Weird and Wacky Engineering
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ischematics
haha ... yes, i dont know why but i find them fascinating as well .. in the SF ...
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
We have the technology, that's for sure. (Maybe Pez is threatening patent ...
Who needs career fairs when we have Best Buy?
Pocono Armchair Review
2/27/2012 8:14 PM EST
When I was a kid, my friends and I would go to some of the local electronics shops and look the wares over. Instead of career fairs telling us about electronics, we looked over the actual goods. There were many smaller shops back then, carrying everything from TVs, to hi-fi's, to ham radios. We would haunt the places .
It was an education looking things over, reading the specs, and getting a chance to try things out. Several of my friends went into engineering partly because of that experience. I went into engineering, too.
Nowadays, there are all kinds of tears and moaning about how the U.S. has a shortage of engineers, and how we need to make engineering more approachable and fun. That's why we see career fairs aimed at getting more kids interested in the subject. In fact, in Pennsylvania, I understand it is relatively easy to get free tuition, if you want to study one of the technical subjects that have been designated as being crucial to the technical infrastructure of the state. For instance, they have the Science, Mathematics, & Research for Transformation (SMART) scholarship, which provides a cash award, full tuition, a book allowance, and post-graduation career opportunities. The problem is getting students to become interested in these subjects in the first place.
If you want your kids to become interested in engineering, I suggest bringing them to a place like Best Buy. If looking at all the gadgets and marvels they have on display there doesn't get your offspring interested in technology, nothing will.
Just as when I was a kid, stores like Best Buy put the technology right into your hands. No need to press your nose against your computer screen, as if it were a store window, while you browse web sites that just show pictures and dry specifications. Best Buy puts it right into your hands.
I spent some time in the Best Buy in Whitehall, Pennsylvania. There were rows and rows of hot devices like iPad 2's on display, often with kids hovering around them, while families listened to sales representatives explaining how they could connect their iPads to their flat-screen TVs. No one tried to shoo the kids away from the devices. They were as welcome as can be.
You should have seen the gleams in those kids' eyes. One of them showed me an app that I didn't realize was available for an iPad. It was a version of Spice, or "Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis." Of all things! This approximately 10-year-old child probably didn't know the first thing about designing a circuit, but he knew how to access the program on the iPad. With time, he probably would have started figuring out how to use the program. Who knows what that encounter in the Best Buy, between a 10-year-old child and a display iPad, will mean in 20 years?
Maybe it will mean the kind of programs that a teacher of the developmentally disabled told me about. He showed me some apps that are specifically designed to help overcome some of the communication difficulties that severely autistic children have, using the extreme portability, convenience, and computing power that today's new tablet computers have. What provides the spark that inspires someone to program such useful, noble inventions? Maybe it was that trip to the Best Buy, hand in hand with Dad or Mom.
These children, gathered around the newest laptop or tablet computer, pressing every button and marveling at the results, are the engineers of tomorrow, I thought to myself. We don't need a career fair. We have Best Buy.
I want to thank the wonderful people at the Best Buy in Whitehall for the time they let me spend with them. Thank you to James, Beverly, Patrick, Jason, Josh, Georgina, John, and all the many other wonderful people I had the pleasure to meet. You guys should be given a Department of Education award for being a beacon of technology to young people everywhere.
(Disclosure: I don't work for Best Buy, though I once did, I'm proud to say. I did not receive any compensation from them to write this. None of the people I met in Best Buy knew I was going to write this blog about them.)
Rich Krajewski is an electronics engineer, editor and amateur-radio operator WB2CRD. His blog focuses on the profession of engineering.
It was an education looking things over, reading the specs, and getting a chance to try things out. Several of my friends went into engineering partly because of that experience. I went into engineering, too.
Nowadays, there are all kinds of tears and moaning about how the U.S. has a shortage of engineers, and how we need to make engineering more approachable and fun. That's why we see career fairs aimed at getting more kids interested in the subject. In fact, in Pennsylvania, I understand it is relatively easy to get free tuition, if you want to study one of the technical subjects that have been designated as being crucial to the technical infrastructure of the state. For instance, they have the Science, Mathematics, & Research for Transformation (SMART) scholarship, which provides a cash award, full tuition, a book allowance, and post-graduation career opportunities. The problem is getting students to become interested in these subjects in the first place.
If you want your kids to become interested in engineering, I suggest bringing them to a place like Best Buy. If looking at all the gadgets and marvels they have on display there doesn't get your offspring interested in technology, nothing will.
