military presence.


A better way would be to get the Americans the fuck out of Iraq, and let
them sink or swim on their own. On the way out the door, say, "OK, guys -
here's your freedom - have fun. 'Bye."


Nope - that's the wrong answer. Now that it's started, it has to be
finished. Leaving would be all that's needed for the fundamentalists to
overthrow every government in the middle East, destroy the oil industry,
and murder every American ally in sight including Israel- this is their
avowed intent. You have to appreciate the extreme importance of
achieving a successful outcome in Iraq to fully comprehend the extreme
recklessness and incompetence of the Bush Administration in starting
this war with absolutely no viable post-invasion plans whatsoever,
instead relying on political fantasy hunches about Iraqis "dancing in
the streets" and receiving the US presence as "liberators"- and many
other wild imaginings that have proven to be absolutely wrong.
Unfortunately for us, the terrorist world has had no problem forming a
coalition to expedite this process. There is no turning back now- it is
swim or sink. Period.


Fred is definitely right on this one (disregarding the "recklessness"
part). We have to, successfully, finish this. The consequences to do
otherwise are dire.

If you admit that the consequences of failure are dire, how can you deny
Bush has been reckless when it is obvious he dismissed every single
advisor that disagreed with his planning, no matter how qualified, and
his planning has turned out to be a failure?

 

[Rolavine]

From: John Larkin

Teresa "I am an African-American" Heinz is a real hoot.

You righties are low as worms. It is not enough that you lie about Kerry, make
clever weasels about his votes in the senate, Start whisper campaigns based on
BS, make headlines with swift boaters without evidence, crucify CBS news while
promoting dozens of news sewers that will never have 1% of the credibility of
CBS on their best day, but now you attack the women and children.

During the early Clinton Years Rush said something like:

'You know they have a Whitehouse cat don't you, but now they have a Whitehouse
dog'

and he shows a picture of Chelsea Clinton.

This is your honor!

Rocky

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 16:43:49 +0100, the renowned Marco Ferra
<mferra_nospam_@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:

I have coded a little routine to operate a LCD (16x2 HD44780U) through a
8051 (at89s51) micro-controller and I haven't tested it yet, but I'm
afraid that it won't work properly.

I'm not going to check your code, however comments below.

Besides watching the busy flag signal of the LCD is there any other
preocupation about timings? Or checking other pins?

The power-on initialization of these things is crucial. You'll need to
implement delay routines that don't depend on the busy flag to get
this to work succesfully. Follow the HD44780 data sheet procedure to
the letter. You can also Google for code examples, some of which
actually work reliably. Watch the worst-case strobe timing (data setup
and hold time) if you are using a fast processor.

In the code below, is it possible to "jb" directly a pin like p1.7? The
assembler (asem51) doesn't complain but I'm not sure.

Yes, both the bit-addressable portion of RAM and any bit of any SFR
that is bit-addressable (which includes P0, P1, P2)

Thanks for your time
Marco

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

 

[Leon Heller]

"Ken S. Tucker" <dynamics@vianet.on.ca> wrote in message
news:2202379a.0409260713.beb90dc@posting.google.com...

snovotill@hotmail.com wrote in message
news:<5b3cl0lgb69q4rutsu07806dtnmo255gp2@4ax.com>...
leon_heller@hotmail.com> wrote:


I've just heard that the customer was very impressed with the brightness
of
the beacon, the sound levels we are achieving and the power consumption,
which is gratifying. There are some problems with high-frequency noise
and
current surges getting back into the supply, which we have to address
(they
use the supply for signalling).

Leon


I wonder if the FET is switching too fast and giving some HF ringing
and noise.
Did you try putting a small resistance in series with the gate lead of
the FET right at the FET?

