Electrical Engineering Terminology

AC: Alliterating Current

AI: Artificial Inelegance

ALE: Atomic Lager Epitaxy

ANOVA:  episode of PBS science show. 

Avalanche Breakdown:  the interlude where you only hear the rumbling, just before the screams.

BAW:  Bulk Acrostic Wave

Bipolar Transistor:  Manic conduction one moment, sullen resistance the next.

Break Before Make:  What happens when the kids are at home.

Buck Regulator:  the strap the put on horses before they're released to the rodeo floor.

CAD: Computer Addled Design

CCK:  Cereal Clock

Clock and Data Recovery:  digging them out from the pile on your desk.

Crosstalk:  Tea Party folks on healthcare reform.

DAC:  Digital-to-Analogy Converter

DDR:  Dance Dance Revolution

Digipot:  Smoked narcotic drug popular with avatars.

Dropout:  a regulator that would rather smoke than go to school.

DUT:  Device, Undertested

FAQ:  Frequently Avoided Questions

FIR:  Finite Impulse Response Filter;  IIR:  Teenage Filter

Forward Error Correction:  hitting the brakes.

Freewheeling Diode:  only knows one way to have fun.

Global Positioning System:  Putting the Earth in its place.

h Bar: The dive on the corner of Teilchenstrasse and Wellestrasse where Planck used to hang out with his school friends.

Headroom: danged if I know, I'm short so I never have to worry about it.

Image Rejection:  How you feel about portraits when you're over 50.

Inductive Reasoning:  how coils think.

JTAG:  Joint Test Action Group, with working groups for ankles, knEE acronymss, elbows.

MAC:  Medium Access Control;  LAC:  Low Access Control;  HAC:  High Access Control

Metastable Comparator:  compares metastability.

Monotonic:  Helps Monos feel better.

MOS:  Stuff that grows under trees.  CMOS:  you will if you look for it. 

Native Transistors - primitive electron hunter-gatherers

Open Collector:  the fellow with the plastic bag scrounging in the trash cans.

Operational Amplifier:  one that isn't broken.  Duh.

OS:  Open, Sesame!

Path Loss:  pre-GPS hiking risk.

PMW:  Pulse Width Moderation. 

PWM Controller: Well, somebody has to keep those pornographic whimsical manipulators in line.

Relaxation oscillation: repetitive motion of your butt when you turn on the massage chair.

RMS:  Rude Mean Square

S/H:  Green Stamps.  OK, you have to be as old as I am to get that one.  Ouch.

SDR: Software Deified Radio

Secure Hash:  the one way in the back of the refrigerator.

Single Sideband:  Mobius strip

SPC:  Sadistical Process Control

Spreading Gain:  characteristic of butter and cream cheese.

Statistical Quality Control:  Make a product unlikely to fail before you find a new job.

THD: Totally Harmless Distortion

Thermocouple:  Two thermos.

Transformer:  Optimus primary and Optimus secondary.

Tri-state:  When a circuit makes an effort to work as designed.

Turnon Time:  about 11 PM Saturday night.

Twisted Pair:  Empress Theodora and the Marquis de Sade.

Upconverter:  Gravity.

UWB:  UltraWhy Band.  It's a philosophical modulation scheme.

VCR:  Stupid business school technology example

Verilog: Sartre's locked-in-a-room hell or Kafka's turning-into-an-insect damnation, hard to say.

VOIP:  Fan voiceovers on copyrighted videos.

WAN:  Pale imitation of LAN data services.

Weber:  burger grill.

WEP:  Wasn't Especially Private

XAUI:  exclamation, as in "Yowie Xaui!"

ZIF:  K-Y Jelly.  



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