Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cerebus]

As for pissing in a bottle, I’ve known several people who have had to piss in a bottle for their profession, the latest being my nephew, a UPS driver. That’s a useless point really. Pissing has always been a nightmare.

Pissing in a bottle is nothing new. Way back in 1973 when I joined IBM pissing in the bottle was required. When I became an IBM contractor in 2009 pissing in the bottle was required. Personally I don't see it as a big deal. If you're clean you have nothing to worry about.

It's not even that pissing in a bottle. It's for the sake of needing a piss but having nowhere to do it.

I pissed in an empty beer can once at Sainsburys and left in the warehouse because they locked the toilets. At least they give you bottles at Amazon  - far less dangerous

How would anyone tell if the can was empty, or just half consumed, knowing English beer?

Coming from the nation that foisted Fosters on the world that smacks of living in a glass house and throwing stones.

Newcastle used to take the piss out of London (literally, look it up). Once the chemical industry found better ways of making Alum and didn't want our prized London piss we found ourselves with an excess of it. So, in 1931 Watney Coombe Reid* started putting it into barrels as an export beer called Red Barrel "originally aimed at the far corners of the British Empire". It was around for a long time, so someone, somewhere in some "far corner of the British Empire" must have been drinking a lot of it. 

*I had my 21st birthday party, as a guest of Watney Coombe Reid, in the tap room of the Mortlake Brewery, successor to the Stag Brewery which was the original home to Red Barrel. So, contrary to what my detractors say, I can organise a piss-up in a brewery.

[mnementh]

Jeezus H Christ a-hoppin' on a pogo stick. Fucking UPS.

Grandmomma sent my son a monitor she found on sale for $150 as a present. She sent it up here via UPS, giving my eMail for updates. Today I get an eMail from them demanding $98 in duty, including $70 in brokerage fees... because grandmomma declared the value at $200 including taxes and shipping costs.  From what I've been able to find online, even a dollar less would've fallen under the gift limit.

Outraged by these rapacious fees, I did a little research and found I could clear customs myself on this package; I'd need to get the paperwork from UPS (which they are legally required to provide), then take it IN PERSON to my nearest CBSA office, approx a 2-hour round trip away. Then take that paperwork to whatever UPS hub they're holding it at... another hour or three I'll never get back.

Shit. I've already spent more time than it's worth making this post bitching aboot it... but damn, I need to vent somewhere. And of course, wifey sez just pay it and get on with my life.

mnem

[mnementh]

You're not getting my point. You're arguing a completely different point from the one I was making.

No, the point was "Me: small companies historically pay better", "You: There are no more small companies", "Me: Yes there are, here are the figures (by number of companies, number of employees and turnover)" and you've wandered off somewhere completely different.

No, you've provided statistics; a tool which exists expressly for the purpose of making numbers lie.

You've provided no proof that small companies aren't being systematically squeezed out of existence by the megas; only that they haven't completely succeeded yet. In a sample size which is, by your own admission, much smaller than even I realized.

But hey; I'll concede that the megas have not completely succeeded yet in wiping small business off the globe; you've already conceded that they are most likely trying to do so.

Cheers,

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

You're not getting my point. You're arguing a completely different point from the one I was making.

No, the point was "Me: small companies historically pay better", "You: There are no more small companies", "Me: Yes there are, here are the figures (by number of companies, number of employees and turnover)" and you've wandered off somewhere completely different.

No, you've provided statistics; a tool which exists expressly for the purpose of making numbers lie.

You've provided no proof that small companies aren't being systematically squeezed out of existence by the megas; only that they haven't completely succeeded yet. In a sample size which is, by your own admission, much smaller than even I realized.

But hey; I'll concede that the megas have not completely succeeded yet in wiping small business off the globe; you've already conceded that they are most likely trying to do so.

Cheers,

mnem
 

Sigh.

