Month: July 2011

Off-Topic: Sex, Bombs, and Burgers Review

I just read the book Sex, Bombs, and Burgers, written by technology journalist Peter Nowak. The summary (minus some unnecessary hyperbole) from the book’s website reads:

Peter Nowak argues that most of the major technological advances of the last sixty years have stemmed from the trio of billion-dollar industries that cater to our basest impulses. From Saran Wrap to aerosols, digital cameras to cold medicine and GM foods to Google, many of the gadgets and conveniences we enjoy today can be traced back to either the porn, military or fast food industry.

This certainly sounded interesting. And the book was a good read. However, it was not a great read.

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Register Design Languages – DSL or not?

Recently, Gary Stringham has been running a series of interviews with providers of register design tools on his website. Register design tools seems to be an active area with several small companies (and some open-source tools) fighting for the market. I have written about Gary Stringham and register designs before, and it is an area that keeps fascinating me. There is something about the task of register design that keeps it separate from the main hardware design languages, tools, and flows.The different approaches taken by the tools supporting the register design task also illustrates some points about programming language standards, domain-specific languages, and exchange formats that I want to address.

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Off-Topic: Sälen in the Summer (Vacation)

This Summer, our travel-away-from-home vacation was spent in Sälen, Sweden. Sälen is normally considered a winter destination, one of the biggest ski resorts in Sweden – but they are working on making it more of a year-round attraction. To be more precise, we went to Lindvallen, which is one of the seven or so separate “villages” that form the “Sälen” area. It was a nice and relaxed place, with little stress from having too many things to do, but enough to keep the kids happy. Seeing the mountains in the Summer was nice.

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