RF Cascade Workbook for Excel
RF & Electronics Symbols for Visio
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RF & Electronics Stencils for Visio
RF Workbench
T-Shirts, Mugs, Cups, Ball Caps, Mouse Pads
Espresso Engineering Workbook™
Smith Chart™ for Excel
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Tech Smorgasbord Archives - 7 |
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Corporate Censorship
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A couple years ago, technicians working for a well-known defense / aerospace firm managed to tip over a very expensive satellite by forgetting
to replace a few 'borrowed' bolts from its transport platform. I included a thumbnail of it in the Cool Pic spot on the RF Cafe homepage. Recently,
a former employee of a Midwest company that built one of the electronics packages on the satellite told me that enraged managers there had their
IT department block access to rfcafe.com because of it. I wonder if they also blocked access
to the website where I found the story? |
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Reverse Polish Notation RPN
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This notation system was named in honor of a Polish mathematician and logician named Jan Łukasiewicz. Polish notation (PN) places the operators
in an expression before the numbers. RPN places them after the numbers (which is why it is called Reverse Polish Notation).
 The
new HP50g calculator is one of the remaining holdouts for using RPN. They are quickly becoming an extinct species.
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Mean 2006 Salaries H-1B vs. U.S. Citizen EE Times Research
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Electronics Engineers
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H-1B |
$69,851 |
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Citizen |
$77,450 |
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Electrical Engineers
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H-1B |
$63,268 |
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Citizen |
$74,220 |
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Computer Hdw Engineers
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H-1B |
$64,426 |
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Citizen |
$84,010 |
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H-1B = Labor Condition Application (LCA)
Citizen = Occupational Employment Statistics (OES)
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Computer & Electronic Products R&D Spending
Science & Engineering Indicators Research
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State |
$x106 |
% |
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California |
15,604 |
32.0 |
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Massach. |
5,247 |
10.8 |
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Texas |
5,053 |
10.4 |
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Illinois |
2,862 |
5.9 |
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New York |
2,019 |
4.1 |
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Pennsylvania |
645 |
1.3 |
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New Jersey |
331 |
0.7 |
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Ohio |
288 |
0.6 |
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Michigan |
259 |
0.5 |
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Other States |
16,449 |
33.7 |
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All States |
48,757 |
100 |
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Note that 53% of all R&D spending is concentrated in just 3 states. |
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Ways That Engineers Continue Their Educations
Electronic Design Research
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Source |
% |
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Tech Pubs |
84 |
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Seminars |
63 |
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Textbooks |
62 |
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White Papers |
55 |
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Conferences |
48 |
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Webinars |
45 |
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E-Books |
30 |
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In-House Training |
26 |
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Prof. Assns. |
25 |
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User Groups |
18 |
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College Courses |
13 |
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Chat Rooms |
9 |
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Scott Adams Finds His Voice Again
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Did you know that Dilbert creator Scott Adams seemingly inexplicably lost the ability to speak? It began with a tremor in a finger (causing
him to have to draw on a digitizing table rather than with a pencil) and ended with a diagnosis of
Spasmodic Dysphonia. Strangely, he could only speak in rhymes
(or singing) or while pinching his nose. Of the 30k people afflicted, few recover as remarkably as Scott has. Out of nowhere, his voice miraculously
returned in 2006.
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Search for Your Name in π
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Dr. Michael Hartley, at one time of the University of Western Australia School of Mathematics and Statistics, has written a script to
search for your name in the first 31,415,929 digits of Pi. How? "I
converted pi to base 27." Why base 27 and not 26? "Base 27 is the neatest way which allows me to represent the digit 1 as A, 2 as B, ..., and
26 as Z." It found KIRT 57 times, but could not find RFCAFE. Lots of interesting π facts
there, too. He will search in the first 27,182,818 digits of e as well. |
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Mandelbrot Sets (Fractals)
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 Benoît Mandelbrot discovered and named "fractals" in 1961 when
studying fluctuations in the cotton market, of all things. He noticed a plot of the seemingly random price variations over the course of a month
looked just like a plot of the variations over a decade. Further investigations revealed such patterns in many natural and human-influenced
situations; e.g., a graph of the rise and fall of the Nile over a week resembled the graph over a century. The word "fractals" comes from from
the Latin word for "broken" or "irregular," which describes the self-similarity of his patterns.
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Spotting a Lie in E-Mails
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According to Cornell University professor's Study, here
is how to tell if someone is lying to you in an e-mail:
- More third-person references than first-person references (they, them vs. me, I) - More words associated with negative emotions (bummer,
sucks vs. great, wonderful) - When people know they are being lied TO, they often use shorter sentences and ask more questions - When
people lie in e-mail or in IMs, they tend to use 28% more words than normal.
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NASA's Watch
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 1965, the
Omega Speedmaster Professional chronograph was "flight-qualified by NASA for all manned space missions." It remains the
only watch qualified for extravehicular activities - digital watches need not apply. On July 20, 1969 at 02:56 GMT, it recorded
man's first steps on the Moon's surface as part of the Apollo 11 mission. Price: $2,200.
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Ph.Ds Awarded in Engineering & Science (in thousands)
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Year |
U.S. |
EU |
Asia |
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2000 |
18.0 |
23.0 |
18.0 |
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1995 |
19.2 |
20.1 |
14.2 |
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1990 |
16.2 |
19.1 |
9.9 |
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1985 |
12.6 |
8.7 |
7.7 |
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1980 |
11.2 |
7.7 |
5.8 |
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1975 |
12.2 |
6.9 |
4.0 |
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If you're an American, what's wrong with this picture? |
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2006 Richest People Forbes' Billionaires
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1 |
William Gates III |
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2 |
Warren Buffett |
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3 |
Carlos Slim Helú |
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4 |
Ingvar Kamprad |
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5 |
Lakshmi Mittal |
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6 |
Sheldon Adelson |
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7 |
Bernard Arnault |
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8 |
Amancio Ortega |
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9 |
Li Ka-shing |
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10 |
David Thomson |
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: |
: |
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890 |
Faruk Yalcin |
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891 |
Kostyantin Zhevago |
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See their
homes. |
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"