522: The Information Is In Poop
Embedded
Sonia Grego speaks with us about a topic no one likes to talk about, but could be used to monitor personal dietary health and widespread disease outbreaks. Toilets! Sonia leads Duke University’s Smart Toilet Lab and the spin out Coprata which makes the Microbiome Activity Tracker. As discussed in the show, when developing a project far from where it will be deployed, there are many common issues. The chapter of Sonia’s recent book gives an excellent introduction to the unexpected environment far from the comfort of desks. The book is (free online!) , See , the as...
info_outline
521: Are You The Tiny Domino?
Embedded
Kenneth Finnegan entertained us with stories about accidentally contributing to the internet’s ability to network. Wondering how the internet works? All those terms about IPv4, IPv6, BGP, OSPF, CDN and other alphabet soup? Check out the YouTube videos by . Kenneth writes about his adventures on his blog, . Some of the posts related to this show are: We also mention FCIX aka or the You can also find Kenneth at where you will find more about half-dollars, nickels, and trains. If you also secretly long to run a locomotive, take a look at the program at WPRM. The title is...
info_outline
520: All Sorts of Interesting Facts About Teeth
Embedded
Chris and Elecia apologize, discuss uses and abuses of chatbots, reach out to an uncertain manager, try to help someone out of their professor’s draconian rules, and extol the joys of reading. is in Oakland, CA, US. It is wonderful! Some suggestions for UncertainManager: Hang in there! You are probably doing better than you think. Audio books are great! In the US, many libraries have digital libraries with extensive audio collections. There are several apps with different catalogs for the same library Libby, Kanopy, Hoopla, and Palace (check out the California shelf at...
info_outline
519: The Password Is All Zeros
Embedded
Mark Omo and James Rowley spoke with us about safecracking, security, and the ethics of doing a bad job. Mark and James gave an excellent talk on the development of their safecracking tools at . It included a section of interaction involving the lock maker’s lawyers bullying them and how the Electronic Frontier Foundation () has a to support security research. As mentioned in the show, the US Cyber Trust Mark baseline has a very straightforward checklist; is the overall standard, is the technical checklist, is the non-technical (process/maintenance) checklist. Roughly the process is...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
517: A Direct, Sensible Podcast
Embedded
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.
info_outline
516: Voices From the Cataclysms of the Universe
Embedded
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...
info_outline
515: Script Boomers
Embedded
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?...
info_outline
514: Just Turn Off All the Computers
Embedded
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! ...
info_outline
513: I’m Sorry You Learned Something
Embedded
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...
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:
-
Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach by John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson
-
Introduction to Computing Systems: From bits & gates to C & beyond by Yale N. Patt and Sanjay J. Patel
-
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.