Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids.
In fact it’s cold as hell – Elton John, Rocketman
Mars is hard. Only 26 of 56 missions sent to Mars have been successful. Landing on Mars is especially hard. Even though Mars’s gravity is only a third of Earth’s, the planetary atmosphere is 100 times thinner, which makes a soft landing by parachute impossible for mission … Read More → "An FPGA Flies on Mars"
I was recently introduced to what may be the future (or one future in this slice of the multiverse) of mixed-reality headsets. As a result, I’m currently squirming in my seat squealing in excitement. Now that I come to think about it, this is my usual modus operandi, so I just dispatched the butler to retrieve an appropriate pair of trousers.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times (but I don’t mind saying it again): I think that the combination of augmented … Read More → "Kura’s AR Glasses are Meta-Droolworthy!"
A working engineer posted this question, which appeared in my LinkedIn status stream earlier this year:
“I want to set up a home electronics test bench for maker projects. I would like a scope (perhaps with logic analyzer), waveform gen, power supply, volt/amp meter. My interests are high fidelity audio, and Arduino/RPi type projects. I am seeking recommendations on setups that won’t break the bank. This is for my own personal use, not work work.”
Now I style myself as someone … Read More → "Equipment Recommendations for a Home Electronics Lab"
A couple of weeks ago, I was waffling on (as is my wont) about something or other, and I mentioned that my chum Jay Dowling had introduced me to an interesting analog computer called The Analog Thing (THAT). As I said at that time, it took me ages to realize that “THAT” was an abbreviation of “The Analog Thing” and not some esoteric part of its name.
As part of this, Jay … Read More → "Meet Mythic AI’s Soon-to-be-Legendary Analog AI"
The market for low-power microcontrollers (MCUs) used in IoT endpoint devices is fiercely competitive and not for the weak of heart. If you are a purveyor of such a low-power MCU, you have to have something really special to differentiate yourself and stand proud in the crowd. All of which leads us to…
…those clever chaps and chapesses at Ambiq. If you are already familiar with Ambiq, you’ll be interested to … Read More → "Is Ambiq’s Apollo4 Plus the World’s Most Energy Efficient MCU?"
I’m pickin’ up good vibrations
She’s giving me the excitations – Good Vibrations, The Beach Boys
I live in a condo. When I drive into my condo, I pass through two gates to get to my parking spaces. Each gate employs a motor to open and close it. When we installed these gates several years ago, they worked great. However, as the years have progressed, the gate mechanisms have started to break down. Sometimes a mechanical linkage fails. Sometimes a … Read More → "I’m Pickin’ Up Bad Vibrations: How to Predict Motor Failure Before it Happens"
As I’ve mentioned on a couple of occasions, one of my back-burner hobby projects is writing a book called Wroting Inglish: The Essential Guide to Writing English for Anyone Who Doesn’t Want to be Thought a Dingbat.
For example, in my Its vs. It’s column, I noted that “I have engineer friends around the … Read More → "Bodaciously Big Brass Balls (or The Royal Order of Adjectives)"
Let me sail, let me sail
Let the Orinoco flow
Let me reach, let me beach
On the shores of Tripoli
Let me sail, let me sail
Let me crash upon your shore
Let me reach, let me beach
Far beyond the Yellow Sea – Enya, Orinoco … Read More → "Can You Insert Hardware Trojan Spyware IP into an IC at the Fab? Yes, You Can"
I watched the first season of “Ted Lasso” with my family over the Thanksgiving holiday in late November. If you’re one of the few people, like me, who aren’t familiar with the series, it’s based on a 2013 concept ad series by NBC Sports touting the channel’s coverage of the UK’s top-level Premier League football (“soccer” in the US) matches. Jason Sudeikis starred in the ads and later developed the ads’ concept of an American football coach transplanted to the UK to coach a UK football team into a television series that … Read More → "New Semiconductor Technologies Are Rarely What They Seem at First Glance"
I don’t like to boast, but I was around to see the dawn of the microprocessor (cue Richard Strauss’s tone poem (orchestral music) Also Sprach Zarathustra (“Thus Spake Zarathustra”).
As an aside, and as I made mention in my blog — We’re One Step Closer to Judgment DayRead More → "Meet the Flex6502 — A Flexible 6502 CPU"
