Embedded - 181: Work on It for Ten Years

Episode Date: December 30, 2016

Chris Gammell  (@Chris_Gammell) of The Amp Hour and Contextual Electronics joined Elecia and Chris for a holiday special Ampbedded (EmbHour?) episode. Embedded will be having a Hats and Hacks party in Aptos, CA. You can come! RSVP on Eventbrite. Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise Analog Discovery vs Saleae Embedded blog (with Andrei Chichak and Chris Svec) including a post on podcasts we listen to Hemmingway App, useful for making writing clearer and simpler Tweezer sets make excellent gifts The Way Things Work Now is an update on a classic book Flybrix is a LEGO drone platform for learning control systems and flight robotics. The founder was on Embedded #157. Nordic nRF52 makexyz: 3D printing in your neighborhood Fusion 360 Video of Tesla seeing two cars ahead, having an accident The LDC1000 has never been attached to a Bluetooth sensor Free calculus book online: Single Variable Calculus: Early Transcendentals. There are other online textbooks approved by the American Institute of Mathematics. Raptitude’s Maybe You Don’t Have a Problem Isaac Asimov is a great inspiration: Medium Post by Charles Chu

Hello and welcome to Embedded. I'm Eliseo White, here with Christopher White. Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Chris Gamble of Contextual Electronics. This week we are joined by Chris Gamble from the Amp Hour. On the Amp Hour. You're on the Amp Hour. To create a spectacle of a show. You're on the Amp Hour. No, no, no. I'm pretty sure you're on Embedded.

Welcome to the Amp Hour. Welcome to Embedded. This is where you say your show name or where you're from and what you do. I'm Eliseo White from Embedded FM. I'm Chris White, also from Embedded.FM. I was thinking we could call this Enemy Cast. What do you think about that?

I was going for Embedded. Embedded? Oh, I like that. What about The Embower? What? The Embower. The Embower. I like that, too.

I'm writing these down. Don't worry. Yeah. So for anybody who hasn't figured that out, the Enemy Podcast have joined together this week in order to reduce our holiday quote workload. And this will be cross-posted to both. I was just thinking this is actually 2016 taking a final spit in our eye.

You thought you've seen it all. Nope. You have to endure a mashing up of shows. So you have to hear Chris talking about embedded stuff and Chris and Alicia talking about electronic stuff and oh yeah. Opinions will fly. If you want to keep up with both shows, you have to listen to it twice.

That's a good point. I think so. Oh, yeah. Oh, but I do have an Embedded FM announcement. Do you mind? Okay. So we are doing an Embedded FM party. It's mostly going to be a meet and greet with like two-minute who are you things.

And the goal is that you either wear a hat or bring a hack. It will be in Aptos, California. So you can go to Santa Cruz or to the Monterey Bay Aquarium before you come visit us from 2 to 5. And there will be snacks and RSVPs. 2 to 5 on what day? Oh, January 28th, the last Saturday in January. Just come randomly at 2 o'clock. 17. Oh, January 28th, the last Saturday in January of 2017.

RSVP instructions will be in our show notes, maybe in the Empire show notes. But I'm not so sure. Yeah, I'll put them in too. I mean, we might need to be selective here. Maybe I'll mess them up a little bit, you know? Maybe January 27th, why not? No, January 28th. Maybe I'll just give your home address.

Well, that sounds like fun. I think there's a chance I might be there. I think I mentioned that. That would be pretty cool. Yeah. It is not easy to get where you guys are. It's definitely, it's not Uberable. I've talked about that, unfortunately.

No, no. But there will be people coming from the San Jose area, so you might be able to carpool from there. I don't know about San Francisco, but maybe. And I haven't gotten an RSVP from Berkeley, which I have to tell you is quite a ways. The entire college? Yeah, that's... They're bringing the pot brownies.

But the traffic shouldn't be too bad. Yeah, okay. Yeah, on a Saturday, right? In January. Well, I have been down there once and visited you guys, and it is a beautiful area. And you are a gracious host, and I'm sure this will be a wonderful event for all people. Yeah. It should be fun.

And mostly it's so people can meet other people who are interesting. Yeah. Do you guys have any resources for if they do want a carpool? Is there some way to contact one another? Why don't I actually manage to get an RSVP system set up first? I mean, have you used Eventbrite? I have, yeah. It's what we use for Supercon.

That's probably what we'll use, and maybe we'll. Anyway, yes, organization details will be organized later. They're all smart. But they will be organized. I bet they can figure it out for themselves. Maybe we'll do an open thread on our blog and people can organize themselves in the comments. Yeah, that's a great idea. Okay.

Well, that's very cool. Amp Hour announcements. Dave's not here. Dave's not here, man. I hear Dave's not ever coming back He's not coming back for the rest of the year That's right So yeah he'll be out

I'll be doing shows without him He's going on vacation I learned last minute last show during the show While we talked with Mighty O Did he just find out at that point and just came across the wire Oh my god I'm going on vacation The downsides of you know like Your co, your respective co-hosts, you know, live in the same house. Mine lives 10,000 miles from me.

So there is a little bit of a... You'd be surprised how many vacations I'm not aware of. How was the show with Jeff last week? That was wonderful. It was great catching up with Jeff. And actually, I was surprised. So he was telling us all about his Bell Labs trip. He went to go to New Jersey, and he told us about visiting the different Bell Labs sites.

And then I got surprised that at some point I put it on my Amazon wish list, and I got that book under the Christmas tree this year. And so I just started it. And it's just as good as he said, so I'm very excited got that book under the under the christmas tree this year and so i just started it and it's just as good as he said so i'm very excited about that book it's like it's like a history of shockley and that's the only name i remember about shockley and uh shannon um oh shannon that's right yeah and but the the one they start with it was it's really interesting kind of just hearing like the crossover stuff because I think maybe it's Kelly. That's his last name. But they're like, oh, they're like following him and you can tell he's going to be like some big name at Bell Labs.

But then it's like, oh, yeah, he's also the lab assistant for Millikan with the oil job experiment. It's like, whoa, like, okay. It's just like the concentration of brain power is intense. Cool. I'm excited for that book. I'm excited for that episode. I haven't listened to it yet because I had to do a bunch of prep, but for our show, for other episodes. How are you guys doing on podcast listening this year?

Oh, my goodness. We're supple some. I think he's asking what we listen to. Oh. Not how we listen to it. Yeah. I'm doing terribly with my listening this year. That's what I was really getting towards.

I'm down from what I usually do. I have fewer opportunities to be not focused on something, I guess. Yeah. I am making it through about three quarters of a podcast a week, which means that I'm falling behind at a startling rate. And I am not caught up on anything.'m gonna have to declare bankruptcy and just restart yeah I think that's okay and honestly I think that that stuff it comes back across right so like so like for you know I missed a couple of your shows and then like I think someone else told me about when Alan was on so I went back and listened to that one and then there was I think we were talking you uh you you both and I were talking and you mentioned one show and I went back and listened to that one and And I think that just happens too.

You hear about kind of like the shows that are kind of worth kind of going back for specifically. And then you kind of get back in the groove. Yeah, I had a bunch I tried to start listening to that I just couldn't get into also. Some new ones. Because a lot of the ones I've listened to I've gotten a little tired of. Some of the just more general tech ones. You did that post earlier. You did like the post about all those different podcasts.

I remember that was a pretty good post on your blog. Yeah, you contributed to that too. But it was good to have a list of all the things you could listen to. But then I had to admit that I wasn't looking to add anything. Right. Yeah, it happens, right? I was just listening to uh um uh ezra klein was just on the tim ferris show and so i was listening to that one and he kind of talked about like that's how he gathers a lot of information these days even though he's a journalist and he has his

own podcast and stuff and he said like he just kind of each morning he scrolls through and just kind of sees what's interesting and that's what it's really to. It's like there's so many podcasts out there. It's like you kind of really just look down and see what is interesting in the moment because what else are you going to do? Yeah. And it's like a podcast to become a magazine. You don't read the whole magazine necessarily. Right?

Some people do. Some people are completists. And I think that's cool. And I am happy that one of our recent guests talked about listening at even faster rates. 1.8. Well, he was over 2 and I have climbed up to over 1.8. And for the podcasts that I'm listening to for the information, it's totally worth it. For the podcasts I listen to for the relaxation, it's defeating the purpose. I don't listen to much for information. I listen to for the relaxation that's defeating the purpose

i don't listen to much for information i tend to read more for that i don't know why listening to podcasts doesn't really sink in yeah it's more like notes it's like ricochet knowledge you know it's like like like i just mentioned that ezra klein thing right like that's just like one thing that i remembered from that entire show basically you know it's yeah I've been reading a weird how I've brainstormed that a book about um gaining expertise it's called peak and it's by Anders Erickson and Robert Poole and one of the things that they said was that every time you hear information or read information if you have had any exposure to it in the past, it's easier. And so podcasts for me are to some extent that initial information that

I'm not getting all of, but when I come across it next time, it will feel a little more familiar and I'll sync up a little bit more than I would have if it'd been totally cold. Oh, I've heard of that other than I know what that is in detail. Yeah. It's the, I've heard of that other than I know what that is in detail. Yeah, it's the I've heard of that, which is enough. Right. Oh, so it kind of makes your ears perk up so you'll pay more attention when it kind of...

It's like the filtering mechanism that humans have or what? Learning the second time is always easier. And so if you can just do a crappy job of learning the first time, right? Done. That's where I'm at with impedance. Hey, me too.

I've heard of that. Yeah. Should we do lightning round? I know that's something we do on our show. You don't do it on yours. That's okay. I wrote a couple questions down for you guys. Okay.

I don't have any in front of me. Well, you can use the one in the show notes. And I'll use the one on our massive ring of random questions. So the first one, New Year's resolution? Get better at prototyping. 640 by 480. I don't know what that means. Sorry.

Resolution. 640 by 480. It's like a video resolution. Oh. It was a pun. Was that a trick question? I feel like I'm being... No, no.

