Random Access Memories

For awhile now I’ve been trying to get the backlight on my LCD panel working. The link here http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/backlight/ at Nerdkits shows how they made a small kit to get an EL (Electroluminescent) backlight working with a DC to AC inverter. However it does not go into much detail on building a kit yourself beyond explaining that they had a handful or parts laying around and bought a few at Radio Shack. This is nice in theory, but not all of us are Electronics Gurus.

Through some sleuthing of my own and a lot of digging plus a few emails to Nerdkits support I put together a list of Digi-Key parts that should make this kit work.

Qty ... Part Number ..... Manu. Part Number .. Price USD
2 ..... IRF730APBF-ND ... IRF730APBF .............. 3.96
2 ..... MUR1520GOS-ND ... MUR1520G ................ 2.42
1 ..... M10136-ND ....... 78F101J-RC .............. 0.30
1 ..... 495-1234-ND ..... B32521C6333J ............ 0.47

These should allow me to finally get my backlights working. We shall see.

So what’s come to the top of the pot in the US recently?

We’re found that both BP and the Government were grossly wrong about the flow rate of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (No shock there really, what company isn’t going to make it’s figures as low as possible when it’s impact on the environment is concerned).

We’re learned that Transocean who owns the rig has received 411 million dollars from it’s insurance company, but is trying to use a law written in 1851 to limit it’s liability to 21 million total.

To top it off the last flight of the shuttle Atlantis is scheduled for this afternoon, and the final flight for all the shuttles is a November launch of Discovery. The replacement launch vehicle “Orion” has a scheduled launch date of 2015, anyone that seriously thinks that is going to be on target is fooling themselves.

The US has ignored the job of the Federal Government to push the envelope for the good of the nation and instead now has handed off such trivial things to private corporations. Those corporations are now almost completely running the show, able to do almost anything and ignore the consequences of their actions.

In the end tho isn’t it the people that need to do something about this? Given the great divide in US politics I don’t see that happening for more than 20 years.

So all we can really do now is keep fooling ourselves into thinking that we matter while of course remembering to bow to our corporate masters who demand our money and ruin our environment. Yeah, I am no more thrilled about this idea than you are.