Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

What I noticed was that it seemed the card reader was feeding multiple cards at the same time... but I think that was just a trick of the lighting, photography, etc.

Not sure aboot whether the cards were fed in the right way or not....? 

And shouldn't it have to read the entire stack in BEFORE any results came out the other end...?

mnem

Been a long time but yea, it should have read in the entire stack before the results came out. The rest of the card reader appeared to be working properly. And that card reader was super slow compared to the later models.

One thing that is NOT accurate is the room is silent. Not the case, even back then. The 7090 was all air cooled with dozens of fans going like hell. 

And yes, the scope is there strictly for diagnostic and repair. A user would have no need for it. The movie makers took some "artistic license" in showing her connecting it to the computer.

[mnementh]

Absolutely avoiding anything released by Adobe!

amen bro!
I tossed office and the next in the line is Adobe...

what I use is the stupid and brilliant greenshot:

1) the image I take on my phone is automagically dropboxed on my pc folder
2) open the image on my pc
3) crop the image with screencapture greenshot
4) save with automatic setting on the desktop
5) post it on the www

since it is a screenshot it is already very very little and compressed, bonus I can add some circle or arrows as I like with greenshot
example:   

I still have a licensed copy of PhotoDeluxe... 2 decades old now, and you need 32-bit OS to run it. But it was just the right amount of "PhotoShop LITE", if you know what I mean.

I use the Windoze Photos App (NOT Paint 3D) for cropping and touching up lighting, contrast, etc because it is always there and launches quickly, so I can select specific shots directly on the CF card, optimize them, then copy to my work folder quickly. The Photos App is very well designed with an intuitive UI for first previewing, then cropping/straightening and making lighting/tone adjustments of photos in any folder on the fly.  From there, I use the Image resizer PowerToy to resize in batches all to a similar ~200-400KB size that seems to work best for forums, etc.

The workflow of this approach is very organic, because all the steps are built right into the global Windows drop-down. My ONLY gripe with the Photos App is that it has gone flaky over the last few Windoze updates. This has disrupted the workflow in that I now have to make copies of the pics I choose to keep FIRST, then move them to a work folder to guard against the random flakeout where the app just blows up instead of saving my work.

As this flakiness is present on all computers in my household, whether AMD or Intel, SSD or spinning rust, I can only assume it is the software itself, or something MS has fucked up in the underlying filesystem, as there have been oodles of filesystem fuxxorzz-ery with the last year or so of updates. I think this has something to do with their current drive to develop a ARM-compliant version; the rest of us are forced to live with those growing pains in the interim.

mnem
*toddles out into the misery again*

[med6753]

We all have different skills and understanding of how things work. You see the bed spread in this pix? The Lady Copper made that. Now I don't know if that's knitting or crochet but I'll tell you I could never do it. And if she tried to show me I'm sure it would be a tangled mess and we'd be pissed at each other.  But she's been doing it since she was a girl and to watch her go with those needles is fascinating. When she visits she always has it with her and while watching TV the needles are flying. Helps her to relax and unwind.

Edit, and those needles make excellent weapons so I better be a good boy. 


   

[mnementh]

I know how to do that. Mom taught me when I was like 8.That particular one is multiple granny-squares crocheted together; the alternate popular method is a single giant granny-square. As the name implies the result is square, so when you want something rectangular, this is how most people do it. Advanced techniques include continuous chain-stitch and can mimic knit and purl patterns, etc...

There is actually some pretty complex muscle-memory training involved; it's a useful skill for developing hand-eye coordination which is very valuable in other disciplines.

EDIT: It is also well-known to be good therapy for arthritic old hands; perhaps I should revisit this pastime...   

mnem
Yes, I can also hem a skirt. I just don't... very often.

[shakalnokturn]

We all have different skills and understanding of how things work. You see the bed spread in this pix? The Lady Copper made that. Now I don't know if that's knitting or crochet but I'll tell you I could never do it. And if she tried to show me I'm sure it would be a tangled mess and we'd be pissed at each other.  But she's been doing it since she was a girl and to watch her go with those needles is fascinating. When she visits she always has it with her and while watching TV the needles are flying. Helps her to relax and unwind.

Edit, and those needles make excellent weapons so I better be a good boy. 

There is a hole though 

[mnementh]

It's not the article istelf that's important... it's the love that went into it.

mnem
*namaste*

[med6753]

There is a hole though 

Yep, somehow I snagged it on something. Oh well. 

[med6753]

There is actually some pretty complex muscle-memory training involved; it's a useful skill for developing hand-eye coordination which is very valuable in other disciplines.

EDIT: It is also well-known to be good therapy for arthritic old hands; perhaps I should revisit this pastime...   

mnem
Yes, I can also hem a skirt. I just don't... very often.

Well I'll tell you...her mind is a sharp as her tongue. Slices through BS quick, fast, and in a hurry. 