That was my answer. That was Chris's answer. Oh. I was answering the same question. I'm sorry. Okay. Got it. Yeah.

Okay. All right. What's your favorite fictional robot? Bender. Ah. Bender. Bite my shiny metal metal can.

Mine is R2-D2. Just for the record. I mean, BB-8 is wonderful, but I don't R2-D2, man. Okay. Your turn, Chris Gamble. Horowitz and Hill

or Sedren Smith? Horowitz and Hill Horowitz and Hill or Sedrin Smith Horowitz and Hill do you know the other one I looked at the other one and it's an electronics book that I've never heard of

so I'm definitely technically they both are yeah I have the first one I've read the first I've heard of it I'm sorry I meant they were both

electronics books not that you would uh Salier or Analog Discovery Salier Salier You've heard of it. Sorry, I meant they were both electronics books, not that you would know. Salier or Analog Discovery? Salier. Salier. Even now.

You've used them both? No, I haven't used Analog Discovery yet. Should we? Yeah, no, I think it's, I've been using it more. But it's analog. What? It says analog in the title. No, it's a little... Alvaro just gave a talk about it.

He included that in his prototyping. So Alvaro has been on your show. Yes. And he did a talk at the San Francisco meetup I do, and he was just talking about firmware and hardware prototyping tools and he had both of those in there but I also use analog discovery too but basically it's like a two channel scope

it's got a 16 channel logic analyzer it's got AWG output power supply sort of output like a variable up to 5 volts that's nice yeah it's a cool little box. USB-C?

No. No, it looks like regular USB. It doesn't stream. It's not streaming, like the Salia. About $260 US today. Unless you're a student, you can get, like, I think $199. Aren't we all students of the world? Yeah, I don't know how they do that.

Yeah, I think it's just whether or not you're willing to say you are. I like to learn things. Oh. Got it. Yeah. That's pretty cool. You can start your own.edu. Embedded.edu. That's gotta be taken. Or we should get it

right now. Yeah, it's hard to get. I think you need like an ABED accreditation or something some kind of accreditation to get a dot ed yeah i'm not sure they just give those out willy-nilly yeah um so you've used the analog discovery and you used to saliae yeah is there much difference for the same things though uh well it's a real scope i mean well not a real scope being you know quote unquote but's, I think the sampling method is a little bit closer to an oscilloscope than a, than a cellulite is. Okay.

So, yeah, they're both, I mean, they're both, I mean, don't get me wrong, they're both great tools. Let's see. My next lightning round question. Something you did not want to learn or do that you're glad you got through. All of programming. Saying I got through it, though, is not really true. I don't know. Yeah, pointers.

Let's go with pointers. I'll start, yeah. Again, I'm not sure I'm through it, quote unquote, but, you know, I'm glad I learned it and I hate it. Pointers are cool. Yeah, sure. Pointers are cool. Yeah, sure. Pointers are like words. What do you both answer for that one?

Wait, I mean, is the point that I have to have looked back in retrospect and think I'm glad I learned that or just that I survived learning something? I think you have to say you're glad you learned it, right? Oh, man. It's your question, isn't it?

It's her question. Where am I? I was going to say you're glad you learned it right. Oh, man. It's your question, isn't it? No, it's her question. Where am I? I was going to say chemistry. You're glad you learned chemistry? No, but see, that was the part. Oh, I survived it. If I take the glad part out, I have a whole litany of answers. Yeah, I think the glad would be the...

Yep. For me, it would be the... Yep. For me, it would be ML. I don't know what that is. It's a programming language, and I thought at the time it was stupid. And now I still think it's sort of not useful to my career. But it got me started on the track of other languages do have some benefit, even if it's not readily apparent, which falls in line with the whole there's no one true way. But sometimes I forget that because everybody should do it my way, damn it. Right.

It's a good reminder. Markup language? Is that markup or something else? No, it's something else. No, it's more Pascal- is that markup language is that markup or no something else no it's something else no it's a it's more Pascal like it's old it's old

this is not new but it was one of those things that I just kicking and screaming did not want to learn because it was dumb but

that's how that's how I feel about programming too sorry I'm trying I'm trying alright let's try this one share a tip or trick you think everyone should

know how are these lightning questions i don't know they've gotten much more like yeah sort of flashlight questions a tip or trick everyone should know you touch the soldering iron to the pin and then apply solder to both. No, that's really useful. See, that's great. It's so easy to think you should just glop the solder onto the soldering iron and then somehow. Yeah. It's not called a glopping iron. Yeah.

Well, according to all the non-U.S. listeners, it's also called a soldering iron. You don't pronounce the L. Oh, stupid yank. I get that one a lot. Yeah lot I know there's an L in there there's a lot of letters they don't pronounce folks well if the L wasn't there we'd pronounce it's sodering iron so I mean we are pronouncing the L it's just kind of you know

smearing into the rest of it it's fine you know I'm always feganing interest in people telling me about letters that should be pronounced when they really don't need to be. Is that how you pronounce it? Feganing? Yes. Feganing?

And Santa comes down the chimblee. My tip or trick that I think everyone should know is about map files, which is that map files are awesome. Yeah. That's the one that lines up the memory locations and stuff. Is that right? Yeah. It's post-compile and it's at the link stage. It not only creates an executable,

your linker not only creates an executable, it also creates this file or it can create this file that tells you where it put everything. And it is so handy for figuring out like pointers have gone bad so where did you start out and then you find the bad pointer and then you look

in the map file and it's there or you're out of memory or you're out of RAM. The map file just has all this information and nobody thinks to look there. But it's super cool. Yeah, that's great. Do you have one? Sure. C99 struct initializers.

And for the electronics audience? You don't have to fill in your struct with lots of painful accessors later or just remembering the position of stuff. You can go brace and then dot and and then the member name equals blah, and then comma, and then dot, and then the next one. Look it up. C-99, struct initializers. C-99. Something, something.

Struct. Okay. Structure initializers. Nice. Those are good tips. Okay. Oh, here's a good one. Least favorite electrical component.

Um, I would say, uh, depletion mode FETs. Cause all these years later, I just don't get them still. I'm terrible with, yeah. Yeah. Outside of like the, the normal stuff, I'm pretty bad. So. I don't like inductors. I don't like anything that's not a component all right that's a package that's well then then a ball grid package fine resistors i don't like resistors okay any component that is sufficiently complex to require a BGA like a FPGA. Right. Anything?

Fine. That's it? You told me to do the ones in the notes and I've done them. Fine. Fine. You've got the whole thing over there. I've got nothing. So I think about your, so you always ask the question about the, what language do you think you should, what should be taught in school first?

What is your standard answer for that? I like to ask that one after what language do you prefer to use? Because I like it when people have a different answer that they want to use from what they think should be taught. And it makes sense that there should be a difference between what should be taught first. I mean, personally, I think that scratch should be taught and I think it should be taught in elementary school.

Okay, well. Because it is a beautiful language that is really, truly a language and is so powerful and can be done, can make things move. It can make stories. You can make videos and cartoons. And yet it is still truly, honestly, a programming language. But it's not a language I've ever used for more than goofing off. So what's your real answer to the question? Well, like what about if you say, you usually say intro college class, right?

Yeah. Is there a different answer then? Well, yeah, I guess it is a different. For a CS degree, then no Scratch. But if non-CS degree, I would still consider Scratch. It's still really useful. For a CS degree, I think C or C++ because I think that you have to teach pointers early. It is not necessarily something people use a lot, but understanding how the microcontroller actually works well that makes everything else

useful yeah but most cs people aren't programming microcontrollers that's yeah that's the problem cs people aren't i know computer engineering people see i think that's a real question too is like should should should the cs people that are going to go work at facebook be separated out from the people that are going to be working on, you know, low level, low power stuff. And it's like, that's always, you know, it's like the specialization versus generalization. I think eventually, I think that's a specialization that you probably should come to late in undergraduate, but I think they can be joined for the first couple of years. And I think-

So maybe there should be like a course, like an intro course to be like, intro to big machines, intro to little machines, intro to little machines. You know, that could be a way to separate them out. I guess an intro, intro Python, because that is the most generically used across many. Where we went, we had to take the same intro CS course as the people who were non-CS majors or non-CS concentration people. And that was Pascal. So everybody took Pascal. I didn't take that class but

it was pascal well fine you tested out of it or whatever no then you didn't graduate so what about if it was not in a school what if it was what's the what's the language that someone should start if they're not in school python because i think about the easy answer right i think the great language uh we got to pick something yeah scratch is a great language the arduino processing is a fine language that's on the surface it's and once you get under the surface you're in c++ which is pretty complicated but you're under the surface so it's okay javascript people would probably say it's not a very good language but it's easy to easy to work with because everybody's got a browser.

I guess so. I still prefer, well, I prefer Python. Yeah. But yeah, none of those are really going to give you a sense of the machine. But you've been working on Python. How are you getting into pointers in Python? Or are those separate? You're talking about me? Yeah.

I'm not that deep. I've been working in MicroPython first off, not Python. And I haven't been doing that much. But that's kind of what I was interested in. Because, I mean, like, so, like, I said my goal for 2017 is, sorry, my resolution for 2017 is not 640 by 480. It is to get better prototyping. And that's kind of tied to the whole MicroPython thing. And I had Tony on the show

to talk about that. And I just think, you know, I've shifted a lot of my thinking about all this stuff. I used to kind of push back against Arduino and whatever, but now it's just, I just need to get stuff done as fast as possible. And I don't know.

I feel like it's kind of like that whole first pass, second pass thing you mentioned earlier, right? It's like maybe the first time through you're just implementing someone else's code, but then you notice that you're initializing variables or you're typing int before you type a variable name. You see a variable name and then you just kind of notice that the next time around, you know, it just kind of triggers. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, if you're just trying to get stuff done, then C is not the way to go.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I would go C++ or Python for that, for a microcontroller-ish system. It would make more sense to me because you don't need to get that deep into it. Which, C++? To do C, to do straight C. C++ only because that's what Embed and Arduino secretly are based on. I can tell you this.

