Le Tout Nouveau Testament

Never heard of it. I have now of course. Found a free stream but no English subtitles et mon français n'est pas assez bon. I could probably get it from unofficial sources but don't have two hours to spare just now.

Also Look for La Cité des enfants perdus. The imagery is absolutely delightful (and rather imaginative). And, Les Revenants (film and series)

And Rubber.

(Periodically, we get in a "mood" to revisit some of the more "thoughtful" flicks we've previously encountered)

Next week will be Besson. His flicks always seem to push the creative envelope.

Media/Fine artists tend to be more experimental with their craft while technical people tend to fall into ruts.

No idea how well that syncs with the film, though (we're watching it on DVD)

It likely needs to be watched in one go as there are themes that carry forward from one part of the flick to others. And, the humor tends to be more subtle.

Technical people tend to use the best way they know of. Patents do exist, where some technical person has come up with a better way, but novelty isn't a virtue in itself for technical people.

As far as I know, Edison didn't put an anode in his light bulb because he knew in advance whether or not it would help with solving the problem of preventing the filament evaporating itself on to the inner surface of the glass. He just did it so he could find out whether or not it was a useful thing to do, and he noticed it passed a current.

Edison didn't have a boss limiting his activities or coercing them into a particular direction. And, was personally motivated to solve that problem.

Most technical people operate under constraints *imposed* on them (or that they impose on themselves based on their perceptions of their skillsets, market needs, estimates of success, implementation and adoption costs, peer pressure, etc.)

After all, "it's just a job". And, they likely won't be rewarded for taking a risk that "pays off" but WILL be "punished" if it fails (time, cost, etc.)

Or, something that was previously discarded as inappropriate for the THEN current conditions (skillset, market, finances, etc.). Ruling something out at one point in time is a liability if you thereafter fail to reconsider it at a future date.

One thing "artists" don't seem to shy away from is "reimagining" past works (not "sequels" but actual REmakes). Taking a past idea and rehashing it with newer technology, actors, revised story arc, etc. -- despite KNOWING how the earlier version was received. (And, for some that ended up as "classics" -- to think they could be improved upon?)

And, this with millions of dollars at stake.

Yet, they regularly (10 per week in US) take risks trying new combinations of stories, actors, scripts, etc. At least technical people can evaluate the "correctness" of a solution against a specification so they should have an easier time of things...

Imagine how many of your past design decisions might resolve differently, today. And, how those might have biased your efforts along that path.

If you'd ever seen them doing it, you might understand why getting a Ph.D. in a relevant subject might help. Being free to experiment doesn't mean that you can do it well, and some training in organising and documenting the experiments goes a long way.

What Ph.D. or relevant Ph.D. was available in Edison's time which you think would have helped him? And in what way would it have helped?

But it does mean that some people will discover things which they would not otherwise have discovered.

But you don't need a Ph.D. in it.

Sony nearly went bankrupt over Chromatron until one of their engineers, who likely didn't have a Ph.D. in CRT design, decided to do an experiment to see what would happen if he put three cathodes in the gun.

So JL was right. It was only a matter of days before you threw another insult.

I do not know what might have happened if one of Edison's employees had told him that only a clown would put that plate in there, but it's possible that they may not have lasted long as an employee.

So if HR sees a risk that a potential employee might throw such insults around, then job offers sent in their direction might be limited.

The actual story is rather more complicated, and doesn't have much to do with version you have posted here.

John Larkin doesn't hire Ph.D.s. He's posted that here. How can recycling that bit of information constitute an insult?

He will probably experience it as an insult, but he does have a particular enthusiasm for seeing insults where none were intended.

Employees are usually more diplomatic than that. It can be hard work.

That implies that Human Resources can do joined up thinking. I've not seen any evidence of that anywhere I've worked. One of my friends - who worked for years for the University of Melbourne Appointments board - did know one Human Resources Manager who exhibited average intelligence.

