I myself wrote on
Fri, 02 Jan 2026 02:40:07
- >|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"I myself wrote: |
||---------------------------------------------------------------------------||
||"Happy New Year! ||
|| ||
||This post is about more misadventures of LinkedIn ineptness. I ||
||(incompletely) archived LinkedIn comments by me from October 2025 downto a ||
||time which LinkedIn professes to be 2 years (ago). This unsatisfactorily ||
||incomplete archiving took excessively long: i.e. 5 days! Namely December ||
||6th; 7th; 8th; 9th; and 10th, 2025. ||
|| ||
||This incomplete archive consists of circa 470 comments in circa 387 ||
||kilobytes. By contrast, it took me fewer than one day in November 2025 to ||
||download 77 megabytes (34,889 posts) from news:alt.video.dvd.authoring ||
|| ||
||Many LinkedIn problems of ||
||"! ||
|| ||
||This page is having a problem ||
|| ||
||Try coming back to it later. ||
|| ||
|| ||
||You could also: ||
|| ||
||* Open a new tab ||
|| ||
||* Refresh this page" ||
||happened during this December misadventure. ||
|| ||
||LinkedIn is so lame! ||
|| ||
||On New Year's Day 2026, LinkedIn repeatedly refused to show me comments by ||
||me from more than 4 weeks previously." ||
||---------------------------------------------------------------------------||
| |
|LinkedIn made me lose circa 566 megabytes and many tens of minutes to |
|download circa the last 4 weeks of LinkedIn comments by myself |
|(excluding comments in this timeframe which LinkedIn stopped showing |
|to me), and almost 2 hours to upload these downloaded backups. These |
|four weeks of comments are not many comments but LinkedIn forces an |
|author to lose excessive amounts of megabytes and time to save such |
|personal data, or to lose such personal data. LinkedIn is |
|unsatisfactory. |
| |
|[. . .] |
| |
|I also noticed on 01/01/2026 that LinkedIn restricted Microsoft Edge's |
|feature of Print --> Printer --> Save as PDF to print to a single |
|piece of paper (i.e. a tiny excerpt of weeks of comments) but LinkedIn |
|used to let Microsoft Edge make big PDF files even as recently as |
|Tuesday 30th December 2025. E.g. |
|[. . .]" |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Since 23/01/2026 I notice 2 new LinkedIn bugs which are not the same
as the LinkedIn bugs which I detect over many years.
So I thought such a bug might be temporary and might prevent LinkedIn
from refusing to scroll through more than a month of comments, so
this morning I managed to scroll down through circa 3 months of
comments.
LinkedIn is legally obligated to provide copies of comments, but
LinkedIn acts illegally. If you want to back up comments which you
uploaded to LinkedIn, then now might be the time to back them up.
LinkedIn forced me to spend tens of minutes to scroll through circa 3
months of comments. I used Microsoft Edge to
"Save as type: Webpage, complete", producing an 86-megabytes copy. I
used Microsoft Egde to produce an unsatisfactory 249-page,
238-megabytes PDF copy (Print --> Printer --> Save as PDF). Sic. 238 >megabytes versus 86 megabytes for only the same comments.
Uploading this PDF version to Insomnia 24/7 took circa twenty minutes.
Microsoft Edge took circa 12 minutes to produce this PDF file.
Much worse problems related to Microsoft are alleged by e.g. >HTTPS://wiki.ICEList.Is/index.php/LinkedIn
and
HTTPS://wiki.ICEList.Is/index.php/Microsoft
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
In sci.electronics.design John Larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> wrote: >|--------------------------------------------------------------------| >|"LinkedIn is 99% trash, so it's a great way to waste time and not | >|design electronics." | >|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
David Bishop had recommended me to create a LinkedIn account to try to
find a job which actually pays money. This is why I created an account
on LinkedIn. Mister Bishop means well, but LinkedIn fails at the only
task which I created this account for.
A person who used to contribute more than 700 articles to
comp.lang.vhdl who promotes VHDL a lot on LinkedIn likes a recent
LinkedIn comment by me that comp.lang.vhdl is for works, but the
newest comp.lang.vhdl article by him that I detect is dated 2021.
Alas persons use LinkedIn instead of the USENET. LinkedIn is not good
at threads. LinkedIn is not good at archiving reliably.
LinkedIn is not good for detailed discussions.
I do not find it to be a complete waste of time though, as
non-engineers who are important to me find it convenient to use.
A purported electronic engineer follows me on LinkedIn since the Year
2020 but I did not log onto LinkedIn even once in that year. I do not
know why he follows me. All the HDL users and all the purported
electronic engineers who connect with me on LinkedIn after he started >following me are persons whom I never detect contributing to the
USENET. Many of the persons with whom I am never connected with on
LinkedIn who follow me on LinkedIn work only in professions which are >completely unrelated to mine. Maybe some day I will become a client of
some of these persons, but I have found using LinkedIn to be useless
for getting a job and not useless for communications with unsimilar
persons who insist on using that limited medium.
|---------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"I have used it to find talent, which works fairly well. One cheap ad|
|can spin up hundreds of applicants and the presentation makes them |
|fast to evaluate." | >|---------------------------------------------------------------------|
If I would be hiring then I would want to see that a candidate
contributes to the USENET.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
In sci.electronics.design John Larkin wrote:
|-------------------------|
|"What do you want to do?"|
|-------------------------|
Thanks for asking.
I am a space engineer who wants to read reliability in scientific >publications but instead real publications are overrun by lies by
subventions fraudsters.
I do want ethical workplaces and employees' welfare to exist.
I want to convince persons that coding should be done in a strongly
typed language.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:57:54 -0000 (UTC), Niocl s P˘l Caile n de
Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> wrote:
In sci.electronics.design John Larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> wrote:
The nice lady who visited us yesterday has an ECE degree and wants to
learn hands-on electronics and not just type. I wonder if one has to
have some natural inclinitions for doing electronics, sort of mechanical/visual/dynamic instincts. And whether one has to play with electronics when just a kid, before its too late.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:48:56 -0000 (UTC), Niocl s P˘l Caile n de
Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> wrote:
In sci.electronics.design John Larkin wrote:
|-------------------------|
|"What do you want to do?"|
|-------------------------|
Thanks for asking.
I am a space engineer who wants to read reliability in scientific
publications but instead real publications are overrun by lies by
subventions fraudsters.
Absolutely!
I do want ethical workplaces and employees' welfare to exist.
I want to convince persons that coding should be done in a strongly
typed language.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
So you are a coder?
When I program (which I avoid) I do it in PowerBasic. It lets you do
most anything.
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive[...]
crystal set
LinkedIn is legally obligated to provide copies of comments, but
LinkedIn acts illegally. If you want to back up comments which you
uploaded to LinkedIn, then now might be the time to back them up.
LinkedIn forced me to spend tens of minutes to scroll through circa 3
months of comments. I used Microsoft Edge to
"Save as type: Webpage, complete", producing an 86-megabytes copy. I
used Microsoft Egde to produce an unsatisfactory 249-page,
238-megabytes PDF copy (Print --> Printer --> Save as PDF). Sic. 238 megabytes versus 86 megabytes for only the same comments.
Uploading this PDF version to Insomnia 24/7 took circa twenty minutes.
Microsoft Edge took circa 12 minutes to produce this PDF file.
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive[...]
crystal set
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts.
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive[...]
crystal set
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts.
It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your preferred description of the classic crystal set?
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive[...]
crystal set
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts.
It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source.
preferred description of the classic crystal set?
I can't comment on LinkedIn as no one that I know uses it.
My understanding (?) is that it is a networking site -- a
way to "get jobs".
Most of my colleagues have more than enough work without
any sort of "advertising" or "job mining". Makes you wonder
what the folks using it are lacking... (REAL contacts??)
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive[...]
crystal set
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts.
It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your
preferred description of the classic crystal set?
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid".
Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we
may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
On 31/01/2026 12:43 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive >>>>> crystal set[...]
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts.
It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your
preferred description of the classic crystal set?
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid".
Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we
may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging
remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
John Larkin seems to think it gives you some kind of advantage.
If you taught yourself when you were a kid, you didn't have a
well-qualified teacher.
At least when I got into it, I did have a
university library and book-shop to draw on and did get some advice from >people who really knew what they were doing.
I learned a lot when I started doing electronic engineering as my main
job, and had some really skilled teachers and examplars, as a well as
lot of colleagues who merely thought that they knew what they were
doing, and earned a few disparaging remarks. A few disparaging remarks
got published as comments in the Review of Scientific Instruments.
On 1/29/2026 7:26 AM, Niocl?s P?l Caile?n de Ghloucester wrote:
LinkedIn is legally obligated to provide copies of comments, but
LinkedIn acts illegally. If you want to back up comments which you
uploaded to LinkedIn, then now might be the time to back them up.
Why not just scrape the site and periodically update that -- instead
of trying to encapsulate it in a single document.
LinkedIn forced me to spend tens of minutes to scroll through circa 3
months of comments. I used Microsoft Edge to
"Save as type: Webpage, complete", producing an 86-megabytes copy. I
used Microsoft Egde to produce an unsatisfactory 249-page,
238-megabytes PDF copy (Print --> Printer --> Save as PDF). Sic. 238
megabytes versus 86 megabytes for only the same comments.
Uploading this PDF version to Insomnia 24/7 took circa twenty minutes.
Microsoft Edge took circa 12 minutes to produce this PDF file.
None of hose metrics mean anything. It takes me an hour to get to the post >office (on foot!).
