I was in the grocery store when I passed by a man in the aisle.

He was older, my dad’s age, with black hair the reached his lower back, and that crazed look of people who have been doing too many drugs for the past thirty years.

Basically, Ozzy Osbourne’s twin.

He caught my eye and unsteadily but quickly lurched closer to me.

“Whooooa! I LOVE your hair!” He  spoke in a British accent, and reached out to touch it.

I get that sometimes, on rare days like today when I actually blow-dry the crazy mess. “Oh!” I said, surprised and intrigued by the accent. “Thank you!”

“And your EYES! and your smile, and whooa, you just MESMERIZE me!” His high-as-a-kite expression and the fact that he literally couldn’t tear his eyes away from me was too comical, and hit me before the idea that maybe I should keep walking did.

“I’m a musician, and I have a girlfriend, but I like to flirt, do you have a ring, you should have a ring, you should be married, someone should marry you!”

I laughed, then feeling awkward, tried to think of an escape route.

Then my escape route presented herself– she walked up and hugged him close, and in a Southern accent, drawled, “Honey, are you hittin’ on the girls again?” She laughed and smiled.

She had long, overly dyed brassy blonde hair that hung to her waist, and skin that led me to believe she had done as many drugs as he had. Actually, it was the rainbow beanie complete with propeller on her head that tipped me off.

I laughed and said to her, “You got a good one, there!”, and then ran away.

Still wondering where the guys my age are. And why THEY aren’t hitting on me.

Puzzled about it all?!?!  

Which brings me back to social media sites. When you’re giving the masses the ability to submit, vote on and promote any sort of content from across the entire web, what do you think they’ll do?

Sure, some people will want to know about the latest news in the Middle East while others are interested in Obama, and lots of people are are paying attention to Jerry O’Connell’s ‘Life in a SPEEDO’ wtf, howabout the economy, and other relevant or non-valuable information.  

And yeah, niche social media and social news sites will have a focus (Digg leans towards technology, BallHype is sports-oriented, and Linkswarm focuses on Pop Culture & bizarre news). 

But when you sift through the crap most of the general social media site that allows anyone to participate, you’re gonna see a lot of mainstream, general crowd pleasing stuff. Pictures you can easily glance at and laugh about stupid rants that have no discernible point and won’t make any sort of positive impact other than the fact that they made you smile or laugh for five minutes out of your busy, hectic Facebook day. 

Similarly, great content still exists on the web just as it’s always existed, and it’s easy to find it if you know where to look.

Don’t take a cursory look at social media and reduce a vast, entire Internet’s worth of content to the stuff you see being featured on LinkedIn, Stumbleupon, Facebook, and MySpace profiles, etc. 

Just because the “crappy” stuff now has a magnifying glass being held over it doesn’t mean it didn’t exist before or that the “good” stuff  is drastically declining.  That’s the beauty of the Internet–it’s a comprehensive resource created by humans, for  humans.  And it’s for every and all kinds of people–freaks, snobs, dummies, juveniles, women, men, geeks, liberals, conservatives, and porn stars.  

 Today, I’m wondering why you engage in social media marketing -  is it personal, on behalf of your company (or clients), or some combination of the two?

Why do you have social media accounts?

What do you use them for? 

Agreed, there are a great deal of social news sites on the internet, sometimes too many.  Most of them are dormant and no longer active or you forget about them and the usernames and passwords, perhaps it’s largely because they are poorly marketed and hence, never had an active community of users in the first place!  

Just my opinion but most of them are a waste of your time: they are riddled with spam and possibly will never attract a critical mass of viewers and participants so know your sites and don’t bother.   hmmmm                                                                                 

YOU don’t have alot of time on your hands. 

YOU want a community that gives you fresh news on topics that appeal to you. 

YOU want somthing that sends prospects and traffic while ‘branding‘ your website or business. 

YOU want a social news site with a long term return on your investment! 

Here’s my TOP  5 General Social News Websites  in no particular order.. 

1. Reddit-popular social news website with a large user base. Covers a wide range of news. Includes several topical sections called subreddits, which focus on specific topics like programming, science, politics and business.

2. Digg - the largest and most popular social news website on the internet. Covers all topics including politics, entertainment, technology and general news. Includes a separate video and image section.

