标签: networks

  高精度无线传感器为其自身供电 如果您错过了这篇博客也没什么，LTC 的 Kris Lokere 最近为 EDN 撰写了一篇文章，该文描述了一款整合了微尘 (mote)、能量收集和高精度温度检测功能的电路。具体而言，其描述了一款具备以下部件的参考电路：   * Dust Networks 无线 – LTP5901-IPM SmartMesh IP 微尘 * 能量收集 – LTC3330 毫微功率降压-升压型 DC/DC，其在该电路中具有一个主电池和用于延长电池寿命的太阳能电池 * 高精度温度检测 – LTC2484 24 位 ΔΣ ADC，负责对一个热敏电阻进行采样 * 电压基准 – LTC6654，其由电路进行周期操作以实现低的平均吸收电流   该文的 PDF 副本可在 linear.com 网站上获得，网址是：www.linear.com/docs/44978  

I check out what's going on in "media", especially TV, when I am looking to "veg out" for a few minutes. This makes me feel somewhat up-to-date without actually spending time watching the shows, so I don't feel so out-of-it when someone mentions a popular show. Now that it's July and August, there are many coverage of upcoming, new shows here in the US. The various TV networks are announcing the Fall plans, with a big push for these shows. Depending how you count them, there will be 20 to 40 of these offerings (most won't make it, but that's another story). Looking over their plans, I see that most of these shows, especially the dramas, center on doctors, police, or lawyers (and adults who seem to have no job but are otherwise living well). Let me see. . . I don't see engineers at the center of any of these shows, and that old déjà vu feeling is rolling over me again. If there is an engineer in any of these, it's most likely as a peripheral character—such as someone the police go to once in a while for some expert insight—or as a mad bomber or crazy loner. I used to be upset about this. After all, engineers (and scientist) play a very important role in making stuff that the doctors, police, and lawyers use and expect as part of their regular array of tools and resources. Those smartphones, networks, forensic instruments, and databases don't grow on trees, right? But on that proverbial other hand, maybe it is just as well we're barely visible. While TV shows can serve to put the protagonists in a positive light, by showing the nature of the work they do and the challenges, all too often the writers fall back on tired clichés and meaningless stereotypes, since it's so much easier to do that. I suspect that any show that was engineering-centric would make engineers look like a bizarre subspecies of some sort. My other concern is that in their zeal to make everything more dramatic, these writers would muck it up, anyway. Let's face it, there often isn't a lot of visible drama in good, solid engineering, just hard work, attention to detail, some group meetings and discussion, the occasional "aha" moment as you find and fix a bug, all spiced by the pressure of deadlines, cost, and performance. Much of what makes engineering the special activity it is in the inner satisfaction, as captured by the title of Samuel Florman's book, "The Existential Pleasures of Engineering." TV-story compatible it is not, in most cases. What do you think? Should we be upset that engineers are pretty much not the center of a modest number of TV shows? Or should we be happy? Or should we simply not care, and worry about other things?