I can't comment on LinkedIn as no one that I know uses it.
My understanding (?) is that it is a networking site -- a
way to "get jobs".
Most of my colleagues have more than enough work without
any sort of "advertising" or "job mining". Makes you wonder
what the folks using it are lacking... (REAL contacts??)
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:18:25 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 12:43 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive >>>>>> crystal set[...]
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts.
It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your >>>> preferred description of the classic crystal set?
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid". >>> Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we
may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging >>> remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
John Larkin seems to think it gives you some kind of advantage.
Of course it does. As there is a huge advantage to learning chess or
math or languages or soccer when you are young. Actually doing stuff
involves practical feedbacks and acquired instincts.
University education seldom installs much in the way of instincts
either. It's too rigid and formalized, and too late.
If you taught yourself when you were a kid, you didn't have a
well-qualified teacher.
A mentor with instincts is great if you are lucky enough to have one.
At least when I got into it, I did have a
university library and book-shop to draw on and did get some advice from
people who really knew what they were doing.
Obviously too late.
I learned a lot when I started doing electronic engineering as my main
job, and had some really skilled teachers and examplars, as a well as
lot of colleagues who merely thought that they knew what they were
doing, and earned a few disparaging remarks. A few disparaging remarks
got published as comments in the Review of Scientific Instruments.
I sometimes read RSI when it's available. The circuits are hilarious.
I can't comment on LinkedIn as no one that I know uses it.
My understanding (?) is that it is a networking site -- a
way to "get jobs".
You may be thinking of InDeed.
Most of my colleagues have more than enough work without
any sort of "advertising" or "job mining". Makes you wonder
what the folks using it are lacking... (REAL contacts??)
Networking is just keeping track of co-workers and professional
acquaintances - but there's no real controls on spam.
It has groups, similar to Facebook, where an administrator can
keep things relatively clean. The longer running of these usually
has some commercial incentive for the admin.
20yrs ago it was pretty useful. These days ~ 'Power Electronic
Management' is a style of managment. Most groups are heavily
burdened with 'user-posted' advertizing.
Tapping into 20 year old threads (where all the good references
and articles were being discussed)in such a group is well-night
impossible.
Like Facebook, it is heavily dependent on your machines' RAM and
is unfriendly to non-google, non-chrome browsers. This may be
why Edge is having issues: it would serve MS right.
On 31/01/2026 3:04 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:18:25 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 12:43 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive >>>>>>> crystal set[...]
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts.
It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your >>>>> preferred description of the classic crystal set?
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid". >>>> Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we
may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging >>>> remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
John Larkin seems to think it gives you some kind of advantage.
Of course it does. As there is a huge advantage to learning chess or
math or languages or soccer when you are young. Actually doing stuff
involves practical feedbacks and acquired instincts.
Instincts are what you were born with. What you get from doing stuff is >habits.
Learning stuff too early can instill bad habits, and they are hard to >unlearn.
Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young, and some >aspects of language can't be learned at all by very young kids.
University education seldom installs much in the way of instincts
either. It's too rigid and formalized, and too late.
Since instincts are what you get with your genome, universities can't >install them at all.
Formal instruction at university is formal. It's mostly accompanied by >practical classes, which are a lot less rigid.
The complicated stuff that most people learn at university mostly can't
be instilled into adolescents - some rare kids can learn it early, but
they tend to be exceptionally clever and need exceptional power of >concentration. About 30% of the undergraduate intake doesn't ever get
any kid of degree, and probably shouldn't have started at all.
If you taught yourself when you were a kid, you didn't have a
well-qualified teacher.
A mentor with instincts is great if you are lucky enough to have one.
Instincts come from the genome. What good mentors have is experience,
and some understanding of what that experience has taught them.
Electronics has advanced a lot over the past fifty years, and mentors
are correspondingly less useful as teachers.
At least when I got into it, I did have a
university library and book-shop to draw on and did get some advice from >>> people who really knew what they were doing.
Obviously too late.
What's obvious to you is what you want to see. Trump is even more deeply >into wishful thinking than you are.
I learned a lot when I started doing electronic engineering as my main
job, and had some really skilled teachers and examplars, as a well as
lot of colleagues who merely thought that they knew what they were
doing, and earned a few disparaging remarks. A few disparaging remarks
got published as comments in the Review of Scientific Instruments.
I sometimes read RSI when it's available. The circuits are hilarious.
They tend to be functional, rather than elegant, and not always all that >up-to-date. I once got very rude about a paper lauding the use of 1Ok
ECL which got published after ECLinPs had been around for a few years.
10k ECL was about four times faster than TTL/CMOS, but ECinPS was four
times faster again. The same paper described a ripple carry counter
where the carry propagation wasn't fast enough to match the maximum
count rate claimed. No mention at all of a synchronous counter.
It was a particularly horrible example, quite the worst I've ever seen.
Networking is just keeping track of co-workers and professional
acquaintances - but there's no real controls on spam.
And, you need a third-party "site" to do that? Don't you
*personally* interact with your colleagues -- even if only
sporadically?
If I'm contacted about a potential job, I think about the
people that I know who might be appropriate (because anyone
that I *refer* for a position is a reflection on me!).
Who (if anyone) I contact is based on my knowledge of where
their interests lie and what they might be doing, presently.
I know those things because of communications with them
*directly* -- not by "reading about them" on a site. They
are more than "business relationships" but, rather, *personal*
relationships (e.g., knowing when someone is in ill health,
having a baby, planning a vacation, etc.)
It also lets you share things in the strictest of confidence;
things that you (or a business relationship of yours) may
not want discussed or disclosed "publicly"
It has groups, similar to Facebook, where an administrator can
keep things relatively clean. The longer running of these usually
has some commercial incentive for the admin.
20yrs ago it was pretty useful. These days ~ 'Power Electronic
Management' is a style of managment. Most groups are heavily
burdened with 'user-posted' advertizing.
Interacting directly with colleagues doesn't suffer from these
sorts of problems. No one is going to "pitch" anything to me
or expect me to pitch something to them. Because "contact" is
an intrusion (of sorts) and should be worth that "burden".
Tapping into 20 year old threads (where all the good references
and articles were being discussed)in such a group is well-night
impossible.
Like Facebook, it is heavily dependent on your machines' RAM and
is unfriendly to non-google, non-chrome browsers. This may be
why Edge is having issues: it would serve MS right.
Another way to waste resources (in this case, your time!).
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 14:26:04 -0000 (UTC), Niocl s P˘l Caile n de
Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> wrote:
I myself wrote on
Fri, 02 Jan 2026 02:40:07
-
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"I myself wrote: |
||---------------------------------------------------------------------------||
||"Happy New Year! ||
|| ||
||This post is about more misadventures of LinkedIn ineptness. I ||
||(incompletely) archived LinkedIn comments by me from October 2025 downto a ||
||time which LinkedIn professes to be 2 years (ago). This unsatisfactorily ||
||incomplete archiving took excessively long: i.e. 5 days! Namely December ||
||6th; 7th; 8th; 9th; and 10th, 2025. ||
|| ||
||This incomplete archive consists of circa 470 comments in circa 387 ||
||kilobytes. By contrast, it took me fewer than one day in November 2025 to ||
||download 77 megabytes (34,889 posts) from news:alt.video.dvd.authoring ||
|| ||
||Many LinkedIn problems of ||
||"! ||
|| ||
||This page is having a problem ||
|| ||
||Try coming back to it later. ||
|| ||
|| ||
||You could also: ||
|| ||
||* Open a new tab ||
|| ||
||* Refresh this page" ||
||happened during this December misadventure. ||
|| ||
||LinkedIn is so lame! ||
|| ||
||On New Year's Day 2026, LinkedIn repeatedly refused to show me comments by ||
||me from more than 4 weeks previously." ||
||---------------------------------------------------------------------------||
| |
|LinkedIn made me lose circa 566 megabytes and many tens of minutes to |
|download circa the last 4 weeks of LinkedIn comments by myself |
|(excluding comments in this timeframe which LinkedIn stopped showing |
|to me), and almost 2 hours to upload these downloaded backups. These |
|four weeks of comments are not many comments but LinkedIn forces an |
|author to lose excessive amounts of megabytes and time to save such |
|personal data, or to lose such personal data. LinkedIn is |
|unsatisfactory. |
| |
|[. . .] |
| |
|I also noticed on 01/01/2026 that LinkedIn restricted Microsoft Edge's |
|feature of Print --> Printer --> Save as PDF to print to a single |
|piece of paper (i.e. a tiny excerpt of weeks of comments) but LinkedIn |
|used to let Microsoft Edge make big PDF files even as recently as |
|Tuesday 30th December 2025. E.g. |
|[. . .]" |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Since 23/01/2026 I notice 2 new LinkedIn bugs which are not the same
as the LinkedIn bugs which I detect over many years.
So I thought such a bug might be temporary and might prevent LinkedIn
from refusing to scroll through more than a month of comments, so
this morning I managed to scroll down through circa 3 months of
comments.
LinkedIn is legally obligated to provide copies of comments, but
LinkedIn acts illegally. If you want to back up comments which you
uploaded to LinkedIn, then now might be the time to back them up.
LinkedIn forced me to spend tens of minutes to scroll through circa 3
months of comments. I used Microsoft Edge to
"Save as type: Webpage, complete", producing an 86-megabytes copy. I
used Microsoft Egde to produce an unsatisfactory 249-page,
238-megabytes PDF copy (Print --> Printer --> Save as PDF). Sic. 238
megabytes versus 86 megabytes for only the same comments.
