Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)
On 8/17/05 11:22:03, J. Clarke wrote:
> As far as it goes your English is fine, probably better than mine. But I
> think that the difficulty may be that it's formal technical English and not
> conversational.
That may well be. But then, we're trying to solve here a formal technical
problem, no?
>> I'm not raising an argument about "trickle" vs. "standby". I'm just trying
>> to explain to people willing to learn what the better (because more
>> universal, at least among the people who understand about power supplies)
>> terminology is -- and why. See my other post here for more details (if
>> you're interested, of course).
>
> Let's start out with this. ...
I'd like to start with continuing this part of the conversation (/why/ I
started talking about "trickle") from the message I sent previously where I
more explicitly -- and hopefully in proper "conversational language" terms
-- explained why I did it. I repeatedly tried to explain to you why I did
it, yet you never ever reacted to these explanations. Either you ignore
them on purpose (whatever purpose that may be) or you just missed them --
for that case I wrote up a summary of them in a separate message.
>>> The point is that there is power in the case and on the motherboard with
>>> the ATX power in the "off" state.
>>
>> Correct, in that there is power in the case. Wrong, in that this exactly
>> was the point.
>
> Now, this makes no sense. What is wrong?
Wrong is that this was the point, as I wrote before. This was /not/ the
point -- the point was whether or not it is safe to disconnect a harddisk
from an ATX mobo's IDE interface while the ATX power supply is in standby
mode. Whether or not there is power somewhere "in the case or on the mobo"
may or not be relevant -- which is exactly what this discussion is about.
It never was contested that it /is/ -- it in fact is, we always agreed on
this. It was contested that this is /relevant/ -- and this is the point.
Sorry that you didn't get that earlier... but I don't think that the fact
of me being a non-native speaker had much to do with that.
> Now, here we hit an issue that seems more related to experience than to
> language. How long had you been working with PCs when the first ATX
> machines became available?
I've been working with "PCs" before they were called that way.
> Until I had taken apart an ATX machine and discovered in the process that
> the power switch was connected to the motherboard rather than to the
> power supply, there was no reason to suspect that that had changed with
> ATX.
Not sure why that was, but maybe because you didn't read the specs. Or
because you fingertips are not sensitive enough to feel the difference
between the old-style power switch (usually a switch that toggles
mechanically between on and off) and the ATX-style power switch (usually
only a push button, which doesn't toggle).
> This has nothing to do with "understanding the workings of power supplies"
> and everything to do with the system specs being changed with out anybody
> getting the word out.
Not sure they actually didn't publish the supply specs when coming out with
them. I would think that they were available. I know that I found them when
I needed them -- but I also know that this was quite some time after they
came out. In any case, /now/ we have them.
> It took several years after ATX became available for the A+ exam for
> certifying technicians to be altered to address this issue
I'll just assume you are correct on this, but IMO it's quite irrelevant to
this discussion. Any type of certification tends to lag behind technology
development; this doesn't surprise me.
> Now here you're arguing like an engineer, not like a technician.
Not really sure what you mean by that. I am an engineer, I have been a
technician, and I think a good engineer can think not only like you may say
an engineer thinks, but also like you may say a technician thinks, and also
in some other ways. The art is in putting it all together -- which is why I
don't tend to think in such categories.
> There are several reasons for this. One is that you're usually inside
> the machine because it's broken
Now this is a different beast. You're making a lot of assumptions that we
didn't make in the first place. I for my part am usually (dis)connecting
disks because I'm exchanging disks, not because anything is broken.
> Another is that one does not want to develop bad habits.
I tend to try to do things out of reason, not out of habit. Any habit in
technology is a bad habit (and you may again say that I'm thinking like an
engineer -- but there's really no bad in that, is it?
> Far safer to only _connect_ when you need to than only _dis_connect when
> you need to.
Probably. But this is from the quite specific point of view of a repair
technician who does nothing but fixing PCs all day long. That's not my
position, and I don't know why I should do like I possibly would do if I
were one.
> A third is that even if everything is working as it is supposed to,
> jostling the wrong board or cable can bring the power up when it was not
> intended--one should not risk that without compelling reason.
