Dedicated debouncer IC

ty C

t taking a laptop apart is not always so simple.

s.

Laptops are great at the things they do well. They suck at other things. It's great they have a built in UPS. But it doesn't hold up as long as my UPS keeps the Internet up.

I'd like to buy a new laptop, this is a hot boat anchor. But the newer key boards are shrinking the arrow keys out of existence in the name of beauty. No laptop maker wants their keyboard to have an *irregular* shape! It ha s to fit within a neat, pretty rectangle.

Even the "gaming" laptops are squeezing the arrow and other cursor keys in their quest for "look" while ignoring "feel".

A previous laptop (Toshiba perhaps) had a nice keyboard and actually had bu ttons on the touchpad so I used that. Since then they build the buttons in to the touchpad so my thumb resting on the buttons prevents the pad from wo rking! So I brought my mouse out of retirement.

Screw the dolts who design laptops and screw those who buy them mindlessly. .. because they're "pretty".

On a sunny day (Thu, 13 Aug 2020 16:47:07 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Ricketty C wrote in :

I use a laptop only when I don't have access to my desktop.

Was there a point to showing us this??? Are you just showing us that your keys are wearing?

They are handy on a test bench, when you have to talk to a product being tested.

I have a couple of old "netbooks", which were tiny laptops. They fit on a workbench even better.

I have a big Vaio, with maybe 8-hour battery life, that I carry around in case my main PCs should break at home or in the cabin. I can take it to a coffee shop in case my Internet goes down too. Sometimes squirrels eat the cables.

I hate squirrels. They are rodents and as such are considered vermin. They serve no purpose in the city. They may serve as food for other wildlife in the country. They also plant trees where you don't want them.

But good to eat.

They are outrageously cute. I have determined by extensive experiment that they prefer Fritos to Cheetos. At least they don't grow when planted.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Rodent abuse.

On Friday, August 14, 2020 at 12:14:46 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:.

I had one bite into a 7200 volt power line. It took out about a 12 block ar ea in downtown Eustis Florida for over an hour. It had chewed through a thi ck silicon rubber boot over the transformer's terminal. It bridged that one phase, to ground. I found pieces of fur new the door of my shop, which was about 100 feet away. It sounded like one of those fuses packed with gunpow der, to blow away any plasma when it opened. No second offense, for that va rmint!

We tend to have microbursts with some regularity, here.

On one occasion, I was visiting a facility that had set up several of those "portable canopies" (like a tall tent, but with no sides) outdoors.

A microburst came through and lifted several of them high into the air. One ended up settling in the high tension wires a block or two away. It was quite impressive to watch the sparks flying!

And, made me wonder how (if?) anyone could plan for some number of that sort of event "per year". Or, if it is just such a fluke that they don't even consider it!

I.e., I'm sure they plan on some number of (rare) lightning strikes per year. But, "flying canopies"???

(those lines are REALLY high off the ground!)