I remember my first, so I went into college not having programming at all. And I remember my first day of intro to programming class, and holy moly, that was a rough experience. I didn't even know what I was looking at. I had that book with ants. You hadn't done anything beforehand. Yeah. Do you remember the book with ants? Yeah, the book with ants.

Yeah, I think so. I think I remember what that is. It was not that great. Some people loved it, but yeah. I went to college, and I didn't know that they were sending me to a summer school because I was so underprepared for the college I went to. And the summer school had calculus, which I had had in high school. But when I got to the class, I didn't know what the flattened S symbol was. So clearly I had missed some part of calculus,

like the second half. And at the same summer camp, they had programming and they did the intro to CS programming that Chris was talking about. But it was different during the summer. And it was obvious. It was like the math was the hardest thing I had ever seen. And they had all these stupid limits and the mean value theorem. And it was so hard. And then we'd go into the CS class and I'd be like, this is how the world works. This makes so much sense to me. This is so trivially easy. And I'd see other people struggle and not understand.

It was like my brain was wired for computers. And I was so lucky because I would have failed both classes and I would have been out of there right away yeah I don't know I just feel like uh so I mean this is obviously an educational argument in general but I just I I remember a lot of strife in my own life about like why why are we learning all this stuff and it's like yeah eventually you need to learn that stuff but obviously I've I've turned that around a little bit and i think that you know it's more important to just do stuff to starting start with but that's kind of what you're talking about with like seeing the code up front right right i mean like seeing it kind of was understanding it before you

dug into the what is what is the background of all programming right no no really it was anything they said in that class. It was not a struggle. That's great. And it was so fortunate. And I have met people who did that in chemistry and biology and other things. And it was like, it was like I found my language. tell people to try lots of stuff because there may be something out there that is somehow your innate ability to be fair my mom pointed out years later that they had given me a computer when i was pretty young i mean like seven or ten age and that i had done lots of programming then for about two years and then after that like the basic uh entry stuff or what were you doing then i was it was all the basic stuff and

it was um it was trying to figure out even some of the games like like playing lemonade is is really a programming problem if you think about it that way uh and all of the strategy games are in some way what what is lemonade sorry i don't know what that is lemonade stand you run a lemonade stand you set the prices people oh oh oh i see yeah so you're not saying on a computer it's not a computer game that i missed it is a computer game and you missed it you missed it. But it was from late 70s, so don't feel bad. Yeah. Okay. You know, I think that resurfaced as a drug dealer game on my TI-83 calculator. I remember that game. That sounds probable and sad at the same time. Terrible.

Especially because it was a really fun game. Sorry. Yeah. So I did feel very at home programming, but it is possible that that is again back to doing it twice is that I didn't even remember that I had that computer for a few years. Right. If it was taken away again. Okay.

So what about if that question became not about what programming language should be taught in intro class? It should be, or what if it was on the electronic side? It would be like, where should you start for the electronic side of things? I think you should have to answer that. I mean, it's a question I'm still— You're the guest on the Amp Hour. I mean, I still don't know where to start with electronics sometimes. I get these great ideas for fantastic, amazing boards and implementations,

and then I sit down and think, what is the first step? And my first step is, you know what I should do? I should call it doubly. Really? Oh, yeah. I mean, I know I can draw a schematic by hand, and I know I have many versions of Eagle installed, none of which I can use because I just install the new one

and then get to that part of the tutorial, and then I give up for the day, and six months later I install a new one. There's a problem. You're an Eagle. That's true. I don't know. My first exposure to electronics was when I was a little kid doing hammer little heat kit things yeah and i had some little electronics kit but i didn't really learn anything and it didn't stick and the next formal exposure i think was in college

physics where there's a small section where they go through basic circuits and ohm's law and, and Kirchhoff's laws and all that stuff. And that didn't stick. Uh, well, that was part of E&M. None of E&M stuck. Thanks. Spiritual cow, eating milk in all directions.

Um, so yeah, I mean, it's still a bit of a mystery, all that stuff. I don't, I don't know how i would suggest somebody teach that differently i mean i mean i think i would think that these days it's like uh so so my my

first step is usually when i so people ask me that like outside of college at least i say go get an arduino like honestly because the first thing you should do is blink the led on the arduino but then if that doesn't get your motor going, then that's fine. But then you should have to do it with something else, and then you should switch to a tricolor LED, and then you should switch to, you know, like, it's like really you got to, until the person asks, wait, why does the resistor matter? Right? That kind of, I guess even an Arduino kind of doesn't. Yeah, that's kind of my worry is now you can just buy a microcontroller and hook up 3.3 or 5 to it and you're pretty much off to the races. And then you can learn about pull-ups, but that's just a trick, right?

Or about current limiting resistors for LEDs. You don't have to know what that really means. And you can't build on top of that, right? With that knowledge, you can't go and, oh, I need an analog circuit to do X. Well, you're screwed. And there's so many times that you can do 3 volts or 5 volts, and your system will work with whichever one is wrong for a little while. Sometimes.

When the weather's right. And yet, if you don't understand that basic part how do you go further well you can understand that without being able to understand any other kind of analog circuit well i mean i have used a five volt ar Arduino with three volts, like opto isolators, and it looks fine. But I know that that's not a good long-term product solution. That's a fine prototype in my desk and occasionally accept stuff goes wrong. But I know it's not a good idea, but I can't explain why it's not a good idea but I can't explain why it's not a good idea and I don't know how to get from where I am to being able to explain that because once I get into analog things like that

it just, oh, put in a level shifter. Yeah, but that's not satisfactory. Yeah, I would say that the, I mean, I think that those are two separate issues, right? One is like a troubleshooting thing like you're talking about with like why should or I shouldn't do these certain things. But the other one is I think what Chris said is the – when are these other solutions even needed, right? And that's usually the stuff that I see people doing interesting things with where I'm like, oh, wow, you're trying that. There's way better ways to do these kind of things right so so actually um my my friend was just asking me

the other day he's like well i want to do a pdm pwm circuit but like how do i you know and obviously it's very easy with a microcontroller but sometimes you don't want to do a microcontroller and it's like well so how, so how would both of you do a PWM circuit? If you needed to just have a say you wanted to change a PWM duty cycle with like a potentiometer.

How would you go about doing that kind of thing? I feel like I'm in a final that I haven't gone to class for, and that's one of the questions, and I'm just staring at that question going, God, I've made so many poor choices. I would pick up the Forrest Mims book that sits by my desk. I don't remember which it is, probably the intro to electronics.

And I would look through it for a rectifier. And then I would try to change the frequency of the rectifier. What are you rectifying? He wanted a square wave. I mean, he said PWM, right? So I can't just make it different levels. Otherwise it would be like a potentiometer. A rectifier takes AC and turns it into DC.

You want something that takes DC and turns it into AC. Right. An anti-rectifier? Is that what that's called? I think it's called an inverter. See, but I'm sure that MIMS would put them on the same page for me, right? Well, I mean, I'd start with some sort of oscillator, but then it wouldn't give me a square wave. Yeah, we want to change the frequency of the oscillator.

But then I would be like, why do you want a PWM? Why don't you just have direct drive at different levels? Wouldn't that be easier? Because that's just a pot and a resistor hooked up in some magical configuration that I don't really know. Because maybe the device you're driving doesn't work at a lower voltage.

Well, okay, so there's voltage, then there's frequency, and then there's duty cycle, right? So there's all three different things. But she's talking about this being DC. Your PWM's RMS comes out to 0.8 volts. The device still might do something, butms comes out to 0.8 volts the device still might do something but if you give it 0.8 volts dc it might not right well i'm just talking about generating a a square wave signal that is we're trying to get away from that because neither of us know the

answer so we're just talking about other stuff okay so like okay but so this was a this was a problem that was that was posed to me that i was like oh like normally i would just you know like it's it's easy to throw a microcontroller at that, right? Yes. That's especially, you know, even so you ask like a first year college student that, right? And the first thing they're going to say is like, oh, just, you know, analog read into an Arduino and then PWM analog out onto whatever one of the pins is, right? Sure. Simple, right?

I can totally do that. Yeah, I can do that. I'm like 100%. That is sufficient, right? Although PW, I can totally do that. Yeah, I can do that. I'm like 100%. That is sufficient, right? Although PWM on Arduino is yucky, but still. Right, but the main thing being that that is actually quite a satisfactory answer until you put qualifiers on it.

It's like, oh, well, you can't use a microcontroller. Okay, fine. Well, it's kind of like, I mean, that answer is kind of like, I need to carry this flower pot from my backyard to my front yard. The correct answer is, you know, maybe a wheelbarrow. But the Arduino

answer is, well, I buy a truck and I drive it down to my backyard and I drive over everything in my house. At the end of it, I own a truck that doesn't do anything. I can do other things. Well, I can, but I don't need it to do anything else

for that project but it might yeah it might waste a lot of gasoline and yeah um but like so that's like but that was just simply an example of where an analog solution might be required or might be better than another thing and my answer by the way was take a comparator on the input. The one input is just a reference voltage. The other side, you put in a triangle wave. And then basically with the reference level, you can change the square wave output, right? Because when the triangle wave crosses that reference voltage, then it's going to flip high or low to the rails. Sure, but where did you get the triangle wave, Chris?

It seems like your... Triangle wave is simple to generate, so... Pointers are trivial. Yeah, the answer is easy and left as an exercise to the reader. Right. So, okay, so another thing that happened, though, so actually, so you both know Mike Stish, right? Yes.

Hackaday Mike. And so Mike is the editor of Mike Stish, right? Yes. Hackaday Mike. And so Mike is the editor of Hackaday, the managing editor of Hackaday. And so I interact with him at my job, and we did this really fun thing called an unconference at work when I was out there last time. And so it was just everybody, I talked about MicroPython and basically the things I didn't know about and the things I've been struggling with. Mike actually did this really cool thing. I think he's going to end up writing about it eventually. But he just went back and was just doing analog circuits, just using single transistors at a time.

