Solar, FPGAs and Maxim Integrated - Solar Shopper Sickness

Dave is under the weather this week, but we did a show anyway. How’s THAT for dedication?

• Do you go into work when you're sick? What kind of policies should workplaces have?
• Dave was automatically booted off the JayCar customer list!
• Littlefuse is running a promo to take someone behind the scenes at NASA. US only, unfortunately.
• Dave just had a solar panel array installed on his house! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGENVguQQmo
• Solar will have a "calming" effect on grid because it will offload some of the peak power needs. This will also affect the economics of power generation. 
• Will the true implementation of the Internet of Things simply be when the Cat5 plug on the back of your appliance is unexciting?
• Like many new technologies and the authors that write about them, the IoT follows the hype curve. 
• Google Glass and wearable tech is likely on that curve. There was a great teardown of Glass recently. No huge surprises for the hardware, only how much they're charging.
• The teardown was done by Star Simpson who also tricked Chris into believing in the Tacocopter.
• FPGAs have a community built around shared designs, located at OpenCores.org.
• Now there is a Python library called MyHDL which aims to make FPGA more accessible to software programmers, similar to how C-to-Hardware compilers have done in the past. There is a good presentation giving an overview of the library.
• One FPGA enthusiast thinks they will be a more widespread technology in the coming years, but Chris and Dave ultimately question the logic behind it (ha.).  
• CircuitLab has started charging for all levels of access, including the hobbyist level (even though it's a low price).
• Dave posits that EAGLE would have never made it without the freemium level, nor the low cost license for getting into production.
• Chris likes the machined beer can stencils exhibited on Hack A Day. Nice confluence of machining and electronics. stencils/
• The ad-hoc Chip Of the Week is my Maxim Integrated. It's a new modem for doing powerline communications. This likely won't be for an IP levele connection, but it's still an interesting technology. 
• LT has a highly specialized and awesome looking part, a 20 bit, 500 ksps SAR ADC. But, of course, you'll pay out the nose for it!
• Chris likes two subreddits: the new one with promise is /r/appnotes; the more established one with some great stuff posted is /r/PrintedCircuitBoards