原创 Is this a banana in my pocket, or am I just happy to see you?

It's true that the old jokes are the best ones. I once walked into a friend's office and said "Is this a banana in my pocket or am I just glad to see you?" Then, a fraction of a second later (timing is everything in these matters), I whipped a banana out of my pocket and said "No, it's just a banana!" (Hey, it was funny... it had been a long week... I had a cold... you had to be there).

We will return to the topic of bananas in a moment (be afraid, be very afraid...), but first let me explain how we got here. As you may recall, in a couple of weeks' time I will be heading out to Norway to give the keynote presentation at the FPGA Forum followed by a guest lecture at the University of Oslo (see Presenting "Max the Viking"!).

In the case of my talk at the university, I thought it would be interesting to show the students a copy of the UK hobby magazine that got me started in electronics so long ago – Practical Electronics. Furthermore, I thought it would be a little poignant to use an issue from the summer of 1975, because this what when I had just graduated from high school and was hanging out with my friends before we all set off to start college and plunge into the rest of our lives.

But where would you go to find a copy of an electronic hobbyist magazine from 37 years ago? Well, I actually write a monthly column for the magazine's successor, which is called EPE (Everyday Practical Electronics), so my first port of call was to ask the publishers, but – perhaps not surprisingly – they replied "Sorry, we don't have any issues from that long ago."
Next, I emailed my old chum Alan Winstanley, who has been writing for the magazine for as long as I can remember. Good old Alan – he immediately responded that he had a couple of copies of the December 1975 issue lying around and would send me one immediately (I later discovered that this issue contained Alan's first ever published article, for which he was paid the princely sum of five UK pounds).

But, as we all know to our cost, there's no such thing as a free lunch. A couple of days' ago, Alan emailed me to say that a reader had just posted a question to one of the EPE message boards. Is seems that this reader had recently purchased a high-end graphics sub-system, but the 12V output he was using from his power supply wasn't sufficient to drive the card. The power supply actually had several 12V outputs, and the reader was wondering if he could simply strap them together to give him enough "Umph" to drive his graphics card. The bottom line is that Alan wanted me to answer this query (no, I'm not going to tell you what I said ... you'll have to visit the EPE message boards if you want to find out).

The point is (yes, there is a point, there's no need for you to look so disdainful), as part of all this I somehow found myself wandering around a site called Geeky-Gadgets.com. I really don't recall exactly how this came about ... I just know that it was somehow connected to the Wily Wicked Winstanley, who delights in luring me into sticky sites from which I find it exceedingly difficult to extricate myself.

Thus it was that I found myself looking at a picture of a banana with an associated USB cable and connector. (You thought I'd forgotten about bananas, didn't you? Oh ye of little faith!)

It appears that this is something called USB-It from those rascally rapscallions at ThinkGeek.com. The idea is that you can attach the sticky end of your USB-It to pretty much anything, thereby causing confusion and consternation to those around you.

What? Me? You think I would buy something like this? I can safely say that I DO NOT have any of these little rascals winging their way to me (the fact that they were out of stock when I visited the Think Geek website has nothing to do with anything).

Next you will be saying that I'm the sort of person who would buy a USB Pet Rock. OK, I'll have to give you that one, because by some strange quirk of fate I do happen to have one of these little scamps sitting on my desk plugged into a spare USB port on my computer.

 

Who are you calling an idiot? Why are you interrogating me like this? It's a talking point, for goodness sake! On the bright side, this little rascal is environmentally sound because it consumes no power whatsoever. Also, it works with any form of operating system (including those that are yet to be invented) without the need for any special drivers. Plus, you can play all sorts of games with it. One game we like to play is to try to outstare each other and to see who blinks first, but my favourite is to see which of us can exist the longest. (What? Of course I'm not thinking about getting a Wireless Pet Rock... that would just be plain silly!)
But we digress... The Geeky-Gadgets.com website also lured me to the gallery of an artist called Dmitriy Khrishtenko, who creates awesome miniature sculptures such as scale model motorcycles and cars from parts he recycles out of old watches (Click here to see some of Dmitriy's creations).