And he was building little Christmas trees and stuff like that. And honestly, I think that that's the best kind of stuff. If you do actually want to learn analog, like, honestly, I mean, on any, I'd say five to six days out of the week, you know, I'm still pretty confused by transistors. You know, I can use them. I've used them a lot, but like, you know, they're still. Well, you can't see inside them.

They're opaque, so. Yeah, well, so are. You can't see the little man turning it up. There's a whole lot more transistors in there, so, you know. But, you know, and like, but that's the kind of thing where it's like, once you get to the point where you actually do want to learn that stuff, I think that's actually when it does make a lot of sense. Well, that's advice that I don't take from myself, right?

Because whenever anybody asks, how do I learn a new programming language or how do I learn a new programming technique? It's like, okay, well, you find a project you want to do and do it. You're not going to learn it from a book you're sitting and reading about. Unless the book gives you a really good project that you're really into. Oh, sure, sure, sure. But, you know, when I was a kid, I tried to learn a lot of this stuff just by reading textbooks. I was like, wow, that didn't stick at all. Why? Why don't I know this? I read this book. So I think that's definitely probably true of everything in electronics, too. It's like, okay, make some stuff and make some mistakes and, and, and yeah,

learn by doing. On the other side, having gotten frustrated with, with electronics and whatnot, and having tried to explain why schematics didn't work. Uh, I did actually sit down with the Forrest Mims book and read through it and take notes and, and try to, you know, he would say, I'm going to build this circuit. And I would try to build that circuit from the information he gave me in my head on paper. And then I would translate to what he had. And I learned a lot. I gained a lot of confidence, but I didn't use it. And so now I'm back to kind of knowing where some of these things are and not being able to have them off the top

of my head. So I don't think books are useless. No, I wasn't saying they were useless. It's really nice sometimes to have the information organized. I don't think they're useless. I think you need to do both. Yeah. I think that if I had done that book and also put the hardware in the right spots and lit up the lights and kept building on that, it would have stuck and it would have been great. It was just I went back to programming or whatever other hobby came in. Well, and so I've heard you both talk about capacitors and how those kind of puzzle you at various times. No, that's a joke.

Believe me, I know how capacitors work. Well, I don't know how they work, but more like implementation and stuff like that. It's more like mental models. I think it's the bypass capacitor joke, right? Yeah, it's... Is it really? I mean, I'm hearing it wrong.

I swear that we had many, many people write in explaining bypass capacitors to us. And I do sort of understand them. But it is still at the point of, okay, I understand we need them. And I understand if things go badly, how to add more. But from a blank design, I don't know how many to put in other than what the data sheet says exactly exactly exactly as many as are needed but no more right no i have tons more come on they're cheap yeah i mean i treat them like salt they're they're good to have everywhere

yeah that's right um i get a little frustrated when like, I have people ask me like, well, what's the answer? And I'm, you know, just some question. I'm like, I have no idea. You know, it's like, I feel like there's, I don't know. I hope it's okay that I say that sometimes. I think that's a misunderstanding of expertise, right? If you're an expert in a particular discipline, everyone thinks you have the ability to just answer any question immediately when sometimes questions are actually, you know, that's a giant word problem. And yes, I know how to solve it, but I don't want to right now. Somebody asked me to do a firmware update on their processor. And I'm like, well, you have about 57 options.

And since you're on that processor, there are about 30 of them you can just eliminate because it's just not worth it. But it leaves you still with 27 options. and there are lots of good reasons for them. I feel like the right answer to that is to hand them your rate sheet. Here's how much I charge per hour. I don't know. No, sometimes people email us, and they make good blog posts. Oh, that helps. Yeah.

How's the blog going? I remember warning you of my engineer blog's run out where I ran out of motivation for it. Is it still motivated? I ran out of motivation immediately. Okay. One down. You never really, you didn't sign up for it. I also didn't really sign up for it. So the blog is going well.

It depends on what the goals of the blog are. I tried to convince myself and my two other blog writers, Andre Csicak and Chris Zweck, that the goal is only partially for listeners. A large part of it is to practice writing and to practice explaining these fairly complex embedded systems points in a way that you could then just pull them up when you need them, whether you're in a meeting or whether you're teaching a class or whatever. So if we all agree that the goal is to practice writing and practice putting these things out there, then it's a great success. We've all done really well. If the goal is to rule the world through getting lots of people to read the blog, we still need to work on it. We're not great on that.

It's a lot more content. It is totally free. There are no ads. There's no blinking because I can't stand blinking. But it is a lot of good stuff andre is doing st uh discovery board uh cortex m4f and so he's going to have a lot of a lot of good features he can implement big stuff and spec is doing msp430 and he's looking at things from a very low level micro microcontroller perspective, even assembly.

Not necessarily that you need to write in assembly, but that you should know what's happening down there. So they're doing a great job. I kind of bop in and out answering questions from listeners or working on my own set of projects or even adding some things. Like Andre did a bunch of things on Uarts, and then I posted, well, what good is a Uart, and put up code for a command console. or even adding some things like Andre did a bunch of things on Uarts. And then I posted, well, what good is a Uart?

And put up code for a command console. And I really liked that because it made a whole bundle. And someone can look at it and say, oh, that's what it's for. And then six months later, they may have to do this for their job, and they know where to go. And so it's a place. But yeah, it's a giant time suck. Yes. Yes, you did warn me that it would be a giant time suck and it is in fact.

I mean, it's still a repository though. That's what's nice. Yes. Yeah, you never know if it's going to be valuable or anything like that. But I totally agree that if it's not like internally driven, you're that but i i totally agree that it's if it's not like internally driven you're never gonna yeah you'll never never make it and we've all shared editing duties and being editing somebody else's work especially if you have to do it in a way that you know that you're going to edit yours and you want to be friends after, it's really useful and valuable to affecting your own writing. My writing has gotten better because I know that if I hassle one of them

about explaining things in an inverted way or you start out complicated and you get simple, if I do that in my writing, they will totally call me on it because it's not the way you teach things. Yeah. I may have mentioned it on past shows,'s not the way you teach things. Yeah. I don't know if I've, I may have mentioned on past shows, but I've been using this thing. I've been writing a little bit more, but not as much as I hopefully will be in the new year. But there's this thing called Hemingway app.com.

Have you ever seen that? I think I know what you're talking about. Yes. And if you write too complicated, it highlights and says, this sentence is way more complicated. Just be direct. Now, that's not the one where if you don't keep typing, it deletes everything you've written. No, that's different. No, I mentioned that one. Yeah, no, no, that's the most dangerous. Or you guys told me about that, I think. I didn't expect it.

Yeah, Chris did. But yeah, that one is very motivating. And I have mentioned that on the show. I know. That's the one. Yeah, that's, that's very motivating. But no, this is more about like, it highlights colors and like adverbs aren't these then it actually gives you a readability score, which, you know, this is not like super unique. There are other readability type things out there, but this is just one that really resonated with me. So I use it. I downloaded the, the, the offline app for it's, it's,

and it, it really gamifies it. That's what's really fun. It's like, like, Oh, that sentence is hard to read. I'm going to try again because I don't know.

I used to think that like writing was, you know, trying to sound smart, but it's really about just trying to get, like you said, trying to get the idea across is often the hardest thing. I don't know. It depends on the kind of writing. Technical writing, yeah, being flowery is not an advantage. Unless you're in a patent.

Oh, God. And then your goal for the Hemingway app is to be all red. Power is not an advantage. Unless you're in a patent. Oh, God. And then your goal for the Hemingway app is to be all red. That's true. Yeah, they could make the opposite of it, right? So here's a question for you. I know you have written a lot in the past on your blog. And I know you do some writing for Conductor Electronics. And now you have this goal to write more.

Why? I mean, why is writing important to you? Well, part of it is for my job. So that's just part of that. I mean, it's just part of what I'm doing for that. But I think one of the things that's nice is it kind of just gives the, so I'll answer that with a different non-writing answer. So like one thing that I really like about Google Photos is that it, it throughout, you know, it does like the backup sync and like iPhotos does that stuff too,

where it just backs up all your stuff. I have a really bad memory and kind of like where I am at any point in life, you know, like where I was, who I was with all that stuff, like my memory just doesn't work that well. And using the photos app for that is really useful. I think similarly, a writing, you know, having regular writing kind of puts a line in the sand and says, this is the stuff I believe I believe in, this is what I'm working on. That is important, right? It's kind of just, it's important to make a case even if you end up having to go back and correct it. I think that that,

it solidifies opinions and makes you think critically about it. The self-analysis, the introspection part? The navel-gazing, yes. Okay. I don't knowazing yes okay i don't know i think it's more just about yeah critical critical thinking around issues so that i'm not just spouting on the empire with dave i don't know no writing is a very different process and you know that there's been a lot of studies about how people take notes and how you know if you actually take notes that things stick better and that's not not even writing necessarily

it's just using a different pathway to reinforce information but yeah it's completely different from sitting and you know noodling in your own thoughts to actually putting something down on paper there's there's a whole bunch of things that happen in your brain that are different than if you're just sitting and thinking or shooting the breeze with somebody. I think there's other positive, positive examples of that, like that are not necessarily just writing, but it's almost just like the social proofing side of things. Like, like GitHub, I think is a great example of like, like, it's not like bragging, but it's just, here's my work. You know, it's just regular. That chart is one of the most motivating things for some people of just like today was a dark green day, right? And it's just, here's my work. You know, it's just regular. That chart is one of the most motivating things for some people of just like today was a dark green day, right? And it's like,

that's a good day. It's not that that's the only measure of progress. Like making lots of commits is not the only way you can measure progress. However, it does show you weren't just sitting in meetings all day, right? And I know one thing is that sitting in meetings all day is not a good use of time. So even if it's just saying that i what i wasn't doing is kind of interesting and in addition to that and the introspection teaching something is a great way to learn it i mean to truly yes and writing something down is a way of teaching what you were thinking about it and so And so it's like you're learning your own thoughts. I mean, teaching is terrifying, right? It's just, it really is. It's like, oh, well,

here's the thing I just said, and I'm pretending to be an expert. And then it's very, I've had a couple of times where I've made a video and then I rewatch it and I'm like, that is a hundred percent wrong. Like I've watched him like, this is the worst, like that is just not even close, you know? And then I go and re-record it and no one's the wiser except for me. But then I definitely learned at that time, right? I mean, it kind of makes me stay up late at night thinking about what I didn't correct, but. How is contextual electronics doing? It's going to – it slowed down a lot during my move, to be honest, in terms of just my content.

