Cyberphreak.com

I am just plain tired of it being cold.  The temperatures in Chicago have been 20 degrees or more below normal.  I haven’t been able to walk at lunch.  I know, just whining, but it really puts a damper on activities.  I really don’t like bringing Glenn out in -5 degree (air temperature) weather. 

In other news, man, groceries and gas are getting expensive.  They just keep creeping up.  Between groceries and gas over $3.15 a gallon in February, inflation is pretty bad.  I shudder to think what gas will cost like when the ‘summer’ blend starts selling.  I think we will see over $4.00 a gallon this year.  I find it very tricky that the Fed does not include Food or Fuel in the core inflation rate.  Hello, most of your disposable income is spent on those two items.  I am not buying a car or refrigerator every week.  Very dishonest if you ask me.

Speaking of dishonest, I wonder how much longer we will occupy Iraq and Afghanistan?  If McCain gets into power, we are looking at 100 to 150 years.  Just what we needed. Some people say military spending boosts the economy, but as Dwight Eisenhower said:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the
genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way
of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

And this is a Republican talking here, and more importantly, a general.  Not just any general, the Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Europe in WWII.  The man who planned and executed D day for goodness sake.  He probably commanded the largest army in the history of humanity, yet he still warned against wasting money on war. He warned us about this in 1953.  Is is more true now then ever. 

I am a frequent reader of the Chicago Tribune Online.  I stopped for a while after they endorsed George “I’m a fucking moron” Bush, but at least they are better than most online news outlets.  I have to say one thing STOP CHANGING YOUR WEBSITE.  Every time they do, it gets uglier and harder to navigate.  Now, even the fonts are screwy, at least in Firefox.  Another word of advice for every website out there.  Stop trying to make your online edition look like your print edition and vice-versa.  I am looking at you Wired magazine.
All right, I have made my peace.

I have seen quite a few complaints on automatic watches online pertaining to the watch stopping at inopportune times. The owners often admit they live a sedentary lifestyle. I was wondering, how sedentary do you have to be to not wind your automatic watch?
I did a little research and my automatic watches, which use a Seiko 7S26 movement, take about 3200 swings to fully wind. This sounds like a lot, but for every stride you take, it swings the watch 2 times, so you have to walk 1,600 steps a day to keep it fully wound. 1,600 steps is really not a heck of a lot. Anything below 5,000 and you are considered sedentary. So, we are talking about less than half of this. An average person takes 2,000 steps to cover a mile. So, if your automatic watch stops, you are walking less than 4/5 of a mile a day. Also remember, you don’t need to walk to wind an automatic watch. Just moving your arm around winds it as well. So not only are you not walking, you are not even moving your arm around while you are sitting.
Now, why would watch companies design a watch that stops occasionally? Well, turns out nearly all of our ‘modern’ automatics were designed in the 1950’s. The modern movements are just refinements of older designs. I would venture a guess people in the 1950’s walked and moved around more than people in the ’00s. So, yet another example of how Americans have degraded into useless couch potatoes/cube dwellers. You can’t even move your arm enough to keep a watch wound.

According to the IRS:

Q. Is my stimulus payment taxable?

A. No. You will not owe tax on your payment when you file your 2008
federal income tax return. But you should keep a copy of the IRS letter
you receive later this year listing the amount of your payment. You
will need to know this amount next year when you fill out your 2008
return.

Q. Will the payment I receive in 2008 reduce my 2008 refund or increase the amount I owe for 2008?

A. No, the stimulus payment will not reduce or increase your refund when you file your 2008 return.

So, that’s a little bit of good news for next year.  I guess it is more or less free money, except for all borrowing and interest the government will incur to provide us this windfall.  Personally, I think we are going to save this little bonus. Though, it would be fun to spend it 🙂
 

It’s been 10 years now since I graduated from college. Scary. Where does the time go?
I don’t talk about what I do much on my blog, but here is a summary of what I have done for the last decade, work wise:
Worked at a company called Dalec Electronics. Real small place. I was a big fish in a very small sea. I started as a technician, then as a lab manager, then as sales person. I really really hate sales. I will never do it again. I learned a lot about test and measurement there. Load cells, pressure transducers, panel meters, thermocouples, RTD’s, and many other measurement devices. Turns out I would follow the path of test and measurement for most of my career to date.

Then, I worked at a place called Instrument Repair service for a little more than a year. They are out of business now. Word of advice, never base 95% of your business on one client. I repaired telephone linesmen equipment. Stuff like butt sets (telephones you can ‘butt’ into a line with), break down boxes, cable locators, and other mundane devices. I did learn two things: How to fix something without schematics, and why land line phone calls sound so bad. They sound bad because some of the junctions formed by creating a carbon bridge.

After that, I worked at MPC Products as an Environmental Test Engineer. That basically means I got to torture test aerospace equipment. I learned how to perform temperature, vibration, shock, salt fog, icing, vacuum, and many other tests. I tested the cooling pump for the F-22, I tested the engine cowl opener for the A380 and much more in my time there. Good people, crappy pay, too much stress and deadlines.

Now I work at Grayhill. This has been my most challenging job so far. I design automated testers for all sorts of rotary switches and joysticks. My first big project is something I named F.A.T.E. Fully Automated Tester for Encoders. In this case, optical encoders. It measures torque, pushbutton force and travel, duty cycle, phase angles, and many other parameters that separate a quality switch from crap. I have learned a lot of LabView and data acquisition and motion control. Pretty cool stuff if you are an electronics engineer, which is what I am.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the choice I made 13 years ago. To be honest, it was kind of spur of the moment. I really didn’t know what to do with my life. At the time, electronics was a very hot industry in the U.S. It somewhat is now, but so much is being shipped to China. I find it nice to work an American electronics manufacturer. I only really hated the end of one job and my year fixing dirty telephone equipment. One thing is for sure, it sure beats working retail or flipping burgers.