Busy... busy... busy...

Sorry there's no update for this week as I as literally up to my eyeballs on the Navigation&Strobe circuit board. Its one of those last minute snafus. The story is that I used some numbers from the Internet for this and finally, after fighting with myself, I decided to do my own timing instead. So, after hours and hours of watching Star Trek:The Motion Picture, I more or less got the timing. Its no that accurate but its close enough.

This first movie's timing is particularly difficult and trying to simulate it with a microprocessor took up more memory compared to the other timing options. Just a difference of one to four milliseconds really screwed up the whole timing. And not only that, different movie have different timing as well. And sometimes, inside the movie, I was told, the timing also changes. So, this is not a nice thing to hear.

And for the rest of the day, I was going nuts trying to calculate and convert the timing into proper flow for the program. I think, for a Form Four student, this is easy-peasy but it took me hours. It did not help either with the two girls running all over the house naked.

Anyway, its 130 in the morning and the code is finished. In a few day's time, I will program it into a microprocessor chip and we'll know if it works or not.

Anyway, this is a nice one, from one of the Forums:



Your Duck is Dead--


A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest.

After a moment or two, the vet shook his head and sadly said, "I'm sorry, your duck, Cuddles, has passed away."

The distressed woman wailed, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am sure. Your duck is dead," replied the vet..

"How can you be so sure?" she protested. "I mean you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador Retriever. As the
duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.

The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room. A few minutes later he returned with a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on
its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck."

The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman..
The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$1000!" she cried, "$1000 just to tell me my duck is dead!"
The vet shrugged, "I'm sorry.... If you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been $50, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it's now $1000."