[Cubdriver]

40 years ago in this local area from an electronics/parts perspective we had Radio Shack, Lafayette Radio (with a yearly catalog just like RS), and a big local firm called Greylock Electronics. Plus all the local small TV repair shops. By 1981 Lafayette went under. Soon after Greylock closed up. And slowly all those local TV repair shops disappeared. And we all know what happen to Radio Shack. Today we have 0, nada, nothing local. In the pre-internet days it was scanning electronics magazines for companies offering mail order catalogs. Many of those companies are no longer around plus the electronics magazines went bust too. So today it's basically Mouser or Digi-Key plus a few others.     

Similar situation here - when I initially started playing with angry pixies in the mid-late 70s, locally we had several Radio Shacks, a Lafayette, Bond Radio and Hatry Electronics (small independents) within ten miles of my home.  Bond went out in the early 80s, Hatry some time in the 90s, not sure about Lafayette but very early 80s sounds right, and we all know what happened to Rat Shack, and they were for all intents and purposes a joke for the final decade or two of their existence.

I also remember a lot of the small mail order places that advertised in the hobbyist magazines - B&F Enterprises and Poly Paks, for instance.  All long gone.  I also remember the DK and Mouser catalogs being thin, spine-stapled booklets that were thinner than the magazines that they advertised in.  The most recent ones I got before they stopped printing them are thicker than the phone book used to be.  Crazy how times change.

-Pat

[beanflying]

You're not getting my point. You're arguing a completely different point from the one I was making.

No, the point was "Me: small companies historically pay better", "You: There are no more small companies", "Me: Yes there are, here are the figures (by number of companies, number of employees and turnover)" and you've wandered off somewhere completely different.

No, you've provided statistics; a tool which exists expressly for the purpose of making numbers lie.

You've provided no proof that small companies aren't being systematically squeezed out of existence by the megas; only that they haven't completely succeeded yet. In a sample size which is, by your own admission, much smaller than even I realized.

But hey; I'll concede that the megas have not completely succeeded yet in wiping small business off the globe; you've already conceded that they are most likely trying to do so.

Cheers,

mnem
 

Part of your problem is you keep kicking Corporate bad behavior in the head while kissing the Bezos Ring over Amazon as a 'solution'. As to your made up evidence of small business you are just plain WRONG!

Oz figures

Small businesses still dominate
Small businesses continue to dominate the Australian economy, with 99.8% of all Australian businesses considered a small to medium enterprises. Three in five businesses (62%) are non-employing, with 98% of all Australian businesses employing less than 20 people.

The most common size for an employing business is to employ between 1 – 4 employees which makes up 71% of employing businesses.

There is a movement of businesses away from all employing size categories (1-4, 5-19, 20-199 and 200+) towards the non-employing category, the only category to experience an increase in 2017-18 (up 5%).

No idea if this is accurate but it seems even in the USA SME's are a major part of the economy but cant be stacked against Europe /Oz directly as the 500 employee number mask a direct comparison https://au.oberlo.com/blog/small-business-statistics#:~:text=There%20are%2030.7%20million%20small,businesses%20(SBA%2C%202019).&text=Those%20businesses%20with%20fewer%20than,all%20businesses%20in%20the%20country.

[tautech]

Completely off topic but for Saskia I offer a WiFi enabled alternate to C4 put a couple on the roof and ......

https://youtu.be/sEmm-T72ECw and https://youtu.be/e474W5k4HOQ?t=138

looking at their website and buyitnow options ...

And to think, I just wasted all that money buying a pole saw.   

-Pat

I did not watch the video until I saw Pat's comment.   Is it less expensive than a chain saw?     I just got through the ordeal of sharpening the chain saw and am going to have to do it again soon.   It can only do about five cuts or so of hard Ash wood before it needs sharpening again and again and again ....

LOL - much more expensive, but it appears to have better range.  My chainsaw-on-a-stick only extends to 12 feet.  I need to get the four foot extension for it, and it will still take some stretching to do what I need to with it.

      

As for chain sharpening, as tautech said, it's easy with the proper file, and an angle guide helps too.  I find it to be pretty quick and easy to do, especially if there's a bench vise handy to secure the bar.  Three or four strokes per tooth on one side till you make it all the way around, then flip it 180 and repeat for the opposite teeth.  You need to hit the depth gauges every few sharpenings, too, as the teeth are filed back and the cutting edge drops.

