Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Cloud-based circuit assembly...

Cloud-based circuit assembly...  I wouldn't have foreseen this would happen.  Amazing!

Bootstrapping a compiler...

Bootstrapping a compiler...  This story about a modern effort assumes that the reader will think that bootstrapping a compiler is something unusual or odd.  But back in the early days of microcomputers (mid '70s to early '80s), I and many others did this as a matter of routine.  In those days, the “computer hobbyists” (of which I was one) had ready access to computer hardware, but the software tools that existed were prohibitively expensive.  So ... if we wanted a compiler (or assembler, for that matter), we bootstrapped it.  My favorite route was to bootstrap a simple assembler, then use that to add a macro package, then use the macro assembler to write a simple compiler (usually for C, sometimes for Pascal), then write the actual target compiler in that.  I've lost track of how many times I followed that path, but it was at least a half dozen times...

This is what it feels like to be a geezer geek :)

But being a geezer EE is even more fun, 'cause then I get to talk about vacuum tubes!

The dissing of the president...

The dissing of the president...  Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal.  Near the end he expresses a thought I've had often these past few months:
And all so reminiscent of the contempt the world showed for Jimmy Carter in the waning days of his failed presidency. The trouble for us is that the current presidency has more than 1,000 days to go.
Exactly.

Go read the whole excellent piece...

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  From Susan Vass, as seen on PowerLine Blog:
Everybody gets along. Everybody eats at the same three local diners. Everybody is polite. Everybody is smiley and friendly, even teenagers! Why?

Because everybody is armed to the teeth – cowboys, geezers, Iraqi vets, tattooed Latinos, nuns.
Much more at the link...

We know which political party you should join...

We know which political party you should join...  Apparently Covered California (the California ObamaCare insurance exchange) knows which political party you should join: the Democratic Party, of course!

Rope.
Tree.
California state bureaucrat.
Some assembly required!

The Internet is a wonderful thing, part 693,283...

The Internet is a wonderful thing, part 693,283...  The New York Public Library has released high-resolution images of over 20,000 maps in its collection.  Some of these are famous historical maps.  These images are freely downloadable.  Awesome!

It's enough to make you wonder...

It's enough to make you wonder ... if the nutritionists have any idea at all what they're talking about! 

When I was a kid, my dad taught us to suck on a smooth, round pebble to satisfy the thirst we worked up when hiking.  That was the best advice he could find in his reading.  We carried a couple of small canteens on our hikes. 

Then when I was just 9 or 10, he read some new advice: people who were working hard should drink a couple of quarts of water every day.  He bought bigger canteens and we started carrying much more water on our hikes, and we stopped sucking on pebbles.

Much later – in the '90s? – I started seeing advice about the minimum amounts of water we should be drinking daily.  These were always vastly larger than the amount of water I actually drank, amounts so large that I had trouble imagining choking that much down.  I once asked my doctor whether I should drink more water, and he told me not to worry about it – I showed no signs of dehydration :)

Now I read the latest advice, which is basically this: drink when you're thirsty.  So we've gone from drink as little as possible, to drink moderately, to drink a whole lot, and now to drink whatever you feel like drinking – all within my lifetime.  One could imagine being quite confused :)  But I'm not – I decided quite a few years ago that the nutritionists were far more confused than I was, so I just ignore them...

867 miles...

867 miles...  That's the distance between our home in Jamul and Logan, Utah.  I'm up in Logan, getting ready to close on the home we've purchased up here (this Friday is the big day).  But I'm here by myself – Debbie's still back in Jamul, holding down the fort there while I work on getting our new home ready to actually receive us and our menagerie.  I'll be up here for a few weeks at least.  I miss everybody already...