3. Propeller – A social news site that covers all topics from technology to politics and entertainment. Operates in a similar fashion to Digg.

4. Fark – A community news site which allows users to comment on news articles. User submitted links will be posted on the main page once they are approved by the administrators.

5. Slashdot – primarily a tech news site, Slashdot also covers topics like books, games, politics and entertainment. Users can submit stories and they may be published after editors approve it. A popular site that can send a large amount of traffic.

But don’t take my word for it try them yourself!

Neste domingo, 15, houve o lançamento mundial do novo jogo da Nintendo, New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Em São Paulo o evento ocorreu no hotel Caesar Business, na Av. Paulista. Quem se inscreveu antes ganhou boné vermelho com M de Mario (O RLY?) e uma camiseta bacanuda. Quando cheguei fiquei assustado com a quantidade de gente. A fila para entrar ia até a rua Augusta! A Av Paulista estava tomada pela galera de boné vermelho! E o público ia desde crianças que não tinham idéia do que era Super Mario Bros 3, até nerds gordos que dão muito medo. Melhor deixar esse último de lado…

Jogar qualquer Mario Bros. é sinônimo de nostalgia. A Nintendo sabe disso e aposta forte em New Super Mario Bros. Wii, a nova velha aventura 2D de Mario e seus amigos de batalha! A história é a de sempre, a princesa Peach está dando uma festa com seus amigos Mario, Luigi e Toads amarelo e azul, quando Bowser Jr resolve colocar a princesa do reino dos cogumelos no bolo e levá-la para seu castelo para brincar um pouco com a coitada (?). Para salvá-la os quatro amigos passarão por oito mundos cheios de novos desafios usando velhos poderes já conhecidos como a flor de fogo, flor de gelo e a estrela da invencibilidade, bem como novos poderes que são a hélice a roupa de pinguim, que dá aquela adiantada nas fase com água!

Você usa o Wii Remote e com o botão 1 corre e usa os poderes adquiridos, com o botão 2 pula. Simples, como nos velhos tempos. Com gráficos de encher os olhos, NSMBWii trás o tradicional modo História, com direito a moedas vermelhas e estrelas para poder desbloquear filmes que mostram onde estão as áreas secretas de cada fase, e o mais importante, colecionando todas você desbloqueia uma super área secreta acessível após o término do jogo!

Há dois modos multiplayer em que você joga nas fases já finalizadas no modo História. O Free Mode é basicamente um replay da fase com seus amigos. No Coin Mode é que a graça reside! Vence quem conseguir coletar mais moedas. E vale tudo, desde carregar seu amigo e jogá-lo no buraco mais próximo, ou pular sobre a cabeça dele para alcançar moedas. Quer dizer, um caos! Quando um jogador perde a vida ele deve chacoalhar o controle para reaparecer no jogo dentro de uma bolha de sabão (lembra de Yoshi’s Island?). Continue chacoalhando para chegar próximo de um amigo e estourá-la!

Este é considerado o Mario mais difícil de toda a série. Por isso, no modo História há uma inovação, o modo Super Guide. Após perder oito vidas na mesma fase você pode escolher assistir Luigi jogando a fase para você!  Caso exista algum chefe de fase ele também te mostra o modo mais fácil e rápido de vencê-lo! Claro, este modo não revela onde está a moeda vermelha ou a estrela, nem o cano secreto. Mas já é uma grande ajuda para você não querer jogar o controle longe naquela maldita fase da água! No modo História a sensibilidade do controle também é explorada de várias maneiras.

Saudoso até no som, New Super Mario Bros. Wii é um game que se sustenta por si só. Só estou com dúvidas no fator replay do modo História. Já o multiplayer caótico é diversão garantida.

No final do evento dei um abraço no Rafael Gomes, meu homônimo e responsável pela Nintendo na América Latina, pensando que íamos nos fundir e tal. Infelizmente não aconteceu. Já pensou eu responsável pela Nintendo na América Latina? Agora coitado dele se minha vida fosse a que prevalecesse…

"Its me, Mario! Tá bão assim?"

