Status August 11:
1. Started a contract for an exciting startup.
2. This (and I mentioned it briefly before) is not just an open source FPGA for 3D print project, this is my springboard to a startup. Very important companies were started as a side business in a garage, Apple, Microsoft.

For a startup one does not need:

• Investors: nice to have, but as a side project it doesn't need much except buying parts and potentially licenses/software. That is why I do contract work.
• A business plan, market or anything, I start from my own dire need, it is system thinking, not goal thinking. Of course there is more to it, but now is not the right time.

For a startup one always needs:

• A rythm: my days are all roughly the same. Your body needs a bio clocked rythm, get up and go to bed at around the same time. I never sleep in in weekends, I maintain the same rhythm every single day. And that is a learned ability.
• Maximum focus on nutrients (Magnesium, vitamine, zinc, iron, ..), your mind needs certain substances for for example ATP (adenosine tri-phosphate = body energy) that are missing in mass produced vegetables in super markets. For an engineer, the mind is everything, take maximum care of it and feed it the right nutrients to have maximum brain power during the day.
• Body health: if you don't tire your body physically, sleep will become an issue that has a negative effect on your day performance.

Even though I try to maximize my performance and productivity, there is always an oscillation up and down:

• Adapt to the contract need for brain power, especially ramp up needs a huge amount of energy.
• Kids summer holiday: never lose touch with your kids and partner.
• Everyday events: cat went missing, cat comes back very sick, vet, pills, lots of care, kids get infections, knee issues, ... Beyond our control, they occur whenever they want to occur. Unpredictable.

Similar to the body scan technique in mindfulness, you are the captain of the ship. You observe your behavior in an honest way to detect issues, not to confirm failure, but to understand that whenever we drift, we need to get back on track. The difference between a successful person and a non-successful person is: keep trying. Not because it guarantees success. No, the other way round. If you give up, you have lost. The default state for the average human is uneducated, unsuccessful, poor. TINA: there is no alternative, the hardest lesson in life, whatever happens, always retry.

What does this mean for this FPGA?
I am still going forward, remember, this is my alpha startup phase. Yes, I need to adapt to less time for the FPGA thing, especially in the ramp-up of the contract. The first phase of getting things going is a single person phase. I need to get the right starting code base to be able to use contributors in a meaningful way. Many projects start and are too far along to change things they assumed but turned out wrong. It means this FPGA is slowly progressing until the moment that I have identified all necessary components (ex. AMBA bus master) and tools (ex. verification framework). The tale of the turtle and the rabbit applies here. I always spend more time than anyone in the beginning of a project to choose the fastest and most efficient path forward.

Things that require reconsideration:

• The RAMPS board on top of the Arty S7 board wasn't a good idea. Mitigated with a custom prototype PCB.
• The locals platform is good as a wiki but not for interaction and Q&A.
  The info will stay here, but I am considering a discord server to allow meaningful Q&A and interaction. If you have a better interaction proposal, let me know in the comments. Discord channels are like slack channels but free if I host the discord server myself.

A goal thinker could be disappointed by things that turned out worse than expected. A system thinkers has learned a thing or two and improves. Startups fail for many reasons, that is why being flexible is important. It didn't work? Change it. Cut your losses: the trick is to not do it too soon (before it had a chance to show its worth) or too late (keeping it going because so much effort (money) has gone into it). One other thing one absolutely needs to master: understand the flaws in the human brain. All cognitive mistakes we (are able to) make and be 100% honest in your observation of your own mental behavior. As the captain of your own ship, you decide the direction and the path forward. Use neuroscience to steer the ship in the right direction. A human is born hardware only, you need to write and rewrite your own operating system. That makes me wonder how Bill Gates's internal OS looks like. #BSOD