The most practical knowledge I got from engineering school was from a 60+ year old machinist that ran the school machine shop.

I will miss ECHOMAN's avatar.

Coincidentally, I am about to etch my own PCB at home, and I had considered sending a CAD file to OSH Park (an American company, actually) to manufacture a prototype for me, but was worried I'd get it wrong and need a second iteration, adding weeks of delay.

To create the etch resist pattern, I am using the toner-transfer method (using an old HP laser printer, of course:D).

Neat. When I was a kid I always just used the pens.

I'm actually thinking about getting back into that stuff but idk where to get started

I've done this a couple of times, but I didn't design the PCB. It was great fun making the board, drilling the holes and soldering the parts to it, and finally being able to see if my program on the pic ran correctly.

At least in my case, one thing led to another. Before I knew it, I'd bought a (Chinese) soldering station, a 1997 analog oscilloscope from Ebay (mine is 60 MHZ and cost $100 shipped; the higher the MHz the better; brands like Hitachi and BK Precision are cheaper than Tektronix; also try to get a pdf of the service manual and schematics before you buy one, or else you won't really be able to calibrate it), a (Chinese) loupe for checking my soldering work on surface mount pins, some anhydrous Ferric Chloride (should have got the hexahydrate crystals instead--I'm told the anhydrous generates chlorine gas and is somewhat exothermic) to etch the copper clad board in a plastic bag, some dry citric acid powder (keeps non-copper solids suspended in solution when you etch), some expensive, fine-pitch solder, flux (has to be compatible with your solder), IPA, an ESD mat and wrist strap connected to earth ground, and a few more things.

Thankfully the analog scope works and didn't get smashed in the mail, but it's not calibrated, and I don't have a function generator to test it with.

Instead of building what I originally had in mind, at this point I'm just messing around with "jelly-bean" parts, like the LM317 variable voltage regulator, some 555 timers, as well as various diodes, transistors and op-amps (I'm told LF411 and TL084 are good choices). A really good reference for this kind of fun is the "Art of Electronics" book, which just came out in its third edition, and has lots of illustrative circuits using classic components. I'm too cheap, though, and have borrowed a copy of the second edition. I'm also reading this book, which takes a more relaxed pace than TAoE. For buying parts, Mouser and Digikey have the best selection. Digikey waives shipping charges to U.S. & Canada if you pay by check, but you'll have to mail the check and wait for it to clear.

As a side note, I'll mention something I've encountered in this foray into the field of electrical engineering (not being an EE myself): There area lot of second-rate books out there. Unlike mathematics, there doesn't seem to be too much shame in publishing something that isn't too novel, doesn't cite its sources, and is full of typos. Because of this, I've found it necessary to stick mostly with books published by Cambridge University Press (or another academic publishing house), and avoid the corporate textbook companies (rentiers?) that dominate the institutional education market in the U.S., such as Cengage and Pearson. I am also wary of Wiley and CRC, which are somewhere in between. I don't like having to buy a book just to see if it's not plagiarized, so I am very suspicious when Google books preview has been disabled by the publisher.

As for the thing I'm actually trying to build, well, I'm trying to avoid learning yet another CPU with its own specialized tool-chain. Yeah, you can use GCC with Atmel microcontrollers, but I've decided to just use ARM for everything at this point. STM makes a line of low power Cortex M microcontrollers that you can get in a 0.8 mm TQFP (one of the easier surface-mount packages to solder at home, unlike, say BGA, which more or less requires a temperature-controlled oven). I would avoid 0.5 mm pitch pins for home soldering!

One of the annoying things about choosing a chip vendor is the need to buy a custom programmer in order to actually download the code to the device. A decent programmer like the J-Link, which can download code to most devices, costs $60 for the non-commercial "educational" model.

Thankfully, most ARM devices these days can be programmed via JTAG, so I'm guessing any JTAG programmer will do. Furthermore, STM happens to sell some _really_ cheap evaluation boards (about $10!), that also happen to include a programmer (which you can use for any STM32 device, and not just the eval board.)

