3 ms·

Open Circuits is a beautiful book that also explains how things work. One picture I really enjoyed was the cutaway of a barrel jack power plug. The author expl

by er4hn 4y ago

Open Circuits is a beautiful book that also explains how things work. One picture I really enjoyed was the cutaway of a barrel jack power plug. The author explained how plugging in a power cable would physically change the power source from an internal battery to something external. For a CS person, this physical elegance blew my mind.

layer8 4y ago
I marvel at the ball-spring design of this switch for some reason (outtake image): https://opencircuitsbook.com/assets/img/gallery/42-big.jpg https://opencircuitsbook.com/assets/img/gallery/42-big.jpg
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  Increasing lifetime by greatly reducing frictional wear via allowing rotation, plus the spring eliminates any frictional gap that might arise. Pure genius!
  - dtgriscom 4y ago
    The spring also provides the "snap" effect; the switch snaps to "off" (the shown position) as well as to "on" (with the ball pushed down between the contacts).
gumby 4y ago
> For a CS person, this physical elegance blew my mind. In many cases you can write your code in an analogous way. Sadly, most procedural code I see plods its way through transitions in a manner that allows errors, races etc (the old thermos joke comes to mind). Keep these positive hardware approaches in mind when designing your algorithms.
- wayvey 4y ago
  Not sure if I know that joke. How does it go?
  - gumby 4y ago
    A physicist is showing their friend the computer scientist a thermos flask. "You can put a cold drink in it and no matter how hot it is outside the drink stays cold". The friend is suitably impressed. "But that's not all: you can put a hot drink in it and no matter how cold it is outside the drink stays hot!" Now the friend is puzzled. "But how does it know?" I long ago became depressed by the amount of code I've read that is written this way. Nowadays I just expect it.
    - er4hn 4y ago
      hilarious! thanks for sharing.
      - gumby 4y ago
        You can thank me by not writing code like that :-)
deleted 4y ago
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sacrosancty 4y ago
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agumonkey 4y ago
Fiddling with analog and electromechanical appliances improved my engineering skills more than many software classes. The old world was full of brilliance, it just got normalized into oblivion.

by er4hn 4y ago

layer8 4y ago

I marvel at the ball-spring design of this switch for some reason (outtake image): https://opencircuitsbook.com/assets/img/gallery/42-big.jpg https://opencircuitsbook.com/assets/img/gallery/42-big.jpg

photochemsyn 4y ago
Increasing lifetime by greatly reducing frictional wear via allowing rotation, plus the spring eliminates any frictional gap that might arise. Pure genius!
- dtgriscom 4y ago
  The spring also provides the "snap" effect; the switch snaps to "off" (the shown position) as well as to "on" (with the ball pushed down between the contacts).

gumby 4y ago

> For a CS person, this physical elegance blew my mind. In many cases you can write your code in an analogous way. Sadly, most procedural code I see plods its way through transitions in a manner that allows errors, races etc (the old thermos joke comes to mind). Keep these positive hardware approaches in mind when designing your algorithms.

wayvey 4y ago
Not sure if I know that joke. How does it go?
- gumby 4y ago
  A physicist is showing their friend the computer scientist a thermos flask. "You can put a cold drink in it and no matter how hot it is outside the drink stays cold". The friend is suitably impressed. "But that's not all: you can put a hot drink in it and no matter how cold it is outside the drink stays hot!" Now the friend is puzzled. "But how does it know?" I long ago became depressed by the amount of code I've read that is written this way. Nowadays I just expect it.
  - er4hn 4y ago
    hilarious! thanks for sharing.
    - gumby 4y ago
      You can thank me by not writing code like that :-)

deleted 4y ago

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sacrosancty 4y ago

[dead]

agumonkey 4y ago

Fiddling with analog and electromechanical appliances improved my engineering skills more than many software classes. The old world was full of brilliance, it just got normalized into oblivion.