When I was much younger, I was totally infatuated with Annette Funicello of the Mickey Mouse Club fame. However, the presence of the sacred headpiece has no connection with the her. I also used the Mickey Mouse hat at several former employers. Whenever there was a meeting, where the topic under discussion required a tactful expression of complete disgust, I would wear the hat to the meeting. Occasionally, someone clueless would ask why I was wearing the Mickey Mouse hat. I would then unload a tactless and detailed rant on why the meeting was a waste of time, and what I thought of the ideas under discussion. Nobody ever asked me twice. I also had a radio controlled toy tank, which I ran on the conference room table before meetings. I would also bring my calculator, and run an estimate on the whiteboard of the approximate salary cost that the meeting would cost the company. My not so subtle protests eventually had the desired effect, and I was required to attend very few meetings.
These daze, the hat is there to entertain the kids and occasionally give customers and clients a subtle hint that what they're asking me to do is not exactly considered acceptable practice.
Incidentally, under the Mickey Mouse hat is a multi-colored hat with a propeller on top.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Not really. It's more like a 1GHz sine wave with a fairly high third harmonic content. If the corners were a bit sharper it could be a trapezoidal wave
When I was at Motorola I smoked... a pipe... Sherlock Holmes style
When I encountered such a meeting as you described, I'd simply light up... cleared the room in two minutes ;-)
I also had an asshole boss (Jan Narud) who would call meetings at
5:00PM (work hours were 8AM-4:30PM. At 5:30, without a word, I'd simply stand up and walk out (I had kids 4 and 1 years old... for kids that young, dinner time is exact, and important that Dad be there).
I had complaints, to which I responded, "So fire me!" They never did :-) ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | 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 http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
We all closely watched the development of her talents.
She was actually a pretty cool person who just happened to have a gorgeous body and voice.
However, the presence of the
Fun, but maybe bad politics. I try to get that point across without making too many enemies, especially among customers. You've got to read the crowd at hand and play it appropriately.
--
John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom timing and laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
I was remembering wrong... the bipolar model of choice is Mextram:
formatting link
Though not mentioned on that page, PSpice implements Mextram v504. ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | 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 http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Which, when you compare drawings of the model components (see PSpice Reference Guide pp263-267) IS VBIC. ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | 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 http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
No. I would not build anything that is unlikely to function. What the first prototype answers is questions like: - Can we cram all that gain in so small a package? - Is the gain distribution correct? - How close to the spec are we with something thrown together from pervious designs? - Where are the problems likely to be?
Yep. You gave me a serious shock when you announced that you go directly from design to PCB and then to a shippable product without a prototype. I have never been able to do that, although I've come close. The stuff I've done always required a prototype, or at least the construction of some sub-section that was either poorly understood or posed a potential problem.
The much shorter product lifetimes and the rush to market, where the first to market grabs all the early adopters, and all of the high profit margin sales, has made it a requirement to get things right the first time. The small size of the components has also made hand crafted prototypes a difficult (but not impossible) proposition.
Customer tested products? I've purchased a few of those. Usually it's the firmware and documentation that lags behind the product. With such short product lifetimes, some products were probably never really tested for usability and bugs. By the time the customers complain about the problems, there are usually one to three generations of replacement products in the design->production pipeline. Since the next generations of the product are expected to be better, and hopefully fix the bugs and problems, there's no incentive to fix anything in the currently shipping products. The only way some things get fixed is through expensive class action suits.
The counter incentive to fix bugs is also caused by marketing. Features and functions sell products. Bug fixes do not sell well as buyers expect those for free. As a result, engineering and programming time goes into adding new features, and less to fixing bugs. The inevitable result is a bloated monster, full of useless features, and infested with chronic bugs.
I am tech support, and I know it all. I anxiously wait for your latest call. You've only to play, the game of voice mail, I'll be there shortly, I'm working my tail. Now tell me your problem, and what did you do? This cannot have happened. I haven't a clue. I may have the answer, though it's slightly late, Just buy the next version, release, or update. Next, tell me your problem, no matter how small, I am tech support, and I know it all...