Stihl makes a nice jig that gets both the cutting edges and the depth gauges in one fell swoop; I bought one last year /after/ I'd finished with the saw and so haven't yet really used it, but it seems to be well regarded.

If you're using the correct diameter file, is it possible that the chain overheated at some point and the teeth lost their temper?  While I haven't done any ash (have mostly maple here), I find that a sharpening will last a loooong time.  Or until the saw touches the dirt.  That will dull it almost faster than you can react to lift it back up, and off to the vise I go, swearing the whole way...

-Pat

Uggghhh. This is an art I learned from the age of 12... and have done at least two lifetimes worth. If I never touch a chainsaw again (unless maybe to whittle a bit... maybe then...  ) it'll be too fucking soon.

This is definitely a task for which the credit card and phone are the best tools.

mnem
Fuck. That. Noize.

Use it or lose it ! 

2 of 4 big Eucs I needed to fell last week and the background one was 1m+. 

[mindcrime]

Edit: We're all getting old here as a rule and remember the old days with rose-tinted glasses but looking objectively the whole line of thinking which our lives started on, pre-internet mostly, is obsolete. We gained so much since then and killed off our isolationist territorial tendencies which I think are really what drives "local is best". That and the desire to show status through ownership which again was just a post-war boom marketing scheme that we were sold no more valid than a useless chunk of rock stuck to a woman's finger being sign of love. It's dead. That whole world is gone. Thank fuck. It was horrible and stupid.

Also we're just a bunch of monkeys on a rock floating in space. Locality is a matter of perspective. Change is inevitable.

Sorry rant over.

I walked into a Lowes home improvement store a few weeks ago, wanting a handful of items. Found the first few of them, and then finally located the last one. It was locked to the shelf with one of those stupid anti-theft things. And there was no employee in my field of vision. Now what am I supposed to do,. wander randomly around the store hoping to find an employee with a key, all while juggling an armload of stuff? Fuck that. So I gave up, and went to check out. Only to find no check out lines open that weren't "self check out." Personally, my feeling towards those things is "fuck that" as well, since I don't work here, and am not interested in doing the job of your check out clerks.

I vowed never to set foot in Lowes again right then and there. I won't bore you with my anecdote about a similar, but only slightly better, experience at Home Depot a week or two later.

IMO, what's killing local retail (and in this context, by "local" I'm including big-box stores, not just "mom 'n pop" places) is a combination of: shitty selection, shitty prices, shitty service, and utter disregard for customer experience. I mean, honestly, I prefer to buy many things in a physical retail establishment anyway, for one reason or another: but forgive me if I give up on dealing with the d!c#s who run these stores, and enjoy the convenience of clicking a couple of buttons and having my stuff show up on my door-step the next day, or the day after.

(And FWIW, yes, I understand the costs a physical retail store deals with, and I don't expect Amazon or Aliexpress level prices at retail. I'll pay a premium for picking my stuff up locally... but only up to a point.)

[Kosmic]

I needed a high impedance meter for something I'm working on, so I decided to move the old Keithley 610CR, that I got a while ago, to the front of the repair queue. The unit I have was produced in 1972 and last calibration was in 1983.



Before powering it up I decided to check all the caps in the power supply.



Surprisingly, look like there is no problem there. They are still in good shape. Even with power on everything is fine. No ripple and the power supply is stable.

So I started following the calibration procedure from the manual and found the first issue. The first thing you need to do is short the input (Zero Check) and adjust the Zero with the coarse and fine adjustments on the front panel.

It was impossible to zero and the coarse adjustment was really erratic (the needle was going left and right violently)

The coarse adjustment is really just a chain of resistors mounted on a rotary switch. As you rotate the switch, the resistance (from wiper to in/out) should increase / decrease in step.



So I did some measurements and something was really weird indeed. The total resistance was changing while turning the switch (supposed to be fixed at 2.49K\$\Omega\$) and the resistance from the wiper to one end was changing erratically (supposed to change in steps of 249\$\Omega\$).