The other instructors were still making stuff. But, yeah, so 2017 is the refocusing on skills, actually. I think maybe I mentioned on the show before, but got a new site up and running, and that's looking good. And yeah, so new stuff on the way. New bench at home, you know. I did catch myself playing that game of like,

you know, do you have any friends, or maybe if either of you have ever done this, like, oh, I'll start running when I get a treadmill. Yes. Yeah. No, I do that. I actually do that with music a lot, or I used to. It's like, oh, well, this isn't working. Maybe I'll get a different piece of gear and then I'll be better.

Right. Or it won't work until I get a new piece of gear. Which my wife is looking at me askance right over my shoulder to my new piece of gear and then i'll i'll be better right or it won't work until i get a new piece of gear which my wife is looking at me askance right over my shoulder to my new piece of gear which oh no which is an immense amount of gear which has enabled me to play a lot more so it's a separate thing uh it's an electronic drum set that i can play at all hours oh that's fun though and i wasn't practicing because it's my regular that's fun though and i wasn't practicing because it's my regular drums are too loud and i'm afraid of neighbors i think that's i think that's a big deal i i switched to an uh from an acoustic um upright piano to a a keyboard just

speaking for that same reason i have headphones and stuff because you kind of like look around you're like dang this is really making a lot of noise yes Yes. Yes, but it made it hard to buy him stuff for Christmas because he'd already blew the Christmas budget on his drums. Oh, right. New sticks, brushes, you know. Oh, no, I tortured him instead. It was great.

She designed a puzzle hunt that occupied three hours of my Christmas morning. Yes. Really? Can we hear about this this is this is very fun yeah so she she distributed clues all around town and so town yeah so we unwrapped presents she handed me her last present and it had a little thing around its neck it was a dinosaur

ornament and it was the first clue and i had to follow that to the next clue and do the whole thing and i stepped in a puddle and had to come back and change my shoes. It would only have been under a mile. Except there was one clue that I thought he knew. So there was a summation clue. I had to add up all these other clues to get a final number. And I got the final number and it was not anything I recognized. So I just threw it in Google Maps, right?

Oh, it must be an address. So I threw it in Google Maps and it pops up. Oh, that's that place we go to all the time. Okay, that makes sense. A little garden center that I like a lot. So that's the only match. And that's three quarters of a mile away. Well, that's kind of far, but that's not...

She did say she'd wandered over there the other day. So maybe she left the clue there then. So yeah, I went a mile and a half out of my way. It was our PO box number, which I write a lot because that's what I use. Which was actually like 500 yards from where I was. Yeah, it was. But it was pretty fun. And, you know, she spent a lot of time on it.

It was amazing. It was fun. It was fun to do. I was extremely, extremely tired. What was at the end of the rainbow? Is it? Um, just one more little gift,

you know, kind of, it wasn't. So the gift was the, was the hunt. Yeah. Yeah. Because he,

he blew his budget on the drums. And so I, my goal was to spend all of the angst and energy I would have put into the drums to bind the gift into doing something else. And so that led to. Right. And of course this will lead to escalation for the rest of. Yes. Your lives together.

Yeah. So Alicia, did you get anything fun? Did I get anything fun? I got a giant pile of tweezers. Whoa. What constitutes a pile of tweezers? And that sounds dangerous, by the way. There were more.

Seven. You got seven. I got you seven tweezers. It seems like a bigger pile than that. No, it was only seven. Okay. But I'm always losing our good electronic tweezers, and so now we have more. Yeah.

I am of the mind that I don't buy good ones. I buy as cheap as possible and just assume they're going to go bad. Like, you know, you can get the super, super sturdy, tipped, like Swiss steel, whatever.

Yeah. I don't do those at all. These were just up from that. I don't think they were super fancy. They were really, really fancy. Very expensive. This is dangerous territory. They came from this little town in Azerbaijan that specializes in tweeters.

It's called Tweezletown. Tweezletown? Twezzleton. I don't think that's right. Oh, seven piece. Oh, this is $12. Come on, Chris. I was looking at the one that I got.

It's a seven piece precision anti-static ESD. No, I was going to actually put the ones in because I actually do like the ones that I got there. It was just like a little kit where they all came together. Pick Snore on Amazon. Great. I'll put the link in. You got some other stuff. You got some other stuff.

I got some great stuff. So do you remember The Way Things Work? It was a book that came out. How things? Is it The Way Things Work or How Things Work? I have that as a coffee table book. Yes. Well, it's in my –

Did you know there's a new version? It's one of my only books on display. Yes. There is a new well i did i was unaware that there was a new version and it covers things like e-ink and is updated i just yeah so i got that i'm really excited about that it still has the mammoths right because that's like the only part that really matters yeah yeah yeah of course. You need the mammoths. How do mammoths work? They don't have a mark. I do remember that had CD-ROMs. I remember it had CD-ROMs in the original.

Or not the original, but whatever the version I have. It had CD-ROMs was one. And I did look back through it, and there was one that was like, whoa, that's dating itself. It was VCRs. I don't know. It described beta VCRs. Yeah. It was something that was like, oh't know. It described beta VCRs. Yeah.

It was something that was like, oh, okay, well, it's not. And then you look, it's like, oh, 1993 or 2 or whatever it was, and it made sense for the time, but that's fun. And we got a Flybricks. You got me a Flybricks. What's that? So this was one of the guests we had on our show where they wanted to build a science, technology, engineering, math platform to talk about how things fly.

Because going beyond robotics. And so it's Lego based and it's got motors and then it's got a controller and you can update the code on the controller. And you can have update motors and it's got uh controllers so you can fly it although you're supposed to you can fly it on your phone too i don't think we've tried i haven't tried that bluetooth version yet but it's just it's cool legos it's flying like it's very hard to fly yes coming coming from actually flying drones a lot it's it's not that easy although it's kind of small, so you're tempted to fly it inside, which always

makes things more difficult. Does it bust apart like Legos or what? Oh, yeah. I mean, you build it, which isn't that hard, and then you fly it, which is pretty hard, and then it falls apart. I mean, just it's like there's some

satisfaction with the total destruction of your drone especially if you know you can put it back together yeah i want i want uh ben ben krasno's high-speed camera so crash it into something and oh yeah the only trouble with that is the um the motors are little really tiny dc motors and they have these little leads coming off pigtail leads coming off and it's really easy for the motors to grab the wires when it crashes. Oh, and do the little twist-up thing. Yeah. But, you know, and it's all open source,

so the software you can go play with and change the parameters or rewrite the whole thing if you want it. I mean, as a way to learn how control loops work, I'm totally fascinated. And it has, you can make a quadcopter with it or a hexacopter or an octacopter. Okay. Yeah. That sounds pretty cool. Yeah.

What about you? What'd you get? Mostly books. Yeah. What was the other book? I got the Andy Grove book, too. Only the Paranoid Survived. Oh, yeah.

Another book. Yeah. Yeah. And then a couple of piano books and, uh, yeah, that's about it. I mean, nothing, you know, clothes and blah, blah, blah. So no, I, I actually, I stopped asking for technology stuff from my, like for my family. Like sure. They have my Amazon wishlist, but even still, it's like, it seems silly to have, um, stuff on there for that. I could write off. You know what I mean?

Yes. I put in a fruit order today for like $100 for myself for stuff I'm working on. So it's like that's just as easy, right? Yeah. And because you have contextual electronics, you can write that off. And it's a big discount. But if your parents got it for you, then it's no,

it just makes more sense. And then you get the part you want and not last year's part. Yeah. I was actually very, the new resistors this year are really, really hot. Hey, I do other stuff.

Come on. I'm kidding. I have an ESP8266. That's, that's, that's, that's the new hotness, right?

Uh, no, I think that's the old hotness. Now it's the ESP32. Yeah, there's a new ESP. There's a new Nordic module that's pretty cute. Yeah. The NRF52.

Okay. What else is neat? I don't know. I haven't quite gotten into this year's. I mean, there's Cort's cortex m4f everywhere yeah so i've actually been i've been i've been so i've been keeping an eye on on chipsets just because i've been playing around with micro python and i i one of the things that i mentioned i did a presentation on too and one of the things that i that it came down to is like oh this is pretty

limited because you know the builds are different for every platform and there's only like six platforms. And so it's basically like choosing any other platform of like Raspberry Pi or, you know, obviously Raspberry Pi has full-blown Python and stuff like that. But, you know, it has its same limitations. But I have been paying attention to more chipsets because of that because you'd have to just drop that exact same thing on there like modules effectively there are more modules there are more modules coming out more module i mean like the nrf 52s have modules 51s have modules the esp has modules and those are sometimes because it's fcc certified and that makes life much easier for production. But it just seems like it's easier to do more modules unless you have a very low power situation. And then you're probably building your board again.

Well, no, no, no. I actually mean not even modules like that. I mean like stuff that MicroPython is actually built for. Like the build is different for every every device so like unless it has that on there oh i see what you're saying yeah so there's only like six even modules that i can use so there's like the esp8266 but then i think it has to be a very specific stm32 right um f30 f4 something f47 i don't know sure but yeah it has to have support for all the right peripherals and things right yeah exactly and that's and that was way more limiting not

it's not limiting but it's just it's more constrained than i thought it was um it's okay it's just prototyping but whereas i thought it was uh you know the promise of micro python was like the ability to um prototype on your own hardware yeah that would be yeah no really tough yeah you know there's a lot of that going around that it looks like it's going to be an easy prototype platform but it turns out you have to port it to your hardware first, and that is an untenable problem if all you wanted to do was prototype. Yeah, well, I think that's the case with most of these non-C embedded things, like the node-supporting microcontrollers or JavaScript-based ones.