Wow, good thing copy-paste works with links in Chrome. Thanks for nothing, vBullitain:

Lets add one more to the pile:

http://business.financialpost.com/investing/worst-bond-crash-in-30-years-is-early-warning-of-turmoil-to-come

Here's a letter from 79 professors of economics about budgeting countries like households:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/12/osborne-plan-has-no-basis-in-economics



but I'm sure the elected law professional knows more about finance than they do. After all, I'd have a drink with the lawyer, but I wouldn't have a drink with the economists. My god, what would we even talk about?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to run my household like the conservatives run countries like households

*works less to decrease revenue*
*stops buying food*
*doesn't fix leaky roof*

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But isn't that a response (or overreaction) to how people are getting more and more out of control over the last 3 or 4 decades?

I'm not sure what you mean by "people are getting more and more out of control," Gold...

I wouldn't expect too much. Gold is a Jehovah's Witness. If you live in a strict millenarian group like that then everything looks like it's on the decline and you'll take it as being self-evident.

Dropped out before taking history, huh?

womens suffrage; womens lib; african american civil rights; the american civil war; WW1 was started by a terrorist bombing; in 1917 russia had, not one, two different revolutions that toppled two different governments for two different reasons; in one year Rome had 4 different emperors, and about 130 years after that the empire was quite literally auctioned off by its own military.

But no, it is today, in our age of world peace and almost-universal deference to militarized police states that we are "getting more and more out of control"

ty sfgoldg01 for this important insight

But they're letting the queers marry in America now! This is just out of control! Madness gone amuck!

It's the same with police brutality. People unconsciously assume that the frequency that they hear about an event is representative of how much that thing actually happens or happened.



I don't disagree that at lot of EE textbooks suck, but I don't really see a need for novelty or source citing for the really elementary stuff. I mean, you don't see that in Calc 1 textbooks either.

I find that as you get more specialized, text books are written by old guys who have no ability to understand what it is like to not already know the material. They tend to skim important concepts because they might have been featured at the very end of some esoteric prerec course, but belabor more obvious points that no one should have an issue with.

Increase of social unrest on a global scale over the last decade or so:

http://theglobalobservatory.org/2013/09/mapping-some-of-the-worlds-unrest/

You may not have read your own link, but I did, and it says the actual literal opposite.



I will never understand what compels you to this degree of bull****ting.

I'm late to the party but after reading about half the first page I have 1 thing to say. Maybe the last thing I say. Jon`C you're a ****ing tool.

I'm sure you'll be missed.

Jon'C is like those really obsessive Libertarians, except he is all about hating the rich. I honestly can't see the point in spending too much time trying to take a side on a field that I don't practice in, and is so internally divided. If there's a strong consensus in the field, great, but otherwise, I'm not going to get a graduate degree so can have strong feelings on it. When people start trying to shore up their position by impugning the motives of everyone who disagrees with them, I start to tune out.

That hurts.

Libertarianism is based upon Austrian Economics, which itself was founded upon rejecting empirical data in favor of an axiomatic model of human behavior called praxeology. I'm quite fond of empirical data, and all of the data I've seen tells me that hating the rich is wise. If you're aware of data that suggests otherwise, please share it so I can re-evaluate my opinions.

You live in a democracy during a time of economic hardship. Failure to understand basic macroeconomics is an abdication of your responsibility as a citizen.

Not to imply anything about you, specifically, Obi_Kwiet: It bothers me a lot to see people who articulate strong personal opinions about social issues that don't affect them, like white hetero men voting on gay marriage, or womens' reproductive rights, but can't be sodded to have meaningful opinions about things that directly impact them and their families.

Financial and economic illiteracy are super bad for our countries, kids. Super bad. I'm not asking for a deep theoretical understanding here. All I want is, when Candidate A says "let's buy bonds" and Candidate B says "let's cut taxes", you can make an intelligent and informed decision between those two candidates. Obi_Kwiet's not a stupid guy - he has an engineering degree from a decent school - but by his own admission even he wouldn't be able to make a good decision. This is a typical attitude, too, like I've already pointed out in this thread: we're all socialized to think (to varying degrees) that finance and economics are boring nonsense and not worth understanding. The way we treat finance, both in our education and our culture, is abhorrent, and our countries are far worse places to live because of it.

Any sufficiently complicated subject has a false middle ground.

A conservative is somebody whose intellectual sloth makes this middle ground seem like a great place to set up camp and raise the flag passive-aggressive ignorance.

Don't make me pull out my favorite (Isaac Asimov) quote again.

