“Contact Light”*

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Working on names the other night for a new blog I’ve been wanting to do, it occurred to me that somehow relating it to my other internet endeavor, skywonders.com, might make some sense.   That enterprise, still having its own fits and starts, was started mainly as a way to show my sense of utter amazement and wonder at the universe we humans find ourselves in.  The utterly large universe that makes us feel very, very small.  It’s amazing how few people even realize that they are part of it.

But lately my interests have turned more towards the very, very little worlds that inhabit our daily lives.  I did go to school, after all, studying more about little things than big things.   Little things like electrons, protons and neutrons, but primarily electrons and how they like to zip around in lattice structures of metal and jump over and through specially made materials in ways that give rise to not only the 1s and 0s that make up our digital age, but the fanciful things known as ‘sensors’ that in small but radical ways are transforming our lives into something that only a century ago would have seemed utterly magical.

So once again I am in awe and wonder at the world of the infinitely small.

Well littlewonders.com was taken, microwonders.com was taken, so nanowonders.com it is!

Literally, it means 9-wonders (which I kinda like as I still believe we have 9 planets in our solar system) but generally applies to little wonders (10 to the -9 order of magnitude of the size of things).

That said, I have always wondered why the trend in computers and processors stopped with micro (which means little in Greek) and didn’t keep going (nanocomputers, nanoprocessors, etc.). Maybe they will someday.  At least nanotechnology is a thing.

In any case, I plan this blog to be about my endeavors in the little world that is electronics, microcomputers, and microprocessors.  There will be some soldering, hacking and maybe some crazy music.

Also, while I hope it serves to inspire other child-like adults like me, my ultimate goal is to inspire the thinkers of tomorrow.  One of the unfortunate side effects of today’s amazing and miraculous technology is that kids may take for granted that “it just works”.   While I certainly agree on certain things being a black box, I think there is something grand to be learned from opening the black box, looking inside and yes, sometimes not being able to put it back together.

Stay tuned now for random things.  Hope we all learn someting.

(*There is some debate, namely between the first astronauts to land on the moon, what actually were the first words uttered by men as they actually landed on the moon.  Aldrin says “Contact Light”, Armstrong says “Shutdown”.  Both agree that the official words “Houston, Tranquility Base Here…” technically were not the first words uttered by men on the moon.)

 

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