How do you design these days?

Yeah well, you said you didn't experience a kablouie in 20 years. That's

How did you do the flame front? Oh wait, in this day and age maybe one should not divulge ...

Shazam! I've never worked on anything this big. Did you equip one of the French nuclear power stations with switch gear? Or maybe the drive train of a TGV?

No, where they move them from a plush chair into a plum job :-)

Imagine a western movie... and the dynamite fuse... the "fuse", in my case, was a line cord ;-) ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."

-Abraham Lincoln

They were supposed to go to the cat food plant.

No, no! Or do you want all the cats in the US to get sick?

I don't like cats and they don't like me.

I also don't like Murdoch & Fox Broadcasting for blackmailing people forced to used cable or Satellite to watch their crap. I don't watch sports, and if they can't make enough money of their advertisers it's time to start shutting down the channels that lose money. Do they think that people are stupid enough to ignore the fact that their ad rates will have to go down if they cut off something like 14 million viewers?

There is one right here :-)

Simple solution: Cancel the service. We have no cable or sat TV. Never had.

Sparks wake one up. "Hmm, maybe it's not a software issue." A little smoke never hurt anyone and the feedback teaches one how to count.

Yeah, but he returns it, fully tested.

Many

PC

Sounds like you need a small milling machine.

Our Golden was great with kids too. My son could just about maul him and he'd just sit there and take it.

ROTFLOL. Our cats have all been really friendly. The two we have now always lay on us when we're watching the tube.

We still had problems with real solder, but I think those would have been solved by now. Except, perhaps, the interboard connectors. The real problem there turns out to be mostly a pick-n-place issue and an inventory issue (they have 6000 or some stupid number of the wrong parts). It was still much better with real solder.

Four heat stages may not be enough. They're telling us that five is really iffy for our boards. One is pretty large, though.

We can do 0603s, BGAs down to .8mm, and QFPs down to .5mm, without issues. They're going to barf when I demand 0402s, though. The BGA pitch really cramps my style too. Actel has a very limited package selection with a pitch that large (they like .5mm and .4mm) so I'm more or less being forced into Altera. Not that I mind Altera, but I don't like to be in a position without an alternative. It's good to have them fight over your business. ;-)

We really don't need the bleeding edge but it's getting hard to buy anything else. We don't keep the line busy (test and rework is the bottleneck) but the owner doesn't trust contract manufacturers. But you're right, you have to ride the wave, though perhaps not at the leading edge.

Cats have a fine tuned sense of people's character. Ours don't like my DIL at all. Before they got married we warned the brat that she was a problem. ;-)

It's a game of chicken. Warner stands to lose big too. Their customers can easily switch to Dish. Not a good move, but they certainly can.

Why doesn't he trust them? I really never saw any hardcore problems, most of my clients contract out. In many cases full turn-key. The only situation that I could imagine where in-house assembly makes sense is if you do super confidential stuff. Even high volume doesn't necessarily justify it because then you can get some really sweet deals in Asia.

Aka: EMPTY?

Easy for you to say. There is no longer any OTA TV here after the switch to DTV, and I am in Hurricane country. Only a fool would do what you suggest.

I had one cat attack me while I was sound asleep. It sank all four sets of claws into my arm while I was in bed. The pain woke me, and my arm jerked which threw the cat across the room where it hit the far wall at the ceiling. It made a sick noise as it slid to the floor, but it never bothered me again. That thing was always attacking everyone in sight. It belonged to my nephews, and I had to spend a couple weeks at my mom's house while waiting for the VA to approve a home loan back in the mid '80s.

Dish & Direct TV demand 'A major credit card' the cable companies don't, so a lot of people can't or won't change. I have never had a credit card, and I don't want one. There isn't enough on Fox to watch, and I can do without their 'MY TV Ch. 65' as well.