Found the problem in the switch itself. The 2 poles were not aligned correctly. I suspect the instrument always had that problem (switch look authentic and they were no signs of tempering). Not sure how it passed QA when it was produced.



So after reassembling the switch correctly, I measured the expected behavior and was able to zero the meter 

[mnementh]

You're not getting my point. You're arguing a completely different point from the one I was making.

No, the point was "Me: small companies historically pay better", "You: There are no more small companies", "Me: Yes there are, here are the figures (by number of companies, number of employees and turnover)" and you've wandered off somewhere completely different.

No, you've provided statistics; a tool which exists expressly for the purpose of making numbers lie.

You've provided no proof that small companies aren't being systematically squeezed out of existence by the megas; only that they haven't completely succeeded yet. In a sample size which is, by your own admission, much smaller than even I realized.

But hey; I'll concede that the megas have not completely succeeded yet in wiping small business off the globe; you've already conceded that they are most likely trying to do so.

Cheers,

mnem
 

Part of your problem is you keep kicking Corporate bad behavior in the head while kissing the Bezos Ring over Amazon as a 'solution'. As to your made up evidence of small business you are just plain WRONG!

Oz figures

Small businesses still dominate
Small businesses continue to dominate the Australian economy, with 99.8% of all Australian businesses considered a small to medium enterprises. Three in five businesses (62%) are non-employing, with 98% of all Australian businesses employing less than 20 people.

The most common size for an employing business is to employ between 1 – 4 employees which makes up 71% of employing businesses.

There is a movement of businesses away from all employing size categories (1-4, 5-19, 20-199 and 200+) towards the non-employing category, the only category to experience an increase in 2017-18 (up 5%).

No idea if this is accurate but it seems even in the USA SME's are a major part of the economy but cant be stacked against Europe /Oz directly as the 500 employee number mask a direct comparison https://au.oberlo.com/blog/small-business-statistics#:~:text=There%20are%2030.7%20million%20small,businesses%20(SBA%2C%202019).&text=Those%20businesses%20with%20fewer%20than,all%20businesses%20in%20the%20country.

Did you actually look at the page you linked to? Their definition of "small" is less than 500 employees. Ridiculous in this context. 


Lets see how my recent dealing with a local business, BBQPartsCanada, went...

I go on their site looking for a grease tray and grease cup for my BBQ. They have a nice neat page dedicated to my make and model of BBQ, so I scroll down the page and sure enuf, there's what looks to be the part I need, supposedly for my model grill, and I order it. Shipping's a bit high; almost as much as the parts but I'm expecting a big bit of metal pan to fit in the slot on back of my grill so I suck it up and pay the dosh.

Parts get here, and they're in a itty little box that would be small even for a laptop. Open it up and while the grease tray looks like it would fit my grill shape wise, the hole's like offset and is in no way wide enough to reach both slots it needs to slide into. The grease cup clearly is made to go with this pan, but again... no way it'll fit in the slot in my grill.

No problem... I'll just go to the website and find the exploded view... they don't have it. Only half of my grill, and not the half where this part is. I open the chat dialog on the website which is supposed to be "one of their trained experts"... it is clearly some phone bank drone working from a script. I explain the problem, ask for the exploded view so I can see how this is supposed to go together, and when I click the link she gives me... I see that these parts are NOT for my grill. I can see the parts that should be for my grill in the listing; the ones I have are visibly different from the exploded view, and different part numbers as well.

I explain this to the rep, who then says "I'm sorry; I'll have to send you an eMail with contact info so one of our escalation team can handle this for you."

I get the eMail, and it's a form letter for a Pick Error Report. It's asking me to collect and present pics of everything wrong... including the parts I don't have and the pick ticket, and everything she's asking for is stuff already on their website or in my order. I ask her what this is aboot; this obviously is not a pick error, as I got the parts I ordered; it's just something wrong on the website with the parts it lists for my grill.

She says it's not her, it's the escalation team requesting this. Then she says thank you, and closes the chat without even giving me a chance to ask her what I'm supposed to do for pics of parts I don't have because I never got them.

