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Aloha from sunny Florida! Last month, I've made my debut on the Official Disney Parks Blog with a desktop wallpaper depicting Disney Vacation Club's newest location...Disney's Aulani at Ko Olina, Hawai'i!
As you've seen in my other art, I tend to favor two-dimensional "head-on" scenes versus angled, perspective scenes...so creating this desktop wallpaper presented a little bit of a challenge for me. Originally, I wanted to go with a "vintage travel poster" kind of look...using very simple shapes, loads of gradients, and almost zero realism. I did, however, take a stab at a dimensional image by using a recent photo of the lobby building as my template.
|My original concept for the Aulani Desktop Wallpaper
After some feedback from Disney Vacation Club and the Aulani Cultural Committee, more detail and color was added to produce the piece you see on the Disney Parks Blog today. Head on over to the official Disney Parks Blog today to download it for free here!
|Artwork by Jason "Tiki" Tackett. Artwork ©2012 Disney
As always, thank you to all my friends for their continued support with these projects...and to you for sharing your feedback! Stay tuned for sneak peeks of projects I am working on...and for information on projects I have recently finished!


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fiddle on Family Tree Circles
view: full | list
Journals and Posts
Looking for Eleanor Steele Polsen's family. Peter Polsen father, Anna Maria Mclatchey or Maclatchey or the "h" could be a "k"
This is for the Robertson family tree.
My mother was the only child of Eleanor Steele Polsen and John Frew Robertson.(Dr.) Her mother was Anna Maria Maclatchey as per her death certificate or variations thereof:-Mc and the "h" could be a "k" unreadable on death and marriage certificate of Eleanor Steele. I have found Eleanor Steele marriage death and electoral records but can't find anything for either parent.
Her father Peter Polsen, variously spelt Paulsen Poulsen or etc has been very difficut and I have found nothing. I would like any information about Peter or Anna Maria her parents or Eleanor's brother Robert Steele (chemist who worked in Lawrence NZ in 1904; and/or sisters Anne and Elizabeth.
[email protected]
Looking for Eleanor Steele Polsen married in New Zealand.
Eleanor Steele Polsen married Dr John Frew Robertson in 1904 in Dunedin. She is on the list of female Polsen marriages. I am interested in any and all relatives. She is my grandmother. She and her husband moved to Australia and both died here. They had one child, Phyllis Eleanor Robertson.
- Displaying 1-2 of 2 Journals
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subset: commoncrawl


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The No. 20 Bearkat baseball team dropped the final game of the three-game series with McNeese State, falling 5-1 to the Cowboys on Sunday afternoon.
It took the Kats (28-11, 17-4) five innings to notch their first hit of the game and the only run came off a Shea Pierce home run in the 8th inning.
The Kats managed just three hits on the day, hitting into three double plays and leaving three runners stranded.
Cody Dickson got the start for the Kats and lasted just 2 1/3 innings, as the Bearkats sent five different pitchers to the hill.
The Bearkats finish the weekend the same way they started it, with a four-game lead in the Southland Conference over Southeast Louisiana and Texas Arlington.
SHSU will return home on Tuesday to take on Houston Baptist. They will then play a home Southland series for the first time since completing a sweep of Northwestern State on April 7. The season, the Bearkats have dropped just one conference game at home, in the opening series of the year to SFA.


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A "journey" involving running in place in the deep end. Quite possibly I've gone off the deep end.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Worlds Colliding (running nerd v. infosec geek)
[For non-runners: a goody bag is a bag that you get at many races that contains free samples, coupons, race advertisements, and similar. Stuff like cliff bars, lipbalm, etc. A few things find a second life as cat toys.]
[And, for those of you keeping score at home, this was the same expo where General Electric tested my foot with a fancy machine and declared my bone density to be excellent. This was also 4 days before my foot went pop. And now I've made this post tangentially relevant to the subject matter of my blog. So there.]
In my MCM goody bag, a gift card caught my eye -- it was for $500 in sunglasses from Red Star Eyewear -- a sunglasses manufacturer I'd never heard of. I typed the website address into Google in Firefox, and the search results confirmed that the site was likely safe, so I visited it. Digging through it, it looked like the terms of the deal were that you might get a free pair or two of sunglasses (of dubious quality), but that you paid a decent amount in shipping and handling. So not a full out scam, but definitely a bad deal -- on a par with those old Columbia House Record memberships (apparently Red Star tries to trick you into committing to some sort of "sunglasses club" too).
Brian and I laughed, and I tossed it. But it got me thinking. Race participants are really a huge, untapped market for scammers.
[I do realize that there's an opportunity here to take a shot at the Competitor Group, or Devine Racing. I leave that to y'all]
Just think about it -- we get our goody bags, and act under the assumption that everything in there is somehow vetted and approved by the race management. And it's very easy to get access to those goody bags -- at most of the bigger races, my understanding is that those bags are stuffed by volunteers. Paid race staff are limited to the harder, more specialized tasks -- pretty much anyone can stuff and hand out a bag, and so anyone does.
So here's how you do it:
A) set up a website for some product, including a way to take credit card info;
B) go to a printer, and print a set of fancy fliers promoting your site/product;
C) volunteer for a major marathon or other race, and get yourself a slot filling/distributing goody bags, or even better, manage to get a box of your fliers mixed in with all the other stuff to be stuffed by volunteers;
E) Profit!!!!!!
A bit concerning, don't you think? I can't believe this hasn't happened yet, now that I think about it.
4 comments:
Well, now I know what I'm doing this weekend.ReplyDelete
Runners already pay tons of money for stuff of no value. We can get someone we know in Colorado to send cases and cases of "Rocky Mountain Air: How to get altitude training in the comfort of your own home." I would feel less guilty, and we'd probably make a lot more, though, if we marketed it to triathletes instead.ReplyDelete
Joe - I imagine the triathletes pay for top end security guards to watch over every aspect of their race prep/expo -- must be what those entry fees go to.ReplyDelete
Greg and I found those in our Memphis bags but I remembered your blog and told Greg not to get excited. Thanks for doing the research!ReplyDelete


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MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. – The No. 16 Georgia College women's tennis (4-3, 2-2 PBC) match originally scheduled for today at the University of West Georgia has been postponed due to inclement weather. A reschedule date has not been set.
The Bobcats are back in action Sunday, March 13 at 11 a.m., traveling to Francis Marion University.
The Georgia College Department of Athletics, two-time winners of the PBC Commissioner's Cup, sponsors 10 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, Bobcat Athletics prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the teams' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Sign up at www.twitter.com/BobcatSports and www.facebook.com/gcbobcats for up-to-the-minute reports, and visit www.GCBobcats.com for more information, and to nominate your favorite former Bobcats and Colonials to the GC Athletics Hall of Fame.


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It has become his trademark, this uniformity, organization and attention to detail that jumps out at visitors. Indeed, it's what separates his outfit from most others, the reason why owners continue falling over themselves beating a path to his shedrow door.
Photo by: Toni Pricci
Todd Pletcher, a study in organization and intensity.
It's one thing to seemingly train all the good young horses in America. It's quite another to get so many of them to the races, all looking like split silk and performing accordingly, which is to say winning races in bunches on what seems like a daily basis.
The Pletcher barn is not so much a place where horses live as it is a base of operations where the business of racing is conducted. He has taken his mentor's game, that of Hall of Famer Darrell Wayne Lukas, and has raised it a notch or two.
All the great and successful trainers in today's sport engender this quality, but it's only Pletcher who more closely resembles a corporate CEO and not simply the top horseman who lives next door.
Pletcher is a man who walks his talk but also one that has raised the art of "couldn't-be-doing-any-better" trainer-speak to another level: On balance, his answers are thoughtful, precise, informative and insightful.
His responses only conform to old school sensibilities in the way he is careful not to volunteer more than what is asked. If he were ever on a witness stand, he'd be a barrister's dream.
But that's how things work in this culture. Pletcher considers the regretful matter closed. And there's no time for reflection now. There's a huge operation to be run and races to be won, the biggest races this country has to offer.
And what races are bigger than the American classics?
Speaking of the Kentucky Derby, the first opportunity to wager parimutuelly in the Derby Futures pool opens today, and it should come as no surprise that Pletcher has four colts listed among the top 23 top contenders.
Photo by: Toni Pricci
The Pletcher trademark - uniformity, organization and attention to detail
The accepted wisdom among turf writers and handicappers give four Pletcher runners to wear roses on May's first Saturday: Algorithms, Discreet Cat, El Padrino and Gemologist.
"Those are the ones that put themselves at the top," Pletcher conceded inside Barn 11 on Tuesday morning. "The question mark—as with all Derby horses—is the mile and a quarter."
"I trained his half-brother (Keyed Entry) who probably at his best from a mile to a mile and an eighth. But Algorithms is by Bernardini out of a Cryptoclearance mare."
Photo by: Toni Pricci
Algorithms has the formula for winning.
Discreet Dancer is undefeated in three starts and never has been asked for his best effort either in a race or in morning trials. Those closest to the colt consider the chestnut "an absolute freak."
Pletcher calls both wet-track wins scored by El Padrino "coincidental. His second [career] race was very good and he was competitive in the Remsen," Pletcher said. "He always trained very well right from the beginning."
Gemologist hasn't yet started at 3 but was 2-for-2 at 2, including the G2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes, both wins coming over the Derby track. "He had his first breeze the other day and is on the same schedule as Super Saver," Pletcher's lone Derby winner.
But horsemen don't live on classics alone, not even one who is odds-on to win his ninth consecutive Gulfstream training title. There are Oaks to be considered and Disposable Pleasure, the Demoiselle winner of 2011, has had "a really good winter; she's really grown from two to three."
Photo by: Toni Pricci
Discreet Dancer - Dancing With the Stars
It has been widely circulated that 2012 might be a great here for the handicap set and Pletcher will be a major player in that category as well. Remember Stay Thirsty?
The Belmont second and Jim Dandy (G2) and Travers (G1) winner will be back to serious training by the end of the month and currently is stabled at the Ocala, Fla. farm of Jim Crupi.
"We wanted to give him a meaningful break so we gave him the rest of November, December and January off," after running his second poor career race at Churchill Downs in the 2011 Breeders' Cup Classic.
This year, the Classic will be run at Santa Anita and naturally "the Whitney and Woodward on high on our list as major first objectives." The ultimate goal, obviously, will be to earn a best in show title.
At the end of racing Thursday, Pletcher needed five more winners to reach the 3,000 win milestone. But when you run an operation this large, is there any time left for reflection?
"I don't even know there's an answer to that," Pletcher said. I remember asking Jerry Hollandorfer at Keeneland last September about his 6,000th winner last year. 'It's like saddling 100 winners a year for 60 years' I said to him."
Photo by: Toni Pricci
Disposable Pleasure - Mighty Oaks from raspberries grow
According to research provided by Equibase, a contemporary of Pletcher's, Steve Asmussen, who has also reached the 6,000 win plateau, took a little over 19 years to saddle his 3,000th on his 14,337th try.
Pletcher then is on course to become the youngest trainer to reach the 3,000 win plateau.
"I knew I was getting in the vicinity [of 3,000]. "Certain things happen that sometimes can make you pause and reflect. You need to take the time to step back and appreciate a milestone."
Given Pletcher's attention to detail, one gets the idea that's easier said than done.


