Posts by Antron Argaiv 2576 publicly visible posts • joined 18 May 2016
The DTMF receivers can decode a digit in milliseconds (I believe the spec is 40ms). The arrangement used (see the study I posted) is the one with the least errors and fastest dialling speed (a DTMF receiver is shared among callers, so you want to minimise the time any one caller occupies it)
OK, Linux vs GNU is a dead issue. When people refer to Linux, they generally mean GNU/Linux, and Torvalds has never downplayed the importance of the GNU part.
And my personal belief is that if the only way you can get the functionality into the OS is by using non-free code, then go right ahead. Without the regrettable proprietary blobs, Linux couldn't be as popular as it is. We'd all like GPL'd Bluetooth, WiFi and display code, but it ain't gonna happen, so let's make the best of an OS which is a lot more free than Windows and at least we have a choice.
With all his faults, Torvalds has managed to provide an alternative to Windows, and for that I thank him.
At one point, you could get stickers for the Selectric keyboards to convert non-APL to APL. Without the stickers, you stood no chance.
EDIT: You still can, though not in IBM grey: https://www.tindie.com/products/russtopia/apl-keyboard-symbol-sticker-set/
(wonder how many he sells a year...)
+1 for the APL reference AND the Selectric reference. APL got me through my Linear Algebra course...I discovered that the time involved in manually inverting a 4x4 matrix was better spent learning APL so I could do it with a computer. The next year, there was a course section that used APL. I was, apparently, ahead of my time :-)
There were actually TWO variants of the 2741 terminal, the "correspondence" and "EBCDIC" code versions, which had different APL typeballs. At my university, they were almost constantly out of action, because the Selectric mechanism was just not up to the stress of full time use by students. We did have ONE Tek storage tube display terminal, which did APL, and an attempt was made by Teletype with the Model 38, but that was towards the dawn of the dot matrix and the "glass teletype", so not really a factor (and the Model 38 Teletypes had their own issues related to trying to strtch the Model 33 design beyond its limits).
My small contribution to the APL terminal inventory came as an engineer for Data General, when I modified the low-cost D200 terminal firmware to allow display of the APL overstruck characters (to work with DG's version of APL for the MV/8000). It was a clever (if I do say so myself) design which sold...not at all well. APL was just too "niche" for the mainstream.
I have a model M (11-23-91), and I like the feel. For me, a close second is the old Dell AT101W, of which I have several. The model M is nicer, though, and it's my daily driver.
Now, on to the "dislikes". At the head of the list is the laptop keyboard, followed closely by its desktop sibling, the flat keyboard. Absolutely despise those and, when working, refused to use them. I had a proper, sloped and curved AT101W attached to a USB hub. Likewise, the tiny laptop screen was diverted to a human size monitor, mounted at eye level.
This brings up the cattle-pen "open office" and its hot desking. Do companies assume that people will just show up, plug in their laptops, and start working? Before I retired, I (and my coworkers) had my desk set up very carefully to maximise comfort and minimise strain. That seems not to be a consideration any more. So glad I retired when I did.
Before "right-sizing", offshoring, better, faster AND cheaper, etc.
I think of my engineering career (yeah, computers, 'cause I was terrified of diff-e) and compare it to the careers of those who have gone before me, and think that THEY were Real Engineers, I'm just using computers as a crutch and faking it. I caught my boss writing out an equation for the impedance of a fairly complex array of passives, and wondered if I could even get started on it (it's been a long time since I had to do that in school).
Engineering used to be a LOT tougher...
Lived in Australia as a kid, we returned to the US just as they were transitioning from pounds-shillings-pence (which I had picked up easily only a few years earlier) to decimal Dollarbucks.
Never quite understood the "stones" thing. Why humans should be weighed differently than other things confused me. And stone wasn't always used, either.
Also a (young, 71) grandpa. Linux Mint, and before that, Ubuntu, and before that, something else, all the way back to the late 90s. I used Ethernet when it was a thick yellow cable in the ceiling.