Just as when I was a kid, stores like Best Buy put the technology right into your hands. No need to press your nose against your computer screen, as if it were a store window, while you browse web sites that just show pictures and dry specifications. Best Buy puts it right into your hands.
I spent some time in the Best Buy in Whitehall, Pennsylvania. There were rows and rows of hot devices like iPad 2's on display, often with kids hovering around them, while families listened to sales representatives explaining how they could connect their iPads to their flat-screen TVs. No one tried to shoo the kids away from the devices. They were as welcome as can be.
You should have seen the gleams in those kids' eyes. One of them showed me an app that I didn't realize was available for an iPad. It was a version of Spice, or "Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis." Of all things! This approximately 10-year-old child probably didn't know the first thing about designing a circuit, but he knew how to access the program on the iPad. With time, he probably would have started figuring out how to use the program. Who knows what that encounter in the Best Buy, between a 10-year-old child and a display iPad, will mean in 20 years?
Maybe it will mean the kind of programs that a teacher of the developmentally disabled told me about. He showed me some apps that are specifically designed to help overcome some of the communication difficulties that severely autistic children have, using the extreme portability, convenience, and computing power that today's new tablet computers have. What provides the spark that inspires someone to program such useful, noble inventions? Maybe it was that trip to the Best Buy, hand in hand with Dad or Mom.
These children, gathered around the newest laptop or tablet computer, pressing every button and marveling at the results, are the engineers of tomorrow, I thought to myself. We don't need a career fair. We have Best Buy.
I want to thank the wonderful people at the Best Buy in Whitehall for the time they let me spend with them. Thank you to James, Beverly, Patrick, Jason, Josh, Georgina, John, and all the many other wonderful people I had the pleasure to meet. You guys should be given a Department of Education award for being a beacon of technology to young people everywhere.
(Disclosure: I don't work for Best Buy, though I once did, I'm proud to say. I did not receive any compensation from them to write this. None of the people I met in Best Buy knew I was going to write this blog about them.)
Rich Krajewski is an electronics engineer, editor and amateur-radio operator WB2CRD. His blog focuses on the profession of engineering.
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george.leopold
2/28/2012 10:05 AM EST
I suspect the same could be said about the Apple store.
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
2/28/2012 10:08 AM EST
Nope. Not as much stuff at the Apple store.
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Duane Benson
2/28/2012 3:26 PM EST
I know it isn't the place it used to be, but RadioShack is still a good place. Many of them sell Vex robots and they're starting to sell Arduino's. They still have a smattering of components and, though not the breadth and depth of BestBuy, a good selection of consumer electronics.
The only downside to RadioShack is that sometimes browsing seems a little awkward. My local store isn't well trafficked and the sales people tend to watch like lonely hawks, hoping I'll buy something and not just look.
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Robotics Developer
2/29/2012 11:59 AM EST
I have had similar experiences at the local Shack. My sadness arises from them no longer carrying basic ICs like 240 octal buffers. The selection has dwindled down to almost nothing. I hope that the expansion into the Arduino product line will continue. On a related note: one of the best ways to get students interested in science/math/engineering is FIRST (www.usfirst.org) they run a series of programs for students of all ages using robotic competitions. Way too much fun! Check out the current competitions starting this week and running through March. I coach a team and it is more fun than should be allowed.
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ischematics
2/28/2012 3:39 PM EST
Hi! This is great to hear. I am the author of Spicy Schematics (http://ischematics.com), the first and [only] app on iPad that offers real spice simulation ... this is a great story and one of the reasons I wrote the program! The ipad is a great platform, and I think designing circuits should and can be easy and intuitive ... combining spice with a touch-based GUI seemed only natural to me, but it was surprising that noone had done it yet! .. well it has been a year now, and we are thousands of users strong, and the program has grown quite a bit ... there are many advanced features now including one-click sharing, import/export, and more ... in addition, we now have an iphone spice utility that allows you to simulate netlists! (http://ischematics.com/iphone.html)
Great to hear and thank you for the post!
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LiketoBike
2/28/2012 3:56 PM EST
So, which Best Buy lets a 10-year-old wander in with a screwdriver and take an iPad apart? I need to visit that one :-)
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David Ashton
2/29/2012 4:20 AM EST
They probably don't need to worry....doesn't Apple use those weird 5-pointed star screws?
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Frank Eory
2/28/2012 5:36 PM EST
As much fun as Best Buy is, if you really want to light up a kid's enthusiasm for electronics, take him to Fry's Electronics. Not only is it enormous and loaded with fun gadgets to play with, but it also has lots of test equipment, components and of course motherboards, CPUs, DRAM, hard drives, PC cases, etc.
