keeping time making time

Oh I just don't care for this seasonal change of the clock time. I just don't see the sense of it anymore. It just confuses our bodies.

If I need a bit of confusion, I can watch a mystery movie or talk to a relative who disagrees with my worldview. I suspect there are people who enjoy turning back the hands of time every fall.

My quick internet search on this annoying subject turned up the idea of permanent daylight saving time. Just switch it and keep it forever. Russia tried this back in 2011 but the people hated it and in 2014 they reverted back to winter and summer switching of the time as we do here.

clock with big hands

For most clocks the tough part of this hour switching (most digital clocks are now completely automatic so you just wake up and wonder why it seems so early) is just remembering which clocks need a turn of hands. Not too bad compared to turning clock hands that are much larger than a man. I found an interesting clip about Big Ben timekeepers.

Changing to the new time twice a year is big deal for the timekeepers of Big Ben. They use the opportunity to also do maintenance on this old machine and monitor it so it's time is within a second of the world standard time. This huge machine is adjusted by placing/removing pennies on the pendulum.





Oh my blog allows you to go back in time and read an old post. Here's one about time titled, "take your time it's about time".

early then late now

I believe I’ve gone from an early adopter to a late adopter. Setting up the latest fast speed dialup modem at home gave me feeling cutting edge decades ago. Now I’m late to the trendy party of cutting landline service. Not too far in the future and most people will not know or care what a landline is. Many have already.

I had to look up the number for the phone company's customer care number online since their billing went paperless years ago. After a series of automated questions I got the dreaded "all agents are currently laid off  assisting other customers...". I suspect they route you that way all the time since you are probably calling to cancel their service anyway.

a wall phone above my brother and me

Landlines were and still are slightly more dependable than mobile phones but of course not nearly as versatile. Some of you can remember spotty cellphone service and dropped calls. Now fewer and fewer people today even use their smartphones to talk.

Recently when dropping landlines became popular I was reluctant because of its dependability and the fact that the telephone industry provided me a great career. The telephone system provided me a living.

We have had our house power go out and called the power company over the still working landline. It wasn’t until cordless phones with batteries that you ever worried about phone power.

I recall the accomplishment of wiring the phone lines in our house as it was being built. I even planned ahead, putting in wiring that would support multiple phone lines in the future (that never happened).

Most young adults today will never have a landline. It was one of the first services to get when you moved out on your own. Even a rented apartment that included other utilities would not include phone service. I first talked on corded rotary dial phone that was attached to the kitchen wall. Later the cordless pushbutton ones seemed so “cutting edge” advanced when they came out. Today most young people don’t know jack about a telephone jack.

I started learning the engineering of the telephone system when I was in the Air Force. I was involved in a project to upgrade Air Force bases with new digital telephone switches. Then I worked at telecom equipment manufacturers. I worked on the phone in the airplane (Airfone).

Are you old enough to remember back when there was just one company offering phones and phone service? Ma Bell controlled the service and the devices that used the service. There were a few same independent companies and the GTE company. None of them competed in the same area. Your phone service choice was simple - the phone company. Of course that was when your device was wired to just one physical location.

The timing of the Ma Bell breakup in the 1980’s and my engineering career lined up. I found myself working for telecom manufacturer with strong growth fueled by feeding the new competitive telecom companies equipment.

if you recall this character you used a landline

I found this youtube clip very interesting and entertaining. It’s a longer one and I think the good part doesn’t start until about the 4 minute mark. After I watched this I was wondering if my smartphone could call 0. I tried it. I just tapped 0 and the call symbol. It rang a few times and then a pre-recorded message came on telling to call 911 for an emergency, 411 for information, etc.

my if then life

It’s a logic condition that hides clues and leaves me clueless. This condition comes from the over use of conditional statements.

Yeah, I like math (or maths if you like British terms). Math doesn’t work with emotion but solving a tough problem mathematically can be exciting. Technical training, and engineering school taught me to seek the solution, test the conditions. Errors are overcome by building in a margin of error tolerance.

Tolerance is a useful lesson. Estimation is handy.

The ability to derive multiple outcomes based on variable conditions benefits your travels through the unknown future.  What outcome will the unexpected inputs cause?