Jon`C is not being dogmatic. It only looks like it to those who haven't yet dislodged the bad assumptions stuck into their thought process by society (and I'm sure it took a load honest work and study to reach the point where he realized unlearning bull**** means you can fly).

In fairness, I think you are more informed that most Libertarians. The problem with Austrian Economists is that they won't admit that their axiomatic model is simplistic. However, empirical data has it's own limitations that make it highly susceptible to ideological bias, especially in a field like economics where you can't do a reality check against first principals. Excessive reliance on purely empirical analysis often produces bad results in the hard sciences, so I see no reason not to approach it with the same level of skepticism in softer sciences. You may be very informed, but that the same time, you are also highly ideologically and emotionally involved, so I find it hard to have a lot of confidence your judgment.



It's not boring nonsense. It's a very interesting highly involved field that I am in no way qualified to have a technical opinion on. I took an honors macro econ course from the chair of department, and he did a very good job giving a general overview of macro economic theory. The biggest thing I took away from that class is that schools of economic thought don't really line up well with political party lines. Economics in politics seems to be all about fanning ideologies that are held for incredibly ignorant reasons. Choosing between honest economic platforms isn't even an option. I don't democratize my health care decisions, I trust the guy who spent many years in med school to know more than I do. Without the deep theoretical understanding, what is my knowledge but an exercise in confirmation bias? At best I can make broad general observations, but even that can get quickly problematic.

I notice that Bernie Sanders wants to raise the minimum wage to 15$ and hour. I know that mainstream economic theory, and well as the majority position says that a raise in minimum wage will reduce employment and overall productivity. I also notice that the current minimum wage is below the equilibrium level, and empirical studies suggest that a 10$/hr minimum wage would likely have a minimal impact on minimum wage, but that 15$/hr is far above the equilibrium level. Competent arguments for the higher minimum wage are esoteric and a minority position, but the main political argument is, "We should have it because we deserve it, and it will make everything better because we want it to." In theory I oppose this minimum wage because it's a minority position, and mainstream theory seems pretty plausible here, but if I'm honest, part of me just is just reacting to the obnoxious, simplistic attitudes of its proponents.

I can tell you why protectionism isn't a solution to all our economic problems, but when experts in the field disagree on when and whether taxes should to be raised and by how much, how likely it is that my ideology is based on facts? It's a lot more likely that my facts are based on my ideology. Jon'C, you aren't a stupid guy either. You are clearly informed to maybe even an obsessive degree, but it's fairly obvious when you are talking about something that you have an emotional connection to. Once the moral judgement comes out, people are rarely objective.



Wow, you really missed the point of that completely.

Our universe does not permit a 'first principle'. Formal systems in the natural sciences are just another statistical model, convenient for humans to postulate from, but our confirmation of the resulting idea always comes back to incredibly expensive machines designed to spit out p-values. Unfortunately this is just something you'll need to learn to live with. imho the greater challenge to empiricism is metaphysical, not logical, but I don't think it's terribly relevant to an economics discussion.

Sticking to the social sciences, I agree there is less explanatory power in statistical models created from uncontrolled 'found-in-nature' experiments: it's not possible to establish causation, and they will identify false correlations due to self-selection bias. Econometrics has also had a good share of retractions and scandals. You absolutely shouldn't trust their big-picture models. However, you can use their data to draw many simple conclusions. This is the main reason I consider Capital in the Twenty-First Century an important and interesting book: its entire argument comes from simple observations from historical and contemporary income tax records, with additional context added by accounting identities (the 'first principles' of finance); statistical models are rarely discussed.

But here's the thing. The economists were crying foul over QE, saying that it would only help the super rich. This turned out to be true. Economists also cry foul over cutting income taxes during recessions, because it will have no effect but will limit a government's options during recovery. This is also historically true. A big part of what I'm talking about is being able to tell when a politician's platform is based upon ideology or genuine economic consultations.

