On a sunny day (Sat, 12 Apr 2014 08:33:42 +0100) it happened "Kevin Aylward" wrote in :
It gets even more fun with electromagnetic deflection of an electron beam. N S and what direction.. sideways. What happens to electrons flying within a solenoid coil? (spiral). I once wound my own deflection coils for teevee, great fun. Build a magnetic deflection scope too in my high school days, slow, but huge screen nice for demos.
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Octave is a much more Matlab compatible alternative
What Matlab is much much better at than the alternatives is plotting
-Lasse
Philosophical advice: The world has always been a place of varying skill levels. Only a small percentage of guys making stone knives were good at it.
Practical advice: Go to a community college/high school/university and ask instructors who is good at hands-on (electronics/software/etc.). In a group there are a few 'naturals.' Hire them.
I was working at MIT in the media lab, and we needed a thin film optics software program written. These programs figure out the spectral response of multi-layer interference filters. They involve Maxwell's equations and imaginary numbers (complex).
So we went to the PhD consulting office with the spec, and they estimated 3 months. Meanwhile, someone suggested a mechanical eng. UG student. He looked at the Maxwell equations once, and wrote the entire program in his spare time, while carrying a full course load - in a week's time! The program was perfect - It had full graphics output, some optimization (not too much). Holy shit!
jPS - There is another issue today which evens compounds this problem - namely that new technology is being invented faster than those who are good at designing with it.
I've done that, three times. No results so far.
Understanding transistors and opamps and circuit dynamics is pretty fundemantal stuff. Kids are getting EE degrees without taking electromagnetics or signals-and-systems or control theory.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation
I think this guy would have been a great candidate. Here area a couple of the projects he finished.
He's making replacement IC's for HP unobtainiums with discete parts. Check it out you will find it interesting.
Mikek
oon to be.
One guy,
demand.
it.
sk
oup
tried visiting a hackerspace? might be a bunch of hippies playing with arduinos but you never know :P
this is in your neighborhood I think
-Lasse
The problem is, that those engineers were studiously REJECTED by the companies, as being "over-qualified", since it is illegal to tell them they are too old. So they are either starving, or pushing fries at the local MacDees.
These days, everybody has to be portable. Like composers, the best electronic and optical designers seem to continue to improve through late middle age, probably for the same reason. You do have to be deeply interested in your profession for that to happen, though, and it's tragic how many people aren't.
Intellectually I know most folks spend their lives doing jobs they don't much like, but (fortunate as I am) I find it hard to imagine. I really have to admire their fortitude.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
No, you just don't tell them anything. Anyone who tells a candidate why they weren't selected (or why they were fired) is begging for trouble. Don't ask - don't tell.
Nonsense. Many jobs go unfilled because the employer can't find competent candidates to fill them. Sure, I've run into (obvious) age discrimination but I've also found other employers who really want experienced engineers, to the point of preferring gray-hairs. The youngest in our department is 49 and the average is closer to 60. As PhilH said, you gotta be flexible, though. You can't sit on your ass and whine about not having a job, if you expect to ever work again. No matter what Obama says, government is *not* here to help you.
Just don't hire someone too promising and take him/her out of circulation to practice your declining Stone Age version of electronics engineering...
Where I work, a large fraction of the people who know what a transistor is are radio amateurs. Few are young, though. But still asking around at a local hamfest can't hurt. Find them from ARRL and QST.
I have a war story: When I was a young EE, it came to pass that I had to design a one-transistor audio amplifiers. I discovered to my chagrin that I could not do it - all those s and h parameters that my instructors talked about were not to be found in the datasheets. My chagrin increased when I noticed that the techs were not having this problem. So I sidled over and glanced at their bookshelf, and went to the library and got some technician-level books, and finished the design.
What happened? Those professors had never designed a real circuit, and so didn't know that only two or three of all those parameters matter (or are available). Said another way, they could not tell large from small. They did make sure I knew the whole theory, though.
There was also an element of bad luck - if I had taken the courses of one of the other professors, I would not have had a problem with that little audio amplifier. This professor did paid circuit design for local industry, and it showed.
Joe Gwinn
WOW! That guy is doing some impressive work. Even if I say so myself. Mikek
I disagree. You can *always* find competent people to do do any job. The issue is wage discrimination. Followed up by lack of competence in knowing who to hire.
I would say that Don Sauer, designer of the LM13600/ LM13700
Kevin Aylward
Indeed. This is key bit.
Some of them even write 150k lines of Spice code to support their EE interest :-)
Kevin Aylward
I suspect there is more to it than age. One would think that he would know a good many other engineers and if there were no personality problems, som e of his acquaintances would recommend him to the engineering department. A nd the engineering department would tell HR to hire him. Much easier to s ay age discrimination than to admit no one wants to work with him.
Dan
Hope you find remunerative work soon. It lowers self esteem not to have people lined up at the door to hand you money.
FWIW, I used to look for 'self-taught' people usually in related field, or sometimes same field. After all, when you're working, you're learning. I never wanted 'same song, second verse' people, because then I'd get what I expected. And then you'd miss out on those surprise product contributions. Like inventions, performance exceeding expectations, dropping the cost
1/10th for that expensive component, etc etc. During the interview, if their ok competency, extreme curiosity, along with honesty and openness surfaced; they got the job. Then it was simply a plus if they had good personal hygiene and very few tics.
If you drive a bus or sell insurance, I can see how you'd look forward to retiring. I sure don't.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation
Halfa century doing one thing tends crowds out other possible interests. Some have more than one dimension.
You can do those jobs well, though. If you think of yourself as just moving a bus from A to B and back, it's a bit mind-numbing, but you can look at it as getting people to and from work safely, comfortably, and much more efficiently than cars would.
An insurance agent's profession is protecting people from catastrophic loss, a calling which (properly viewed) is as noble as a knight's, if less heroic.
There's an old story about a man visiting an English stone quarry. He asked a man what he was doing, and he said, "What do you think I'm doing? I'm cutting stone." He asked a second man the same, and he said, "I'm earning 100 quid a week for my family." He asked a third man, who put down his pick, stood up to his full height, and said, "I'm building a cathedral."
There are some jobs that can't be done in that spirit, such as persuading people to buy cigarettes. Those are the ones you really want to avoid.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
Cool links.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation
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