[Specmaster]

That kind of crafting women find second nature, that is why you find so many women on small part assembly lines, putting together things like electrical wiring accessories, MCB part assemblies etc. Its the muscle memory that allows them to do so without apparently paying that much attention to what they are doing, while busy chatting among themselves. It never ceased to amaze me or my customers when I would take a group of my consultants upto Walsall and later Ulverston in Cumbria and take them on a factory tour to see how things were made and demonstrate the 100% testing procedures. It never failed to impress new consultants and win more specifications on projects that included the products within them.

Personally, I know that I could never ever do that type of work, it would drive me stir crazy doing the same thing 100's if not 1,000's a day, 5 days a week  so I would always give those ladies a big  for their patience, putting up with bringing people round who would stand and stare at them working, a big box of chocolates always helped out there. As a side note, it also never ceased to amaze me at the huge number of families that all worked within these factories and the number of what was reputed to be arranged marriages, makes the mind boggle at what some of them got upto at breaktimes 

[mnementh]

There is actually some pretty complex muscle-memory training involved; it's a useful skill for developing hand-eye coordination which is very valuable in other disciplines.

EDIT: It is also well-known to be good therapy for arthritic old hands; perhaps I should revisit this pastime...   

mnem
Yes, I can also hem a skirt. I just don't... very often.

Well I'll tell you...her mind is a sharp as her tongue. Slices through BS quick, fast, and in a hurry. 

I think that's why she keeps you around... gives her good practice at that skill. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

...a big box of chocolates always helped out there. As a side note, it also never ceased to amaze me at the huge number of families that all worked within these factories and the number of what was reputed to be arranged marriages, makes the mind boggle at what some of them got upto at breaktimes 

I suspect the occasional chocolate-endorphin-induced buzz at lunchtime would help the afternoon feel much less of a drag.

mnem
And that's why they keep you around...

[med6753]

That kind of crafting women find second nature, that is why you find so many women on small part assembly lines, putting together things like electrical wiring accessories, MCB part assemblies etc. Its the muscle memory that allows them to do so without apparently paying that much attention to what they are doing, while busy chatting among themselves. It never ceased to amaze me or my customers when I would take a group of my consultants upto Walsall and later Ulverston in Cumbria and take them on a factory tour to see how things were made and demonstrate the 100% testing procedures. It never failed to impress new consultants and win more specifications on projects that included the products within them.

Personally, I know that I could never ever do that type of work, it would drive me stir crazy doing the same thing 100's if not 1,000's a day, 5 days a week  so I would always give those ladies a big  for their patience, putting up with bringing people round who would stand and stare at them working, a big box of chocolates always helped out there. As a side note, it also never ceased to amaze me at the huge number of families that all worked within these factories and the number of what was reputed to be arranged marriages, makes the mind boggle at what some of them got upto at breaktimes 

Exactly. And when I look at the skill it took to assemble something like this, by hand, it is amazing. And you can bet over 90% of it was done by women. And even me just replacing one part it looks sloppy and out of place. 

[bd139]

You do realise the main reason the things were so expensive initially was the labour cost (including repairing what came off the production line DOA) was so high?

We improved on this rapidly to the point we can get a far superior bit of kit for 1/100th of the cost

That kind of crafting women find second nature, that is why you find so many women on small part assembly lines, putting together things like electrical wiring accessories, MCB part assemblies etc. Its the muscle memory that allows them to do so without apparently paying that much attention to what they are doing, while busy chatting among themselves. It never ceased to amaze me or my customers when I would take a group of my consultants upto Walsall and later Ulverston in Cumbria and take them on a factory tour to see how things were made and demonstrate the 100% testing procedures. It never failed to impress new consultants and win more specifications on projects that included the products within them.

Personally, I know that I could never ever do that type of work, it would drive me stir crazy doing the same thing 100's if not 1,000's a day, 5 days a week  so I would always give those ladies a big  for their patience, putting up with bringing people round who would stand and stare at them working, a big box of chocolates always helped out there. As a side note, it also never ceased to amaze me at the huge number of families that all worked within these factories and the number of what was reputed to be arranged marriages, makes the mind boggle at what some of them got upto at breaktimes 

If only. I worked for a large production line. Firstly the families in the factory had two massive problems : nepotism and politics. What they did at lunch time was back stab each other and smoke a lot.

Secondly the robot humans were employed were utterly shit if there was one tiny little problem or intelligence was required. One input protection diode on a board got soldered in the wrong way round in every board made for an entire day. Someone was running the lead former and stuffing the parts in foam for the stuffers decided to put the foam piece on in a parts tub a different way round. Of course the person just pulled them off the foam and stuffed them without even looking at the mark on the package or the board because they'd just always done it that way. Next person stuffs the next part in etc, frame pushed up the line. Then goes into the wave soldering machine, is inspected (missing this of course), cleaned, then another line to the parts that couldn't be wave soldered, then fitting with fuses.  Eventually it gets to the bed of nails test fixture at the end. Fuse goes bang straight away, no power, goes onto the debug rack. Rinse, repeat. Until there are no working boards. No one calls ahead to stop production and dig a production engineer up. They literally emptied the entire line until it was broken and fucked off home.