I loaded up Mint on my non-tech brother's PC, when I got tired of having to go over to fix his Windows machine after an update borked something or other. Went from once a momth to once a year service calls.
If you don't know what version of Linux to load, just get Mint. Extra credit: buy a 500G SSD and swap it into your PC in place of your Windows drive. Install Mint on the SSD (you can always swap your Windows drive backmin if you hate Linux). Give Linux a try.
Cybertruck seems to have problems even moving in wet/icy/snowy weather. And it's apparently a reliability nightmare as well. Just read an article about one with a "frunk" latch that jammed, which put the vehicle into "limp mode" and required a flatbed to remove it so the latch could be unjammed.
Teslas are vehicles made by a company that has never made vehicles before. Buyers pay for the privilege of experiencing the learning curve
When referring to "challenging" clients, I always said, "Our Valued Client would like..."
I suggested to my wife (middle-school teacher), that the "little bastards", should instead be referred to as "young learners". She agreed, but declined my offer of a Despair.com poster featuring a red box of French Fries (chips) and the line, "Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut" for her classroom wall.
Ditto here on the outsourced cartoons. The best part (since they were outsourced) was the disclaimer at the start of each video, saying that the requirements given in the upcoming video may be different than the ones applicable in your company and/or region. On a compliance video. SMH, does anyone in charge actually watch these things? Oh, well, got my badges (one for each video watched, IIRC). Now that it has been mentioned, I do recall something about a "leaderboard" and competing against your fellow employees. But...you only got these compliance videos ever so often, so I'm not clear how (or why) you could do more of them than you were told to do...
And the videos we were required to complete seemed to vary every year. Some years, we had sexual harassment (avoiding, not how-to) training, some years not. Every now and then, we got videos required that were clearly meant for software people (I was a hardware engineer), and I just gave up on them...all about requirements for building software, which process to use, etc. Greek to me. Never heard a word more about it. Did not get a badge for that one.
HR once ran a contest for badges. I kid you not, and I have screen grabs to prove it, which I will not post here. The contest was to see who could award the most badges to fellow employees as recognition for whatever they were being recognised for. It ran for a while and then the HR people running the contest posted the names of the winners. Apparently, these people either worked with a LOT of high energy contributors, or they were really into giving and collecting (virtual, mind you) badges.
One of our guys once tried to create a badge for something relevant to our small development group (might have been Outstanding Effort on a Project That Was Cancelled, or some such). They submitted it to "Badge Central" and got a note saying it would not be approved. Apparently there are standards and this one didn't meet them.
This badge stuff went on as long as I was there. Totally bizarre, it was like getting a gold star on a grade school essay, but virtual. Somehow the number and types of badges you had factored into your promotability (in a way that, natch, was not disclosed). As I was already at the highest non-management level, that didn't matter to me.
This comes scarily close to my experience at a former employer.
HR was looking to enrich their jobs. So now, mandatory annual security/harassment/regulatory videos came not only with Q&A, but a "gamification" option. Which I never used. (I'd let them run in a background window and just try the Q&A until I got enough right that I passed)
Also on the HR enrichment agenda: "personal goals", "360 feedback", "achievement badges" (you got one for finishing each mandatory training), and so on. Lots of busy work that kept you from doing your actual job. And the "everyone's a winner" (virtual, not actual -- you could see them on your HR web page) badges were the weirdest thing I have ever seen in my professional career. It was like being back in grade school.
Retired now, and not a moment too soon.
USAian, and I have a Honeywell "smart" thermostat. We live in the northeast, so taking a holiday in the winter always has the risk of heat failing and us not being there to catch it.
So I bought one of these $50 Honeywell thermostats, and the only installation challenge was the need for BOTH sides of the 24VAC transformer to be available at the thermostat. Most houses built here have only two wires at the thermostat (one side of the transformer and one end of the relay coil, the second side of the transformer and relay coil connect together at the burner control PCB). So, after much drilling, fishing and cursing, a cable with the third "C" wire was connected, and the thing has been trouble-free for several years.