He stuck out like a sore thumb and made money lecturing other Human Resources Managers on the sort of thing anybody doing the job needed to know (and should have learned in secondary school).

I have heard that Edison didn't understand Ohm's Law, which is why he only distributed low voltage power. Someone might have helped him with that.

Observation and sometimes application usually precedes theory.

Few HR people know much about electronics.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

...

Or anything which isn't obvious.

I decided to have a look at what HR books are available and downloaded one. After opening it at a random page I found this:

An income statement is often used interchangeably with which of the following terms? A. Profit and loss statement B. Statement of cash flows C. Balance sheet D. None of the above

After taking a few seconds to decide that the answer must be A I found that Google AI agrees.

So we can expect AI to take over HR if it hasn't done so already. Such AI will, of course, draw on its vast database of knowledge which includes Usenet.

There is still no consistent answer from AI to this question.

An ideal operational amplifier (op amp) is powered from +15V and -15V rails. The non-inverting input of the op amp is grounded. The inverting input of the op amp has a 20k ohm resistor R4 connected to the output of the op amp. The inverting input of the op amp is also connected to a 10k ohm resistor R3. The other end of R3 is connected to the junction of two further resistors R1 and R2. R1 and R2 are both 20k ohm. R1 has its other end connected to a +12V voltage source. R2 has its other end connected to ground. What is the op amp output voltage?

Those that get it right don't give the quick and easy Thevenin equivalent of R1 and R2 so it's -6V answer but labour the point in a way which is likely to confuse students.

What they meant is that Edison didn't understand that high-voltage had lower losses for distribution lines than the low voltages that he was stuck with, because he had bet everything on DC power systems. He understood this perfectly well. The problem being that Westinghouse was promoting AC, which had the singular advantage that transformers work on AC, so thousand-volt systems were practical. Edison lost that fight.

Joe

If you'd read a bit more of what I posted, you'd be aware that I told you Edison was born too early, and in quite the wrong social class, for a Ph.D. to have been an option for him. The Ph.D. is essentially a research project where where you study a novel problem and write up your results in the kind of detail which would make a publishable paper in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It good training for relating what you are doing to earlier published work - that's need if you are going to publish the work and in documenting your work for eventual publication, Since a patent is a form of scientific (or at least technical) publication, Ph.D. training is relevant.

Of course not. But if you have got a Ph.D. you will probably do it better.

I give student/interviewees a whiteboard test:

I draw a 10 volt battery with the negative end grounded.

From the pos end, we have a 9K resistor and then a 1K resistor to ground.

What's the voltage at the resistor junction?

It's fun to see them panic.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

I think I'd have been pre teen and able to answer that but hard to remember exactly. This would have explained it to me.

I'd get worried if an interviewer asked me such an insulting simple question. At the very least I'd ask them how they screened the people they invited in for interview.

Apparently the Cambridge Instruments human factors department once set up an interview between an engineer and a window dresser who'd got bored with window dressing for a department store and fancied trying electronic engineering.

That isn't the point here. The idea here is that Human Resources people might know enough about inter-personal relationships to be able to predict when a particular potential employee might be excessively undiplomatic in expressing scepticism about the projects they were working on.

I've never seen any sign of that kind of expertise in the Human Factors people I've dealt with. Edward Rawde some funny idea but that one is odd

- even for him.

They might able to avoid hiring convicted criminals - but one of my colleagues at Cambridge Instruments was known (at least to some of his colleagues) to have spent time in prison for receiving stolen goods.

AFAIK in most of the world lack of PhD does not stop anybody from doing experiments. But there are other obstacles, for example lack of money or lack of time. And when you want to get money needed to do experiments from some third party, you need to convice them that this is a good idea. PhD may help in this part.

IME, a proven track record is far more effective. Ideas aren't nearly as important as *execution*.

"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration"

I've never understood why people panic at such things. This seems like the EE version of Fizzbuzz:

Kragen