When in Durham...

...do as something something.


So anyway this friday (the 30th) I will be flying out to Durham, UK for two weeks. I've heard rumors that the hotel internet service is amazingly terrible (soemthing about a card you put minutes on which plugs into a kiosk that doesn't have drives or the like) so I may or may not post. I will try to get some pictures though.

Whoa...

So I do my best to stay out of Ford versus Chevy debates. But I was surfing through my insurance company's page and came across a bunch of crash test videos. Some of them are amazing:

Chevy 1500 into barrier at 40mph

Ford F-150 into barrier at 40mph

So like.... wow...

Lumpy...

So yah I forgot to post the picture of my leg bruise.

Strange Creature

So we saw this really weird looking thing on the way to body shop:



So honestly its probably for tractor pulls or the like. But.... wow...

The number is...

$14,000

Yup thats the repair estimate.

"...I called my manager and he's talking to his manager and he'll call you tomorrow..." - Insurance adjuster

Well at least they aren't...

...disguising the fact they don't want somebody that uses logic and his brain as the top judge.

"He is going to be confirmed," Reid told reporters after his Senate speech. Reid said Roberts is a smart man, but "I'm not too sure if his heart is as big as his head."

Update

They filed a claim against me via an interpreter. They had the wrong date-of-loss and provided extremely little information to the insurance company. I'm glad I have a nice sounding agent working on my side of things with the body shop and a woman that sounds as if there is an "eat your soul" personality hiding underneath resisting the claim against me.

Guess the winner of this matchup

Today's vehicle deathmatch is the 3/4 Ton Suburban versus Nissan Sentra.

So here's the story. I was coming back from Bloomington after seeing a Rose-E perform (Brandon Javella for those who may know him, he's pretty good actually) when to my surprise I was rounding a bend in the road when I saw headlights in my lane. At first I couldn't believe it and the first thing I asked by girlfriend was if I was in the right line, could I have turned onto a one way or an opposing turn lane?

Nope, I just was up against a vehicle that had three (likely illegal since the one guy that went to the hospital didn't have a license that match) hispanic men that smelled of alcohol. In fact I performed all the correct avoidance procedures by the book and hit at about 25-30mph. Oh yah and the two other guys left the injured guy there are the scene before the cops and paramedics showed up. Okay so how cliché is that?

So now I have a vehicle that could be totalled (it should be), it all depends on how severely the frame is bent (hydroformed front end can't really be repaired) and if it did any motor damage. I'm probably going to pay the $500 deductible since I doubt they are insured. But both of us are okay, though I have a nice bruise on my leg. Oh at a little a stiff.

Preface to Electronics and Embedded Systems Design Best Practices

This post is really just the start of what I believe will be a long series of posts that will likely bore most people. However, this medium is fairly nice for documenting thoughts of this nature due to is semi permanent and public record status.

Basically, I have come to the conclusion that a major problem that exists currently is there is no concise, focus, and mostly inclusive reference of Best Practices or rules of thumb for any kind of electronic design. The CRC exists for Chemists and Chemical Engineers, civils have several depending on their individual field but electrical and computer engineers have very little. Most of what a young engineer fresh out of college needs is gained by experience.

For whatever reason, be it cost, timeframe, or just lack of engineers the concept of young engineers being mentored for several years by an experienced engineer is all but non-existent in the field of electronics. From what I have seen most places an engineer fresh out of college will end up in one of three types of jobs: paperwork only (managerial or project), monkey (very limited tasks, over-trained for the work), or a G.O.A.T (geek of all trades).

I have personally found myself in all those positions, sometimes all at the same time, but inadvertently I find myself in the last category all too often. Mostly I notice that the lack of a handbook or mentoring programs is painfully evident. I count myself lucky in having a couple very good mentors. Most notable of them all of course would be the guy that spent years designing and building military radios.

I believe if the trend of throwing fresh engineers into design positions without regard for mentoring then a handbook is an absolute necessity. There needs to be reference that covers everything from specifications to manufacturability and six sigma. A reference that will point out potential pitfalls, a reference that shows good design principles (general of course) and bad ones.

So that is what I will be posting shortly. And in the sprit of engineering process, the next post will be an outline.

Note: This is not meant to be an authoritative work. I expect it to change and grow with time, I may even be wrong occationally (yah I know...amazing, no smart ass remarks : )

Comments and corrections are welcome.

Three Very Important Rules...

...for working with things you know nothing about

First Rule: If you don't know what it does, don't change it.
Second Rule: If you don't know why something works, don't assume you can make it better.
Third Rule: Only change one thing you don't know anything about at a time. In fact only change one thing at a time even if you think you know what each change will do.


Note: I've mostly learned these by making changes on the behalf of others only to end up having to go back and analyze the thing and actually fix it.

History Challenge

Here's a challenge for you all.

Name a major contribution to the United States that ANY state of the former Confederacy has made, ever.

I am looking for innovations like: mass production, the transistor, the internet, television, radio, heart surgery, MRI, etc. not things like: KSC (Florida), Oakridge (Tenn.), or other federal creations.

(Note: New Orleans alone is going to cost about as much as Sept 11th for New York, the three states affected by Katrina only make up 3% of GDP however)