Wow. I thought it was just me. I feel very busy but not very productive. I've spent more time reading the long blogs so everyone's efforts are paying dividends. Sometimes, it's the little details or trials in a blog that spark an interest. I'm always intrigued by how someone corrects a problem. How did you find it? What were the symptoms? Etc.
I'm still amazed that I can check in every day and still miss a conversation by a week.
It definitely takes time, often much more than is apparent from the result, but I don't mind producing blogs, some aspects are actually enjoyable.
There are a complex set of trade-offs that dictate if blogging is going to happen.
Like: is it more worthwhile to blog about problems and lack of progress than to spend the time trying to make it work?
Or if a complete system needs to be assembled to determine if the design works, is it worth dismantling it to show how it was built?
Is it more worthwhile to blog about all the floundering around in a failed project than to move on to a new project?
There aren't any definitive answers, but it seems doing projects instead of blogs provides more predictable enjoyment, where blog enjoyment is partly based on what the readers think. This year I have retreated to the more predictable enjoyment of introverted projects instead of spending the time on riskier extroverted blogs.
I only do things I enjoy or that interest me here. It's my free time so anything that doesn't turn that into quality time will not be done.
I find myself odd in that when I do a project and write the blog, I tend to start piling on more and more content before the thing is done.
The odd part is that I rarely, if ever, read long blogs. Hardly never. I look at pictures, the schematic, and hit the video - I even scrub through it quickly usually to the end.
So, I have no idea why I bother dumping in a bunch of extra content outside of the schematic, code, and build pics. It's therapeutic to write it, I gues, and may help a kid's senior project, but I imagine most in the community are like me and just skim through.
Heck, I just added a sentence to this. I better quit.
It definitely takes time, often much more than is apparent from the result, but I don't mind producing blogs, some aspects are actually enjoyable.
There are a complex set of trade-offs that dictate if blogging is going to happen.
Like: is it more worthwhile to blog about problems and lack of progress than to spend the time trying to make it work?
Or if a complete system needs to be assembled to determine if the design works, is it worth dismantling it to show how it was built?
Is it more worthwhile to blog about all the floundering around in a failed project than to move on to a new project?
There aren't any definitive answers, but it seems doing projects instead of blogs provides more predictable enjoyment, where blog enjoyment is partly based on what the readers think. This year I have retreated to the more predictable enjoyment of introverted projects instead of spending the time on riskier extroverted blogs.
The DMM6500 is very nice and good value (and has more features) compared with the Keysight 3446x range - however I find that my DMM6500 has migrated to the temperature test rig corner and its the 34465 that gets used every day !
You do pay half as much again for the approaching the same features on the Keysight, but the ergonomics are just so much nicer (this may be a personal thing.)
MK
I managed to become fluent with the DMM6x touch screen interface. The fingers fly over the LCD.
In particular when setting it up for a low noise DC V or I measurement or to take a set of samples to work with the statistics , the muscle memory has kicked in.
The DMM6500 is very nice and good value (and has more features) compared with the Keysight 3446x range - however I find that my DMM6500 has migrated to the temperature test rig corner and its the 34465 that gets used every day !
You do pay half as much again for the approaching the same features on the Keysight, but the ergonomics are just so much nicer (this may be a personal thing.)
I vacillated for ages Gene. I'd be at a Keithley DMM6500 one minute then a Siglent SDM3055X the next, then there was the refurbished Siglent SDM3065X that's available for little more than the SDM3055X! Round-and-round we go. I even got a spreadsheet out and worked out what 5.5 digits vs 6.5 digits meant in reality - heads up: sweet FA in reality, unless of course you're interested in really low power devices. There are other features on these besides baseline accuracy of course and in the end that's what I went with: the Keithley because of its interface and programmability and because I could afford it so why the heck not. At least it will last me out.
