Silicon Valley Redneck

Volume

So: I look at the planned respin of the Probe-O-Zap, and figure I can shoehorn the revised & updated (and slightly more complex) design into 1.875 x 0.475 inches.

Now, how about a quick online quote for, say, 100 pieces, with a not-especially-fast turn?  Preferably panelized for more efficient assembly?

Hmph.  Even without panelization, Sunstone wants several dollars per board, in hundreds.  Sierra Circuits and PC Fab Express, at least using their easy-quote form, won't touch anything under 0.5" wide, and with that adjustment they're still only a little cheaper than Sunstone.

Given that a pile'o'boards on a 2-week-ish turn from OSH Park would run about $1.50 per board, with easy ordering... maybe I'll get in touch and see about quantity orders, and whether they can be delivered in panelized form.  And also talk to an NPI assembly house over in Fremont, that might have a favorite fab service.

Or, I could try the usual vendors' full-service options.  Which I've always assumed were even more expensive, but maybe it gets better in hundreds.  Or get in touch with an overseas fab.

Not that I'm making commitments at this point, not yet having done a market survey nor secured a steady supply of the Mystery Component.  My supplier claims to have at least hundreds available at a good price, but a single run of 100 units probably isn't worth the trouble (best guesstimate, it starts making sense at around 1000 pieces in the first year).

Update: (a) yes, OSH Park can do what I want; (b) a regular PCB manufacturer can do the same thing, cheaper, if I'm willing to order maybe 1000 pieces at a whack, which is not the case at this point, but perhaps in a few months, if the component situation proves favorable and the product really takes off.  Near-term, likely case is 10 panelettes with 20 little boards per.

Compatibility issue

This here optical mouse, Logitech model M310, doesn't work worth beans on cat fur.

Huckleberry will just have to find another place to park himself.  The mouse pad is for mice.

Besides, he's lumpy.

Hoo-hah!

Sometime last year, while I wasn't looking, Son Of Mission: Impossible finally came out on DVD!

And it hasn't sold out yet.

Not that I was totally impressed with the series back when it was on TV, before being sent off to the top-security vaults - it did have a tendency to cannibalize the original series, and make multiple episodes out of plot elements that were all packed into a single old-series episode (sorry, no specifics right now; this is a vague recollection from Back When) - but it was still pretty good, and vastly better than most of the drivel in the Vast Wasteland.

Anyway, the DVD set will be on its way shortly, so I'll be able to watch the series again, and perhaps be reminded of what was good, and what not-so-good, about it.

Oh, and if memory serves, I didn't even get to see the whole series when it was on TV.  Something about episodes being bumped to make way for feetball games and not re-shown at any time that I heard about, or just not being carried by the local station, or whatever.  I hadn't even realized, at the time, that there was a second season.

Skiffle? Scuffle?

Yeah, I finally got around to seeing Skyfall.

Capsule review: feh.

Expanding on that a little...

The story line was incoherent.

A lot of the visuals made no sense, unless maybe you'd read the script, and I'm guessing not even then.

Everything about computers, and just about everything about firearms: does the phrase "not even wrong" ring a bell?

Seriously, "tracing the encryption signal"?  Or, a super-expert trying to defeat the exotic security features on an enemy's computer, with it booted up and plugged into the damn internal network?  Rather than leaving it turned off, pulling the hard drive, and hooking the drive up to a Linux (or BSD, or whatever) system that won't be running any of the special security code?

And that business about the depleted-uranium pistol bullet... riiiiight.  Not only does such a thing make basically no sense, but, if it had hit Bond intact?  Neat little round hole, like an FMJ only more so.  And that clown with the machine pistol had to be carrying at least his own weight in ammunition.  Somewhere.

Technical details that make no sense, plot elements that make no sense, general incoherence: we're talking Roger Moore-era quality here, only without the benefit of being funny.

Afterthought: an incoherent story line is nothing new.  Fleming's stories generally made some sort of sense, if only because they're been subjected to the editing process for novels.  The Hollywood writers, though, seem to be basically coming up with excuses for protracted chase scenes and exploding helicopters, and occasionally shoehorning in a mandatory plot point. ("Oh, yes: we need to get rid of a long-running character because the actor is retiring.")

Got another purple envelope today

Containing three of my latest purple board - yes, the one that goes with the mysterious East European item - and a purple sticker.

Update: assembled the right (i.e., Eastern-facing) end of the board this afternoon, and spent an hour or so playing mad scientist with this, various bench instruments (power supply, pulse generator, scope, voltmeter), and the Mystery Item.  It works!  Next up: populate the MCU and a few other parts, and throw together the basic operating firmware.  Then, the left end (USB interface), and some rinky-dink Ruby program for demo purposes.