Uploading this PDF version to Insomnia 24/7 took circa twenty minutes.
Microsoft Edge took circa 12 minutes to produce this PDF file.
Much worse problems related to Microsoft are alleged by e.g.
HTTPS://wiki.ICEList.Is/index.php/LinkedIn
and
HTTPS://wiki.ICEList.Is/index.php/Microsoft
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
LinkedIn is 99% trash, so it's a great way to waste time and not
design electronics.
I have used it to find talent, which works fairly well. One cheap ad
can spin up hundreds of applicants and the presentation makes them
fast to evaluate.
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
On 30/01/2026 12:01 pm, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:48:56 -0000 (UTC), Niocl?s P?l Caile?n de
Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> wrote:
In sci.electronics.design John Larkin wrote:
|-------------------------|
|"What do you want to do?"|
|-------------------------|
Thanks for asking.
I am a space engineer who wants to read reliability in scientific
publications but instead real publications are overrun by lies by
subventions fraudsters.
Absolutely!
That depends on the journal, and the referees they can find to
peer-review the papers that get submitted for publication.
My wife edited a couple of psycholinguistic journals for a while, and >finding good referees took a lot of work (and she was good at it).
Review Scientific Instruments couldn't find good referees for papers
with electronic content for many years, and I've published rude comments >about it there from time to time.
I do want ethical workplaces and employees' welfare to exist.
That usually means becoming active in a trade union, which employers
don't like.
I want to convince persons that coding should be done in a strongly
typed language.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
So you are a coder?
When I program (which I avoid) I do it in PowerBasic. It lets you do
most anything.
But not elegantly. It's one small step up from assembler, which lets you
do absolutely everything.
Basic was Fortran dumbed down for small processors.
At one job the computer manager was terrified of hackers, so I couldn't
run any kind of compiled program, and had to do my number crunching in >Excel. Our sub-contractor didn't have any trouble translating the
procedures into executable code, but it did waste a lot of my time.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Am 30.01.26 um 14:06 schrieb Bill Sloman:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive[...]
crystal set
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts.
It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source.
I built one, too. First thing that worked for me, apart of
lamps and batteries.
We had Europawelle Saar on 1422 KHz maybe 10 miles away, pumping
1.6 Megawatts carrier into the air. Impossible to miss.
What's your
preferred description of the classic crystal set?That was my guide:
< https://www.ukwfm.de/antiquariat/rbfj.html >
Gerhard
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: |------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an
old person.
On 31/01/2026 3:04 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:18:25 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 12:43 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive >>>>>>> crystal set[...]
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts.
It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your >>>>> preferred description of the classic crystal set?
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid". >>>> Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we
may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging >>>> remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
John Larkin seems to think it gives you some kind of advantage.
Of course it does. As there is a huge advantage to learning chess or
math or languages or soccer when you are young. Actually doing stuff
involves practical feedbacks and acquired instincts.
Instincts are what you were born with. What you get from doing stuff is >habits.
Learning stuff too early can instill bad habits, and they are hard to >unlearn.
Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young, and some >aspects of language can't be learned at all by very young kids.
University education seldom installs much in the way of instincts
either. It's too rigid and formalized, and too late.
Since instincts are what you get with your genome, universities can't >install them at all.
Formal instruction at university is formal. It's mostly accompanied by >practical classes, which are a lot less rigid.
The complicated stuff that most people learn at university mostly can't
be instilled into adolescents - some rare kids can learn it early, but
they tend to be exceptionally clever and need exceptional power of >concentration. About 30% of the undergraduate intake doesn't ever get
any kid of degree, and probably shouldn't have started at all.
If you taught yourself when you were a kid, you didn't have a
well-qualified teacher.
A mentor with instincts is great if you are lucky enough to have one.
Instincts come from the genome. What good mentors have is experience,
and some understanding of what that experience has taught them.
Electronics has advanced a lot over the past fifty years, and mentors
are correspondingly less useful as teachers.
At least when I got into it, I did have a
university library and book-shop to draw on and did get some advice from >>> people who really knew what they were doing.
Obviously too late.
What's obvious to you is what you want to see. Trump is even more deeply >into wishful thinking than you are.
I learned a lot when I started doing electronic engineering as my main
job, and had some really skilled teachers and examplars, as a well as
lot of colleagues who merely thought that they knew what they were
doing, and earned a few disparaging remarks. A few disparaging remarks
got published as comments in the Review of Scientific Instruments.
I sometimes read RSI when it's available. The circuits are hilarious.
They tend to be functional, rather than elegant, and not always all that >up-to-date. I once got very rude about a paper lauding the use of 1Ok
ECL which got published after ECLinPs had been around for a few years.
10k ECL was about four times faster than TTL/CMOS, but ECinPS was four
times faster again. The same paper described a ripple carry counter
where the carry propagation wasn't fast enough to match the maximum
count rate claimed. No mention at all of a synchronous counter.
It was a particularly horrible example, quite the worst I've ever seen.
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl?s P?l Caile?n de Ghloucester wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------| >> |"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" | >> |------------------------------------------------------------------------| >>
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an
old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
Jeroen Belleman
If I'm contacted about a potential job, I think about the
people that I know who might be appropriate (because anyone
that I *refer* for a position is a reflection on me!).
Who (if anyone) I contact is based on my knowledge of where
their interests lie and what they might be doing, presently.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 09:56:54 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
<snip>
It used to be a discussion of work-related issues and newsNetworking is just keeping track of co-workers and professional
acquaintances - but there's no real controls on spam.
And, you need a third-party "site" to do that? Don't you
*personally* interact with your colleagues -- even if only
sporadically?
between people you knew, or were introduced to on-site.
Jobs or contracts seldom came up, as I recall. Participants
were just too disparate in specialized fields.
There was some potential conflict with confidentiality at
times.
Supplying references to articles and publications was the
primary benefit, as well as keeping in touch.
Mind you, a considerable number of old connections are
more than just retired - living on as 'contacts' from
beyond the grave. . . . . LinkIn don't care . . .
. . . and just try to close your account . . . .
If I'm contacted about a potential job, I think about the
people that I know who might be appropriate (because anyone
that I *refer* for a position is a reflection on me!).
Who (if anyone) I contact is based on my knowledge of where
their interests lie and what they might be doing, presently.
I know those things because of communications with them
*directly* -- not by "reading about them" on a site. They
are more than "business relationships" but, rather, *personal*
relationships (e.g., knowing when someone is in ill health,
having a baby, planning a vacation, etc.)
It also lets you share things in the strictest of confidence;
things that you (or a business relationship of yours) may
not want discussed or disclosed "publicly"
A great many issues that are in the public domain may be
considered as confidential, by employers or clients.
It's the sort of thing only a few are willing even to discuss.
So: there were obvious restrictions to even opening an account - employability and limitations on likely clients for those who
did participate.
This is true of most 'public' participation, in some fields and
and some 'private' participation in all of them. Just the way
things are.
On 1/29/26 09:04, john larkin wrote:
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 14:26:04 -0000 (UTC), Niocl?s P?l Caile?n deNot so sure about that...I seem to be getting far more hits/interest
Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> wrote:
I myself wrote on
Fri, 02 Jan 2026 02:40:07
-
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"I myself wrote: |
||---------------------------------------------------------------------------||
||"Happy New Year! ||
|| ||
||This post is about more misadventures of LinkedIn ineptness. I ||
||(incompletely) archived LinkedIn comments by me from October 2025 downto a ||
||time which LinkedIn professes to be 2 years (ago). This unsatisfactorily ||
||incomplete archiving took excessively long: i.e. 5 days! Namely December ||
||6th; 7th; 8th; 9th; and 10th, 2025. ||
|| ||
||This incomplete archive consists of circa 470 comments in circa 387 ||
||kilobytes. By contrast, it took me fewer than one day in November 2025 to ||
||download 77 megabytes (34,889 posts) from news:alt.video.dvd.authoring ||
|| ||
||Many LinkedIn problems of ||
||"! ||
|| ||
||This page is having a problem ||
|| ||
||Try coming back to it later. ||
|| ||
|| ||
||You could also: ||
|| ||
||* Open a new tab ||
|| ||
||* Refresh this page" ||
||happened during this December misadventure. ||
|| ||
||LinkedIn is so lame! ||
|| ||
||On New Year's Day 2026, LinkedIn repeatedly refused to show me comments by ||
||me from more than 4 weeks previously." ||
||---------------------------------------------------------------------------||
| |
|LinkedIn made me lose circa 566 megabytes and many tens of minutes to |
|download circa the last 4 weeks of LinkedIn comments by myself |
|(excluding comments in this timeframe which LinkedIn stopped showing |
|to me), and almost 2 hours to upload these downloaded backups. These |
|four weeks of comments are not many comments but LinkedIn forces an |
|author to lose excessive amounts of megabytes and time to save such |
|personal data, or to lose such personal data. LinkedIn is |
|unsatisfactory. |
| |
|[. . .] |
| |
|I also noticed on 01/01/2026 that LinkedIn restricted Microsoft Edge's |
|feature of Print --> Printer --> Save as PDF to print to a single |
|piece of paper (i.e. a tiny excerpt of weeks of comments) but LinkedIn |
|used to let Microsoft Edge make big PDF files even as recently as |
|Tuesday 30th December 2025. E.g. |
|[. . .]" |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Since 23/01/2026 I notice 2 new LinkedIn bugs which are not the same
as the LinkedIn bugs which I detect over many years.
