Electronics companies should stop killing themselves - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2023, 09:38:52 pm
content: Heres what to write to your ministers...to save EE co'sDear Minister for industry…Please could you help in giving helpful advice to British (insert your own country) Electronics company owners so that they can stop damaging their profitability and success.? If the below advice is given to British Electronics company owners, then they will profit more and therefore provide a higher tax return to the Treasury.The vast majority of British Electronics company owners are terrified of having Electronics Engineers doing work at their company, and then later moving on to other Electronics companies. They fear that these engineers will have seen their electric circuit schematics, and then divulge the company’s secrets to their competitors. However, this doesn’t make any sense. Virtually all general electronics schematics, including all Power Supply schematics, are just “general” electronics. -All the theories of which are already to be found all over the web anyway. I have worked in over 40 different electronics companys, and all of the schematic circuits that I saw in each one was just “standard, well known electronics”…..nothing to be secretive about.If there is anything “secret” about electronic circuit schematics, then it is what is inside the silicon chips which are used, but only a few engineers inside a silicon chip fab plant would know about this anyway. And in any case, those silicon chips are freely available to all on the marketplace, along with their datasheets which describe how they work.Its nonsense to suggest that an Electronics engineer would ever deliver one company’s schematics to a competitor of that company. In any company, there is no need for an Electronics Engineer to ever bring in a previous company’s schematics. In fact, copying a schematic across to a different company would be down-right fool-hardy and dangerous to the company doing the copying. As an electronics engineer, you always produce new schematics to suit whatever is required for whichever is the application. It would be non-sensical to ever copy a schematic across. You would simply use the well known electronics circuit theorys to produce new schematics for whichever company. Or produce new power supply schematics as fit for whichever the application…..using the copiously available sources of info on power supplys which is freely available all over the web.Even to use a copied schematic, the copier still needs to have the full set of electronics design capability in order to successfully do the copying…and if you have that capability, then you wouldnt bother to copy anyway…it would be easier to just produce a new schematic from scratch, suited to whichever application.This practice that British Electronics companies have, for avoiding taking on new Electronics Engineers, in case they ever leave , is damaging to themselves as companys. In fact, the more Electronics engineers that have traversed through a particular company, the more successful that company’s products will be…because each engineer will act as an extra pair of eyes to weed out any mistakes in the various manufacture documents and circuits, etc. A single , good electronics engineer could do this of course, but there are few of these around in UK now, since “General Electronics” has been outsourced mostly to China. But even a “well weeded out” schematic would be a waste of time to copy and take to another company……..you would simply rather produce new schematics for whichever new company.Companies that limit their throughput of Electronics engineers, are always far less successful, and have bins full of scrap, failed , returned products.Company owners also fear that the more Electronics engineers that have “been and gone” from their company…then the harder they think it will be to ever sell their company at some future date…..since they believe that any future buyer would be deterred by the belief that lots of “ex-engineers” will have already taken the company’s Intelligent Product on to competitors……..though this is simply not a rational thought, for the reasons given above.Please help publicise that company owners have nothing whatsoever to fear from employing Electronics engineers who may later leave their company for pastures new.As a small, quick example, I once was due to leave a certain electronics company in a week’s time. Then one of their circuits developed a fault. The Chief Engineer tried to stop me from working on the fault, as he declared that I would get sight of the schematic, and then be able to take it to their competitors. However, he was over-ruled, and thank goodness for that, because I managed to fix the fault. The circuit in question ended up being a ‘bog-standard’ linear regulator…..so "general" that it wouldn’t ever be worth copying….its the sort of thing you produce to a spec “from scratch” whenever it's needed. Ditto the rest of General Electronics and Power Supplys.Also, Electronics companys often avoid taking on new projects because they say that the project would be scuppered if their Electronics Engineer left them half way through the project. This is nonsense. As if individual Electronics engineers carry with them some closely guarded secret knowledge, known only to themselves. ..Rather, each electronics engineer just uses “standard” and well known knowledge. As such, it is very simple for a new, replacement Electronics Engineer to be brought in and to continue where the departed Electronics Engineer just left off.Electronics companys often believe that their schematics contain “golden secrets”, and they believe this because an interviewee Electronics Engineer, who was briefly shown the schematic, may not have been able to interpret the schematic’s function during the short time at an interview. However, this is not relevant. The fact is that with any schematic, an Electronics Engineer that is new to that schematic, may still need a good hour or so to redraw the schematic and carry out some analysis work before they come to a full understanding of it. This is normal, it doesn’t mean that the schematic is some kind of golden magic secret.Another point is that company owners often pay their Chief Electronics Engineer a “retention bonus”…which is only payed if the Chief Engineer manages to retain their Electronics Engineers year-on-year. This encourages the Chief Engineer to reference badly on Electronic Engineers who have left the company, since if engineers are regularly seen to be leaving and going to “greener pastures”, then the other engineers may also be enticed to leave (meaning less retention bonus for the Chief). Retention bonus’s also result in other negative activity, which is detrimental to the country and indeed , to the the company owners within that.One obvious thing is the way that Electronics companies often draw jobs out, making them last ages, so that the electronics engineer can’t come to an end-point in a project, and then feel they are at a good point to leave the company.I have worked in over 40 different Electronics companies, and all the general electronics circuitry and power supplies in one company, are simply derived from the same general theory as all the other companies…no point in copying it…no danger of it being copied…no danger to the company of any loss of IP, etc etc.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2023, 09:57:54 pm
content: Oh, change the record treez!