When I look again at the eMail, I see this was sent from the FSP domain... this "local business" is actually a fucking front for US-based appliance parts megadistributor Factory Service Parts.

So yeah... especially since I don't have a choice most of the time right now because everything's closed due to COVID, I'm going to do business with Amazon. You have no choice but to do business with the megas sooner or later... so I'm going to go where I can actually get what I want/need, rather than what some dingle in a distribution center who knows absolutely nothing aboot what he's selling thinks is closest to what people are demanding in a store 50 or 5000 kliks away.

Maybe "buy local" is still working there in OZ... if so, good for you. Fight tooth & claw to keep it. Especially support the mom & pops while you still have 'em; hopefully they'll teach their kids all they know so they can support their local customers with knowledge and actual interest.

Over here it's a shitshow and getting shittier all the time... and often as not, even shopping "local" you're still doing business with the megas anyways. Maybe things will be different once we get COVID under control and things return to "normal" up here in the GWN... I'm already hearing rumblings aboot reneging on the usurious trade deals resident Chump strongarmed them into at the beginning of the crisis.  

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

[mnementh]

Uggghhh. This is an art I learned from the age of 12... and have done at least two lifetimes worth. If I never touch a chainsaw again (unless maybe to whittle a bit... maybe then...  ) it'll be too fucking soon.

This is definitely a task for which the credit card and phone are the best tools.

mnem
Fuck. That. Noize.

Use it or lose it ! 

2 of 4 big Eucs I needed to fell last week and the background one was 1m+. 

   http://vintagechainsawcollection.blogspot.com/2013/09/craftsmandavid-bradley-91760008.html

More power tooya, my friend. This was my inheritance. With both the lopping and 4-foot 2-man bars.

mnem
...and it made a damn fine Go-Kart too.

[tautech]

Uggghhh. This is an art I learned from the age of 12... and have done at least two lifetimes worth. If I never touch a chainsaw again (unless maybe to whittle a bit... maybe then...  ) it'll be too fucking soon.

This is definitely a task for which the credit card and phone are the best tools.

mnem
Fuck. That. Noize.

Use it or lose it ! 

2 of 4 big Eucs I needed to fell last week and the background one was 1m+. 

   http://vintagechainsawcollection.blogspot.com/2013/09/craftsmandavid-bradley-91760008.html

More power tooya, my friend. This was my inheritance. With both the lopping and 4-foot 2-man bars.

mnem
...and it made a damn fine Go-Kart too.

Worked on old shit like that 40 years ago and gokarts are all they were good for ! 

Got an old PM Canadian down the shed the dear deceased uncle brought new and the only thing of value on it is the big Tillitson carby which I intend to marry onto an old XD Jonsered that have a unique fuel injection system (read POS) that made them a one man saw as only one man could start the SOB ! 

My big boy 3120XP can easily handle a 6' bar but with the 3 footer on it I can handle 7' trees with it mind you such monsters are not that common here these days. Man do they come down with a crash ! 

If the old timers had the saws we have today the earth would be barren except for the plantation forests.
Thank heavens they only had crosscut saws and axes.

[vk6zgo]

I walked into a Lowes home improvement store a few weeks ago, wanting a handful of items. Found the first few of them, and then finally located the last one. It was locked to the shelf with one of those stupid anti-theft things. And there was no employee in my field of vision. Now what am I supposed to do,. wander randomly around the store hoping to find an employee with a key, all while juggling an armload of stuff? Fuck that. So I gave up, and went to check out. Only to find no check out lines open that weren't "self check out." Personally, my feeling towards those things is "fuck that" as well, since I don't work here, and am not interested in doing the job of your check out clerks.

I vowed never to set foot in Lowes again right then and there. I won't bore you with my anecdote about a similar, but only slightly better, experience at Home Depot a week or two later.

