NEETS

November 24, 2013 8:26 PM

For anyone interested in various fundamentals of electrical engineering without too much detail on the gritty math (and more focus on the concepts), check out the US Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series (NEETS).
posted by Evernix (35 comments total)

I at first thought this was about the "Not in Education, Employment, or Training" NEET, also called hikikomori in Japan. Seems a bad acronym to use.
posted by usagizero at 8:32 PM on November 24, 2013 [6 favorites]

Definitely had the same thought. That being said this is awesome.
posted by KernalM at 8:57 PM on November 24, 2013

Cool. Reminded me of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," where Persig discusses the distinction between telling someone how to do something and the principles behing what they are doing (be gentle w/me; it's been 20 year's since I read ZMM and I may not have gotten that entirely right).
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:12 PM on November 24, 2013

It still has a chapter on vacuum tubes! Guitarists and vintage audio geeks rejoice!
posted by TrialByMedia at 9:29 PM on November 24, 2013

NEET and hikikomori are not the same thing. NEET can be social.
posted by yeolcoatl at 9:30 PM on November 24, 2013

I at first thought this was about the "Not in Education, Employment, or Training" NEET, also called hikikomori in Japan.

Two very different things, shouldn't conflate the two. Hikikomori is more of a mental disability.
posted by kafziel at 9:31 PM on November 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Thankfully physics changes more slowly than semiconductor device packaging. A "neat" resource though.
posted by GuyZero at 9:49 PM on November 24, 2013

It still has a chapter on vacuum tubes! Guitarists and vintage audio geeks rejoice!

Tubes still are used in high powered radio applications too!
posted by readyfreddy at 9:56 PM on November 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

How old is this material? Some of the science seems ... a little off.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:13 PM on November 24, 2013

jcreigh: "where "in some...communities" should be read as meaning "everybody other than the Navy", AFAIK."

Nah, often it's pretty random as to which they choose, though certain particular domains often have their own preference. But, really, I haven't seen anything higher than a Little Golden Book that doesn't do the 'electron flow is the opposite of conventional current flow, and this is the one we use in this document' at the start (or assumes you're cogniscent of the difference and can apply either as needed).

Particularly in electrical (as opposed to electronic) textbooks & training documentation, the difference really only raises its head with things like the LH / RH rules & similar - until you get into the deep-down physics of it, which is electronics anyway.
posted by Pinback at 10:37 PM on November 24, 2013

This is excellent. In case you missed it, just above these electronics courses is a fantastic set of resources concerning machine shop operations.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:02 PM on November 24, 2013 [4 favorites]

As an ex Navy ET (86-92), this isn't something I'd ever thought I'd see again. Time tunnel.
posted by doctor_negative at 11:41 PM on November 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

How old is this material?

This warning gives it away as being of later vintage:

"Although the words “he,” “him,” and “his” are used sparingly in this course to enhance communication, they are not intended to be gender driven or to affront or discriminate against anyone."

The current goes anyway way you want it to.
posted by three blind mice at 12:35 AM on November 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Sir, which way does the current go?"
"I don't ask and it don't tell."
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:07 AM on November 25, 2013 [5 favorites]

You're burying the lede here - that page also contains the 1945 US Navy Cookbook, not to mention Submarine Cuisine!
posted by Jimbob at 2:44 AM on November 25, 2013 [12 favorites]

I like Navy manuals. Sadly, they do not have the training manuals for parachute riggers. It would have been nostalgic.
posted by Goofyy at 3:03 AM on November 25, 2013

> not to mention Submarine Cuisine!

"MAXIM'S OF PARIS HAS NOTHING ON THE DELICIOUS FOOD BEING SERVED ON AMERICAN SUBMARINES. THE NAVY'S BEST CHEFS BRING YOU THEIR SECRET RECIPES REFINED OVER MANY YEARS UNDER THE SEA."
posted by ardgedee at 3:42 AM on November 25, 2013

"quickbreads and griddle products"

Well it took ten years, but I have finally sourced the origin of the morning menu for the hospital cafeteria.

Thanks, internet.
posted by hobo gitano de queretaro at 4:02 AM on November 25, 2013

This has been around for a loong time. I learned electronics from this to supplement my graduate school labwork, and that was about 15 years ago.

As was said above, the semiconductor concepts haven't changed much since the 60s, so there's a lot of decent and applicable stuff in here...
posted by Pazzovizza at 4:07 AM on November 25, 2013

The submarine cuisine thing is awesome, by the way.
posted by jquinby at 4:48 AM on November 25, 2013

Back when Barnes and Noble was something amazing and new, they kind of needed to pad out some of their sections with big, impressive trade paperbacks that cost very little wholesale, as it was in the public domain or super cheap to get the rights for, and they could print it themselves. The antiquated-yet-still-informative NEETs was one of them (along with the very impressive Linus Pauling chemistry introduction, General Chemistry, which I actually bought.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:08 AM on November 25, 2013

You're burying the lede here - that page also contains the 1945 US Navy Cookbook, not to mention Submarine Cuisine!

1945? How about the 1904 Navy Cookbook. Beef a la Mode, anybody?

it was not a good time to be a vegetarian in the Navy, let me tell you.

But seriously, if you ever have to look at US Navy Files, one of the most important documents in the world is right here -- the US Navy Filing Manual, which describes how Navy records and correspondence was cataloged, filed and retrieved -- and describes how the file numbers works. The amount of information stored in the file numbers is staggering, if you have the key, and the USNFM is that key.
posted by eriko at 5:47 AM on November 25, 2013

Actually, this is an incredibly neat resource. Buried the lede, indeed! Thanks!

