Yeah, i would have to agree with irobot2. My grandmother(Yes, for real) is one of the biggest repairers of Microwave telecommunications equipment in the whole country. I am not lying. I actually didn't believe my mom when she told me "Oh, your grandma repairs complicated electrical equipment". Sure my family ventured down to her house for a wedding, but my grandmother also showed me her "lab". She had a whole basement chock full of gear. She had like 30 oscilloscopes, dozens of completed microwave boards, A WHOLE AISLE FILLED WITH ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS, soldering irons and best of all. She actually knew how to use them all. Needless to say i was dumbfounded. MY GRANDMOTHER WAS A GENIOUS. In fact she graduated from high school at 16 and she was going to go to college for atomic physics. Back then she had all kinds of comments about her gender, they even paid her less than some of the guys. So while working for somebody else she learned the skills she would need to start her repair business. It is called MTR, you should look it up. If you type in "microwave telecommunications repair" it will come up with my grandmothers company profile. SO DON'T tell me that girls can't be just as smart as guys.
I had no doubts that Holly was who she appeared to be...
Sadly, electronics, computer sciences, and engineering tends to be a "boys club." -- There is no good reason for this,
but it's the sad state of affairs. On the upside, there is always a demand in the workforce.
Jeri Ellsworth, another female engineer I've had the pleasure of knowing through the Commodore circles, has to
deal with male geeks making rude comments, etc on a regular basis. I am confident that the folks who
participate in these forums are of high quality and will continue to make Holly feel like part of the group.
@Holly, please don't let the undue attention drive you away, I for one appreciate your comments, and posted information!
@Phil, you are right about the alias thing, but alas I suspect that Oldbitcollector is known more than "Jeff Ledger".
@Ravenkallen - Not to be too stereotypical but I find that most Grandma's makes really awesome cookies or cornbread or other traditions. But how awesome would it be to go to Grandma's house to get your code debugged or help you with that RC circuit... Must lead to some very interesting family reunions!
I would just like to tell some new hot-shot engineer that "My grandma could do your job wither her eyes closed"... and mean it! LOL
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Alex Burke
"It is not how smart you are rather, it is how you are smart." -Jon Campbell
Well irobot2, she doesn't know a whole lot about programming. Her strength lies in her ability to repair Microwave telecomm equipment. That stuff is hard. Once you start going up that high in frequency, all other circuit rules change. But, yeah she knows a lot of stuff AND YES I CAN TELL PEOPLE THAT THINK THEY ARE COOL, that my GRANDMA can do it better. AND the cool thing is that she taught herself all she knows.
I'd love to know someone like your grandmother, she
really sounds great! I have an interest in making long
distance connections using wifi. I have built little biquad
antennas and mounted them at the feedpoint of small
dish antennas. This is stuff your grandma would certainly
understand. Does she repair microwave links between
cell towers? They must need lots of attention. I'm always
looking at cell towers when I pass them and noticing the
microwave relay dishs mounted about midway down, the ones
pointing to other towers. I'd hate to have to climb up
there to service an antenna.
@Oldbitcollector
I know who Jeri Ellsworth is, she is amazing. She is good
with FPGAs, that's something I'd like to get good at.
She's also good with mechanical stuff, something I will never be
very good at.
I prefer software to hardware, it's so clean
You control a little world inside the chip, once you understand
the processor very well it's like you are almost inside there
Holly Minkowski said...
... She's also good with mechanical stuff, something I will never be very good at.
I used to think that about myself. I was working with a mechanical engineer for awhile and was somewhat cowed by his sheer genius. But, once freed from that lifeline, I began to develop my own mechanical skills. I'm certainly no mechanical whiz, but I do okay.
So, Holly, don't sell yourself short. Necessity can bring out talent you never imagined you had.
Holly,
I've always liked your avatar. There's an energy to it that's echoed in your postings.
Nothing wrong with being "just a programmer". You do learn a lot about hardware through osmosis from others and just jumping in and learning step by step from working through things like Parallax's tutorials. Particularly in embedded systems, you have to be comfortable with hardware to develop and debug these mixed systems. You still have to debug with oscilloscopes and logic analyzers, partly because real systems rarely behave the way the documentation says they should. Real signals on real PCBs and through real interconnects rarely look like the textbooks say they should.
Holly, check out Inveneo's website for some interesting accomplishments with WiFi over long distances. They setup small networks for internet access and VOIP in developing countries. If it really sparks your interest, I'll see if my contact there could arrange some email time with one of their deployment engineers to find out more specifics on their setups.
I suppose I don't have the imagination to think Holly wasn't a girl. Does anybody remember the 60's song about roller skating by Melanie? (I think it ended her career.) That should be Holly's theme song. "Some people say I've done alright for a girl."
@Holly. Uh, i think so. I know she works on older analog controlled boards. Like telecomm stuff for the government and corporations. She has also had some foreign costumers. AS stuff switches over to digital, she is finding it is harder to repair. Yep, electronics runs very deep in my family. My grandmother on my mom's side repairs microwave telecom stuff, Her brother is a genius computer hacker, who has used his skills to hack into all kinds of "shady" stuff and finally,. my uncle on my dads side used to work at the sikorsky helicopter plant as a electronics engineer. And now i am trying to enter the field myself. It was almost like i had to keep up the legacy.....Sorry for blabbing. If you don't mind me asking and i don't want to seem awkward(I think we had to much of that recently). How old are you? You are very knowledgeable and i don't think that you are anything close to my age(19).
