Failure Mode: Calculator

I need a new calculator. This is my poor calculator's pitiful attempt to display a screen full of 8's.

Not surprisingly it was hard to get a good snap of the LCD in a dark room with a hand held point and shoot cam so that pic has been desaturated and unsharp masked. As you can see quite a few of the segments are out. Poor thing.

On the bright side (no pun intended), the physics of how LCD's work is a pretty demonstration of the polarization of light. I thought this was interesting (page 6):

Manufacturers of existing large LCDs often reject about 40 percent of the panels that come off the assembly line. The level of rejection directly affects LCD price since the sales of the good LCDs must cover the cost of manufacturing both the good and bad ones. Only advances in manufacturing can lead to affordable displays in bigger sizes.

First post (again)

It has come to my attention that a few people actually read my blog (*shock horror*) and I haven't posted for far too long. This is what I do:

1. Start a project.
2. Get distracted.
3. Drop the project.
4. O(1) months later, feel sad about dropping the project.
5. Return to step 1.

Step 2 in this case was the Christmas/New year holidays. So, my friends, this is for you: step 5. Consider this my first post of the new year.

I'm fairly certain...

that engineers refer to this as a "failure mode." This once spherical spray bottle crumpled as the result of: *drumroll* using it to spray water. *gasp* *shock* *horror*


Evidently you get what you pay for.