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2023, 10:00:58 pm
content: Thanks, but this damage is detrimental to all.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2023, 10:02:14 pm
content: Nobody cares. Power supplies are a commodity product. Get a new hobby, power supplies are not good for you, apparently.If you want to complain to official bodies - just do it, don't inform us about thinking about that.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2023, 10:06:51 pm
content: If said companies kill themselves, they'll disappear and the problem will be solved.Or maybe what you are really complaining about is that those companies actually can't seem to die in spite of acting the way you describe. In which case trying to understand why this is so may be more beneficial than going at it like Don Quixote.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2023, 10:12:34 pm
content: QuoteThanks, good point...i think it could fill a skills gap.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2023, 10:25:31 pm
content: Quote from: Faringdon on June 27, 2023, 10:12:34 pmSo, what is the issue then? This is their business, not designing some power supplies from scratch. You want to design the power supplies, they don't.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2023, 10:27:36 pm
content: Quote from: ataradov on June 27, 2023, 10:02:14 pmQuote from: ataradov on June 27, 2023, 10:25:31 pmJust so.Treez/ocset/faringdon appears to be an excellent exemplar of something described by Isaac Asimov in 1957. His novella "Profession" is still worth speedreading.https://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.htmlThe points in that resonated with me when I was a schoolkid, and significantly and positively benefited my career and outlook on life.

author: David Aurora
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2023, 11:37:26 pm
content: Dude. For real- get a Playstation/dog/sporting interest/therapist/coin collection/something. These non-stop weird SMPS obsessed posts are not healthy. There are so many more interesting things to discuss in the world than playing this record on loop.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2023, 12:27:15 am
content: While one may question the obsession the OP has with this topic, and even give them what looks a bit like psychological advice, I don't reject what he complains about entirely.And I'm not a shrink.We have lost whole sections of our industries in the Western world in the past couple decades and claiming it is of no importance is short-sighted, or can even be considered a fault strategically speaking.We seem to act essentially with a short-term vision and no strategy other than going for the cheaper approaches to maximize profits.Then we (very) occasionally get all worked up about how we depend too much on China (and others) for some strategic stuff, it lasts a couple months during which we pretend to be very concerned (and during which we suddenly have a lot of free lessons to give to companies). Then we forget about it all and move on. And the situation gets worse.So, while the form of the OP's posts can be debatable and may look a bit too obsessive (and too much centered about a very specific area, namely SMPS power supplies), the content should at least be considered a bit IMHO, as very few other users ever talk about this (except when everybody is, until it's off the news again.)