This is the only /real/ point -- and I was well aware of it. And that's why
I wrote that you should know what you're doing if you don't disconnect the
power cable. It's as simple as that.
> Engineers tend to assume that their superior technical knowledge will
> preserve them from such difficulties.
I hope you don't mean "all engineers" when you say "engineers". I don't
think you're qualified to make such an assertion. In any case, it's not
relevant to the question we're discussing.
>> "As long as you're not knowing what you're doing, it's a good idea to
>> always disconnect the power cord of anything you open."
>
> Now this goes with your comment about "understanding how power supplies
> work" and I was about to flame you over it until it occurred to me that you
> might not understand why I was doing it.
I don't think I have a problem with your reasons. From your POV they
probably make sense. But you seem to fail to see that the reasons that make
sense in your specific situation may not make the same sense for everyone
else.
> "As long as you're not knowing what you're doing" suggests a value judgment
> that I suspect was not intended.
See, here you don't seem to understand how /this/ engineer thinks. I have a
deep respect for "things" and their "life". I don't pretend to know how
they behave -- but I have in some cases a pretty deep knowledge and broad
enough experience to make relatively safe judgment calls. Actually, that's
what I get paid for to do. I can't play it safe all the time; engineering
is mostly about doing what you don't know, but having a reasonable insight
about your odds. When I feel I don't know enough to not destroy anything
(including myself), I unplug the cable -- not only with PCs. Both sides of
the condition are very familiar to me and it's part of my daily life to
determine on which side I am in a particular situation.
> It gives the impression that you feel ...
It gives /you/ that impression, possibly because you managed yourself into
a defensive position (without need).
> the mark of a l33t type such as yourself
Now here you hit this not-native speaker... I don't have a clue what a
"133t type" is. Nor why you would think that I think that I am one.
> If your experience is relevant, then the way to address it is to simply
> state your experience and why you think it relevant if that is not
> obvious from context.
That's what I did. You managed to read it how you want to see it, not how I
wrote it. That's not a language issue, let me tell you.
Gerhard
On 8/17/05 11:22:03, J. Clarke wrote:
> As far as it goes your English is fine, probably better than mine. But I
> think that the difficulty may be that it's formal technical English and not
> conversational.
That may well be. But then, we're trying to solve here a formal technical
problem, no?
>> I'm not raising an argument about "trickle" vs. "standby". I'm just trying
>> to explain to people willing to learn what the better (because more
>> universal, at least among the people who understand about power supplies)
>> terminology is -- and why. See my other post here for more details (if
>> you're interested, of course).
>
> Let's start out with this. ...
I'd like to start with continuing this part of the conversation (/why/ I
started talking about "trickle") from the message I sent previously where I
more explicitly -- and hopefully in proper "conversational language" terms
-- explained why I did it. I repeatedly tried to explain to you why I did
it, yet you never ever reacted to these explanations. Either you ignore
them on purpose (whatever purpose that may be) or you just missed them --
for that case I wrote up a summary of them in a separate message.
>>> The point is that there is power in the case and on the motherboard with
>>> the ATX power in the "off" state.
>>
>> Correct, in that there is power in the case. Wrong, in that this exactly
>> was the point.
>
> Now, this makes no sense. What is wrong?
Wrong is that this was the point, as I wrote before. This was /not/ the
point -- the point was whether or not it is safe to disconnect a harddisk
from an ATX mobo's IDE interface while the ATX power supply is in standby
mode. Whether or not there is power somewhere "in the case or on the mobo"
may or not be relevant -- which is exactly what this discussion is about.
It never was contested that it /is/ -- it in fact is, we always agreed on
this. It was contested that this is /relevant/ -- and this is the point.
Sorry that you didn't get that earlier... but I don't think that the fact
of me being a non-native speaker had much to do with that.
> Now, here we hit an issue that seems more related to experience than to
> language. How long had you been working with PCs when the first ATX
> machines became available?
I've been working with "PCs" before they were called that way.
> Until I had taken apart an ATX machine and discovered in the process that
> the power switch was connected to the motherboard rather than to the
> power supply, there was no reason to suspect that that had changed with
> ATX.