Nintendo haut rein. Pünktlich zum Weihnachtsgeschäfft kommen die gesamten guten Spiele, die über das Jahr hinweg auf E3 und Gamescom angekündigt wurden. Und auch das Nintendo Masskotchen Mario darf hier nicht fehlen. Freut euch auf unheimlich viele Gameplay Trailer, Screenshots und Info’s zum neuesten Abenteuer des Super Klempners und seinem Bruder.

Mario goes Retrowood

Es scheint ein Trend zu sein, wieder etwas in Richtung 2D zu gehen, beispielsweise die zahlreichen Adventure Serien die in letzter Zeit neu aufgelegt werden, bzw. einen weiteren Teil bekommen. Für mich persönlich war Super Mario World schon immer das perfekte Super Mario Spiel. Als dann die 3D Ära kam, war man zwar ziemlich über die Bewegungsfreiheit beeindruckt, die Freude lies für mich dann aber auch schon nach dem Durchspielen nach, als dann nichts mehr zu machen war. Erst 2006 wurde ich wieder glücklich gemacht, mit einem fast perfektem 2D Jump and Run im 3D Design. Der Titel “New Super Mario Bros.” für den Nintendo DS konnte glücklicherweise verloren geglaubte Konzepte wieder an die Oberfläche bringen und überzeugte mit einem großen Umfang und toller Grafik. Als dann Gerüchte über ein Wii Sequel an die Öffentlichkeit gelangten, hoffte ich wieder, ein Super Mario World 2 (das eigentliche war dann das erste Yoshi Spiel) geliefert zu bekommen. Und dann kam die E3…

Neue Features überzeugen schon jetzt!

Nintendo ist auf die Idee gekommen, dass Super Mario Spiele noch nie einen richtigen Koop Modus hatten. Klar, man konnte immer abwechselnd mit einander durch die fröhlich bunten Welten Springen, aber hier wäre dasselbe auch mit einem Pad möglich gewesen. Doch in dem Wii Teil der Super Mario Bros. Ära kommt es endlich zu einem vollwertigen Koop-Modus. In diesem kann man nicht nur zu max. viert spielen, man kann seine Freunde auch jederzeit per Menü in das Spiel einbeziehen. Einzig und allein das Pausenmenü aufrufen, bei dem Freunde-Button dann die Anzahl der Spieler und die Charaktere einstellen. Zur Verfügung stehen übrigens Mario, Luigi, Toad und Toad. Auch Yoshi’s werden wieder vorkommen, auch in verschiedenfarbigen Varianten, wie man es von Super Mario World kennt.

Vielzahl an Level

Wie viele Level bzw. Welten es in New Super Mario Bros. Wii geben wird, ist noch lange unklar, jedoch ist zu erwarten, dass mindestens 8 Welten dabei sind. Außerdem sollen die einzelnen Welten jetzt mehr mit einander zusammen hängen. Auch das lineare Leveldesign wird wieder in Richtung Super Mario World gebogen und es wird für einige Level auch viele individuelle Enden geben.

Wenn man schon einmal beim Leveldesign ist, einige Elemente aus den 3D Teilen wurden auch hier wieder verwendet. So gibt es teilweise Ebenen und Flächen, die sich axial bewegen, obwohl man eigentlich “nur” einen 2D Level vor sich hat. Das sieht nicht nur unheimlich gut aus, sondern bringt auch noch etwas Realismus in die knallbunte Welt. Die verschiedenen Settings sind wieder grundverschieden und nebenbei sollte man erwähnen, dass jeder Level jetzt nicht kerzengerade ist, sondern sich auch z.B. Wellen kann…

verlockend...

Klempner im Pinguin Kostüm gesucht

Wenn man die vielen verschiedenen Formen und Verwandlungen sowie Kostüme der Klempner Brüder geliebt hat, wird man hier noch zusätzlich beglückt. Man hat neue Kostüme wie einen Propelleranzug, mit dessen Hilfe man fliegen kann, einen Pinguinanzug, durch dessen Hilfe man Eiskugeln schießen kann, die andere Objekte einfrieren. Hierbei kann man mit Sicherheit auch etwas herumexperimentieren und eventuell einen Level auf eine ganz andere Weise beenden.