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2023, 12:36:25 am
content: I think a lot of people are concerned about that. There is not much you can do. Writing letters to random industry organizations will not do anything. Neither posting 100s of posts on the forum.And this is not something individual action can change. There needs to be a well-defined long term policy with set goals and accountability. But this is pretty much impossible.And the issue is not that individual companies are somehow will suffer, they will not. It is a more global issue, which has to be approached globally. Currently for individual company to do things entirely domestically and from scratch is a sure way to go out of business.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2023, 04:58:43 am
content: Quote from: David Aurora on June 27, 2023, 11:37:26 pmYou're completely wrong. They lead a healthy, non-obsessive lifestyle. I managed to find their webpage, they are happily married with three children. I hope they don't mind me mentioning the kids names, Resonant (res for short), Flyback (Fly for short) and Converter (Con for short). The wife had to change their first name to, off-line.Their family surname is Siam-Mia-Pol-Siamese, or SMPS for short.Also three pet dogs, called Litz-wire, Inductor and Transformer, the breed is Chow Chow Troll Forum Special Shepard Terrior.The website at the top says, "Do you agree.." and at the very top in a flowchart style, it has there, both his and the wife's, family treez's.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2023, 01:28:47 pm
content: I think F's real problem is the inability to develop embedded systems because he doesn't know how to develop software.I used to work in the pro audio industry building custom equipment until around 2007 until this was no longer feasible. Some of those developments can be found in recording studio's, our national TV broadcasting station, amusement parks,... Do I find it nice how the pro audio market changed because some companies bought all large brands just for their name and outsourced all production and development to China and how today some rental companies use dirt cheap amplifiers which when broken are being tossed into the old iron bin. No, it's just the way things go and you have to adjust to this new reality. It's probably my own fault not realizing that cheap is good enough for many.Other source of income: when it comes to reorienting yourself keep in mind that some people with a lot more brain power than me or you might be digging coal out of the ground under harsh conditions because they don't have any other choice. Your problems and rants are just luxury problems.If you're not convinced, try building a life in a third world country. (no offense intended)So, stop complaining like small child who didn't get the latest fancy toys.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2023, 05:37:04 pm
content: Thanks, but the concern here is , not for myself, but for the owners of electronics companies who are throwing their money away for no reason, as i explain above.I feel sorry for them, and am driven to help them.Also, because they make less money, they pay less in taxation, which hampers the rest of us.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2023, 05:43:27 pm
content: Start your own business if you think they are trowing away money. You will be rich if it turns out to be the case.If everyone is doing something that seems sub-optimal, the best approach is to figure out why they are doing it that way instead of assuming they are stupid.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2023, 11:19:11 pm
content: Thanks, yes i agree, but think the loan scheme is a winner.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2023, 12:02:21 am
content: Quote from: Faringdon on June 28, 2023, 11:19:11 pmBusinesses can have Trade Secrets (protecting intellectual property), and an understanding of the wide range of the aspects of running a successful electronics business. Is my (and with lots of ChatGPT's help), summarised answer.I.e. I'm on the side of the business, NOT on your side. As they are protecting their business interests, and running the business, taking lots of things into account, NOT just one aspect of things which an apparently too obsessed person, seems to perceive as the problem.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2023, 01:07:09 am
content: they need to innovate more so they are not grasping to planks of wood in the sea.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2023, 04:34:42 am
content: Import cheap stuff from china, markup and resell. This is the modern business model.Companies don't want to make/develop anything, they are impatient and want to buy stuff right away, off the shelf.Developing an SMPS is gross, worked at a place an engineer spent over a year on a bog standard 25W, learning as he was going, and he wasn't any good at it, at all. Transformer design and sourcing, getting approvals including EMC, it's a lot of work and time and money.After 12 months, management got pissed off "we don't know how to make power supplies"' and went shopping for a cheap module out of Taiwan.As far as the cheap potted module, I found it was the usual golden sample with Chemi-con/Nichicon and active rectification, and after some failures and hot temperatures, I took another apart and inside it was cheapola electrolytics with a vanilla diode now, bodge soldered in where the active rect. mosfet used to be. Efficiency dropped and the diode ran really hot. One batch worked but had the transformer wound wrong so it blew up at high line. So you are communicating with overseas engineers that are quiet about the quality swaparoo and deny everything or tell you are misapplying the PSU.You can only purchase the modules through their distributors... then the price went way up because you are adding a middleman who knows you designed it in.It ends up being hell to design in some mystery brick, missing specs, russian roulette quality, short life and it eats up the BOM project budget to the point the product isn't worth it.Building it in house, pay for an engineer with experience and they would have their own PSU at 1/10 the cost but it takes many months. Everyone was too stupid to calculate the dollars spent/saved and too impatient to grow the ability. You end up with an overpriced product that has shit reliability. Congratulations.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2023, 04:44:29 am
content: If you are not capable of sourcing decent parts from Asian suppliers directly, you can get power supplies from reliable sources. Go to Delta, buy their stuff. They have a brand name reputation to maintain. Even if their stuff made in China, they are putting their name on it, at which point where it is made does not matter.This is a solved problem."China is bad because I got sold crap on AliExpress" is a cool hobby story, but does not reflect the state of the actual industry.And if all the domestic company doing is buying parts from Asia, but then resells them while verifying and maintaining set quality level, then this is a valid and valuable business.

