Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

That’s pretty frickin’ cool, considering I only managed to post one blog entry this year… sigh. It’s been a busy year, and I was sick for quite a lot of the first half. Anyhow, if you like, you can check out my complete stats just by clicking the link below. See you in 2012 – w00t!

Click here to see the complete report.

But – let’s get started with today’s enjoyment! I ran across this nifty little blast from the past while on YouTube today. Disney’s Wonderful World of Color was a regular part of my childhood, even though we only had a black and white TV. (1955 Zenith, for those who care. And that’s probably only me.) And one of my favorite characters was Ludwig von Drake. (The image at the left is the cover of a record album we had when I was a kid.) Voiced by Paul Frees, one of my favorite voice actors of all time, old Ludwig helped to crystallize my interest in science. Disney released quite a few classroom films and short features hosted by Ludwig von Drake, including this one – A Symposium On Popular Songs:

And here’s part 2:

Oh, man. That is such cool stuff. You really can’t beat old-school Disney animation. Well and truly part of the Golden Age of cel animation, combined with stop-motion. I am a big fan of animation history and techniques, and the people who provided the voices. One of these days, I’ll have to write up some posts about my favorite voice actors, who include (in addition to Paul Frees) Mel Blanc, June Foray, Maurice LaMarche, and Billy West.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and look for more soon.

P.S. About the call letters – KBOO – on the microphone shown in part 2… It’s a real station, right here in my local area, Portland Oregon! I did a bit of volunteer engineering work for them back in the early ’80s. KBOO is a listener-supported community radio station, supported by grants and contributions. They’ve got quite a varied schedule, and I recommend checking them out. You can find the schedule on their web site, or listen to the online stream here.

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Yes, I know it’s been forever and a summer day since I posted last. Things are not getting any less busy, so – there’s just not as much time as I would really like to spend on my personal blog. (And a warning – there is heavy duty electro-geekiness ahead, so if you’d as soon skip it, I understand. But if you are of an inquiring (and geeky) mind, by all means, press on…)

That being said, I ran across an article online recently entitled “Recent Developments In Electronics” which reminded me of an article I wrote back in about 1998 and posted on my old personal web site. I had to take the site down about a year ago, mostly because I couldn’t really afford to keep it online. Before I did, I saved everything.

So I got to thinking, hey – I have all this old content on my hard drive… why not update it and share it? Here then, is my article on Printed Circuit Design…

What is a Printed Circuit Board?

Printed circuit boards (PCBs for short) have made our modern miracles possible – cellular phones, computers, headset stereos, pagers, all would be impossible without something like a printed circuit board. Even televisions and radios would be very different without them. Printed circuits allow manufacturers to connect together all the parts that make up, say, a calculator, very quickly and at a low cost.

Back in the old days, before the circuit board, lots of people worked on assembly lines to hand-wire components together, to make things like TV sets and radios. Eventually, someone decided there must be a better way.

A flat piece of reinforced plastic was coated on one side with a thin layer of copper. Holes were drilled in the plastic, and patterns of conductors (circuits) were printed on the copper. Then the whole thing was put into an acid bath. Wherever the patterns were printed, the copper was protected from the acid. Wherever there was no pattern, copper would be etched away by the acid. The result was a pattern of electrically isolated conductors, on a flat “board”, on which parts could be mounted and soldered.

Turned out to be a big time saver. Eventually, machines were designed to do the work of putting the parts on the boards, and soldering them as well. Fewer people were needed, and labor costs went down, reducing the price of the TV set or radio. Soon, parts started getting smaller and smaller, and so did the finished products. Nowadays, a hand-held TV set is no big deal, but in 1955, you would have needed a very big hand.

Before long, the printed circuit board began to evolve. Conductors on both sides, instead of just one side. Then conductors were buried inside the circuit board. Conductors got smaller, and closer together.

Then someone thought, “why drill a lot of holes and shove little wires through, when we can make parts without wires on the ends, and solder them right onto the board?” This is the basis of surface mount technology, which led to the level of miniaturization we have today – cell phones, pocket-sized CD players, and digital watches.

