I heard about John’s passing a few weeks back.  I knew he wasn’t well but it still came as a shock.  I met John when I started at Xilinx in 1995 or so, working on the XC6200.  We immediately hit it off.  When he left Xilinx to start QuickSilver, I followed him.  While QuickSilver wasn’t long for this world, I still mark it as one of the best experiences of my professional career.  John and I became friends and would get together at conferences and whenever we were in the same town at the same time. He was always on top of things and a person I could talk about technology with for hours.  He was a rare combination of skill, accomplishment and a good heart.  He will be missed.  A nice article by Clive Maxfield:

John Watson: April 2, 1950 to April 5, 2019

By Max Maxfield | Monday, May 06, 2019

I’ve been making ramen noodles from those cheap instant packages for years.   I remember when they were $0.10 each.  I have doctored them up over the years with veggies, Worcestershire sauce, garlic and onions, etc.  I finally started to just throw out the little flavor packet, which is mostly just salt.

Now I’m not even using instant ramen at all.  Any sort of noodle will work.  Today I used soba, a buckwheat noodle.  Takes 4 minutes instead of the usual 3 for instant ramen.

I used chopped garlic and chopped ginger from jars in the fridge, soy sauce an an egg (from my neighbors chickens).  Some fish sauce and a drop of sesame oil too.  Chili oil if you like it a little spicy.

After it is all cooked, I added some leftover brisket, chopped green onion and some arugula and lettuce.  Oh, and some of my home made sauerkraut.  Really any leftover meat or fresh veggies in the fridge will work.

Drove to College Station for my daughter’s graduation.  Tried to avoid the bad weather but got caught in some on the way in.  Had to pull over at one point and even got a bit of hail.  No damage to Mr ThunderCat though.  A nice, but short, trip.

People in Reserve, LA are 50x more likely to get cancer than the rest of the US.  From the Guardian.

In 2006 we spent a summer in Japan at the University of Aizu in Aizu-Wakamatsu in Fukushima prefecture.  Just today I found out that the original Japanese settlers in the US came from the same town, Aizu-Wakamatsu.  They settled in northern California where they planned on producing tea and silk.  They called their settlement the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony.

It turns out that the settlement didn’t last long, but the site itself remains and is a part of the National Register of Historic Places.  In fact, this summer is the 150th anniversary of its founding, celebrated by the 2019 Sesquicentennial Wakamatsu Farm Festival.

I remember certain people in politics getting all worked up over deficits, even as we pulled out of the worst crash in modern history.  Yet, here we are at peace and in a time of prosperity yet we are putting an unprecedented amount on the national credit card, even as our president badgers the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.  What could go wrong?  From Liz Anne Sonders on Twitter.

This blog started as a small protest against the abuses of Facebook and other enterprises that exploit our privacy for profit.   Ran across this talk by T-Bone Burnett at the recent SXSW 2019.  It is worth a listen (was looking for a video, but couldn’t find one).

Music Keynote T Bone Burnett’s Powerful Keynote Speech

(Soundcloud link).

About a year ago I saw some electric buses in Denver (Electric Busses), and found out Austin is trying a few out.  Talked to a friend in Houston and they are having a look but haven’t bought any yet.  This can be a big deal when they go into broad use.  From the Austin Monitor:

Capital Metro to buy last wave of diesel, first electric buses

Stopped by Kura, the conveyer sushi place on Lamar and Airport.  Pretty good.  Stopped by the Ranch 99 Market after to get some katsu sauce.  Got all sorts of other stuff too.

Related to the previous posting: