When I showed up at Weed Instruments in Round Rock, something I've been threatening to do for three years, I was dumbfounded at how many of the people who work there were people I'd worked with in the past. I knew Simon Appleby, the CEO, from his Polysonics days...and Troy Johnson, Dave Robertson, Jean-Marie Delbar, Mark McCray, Alan Gilchrist, and others from my own days at … [Read more...] about From the old home week department
From the Lego NXT Mania plot thickens department
National Instruments made me waste my entire weekend last week. Morgen McCarty sent me a Lego Mindstorms NXT starter kit to play with (I have to give it back, eventually). So I spent the weekend building robots and dusting off my old LabView programming skills. As most of you know, the Mindstorms software is "powered by LabView" which actually means that LabView 7.1 is under … [Read more...] about From the Lego NXT Mania plot thickens department
Convivial dinner
Dinner with Duncan Schleiss and Dave Dietz from Emerson...when I used to live in Austin, and that was only about 12 years ago, dining out was a matter of which fairly bad restaurant do you want to eat at today. There was one, count 'em, one Japanese restaurant in Austin. Now there are as many multiethnic choices as New York or San Francisco, or Seattle. And some of them are … [Read more...] about Convivial dinner
TiPS on the State of the Automation Art
I visited with Steve Apple and Chris Wilson of TiPS in Georgetown, Texas on Wednesday afternoon. Steve is a former Pavilion employee, and has been in the process automation business for a long time. "We've gotten a lot of very large projects lately," Apple said, "and we think we're making our competitors crazy." Why is he getting big projects? Apple thinks it is simple. "We … [Read more...] about TiPS on the State of the Automation Art
From the making new engineers department…
Helen Escobar, of South Texas College writes: Here's news about a $559,000 grant we were awarded from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Postsecondary Education as part of its Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program (MSEIP). The grant was awarded to the college to support and enhance the offerings of its Dual Enrollment Engineering Academy (DEEA). This is … [Read more...] about From the making new engineers department…
