Could you (and others here) list topics they would like to read about?
I've written about 15 articles for EW over the last 3 years, and have had little feedback from readers (apart from the odd student wanting help with their project)
Perhaps they are a)too boring b)too irrelevant c)too incomprehensible
I'd just like to know!!
I read in sci.electronics.design that Franc Zabkar wrote (in ) about 'Elektor Electronics new website', on Mon, 21 Feb 2005:
It was bad, but there was not much choice. There was a real fear that Stalin would switch his attack to US, Britain and France, and this issue would very probably have triggered that.
-- 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
In article , Winfield Hill wrote: [....]
Many Linux programmers work for free and are over paid at that :)
I have been surprised by the quality of the software that people develope for free. This surprise has usually been in the positive direction. It is a weird "business model" but I can see it becoming a major force in the future. I have often written software for a specific task that could, chances are, save others a few hours of time. There is no way I could market such software and make a profit but if I had some way to easily share it and the others had a fast way to find it, I would share it.
I predict that within 20 years, Indian companies will be outsourcing in a big way. Even the largest democracy will find it doesn't have enough of certain types of workers.
-- -- kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge
On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 19:34:27 -0500, keith put finger to keyboard and composed:
A perfect capitalist bargain is struck when neither party is satisfied.
Cossacks were *not* communists. In fact your glib remark does them a gross disservice. During WW2 they fought on both sides, some to free Russia from the existing tyranny of Stalin, others to protect Russia from the impending tyranny of Hitler.
See
After WW2 the British intentionally repatriated tens of thousands of Cossack POWs and refugees (and many others) knowing that they would all be butchered by Stalin (ref. "The Minister and the Massacre" (1986) by Nikolai Tolstoy).
- Franc Zabkar
-- Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.
Bullshit! If you truely believe this you're not worth doing business with.
Ok, so you're a Cossack, and not a commie. Russian hats, all the same.
-- Keith
That is an excellent question and I'd like a good time to think about it! :-)
But yes, it is a hard job to think of good stuff.
For a long time, the main cool consumer electronic goods were stuff like TV and hi-fi. You could pack an interesting article in a couple of pages. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist.
At some point, somebody noticed that an ordinary C64 had more processing power than the computers in the Apollo spacecraft.
Nowadays my main cool consumer electronic goods include a hi-fi with similar CPU speed as a C64, and a laptop with many thousands of times more processing power and code than a C64.
It is a lot harder to write articles people would think "hey, cool, I'll try that myself". We had a chance of building a nice phono pre-amp. We have much less chance of building a CD player chip or a 24-bit DAC and oversampling filter. Or a Windows-beating OS (unless you are Linus Torvalds).
The coolness threshold has risen so high that it takes a lot more effort to put together decent offerings. Elektor need to have much more staff producing more projects to do.
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 21:46:20 -0500, keith put finger to keyboard and composed:
This particular position can be viewed in many ways, each equally valid. It's a bit like that proverbial half glass - you can see it as half full, half empty, or twice as big as it needs to be. In this particular case, if the employee were satisfied, then the employer would be thinking, "damn, I could have screwed him down a little more". OTOH, if the employer were happy, then the employee would be thinking, "damn, I should have tried to screw more out of him". The ideal bargain is reached when *neither* party is happy because it follows that *both* would then be happy.
No, I'm none of the above. I'm just someone whose view of the world extends beyond his own backyard.
You are already well established in Usenet as an arrogant buffoon, but this comment is a new low, even for you. Your original comment was ignorant but forgiveable. A man of stature would have apologised and moved on, but you are not such a man.
- Franc Zabkar
-- "Until the Gulf War, I thought Iraq was the past tense of Iran." - attributed to some American stand-up comedian whose name I forget. Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.
As I once joked with my boss, "...if you paid me twice as much I'd only have to come in half the time."
-- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org
Nope. If you're not happy trading your dollar for a loaf of bread and the baker isn't happy parting with his loaf of bread for a dollar, you have no business doing business. You like your dollar too much and he likes his bread too much. May you eat your dollar and he spend his bread.
If you cannot get with a figure of speech, then you indeed are hopless, as you have been every time we've crossed paths.
Perhaps I am arrogant, but you've proven to be a ignorant time we've crossed paths. Apologise to human waste like you? FOr calling a ruskie's hat a "cossack hat"? Please. Grow up Francis!
-- Keith
"ted" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...
[clip]Feedback, a dose of whingeing, even a mild rant. A pleasure! It'd be easier though, if you givuzz summat to go at :) Had a quick rummage through a few issues but couldn't spot a "Ted" or an "Edward" (ah-ha an alias?, audio themes?). A title or two would help focus.
