MacArthur 'Genius' Grant Winners

I'm not a genius. I'm just a circuit designer.

What do you do?

The blurbs are a lot like those job postings you often see for marketing/administration positions that say stuff like "Implement effective strategies to deploy customer-oriented resources in an a fast paced, innovative environment with focus on evidence-based methodology to..." that leave you wondering what the job actually is.

Which isn't to say the humanities aren't worthwhile, it's just that some of those fields it's kind of like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where "genius" translates as "cool."

The birds of a feather, all the phonies and all of the fakes. While the dealers they get together And they decide who gets the breaks And who's going to be, in the gallery

No lies he wouldn't compromise No junk no bits of string And all the lies we subsidize That just don't mean a thing I've got to say he passed away in obscurity And now all the vultures are coming down from the tree So he's going to be in the gallery.

Who would want to be listed as a certified "genius" anyway; it sounds horrible kind of like the job of pop star or politician

I wouldn't mind being rich, but I don't want to be famous. The Brat and I both dress with the same goal, to be mostly invisible.

True, but you're the proponent of electronics changed the world theory.

As little as possible...

If you own two homes in the US you're already richer than 95% of people on the planet. I think you mean "super rich" not just like "regular rich"

Very few people believe they are rich themselves. They always see the rich as those more prosperous than themselves.

If you have a positive net worth over $1, you are richer than about

If I were super-rich I guess I could design bigger circuits.

All the soft-studies types talk about human progress in terms of philosophy and religion and politics. That's mostly silly: what has driven human progress has been technology, implemented by engineers.

Is that what you mean?

What do you do?

Some other young guys I know in tech feel they're paid an obscene amount of money for what they do and hardly know what to do with it all. I'm not making Google money like some of those cats are, though.

Probably mostly because we're not married and don't have a wife and X kids and mortgages to pay. Living in the Bay ain't cheap for anyone, much less a family.

As a single man living on the Rhode Island border I feel like I'm living large spending maybe $600 a month at the outside on non-food/housing/transit expenses.

I like little ones!

Check out what happens to dc temp sweep of the current thru R3 in this circuit if you make R4 double the value of R1:

Psst: there's no such thing as "human progress", only technology can progress say in the sense that the desktop computer of today is objectively better at performing some task than the one of 20 years ago.

Human societies are technological now so it's easy to get the two confused, but while notions of "technological progress" are not pseudo-scientific notions of "human progress" definitely are.

Impressive. What's beta and Vcc sensitivity? What's it for?

Human progress concerns measurable stuff, like infant mortality, lifespans, per-capita beer consumption.

Vcc sensitivity and load sensitivity not so-ah good, don't know about beta. No use in particular, just seeing if it were possible to temperature compensate the standard diode/led + transistor current source with another transistor.

Seems so but I'm guessing there's probably some set of component values that's a compromise between vcc/temperature/load sensitivity. That will take some fun math to find.

I'd call that "change", not "progress." There are some kinds of changes which most reasonable people would consider changes for the better, like less infant mortality. And there are other types of changes which most reasonable people would consider changes for the worse. And there are things like per-capita beer consumption, which a lot of people might consider a toss-up.

It's certainly possible for a society to both change for the better in some areas and the worse in others at the same time. Societies change, but I don't think they "progress" in the sense of say a linear status bar indicating a file download.

That is to say, "progress" implies making a personal value judgment about the kinds of changes which are taking place. Which at least in the US is perfectly OK to do; ain't no law says you can't, any more than you wouldn't be allowed to worship the religion of your choice.

Regardless however it that value judgment is one that's outside the realm of science. Again, ain't no law says you're not allowed to make it, but it is finally philosophy.

The forward drop tempco of some LEDs is close to that of a transistor B-E junction, so an LED and an emitter follower can make a voltage with a very low tempco. And it glows in the dark.

Personally, I consider living a long time, with good vision and little pain and central heat, to be "progress."

So is having all my kids live to adulthood.