author: asmi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2023, 04:49:52 pm
content: Quote from: ataradov on June 28, 2023, 12:36:25 amOnly when it doesn't cost them anything. When their money is on the line, vast majority of those "concerned" still buy cheaper stuff from overseas. So it's a typical hypocrisy "do as I say, not as I do"

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2023, 09:18:26 pm
content: Quote from: floobydust on June 29, 2023, 04:34:42 amThere is no way you can build in house a generic 25W flyback for 1/10th the cost of an off the shelf design.Quote from: floobydust on June 29, 2023, 04:34:42 amSo you go burned by one shitty supplier and didn't try anyone else?

author: Xena E
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2023, 10:30:46 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on June 27, 2023, 10:06:51 pmNow, There's a Hobby for Faringdon to take up!(Fighting windmills.)

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2023, 10:35:16 pm
content: Engineer: Builds a pretty generic switchmode PSU using values from Excel guide on manufactures website.Boss: We must protect the IP of this design at all cost!!Engineer: Rolls eyes.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2023, 01:49:20 pm
content: Thanks,I think especially with zoom/teams this loan scheme could be workable.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2023, 02:11:25 pm
content: What's the minimum viable product, tomake a SMPSget a thanks here?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2023, 02:15:49 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on June 30, 2023, 02:11:25 pmFaringdon whines about analogue electronics being devalued, yet he does exactly that to the thanks mechanism.I suppose we should be grateful to him for demonstrating the dangers of upvoting and downvoting. Fortunately Dave is adamently against downvoting.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2023, 03:30:00 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on June 30, 2023, 02:15:49 pmIf downvoting, which I'm also against. Had a top forum totals position, especially if it had the 'dislike thread' option/counts. I can't imagine, who would win (well lose actually), such a challenge. Can't think?Arguably, even in the day (a long time ago), must of our electronics things, was done in America, anyway. E.g. IC production, soon (mostly) moved (and stayed) in America, as we use to have some chip making plants.Things like SMPS's, are obvious candidates, for being produced in the cheapest available/viable country in the world, to do it, at a reasonable enough quality standard.Even hundreds of years ago, various things came from various places around the world. E.g. China (as in dishes), Food from various countries. Persian rugs (from Persia, named as such, at that time).What we should do, is rename Treez's home city, to be called SMPS. Hence its University will be called SMPS. If it only teaches SMPS. Then all factories and people in that town/city can just make SMPS.They can then sell them round the world, to anyone, at not much more than ten times what it would cost to buy them from an unmentionable country.We can then create a new forum for that city, SMPS, and all happily sing the new town/city anthem, SMPS's are great.Here is the anthem. N.B. I carefully spent many days creating and fine tuning it, and didn't use ChatGPT at all.Quote

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2023, 08:18:30 pm
content: Quote from: Faringdon on June 30, 2023, 01:49:20 pmWhile I'm all for making more people realize how we're killing our own industry - as I said earlier - and, contrary to some other people, I don't think talking about it is completely useless (if you never talk about it, it just becomes normal for everyone), I'm not sure I understand the particular point you're making here.You don't seem to be exactly complaining about the western industry getting killed, but you're instead apparently willing to prevent company owners from killing their own companies. Which is not quite the same thing, and which is kind of odd. One question that comes up is, why would you actually care? Maybe you care because you happen to consistently find yourself working in/for such companies and paying the price yourself?Maybe focusing on creating your own company, doing things the "right" way (as you see it) would be more productive? If a company is not your company, you should not waste time trying to save it. It's not yours, there's nothing you can (usually) do about it, and whatever efforts you'll put into this, that's going to be wasted efforts and you are likely to get laid off as a result, rather than get promoted. Company owners don't like to hear that they've been doing things wrong for years, especially from an employee or a contractor, because that's just not their job.I don't think any of that can be solved by trying to educate (or even worse, force) existing companies. Probably the only hope is to create companies that work in a different way (and that's not going to be easy.) Just a thought.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2023, 09:43:19 pm
content: It's entertaining the way these 'rants' on the industry decline, 'don't trust the temporary guy, he'll steal the schematics', they won't trust me' etc align with the starts and ends of contracts in his employment history. One might almost think that they were linked!

