more EE Times nonsense
in [Design]
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From: Bill Sloman on 13 Apr 2010 18:17 On Apr 13, 7:58 pm, John Larkin <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:01:43 -0700, "Joel Koltner" > > <zapwireDASHgro...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > >"John Larkin" <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message > >news:hf29s5h2kq4vo7v5set9mmk60mon3hue1v(a)4ax.com... > >> Interestingly, the microwave mags (Microwave Journal, Microwaves and > >> RF) and the optics stuff (Photonics Spectra, Laser Focus World) are > >> still good > > >"High Frequency Electronics" is also decent (it's also microwave-oriented) > > Yes, I like that one. > > > > >> EET, ED, EDN are getting thinner and thinner. They just > >> don't get it. > > >I think they're no longer sure who their audience is. They never really > >targeted, e.g., IC designers and the number of discrete circuit designers is > >very low these days, so they're stuck often being little more than a > >photocopier for datasheet "application" circuits, which puts them only a notch > >or so above the hobbyist magazines like Nuts & Volts (which is actually quite > >useful if you're trying to do things *on the cheap!*). > > These mags (ED, EET, EDN) seem to be in a content death spiral. > Contrast that with Aviation Week: it costs $250 a year. When they > review, say, a new helicopter, they don't cut and paste press > releases, they go fly one. They know what the specs are, where the > money is, what the problems are, where the bones are buried. > > Electronics is a trillion-dollar business. We deserve better mags. A very different kind of trillion-dollar business from than that covered by Aviation Week. Individual aircraft cost millions. Any electronic component that costs more than $10 is expensive. Most of the circuits that we see and use were designed for people who could - and would - buy 100,000 in a batch. They don't need the trade magazines to tell them what's available; the trade magazines exist to tell us what the big boys have had made, serving a much lighter (and less influential) class of light-weights than Aviation Week gets to cater for. Linear Technology wouldn't notice if Highland Technology and a thousand small manufacturers like it went belly-up. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: John Larkin on 13 Apr 2010 19:58 On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:17:55 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman <bill.sloman(a)ieee.org> wrote: >On Apr 13, 7:58�pm, John Larkin ><jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: >> On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:01:43 -0700, "Joel Koltner" >> >> <zapwireDASHgro...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> >"John Larkin" <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message >> >news:hf29s5h2kq4vo7v5set9mmk60mon3hue1v(a)4ax.com... >> >> Interestingly, the microwave mags (Microwave Journal, Microwaves and >> >> RF) and the optics stuff (Photonics Spectra, Laser Focus World) are >> >> still good >> >> >"High Frequency Electronics" is also decent (it's also microwave-oriented) >> >> Yes, I like that one. >> >> >> >> >> EET, ED, EDN are getting thinner and thinner. They just >> >> don't get it. >> >> >I think they're no longer sure who their audience is. �They never really >> >targeted, e.g., IC designers and the number of discrete circuit designers is >> >very low these days, so they're stuck often being little more than a >> >photocopier for datasheet "application" circuits, which puts them only a notch >> >or so above the hobbyist magazines like Nuts & Volts (which is actually quite >> >useful if you're trying to do things *on the cheap!*). >> >> These mags (ED, EET, EDN) seem to be in a content death spiral. >> Contrast that with Aviation Week: it costs $250 a year. When they >> review, say, a new helicopter, they don't cut and paste press >> releases, they go fly one. They know what the specs are, where the >> money is, what the problems are, where the bones are buried. >> >> Electronics is a trillion-dollar business. We deserve better mags. > >A very different kind of trillion-dollar business from than that >covered by Aviation Week. Individual aircraft cost millions. Any >electronic component that costs more than $10 is expensive. > But we buy millions of them. >Most of the circuits that we see and use were designed for people who >could - and would - buy 100,000 in a batch. They don't need the trade >magazines to tell them what's available; the trade magazines exist to >tell us what the big boys have had made, serving a much lighter (and >less influential) class of light-weights than Aviation Week gets to >cater for. > >Linear Technology wouldn't notice if Highland Technology and a >thousand small manufacturers like it went belly-up. They visit us a couple of times a year, and I take them to Zuni Cafe. They sure would notice if we quit doing that. I think I got them to do the new current source chip. I sure ragged them about how the world needs one. And I also told them to do a 3-output power-module switcher for FPGAs: +5 to +24 in, 3.3 and 2.5/1.8 and 1.2 out. We'll see how they do on that one. John