They're all, okay, we made it work for this, so I hope you like this because that's all you get right um well and we've seen this a lot i think we've seen this a lot too so i know a couple people that have built stuff on top of like i mean it's much larger in scope and size and stuff but like people that build products that are using beagle bone blacks in them right because they want a linux computer and all the peripherals and stuff like that, right? So they just build the little, whatever they call theirs, is it capes? Yes.

I don't remember. Yeah. Eaglebone has capes. But then, but that just kind of pushes the problem back to production level where it's like, oh crap, now we have to put a $45 computer in this. Yeah. And it's like, that's then where the problem is i don't know i i think i think the people that are probably doing this best not the best but the biggest promise of it

is like the uh next thing has been thinking about it with that that new module they did where they basically broke out their processor and said oh by the way we're a module too like i think in 2017 we'll see more of that because, and you know, Raspberry Pi's tried it with the little SODIMM module and BeagleBone I think has done it with the, they have like a program for buying parts and stuff. But that jump to actually making that one of something to even 10 of something becomes like, holy crap.

It's really bad. Well, that goes back to what i was saying about modules is that there are now people who are building those modules for some processors and they're making it generic ish oh okay okay but yeah circuit co will take your uh your cape and merge it with a beagle bone but of course that's not going to be as cheap as if you did it yourself. Right. Probably. Circuit Co. makes BeagleBone. A lot of people make BeagleBone. They do, and so does Element14 now.

Oh, great. Whoever their CM is. I forgot about that, the name. Yeah, I need to have Jason back on the show at some point. I talked to him after Open Hardware Summit. It's good to catch up with him. They're all... I mean, that's great. I mean, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of like, you know, groups like BeagleBone.

I mean, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the BeagleBone Foundation. Like, I'm really glad that there's these groups that are doing this stuff. That actually is, I think, really important because it drives a lot of education pieces as well. But then you merge it into the manufacturing pieces. Like, oh man, it it gets manufacturing stuff is still.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely non-trivial. That is what I'll be trying to solve in 2017 as well. Well, that's a problem that's going to get worse and better at the same time because all that stuff is going to get cheaper and it's going to get even more tempting to start with it. Yeah. with it yeah manufacturing difficulty is always going to be there because you know you're just not buying something from a store and marking it up and adding your software so right yep

what uh what are you both excited for about the new year as we go into it i mean there's a lot of things I'm excited about. How about technology stuff? Contract, but I can't really talk about my new contract. Not so much that. I think we're finally going to join the real 3D printer people. Yes, after not making the cheap 3D printer do anything useful at all, we're going to take that lesson and spend more money on one.

Yeah. Thanks. What are you going to do? What are you going to get? I think we're looking at the LulzBot Mini right now, which seems to have, as far as these things go, seems the most out- the box kind of works we have a monoprice mini after brian benchoff wrote up that they were not yeah that they were

actually a pretty good deal for 200 bucks yeah and we got a few things out of that but the what do you want to build that's really the question so i have airplane parts for my radio control planes and stuff that i would love to be able to build um so do you the question. So, I have airplane parts for my radio-controlled planes and stuff that I would love to be able to build. So, do you use, like, MakeXYZ or anything like that? What's that? That's, like, the service where other people in the area have printers.

Oh, no. And you just... Other people? Ew. Well, not that so much, but there's kind of a barrier to entry of that. I'm very easily... A little bit like Shapeways. Disweighted.

Yeah, Shapeways, but you know. So this is the exact same argument that I was given when I got my, my mill and I should have listened to it, of course. And I'm now passing along to both of you and. Yeah, yeah. You won't listen to it either. And that's fine. Cause I, I like toys and you like toys and I have a 3d printer and you know, it's like, of course You won't listen to it either, and that's fine, because I like toys, and you like toys, and I have a 3D printer. It's like, of course I didn't listen.

But maybe if one person listening, print five things on Shapeways first. Yeah. Yeah. That would be a good test. That was always my bar. And then that Monoprice came in so cheap and I was like fine and then having spent a week

looking at thing versus things that I actually wanted to print and I wanted to have that was when I putting together that puzzle thing I wanted at each step of the puzzle for him to actually solve a physical puzzle

like they have these um these dinosaur things yeah and so you had to so they're sort of they're mostly flat and do like 30 minute prints they aren't really huge but they clip apart and then you have this ridiculous uh dinosaur skeleton or or there were little airplanes that looked like that and i could get into that and i wanted to send uh send some christmas ornaments to various people and they would be you know modified for us or them and i just i got to the point where i i had been in that you should just buy something from shapeways five times before you're serious to consider this but having played with the printer and having spent some time on Thingiverse, there's stuff there that I would want to do. And I think that if I had the printer and was able to print those things, I would start modifying them.

And I think that that is how I'm going to learn to do CAD. I don't think my plan of learning to do CAD in order to build some complicated thing is a good thing. I should learn to do CAD so that I can modify that, and then I will have it, and it will be a much easier path. Yeah. That's a good idea. I mean, it's tough with the CAD stuff. I don't know. Starting from an STL is always tough because it's just a wireframe.

You want to have the parameters, but you might be able to. What are you trying to learn? Just generally, you know, how to modify it, how to put my initials on it. Stupid crap like that. Um,

how to, how to take a puzzle that I don't think goes together as well as it might and modify it. So it's a little better and post it back to Thingiverse as a derivative and nothing, nothing important. I mean, I'm not doing it. No, no. I meant, I meant what, what kind of software?

Oh, um, I would probably go for the Fusion 360 because there's so many tutorials and if I ever do want to do it professionally, that is a better skill set. Yeah. Yeah. tutorials and if i ever do want to do it professionally that is a better skill set yeah yeah well you'll learn some things quickly about that yeah this this may be a terrible plan no it's not a bad plan it's just that it's starting from stls means that like you'll have so it's basically like uh what would the equivalent be it's not quite like having the bit file. It would be like having the assembly. Yeah, when you expected C. And then, yeah. Well, there are some Thingiverse things that seem to have more files. Yeah, but those are usually SCAD, unfortunately.

I don't know. I've never actually seen a Fusion 360. But, you know, you might be able to go in. The Fusion 360 has that, like, shared cloud thingy. That actually might be able to go and the Fusion 360 has that shared cloud thingy. That actually might be, because if you have a parametric model, I totally agree that taking an existing parametric model and modifying it or adding to it, that

first off shows you why parametric modeling is so important in the first place, because you're like, oh, it said 5mm, and then I typed in 7mm, and then everything that was based on that 7mm adjusted, and it's magical. Oh my god. Yeah, it's really awesome. And then I typed in seven millimeters and then everything that was based on that seven millimeters adjusted. Right. And it's magical.

And you go, oh, my God. Yeah, it's really awesome. So other things I'm excited about. VR. Because you mentioned this on our show a few times. I did not expect to fall in love with VR this year. I did not. What year did you expect to fall in love with it?

Never. My vision is pretty poor i figured that was never going to be something that worked for me i i get car sick in parking lots oh god and so i figured that virtual reality was always going to be vomitorium title it's part of the experience and yet Chris got the Vive VR set and I he was playing with it

and he said you should try this and I said okay but if I feel queasy I'm taking it off and I took off the helmet and I said no no no this should not be in your office where you play games it should be in the living room because i want to play with all the time and i have wrapped up more hours okay i was gonna i was wondering about that too like is that something that you use more often yeah she tends to use it for exercise where i

tend to play games more so okay and And the games, I don't know. Well, yeah, they're kind of different experiences. It's all exercise with that thing, though. Even the games are exercise to a certain degree. So I can't do it for as long as I would sit and play a first-person shooter five years ago or something. Right, but that's probably a good thing overall, too, right? Yeah. As an experience.

Yeah, I am excited about that. I think the learning opportunities and just the – I think – well, I tried it at your house. I visited both of you and I was very grateful to get to try it. But I think you pointed out the – it's not just games. It's also experiences. And that part really stuck with me. And I think that that, you know, from a learning opportunity and all that other stuff, I think that's what really excites me. I mean, games are fun, but I don't know. I've seen a number of YouTube videos where they take them to, like, nursing homes.

Yeah. And they'll recreate somebody's experience from when they were younger. Like, oh, this person always liked to go to go to this particular beach okay we got that set up and they'll put it on somebody who's in their 80s or 90s and their faces will just they'll just be amazed because they're re-experiencing something they never thought they would experience there's all sorts of stuff like that well there's that google maps thing that's new yeah google just came out with Google Earth or Google Earth for it. And I kept wanting to do the street view. I wanted to go to Paris and walk around.

And that's not what it is yet. Yeah. But it's a yet. It will be. There will be a time when I can go visit the Louvre. Well, you can visit it. You're just not as detailed at the street level as street view is. No, it's the top level.

It's the satellite view. But, I mean, they've taken the cameras all the way through that museum. Right. Oh, inside. So I want to go walk there. Yeah, so just like the changing face of tourism. Yes. That idea.

And if anybody's thinking about getting a treadmill or an exercise bike, I would seriously look at VR, too. Because it is great exercise. That's awesome. And really fun. And they're coming out with... I mean, it's cheaper than most treadmills, too. They're coming out with wireless for it this year, which apparently actually works.

So I'm kind of interested to see how that goes. Oh, yeah. When that cable's gone, that'll be nice. Things I am excited about, whatever SpaceX or Tesla is up to next year. Not necessarily from a consumer point of view, just SpaceX is always doing cool stuff and they're going to get back to flight in January.

