Parallax

We had some pretty incredible meetings when we were in California, and given time I will try to tell you why all those people were so great to meet with. But if I had to pick the one meeting that really stood out for me it was the Parallax guys. These guys are pretty kick-ass. They have been doing the equivalent of opensource hardware for the last 20 odd years, and hell, they even created the BASIC stamp! And as a result there are more robots out there chugging around peoples basements with Parallax hardware in them than you could probably imagine. I was for sure stunned when I heard just how many chips these guys sell. Parallax is in a little town outside of Sacramento, north of San Francisco. And we had high hopes for this vist from the start - so we got up early on morning and hopped in a Zipcar and while I did a couple of calls with other people we were trying to meet with, Steve managed to get us safely across the bridge and on our way north. It was a bit of a drive but it was so very, very worth it. We met with the Parallax opensource hardware guru and evangelist David Carrier (and in case he googles himself - thanks again for the spinnerets, they're great!) and we shot the shit about opensource hardware and what we are trying to accomplish at Upverter - and it was absolutely awesome. He had some really great feedback, and we are going to do everything possible to make our tools at Upverter fill the needs to these kind of visionary companies. But then came the exciting part... we got a tour! We got to wonder all around Parallax checking out all the cool toys these guys have, including a very impressive manufacturing line. It was pretty neat. Walking around those kind of shops always gets my hardware and manufacturing juices flowing - and you could really tell these guys cared a ton about building something people wanted and the quality their customers got in the end. very cool. So we headed back to San Francisco in the end (to sell some Ikea shit), but that was my favorite meeting. And I really just wanted to say thanks to the Parallax guys for being so kick-ass. At Upverter we are gonna do our best to make your pain points go away and empower you to keep doing what you're doing. As for business now and today, things are going awesome. I mailed the December update and got a great response about our progress, and there is still lots of excitement, which is good. Steve and I are making huge progress on the client - should be demo friendly in just a week or so. Mike is making great strides for us in community development land with the blog and twitter feed - which is great, its black magic that someone has to do, and I think hes good at it! So really across the board all we need right now is a few weeks of dedicated hacking, and then a few thousand users... sounds like a piece of cake!