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|« Explorer Applesauce Cake
|Explorer Versus The Volcano »
Waldorfesque (O-non Explorer)
Granted, you could make a waldorf that is more like a waldorf than the one I made this morning, out of explorer neutrals and superfoods. This one however was interesting, in a fun way.
I finally broke out my sprouter that I've never used, and made radish sprouts. It only takes a tablespoon of seeds to get a lot of sprouts, and they're so fresh and nice compared to storebought. Radish sprouts have a lot of heat in them, and I had a lot of sprouts to eat, so I decided to combine them with something sweet...diced apples. I dressed it with a little olive oil, lemon juice and a bit of sea salt. It was a great way to wake myself up!
Now to break out my flaker, because I'm out of storebought quinoa flakes. They have been a breakfast staple. I don't know if it will work for tiny little quinoa, but I have other grains it should work on if not quinoa. I did realize I was going wrong to put butter on the porridge, butter in an explorer toxin, but there's a new HFS in town that sells organic ghee for a pretty decent price, so I'm stocked up on that again.
I also finally faced my fear and ate some fresh mozzarella. It was yummy. I think I'll keep dairy to once or twice a week for now.
I don't think I've ever eaten so many vegetables and live foods in my life. I feel like my mind and body are really getting into the groove of this plan. Yesterday's taekwondo was tough, but it really makes me tougher, more than just physically. My past periods of noncompliance may have been due to explorer dietary needs, which were a tiny bit mismatched, or it may have been just stress and lack of discipline...probably all of the above. I'm glad to move forward yet again, with a plan I can stick with.


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|2012-12-22, 21:44
|Link #521
Also a Lolicon
Join Date: Apr 2010
-You can still hit Windows key, type stuff, and hit enter to launch apps.
-You can also filter by app, setting, or files. And more importantly, the "type and hit enter" functionality is improved for settings and files.
-It comes up right after you log in, saving you having to open it to launch your first app.
|2012-12-25, 06:16
|Link #523
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: USA
Age: 29
Behind the times sounding rant ahead.
The point at which programs and applications started to be called "apps" with smartphones is when I stopped caring for such things. I still use a 'feature' phone (not 'smart') and if you can call the touchscreen launched 'alarm clock' and 'notepad' as "apps" then by all means. But I haven't used any "Get a Taxi" or "Latest Olympic Medal Count" apps.
To some extent apps make sense for a phone because you don't have that much space and you want that information then and there. But what's the point of bringing that to a desktop OS that has that capability (through a web browser). It just seems like a cashing in on something that's become popular elsewhere (on a smartphone). Hell maybe that's it, or maybe I've literally discovered the single abbreviation that separates me from the next generation and puts me into the "old man who likes old ways and old things" category. Well aside from looking up "latest apps" just now, I literally haven't paid attention to what apps have been coming out since...ever, because I don't use them. It's this mainstream popular tech thing that everyone's doing now that I just haven't cared for or paid any attention to and now it's coming as some big part of a Windows OS and I just don't feel like I should give a single ****. It's also 6:16 am and I've been awake since yesterday.
|2012-12-25, 10:02
|Link #525
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: event horizon
If not for backward compatiblity they would probably have shipped with metro-only.
|2012-12-25, 10:40
|Link #526
IT Support
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Pennsylvania , United States
Age: 28
Better yet, just install a Start Menu program (like Classic Shell or Start8) and skip the whole new Start Screen all together.
But still, I find the search under the new Start Screen more unintuitive compared to the old start menu or even spotlight. While the new start menu makes it easier to filter things if you have a lot of documents and know what you are searching for, for simple searches, you have to do additional steps just to find what you are looking for. If there a single result, it should at least go to the next filter than have results than staying at the same filter with no result. Better yet, it should have an option to show everything in groups, unfiltered. Not only that, the search more option is not available on the new start screen compared to the Start Menu or even Spotlight. Then you have to go through the trouble of going back to the desktop just to use advanced search.
For instance:
Mac OS X:
Classic Start Menu:
The "New" Start Screen (from my Windows Server 2012 Home Server):
|2012-12-25, 18:31
|Link #527
Junior Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
Microsoft would cease to release a Windows for the desktop PC that can run desktop apps only when they think there are not enough people who need and/or want to use desktop apps.
As for Windows 8, the Windows Store apps are still optional. Don't use it if you don't want to use it, and sign up for their CEIP if you want Microsoft to know that there are people who use desktop apps so that future versions of Windows may still be able to run them.
|2013-02-19, 23:18
|Link #528
Gin-Sama no Tameni!
there is actually a program that lets you customize the background of the start screen. Which got me thinking of MetroUI's actual potential. If Microsoft gives us full control of aspects of the start screen, then it's an actual replacement for the old Desktop environment for Windows: Which brings me to my point: Metro UI is still young, and I hope they develop it further. even if it costs them to drop the old desktop. I really think that the should look into making something really, really new for home users. much like how different 95 was from 3.11
|2013-02-19, 23:37
|Link #529
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 60
I could definitely see my wife liking a screen like the one aeriolewinters displayes (especially if the background can be a slide show). Me not so much. A computer is not an "appliance" to me (nor to a lot of power users).
I am biting some kind of bullet. Just ordered a laptop with it to use as my portable writing/communication tool so we'll see how it flies in daily life.
|2013-02-19, 23:44
|Link #530
Gin-Sama no Tameni!
I know that Microsoft has consolidated the corporate/home lines, but I think it's time to put a line between them now. Kinda like in my time where the home users had 9x and the Business/Corporate/Power Users had NT 4.0. , at least aesthetically.
If Microsoft really wants Metro to be in the forefront of their revolution, then they should abandon the old paradigms to create a new experience. The only problem I came across with Windows 8, is that it feels like two differing UI's forced into one OS. If Microsoft wants metro, then they should build a desktop experience that's built around it, WITH NO COMPROMISE.
|2013-02-20, 00:32
|Link #531
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Dollars
|2013-02-20, 00:50
|Link #532
Gin-Sama no Tameni!
|2013-02-20, 08:57
|Link #533
Love Yourself
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Northeast USA
Age: 32
Metro is basically a bunch of widgets, with the rest of the desktop removed. It's useful, but was it the best design decision for a computer? Windows Vista offered desktop widgets, allowing a user to customize their own empty desktop space as they pleased. Mac OS X 10.4 introduced Dashboard, which was basically an overlay of pure widgets that could be called up and dismissed at any time with the press of a button. And of course, there are many bars and docks that can be used to express information.
Metro is an intriguing interface for tablets and smartphones. It makes less sense to me as a computer interface, particularly as a default interface that can't be changed. If Metro were more like OS X's Dashboard, it would have made a lot more sense to me.
I agree though, the shift that Microsoft introduced with Windows 8 is just getting started. There's a lot of potential.
|2013-02-20, 09:36
|Link #534
I desire Tomorrow!
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: As far away from reality as possible
Age: 35
Metro has the problem of simple, limited apps sitting on a powerhouse. Having it on a desktop at this time is pointless and inefficient. In its current form, it doesn't offer anything other than a weird start screen.
Last edited by npal; 2013-02-20 at 11:28. Reason: grammar :P
|2013-02-20, 10:33
|Link #535
Gin-Sama no Tameni!
Imagine that if you see that start screen I posted, and instead think of it as the default desktop interface, now, here's what I'm alluding to: make the application switcher charms bar, function like Windows 7's superbar, and drop the old taskbar altogether. that way, the UI doesn't look like as much compromise. make the Metro apps look more like standard apps, by giving them the ability to resize and minimize. Change the live tiles naming to "Live windows, because basically, when you're in the start screen , its as if you're in the outside of a building looking at different windows that contain your software; basically, reintroduce windows, not "make a compromise"; if they really wanted something that was revolutionary.
As long as Microsoft gives us a choice between old and new, yet still have the same kernel. I'll give Windows Blue a shot, but they should stay away from trying to reach a compromise with both UI's.
|2013-02-21, 22:22
|Link #537
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 60
picked up a little notebook from a Newegg sale (a Lenovo) to use a a portable communication and authoring tool. Non-touchscreen. Staring at the Start screen with an expression like the little Olympic gymnast. The setup screens already accomplished the goal of insulting me a few times.
Now lets see if I can make it do what I want rather than just keep herding me into the "apps store".
|2013-02-22, 01:22
|Link #538
Hiding Under Your Bed
Join Date: May 2008
So, I've never been shy about liking Windows 8, but I've also prided myself on not being a blind, ranting, technosnob either, so I do have to say this:
Whatever idiot who probably makes at least three times a year than I do at Microsoft thought it was a good idea to remove Windows DVD maker from Windows 8 should be fired (to some extent, whoever the genius was that removed DVD playback should be fired as well, but at least that was slightly mitigated for early adopters).
One would think when drawing up a list of what you're going to include and exclude in a very obviously made-for-home/consumer market product, this is an area you wouldn't cut corners in.
I occasionally work with high school students, and for the simple things they do, Windows Movie Maker coupled with Windows DVD Maker has been a staple for them putting together project videos, and it took me a long time to realize DVD making has been removed as it never actually occurred to me that it had, and I spent an inordinate amount of time wondering where they had hidden it.
I don't normally regret keeping pace with technology (heck, I never had any issues with Vista, and find the love 7 gets over Vista when they are so similar to be a pretty hilarious statement on tech commentary and fanaticism), but my lab happened to be up for replacing our computers and all our computers ranging from older XP machines to 7 machines were replaced with brand new ones running 8, and while these high school students are very ancillary to my actual job, it's still frustrating, especially since they are from high poverty families and have no computers of their own.
|2013-06-05, 09:10
|Link #540
I desire Tomorrow!
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: As far away from reality as possible
Age: 35
Hopefully they fixed some bugs here and there, too. All in all, I doubt people who didn't get it, will get it now, so I'm not sure what MS hoped to accomplish with this particular update. They could have just added a damn Start Menu, since they took the time to add the button... Not that I care, I didn't really miss the start menu that much and those that do use some 3rd party Start menu software.
|Thread Tools


