Years ago, A stereo console sold at Sears said 200W then in brackets truthfully said 10 Watts continuously per channel with low distortion at a fairly low frequency into 8 ohms.
Music power was the amount of fake power for a moment before the power supply voltage sagged.
Peak power was the real power number doubled.

 

Are you being sarcastic? Trolling?

Seriously, what‘s up?

I'm going to start referring to it as the act of being "fashionably disagreeable." I think it is a form of peacocking like wearing loud clothes, and works better for some people than for others.

Ex:

Vs:

 

I'm going to start referring to this as the act of being "fashionably disagreeable." I think it is a form of peacocking like wearing loud clothes, and works better for some people than for others.

I really didn’t want to, and don’t want to, characterize anyone unfavorably.

It’s more that I want to make clear that whatever the motivation, contrarian behavior can very easily involve ignoring the meaning of disagreeing with something—that is, the implications—in such a way as to effectively characterize another person, who you should know is competent and sincere, as something other than this.

To maintain the contrary viewpoint in cases were it is really not the most likely explanation for something requires denying the viewpoint of people who are being conventionally skeptical and drawing the non-contrarian conclusion.

In any case, I consider this something behind me and I refuse to give it rent-free space in my already overpopulated head.

 

For the record, I do get your sense of humor, Y... and I was enjoying myself following all the back and forth and friendly banter until the thread got ... disrupted... for lack of a better word

 

Perhaps the Chinese language suffers from the same technical handicap as Spanish.
The Spanish verb “soldar” means both “to weld” or “to solder”. The actual meaning is given by context or auxiliary words.
For instance, soldadura de arco means to a knowledgeable person, arc welding. The problem here is if the person is completely ignorant of the actual techniques, that person won’t know for sure.

 

For instance, soldadura de arco…

Arc soldering does not sound ESD safe.

 

Yeah, also that.

 

Perhaps the Chinese language suffers from the same technical handicap as Spanish.
The Spanish verb “soldar” means both “to weld” or “to solder”. The actual meaning is given by context or auxiliary words.
For instance, soldadura de arco means to a knowledgeable person, arc welding. The problem here is if the person is completely ignorant of the actual techniques, that person won’t know for sure.

That's really interesting - French is the same "souder" meaning both solder and weld.
German has separate words for solder and weld, but English also has "braze".
I looked up the etymology in the OED. Solder seems to be a middle-English word, (I thought it might have been Latin, as the Romans had lead plumbing) but weld is rather vague, it appears to be derived from "well" as in "to well up"

 

Wish I could find a picture of what a "Real" soldering iron looks like. The old pump-up gasoline blow torches had a ring support on top of them so that you could lay the soldering iron on top of them with the iron "head" in the blow torches flame. I remember still seeing those things in the 50s & 60s even after electric soldering guns came out. Early automobile had some of their body seams soldered together by the old hand-held soldering irons. Some of those old body workers could lay a solder seam down so smooth that it was unnecessary to sand them down.
Hah! Found it!

 

That's quite sophisticated. I have one somewhere that you heat up in a coal fire.

 

I also have (or had) one inherited from my father in law. No idea how he heated it or even if he ever used it.

 

My grandfather retired as a steel worker. He never worked high iron or anything romantic but he did work around iron production. I remember he "blow torch" in his garage. I was very young, probably about 6 years old when my main memories are set.

I recall him using it only once, though I can't remember why. I do remember being scared of it. I was loud and hot, and seemed uncontrollable, like nightmare stuff.

@SamR (and everyone else) I found this (below)! This is it, exactly and like the nightmare come alive again! I am surprised how comparatively little information is available on classic blow torches but there's a fair number of videos on YouTube. I recalled him, or possibly others, using gasoline but it was definitely the same torch as in that video.

A little further look found this, among others, so it's possible that he did use gasoline but I am not sure it wasn't a kerosene torch running on the wrong fuel. This is like a rabbit hole, and I feel an eBay search coming on...

 

My grandfather retired as a steel worker. He never worked high iron or anything romantic but he did work around iron production. I remember he "blow torch" in his garage. I was very young, probably about 6 years old when my main memories are set.

I recall him using it only once, though I can't remember why. I do remember being scared of it. I was loud and hot, and seemed uncontrollable, like nightmare stuff.

