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Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

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Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#151

Post by robocat »

anovikov wrote: post #112
aleyan wrote: post #87

> Even now, engineers are not held in anywhere near the same regard in China as they are in the West. I have to respectfully disagree with the author on the esteem of engineers in China versus the West. I am not Chinese, nor an expert on their culture, but I do live in the West so I understand half of the equation. Current President of China, Xi Jinping was educated as a chemical engineer[1]. His predecessor Hu Jinta…

This is because China is not a democracy. In a democracy, someone who speaks well is likely to win - and lawyers by definition must be able to speak very well. In China there is a merit-based system which as every merit-based system, has a lot of flaws - so someone able to work through the top of it must be a real hacker. Engineers win hands down over lawyers.

A good lawyer is a good hacker - they know how to hack the legal system and find novel solutions to laws.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#152

Post by justicezyx »

simonh wrote: post #150
justicezyx wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voters decided too in China. Electoral system and people's representatives are about the same level.

My wife is Chinese. None of my Chinese relatives has ever had a vote for anyone in government.

> Electoral system and people's representatives are about the same level.

Actually everyone got to vote for people's representatives. Of cuz, no one cars that much, like many people were not bother to vote, so DNC thought their presidency is already in bag, then many decided to actually vote.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#153

Post by Iv »

jonathankoren wrote: post #137
Iv wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers are advantaged in a democracy where you rise by convincing people. Engineers are advantaged in a meritocracy or in a system that sees itself as a meritocracy as we are probably better at optimizing for an important metric.

If you think the communist party doesn't have politics, you are gravely mistaken. Lest we forget the rapid rise and fall of Bo Xilai, or the purging of Zhao Ziyang, or hell even the Gang Of Four and it's on-again-off-again relationship with Deng Xiaoping.

I am not saying they are lacking politics. I am saying that they have less relevant public elections

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#154

Post by new299 »

exikyut wrote: post #135
new299 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a reasonably significant amount of time figuring out the Psion series 5 LCD and Keyboard interface. I built my own controller for the keyboard, and interfaced the display to a Gumstix. That was many years ago... I've also done some prototyping in Shenzhen. CNC and 3D printed parts are cheap. If you've modeled it, everything apart from the membrane itself should be straightforward (and cheap in small quantitie…

This is really encouraging to hear, thanks! Wow, you figured the LCD out. I'm very curious how the LCD actually works - how is it updated? Through some kind of serial protocol? I get the impression it's pretty fast - I made a program in OPL a while ago that created a borderless window a metric stupid number of pixels high and EPOC was able to scroll it up the screen remarkably quickly (I was trying to see whether it…

Older LCDs have a lower level interface. From memory, there's a pixel clock, line clock and frame clock. Then a parallel bus with the pixel value. The cirrus logic ARM SoC in the Psion 5mx interfaces with the LCD directly. You also need to supply it with some weird voltages (+/- 15V?). When I was doing that I found that part more difficult, I think I'd find it easier now...

The interface is pretty standard, so the gumstix (TI OMAP3something) can also drive it.

The keyboard is pretty big for a FPCB. I'm just guess 500USD, for maybe 10 pieces. Because that's the prototype level pricing I've seen before (check itead.cc or Seeed, they both do FPCB now I believe).

The process they actual use in membrane keyboards is different, I don't know what that process is called.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#155

Post by bllguo »

logicallee wrote: post #109
yzmtf2008 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "glaring and obvious" is a little hyperbole, in the sense that most of the decisions an engineer can make aren't really that influential, and more often than not if the odds are right, nothing will break. An example would be: I know this different schedule can probably save the company $xxx money, but since it's my boss who proposed it I'll just let it pass. It really takes a village. The culture of standing…

Thank you for the example. I also asked how someone can protect against this effect, but you did not answer that portion of my question. By "someone" I meant, in this case the boss - how can bosses counter this effect? For instance, to continue with your example, suppose the boss certainly would like to save $xxx with a different schedule they hadn't considered, but isn't even aware that the engineer is competent eno…

Maybe anonymity would help? The problem there is that people won't have as much incentive to propose improvements, as they won't be recognized if their proposals end up being good.

