Planar Microwave Engineering

Let me first say that I might be a little biased because of the rave review Tom Lee gives to my sampling review paper in this book. But, I have to say this is the most entertaining engineering book I have read in quite some time. His writing is colloquial --- which I personally favor. It's full of witty asides (like this one on E&M: "More than a few students have caught on to the fact that electrodynamic equations ... are a devious invention to torment hapless undergraduates"). The writing is clear and he takes the time (and ink) to derive various results. His experimental hints (such as how to build probes) are the kind of useful bits you'd like to see in a practical book. Coupled with the CD in the back, this is really a complete book for the RF and Microwave student. I am sure that some of the more anal retentive engineering types won't like some of the gloss given to their favorite subject. That's OK --- this book is not for them. It's just too bad that most engineering books can't rise above the hum-drum writing and presentation that gives engineering a bad name. This book isn't one of them --- it's terrific.

Stephen F. Adam

Steve Adam died recently. He was my "mentor" in the HP Microwave Lab when I was but a tender high school student. Palo Alto had this fabulous program called "ROP" (Researchers Observer Program) that would place students in various research labs. I was excited by the HP 8410 Network Analyzer and said so. And so, I ended up at the passive components section of the HP Microwave Lab. It was a small group with Steve Adam and Larry Renihan -- I don't recall anyone else, sorry. Located at 1501 Page Mill Road, I used to ride my bicycle up there after school. I had a orange HP badge that would get me in the building and the guards were constantly amazed.

Unfortunately, enthusiasm is no substitute for calculus or E & M, so I think they didn't know what to do with me. I was pointed to the computer terminals and that's how my computer career begin -- burning up HP's money on timesharing systems. When I was offered a job at Tymshare for $1.50 an hour, that's when I stopped going to HP. But I never lost my interest in microwave measurement. Or sampling.

But what I remember about Steve Adam was that he was interviewed by someone and he said "If you ask a high school student what an engineer does, they think it's the guy who drives the locomotive!". True then. True now. I missed my opportunity to say hello at the last IMS convention I went to in San Francisco. I regret that even more now.

Linux --- not ready for civilians

I'm an old hand Unix user --- I've been using it since 6th edition. So I am "amused" by the claims of the Linux hands that "even a caveman" can install Linux. Not.

My linux experience started out with Redhat. Initially, since my motherboard was so new, there wasn't a driver for the NVIDIA chip. I did get this to work by hacking this and that and trusting (but not verifying) the kernel modules. This worked well for a long time, at least until I decided to upgrade. Mistake. It couldn't do the upgrade well and I ended up stranded in the middle.

Finally, after the sabbatical, I returned to my homebuilt machine. I installed a new DVD writer and backed up the files. Then I tried to install Ubuntu (after all, it's good enough for Google [gubuntu]). Botch. It got hung trying to access the floppy! Thanks to google, I was able to locate the thread that discussed how to get around that --- fiddling with the grub options. Now, who are they kidding? Who is going to get this right except someone who's willing to hack it up? Then it's time for the Xorg.conf section of hell. Each time I got it wrong, there was no recourse but to reboot.

Now, there's a new distribution. OK, one thing I really like about Ubuntu is the aptitude upgrade manager. Just fantastic. So, I go ahead. Looked good until it asked me about installing the NVIDIA kernel modules --- I thought, well, why not? Well, we're back in Xorg.conf hell again, that's why not. Fortunately, I was able to get it work by looking at my past configuration (I was able to do the install of Ubuntu without blowing my files away by installing the new system on my formerly shared file system).

So, now it's running well. And it's fun to use. But tell me --- is Linux really ready for novices to install it? I don't think so.

Ed Klima

Ed Klima died recently at the age of 77. He was a linguist extraordinaire and also a very nice guy. When I was an undergraduate, I was infatuated with formal languages and their application. While taking musicianship, it occurred to me that harmony was a set of rules that could be formalized with grammars. Somehow (and I don't remember how), I was sent to Ed Klima. At the time, he was chair of the linguistics department, so I had to make an appointment to see him. He was soft spoken and quiet but interested, and so he set me to work on an independent study. My lasting impression of him is sitting out in the warm La Jolla sun. And my lasting conversation from him is this: "Klima: Do you read French?" (Me: "No."). Klima: "For an intellectual to not read french is a shame". (He wanted me to read his friend Ruvet in the original). (n.b. I can read technical french... now).