Printed Circuit Board Designing

Not an altogether bad career choice. Beats the heck out of digging ditches. The working conditions are generally good, and will vary depending on the company (pretty much like any office job). A PCB Designer will usually be found working in a clean, comfortable room, (because the computers need to be kept clean and cool), and often with other circuit board designers, or CAD drafters. (Note: a good chair is essential.)

A PCB Designer needs, of course, to know a few things, too. Basic to intermediate electronic knowledge is helpful. It is good to know how to read electronic schematics, and basic computer skills are pretty much a prerequisite. (Wintel / WindowsNT systems predominate in the market, followed by UNIX and Mac platforms). Some drafting education will help, and anything you can do to sharpen your communications skills will be a definite plus. (Determining and meeting the engineer’s needs is what it’s all about!)

A whole slew of disciplines come together to make up a successful PCB designer. Electronic, mechanical, and aesthetic considerations are all taken into account when designing a PC board. Where will the connectors and switches go? How much room do I have in the case? What kinds of tolerances must I work with? How easy will it be to manufacture the PC board, and how can I make it easier? PCB design is mostly rules-driven. You have to design within the rules, or the board just plain won’t work, or worse still, can’t even be manufactured. Very embarrassing. Trust me. Voice of experience.

PCB designers often need to be self-starters, detail-oriented, and willing to work long hours, under deadline pressures. (It is often the designer who gets squeezed between the engineer, who wants a little extra time to make sure it’s right, and marketing, who are anxious to get out there and sell the thing, before the competition beats them to market.)

PCB design can become a somewhat lonely endeavor, thrashing away hour after hour in a darkened room, headphones clamped to the head, connecting the dots. It is important to create a little balance, therefore, because it can be way too easy to focus on the tasks at hand, and ignore personal lives, exercise, and diet.

A lot of stuff to know. And until recently, there were very few places where you could take classes at the college level, to learn the art of PCB design. It used to be a sort of “fraternity”, in which more experienced designers mentored new designers, and taught them how the job was done. That is beginning to change. Because of the rapid growth of the electronics industry, there has been an increased need for qualified designers. There is now an initiative to put into place training and certification programs for PCB designers. Ideally, this will lead to better designers, and better designs.

Salary ranges are anywhere from $18K for a newbie, to $40K and up for a lead designer with lots of experience. Positions can be found in manufacturing companies, and in service bureaus, which provide their design services to client companies. (Note: remember I wrote this in 1998. Your mileage may vary.)

The Future

The future of PCB design can be summed up thusly: faster, denser, more complex, and more competitive. As chip speeds climb, the need for high-frequency performance increases as well. Designers who are capable of designing these high-speed boards will be highly sought after, and will earn nice, fat salaries.

PCBs will be more jam-packed with parts, and some integrated circuit chips (ICs) are already being mounted directly to the board (chip on board), without the need for a case (package) of its own. More features and functions will be packed into new products, meaning new challenges for packing more circuitry into less space.

And in an increasingly global economy, some American and European PCB designers are finding that they are in almost direct competition with their counterparts in Asia, where wages are very much lower. This is especially true in the area of consumer electronics, where the Asian Dragon is eating our lunch. (Note: even in 1998, when I wrote this, the handwriting was on the wall.)

Design automation will also increase productivity, and may eliminate jobs. Software tools such as autoplacement (the automated placement of part outlines, by the design software, rather than being manually placed by the human designer) and autorouting (automated layout of the connecting trace patterns, again by the software, rather than a manual process invloving the designer) engines may displace some designers, but at present, there are still many aspects of PCB design that can only be done by a skilled human designer.

The successful designer will need to stay abreast of new technologies and trends in order to remain successful. Designers who are able to offer the most value to the companies which employ their services, will command the highest wages, and the highest respect.

Well, as you might have noticed, some things have changed since 1998. PCB designing was pretty good to me from the mid-’80s to 2002, but since then, not so much. Most of the PCB design jobs are now in China, Taiwan, and other spots overseas. Tens of thousands of high-tech manufacturing jobs have left the USA, perhaps never to return. Not everything I foresaw for the future has come to pass – at least here in the states.

Personally, I did not stay abreast of the latest technologies. I got sidetracked for a few years doing some very specialized layout work, and that experience didn’t translate well to the marketplace in 2003. And to be frank, I had moved on a bit, too. I had gotten kind of tired of getting laid off every few years. High-tech in the Portland, Oregon area has always been like that.