I find it ironic that the classic introduction to C programming is a program to display “hello world”. Really a C program is not the best way to greet the real world.

Limited if-then thinking doesn’t allow room for emotional surprises. Programming a microcontroller is great but what will it be able to control? If we were robots life would be boring. 

fourth grade fragments

It’s Friday. So kids open your browsers to the fragmented posts that can be found at Mrs. 4444’s blog.

(Lisleman background info - regular readers probably can skip over) We have two daughters who teach. I’ve mentioned this here and there before. One them teaches at an elementary school. My career was electrical engineering.

Thursday I had a fourth grade experience. Most all my fragments today focus on that.

One of our teaching daughters suggested at least two years ago that she should set me up with the teachers who do a science unit on electricity. I was open to it but her idea seem to always come too late in the school schedule. Not this year. She set me up to present to four fourth grade classes. I was busy Thursday afternoon visiting the four classrooms.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would the kids be bored. My daughter suggested powerpoint which I remember giving her help on years ago. I never liked powerpoint that much when I was in the corporate world. Fourth grade kids expect powerpoint slides instead of squeaky chalk? Yes I did know the chalkboards were mostly gone but I thought whiteboards were mostly used. The kids were good. I hoped for questions and they had plenty to ask.

I showed them an electromagnet I made from a coil of wire that I found in an old electric toothbrush our daughter donated to my junk collection. My theme for the presentation was various common things utilizing Faraday’s electromagnetic induction discovery. In addition to the electromagnet coil, I show a speaker and a few motor toys/gadgets. I explained how I learned about electrical transformers before there were toy transformers. (You can see a few of my toy/gadget video clips under the “Playing Around” tab.)

Planning to demo a few different devices saved the afternoon for me. The demo of a speaker playing beats from an old toy failed after the second classroom. A broken wire was to blame.

The technology in the classroom surprised me. I used a document camera projector thing to show the electromagnet picking up a permanent magnetic. Back in the day, the overhead projector was high tech. I can recall cleaning chalk erasers for the teachers at my elementary school.

The status of my electrical/electronic junk collection has now increased a level in usefulness.

Packing up my stuff and setting-up in each classroom would be easier if I had used a rolling cart. Next time I guess.

Experimenting with various electrical/electronic components is more fun as a hobby than as a student or employee. From the time as a student, all the way through as a working engineer, watching something I built or even partially built has been a joy. I was reminded of the good feeling that comes from sharing knowledge.

This past weekend we visited the Christmas lights at the zoo. They put on a spectacle of color and shapes. Hopefully I’ll remember to post a few pics soon.

unusual quilt

At the start of October I posted pictures from the ArtPrize event held in Grand Rapids MI. I intentionally left out these pictures below. All the art displayed there was new and unique but I want to highlight my connection to this one. This piece was inside the big Amway Hotel and because of my engineering background I saw more than memory chips.  Actually memories flashed back in my head.

On the surface the art medium is just mass produced circuit boards mostly from computers. They look like little cities from the side.

Having worked for years in development of telecommunication equipment I’ve experienced the trial, error and time pressure of designing circuit boards. Sometimes a mistake gets the attention of the whole lab as smoke drifts up from a fried board.

High tech cutting edge quickly becomes scrap in which another person finds completely different things. The artist is Eric Celarier.

Like photos from around the internet? Go to Unknown Mami’s place on Sundays and you’ll find a collection of them.
 

you have heard about glass houses

But have you heard about the glass ledge atop a skyscraper?

This is not about throwing rocks. It’s more about walking out on the ledge. Looking straight down over 1300 ft. Here’s my view looking straight down (like my walking shoes).

Chicago’s Willis Tower (I’m finally getting used to its new name) now offers a glass box that allows you walk out from the side of the building. I guess it would be the same view as a window washer gets.

They told us that over a million visitors come to the skydeck each year so there’s the chance you may have experienced it yourself. My visit before yesterday's trip was many years ago. The building was still called the Sears Tower and the ledge (actually there are four) didn’t exist. In 2009 they added the four glass boxes. I didn’t mind waiting for a slower day but after I learned of them I told my wife that someday I wanted to go to the ledge (it’s a glass box structure so there was no chance of her giving me a push).  She enjoyed the views and went out on the ledge too.
 