IMO, what's killing local retail (and in this context, by "local" I'm including big-box stores, not just "mom 'n pop" places) is a combination of: shitty selection, shitty prices, shitty service, and utter disregard for customer experience. I mean, honestly, I prefer to buy many things in a physical retail establishment anyway, for one reason or another: but forgive me if I give up on dealing with the d!c#s who run these stores, and enjoy the convenience of clicking a couple of buttons and having my stuff show up on my door-step the next day, or the day after.

(And FWIW, yes, I understand the costs a physical retail store deals with, and I don't expect Amazon or Aliexpress level prices at retail. I'll pay a premium for picking my stuff up locally... but only up to a point.)

Bunnings, the big Oz hardware chain installed a bunch of  "self check out" stations at each of its stores.

For what they are, they work OK ------ if you are buying a few items which are nicely labelled with the appropriate barcode, but if you are buying a bunch of bolts, some matching nuts, & some washers, as well as some small brackets for another job, or something like that, they don't work at all.

But, here's the biggie!
On all but a few occasions, when I went there, the "self check outs" were  roped off, so I have to use a normal checkout,anyway.
It usually turns out that is faster than the DIY checkout would have been,

At the supermarkets, they have weird hangups about where you place your bag, & the device will "spit the dummy" if you don't do it just right.
To prevent confusion, they have someone (often several) to "assist" you.

[beanflying]

Bunnings self serve checkouts were roped off here more often than not pre Covid and I make a point of not using them or at the Supermarkets if I have more than a few items. The best/fastest way to get worse customer service and an experience is to not talk to and interact with the staff. At least Bunnings generally has 'some' degree of hardware knowledge on the floor and in the trade section at least here there is an ex chippie normally around if needed.

We still have a Family owned (Mitre 10 branded) Hardware store that still holds up really well and chases the Tradie market hard against Bunnings a lot of that is down to who is employed there and what they know about their area.

[bd139]

I rather like the self checkouts. They don't throw all your shit through as fast as possible then stare at you like you've just punched a baby to make you go away quicker.

[Robert763]

You're not getting my point. You're arguing a completely different point from the one I was making.

No, the point was "Me: small companies historically pay better", "You: There are no more small companies", "Me: Yes there are, here are the figures (by number of companies, number of employees and turnover)" and you've wandered off somewhere completely different.

No, you've provided statistics; a tool which exists expressly for the purpose of making numbers lie.

You've provided no proof that small companies aren't being systematically squeezed out of existence by the megas; only that they haven't completely succeeded yet. In a sample size which is, by your own admission, much smaller than even I realized.

But hey; I'll concede that the megas have not completely succeeded yet in wiping small business off the globe; you've already conceded that they are most likely trying to do so.

Cheers,

mnem
 

Sigh. 

FTFY

[beanflying]

I rather like the self checkouts. They don't throw all your shit through as fast as possible then stare at you like you've just punched a baby to make you go away quicker.

Then your businesses aren't hiring well or training at all. The crews at all the local Supermarkets are over chatty (can be a minor fail even with a few ) in my experience and there is nothing thrown anywhere. So either you or the businesses staff you go to are so jaded and fail completely at basic politeness and interaction skills.

I have spent most of the last two decades until a few years ago hiring and only rarely firing (two) people for up front Customer service jobs in small Business. If the staff cant be pleasant and engaging to the customers then they don't get hired. One fired for being incompetent after six months of trying and the other staff had had it with them too and the other threatened another member of staff so I frog marched them to the door on the spot.

[Robert763]

I needed a high impedance meter for something I'm working on, so I decided to move the old Keithley 610CR, that I got a while ago, to the front of the repair queue. The unit I have was produced in 1972 and last calibration was in 1983.



Before powering it up I decided to check all the caps in the power supply.

Surprisingly, look like there is no problem there. They are still in good shape. Even with power on everything is fine. No ripple and the power supply is stable.

So I started following the calibration procedure from the manual and found the first issue. The first thing you need to do is short the input (Zero Check) and adjust the Zero with the coarse and fine adjustments on the front panel.

It was impossible to zero and the coarse adjustment was really erratic (the needle was going left and right violently)

The coarse adjustment is really just a chain of resistors mounted on a rotary switch. As you rotate the switch, the resistance (from wiper to in/out) should increase / decrease in step.

