Talking Fish

I finally finished a project that has been nagging me for the past few weeks! Yah :) We have these robotic fish swimming around and they can’t talk to each other, well, until now. I designed a transceiver communication board using RF modules from Linx Technologies hoping that time would be saved. Designing a stable radio frequency (RF) circuit is fairly straightforward when you’ve got fully integrated embedded modules, but once that design is placed in a conductive medium (like water) it gets a whole lot more complicated. As if RF design wasn’t black magic already, antenna placement, receiver sensitivity and ground plane geometry become critical and will make or break a design. At least the first board revision is done and I can send it off for fabrication and component soldering (2-3 week turnaround time). Now I can get married without this thing hanging over my head. ::breathing a big sigh of relief::

Of course this means I get to look forward to hardware hacking and bug fixing once I return from the honeymoon.

What I Learned Today…

… that the founder of the “mile high club” was also the inventor of the autopilot. LOL! I guess necessity really is the mother of invention.

Wedding Registry

Just in case you are attending and I haven’t sent you this: our registry info is available at wedding.hawkinwinter.com

We hope to see you all in Seattle :)

Road Trip

It has been quite a while since my last post. The end of the quarter and wedding planning has taken all of my time. Theresa and I attended her cousin’s wedding in Ashland, spent some time at the Shakespeare festival and decided to continue on down to The People’s Liberal Socialist Republic of Democratistan (formally known as California). Our friends here planned a shower for Theresa and she plans to visit some family in the bay area as well. I’ll try to write more as soon as time allows.

I Hate Matlab

Matlab is the work of Beelzebub. :(

That’s right… it was created by Satan in Hell.

UW College Republicans Know How to Party

Spent the evening with LRH and the UW College Republican Club at Wade’s Indoor Range in Bellevue. Free gun rentals, tons of ammo and free targets. T and I got to shoot Sigs, Glocks, XDs, and 1911s all chambered in 9mm. I brought my 45 and let some of the club members try it out after I convinced them it wasn’t going to explode. (A few of them were actually afraid of the 45’s recoil, but I assured them that if my fiancée can shoot 2 inch groups at 15 yards with it then they can hold the thing down range and pull the trigger. Speaking of which, T’s shooting was quite impressive. While some of the guys were cheering when they hit the paper, she was upset if she broke the 2″ mark on the bull’s eye. LOL.

Happy Easter

Off to Portland again… Happy Easter

Think before you register a domain name!

From my friend Adam …

ACTUAL “ONLINE” NAMES:

All of these are legitimate companies that didn’t spend quite enough time considering how their online names might appear …. and be misread.

These are not made up. Check them out yourself!

1. Who Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is

www.whorepresents.com

2 . Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at

www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at

www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at

www.therapistfinder.com

5. There’s the Italian Power Generator company

www.powergenitalia.com

6. And don’t forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales

www.molestationnursery.com

7. If you’re looking for IP computer software, there’s always

www.ipanywhere.com

8. And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky Web site

www.speedofart.com

Optical Illusion

This optical illusion has been sitting idle on my hard drive for months so I’m very happy that I can finally share it with you. Take a look at the squares labeled A and B. Are they the same shade of grey or different? The answer might be obvious.

Color perception in an optical illusion

Want to check your guess? The solution is here.

Website Traffic

So I was checking my webalizer today and marveling at who has been looking at my website and what they were searching for to find it in the first place. Sure my site gets hit regularly by friends & family, coworkers from Apple and Intel, a friendly ex, an emotionally unstable psycho ex, and a host of other people from my past who I’ve lost touch with and wish I hadn’t. The more exotic hits are really what amaze me though. I actually have web traffic from Iran! I mean.. WTH? Are the mullahs, imams and mujahedeen trying to make sure my conservative rants are not offensive to Allah? Besides that strange visit, I also have browsers from every European country, South Korea, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Cyprus (probably my old roommate Socrates) and Japan (probably my buddy Ben). So far over 100k hits and counting. Pretty cool for a small site that I don’t update that much!

Here are some of the phrases that random people are searching for when they found my site:

1 4 19.05% closet
2 2 9.52% statement of purpose for master in system on chip
3 2 9.52% when are baby shubunkin fish born
4 1 4.76% computer my experience software statement sop
5 1 4.76% firmware engineer earn
6 1 4.76% hawk in the winter
7 1 4.76% hawk in winter
8 1 4.76% hawk winter
9 1 4.76% japanese koi pond photos
10 1 4.76% japanese maple waterfall photo
11 1 4.76% large koi pond photos
12 1 4.76% peela how to access plesk
13 1 4.76% scott hauk computer
14 1 4.76% statement of purpose for electrical engineering and shipping
15 1 4.76% the hawk of winter
16 1 4.76% what is recoaro italy like in the winter

1 3 15.79% titan missile silos in washington state
2 1 5.26% celtic redheads
3 1 5.26% computer automation statement of purpose
4 1 5.26% cryosleep music
5 1 5.26% gazebo pond backyard
6 1 5.26% hawk winter
7 1 5.26% japanese garden cal poly wedding
8 1 5.26% japanese tea houses structure patio
9 1 5.26% japanese weeping cedar photos
10 1 5.26% ken egaro
11 1 5.26% koi lantern
12 1 5.26% old pond landscape
13 1 5.26% redesigning a concrete patio
14 1 5.26% statement of purpose graduate nano
15 1 5.26% terracrawler
16 1 5.26% the morros near san luis obispo
17 1 5.26% winter hawk

1 2 22.22% closet
2 1 11.11% brick planter as koi pond
3 1 11.11% guadalupe cantua
4 1 11.11% how to build a pond venturi
5 1 11.11% landscaping pictures path patio
6 1 11.11% montalban manor
7 1 11.11% picture of mondo grass as ground cover in stepping stones
8 1 11.11% winter hawk

1 1 33.33% bishop peak san luis obispo ca
2 1 33.33% koi in winter
3 1 33.33% koi ponds with gazebos pictures

Crazy! Huh? Especially closet??? huh?