I work for a video game company, and I do a decent amount of interviewing for engineers. Over the years I've interviewed a few girls for engineering roles, but that's about it - a few. Not because we don't look for them, but because they're so rare.
I don't understand the mindset that some people have that a girl can't be as capable an engineer as a guy. I know from experience that relatively few of them exist, but it surprises me that a male engineer would feel threatened by it, unless it's that male Smile of being beaten "by a girl".
I look at it this way - Finding someone who understands what I do, can comment intelligently on it, offer suggestions or improvements : very rare. Finding that in a potential girlfriend would be like finding the Holy Grail.
>>> I suppose I don't have the imagination to think Holly wasn't a girl. Does anybody remember the 60's song about roller skating by Melanie? (I think it ended her career.) That should be Holly's theme song. "Some people say I've done alright for a girl." <<<
Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) said...
.... I can certainly understand the need for anonymity among some forumistas, especially those whose employment situations could be compromised by full identity revelations...
Very true. If my overlords ever found out how little I know about what I'm doing and how often I lean on this forum to save my rear, I'd surely be put back on bread and water.
Oldbitcollector said...
I had no doubts that Holly was who she appeared to be...
Sadly, electronics, computer sciences, and engineering tends to be a "boys club." -- There is no good reason for this,
but it's the sad state of affairs. On the upside, there is always a demand in the workforce.
This might be a good opportunity to point out a debt we all have to a very special female inventor:
Holly, the great thing about electronics and computers (particularly microcontrollers) is that they can put you in contact with so many other fields. Medical, physics, geology, metallurgy, chemistry, and mechanical systems of all kinds. Having read some of your postings I have no doubt you will develop some level of expertise in whatever you are in contact with or have an interest in.
I had read previously about the Hedy Lamarr frequency hopping patent, but by coincidence I'm currently reading Doc Savage: Man of Bronze, the origin story for Doc. In it, he guides a plane using a frequency switching R/C system. That story was published in 1933, so apparently the concept had been around a while.
Comments
Sadly, electronics, computer sciences, and engineering tends to be a "boys club." -- There is no good reason for this,
but it's the sad state of affairs. On the upside, there is always a demand in the workforce.
Jeri Ellsworth, another female engineer I've had the pleasure of knowing through the Commodore circles, has to
deal with male geeks making rude comments, etc on a regular basis. I am confident that the folks who
participate in these forums are of high quality and will continue to make Holly feel like part of the group.
@Holly, please don't let the undue attention drive you away, I for one appreciate your comments, and posted information!
@Phil, you are right about the alias thing, but alas I suspect that Oldbitcollector is known more than "Jeff Ledger".
OBC
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I would just like to tell some new hot-shot engineer that "My grandma could do your job wither her eyes closed"... and mean it! LOL
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Alex Burke
"It is not how smart you are rather, it is how you are smart." -Jon Campbell
Please convince your gf to sign up here and post
@Ravenkallen
I'd love to know someone like your grandmother, she
really sounds great! I have an interest in making long
distance connections using wifi. I have built little biquad
antennas and mounted them at the feedpoint of small
dish antennas. This is stuff your grandma would certainly
understand. Does she repair microwave links between
cell towers? They must need lots of attention. I'm always
looking at cell towers when I pass them and noticing the
microwave relay dishs mounted about midway down, the ones
pointing to other towers. I'd hate to have to climb up
there to service an antenna.
@Oldbitcollector
I know who Jeri Ellsworth is, she is amazing. She is good
with FPGAs, that's something I'd like to get good at.
She's also good with mechanical stuff, something I will never be
very good at.
I prefer software to hardware, it's so clean
You control a little world inside the chip, once you understand
the processor very well it's like you are almost inside there
So, Holly, don't sell yourself short. Necessity can bring out talent you never imagined you had.
-Phil
I've always liked your avatar. There's an energy to it that's echoed in your postings.
Nothing wrong with being "just a programmer". You do learn a lot about hardware through osmosis from others and just jumping in and learning step by step from working through things like Parallax's tutorials. Particularly in embedded systems, you have to be comfortable with hardware to develop and debug these mixed systems. You still have to debug with oscilloscopes and logic analyzers, partly because real systems rarely behave the way the documentation says they should. Real signals on real PCBs and through real interconnects rarely look like the textbooks say they should.
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Andrew Williams
WBA Consulting
WBA-TH1M Sensirion SHT11 Module
My Prop projects: Reverse Geo-Cache Box, Custom Metronome, Micro Plunge Logger
I don't understand the mindset that some people have that a girl can't be as capable an engineer as a guy. I know from experience that relatively few of them exist, but it surprises me that a male engineer would feel threatened by it, unless it's that male Smile of being beaten "by a girl".
I look at it this way - Finding someone who understands what I do, can comment intelligently on it, offer suggestions or improvements : very rare. Finding that in a potential girlfriend would be like finding the Holy Grail.
JasonDorie (my real name)
Well, it's Melanie's song, but that was in the 60s!!! Something a bit more contemporary... www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbQ43sFDQTM&feature=related
Very true. If my overlords ever found out how little I know about what I'm doing and how often I lean on this forum to save my rear, I'd surely be put back on bread and water.
http://www.hedylamarr.org/hedystory5.html
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