Living with Deformities or My Life as a Mathlete
A humorous retrospect on how math and numbers have ruled my life to date. This includes the unfortunate chemistry set incident from my Junior High School days.
Excerpt:
When most people hear me say ‘mathlete’ they naturally assume that I meant athlete. They’re wrong though I don’t always correct them. Looking at my overweight body and considering my age, if they want to believe that I’m an athlete, who am I to deny them? OK, so maybe they just think I’m crazy but what the heck!
I’ve had an affinity and aptitude for numbers since I was young. Back as far as I can remember, numbers have ruled my life. Yes I said as far as I can remember. Remembering back to my younger days is much easier than remembering back to last week. Age hasn’t just caught up to me, it’s actually caught up, beat me severely about the head and shoulders, ran on, only to come back and beat me again because it was soooo much fun the first time. I find myself constantly looking at someone at work and thinking to myself ‘what the heck is his name?’ But I digress. *** That was my obligatory 25 cent word. I have to throw one of those in every so often to prove how smart I am. ***
Now where was I? Ah yes, numbers. I love working with numbers though it seems that when age beat me up, it beat some of my ability to perform simpler math. This is because keeping a balanced checkbook seems a bit beyond me at times while much more exotic math just seems like a walk in the park. But where did it all begin? Let’s see now …
Back in my younger days the number 4 was a prime motivator. It was the first of the squared numbers (if you don’t count 1 which is an odd number and doesn’t count anyhow). I did things in fours, bought things in fours, ate in fours (four bites, four pieces of candy, etc). Yes 4 was the ultimate lucky number. Yep, the number 4 was the ruler of the mathematical universe … until I gave it a bit more thought and logically concluded that if the square of the prime square was good, then the square of the square of the prime square would be just that much better! Yeah, the number 16 now ruled my universe and all luck was derived from that number. So now I did things in 16. Bought things in groups of 16, which was getting a bit expensive even though all I was buying at the time was penny candy and comic books. Yes, penny candy was only a penny when I was young so sue me if I’m old. J Eating and chewing in multiples of 16 is what lead to me being just a BIT overweight when I was young.
I’d gained more weight than I care to admit before I came to the conclusion that 4 truly was the ruler of the mathematical universe since you needed 4 times 4 to create 16. See the logic? No? Well maybe it was just me, as I said, I am/was a mathlete and things like this only seem to make sense to other mathletes … or maybe just to me in my own twisted little mathematical universe of Jeff.
Now by the time I’d reverted to the number 4 ruling the universe I was in Junior High School and was introduced to algebra! OMG, new ways to play with numbers?! Yep, I went there, internet shorthand is the greatest invention ever but I’ll get back to that later.
Anyway, in Junior High I attended a math competition at another school. Actually it was at a nearby Community College or something (the details are a bit fuzzy) but I had a great time. The math was fun but at the time I grew bored with it as my eyes were opened to science. It didn’t hurt that my uncle was an engineer for JPL back in the early days of space travel. Yes, math was the foundation for most science so it couldn’t be bad could it?
Well ask my mom about that. You see I saw a perfectly logical connection between math and chemistry! Yep, chemical formulae were mathematical derived allowing you to create a totally new substance when you combine two or more ingredients. Yes, if you combine just the right ingredients you could make things like ink or a foaming volcano or small explosions! Yes chemistry was a bit of mathematical fun. Remember when I told you that you should ask my mom about it? Well I had this Uncle Ed who was the one who always listened when I told mom what I wanted for my birthday or Christmas. She’d just shake her head saying ‘that’s too dangerous’ or the ever ready fall back ‘we can’t afford that’. Now we all know that ‘we can’t afford that’ is usually mom-speak for ‘I don’t care what you say, I’m not getting you that. You’ll put your eye out’.
Uncle Ed, being the rebel that he was and only a few years older than I am, would find a way to get it for me. You should have seen mom’s face the Christmas he got me a real bow and arrow set. Yep, Uncle Ed was my surrogate father figure after my dad died. Now to get to the point about ‘ask mom’. One Christmas I asked for a Chemistry set that I had seen down at the local 5 and Dime (old time word for department store). I got the usual response from mom on request like that, but Uncle Ed heard me ask and, come Christmas morning in the town of Bryan, Ohio, I was the proud owner of a fantastic Chemistry set and a book full of experiments. I was ecstatic! I’m sure that mom gave Uncle Ed the stink eye when she saw him but a gift is a gift and I had it in my hot grubby mitts. So a table was set up in the basement where I could start my career as a mad scientist and, of course, not destroy mom’s light blue wall-to-wall light blue carpeting.