In my distant past (1973 thru 1983), the design cycle was fairly consistent. The first 2 weeks was spent analyzing and dissecting competing products to see how they performed and if anything useful could be stolen from their designs. The next 2 weeks was the paper design. All the major technical decisions were made during this time. With my favored prototype first method, a prototype was thrown together in about 2 to 6 weeks depending on complexity. Often, the radio was built from small PCB sections, and screwed to a large sheet of plywood. (For a time, we had a fully functional 2-30MHz 150 watt synthesized SSB marine radio, built on an approximately 2x5ft piece of plywood, hanging on the wall of the engineering lab.) After the prototype was tested, the remaining 3 to 6 months was spent laying out the PCBs, convincing the radio to meet numerous conflicting specifications, and dealing with the usual production and service related issues. If I were to have gone directly from design to PCB, I could have saved between 4 and 8 weeks, but at the risk of some unforeseen problem precipitating major changes.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Larkin's products are "designed" PbN (paint by number, systems pasted together from appnote's).
But he still gets issues... take note of the number of posts where he's had faults, described as, "Ever seen this before?", like his recent "magnetically induced" issues >:-} ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | 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 http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
We do prototypes just to see what's really being asked of us. It's never even close to what finally gets shipped as a product. My whole job, now, is prototypes (advanced development); new components, new techniques. It's fun. ;-)
I never did any of those things if a customer, vendor, or upper management were present. For those occasions, I had a suitable change of clothes and attitude. I also didn't do the toy tank and mouse ears thing very often. I'm not sure why I wasn't fired for gross insubordination and would like to think it was because I was quite good at what I was doing and difficult to replace.
What did cause difficulties was my 45-60 min commute. In order to avoid morning traffic, I was chronically late, arriving at about 9AM. However, I would regularly put in 10+ hr days, usually leaving at about 8PM. The extra daily overtime apparently never was a consideration as various managers complained about my tardiness. I also refused to work weekends unless there was at least 8 hrs of work that needed to be done. The few times that was necessary, were generally a waste of time.
There were also issues over my: - Using the bathroom as my chemistry lab. - The Persian rugs and bean bag chairs in my office. - An OSHA inspired debate over whether the walls were supporting my bookshelves, or if the bookshelves held up the walls. This was finally settled when I left and a wall began to lean over. - Sleeping under my desk for 30 mins during lunch hour. - Side projects which were often my idea of the right way to do a project. This became a major issue when the division VP mistook my late night (Applicon) CAD designs as the real product. - Roller skating in the hallways. All the above, and some things I don't want to mention, nearly got me fired at various times and at various employers. I guess the hat and toy tank were minor by comparison.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
--
John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom laser drivers and controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
I forgot one that ruffled a few feathers. I need a new RF signal generator. Every time I had to do an IM test, I had to literally drag two HP8640B generators off the production line. Production was justifiable irritated. So, I constructed several cardboard HP8604B facsimiles, complete with knobs, power cords, RF cables, and non-working LED display, and planted them on my bench. Management pretended not to notice, but since my bench was in a very conspicuous location, I'm sure they saw it. Nothing happened until someone important saw the cardboard signal generators and apparently mentioned it to the VP of engineering. A few weeks later, production got new synthesized generators, and I got their old lower noise, cavity tuned, HP8640B generators, plus a lecture from the VP.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Everybody lost. They lost bigger, since I'm still in business but they (3 cases) aren't.
--
John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom laser drivers and controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
"John Larkin" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
+1
Howso (more about the fix)?
I've noticed sometimes every other page, the text displayed is extra bold or something. Zooming in, it's correct, so it's something about how it antialiases that page in particular. Don't recall if I've noticed this effect in non-pdflatex documents.
Tim
--
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com
Scroll down to PDF (in the Ps, not in the As) and click the pulldown bar. I selected "Use Foxit 5.4..." instead of "Preview in Firefox"
--
John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom laser drivers and controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.