Not sure why that was, but maybe because you didn't read the specs. Or
because you fingertips are not sensitive enough to feel the difference
between the old-style power switch (usually a switch that toggles
mechanically between on and off) and the ATX-style power switch (usually
only a push button, which doesn't toggle).
> This has nothing to do with "understanding the workings of power supplies"
> and everything to do with the system specs being changed with out anybody
> getting the word out.
Not sure they actually didn't publish the supply specs when coming out with
them. I would think that they were available. I know that I found them when
I needed them -- but I also know that this was quite some time after they
came out. In any case, /now/ we have them.
> It took several years after ATX became available for the A+ exam for
> certifying technicians to be altered to address this issue
I'll just assume you are correct on this, but IMO it's quite irrelevant to
this discussion. Any type of certification tends to lag behind technology
development; this doesn't surprise me.
> Now here you're arguing like an engineer, not like a technician.
Not really sure what you mean by that. I am an engineer, I have been a
technician, and I think a good engineer can think not only like you may say
an engineer thinks, but also like you may say a technician thinks, and also
in some other ways. The art is in putting it all together -- which is why I
don't tend to think in such categories.
> There are several reasons for this. One is that you're usually inside
> the machine because it's broken
Now this is a different beast. You're making a lot of assumptions that we
didn't make in the first place. I for my part am usually (dis)connecting
disks because I'm exchanging disks, not because anything is broken.
> Another is that one does not want to develop bad habits.
I tend to try to do things out of reason, not out of habit. Any habit in
technology is a bad habit (and you may again say that I'm thinking like an
engineer -- but there's really no bad in that, is it?
> Far safer to only _connect_ when you need to than only _dis_connect when
> you need to.
Probably. But this is from the quite specific point of view of a repair
technician who does nothing but fixing PCs all day long. That's not my
position, and I don't know why I should do like I possibly would do if I
were one.
> A third is that even if everything is working as it is supposed to,
> jostling the wrong board or cable can bring the power up when it was not
> intended--one should not risk that without compelling reason.
This is the only /real/ point -- and I was well aware of it. And that's why
I wrote that you should know what you're doing if you don't disconnect the
power cable. It's as simple as that.
> Engineers tend to assume that their superior technical knowledge will
> preserve them from such difficulties.
I hope you don't mean "all engineers" when you say "engineers". I don't
think you're qualified to make such an assertion. In any case, it's not
relevant to the question we're discussing.
>> "As long as you're not knowing what you're doing, it's a good idea to
>> always disconnect the power cord of anything you open."
>
> Now this goes with your comment about "understanding how power supplies
> work" and I was about to flame you over it until it occurred to me that you
> might not understand why I was doing it.
I don't think I have a problem with your reasons. From your POV they
probably make sense. But you seem to fail to see that the reasons that make
sense in your specific situation may not make the same sense for everyone
else.
> "As long as you're not knowing what you're doing" suggests a value judgment
> that I suspect was not intended.
See, here you don't seem to understand how /this/ engineer thinks. I have a
deep respect for "things" and their "life". I don't pretend to know how
they behave -- but I have in some cases a pretty deep knowledge and broad
enough experience to make relatively safe judgment calls. Actually, that's
what I get paid for to do. I can't play it safe all the time; engineering
is mostly about doing what you don't know, but having a reasonable insight
about your odds. When I feel I don't know enough to not destroy anything
(including myself), I unplug the cable -- not only with PCs. Both sides of
the condition are very familiar to me and it's part of my daily life to
determine on which side I am in a particular situation.
> It gives the impression that you feel ...
It gives /you/ that impression, possibly because you managed yourself into
a defensive position (without need).
> the mark of a l33t type such as yourself
Now here you hit this not-native speaker... I don't have a clue what a
"133t type" is. Nor why you would think that I think that I am one.
> If your experience is relevant, then the way to address it is to simply
> state your experience and why you think it relevant if that is not
> obvious from context.
That's what I did. You managed to read it how you want to see it, not how I
wrote it. That's not a language issue, let me tell you.
Gerhard
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