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2023, 03:32:47 am
content: I like that the threads contain nothing sequitor with repeating themes, reach no conclusion of any kind. S/N ratio very poor.Trolling for attentionI guess is a real thing."Table 1. Maximum-likelihood factor analysis with promax rotation of trolling descriptors"1. Seeks conﬂict2. Seeks attention3. Annoying4. Irritating5. Unkind6. Immature7. Time-wasting8. Bored9. Provoking11. Too much time on their hands12. Inconsiderate14. Insensitive15. Rude16. Argumentative17. Troublemaker18. Persistent19. Idiotic20. Unthoughtful21. Likes anonymity22. Ridiculous23. Ignorant24. Lack of social decorum25. Opinionated26. Cowardly27. Tactless28. Impulsive29. False30. Aggressive31. Low self-conﬁdence32. Insecure33. Lonely34. Emotional35. Scared36. Jealous37. Has unresolved issues38. Disappointed39. Envious40. Introverted41. Sad42. Awkward43. Powerless44. Troubled45. Sheltered46. Odd47. Unattached48. Vicious49. Nasty50. Cruel51. Vindictive52. Spiteful53. Mean54. Bullying55. Unpleasant56. Vocal57. Sly58. Selﬁsh59. Unintelligent60. Uneducated61. Uninteresting62. Ignorant63. Weird64. Funny65. Comedic66. Clever67. Witty68. Social69. Different70. Mischievous71. SarcasticItems that cross-loaded on factors72. Dramatic73. Angst-ridden74. Lacking compassion75. Seeks approval76. Unsympathetic77. Uncaring78. Untrustworthy79. Bitter80. Cheeky81. Excited82. Unique83. Self-conﬁdentItems that didn’t load saliently on a factor84. Contentious85. Liar86. Two-faced87. Irrational

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2023, 08:15:51 am
content: Obsessions with switch mode power supplies can be treated successfully by finding yourself a girlfriend.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2023, 08:37:38 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on July 01, 2023, 08:15:51 amNot in the cases where the obsession makes the latter unobtainable, or one obsession cannot be replaced with another.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2023, 11:35:33 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on July 01, 2023, 08:37:38 amOddly enough, one reason I studied electronics engineering at university was because I thought such a profession would make me a chick magnet, like that of an airline pilot, lawyer or doctor. Not in this country!

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2023, 11:44:24 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on July 02, 2023, 11:35:33 pmNot sure in which country that would be the case. Or you picked the wrong century.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2023, 12:52:18 am
content: Scrunching my face, trying to decode your contorted and very cynical portrayal. Man' o 'man talk about a de-motivating factor: 100 newly degree'd engineers just decided to 'quit' electronics, after your influence.What? Every business is really with 'back room's shenanigans...and the honest blokes don't have any standing. Rubbish!

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2023, 11:16:33 pm
content: Do you think we should get a letter to the industrial bodies together?

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2023, 11:28:53 pm
content: Oh, really.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2023, 11:31:46 pm
content: I assume those people already receive plenty of mail from crazy people.Also, do you care to substantiate any of those statements?And I have not worked for 40 companies, so the template is not universal.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2023, 11:57:39 pm
content: Quote from: ataradov on July 07, 2023, 11:31:46 pmNo its totally normal to get fired from your job every few months and find a new one. Completely universal.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 12:01:48 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on June 27, 2023, 10:27:36 pmAre you sure you read that story? You seem to keep referencing it in contexts where it doesn't fit. The whole point of that story is the vast majority of people are incapable of doing anything really interesting, and the small number of truly creative are hard to recognise. There is nothing the vast majority of people can do about their lot in life. Only the small number of truly creative people can do anything about their lot in life, and really need to, as they can so easily be screwed by the clueless.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 12:04:53 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on July 07, 2023, 11:57:39 pmWhen sifting through piles of CVs it amazes me how many people are deeply impressed by CVs showing a long string of jobs. When you point out this means the candidate offers poor stability they have to agree, but with great reluctance.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 01:01:31 am
content: This all reminds me of a guy I used to work with. He interviewed reasonably well, so we hired him. He turned out to be quite "difficult" and after all the proper legal steps were taken he was terminated for cause. Soon after that he actually received start-up funding for a networking gear company that quicklycratered, with armed guards escorting him out of the building. (His company name was "Cratos Networks" --https://www.lightreading.com/ethernet-ip/cratos-networks-tips-its-hand/d/d-id/572791). Anyway, after that he distributed this amazing "Letter to the Industry". Since the statute of limitations has expired (this was around 2001) I am posting it here. This may not be the place for it, but this thread is already damaged beyond redemption and I have long wanted to share this letter.It's a long letter, but IMO worth reading. The "Chambers" mentioned is John Chambers, then CEO of Cisco Systems. Our company (Cerent) was acquired by Cisco.Quote

