{"id":3,"date":"2008-11-04T00:46:31","date_gmt":"2008-11-03T23:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/?p=3"},"modified":"2008-12-04T08:15:49","modified_gmt":"2008-12-04T07:15:49","slug":"introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/2008\/11\/introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>11\/4\/2008<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Hola Amigos y Amigas!<\/p>\n<p>My name is Puck Curtis and I am an electrical engineer and fencing teacher.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Behold the Geekness of Me<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As far as the geek side goes, I specialize in embedded systems and I work for Rabbit Semiconductor.\u00a0 Embedded systems tend to be very small computers that don&#8217;t require much power and specialize in a bang-for-buck rather than processing power.\u00a0 If you stack a Rabbit device up against the latest ATI Radeon 4870&#215;2 you will notice the following things:<\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\"><strong>ATI Radeon 4870&#215;2<\/strong><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_37\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/4870x2.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-37\" title=\"ATI-4870x2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/4870x2-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"ATI Radeon 4870x2\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-37\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">ATI Radeon 4870x2<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"mceTemp\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guru3d.com\/article\/palit-revolution-700-deluxe-4870-x2-review\/\">Review at Guru3D.com<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">\n<ul>\n<li>2 processors at 750 MHz each<\/li>\n<li>2 Gigabytes of GDDR5 memory<\/li>\n<li>2 x 256-bit memory bus<\/li>\n<li>2.4 terraflops per second<\/li>\n<li>~160 Watts of power consumption<\/li>\n<li>$539\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Rabbit RCM5400W<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_47\" style=\"width: 206px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/rcm5400w_6001.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-47\" title=\"rcm5400w_6001\" src=\"http:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/rcm5400w_6001-196x300.jpg\" alt=\"RCM5400W WiFi computer, webserver, and all around cool thingy\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/rcm5400w_6001-196x300.jpg 196w, https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/rcm5400w_6001.jpg 392w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-47\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">RCM5400W WiFi computer, webserver, and all around cool thingy<\/p><\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong><\/div>\n<p class=\"mceTemp\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mceTemp\">\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">1 processor at 73.73 Mhz<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">512K of SRAM memory<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">16-bit memory bus<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">~38.4 killoflops per second<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">~2 Watts of power consumption<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">$119<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s easy to see that the little Rabbit loses when it comes to sheer number crunching, but this little guy will work as a WiFi device with encryption, serve web pages, and act as the brain of a robot all at once while only pulling just a bit of power.\u00a0 If you shut down the WiFi the power consumption drops even more.\u00a0 This is why I consider embedded design part of the Green Economy.\u00a0 Lower power means lower carbon footprint and the world is a bit better off for it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fencing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When it comes to fencing, I&#8217;m trained as an Italian classical fencer and I currently hold the teaching title of Provost at Arms through the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fencingmastersprogram.com\/\">San Jose Fencing Master&#8217;s Program<\/a>.\u00a0 This title is specific to classical Italian foil, epee, and sabre.\u00a0 On December 13, 2008 I will take the fencing master&#8217;s exam and if I pass and present an acceptable thesis, I will be able to call myself a Maestro of classical Italian fencing.<\/p>\n<p>I also teach historical fencing and sit on the board of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tattershall.org\">Tattershall School of Defense<\/a>\u00a0and I am a historical fencing coach at the <a href=\"http:\/\/davisfencingacademy.com\/coaches.html\">Davis Fencing Academy<\/a>.\u00a0 I have been fencing within the SCA since 1992 and my current interests are Italian rapier, Italian longsword, and Iberian swordplay from Montante (greatsword) to sidesword.\u00a0 I am one of the two people responsible for maintaining the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.destreza.us\">Destreza Translation and Research Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I spent the last two months in Spain training with the historical group of Spain, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.esgrimaantigua.com\/\">La Asociaci\u00f3n Espa\u00f1ola de Esgrima Antigua<\/a> (AEEA).<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to the blog,<\/p>\n<p>Puck<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>11\/4\/2008 Hola Amigos y Amigas! My name is Puck Curtis and I am an electrical engineer and fencing teacher. Behold the Geekness of Me As far as the geek side goes, I specialize in embedded systems and I work for Rabbit Semiconductor.\u00a0 Embedded systems tend to be very small computers that don&#8217;t require much power [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,14,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88,"href":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.puckandmary.com\/blog_puck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}