Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday Dear Susanna
Happy Birthday to You
Monday, April 25, 2005
Stick Shift
Well I got back on the horse and tried driving some more and this time it clicked. After trying the driveway and a couple of parking lots I then took on some small streets. I stalled at about half of the stop signs but the rest of the drive went fairly well. Susanna was a good teacher and very patient as I jerked the car back and forth.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Stick Shift
I'm in Swarthmore at Susanna's house for passover and Susanna's parents have a stick shift car so Susanna offered to teach me how to drive it. We were just going up and down the drive way and I was starting to get a few reasonable starts (I never got it without any jerks, but I think a few of them there was only one jerk, rather than bouncing back and forth). Then I lost it and stalled out several times in a row and then the car had trouble starting so we decided to take a bit of a break. Maybe I'll try again later today but I'm not sure how much damage I want to do to Susanna's parents car...
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Baker House Piano Drop 2005: Drop Date has a new meaning
How do MIT students celebrate the last day on which they can drop a class? Apparently they drop a piano off the roof of a 6 story building... It did break apart, although I still think dropping pumpkins of the 21 story building for halloween looks cooler.
Baker House Piano Drop 2005: Drop Date has a new meaning
Baker House Piano Drop 2005: Drop Date has a new meaning
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Robust Remote
While doing laundry a few days ago (yeah it happens occasionally), Susanna and I had trouble finding the TV remote. We looked and looked and eventually gave up. When the drier was done I headed down to get the laundry. I opened the drier and noticed two batteries which seemed very odd. I also recognized the cheap off brand look. I was about to throw them out when I noticed the little part on the remote you remove to replace the batters also in the drier. I quickly went through the laundry and of course found the rest of the remote. I took it upstairs and it worked perfectly. I was quite impressed (well impressed enough to blog about it).
For a while there I flew across the country each month to talk to another company, now my big excitement is that the washing machine didn't destroy my remote. Looks like it's time to get a hobby...
For a while there I flew across the country each month to talk to another company, now my big excitement is that the washing machine didn't destroy my remote. Looks like it's time to get a hobby...
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system
If you are ever doing anything on the internet and do not want people to be able to track who you are sending info to or getting info from you can use this:
Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system
For a good list of reasons to use it see the website. For those who want to do file sharing with it the problem is that it is fairly slow so it's not really a good way to do that. Remember it will only stop someone from knowing where your packets are going - it will not stop someone from knowing what they contain - so if it is sensitive information you still need to make sure that the communication is encrypted.
Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system
For a good list of reasons to use it see the website. For those who want to do file sharing with it the problem is that it is fairly slow so it's not really a good way to do that. Remember it will only stop someone from knowing where your packets are going - it will not stop someone from knowing what they contain - so if it is sensitive information you still need to make sure that the communication is encrypted.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Mariner Came In
My thesis project (code named Mariner) was delivered to the California office a couple of days ago. They look like they are ok, but actually testing will not happen for a bit. I have some pictures I want to post but I need to make sure that it is ok to do that first.
It works!
For 6.776 (the RF CMOS class I am taking) we have a lab assignment to work in pairs to make an amplifier centered at 50 MHz with a gain of 25 and an input impedance of 50 ohms along with several other specs. Figuring out the design and getting it to work in the simulator took some work but nothing too bad. But when it comes time to build something that works at 50 MHz things you might never think of all of a sudden make a big difference. Such as the scope probe we use to measure signals is actually the load of the amplifier since 10 pF is rather significant at 50 MHz. So you cannot look at the voltage at any point in the circuit other than the output because attaching the scope probe significantly changes the circuit.
Luckily it is at 50 MHz and not 100 MHz since that is where all of the FM stations are, but even at 50 MHz you have to contend with all that junk being transmitted when taking measurements.
Anyway, when we started building it we were having a really hard time getting any gain and it seemed like we had maxed out at about 6. For some reason I let myself feel all defeated and thought we would never get it to work. The entire time Susanna told me that we would figure it out and that once we did I would go on and on about how much I love building circuits and how glad I would be that we had to actually build it and not just simulate it.
Well it eventually struck me that we could get more gain by adding a buffer stage after our amplifier (for low frequency stuff that would be obvious, but for RF there are reasons why it is not). So my partner and I went in and rebuilt it, but we didn't have all the right values of parts and for some reason the TA thought that grad students don't have to be in their office on Sundays so we got to a gain of 11 and things were looking up.
Today we got the inductor values we needed and rebuilt it and then started switching around values of various components somewhat at random to see what would increase the gain. Eventually we got to a gain of about 24.5 at which point we tried things like jiggling components and blowing on it so no avail. Eventually I adjusted the variable capacitors a bit more and decided that my partner was being a bit stingy with his measurement on the scope and we called it a success with a gain of exactly 25 at exactly the output swing we needed. Tomorrow we find out if our TA agrees. And of course on the walk home today I thought about how much I love building circuits and how glad I am that we did not just simulate it.
Why did you just read all of that? Well I can't sleep and I don't feel like working on my thesis right now and hence another blog entry is created...
Luckily it is at 50 MHz and not 100 MHz since that is where all of the FM stations are, but even at 50 MHz you have to contend with all that junk being transmitted when taking measurements.
Anyway, when we started building it we were having a really hard time getting any gain and it seemed like we had maxed out at about 6. For some reason I let myself feel all defeated and thought we would never get it to work. The entire time Susanna told me that we would figure it out and that once we did I would go on and on about how much I love building circuits and how glad I would be that we had to actually build it and not just simulate it.
Well it eventually struck me that we could get more gain by adding a buffer stage after our amplifier (for low frequency stuff that would be obvious, but for RF there are reasons why it is not). So my partner and I went in and rebuilt it, but we didn't have all the right values of parts and for some reason the TA thought that grad students don't have to be in their office on Sundays so we got to a gain of 11 and things were looking up.
Today we got the inductor values we needed and rebuilt it and then started switching around values of various components somewhat at random to see what would increase the gain. Eventually we got to a gain of about 24.5 at which point we tried things like jiggling components and blowing on it so no avail. Eventually I adjusted the variable capacitors a bit more and decided that my partner was being a bit stingy with his measurement on the scope and we called it a success with a gain of exactly 25 at exactly the output swing we needed. Tomorrow we find out if our TA agrees. And of course on the walk home today I thought about how much I love building circuits and how glad I am that we did not just simulate it.
Why did you just read all of that? Well I can't sleep and I don't feel like working on my thesis right now and hence another blog entry is created...
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Last Test... Ever... Maybe
Today I took my one and only test for the term and since I am graduating (assuming I didn't mess up too badly) that could be the last test I take - ever! (Well yeah, I'll probably take another test at some point, but it is more fun to think of it as the last ever).
While I still have a lab due next week, hopefully now that I am done with that test I will have some time to reply to all of those emails and calls that I have been neglecting. And maybe also make some more progress on that thesis.
While I still have a lab due next week, hopefully now that I am done with that test I will have some time to reply to all of those emails and calls that I have been neglecting. And maybe also make some more progress on that thesis.
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