The ominous Tuesday the 13th, April 2021

Yesterday was Tuesday the 13th. For most of the world, Friday the 13th is the traditional bad luck day. But for the majority of Spanish-speaking people, Tuesday the 13th is the ominous one. The fear of the number 13th has a scientific name: “triskaidekaphobia”.The fear of the Friday the 13th is called “paraskevidekatriaphobia”. Apparently, its …

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To mux or not to mux

When digital technology became available, the idea of improving the 4-20 mA signal became the goal for every major instrumentation supplier. Using newly available cheap microprocessors, manufacturers developed various techniques to include additional information to be encoded digitally into the 4-20 mA current signal loop. As far as I can remember, the three major contenders that attempted to do this were Foxboro, with its FoxCom protocol, Yokogawa with its Brain protocol and Rosemount with the HART (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer) protocol.

My friend George

The first time I met my friend George was when we assisted Kindergarten. We always seemed to be the most unmatched couple of buddies that ever existed: I was small, thin, used glasses thanks to early myopia, the proto example of a nerd when nerddom wasn’t cool.He was cool, tall (always, even today, one head …

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My Expanse inspired wallpaper (updated with fixed link)

July 2021 update: If you remember those dreadful days (they looked dreadful then) of May 2018, when the SyFy channel canceled the beloved series The Expanse, you will also remember the #SaveTheExpanse campaign to make Bezo’s Amazon save the series from oblivion. I did my little contribution by building a 50 cm long papercraft replica …

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