From: John Larkin on 13 Apr 2010 20:01 On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:00:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman <bill.sloman(a)ieee.org> wrote: >On Apr 13, 9:58�pm, John Larkin ><jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: >> On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:49:50 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> <bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: >> >On Apr 13, 6:39 pm, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: >> >> On Apr 13, 11:14 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: >> >> >> > On Apr 13, 6:00 pm, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: >> >> > > On Apr 13, 2:31 am, Martin Brown <|||newspam...(a)nezumi.demon.co.uk> >> >> > > wrote: >> >> > > > It is EE Times that has bastardised the original article. >> >> >> > > >http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/belcher-water-0412.html >> >> >> > > Hey, just what we needed--a virus to get loose and bust all Earth's >> >> > > water to oxygen and hydrogen. >> >> >> > Do read the article. The virus just provides the scaffold for the >> >> > active nanoscale components, and MIT was merely boasting about having >> >> > developed the bit that would split off oxygen; the part that would >> >> > split off hydrogen is still under development. >> >> >> Humor. It's a higher function. >> >> >Looks more like inept plagarism to me - science-fiction writers have >> >been putting together duff end-of-the-world nanotechnology stories for >> >at least a decade now, and you've just copied the neglect-of- >> >conservation-of-energy aspect to try and make a feeble, unoriginal and >> >irrelevant joke. >> >> >As humour, it certainly high - dead and decaying - but scarcely >> >functional. >> >> Humor is fundamentally associated with design ability. Both require >> welcoming ambiguity and seeing things from numerous different >> perspectives. > >Then James Arthur must be defectve in design ability, if that was his >idea of humour. I know that he's not, and I know that you are. And he has a great singing voice. And he's a pretty good cook. Do you sing or cook? We know you don't design. > >> You wouldn't understand. > >John Larkin once again reinvents reality to suit his perverse point of >view. He doesn't recognise a real joke when he sees one in the >mirror ... Get a job, bozo. Design some electronics. John
From: miso on 14 Apr 2010 02:32 On Apr 13, 9:54 am, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > <m...(a)sushi.com> wrote in message > > news:8f6998df-871b-4380-9942-c86917b3d2a7(a)h27g2000yqm.googlegroups.com... > > >I guess it takes a MIT degree to figure out you can make wifi antennas > >out of household items. > > It's now been about a generation or two since people would replace broken TV > antennas with coat hangers? > > It does seem odd to me that they could come up with WiFi access > points/routers/cards/etc. but not antennas anyway -- it's a very unusual piece > of kit that doesn't come with the antennas, after all. For narrow beam > antennas, I suppose cantennas and chicken wire-horns do work OK if you get the > dimensions right, and they probably do have plenty of time on their hands over > there? (But then you still need some good low-loss coax like LMR400 if you're > going to separate the antenna and the access point by very much and decent > connectors and...) You put the WAP gear by the antenna since you can do long runs of ethernet with much less hassle than long antenna runs. In the old days when all the boxes had removable antennas, everyone hacked to get higher gain. Some hacks were just reflectors behind the monopole. Other hacks were cavity resonators. But to think MIT is the source of this knowledge is pretty funny. In fact, the best homebrew wifi antenna designs were out of Australia and Yugoslavia. You can troll alt.internet.wireless. I saw one design that was a metal salad bowl and a usb wifi "fob".
From: Jeroen Belleman on 14 Apr 2010 02:40
Bill Sloman wrote: > [...] MIT was merely boasting about having > developed the bit that would split off oxygen; the part that would > split off hydrogen is still under development. Oh, I see, April fools day. Jeroen Belleman |