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06.08
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... On Tubescence (June
2008)
Don rang my chime with this one!
When the inventor/promoter of
the musical synthesizer, Bob Moog, died in North
Carolina a couple of years ago, I did a survey
at a Region 3 meeting with about 50 volunteers,
asking who remembered the vacuum tube? Moog's
first devices used them.
Only about ten percent of those
present could raise their hand, but a few could
rattle off the 6SN7, 6SJ7, KT-66, EL-34, 12AU7,
etc. I well-remember the 12AX7 and 6L6, having
made audio amplifiers using them (in the early
days of high fidelity — from which sprang the
term wi-fi).
The British called them valves,
which I think was quite descriptive, since they
modulated the flow of electrons.
I may still have an RCA Tube
Manual.
On the All-American Five, I
learned why that happened. Not just the cost
saving from eliminating transformers, but also
the fact that they could be used in parts of NYC
that, after WW II, still had DC (from the early
Edison days) power instead of AC.
I used to work with an engineer
at Martin Marietta whose early career was at a
mid-tier maker of vacuum tube AM radios, in the
1940s and 1950s, in NY or NJ. He told me how
"value engineering" there consisted of trying to
remove components (coils, resistors, capacitors
— then called condensers) one by one until the
radio stopped working. They then restored the
item that made it play.
Another story was the 630TS
television set, using about 23 vacuum tubes.
"Mad Man" Muntz, a former auto salesman, made a
TV set marvelous for the sparse componentry. It
was the ultimate in "value engineering" — and
sold for less than the ones from RCA.
— George
McClure
IEEE Life Fellow
Winter Park, FL
***
...On "Employee
Retention Strategies" (April
2008)
Managers,
executives and humans, in general, generally
direct their efforts in line with whatever
reward structure is in place at the time,
because a reward structure is a statement of
values and a direction for pursuing "real
value." When retention is not part of the reward
structure, the efforts won't be either.
Also see chapter
six of Richard Florida's "The Rise Of The
Creative Class" for an interesting alternative
explanation .
— Ben Towne
IEEE Student Member
Easton, PA
***
...On "Transport Options for
an Aging Population" (May
2008)
Except for an almost universal
lack of productive imagination directed toward
this and related issues, there is no problem.
Unfortunately, that total lack
of imagination IS a show stopper!
A maximally advantageous
solution to the eldertrans problem should
ideally solve some other serious and nagging
problems as well, namely transportation for ALL
age groups, and should be capable of being
introduced gradually so as to avoid the
commitment of huge sums of scarce capital to
what the chronically unimaginative will
unfortunately see as an unreasonably risky
enterprise.
The solution which meets these
requirements is the Automated Autonomous
(erroneously called the driverless) Automobile
(AAA).
The AAA requires little capital
to introduce — the existing
infrastructure is, by DEFINITION, completely
acceptable if properly maintained.
The AAA is completely compatible
with manual autos while they gradually disappear
(economic forces will tend to that).
The AAA can be used by anyone,
age 1 to 111 or by no one (cargo only).
The AAA will gradually become
many times more space-efficient on the streets
and highways and so building more streets will
be long, LONG delayed, if ever necessary at all.
The mature AAA will conserve
energy by rarely being required to stop at
intersections, instead being interleaved thru by
local control, as well as by linking up into
platoons where only a few engines/motors are
running.
I am convinced that the AAA will
come — the only question I see is just
how extremely bad things must get before sanity
reigns once again in our land, as it
occasionally has done in the past.
— Allen
Wollscheidt
IEEE Member
Brunswick, GA
***
I read with interest your
article on the dilemmas of future transportation
in the 21st Century. It was very concise and
presents the energy and mobility dilemmas with
clarity. There is one aspect that you failed to
recognize. The article leaned very heavily on
listening to the "vox populi" and eliciting
their transport needs, but right now it is "vox
terrae" that we have to listen to and meet its
needs.
— John
Fitzgerald
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