Re: kids these days

On a sunny day (Mon, 30 Sep 2024 16:40:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom
<cd@notformail.com> wrote in <mfhlfjptm3rgmglttigt52hjo60k21pgmn@4ax.com>:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 14:35:52 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
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On a sunny day (Mon, 30 Sep 2024 14:30:48 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom
<cd@notformail.com> wrote in <3i9lfj57mhfe657c5mcbd3mmap61q4m1ik@4ax.com>:
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On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 11:35:31 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
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On a sunny day (Mon, 30 Sep 2024 11:05:37 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom
<cd@notformail.com> wrote in <2stkfjph6d7s5h50hafmsia5ep7209ds3e@4ax.com>:
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On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 05:31:27 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
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On a sunny day (Sun, 29 Sep 2024 10:49:25 -0700) it happened john larkin
<JL@gct.com> wrote in <de4jfjlq704080370lfofh0k0bu3njqn9u@4ax.com>:
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On Sun, 29 Sep 2024 17:04:57 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
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On a sunny day (Sun, 29 Sep 2024 17:41:36 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom
<cd@notformail.com> wrote in <2h0jfjhlq7ic02h5f72a3ibsksv5mkg6aj@4ax.com>:
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On Sun, 29 Sep 2024 13:22:31 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
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On a sunny day (Sun, 29 Sep 2024 10:10:33 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom
<cd@notformail.com> wrote in <d56ifj1angpnq16qhhb0vplmlr3tt7opnf@4ax.com>:
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On Fri, 27 Sep 2024 08:42:27 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
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On a sunny day (Thu, 26 Sep 2024 16:21:31 -0700) it happened john larkin
<jl@glen--canyon.com> wrote in <v1rbfj18eqbgr1t9bfvdfqqmn1q91gcfof@4ax.com>:
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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bosses-firing-gen-z-grads-111719818.html
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Oh. I just hired one.

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There is a lot of truth in that article.
I have had to work with newcomers, some knew nothing
But then when I started... in my first job designing a.o. mil stuff
I had to figure it all out for myself the same day the requests got on the table.
One old guy, who had some experience with electronics but had a lot with high power stuff..
and a manager to rule us, was the environment, and a big factory floor building the things we came up with, and
a test room (HV stuff 100 kV etc megawatt stuff.. and a little corner and oscilloscope for me to test what I came up
with,
build  proto circuits.
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Later when starting in broadcasting we got 6 month in the school benches in their own studio, while getting payed,
and exams after that, everything from audio, video, satellite, management, politics (who can do what, red phones
sort
of
thing), the works.
As that (video, audio etc) was my real interest, I found it relaxing and fun.
Then when you are put in charge of a real event, I remember the first day I ran alone in a head control room
I had to call my boss back from his dinner in some restaurant.. could not find the cables we had to swap
to sync some remote location,
turned out those were hidden under the floor boards ..
Did not they tell you that?
(Must have missed that :-) ).
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It all depends,.
Do you give the poor new guy training? ANY kind of training?

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He doesn't have to. John has this screening technique he uses for job
applicants. He shows them a diagram of two 1k resistors in series with
10V across them and asks them what the voltage where they join is. If
they freak out, burst into tears or defenestrate themselves, he knows
not to hire them. :-)

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Yes I did read that posting
Its hard, lemme see, e=m.c^12 likely does not help.
to make it easier for me I use volts, so if 3k3 + 4k7 in series gives 8 volts
then we know 3k3 gives 3.3 V across it and 4k7 4.7 volts across it
Best is to use trimpots to get the right value, no math needed...
And of course you need to bring the (multi?)meter impedance into play, especially for high
value resistors and moving coil meters from old boat anchors for example.
And there are LDRs and NTCs and PTCs, so we need to know all that
and the temperature and light intensity...
for the NTCs and PTCs we also need to know the current and time since switch on...
So no wonder if they defenestrate themselves.
An other issue maybe length contraction due to near light speed that may affect both measurement equipment and
resistors.
And reading those colored bands around some resistors to get the value.
and wirewound, carbon composite, metal,
And then J.L. did not specify if it was DeeSee or AH!See
Imagine 2 1k resistors, one wire-wound, the other metal flim,
The wire-wound would work as inductor for RF, so would some small metal ones with some turns on it..
And then there are tolerances, simple maybe for 2 resistors from the same batch
but tolerances, sometimes a silver or gold band will give a clue
will change the outcome.
So as the saying goes: "Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated"
Opps, composite carbon reisors maye aso be sensitve to moisture? And maybe pressue?
Those would often go high in teefee sets...
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...