I fondly recall a trip to Fry's with my son when he was around 10. My old PC was overdue for replacement and I asked him if he would like to help me build a new computer and come with me to Fry's to buy all the parts. It was a big thrill for him, and he asked lots of questions and paid careful attention as we put it all together.
He has been building PCs for himself, his friends and also for me, since he was about 12.
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junko.yoshida
2/29/2012 7:45 AM EST
your comment about Fry's reminded me of my late father -- who was an engineer -- taking me to Akihabara. If anyone has ever been to Akihabara in Tokyo, you know what I am talking about. Especially in the old days, the place was crawling with little shops that sell everything from cables to transistors.
My father built our own stereo; built his own computer.
And that opened my eyes to what you can actually build yourself!
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brain_puddle
3/4/2012 12:01 AM EST
I remember something similar, browsing through army-navy surplus shops and small electronics shops in Manhattan. That part of town was mostly razed to make way for the World Trade Center :-(
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
3/5/2012 10:44 AM EST
I was there when I was a kid. There was too much to look at! Being a kid, I got a lot of parts by taking old TV sets apart and unsoldering all of the components. Those solder fumes were probably not so healthy. And then when the picture tube blew open once in awhile, well, I wish I had known about the lead hazard. Anyway, my Dad bought me a fantastic NC300 receiver in Manhattan, which I still have.
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Amir1
3/5/2012 3:13 AM EST
Visited Japan about 4 years ago. Went to Akihabara and had a great time. Visited a Japanese Floating Fair (on board a ship-The Sakura Maru, when it docked in Bombay) as a kid in India, and was simply fascinated by all the technology. Saw my face on CCTV for the first time. Built Heathkits in India.
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hm
2/28/2012 8:38 PM EST
Also subscribe to some hobby magazines like Elektor and others. Order kits from this magazine and this works like wonder. Kids will be lost in electronics with Elektor and its kits.
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seaEE
2/29/2012 12:31 AM EST
Yep, I use to go to Radio Shack quite often and scope out their general merchandise, components, and kits. I also looked forward to getting their sales flyer in the mail and leafing through it. I think once you signed up for their free battery club card, you got the flyer. I also like going to Best Buy just to look around. I keep looking at netbooks there but still haven't bought one (Is it my imagination, or is hard drive density in laptops and netbooks no longer increasing at its former rate?).
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David Ashton
2/29/2012 4:27 AM EST
The trouble is (at least in Aussie) that electronics parts stores are getting few and far between. There used to be a chain here (Dick Smith, started by an ex telecom tech) that wer great for parts and kits. He sold our and the supermarket giant that runs them now has ditched all the electronics bits and only does phones, cameras, TVs and computer stuff, etc. The upside has been that they sold off a lot of nice electronics-related stuff (breadboards, PCBs, scope probes, parts etc) for next to nothing to get rid of them and I got some good bargains.
The Tandy franchises here were taken over by the same lot, but the local franchisee has moved to another supplier and still does some electronics stuff, though I wonder how long it's going to last....
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ischematics
2/29/2012 7:09 PM EST
When I was young, I had two parents who were engineers .. we had a "commadore" and later an IBM PC Jr and finally an IBM PC ... i distinctly remember one day my father opening up the back of the computer and telling me to look inside ... my eyes opened wide and i was totally amazed ... throughout my childhood i always had electronic toys ... speack-and-spell, atari ... tons of stuff .. i LOVED taking it all apart .. i would unscrew all of it, take out the PC boards, and just mess with it .. i thought it was all super high tech spy stuff inside .. no moving parts??? amazing ... i used to prpgram the computer in a language called BASIC and BASICA, and we used to love the microsoft flight simulator, well it took me 4 years of wasted college to realize i never lost that amazement, and i am now in my 2nd year as an electrical engineering PHD student after getting a BS and MS in electrical engineering ... it was directly due to those electronic gadgets, video games, and other stuff that i had as a kid.
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ischematics
2/29/2012 7:13 PM EST
actually i just read an article about an MIT program geared toward teaching programming concepts to kids of around 3 and 4 years old .. very interesting . i agree and i think you can learn to program at any age, and in fact for me, although i spent a lot fo time as an electrical engineer working on hardware and embedded systems, my first interest was in programming, and i think it is a great way to start ... you dont need virctually anything (you can program on calculators now), and you can learn a great deal about hardware, math, algorithms, and more ... i have seen some lego products that are based on programming as well which look really great too ..
