Jack Ganssle, embedded systems guru, challenges you to turn a kid on to engineering.
In the ’60s and early ’70s a national Apollo-era fascination with things technical helped groom youngsters for an electronics career long before entering college. It wasn’t (quite) as dweebish to enter a science fair as is the case today. Kids were excited about science and engineering.
Above all, perhaps, was the specter of ham radio. Like so many others of the time, I got my first ham license at age 16. Though even back then sophisticated operating modes like single sideband (SSB) existed, most of us teenagers couldn’t afford the latest cool technology. We were forced to build our own equipment.
“Forced” is hardly the right word, since building stuff was much more interesting than actually using it, when and if it finally worked.
It brings back memories for me: endless hours playing with Legos and my Erector set, the two-stroke lawnmower engine spread out across the shop (that never worked again), the crystal radio my dad helped me build, the blown fuse from connecting a ham code key using just an extension cord (don’t ask…
, the ham radio receiver in my bedroom, the Jacob’s ladder in the garage.
What do kids play with these days that interests them in hardware? Ganssle has some suggestions:
Get a Digikey catalog. Surf over to www.imaginetools.com. There are indeed a lot of resources for young EE-wannabees. Check out www.arrl.org, or Ward Silver’s Ham Radio for Dummies, Wiley Publishing, April 2004.
Sounds like fun!
If you liked this post, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Additional info on subscribing can be found here. Thanks for visiting!
FOXNews.com reports the bodyguard of anti-gun “documentarian” Michael Moore was arrested for possessing a gun in New York’s JFK airport and could be facing felony charges. The story’s accompanying photo (shown left) begs for a less alarming caption.
Correction: Apparently, the bodyguard is not currently assigned to protect Michael Moore. That technicality should not distract from Moore’s hypocrisy of hiring armed guards while lobbying against gun ownership or the (in)appropriateness of the photo’s caption…
___
Hat tip: Pejmanesque.
The text of President George W. Bush’s second inaugural speech is online.
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
[* * *]
Today, I also speak anew to my fellow citizens:
From all of you, I have asked patience in the hard task of securing America, which you have granted in good measure. Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well - a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.
A few Americans have accepted the hardest duties in this cause - in the quiet work of intelligence and diplomacy … the idealistic work of helping raise up free governments … the dangerous and necessary work of fighting our enemies. Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives - and we will always honor their names and their sacrifice.
All Americans have witnessed this idealism, and some for the first time. I ask our youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes. You have seen duty and allegiance in the determined faces of our soldiers. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself - and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character.
America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home - the unfinished work of American freedom. In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.
[* * *]
From the perspective of a single day, including this day of dedication, the issues and questions before our country are many. From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?
You can read the whole speech.
Update: Photo replaced with one from this inauguration.
Rolling Stone rejected an ad for a new Bible translation from Zondervan.
Today it makes sense more than ever.
In a world of almost endless media noise and political spin, you wonder where you can find real truth. Well now there’s a source that’s accurate, clear, and reliable. It’s the TNIV—Today’s New International Version of the Bible. It’s written in today’s language, for today’s times—and it makes more sense than ever.
Rolling Stone rejected the ad shortly after seeing its copy. “It doesn’t quite feel right in the magazine,” said Kent Brownridge, general manager of Wenner Media, parent company of Rolling Stone. Although Zondervan offered to change the text, Rolling Stone continued to refuse to publish the ad.
Citing dismal statistics of Bible reading among today’s young adults, Zondervan is aiming its TNIV advertising campaign at 18- to 34-year-olds and is placing ads in The Onion, Modern Bride, and the web sites of VH1 and MTV. Zondervan has partnered with Newsboys, a Christian rock music group, to promote a download link for the TNIV New Testament in PDF. Zondervan even has a TNIV-specific web site and blog.
Quite a revolutionary advertising campaign for a Bible. I would guess that Rolling Stone might be more willing to comment on the campaign than to publish the ad.
Speeches can be timeless.
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.
President George W. Bush could do a lot worse than to close his second inaugural speech with these words. But it’s already been done. President Abraham Lincoln used these words to conclude his second inaugural speech in 1865. Continue reading ‘And in Conclusion…’
I’m in a discussion about Social Security in the comments section of an earlier post. The ball is in my court and I need to do some more research. Rather than make you wait until my research is done, here are cites to some of the materials I’m reading:
Happy reading!
In our nation’s capitol, on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
[* * *]
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual,
“Free at last, free at last.
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
On the day we celebrate King, read the entire speech. Listen to the MP3. Resolve to do your part to end discrimination.
Who would have guessed! My brother has an action figure.
WARNING: Purchasing the Los Lonely Boys CD can be hazardous to your health. It was to mine. I experienced pain similar to when I’d broken my foot. My left shoe felt too small. My foot felt heavy and weak.
As I drove along, with my car stereo blasting my new purchase at an appropriate singing volume (if it’s loud enough, I can imaging I’m singing on key), I was unconsciously tapping, no, stomping, my left foot to the beat.
I have learned to control my foot-tapping. If only I could sing on key.
Highly recommended. Even my kids like it!
When the Asian tsunami struck, one of my pastors was in Australia. The massive devastation, the enormous loss of life, prompted some soul searching and resulted in her making five resolutions. Her third resolution was simply stated: obey God more. To illustrate the point, she referred to Jesus’ story of the wise and foolish builders.
24Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” –Matt: 7:24-27 (NIV)
When you obey God, a single set of principles governs your behavior and you become a whole, real whole person. You build on one rock.
When you compartmentalize your life, you act differently around different people. You follow different rules depending on the circumstances. Rather than being one, real person, you are multiple, fake people. (It’s interesting how duplicitous is synonymous with fake.) You don’t build on one rock; you build on a bunch of little rocks. And what is sand, but a bunch of little rocks.
I’ve heard this story explained many times, but this was the first time I’d heard building on the sand be described as being compartmentalized and fake. It spoke to me. Maybe it will speak to you, too.
All posts
Latest Comments