A lot of what I get calls to read are OLD source code files, and/or datafiles.
If you look at my bio, I've been a programmer since 1982. Did my first consulting in around 1987. Sometimes I have OLD clients look me up and call, and say "can we get this old dis read" - so, like any good programmer I do it
Heh - Mine still has a 5.25" floppy - every once in a while, I have something that needs to be read in that format - admitedly, once every 5-6 years, but I keep it around
Yep - how about a cell phone that meets, lets say, mil-810c (so we don't have to do profiling) for vibrattion, shock, humidity, sand and dust, temperature, immersion, and say, blown rain
Our use the profile for one of the military handhelds, and make a cell phone that meets that
Assuming "standard" 15 wpm spacing, the entire letter C, including the "wait until" goes by in 2/3rds of a second, and your ready to go for the next char when your ready. MOST people who know Morse can fairly easly send at 20wpm or MORE - it's MUCH harder to receive at that speed than send, believe it or not. Think about this - the "standard" word in morse is "PARIS " (with the space) - if we count that as 6 characters, - you should be able to send 6 characters in 4 seconds - of a full sized 160 character sms message in 40 seconds - and that is a max length message
actually the word 'TO' would require 2 key presses - the "dash" key (the T) and PRESS and HOLD the "dot" key till it gives you 3 dots
Now take the letter "C" - you would press and hold the DASK key, and before it even finishes the first dash, you press the "dot" - they then alternate - -.-. and you let go of BOTH
No - it was the worlds fastest TEXT messenger against a NON professional, moderately skilled Morse operator, using a fairly standard set of "paddles" (let's NOT count the radios - they could have used wires - and the radio content would be the phone itself)
Did the cube, done the flat - haven't done the thread. Just isn't the demand for it anymore - anywhere. Moore Tool takes care of the ultra precision stuff today, and the small number of machines they turn out, turn out enough machines that are accurate enough to do the work
What amazes me is the levels of accuracy and the small tolerances that are turned out on PRODUCTION items. We (generic we) have been able to produce hyper accurate one offs for a LONG time. What is amazing is how good things like car engines, hard drives, etc are. It's stunning.
You'll hear folks rave about cars from the late 60s - I remember them well. If you got 100k miles on an engine without a major overhaul, it was a BIG deal. Today? That's nothing. Remember, they used to have to match pistons to cylinders because they could not hold tolerances to the levels they do today
RE Make machinist tools: I know how to make SOME of those tools, but it would be a dog to do. There is a book called "the foundations of accuracy" that pretty much explains how you start to make accurate machine tools from nothing. It's LOTS of work, but can be done.
For instance, the most basic item is the surface plate - a perfectly flat plate (or as flat as you want to make it) You do it by starting with 3 reasonably flat square (within reason) plates, some spotting blue (ink, oil paint, lipstick etc will all work) and a scraper. Then it's a matter of comparing a to b, b to c, c to a, rotating 90 degs and continuing - each time removing the high spots on the plate being compared (aka a, then b, then c, then back to a) - when your done, you have 3 flat plates
This process is called scraping in, and is still how the most accurate machine tools are made - the reference surfaces are scraped to a reference flat plate
So, do I know HOW to make the machines? Sort of, and I've actually made a flat. Could a make a micrometer? I understand how they are made, and I could make a crude mic, and then use that to make a more accurate one, etc - I don't have the SKILL to go all the way to where we are now, but I understand HOW it's done
Heck, I'm just a hobbiest - a real machinist could do it better and faster, but if you learn the basics, you'd be surprised what you can do.
One of the old aprentice skills - I give you a round rod, say, 1" dimameter, and I give you a file and a square - I have a plate with a 3/4" inch square hole in it. YOU have to file a cube that fits through the hole, all 6 ways, with NO visable gap. That usually will take you about a month the first time
BTW - your NEXT test? Now YOU make a plate that fits your cube, with nothing but a cold chisel and files. Now when YOU are teaching, you have a plate for YOUR apprentice to test against. BTW a lot ow what you learn is how to measure, what order you do the work in, how to hold things, etc. All the stuff that carries over to working on the machine
NOW that you can do accurate work with the basic tools, NOW we'll start on tools that just make the job easier.
