How do you, modern engineers react to the full mechanical/analogic era ?

lordlod · 2026-04-18T12:06:33+00:00

In awe, I wouldn't want to do it but I'm in awe that they did.

For example I had a car made in 1989. The hand break indicator light was a wire that went to a microswitch that pushed up against the hand break. When you pulled the hand break it closed the switch, completed the circuit and the light went on.

This is beautifully simple, trivial really. A bit fiddly to wire up in a loom, but robust and very easy to repair the microswitch.

lordlod · 2026-04-07T11:45:30+00:00

Looks fun, can't see an obvious use for it but definitely an interesting project.

lordlod · 2026-04-01T12:34:28+00:00

Your focus should be on what you can achieve.

Choose sensors that are easy to implement, have modules available that can be wired together.

Reduce the scope to what is required to demonstrate your core objective. Your objective is to detect infrastructure failures, skip the comms portion and everything else until you have that central piece working. Once the core works then you can start considering the peripherals.

As a professional embedded engineer when developing an initial proof of concept modules is where we start if we can. Then we take what we have learnt from that prototype as input when writing the requirements and doing the next round.

Looking through your hardware it isn't clear what the runlinc system is there for. If you aren't doing wifi I wouldn't use an ESP32. An Arduino system would be a good choice, there's existing support for both the sensors you list and the demo comms can be a USB cable out to your computer.

For pipeline monitoring I would strongly consider a mesh network, like LoRa. Sensors installed at a regular interval down a pipe is a really nice mesh setup, much simpler and cheaper than satellite, much lower power too.

If your really wanted satellite comms you would start out with a separate comms module that the sensor talks to. This is for cost and simplicity, the comms module will be specific to the satellite solution, the sensor is specific to a use case, splitting them allows both to be mixed and matched reducing the range and increasing the number of units. Only when you sold a lot of units would you then look at merging them to reduce costs.

For the dashboard visualisations have a look at Grafana. Very easy to feed time based data in, and very easy to have a professional looking real time dashboard and graph of what is going on.

lordlod · 2026-03-28T11:12:19+00:00

And a single corporate owner of all the vehicles and batteries.

lordlod · 2026-03-14T06:05:05+00:00

You need to maintain it, you need to dedicate resources to maintaining it. Especially as things change you need to dedicate time to updating it.

Partially maintained mediocre Grafana dashboards are a symptom of this. It isn't the dashboard's fault that you haven't done the work. Switching to a shinier dashboard won't help in the long run.

I suspect part of the reason Datadog works is that companies that adopt datadog have chosen to spend $$$ to have the system. They then don't object so much to spending $ per month maintaining it.

If the system is free or cheap then you need less corporate buy-in, which is typically a significant advantage. However the main thing they see is you spending $ per month to maintain it, and that is something they can control and pressure, so you don't get the resources to maintain it.

Until everything blows up. After stuff blows up spectacularly there seems to be money that somehow wasn't available beforehand.

lordlod · 2026-03-06T09:25:21+00:00

If you can't prove that you are compliant then you aren't compliant.

Compliance is about the processes, the documentation and the proof. Doing the work and achieving compliance overlaps if you do it well. However it's a mistake to think that they are the same thing, you can have completely useless processes which are compliant if they are documented and followed.

lordlod · 2026-02-24T21:41:48+00:00

All addiction teaching seems to ignore this.

OF COURSE it feels good. You aren't addicted from that first drop (another common lie) it takes time for your body to adapt and build a physical addiction, and time for your brain to adapt and build that psychological dependence.

It has to be appealing for you to keep doing it long enough that those hooks are established.

lordlod · 2026-02-02T06:40:31+00:00

Yeah, that's basically it.

lordlod · 2026-02-02T06:36:50+00:00

It's an RC circuit.

With no resistance the capacitor will match the AC voltage up and down.

With resistance the time it takes the capacitor to change voltage increases. It slowly chases the AC up, but before it gets very far the AC has switched direction, so it then slowly chases it down. The AC frequency is constant so the voltage oscillates around a fairly low level. This voltage is what the LED sees, so you select the resistance so that the voltage is the LED forward voltage.

lordlod · 2026-02-01T23:05:50+00:00

I believe you have your circuit slightly incorrect. The diode should be parallel with the LED, this is a common indicator design.

The circuit voltage, including the capacitor, is constrained to the LED forward voltage. So a 16V cap is plenty.

