[ExI] Mad Skillz. %P

[Alan Grimes]

I've got MAD SKILLZ!!

Since you probably don't I'll give you a shadow of a clue of what it's 
like to have MAD SKILLZ.


The other day, I was finally putting the finishing touches on the power 
supply of my bi-amped speakers. This is a project that I've been working 
on for nearly two years. -- Just had to get it done. A lesser technician 
would have had to draw up a wiring diagram for the thing, but since I've 
got teh MAD SKILLZ, I just winged it. -- I did have a paper with the 
pin-outs for the power output jacks but the rest was done in my head. 
Anyway, it has this little neon pilot light on the front that tells me 
when it's on and that the 1/4A fuse is conducting. One lead is soldered 
directly to the fuse holder that, in turn, is borrowing a spare M4 bolt 
hole from the HC supply (which has an internal 6.5A slow blow fuse). The 
other end had to reach all the way back to the Common terminal on the 
power inlet. The wire was probably 22 gauge, so I grabbed a reel of 
stranded 22 that I keep just for this. I noticed that the stripped end 
of the wire was about a half inch. So I took out my cheap-ass wire 
strippers, adjusted the catch *by instinct* and stripped the wire *by 
feel*, I then held it next to the wire I was mating to and it was maybe 
within a 32nd of an inch of perfection. How did I get it so nearly 
correct without doing any measurement?? MAD SKILLZ!!! I then wrapped the 
wires end to end and then sealed it with heatshrink so well that you 
would have to run your finger along it to find the splice. I look at a 
crimp end and think "that'll take a 1/4th inch of bare coper", trim the 
wire **BY FEEL** and usually get it just right on the first try. The HC 
power supply in that beastie had a terminal block with 9 positions, I 
needed 8 of those positions. I also had to populate five contacts for 
each of two six-position molex connectors... I also made the cable, and 
the connector on the other side, and heavily modified the electronic 
crossover module, and CAD-designed the terminal plates, and pulled the 
sleeve off of some crappy cat5 cable to make the internal signal wiring 
for the speakers. (I used a hand-drill to tighten down the twists in 
that wiring).
I also made the LC power supply from a blank PCB I bought from ratshack. 
You have to fight the solder on those boards but I got it done.

The entire system worked amazingly well from the first switch on. I did 
have to do some tuning to the electronics in each speaker but I haven't 
seen the ghost of a fault from it.

My brain is a system that learns, remembers, and applies MAD SKILLZ. 
Without a purpose to which apply those MAD SKILLZ, it becomes useless.

When you need to splice wires, or attach a terminal, in the real world, 
the most intelligent way to do it is to whip out your MAD SKILLZ and get 
it done.

In VR, the most intelligent way to terminate a wire is to pull down the 
drop down menu on the wire and set the termination variable to the type 
of terminal you need.

Then you take a step back and look at what it was you were doing, all of 
this was in order to obtain a set of voltages on your output 
connectors... So why not just set an assertion that those pins have such 
and such a voltage?

Then you take a step back and realize that all you were trying to was 
supply the power to the electronics in your speakers so you make your 
speakers run on magic fairy dust, (which in VR is always a more 
intelligent solution).

And then you take a step back and realize that the electronics in your 
speakers did nothing but process an input signal and transform it into 
the motion of a diaphragm. So you rip out all of your electronics, and 
all of your wiring, and write some equations to actuate the diaphragm 
based on the input signal.

Then you take a step back and realize that there is no sense in 
simulating the physics of grossly imperfect (albeit expensive!!) drivers 
when you can just specify an arbitrary membrane and have it vibrate in 
just such a way as to reproduce sound in the intended listening position.

And then you take a step back and realize that this whole setup was a 
rube-goldberg contraption for exciting your auditory nerve with the 
sensation of hearing the music.

And then you take a step back and realize that your intelligence, not to 
mention your MAD SKILLZ, has evaporated into the binary aether and you 
have degenerated into something that does nothing but experience vaguely 
pleasurable auditory stimuli.

=(

Or...

Or...

You could simply stay in reality and enjoy the indescribable joy of 
applying MAD SKILLZ!! %P

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