So I thought such a bug might be temporary and might prevent LinkedIn >>>from refusing to scroll through more than a month of comments, so
this morning I managed to scroll down through circa 3 months of
comments.
LinkedIn is legally obligated to provide copies of comments, but
LinkedIn acts illegally. If you want to back up comments which you
uploaded to LinkedIn, then now might be the time to back them up.
LinkedIn forced me to spend tens of minutes to scroll through circa 3
months of comments. I used Microsoft Edge to
"Save as type: Webpage, complete", producing an 86-megabytes copy. I
used Microsoft Egde to produce an unsatisfactory 249-page,
238-megabytes PDF copy (Print --> Printer --> Save as PDF). Sic. 238
megabytes versus 86 megabytes for only the same comments.
Uploading this PDF version to Insomnia 24/7 took circa twenty minutes.
Microsoft Edge took circa 12 minutes to produce this PDF file.
Much worse problems related to Microsoft are alleged by e.g.
HTTPS://wiki.ICEList.Is/index.php/LinkedIn
and
HTTPS://wiki.ICEList.Is/index.php/Microsoft
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
LinkedIn is 99% trash, so it's a great way to waste time and not
design electronics.
I have used it to find talent, which works fairly well. One cheap ad
can spin up hundreds of applicants and the presentation makes them
fast to evaluate.
since I retired than I ever did when I wanted a job..!
It's the sort of thing only a few are willing even to discuss.
So: there were obvious restrictions to even opening an account -
employability and limitations on likely clients for those who
did participate.
This is true of most 'public' participation, in some fields and
and some 'private' participation in all of them. Just the way
things are.
So, beyond the folks you *know*, the value of such disclosure is
sharing with other "unknowns".
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
In sci.electronics.design Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: |--------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"On 30/01/2026 12:01 pm, john larkin wrote: |
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:48:56 -0000 (UTC), Niocl s P˘l Caile n de | Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> wrote: || |
|
In sci.electronics.design John Larkin wrote: || Absolutely! |
|-------------------------| |
|"What do you want to do?"| |
|-------------------------| |
|
Thanks for asking. |
|
I am a space engineer who wants to read reliability in scientific|
publications but instead real publications are overrun by lies by|
subventions fraudsters. |
|That depends on the journal, and the referees they can find to | |peer-review the papers that get submitted for publication." | |--------------------------------------------------------------------|
Do not forget the editors and the IEEE!
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: |------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an
old person.
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: |------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"The same paper described a ripple carry counter | |where the carry propagation wasn't fast enough to match the maximum | |count rate claimed. No mention at all of a synchronous counter. |
| | |It was a particularly horrible example, quite the worst I've ever seen."| |------------------------------------------------------------------------|
What paper is that paper? Why is it published?
Jeroen Belleman wrote: |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl s P˘l Caile n de Ghloucester wrote: |
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: ||----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------------------------------------------||
|"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" ||
|------------------------------------------------------------------------||
" |
N.B. Bill Sloman misused "learned" instead of "learnt".
misused "it's" instead of "its" (in
"Russia has spent the last four years inching it's way
into the Ukraine from the borders with Russia,and it has made some progress, but it has been very slow and very expensive"
in
Message-ID: <10ldbf7$jvt3$1@dont-email.me>
).
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"> It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an |
old person. || |
|An often repeated myth, entirely untrue." |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Sorry.
This is not an entirely untrue myth. I simultaneously used to study
many more languages as a child than as an adult.
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a |
|child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are |
|the keys, motivation and immersion." |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Motivations and immersion are not sufficient. I used to be an immersed
adult with much more meaningful motivations to learn languages as an
adult than I used to have as a child. Children do not want to learn
languages but they do learn them.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 15:14:11 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 30/01/2026 12:01 pm, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:48:56 -0000 (UTC), Niocl s P˘l Caile n de
Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> wrote:
In sci.electronics.design John Larkin wrote:
|-------------------------|
|"What do you want to do?"|
|-------------------------|
Thanks for asking.
I am a space engineer who wants to read reliability in scientific
publications but instead real publications are overrun by lies by
subventions fraudsters.
Absolutely!
That depends on the journal, and the referees they can find to
peer-review the papers that get submitted for publication.
My wife edited a couple of psycholinguistic journals for a while, and
finding good referees took a lot of work (and she was good at it).
Review Scientific Instruments couldn't find good referees for papers
with electronic content for many years, and I've published rude comments
about it there from time to time.
I do want ethical workplaces and employees' welfare to exist.
That usually means becoming active in a trade union, which employers
don't like.
I want to convince persons that coding should be done in a strongly
typed language.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
So you are a coder?
When I program (which I avoid) I do it in PowerBasic. It lets you do
most anything.
But not elegantly. It's one small step up from assembler, which lets you
do absolutely everything.
Basic was Fortran dumbed down for small processors.
At one job the computer manager was terrified of hackers, so I couldn't
run any kind of compiled program, and had to do my number crunching in
Excel. Our sub-contractor didn't have any trouble translating the
procedures into executable code, but it did waste a lot of my time.
One observation is that when you use Excel, your IQ drops in half.
It's OK if you are an accountant, I guess.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:49:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl s P˘l Caile n de Ghloucester wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------| >>> |"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" | >>> |------------------------------------------------------------------------| >>>
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an
old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
Adults rarely acquire a new accent at native level.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 03:51:16 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 3:04 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:18:25 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 12:43 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your >>>>>> preferred description of the classic crystal set?
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive >>>>>>>> crystal set[...]
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts. >>>>>>
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid". >>>>> Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we >>>>> may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging >>>>> remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
John Larkin seems to think it gives you some kind of advantage.
Of course it does. As there is a huge advantage to learning chess or
math or languages or soccer when you are young. Actually doing stuff
involves practical feedbacks and acquired instincts.
Instincts are what you were born with. What you get from doing stuff is
habits.
Learning stuff too early can instill bad habits, and they are hard to
unlearn.
Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young, and some
aspects of language can't be learned at all by very young kids.
University education seldom installs much in the way of instincts
either. It's too rigid and formalized, and too late.
Since instincts are what you get with your genome, universities can't
install them at all.
Formal instruction at university is formal. It's mostly accompanied by
practical classes, which are a lot less rigid.
The complicated stuff that most people learn at university mostly can't
be instilled into adolescents - some rare kids can learn it early, but
they tend to be exceptionally clever and need exceptional power of
concentration. About 30% of the undergraduate intake doesn't ever get
any kid of degree, and probably shouldn't have started at all.
If you taught yourself when you were a kid, you didn't have a
well-qualified teacher.
A mentor with instincts is great if you are lucky enough to have one.
Instincts come from the genome. What good mentors have is experience,
and some understanding of what that experience has taught them.
Electronics has advanced a lot over the past fifty years, and mentors
are correspondingly less useful as teachers.
At least when I got into it, I did have a
university library and book-shop to draw on and did get some advice from >>>> people who really knew what they were doing.
Obviously too late.
What's obvious to you is what you want to see. Trump is even more deeply
into wishful thinking than you are.
I learned a lot when I started doing electronic engineering as my main >>>> job, and had some really skilled teachers and examplars, as a well as
lot of colleagues who merely thought that they knew what they were
doing, and earned a few disparaging remarks. A few disparaging remarks >>>> got published as comments in the Review of Scientific Instruments.
I sometimes read RSI when it's available. The circuits are hilarious.
They tend to be functional, rather than elegant, and not always all that
up-to-date. I once got very rude about a paper lauding the use of 1Ok
ECL which got published after ECLinPs had been around for a few years.
10k ECL was about four times faster than TTL/CMOS, but ECinPS was four
times faster again. The same paper described a ripple carry counter
where the carry propagation wasn't fast enough to match the maximum
count rate claimed. No mention at all of a synchronous counter.
It was a particularly horrible example, quite the worst I've ever seen.
A true ripple counter is as fast as its first flop.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 19:09:20 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
<snip>
It's the sort of thing only a few are willing even to discuss.
So: there were obvious restrictions to even opening an account -
employability and limitations on likely clients for those who
did participate.
This is true of most 'public' participation, in some fields and
and some 'private' participation in all of them. Just the way
things are.
So, beyond the folks you *know*, the value of such disclosure is
sharing with other "unknowns".
Discussing the value of group membership or participation in LinkIn
20+ years ago is irrelevant today.
Usenet groups has also changed over the years.
Discussing the shortcomings of either the FaceBook or LinkedIn
organization, coded functions or performance on those sites is a
quick way of being 'dismembered' from a specific group, without
notice or justification, by robotic admins.
In case this post is too long: I do not recommend any of you to bother
to create an account on LinkedIn. The USENET is much better, but I
interact on LinkedIn with important non-engineers who insist on using LinkedIn. One of the most important thereof even almost does not use
emails!
Don Y wrote on Fri, 30 Jan 2026 12:36:44 - |--------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"On 1/29/2026 7:26 AM, Niocl s P˘l Caile n de Ghloucester wrote: |
LinkedIn is legally obligated to provide copies of comments, but | LinkedIn acts illegally. If you want to back up comments which you| uploaded to LinkedIn, then now might be the time to back them up. || |
|Why not just scrape the site" | |--------------------------------------------------------------------|
How?
"User Agreement
Effective on November 3, 2025
[. . .]
8.2. Don?ts
You agree that you will not:
[. . .]
Develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots or any
other means or processes (such as crawlers, browser plugins and
add-ons or any other technology) to scrape or copy the Services"
says
HTTPS://WWW.LinkedIn.com/legal/user-agreement
|--------------------------------------------------|
|" -- instead |
|of trying to encapsulate it in a single document."| |--------------------------------------------------|
I saved hundreds of comments from years into a single document because LinkedIn does not even pretnd to offer a less laborious way of backing
them up. I do not want this lame method. LinkedIn forces me.
Don Y wrote on Fri, 30 Jan 2026 12:36:44 - |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"> Microsoft Edge took circa 12 minutes to produce this PDF file. |
| | |None of hose metrics mean anything. It takes me an hour to get to the post| |office (on foot!)." | |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Don Y wrote on Fri, 30 Jan 2026 17:56:54 - |------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Another way to waste resources (in this case, your time!)."| |------------------------------------------------------------|
Sorry, Don Y contradicts himself at 12:36:44 and 17:56:54. Time is
measured as a value more than no second. These metrics are meaningful.
It took me many tens of minutes to use a webbrowser to download circa
352 comments from LinkedIn (after it took me 5 DAYS to download almost
the same quantity (circa 470 comments) as I complain in
Message-ID: <a466fba3-4f96-5968-faef-db94f1e721a5@insomnia247.nl>
).
Instead, it took me circa 18 MINUTES to use a USENET client to
download 289 articles from alt.comp.periphs.cdr.mac
I.e. LinkedIn is slow and the USENET is fast.
Not so sure about that...I seem to be getting far more hits/interest since I retired than I ever did when I wanted a job..!
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl s P?"l Caile n de Ghloucester wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: |------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an
old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
On 1/30/2026 12:27 PM, wmartin wrote:
Not so sure about that...I seem to be getting far more hits/interest since I
retired than I ever did when I wanted a job..!
That is a consequence of age/experience/workmanship.
Without dragging out the old saws about "youngsters", most employers/clients want to KNOW they are going to get a job done, not just "started". I've
been asked to cleanup/finish far too many jobs, over the years. There
always seems to be some old client or friend-of-a-client trying to coax
you into "a little job" -- despite past experience teaching you that
"little jobs" are a year or more on the calendar! <frown>
I see my colleagues falling into three camps:
- reliant on work as an income source (usually folks who still feel some
financial obligation to their offspring OR who have developed expensive
hobbies, late in life and need the occasional "job" to finance those)
- unconstrained financially (able to pursue their own goals without the
need to cow-tow to a client/employer to remain "highly immersed" without
being subjected to IMPOSED time/money pressures or having someone ELSE
decide what should tickle their imagination)
- fully retired (some having a minor interest in keeping track of technology
but not as an immersive experience; reclaiming THEIR time as their own)
Most often, this being a progression that comes with time (age?) and level
of "satisfaction" with past accomplishments.
I find the third stage a bit scary to consider, wondering how all that "other" time will be consumed. But, see many folks transition to it
without too much complaint!
- fully retired (some having a minor interest in keeping track of technology >> but not as an immersive experience; reclaiming THEIR time as their own)
I find the third stage a bit scary to consider, wondering how all that
"other" time will be consumed. But, see many folks transition to it
without too much complaint!
If you have a supportive circle of friends, they will realise you are in danger of becoming bored and will find lots of little jobs to keep you
busy. Never retire, you won't have a moment to yourself.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:49:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl s P˘l Caile n de Ghloucester wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------| >>> |"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" | >>> |------------------------------------------------------------------------| >>>
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an
old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
Jeroen Belleman
Adults rarely acquire a new accent at native level.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"> N.B. Bill Sloman misused "learned" instead of "learnt". |
| |
|It's not a misuse, merely a regional variant." | |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
Dear Doctor Sloman,
A use of "learned" instead of "learnt" is a regional misuse.
|--------------------------------------------------------|
|"Many Dutch kids learn French[. . .] from an early age."| |--------------------------------------------------------|
I used to be employed in the Netherlands by an employer whose
languages are French and English. The Anglophones who used to be
employed by this then employer then vastly outnumber the Francophones
who used to be employed by this employer then.
A then Anglophone neigbour used to persecute a then workmate who
natively speaks French and who at that time used to work in French and English, by repeatedly saying to him in English (not French) that he
must speak Dutch.
A friend of Belgian nationality told me that persons of Dutch
nationality say things to her like "Wow! You can speak French!"
I detected no-one in the Netherlands using French when I used to reside there, except for coworkers.
All then employees then in this section of this then employer are Anglophones. A majority (55%) are Francophones, an unusually high
proportion. This then chief is natively a Francophone. English is this project's language.
A Dutch then company (before it went bust) on this project tried to
apply for money to a French centre for an unrelated project. This
Dutch ex-company's ex-chiefs are of Dutch nationality. They wanted to
know if a tender must show a proposed price including tax or excluding
tax. So they telephoned this French centre to ask. They did try
asking in broken French, but they rapidly reverted to English while
they frantically reached for their French dictionary to find a French
word for tax. Given this lack of preparation and given this
anti-engineering belief, this ex-company deservedly went bust.
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Many Dutch kids learn [. . .] German [. . .] from an early age."| |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
I bought German magazines from a person of Dutch nationality who used
to be raised in the Netherlands near the German border. He used to buy
them by short travels into Germmany. He did not have a good grasp of
German when I bought them, so he declined to use German.
|----------------------------------------------------------|
|"Many Dutch kids learn [. . .] English from an early age."| |----------------------------------------------------------|
Yes. "Langenscheidt Expresskurs Niederl„ndisch" alleges that persons
who speak Dutch are less good at English than they believe. I do not
detect so.
|---------------------------------------------------------|
|"Lots of Belgians are raised as French/Dutch bilinguals."| |---------------------------------------------------------|
Of course. "Wow! You can speak French!" said an aforementioned friend
of Belgian nationality acting like persons of Dutch
nationality. "Yeah. [She can speak ]A little[ French]." said she
herself as a response to downplay these amazements.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
In sci.electronics.design Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: >|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|"the "Intelligence Quotient" is a remarkably ill-defined measure"| >|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
True.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
On 1/31/26 00:53, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:49:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl?s P?l Caile?n de Ghloucester wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------| >>>> |"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" | >>>> |------------------------------------------------------------------------| >>>>
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an
old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
Jeroen Belleman
Adults rarely acquire a new accent at native level.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
True, but those natives probably don't have the linguistic
abilities of the foreign speaker. Your thinking is shaped
by language, and speaking more languages is enriching.
I'm native Dutch, but I've been told I have a French
accent now.
Jeroen Belleman
On 31/01/2026 8:53 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 03:51:16 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 3:04 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:18:25 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>> wrote:
On 31/01/2026 12:43 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your >>>>>>> preferred description of the classic crystal set?
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive >>>>>>>>> crystal set[...]
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts. >>>>>>>
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid". >>>>>> Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we >>>>>> may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging >>>>>> remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
John Larkin seems to think it gives you some kind of advantage.
Of course it does. As there is a huge advantage to learning chess or
math or languages or soccer when you are young. Actually doing stuff
involves practical feedbacks and acquired instincts.
Instincts are what you were born with. What you get from doing stuff is
habits.
Learning stuff too early can instill bad habits, and they are hard to
unlearn.
Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young, and some
aspects of language can't be learned at all by very young kids.
University education seldom installs much in the way of instincts
either. It's too rigid and formalized, and too late.
Since instincts are what you get with your genome, universities can't
install them at all.
Formal instruction at university is formal. It's mostly accompanied by
practical classes, which are a lot less rigid.
The complicated stuff that most people learn at university mostly can't
be instilled into adolescents - some rare kids can learn it early, but
they tend to be exceptionally clever and need exceptional power of
concentration. About 30% of the undergraduate intake doesn't ever get
any kid of degree, and probably shouldn't have started at all.
If you taught yourself when you were a kid, you didn't have a
well-qualified teacher.
A mentor with instincts is great if you are lucky enough to have one.
Instincts come from the genome. What good mentors have is experience,
and some understanding of what that experience has taught them.
Electronics has advanced a lot over the past fifty years, and mentors
are correspondingly less useful as teachers.
At least when I got into it, I did have a
university library and book-shop to draw on and did get some advice from >>>>> people who really knew what they were doing.
Obviously too late.
What's obvious to you is what you want to see. Trump is even more deeply >>> into wishful thinking than you are.
I learned a lot when I started doing electronic engineering as my main >>>>> job, and had some really skilled teachers and examplars, as a well as >>>>> lot of colleagues who merely thought that they knew what they were
doing, and earned a few disparaging remarks. A few disparaging remarks >>>>> got published as comments in the Review of Scientific Instruments.
I sometimes read RSI when it's available. The circuits are hilarious.
They tend to be functional, rather than elegant, and not always all that >>> up-to-date. I once got very rude about a paper lauding the use of 1Ok
ECL which got published after ECLinPs had been around for a few years.
10k ECL was about four times faster than TTL/CMOS, but ECinPS was four
times faster again. The same paper described a ripple carry counter
where the carry propagation wasn't fast enough to match the maximum
count rate claimed. No mention at all of a synchronous counter.
It was a particularly horrible example, quite the worst I've ever seen.
A true ripple counter is as fast as its first flop.
Rubbish. The state of the outputs of a multistage ripple counter isn't >useful until the increment has rippled through every stage.
|---------------------------------------------------------------------| |"Your USE of linkedin coerces you. That is your choice." | |---------------------------------------------------------------------|
I choose to communicate with persons with whom I must
communicate. They insist on using LinkedIn. I prefer non-LinkedIn
media.