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 01:10:20 am
content: Sounds like it could have come from this automatic complaint letter generatorhttps://www.pakin.org/complaint

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 02:46:58 am
content: Reminds me of Jerry McGuire's Mission Statement Letter... it touched everyone's heart.Look at Elon Musk- he sacks all those Twitter employess, they go over the Facebook and work on Threads.Now he's all whaaaaa “willful” misappropriation of trade secrets, they stole IP! But you fired them dumbass. You don't own people, slave driver.These guys don't realize that what's in an engineer's head walks out the door and they can't own the guy's brain. Even a big NDA can't take away your right to prosper I've found.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 05:37:10 am
content: Quote from: floobydust on July 08, 2023, 02:46:58 amYou sound like someone to whom I would never show a new product under nondisclosure.I know nothing about the Twitter IP thing, but FWIW I do believe in the concept of IP. If you sign a (legal) contract then you are bound by the terms of that contract. IP does not include concepts and principals that are common knowledge in the field, but if you are working on or developing something that is proprietary and unique then your employer has every right to prevent you from taking that with you when you quit or are fired. You take your employers money, you should abide by the terms of your contract.And yes, I have quit a few jobs where I was bound by nondisclosure or non-compete terms in my contract. It didn't mean I couldn't "prosper" as an engineer, I just couldn't use certain methods that had been developed by me or others at the previous company, or work for a direct competitor (for some specified duration.) And I knew this would be the case when I signed up.I have also seen how IP agreements can be used unethically. I've been deposed in a couple of IP/noncompete cases, and it's not pretty and sometimes unfair (claiming common knowledge as IP, where a non-technical jury only knows what the lawyers and judge tells them.) Perhaps the Twitter case is one of those?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 06:54:44 am
content: Quote from: coppice on July 08, 2023, 12:01:48 amIncorrect.For a start, the protagonistsdidrecognise the truly creative George - because they were specifically looking for that. George didn't recognise it in himself, but that is a completely different issue.More importantly, the "whole point", ahem, is that there is a difference between those whoseaspirations/abilities are limited to working on specific examples of existing equipment,aspirations/abilities transcend that to being able to apply general principles to new conditionsIn other words, the difference between production/military training and engineering.The key section is about 70% of the way throughQuoteFaringdon resembles Trevelyan, and seems to be incapable ofthinkingof being a George.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 07:02:52 am
content: Quote from: coppice on July 08, 2023, 12:04:53 amDo people really think that? Twits.When I started it was a common belief that you could reasonably leave a job within 1 month or after 2 years. In between was an orange flag worth investigating.Nowadays we have the wretched "gig economy" and "hire-and-fire".It is reasonable for consultants to have had 40 clients, but not employees to have had 40 employers.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 07:09:48 am
content: Quote from: fourfathom on July 08, 2023, 01:01:31 amI didn't realise there is a statute of limitations on libel. The UK has appallingly liberal libel laws, sometimes leading to iniquitous SLAPPshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participationOtherwise I suspect you are correct.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 08:16:49 am
content: Quote from: Faringdon on June 27, 2023, 09:38:52 pm2 points:- The big players surely copy each other schematics. It's sometimes easier to reverse engineer a competitor product than it is to design and validate your own. And what is even "optimized"? A PSU can be tuned for various parameters, such as noise, pulse response, accuracy, etc. You can bet that if youi copy the PSU design of a LED bulb from your competitor, that they will have exactly the same stake as you have. It's need to be reliable, stable, and cheap. That last part, BOM cost, is more dependant on your own logistics than it is on any technical reason. So perhaps that is where some of the work goes into. Doesn't sound terribly exciting from a designers point of view though.- PSUs are a commodity. You don't need to hire someone from UK , EU, or US to find someone that can do it. There are many people now in (still-) low-wage countries that are graduating BSc/MSc in EE and can do a similarily fine job. We mandate CE et al. for PSUs to go into products. Ignore the crap you can order via the side channels directly on Aliexpress. Honestly, if something becomes such a big commodity, then that job in the overly expensive west is becoming more difficult to maintain. It needs to add value somewhere.Now don't get me wrong. Talking in a native language to your customer can be that "added value". There is a huge industry for Wordpress website companies that will put together a website for your local hairdresser that also wants to sell hair products via an e-commerce portal. They will go to a local company that speaks their local language, understands the local payment and shipping procedures, and if necessary the hairdresser can call a local