“ Like many people, I listen to a wide variety of music, and some of it is, ahem, more appropriate at certain times of day than others. We here are not responsible for adverse effects from playing the wrong music at the wrong time. Hope some of this is enjoyable.”
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My iMac G5 is at The Computer Loft waiting for a new logic board. I bought it in October and last week it started having symptoms which I quote from macintouch.com: “After starting up or after waking from sleep, the screen’s image would vibrate and shift horizontally and the computer would hang for a couple of seconds. Then all would be back to normal. This would happen a few times in a short period of time, then go away.” Then it started getting a “distorted display, freezing with geometric patterns on the screen, rows of pixelation, usually it happened when coming out of sleep or from a cold start. Often there would be a kernel panic on reboot, and after 2-3 reboots it would work fine again until the next long shutdown or sleep period.”
Reading macintouch.com makes it apparent that this is a very common overheating problem problem – so widespread that Apple is having trouble maintaining a supply of replacement logic boards. Here’s what happens when the machine overheats.
Bloated iMac G5 Capacitors photo
The bulging capacitors show that the electrolyte boiled inside, and this is caused by *AC RIPPLE CURRENT*. It seems that every new generation of engineers has to relearn this bitter lesson.” (C. Park Seward on macintouch.com).
It’s too bad my father wasn’t responsible for the G5 components testing. He made sure things like this didn’t happen on satellites that no one would be able to repair. I often heard him use terms like triple redundancy and he was frequently traveling to test labs to oversee their work. (In 8th grade I did a report for my science class on non-destructive parts analysis by magnetic imagining while the other kids were sprouting seeds under different colored lights.) Obviously there are different standards for consumer electronics than for military satellites but it sure would be nice if they were closer. Then again, NASA doesn’t have a lot to be proud of recently either.
This is so reminiscent of the ignition coil problem I experienced with my 2002 Volkswagen Passat. And when you think about it, these are two similar products – beautifully designed, attracting a fanatically loyal user base who value form as much as function. After denying the problem for a while and then trying to keep up with the repairs without doing a recall, VW finally had to admit the problem and recall many many cars.
Apple should take a lesson from VW.
A list of music blog links big enough to keep anyone happy forever.
I worked as a senior curriculum developer for TERC from April 1998 to December 1999.
Visual Earth Series: Exploring the Ocean and Exploring Marine Life
I worked with GIS specialists Paul Rooney and Jane Pfister, project
manager Harold McWilliams and a programmer to create two
GIS-based CD-ROMs on physical oceanography and marine
biology for use in middle
and high school science classes. These were published as part of the
TERCWorks Visual Earth series. I wrote a series of inquiry-based
lessons that incorporated a science investigation with interactive use
of video and GIS. I designed and produced multimedia pieces and created
an extensive set of resources. Here is an article about it: link
NASA Engineering Design Challenges:
Thermal Protection Systems Design Challenge (Heat and Conduction)
Spacecraft Structures Design Challenge (Newton’s Laws)
I
interviewed NASA engineers to identify major engineering challenges
in X-33 spacecraft design and then worked with Harold McWilliams and
Paul Wagoner to translate those challenges into hands-on design
problems suitable for elementary and middle school classes. We
conducted
lab and field testing which was the most fun I’ve ever had that I got
paid for. NASA selected this project to demonstrate in a US Senate
hearing. Here’s an article about it: link.
NASA Connect:
Proportionality:
The X-Plane Generation
I designed a hands-on science lesson and wrote the Educator Guide
for an episode of the Emmy award winning TV program. The lesson
included a scale model of NASA’s X-33 spacecraft that students could
cut out and construct.
Nortel NetKnowledge
In
four months I learned TCP/IP, routing, wireless data
transmission and many other topics, wrote and illustrated lessons,
developed hands-on labs and with two other writers created a
multi-semester hands-on computer networking curriculum for
high school.
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