In case this post is too long: I do not recommend any of you to bother
to create an account on LinkedIn. The USENET is much better, but I
interact on LinkedIn with important non-engineers who insist on using >LinkedIn. One of the most important thereof even almost does not use
emails!
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 16:25:29 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 8:53 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 03:51:16 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 3:04 am, john larkin wrote:A true ripple counter is as fast as its first flop.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:18:25 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>>> wrote:
On 31/01/2026 12:43 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive[...]
crystal set
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts. >>>>>>>>
preferred description of the classic crystal set?
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid".
Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we >>>>>>> may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging
remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
John Larkin seems to think it gives you some kind of advantage.
Of course it does. As there is a huge advantage to learning chess or >>>>> math or languages or soccer when you are young. Actually doing stuff >>>>> involves practical feedbacks and acquired instincts.
Instincts are what you were born with. What you get from doing stuff is >>>> habits.
Learning stuff too early can instill bad habits, and they are hard to
unlearn.
Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young, and some
aspects of language can't be learned at all by very young kids.
University education seldom installs much in the way of instincts
either. It's too rigid and formalized, and too late.
Since instincts are what you get with your genome, universities can't
install them at all.
Formal instruction at university is formal. It's mostly accompanied by >>>> practical classes, which are a lot less rigid.
The complicated stuff that most people learn at university mostly can't >>>> be instilled into adolescents - some rare kids can learn it early, but >>>> they tend to be exceptionally clever and need exceptional power of
concentration. About 30% of the undergraduate intake doesn't ever get
any kid of degree, and probably shouldn't have started at all.
Instincts come from the genome. What good mentors have is experience,If you taught yourself when you were a kid, you didn't have a
well-qualified teacher.
A mentor with instincts is great if you are lucky enough to have one. >>>>
and some understanding of what that experience has taught them.
Electronics has advanced a lot over the past fifty years, and mentors
are correspondingly less useful as teachers.
At least when I got into it, I did have a
university library and book-shop to draw on and did get some advice from >>>>>> people who really knew what they were doing.
Obviously too late.
What's obvious to you is what you want to see. Trump is even more deeply >>>> into wishful thinking than you are.
They tend to be functional, rather than elegant, and not always all that >>>> up-to-date. I once got very rude about a paper lauding the use of 1OkI learned a lot when I started doing electronic engineering as my main >>>>>> job, and had some really skilled teachers and examplars, as a well as >>>>>> lot of colleagues who merely thought that they knew what they were >>>>>> doing, and earned a few disparaging remarks. A few disparaging remarks >>>>>> got published as comments in the Review of Scientific Instruments.
I sometimes read RSI when it's available. The circuits are hilarious. >>>>
ECL which got published after ECLinPs had been around for a few years. >>>>
10k ECL was about four times faster than TTL/CMOS, but ECinPS was four >>>> times faster again. The same paper described a ripple carry counter
where the carry propagation wasn't fast enough to match the maximum
count rate claimed. No mention at all of a synchronous counter.
It was a particularly horrible example, quite the worst I've ever seen. >>>
Rubbish. The state of the outputs of a multistage ripple counter isn't
useful until the increment has rippled through every stage.
Consider a frequency divider.
Your prime motivation is to contradict, not to think. That's very
common.
A true ripple counter is as fast as its first flop.
Am 31.01.26 um 16:41 schrieb john larkin:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 16:25:29 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 8:53 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 03:51:16 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>> wrote:
On 31/01/2026 3:04 am, john larkin wrote:A true ripple counter is as fast as its first flop.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:18:25 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>>>> wrote:
On 31/01/2026 12:43 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive[...]
crystal set
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts. >>>>>>>>>
preferred description of the classic crystal set?
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid".
Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we >>>>>>>> may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging
remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
John Larkin seems to think it gives you some kind of advantage.
Of course it does. As there is a huge advantage to learning chess or >>>>>> math or languages or soccer when you are young. Actually doing stuff >>>>>> involves practical feedbacks and acquired instincts.
Instincts are what you were born with. What you get from doing stuff is >>>>> habits.
Learning stuff too early can instill bad habits, and they are hard to >>>>> unlearn.
Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young, and some >>>>> aspects of language can't be learned at all by very young kids.
University education seldom installs much in the way of instincts
either. It's too rigid and formalized, and too late.
Since instincts are what you get with your genome, universities can't >>>>> install them at all.
Formal instruction at university is formal. It's mostly accompanied by >>>>> practical classes, which are a lot less rigid.
The complicated stuff that most people learn at university mostly can't >>>>> be instilled into adolescents - some rare kids can learn it early, but >>>>> they tend to be exceptionally clever and need exceptional power of
concentration. About 30% of the undergraduate intake doesn't ever get >>>>> any kid of degree, and probably shouldn't have started at all.
Instincts come from the genome. What good mentors have is experience, >>>>> and some understanding of what that experience has taught them.If you taught yourself when you were a kid, you didn't have a
well-qualified teacher.
A mentor with instincts is great if you are lucky enough to have one. >>>>>
Electronics has advanced a lot over the past fifty years, and mentors >>>>> are correspondingly less useful as teachers.
At least when I got into it, I did have a
university library and book-shop to draw on and did get some advice from
people who really knew what they were doing.
Obviously too late.
What's obvious to you is what you want to see. Trump is even more deeply >>>>> into wishful thinking than you are.
They tend to be functional, rather than elegant, and not always all that >>>>> up-to-date. I once got very rude about a paper lauding the use of 1Ok >>>>> ECL which got published after ECLinPs had been around for a few years. >>>>>I learned a lot when I started doing electronic engineering as my main >>>>>>> job, and had some really skilled teachers and examplars, as a well as >>>>>>> lot of colleagues who merely thought that they knew what they were >>>>>>> doing, and earned a few disparaging remarks. A few disparaging remarks >>>>>>> got published as comments in the Review of Scientific Instruments. >>>>>>I sometimes read RSI when it's available. The circuits are hilarious. >>>>>
10k ECL was about four times faster than TTL/CMOS, but ECinPS was four >>>>> times faster again. The same paper described a ripple carry counter
where the carry propagation wasn't fast enough to match the maximum
count rate claimed. No mention at all of a synchronous counter.
It was a particularly horrible example, quite the worst I've ever seen. >>>>
Rubbish. The state of the outputs of a multistage ripple counter isn't
useful until the increment has rippled through every stage.
Consider a frequency divider.
Your prime motivation is to contradict, not to think. That's very
common.
Are you soliloquizing?
A true ripple counter is as fast as its first flop.
You know the count of a ripple counter when everything has come
to a halt, including the carry chain.
That is slower than the
first flipflop.
Even decoded outputs will feature transient wrong results.
Look ahead carry has been invented, just for this.
An LFSR is hard to beat but will very probably also need some
combinatorial delays.
Gerhard
You know the count of a ripple counter when everything has come
to a halt, including the carry chain. That is slower than the
first flipflop.
Even decoded outputs will feature transient wrong results.
Look ahead carry has been invented, just for this.
An LFSR is hard to beat but will very probably also need some
combinatorial delays.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:21:44 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/31/26 00:53, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:49:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl s P˘l Caile n de Ghloucester wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an
old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
Jeroen Belleman
Adults rarely acquire a new accent at native level.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
True, but those natives probably don't have the linguistic
abilities of the foreign speaker. Your thinking is shaped
by language, and speaking more languages is enriching.
I'm native Dutch, but I've been told I have a French
accent now.
Jeroen Belleman
Which language is best for thinking about electronics?
I think circuits in pictures, not words, but people are very
different.
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
On 1/31/26 16:34, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:21:44 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/31/26 00:53, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:49:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl?s P?l Caile?n de Ghloucester wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an >>>>>> old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
Jeroen Belleman
Adults rarely acquire a new accent at native level.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
True, but those natives probably don't have the linguistic
abilities of the foreign speaker. Your thinking is shaped
by language, and speaking more languages is enriching.
I'm native Dutch, but I've been told I have a French
accent now.
Jeroen Belleman
Which language is best for thinking about electronics?
I think circuits in pictures, not words, but people are very
different.
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
That has to be English, I think. Anyway, for quite some time now,
English has been the common language of science and technology,
electronics included. It has been French for a while, and Latin
for a long period before that. And ancient Greek before that, and
and ,,,
Jeroen Belleman
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:34:35 -0000 (UTC), Niocl s P˘l Caile n de
Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> wrote:
In sci.electronics.design Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|"the "Intelligence Quotient" is a remarkably ill-defined measure"|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
True.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
It's an integer that results from a standard IQ test. That is very
well defined.
And the integer correlates highly with many measures of productivity
and success.
The SAT tests are even better, because they have separate math and
verbal scores.
In sci.electronics.design Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: |------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"The editors have to find the referees. The IEEE does publish a lot of | |peer-reviewed scientific journal - some of them quite good - but the | |quality of a publication depends on the quality of the papers submitted | |to it for publication. A good editor can fish for papers from promising | |potential contributors, but if the community of researcher's being | |served isn't up to much, the journal serving them won't be either." | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|
The editors do not have to find the referees. Editors choose to use
referees. It is clear that IEEE editors and referees do not even read
what they accept for publications.
I submitted a good rebuttal about IEEE publications to the IEEE. The
IEEE refuses to publish a rebuttal unsurprisingly so the IEEE
contravenes its own code of ethics.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
In sci.electronics.design Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: |----------------------------------------------------------------|
|">> A use of "learned" instead of "learnt" is a regional misuse.|
||----------------------------------------------------------------|
A language is defined by what people say. [. . .]" |
Dear Doctor Sloman,
Thanks for informing me about Steenkolenengels.
