HP 4

In my slow attempt to catch up with everyone else I read HP 4.

I wonder to what degree kids catch the whole don't trust the government, don't believe the news message. I know people were protesting the HP books, but I think that was some insane thing about witch craft, but I do not feel like anyone ever objects to it being a kids book that has idiots and evil people as government officials and liars writing the newspapers. Don't get me wrong - I think it is great and I do hope it has a lasting impact on kids - but I would have expected some people to not be so thrilled about it. I almost wonder if no one sane wants to say anything about the books because they are afraid of being associated with the crazies.

I'm going to wait to finish the series with 5 (in my round about way of reading them) before I comment too much on the elf stuff. Although at the end of 4 the message is very questionable. Claiming that it is ok that a group of people works as slaves is ok because they like it that way seems like an odd message. It seems closer to a feudal or caste system than slavery, which would fit better with English history, but still not a good thing to have all but one character approve of. I guess if Harry disapproved it would be one thing, but he seems to treat those "under" him well, but does not object to the system as a whole, only Hermione does that. Well so much for not saying much. I guess that when I get to 5 I might have to take back some of what I said here, although based on 6 and 7 I don't think so.

I may have brought this up before, but is it just me or are the Goblins every negative Jewish stereotype put together? Ok, maybe not every negative stereotype, but I challenge anyone to name a characteristic of Goblins that is not a Jewish stereotype. They're short, have big noses, are clever, greedy, and tricky and control all the money through banking...

Whenever Percy was talking about caldron thickness I totally understood what he was talking about and was rather disturb by it (no - I don't know about caldron thickness, but I do spend a bunch of time at work making sure components are designed properly and used within specifications and regulations for long term reliability).

Hm, after all that I guess I should clarify that I actually really liked the book.

Chris Matthews On the Daily Show

If you have not seen a good Jon Stewart interview in a while then this blog is here to the rescue:

Flatliners Game #5 - Back to Reality

A game that ends 26 to 20 in the 6th inning has a lot of highlights. Unfortunately I peaked early. First hit was solid and I got to first. Then they over threw the ball into the dugout, but I didn't run, but apparently you get the next base free anyway. It was nice getting the base, but I felt silly having a bunch of people telling me to go to 2nd and having no idea why. Next inning an ok hit got me to first then barely forced out at second. By the third at bat my head had left the game. I swung at two terrible pitches and then had my zoolander at the awards show moment as I got ready to swing and the ump had to remind me that we start at 1 and 1 so I had struck out.

Fielding I had one guy tip the ball and I had it in my glove, but it bounced out. The other catcher on our team (we do every other inning) caught a fly ball so now that we are even I've challenged him to see who will catch the most fly balls. Then my moment for glory came as the runner was headed home the ball was thrown to me. The ball and the runner were arriving at the exact same moment and my attention was split between the two as the ball went right past me... DOH!

Having scored 20 runs the flatliners were still in a good mood even after losing.

Well one more game for me to earn glory before heading to the other side of the world.

Reliability Control for Electronic Systems

Last night I finished up Reliability Control for Electronic Systems (again for work). I was thinking there was even less people would be interested in from this book than the burn-in book, but there is one thing that is sorta interesting.

If you've ever seen a company advertise a brand new product and then guarantee that it will last 5 years and wonder how the hell they know that, well basically the answer is they got it really hot and then ran it for a much shorter period of time. If you've never wondered about this then stop reading here and save your patients for future posts.

Actually there are several ways to accelerate life testing.

The most straight forward is to increase the duty cycle. Ex: if you assume someone will use a light bulb 4 hours a day then by running the bulb 24 hours a day you can accelerate the life test by a factor of 6 so a 5 year life requires less than 1 year of test. With some things like cell phones which are actually communicating a tiny portion of the time this method can be a huge benefit.

Another method is if turning a device on and off puts more stress on it than just leaving it on, then for life testing it can quickly be turned on and off to simulate a much longer life.

The first two methods depend on the usage pattern of the device - the method that can be used for anything is to increase the stress on the device. For an electrical product the supplies can be run at a higher voltage than normal. For mechanical the device can be stretched or vibrated or... But the main one is to just increase the temperature since this accelerates basically all failure mechanisms. The amount it accelerates each mechanism varies significantly. But if the primary failure mechanism is known then the acceleration factor can be calculated. A very common method in electronics is to run the device at 125 C (257 F) because it is hot enough to get decent acceleration, but not so hot that it generates failures just because of the temperature (such as melting the packaging).

The methods are all a bit questionable, but it gives a decent chance of getting the life right (or at least making people feel comfortable that most devices will last at least as long as the guarantee (or at least something to show the judge to prove you didn't just pull a number out of the air)).

Flatliners Game #4 - The Win!

First a quick tip: cooking up tofu with a bag of frozen spinach on the stove using some olive oil makes for a good meal, but, here's the important part, not just before a softball game. Nothing too bad, but some definite stomach grumbling during the game.

Next, the important part - me. As catcher I didn't do anything special (although the whole paying attention thing is working out well). Picked up the ball and threw it back a bunch of times. Once tried to catch a fly ball but it hit the back fence and I missed it coming down along the fence (not actually sure if that would have counted or not). Had the ball thrown to me during one play, it was fairly far away and I missed it, but the guy had made it home long before the ball got there.

The other team did not have a strong pitcher so our team did a lot of walking. First at bat walked and eventually made it home. Second at bat had a sissy hit that landed about equidistant between the catcher, pitcher and third baseman so made it to first and eventually home. Third was a good line drive, flew between second and short stop to the outfield, and got to first but next play was forced out at second. Fourth was a line drive to about the same spot, but much softer and got forced out at first.

Finally the crazy part (well if you don't count the flatteners winning as crazy). While we were fielding (I was doing my inning on the bench) the other team had two guys standing around as first base coach. They were talking to each other fairly loud. Our first baseman asked them to quiet down so he could concentrate on the game. One of their guys said, "It's softball we can be as loud as we want. Instead of complaining about talking, why not tell your team to stop being sissies and swing at the ball." After that he made similar comments to other players on our team. It didn't get to anyone on our team due to the combination of not taking it that seriously and being so happy that we actually won.

Oh, and if you hadn't noticed - WE WON!