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Street Blowjobs Sierra. Today I went to the beach on my usual hunt when I came across Sierra. She was down here for spring break on vacation just hanging out about to go to the beach when it became a bit cloudy and thats when I appeared. She needed a ride back to her hotel but the plans switched instead of us going back to her hotel we went back to my place and thats where the real action took place. This girl was a wild one she me the best blowjob Ive had in a long while! Enjoy!
Street Blowjobs Sierra


text: home page Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera, 'The Gondoliers' A delightful satire on "republican" governments: "When everyone is somebody, then no-one's anybody" 26 December 2012, 2:50 pm 0 Edit Facebook Twitter email Print 1 shares Gondoliers Photo 19 – Daniel Forst (Giuseppe) and Rafi Apfel (Marco) embrace their brides, Maya Cohen (Tessa) and Aviella Trap (photo credit: Brian Negin) With a cast of 45 and orchestra of 15, Encore! Educational Theatre Company takes on Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera, The Gondoliers. This will be the troupe's eleventh annual production of an opera by Britain's most famous duo, whose theatrical masterpieces are performed all over the world. Although The Gondoliers is a delightful satire on "republican" governments ("when everyone is somebody, then no-one's anybody"), it has long been a favorite of the English royal family, and was honored with a command performance at Windsor Castle by Queen Victoria in 1891. In this diamond jubilee year of Victoria's great-great-granddaughter, the wit remains as sparkling as ever and the music particularly delightful. The story of the opera concerns the young bride of the heir to the throne of Barataria who arrives in Venice to join her husband. It turns out, however, that he cannot be identified, since he was entrusted to the care of a drunken gondolier who mixed up the prince with his own son. To complicate matters, the King of Barataria has just been killed. The two young gondoliers must now jointly rule the kingdom until the nurse of the prince can be brought in to determine which of them is the rightful king. Moreover, when the young queen arrives to claim her husband, she finds that the two gondoliers have both recently married local girls. A further complicating factor is that she, herself, is in love with another man. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up Directed by Robert Binder, with musical direction by Paul Salter, choreography by Judy Brown, and set design by Roxane Goodkin-Levy. Featured in the company are Encore! veterans Aviella Trapido, Daniel Forst, and Claire Greenfeld, along with newcomers Jay Shir, Michael Sacofsky, Maya Cohen, Maria Luibman and Rafi Apfel. The opera will be performed in English with Hebrew subtitles. For tickets please call 054-578-9006 or the Hirsch Theatre box-office at (02) 620-3463. For press inquires, contact Aliza Klieman-Marriott at 052-3341847. Facebook Twitter email Print 1 shares comments