@SamR (and everyone else) I found this (below)! This is it, exactly and like the nightmare come alive again! I am surprised how comparatively little information is available on classic blow torches but there's a fair number of videos on YouTube. I recalled him, or possibly others, using gasoline but it was definitely the same torch as in that video.

A little further look found this, among others, so it's possible that he did use gasoline but I am not sure it wasn't a kerosene torch running on the wrong fuel. This is like a rabbit hole, and I feel an eBay search coming on...

My father used Naptha in his torch. I still have it…

 

That's quite sophisticated. I have one somewhere that you heat up in a coal fire.

I took metal shop in high school and one of the required tasks was joining a series of sheet metal strips together using a variety of joints -- spot weld, crimped, riveted, and soldered. All of them had to pass or you had to start over from scratch. The soldering iron was heated in a gas forge (that was used for one of the other required projects). You also had to pass projects on arc welding, gas welding, machining (you made a hammer to a set of specs for that) and casting aluminum. Was a pretty intense semester (you also had to do two personal projects), but was very educational and rewarding. A few years later I visited the school and the district had gotten rid of all of the shop courses in this crazy drive to push everyone to a four-year college.

 

I took metal shop in high school and one of the required tasks was joining a series of sheet metal strips together using a variety of joints -- spot weld, crimped, riveted, and soldered. All of them had to pass or you had to start over from scratch. The soldering iron was heated in a gas forge (that was used for one of the other required projects). You also had to pass projects on arc welding, gas welding, machining (you made a hammer to a set of specs for that) and casting aluminum. Was a pretty intense semester (you also had to do two personal projects), but was very educational and rewarding. A few years later I visited the school and the district had gotten rid of all of the shop courses in this crazy drive to push everyone to a four-year college.

Loss of trade schools and the dignity of pursuing the trades is one of the tragedies of the last 50 years. People should be encouraged to pursue excellence at the level they can accomplish. Good trade schools are a fantastic option for people who shouldn't and/or don't want to attend a university.

I believe that some level of a liberal education, as well as basic science, should be a part of a good trade school curriculum, and I also believe that good manual arts training should be a part of a college degree (where the liberal arts are already part of the basic platform). In each case, of course, scaled to the goals of the students.

But I believe it is to the benefit society for our schools to turn out well rounded human beings that understand something of the people and physical world around them. The need to be equipped to better appreciate these things, and to be inoculated against the sort of nonsense that is currently rampant. Anti-science and conspiracy cults, as well as the dismissal by some of those who are "less educated", based on their own ignorance of what those people are actually like, is the most corrosive influence of our current time.

 

Loss of trade schools and the dignity of pursuing the trades is one of the tragedies of the last 50 years

Yeah, but it has done wonders for the earnings of electricians and plumbers. Eventually, people will figure this out.

 

Yes, even here in rural Georgia they have removed all the shop classes from the High Schools. What used to be the regional trade school 40-50 years ago has transitioned into a 4-year college with no trade classes now. Even at Tennessee Tech back in the 60's it was not only a 4-year engineering school but also had a very large shop area where they taught machine shop and welding and had a trades program and a shop management degree path. In the large metropolitan cities in Tennessee, they had dedicated trade high schools and every high school that I knew of there had trade and agriculture shops for the guys and a business or cosmetology trade path for the girls as well as home economics. It seems those are all gone around here these days and yes, they are pushing kids towards college now who get there and have no idea of what to do when they arrive. So, they take BS classes and get useless degrees that have no real worth in business or industry and enormous debts incurred doing so.

 

A few years later I visited the school and the district had gotten rid of all of the shop courses in this crazy drive to push everyone to a four-year college.

Loss of trade schools and the dignity of pursuing the trades is one of the tragedies of the last 50 years.

Why do we suppose this happened?

 

Why do we suppose this happened?

There was no one reason. Social changes, including a new emphasis on university education, the notion that our national competitiveness was threatened but the increasing amount of higher education by our notional competitor-enemies, a loss of respect for the dignity of the trades and crafts, among other things that don’t instantly come to mind.

I have often felt sad about the confusion concerning the last of these. The trades are something that so many people are well suited for, and we need well educated, well trained trades. This is a quality of life issue, both for the potential journeymen and apprentices, but for their customers as well. Getting good help with electrical, plumbing, construction work, and like things is difficult to impossible—I know from having a need and trying to fulfill it.

 

Why do we suppose this happened?

Because most of manufacturing moved overseas? ... and therefore there was a loss of salary's worth over time?