🚀 go-pugleaf

On May 2, 2:33 pm, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Joerg" <notthisjoerg...@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message
>
> news:LWKSj.8203$iK6.2303@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...
>
> > For EEs the reason is that while they are motivated most never had exposure
> > to real hardware. Because everything was given to them. When their radio,
> > toy, whatever broke they just got new one and chucked the broken one.
>
> Yes, although starting somewhere in the '80s even if they had wanted to repair
> the old one it became substantially harder as more and more discrete
> components ended up inside of hard-to-source ICs.  I wonder if there are even
> any professional TV reapair shops left that troubleshoot to the component
> level rather than just the module level?  (Since of course with labor costs
> being what they are relative to new modules cost, it's generally cheaper not
> to do so.)
>
> ---Joel

My cousin was driven out of that business quite a few years ago.
Things got both more reliable and more expensive to fix if they did
break, and at the same time, the feature set introduction rate
increased, making it less attractive to keep the old stuff; now it's
replaced even if it is working, just to get new features.

But I don't agree that the current crop of EE grads are inferior; they
are simply different.  Not as large a percentage are into the same
sort of hardware that was designed 20 years ago, but then we're not
designing that sort of hardware now anyway.  An FPGA in BGA running
GHz clock rates on serial ports isn't something you can plug into a
little white breadboard, but inside that part can easily be logic that
would have spilled over ten large logic boards 20 years ago.  The new
grads we've hired in the last few years don't have the same skill set
as new grads of 20 years ago, but I also don't see them being afraid
to do hardware designs.

I'd also be happy to trade some of the 50+ year old long-time drivers
I see on the road around here for some much younger ones that have
gone through driver education and licensing in Germany recently.  Time
behind the wheel doesn't cure idiotic behavior.  One might hope the
worst of the idiots would kill themselves off, but there always seem
to be more to take their places.

Cheers,
Tom