I'm honestly surprised there isn't a copy of Bowditch's here. But, that wasn't a Navy publication, so I'm not surprised. If you want to learn to navigate a ship at sea, there are damn few better places to look than Nathaniel Bowditch's The American Practical Navigator (this is the 2002 edition via Wiki, here's the same via the official source as zipped pdf or a page with chapter pdfs.)

Heck, that last link is sort of the metaresource for US navigation. Want to know what all that stuff on US nautical charts means? Well, you need US Chart No. 1. Want to warn people about your limited ability to turn? The International Code of Signals. What light is that? The USCG Light List.
posted by eriko at 5:59 AM on November 25, 2013 [4 favorites]

Disappointingly, this Navy cookbook doesn't have a section explaining how to single-handedly defeat an entire ship full of armed terrorists while also having time to catch a strip show.
posted by Riki tiki at 6:02 AM on November 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

how Navy records and correspondence was cataloged

In the Navy!
Please file form XB73
In the Navy!
The yellow copy goes to me
posted by thelonius at 6:02 AM on November 25, 2013 [19 favorites]

U.S. Navy tech manuals in print in Dover and in stock at Amazon:

Basic Electricity

Basic Electronics

Basic Optics
posted by bukvich at 6:53 AM on November 25, 2013

U.S. Navy tech manuals in print in Dover and in stock at Amazon:

One of my favorites:
Basic Construction Techniques for Houses and Small Buildings Simply Explained
posted by 445supermag at 7:16 AM on November 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

The sign of the current is a matter of convention. It's definitely more intuitive for the current to flow in the direction of the electron flow, IMO.
posted by empath at 7:39 AM on November 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Googling around, "Basic Construction Techniques for Houses..." looks to be a republication of Builder 3 & 2, vol 1 and 2. Very interesting, thanks!
posted by fings at 7:40 AM on November 25, 2013

The "definition of the direction of current" thing was a speed bump for me between High School and College. My electrical and electronic courses in high school used from-negative-to-positive and in my college EE courses it was from-positive-to-negative.

It was never an issue; what I messed up on was one time absent-mindedly using my left hand to figure out the answer to a right-hand-rule test question because I was writing with the other hand :/
posted by achrise at 9:45 AM on November 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

What you're seeing here is the difference between a text optimized for learning (because you need to raise the skills of as many people as possible as high as possible as rapidly as possible) and a text optimized for inflating the ego of the author (most college texts).
posted by LastOfHisKind at 9:49 AM on November 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

"everybody other than the Navy", AFAIK.

I'd guess the Navy would prefer to have people think of something more (seemingly) tangible moving, as opposed to the movement of "holes". Reinforces remembering the electron charge, collides less with common-sense (a "current" of people is made of people, not the spaces they evacuate. Same with water.), and avoids the possible confusion that (positively-charged) protons are moving.

The result is the same either way, and is more oriented toward practice than theory. Since they've been teaching the stuff -en masse- since at least WW2, I bet they have some idea of what works. I had a lot of experience with electronics by the time I got to college, and was completely amazed at (and disgusted by) the extremely theoretical approach of "thevenin equivalents" and other mumbo-jumbo.
posted by Twang at 5:16 PM on November 25, 2013

When I was a grad student, I tutored an electrician who was taking 200-level E&M. He would cheerfully and repeatedly explain to me that "scientists have recently proved" that currents flow from negative to positive, reverse half the current arrows on his circuit problems, and then wonder why he got answers wrong. This same guy contradicted me when I told him that an ammeter must be in series with the current it measures --- he was used to inductive meters that clamp around a cable and are calibrated for 60 Hz alternating current, which I hadn't encountered before. I bet he learned out of a book like this. A great text to be aware of, but one with limits.

I was just the other day looking something up in the mid-eighties Horowitz & Hill Art of Electronics and wondering whether there's a comparable book that's five years old instead of thirty. The writing is clear enough to learn from but concise enough to use as a reference; there's a strong emphasis on understanding things well enough to use mental arithmetic rather than drowning in algebra; there are many diverse topics all covered quite well. My concern is that the things in there that I haven't done in depth before have changed in important ways, and if I start designing things based on that old book I'll miss something obvious, like a gearhead who doesn't know about fuel injectors. The Navy text looks interesting in this light (plus, it was apparently revised only 15 years ago!) but at 300 pages the first module at least fails on conciseness. Any other recommendations?
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 8:09 AM on November 26, 2013

All day long I've been slowly reading through CHAPTER 1 of the one dealing with solid-state electronics, in many short sessions whenever I have a spare minute or two.

Chapter one covers diodes. It is inexorable, covering everything I'm ever likely to want to know about how a semiconductor diode works, one simple step at a time. Very relaxing, and it's filled in one or two gaps in my knowledge of such things. It's only 47 pages, but reading it a little bit at a time, in quick short bursts, it seemed to be going on forever. On finally reaching the SUMMARY at the end of the chapter, I am suddenly reminded where it started. It starts with "The UNIVERSE consists of two main parts - matter and energy..."
posted by sfenders at 1:13 PM on November 26, 2013

jcreigh: "where "in some...communities" should be read as meaning "everybody other than the Navy", AFAIK."

Electrician training (and therefor I'd bet any other trade) in Canada use the negative to positive electron flow paradigm. I don't know why though maybe it is easier to teach in some way. Still trips me up on occasion coming from previous heavy science education.
posted by Mitheral at 5:55 PM on November 26, 2013