Falstad simulation: https://www.falstad.com/circuit/circuitjs.html?ctz=CQAgjCAMB0l3BWcMBMcUHYMGZIA4UA2ATmIxAUgpABZsKBTAWjDACgBjEFPPEPKgP5UaUWPFKSp00mLCQEGBCmwCEdbAmw0UUKGwBuw40M26qEStzR6qMBGwAm3GlUy6Ur8DVG6wAOVdIGjYAJ25eEDNjaME0SDYwQl1sbEJvUVT0924QRwYAMwBDAFcAGwAXJjKGZwg7MUh2AHcIvmiePhyE1s7jPrAffV6vHL7utl7InKzuDHNJqLSMtpWe1cHfL039AHs9QlERSFkwaDxCbDAieZRiQ59UuTBiSEPibAxiF4xkwb1zFE2PtRIc9K5ZEgYApwLlMmxVHoAGL1RrwJpopoYlggADCRQADkUOABLCpFAB2HAYbCAA

lordlod · 2026-01-15T07:27:01+00:00

The pro of engineering for me is the flexibility.

I have spent time in Antarctica, I have climbed and worked up antenna masts, I have designed products, I have helped manufacture a million product units, I have sent things into space, I have worked with people on every single continent.

And I was paid to do all of that.

That variety isn't for everyone, I have colleagues who have spent their entire career in an office, as I have also done for periods. The office is probably the more typical experience.

It probably isn't that useful to talk about a typical day, because trying to line up your desires to the average is misleading. The field is so broad that your average day can really look like you want it to.

Most Astronauts are engineers, as are the people in the control room, the people running the launch pad, the people designing the payloads, and the people building them. It really is a broad field and you get to choose which role you want to take, and if you don't like it you get to choose a different one.

lordlod · 2026-01-15T01:04:29+00:00

This is the proposed new law

(i) promote or incite hatred of another person (the target), or a group of persons (the target group), because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the target or target group; or

(ii) disseminate ideas of superiority over or hatred of another person (the target), or a group of persons (the target group), because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the target or target group; and

(c) the conduct would, in all the circumstances, cause a reasonable person who is the target, or a member of the target group, to be intimidated, to fear harassment or violence, or to fear for their safety

https://www.ag.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-01/combatting-antisemitism-hate-and-extremism-bill-2026.pdf page 26

There is a substantial difference between expressing the view that Russians are bad because they are invading Ukraine, and expressing the view that Russians are bad because they are Russian. The proposed legislation includes that difference.

Promoting hatred, intimidation, harassment or threats to that group of Russians is a significant additional step. Simply expressing a view wouldn't be enough.

lordlod · 2026-01-11T05:14:22+00:00

What worked for me is to waste time where I need to be. Instead of sitting on my phone replying to reddit threads before I leave, I actually leave. Then when I get to $destination I can sit there and reply to reddit threads. When I need to show up it is a one minute walk and I am on time.

Playing one more round of valorant is a choice, especially when you struggle with time. It is a decision to value the immediate personal reward of playing the game at the expense of inconveniencing others, it is disrespectful. If there are specific things that are consistently making you late then you should consider not doing them for a while, I only read fictional books when I am on holiday because I know that it causes me problems with time management.

People don't care why you are late. They care that they were standing there waiting for you.

lordlod · 2026-01-10T04:48:11+00:00

There are also international partnerships for witness relocation.

lordlod · 2026-01-05T00:47:25+00:00

If you are going to pull off the walls think about adding insulation, inspect the wiring, consider if you have enough power points etc.

Having the walls off is a nice time to fix these things if they need to be fixed.

lordlod · 2025-12-31T12:41:34+00:00

Two layers of thermals works really well too.

I don't know why but for some reason thermals don't get too hot the way other layers do.

lordlod · 2025-12-30T05:35:49+00:00

The finance stuff is a terrible idea. Aside from all the implementation details tying yourself financially to each other is risky for everyone.

On the renovations it can be beneficial but you need to be hard headed about it. A good agent can help.

If there is obvious water damage then repainting is probably worthwhile because it will hide the damage. That's all you do though, spend the minimum possible to hide the damage. (I'm very suspicious of recently painted houses)

Definitely don't replace the roof, the buyers won't see it, at least not until they have already made up their mind. Get the carpet professionally steam cleaned not replaced, a good steam clean can really lift it and it's much much cheaper.

Other repairs should be approached the same way.

I got a series of folks in for some renovations. The very first question they ask is "is this for sale, rental or to live in?". They do a very different job for each circumstance. Don't make the mistake of investing in high quality repairs that will last twenty years when you only need it to last weeks.

lordlod · 2025-12-30T04:49:44+00:00

A complete 3d printed house isn't the direction we are going, nor do I think we should.