So I did some measurements and something was really weird indeed. The total resistance was changing while turning the switch (supposed to be fixed at 2.49K\$\Omega\$) and the resistance from the wiper to one end was changing erratically (supposed to change in steps of 249\$\Omega\$).

Found the problem in the switch itself. The 2 poles were not aligned correctly. I suspect the instrument always had that problem (switch look authentic and they were no signs of tempering). Not sure how it passed QA when it was produced.

So after reassembling the switch correctly, I measured the expected behavior and was able to zero the meter 

Good catch. Interesting use of multiple resistors in he other half of the input pair. Presumably to keep zero drift with temperature to a minimum. 5 identical resistors is easier than trying to find one with 5 times the value and 5 times the TC.

[bd139]

I rather like the self checkouts. They don't throw all your shit through as fast as possible then stare at you like you've just punched a baby to make you go away quicker.

Then your businesses aren't hiring well or training at all. The crews at all the local Supermarkets are over chatty (can be a minor fail even with a few ) in my experience and there is nothing thrown anywhere. So either you or the businesses staff you go to are so jaded and fail completely at basic politeness and interaction skills.

I have spent most of the last two decades until a few years ago hiring and only rarely firing (two) people for up front Customer service jobs in small Business. If the staff cant be pleasant and engaging to the customers then they don't get hired. One fired for being incompetent after six months of trying and the other staff had had it with them too and the other threatened another member of staff so I frog marched them to the door on the spot.

I think it’s more the metrics that are forced on checkout staff here that’s the issue. They’re monitored for scan rate. Another race to the bottom.

[DC1MC]

More Lattice ANALOGUE FPGAs, the bigger brother of the ispPAC10, the ispPAC20 

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

[Robert763]

When I first started out in electronics as a boy in the mid seventies I lived in Northern Ireland. Only two electronics shops and both a 2h train ride (and a long walk to/from the station at each end) plus a couple of TV repair shops who didn't want to sell an any of their stock in case thy needed it. Everything was mail order from magazine or catalogues. That men going to the Post Office for a postal order, sending off the order and waiting a week or two for it to arrive, typically with some critical part missing....
Then I went to Bristol in the early 80's and there was Marshalls and Target just a short walk away.
No, not the NA Marshalls & Target. Marshall was a small chain similar to Maplin (of the time). Target were a mixed new/surplus store. Just Checked Google Earth and the place where Target was locaed is now  vacant lot between two newer buildings.   

[BU508A]

Just sniped four Vishay 1MOhm 0.005% resistors (VHA516-6T) for 35 Euro each. 



I've attached the datasheet from Vishay below.

[Robert763]

More Lattice ANALOGUE FPGAs, the bigger brother of the ispPAC10, the ispPAC20 

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

I looked at the ispPACs when they first came out. The big issue that killed them aas a product is that there are not many applications that require a reconfiguarable analog circuit at production or upgrade. We had a couple of variations of instrument. One needed a lock-in amplifier to get the required performance but it was cheaper to just put the lock-in circuit in both models rather than the cost of the ispPAC plus the time and complicaion or programming it.

[vk6zgo]

Here's something for the Dwagon:-

[tggzzz]

When I first started out in electronics as a boy in the mid seventies I lived in Northern Ireland. Only two electronics shops and both a 2h train ride (and a long walk to/from the station at each end) plus a couple of TV repair shops who didn't want to sell an any of their stock in case thy needed it. Everything was mail order from magazine or catalogues. That men going to the Post Office for a postal order, sending off the order and waiting a week or two for it to arrive, typically with some critical part missing....
Then I went to Bristol in the early 80's and there was Marshalls and Target just a short walk away.
No, not the NA Marshalls & Target. Marshall was a small chain similar to Maplin (of the time). Target were a mixed new/surplus store. Just Checked Google Earth and the place where Target was locaed is now  vacant lot between two newer buildings.

Target survived a remarkably long time, certainly the 90s and possibly into this millennium.