1279 : EDA & Molecular Visualization

Electronic Desgin Automation is indeed a vast and very fruitful field to say the least. Schematic diagram generation and PCB artwork forms a very small part of it. I was particularly impressed by the ease of use of kicad. Though I am practically more inclined towards Floorplanning ( considering my architectural backgrounds , interest in constraints, 2 gsocs in similar fields etc.) most aspects of EDA are quite inviting. Though i toyed with gEDA sometime back it never really went anywhere. Hopefully with the "more intuitive" kicad, maybe random walks would end somewhere. ( Don't laugh at the screenshot .. probably the most terrible rs232 :) and an example of a particularly large hole in the PCB :D )

Who doesn't like visualizing molecules ? If the representation looks artistically intricate like that of proteins, it hardly takes a push to try things out. I have always been impressed by the amount of open information availability in the field of genetic and protein related studies. So a book like Branden & Tooze + www = roaming around in the molecular world ( well an artistic representation of it .. blah) I have almost always used only rasmol. But I recently shifted pymol and it has been quite a wonderful experience. It is somehow much more intutive. In the picture above, the molecule on the left is Haemoglobin A ( with its characteristic Iron complexes) and the one on right is Seal Myoglobin.I have only reached Chapter 3 (alpha-domain protein structures) of B&T, but it seems like it is going to be on the top of my reading list. On a connected note , The crystal structure (3.2 A) of mammalian Fatty Acid Synthase is on Septemeber's Science cover.

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On a followup note seems like Techsouls is not working. So waiting to order arduino via sparkfun
as soon as gsoc money comes to the ge corporate card which i finally got unlocked today.