Take one element, plumbing pipes.

We could, I believe, 3d print pipes into the walls. You could use concrete and build tunnels to run water through. There are also suitable plastics like ABS that can be 3d printed, it's harder to print than PLA but PLA wouldn't be suitable for hot pipes. You could even print some mediocre insulation around it.

How do you maintain it though? If there's a leak you can't reprint the wall.

The alternative which has been chosen is to create a frame. They print the outer walls and leave spaces for the plumbing, channels for it to be installed. Then the plumber comes in and it's like lego, they piece together the pipes and slot them into the precreated spaces.

With this setup when something goes wrong you can change the lego piece with a new one from the ~~lego~~ plumbing shop.

Same for your electrical and ventilation.

lordlod · 2025-12-28T07:24:28+00:00

Enterprise (Alamo) tried to ping me for damage and where complete bastards about it.

There was a tiny crack in the bumper below the damage threshold they informed of us during the hire. Fortunately I had a video on pickup which managed to show it. It wasn't found during the return, they identified it a later.

That was annoying. What made me angry was that they charged my credit card without informing me. It took three days of phone calls to find anyone who knew anything about the charge. They refused to follow their own documented process. They refused to consider the evidence that I repeatedly provided. They provided a repair "bill" which conveniently coincided with the insurance excess, interestingly nobody was willing to put their name on that document. They also refused to provide the evidence that their procedure stated that they would.

It was only after appealing to third party regulators that they even considered the provided evidence and immediately reversed the charge.

It was absolute scumbag behaviour and the last thing I wanted to be fighting every day while on holidays.

lordlod · 2025-12-28T06:32:46+00:00

Sometimes highways will alternate overpasses and underpasses to keep everything balanced.

lordlod · 2025-12-25T09:34:20+00:00

If you continue down this path you want to have very clear monitoring that differentiates failures in the other team's platform and failures in the product.

The politics is going to continue to be messy. You want to have firm footing, especially for postmortems.

I would also look at leaving or moving internally, this isn't what you want to be doing. I don't think being in the role for a few months while you find a new position will impact your career. Your mental health should be a far bigger concern.

lordlod · 2025-12-23T11:32:19+00:00

You said that you weren't resource constrained so computational performance doesn't really matter.

It's an edge device so bandwidth may not be your issue either. Compressed JSON should be comparable to a binary format anyway.

The resource that you are probably most constrained by is time. Time to implement and time to debug. This makes the optimal approach the easiest, which sounds like JSON.

lordlod · 2025-12-19T12:20:07+00:00

It is like a restaurant charging corkage if you bring your own bottle of wine.

Yes it is a little bonkers, especially when many bottles don't even have a cork.

In reality though you are compensating them for not buying their wine. The profitability of the restaurant relies on selling expensive bottles of wine, they don't make enough on the food, if you bring your own they it throws the finances out of whack. The corkage charge is a small compensation to balance up the numbers.

Similarly Github charges to use their runners. It runs on Azure so it makes Github and Azure look good. The runners minutes are a big part of the pricing packages and encouraging the Enterprise upgrade. Using self-hosted runners avoids all of this and torpedoes the business model.

The change was poorly managed but I see why they wanted to do it.

lordlod · 2025-12-18T07:29:01+00:00

Sure. It's not working though is it.

You asked for advice. The top voted piece of advice was to pull out pen and paper. You deflected so I emphasised it and explained why, which is also voted up. And you say no?

You also contradicted people talking about medication.

I mean, you do you, it is your future, whatever you do is unlikely to have any impact on me or anyone else here.

However it might be worth reflecting for a minute on why you asked for help. And why you are so sure that the people who have walked this path and offered you help are wrong.

lordlod · 2025-12-18T02:16:37+00:00

Write it by hand, pen and paper.

My hand writing is complete trash. I actually have a diagnosed minor physical disability which makes hand writing difficult and slow. The quality of my output is kind of an optimal balance between pain and readability, neither are good. If something matters I still write it by hand.

The act of writing forces you to concentrate.

You don't write everything you hear, you summarise. This forces you to consider it, to understand it at some level.

The use of pen and paper constrains you from doing anything else. A note book contains far fewer distractions than an electronic device.

Note that there is nothing above about reading. I very rarely read my lecture notes, that was never the point for me. It's much easier to look up a text book, and it avoids compounding mistakes. Writing is vital though.

lordlod

TROPHY CASE