I know how accurate threads are made. The books that explain how all these standards came about, and how the first guy did it, are all VERY interesting
I would NOT want to have to make a set of gage (Jo) blocks by hand. But you can understand HOW, and why they used to be SO expensive
And then I buy those retired machinists tools, and equip my home shop ( grinning ) I have 3 or 4 Gerstner and Kennedy boxes full of tools, and I'm always looking for ones I don't have.
Nice little 12" lathe and a Mill downstairs - a surface grinder and CNC stuff is next
Ice cooling - OLD - before modern AC was invented, this was fairly common - in fact, most AC units (larger than window) are rated in TONS - as in tons of ICE melted in N period of time (I think its per day - don't remember)
I have seen an "Interesting" energy saver unit - When does a building need it's max cooling? During the afternoon. If you are on demand metering - when is electricity the most expensive? During the day. What this unit did was run at night, and freeze water, and during peak load, you melt the ice - the place I saw it was even more fun - a church. All week, you have almost NO load on the system, but on Sunday AM, you need a LOT of cooling - rather than install huge coils, compressors, etc - they installed a smaller system, and made ice all week - on Sunday, they blew air over the ice, and melted it
which is FINE _IMHO_ I don't like suits and ties, and if the company I work for told me to go back to it, I'd look. If they said - "No more cargo pants - dress slacks, a dress shirt, tie and dress shoes" I'd probably swallow hard, and buy some more dress shirts and slacks - but then they would NOT find me crawling under desks to fix PCs - not in the job description, but I help out
Basically, it comes down to this - they set the rules, and the pay, and decide IF you will be allowed to work there. YOU make the decision TO work there. If you don't like the rule or pay, don't go! One of 3 things will happen - 1)Someone else will fill the spot, 2)the spot will go unfilled, and the company doesn't care or 3)They will change the rules and/or compansation so that the spot gets filled
Heck - I said "I won't wear a suit and tie" - actually, I will - no problem - make it WORTH IT to me - say, pay me 4x what I earn now, and I'll be there with my suit on
I look at it this way - some (Many? Most?) places won't care - some will. If you are willing to limit your potential marketplace, go right ahead, have a blast.
You have a right to body art/modifications/whatever, and your potential employer has the right not to hire you. Works for ME
And even GREAT archtects who design beautiful houses screw up, or make house that don't WORK - See almost any house by F.L.W. Falling water - aka falling down. Uncomfortable seating, hard to maintain, hard to live in (closets? WHAT closets)
I've been a computing professional for longer than the median/. reader has been alive. I've seen ups, I've seen downs - but I'll tell you this - I've already told my daughter, and I'll tell my son when he gets older "Get a job that works with physical infrastructure, or the government" The first can't be outsourced, the second is always a growth industry, because the politicians KNOW that buy hiring more workers where THEY control the budget, they get to BUY votes
actually, in civil eng, it's done too - additions to houses that don't quite mesh perfectly, etc. Thing is, on a house, you do 1-2 additions over the life of the house, in software, that happend dozens of times
An appolgizr for it - no - more looking at the reality of looking at the real world, when they ask for X + Y, and you want to refactor it - say you come in with an internal cost of 100k - in the mean time, your outsource competition says "I'll do it for 20K" (they won't be around to pick up the wreck in 10-20 years, so...). Who's going to GET the work, and who's going to be saying "would you like fries with that?"