Also new since I was on floor 103 is the Trump tower. In past posts I shared pictures of Trump tower but all the shots were from the ground looking up. Getting above the other skyscrapers is very different than the street view.

the single spire tall one near the center is Trump tower - the two spires on the left is John Hancock

 

 

One last thing to point out. See the building below with the greenery on the roof. If you start looking you’ll see other buildings with greenery on top. Chicago once led the nation in green roofs (don’t know if they still do). They save energy, reduce the urban heat island effect, and reduce storm water runoff. I like the way they look but honestly you don’t notice them unless you are flying or up in another tall building. 

now wired and better than ever

You may have seen my yellow-M&M radio guy before.  It displays my lighten-up theme well.


You may have also seen clips of my "junk-bots" or recycled bits of various things that have an old motor and batteries in it. (playing around tab has a collection)


I've started a hobby of taking thing apart (old tape players, CD players, radios, whatever) and salvaging parts.  

I thought of a fairly simple circuit I could piece together from my part collection the other day.  Not every component is used but most are.  The wires hanging on yellow-M&M form a circuit made up of a used transistor, a few resistors, a capacitor and wired connectors from a boombox.  The new components are two flashing LED's.

After experimenting with a few different values of components I got the result of a slow fading flash.  I have an idea of making a light for a kid's display.  In this version the fading flash is inside a clear tube that came from an old pen.

After wiring it up with the odd connectors and jumper wires (the final version would have the wires trimmed to short lengths) I draped it over the M&M guy.


Trying it out in a dark room I was surprised to discover the circuit was light sensitive.  In the dark it would cycle through a sequence and then stop.  Turn the room light on and it would start up again.  The light sensitive part (multicolored LED) didn't come with any specifications.  What I found online never said anything about light sensitivity.


I filmed a short clip of it flashing and then added that to an early clip I did with the M&M radio guy.


It's delightful or "alightful" - please watch it's only about a minute long and has great background music.

a new name for an old thing

Every healthy baby starts out with one.

Wise old men and women still exercise it during their last days.

I consider it one of my best attributes.

To celebrate I decided to relaunch it with a brand new name:

I-imagination

Don’t worry, no need to run out and stand in line to get the latest one. You have it built-in already. Depending on your age and the path you have traveled to get here, you might have forgotten you have one. Maybe it has been buried by your daily life. Your I-imagination might need a new download or a refresh.

I-imaginations have created amazing things:

• Art
• Songs
• Dance
• Trips to the moon
• Machines
• Medicine
• Robots
• Cartoons
• Stories
• Movies
• Youtube
• My last parking ticket ( I am just imagining this ticket - right?)

Ok, I think you get the idea. The list could go on. The idea is the idea.

My blog gives me a chance to exercise and refresh my I-imagination. Other blogs and good comments provide it food.  I collected a few of my creations on my "Playing Around" page.

I took that orange picture (above) at a museum full of imagination during a trip years ago.  The place was the Tate Modern in London. The large hall there was just completely filled with orange light. Because of other imaginative people I was able to find a description of it on the internet. Here’s the link if you are interested.

Just walking to this palace of imagination gave me the experience of walking over a bridge showing engineering imagination.

What does your I-imagination run on?

failure and engineering

While browsing wired.com, this honda ad attracted my attention. I agree with the message in this clip.

The best learn from failure.

The subject of inventing and developing covered in the clip also appeals to my engineering background.

There are plenty of business failures lately and I wonder if there are lessons being learned. I can only hope.

So far I just watched this one clip but it appears Honda is going to offer more - here's the link to their special power of dreams site.

It's national engineers week

It's good to see the engineering field being promoted. With all the layoffs in this industry, I must wonder if it still has the bright future I thought it did when I started engineering school.

The subject matter is still as interesting as ever. In fact the expansion into new areas like nanotechnology and genetics makes it even more interesting than the past. Here's a few related links:
engineering org
an industry resource for students, parents, teachers
promoting women engineers