Anhang:

Was soll man sagen, die Grafik ist sehr hübsch, die Steuerung recht einfach gehalten und Spaß macht “New Super Mario Bros. Wii” allemahl. Ich bin auch voller Hoffnung, dass dieser Titel Super Mario World von meinem persönlichen Jump and Run Thron stoßen kann. Der Multiplayer setzt dem Ganzen noch das i-Tüpfelchen auf und allen in allem wird das mit Sicherheit auch ein Verkaufsschlager. Tendenz zur Note: 1

Mehr zu Mario? Hier haben wir alle Trailer und (eigene) Artikel zu Super Mario zusammengefasst:

http://eegames.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/ee-games-chat-protokoll-die-super-mario-reihe/

http://eegames.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/new-super-mario-bros-wii-lavalevel-durch-ign/

http://eegames.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/ee-games-top10-super-mario-games/

Gerade rechtzeitig zur Bundesheer-Leistungsschau am Nationalfeiertag am Heldenplatz in Wien erschien die neue Ausgabe des Bundesheermagazins, Unser Heer. Wir durften dafür unter anderem junge Piloten bei ihrer Ausbildung fotografieren.

Irrepressible

 Man has a long history
on this earth
as hunter and hunted.

 It was easy
for him to fancy himself
as falling into the belly
of a whale.

 Today some say
it’s like walking
into whirling propeller
that makes you
dust in the wind.

 Some argue
that the faithless
don’t even know
their own hearts and minds,
for all they can follow
is their own noses.

But in no human
who ever lived,
did hope not come
unbidden to his or her mind,
whether embraced fondly
or crushed rationally,
it came.

 Life is no such fool
to feed you falsely,
for you have been selected.

 Maybe life knows
your own mind
better than you do.

 While understanding
might not be possible,
hope is an eternal chance
that cannot be repressed any more
than ever returning hunger.

 Where hunger compels
humans to hunt,
hope is our best eyes and ears.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

My time in Puerto Princesa very quickly came to an end. The main problem was finding accommodation. It was impossible to find an empty bed at the time as there was a regional sports meet in addition in the city in addition to the bible dedication.  After the dedication was over, I felt that I shouldn’t overstay my welcome. After coming back from the morning at Honda Bay, I knew I had to bring my plans forward and head out of Puerto Princesa, and fast.  The next leg of the trip involved heading north to Coron to dive the famous WWII wrecks. I thought I’d splurge on a 1 hour plane ride instead of taking a bumpy and unpredictable ride that could take 24 hours via various public buses and ferries. The only problem was that the flight was leaving in two hours and I still hadn’t a ticket.

Michael took me on what was a mini version of The Amazing Race and sped me round town first looking for the travel agent and then finding that they were out on their lunch break, straight to the airport. I managed to get past airport security without a plane ticket by waving my Singapore passport at the nice guard at the door. To cut the long story short, I managed to get on the plane, but not all the way to Coron. Instead I was to stop at El Nido even though the plane was heading there and had empty seats. Why? Because there was only sufficient fuel to carry 36 kg more of payload! Dismayed that I wasn’t an anorexic teenager, I resigned myself to stopping in El Nido first. At least I made it on the plane.

When I saw the plane on the tarmac I realised why they had to be so precise in their fuel measurements. It was the smallest plane I’d ever been on!

Of course I had to take a picture with it!

This baby could take a grand total of 11 passengers and had no aircrew. To my great surprise, I was flying with the mayors (or some sort of official-type) of Coron and El Nido. They were very friendly and of course astonished that I would travel on my own like this.

I wasn’t too impressed by the level of safety for the pilots here. I was seated right behind one of the pilots and throughout the flight I enjoyed the lovely view of half of the back of his head.

This flight made me realise the sheer delight of flying. Forget jumbo liners, the scenery from lower flying propeller planes is what you want. First, you get the clouds…

… then as the clouds clear, you see the islands. Darkest green against the deepening blue, they faded out into further distant islands fringed by pale yellow sand beaches.

It was utterly captivating just to watch the play of colours across the landscape. For once, I put away my books and note-taking, simply sitting back to take it all in.

It looked like one of those pictures that appear only on travel brochures.