The pace of change has accelerated over the years, and I have decided to go in a different direction. I am now working from home, doing web design, software sales, and press release promotion. Can’t say I miss the long commutes from East Vancouver to Beaverton, or some of the complete tools I used to work with. Not all of them were big pains in the butt, but – they know who they are. And raspberries to them.

As for me, my evening commute is about 15 feet. Top that.

More again soon. Er, I hope.

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I’m sorry it’s been so long since the last post. My best friend has been terribly ill, and I’ve been doing a lot of driving to and from doctors, helping out… all that stuff that happens when someone you care about is sick.

And it’s been pretty busy at work, too. Our free press release site has been “discovered”, and we’re getting a lot of traffic & submissions. We’ve also migrated our brainstorming software web site over to a new host and a new shopping cart. Lots of work to get that done. Anyhow, on with the show…

I’m listening just now, as I type this, to Love Story by Layo & Bushwacka! (Not my exclamation point.) Never heard it before. It came up the rotation on my Pandora channel. No idea why – the channel seeds are bands like Cutting Crew, Pet Shop Boys, and The Cure. Big shrug. Strange and manifold are the ways of Pandora. But I digress, as usual. Here is the tune, for your listening and dancing enjoyment:

Now, if you are as old as I am (and apparently that’s older than the very soil beneath my feet) the melody / bass line of this song may sound familiar to you, especially if you had ever been a fan of the boys in yellow rubber suits, from Akron, Devo:

Yeah, you hear it too? At first, I was sure that it was Devo’s Mongoloid that had come up on Pandora just now. Bit of a surprise.

Great band, and a powerful influence in the punk music scene. Did I ever tell you my Devo story? For those who haven’t heard it, here ’tis…

It was August 14, 1980, at Portland’s old Paramount Theatre. (I looked it up. There’s this thing called Google, ya see.) I had a seat on the main floor, about 6 rows behind the mixing console, on the left aisle. Waiting for the show to begin, two cute young girls approached the two young guys sitting right in front of me. The blonde, whose white jeans were probably applied by means of a paint roller, said “My friend and I can’t find seats. Can we sit on your laps?” Well, the two lads looked at each other, wondering if they were dreaming, looked again at the two ladies, and nodded their heads like characters in a Warner Brothers cartoon – “uh-huh! uh-huh! uh-huh!”

And then the show began. Well, both shows, really – Devo and the blonde. Up, down, squirming on the boys’ laps, dancing… I’m not sure what became of the guys and the blonde’s friend, who all disappeared at some point, but girl in the white jeans was really enjoying herself. During one song, I was standing up, as often happens at rock concerts, and suddenly felt something against the front of my trousers. It was the top of the blonde’s head. I looked down, and there she was, sitting in the seat, looking up at me. I smiled and waved a little wave, and went back to watching the show.

A short while later, Missy McBlondehips found her way up onto the stage, and treated the audience to a sexy little dance, while Devo played Freedom of Choice. Mark Mothersbaugh waited until two security guards were in position, and exercised his Freedom of Choice, delicately tipping her wriggling butt off the stage, and into the arms of security, who hustled her past me, up the aisle, and out to her destiny. I only regret that I didn’t get her number.

So, there it is – my Devo story. Great concert, otherwise. An early multi-media show. There were at least two interludes, as I recall, when the band left the stage, and music videos for some of their songs were projected on screens. I understand that things can be quite a lot more sophisticated these days, but then – I’m an ancient, decrepit wreck who doesn’t attend concerts these days. I don’t “get” a lot of modern music, and I know I am beginning to sound like my dad.

Dad’s doing quite well, by the way. He had a kidney out in February 2010, and is now getting around better than he was a year ago. 87 years old, and still motoring along. I can only hope to reach 87.

And I hope to be posting a little more often. My friend is better, and much of the heavy lifting is done on the web sites. Though that usually means that more stuff is about to hit the fan any old time now. C’est la vie.

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(And sorry about the lapse in posting. It’s been a bear of a month. E-mail me if you really must know more.)

OK! Let’s get on with the sneering, giggling and pointing, shall we? Today’s styling victim – the GMC Terrain.

