Totally wrong, because the right of not being micro-offended should more directly point at the editors, not the new contributors. In fact, if Wikipedia doesn't want to become completely irrelevant it will need to recognize that new folks would probably only go to the trouble of trying to add or change content, if there was a problem with the existing content. The main problem with Wikipedia is that it is too strongly founded with the idea of being a meta-encyclopedia and to not allow the exposition of independent research.

That's thin ice because of the requirement of verifiable sources. If you are an expert and have access to obscure sources (eg. club publications that are not widely available) or personal knowledge, that actual knowledge must not be allowed to taint the previously published tripe because the "tripe" is a "verifiable reference" and your actual knowledge is not.

Exactly this. The requirement for "reliable references" and their method of vetting references (i.e., must be published in mass media or some equivalent) and the on-purpose rejection of "personal research" allow the perpetuation of inaccurate history even though current research may have turned up additional data that overturns the "common knowledge" of the day. A couple of years ago several of us actual Sunbeam Tiger owners had a discussion with the "editor" of the ST Wikipedia page, to attempt to present a viewpoint that adheres more closely to actual fact as opposed to some of the popular apochryphal tales that were put in print by some prolific automotive press writers. No go, because two of the editors had decided between them, without consultation of anyone that might have actual hands-on knowledge, that they had it "right" and therefore any counter viewpoint was without merit, regardless of how obvious the error was. Even attempts to go up the chain of authority had little success because of the established status of the editor in question.

I agree with that. I'll note also that other than the book I bought at RS 'way back in 1980 or '81, I hadn't heard much of him in the intervening 30-plus years. Good to know, though, that he has stayed in the electronics amateur/enthusiast space and is still doing somewhat relevant publishing on the Web and elsewhere. I think that for those that were in the hardware side of circuits and computers in the pre-electronic-databook era, there are a bunch of authors whose work was instrumental in conveying the experimentalist ethic. Forrest Mims is such an author but there's also Jim Williams, Bob Pease, and a number of others. I would not have recognized any of them in an airport but the names would certainly trigger an "oh, that guy" response.

Hey AC, do YOUR kids believe anything you say if it's not written down somewhere else?

...My first computer was a ZX-81, and my geek card is probably stuffed inside an extended-functions slot on the HP-41CV I used to get through school. Now get off my lawn.

Hand in your 5 digit Slashdot ID... I pulled out my heavily earmarked copy of his "Engineer's Notebook" for my kids a few months ago to illustrate Boolean logic. I can see where the average Joe wouldn't know of him but if you were into early personal computers and the electronics hobby, especially in North America, it would have been hard to avoid Radio Shack and hard to miss his book(s) on display.

Exactly this. Nobody can love your personal favorite thing as much as you do, so it's actually not that hard to do it better than anyone else.

Two names that would be examples (other than myself ;) )

Linus Torvalds

Theo de Raadt

I built a 68000 based single board computer using parts from Motorola's M68000 development kit (or whatever that was called - it included a M68000, M68010, M68008, a couple of other 68k family peripherals, and a ream of documentation) as part of my master's thesis. Did a two-sided PCB with photoresist boards and hand-drilled and wired vias. The big difference then and now is the size of memory you can get in a single device - I was using 16K or 32K EPROMs and static RAM devices because that was pretty much the largest device available at the time (at reasonable cost, anyway - like $25 per chip). In your case if you're going forward with the full M68000 plan then I'd push forward with a real PCB. Those solderless breadboards really have horrible pin-to-pin capacitance and the inductance of all your wiring is going to give you nightmares. Nowadays you can lay out a board using free or cheapware tools and get a local shop to fab it (or you can do your own etching for the true back-to-the-80's experience) and you'll have something that's robust and repeatable. Good luck!

One interview tactic I've used in the past (not with phone interviews) is to get the applicant to talk about some project they did, then dig into their understanding of the problem they were trying to solve until we hit bottom. This can make each interview pretty unique because not everyone thought the same thing was hard. And, every interview ends up with the applicant having to say "... I don't know", and there is no right answer. I'm sure that with enough effort, an HR contracting firm could game that process too, but it would take a while and it's still easy to punch outside of their envelope.

The cheaters and rote-regurgitators (just made that word up...) have effectively devalued all Indian scholarship. When you look at the questions posted on the various technical LinkedIn groups by Indian "engineers", it's immediately obvious that despite their "education" and job titles, they actually don't know anything and they don't even know how to go about learning something about what they don't know. Their attitude, overwhelmingly, is "I'm trying to do this thing, please give me the exact solution".

Absolutely correct. Most electric cars (if you're keen, check out www.diyelectriccar.com) run at least 72V in a series string of at least 20 lithium-ion cells, and some run over 250V. Charging is done using a state-of-the-art high frequency AC/DC switching power supply with power factor correction, so that charging efficiency is maximized. For any given power transfer, double the voltage means half the amps, and that cuts the resistive power losses to 1/4, so it's always worthwhile to maximize the operating voltage within the bounds of the electronics (and safety considerations).

Most electric cars run at least one series string of cells so that each cell will see the same charging (and discharging) current. There are 'battery monitor systems' that monitor the terminal voltage of each cell so that you can detect if one cell is reaching its capacity limit in either direction... that's when you're done charging or driving. The trick with series strings is to know that the cells are at least nominally identical in capacity and internal impedance; then, to set them each to the same state (either zero state of charge or fully charged; and then to connect them all, and drive or charge until you hit the other limit on state of charge. If you work within the limits, you will be able to do series charging and discharge with no damage, and you'll get a long life out of the cells.

I've spent pretty much my entire engineering career (25 years and counting) doing digital signal processing for realtime systems (voice coders, radio modulation and demodulation, GPS, inertial navigation, and graphics tomfoolery) and over time I've developed a pretty good grasp on numerical objects, algebra, and calculus, in fixed point, floating point, and modular field arithmetic. Certainly I know that stuff a lot better now than when I graduated, and I can think back through my schooling and see what was and what wasn't effective, from the basics through to a decently high level of applied math.

What I see my kids being taught, is basically a shotgun approach; but they spend so much time blasting them with alternate methods for doing things, that there is no time to teach the kids the underlying fundamentals which might help them tie things together; and the kids get confused between the different parts of the different methods so that instead of learning one or two methods fully and practicing it until they have it cold, they learn five methods superficially and forget the solution processes two days after the math unit ends.

My kids went through the same thing with the multiple methods of doing multiplication... holy sh!t did it frustrate the hell out of the younger one because once he had figured out a method that was intuitive to him, all the other methods were just, in his opinion, superfluous wastes of time. Now I hear that the "new thought" is that, for some things such as basic single digit multiplication, rote memorization is in fact the most effective method and it leaves time free to work on higher level problems.

FWIW, I did my grade school curriculum in the Netherlands in the 70's and it was like this (from a math perspective): Grade1: Addition/subtraction; Grade2: Multiplication tables. Lots of recitation to drive the numbers into your head. Grade 3: Long division. Grade 4: Fractions. Grade 5: Decimals and bigger numbers. Grade 6: Common factor elimination in fractional expressions.

My kids are three to four years behind that timeline because of the unnecessary fluffery that seems to pervade North American education.

Rote memorization is enough for math, hey? As others have already remarked, that will not work so well with division. Or algebra, or any other form of applied math. Or pure math. But I guess Ohio doesn't need to produce any math prodigies from here on. If you say "well, we can teach math methods so our kids don't have to be dumber than birds" then you have to teach logic (induction/deduction etc) so the kids can do proofs. Logical methods applied to everyday events (why do things fall?) begat the scientific method.