The BIG problem is this. You design an application to do X, per the spec, and you write a really GOOD program to do X. It works GREAT
Now someone comes along and says "we need the program to do X + Y". You stop, you think, and say "well, I can add in the Y functions HERE. It may may not be perfect, but there is no budget or time to refactor the entire system to do X + Y" Then along comes someone who wants to add Z. Again, the process is "We need it next week, and for N dollars" - the RIGHT answer may be to actually re-write the whole thing, but the company won't give you the money, so you graft on Z
Keep doing this for 20 years, and sometimes 100s of releases, and what you find is you have things that make NO sense, but WORK "gee, this routine calculates this number, and changes it to a string, and the calling routine changes back to a number." Why? Because some OTHER routine wanted a string 20 years ago, and no one needed a number
The time and effort to redesign your legacy system the right way is USUALLY called "replacement" - it's easy to get "New" than to fix old - trust me, it's the "gee wiz" factor. It's "New" it MUST be better
Your right RE population density, or as one guy I'm aquainted with in Europe who designs rail systems it's "People per cross tie". I forget the exact number, and it's people living within X miles of a station, but it works out to something like below 9 people/crosstie, it just does NOT pay
As for why no high speed rail, the most LOGICAL place for high speed rail in the USA is the Northeast corridor of Amtrack, and in particular, Washington DC > NYC. Right now, the best we have ther is the Metroliner/Acela (Acela out of service right now). Now as "poor" as the metroliner is, in the higher speed sections, it clips along at 120mph. Bring it to 140mph or more, it doesn't save much time, and would require a complete rebuild of the corridor, which still in sections serves commuter trains, and the side tracks still see freight (main tracks do not from what I hear)
The BIG reason for the move to the Acela is the section from NYC > Boston. The main reason the lines there are not faster are.... Curves! Building the line from NYC > Boston was considered impossible at one point - geography is against you the whole way. Basically, instead of running WITH the terrain (almost every railroad), you run across it - crossing rivers, streams and hills over and over. The line is FULL of curves (read slow) and bridges. You can't re route the line, because of the population density
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A lot of what I get calls to read are OLD source code files, and/or datafiles.
If you look at my bio, I've been a programmer since 1982. Did my first consulting in around 1987. Sometimes I have OLD clients look me up and call, and say "can we get this old dis read" - so, like any good programmer I do it
Heh - Mine still has a 5.25" floppy - every once in a while, I have something that needs to be read in that format - admitedly, once every 5-6 years, but I keep it around
eh - give me hunt a wumpus (and yes, I can remember when that was new)
Yep - how about a cell phone that meets, lets say, mil-810c (so we don't have to do profiling) for vibrattion, shock, humidity, sand and dust, temperature, immersion, and say, blown rain
Our use the profile for one of the military handhelds, and make a cell phone that meets that
Assuming "standard" 15 wpm spacing, the entire letter C, including the "wait until" goes by in 2/3rds of a second, and your ready to go for the next char when your ready. MOST people who know Morse can fairly easly send at 20wpm or MORE - it's MUCH harder to receive at that speed than send, believe it or not. Think about this - the "standard" word in morse is "PARIS " (with the space) - if we count that as 6 characters, - you should be able to send 6 characters in 4 seconds - of a full sized 160 character sms message in 40 seconds - and that is a max length message
actually the word 'TO' would require 2 key presses - the "dash" key (the T) and PRESS and HOLD the "dot" key till it gives you 3 dots
Now take the letter "C" - you would press and hold the DASK key, and before it even finishes the first dash, you press the "dot" - they then alternate - -.-. and you let go of BOTH
That's how a keyer works
No - it was the worlds fastest TEXT messenger against a NON professional, moderately skilled Morse operator, using a fairly standard set of "paddles" (let's NOT count the radios - they could have used wires - and the radio content would be the phone itself)
Another trick = 'It's your laptop - it gets stolen YOU are going to replace it out of your money, not mine"
Remember - ownership = buy-in = taking care of said item
Did the cube, done the flat - haven't done the thread. Just isn't the demand for it anymore - anywhere. Moore Tool takes care of the ultra precision stuff today, and the small number of machines they turn out, turn out enough machines that are accurate enough to do the work
What amazes me is the levels of accuracy and the small tolerances that are turned out on PRODUCTION items. We (generic we) have been able to produce hyper accurate one offs for a LONG time. What is amazing is how good things like car engines, hard drives, etc are. It's stunning.