Alas, my career as a mad scientist/budding chemist came to an abrupt halt. It was all because I was performing an experiment that involved small amounts of baking soda and vinegar to emulate a small volcano. Well the number 4 came to mind. Wait, what if I quadrupled the quantities, would that make the volcano spew more? Well if 4 times the amount would be awesome then 16 times would be unbelievably better.
Yes, you guessed it, I had a bubbling mess spewing all over the table and onto the floor in no time at all. Not to mention that I had used up all the baking soda and vinegar in the house at the time. Mom wasn’t as impressed as I was with the way it just kind of grew like an alien from outer space coming into contact with out atmosphere for the first time.
Yes, my engineering Uncle at JPL had an influence in expanding my imagination too. He told me tales of the satellites he helped to track in an era where the space race was very important and man hadn’t made it to the moon yet though Ralph Cramden often threatened to send Alice there. ß my plug for us old folks who remember The Honeymooners. It was a time of wonder and early science fiction depicting invaders from space and of course all of it was possible if you believed the math.
Excerpt:
When most people hear me say ‘mathlete’ they naturally assume that I meant athlete. They’re wrong though I don’t always correct them. Looking at my overweight body and considering my age, if they want to believe that I’m an athlete, who am I to deny them? OK, so maybe they just think I’m crazy but what the heck!
I’ve had an affinity and aptitude for numbers since I was young. Back as far as I can remember, numbers have ruled my life. Yes I said as far as I can remember. Remembering back to my younger days is much easier than remembering back to last week. Age hasn’t just caught up to me, it’s actually caught up, beat me severely about the head and shoulders, ran on, only to come back and beat me again because it was soooo much fun the first time. I find myself constantly looking at someone at work and thinking to myself ‘what the heck is his name?’ But I digress. *** That was my obligatory 25 cent word. I have to throw one of those in every so often to prove how smart I am. ***
Now where was I? Ah yes, numbers. I love working with numbers though it seems that when age beat me up, it beat some of my ability to perform simpler math. This is because keeping a balanced checkbook seems a bit beyond me at times while much more exotic math just seems like a walk in the park. But where did it all begin? Let’s see now …
Back in my younger days the number 4 was a prime motivator. It was the first of the squared numbers (if you don’t count 1 which is an odd number and doesn’t count anyhow). I did things in fours, bought things in fours, ate in fours (four bites, four pieces of candy, etc). Yes 4 was the ultimate lucky number. Yep, the number 4 was the ruler of the mathematical universe … until I gave it a bit more thought and logically concluded that if the square of the prime square was good, then the square of the square of the prime square would be just that much better! Yeah, the number 16 now ruled my universe and all luck was derived from that number. So now I did things in 16. Bought things in groups of 16, which was getting a bit expensive even though all I was buying at the time was penny candy and comic books. Yes, penny candy was only a penny when I was young so sue me if I’m old. J Eating and chewing in multiples of 16 is what lead to me being just a BIT overweight when I was young.
I’d gained more weight than I care to admit before I came to the conclusion that 4 truly was the ruler of the mathematical universe since you needed 4 times 4 to create 16. See the logic? No? Well maybe it was just me, as I said, I am/was a mathlete and things like this only seem to make sense to other mathletes … or maybe just to me in my own twisted little mathematical universe of Jeff.
Now by the time I’d reverted to the number 4 ruling the universe I was in Junior High School and was introduced to algebra! OMG, new ways to play with numbers?! Yep, I went there, internet shorthand is the greatest invention ever but I’ll get back to that later.
Anyway, in Junior High I attended a math competition at another school. Actually it was at a nearby Community College or something (the details are a bit fuzzy) but I had a great time. The math was fun but at the time I grew bored with it as my eyes were opened to science. It didn’t hurt that my uncle was an engineer for JPL back in the early days of space travel. Yes, math was the foundation for most science so it couldn’t be bad could it?
