518: Nothing We Can Do About Frogs
Embedded
James Cameron spoke with us about programming for and operating a large telescope. The show is a blend of astronomy, engineering on the fly, and weird lady bug habitats. The (AAT) is part of the Australian National University’s in Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia. The AAT has an where you can check in on a very dark sky. James was on where we talked about the Forth programming language and his experiences with One Laptop Per Child. Unrelated to the AAT, Chris took this image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) from his over 9 hours (multiple days), stacking...
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517: A Direct, Sensible Podcast
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Nathan Jones and Chris Svec give Chris and Elecia their 2025 performance review. Donations went to , an organization that provides funding and support to low-income and first-generation college students as well as free STEM tutoring for underserved schools. Embedded has already sent in the for a total of over $5000. Here is . We mentioned the , a small but mighty microscope. Also, mentioned was the book The show this week is sponsored by us. And you. Please consider on or . Or tell a friend about the show.
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516: Voices From the Cataclysms of the Universe
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Sophi Kravitz joined us to talk about art, science, and engineering. You can see on Sophi’s website ). A subset of the artwork had a short stay for a demo at . The completed work will be shown in 2026. Sophi mentioned collaborating with two sonic environment artists and . is an ionizing radiation detector. move through space at nearly the speed of light, generally originating far away and long ago. You can also see them in a We also talked about using sculpting in Blender (there are many online video introductions). Sophi does EE consulting and system quality checking...
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515: Script Boomers
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Nick Kartsioukas joined us to talk about security in embedded systems. Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) is the primary database to check your software libraries, tools, and OSs: . Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP, ) has information on how to improve security in all kinds of applications, including . There are also cheatsheets, Nick particularly recommends . Wait, what is supply chain security? Nick suggested a : it is about your code and tools including firmware update, a common weak point in embedded device security. Want to try out some security work?...
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514: Just Turn Off All the Computers
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Philip Koopman joined us to talk about embedded systems becoming embodied and intelligent. We focus on the safety considerations of making an intelligent and embodied device. Phil’s new book is . It uses robotaxis as an example as it discusses safety, security, human/computer interface, AI, and a bit of legal theory for tort negligence. If you’d like a taster, Phil gave a wonderful summary in his video: This new book is intended for a wider (less devotedly technical) audience than his book . Phil was last on the show in episode where we spoke about his book Thank you! ...
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513: I’m Sorry You Learned Something
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Jason Turner of C++ Weekly and Empty Crate spoke with us about the joy of puzzles, the changing directions of an interesting career, and the C++ programming language. I mean, of course we talked about C++. But only a little. Jason recently published , a book of puzzles for the logically minded. It teaches programming concepts as engaging puzzles: recursion, binary, assembly, Lisp, regular expressions. You may not know what you are learning but you’ll likely find you know a lot more about how computers work afterward. For the puzzles, paper is better than electronic. But you can...
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512: What if I Didn’t Stop?
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Katherine “Smalls” Connell spoke with us about making thin and flexible circuits, making stretchable electronics, and running a successful Kickstarter. Katherine’s Kickstarter: . Katherine shares her makes, describing her build process for companion robots and other projects. You can find her as The Small Wonder on and . She often goes by Smalls on other social media. We talked about a paper on making stretchable circuits: . If you’re interested in how 3D printing is changing design engineering, Mouser Electronics has some great resources to check out. Their Empowering...
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511: Forty Trillion Divides
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Chris and Elecia talk about the show overflowing to another bit, fight over vim vs nano, consider awards, discuss writing (and self-motivation), consider linear algebra on AI cores, encourage remote device quality assurance, describe design documentation, review timer multipliers, and consider changing chip vendors. Support the show and get goodies: and book (currently on chapter 8 and working through the ) Not mentioned but related to the Cozy Science announcement: Elecia found , a 10-episode podcast that is nicely soothing and science. If you’re interested in how 3D printing is...
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510: The Secret Chip
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Christina Cyr spoke with us about building cell phones, entrepreneurship, social purpose corporations, awards, lithium recycling, and her interesting career path. We talked about Christina’s , the related kit from dTOOR, and her . We also mentioned in the section about . There is a great paper from Nature about lithium-ion battery recycling: (formerly AngelList) is a startup focused job site that may lead to non-fulltime positions. may help you figure out is the startup has capital (also thought that generally has a cost). and the The quote was from and it was a...
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509: Swarmed by Engineers
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Steve Hinch wrote a book about engineering, innovation, and business. He shares decades of wisdom gleaned from his career at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent as an engineer, manager, marketing director, and general manager. Steve’s book is . While mostly retired, Steve is an executive consultant, see his website to get in touch: . We also touched on some of . While Elecia is reading , Steve suggested works by might be of interest. Elecia and Steve both received copies of Bill Packard’s while at HP. ...
info_outlineNathan Jones chatted with us about his proposal for a computer architecture book based on a 4-bit computer.
Nathan found the 4-bit computer in the Hackaday SuperCon 2022 badge and was amazed by some of the ideas that folks implemented (see SuperCon Badge Hacking Awards Ceremony).
Nathan spoke at Hackaday SuperCon 2023 on the processor architecture, highlighting some of his ideas for a book. If you’d like to try your hand at the badge, find it on Nathan’s Voja4 Tindie page.
Nathan also spoke recently at the Embedded Online Conference (Building a Simple CLI, OOP in C, and The Power of a Look-up Table) and the Teardown Conference (Making Your Own MCU Boards and Building a Simple CLI).
If you have an idea you’d like to propose, check out O’Reilly’s proposal for a book or class. While you may not go with them, the proposal is a good place to get all of your ideas down.
We mentioned a few other computer architecture books as competitors for Nathan’s proposed book:
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Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach by John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson
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Introduction to Computing Systems: From bits & gates to C & beyond by Yale N. Patt and Sanjay J. Patel
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The Elements of Computing Systems, by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken (MIT Press) with supporting material and simulator on nand2tetris.
Nathan also did a survey of the Embedded Slack community. You can gain access by becoming a Patreon or Kofi supporter.