One Ring to rule them All

I don’t like wearing jewelry. That said I have to date purchased four rings: High School graduation, my wedding ring (version I and version II) and my new replacement ring as shown here:

I will provide a little history to indicate just how big this is. The only reason I purchased my high school graduation was because my sister Kathleen filled out the form. My parents were not going to attend my graduation; therefore I wasn’t. I swung around during summer to pick up my diploma.

The wedding ring is self explanatory; if anyone can figure out how to get married without a ring it would have been me; so trust me when I say you can’t. I will in the interest of full disclosure admit that I did loose my first wedding ring (to a Hyatt in Kern) and am on ring number 2. (The hotel called to tell my wife they couldn't find it before I had a chance to tell her it was lost.)

Four years ago, my wife gave me a truly wonderful wedding anniversary present ‘I didn’t have to wear my ring anymore’. So why would I go out and buy a new ring?

One word: Titanium!

Ah yeah baby! This sweet sucker will out last me, and most of the northern hemisphere.

With the zoom-zoom and the honk-honk

I recently saw two films (hey I have two baby daughters; this is a big thing), the first ‘An inconvenient truth’ and ‘Who killed the electric car?’ Both were excellent and if you find yourself with some time I would recommend trying to find a showing.

For the record I’m not a tree hugger and tend to think with my wallet.

Both movies got me thinking about electric cars. Or, more to the point; making one! I’ve always been fascinated by the idea; even as a kid I wanted my go-cart to be electric I had rebuilt a starter motor and had my eye on the car battery at the local J&J auto-supply. But my dad explained that I would only burn the motor out after a couple of minutes, so I never made my electric go-cart (but I’ve already got everything I need, in-case one of my daughters wants one…..)

So here’s the list;
Donor car $1200 (Porsche 914-1973)
DC motor $2000
DC/DC control system $2500
Mounting hardware $1500
Wiring harness $750

So for about $10K I can have a electric Porsche; 135 mile range between charges and a top speed of about 80mph.

Now here’s the rub; I know an AC system would be better.

What to do, what to do...

I've been to the mountain top

I’ve been meaning to cover a new processor for a couple of months now; and have found reason after reason for putting it off; sure some of you might point out my new daughter or that fact that my job sucks out loud. But I’ll mark it up to a predisposition for procrastination. I can be honest here, right?

Anyway it is now time at last, to give this chip some of the credit it’s due.

One of the links I have is to a company names Parallax Inc. These are the folks who’ve been building a market for their ‘Basic Stamp’ processor line. For some time now, single chip computers (called PIC’s) have been making life in our modern age possible. But they have been very problematic when it comes to programming. The ‘Basic Stamp’ removed that barrier by providing a simple language and a very intelligent compiler.

These bright folks have gone off; and designed there own processor, the ‘Propeller’ (complete with beanie cap and everything). It’s exceeding well designed and very creatively pulled off. Instead of trying to re-invent the wheel and designing some power mad super chip; they instead bundled 8 very capable processors into one package.

The Propeller is built around a very straight forward Hub and Cog design. The Hub polls that Cogs (the 8 processors) to see if they require access to shared memory and then moves onto the next cog. It you’ve every played with marshalling or semaphore issues with multi-user/processor systems you can appreciate they simple beauty here.

I have an issue with the Phase Lock Loop system and the external crystal, and would have preferred a built in high resolution digital oscillator, but this is such a minor point I wouldn't even being it up in polite company.

Should you doubt the brilliance of this design, I would point you over to Intel’s web site and take a look at their future processor designs. They are almost identical.

Go speed racer!

In keeping with my declaration that I can foretell marketing geek cool, I have provided a link to Tesla Motors. In case you happen to have a spare $80K burning a hole in your pocket, feel free to pick up one of their roadsters. I want mine in the thunder cloud grey, thank you very much!

(I’m hoping that this post get picked up, much the way the Microsoft and Apple ones did)

I want what I want

Apart from the rampant miss-spellings that this site has to offer; I also provide a vast marketing focus group (of 1) as well. It’s nice to know that someone from Apple reads this Bog as well. How else can you explain Apple decision to offer the Mighty Mouse as wireless, and blue-tooth as well?

Sure, some might argue that it was just common sense (and geeky cool), but I prefer to take the high road, and just proclaim that they read my request here.

When-ever possible I recommend being self-delusional, it can provide hours of fun.