Well ask my mom about that. You see I saw a perfectly logical connection between math and chemistry! Yep, chemical formulae were mathematical derived allowing you to create a totally new substance when you combine two or more ingredients. Yes, if you combine just the right ingredients you could make things like ink or a foaming volcano or small explosions! Yes chemistry was a bit of mathematical fun. Remember when I told you that you should ask my mom about it? Well I had this Uncle Ed who was the one who always listened when I told mom what I wanted for my birthday or Christmas. She’d just shake her head saying ‘that’s too dangerous’ or the ever ready fall back ‘we can’t afford that’. Now we all know that ‘we can’t afford that’ is usually mom-speak for ‘I don’t care what you say, I’m not getting you that. You’ll put your eye out’.
Uncle Ed, being the rebel that he was and only a few years older than I am, would find a way to get it for me. You should have seen mom’s face the Christmas he got me a real bow and arrow set. Yep, Uncle Ed was my surrogate father figure after my dad died. Now to get to the point about ‘ask mom’. One Christmas I asked for a Chemistry set that I had seen down at the local 5 and Dime (old time word for department store). I got the usual response from mom on request like that, but Uncle Ed heard me ask and, come Christmas morning in the town of Bryan, Ohio, I was the proud owner of a fantastic Chemistry set and a book full of experiments. I was ecstatic! I’m sure that mom gave Uncle Ed the stink eye when she saw him but a gift is a gift and I had it in my hot grubby mitts. So a table was set up in the basement where I could start my career as a mad scientist and, of course, not destroy mom’s light blue wall-to-wall light blue carpeting.
Alas, my career as a mad scientist/budding chemist came to an abrupt halt. It was all because I was performing an experiment that involved small amounts of baking soda and vinegar to emulate a small volcano. Well the number 4 came to mind. Wait, what if I quadrupled the quantities, would that make the volcano spew more? Well if 4 times the amount would be awesome then 16 times would be unbelievably better.
Yes, you guessed it, I had a bubbling mess spewing all over the table and onto the floor in no time at all. Not to mention that I had used up all the baking soda and vinegar in the house at the time. Mom wasn’t as impressed as I was with the way it just kind of grew like an alien from outer space coming into contact with out atmosphere for the first time.
Yes, my engineering Uncle at JPL had an influence in expanding my imagination too. He told me tales of the satellites he helped to track in an era where the space race was very important and man hadn’t made it to the moon yet though Ralph Cramden often threatened to send Alice there. ß my plug for us old folks who remember The Honeymooners. It was a time of wonder and early science fiction depicting invaders from space and of course all of it was possible if you believed the math.
Predicting First Pass Yields on Black Box Assemblies
This ia a white paper for creating mathematical model for predicting first pass test yeilds on electronic black box assemblies. This is an in depth look at how to determine what kinds of failures to anticipate during the first pass test phase. This type of analysis can help to determine what kind of parts to stock and, through the use of statistical process analysis, determine if a corrective action is needed.
Excerpt:
There seems to be a large number of articles for predicting yields for everything from crop harvests through complex IC manufacture. But what about first pass yields of complex electronic black box manufacture? Is this ignored because it’s just too complex due to the large number of factors involved? Is it overlooked because it’s assumed to be so hashed over that it’s old hat to the industry?
A few years ago I was assigned to a project that had already been in production for some time. As an engineer, I was assigned as the interface between two geographically separated units: manufacturing and design engineering. At the time there were two products being manufactured that were similar in purpose, yet drastically different in design and concept. During the course of the manufacture of the first product (I’ll call it Box A) there was a manufacturing first pass yield goal. There were times when this goal was easily reached and other when we had process, software or component issues that threatened to drag first pass yields below the Maginot line. For the most part, first pass yields exceeded the projected goal which was raised to a higher goal as we continued to build Box A.
As with all companies/products, a newer, smaller, better product was designed to obsolete Box A. Just before Box B (the newer product) design was complete, there was a change in management. A few months later after we were in the production phase of Box B, our fairly new VP asked one simple question “What is the rationale behind your target first pass yield?”
