I don't know why, but this tickled my fancy, and it's brought a laugh out of everyone I've told it to (which is basically anyone who didn't get out of the way fast enough when they saw me coming).
While driving into work, my local radio station had a competition in which he first caller to provide the correct answer to a question would win $100. The question was, "There are 92 known cases of something being lost at sea; what is the something?"
I didn't have a clue, but I was interested to learn the answer. One guy suggested "Locomotives" (Trains), which I thought was pretty clever since they might have been carried on (and washed off) the decks of cargo ships over the years. Another guy suggested "Spouses", but I got the impression he was "projecting".
Of course we had the usual "Dilbert" answers like "Sunglasses" (give me strength!). And then someone came up with the right answer: it seems that there are 92 known cases of nuclear bombs lost at sea. Now you can call me "old fashioned" if you will, but I personally find this somewhat disturbing. I mean to say, I could understand (although not be happy with) the loss of one or two nuclear bombs, but 92? Words fail me...
July 23, 2008
How to increase your productivity and fitness at the same time (seriously)
By
Clive
Maxfield
OK, this may at first seem to be a jumble of unrelated points, but hang in there with me and I think I will surprise you, because I've discovered a way to increase one's productivity at work while at the same time increasing one's fitness and losing weight.
My wife (Gina the Gorgeous) tells me that I'm incredibly good looking and I don't need to lose any weight (my friends tell me that I should never let Gina get her eyes tested, otherwise she may be in for a bit of a shock).
On the other hand ... my mother (who recently came for a three-week visit from England) told me that I'd gained a lot of weight and that I needed to do something about it. She said it with love, but also in a tone of voice that brooked no argument (you know what mothers are like).
So... I purchased a new set of weighing scales a little over a week ago and weighed myself. Eeeeeek! Arrgghhhh! Urrrgggghh! I can no longer convince myself that it's the washing machine that's shrinking my clothes. I decided that my mom was right and that I have to do something about this.
My goal is to lose 41.5 pounds by Christmas. Why 41.5 pounds? Well, Unless my new weighing scale is telling lies, I'm now a chunky 241.5 pounds, and I've set my goal to be only 200 pounds by Christmas Day morning when I first arise (don't ask me what I'll weigh by the evening). This is perfectly doable if I can manage to lose 2 pounds a week.
What do you mean: "What has all of the above have to do with increasing productivity etc.? Curb your impatience grasshopper; wait for it; I'm getting there.
First of all, I've started walking at least two miles a day (I was walking a lot at the beginning of the year, but Gina "moved my cheese" [messed with my Nike-iPod sensor] and I sort of fell out of the habit). Second I'm watching what I eat (no more burgers and fries for me) including putting smaller portions on my plate.
The result is that I've lost 2.5 pounds in the first week, but I want to do more in the way of exercise if I am to achieve the "six-pack abs" I'm looking for.
Moving on ... long ago in the mists of time, I saw a TV advert for something called the Red Exerciser. This is a sort of swiveling chair that you sit on and turn back and forth against resistance while holding your legs out straight. It provides a really good exercise for your "core" muscles ... so long as you actually use the beast.
Sad to say, after unpacking it and trying it once, the poor little scamp has languished untouched in the corner of my office for a year or more (where does the time go?).
And so, finally, we come to the point of all of this. Are you familiar with the concept of Yahoo Widgets? If not, these are useful and/or amusing little applications that you can quickly and easily download to your desktop (there are literally thousands of the little rascals for you to play with if you so desire).
Well, yesterday evening I ran across a really simple widget called TenPlusTwo created by David Greenspan. The basic idea is that you work for 10 minutes, break for 2 minutes, and then repeat. In reality you can modify the various settings, so I've set my work/break times to be 20 and 2 minutes, respectively.
When you first set this widget running, it's colored red and it starts counting down your work time as shown below (I've set it to always be on top of any other applications).
When it's counted down to 00:00, the widget makes a "happy" sound, turns green, and starts counting down your break time (at the end of your break it makes a "sadder" sound, returns to its red color, and starts counting down a new working period).
Now, I don't know about you, but I tend to procrastinate; there's always a "little something" I want to do before getting stuck into the work I should be doing. This widget helps to stop that, because I've told myself that as long as it's red I have to be doing real work. In fact, I've found that this makes me work faster, because I try to race to complete whatever task (or sub-task) I'm working on before the end of the current work period. (Speaking of which, I now have less than 5 minutes to finish and post this blog).