And Tesla's doing the self-driving stuff more and more. So be interested to see how that comes up against the realities of regulation and stuff. You had that video today you showed me where the Tesla had an alert when the car ahead of the car that it was following. So two cars ahead, braked suddenly and the car in front of it hit the car ahead of it. But the Tesla had already had the collision warning and the people had already started slowing down. It was like, Hey,

those people are going to crash and you really, you should slow down now because you don't really want to be part of that. And it was, it ended up being a three car crash. Yeah. It was amazing. But the Tesla wasn't part of it right no the tesla wasn't part of it because the tesla said hey uh we should probably would have it's like the tesla was part of it but it knew it was coming yeah they were paying attention anyway yeah yeah i mean they did have time to stop but they would have stopped a lot closer.

Yeah. Any other year I would probably say I was interested in whatever Apple was doing, but I'm completely not interested in Apple. They've succeeded in completely alienating me this year. Is this the first podcast with my new non-Apple computer? No, you've done a couple. Oh, have I? Yeah. All right. Wait, you're both off the platform? No, you've done a couple. Oh, have I? Yeah. All right.

Wait, you're both off the platform? Oh, no, I'm not. I'm off the platform. I'm not off the platform. I don't think I can actually leave the platform, but I'm not. But dear Apple, we had a big check planned for you. I'm not throwing big money at them. Let's put it that way. Gotcha.

Yeah, no, it makes sense. I think that's probably going to be, hopefully people, well, we'll see what happens. Yeah. Actually, we're interested in seeing what Microsoft is up to, and they seem to be doing some cool hardware. Yeah, they've been doing some good stuff, I guess. What about you? What hardware, what are you interested in?

What are you excited about? So I've been very nervous about the environment since certain recent events. And I still am. And I think that there's a lot of important stuff that needs to happen with that. But the thing that I am most excited about is the, like, I fly a lot now, right? And I still get super excited whenever I see a field of wind turbines. And I still get excited when I see a solar field and stuff like that. And I know that living in California, you probably see that a lot more on houses and stuff like that anyways. But I am super excited about just the plummeting cost of solar,

especially I just think that it's so actually, so I'm in, I'm at my parents' house in Buffalo right now too. And Mr. Musk also has a project out here so that we used to be, used to be solar city, So I'm at my parents' house in Buffalo right now too. I was just going to mention. Mr. Musk also has a project out here. It used to be SolarCity, but now it merged with Tesla again. And they have the biggest solar panel factory in the States. We'll be opening here.

So that's good news. I just was watching local news with my parents. That was fun. But they were talking about they just inked local news with my parents uh that was fun uh but they were talking about they just ink some news some deal with panasonic too so um just in general i think that the availability of solar i talked to martin lorton about that stuff a lot too and um i don't know it's just yeah that's that feels like future stuff to me and i think we're moving into that regardless of other uh global politics stuff

and that feels really good and i'm happy about that i totally agree with you and i think yeah solar is exciting and it's exciting because it's not something that can really be stopped it's not like yeah you can you can will the world to go back to something that's more expensive and dirtier right and once solar reaches a certain power point a certain cost per watt it really doesn't matter what anybody does that's that's what exactly and and and that's always been that's always been the thing too it's like it's always about getting to that economic point where it's not like some like don't make it a political issue anymore right just make it when it just becomes a pure economic issue that is the best case scenario yes right when when farmer joe is

telling me the same thing as you know metropolitan pete like that's that's the best case scenario yes right when when farmer joe is telling me the same thing as you know metropolitan pete like that's that's the best case scenario because they're both looking out for themselves and like that's that's what i want that's what i've always wanted so the fact that we're moving into that realm fantastic i'm really excited about that um and other stuff that i'm excited about even though i talk about how disrupted it'll be, is, I mean, automation. Man, I don't know where that train's going, but it is going somewhere fast and it is going to be messy. And I think that also goes into self-driving cars and stuff. Self-driving cars.

I mean, think of all the truckers in 10 years. That's a big industry that's gone. Yeah, yeah. And there's that book by the MIT guys, the crap, I forget what, the guy had a really funny name. But he talks about that whole thing about how disruptive that'll be to the transportation industry. I'm not looking for like economic strife.

I just don't know where it's going. And I will reiterate that like robotics, automation, you know, people listening to the amp hour, it's like you're will reiterate that like robotics automation you know people listening to the amp hour it's like you're in the electronics field that is you know that's your bread and butter right there right that is i think sensor systems as well on on um self-driving cars is a big field of opportunity for our listening audience but um automation in general like if you haven't started your company start it now you know what i mean like it's just it's a really big deal so yep that's my that's my stuff so what are you working on these days uh so i am actually working on a prototype with a friend in the

automation industry um for just a a proof concept for a simple thermocouple measuring device kind of thing. But I'm going to do it in MicroPython too, just to see how fast I can get it done. Neat. That's what I'm doing. Just to see how few lines of code it'll be and how easily it'll get implemented.

And then I'll call both of you to make it into a real product for me the the firmware sure what were you thinking no yeah we talked about that a little bit didn't we the uh taking and well you said that both you get the you get the inquiries about seriously we know I have an Arduino project. Oh, man. I have an Arduino project. I want to make this a product. I have an Arduino project. I want to decrease the battery by 4x.

I want it to be one quarter. The power, yeah. And I want it to last for six times longer than it has ever lasted before. It crashes intermittently, and I don't know why. And production starts next week. And yeah, my rate for that scenario is much higher than my normal rate,

just in case anybody wonders. Well, it's so insidious because they go to investors and it's working. It's fine. Look, it works. It's in the same form we're going to ship it. The electronics work, the software, it's all working, except it's, you know. You know in the same form we're going to ship it, the electronics work, the software. It's all working, except it's, you know.

You know, firmware update doesn't work, but that's just a feature. That's just details. Right. Ship 1,000 and then we'll fix it. Yeah. With a programming cable. We'll send a programming cable. And an engineer.

Yeah, right. It's like one of those shrinky dinks that you add water and then it expands into an engineer. Great job. I do think that that is an exciting area of growth for our industry because many of the things that seemed magic before are becoming more commonplace and more people can do them. It's automation. That step between having a prototype and having something you can ship seems bigger than it did last year. Maybe because the bar of having a prototype has gotten lower. And yet the bar of having something you can ship isn't changed.

So it's a bigger distance. When that bar changes, that's when we're out of jobs. Yes. Yes. I don't think, I honestly, do you actually fear being out of jobs as firmware engineers? Not for at least 10 or 15 years, probably. Yeah, I don't fear not having a job. I fear getting bored of what I have.

That's a separate issue. Much scarier. Agree. Because I do feel like for the last two years, I have seen the same projects over and over again. Right. I mean, sensors have gotten cheaper and BLE has gotten cheaper. And can we please stop sticking sensors on BLE and shoving them on bodies?

Yep. Yep. Hey, it sells. They skip all the cool sensors too, right? Like no one has used that LDC1000. What is that one? You know that one? It's the inductive,

it's the inductive converter from TI. It like tells you when, basically it's just an inductor, like a resonant coil inductor, and then it tells when metal's nearby it. I always just figured

like someone would put that with a Bluetooth. I don't know what they would use it for, but it feels like there would be someone. I don't know. Yeah, like a mini,

mini stud finder. There was this whole branch of MEMS sensors that were going to be chemical sensors. Yeah. And I don't feel like those have reached their promise. I wanted a lot of those. Yeah, there were entire reactive little, yeah, chemical reactors on a chip that they were coming out with

to do detection of various gases and things. I feel like it stalled. I don't know if it stalled necessarily or if it's really expensive and it's only in lab equipment. Well, that's tough too if it's not all silicon on the chip, right? Because then it gets really...

Yeah, if you can make everything out of silicon, then it's just a processing... It's just a simple, you know, couple extra steps of processing in the fire. But yeah, if there's other stuff on there, it can get fancy and weird. Yeah. What are both you building that you could talk about?

Well, I'm still... my airplane is in parts. I put an autopilot on it, which I haven't tried out yet. Oh, cool. Because last time I flew it and got some good video, I got a little far away and it decided that it wasn't cooperating with my control anymore for a couple of seconds. And you were flying over the ocean at the time, so it was a little more exciting.

So I would like it to come back instead of just decide to take a roll of seconds. And you were flying over the ocean at the time, so it was a little more exciting. So I would like it to come back instead of just decide to take a roll and dive. Oh, no. And you've been spending a lot of your time. Yeah, my brother and... And not just the music part, but getting them set up and getting them tuned the way you want.

Yeah, and I've been practicing a lot. My brother and I are working on some tunes, so that's occupying a lot more time than technology. New embedded theme song coming out? I keep thinking about that, but I don't have any good ideas for that. So probably sometime. Let's see, what have I been working on?

Calculus. Yes, well, I was trying to play with 3D printer. What's calculus? Is that? Well, so I took most of December off and decided that I wanted to learn something. And I spent a little time doing code stuff just so I had more code, more stuff in my GitHub repository. But what I really wanted to do was to work on calculus. I want to be able to look at a calculus problem and be able to solve it. It is just always annoyed me that I feel dumb about integration. It has been 20 years since I

didn't know what that S symbol meant. And I know what it means, but I'm still not good at it. You know that was my entire rationale for going to grad school, right? God damn it, I don't understand physics. Well, I'll just go get another degree. So I picked up, I asked my math prof. These are weird decision points in your lives. Yes. I asked my math prof sister-in-law if there were any good books, thinking I'd buy one. And she pointed me towards this free book online that is designed more for people who care about applications than about theory.

So it's not so much proofs as it is you have sand trickling in at three centimeters per second. Oh, word problems. Yes. Yeah. And massive amounts of word problems. i i'm working on it and i enjoy it i don't i read i read a biography of ada lovelace and it said she liked to do calculus problems in her free time and i'm like that's so cool that's such a nerdy thing i wish i could do that and then then then those words kind of reverberated in my head like i wish i could do

why aren't you so right um so you're gonna share the name of this book right oh um gosh really because uh i don't know the name of it you can't say free calculus book online and then it would be like no transcendental problems i mean, the name is terrifying. But yes, I will talk to Christopher for a second. Hey, Chris. Hey, what's up, man? How's it going? What kind of music do you play again?