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SEMI Oral History Interview
John Robinson & Mike Grimes
Texas Instruments (retired)
Interviewed by Craig Addison, SEMI
John Robinson joined Texas Instruments in 1973 as a development engineer after receiving a PhD in materials science. He later became operations manager for MOS production and from 1981 to 1995 served as manager of TI's silicon operation. Mike Grimes joined TI in 1969 in the materials group after receiving a Master's degree in physical chemistry. He progressed to engineering manager in the silicon operation in the mid 70s and became manufacturing engineering manager during the 1980s. Robinson and Grimes both retired from TI in 2000.
Select a question to view the response.
CA: Can you each talk about how you got into the semiconductor industry. Just a brief bio up to the time you joined TI.
JR: TI was my first job out of academia. I received a PhD in materials science at Argon National Lab as well as Cornell University. After a post doctorate I decided I wanted to go into the industrial world and joined TI in 1973 in a wafer fab operation and I worked in the wafer fab for about three years as an engineer and had an opportunity to move into applied research in the materials organization of TI and did so in 1976. That's how I got into the semiconductor industry.
MG: Mine was similar. Got a Masters Degree in physical chemistry and as soon as I started looking for work I was very interested in electronics and of course had heard of TI. This was in 1969 and it was an interesting area and I also knew that TI had such a good reputation in the area I decided I would interview with TI and consequently I went to work in the materials group. First of all I was working with crystal growth as an engineer and we were doing some development work and later went into the silicon wafering part of the operation and then in subsequent years worked in all the aspects of silicon materials.
CA: Do you know about the history of TI's crystal growth before you joined?
MG: TI when they acquired the transistor patent rights from Bell Labs started playing with growing crystals to fabricate the transistors. My understanding is that that was in 1952. That was germanium crystals. Later they saw the need to go to silicon and they had a very aggressive program to produce the transistor market as well as the technology. This was all done on Lemmon Avenue here in Dallas. They started out with germanium and did grown junction and developed their own crystal growers and were really ahead of the market and ahead of the technology industry-wide at that point. Then they decided to try to develop a market so they designed a transistor radio with IDEA [Industrial Development Engineering Associates] and the Regency radio was born. But it used germanium transistors. That was about 1955. It wasn't a raging success but it certainly got everybody's attention and started the ball rolling.
JR: In the early days TI had to develop their own infrastructure for materials, everything from silicon to photomasks simply because there was no industry infrastructure available external to the companies who were starting in the business. So TI had a major effort in research and development and applied engineering on the technologies associated with producing materials, starting with polysilicon and ending up in wafer processing. Simply because it was not available anywhere and if you wanted business to grow you had to do it yourself rather than wait for some other company entrepreneur to come in and take hold of those technologies. And that was all pretty much in place by the time I entered the materials operation.
MG: Likewise it was when I went to work as well. From what I understand of the history, they started developing the polysilicon technology to make purified silicon. You could purify germanium fairly easily but silicon was another animal and they wanted to go in the direction of silicon because of the fact that it worked at higher temperatures and higher frequencies. So they thought that was the way to go from the start and they developed their own methods of producing polysilicon to single crystal and to growing crystals and wafering…manufacturing the transistors. This was all in the late 50s, early 60s.
JR: By the time I entered TI was growing single crystals by the Czochralski method and was also producing float zone material for different applications. I don't even know if anybody produces float zone material anymore. Those were the two materials, for ultra high purity applications, and maybe higher voltage applications for power transistors. Then the float zone material was applied to that for those products.
CA: Do you recall any names of individuals who were at the forefront of silicon crystal growth at TI.
MG: Well, Mark Shepherd [who later became TI's CEO] actually grew crystals from my understanding.
JR: In fact, that was where a significant number of leaders of TI came through -- from the materials organization. One of the founders of a lot of technology in TI was a guy named Fred Oshner who later became a manager in the research department.
MG: They hired a guy by the name of Gordon Teal. He came from Bell Labs as an engineer, and he had experience in crystal growth so he helped develop it at TI as well. A lot of the early technology came from Bell Labs, from the patent rights that they bought.
CA: Later on, didn't Monsanto acquire some technology from Siemens?
MG: Siemens developed a method of generating high purity polysilicon. They had a technique for doing that. They developed it and licensed it to several people and I think they did in fact license it to Monsanto.
JR: In the later years, in the 70s, Jack Kilby was involved in some of the materials, not directly in the wafer section of silicon materials but in some of the more exotic applications of silicon materials. TI developed a very significant technology in polycrystalline production after licensing the Siemens method for generating high purity polycrystal silicon. And the technology was quite novel and produced granular silicon. That technology was applied for some number of years internally and later was licensed to Hemlock Semiconductor. Also a similar product, using a different process, was developed by Ethyl Corporation in the 80s for generating polysilicon. But TI was integrated from polysilicon all the way through to polished wafers for wafer fab applications, including epi. Epitaxial layers were put in single crystals in many cases because the science in understanding of the substrates may have been there but the ability to execute a commercial process to generate some of the purity required wasn't always there. So epitaxial layers were used in the very beginning, especially in the pre-integrated circuit days for the use and application of npn [and] pnp transistors and diodes.
CA: When you joined TI, what was your immediate challenge in the first couple of years?
MG: There were a number of challenges (laughs). One was just getting crystal yields to a point that it was profitable. And trying to maintain the integrity of the crystals in such a way that they did not effect the devices that were being built at that time. This was in about 1969. Of course the purity of the polysilicon wasn't tremendously understood because the tools necessary to measure the purity were not in place. So you never really knew exactly what you were dealing with but you knew at times that there were impurity influences going on that were affecting the device yields. But you may not know exactly what they were.
There were things like carbon and oxygen which were just beginning to be measured. Then there were a lot of mechanical issues too. How to make a wafer flat so you could print on it was not well understood. There was a lot [that was known] from the glass industry but it didn't really seem to apply well to silicon, it was a different animal. And how you etch material…understanding all the properties of silicon in terms of its structure…what was the best structure to build on, the orientation…the cleanliness wasn't well understood. The rooms that we worked in were dirty compared to today. I mean they were filthy compared to today (laughs). I remember we worked in a basement for a long time to try to polish wafers and a lot of times it would rain cement out of the ceiling onto the polishing equipment. We didn't worry too much about it, as long as it was shiny (laughs). But as the competition built the need for higher yields in both the materials and devices became a real pressure point to improve quality. For a while it was just get the product out, but after a while it had to have a certain amount of quality and the quality became the major issue and major push.
John mentioned float zone which was growing on a pedestal. It had certain purities that couldn't be achieved in Czochralski type crystal growing. But always Czochralski was the major method of growing crystals. We started out in '69 [when] the largest diameter was an inch and a half. Although we did grow crystals down to three quarters of an inch, half inch crystals for some applications. In about 1972 or so two inch became quite prevalent, and the next largest diameter was 100 mm in about 1975 or so.
CA: I wanted to talk about the size diameters as a separate topic, so first can I ask John to talk about your challenges.
JR: When I joined the materials department from the wafer fab I had a fairly unique perspective because we in the wafer fab would always blame all of our device failures on the materials people (laughs). I would go over to see the engineers in the materials department knowing that I had yield problems because of materials and walk away convinced that there were never any materials problems whatsoever. So when I joined materials, I joined it in an unusual project which was to grow single crystal silicon continuously. By that time TI had developed granular polysilicon which then afforded the potential opportunity, I would say, to feed polysilicon into a melt and pull a crystal simultaneously and if one was successful you could model a condition where that would be a lower cost silicon material. And we were successful in developing to some level a crystal puller that could grow two inch ingots in a semi-continuous manner but what became apparent in that project was that it really was not a cost effective and practical solution to low cost silicon. Simply because the dynamics of crystal growth failure accumulated over time and consequently you really weren't able to grow continuously because you'd have interruptions due to crystal failure, associated with a myriad of different things, one of which was that the process of concentrating carbon in the melt would subsequently generate failures in the crystal at some point.
And that project was also integrated with a JPL [Jet Propulsion Lab] project where TI had to grow low cost Czochralski crystals because at that time, which was 1976, we'd just experienced the oil embargo from the Middle East. Oil prices went through the ceiling and the government was really pushing a big initiative to have alternative energy sources. We all know what happened to that. That project really lasted for about a year and then it became obvious that the funding for that was going to have to far exceed what the company thought it would take to really be successful on a commercial scale, so I moved into an applied engineering role in understanding the dynamics of oxygen and carbon and crystals and subsequently into the devices. The focal point for all this work was to understand how to make high yields in dynamic RAM products which then became the driver for technology for silicon for the next several decades. As Mike said, the challenges were getting the attributes necessary to meet the demands of the wafer fab in a cost effective manner.
MG: I might add a couple of things. From the beginning TI built their own crystal growing equipment up until about 1972. Most of it was RF heated, using radio frequency to heat the graphite. And then they built their own float zone equipment, all of which was designed and built internally. Then in 1972 they got away from that and went to commercial suppliers of equipment because there was such a pressure on equipment for building devices. As it turned out we helped develop a lot of…worked with a lot of these suppliers and helped develop them, like Kayex, Hampco and Varian back in those days.
I might add another thing. When I first went to work the prevalent thought about single crystal silicon, was that if it was single crystal, it was perfect, because it wouldn't be single if it wasn't perfect. And through the 1970s single crystal silicon was studied so well that that was not the case and there where all kinds of factors that determined the quality of the crystal and there was actually, I'd say, not an evolution, but a step function improvement in crystal through the 70s both in purity and properties that were able to be produced.
JR: The defect structure was the major revelation and the effect of the defect structure on devices. But there was just an overwhelming amount of knowledge generated, as Mike said, all centered from carbon, oxygen and intrinsic defects.
MG: And it was just not understood in the late 60s and early 70s. But there were a lot of measurement tools developed in that period that were really helpful to the materials technologist to then understand how to make better silicon crystals. I think this had a big impact on the yield of the devices, especially as devices became more complicated.
CA: You said up until '72 TI made its own crystal growing equipment. What happened after that; was that technology sold off or shut down?
JR: By the 70s there was an external infrastructure for crystal growing, Varian was one, Siltec designed their own crystal pullers for their own application and would sell those. Kayex Hampco, which I think came from a hamburger processing-equipment company, produced crystal pullers. So the evolution of the diameters required fully redesigned equipment.
MG: Leybold Heraeus was also building some equipment in Europe at that time. They were filling the European need basically. All of these companies were building equipment that was good, but I think they worked with their customers in such a way that it made them build better equipment and a lot of development was done after they sold a lot of the equipment on the floor.
JR: It's one thing…to run a crystal in the lab. It will work in the lab, but you take it out and try to replicate it and have very high utilization rates and low failures, that's a different matter.
CA: Let's talk about the wafer diameter changes. What challenges did that bring?
MG: There was always pressure on the next diameter. The perception was the larger the diameter the more devices you could build on a wafer and that would cut down on cost and increase yield as well, because a lot of devices around the edge of the wafer were defective. So there's always pressure to develop bigger and bigger crystals and wafers from the fabs. But at the same time they wanted better and better quality in the crystal in the wafers themselves.
JR: It was like a relay race. One problem is maybe defects in crystals. So you'd solve that on, say 4 inch, or 100 mm diameter crystals… then new geometries come, so the flatness requirements change, so you have to have a flatter wafer. Then a different printing process comes along where you print bigger, larger areas. And the steppers, as they change, drive flatness requirements for the silicon wafer producers. Generally the initial problem was related to the bulk properties, oxygen and defects but then…Mike and his engineering people were able to get really ahead of those kinds of problems. But the flatness problems…they would come in and almost obsolete a whole set of equipment for polishing, grinding, lapping because it was extremely difficult to meet those demands for larger diameter flatness control from the existing equipment.
CA: When did it really start to get difficult, from what size onwards?
MG: When we had 2 inch, most of the photomasks were like contact printing and it was pretty forgiving. If you had a wafer that was not particularly flat you could actually bend the wafer and make it conform to what you were looking for. Later with photolithography, that was a different ball game. And of course with vacuum chucks and this sort of thing they were able to use wafers that maybe were a little more forgiving. But when you are talking about smaller diameters it wasn't such a big issue. But as you got into larger diameters it became a big issue …ways to measure, how do you measure because everyone had a little different take on how to measure flatness.
JR: Initial flatness measurements were absolutely archaic where you'd use glass plates and use interference fringes to measure flatness and actually have to visually count these things. It was unbelievable. The first diameters that really accentuated the flatness problem was the later stages of the 100 mm and it was driven by DRAMs and the geometries at that time, 4K and 16K DRAMs were the initial type products produced.
MG: John mentioned the equipment. What was interesting was that when you went to larger diameters you were in a whole new development phase…and especially Czochralski crystal, you would have to have larger geometries for everything. Your heaters, your graphite, your crucible or quartz, the equipment itself, the power requirement, the amount of polysilicon you were utilizing. All of these were requirements to get a reasonable yield and all had to be developed…a lot of time with people who were suppliers who weren't particularly interested in your problem. They made products for something else. I know in the early days the graphite sources mostly made graphite for the steel industry. And so it was not particularly pure and they didn't particularly care if you liked what you were getting from them or not. And so they'd say this is what it is, and if you like it fine, if you don't want it, that's tough (laughs). So you'd have to go in and develop with some of these suppliers and it was a continuous battle to develop with them your requirements for the silicon industry. Eventually they came around and there were some specialized groups that supplied the silicon industry and did a great job eventually. But the pressure had to really come from the people who were consuming these products, not from the supplier. He was not very interested at first.
But you were fighting that group…you were working with larger diameters. Then you had these other requirements imposed on you and all at the same time the wafer fab, the people manufacturing devices, were asking for larger and larger diameters. They were always looking forward to the next generation of diameter of equipment. So then you had to have a team as well going out and looking at potential equipment…and the capital that you would [need] to supply their needs. So it was really a chess game back in those days, especially in the late 70s and of course throughout the 80s.
CA: Did the pressure for larger wafers come from the top down? Did the CEO say we want bigger wafers because it's more cost effective?
MG: They really didn't want to build a new fab on the current diameter. When they built a fab they would want the next generation.
JR: It had to do with what the engineering capability internally was in terms of building fab equipment. At one time TI built all their own semi-automated wafer fab equipment and once there was a capability both internally and externally for a larger diameter. Then as the demand -- either driven by capacity or demand for existing product or development of a new product -- came about then the diameter would shift upward and that process dribbled down through the silicon wafer manufacturers and all the suppliers in the supply chain.
CA: Did you guys have much sway in the argument?
JR: Very little. Well, really, almost no sway other than we could discuss with them the material characteristics that you might expect from a diameter increase but by the time that was all going on the industry had developed enough that there were multiple producers of silicon wafers by now so if you weren't going to produce the next diameter for them they would go to someone else.
MG: We didn't operate in a vacuum either since TI was so vertically integrated. We knew what they were up to. They would call us in very early. Also we would supply them with prototypes so they could do some testing on the equipment. So it was a hand in glove relationship. We knew what was coming but a lot of times it was a matter of resources and what fire you put out next.
JR: The device producers had an economic model. They were all generated by marketing, for what they could sell the chips for and the diameter drove the cost. And they rolled that into cost calculations using dollars per square inch of silicon to determine the economics. In every case though, as you raised the diameter of silicon wafers, the dollars per square inch went up instead of down because there was no opportunity to engineer-out [the cost] through shrink geometries. Instead of building a 4 inch wafer on equipment and then being able to build 6-inch wafers on the same equipment you had to replace all the equipment because it's not compatible, whereas a wafer fab could drop their cost by shrink geometries on a given diameter.