I want to quote an old comp.compilers post by its moderator about how
FORTRAN programmers are not bothered to consult the FORTRAN standard
(circa FORTRAN-66) so they insist that they know FORTRAN when they do
not, so a new FORTRAN standard (circa FORTRAN-77) made a backwards-incompatible change to accept this wrong belief of what
FORTRAN really is. Alas searching for it takes too long (the 3 search
options offered by
HTTPS://compilers.IECC.com
and the search option offered by
HTTPS://groups.Google.com/g/comp.compilers
are inconsistent and FTP.IECC.com is not still available).
Many years ago I downloaded a file by a student claiming that
centuries ago English peasants invented "gelded" because they do not
know "gelt". I failed to find it for this post, so instead I
downloaded files about children who perform overregularisation.
"Old English had
many more irregular verbs than Modern English[. . .]
[. . .]
[. . .] Most of the grammatical structure of English develops rapidly
in the third year of life (31). One conspicuous development is the
appearance of overregularizations like comed. Such errors [. . .]"
says
Steven Pinker, "Rules of Language", "Science", Volume 253, 530, 1991.
"However, children also face a problem: if they generalise the
patterns too far, they?ll say something ungrammatical. If you?ve ever
heard a young child talking, it?s likely you?ll have heard them say
things like We goed to the park or I sitted down. In these examples,
the child has ?overgeneralised? the regular ?ed ending pattern for
making the past tense in English."
says HTTPS://news.Liverpool.ac.UK/2014/06/30/becoming-an-expert-amy-bidgood-on-helping-children-learn-what-not-to-say/?
"This paper is concerned with the formation of past tense in child
English. Commissive errors within the realm of English past tense
marking are also known under
the terms overregularization errors (Kuczaj, 1977, 1978; Stemberger,
1982; Marcus
et al., 1992; Maratsos, 2000), doubling errors (Hattori, 2003) or
overtensing errors
(Stemberger, 2007). Overregularization occurs when an irregular verb?s
stem is suffixed with the regular past tense marker -ed. The stem can
either take the form that
also appears in present tense, as shown in (6a), or it can appear in
the portmanteau
past tense form, which is often a suppletive or ab-/umlauted stem, as
shown in (6b).
In the latter case, as in the causative domain, a feature, here past
tense, is marked
twice, once by the stem allomorph and once by -ed, thereby
constituting a case of
multiple exponence.
(6) Overregularization errors
a. I eated my breakfast.
b. I ated my breakfast."
says
Johannes Hein, Imke Driemel, Fabienne Martin, Yining Nie, Artemis
Alexiadou, "Errors of multiple exponence in child English: a study of
past tense formation", "Morphology", 2024.
A new rule is made by breaking an old rule. Breaking an old rule does
not make a new rule right.
Regards.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 21:42:27 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/31/26 16:34, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:21:44 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/31/26 00:53, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:49:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl s P˘l Caile n de Ghloucester wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an >>>>>>> old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
Jeroen Belleman
Adults rarely acquire a new accent at native level.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
True, but those natives probably don't have the linguistic
abilities of the foreign speaker. Your thinking is shaped
by language, and speaking more languages is enriching.
I'm native Dutch, but I've been told I have a French
accent now.
Jeroen Belleman
Which language is best for thinking about electronics?
I think circuits in pictures, not words, but people are very
different.
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
That has to be English, I think. Anyway, for quite some time now,
English has been the common language of science and technology,
electronics included. It has been French for a while, and Latin
for a long period before that. And ancient Greek before that, and
and ,,,
Jeroen Belleman
English is shockingly irregular.
One word can mean six things and
there are a zillion words to express a concept.
Plus there are places like the UK with their own weird versions.
Given the concept that ambiguity generates creativity, maybe English
is a good language to invent in.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 16:25:29 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 8:53 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 03:51:16 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 3:04 am, john larkin wrote:A true ripple counter is as fast as its first flop.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:18:25 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>>> wrote:
On 31/01/2026 12:43 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive[...]
crystal set
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts. >>>>>>>>
preferred description of the classic crystal set?
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid".
Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we >>>>>>> may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging
remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
John Larkin seems to think it gives you some kind of advantage.
Of course it does. As there is a huge advantage to learning chess or >>>>> math or languages or soccer when you are young. Actually doing stuff >>>>> involves practical feedbacks and acquired instincts.
Instincts are what you were born with. What you get from doing stuff is >>>> habits.
Learning stuff too early can instill bad habits, and they are hard to
unlearn.
Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young, and some
aspects of language can't be learned at all by very young kids.
University education seldom installs much in the way of instincts
either. It's too rigid and formalized, and too late.
Since instincts are what you get with your genome, universities can't
install them at all.
Formal instruction at university is formal. It's mostly accompanied by >>>> practical classes, which are a lot less rigid.
The complicated stuff that most people learn at university mostly can't >>>> be instilled into adolescents - some rare kids can learn it early, but >>>> they tend to be exceptionally clever and need exceptional power of
concentration. About 30% of the undergraduate intake doesn't ever get
any kid of degree, and probably shouldn't have started at all.
Instincts come from the genome. What good mentors have is experience,If you taught yourself when you were a kid, you didn't have a
well-qualified teacher.
A mentor with instincts is great if you are lucky enough to have one. >>>>
and some understanding of what that experience has taught them.
Electronics has advanced a lot over the past fifty years, and mentors
are correspondingly less useful as teachers.
At least when I got into it, I did have a
university library and book-shop to draw on and did get some advice from >>>>>> people who really knew what they were doing.
Obviously too late.
What's obvious to you is what you want to see. Trump is even more deeply >>>> into wishful thinking than you are.
They tend to be functional, rather than elegant, and not always all that >>>> up-to-date. I once got very rude about a paper lauding the use of 1OkI learned a lot when I started doing electronic engineering as my main >>>>>> job, and had some really skilled teachers and examplars, as a well as >>>>>> lot of colleagues who merely thought that they knew what they were >>>>>> doing, and earned a few disparaging remarks. A few disparaging remarks >>>>>> got published as comments in the Review of Scientific Instruments.
I sometimes read RSI when it's available. The circuits are hilarious. >>>>
ECL which got published after ECLinPs had been around for a few years. >>>>
10k ECL was about four times faster than TTL/CMOS, but ECinPS was four >>>> times faster again. The same paper described a ripple carry counter
where the carry propagation wasn't fast enough to match the maximum
count rate claimed. No mention at all of a synchronous counter.
It was a particularly horrible example, quite the worst I've ever seen. >>>
Rubbish. The state of the outputs of a multistage ripple counter isn't
useful until the increment has rippled through every stage.
Consider a frequency divider.
Your prime motivation is to contradict, not to think. That's very
common.
A true ripple counter is as fast as its first flop.
On 1/02/2026 2:29 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:34:35 -0000 (UTC), Niocl?s P?l Caile?n de
Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> wrote:
In sci.electronics.design Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|"the "Intelligence Quotient" is a remarkably ill-defined measure"|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
True.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
It's an integer that results from a standard IQ test. That is very
well defined.
What it tests isn't.
And the integer correlates highly with many measures of productivity
and success.
For a rather low value of "highly". The correlation between IQ and >post-employment success of university graduates is pretty close to zero.
You used to need an IQ score of about 115 to get into university - the >average IQ if American university students is now 102. Your chances of >actually getting a university degree don't correlated strongly with with
you IQ score at university entry.
Difficult courses - mostly STEM subjects do show a stronger correlation,
but about 40% students drop out without getting a degree, and it takes a
IQ of 130 or better to get this down to 5%.
The SAT tests are even better, because they have separate math and
verbal scores.
But they still aren't all that good.
On 1/02/2026 8:36 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 21:42:27 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/31/26 16:34, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:21:44 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/31/26 00:53, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:49:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl?s P?l Caile?n de Ghloucester wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an >>>>>>>> old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
Jeroen Belleman
Adults rarely acquire a new accent at native level.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
True, but those natives probably don't have the linguistic
abilities of the foreign speaker. Your thinking is shaped
by language, and speaking more languages is enriching.
I'm native Dutch, but I've been told I have a French
accent now.
Jeroen Belleman
Which language is best for thinking about electronics?
I think circuits in pictures, not words, but people are very
different.
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
That has to be English, I think. Anyway, for quite some time now,
English has been the common language of science and technology,
electronics included. It has been French for a while, and Latin
for a long period before that. And ancient Greek before that, and
and ,,,
Jeroen Belleman
English is shockingly irregular.
Not really. It's just another language which evolved. Imagining English
was ever designed is plain silly.
One word can mean six things and
there are a zillion words to express a concept.
Quite a lot of word meanings are context dependent. Dictionaries deal
with this by quoting word use in the various different contexts.
Plus there are places like the UK with their own weird versions.
At one level English is the language spoken in England, and the
derivations spoken in the US and Australia are the weird versions.
Some of the oddities of US English reflect the fact that some of the >evolution of British English over the past few centuries didn't make it >across the Atlantic.
Given the concept that ambiguity generates creativity, maybe English
is a good language to invent in.
The idea that ambiguity generates creativity is one that I haven't come >across. Google throw up a few examples from the past few years, so it
may be currently fashionable word salad.
Ambiguity didn't feature in any of the ideas I've had that ended up >patented, nor in any of the 25-odd ideas that my father got patents for.
I'm not familiar with all of Alan Dower Blumlein's 128 patents, but the
none of the ones I do know about had anything ambiguous about them.