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ischematics
2/29/2012 7:15 PM EST
oh and by the way, i spent probably thousands of hours in front of the TV and playing atari .. so i would nix that modern argument!
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David Ashton
3/2/2012 9:46 PM EST
For every one like you who gets inspired by the stuff (and has a dad who points him in the right direction) there are a thousand who just mindlessly play the games.....
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seaEE
3/1/2012 12:07 AM EST
At a previous job in the U.S., I worked for a company that had acquired and Australian company. In reviewing their parts list, I ran into Dick Smith as well as another company you might have heard of, Jaycar Electronics.
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David Ashton
3/2/2012 9:44 PM EST
Jaycar do a lot of kits as well as things like wireless weather stations, remote control toys and things like that, they also do techie stuff but the stores that actually stock that are few and far between - they can order you anything from the catalogue though. This is the case where I live.
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TFCSD
2/29/2012 11:26 PM EST
In the 1980's when I studied engineering at a university, an old engineering professor almost broke down and cried (he did tear up and voice cracked) when he talked about how the new students could not even use simple hand tools. He said sadly “What are parents doing to their children by not teaching them to use simple hand tools”. In the 2000’s when I went for engineering at another university, a CS student in a 400 level class (just before graduating) said he never needed to pop the top on a PC because he always bought them new and had others install HW. While I had built 286’s-Core2’s out of spare parts just to do my class work. I guess if these engineers stuck to doing only computer applications and programming, they should have no problems ;-). With everything miniaturized, prepackaged, and sealed even fewer new engineering students will hardly know anything past button pushing.
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David Ashton
3/2/2012 9:49 PM EST
"...said he never needed to pop the top on a PC"
Bit of a closed mindset. And a different mentality form most engineering types. Didn't he ever WONDER what went on under the hood??
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Duane Benson
3/5/2012 12:47 AM EST
I can't even keep myself from popping my car's hood and I'm not a mechanic. I don't think my kids could survive my house without knowing something about what goes on inside a computer - both inside the hardware and the software.
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dczh716
3/1/2012 10:53 AM EST
Best Buy wasn't around when I was a kid, and definitely not in my hometown--still isn't. Personal computers did not exist. When my kids were growing up we started with the TI 99/4A and upgraded from there, from dialup to DSL...etc. My son did pursue engineering directly, but he has in a different way, he is competent on a computer and many other things. He has taken a different path. My daughter as well has chosen to be something else altogether--her love is writing. My path to engineering is with a Physics Degree.
My grandfather was an old telephone man and had parts leftover from his days with a switchboard. He built a continuity checker using a generator from a crank telephone, the ringer coils, making a buzzer with them. We loved to hold the clamps on the wires and shock ourselves and anyone willing to be a sucker! I still have it.
I am in my sixties and my grandfather is long gone, but I still remember the fascination with electrical stuff. That I got from playing with the things he had.
When I got to college, I was debating electronics or Physics for a major, my Physics teacher said do you want to make things work or understand how they work, I chose the how and went into Physics studies. the school wasn't big enough to have an engineering school, so I stayed and got a Physics degree. (two years there and two years soemwhere else to get an engineering degree) I have worked as an engineer (title) but haven't done any designing. As a young adult I ordered stuff from Allied Electronics, Burstein Applebee, Radio Shack, etc. I still have stuff I ordered from a place back East in Framigham Massachusetts, that sold IC's and other components at a low price. Kind of a "Harbor Freight" of electrical/electronic parts.
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alhertan
3/1/2012 5:15 PM EST
I do not think that a trip to Best Buy is an ideal place to inspire youth to go into engineering. Most of the items on display at Best Buy are consumer electronics products that are meant to be consumed by users. They're for the user oriented crowds that want to buy new toys to use. Most of those that own iphones care not about how it works. They care only that it does do the things that Apple promised them that it would do.
Visiting websites like hackaday and electronics-lab.com/blog, instructables.com are in my opinion the ideal way to getting students excited about electronics / electrical engineering and embedded systems. Other websites that set up exciting demos like controlling a robot over the internet from your phone and then explaining how to replicate this effort e.g. are great.
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
3/5/2012 10:53 AM EST
It can be a great stimulus, or at least that's what I've seen. Some people who are not inclined to enter engineering under any circumstances will likely not benefit even from a trip to NASA. But those who do have some inclination can get motivation from a trip to a major outlet of consumer technology.
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hm
3/1/2012 7:28 PM EST
@alhertan: I agree. Another option is to get many parts/kits to children and do some hobby project with them to give them push. Also, volunteering in school or community center for hobby project may find many eager student looking for avenues in science and technology.