MG: What was going up exponentially during that period was not only diameter, but the requirements. They would not only want 100 mm, go from a 2 inch to a 100 mm, to 150 mm, they also wanted the wafer to be flatter, cleaner, have better crystal characteristics and all this. And they put pressure on us again back to our suppliers. A lot of the time the chemicals we used were very impure to say the least. And so then we would have to put pressure on them to develop ways to get a lot of the impurities out of their product and a lot of times they were very resistant to that. Some of this was bought outside of TI, some was bought inside TI. And of course the more pure the consumables usually translates into cost. And a lot of times they did not want to pass any of these costs along to the device manufacturer. It was so much per square inch at 100 mm then it should be the same for 150 mm. Never mind the fact that it was flatter, cleaner, had better crystal characteristics and was more difficult to produce.
JR: When you asked earlier about our role with the customers in driving those decisions for diameter expansion, the information we gave them hopefully was good information about the cost structure they would have on silicon materials whenever they scaled the diameters up. So rather than using linear scaling or just using flat scaling models from one diameter to another the scaling went up as well. That helped them, but it didn't deter them because the payoff in the end was in the chip side of the business.
CA: With the transition from 8 to 12 inch wafers there was a lot of industry discussion and consensus. Going back to earlier diameter transitions, was there any such collaboration?
MG: There was always various takes on, for instance, diameter…accepting what was a standard. There were very few standards in the early days. For instance, IBM, who at that time was a customer of ours -- we sold a lot of material outside of TI -- was always a quarter inch over the standard. They were one and a quarter, two and a quarter, three and a quarter diameter. Well, you had to tool up especially for them if you made any product for them. And then just subtle differences in diameter would sometimes cause you to scrap wafers that otherwise were perfectly good wafers but maybe they wouldn't fit some printing equipment or some of the other tooling that was used in the wafer fab.
JR: My perception is that there was not industry collaboration on diameter. It was "who can do what when" to get the lowest cost chip, rather than a collaboration.
CA: When did you first notice this change, where everybody started to say we have to standardize?
JR: I think it happened in the 200 mm to 12 inch transition. I don't think it was before that.
MG: SEMI was a big player in trying to help establish [standards], but for some reason there was still a lot of resistance across the industry. It was like, "this is what I want and you give it to me" kind of thing. But we did see some standardization attempts on 100 mm, but it seemed like all of our customers had a different take on it. If you just take the diameter, was it plus or minus 10 mils or was it plus or minus 5 mils, plus or minus 15 mils (laughs). Usually the tighter the better but there were several attempts across the industry to try to get it standardized but it seemed like wafer fabs were just never really real interested in doing that. Eventually it started coming about though, in the late 70s, probably with the 200 mm. Because the equipment to measure flatness had to have certain tolerances as well. You couldn't just take any diameter into (the equipment).
JR: And also because the end user of silicon wafers had a SEMI standard to go by as well that was developed by the standard committee. Since that started occurring there was a standardization but there were also always exceptions to those standardizations. If one of the producers didn't like this specification, it didn't matter whether it was there or not, they would write [their own]. The 200 mm was probably the stage where the wafer had a standard. It had a standard thickness-uniformity, there was a standard measurement, it had a standard for radius of the edge, some standards for flatness.
MG: I remember the 100 mm had "standards" (in quotes) but if you looked at it closely it was like 10 different standards. It was not like a standard.
JR: It was what the engineer in those different users preferred so that was what generated those specifications.
CA: Can I get an idea of your career progressions, from the late 70s to early 80s, what roles did you play at TI and what you were involved with?
JR: I started out as I said as a development engineer and had a small development group in the silicon operation. After about two years of doing that I became operations manager with the silicon department…the division manager divided the silicon producing entity up into two separate entities, one to produce wafers for MOS customers and one for bipolar customers. And I was operations manager for MOS production for about three years until they were recombined and from 1981 through '95 I was the manager of the silicon operation.
CA: A follow up question, what were the different requirements for wafers for MOS vs. bipolar?
JR: Just about everything. Diameter control was one. Flatness was another. The defect characteristics, oxygen characteristics were probably the other major factor at that time. Later it evolved to particulates and surface metals, as Mike has mentioned…[but] in the very beginning it was flatness and crystal defect uniformity.
CA: When the operations were recombined was that because bipolar was going away?
John: No, it was recombined for economic reasons because the other way was just completely wasteful management. It was a noble experiment but it required two engineering managers, two planning managers, two finance managers and all this so putting them back together made more sense than having dual costs.
CA: So Mike, what was your role in the late 70s, early 80s?
MG: I started out as a line engineer and kind of worked my way through various departments, all of silicon crystal growth. We call it wafer shaping, sawing and lapping and polishing…we did some epitaxial work, we called it advanced products, and some radiation hardened devices at that time. We did some preliminary steps, it wasn't the finished product. So I kind of worked my way through all of those entities and became engineering manager in the mid 70s and stayed in engineering most of my career. Did some development work…although a lot of times we did development on the fly, we did break out some of that but a lot of times it ended up being part of production. Later I ended up in both manufacturing and engineering. I was manufacturing engineering manager for a number of years in the late 80s, then we divided up, before MEMC came on the scene, we had just the TI facility and then later I became manager of that facility.
CA: Before we move on to the 80s, anything about the 70s that we missed?
JR: There was one thing, and this had a big influence on TI internal silicon and that was the periodic shortages of polysilicon. And those periodic shortages further drove the wheel of upper management at TI to become totally self-sufficient in polysilicon because we'd had bad experiences in the 70s from polysilicon shortages. The shortages also created a huge growth in polysilicon capacity around the world…in the 80s. So it was feast or famine sometimes in this business and the famine always drives excess in capacity. So in the early 80s there was a huge excess of polysilicon capacity that took some time before it was utilized.
MG: John's right. There was a big scare of supply of polysilicon and that's one reason why TI got involved in granular polysilicon and in fact built a plant during the 70s to produce the material as an alternative to the Siemens type process of producing polysilicon. It turned out to be a lot more difficult to grow crystal from it that we anticipated although I think the technology has come a long way since then and it's pretty well accepted as a source of polysilicon material. But also trying to get the cost down was a big factor because [in terms of] a material going in to the devices, silicon is one of the largest cost factors in producing a device. And still is. As John said, there was a lot of emphasis on energy too and you could produce granular polysilicon with less energy so there was a real push to make that happen and they were willing to invest a lot of money in it.
CA: How did attitudes changes in the 1980s with regard to wanting to do everything in house?
JR: There were some changes. There were some products [that] we internally were not as good [as manufacturing] as other producers and we would have to play catch up…part of the products were purchased externally. A lot of the Japanese wafer fabs [owned by] TI initially started buying all of their silicon from Japanese suppliers so that was a factor as well because a lot of the growth in silicon consumption at TI during the 80s was through the expansion of fabs in Japan. And so that drove a shift in strategy from our internal silicon operation and led to a focusing of our energies internally to focus on expanding into the Japanese market. Always during the 80s there was a battle with other suppliers because here was the silicon business for TI [which] was a rich plum for anybody to have.
CA: Can you give some examples of specific equipment or processes that you thought weren't worth doing internally anymore?
MG: One thing, we started getting a lot of competition, as John said, from Asia for supplying polysilicon as opposed to producing it internally. So it was an economic issue that had to be addressed. Eventually, we had a Siemens-type polysilicon plant and we eventually closed it and then we were using our granulated polysilicon material but we eventually shut it down as well in the 80s, for a lot of reasons. And we eventually got completely out of the polysilicon business because we could actually get higher quality pure polysilicon at a lower cost by buying in externally. Of course that's the kiss of death if you are an internal supplier.
JR: And by the way there was a huge glut in supply. You could name your own price for polysilicon.
MG: The same companies that built polysilicon plants also started making wafers so it became a huge economic issue around producing silicon wafers because they needed to sell their product. If they couldn't sell the polysilicon they weren't [going to] sell the wafers so they put tremendous pressure on internal suppliers, people like Motorola who had an internal supply of silicon. A great deal of pressure was put on them to get out of the business, Delco was another one. I'm sure Western Electric had an internal supply as well. They eventually went out of the [silicon] business. They could get higher quality, lower cost wafers from competitors so there was a huge swing during the 80s.
JR: There also was a transition…the capacity for polysilicon at TI, let's talk the Siemens process, was old capacity. I mean in the mid 80s it was probably 20 years old. By the time a company like Hemlock who'd use new technology expands their plant, then the old technology can't keep up economically, or the quality can't keep up either, because all the knowledge is integrated into that new facility. So that was a big factor in the Siemens side of polysilicon. The granular poly was a similar situation although the economics of scale came into play since basically a polysilicon refinery is a big, huge chemical plant. And economics of scale are extremely important. So internally…I remember 50 metric tons a year was our capacity, or 55 metric tons. And our consumption was maybe 60 metric tons. But Hemlock's capacity was 1,500 metric tons and so the economies of scale, in effect, priced our internal capability out of the market and at the same time the demand for wafer prices were going down then the only way we could do it was to take advantage of the cost reduction through polysilicon.
CA: When you said the Siemens was old, you don't mean outdated?
JR: I'll give you an example. The TI chambers were maybe three feet in diameter for making Siemens poly. The chambers in some of these new plants are like 30 and 40 feet in diameter so you get huge scaling factors that save both power and labor.
MG: What we are finding today is there is a marriage between the two types of processes to make Czochralski crystal because it's a perfect marriage in that you can put the chunks of the polysilicon from the Siemens process… then you can fill in with the granular material and that way you don't have to have such a large crucible to melt down and to grow the crystal.
CA: Could you talk about the eventual transition to buying silicon from outside?
JR: There was a transition where…in the 80s we had a major initiative to penetrate the Japanese market. Part of it was economics and part of it was pride as well. So we were very successful in doing that. We at one time supplied well over 50 percent of the silicon to TI's Japanese operations. The problem was the economies of scale. We were not necessarily large enough to have the back up R&D that other producers had simply because it was their major business. They were silicon suppliers, they weren't chip makers. TI was a chip maker that had its own internal supply of silicon. It was a huge difference. The primary business for TI was chips, not silicon. As we were able to keep up with technology internally with the resources we had it was a huge advantage for TI to have an internal producer because we were extremely cost effective. We had the best customer service of anybody, we had the best cycle times. We did a great job in serving the customers cost wise as well as all other service measures. So through the 80s that was not really a problem. In fact our business grew because we invested in an expitaxial operation and that made a great deal of difference to us economically and it still does for silicon producers. And so through the 80s was really an expansion. I'm trying to think of our revenue numbers, but they tripled. From the time when I first started managing that business they went up by 3X in the 80s; wafer sales and epi. We expanded significantly during that time. And we in fact expanded to the limit of the capacity of the buildings we had.
CA: You said TI invested in an epi operation. What was the strategy there?
JR: There were some MOS devices that started up on epitaxial wafers but that soon died simply because DRAM economics wouldn't allow you to use epitaxial wafers. But later generations of MOS devices were made using epitaxial wafers and I think the way TI designed the chip, epitaxial wafers made the chip surface more economical. In other words you got more chips per square inch so that drove the epitaxial wafer business.
MG: But we were always in the epitaxial business as a materials supplier. Even in the early days back in the 60s we had what we called pancake reactors. We'd put expitaxial layers on silicon mainly for our silicon small signal devices but that technology was not good enough for later generations. In the late 80s we thought DRAMs were going to have to be built on epi. I think everybody thought that, so in the early 90s there was a huge ramp up in epitaxial capacity across the industry. Everyone thought the latest generation of DRAMs with the small geometry they had and the quality they were going to require was going to be requiring epitaxial wafers. And as it turned out that was not the case. And they also thought the yields were going to be low…so both were going to drive huge demand for epitaxial wafers. But it never really came about. The wafer fabs found ways around all that.
JR: They might have started out with epitaxial wafers but after the fab got started they started designing out the epi because of the price difference between epi and polished wafers.
CA: So you expanded in the 80s. When did the ramp down begin and what was the thinking behind that?
JR: The expansion occurred really up through the late 90s in one form or another. The wafer expansion stopped because the building was full. We could not add more crystal pullers or anything or wafer processing. But I think the big transition was whenever the 200 mm product lines came along. We needed more space because all of 125 and 150 mm wafers filled up our existing operation and we needed significant change in space to put in 200 mm capacity and…at that time the company probably felt that…there is only so much capital we have and if we expand wafering then that consumes capital we might spend on chip manufacturing.
MG: And it was going to be significant capital for a building and equipment that was going to be required and then that was also being pushed by the 200 mm and the larger diameters because all the equipment we had was not going to accommodate [larger diameters].
JR: We could make almost trivial amounts of 200 mm wafers, enough for samples, but not anything for commercial use. So 200 mm expansion now required a whole new building, a whole new factory and that was probably the driver of it. TI decided that rather than expand that way to go out of the silicon wafer business through a joint venture.
MG: TI was really reluctant to get totally out of the silicon materials business but it was a real capital issue.
JR: A capital issue more than anything else because internally we were the low cost producer and we priced our products against the open market and we were the low cost producer as well as the lowest price to our customers and so had a very nice profit margin and reduced prices along the way each year as well.
CA: Did you ever sell to external customers?
JR: IBM and a few were our last external customers. That stopped in the late 70s because the internal demand required our full capacity. So there was a phase out of external sales of polished wafers and epitaxial wafers.
MG: When I first came to TI we probably had 50 or 60 external customers all over the industry.
JR: There was competition…here are TI's competitors in chips and they are buying wafers internally and competing for capacity which was scarce for wafers. After a while it doesn't look right, it doesn't make sense to do that.
CA: The conventional wisdom is that the internal supplier cannot be as efficient as an external supplier that focuses on one thing. How were you able to be so efficient?
MG: Good management (laughs).
JR: As it turns out we had some of the best negotiating cost structure anybody could imagine for polysilicon supply, for crucibles, graphite. We had outstanding cost structure on our raw materials. We had extremely good yield performance and we also managed with less people. So you take all those together and we had cost structure that was outstanding.
MG: By any comparison we had fewer engineers per billing dollar than any other manufacturer that was standalone. Of course we had the TI overhead to deal with…we were not given any advantage by being part of TI, but we really had a good team and we really had some good cost structures as John mentioned.
JR: We did have advantages but they were advantages that at the end were hard to see because we were treated basically as any supplier in bidding for products.
CA: Did the decision to get out of the silicon wafer business go right up to the CEO level?
JR: I don't know who stimulated the first discussions of it, but the final decision was made at the top level, the CEO of the company.
CA: Then you started looking for a buyer or a partner?
JR: What actually happened, we designed a big expansion project and we needed several hundred million dollars of capital and I think once the CEO of the company saw me present that two or three times to him he finally said, "We don't have that money but we need 200 mm silicon wafers," so the logical way to get that is to form a joint venture with a company that has expertise in 200 mm.
CA: So you didn't actually sell off the operation, you just entered into a joint venture on 200 mm, and that was with MEMC?
JR: Yes
CA: And that company was called?
JR: That company was called MEMC Southwest. It was started up in 1997. The majority owner was MEMC.
MG: And during that period was the ramp up to 200 mm so as wafer fabs were brought on for 200 mm their requirements for the smaller diameters started dropping off so that it either had to be supplied by the joint venture or from an outside source. It turned out it went both ways. It had to be brought on quickly to keep up with TI's requirements.
JR: In 1995 there was chaos in the silicon semiconductor industry in terms of volume demands. '94 was the planning year for this joint venture and things were just going through the ceiling in terms of demand and projected demand and the same in '95 and '96 and then about the time we got the plant completed, in '97, '98, the market fell out of the semiconductor business.
MG: They were projecting an almost exponential growth.
JR: The exact numbers were the industry had doubled in the three years prior to 1995 and the forecast was to double again by the year 2000. Somewhere in there that didn't happen and about the time we completed the 200 mm factory and we are starting it up the demand had evaporated for 200 mm and was evaporating for smaller diameters as well.
CA: What impact did that have on the operation?
JR: The decision to keep the plant open was there and that remained a decision that was driven by the long term and you suffer through.
CA: What happened to the TI captive operations for 150 mm?
JR: That was part of the joint venture. That operation grew nicely through '97, '98. When the downturn hit in the late 90s that operation suffered as well.
MG: And slowly TI disengaged from the joint venture in that they allowed it to be operated as a separate entity and we ended up having to compete very succinctly with the outside market, which is understandable.
John Robinson and Mike Grimes were interviewed November 18, 2004 by Craig Addison of SEMI.