On Sun, 1 Feb 2026 20:59:19 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 1/02/2026 2:29 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:34:35 -0000 (UTC), Niocl s P˘l Caile n de
Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com> wrote:
In sci.electronics.design Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|"the "Intelligence Quotient" is a remarkably ill-defined measure"|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
True.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
It's an integer that results from a standard IQ test. That is very
well defined.
What it tests isn't.
And the integer correlates highly with many measures of productivity
and success.
For a rather low value of "highly". The correlation between IQ and
post-employment success of university graduates is pretty close to zero.
You used to need an IQ score of about 115 to get into university - the
average IQ if American university students is now 102. Your chances of
actually getting a university degree don't correlated strongly with with
you IQ score at university entry.
Difficult courses - mostly STEM subjects do show a stronger correlation,
but about 40% students drop out without getting a degree, and it takes a
IQ of 130 or better to get this down to 5%.
The SAT tests are even better, because they have separate math and
verbal scores.
But they still aren't all that good.
"productivity and success" and "actually getting a university degree"
are entirely different things.
On Sun, 1 Feb 2026 21:57:08 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 1/02/2026 8:36 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 21:42:27 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/31/26 16:34, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:21:44 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/31/26 00:53, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:49:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl s P˘l Caile n de Ghloucester wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an >>>>>>>>> old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
Jeroen Belleman
Adults rarely acquire a new accent at native level.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
True, but those natives probably don't have the linguistic
abilities of the foreign speaker. Your thinking is shaped
by language, and speaking more languages is enriching.
I'm native Dutch, but I've been told I have a French
accent now.
Jeroen Belleman
Which language is best for thinking about electronics?
I think circuits in pictures, not words, but people are very
different.
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
That has to be English, I think. Anyway, for quite some time now,
English has been the common language of science and technology,
electronics included. It has been French for a while, and Latin
for a long period before that. And ancient Greek before that, and
and ,,,
Jeroen Belleman
English is shockingly irregular.
Not really. It's just another language which evolved. Imagining English
was ever designed is plain silly.
One word can mean six things and
there are a zillion words to express a concept.
Quite a lot of word meanings are context dependent. Dictionaries deal
with this by quoting word use in the various different contexts.
Plus there are places like the UK with their own weird versions.
At one level English is the language spoken in England, and the
derivations spoken in the US and Australia are the weird versions.
Some of the oddities of US English reflect the fact that some of the
evolution of British English over the past few centuries didn't make it
across the Atlantic.
Given the concept that ambiguity generates creativity, maybe English
is a good language to invent in.
The idea that ambiguity generates creativity is one that I haven't come
across. Google throw up a few examples from the past few years, so it
may be currently fashionable word salad.
Ambiguity didn't feature in any of the ideas I've had that ended up
patented, nor in any of the 25-odd ideas that my father got patents for.
I'm not familiar with all of Alan Dower Blumlein's 128 patents, but the
none of the ones I do know about had anything ambiguous about them.
With all the patents in your family, you must be very wealthy.
On 1/02/2026 10:10 pm, john larkin wrote:
On Sun, 1 Feb 2026 21:57:08 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 1/02/2026 8:36 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 21:42:27 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/31/26 16:34, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:21:44 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/31/26 00:53, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:49:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 1/30/26 21:00, Niocl?s P?l Caile?n de Ghloucester wrote: >>>>>>>>>> Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young" |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an >>>>>>>>>> old person.
An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
the keys, motivation and immersion.
Jeroen Belleman
Adults rarely acquire a new accent at native level.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
True, but those natives probably don't have the linguistic
abilities of the foreign speaker. Your thinking is shaped
by language, and speaking more languages is enriching.
I'm native Dutch, but I've been told I have a French
accent now.
Jeroen Belleman
Which language is best for thinking about electronics?
I think circuits in pictures, not words, but people are very
different.
John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
That has to be English, I think. Anyway, for quite some time now,
English has been the common language of science and technology,
electronics included. It has been French for a while, and Latin
for a long period before that. And ancient Greek before that, and
and ,,,
Jeroen Belleman
English is shockingly irregular.
Not really. It's just another language which evolved. Imagining English
was ever designed is plain silly.
One word can mean six things and
there are a zillion words to express a concept.
Quite a lot of word meanings are context dependent. Dictionaries deal
with this by quoting word use in the various different contexts.
Plus there are places like the UK with their own weird versions.
At one level English is the language spoken in England, and the
derivations spoken in the US and Australia are the weird versions.
Some of the oddities of US English reflect the fact that some of the
evolution of British English over the past few centuries didn't make it
across the Atlantic.
Given the concept that ambiguity generates creativity, maybe English
is a good language to invent in.
The idea that ambiguity generates creativity is one that I haven't come
across. Google throw up a few examples from the past few years, so it
may be currently fashionable word salad.
Ambiguity didn't feature in any of the ideas I've had that ended up
patented, nor in any of the 25-odd ideas that my father got patents for. >>> I'm not familiar with all of Alan Dower Blumlein's 128 patents, but the
none of the ones I do know about had anything ambiguous about them.
With all the patents in your family, you must be very wealthy.
If you are an employee you don't get any extra just because you have a >patent. My father did end up pretty well off, but none of it came
directly from the patents.
The most significant one - for the counter-current cooking of wood chips >into paper pulp - didn't earn much in the way of royalties. Kamyr, who
made all the digestors used by the industry, chose not to pay royalties,
and it wasn't worth suing them, or the people who used the process in >continuous digestors that they'd bought from Kamyr.
On 1/02/2026 2:41 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 16:25:29 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 31/01/2026 8:53 am, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 03:51:16 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>> wrote:
On 31/01/2026 3:04 am, john larkin wrote:A true ripple counter is as fast as its first flop.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:18:25 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>>>> wrote:
On 31/01/2026 12:43 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 30/01/2026 9:15 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:It didn't include any parts with gain, or any power source. What's your
[...]
The only electronics I did as a kid was to build a completely passive[...]
crystal set
I think we may quote that in replies to some of your future posts. >>>>>>>>>
preferred description of the classic crystal set?
The part that caught my eye was: " The only electronics I did as a kid".
Many of us spent our childhood teaching ourselves electronics - so we >>>>>>>> may remind you of this difference next time you start making disparaging
remarks about other engineers' knowledge and abilities.
John Larkin seems to think it gives you some kind of advantage.
Of course it does. As there is a huge advantage to learning chess or >>>>>> math or languages or soccer when you are young. Actually doing stuff >>>>>> involves practical feedbacks and acquired instincts.
Instincts are what you were born with. What you get from doing stuff is >>>>> habits.
Learning stuff too early can instill bad habits, and they are hard to >>>>> unlearn.
Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them young, and some >>>>> aspects of language can't be learned at all by very young kids.
University education seldom installs much in the way of instincts
either. It's too rigid and formalized, and too late.
Since instincts are what you get with your genome, universities can't >>>>> install them at all.
Formal instruction at university is formal. It's mostly accompanied by >>>>> practical classes, which are a lot less rigid.
The complicated stuff that most people learn at university mostly can't >>>>> be instilled into adolescents - some rare kids can learn it early, but >>>>> they tend to be exceptionally clever and need exceptional power of
concentration. About 30% of the undergraduate intake doesn't ever get >>>>> any kid of degree, and probably shouldn't have started at all.
Instincts come from the genome. What good mentors have is experience, >>>>> and some understanding of what that experience has taught them.If you taught yourself when you were a kid, you didn't have a
well-qualified teacher.
A mentor with instincts is great if you are lucky enough to have one. >>>>>
Electronics has advanced a lot over the past fifty years, and mentors >>>>> are correspondingly less useful as teachers.
At least when I got into it, I did have a
university library and book-shop to draw on and did get some advice from
people who really knew what they were doing.
Obviously too late.
What's obvious to you is what you want to see. Trump is even more deeply >>>>> into wishful thinking than you are.
They tend to be functional, rather than elegant, and not always all that >>>>> up-to-date. I once got very rude about a paper lauding the use of 1Ok >>>>> ECL which got published after ECLinPs had been around for a few years. >>>>>I learned a lot when I started doing electronic engineering as my main >>>>>>> job, and had some really skilled teachers and examplars, as a well as >>>>>>> lot of colleagues who merely thought that they knew what they were >>>>>>> doing, and earned a few disparaging remarks. A few disparaging remarks >>>>>>> got published as comments in the Review of Scientific Instruments. >>>>>>I sometimes read RSI when it's available. The circuits are hilarious. >>>>>
10k ECL was about four times faster than TTL/CMOS, but ECinPS was four >>>>> times faster again. The same paper described a ripple carry counter
where the carry propagation wasn't fast enough to match the maximum
count rate claimed. No mention at all of a synchronous counter.
It was a particularly horrible example, quite the worst I've ever seen. >>>>
Rubbish. The state of the outputs of a multistage ripple counter isn't
useful until the increment has rippled through every stage.
Consider a frequency divider.
A frequency divider isn't a counter. It may use the same components, but >they aren't doing the same job.
Your prime motivation is to contradict, not to think. That's very
common.
And you've just produced a classic example.
A true ripple counter is as fast as its first flop.
Not when being used as a counter, as you'd have realised if you'd
thought about what you were saying.
English is shockingly irregular. One word can mean six things and
there are a zillion words to express a concept. Plus there are places
like the UK with their own weird versions.
Given the concept that ambiguity generates creativity, maybe EnglishA fortiori this applies to Chinese.
is a good language to invent in.
John Larkin
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