Archives: Articles
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Processing Parallel Worlds
“Too many cooks spoil the broth” — proverb Programming with parallelism is sometimes illustrated with a kitchen example. One cook working by himself has to…
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Keeping the FCC and Open Source Happy
The FCC is worried. You and they spend all this time and energy getting your radio certified, and then some bozo hacks in, changes how…
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A Light at the End of the Tunnel
“Begone, Prince of Insufficient Light!” — Dogbert Imagine describing electronics, and electrons, to an 8-year-old. “Electrons are really tiny little particles that move through the…
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To Err is Human
When a Tesla automobile using the new “Autopilot” feature struck a semi trailer resulting in the death of the driver, the inevitable questions began: “Should…
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When Galaxies Collide
Astronomy bestows lavish breathless anticipation upon one of the great events of the universe: two galaxies running into (or through) each other. The thing is,…
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From Boards to Systems
For decades, the various companies who market printed circuit board (PCB) design software had it all wrong. The products available to us were defined not…
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Summer Sand Dollars
“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.” – Sam Keen It’s summertime, which means half of your cow-orkers have ambled out of the office, everyone…
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New Low-Power Sensors
It’s how we do new technology: first, get something that works. Almost anything will do, as long as it’s not egregiously out of whack on…
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POS: Porsche, Oracle, and SPARC
“The older I get, the faster I was.” – popular racing driver’s adage Some engineering designs, like some felons, are just born bad. Others start…
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Hamster Wheel
Let’s make one thing perfectly clear right off the bat. Engineering is not an assembly line. Life would be much simpler and cleaner if we…