text:
2005-06 Men's Basketball
Bluffton 78, Notre Dame 66
Beavers move to 7-1 with 78-66 victory over Notre Dame College
By: Molly Burnell, sports information assistant
December 21, 2005
The Beavers started slowly as the Falcons took a 5-0 lead early in the contest. Two Scott Bergman (Elmore/Woodmore) free throws finally broke the ice and put Bluffton on the score board at the 16:17 mark. Tight defense by both teams kept the Falcons in control until Eric Sweet (Ottawa/Ottawa Glandorf) knocked down a 17-foot jumper and gave the Beavers the lead 6-5. Bluffton and Notre Dame both continued to work hard on the defensive end and connect on key shots. The Beavers held an eight-point advantage with less than a minute to play in the opening stanza when freshman Colt Cunningham (Powell/Worthington Christian) drained a three-pointer to push the Bluffton lead to 11 points (35-24) just before halftime.
The Beavers jumped out to an 18-point lead at the 16-minute mark as Sweet, Bergman, and Michael Anthony (Ohio City/Delphos St. Johns) combined for seven points before the Falcons found the basket. Notre Dame battled back and cut the Bluffton lead to eight points when Kenny Burkes connected on a jumper midway through the second half. Over the next six minutes the Beavers scored nine points, including another Cunningham three-pointer and four points from junior Ricky Reucher (Toledo/Central Catholic). During the last two minutes of action the Falcons connected on five shots from beyond the arc while sending Bluffton to the charity stripe 12 times. Senior Joe Duzan (Dublin/Dublin Scioto) connected on 5-8 from the line and junior Tom Heil (Stow/Archbishop Hoban) nailed all four of his attempts to help Bluffton improve to 7-1 on the season.
Leading Bluffton on the evening was freshman Colt Cunningham who scored a career-high
17 points, including 5-5 from downtown. Bergman finished the night with 13 points,
five rebounds and a team-high six assists. Sweet recorded his eighth career double-double
as he contributed ten points and pulled down a team-high ten rebounds. Tom Heil was
the other Beaver with double digits as he scored a career-high ten points in the contest. Anthony
added nine points, five boards and three assists.
Bluffton will return to action on Thursday, December 29 when it hosts Indiana University East in the nightcap of the eighth annual McDonald's of Bluffton Holiday Tournament. Tip-off is scheduled for 8 p.m.