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daleste
3/2/2012 9:07 PM EST
Great stories here. I agree that Fry's is the best place to go today in the US. But if you ever get the chance, Akihabara is a great place to wander around. The companies in Japan make a lot of products that never go into production and you can find prototypes in Akihabara. That was probably the most fun I have had in my life wandering around electronics stores. Don't you miss the old Heath kits?
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JON-design
3/3/2012 3:00 AM EST
That's exactly how I feel about the Apple Store. As another testament to Steve Jobs' seemingly mystical sense into how to draw in consumers the 'please touch' aura that the Apple Store exudes further adds to the desirability of their devices. I've never heard as many 'wow's and "aahh"s at the circus as I have heard standing around an Apple Store display table.
Jon - http://www.evosite.co.uk
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agk
3/5/2012 1:55 AM EST
My experience with school students make me think and write below my opinion about both the above said ,in the article and the comments. Children are quite different individually. Even as a group we observe them they are different. About 1 to 3 % of children are curious enough to follow their parents profession when induced by their parents in their childhood.Rest of them even tried they do not come in line. later they find their own way of doing things. This is because of father mother characteristics getting embedded in to their children in different ratios for every kind of living situations in their whole life time.So parents can easily identify their children and set a good path for their future. The visits to the variety of places and monitoring the child's emotions at various places ,the parents will be able too identify the ward's interest and capacity.
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seaEE
3/5/2012 11:48 PM EST
With Best Buy, now a kid can become a systems engineer!
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
3/6/2012 3:36 PM EST
Probably doing a better job of it than most career fairs I've seen!
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phoenixdave
3/6/2012 6:42 PM EST
My future electronics career began by taking apart everything that stopped working (and even some things that didn't) in our house. The great old tube TVs, radios, portable "transistor radios" taught me a lot. And on the rare occasion where I could actually "fix" something, I couldn't wait to show everyone I knew...
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
3/6/2012 8:34 PM EST
The fellow who gave me my first ham test was an old-timer who told me how folks used to make vacuum tubes out of old soda bottles.
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seaEE
3/7/2012 1:09 AM EST
Vacuum tubes out of soda bottles. Now that is cool. Speaking of tubes, I was rummaging through a parts box of mine today and came across a couple 6SN7 tubes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6SN7
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
3/7/2012 7:28 PM EST
I have a couple of crates of vacuum tubes, mostly replacements for tubes in my Heathkit HW-101 and my National NC-300, with a few miscellaneous that happened to come with the lot.
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phoenixdave
3/8/2012 7:51 AM EST
I also have a few boxes of old vacuum tubes, tube manuals, old service manuals for repairing some of the old tube stuff (certainly was a lot less complicated back then), and even an old vacuum tube tester. Just can't seem to part with these things.
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phoenixdave
3/8/2012 7:55 AM EST
I would love to get my hands on some of the new tube-based HiFi equipment. My screwdriver and pliers are ready!!!! (old habits are hard to break).
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ischematics
3/20/2012 3:40 AM EDT
haha ... yes, i dont know why but i find them fascinating as well .. in the SF Bay area we used to have a shop that everyone went nearby for spare parts .. it closed shortly after i moved there .. but it was pretty awesome .. imagine a junkyeard of parts from 50 years of business, piled 30 feet high ... well, the poor guy who ran the place had to shutdown due to lack of funds, but i made it out of there with new packaged tubes from the 60s or whenever it was when they made those things .. RCA, others .. little cardboard boxes individually boxed ... sooo cool !! i have them in my collection that includes a polaroid from the 50s, a REAL telegraph, old calculators, and other "nerdy" stuff that i love .... :)
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
3/8/2012 6:37 PM EST
Speaking of do-it-yourself stuff, I'm looking forward to more imaginative application of home automation products. They could, I imagine, fill in for caregivers in a lot of instances. Just as automatic washers and dishwashers take a lot of "load" off of a homemaker, devices that automatically dispense pills, feed pets, and prepare simple food on command might quickly pay for themselves.
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phoenixdave
3/8/2012 7:49 PM EST
@Rich: the "automatically dispensing pills" caught my eye because I have been in circumstances as a care provider of an elderly relative where I would have paid a lot of money for such a system...
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
3/8/2012 8:17 PM EST
We have the technology, that's for sure. (Maybe Pez is threatening patent lawsuits, who knows?) Making life easier for the disabled and their caregivers is an important goal for me, too. I will need to spend more time on the project once I get more hay in the barn. (All these years I've been putting hay in the barn, and then I found out it was somebody else's barn.)
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