It was only too soon that the journey ended at the smallest airport I’ve set eyes on. More of that later, but not without first taking a picture of the cockpit…

… and charming one of the pilots into a photo with me!

Internet PR has been the new tool for companies and individuals worldwide to built on their reputations and market them to a worldwide audience. Internet PR derives the benefits and the advantages of Social Media Networks. These social media networks give people their identity and individuality and this feature is completely made use in Internet PR. Internet based PR is gaining popularity by the day since most of the people are connected to the internet. Most of the people lead dual life online and offline and this is made use of by Internet Pr firms. Just like there are also various online PR firms which make use of the social networking sites for internet PR.

Gerald Joe Moreno And The SheilaWaring Lie

About the pseudonym “sheila waring”, Kevin Shepherd said of Moreno:

kevinrdshepherd.net/html/23___sathya_sai_baba__problems.html
“His many blogs are often registered anonymously. He has resorted to many web pseudonyms such as Equalizer, vishvarupa108, and sheilawaring.”

About the pseudonym “sheilawaring”, Psychic Medium Conny Larsson said of Moreno:

saibabaexpose.com/sheilawaring.html
“Someone using the name ‘sheila waring’ reposted Moreno’s deleted postings on Netscape on July 9 2007- very soon after they had been banned and removed by Netscape. The identity of sheilawaring was concealed, but it is not hard to understad that this was either Moreno himself, or one of his proxies – it makes no real difference. That he must have had a hand in it is beyond doubt. The links are all to his defamatory website at saisathyasai.com Here are screenshots of the pages posted by sheilawaring on Netscape, also subsequently deleted by the netscape administration.”

About the pseudonym “sheila waring”, Robert Priddy said of Moreno:

robertpriddy.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/sathyasaibaba-in-the-shadows/
“He has often avoided using his most known username (joe108) in favour of unidentifiable ones like Equalizer, sheilawaring, or – for most people less identifiable ones like visvarupa 108, SSS108 (on Wikipedia) GM, JM, GJM with or without the 108 suffix and so on All were gradually identified as being his. He has also used diverse IPs in his e-mails and comments, as has been documented on various occasions, though he tries to deny it, the proofs are there for any eventual further use. He denied he was equaliser until exposed definitively as such, and he denies that he posted on Netscape under the username sheilawaring – but he is exposed as having done that just after he had been banned under a previous pseudonym like JM108).”

Let it go on record that Gerald Joe Moreno has never (ever), at any time, used the name “sheila waring” on digg.com, netscape.com (now propeller.com) or anywhere else for that matter. Contrary to Robert Priddy’s senile claims (which he has been spewing all over his blog), Moreno never “denied” using the name “Equalizer” on his blogs. Once again, Robert Priddy makes unsupported, unsubstantiated and un-referenced claims against Moreno.

In an attempt to bolster their absurd claims that Moreno used the “sheila waring” pseudonym, several screencaps were published on Conny Larsson’s website. And thank goodness they did! After seeing the screencaps, Moreno nearly fell out of his chair laughing because Ex-Devotee’s apparently confused “sheila waring” as a Pro-Moreno Activist when in fact “sheila waring” was an Anti-Sai Activist hiding under a fake name! “Sheila Waring” went through all of Moreno’s posts on Netscape and “sunk” all of them (meaning that “sheilawaring” casted votes against all of Moreno’s articles). This is why Moreno’s articles showed up under “sheilawaring’s” Netscape history. One can clearly see the text saying “Sunk On July 09, 2007 07:49pm” below Moreno’s posts. One can also see the text that says “This story has mostly negative ratings” on top of Moreno’s posts with the number of “sinks” made against his articles. Critics used numerous fake names on Netscape to “sink” Moreno’s articles and all of their fake names were banned, including Robert Priddy, Barry Pittard and Brian Steel’s accounts.

SheilaWaring Overview

SheilaWaring Lie Cap1

SheilaWaring Lie Cap2

SheilaWaring Lie Cap3

SheilaWaring Lie Cap4

What a bunch of pathetic and laughable stooges and loons!