It just has to be ingrained in the company culture I guess. You'd really need to emphasize, whenever possible, that improvements and suggestions and corrections are welcome. You're fighting against upbringing.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#156

Post by exikyut »

new299 wrote: post #154
exikyut wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really encouraging to hear, thanks! Wow, you figured the LCD out. I'm very curious how the LCD actually works - how is it updated? Through some kind of serial protocol? I get the impression it's pretty fast - I made a program in OPL a while ago that created a borderless window a metric stupid number of pixels high and EPOC was able to scroll it up the screen remarkably quickly (I was trying to see whether it…

Older LCDs have a lower level interface. From memory, there's a pixel clock, line clock and frame clock. Then a parallel bus with the pixel value. The cirrus logic ARM SoC in the Psion 5mx interfaces with the LCD directly. You also need to supply it with some weird voltages (+/- 15V?). When I was doing that I found that part more difficult, I think I'd find it easier now... The interface is pretty standard, so the gu…

Hmm. When you say "talks to the LCD directly", there's still a tiny low-level controller attached to the LCD, right?

While highly nonstandard, but I want to see how feasible it is to truly drive an LCD directly. To me that sounds like a) huge pin count, b) "fun" prototyping costs, and c) difficult conversations with manufacturers who don't want to explain how their controllers work (and I guess d) a lot of work on my end to support all the different LCDs I'll use). My motivation is to see whether it's possible to control an LCD and touch panel or keyboard from a single chip.

> The interface is pretty standard, so the gumstix (TI OMAP3something) can also drive it.

Good to know.

> The keyboard is pretty big for a FPCB. I'm just guess 500USD, for maybe 10 pieces. Because that's the prototype level pricing I've seen before (check itead.cc or Seeed, they both do FPCB now I believe).

Oh okay, so $50ea for prototyping. Cool.

> The process they actual use in membrane keyboards is different, I don't know what that process is called.

Okay then.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#157

Post by grogenaut »

yorwba wrote: post #111
justicezyx wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was calling out common traits for people then trying to label them Chinese, and readers, like you, suddenly feel "interesting"... > how overseas Chinese students in America all copy each others work to get answers? Student colluding is any special? I was college ta before, I do not think there is ever a class students do not copy each other.

I speak a bit of Chinese and have Chinese friends who were studying in Germany and one time I got to sit in on their copying session. I was quite surprised when a lot of Chinese showed up whom I'd never seen before. Turns out some of them were seniors who had brought their homework from previous years. It wasn't like everyone just copied the work either, there was plenty of discussion about the points they had troubl…

One of the major benefits of being in a fraternity in my university was that the fraternities and sororities all had every homework and test most of the teachers at the school had ever released. I tests on the hardest math teacher in the school going back 36 years. I got asked a question on his final that he asked on his first and didn't ask in-between.

If he had spent more time teaching instead of coming up with insanely hard test questions we wouldn't have had that huge of a back file on him.

We used them for study sessions.

I can only imagine they are all online now.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#158

Post by seanmcdirmid »

owebmaster wrote: post #149
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wechat simply has never had to compete with worldwide services. We can say it beat Facebook and google, but that would be stupid because both of those are blocked and have been for a long time. The fact that Chinese internet services are spurned in China's own backyard is telling.

Facebook & Google has never had to compete with worldwide services, too. Only US services.

Completely untrue.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#159

Post by new299 »

exikyut wrote: post #156
new299 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Older LCDs have a lower level interface. From memory, there's a pixel clock, line clock and frame clock. Then a parallel bus with the pixel value. The cirrus logic ARM SoC in the Psion 5mx interfaces with the LCD directly. You also need to supply it with some weird voltages (+/- 15V?). When I was doing that I found that part more difficult, I think I'd find it easier now... The interface is pretty standard, so the gu…

Hmm. When you say "talks to the LCD directly", there's still a tiny low-level controller attached to the LCD, right? While highly nonstandard, but I want to see how feasible it is to truly drive an LCD directly. To me that sounds like a) huge pin count, b) "fun" prototyping costs, and c) difficult conversations with manufacturers who don't want to explain how their controllers work (and I guess d) a lot of work on my…

> Hmm. When you say "talks to the LCD directly", there's still a tiny low-level controller attached to the LCD, right?

There's a chip on the FPCB bonded to the LCD matrix.

> While highly nonstandard, but I want to see how feasible it is to truly drive an LCD directly.

I guess you'd probably need to use an FPGA to do that. I can't see an advantage to doing this (there might be one, but I can't see it).

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#160

Post by [deleted] »

justicezyx wrote: post #152
simonh wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is Chinese. None of my Chinese relatives has ever had a vote for anyone in government.

> Electoral system and people's representatives are about the same level. Actually everyone got to vote for people's representatives. Of cuz, no one cars that much, like many people were not bother to vote, so DNC thought their presidency is already in bag, then many decided to actually vote.

[deleted]
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