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From:
"Stadem, Richard D." <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
TechNet E-Mail Forum <[log in to unmask]>, Stadem, Richard D.
Date:
Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:55:03 -0500
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Many kudos to a devoted engineering scientist. Your interest and concern
and the work you have done is magnificent and inspiring, to say the
least. Thank you for allowing the rest of us to benefit from it.


-----Original Message-----
From: Leadfree [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Barnes
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 10:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [LF] [RoHSUSAPushback] Update on H.B. 2420

Marcus,
> "And John Barnes incredible bibliography of >15,000 papers on the >
subject!"
>
> I've speculated that John is one of those blessed few who hasn't 
> needed much sleep in his lifetime.

I usually get 6 to 7 hours of sleep each night.  I can get by on 4 jours
of sleep, for a few days, but soon find myself dozing when I'm supposed
to be paying attention to what I'm doing.

My first secret for working on big projects like my   Bibliography for
Designing Lead-Free, RoHS-Compliant, and WEEE-Compliant Electronics   is
"Don't watch television."  I kicked that habit 42 years ago, while still
in high school.  

My second secret is to choose something that really excites you, or
greatly irritates you.  The utter stupidity of banning lead in
electronics still leaves me quivering inside, sometimes.  

Choosing/falling into a project yourself, versus having it assigned to
you, greatly increases your motivation to work on it.  When I'm doing
something for *pay*, other people will set deadlines, want progress
reports, expect results, etc., and thus turn the project into "work". 
Thus I'm inclined to do the job, and get it over with so I can get onto
something else.  Doing something for fun, without a defined goal, I'll
plan to spend a few minutes checking on something, and after finding a
bunch of neat stuff, discover that I've spent the whole evening on the
project.  Many times I'll run into a new source, or find something
different or unusual, and just see where it goes.  Some of these turn
out to be blind alleys, but others open up huge new aspects of the
subject to explore.  (Very much like caving, which was my major hobby
for 20 years.)  When I find a promising source, I like to "mine" it,
looking not just for the specific item that brought me there, but for
other pertinent items that might be hiding there.  

My third secret is to hit the libraries.  I've averaged 6 trips per
month to science/engineering libraries for the last 4-1/2 years on this
project, and usually come out with 30 to 50 new documents each time. 
About 2/3 of these trips are to libraries in Lexington, Kentucky, where
I live.  But when I travel, for business or pleasure, I like to visit
science/engineering at my destination and en route to/from that place.  
My starting point for candidate colleges/universities was the web page
Electrical and Computer Engineering Programs   at
   http://www.mm.anadolu.edu.tr/eee/school_list.html
I extracted the sections for the US and Canada, and added the cities and
states where these colleges/universities are located to generate my work
web page
   http://www.dbicorporation.com/ece_libs.htm
Part of my planning for any trip is to get out a map, mark my starting
point and destination, then put coins on the cities that have colleges/
universities with Electrical Engineering programs, to help me plan my
route.

My fourth secret is to use web pages as work files.  By putting them on
my company/personal web site, these are available almost anywhere I
might want to do research.  My bibliography at
   http://www.dbicorporation.com/rohsbib.htm
has references (as complete as possible) to all the documents I have
found to date on lead-free electronics..  

My want list at
   http://www.dbicorporation.com/rohswant.htm
has:
*  A list of search terms, for checking databases and search engines.
*  Links to the card catalogs of colleges/universities I have visited,
   or look promising.
*  A list of books/reports/theses that I have seen referenced, but so 
   far have not acquired.
*  A list of magazines/journals/conference proceedings with:
   -  The colleges/universities that have them in their libraries, along
      with whether they are online, or the library/call number where 
      hardcopies can be found.
   -  Whether they can be found in the IEEE XPLORE database.
   -  Which years/issues I have already checked (including ones that are

      preprinted online, but haven't been published yet).
   -  How many documents I have already found in this source 
      (prioritizing my searches, if time is tight).
   -  Documents in this source that I have seen referenced somewhere,
      but haven't acquired yet.

I also have a web page of Ph. D. and Masters theses that I have
acquired, or skimmed cover-to-cover, at
   http://www.dbicorporation.com/theses.htm
for when I check the ProQuest database or a university's list of online
theses.

I could talk much longer about doing literature searches, but I have a
meeting that starts in 34 minutes, so I'll stop here.

Enjoy!

John Barnes KS4GL, PE, NCE, NCT, ESDC Eng, ESDC Tech, PSE, SM IEEE
dBi Corporation
http://www.dbicorporation.com/

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