Although Ex-Devotees whine and snivel about Moreno’s alleged “pseudonyms”, one will not find a single complaint from any of them about the numerous incognito web identities used by Robert Priddy, Sanjay Dadlani, Tony O’Clery, UsedByBaba, Barbara Dent and R.F.J. Sandt. Ex-Devotees even attempted to pass themselves off as various individuals (including Pro-Sai Activists and Moreno himself). This type of very disturbing online behavior has been fully documented by Moreno (Refs: 01 – 02).

Expect more spin, deflection and cover-ups from Ex-Devotees, who can’t even identify their own acts of subterfuge in action. Yes, this is exactly the type of shabby “research” and laughable “exposés” that Ex-Devotees typically peddle as the “irrefutable truth” to unsuspecting readers. They do the exact same thing in relation to Sathya Sai Baba as well.

Back in the early ‘60s, engineers and scientists were besides themselves to heed President Kennedy’s call to “send a man to the moon and bring him back safely before the end of the decade.”

They  designed spacecrafts and rockets and telemetry and all the other things that made that period giddily exciting for the curious, inventive, innovative people who were willing to work for next-to-nothing to see this man-made miracle happen. (Later, of course, these brilliant people would be dubbed propeller heads, geeks and nerds. But that’s another story.)

A few years later NASA lost that spirit in manned space flight and it was costs, not spacecraft, that started going through the stratosphere. Engineers were replaced by contractors, administrators and BNIs (Busy ‘n Important) people who couldn’t/wouldn’t listen. Contract vehicles were more important than space vehicles.  Today, Jet Propulsion Laboratory remains the lone star that builds unmanned mission with the same excitement and cutting-edge ideas that teach us about the solar system and beyond, sneaking through comet tails and all the other things that the now-aging propeller heads long to still do.

And then, just last week, excitement returned when a small team from MIT sent an instrument into near space at the edge of the stratosphere and got the pictures back – all for the enormous investment of $150. Yes, this was space travel that cost less than an iPhone. They did with a simple weather balloon, a cell phone, a compact camera, a Styrofoam beer cooler, and some hacking and duct tape. We have turned the full circle – we are back to simple common sense and doing incredible things for a reasonable cost.

Software – particularly enterprise software – runs in parallel with the space story. It was relatively inexpensive and useful in the 60s; it went through the roof all the time that Moore’s law was clearly applicable in chips and hardware. And yet businesses got none of the value that they had expected and they kept paying more and more until the only way to save some money was first to outsource it and finally to off-shore it. But technology failed to help this sorry industry. As Nicholas Carr asked “Does IT Matter?”

The $150 space project should remind us that what goes around can come around – and what goes up (costs) must come down.

We believe that, and we’ve decided that it’s time to take the $150 enterprise software model to the market.

~New Arrival~

E10-133PP Aluminum F/R Gear Box Joint for HPI E10	E10-022PP Aluminum F/R Propeller Joint for HPI E10
Features:	Features:
- For: HPI E10 - Material: Aluminum - Color: Purple	- For: HPI E10 - Material: Aluminum - Color: Purple
Includes:	Includes:
- Aluminum F/R Gear Box Joint (1 Pair)	- Aluminum F/R Propeller Joint (1 Pair)
E10-015PP Aluminum Dog Bone for HPI E10	E10-018SV Aluminum Wheel Washer for HPI E10
Features:	Features:
- For: HPI E10 - Material: Aluminum - Color: Purple	- For: HPI E10 - Material: Aluminum - Color: Silver
Includes:	Includes:
- Aluminum Dog Bone(1 Pair)	- Aluminum Wheel Washer (1 Pair)

Source: yeahracing
 

Forget what your parents told you — friendship can be bought, after all!

uSocial, an Australian marketing firm, has launched a service selling friends and fans to Facebook members. They also offer a similar service for Twitter users, and have been known to sell votes on Digg and artificially inflate content for clients on StumbleUpon, Propeller, and yahoo! buzz. The firm specializes in online marketing and says it has recognized the growing importance of advertising on social and user driven sites.

How does it work?

The company offers packages for Facebook, the world’s number one social networking site, that start at 1,000 friends up to 10,000 friends at costs ranging from $177 to $1,167.

“All we do is send them a welcome message or friend request from the client. If they decide to go ahead and add that person as a friend or a fan then they will; if not, then they won’t.”

