Groups > sci.electronics.design > #446183

Re: OT: in favour of gradualism

From	Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
Newsgroups	sci.electronics.design
Subject	Re: OT: in favour of gradualism
Date	2017-02-04 16:55 -0700
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<o75pha$9lm$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(7 earlier) <tqjc9ct91aa4dopd9rvu2d96j16ss8loug@4ax.com> <o75ju9$jc7$1@dont-email.me> <o75ktq$mk7$1@dont-email.me> <o75lgn$oa3$2@dont-email.me> <o75nio$3fj$1@dont-email.me>

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On 2/4/2017 4:22 PM, tom wrote:
> I look at it as a blessing for us old engineers that could never afford to
> personally own some very high quality test equipment. As an example, a HP
> 8566B 22 GHz spectrum analyzer for a few hundred dollars because the scrap
> yard can't get it to run. Replace a few power supply caps and you have a
> wonderful instrument.
>
> That and NVRAM chips with internal Li cells that have finally after 20+
> years failed.
>
> It's a strange new world.

(sigh)  Disturbing.

I used to volunteer at a place that recycled donated kit -- corporate
donors, private citizens, etc.

Despite being located in an off-the-beaten-track part of town,
we'd process ~21,000 pounds of "stuff" every week, 50 weeks/year
(closed for 2 weeks per year).

Extrapolate that to other municipalities around the country and
the amount of cruft going into landfills is STAGGERING!

If you make a conscious effort to try to salvage some of that kit and
redirect it back into the community (schools, clinics, hospitals, etc.),
you also find that many folks don't WANT "last year's model" -- regardless
of how it compares to "this year's model"!

Personally, I have little hesitation to inheriting discards.  E.g., I
know that *I* am the limiting factor in any computer acquisition
(if the applications run 10 times faster, the total time spent on
a task decreases by 5% -- cuz so much of it is meatware limited!).

Plus, there are costs (time) to "upgrade" so the net gain is even less
(I'm seriously considering "passing" on an 8-core, 2GHz Xeon box
just because I don't want to spend the time to install the software
on it)

So, how many logic analyzers, DSO's, freq counters, ARB's, etc. do you
really need?  :<

And, if you want to funnel those items to folks/organizations that can
make use of them, you end up burning lots of time coordinating pickups,
etc.

[OTOH, its fun (and inexpensive!) to see what sorts of kit exists
"in the wild".  I've encountered all sorts of neat toys that, if
nothing else, proved challenging to try to reason out their uses!
And, a great way to see the sorts of things that fail in other
people's designs -- as well as fabrication/assembly techniques,
serviceability issues, etc.]

Thread

OT: in favour of gradualism bill.sloman@ieee.org - 2017-02-03 03:39 -0800
  Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Winfield Hill <hill@rowland.harvard.edu> - 2017-02-03 04:21 -0800
    Re: OT: in favour of gradualism bill.sloman@ieee.org - 2017-02-03 04:57 -0800
      Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2017-02-03 11:38 -0600
        Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-04 07:21 -0800
          Re: OT: in favour of gradualism krw@notreal.com - 2017-02-04 10:42 -0500
            Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-04 08:15 -0800
              Re: OT: in favour of gradualism krw@notreal.com - 2017-02-04 11:36 -0500
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-04 09:40 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism krw@notreal.com - 2017-02-04 13:52 -0500
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-04 11:50 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism krw@notreal.com - 2017-02-04 20:31 -0500
            Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2017-02-04 18:04 -0600
              Re: OT: in favour of gradualism krw@notreal.com - 2017-02-04 20:33 -0500
    Re: OT: in favour of gradualism jurb6006@gmail.com - 2017-02-03 05:00 -0800
      Re: OT: in favour of gradualism bill.sloman@ieee.org - 2017-02-03 09:03 -0800
    Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-03 09:35 -0700
      Re: OT: in favour of gradualism bill.sloman@ieee.org - 2017-02-03 09:10 -0800
      Re: OT: in favour of gradualism tabbypurr@gmail.com - 2017-02-03 17:18 -0800
      Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-04 07:24 -0800
        Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-04 12:34 -0700
          Re: OT: in favour of gradualism tabbypurr@gmail.com - 2017-02-04 12:04 -0800
          Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-04 12:07 -0800
            Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-04 14:15 -0700
              Re: OT: in favour of gradualism John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-02-04 14:02 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-04 15:19 -0700
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism "tom" <tmiller11147@verizon.net> - 2017-02-04 17:36 -0500
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-04 15:46 -0700
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Lasse Langwadt Christensen <langwadt@fonz.dk> - 2017-02-04 14:56 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-04 16:17 -0700
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism "tom" <tmiller11147@verizon.net> - 2017-02-04 18:22 -0500
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-04 16:55 -0700
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism John Robertson <spam@flippers.com> - 2017-02-04 18:22 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-04 21:26 -0700
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism "tom" <tmiller11147@verizon.net> - 2017-02-04 17:35 -0500
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-04 15:44 -0700
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism "dcaster@krl.org" <dcaster@krl.org> - 2017-02-04 17:42 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism krw@notreal.com - 2017-02-04 20:56 -0500
              Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-05 08:14 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-05 11:56 -0700
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-06 14:35 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-06 16:43 -0700
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-06 17:12 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-06 18:59 -0700
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-07 07:40 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism tabbypurr@gmail.com - 2017-02-07 12:16 -0800
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism krw@notreal.com - 2017-02-06 21:11 -0500
                Re: OT: in favour of gradualism tabbypurr@gmail.com - 2017-02-05 12:43 -0800
          Re: OT: in favour of gradualism krw@notreal.com - 2017-02-04 20:42 -0500
      Re: OT: in favour of gradualism John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> - 2017-02-04 10:05 -0800
        Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> - 2017-02-04 10:24 -0800
        Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-04 12:45 -0700
          Re: OT: in favour of gradualism "dcaster@krl.org" <dcaster@krl.org> - 2017-02-04 17:54 -0800
            Re: OT: in favour of gradualism Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2017-02-04 21:45 -0700

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