a brief note to congratulate my little brother peter, who is about to embark on a year at nuclear power school in charleston, s.c. apparently he'll be dealing with stuff like this:

"Twenty k is 2R and 20k in parallel with 20k is 10k," says the man in a white lab coat, scribbling on a chalkboard as fast as he talks. Twenty-five students look on, seemingly absorbed. "To determine the voltage out we consider that the step is Vin over 3R, times one half to the N, times feedback resistance. N is equal to the number of nodes slash digits; therefore, the Vstep is equal to (Vin/3R)(1/2)n(RFB). Based on that, who knows what the step voltage is?"

A dozen hands go up. For these young men and women - students at the Naval Nuclear Power Command, Charleston, S.C. - the gibberish is decipherable; for them, digital to analog conversion is easy. They could do it in their sleep.

...err. yeah...fun times! i'll be sure to visit him down at the beach when i'm frozen blue from a chicago winter.