In recent months uSocial has been hitting a lot of friction, both Twitter and Digg have tried to have them shut down. Neither company is very happy with uSocial’s spam like nature.

hat tip: Epicenter

I’ve been re-writing some of my Propeller objects in ImageCraft’s VCCv7 for the Propeller. I thought some speed comparisons between the three languages would be in order!

Reading an Microchip MCP3208 8 channel SPI ADC IC in the three language options gave the following timings. All were taken using a PicoScope 3205 USB o’scope, measuring the CS pin for the 8 HIGH-LOW-HIGH channel reads.


VCCv7 - 2.029ms (~500htz)
SPIN - 9.24ms (~108htz)
PASM - 0.056ms (56us!) (~>10k!!) **


All very Interesting. By my maths that means VCCv7 is 4.55x faster than SPIN, PASM is 36.2x faster than VCCv7. So I guess that makes PASM nearly 165x faster than SPIN in this example!

** Of course it needs to be noted that while PASM is rippingly fast – but you can’t get the data back out of the cog memory to hub (common) memory that quickly. So its a bit pointless unless you’re pre-processing before writing to the hub, or storing it within the same cog!

Whoa, I totally got behind on the blogging. We finished up “A is for Airplane” week last Thursday & Friday.

We made “A” collages. First the kids colored the letter “A” – upper & lower case. Sam wanted to trace his letters. He did very good at it & traced them in several colors. I cut them out & the kids glued them on a big sheet of paper. Then I had the kids look at magazines. Sam found “A’s” and things that started with “A” (I helped only for 2 of the items). Then we took some paper & glued the pictures from the magazine on it (Addi wouldn’t let me help her look for A-words; she just liked looking at the magazine, so her paper only has the A’s she colored).

Sam’s “A Collage”:

Addi’s A’s:

We also made “propellers”. Now this one is the most simple & I wasn’t very creative on it, but Sam ended up loving his propeller, wanting to take it to show our friend, and carrying it around everywhere. I printed out a propeller, glued it to a part of a cereal box to make it sturdy, cut it out, then taped it on the end of a straw! Like I said… simple. It was the best way to show how propellers worked. We spun it around in our hands.

Sam’s propeller:

Sam spinning his propeller:

Addi’s propeller (I know, I know. She has no clothes on. It’s okay. It’s still “summer” & still warm, at least inside. Plus the marker comes off her skin better than her clothing!):

So then Friday night we ended the week by going to the airport to see some real, huge airplanes. We ended up going WAY later than we thought (I think we got there at 9:30pm?), so it was totally dark. As we were driving up we saw a smaller airplane in a “garage” (hangar). We parked in the short-term parking & went inside. Sam got to ride on the “moving sidewalk”, the escalators (which Addi really liked!), & we got to see the ticket counter, security check, and the baggage claim. Then since we couldn’t see any real airplanes inside, we went back to the parking deck & stood in the cold, slightly rainy air & watched for planes. We got to see 2 take off – we could hear them & see the lights. I also saw one land but I don’t think the kids saw it.

Here’s a pic of the family on the moving sidewalk:

Samuel & Addison watching for airplanes on the bridge that Sam loved:

It was a great week, and we also got to “eat” an airplane as well. I took a banana, sliced it in half, stuck some tortilla chips in them as wings, then used some mini marshmallows for windows. Here’s Sam’s:

Thanks for reading & looking at the pictures!

It’s already almost Wednesday this week & it has been crazy. Yesterday I was unable to move without having intense vertigo in the morning, then my car broke down & we spent all afternoon working that out, then it was nap, etc. so no “school” yesterday. Then today was spent doing some really important (and hard-to-reach) phone calls & online searches, and some thorough cleaning of the house, so no school yet again. Tomorrow I’m hoping to start on “B is for Brain”… We’ll see how that goes or if it takes a turn for a different theme. Only time will tell!

Estic fent recerca sobre les comunitats Socials y les formes de compartir-ho tot per internet.

Les idees es poden compartir de moltes maneres i en molts formats… cada vegada més pàguines inverteixen en proporcionar un servei complet de publicació i contacte amb el món virtual.