You'll hear folks rave about cars from the late 60s - I remember them well. If you got 100k miles on an engine without a major overhaul, it was a BIG deal. Today? That's nothing. Remember, they used to have to match pistons to cylinders because they could not hold tolerances to the levels they do today
RE Make machinist tools:
I know how to make SOME of those tools, but it would be a dog to do. There is a book called "the foundations of accuracy" that pretty much explains how you start to make accurate machine tools from nothing. It's LOTS of work, but can be done.
For instance, the most basic item is the surface plate - a perfectly flat plate (or as flat as you want to make it) You do it by starting with 3 reasonably flat square (within reason) plates, some spotting blue (ink, oil paint, lipstick etc will all work) and a scraper. Then it's a matter of comparing a to b, b to c, c to a, rotating 90 degs and continuing - each time removing the high spots on the plate being compared (aka a, then b, then c, then back to a) - when your done, you have 3 flat plates
This process is called scraping in, and is still how the most accurate machine tools are made - the reference surfaces are scraped to a reference flat plate
So, do I know HOW to make the machines? Sort of, and I've actually made a flat. Could a make a micrometer? I understand how they are made, and I could make a crude mic, and then use that to make a more accurate one, etc - I don't have the SKILL to go all the way to where we are now, but I understand HOW it's done
Heck, I'm just a hobbiest - a real machinist could do it better and faster, but if you learn the basics, you'd be surprised what you can do.
One of the old aprentice skills - I give you a round rod, say, 1" dimameter, and I give you a file and a square - I have a plate with a 3/4" inch square hole in it. YOU have to file a cube that fits through the hole, all 6 ways, with NO visable gap. That usually will take you about a month the first time
BTW - your NEXT test? Now YOU make a plate that fits your cube, with nothing but a cold chisel and files. Now when YOU are teaching, you have a plate for YOUR apprentice to test against. BTW a lot ow what you learn is how to measure, what order you do the work in, how to hold things, etc. All the stuff that carries over to working on the machine
NOW that you can do accurate work with the basic tools, NOW we'll start on tools that just make the job easier.
I know how accurate threads are made. The books that explain how all these standards came about, and how the first guy did it, are all VERY interesting
I would NOT want to have to make a set of gage (Jo) blocks by hand. But you can understand HOW, and why they used to be SO expensive
And then I buy those retired machinists tools, and equip my home shop ( grinning ) I have 3 or 4 Gerstner and Kennedy boxes full of tools, and I'm always looking for ones I don't have.
Nice little 12" lathe and a Mill downstairs - a surface grinder and CNC stuff is next
Ice cooling - OLD - before modern AC was invented, this was fairly common - in fact, most AC units (larger than window) are rated in TONS - as in tons of ICE melted in N period of time (I think its per day - don't remember)
I have seen an "Interesting" energy saver unit - When does a building need it's max cooling? During the afternoon. If you are on demand metering - when is electricity the most expensive? During the day. What this unit did was run at night, and freeze water, and during peak load, you melt the ice - the place I saw it was even more fun - a church. All week, you have almost NO load on the system, but on Sunday AM, you need a LOT of cooling - rather than install huge coils, compressors, etc - they installed a smaller system, and made ice all week - on Sunday, they blew air over the ice, and melted it
which is FINE _IMHO_ I don't like suits and ties, and if the company I work for told me to go back to it, I'd look. If they said - "No more cargo pants - dress slacks, a dress shirt, tie and dress shoes" I'd probably swallow hard, and buy some more dress shirts and slacks - but then they would NOT find me crawling under desks to fix PCs - not in the job description, but I help out
Basically, it comes down to this - they set the rules, and the pay, and decide IF you will be allowed to work there. YOU make the decision TO work there. If you don't like the rule or pay, don't go! One of 3 things will happen - 1)Someone else will fill the spot, 2)the spot will go unfilled, and the company doesn't care or 3)They will change the rules and/or compansation so that the spot gets filled
Heck - I said "I won't wear a suit and tie" - actually, I will - no problem - make it WORTH IT to me - say, pay me 4x what I earn now, and I'll be there with my suit on
I look at it this way - some (Many? Most?) places won't care - some will. If you are willing to limit your potential marketplace, go right ahead, have a blast.