It is, like Nest, connected through a web server run by "Resideo", who seem to be the actual makers of the thermostat. The difference between this and the Nest thermostat seems to be that this one does not need to be connected to the 'net in order to work. All its schedule and settings are local, the website is just to let you read and control the temperature setting, and see the current ambient temp. So, if Resideo goes out of business tomorrow, I lose my ability to check on the house, but the thermostat will still work.
Reviews seem to be mixed, but I have installed two of these and they're both working just fine.
Correct, US uses 24VAC control circuit for heating and cooling.
The thermostat has a switch that closes when heat (or cooling, separate control circuit for that) is required and connects 24VAC to a relay coil at the burner, which in turn, connects power to the burner or cooling system
Took my uni assembly language course* from a CDC Software Consultant** on the CYBER74. Yay, COMPASS!
*it was either this, or fight with the CS students for time on the PDP-11s, and they got first dibs
**when we took delivery of the CYBER, it came with a software consultant to help us translate our apps to the machine. I guess this is standard for businesses, but as the university didn't have any apps that needed to be translated, they put him to work teaching the undergrads how to write assembly.
What I'm learning from this thread, is...Never let the Boss do (even slightly) technical stuff.
Aside; I'm surprised by the number of mechanical engineers, who think that simply adding a fan, will cool the equipment. You also need a fresh air intake and an exhaust (this seems to get forgotten), of appropriate size, and an ambient temp that's cooler that what's inside the box. Same goes for a heatsink...you can't just throw one on. It needs airflow, a cooler ambient, etc. Also, hot air rises, so bestto put your fan down low and your exhaust up higher, if possible.
Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks is the title of an excellent book on the subject.
According to the US wiring code, you are not supposed to connect Neutral and Ground (Earth), *except* at the panel.
Some bright bulbs jumper the Neutral connection to the Ground connection on 3-terminal (grounded) sockets when the house is wired with the old ungrounded cable from the 50s. This is not considered good practice, because any IR loss on the neutral wire can show up as a volage on the (supposedly) grounded metal case.
Romex (aka NM-B), in the US, is what's usually used inside the walls of houses. It comes in different wire gauges, with and without an uninsulated ground (earth) conductor. Most commonly seen as 14-2 and 12-2 (first number is the AWG, second is the number of current-carrying conductors, excluding the ground). Come to think of it, I have never seen it without the ground.
When we wired in my son's Tesla charger, we wired it on a 60A dual breaker (240V) and used 4-3 "tray cable" to support the 48A charge current. Tray cable comes without an uninsulated ground, and though the appropriate gauge wire for 48A is 6 AWG, we went thicker because it was a 60 foot run from the panel to the garage.
Work had a number of base-model Aeron chairs whose seats had turned into a shredded mess of fibers (UV degradation?). Anyway, they were taking up space in a corner of the office for years. Apparently, nobody had the funds to get them fixed. During COVID, one of them made it back to my basement office. Replacement seat and some larger casters from Amazon, and an hour of wrenching, and I have a new office chair. Still using it and it's very comfy.
Got my LJ5 for free from a legal office in town. Fixed it up during COVID WFH. Knackered fuser ($125) and drive gears ($30), maxed out the RAM ($30) and added a network card ($15). 3 NOS long-life OEM toner carts from Goodwill ($20 ea) and the damn thing's gonna outlive me. Sits on my network, drawing 7W on standby and prints whenever SWMBO or I queue something up. My Linux system acts as an Apple print server, so we're all happy.
Similar story at my last employer. Nice young lady, 20s, came in one day, looking for an internship. We hired her, set her to work making cables. Which she did very well, so we moved her on to bigger things. She turned out to be one of the better EEs we had ever hired...a "natural". Sadly, her husband got an "offer he couldn't refuse" (a lab of his own and a research fellowship) and she had to relocate, so we lost her.
Last I heard from her, she was in...Sales (actually, a Sales Engineer, and probably doing very well at it). We still miss her.
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