I do have to give GMC some props – they did make the effort to create a vehicle that gets 32 mpg with its 4 cylinder engine, and they’ve included some nice comfort features. There’s even a rear-facing camera. And I’m sure, a plethora of cupholders. But for Pete’s sake! Why do automotive styling departments seem incapable of designing an SUV that doesn’t look like a smiling chimpanzee?

What is it with auto stylists these days, that makes them think that cars and trucks need to have a face?

Notable examples of this are the recent Acura and Mazda cars, and the new Chevy Camaro. For some reason, they seem to have stupid little grins pasted to their front ends. Why? Do focus groups really say that they like to have cars that smile at them? Or are the people in the focus groups just screwing with the auto makers?

So, what makes the Terrain look so ungainly? What’s the deal with the bulges around the wheel wells? Is that supposed to make the truck look “muscular”? Not even close. It looks like a fat chick stuffed into an undersized pair of sweat pants.

Sad, really. Sad that the guys that designed this wee beast don’t seem to have heard of Harley Earl. That’s a guy who really knew how to design a vehicle that looked great – sleek and well-proportioned. The Terrain suffers from a disproportionate design. The fender bulges are too pronounced, and look like an afterthought. The beltline is in the wrong place. It’s either too high, or not high enough. Wrong place! The front clip is bulky, bumpy, and fails to appeal – well, at least to me. The overall effect is of an upside-down bathtub on wheels.

These are pretty much the same complaints I have with the Jeep Compass. And I stand by my assessment. If need be, nose to nose with the lead designer. I’ll bring my pencil and sketchbook. But I realize it’s an uphill battle, trying to make a good-looking SUV. Better to swing and miss than not to swing at all.

(Gawd, I’m a bitch tonight! Bring on the insults, Terrain owners!)

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My aunt & uncle sent me this video of a new concept prototype for a roll-up computer.  Yep.  It rolls up, like a towel, or a tatami mat.  Dig the coolness…

Too slick, huh?  And when it finally hits the market, it’ll probably be no more expensive than an Apple MacBook.  The most expensive bit is the flexible display technology, and that’s going to rapidly come down in price once they get the manufacturing online.  If I recall correctly from the video, it’s an organic LED display, which means the whole display can be built on plastic film rather than glass like current LCD & LED displays.

The rest of the design- all pretty standard stuff for laptops and cell phones these days.  Stunning, isn’t it?  Especially for those of us who grew up with 3 channels of TV to watch, in black & white, on a set that had to “warm up” for several seconds…

And perhaps the design that is shown in this video study may not reach market, but I’ll be looking for some other kinds of revolutions in portable computing.  First, there are now hand-held video projectors:

I really want one of those.  That is just cooler than a penguin’s instep.  And of course, flexible keyboards have been available for several years.  Here’s a demo.

But wait, there’s more, as the infomercial once said.  How about some new ideas for input devices that don’t even use keyboards!  With this new prototype, you won’t even need the bendy, floppy keyboard any more:

In another 30 years, who knows?  Direct brain interface?  Speech to text already exists, and in fact, your computer may already have it.  Spooky, huh?

Maybe I should think about using speech to text.  I have a lot of typing to do, every day.  I’m getting caught up on work, finally.  Both the computer and I have been sick lately.  I’ll try to get another blog entry posted very soon.

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I was visiting a friend the other day, and the TV was playing a music on demand channel. This song by FloRida – Right Round – popped up, and my memory ran up a flag, too. Let’s listen to FloRida:

Yep. There it is, a nifty little musical hook from 1984. Back when I was a much younger man, a band called Dead or Alive had a big hit titled You Spin Me Round:

At least FloRida seems to be open about the origins of the hook, which was sampled for Right Round. The Wikipedia entry for Right Round discusses the source, so it looks as if the lawyers will not be called from their crypts to put the bite on FloRida.

Hey, maybe there’s some hope for modern music after all! And no, I’ve got no idea why the eye patch. Or that ’80s Big Hair! Damn, man! One forgets. Go back and watch music videos or movies from the ’80s, and you’ll see what I mean. Stick thin girls with short skirts and hair teased and sprayed until the blondes look like dandelions with eyeliner.

Which reminds me. Not sure why it reminds me, but – it reminds me. I ran across a site online where you can watch the movie Tank Girl all the way through for free. Never seen Tank Girl? Oh, it’s an experience. Go ahead. Check it out, and let me know what you think.

