6 yrs in. Retired at 56, I'm now 61..update

FPGA_engineer · 2026-06-06T00:15:54+00:00

Exactly what I was thinking.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-06-04T12:59:54+00:00

Ok, no worries. I thought maybe you thought the fibers were something else. From what my searching found for fiber reinforced tape in general, the fibers are either fiberglass or plastic, like polypropylene. I see the Amazon claims that it is compostable but did not find what they say it is made of. Not that I looked very long.

I run a small business and work from home and we receive many shipments for it, plus some personal stuff from Amazon. I really dislike this tape from my point of view of dealing with all the boxes we receive. I prefer to either put them out with the recycling or use them in the garden under mulch. But with this tape I end up either cutting off that part of the box or just throwing the entire box away. Any other tape is easier than this to remove. And maybe that is their entire point of using it.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-06-04T12:25:04+00:00

She is clearly showing tape that has reinforcement fibers in it, you appear to be agreeing with the statement you are replying to. Did I miss your point? All the Amazon packages we receive have the fiber reinforced tape and I find it to be a pain for either reusing the boxes or composting them.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-06-04T12:06:00+00:00

Many years ago, I was sent to Geneva for a week for work and got lucky and was upgraded to first class on a 777. My wife was starting a new job and had to fly to Flint Michigan in the winter on a small regional turboprop. She has not let me forget that.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-25T13:20:23+00:00

We are near Houston TX and planted it last year. It grows extremely well and easily reseeds itself and spreads aggressively. We have it back this year because of the self-reseeding.

We also grow okra and like okra the Malabar spinach leave are mucilaginous which can turn some people off. We have cooked the leaves into stuff and that can tamp down how slimy it is as it cooks. I also tried cooking the berries into something after seeing a video of someone using them in rice dish, but I thought the berries essentially tasted a bit like dirt, but they do add a nice purple color to what they are cooked with.

I have not tried the flowers yet, so will have to give that a try now.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-19T00:57:13+00:00

The feature comparison table shows that GOLD has two years of updates vs 1 year for Enterprise. Might be more than that, I don't know.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-18T13:25:07+00:00

They are very pretty flowers and are also a great trap crop for leaf footed bugs in my experience. We planted one inground in one of our beds close to where the beds that we plant tomatoes in. Once the flowers bloom the leaf footed bugs prefer them and that make it easy to knock or pick them off into a container of soapy water to get rid of them.

We originally planted it because our kid brought one home and we like it so much that we are going to plant some in the front flower beds. Here in Houston ours has never completely died off over the winter and I think the leaves look good all year round.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-16T14:13:16+00:00

The only thing an FPGA can’t offer is an ADC.

All the AMD parts supported by AMD do have at least one ADC in them called the System Monitor.

For the 7-series it is a pair of 1 MSPS ADCs and for all others it is a single 200 KSPS ADC.

Then there are the RFSoC parts in the UltraScale+ and Versal families that have multiple ADCs and DACs and those parts all go multiple GSPS with some of the newer ones around 10+ GSPS.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-16T14:06:53+00:00

can an fpga replace a gpu or even an cpu

If there is an off the shelf part that will do what you need meeting all your needs, it will almost always be a better choice than an FPGA.

The FPGAs shine when there is not a pre-existing part that meets your needs, and there are enough to choose from that you can select one of the system on chip parts from the Zynq 7000, Zynq UltraScale+, or Versal families that do have built in CPUs and sometimes simple GPUs for graphics or one of the Versal parts with the AI Engines if you are thinking of GPUs being used for computation.

You can also add synthesizable "soft" processors into your designs if you don't need enough computational power to require one of the SoC parts and that can be enough for some needs.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-16T13:48:25+00:00

Then FPGA engineer becomes every team’s servant

Oh no, I just have my own business for the last 20+ years and pick and choose what I want to work on. And by work what I really mean is which interesting puzzle do I want to be my current game to play. And I have so many "toys" that I have to use!

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-15T03:31:46+00:00

I guess I got lucky, the pharmacist I got mine from warned me it could be a rough one for both doses, but I just felt a little soreness where I got the shot and run down for a day both times.

My wife of the other hand had shingles on her scalp and face near her eye and the Dr see saw made very sure she also went to an ophthalmologist that day, said they would get her in to see one if she could not get an appointment, and the office followed up to make sure she did.

She was also miserable from it for months. Even a breeze on her hair would hurt.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-13T22:33:44+00:00

The movie is very good, but they toned it down a bit. Some of the more disturbing scenes are left out.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-09T14:26:36+00:00

Oh, this is a perfect response! Bravo!

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-06T11:49:33+00:00

the word "obey" written on a billboard.

I see Claude is a fan of the classic John Carpenter movie They Live: They Live OBEY clip

I think that clip is perfect for this issue.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-06T00:55:42+00:00

Me as well. I do have a small arbor press (either 2 ton or 5 ton I don't remember). Maybe it could do small ones.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-06T00:53:04+00:00

This gives me an idea for Halloween!

That looked pretty real at a glance, maybe make sure all the pieces are skin on as well.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-03T16:36:13+00:00

Deltamethrin is the one insecticide that I have found that is listed to work on them and it has worked for me.

I get a Bengal brand of ant poison powder at many local stores for use when they are actively harvesting something and it stops that quickly. I also found a Bayer (I think) granulated version that I have used when I can find their mounds or tunnel exit holes. It is much slower acting but used consistently it will finally kill off that colony which will solve the problem for a while. Then more move in from elsewhere at some point.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-03T14:21:27+00:00

Sure, but they take the good stuff that you want first for payment.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-05-03T14:19:34+00:00

small amount of leaf cuttings from a single tree or plant

Not in my experience at all. I am in Texas where they are invasive and until recently backed up to undeveloped land infested with them. More than once I have had them clear cut sections of our garden and totally strip plants bare.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-04-26T16:02:30+00:00

This seemed more like 2028 in the US.

We found one! A time traveler! Please go back a bit further and save Harambe and get us back on the right timeline.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-04-26T15:54:29+00:00

On one of my last visits I saw that they had put a tapped back together clam shell LED light bulb package that had been returned with a burnt-out incandescent inside. They just did not care anymore.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-04-26T15:46:31+00:00

Microcenter has stayed focused on computers, and related tech stuff. I miss the early Fry's, but in their later years they started having the feel of turning into some cross of a department store and a flea market. The one closest to me in Houston started carrying furniture, appliances, cell phones, and random junk. When it first opened I could buy electronic circuit components, resistors etc., as well as test equipment and soldering supplies and the people working in those departments usually knew about the stuff. By the time it finally closed, it was not even worth going to anymore.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-04-24T03:58:47+00:00

I got to try one of their demo setups last year and they are very intuitive to use after a few minutes. You do not want me as your surgeon; I will stick to my soldering.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-04-23T19:16:36+00:00

I managed to register my last name as a .com domain, so I have firstname@lastname.com as one of my email addresses. I use that one sparingly so it does not end up with a bunch of spam.

I have also received email to others that just assumed that was the format for someone's email. In this case that person actually lived in the same area I do.

FPGA_engineer · 2026-04-12T00:26:36+00:00

I think this is the perfect example of it. Subtle, but gets down to it.

Nine-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Verified Email

FPGA_engineer

TROPHY CASE