I can only speak for myself but I know it's difficult to list what's liable to catch my attention in a magazine. E.g. nowadays I've little interest in any audio subject but ... an article turned up by Doug' Self on analogue-switching that I found really thought provoking. Capacitor quality, held zilch interest until Cyril started going on about it. I'd no feeling for sampling method until Ian Hickman wrote up his experience avalanching a transistor. I think it isn't the subject headings or topics that make or break a magazine, it's the obvious knowledge, love of their subjects and level of detail that some authors can introduce. Writing style is of no consequence. I'm perfectly happy with pigdin English, as long as the content is there, (newsgroups and the WWW can be a good example of this). As a kid, WW was beyond me but odd bits were of interest so I bought it. The Reithian perspective still holds true and any new kids on the block should expect to be able to do the same. But ... times have changed and Kryten rightly notes that few people are now in a position to follow the subject. Hence a lack of motivation for authors to promulgate their enthusiasms amongst a wide readership. Last person out be sure to turn off the lights.
For me, a big no-no, is any magazine article designed to provide an 'overview' of some technical product or process or technique. Unfortunately there seems more and more of this type of article turning up in the (pay for) magazines. Overviews are the easy bit and are not enough. Anyone can pitch the plot of a new film or novel, the clever bit is putting it all together. Yeah, great, OK, tell me about the USB2 setup but be sure to also tell me all the exact, nitty-gritty hardware and software details, sufficient to allow me to make use of it as engineer, rather than as consumer of here-today-gone-tomorrow commercial pre-designed product and software. If it takes 6 months to do so, then don't even bother trying. Just give me a single paragaph taster. Instead, tell me in a few pages, some interesting things about diodes and transistors and oscillators and op-amps and resistors and stuff. The radio amateurs have similar problems with commercial kit killing their raison d'etre. A number of them adopted a QRP construction ethos. Maybe we can do the same. I'm pretty much repeating Kryten's comments but I've seen a number of mag's go down over the past few years and all for these same reasons. They seem to change EW editors every five minutes. What's sorely missing from the mag' is some kind of continuity, like a monthly or even occasional, Alastair Cooke style, Letter-from-the-trenches. Maybe you can step onto the crease?. regards john
Try registering it at
- YD.
-- Remove HAT if replying by mail.
John, thanks for your comments
or an
focus. Try Eddy...):-)
liable
interest in
quality,
feeling
avalanching a
These guys are incredibly knowledgeable about their fields, and whatever they write about makes interesting
reading, even if you are not too interested in the subject. The downside is that there aren't that many people
around willing to put so much effort and get paid very little for it. Once upon a time maybe, but not
nowadays...So the first problem is the lack of quality writers..
level of
Exactly
readership. Agree. Nowadays "instant satisfaction" is the name of the game. The common way for engineers to get to know a new
technology such as Bluetooth, is to buy a ready made module and use it off the shelf. If you try to explain how
it all works in any detail, you lose your audience. Also, new technology products are not only complex to
understand, but also pretty boring to describe. Part of the reason is that they are designed by consortiums who
complicate the product and their functions no end.
Unfortunately
(pay
Mainly it is because it is copied from some other already existing text. To write a decently descriptive article
on say how IEE802 works, you need several weeks research: decyphering the standards, decoding the undocumented
bits, emailing people for information etc. Not far from the amount of work needed for an MSc Thesis...
I think the main reason is that they are trying to increase circulation figures (about 10-12k at present I guess)
The audience is there, cOnsidering the IEE has over 120k members. I just don't know how these mags can be made
attractive to them.
occasional,
There is something there. When I get the New Scientist, the first thing I turn to is the "back page" In one of
the mags (Television I think) there used to be a column "a day in the life of a service engineer" First thing I
used to read, quite readable it was too..
I read in sci.electronics.design that ted wrote (in ) about 'Elektor Electronics new website', on Thu, 24 Feb 2005:
You mean 'What a Life!' by Donald Bullock? It's still there, but not always at the back.
-- 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
I suspect that the population of good writers has not gone down too much.
However, if they are smart enough to write such articles they can also spot that the payment divided by number of hours is less than minimum wage.
I suspect there is no "they" to change editors, total staff is unlikely to be more than the editor and a p.a.
Maybe people take on the business, find out how hard it is to fill the magazine, then sell the business on a.s.a.p.
Svetlana has correctly observed that selling babble like the magnetoaetherial tunnel and the Catt blather is not a viable long term option. Selling trade press releases may not be either, since these are given away in the free trade papers.
Maybe the readership has declined so far that there isn't enough money to pay enough to entice people to write. Even if a staff of just two paid themselves a modest 20K each, they'd need to make £4 on each of 10K mags sold.
Perhaps we should ask the Audit Bureau of Circulation what the actual figure is.
K.
