Cheap 12-bit, 200 Ms/s arb--any wisdom?

I never really liked the Mantis. At least the older ones wobbled a lot. Not that I ever get sea-sick but it was annoying. Plus I can't get things such as a mid-size x-ray machine or an ag-pump unit underneath it. Having to take out a big board every time would be a major inconvenience.

When it comes to red tape and government, the only thing that gets cut is services. Budget needs to be cut? Lets cut teachers, firefighters and cops. Why? Because people will NOTICE that. If we cut out the thirteen different enviro-whacko agencies that each only admininster one small section of enviro law, or combined them into a single real agency that eliminated all the duplications, then people would LIKE that. We can't have people LIKING smaller government, it has to HURT! (Otherwise, they would cut MY position... ;-)

Charlie

It's amazing, totally astonishing, that in this day and age, paper anything still exists. Even something as banal as parking tickets -- many municipalities don't even have a phone-in service, let alone the ability to do it online. What it should be, say, a resident could set up an account with the city and auto-charge the citation, with the option of contesting it (which clears the charge). They could even reduce the average cost because less labor is needed and more people would pay into it -- or they could just as well jack up the price, calling it a convenience fee.

The tax system at all anymore makes so very little sense. If your employer is submitting W-2's, they already know exactly all your revenue, so they can calculate your tax exactly to begin with, eliminating the majority of refunds, paper and wasted hours processing tax returns.

And the integration of things. Besides connecting this database to that department and so forth, so many other functions could be automated. Mathematicians have proof checkers: since law has not caught up and implemented electronic lawyers and judges, one can only assume that lawyers implicitly accept that their profession is irrational and inconsistent! I look at the thirty-story law office downtown and shake my head: how much man power is still wasted on paperwork?

Fifty-story financial institutions have the same problem. What purpose does fifty stories of offices serve anymore? Are they all call-ins and help desks? Are there really that many paper loans that require human reading? I submit all my loans online. Half of Wall Street is automated algorithms, selling abstract quantities by the second (including my loans back and forth between whoever is the lucky one to see my payoff).

Tim

Our county in AL charges more for online license plate renewal than they do for in-person or by mail. No point in doing it online. OTOH, the utilities here in GA don't charge for online payments by credit card, so that's what I do. I'll keep the 1%.

Come on. You think your employer knows all the details of your finances? Home interest? State and city taxes? Interest income? Capital gains? The tax system is about 70,000 pages too long for that to work.

Since people are irrational and inconsistent, it makes sense the legal system is, too. You certainly have a *lot* of faith in databases and mathematicians.

Land is expensive.

Yes.

THere are no people working on Wall Street? Gee, I thought there were a bunch of those fifty story buildings down there.

Probably not tied tight to the desk. They're fantastic tools. We have some Lynx microscopes too but I don't like their lights. They do make me seasick.

Swing it out over the side of the bench or get a floor stand for it.

If you look around, there are inspection microscopes are very large arms. There are floor standing models. Seriously, there is nothing like viewing directly through optics. Displays don't do the job justice.

This is a typical setup"

Funny thing about the BL Stereozoom. You don't want to go higher than a stereozoom 3. The newer models have crappy plastic gears.

Stanford sells these from time to time, but you can find them at bay area flea markets.

Environmental whacko is Dr. Bill Wattenberger's rant. Trouble is, there are only about three levels of environmental hoops to go through: fed, state, and local. Find me 13 levels.

Now there are different agencies that may seem to be the same, but if you examine their charter, they are different. For instance, one agency will examine storm water discharge. That requires filing the SWPP. But toxics are another agency, as is endangered species. No one department has all these skills.

The TDS700 series did not have that particular problem. Neither did the TDS68X or TDS69X scopes.

Those where probably build later. Scopes from the early 90's are notorious.

Yup. I'm not sure when Tek stopped using aluminum electrolytics on the acquisition boards. The ones without any trailing letter and the A scopes had them. I've not looked at any of the "B" and later TDS500 scopes.

You answered your own question seconds later:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And that's the problem.

Do you think it's normal that a permit "process" for an educational building takes over five years? It did in our case.

Do you honestly believe a company would put up with such red tape?

It stood on the desk very solidly.

Nah, too bulky. I have about 20sqft of very sturdy bench space with unfettered access via a sliding door and from the lab area itself. I've needed that much space more than once. The only things that are on there are two Weller stations, a meter and two halogen lamps. All that can be moved quickly and without back pain.

I know, I am constantly being reminded about that because I have a close relative who works at Leica :-)

The USB microscope has 20x which is almost too much. But manageable. Some day I want to try my old Minolta 35mm film camera and some of the lenses. Since I guess there is no way to adapt those lenses to a digital camera anymore.

It's no problem to get one, I just do not have the space.

EXACTLY! They split everything into different departments, with their own staffs and expertise, so that you can't just satisfy ONE beauracracy, you have to satisify a mutli-headed hydra of red tape. Usually, you find that agency A says you need to do XYZ in order to satisfy their requirements. Then, you find that agency B says that if you do X, they Y and Z are illegal, but you could do W to make it work, but then agency C says that W requires U and V as wel and it goes on and on.

the result is that you don't even TRY and start a business, because you can't win, you can't break even. The only winning move is not to play... ;-)

Charlie

... or to play in Malaysia, Costa Rica, or wherever. Which is exactly what my former employer is fixing to do now :-(

My wife works in a medical center, and gets inspections from both the state and the feds. The feds require plastic liners in trash cans, and the state forbids them.

All sorts of other stuff that she needs are forbidden. On inspection days, people unload their offices and put the contraband in their cars.

Not really. Most small tech businesses are mostly ignored, and the occasional annoyance is tolerable. The most sensible electronics business would probably do engineering and software, and offshore any manufacturing. The hassles associated with manufacturing - creating real working-class jobs - are considerable. The local workmen's comp agency kills us on the insurance rates for anybody who does real work, and are now trying to reclassify all my engineers to a higher hazard/cost bracket because they may occasionally go down into the test department, where there are dangerous things like voltmeters and screwdrivers.

There are also great tax dodges available if you offshore purchasing and manufacturing, like Apple does.

sacrifice.

The press is full of rants about how businesses aren't paying "their fair share" of taxes. I don't suppose you have to understand a lot to get a journalism degree.

sacrifice.

Same for some political groups. For many you only need to be loud, understanding stuff such as a Laffer curve is not needed.

I think they understand a lot more than you'd think from reading the pap they write. They're a bit like typical engineers- they produce what there is a market for, and therefore what results in an acceptable paycheck.