Re: OT genetics

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 07:40:48 -0500, legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca> wrote:

On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 07:46:32 -0800, john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
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On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 07:38:12 -0500, legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca> wrote:
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On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 11:55:46 -0800, john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
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On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 10:36:50 -0500, legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca> wrote:
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On Fri, 22 Nov 2024 07:22:03 -0800, john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
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On Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:26:17 -0500, legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca> wrote:
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On Thu, 21 Nov 2024 15:40:41 -0800, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
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I was observing that some people can't stand mayonnaise (I like it)
and some people hate cilantro (I detest it. I carry tweezers to pick
small bits out of my Mexican food.)
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One of my guys is the opposite, hates mayo and loves cilantro. He
suggested that there may be a one common gene for both cases.

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OT? Is it EVER!
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RL

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Design any cool electronics lately?
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I'm doing power dummy loads that simulate impedances, but I can't
discuss that in detail.

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The only kind of 'load' that's 'cool' is one that recovers
energy to the source. Loads that are cheap, disposable and
commonly used will be thrown together from off the shelf
crap drawing on HVAC catalog parts and operated by meat
puppets on the production floor, long after the 'designer'
blows his head off in an off-season motel room.

>
Yes, an inductive or capacitive load has to at least pretend to return
energy it got from the customer. A good inductor simulator has to do
that, and tolerate bipolar PWM inputs, and behave like a real inductor
to diode or zener clamped flybacks.
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You may not have noticed it, with your mouth on the govt.
military tit

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Don't be a jerk. All sorts of people buy our stuff.
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When I think about it, there weren't many projects I
worked on after 1909 that didn't involve government
money. That at least covered my hours - a lot of
record keeping under a program with an acronym,
as I recall ~ SRED.
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Don't know that customers for the final product had
any similar advantage. Careful separation of 'research'
from (gasp) manufacturing.
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, but light mfring in North America has been in

the toilet for >30 yrs. New product development followed
mfring, off-shore; their domestic hulks stripped for assets
and property values by pointy heads that, having got the
value out and loaned it back to us, three times over, are
playing Barbie with the political body.
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I suppose there's at least some compensation; that you can
keep your kids and a few grads employed in your dotage.

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Jerk.
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Sorry. I try to keep my mouth shut most of the time, but it
was failing to maneuver transformation into an 'employer'
role some years ago that really pointed out the generational
differences showing up in the industry.
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I envy anypne who managed it. Driving a single desk/bench
is kid's stuff.

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If the chinese are going to make it, then that's where the
new designs should be going, so we don't end up buried in
electronic kibble. You can put 300% tarrifs on chinese
stuff and the ticket value will still be half that of
local produce.
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We all spin our own legends, to some extent. Having no
access to silicon fab, I've pretty much given up on
normally-off self-driven synchronous rectifiers.
There's always something that needs fixing around the
neighborhood, or somebody building stuff around second-
hand chinese batteries.
>
Lately I've been working on a digital version of a vanity
publication (Y2K) covering cooperative beekeeping and
honey marketing organization/development in the '30s and
'40s. Cooperatives tend to get targeted by 'free enterprise'
money - few have survived. In the 30's, there were gov't.
departments (2-man) who's job it was to assist in their
development, as the then-current system was basically
beating primary producers to death.
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Perhaps similar thinking could be applied to secondary
industries.
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Beekeeping itself is facing major threats from many different 
directions these days, none of which are relevant in SED.
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Genetically determined preference for mayonaise? Give us
a break.
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RL
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Waning traffic on this forum simply reflects that lack of
involvement.

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And of civility. Hint hint.

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Holding hands under the moon in June never got product
out the door on time and under budget.
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RL

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Being stubborn, needing to be right, refusing to change course,
rejecting unorthodox ideas, always believing data sheets, all wreck
designs.
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There is at least a 5:1 ratio in productivity between good design
groups and pathological ones, and most are pathological.

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I judge only by delivery on time, to spec.

And selling price. And performance. A design engineer doesn't have to
just do what some spec is handed to him; that's no fun. I like Steve
Jobs' idea: Insanely Great Products.

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Has to be coordinated with production and test capability.

Certainly. Invite them to design reviews. Make sure they will let
engineering know when there are production or test problems.

We have a \NEXT\ folder on a network drive, where anyone in the
company can make suggestions or note problems with any product.

We have another folder \IDEAS\ where people can discuss ideas for new
products.

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Sales? You've got no control over that.It's where I
found the most pathology, mainly because of a rift between
the guys who formulated the spec and the guys who ended
up having to flog the stuff - usually in the same dept.
>
RL

I have a lot of control over sales. Partly by designing products that
we think will sell. More by making friends with influential,
Fellow-level people, and designing what they want.

In a small company, the engineers can work directly with product
launch customers and write the spec that people actually want.

Most of our business started with a cold call from someone who wanted
to talk to an engineer. Our decades of NMR business happened because
of an accidental introduction that happened in a men's room in Palo
Alto.

We've got lots of business from accidental encounters at trade shows.

The idea is to have our best engineers talk to their best scientists.