I expect to be turning this into a Genuine Product (actually, 2 or 3 closely-related products) sort of June-July-ish, assuming an ongoing supply of Mystery Items can be negotiated.  Watch for an announcement.

Update, Sunday afternoon: MCU is now controlling the interface section (in a rudimentary way, as I'm missing a small but important component at the moment), and taking measurements.  Another few hours should have the dingus fully operational.  When those few hours will be... well, I've got a busy week coming up.

Update, Thursday lunchtime: hardware is now fully armed and operational.  I'm sending measurements back to the host PC via the FT201X.  Just need to implement the rest of the firmware features, and it'll look remarkably like a Product (modulo packaging and suchlike details).  This afternoon, though, there's Real Work to be done.

Sticker shock

Ran a few errands this morning.  One of them was to REI, in search of a couple of pairs of good hiking shorts, what with my seriously stepping up my morning walkies.

Gah!  They had a few styles of shorts on display.  Pretty decent ones.  Starting at $60.

Summer shirts, likewise: some really nice ones to be had, at $60 and up.

Not this month.  Maybe when the Really Big Project pays off, which should be the proverbial Any Day Now....

At last...

I'd long been wondering when Grant would get around to this one:

On the latest Mythbusters - the JATO-car "This time for sure!", which deviates ever further from the original yarn, while retaining the Impala - he's finally hooked up a computer-game steering wheel and pedals to the RC box, to allow driving the 1:1-scale RC car like a car.

There's still the matter of having a totally separate radio-command system for firing the rockets, but I'm guessing that's a COTS secure system made for HPR or possibly blasting.

Oh, and on the Science! front?  They keep bandying about a conversion factor for thrust to horsepower.  There's no such thing.  The units are non-equivalent.  Thrust is force (pounds, Newtons, dynes: mass times acceleration, e.g., kg*m/s^2); power is force times distance per unit time (horsepower, Watts, BTU/hour, e.g.: kg*m^2/s^3).  Yeah, you could assign a rocket a horsepower rating based on fuel consumption or (almost equivalently) heat output, but that ain't how horsepower ratings work (though if you used BTU/hour instead, it would make sense: treat the rocket as a heater).

And in the department of I could'a told you that: if you're going for maximum range with your rocket car, and you're not giving it fins like a Cadillac (nor RCS, nor engine gimballing, nor active aerodynamic control surfaces, nor any other way of keeping it pointed straight), best results will be obtained by timing Brennschluß for just before the car leaves the ramp.  Not a couple of seconds later.  If memory serves, they'd already seen the nose-comes-down-leaving-the-ramp effect (because Gravity, duh) in at least one earlier episode (possibly involving an old TV show about hazardous ducks or something), so it should be no surprise that the thrust vector, immediately post-ramp, would be Highly Suboptimal.

All the news that fits...?

What with the Internet being quite large, I'd expect virtually all news to Fit.

And yet...

Running errands this afternoon, maybe 1315, heading south on the frontage road along 101, I saw twinklies atop the Fair Oaks overpass.

'Twas a fire engine, with nothing visible for it to be responding to.  Police cars were pulling up.

The next two overpasses were also populated with emergency vehicles, lights atwinkle.  Cops and firemen were looking north along the southbound lanes.

There was another contingent by the highway, just before the next exit, where I got off 101 because traffic was getting obscenely slow.

So: something had cops and firemen watching the highway.  Best guess: funeral procession for a cop or fireman.

Home again, and check Google News, and the Murky's web site.  Try various keywords.  Try browsing categories.

Nothing.  Not a peep.

Seems to be a complete lack of local reporting.  (And now, at 1730, I hear sirens (fire type).  If I checked the "local" news for what's-going-on, I'd no doubt learn of wildfires hundreds of miles to the south, and a terrifying manhunt even further to the east.)

Not to get all radical, but...

McMegan takes a look at that Medicaid study.  The one that shows no actual health improvements from subsidized access to health care.

As in: now we can put an actual, empirically-determined number to the benefit, and that number is right around zero.

This leads me to a totally crazy thought: why don't we try evidence-based government?

Yeah, I know: a totally unrealistic idea.  Just like the ones that routinely become law....

Gotta get busy...

ARM TechCon is the last three days of October this year.  As in: includes Halloween.  (Did it do that last year, too?)

Guess I should come up with some ARM-based costume.

I've got a coupla old hats with PICs in them... from 'bout twenty year back.

Maybe it's time to rebuild the Venusian Bugzapper, using a modern battery, decent motor drivers, and a Cortex M0 chip...?