More soon, film fans and music mavens. It’s a busy time. Got a sick friend, and my dad had surgery a couple weeks ago, too. So – chaos, discord, and mayhem. Lovely.

And if you have any ideas for topics, go ahead and leave a comment below.

Oh, one more thing, in the immortal words of Columbo. I had a really interesting comment on my most popular entry, They Call This a Jeep? Click the link to read the comment, and my response.

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Apparently, some cases of misappropriated tunes take some time to come to light and be resolved. I was surprised to see in today’s news, that a band I was quite fond of, back in the ’80s, have lost a lawsuit over their biggest hit.

The BBC reports that Men At Work, an Australian band whose big hit, Down Under, had borrowed a bit of its melody from the old song, Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree. Let’s start by having a listen to Down Under…

Now that’s a bunch of bonza blokes who seem to be having a good time. Oh, yes… I do remember this one from my misspent youth, lo so many years gone by. And I even used to buy Vegemite at the local health food store, where I also had a bit of a crush on the young lady who worked there. Fun little tune. And funny that I didn’t notice the similarity to Kookaburra. Hell, even I knew that melody from my childhood. Here’s the Aussie song about the bird, then…

Now that I think about it, and listen to Kookaburra alongside the flute riff from Down Under, I can see (or rather hear) the similarity.

But I wonder why, in this performance, the lyrics are changed from “gay your life must be” to “rich your life must be”.

Probably to keep the boys from sniggering uncontrollably.

Ah, well. Whatever. The bottom line is – the courts have decreed that Men At Work shall compensate the estate of Kookaburra composer Marion Sinclair.

Good on yer, mates.  And maybe an “I’m sorry” might not be out of place.

More soon.

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Since it seems that all the good melodies have already been written, those bands who choose not to sample or rap are mining our musical past for golden nuggets. Here’s one such effort. Neuroticfish with a cover version of “They’re Coming to Take Me Away”:

Yes! Very nice! Wonderfully deranged, in a way that the original version from the 1960′s, by Napoleon the XIV, could never be allowed, back in the day… With the added benefit of the bass line from the Dr. Who theme. For comparison, here’s the happily bent little ditty that I first heard when I borrowed the LP from my neighbor, Mike Platt:

Ah, they don’t make ‘em like that any more. Sometimes, they make them even better.

Well, for a given value of “better”. Like the difference between making a fire “better” by putting water on it, or gasoline. It all depends on your point of view, really.

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Google has had an uneasy relationship with China for several years.  The search engine mega-corp (up until now) has been working with the Chinese government to censor and limit the search results returned to Google users in China.  Apparently, when users in China search for things like “Tiananmen Square” there are no results.  (Not so here in the US, of course.  Today.)

But now, it appears that the gloves are off, and the search company whose motto is “Don’t Be Evil” is prepared to stand up to Beijing.  Why? Reports are that G-Mail web-mail accounts belonging to Chinese dissidents (and others) are being hack-attacked by cyber-forces within China.  And Google doesn’t like that very much.  Sort of the last straw for the boys at Google.

So, will there be no more kow-towing to the Great Firewall of China?  It’s a bit early to tell, but I think we’re looking at a “irresistible force vs. immovable object” situation here.  And it’s a safe bet that the US State Department will get involved at some point in this new cyber-brouhaha.  Trade agreements, loans from China to the US, Chinese imports, most favored nation status… there are so many factors that tie America to China at this point, that any disruptions could cause significant and unforeseen consequences.

Potentially, this is a good opportunity for China’s home-grown search engine industry to get a leg up.  Baidu.com has been mentioned in some reports as a possible beneficiary of the cyber-snottiness.

One possible result: two Internets.  BusinessWeek is reporting Bloomberg expects some serious tussles between the Western World and China over the shape of the Internet.  The two visions – China’s desire for a controlled, stable, sanitary web, versus the American / European insistence on a democratic, open, accessible Internet – are going to be hard to reconcile.

Personally, I’d rather see China either open, or have their own bloody-minded, locked down Internet.  I sure don’t want to see the rest of the world following the Chinese model.

Feel free to disagree.  There’s space, just below.  Go for it, and enjoy our open Internet, and the freedom of discourse.

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