I won't go into all the details, but every now and then, you just get super lucky on a project. Yesterday, in just under three hours, I managed to fix a pesky problem that several other engineers have been trying to solve for almost two years.
The trick is (and I can not stress this enough) is to keep your mouth shut and never let on that you just got lucky. :)
In my entire career, I think this is only the 3rd or 4th time something of this magnitude has happened leaving a small audience scratching their heads in simultaneous relief and disbelief.
The DuckTales cartoon theme was supposedly written by the hired-gun composer in 45 minutes one afternoon in 1986, probably everyone under 40 in the US could sing it from memory 30 years later
uper lucky on a project. Yesterday, in just under three hours, I managed t o fix a pesky problem that several other engineers have been trying to solv e for almost two years.
hut and never let on that you just got lucky. :)
of this magnitude has happened leaving a small audience scratching their h eads in simultaneous relief and disbelief.
No. You get talked about for decades. Cambridge Instrument had chief engine er - Mike Penberth - who walked into the GE central lab in the US where an electronic beam microfabricator had been failing its acceptance tests for s ome three months (holding up the million dollar final payment, which is why he'd got flown over to the US).
When they put him in the lift to take him up the machine he said "Hydraulic lift? I think I know what the problem is." And he was right.
He was an old machinery freak, so he could recognise a hydraulic lift, and know that it incorporated a large lump of magnetic wrought iron, which move d the electron beam a bit wherever the lift was at the top floor, but not w hen it was on the bottom floor.
That was twenty years ago. I'm still trotting it out. Mike was a wonderful diagnostician for all kinds of bugs, but that particular diagnosis was part icularly impressive.
He's justly famous. Bit too applied for snobs, but he probably did more for humanity than all the other famous Frenchmen (and Frenchwomen)put together.
Even if you restrict his contributions to just the stuff he did for winemakers.
In trouble shooting, I find it's important to keep an open mind, try not to make assumptions. Get lots of data. Then go to sleep, and have a shower in the morning. If that doesn't work, ask on SED. :^)
uper lucky on a project. Yesterday, in just under three hours, I managed t o fix a pesky problem that several other engineers have been trying to solv e for almost two years.
hut and never let on that you just got lucky. :)
of this magnitude has happened leaving a small audience scratching their h eads in simultaneous relief and disbelief.
Sometimes people will remember it twenty year later.
In the mid 1980's Cambridge Instruments chief engineer - Mike Penberth, a diagnostic wizard - got flown over the Atlantic to the GE labs at Schenecta dy, where the electron beam microfabricator GE had bought had been just fai ling it's acceptance tests for three months. The patterns it wrote would mo ve half a micron while they were being written and nobody could work out wh y.
GE was hanging onto the last million dollars price of the machine until we solved the problem.
Mike walked into the lift that would take him up to the machine (which had been put on the first floor of the lab which dated back to 1900) and said " A hydraulic lift? I think I've found the problem."
Mike was interested in old machines, and knew that hydraulic lifts incorpor ated a large lump of (magnetic) wrought iron. The magnetic field from the l ump of wrought iron moved the electron beam by half a micron when the lift was on the first floor ...
Snobs may find him a bit too applied to have earned true fame, but he's done more to improve human lives than all the other famous French men and women put together. His contributions to wine-making alone probably suffice for that.
I _often_ find that a design snarled in my head by day ends up being solved by a dream during the night ;-) ...Jim Thompson
-- | James E.Thompson | mens | | Analog Innovations | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at
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| 1962 | It's what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.
Remote troubleshooting is a big function of the person on the other end. But laying out the problem... to some 'one' like SED (or my boss), is often all I need to find the solution.
Decades ago I had a problem with am 8051 waking up on interrupt. I was tearing my hair out at about 10:00 one night. My boss walked by and asked if he could borrow a databook and read up on the problem. The next morning he pointed to a paragraph and asked if it could be my problem. Well, it was news to me, so I went back to my databook which was missing that paragraph. I'd been using a slightly older version.
It isn't necessarily the dream that does the work. Subconscious processing happens when you are asleep, and can be happening when you are attending to routine activities that don't require much attention. The answer does tend to pop up into your conscious mind sometime after you wake up (but not alw ays) and associating dreams with that particular kind of subconscious proce ssing is being more specific than the evidence justifies.
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