Short message

It didn't generate any significant amount of business the last time I
tried it. I could, in theory spend a lot on design tools and
advertising, but I've not be able to come up with any kind of business
plan that strikes me as plausible.

-----------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[keith]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 19:34:01 +0000, Fred Bloggs wrote:

Clarence_A wrote:

It would have to be a country with a more generous welfare
payment.

More generous than the one you're receiving now?

....certainly more than the one I'm in, since the current(cy) flows
*strongly* in the other direction.

There aren't many of those, and they're full!

I'm sure that is one subject you /do/ know something about.

No one is challenging your knowledge here, Fred.

--
Keith

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote (in
<1111362306.048777.100380@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com&gt about 'Short
message', on Sun, 20 Mar 2005:

It didn't generate any significant amount of business the last time I
tried it. I could, in theory spend a lot on design tools and
advertising, but I've not be able to come up with any kind of business
plan that strikes me as plausible.

Advertising a consultancy doesn't work, in my experience. And all
business plans are implausible. Luckily, when I started, I didn't need
to borrow, so I didn't need a business plan, which would have been
totally telephone numbers.

What does work is personal recommendation, which means that the most
useful asset is a large circle of acquaintances in the electronics
business. You may get that from experience in sales or membership of
technical societies, or even standards committees. If you haven't got
any of those, it is likely to be pretty difficult to get started, I
would think.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

Since I'm looking for work, not welfare, the level of welfare payments
doesn't come into it.

-------------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

Personal recommendation - a.k.a. "networking" - is by far the best way
of getting any kind of work.

That was spelled out in "What Colour is your Parachute" - I've had a
copy since 1991 - and was recently re-emphasised by a"four day
"reintegration" course that I had to follow to maintain my unemployment
benefit.

I managed to do a fair bit of networking around Cambridge, when I was
there - there is a lot of electronics going on around Cambridge, some
of it very long established - but I've drawn a blank in Nijmegen, which
doesn't have much in the way of local high tech. Philips Semiconductors
does have a big factory here, and I play hockey with one of the senior
research guys, but Philips takes every opportunity to fire anybody over
55, and their personnel department blocks even short term hires of
people over that age.

The computer science course might provide some kind of route into the
local high tech economy - not a particularly promisng path, but better
than anything else I can come up with.

------------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Daniel Haude]

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.]
On 19 Mar 2005 02:07:45 -0800,
bill.sloman@ieee.org <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote
in Msg. <1111226865.580707.250660@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>

I can't make up my mind whether I should characterise you as a dismal
example of the defects of the Texan education system or whether I've
got to invoke both fetal and adult alcohol syndromes to explain your
obvious retardation.

C'mon, Bill, give John a break for once. He wrote a limerick about you.
And although it was designed primarily as a vehicle for not entirely
unsubstantiated criticism (see the quotation above), and although it
doesn't rhyme very well, it's a poem nevertheless, which is a token of
some sort of affection or respect, don't you think?

About the start-your-own-business tips: I have come to the conclusion that
this is entirely a matter of personality, not age or competence. I never
could do it. I did quite a bit of freelancing work for people that got to
know me somehow, but always with a steady day job in the background. I'd
go nuts if I had to do that sort of stuff full-time. The freelancers I
know claim to go nuts if they were employed -- go figure.

--Daniel

 

[Terry Given]

Rich Grise wrote:

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 14:12:09 +1300, Terry Given wrote:


John Fields wrote:

And thereby wins.


There was a young man from Purdue,
Whose limericks stopped on line two.

And of course:

There was a young man from Verdun

2 from Spike Milligan:

There was a young man called stencil,
Whose dick was as sharp as a pencil.
He punctured an actress,
Two nuns and a mattress,
And dented the bathroom utensil

And my favourite,

There was a young man called Wyatt,
Whose voice was exceptionally quiet.
And then one day,
He faded away....

[sounds better when spoken, voice trailing off....]

I read a funny comic book by Matt Groenig (aka Simpsons) years ago. He
had a page-long dissertation along the lines of

Those who can, do
Those who cant, teach
Those who cant teach, teach teachers...

culminating in

Those who cant finish unfinished sentences

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 09:56:38 +1300, Terry Given <my_name@ieee.org>
wrote:

John Fields wrote:
On 17 Mar 2005 01:50:57 -0800, bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote:


Enough of this competitive brevity. While John Fields sholud be
congratulated for saying nothing - because he never seems to have
anything useful to say - twenty messages of congratulation seems to
represent rather too much of a good thing.

-----------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen


---
There was an old man from Nijmegen
whose rhetoric often went beggin'
for nice things to say;
instead he'd just bray
amidst all the rest of his squeggin'


Very good.

Cheers
Terry

Please don't reply to Bill S., I get nauseous every time I see that
name... the resident EuroLoony ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:33:12 -0800, bill.sloman wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:

Please don't reply to Bill S., I get nauseous every time I see that
name... the resident EuroLoony ;-)

This would be the resident demented Yank kettle called the resident
Euro-loony pot black. If Jim had retained a few more neurons, he be able
to remember that I maintain my Australian citizenship and merely reside in
Europe, and he'd realise that he was falsely blackening the name of an
entire sub-continent.

Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about Jim. He's just a spoiled rich kid
getting on in years, trying to capture his misspent youth by blaming
everyone else for his shortcomings.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 06:41:09 +0000, John Woodgate
<jmw@jmwa.demon.contraspam.yuk> wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote (in
1111362306.048777.100380@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com&gt about 'Short
message', on Sun, 20 Mar 2005:
It didn't generate any significant amount of business the last time I
tried it. I could, in theory spend a lot on design tools and
advertising, but I've not be able to come up with any kind of business
plan that strikes me as plausible.

Advertising a consultancy doesn't work, in my experience. And all
business plans are implausible. Luckily, when I started, I didn't need
to borrow, so I didn't need a business plan, which would have been
totally telephone numbers.

What does work is personal recommendation, which means that the most
useful asset is a large circle of acquaintances in the electronics
business. You may get that from experience in sales or membership of
technical societies, or even standards committees. If you haven't got
any of those, it is likely to be pretty difficult to get started, I
would think.

Dead-on correct!

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.