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Jan, you're massively over-complicating this! :-) The resistors in my
example are both 1k so it's half the supply rail. But you knew that
anyway.
The answers you gave show that you know your subject. Unfortunately,
as we know from what John's stated here before, the graduates he
interviews have no idea what the fuck they're doing. The Chinese are
going to kick our arses if they aren't already.
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Oh - and carbon resistors are noisy. And I don't think you mentioned
the source resistance of the supply. We could go on. And on. And
on.... But that's not what John asked for. He only wanted a first
approximation which would be 5 Volts. But that's too much for today's
grads, it seems. :(

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Sure, but I find it hard to believe,
we had a lab and were required to do measurements etc.. in my school days.
Not only electronics, some mechanics too.
But indeed there is nothing like practical experience, in my school
it was known that only hobbyists would psss the exams...
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Electronics is a huge field, on top of that now comes programming.. oh and now AI..
And ever higher frequencies... ever more software (like peeseebee software for example)
protocols, what not... standarss...
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And in spite of all that : US could do a moon return in the sixties, July 1969
now they are stuck and need to be saved from the ISS..
SpaceX just did sent up a rescue mission:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy89kz8ge41o
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US IQ is dropping, no empire lasted forever..

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What's happening is that the normal distribution is getting wider, and
not just in the USA. Some of the fringes are geniuses, and a society
benefits from having even a few geniuses.

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Look at China
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Being reflexively anti-American is no substitute for thinking. I still
think that the USA is the best place to design electronics.

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I observe, like I do when I use a scope to see what is happening in a circuit.
Now is-a-hell hits Jemen.. US weapon factories are having a party,
you pay more taxes..
Bad system.
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As your enemies get more powerful and more unite, you are a sitting duck.
Just a big war industry making war to sell at taxpayer's cost
making losses, a deficit the greatest on earth and in history.
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Should any sane person ADMIRE that disaster?
Half senile president and an ego tripper criminal as aspiring precedent.
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Hide under the table I've heard is the tactics recommended by you leaders.
?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9scNl9h4Q

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Yep, that is the one :-)

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Indeed. But for those of us humans without shells, I'm assured hiding
under a school desk is equally effective for any nuclear blasts up to
10 megatons.
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I couldn't find the version with advert at the end "sponsored by Acme
Cigarettes - the mild smoke for kids" :-)

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Oops..
Anyways they are all on Fetanyl or something these days?

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Yeah, the under 10s are all on Fentanyl and the teenagers have moved
on to this stuff called 'duster' I gather. I'm told it's 20 times more
addictive than crack cocaine and Wallmart sells it for $2 a can. Kids
these days have it all. When I was young, street drugs didn't even
exist.

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Had to look up 'duster'
https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/air-duster-abuse/air-duster-high/
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When I was young, say in the fifties, no drugs here either, was living in Amsterdam back then.
In the seventies drugs were everywhere here, smoking with friends at night in my room playing records..,
the smell got much in my clothes, so you got funny looks at work,
One day I just quit drugs.
There also was LSD and what not.
Some people I knew ended in the hospital with overdoses..
Some kicked off...
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Somehow drugs never got hold on me, always could rationalize what I experienced,
was studying psychology books, designing stuff, work...
then after the mid seventies travelled the world.... looking for 'truth', travelled all over the US too.
Lived in a community for a while... lived in the wild... had my own company, worked
in many different fields that used electronics... in a hospital too.
Drugs are in a way an escape from your reality,, OTOH I have had cool experiences.
Here, few month ago, waiting at the bus stop, kids smoking there, maybe 10 or 12 years old?
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We tend to see this as a recent phenomenon, but it really isn't. Go
back to Ireland a hundred years ago and you'd see 7 year-old boys
running around smoking tobacco in clay pipes and it was not regarded
as the least bit unsual!

Tobacco, yes, I did try that too at young age, but drugs?
It reminded me of that song:
 Oh mother tell your children, not to do what I have done
 go to that house in New Orleans, they call the Rising Sun"
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-43lLKaqBQ