Stepan

Build an EXIT sign from LED's, make them flash triggered
by a smoke detector system. Maybe patrons will notice and
find the exits. Recall that Bar fire in R.I (IIRC), people
just did't notice the word EXIT.

http://www.deegee.com/beacons/ipn/ipn003.htm


--
Leon Heller, G1HSM
http://www.geocities.com/leon_heller

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Ken S. Tucker
<dynamics@vianet.on.ca> wrote (in <2202379a.0409260713.beb90dc@posting.g
oogle.com&gt about 'Driving LEDs - high-power flash', on Sun, 26 Sep
2004:

Build an EXIT sign from LED's, make them flash triggered by a smoke
detector system. Maybe patrons will notice and find the exits. Recall
that Bar fire in R.I (IIRC), people
just did't notice the word EXIT.

People don't take any notice of bells and sirens, and they don't 'see'
signs. But a **voice announcement** gets immediate results and can
impart far more information.

'BING-BONG. Emergency announcement. There is an incident at the front of
the building. Please leave the building immediately in an orderly manner
by the side and rear exits.'

Repeated in other languages if necessary. Try that with a bell!

Then: 'BING-BONG. Muster at the far end of the rear car-park for roll-
call. Please assist any disabled or confused people.'


--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rolavine <rolavine@aol.com> wrote
(in <20040926113611.07480.00001256@mb-m18.aol.com&gt about '[OT]: The
not-so-democratic Democrats', on Sun, 26 Sep 2004:

From: John Larkin

Kerry should have let it go. The entire Demo convention was a
stunningly goofy band-of-brothers, reporting-for-duty cartoon.

From now on, to save time could we just call this absurd assertion Larkin's
Milarchy.

'Milarchy'? A venture at 'malarkey' or a coining for 'government by

soldiers'?
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Clifford Heath]

ChrisGibboGibson wrote:

If I was to
publish details on the net, would that qualify as prior art/publication such
that if any one else tried to patent the idea, then that application could be
refused

Yes. But it would be better if you had documentary evidence to back
it up, such as a registered dated deposition lodged with a third party
containing the salient details. If you get sued, you drag it out.
Better still if you published it in a magazine or journal.

 

[Mike Monett]

Andrew Holme wrote:

mrmonett@yahoo.com (Mike Monett) wrote in message news:<7e4a2a11.0409251807.3b0d6e53@posting.google.com>...
I haven't had time to check your filter calculations, but I think
the capacitor ratio is a bit off. The ratio should be around 10:1.
If you could you post the vco center frequency and gain constant I
will run my filter program and check the component values.

Thanks Mike.

The VCO spec is here http://www.holmea.demon.co.uk/FracN/Filter.htm

Regards,
Andrew.

Thanks Andrew,

Very well done! I finally got around to downloading the OP42F datasheet, and
immediately spotted a problem. The op amp has low GBW and cannot handle the fast
pulses coming from the charge pump, especially around zero phase error. It is
probably going nonlinear and the output signal cannot be predicted.

You may have enough supply voltage to do a simple passive filter and drive the
varicap directly. Besides giving very good filtering for the fast charge pump edges,
additional filtering can be added after the main filter to further attenuate the
reference spurs in the vco output. If you need more swing on the dc error to achieve
the desired vco frequency range, you can always add a simple buffer amp after the
filter, referenced to Vcc/2. It can have very low input bias current and doesn't
need much bandwidth since it only has to handle the slow DC Error voltage.

There are many, many examples of passive loop filter design. Some good ones are
listed below:

"Design Loop Filters For PLL Frequency Synthesizers"

http://www.mwrf.com/Globals/PlanetEE/dsp_article.cfm?ArticleID=9850&Extension=html

"Design a Low-Jitter Clock for High-Speed Data Converters"

http://www.maxim-ic.com/tarticle/view_article.cfm/article_id/800/

"AN-1001: Application Note 1001 An Analysis and Performance
Evaluation of a Passive Filter Design Technique for Charge Pump
PLL's"

http://www.national.com/an/AN/AN-1001.pdf

Let me know if you have decided to make the simple pll loop tester I described
earlier, and if you have any questions on it.

Best Wishes,

Mike Monett