You have a right to body art/modifications/whatever, and your potential employer has the right not to hire you. Works for ME
And even GREAT archtects who design beautiful houses screw up, or make house that don't WORK - See almost any house by F.L.W. Falling water - aka falling down. Uncomfortable seating, hard to maintain, hard to live in (closets? WHAT closets)
Actually, that is the SHORT SMS default beep - the LONG sends "Connecting People" in Morse
Remember - Martti Laine (OH2BH) is a bigwig at Nokia, and one of the most avid DX guys out there
He is - I've known John since slight before his youngest was born. The whole family is great
Add - Chair
They'll just outsource the work
/. reader has been alive. I've seen ups, I've seen downs - but I'll tell you this - I've already told my daughter, and I'll tell my son when he gets older "Get a job that works with physical infrastructure, or the government" The first can't be outsourced, the second is always a growth industry, because the politicians KNOW that buy hiring more workers where THEY control the budget, they get to BUY votes
I've been a computing professional for longer than the median
Congrats on your general! Now, what rig to buy? ...-- KG2V
--...
actually, in civil eng, it's done too - additions to houses that don't quite mesh perfectly, etc. Thing is, on a house, you do 1-2 additions over the life of the house, in software, that happend dozens of times
An appolgizr for it - no - more looking at the reality of looking at the real world, when they ask for X + Y, and you want to refactor it - say you come in with an internal cost of 100k - in the mean time, your outsource competition says "I'll do it for 20K" (they won't be around to pick up the wreck in 10-20 years, so...). Who's going to GET the work, and who's going to be saying "would you like fries with that?"
NOT homophobic Christianity, thank you - It's Mormon
The BIG problem is this. You design an application to do X, per the spec, and you write a really GOOD program to do X. It works GREAT
Now someone comes along and says "we need the program to do X + Y". You stop, you think, and say "well, I can add in the Y functions HERE. It may may not be perfect, but there is no budget or time to refactor the entire system to do X + Y" Then along comes someone who wants to add Z. Again, the process is "We need it next week, and for N dollars" - the RIGHT answer may be to actually re-write the whole thing, but the company won't give you the money, so you graft on Z
Keep doing this for 20 years, and sometimes 100s of releases, and what you find is you have things that make NO sense, but WORK "gee, this routine calculates this number, and changes it to a string, and the calling routine changes back to a number." Why? Because some OTHER routine wanted a string 20 years ago, and no one needed a number
The time and effort to redesign your legacy system the right way is USUALLY called "replacement" - it's easy to get "New" than to fix old - trust me, it's the "gee wiz" factor. It's "New" it MUST be better
Your right RE population density, or as one guy I'm aquainted with in Europe who designs rail systems it's "People per cross tie". I forget the exact number, and it's people living within X miles of a station, but it works out to something like below 9 people/crosstie, it just does NOT pay
As for why no high speed rail, the most LOGICAL place for high speed rail in the USA is the Northeast corridor of Amtrack, and in particular, Washington DC > NYC. Right now, the best we have ther is the Metroliner/Acela (Acela out of service right now). Now as "poor" as the metroliner is, in the higher speed sections, it clips along at 120mph. Bring it to 140mph or more, it doesn't save much time, and would require a complete rebuild of the corridor, which still in sections serves commuter trains, and the side tracks still see freight (main tracks do not from what I hear)
The BIG reason for the move to the Acela is the section from NYC > Boston. The main reason the lines there are not faster are.... Curves! Building the line from NYC > Boston was considered impossible at one point - geography is against you the whole way. Basically, instead of running WITH the terrain (almost every railroad), you run across it - crossing rivers, streams and hills over and over. The line is FULL of curves (read slow) and bridges. You can't re route the line, because of the population density
All second that - find a Ham. Most know how to solder, or have a fellow ham who does