During the investigation that ensued, it was everyone else's fault. The only truth was it was everyone's fault 

Thanks fuck for SMD pick'n'place. Less humans involved in anything the better.

My mother and father were both in the same job at one time or another and had the same thing to report.

All I see is some very rose tinted glasses.

And me, I went into software. What the hell was I thinking?!?!?! It's even worse 

Edit: this also reminds me of a little story I read once about someone working in a USB stick factory. Basically they'd buy flash chips that higher vendors discarded as "outside parameters", grade and test them separately, mount them on a PCB with a USB connector, set up a controller and throw it out the door by the sack full with a vendor's name on it. Well it turned out that there was a 5% failure rate in the field which was much higher than anticipated and their good yield was higher than expected too. So they investigated. Turned out that some of the flash was completely DOA. Reason? Turns out that some of the Flash sticks were never actually tested because one of the test robot humans couldn't always work out which way to plug the USB stick in to the test fixture and just swept them into the good bag 

Anyway rant over. That was a long one 

[Specmaster]

None of that sort of thing went on here, the women worked in groups of 5 or 6 and each did certain parts of the assembly and then passed it onto the person her right, who would check the work before doing her own and so it went until the last in the group did a final inspection, then a performance test before sealing them in bags and packing into boxes. Each group only made bonus if their work passed test and then a further x% went onto more intensive testing and if any failed then the whole batch was frozen for more checking and that group never got their bonus. In that fashion the product had locked in QA at every step and it worked really well, like Med said about the lady cop, these women were equally sharp tongued with each other if one failed, they certainly knew all about   

[Cerebus]

I've got the TV on the background, and an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation has just started. Just before it the continuity announcer told us what was coming, but with a little slip. Instead of Jean-Like Picard wrestling with the Cardassians, apparently in this episide he's wresting with the Kardashians, Poor sod...

[mnementh]

Just beat yesterday's hung roof panels into submission; stepped inside to straighten my back out and get a bite. Last two panels, then time for the trim. I can see the light at the end of the Tunnel O' Doom...

mnem
...I just hope it's not a oncoming train. 

[tautech]

An excellent example of this is the movie "Hidden Figures".

Great movie and certainly a bit of an eye opener to what was happening behind the scenes at the time. 

So many have little idea of technology and the sort of stuff we live for, I get it a lot from new acquaintances that have no idea what 'electronic test equipment' is or does.
Oscilloscopes, WTF are they ? 

I normally reply asking if they've watched hospital programs and noticed the display with the heartbeat monitor...and of course they all notice it but fail to know it's just a specialised oscilloscope developed from what electronic technicians use everyday. 
What do they do normally follows......display and measure electrical waveforms....like heart beats to which they generally figure that's quite enough information on a field they have zip knowledge of and then change the subject. 

[mnementh]

Oh, that one's easy. Our meters and counters and scopes are the stuff people like us use to make and fix those scopes. 

mnem
Next...

[Robert763]

Since knitting was mentioned, knitting machine needles make great through hole re-work aids. Nice fine, strong hook for pulling on axial leads or wires. Smooth an flattened at other for general levering without damaging boards. Straighten the hook to make a probe for clearing solder from holes.

Hidden Figures is a great movie, saw it on a 787 and bough it for SWMBO who really liked it too. Normally  get very specific direction what gifs to buy....

[mnementh]

Yup; crochet hooks are similarly an invaluable tool when you need one. I keep a few of the smaller ones with my bundle of less-used dental picks.

mnem
*back unto the breach*

[med6753]

.....snip....

Anyway rant over. That was a long one 

Gee, my experience with the female assemblers at IBM was quite different. Yes, they would bitch about stupid stuff and it was a constant cackle like hens in a hen house but their work was excellent and their soldering skills impeccable. 

[bd139]

Yeah their work was excellent as well. This was milspec stuff. But if the parameters were even slightly changed it was a train crash!

Edit: quick amazon discovery. I bought something a couple of days ago for £120 and now it's showing at £100. Can get a refund for the difference within 7 days so keep your eyes peeled. You have to speak to their customer services though.

Edit 2: they also can't add and gave me £25 back 

[med6753]

Yeah their work was excellent as well. This was milspec stuff. But if the parameters were even slightly changed it was a train crash!

Weren't they taught how to read prints and basic schematics? They were at IBM.

[med6753]

I've got the TV on the background, and an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation has just started. Just before it the continuity announcer told us what was coming, but with a little slip. Instead of Jean-Like Picard wrestling with the Cardassians, apparently in this episide he's wresting with the Kardashians, Poor sod...

They're going to need a bigger star ship to battle with that giant ass. 

[bd139]

I've got the TV on the background, and an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation has just started. Just before it the continuity announcer told us what was coming, but with a little slip. Instead of Jean-Like Picard wrestling with the Cardassians, apparently in this episide he's wresting with the Kardashians, Poor sod...

They're going to need a bigger star ship to battle with that giant ass. 

actually that reminds me of the stupids announcing the "I.T crowd" as the "it crowd"