I figured out how to avoid connascence of position

Instead of passing positional arguments to constructors (or functions), instead pass a list of value objects. The type of the value object will tell you the type of the value, so you don’t need to worry about the position. This is a super powerful means of supporting back-compat within your code base so you can move ahead at speed. Having value objects instead of simple types (bools, ints, floats, strings, etc) might have performance implications, but it also can be quite handy. So far so good for my use cases.

Symbol Keyboard | Mini Project JMP001 | Learning Electronics In The Lab With Jay Jay

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video over here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

This is the inaugural Mini Project! I introduced the Mini Projects recently. They are developed and published by Silicon Chip magazine, and sponsored by Jaycar Electronics (which is an Austrlaian electronics store, similar to Radio Shack in the USA, hopefully it doesn’t end up suffering the same fate.)

In this project, codenamed JMP001, we develop a USB keyboard which can send interesting and unusual symbols (which aren’t usually available on a keyboard) to a Windows computer using the alt-codes that it supports in a typical codepage.

For this first Mini Project I felt it was important to actually buy my components from Jaycar which I did for roughly eighty Australian dollary doos. Approximately US$50. The parts I ordered were these:

Belatedly I did also search for rubber feet.

There was quite a lot that went into the production of this video, and we accumulated a lot of links. Those are here:

In the end this first project was relatively successful, and we did get it to work fairly well on one of my Windows computers. As for the rest you can find out for youself in the video!

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe! :)


Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

Yum Cha HSC8 6-4A Ferrule Crimper KitThis is an image of the product.notes

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Getting info about recent core dump (on Debian)

This is a note for Future John about how to report a recent coredump (with debugging symbols) on Debian:

DEBUGINFOD_URLS="https://debuginfod.debian.net" coredumpctl gdb

Then bt is a magical gdb command to run to give you the call stack of the thread which… failed?

Speech Conductor | Project 10/20 | Maxitronix 20in1 | Learning Electronics In The Lab With Jay Jay

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video over here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

In this video I do the tenth Maxitronix 20in1 Electronic Project Lab project: Speech Conductor.

In this project we learn a little about transistors, amplifiers, and astable multivibrators.

Note: while I was making this video I took a detour into making a cable, which didn’t work out. You can see the video about that over here: Extra Content #13: Failing to Attach Banana Plugs to Microphone Cables | In The Lab With Jay Jay.



Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe! :)


Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

ALKOY Capacitor Discharge PenThis is an image of the product.notes

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Extra Content #12: Fixing the Family Sunbeam Kettle | Learning Electronics In The Lab With Jay Jay

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video over here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

In this video I take apart a broken kettle then put it back together, then magically it is fixed!

In this video I use my Yum Cha Mini Magnetic Precision Screwdriver Set for the first time. It takes me a little while to figure out how to clip the tips in. I needed the triangle bit for this job.

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe! :)


Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

Bosch IXO VI Electric ScrewdriverThis is an image of the product.notes

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Electronics Project #7: ICL8038 Monolithic Function/Signal Generator Kit Build and Test | In The Lab

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video over here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

Silly Job Title: Buzz Boss

In this video I build and test this kit I purchased from AliExpress: ICL8038 Monolithic Function Signal Generator Module Sine Square Triangle Signal Generators DIY Welding Practice Kit.

My notes are on my wiki: ICL8038.

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe! :)


Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

Swann & Morten Handle For No. 10 10A 11 15 15A Scalpel HandleThis is an image of the product.

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New Book Teardown #5: Electrical Engineering 101 3rd Edition (2011) | In The Lab With Jay Jay

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video over here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

In this video I take a look at Electrical Engineering 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in School…but Probably Didn’t 3rd Edition written by Darren Ashby and published in 2011.

In the book the author mentioned that they used to write for chipcenter.com which appears to have since been taken over by EE Times. ChatGPT provided more information.

The author also mentioned Mathcad. I’m planning to check that out over here: https://www.mathcad.com/

And some terms which came up (ChatGPT explains further):

Vcc
Voltage at the collector
Vee
Voltage at the emitter
Vdd
Voltage at the drain
Vss
Voltage at the source

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe! :)


Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

Yum Cha 100pcs Releasable Cable OrganizerThis is an image of the product.

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Fixing duplication in HTML title element for WordPress with Yoast SEO installed

I was having a problem in WordPress for my blog where the title contained duplicate values, like “John’s blogJohn’s blog”.

The fix for me was to edit wp-content/themes/twentyeleven/header.php and disable a bit of the output, as shown below. I basically just added an if ( false ) to disable the code which caused the duplicate content.

This seems to effectively mean that Yoast SEO is in charge of the titles now. You can configure separately the homepage, posts, and pages titles in the Yoast SEO settings. I configure mine in Yoast SEO Settings / Content Types like this:

Homepage
Site title Separator Tagline
Posts
Title Separator Site title
Pages
Title Separator Site title
<title>
<?php
  // Print the <title> tag based on what is being viewed.
  global $page, $paged;

  wp_title( '|', true, 'right' );

// 2024-07-14 jj5 - OLD: I removed this because wp_title() (above) does everything that needs to be done.
if ( false ) {
  // Add the site name.
  bloginfo( 'name' );

  // Add the site description for the home/front page.
  $site_description = get_bloginfo( 'description', 'display' );
  if ( $site_description && ( is_home() || is_front_page() ) ) {
    echo " | $site_description";
  }

  // Add a page number if necessary:
  if ( ( $paged >= 2 || $page >= 2 ) && ! is_404() ) {
    /* translators: %s: Page number. */
    echo esc_html( ' | ' . sprintf( __( 'Page %s', 'twentyeleven' ), max( $paged, $page ) ) );
  }
}
?>
</title>

Old Book Teardown #8: Radio Engineering 3rd Edition (1947) | In The Lab With Jay Jay

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video on this show’s homepage.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

Silly Job Title: Amp Alchemist

Note: this video is nearly five hours long! If you’re interested but don’t have 5 spare hours (and who does??) you might like to listen at 2x speed or more. The standard YouTube interface only supports playback up to 2x speed but I have some notes about YouTube hacks you can use to set the playback at 3x speed… or more!

In this video I teardown “Radio Engineering” (3rd edition) by Frederick Terman published 1947.

Frederick Terman was a Doctor of Science which is what the Sc.D. after his name stands for. It’s like a Ph.D. He is remembered as a father of Silicon Valley.

In the book there is much talk of diodes, but of course that is in reference to the old thermionic diodes which were vacuum tubes. These days diodes are semiconductors made from something like silicon or germanium.

The book talks a lot about power amplifier classes. Today the same classes are still used, it’s just that anything other than class AB and class D are very uncommon.

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe! :)


Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

Scotch Titanium ScissorsThis is an image of the product.notes

Let’s go shopping!