You are correct sir! I didn't realize Arduino had released multiple new boards.

The Galileo is pretty cool, though.

SF author / design maven Bruce Sterling picked up one at the Maker Faire and posted an Unboxing photo set:

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/brucesterling/sets/72157636182707015/with/10085336073/

Scroll to the bottom for the first picture in the set.

The display box is rigged with a sound chip that plays portentous music when the board is removed.

. . . the backdoor for the NSA is really well protected.

. . . the targeting algorithms will be vetted by legal teams every bit as diligent and committed to human rights and Constitutional law as the people in FISA courts who have helped keep the NSA from misusing their powers.

In related news, if you have legitimate business in areas of cities frequented by anti-war protestors, you can purchase a RapidPass Trusted Citizen(tm) badge which will eliminate time-consuming drop-and-freeze inspections by SecuriCorps (tm) PeacePal(tm) hover-drones. F%$ing hippies need not apply! (We'll know.)

Make the battlefield robots look like gnarly insects, with stink generators that make being around them unpleasant. If they can "talk," make them sound like tedious doofuses.

Of course, the enemy could counter by making their robots able to shape-shift -- as soon as they are out of site of their own side -- into beautiful, elegant shapes that no one would want to kill.

Uh . . . .

Cripes, I just wrote the background for an anime series, didn't I?

I only read the first Artemis Fowl book, and it didn't make much of an impression.

Was a later one set on Mars?

. . . to fertilize King Barsoom II's lawn and flower gardens! MARS NEEDS MULCH!

But seriously: Initial training for the would-be colonists will consist of living for five years in trailer homes buried beneath the soil of Antarctica's "dry deserts." People who can't cope with the psychological pressure, or who are judged insufficiently entertaining by the casting group of the MARS LIVE! production company and its advertisers and charter sponsors, will be summarily kicked off of the program. (They will receive copies of the home game, which consists of a refrigerator box equipped with fake controls and a framed color print of a Mars probe landing site.)

View them from the right solar system and the nebula spell out WILL YOU MARRY ME SQUARDANTELLA?

Amazing what a few dozen carefully arranged nova bombs can do.

Yup, the marriage proposal that wiped out 17 promising young civilization.

Well, really my only Sid Meier encounter, if you don't count sitting in an audience.

So, I'm at . . . COMDEX? CES? One of those big-ass electronics trade shows. Might have been Chicago, might have been Las Vegas.

I got away from my booth for an hour, and I head for the area where computer games are being shown. I'm totally jazzed to see a dummy box and demo of Colonization. I look over the material about it, and to another totally jazzed gamer next to me say something like "Cool, it's like someone did a decent remake of Seven Cities of Gold!"

A voice at my shoulder says "Good, that's what I had in mind."

SQUEEE!

The reptoids will stop at nothing to prevent humans from finding their homeworld!

But seriously, bummer. Many years ago (1997!) I went to a NASA Ames / Moffet Field open house. Various working groups had set up displays showing the mission concepts they were working on. One of these was Kepler.

If you read the Mars One, you'll see that they're counting on revenue from a reality program to fund the project.

So, the candidates must not only be emotionally stable and qualified, but be photogenic and charming enough to sustain the interest of viewers.

Imagine the horror if, after three years, all of the surviving colonists turn out to be phlegmatic, agreeable, no-drama workaholics and stable family-minded folks.

"These rating are terrible! My God, it's turned into The Waltons in space! Can we ship in some ninjas or a killer robot to liven things up?"

I wrote several of the old V&V adventures. I have many fond memories of dropping by FGUs offices and seeing guys like Jeff Dee & Bill Willingham toiling in the art hole . . . sometimes working on art for my RPG adventures!

For several years dealing with FGU was a good enough gig, but the publisher just sort of disappeared after the late 90s.

I had given up hearing from him ever again when Jeff pointed out that the company was still in business, sort of, and selling my stuff.

I eventually got back royalties, and even had a trunk manuscript (for another game system) published, but it is an uncomfortable situation. V&V aside, what other rights are up in the air?

I hope the appeal gets processed quickly so Monkey House can start work on V&V e3 and I can work on new editions of my old stuff for them!

. . . Mar 12 11:57:03 hedvig kernel:WILL I DREAM?

I clicked "Fixed-lens digicam" because it is the closest choice to what I use most often. It has a optical zoom, but is nowhere near being a DSLR or even a faux-DSLR.

I have better cameras than my Nikon E5600. Better resolution, better zoom, more features. But the E5600 is "good enough" in all categories, uses AA batteries (I pack spares), can fit in my shirt pockets, and since it only cost me $10 I wouldn't feel broken up about losing it.

Here it is!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/6946063784/in/photostream

Scanning through my photostream, a solid majority of my photos were taken with it.

I use a refurbished Fuji FinePix "faux DSLR" to take pictures of stuff I'm building, stuff I'm auctioning off, etc.

. . . he needs an official declaration that he was never guilty in the first place, and should never have been prosecuted.