Well the answer he got wasn’t what he was looking for and got me to thinking as well. The answer was “That’s what we had for a goal on Box A first pass yield.” Nobody seemed to know where the original number came from (it had been several years) nor the rational for picking that number. I took it as a personal challenge to find a good method/rational for predicting first pass yield of our product. Right on the heels of this product, 2 more were on the drawing boards that were due to be placed into production the minute our Design and Concept verification was completed on Box E (I was already too late for Boxes C and D. I wanted to have the mathematical model ready for the introduction of the last product and present our VP with the justification for the target first pass yield percentage. When proved out, the model would allow a better cost model for developing a product in the area of ordering spares and at what point spares would no longer be needed to maintain a steady flow of finished material to the customer.
An exhaustive search garnered me little in the way of directly related theories on the subject. Many articles in trade journals alluded to various means of predicting first pass yields on a variety of products which seemed to have some relevance to what I was attempting to calculate. I’ve included references to their works in the bibliography section at the end of this article.
What isn’t included in this article is the years of data I’ve compiled on a multitude of products with varying production rates. Let me say here, I’m a big believer in SPC (Statistical Process Control)/Six Sigma and using data to constantly improve yields. Over the course of more than 6 years I used that methodology to help drive yields up by driving out process issues and catching things like a date code variability before it had a major impact on yields. OK, enough chest pounding and patting myself on the back … for now.
Excerpt:
There seems to be a large number of articles for predicting yields for everything from crop harvests through complex IC manufacture. But what about first pass yields of complex electronic black box manufacture? Is this ignored because it’s just too complex due to the large number of factors involved? Is it overlooked because it’s assumed to be so hashed over that it’s old hat to the industry?
A few years ago I was assigned to a project that had already been in production for some time. As an engineer, I was assigned as the interface between two geographically separated units: manufacturing and design engineering. At the time there were two products being manufactured that were similar in purpose, yet drastically different in design and concept. During the course of the manufacture of the first product (I’ll call it Box A) there was a manufacturing first pass yield goal. There were times when this goal was easily reached and other when we had process, software or component issues that threatened to drag first pass yields below the Maginot line. For the most part, first pass yields exceeded the projected goal which was raised to a higher goal as we continued to build Box A.
As with all companies/products, a newer, smaller, better product was designed to obsolete Box A. Just before Box B (the newer product) design was complete, there was a change in management. A few months later after we were in the production phase of Box B, our fairly new VP asked one simple question “What is the rationale behind your target first pass yield?”
Well the answer he got wasn’t what he was looking for and got me to thinking as well. The answer was “That’s what we had for a goal on Box A first pass yield.” Nobody seemed to know where the original number came from (it had been several years) nor the rational for picking that number. I took it as a personal challenge to find a good method/rational for predicting first pass yield of our product. Right on the heels of this product, 2 more were on the drawing boards that were due to be placed into production the minute our Design and Concept verification was completed on Box E (I was already too late for Boxes C and D. I wanted to have the mathematical model ready for the introduction of the last product and present our VP with the justification for the target first pass yield percentage. When proved out, the model would allow a better cost model for developing a product in the area of ordering spares and at what point spares would no longer be needed to maintain a steady flow of finished material to the customer.
An exhaustive search garnered me little in the way of directly related theories on the subject. Many articles in trade journals alluded to various means of predicting first pass yields on a variety of products which seemed to have some relevance to what I was attempting to calculate. I’ve included references to their works in the bibliography section at the end of this article.
What isn’t included in this article is the years of data I’ve compiled on a multitude of products with varying production rates. Let me say here, I’m a big believer in SPC (Statistical Process Control)/Six Sigma and using data to constantly improve yields. Over the course of more than 6 years I used that methodology to help drive yields up by driving out process issues and catching things like a date code variability before it had a major impact on yields. OK, enough chest pounding and patting myself on the back … for now.
Minnesota Dreaming
Stories about growing up in northern Minnesota as a teenager and living on a farm for the first time with my siblings, mother and step-father as seen through my eyes. A look at the people and places around a sparsely populated area during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Peace, love, The Beatles, and bailing hay combine for a sometimes humorous, sometimes depressing series of events that were instrumental in becoming the person I am today.
Paris by Contest
A story of corporate espionage surrounding a couple's trip to Paris which they won through a contest entry ... or was it?