Path: ...!npeer.as286.net!npeer-ng0.as286.net!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Instead scopes
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2024 02:11:45 +1000
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 119
Message-ID: <vavfcg$12846$2@dont-email.me>
References: <vanf8s$3h5er$1@dont-email.me>
 <mtjucjdqe2f91c2jsjp6011k0uvakuimog@4ax.com> <vap20i$1s5cl$1@solani.org>
 <8dv0djhj73b0ejudpkahnojgjk30i9rrbv@4ax.com>
 <je01dj177m9p0q25en4k2jm8u0bsj07t2j@4ax.com> <vaq1f2$jdj$1@dont-email.me>
 <vaq762$1ssg1$1@solani.org> <pcg1djt6otqheh6vgi9len892jd21g1sn0@4ax.com>
 <varpuq$1sgha$1@solani.org> <1ak3dj9pbeivllh8jk5ke2ani3jid2hl3p@4ax.com>
 <vasp45$hnfl$2@dont-email.me> <9iv3djdbc9u1rdct0aoav2g975tf249ea6@4ax.com>
 <vauadj$t47f$1@dont-email.me> <8p76djd1bjlsbschia4094od88qjvdi18r@4ax.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2024 18:12:01 +0200 (CEST)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="689e4fbc7162e6b65303ac32e4b590ab";
	logging-data="1122438"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1807hLWbeyMwuLKKId98xf4bylhZX40HX8="
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Cancel-Lock: sha1:g+L0hsX3LS4/KdSlSiMt7A74O/Y=
Content-Language: en-US
X-Antivirus: Norton (VPS 240831-6, 31/8/2024), Outbound message
In-Reply-To: <8p76djd1bjlsbschia4094od88qjvdi18r@4ax.com>
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean
Bytes: 6982

On 31/08/2024 11:53 pm, john larkin wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Aug 2024 15:40:53 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
> wrote:
> 
>> On 31/08/2024 3:18 am, john larkin wrote:
>>> On Sat, 31 Aug 2024 01:39:37 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 31/08/2024 12:13 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 06:47:54 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On a sunny day (Thu, 29 Aug 2024 11:47:42 -0700) it happened john larkin
>>>>>> <jl@650pot.com> wrote in <pcg1djt6otqheh6vgi9len892jd21g1sn0@4ax.com>:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Thu, 29 Aug 2024 16:21:21 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On a sunny day (Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:43:39 +1000) it happened Bill Sloman
>>>>>>>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vaq1f2$jdj$1@dont-email.me>:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It's lot easier and quicker to bread-board a circuit in LTSpice than it
>>>>>>>>> is to wire up a test circuit, but what that means is that you need to
>>>>>>>>> make fewer real circuits and they are a lot more likely to work when tested.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> That, on it's own, is enough to explain why labs look different today
>>>>>>>>> than they did in the dark ages.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> All it explains is boeings falling apart and astronuts ending up stuck at the ISS
>>>>>>>> and no moonlanding from the US, not even a probe.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The ISS and moon landings are super-expensive theatre. Neither
>>>>>>> accomplishes anything.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Boeing and Microsoft have the same problem, bean counter money-mongers
>>>>>>> have taken over from engineers.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Slimulations are _not_ realty and never will be.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Spice can be very handy. As Mike says, LT Spice's real function is to
>>>>>>> train your instincts.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I dunno, much I learned from working with tubes and transistors was by building small circuits and measuring what happened.
>>>>>> Sure spice is great for math intensive stuff such as filters.. but you still need to know the basics.
>>>>>> These days with chips doing much of the work and limited knowledge what is actually _in_ those chips
>>>>>> it is hard to tell if a real circuit will behave like spice tells you
>>>>>> You will still need real testing.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sure, but if I wake up at 3AM in Truckee, I can Spice an idea and go
>>>>> back to bed.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6TrbD7-IwU&list=PLlD2eDv5CIe9u7jbKUkZ5xrLLSCrn0z_e
>>>>>
>>>>> Actually, I have designed useful circuits by randomly fiddling with
>>>>> Spice, stupid topologies that turn out to work.
>>>>
>>>> What a creationist would call intelligent design. The rest of us call it
>>>> evolving your circuits, rather than designing them, and you have
>>>> described that as insanely inefficient.
>>>
>>> It's not inefficient if it's done insanely fast, in parallel,
>>> preferably asleep.
>>
>> Efficiency is the ratio of how long something actually takes compared
>> with the time taken by some sort of ideal process. We don't know what
>> the ideal process might look like, and have no idea how long it would
>> take, so talking about the "efficiency" of the process is mere
>> illiterate bullshit.
>>
>> You brain isn't wildly different from any other human brain and isn't
>> going to do anything insanely fast, even when you are asleep.
>>
>>> It doesn't matter how you describe the process. It works better if you
>>> don't.
>>
>> What makes you think that? I suspect the claim reflects the fact that
>> you aren't good at explaining things and want an  excuse to avoid trying
>> to do so.
> 
> People, especially people with advanced degrees, who can't invent
> things, often resent people who do invent things. We just fired one
> case.

I can't say I've seen that. I do have an advanced degree, but I can 
invent things and, and I've hung out with people with rather more 
patents than I can claim, some of them with equally advanced degrees.

> They should accept that people are different, and pitch in to develop
> the new ideas that others invent. Their resentment often stops them
> from helping, so they become useless.

Again, not something I've seen. Some of the people who think they have 
invented something useful get attached to some rather bad ideas, and 
resent informed criticism.

> I suppose this could be a new idea to you.

I worked at EMI Central Research where you were encouraged to patent 
stuff. The engineers were much more relaxed about it than others I'd 
worked with in other places.

My father got most of his 25-odd patents while I growing up, so I got to 
hear about the interactions in his work-place. It all seemed to run 
pretty smoothly.

There's book that covers the period -"The Pulp" ISBN 978-0-9870915-5-0 - 
which records some resentful observations from some people well down the 
pecking order, but the guy that wrote the book didn't join the firm 
until after my father had moved on, and didn't know all that much about 
the period.

It is a subject that I do know quite a bit about. You've got your name 
on just one patent that was taken out by a group you worked with. You 
may be less well-informed than you like to think.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney