Animations:

Distanced from Learning

If I Had Smart Phone

The RFID Anthem

Blow the Chips Up!

Turn On and Calculate

If you watch carefully you’ll learn about Fermions flying south for winter, Voiceover IP, Repetitive Finicky Indecisive Debutantes, Outerconnect, and Funding Nemo. Then again, what does care have to do with it?



An Introduction to Electrical Engineering Terminology


AC: Alliterating Current

AI: Artificial Inelegance

ALE: Atomic Lager Epitaxy

Amplifire: gain stage for negative feedback with employee-connected output.

ANOVA: episode of PBS science show.

Avalanche Breakdown: the interlude where you only hear the rumbling, just before the screams.

BAW: Bulk Acrostic Wave

Bipolar Transistor: Manic conduction one moment, sullen resistance the next.

Booleish: Removal of the cerebral cortex -- it's a logical operation. At least for some of us.

Break Before Make: What happens when the kids are at home.

Buck Regulator: the strap they put on horses before they're released to the rodeo floor.

CAD: Computer Addled Design

Cadenca: when the layout staff squeezes 13% out of the chip area in the last week before tapeout.

CCK: Cereal Clock

Clock and Data Recovery: digging them out from the pile on your desk.

Complimentary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor: ”Isn't that just the sweetest little channel electron you ever saw?"

Crosstalk: Tea Party folks on healthcare reform.

DAC: Digital-to-Analogy Converter

DDR: Dance Dance Revolution

DIFF pair - designated insulting fat friend, quantity 2.

Digipot: Smoked narcotic drug popular with avatars.

Dropout: a regulator that would rather smoke than go to school.

DUT: Device, Undertested

Electromigration: Fermions heading south for winter.

FAQ: Frequently Avoided Questions

Forward Error Correction: hitting the brakes.

Freewheeling Diode: only knows one way to have fun.

Global Positioning System: Putting the Earth in its place.

h Bar: The dive on the corner of Teilchenstrasse and Wellestrasse where Planck used to hang out with his school friends.

Headroom: danged if I know, I'm short so I never have to worry about it.

Image Rejection: How you feel about portraits when you're over 50.

Inductive Reasoning: how coils think.

JTAG: Joint Test Action Group, with working groups for ankles, knees, elbows.

Laminated Package: protection and interconnect for active device fabricated from the skin of young sheep.

MAC: Medium Access Control; LAC: Low Access Control; HAC: High Access Control

Metastable Comparator: compares metastability.

Monotonic: Helps Monos feel better.

MOS: Stuff that grows under trees. CMOS: you will if you look for it.

Native Transistors - primitive electron hunter-gatherers

Open Collector: the fellow with the plastic bag scrounging in the trash cans.

Operational Amplifier: one that isn't broken. Duh.

OS: Open, Sesame!

Path Loss: pre-GPS hiking risk.

PMW: Pulse Width Moderation.

PWM Controller: Well, somebody has to keep those pornographic whimsical manipulators in line.

Relaxation oscillation: repetitive motion of your butt when you turn on the massage chair.

RMS: Rude Mean Square

S/H: Green Stamps. OK, you have to be as old as I am to get that one. Ouch.

SDR: Software Deified Radio

Secure Hash: the one way in the back of the refrigerator.

Semiconductor: he's got the baton but can only read bass clef.

Silicide: death by absurdity.

Silicide-block: gets the neighbors too.

Single Sideband: Mobius strip

SPC: Sadistical Process Control

Spreading Gain: characteristic of butter and cream cheese.

Statistical Quality Control: Make a product unlikely to fail before you find a new job.

THD: Totally Harmless Distortion

Thermocouple: Two thermos.

Transformer: Optimus primary and Optimus secondary.

Tri-state: When a circuit makes an effort to work as designed.

Turnon Time: about 11 PM Saturday night.

Twisted Pair: Empress Theodora and the Marquis de Sade.

Upconverter: Gravity.

UWB: UltraWhy Band. It's a philosophical modulation scheme.

VCR: Stupid business school technology example

Verilog: Sartre's locked-in-a-room hell or Kafka's turning-into-an-insect damnation, hard to say.

VOIP: Fan voiceovers on copyrighted videos.

WAN: Pale imitation of LAN data services.

Weber: burger grill.

WEP: Wasn't Especially Private

XAUI: exclamation, as in "Yowie Xaui!"

ZIF: K-Y Jelly.


Lots more jokes and poems about science, engineering, and general-purpose absurdity can be found in She Sells C Shells By The Seashore, available as an e-book or paperback. Click here to go directly to the Amazon page.