One day I had an old flashlight that had burned light bulb on it. It was a small cheap model powered with two AA batteries. I could fix it with new light bulb, but going through the trouble of trying to find exactly suitable replacement light bulb felt like more than the value of the →
The Most Useless Machine EVER! Duelling Useless Machines! Somebody has also made a LEGO version useless machine →
DC voltage levels: 0.7V Nominal voltage drop on normal silicon diode or similar semiconductor junction 0.8V Voltages from 0V to 0.8V are considered to be logic 0 on TTL logic IC inputs 1.25V NiCd, NiMH battery cell nominal voltage 1.5V Carbon and alkaeline battery cell nominal voltage 1.6V The voltage you normally get from a →
BBC plans to use 3D and ‘super hi-vision’ for London Olympics article tells that executive in charge of 2012 coverage has spoken about the proposed experiment: The BBC is considering plans to broadcast the 100 meters final of the London Olympics in 3D, as well as trying out a new super high-definition technology. Super Hi-vision →
One of the key features of the web is that it’s pretty safe to click on almost any link. Your browser can fetch code from some unknown server on the internet and run it. In the browser you can use any language you want – as long as it’s JavaScript. JavaScript is an interpreted, dynamically-typed →
Philips wins $10M L Prize for LED-based 60W replacement bulb article tells that Philips wins $10M L Prize for LED-based 60W replacement bulb. The bulbs had to meet or exceed a set of requirements: greater than 900lm at 10W or less (efficacy of greater than 90W/lm) at a color-corrected temperature (CCT) of 2700-3000K and a →
Write-only memory has been one of the best practical jokes on the electronics industry field. Write-only memory (WOM) is the antithesis of read-only memory (ROM). By definition, a WOM is a memory device which can be written but never read. The WOM concept is most often used as a joke or a euphemism for a →
Category 5 (CAT5) cable is a multi-pair (usually 4 pair) cable that consists of twisted pair conductors, used mainly for data transmission. Basic CAT5 cable was designed for characteristics of up to 100 MHz. Newer CAT6 cable is designed form 250 MHz. Nowadays there are applications where those cables is used to carry higher frequencies. →
The whole world seems to be going in ARM’s direction. ARM has practically taken the mobile phone and tablet markets. The latest version of Windows 8 will also run on ARM processors, Raspberry Pi is a $25 ARM based machine etc.. Slashdot tells that now the open source Arduino platform has a new member — →
Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronic Systems book except has some interesting reading on ground loops and inductive noise reduction. This is old but still very valid material from Henry Ott, the EMC, noise, and signal integrity guru. Read also Ground- A Path For Current Flow article which says: Consider ground as a low impedance path →