I'm out of time, but I'd love to talk about these arguments a bit.

more phonepostin (ugh I need a holiday)

There no data for it but
The rising minimum wage => reduced employment argument is specious anyway. Most small minimum wage employers aren't competitive against larger firms, so they're doomed anyway. The larger firms constitute a labor market oligopsony at that bottom end. Idk if you've been into a Walmart lately, but they're already operating at a minimum staffing level. They're highly profitable, which suggests their workers would be able to capture a lot more pay with no loss of employment. How much can be captured before Walmart starts posting long run losses is an open question, but the alternative to forcing them to share with employees is to fix whatever market failure is causing them to succeed and other retailers to fail

(FYI: Walmart won because early exploitation of labor market arbitrage in manufacturing propped up by yuan price fixing. Vote trump 2019)

Phone posting about this is amazingly annoying; most of my words get replaced even though they are spelled correctly.

I took the quote to mean that anybody who disagrees with me must being be doing so out of ignorance.

It's just like invoking Dunning-Kruger, which can work in any argument; just assume that your opponent can't even begin to understand why s/he is wrong, so you can ignore everything s/he says while declaring your superiority.

(...welp, I've been discovered--back to 4chan for me)

Obi_Kwiet, I really enjoyed that last post of yours and really feel overall about the same as you. I find economic topics very interesting and actually considered using my veteran's benefits to pursue it further but I felt it would lead to a career path that was not consistent with what would make me happiest. In the end, I'm glad I took a few years to work at the job I did before determining my educational goals/path.

You're very impressive now. Quite well spoken and reasonable and of course educated. You'll be able to have a conversation with Jon`C because you are not in the category of people such as myself (read: considered to be ignorant and uneducated) that he has proudly proclaimed is his goal to ridicule. You've quite well summarized the situation. Basically, the topic is one that Jon`C is well versed, opinionated, and emotional. It's one that you find interesting and realize that even within that science there is broad opinion and debate. So when Jon`C offers his views as fact and is very condescending to those that offer opposing views you're going to come to the conclusion that there is really little reason to join the discussion in any substantive way. In the end, other than a few cheerleaders, he succeeds in driving away people that he might really wish would care and learn more.

I also found it interesting the way you brought up libertarians. I felt that you brought it up more in the colloquial way such as how Ron Paul supporters are generally called Libertarians regardless of the precise definitions of the word. An experience of mine is with one particular individual that is a hardcore Ron Paul guy but also very well versed in many so-called conspiracy theories. Such as 9/11 Truther theories, Birther theories, chemtrail theories... He can speak very factually, debate these topics, be dismissive of people that don't accept the "facts", etc. Essentially he is on his topics of expertise exactly what you said about Jon`C.

I don't mean that to belittle Jon`C. His views of economics aren't conspiracy theories but as you pointed out, there are differing opinions within that field of study so for the newbie, novice, or layman to not accept Jon`C posts as indisputable facts merely because he says so is not just reasonable, it is wise.

Now, I was originally going to respond to Jon`C's response to your earlier post but thankfully you posted again. I found his "let's buy bonds/let's cut taxes" scenario interesting so if he'll entertain some questions from me about that, cool. If not, cool too.

Also, I'll simplistically describe Jon`C's ideology as left of center. It stands to reason then that he would champion economic views that are consistent with his ideology. Now, I wonder if he has an opinion as to whether that is true or if, in his opinion, his economic views are truly ideologically neutral.

Hi woodie.

Id be happy to answer questions about re scenario I outlined, or point you to more information so you can ndwrstand the scenario for yourself.

There is no left/right in economics. I believe in the pursuit of free market efficiency. That means eliminating all arbitrage opportunities, punishing rent seeking, and ultimately divorcing the relationship between employment and survival so that capitalists are forced to pay the true natural clearing wages. No existing political party is aligned with my opinions. However, most of these negative effects are caused by government interference, so in a lot of areas I identify with libertarians and in others I identify with social democrats. Sorry I can't give you a simple answe.

I don't think this post is very clear so I will rephrase:

- The Chinese government propped up Walmart et al. so they could drive their competitors out of business and corner retail.
- When there are few retail employers, they do not have to compete for workers. this drives wages down.
- Survival requires workers to accept unreasonable pay when the alternative is no pay.
- Employers will not necessarily hire more workers just because they're cheaper. Employers will not necessarily fire workers just because they're more expensive. There are big complicated discussions here about retail operations and the elasticity of demand (the latter of which is a lot more complicated than you learned in intro econ).

There are a lot of ways you can try to fix this problem, but they're all a lot worse than taking your chances with a super high minimum wage. Depending on how you feel about open warfare with China.

pro movie, but why is there a dotted line along the top of it