Furthermore, as soon as the widget turns green indicating the start of my "break", I leap up and throw myself onto my Red Exerciser to perform 30 full left-right body twists. As I pen these words we're nearing the end of the morning and I feel like I've done a really good workout (ggodness knows what I'll feel like by the end of the day).
If I can keep this up, I absolutely believe that it will help me lose weight and get fit faster while, at the same time, increasing my productivity. Let's give it a few weeks and I shall report back as to my progress ... watch this space ...
Questions? Comments? Feel free to email me – Clive "Max" Maxfield – at max@techbites.com). And, of course, if you haven't already done so, don't forget to Sign Up for our weekly Programmable Logic DesignLine Newsletter.
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July 22, 2008
What am I holding in my hand?
By
Clive
Maxfield
I have a really cool book that I'm offering to the most deserving reader – now read on...
I've said it before and I'll (doubtless) say it again – it's a funny old world when you come to think about it. When I was a student and didn't have any money, I had to pay through the nose for technical books. By comparison, now that I'm older, (hopefully) wiser, devastatingly handsome, a trendsetter / leader of fashion (where the latter usually involves me wearing the same clothes for years/decades until they come back into vogue), and can actually afford to purchase the occasional book, publishers often send the little scamps to me for free.
As a case in point, a new tome from Wiley & Sons just landed unexpectedly on my desk. A quick visit to Amazon.com reveals that this "hot-off-the-press" (published only last month as I pen these words) handsome hardback version of FPGA Prototyping Using Verilog Examples has a list price of $84.95. Eeeek alors!
Unfortunately, I'm up to my ears in alligators fighting fires as usual, so I've only found a little time to skim through this little rascal, but it actually looks jolly interesting. It's jam-packed with hands-on examples that can be synthesized, implemented, evaluated, and tested on a variety of Xilinx Spartan-3 prototyping boards.
The book doesn't try to teach the whole of Verilog as a language per se, but it does teach a very useful synthesizable subset as part of the worked examples. The book itself is divided into three main sections:
- Part 1 (six chapters) introduces elementary Verilog constructs and their hardware counterparts and demonstrates the construction of basic digital circuits using these constructs. It also describes the use of Xilinx ISE synthesis software and Mentor simulation software, including generating configuration files, downloading them into the Spartan-3 prototyping board, and running the board.
- Part 2 (seven chapters) applies the techniques from Part 1 to design an array of peripheral modules for use with the prototyping board. Each chapter covers the development, implementation, and verification of an individual peripheral, and these modules can subsequently be incorporated into larger projects.
- Part 3 (four chapters) introduces the PicoBlaze 8-bit soft core microprocessor and demonstrates its integration with the reader's custom circuits.
Now, the bottom line is that – if the truth be told – I'm never going to find the time to read this book myself, and I'm loath to leave it gathering dust on my bookshelves when someone else could be enjoying it and doing something useful with it, so...
... if you think you are deserving of this little scamp, send me an email sometime before I arrive at my desk in the pleasure dome (my office) at 8:00 a.m. American Central Time on Monday 28 July explaining why I should give it to you above all others (don't forget to include your name and shipping address). Make me laugh; make me cry; and I will immediately dispatch this book to the originator of whichever message touches and/or amuses me the most.
Questions? Comments? Feel free to email me – Clive "Max" Maxfield – at max@techbites.com). And, of course, if you haven't already done so, don't forget to Sign Up for our weekly Programmable Logic DesignLine Newsletter.
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July 21, 2008
Octopus eats shark - Fish eats duck
By
Clive
Maxfield
I'm too young for all of this. There aren't enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done as it is, so I can ill afford to spent valuable time meandering my way around YouTube. But what can you do when a friend sends you a link saying: "Wow, have you seen this?"
The "this" in question is a video of a very scary Octopus eating a 4-foot shark. At first I thought this took place in the wild, but it turns out to be a large aquarium. When the keepers started finding shark skeletons at the bottom of the tank, they decided to film what was happening. The resulting video is rather amazing; I certainly wouldn't want to go into a tank containing this octopus.
The problem is that once you watch one video on YouTube you are presented with see all sorts of interesting related items. In this case, I was first led astray by a video of a giant octopus attacking a submarine and several videos of colossal squid (the "colossal" qualifier is their real name because they are larger than "giant squid"). But then I began to see other beguiling items, such as the one titled Large mysterious fish eats a duck (be warned, this is not for the faint of heart).
Questions? Comments? Feel free to email me – Clive "Max" Maxfield – at max@techbites.com). And, of course, if you haven't already done so, don't forget to Sign Up for our weekly Programmable Logic DesignLine Newsletter.
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