I don't know if, well, so people that don't listen to embedded. So the band I was in with my brother a while ago was sort of roots rock. So surf and blues rock kind of stuff. Nothing really after 1975 sort of style, although we had did a lot of original things. Um, lately he's been writing a lot of kind of guitar instrumentals, which are more in the Van Halen kind of realm of things. So I've been putting drums on those for him and bass and stuff. You just thought of building your own MIDI triggers for drums and stuff?

You know, I thought about things like that. And I'm getting to the point where I'm tired of, I just want to use stuff instead of build stuff. Yeah, no, no, I get that. There was a point at which I stopped being interested in Linux use stuff instead of build stuff. Yeah, no, no, I get that. There was a point at which I stopped being interested in Linux because I realized I was no longer interested in tweaking and customizing

things and I just wanted stuff that worked. So I've kind of come to that with music. Although, on the other hand, I have thought about adding 1Z, 2Z, building 1Z, 2Z triggers or some sort of weird instrument that only I understand or something like that um but yeah for stuff i can just buy i'm just gonna buy it right

that's cool but yeah no it's it's it's uh it's been fun and i haven't i haven't played that much in a few years since i left the band so this has given me an opportunity to start practicing again and realize how much i've lost i mean it I mean, it's almost the exact same problem as like if you don't have that final thing that you want to build, right, for electronics or software or whatever you're doing, right? It's the same thing, but like now if you don't have the band, there's less reason to be practicing. Yeah, the band was like taking up six to seven hours a week of I had to do this, right? And it's like, well, now it's hard to get my butt down here and practice for three or four hours just by myself. Right. And so that's actually a link that I wanted to bring up too.

I'd posted a link in the show notes that we had done beforehand. But there was this really good – so I love this site, Raptitude. It's been going for a couple years. And then there's another one from Asim uh asimo of the um the uh science fiction writer right and it was just about about you know it's kind of like just in either case right once you do have that problem or the thing you want to solve or the thing you want to build it's just about spending the time right and that's kind of the the thing i've been struggling with for a lot of my life where i'm like oh i'm looking for the shortcut i'm looking for the you know what is that that one

trick that i can do to to get better at this thing it's like that piece of gear is you want to get better at that one yeah that one exactly that one book that will teach you the right way yep yep i remember actually for music too i remember i got i waited for the guitar right i was like oh i'm gonna get this one guitar and guitar. And I got it. I got it. I finally got it after months of saving. And I'm like, and I played it and it sounded just like the other guitar I had. Exactly. What happened? And then my friend picked it up and he made it sound beautiful. And it was like the most like codifying moment where it's like oh right he practices a lot more

than me that's what i should be doing the whole time right it's like it's more about the it's not the wand it's a magician kind of thing yeah it's the same story about ted nugent and van halen ted nugent visited van halen in his studio and was really excited because he was going to finally play it through van halen's equipment and sound like van halen he picked up the guitar and he played it and he's like wait i still sound like me i don't sound like you it's like yep that's because it's not it's not the equipment it's the hands yeah exactly i mean then and that's that's the same thing for look at other people's code right or in this case the the raptitude thing i'm talking about is like reading quicker right that's what he was talking about. And it's just, you just got to spend the time, right?

It's just like, dang, it sucks, the reality of it, but it's also freeing, so. Yeah, so the important part of spending the time is learning to make that not boring. Finding ways to spend the time and enjoy doing that. That's the real hard part. Well, I think if you're working towards that final product too, I think that helps, right?

So if you, well, you guys have the monoprice 3D printer, right? If you really needed that little widget for whatever you needed for, eventually you're going to make the 3D printer work, right? I mean, that's, and I know you did, but you also just keep going through it and going through it and going through it, and you'll get better at the 3D printer work, right? I mean, that's... And I know you did, but you also just keep going through it and going through it and going through it. And you'll get better at the end from it. So you can also buy your way out of it.

Yes. There's limits sometimes, right? Do I want to be a 3D printer maintenance expert? No. Right. And I hit that limit last week or whenever I was really playing with it. That I realized that this wasn't how I wanted to spend my time.

I would rather go buy other things for my puzzle game than to do this for another hour. And it wasn't even that there wasn't material. I mean, people have written about this printer. They have all kinds of advice. Some of it's even useful. But I was sick of sitting there watching it print and fail. Well, that's the other problem is you can't really tell if anything you've done has worked for hours. I felt like so much hand-waving.

There's so much voodoo. So what's the book? It is called... Oh, yeah, Lisa's back it's called single variable calculus early transcendentals um from david transcendentalism wasn't it uh but this came from the aim math dot org american institute of math dot org and they have a list of online free textbooks that are approved for use in classrooms and they have calculus they've got linear algebra which i know is one that chris always says that something you should be good at for engineers liberal arts math that's i like that one what

liberal arts math that's the first one um but mathematical computing they're just textbooks that's cool and many of these textbooks you've you search like the one i'm using which is the first one under calculus uh if you search for the problem online you not only get the answer you get it worked out which is great because oh that's awesome sometimes i mean if i go through and i do a bunch of problems and if i can't figure out how to get the answer in the back of the book, I do want to know why. But this does involve a lot of time of just sitting there working on it. And there is no shortcut. Or if there is, the end product is not as good.

The goal here is to learn stuff, not just to have done stuff. You never hear people like, I have the solution to all your problems. Work on this for 10 years and you'll figure it out. Exactly. Okay, if you've never heard somebody say that, let me say it right now. I have the solution to your problem. Work on it for 10 years. What if it's like a clogged drain?

Work for me for $19.95 a month. for 10 years what if it's like a clogged drain for 1995 a month for 10 years for 10 years yeah actually the the the partial truth there is you know i sort of tried to do that but yeah well no we'll leave that out we'll edit that out right yeah but even that i mean if you don't put the time in, it's not going to matter. It's a class. Yeah. Yeah. It's sad. No, I don't think. That's what learning comes down to. You're trying to teach something, and teaching is hard.

I mean, and teaching helps you learn it better. We've covered it all. I think we should end the podcast soon because clearly we've covered it all. Yeah. Also, I'm hungry. Okay. Well, okay. What else did you want to talk about i did like this um this medium uh article about asimov that was pretty cool yeah yeah he was he was prolific i didn't i didn't realize how much he wrote he's

incredible it's a yeah and he wrote not only the fiction, he wrote about science in a way that's so approachable. That's awesome. I can't say I've actually ever read Asimov. I know that's really, I'm sure Dave would be yelling at me if he was here, but. Oh my God. No.

It's a good try. It's a good try. Give it about 10 years. Your Aussie accent will get better i like asimov he's a really good author but i grew up on him so you know yeah of course i was gonna like him all right all right christopher do you have any other questions questions what i have to i'm heading back to our outline i thought we were on the app hour where's his Christopher, do you have any other questions? No questions. What? I'm heading back to our outline.

I thought we were on the app hour. Where's his outline? Let's see. Chris Gamble, do you have any last thoughts you'd like to leave us with? We did go through the amp hour links on the subreddit, so we can just do that now. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Rapid fire. No, it's fine. No. I got it right here. There are a lot of great links. I'm sure we'll talk about those in later in later weeks die photo analysis of the revolutionary 8008 microprocessor alan yates discussing how the valve lighthouses work no you should just come listen to our podcast because that was one of my favorite this year that's on youtube that was like i've

referenced that like three or four times so on this show show. The AirPods get zero of 10 iFixit repairability and have bad solder joints on their BGA. Wow. Yeah, they're really bad. I don't know. This is cool. People can check out the subreddit. They can check out your Patreon, which is patreon.com slash embedded. Right?

Right. That is true. Yeah. And they can check out your Patreon. Oh. Which is. Slash the empire. Me? Right. That is true. Yeah. And they can check out your Patreon. Oh. Which is... Slash the Empire. Me?

Yes. Where can they find your Twitter? For Embedded, it's Embedded FM. For me, it's Logical Elegance. Oh, I'm Stoney Monster. You should have like a voice that you do that like... I'm Stoney Monster. Yeah should have like a voice that you do with that, like, rawr, I'm Stoney Monster. That would come out like Elmo or something.

Stoney Monster. Well, all those links on the Amp Hour subreddit also get tweeted out on the Amp Hour Twitter, so that's another good thing. So you can follow that. I would not recommend following me or Dave on Twitter. What? What? What?

Yeah. There's nothing good there. There's nothing good there. I follow you on Twitter. You have amusing things sometimes. Sometimes. Hey, given how many people I have unfollowed in the last three months. There's a 2017 thing.

Build more stuff. Be on social media less man yes I don't I've been already doing that and I don't miss it feel better about yourself

stop going social media that's right yeah feel better about everything yeah yep well thanks for being on the show I appreciate it

and well thanks for being on our show keep up the good work of 2017 yes it has been fun talking to you and thank you to Chris Gamble for being on our show. Keep up the good work of 2017. Yes. It has been fun talking to you. And thank you to Chris Gamble for being on the Amp Hour. Thank you to Christopher for producing and co-hosting. Thank you to Chris Gamble for probably editing this.

And, of course, thank you for listening to the Embedded Hour. The Amp Hour. The Amp Hour. The Amp Hour Embedded Hour. The Embower. The Embower. The Embower Embedded Holiday Spectacle. Spectacle. Spectacle. Yeah, it's been a spectacle.

That was just water, right? Yes. All right, we'll talk to you in the new year. Have a good one. Talk to you later, Chris. Bye. Embedded is an independently produced radio show that focuses on the many aspects of engineering. But we're kind of only electronics. It is a production of Logical Elegance,

an embedded software consulting company in California. And we don't have a company. If there are advertisements in the show, we did not put them there and do not receive money from them. We didn't put any ads either. At this time, our sponsors are Logical Elegance and listeners like you. And this week, the Amp Hour, right?