The UPSide state diagram

I think this diagram is now stable enough to put on the record. Both this diagram and the Go code for the policy logic are generated from this pseudocode: render.state(“DaemonUp”, “Daemon running”) render.action(“DaemonUp”, “ChargeWait”, CHARGING) render.state(“ChargeWait”, “Charge wait”) render.action(“ChargeWait”, “MainsUp”, CHARGED) render.action(“ChargeWait”, “OnBattery”, MAINSDROP) render.state(“MainsUp”, “On mains power”) render.action(“DaemonUp”, “OnBattery”, MAINSOFF) render.state(“OnBattery”, “On battery power”)… Continue reading The UPSide state diagram

UPSide progress report

The build-a-better-UPS project is progressing nicely. About a week ago we had first hardware lightup; I successfully threw messages over an I2C bus to the 20×4 LCD we plan to use as a status display. Hey, it’s not the power plane (yet) but it’s something.

How many Einsteins per Africa?

In 2008, Neil Turok, an eminent phycisist, gave a talk about trying to find the next Einstein in in sub-Saharan Africa. I was thinking about this a few days ago after his initiative re-surfaced in a minor news story,and wondered “what are his odds?” Coincidentally, this morning I stumbled across the key figure needed to… Continue reading How many Einsteins per Africa?

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Categorized as Science

Fthagn to you too

I learned something fascinating today. There is a spot in the South Pacific called the “Oceanic pole of inaccessibility” or alternatively “Point Nemo” at 48°52.6?S 123°23.6?W. It’s the point on the Earth’s ocean’s most distant from any land – 2,688 km (1,670 mi) from the Easter Islands, the Pitcairn Islands, and Antarctica. There are two… Continue reading Fthagn to you too

UPSes compared to guard dogs

Somebody using the handle JeffyPoooh (yes, ‘ooo’) left a comment on The Register that is an only slightly exaggerated summary of the reasons for UPSide:

How to get started on the UPSide project

The current state of play is: We have a high-level system design and a map of the behavior states. We have a capacity target (300W for 15 mins) and a peak-continuous-load spec (400W) We know we’re going to build a double-conversion design and we’re considering a couple of alternative topologies. We pretty much know the… Continue reading How to get started on the UPSide project

Stop logging in local time!

Inertia is a powerful force. The computing world retains a lot of practices that are odd little dysfunctional relics of past stages of its technology. The one I’m here to talk about today looks like this: Mar 6 15:11:07 snark postfix/qmgr[3927]: 0422513A6C53: removed That’s a log message hot’n’fresh from my /var/log/mail.log file. It’s entirely typical… Continue reading Stop logging in local time!

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Categorized as Software

All of his complexion…

Andrew Klavan has a thoughtful essay out called A Nation of Iagos. In it, he comments on William Shakespeare’s depiction of Jews in a way I think is generally insightful, but includes what I think is one serious mistake about the scene from The Merchant of Venice in which the (black) Prince of Morocco woos… Continue reading All of his complexion…

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Categorized as Culture

Why the Culture books were bad SF

There’s a lot of buzz about Iain Banks’s Culture universe lately, what with Elon Musk naming his drone ships in Banksian style and a TV series in the works. I enjoyed the Culture books too, but they were a guilty pleasure for me because in a fundamental way they are bad SF.

upside wants a firmware dev

The UPSide project, announced here two weeks ago, has come together with amazing speed. We now have: * A hardware lead – A&D regular Eric Baskin – with thirty years of experience as a power and signals engineer. He is so superbly qualified for this gig that my grin when I think about it makes… Continue reading upside wants a firmware dev