number during local business hours to file a support ticket.But purely for design, we must embrace the fact that engineering is competing on an international market. Point of sale isn't.QuoteNo way. Businesses need freedom to operate.In addition, what's bad with engineers going and leaving? It's probably more to do with their individual career paths. Jumping ships is a classic to negiotate a better salary or secondary conditions. Then there may be no way up in a small business. People may get bored with designing PSUs for a dozen years. They may want to get into more managerial jobs, and if those seats are taken, they will also leave.Now that shouldn't take away any credit we should give to design guru's that are a literal library of knowledge and can make a difference in a design or validation process. If those gurus start leaving, then it signals a bigger issue at that workplace.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 10:46:49 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on July 08, 2023, 07:02:52 amYeah. There's a matter of proportion though.Many recruiters make generalizations, and like all generalizations, these are flawed. But I've certainly seen what coppice described.- For people having had only one or a couple employers: recruiters may see this as a sign of someone inflexible, stuck to a routine, possibly not looking for challenges, in turn possibly hard to manage. And in a world where staying in the same job your whole life is now an oddity, may be seen as a sign that the candidate just had trouble finding another job.- For people having had many jobs, sure on one hand it shows instability, but OTOH it shows that many other recruiters have chosen the candidate, so it gives social proof. Social proof is an important part of recruiting in general. On top of giving some social proof, it shows that the candidate may be more flexible and easier to get rid of if needed.Of course none of this says if a candidate would be a good fit for a given job, but that's relatively common shit, especially for HR people, who care less about the technical aspects and more about how easy a given person will be to handle.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 11:32:26 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on July 08, 2023, 06:54:44 amMost of the protagonists didn't recognise the creative people. They churned the handle in a system designed to automatically flag the creative for special treatment. The weird part of the story is the slow and clumsy way they do the final filtering, to ensure they have truly identified the creative. The poor suckers really go through hell feeling they have failed. Telling expectional people they are amazing every day is quite destructive, but this seems to swing to the opposite pole.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2023, 01:02:02 am
content: Quote from: coppice on July 08, 2023, 11:32:26 pmIn other words that is a reasonable reflection of realityQuoteIt is a story, a work of fiction.Asimov set up the situation to enable him to write a story; don't read more into it than that!Asimov did the same with his three laws of robotics: they are set up as a means of enabling his Susan Calvin stories.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2023, 07:28:15 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on July 08, 2023, 06:54:44 amIf you are from the UK, and old enough to have been through the grammar school system, this really resonates. In the 30s and 40s people on the left realised the way to expand opportunity for smart working class kids was to enhance an existing system which developed their inherent creativity. They took older grammar schools, and removed the economic impediments to poorer kids attending them. Then some idiot looked at schools in the US, which were explicitly modelled on a Prussian system for raising mindless military drones. Except in the US is was to produce mindless industrial drones. They thought this was fantastic, for its one size fits all egalitarian style. So the pushed, and got a lot of buy in from the wealthy. They were pissed off that grammar school kids were competing too well with their expensively educated public school offspring. This new idea for schooling the plebs was a perfect response. So, in the late 19060s a broad range of people converted the UK education system to the useless mess it is today. In the end, it has also hurt the public schools. They need to target the same GCSE and A level public exams as the state schools, and these exams have been massively watered down. So, they don't need to push the kids very much. Now, nobody in the UK gets a good education.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2023, 12:17:34 am
content: Quote from: coppice on July 09, 2023, 07:28:15 pmMy local rather good grammar school converted after I left.I'm not sure I buy into those "conspiracies", but they aren't grossly and obviously flawed.The 60s swept away many things, many for good reasons. Some of the things introduced were grossly flawed, e.g. the Initial Teaching Alphabet.Even as a kid I thought it nuts to teach kids to read using the ITA, and then re-teach them to use the normal alphabet that they see everywhere. I never had to use the ITA, and would have ignored it anyway since I was reading well before I went to school. One of my first memories (probably <4yo) is asking my father to teach me to read, and he did. Managed the first "Janet and John" book, and gave up on the second after a few pages since it was so damn boring and repetitive. Just went straight on to road/shop signs, books, and The Guardian