I read in sci.electronics.design that Kryten wrote (in ) about 'Elektor Electronics new website', on Thu, 24 Feb 2005:
There are a few more than that: about six on the masthead, including a 'Publishing Director' who is the real boss.
-- 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
How many do practical work, and how many are just named because they own the business?
I once worked at an engineering company with a managing director, financial director (his wife), a sales director, a secretary, a one engineer (me). Never work for a company with more people directing than doing...
reader
an
90%-10%curious wrt
regarded
Well, Ms Josifovska has done a very good job at improving the look of the IEE magazine, so I wish her well with EW. I also hope the use of advertorial pieces is just a temporary thing. I agree with you that if it continues this way, it won't last. You need a bit more substance if you are paying nearly 4 pounds for a magazine.
many of
mag's
I think electronics has matured to such an extent that newcomers (eg uni students) are not the inquisitive/creative types any more, but simply implementers. It has become like other professions like accountancy and dentistry. Learn the trade, use the tools, and that's it. No research/innovation involved (as it used to be the case) when engineers had to be innovative in their designs in order to get ahead.
they were
selected
and USB
Thanks for the compliments. I usually write these articles on the back of a project I was doing at the time. So that the research time has already been done (and paid for). Writing the piece is much easier that way. I could not contemplate researching the material just for the article.
readers
Unfirtunately, a lot of areas are non-starters. I had an idea on Zigbee, but obtaining any decent information is next to impossible. The 802.15 bits are all easily obtainable, but the zigbee section is a closed book to mere mortals like me. It is getting more and more like this for all new technologies...a pity really..
articles
There are a few gems around (unfort, not enough). I particularly like innovative use of existing cheap technology. My favourite one was the one about a sensing microscope made by attaching a tinly cantilever to a "cut in half" piezo sounder. The tiny vibrations caused the cantilever to move by tiny amounts causing capacitive changes, brilliant! And yes, I have the Scientific American "Amateur Scientist" CD. Full of amazing stuff!!!
Regards
Good point. Myself I don't think it's any longer possible to increase reader numbers. The whole industry has these past 30 years devolved into say an
85%-15% digital/analogue split, maybe finally to stablize at a 90%-10% level. The people who buy the mag's just seem born that way and curious wrt analogue systems. Digital systems/process/programming etc being regarded only as a means-to-an-end. The uni's must now turn out 85% DSP/computing specialists. But how many of these are willing to fork out £3.25 of their own money for a special interest 'DSP World' or 'Practical DSP' mag'?. How many programming mag's are even on sale?. Over the years I've seen 3 purely 'programming' offerings survive for one issue only, yet I've a couple of volumes of pre-war Practical Wireless where there was sufficient interest for (incredible nowadays) each issue to be printed weekly.Anyways ... I found 'em!. (well I think the monika's right, shame otherwise :)
Thought I'd lost a couple of mags but you might be pleased to hear they were found filed in the "In case of this requirement, mug up on these selected articles before looking anywhere else" bookshelf section, (web I/O and USB Scope). I especially liked the 'Super regen' article. This kind of thing appeals to me. It's off the beaten track yet offered oodles of detail and discussion. I liked the FPGA stuff. Another article in this area wouldn't be amiss. Maybe using Farnell available I.C's, and low (or zero) cost development kit, article homing in on something like a fast SIN/COS converter using say CORDIC type structures. Essentially you seem to be writing stuff that will be of interest to readers of EW. Shurely we're all basically enthusiasts, so whatever it is that interests you, should also be of some interest to us. Tell us about anything that takes your fancy!. Absolutely no chance of paying any bills but you'd earn respect from the soldiers.
While rummaging through the issues back to 1988 I spotted a few articles that I remember well and would like to see more of. (A personal viewpoint and probably not representative, as I'm a test equipment nut). March 2005. Emil Vladkov. Sept 2004. Emil Vladkov. May 2004. Alan Bates March 2004. David Poynting. October 2003. Dewald de Lange. Nov/Dec 2002. Nic Hamilton. December 2003 issue. Pushed most of my buttons. Also found interesting: December 1988. Pappas. Obolensky. I also honestly like reading Catt.
regards john
Look who's talking!!! Doh...
I read in sci.electronics.design that ted wrote (in ) about 'Elektor Electronics new website', on Fri, 25 Feb 2005:
This is largely due to digital technology, and the enormous explosion of capability that it's produced. Why bother with a clever analogue design when you can throw a million transistors and a gigabyte of memory at the project?
I'm not denigrating digital technology - it enables us to do a lot of extremely useful things that are impossible, or virtually so, in analogue, like a hand-held audio spectrum analyser. But almost all the intellectual exercise in that, and in much else, is in software, not hardware.
-- 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
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