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SAN FRANCISCO — Civic officials joined Arab and Muslim leaders to denounce what they call offensive anti-Islamic ads that will appear on 10 buses for the next month in San Francisco.
The ads were paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative and feature photos of Osama bin Laden, the Times Square car bomber, and the alleged gunman in the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings, accompanied by quotes about warfare and weapons that the group links to Islam.
At least one of the ads contains a quote attributed to the militant Islamic group Hamas that reads: ''Killing Jews is worship that brings us closer to Allah.''
Officials said the ads were racist. ''These offensive ads serve no purpose than to denigrate our city's Arab and Muslim communities,'' District Attorney George Gascon said on Monday.
Mayor Ed Lee added, ''San Francisco is a city that celebrates its diversity, and hateful speech and discrimination against our Arab and Muslim communities will never be tolerated.''
Board of Supervisors president David Chiu was expected to introduce a resolution on Tuesday condemning the ads.
Similar ads have appeared on transit systems in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Portland, Ore. The group ran similar ads in San Francisco in August and has also posted ads in New York City.
San Francisco officials believe a First Amendment court decision protecting freedom of speech means it must accept the advertising.
Associated Press


text:
05/31/2010 (10:00PM - 11:00PM) (Monday) : A VOLUNTEER IS MURDERED AND THE DETECTIVES BECOME TRAPPED IN A HAZE OF DANGER AND POLITICAL SCANDALS. BENJAMIN BRATT GUEST STARS.
Detectives Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto) and Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson) discover the disfigured remains of a man with the word "FED" written across his bare chest. Missing a crucial piece of evidence, the detectives decide to retrace the steps of the victim to hone in on the challenging investigation. After the victim�s perplexing past emerges and the list of suspects multiplies, the detectives find themselves dealing with more than just dirty politics.


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Yeah, but Microsoft is evil and everyone knows you are dumb as door nails if you cheat with autocomplete and code suggestions in a modern IDE rather than type everything yourself
True... much better to just type something that looks plausible and then run it and find out that you left out the 's' from the end and now you get to fix it. Not to mention spending all of your time googling because god forbid there would actually be real documentation.
I really miss auto-complete
You know the parent post was actually joking right?
> I'd have a hard time believing that this could be faster than someone using something like autocomplete as done in
autocomplete was around long before
Sure, but he was merely offering an example that most people here are likely at least somewhat familiar with. He never made any claims to its originality. I mean, if I was making a car analogy, I'd likely reference a car that people here know, rather than the earliest one that exhibited the traits I was referencing, just because the purpose of the statement is solely to supplement understanding of a separate topic.
The GP's comment makes more sense if you add "... and get off my lawn!" to the end of it.
Sure, but he was merely offering an example that most people here are likely at least somewhat familiar with. He never made any claims to its originality. I mean, if I was making a car analogy, I'd likely reference a car that people here know, rather than the earliest one that exhibited the traits I was referencing, just because the purpose of the statement is solely to supplement understanding of a separate topic.
Autocomplete is fairly common though. It would be like referencing a specific car when talking about something that is common to all or most cars - "driving using tires, as used on Fords" may as well be "driving using tires, as used on cars".
Auto-complete is not so common as tires on cars, however. Every car out there has tires on it, whereas I'd be willing to wager that FAR less than half of the tools used for writing code feature auto-complete (there are loads of bare-bones editors that get as far as syntax coloring but don't get around to featuring auto-complete). That the most popular ones happen to have it while hundreds of smaller products don't would lend more credence to the idea that it's useful to name a specific one, rather than refe
I haven't RTFA, but I'd guess his biggest gains came from scripting things that were annoying to say. If you invested the same amount of effort in automating things that you would normally type, you can get very big productivity gains.
My father is a (retired) software developer. When he was a kid he lost both of his hands in an accident. So how does he type? By holding a pen between his arms. How does he code efficiently? Lots and lots of domain specific vi macros. For example, with less than 10 key presse
#snort# #ugh-phptt# gah gak #thwip# #snrgle# #cmhmm#...
There. Your routine is done.
To be honest, I find it moronic that parsers don't provide an API for code editors, as well as a transform from syntax trees back into source code. It's quite retarding, the obsession humans have with textual glyphs, and the limitations they accept as programmers.
Imagine if your
Imagine if your
.o object files were more malleable than text, now realize that they are, but you haven't developed the tools to do so.
I'm on a horse.
Why would you (routinely) want to directly edit your object files? What exactly are you trying to do that a non-experimental compiler can't do better?
If you watch the video, you'll notice his is actually using autocomplete and even seems to use voice commands (as far as I can understand them from hearing) specifically for autocomplete.
> while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
Ah, I see you've selected "a lawyer enters the room" as your stopping condition. Should I be suspicious of the code in that harmlessly named function?
Should I be suspicious of the code in that harmlessly named function?
Not really. The whole scope ceases to be a problem when vanish(puff_of_logic) gets called at the end.
It actually stands for Venom Incarnate, of course.
Anyway it's about time someone figure out the key to voice recognition. (I have known it for some time of course but obviously no one listens to me.) Computers have a very difficult time understanding natural human language, but humans dont have any problem at all making up verbal codes which are much more structured and regular, and a computer should have a much easier time understanding those.
the editor of the beast
I get some RSI as well sometimes and then I run out to buy some habanero sauce
It has some chemical that you find in prescription drugs that treat the condition
So... what? Do you just chug it?
I believe it's intended to be administered as an enema . . .
You might be able to convince some frat boys into trying it . . . they're already doing it with alcohol.
So how long until he gets laryngitis and has to start typing again?
If you watch the video, he discusses that. He does about 40-60% of his coding with this system and he does keep voice-strain in mind (in fact, he was sucking on a hard candy during the demonstration to keep his voice from drying out). You may not do 100% of your work in it, but just imagine if you could cut the amount of typing you do down to about half of normal? Suddenly, you're spreading some of the load to your voice, keeping either from being excessively stressed.
It's best to spread out the load: 1/3 with your fingers, 1/3 with your voice, and 1/3 with your dick.
How long after that will he get carpal tunnel and have to start speaking again?
Switch to a brain controlled interface. I've long been waiting for a BCI wearable computer. With thought macros etc:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3371153&cid=42543331 [slashdot.org]
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3478821&cid=42956909 [slashdot.org]
Then we can have virtual telepathy, telekinesis and lots of cool stuff*.
* subject to **AA/DMCA restrictions.
> Switch to a brain controlled interface.
And then when your brain wears out you are totally screwed!
Nah, just replace it and you'll feel like a brand new person.
Anyway make sure you don't go for cheap knock-off interfaces that can't tell the difference between your brain asleep and your brain awake. Otherwise you might dream about sending "That Message" to "That Someone" and actually do it...
I do not spend that much time ting, actually.
You don't say?
Besides the fact that speech-to-text is a decidedly crappy input method in open plan offices
Know what else is crappy?
It's an impressive demonstration of voice recognition
Is it really? Since English is a non-phonetic language, I wonder if there's a parallel between coming up with consistently pronounced individual phonemes for special characters, and PalmOS Graffiti. In both cases:
It is definitely impressive from a practical perspective in that tweak
In the talk he says open source voice recognition software, e.g. Sphinx, don't work at all, and you have to go for Dragon.
But then creates writes his own command language.
So I don't understand why do we need voice recognition software that recognizes English? All we need is a open source package that translates sounds into some phonetic dictionary (e.g. IPA), and from there the second problem is to translate that into a native language.
Or even simpler, give it a dictionary of commands, and get it to find the closest match, or if all are unlikely, do nothing.
Why try to go for something so hard, but there is no software for the simpler problem that would make people very productive by just commanding the computer?
So I don't understand why do we need voice recognition software that recognizes English?
He's got his own sounds for common commands, tabulation, etc, but you still need to be able to give names to and use the names of functions and variables.
His coding by hand has been crippled by RSI. That's like saying someone can get around faster in a wheelchair because they've broken their legs.
That's like saying someone can get around faster in a wheelchair because they've broken their legs.
You might want to look up the record time for completing the Boston Marathon in a wheelchair vs. on foot.
It's bad enough to hear people yelling at their phones in the cubes around. Now one can expect to hear someone yelling at the computer...
It's bad enough to hear people yelling at their phones in the cubes around. Now one can expect to hear someone yelling at the computer...
You don't already? Granted it's about 80% cursing with sprinkles of frustration, rage, resignation and prayer so it's not exactly voice recognition I need. I've never felt the need to yell though, by then the urge is usually stronger to throw it out the window.
90% of my work is debugging and even figuring out the failure scenario and testing against it. Writing the fix and new code is easy and quick.
I'm not debugging *my* code
Does his RSI prevent him from using a mouse? How does he cut and paste?
Rather than coding more?
Indeed. Unfortunately that idea is way beyond the understanding of many coders and the reason most code out there is pretty bad.
This use of speech recognition seems like a similar situation. It works for a few people, but it will not ever have a large user community. QWERTY keyboards are so dominant that their network effect makes other input modes irrelevant. Even those who adopt it will still be using conventional keyboards away from their custom environment.
This use of speech recognition seems like a similar situation. It works for a few people, but it will not ever have a large user community. QWERTY keyboards are so dominant that their network effect makes other input modes irrelevant. Even those who adopt it will still be using conventional keyboards away from their custom environment.
I think this point is a red herring. At every job I've ever had I've spent 90% of my time in front of the same workstation. If you can use your preferred input method 90% of the time, how is that purpose defeated by using QWERTY the other 10%?
The problem is not with the person learning the new input UI, but with those that end up having to use your computer with zero training. I remember trying to help out a coworker that decided to buy a kinesis keyboard, and then set it up to dvorak: Not only I had to remember to switch layouts every single time I had to type something, and managed to miss 15% of my keystrokes due to its strange button placement, but then space, enter and backspace are all wrong, and right next to each other: It was just a hor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI&t=9m [youtube.com]
Unless you are programming utterly structure starved glue-code, input is not the limiting factor, thinking about what you want to input is.
You beat me to it. I can type in code pretty damned fast - Fast enough that people frequently ask me how often I go through keyboards - Fast enough that I've actually had people in the room with me ask if I had just typed something meaningful or merely mashed keys for the hell of it - And, while coding, I tend to spend far, far more time thinking than coding. Someone watching me program for an hour would see 3-5 minutes at a time of complete inactivity, followed by assaulting the keyboard for a 30 second burst, rinse wash repeat.
I think I can have considerably longer buffer/burst cycles, the challenge is keeping the big picture in your head while doing the little parts, and there I feel the duration of the bursts matter. If I've figured that to solve a business problem I need to change code sections A2, B4, C3 and D1 I'll start working on A2 and if it's quick and easy I won't forget the rest while if I struggle and need to churn out a lot of boilerplate by the time I'm done I might not remember what those other changes were. Either you then have to take notes or pseudocode the whole solution first or recreate it from memory, in those cases faster input would help keep me "in the flow", even though the input itself is only a small fraction of the wall time.
Same here, but I am a relatively slow typer and with the stuff I am currently doing, I spend a lot more time hashing the ideas out on paper before I start coding them. (It is some intricate data-structure work right at the border of what still can be found in the literature...)
He was/is a freelancer, so I think it's a pretty safe bet that the majority of his typing was not code. Emails, specifications, documentation, planning, accounting, correspondence with tax authorities and so on and so fourth. These things don't write themselves.
It is on other devices like a tablet.
Now, I'm not saying it is a good idea to develop on a tablet nowadays. But then consumer grade stuff have a tendency to invade the professional world, so it may be forced upon us at some point.
Not on me. I will not get a tablet and I only have a smart-phone because I need calendar access for work. And should it ever break, I will replace my excellent Cherry G80-3000 with another one of these.
You: "Biff Niff Bobblewop, Mop Top, Flip Flop Dribble Nibble Bazzle Dazzle Ropple Popple Slip Dip..."
Boss: "Get to work, no more rapping!"
You: "I'm not rapping, I'm programming via voice commands. Actually, I'm doing both."
Boss: "Yeah, right. It's called Riff Raff."
So, as long as he makes sure the VTT software understands "tab" he'll be golden...
I code in Malbolge!
Not a fan of evolutionary psychology, but I think there's a lot of reason to think we do have an aptitude for spoken language. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a well designed voice system left more mental focus available for the task of coding.
I'm not sure if the technology is there yet, and you still don't want to hear your officemates jabbering away, but I could see the theoretical usability of a spoken word interface surpassing that of typing.
How about a programming language created with speech in mind? It should be even more efficient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzJ0CytAsec [youtube.com]
The bottleneck in coding is solving the problem, and debugging issues in your code. Code rapidly written is more likely to have errors because you have not had as much time to think about what you are writing. Coding is not like writing a book.
As if cubicles weren't annoying enough already.....
What Lisp programmers really need are two foot pedals - one for left parentheses and one for right parentheses. That should cover 90% of their input requirements.
I am seeing lots of negative and off topic comments, many of which show people only watched part of the video. I thought it was totally amazing. When I was a teenager I had to change the course of my career away from computational science towards experimental science because of RSI-like problems. If I had his tools when I was 14 and had known I needed to use them, my career would be totally different and possibly much better since my programming talents would actually have been used.
Today, I can't really afford to spend several months learning to replicate his work, but hopefully soon it will be easier to learn. This will never be for everyone - some people can't use modal programs - and maybe it will never work in every context (Can it talk to my 20 year old Tektronix oscilloscope over GPIB?) but the video showed it can work. I hope good documentation, native linux support, and support for latex will be forthcoming so it can help me do science.
This will never be for everyone - some people can't use modal programs - and maybe it will never work in every context (Can it talk to my 20 year old Tektronix oscilloscope over GPIB?) but the video showed it can work."
You shouldn't have a problem with GPIB since that relies on calls to a GPIB lib for your host adapter and also knowing the GPIB command set for your scope. GPIB is ancient but well documented and well supported in most popular operating systems and programming languages.
Instead of English words for commands he used short vocalizations — you have to hear it to believe it.
No I don't. I can easily believe it already. Why would you think I'd have trouble with this?
The video demonstrates that it actually works. He's added about 2000 invented words to the vocabulary, most of which are either shortcuts for strings or navigational commands. This might be useful for doing technical work on smartphones, where typing sucks.
One area where this has potential is 3D animation and engineering software. There, you're constantly going back and forth between pointing at geometry and other input. There are various ways to do this, but voice input hasn't been used effectively yet.
Did someone point out this had not happend if he had used vi/vim in the first place instead of the evil emacs?
... and the response, from 20 years ago, is still the same:
a) "Hey, Joe, are you still working on that difficult piece of code, or coming to lunch?
and the ever popular
b) (as disgruntled, just fired emplyee walks out of HR) START! RUN! FORMAT C:! YES!YES!YES!
Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. -- James Bryant Conant