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2023, 01:50:16 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on July 10, 2023, 12:17:34 amYou must be younger than me, as ITA is from the 60s, and I could read before that. We were not inflicted with insanity like the "whole word teaching" of English reading either. So, even the weakest kids in the school learned to read fairly quickly. Your school must have turned comprehensive quite late. Lucky you. Where I grew up (Enfield, North London) I was in the last year of grammar school admission. It had no impact on us, and little in the following few years, but things gradually went downhill.1960s grammar schools didn't work well across the entire UK. That's something I didn't really appreciate until later in life, talking to people from various places who had mixed views of these schools. The solution was not to tear the system down, though. It was to learn from the best, and spread that more evenly across the UK.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2023, 08:07:47 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on July 10, 2023, 01:50:16 amI've been looking at ITA. It seems like it didn't get that much traction, unlike the crazy whole word or look and say approach. However, it looks like it was in the same vain as whole word. That is, a system designed to minimise the effectiveness of schools in teaching basic reading skills. Its seems there is no limit to how far some people will go to give their own kids an edge over others.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2023, 09:06:40 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on July 12, 2023, 08:07:47 pmWow. That would be one hell of a conspiracy!It is much easier to believe ITA was a well-intentioned cockup concocted by a few academics in a mutual-admiration support group - and which rapidly sank when its idiocy was exposed to daylightI have no idea what the "whole word" and "look and say" approaches might have been. As I have said, learning to read is one of my earliest memories, so even if they existed I would have ignored them and continued reading the newspapers (family lore says I was doing that when I entered school; I can't remember either way).Watching my daughter's primary school arithmetic lessons were interesting, and markedly better than when I was at school. She wasn't taught there was One Way to Multiply and Divide. She was taught that there are many ways, all based on how numbers work. Example: to multiply X by 99, it is easier to multiply X by 100 and then subtract X.Mind you, the algorithms I was taught turned out to be useful when I had to implement floating point arithmetic on a 6800 during a vacation job in 1976The only thing I had to ask was how to implement sin() and cos(). They spent 30mins introducing me to CORDIC algorithms, which made perfect and beautiful senseIIRC a sin/cos pair took about 30ms to compute on a 6800.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2023, 09:24:52 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on July 12, 2023, 09:06:40 pmWhy does everything have to be described as a conspiracy. There are simply things where some idiot proposes a dumb idea, it fits the needs of various groups for various reasons, and they all run with it.Quote from: tggzzz on July 12, 2023, 09:06:40 pmThere's usually a good reason why stupid ideas aren't nipped in the bud. They suit enough people to keep them moving forwards.Quote from: tggzzz on July 12, 2023, 09:06:40 pmLook and say is the system the phonics people are still fighting against, which has wrecked reading standards in every English speaking country except South Africa, who did buy into it (at least that is my understanding). It basically turns learning to read English into learning to read "Chinese" by teaching kids to recognise whole words, instead of scanning them phonetically. This is based on only 80% of English spelling being close to phonetic. So, they even things out by making 100% of words hard to learn, instead of only 20%. If you can read Chinese you'll know that even Chinese isn't taught like that. Even in Chinese you break down the characters into parts (radicals) and recognise whole characters by parts that give phonetic clues, and parts that give clues to meaning.Quote from: tggzzz on July 12, 2023, 09:06:40 pmI wasn't taught there is only one way to multiply and divide. They taught us a standardised method and notation, then soon moved on to things like you described. I think they started with pointing out the pattern in the 9 times table, and how you can use things like that to reduce effort.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2023, 09:36:12 pm
content: The ITA scheme assumed that learning to read and learning to spell English were different subjects.My mother taught ITA to second-graders in the 1960s, and understood that it was a variation on phonics (sounding out words from the spelling), without the irregular rules found in real English.The parents hated it, since they couldn't read the new notation.The reading instruction went to phonics with regular English spelling after the introduction through ITA.She found that students that had transferred into Minnesota schools from other states that used "look-say" instruction were far behind the local students in early grades.