the Hearth @Felthry@awoo.space

@lioness they are still good books so i still recommend them!
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@lioness also looking back at this we recommended you some books last time we did this! did you ever read those?
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have you ever noticed that the three most common types of pasta sauce are referred to by the three colors of the italian flag?

🇮🇹

Green sauce (pesto), white sauce (dairy-based), and red sauce (tomato based)
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@lioness The Somebody Else's Problem field, versions of which show up in all kinds of things, though i think that particular name for it is due to Douglas Adams

the idea is that it doesn't *hide* the thing you want to make invisible, it just makes it so that everyone who sees it files it away as "not my problem", or in other cases just makes them parse it as perfectly ordinary and not worth any attention
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@Nerts does it count if we all individually have multiple heads sometimes?
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@Quest if we were any good at art we'd definitely want to draw you you're adorable
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@Quest (we knew the no-search decision to be about preventing harassment, but it also works to avoid that kind of nonsense)
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@Quest oh that's part of why there's no search feature here, i imagine
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@Quest what do you mean?
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@Quest hey quest you're extremely cute, would hug
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@Slyka So using the heater voltage as both power and an input doesn't sound odd to us--after all, it's not uncommon to use ground as both power and an input, right?

A resistor across a voltage regulator is... kind of weird. what time period is this from? The schematic says 1997 but this looks like a much older design that's been carried forward, and maybe had the schematic redrawn in 97

we'll need to find some time to sit down and see what's going on here, maybe simulate it
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@Slyka ooh, high voltage stuff is weird

that makes me think potentially a little more in the direction of zener? because the collector-base junction would have a pretty high breakdown voltage and high-voltage zeners aren't as readily available even today

though the fast turn-off is also a potential thing, i don't know what it's being used for

if you'd like thoughts on any other bits of weirdness feel free to ask! we love this stuff
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@LexYeen this is the mechanic's version of that picture of the mains wire with plugs on both ends
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@Slyka out of curiosity, what' sthe schematic excerpted from?
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@Slyka bear in mind that bipolar devices in general (both bjts and pn diodes) are much quicker to turn on than to turn off! you need to get all the free carriers out of the depletion region to, well, return it to being a depletion region. So a harder turn-off than turn-on is common
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@Slyka oh yes! another possibility is that they're using the transistor in reverse-active mode as a diode to speed turn-off of V23. this would be strange, but it would work.
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@Slyka basically, on the assumption that this isn't a mistake, they're bound to be relying on some kind of breakdown behaviour of the device. This is the kind of thing that only the least or most experienced engineers would generally do, nowhere in between

there is also the possibility that it's a mistake, which is entirely reasonable. staying within the designed operating conditions of that transistor, it will do nothing significant
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