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Thanksgiving always makes me think about my car's radiator hose. I know, it's weird. But, there's a reason. Growing up, my grandparents would come over every Thanksgiving. And, I always eagerly anticipated their arrival. One unusually cold Thanksgiving, they were a couple hours late for dinner. As there were only about 15 miles of country roads separating our houses, we knew that traffic wasn't the culprit. My dad went looking for them. Sure enough, he found them and their dark green, 1970s-era Crown Victoria station wagon, on the side of the road, hood up, steam pouring from the engine compartment. The cold weather had taken its toll on their old, weak radiator hose. After locating a tow truck and getting my grandparents to our house, dinner was back on, and tastier than ever.
Automotive hoses are made of rubber, in addition to other raw materials, and like vehicle tires and belts, they aren't designed to last forever. But because they deliver such reliable performance over many years, drivers often don't think about the radiator hose, until it's too late. A broken radiator hose will not only leave you stranded, it can leave you stranded AND destroy your engine through overheating. Makes you want to check your automotive hoses right now, doesn't it?
Many mechanics and car radiator hose manufacturers recommend replacing automotive hoses every four years, 60,000 miles, or sooner if you see a potential failure looming. Replacing your car radiator hose isn't difficult, as you'll see here. But before you tackle the project, start by checking your car hose's condition if it's still within the recommended replacement interval. When the engine's cool, visually inspect all the automotive hoses, not just the radiator hose, for any signs of cracking or bulging spots—a potential sign of impending failure. Squeeze the hose, moving your hand along its entire length, checking for any soft spots in the hose wall—another sign of failure.
If you find that a car radiator hose replacement is necessary, you might want to consider replacing your coolant at the same time, because some or all of it is going to drain out anyway, depending on which hose you're replacing.
Over this long holiday weekend, I'm going to hone my hose-replacement skills by first replacing the radiator hose on my farm tractor. It should be a quick project, leaving me plenty of time to digest our feast and get in some highly anticipated, post-meal football…ain't life grand?
Editor's note: Got projects? Advance Auto Parts carries a wide variety of automotive hoses to fit the vehicle you're working on today. Get a great deal by texting "HOLIDAY" to 36898 for our latest offers. Up to 5 messages per month; message & data rates may apply.


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CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A top Democrat defended President Barack Obama's self-assessed "incomplete" grade after a term in office, arguing that the president was simply "being humble."
"I give him an 'A' for effort. I give him an 'A' for making sure that Americans are better off today than they were four years ago," Antonio Villaraigosa, the chairman of the Democratic National Convention and mayor of Los Angeles, told reporters this morning.
If the Republican National Convention was all about presenting presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's softer side, the Democratic National Convention hopes to shore up key parts of President Barack Obama's voting coalition. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.
Monday, President Obama was asked by a television reporter in Colorado how he would grade his performance on the economy.
"You know, I would say 'incomplete,'" said Obama.
"What I would say," Obama reportedly added, "is the steps that we have taken in saving the auto industry, in making sure that college is more affordable, and investing in clean energy and science and technology and research, those are all the things that we are going to need to grow over the long term."
Rep. Xavier Becerra talks about the role of Latino voters as well as the enthusiasm gap heading into the DNC.
"I think he's being humble when he says that," Villaraigosa said of Obama during a brief visit to the convention floor here in Charlotte.
Villaraigosa did not answer a question from NBC News about John Burton, the chairman of the California Democratic Party who yesterday compared GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
Today, The Sacramento Bee reports that Burton went home to California for a root canal.