It's Presidential Primary Season here in New Hampshire, so we get at least one call per day, and those are exempt from the Do Not Call list. Sometimes it's a recording of the candidate. Sometimes it's a supporter of one of the candidates. Sometimes it's a pollster. A lot of the time it's a supporter of a candidate posing as a pollster. Those are easy to tell because the questions are leading.

<shameless plug>

I've got one of these on my desk as I write. I've actually been working with it for several months now, and it's pretty sweet. It's intended to be a DSP co-processor coupled to an FPGA. The company I work for (BittWare) has invested heavily in Adapteva, and we are introducing some boards featuring a handful of 16-core Epiphany chips (which we have rebranded as "Anemone") and an Altera Stratix 5 FPGA.

The tools are Linux-only at this point, but that's more than OK by me. I think this is the first time I've ever not been forced to use Windows to develop code for a new processor.

The target application is anything that requires lots of DSP but can't burn many watts.

</shameless plug>

I think the "Testing the Bike and Lights" segment was testing whether or not it got attention from the chicks. They both turned their heads, so I guess it passed.

I bet dogs are a lot cheaper than snifferbots.

I would like to put some PV cells on the roof, but it really bugs me that even though they produce DC (which I need), I'd have to convert it to AC, deliver it to my equipment, and then convert back to DC again inside the device's power supply. These cascaded conversions take their toll - if 80% each, I have a total conversion efficiency of only 64%. Ouch. That really hurts if you're trying to squeeze all you can out of a PV setup.

I thought of a possibly viable path the industry could offer for converting to DC. What if a computer manufacturer started offering desktop machines with an UPS integrated into the power supply? The marketing reasons for this are somewhat compelling - it makes the desktop behave more like a laptop. No need for a separate UPS, etc.

They could at the same time take the further step of providing UPS-backed DC outlets on the PS itself, and then sell other equipment that would plug into these DC outlets - routers, cable modems, printers, monitors, etc. One advantage gained by the manufacturer here is that they would no longer need to provide region-specific wall-warts for small equipment.

Alternatively, a manufacturer could make an UPS with DC outlets as well, so this wouldn't be limited to desktop systems. Third parties would spring up to provide cables to connect the router you already have to this DC outlet in place of the wall-wart. Why buy a $60 router when you could get the same effect for a $5.00 replacement cable?

Once those devices become widely deployed, it's a short jump to DC outlets in the walls. Once that happens, the desktop no longer needs an UPS-backed AC supply - it could just have a DC cable like all the other gear. From there it's a short hop to in-home, battery-backed, off-grid (or aux-grid) power, be it PV or wind, or whatever. Then my innernets would stay up even when an ice storm takes out the grid.

I usually touch it in a frantic bid to find the "open door" button. My feeble mind can never disentangle the subtleties between <|> and >|< in the few milliseconds available when I wish to hold the door for someone. I take comfort in knowing that my mistakes do not hasten the door's closing, but I take umbrage at the thought that if the elevator didn't have the placebo button, I could find <|> more quickly and to better effect.

I read an article in the Washington Post ~20 years ago about people waiting in lines. A hotel was constantly receiving complaints about the speed of their elevators. They kept tweaking the elevators, but the complaints continued to roll in (despite the quantifiable improvements). Rather than continuing to pursue the problem with technology, they turned to psychology and installed mirrors in the elevator lobby. Seems that if people have something interesting to look at (to them at least), the time passes more quickly and they do not notice that the elevators are slow. After they made this final change, the complaints stopped. I think about this every time I see a mirror in an elevator lobby.

True, but that still doesn't make skin easier to come by than blood.

Just how much skin does it take to make a pint of blood? I would think a lot, but not having read the article, I wouldn't know.

Seems to me they invented the reverse of the process that's really needed. It's a lot harder to get enough skin for grafting than it is to get blood for transfusions. Wouldn't blood-to-skin be a better conversion?

iPads are just a teardrop on the ocean. What about phone browsers? My guess is that browsing from a phone is becoming a bigger part of the pie, and IE just isn't in that game. Note that the browsers that are growing are the ones available for phones.

Though fuel efficiency is a good candidate, the number ONE issue will be liability for the manufacturers of said flying cars. Consensus here seems to be that they would have to be computer controlled. All it takes is one bug, and they're on the losing side of a multi-[mb]illion dollar lawsuit. The second suit will cost even more.