Embedded

We spoke with Fran Blanche (@contourcorsets) of Frantone about guitar tone. Fran has several articles and posts about space, electronics, and assorted whatnot at her design writings page. Her video blog is on YouTube. There are many different guitar pedals you can build for yourself as a way to get a better handle on analog electronics. Elecia found these at Mammoth Electronics. The song that was the first to have flanging was "The Big Hurt" by Toni Fisher in 1959.

Kathleen Sidenblad discusses her career through Silicon Valley, from engineer at Systems Control Inc in 1976 to VP of Engineering today. For more about Kathy, check out this Storehouse interview.

Ben Krasnow of the Applied Science YouTube channel talks with us about scanning electron microscopes, generating liquid nitrogen, and cookies. Hackaday Conference is Nov 14-15, 2015 in SF, CA! Call for proposals. (Ben and Elecia are Hackaday Prize Judges.) Contact Ben through twitter: @BenKrasnow Applied Science YouTube channel (and don't forget the associated Patreon). Some specific videos we talked about: Cookie machine Electron microscope scanning vinyl record Faraday effect (control light with magnets!) LED contact lens (not for the squeamish) Other people's videos and projects: Brady Haran's Periodic Videos Veritassium channel Build your own waterjet Amscope microscope and low cost hot air rework soldering station

Morgan Allen (@captain_morgan) spoke with us about Sphero and Node.JS. This is all not-so-secretly a discussion of the BB8 robot. Correction: Despite Elecia's repeated insistence that these are steppers, she's just wrong. The motors are DC which only makes sense in a consumer product. More details on this in a later episode. BB8s from Amazon (probably won't arrive until next year) More info on Elecia's teardown and talk: embedded.fm/hddg The BB8 toy is based on Sphero (buy). They have an open SDK and a wonderful education program. Check out the clear SPRK (buy). It also has a teach-your-kids-to-program app that is pretty neat (but doesn't seem to work with BB8 yet). Morgan has been involved with NodeBots (@nodebotsSF). They use Node.js (wiki) to send Bluetooth serial commands to Spheros. Their issues list is where new meetups are posted. Johnny-Five is also a popular way to do computer based robotics with an Arduino (or other dev board) as a hardware intermediary. IPFS: Distributed file system ESPruino is a Javascript board. People's Open: Free Wireless Internet and Local Network in Oakland, California. Also in Oakland, check out Sudo Room hackerspace.

Chris and Elecia discuss listener emails and other assorted topics. Preprocessor fun BLE 4.2 writeup from EETimes and the FAQ from Bluetooth.org Drones should follow existing aviation keep out standards (Nick links us to some wiki pages) Automatic dependent surveillance NOTAM Federal Aviation Regulations: Temporary flight restrictions NYT Amazon culture article Cake under a microscope

Glenn Scott (@GlennCScott) spoke with us about API design and techniques for writing good software. Glenn glossed over his bio but it is quite impressive. You can reach him via his PARC page. PARC's Content Centric Networking home: ccnx.org which we talked about in 75: End Up in a Puppy Fight. Literate Programming by Knuth And the more recommended Bob Martin's books While latest source code requires licensing, the binary version of CCN includes the LongBow tools (in user/local/parc/bin). Description of tools and doxygen docs. The LongBow getting started guide should be part of the mid-September binary release. PARC's C Style Guide and C Function Naming Guide

Daniel Hienzsch (@rheingoldheavy) spoke with us about reverse engineering a board, bypass capacitors, and serial protocols. Rheingold Heavy is Dan's company for educational boards. The one he started with was the I2C and SPI education board (its fulfilled kickstarter page). He brought us the theGraphic Equalizer Kit and Bubble Display Experimentation Pack. Dan's Arduino from Scratch blog series looks at the Arduino hardware in great detail. Contextual Electronics course for learning to build boards Chris wrote about his Photon based garage door opener on the Linker blog TinEye for searching schematic snippets

Andrei Chichak rejoins us to discuss error handling. Andrei's website says how to reach him or email embedded 'at' chichak.ca Windows 10 "Something Happened" error Hitchbot Book Elecia mentioned: Kindness of Strangers by Mike McIntyre Elecia's book covers logging module in Creating a System Architecture (pp 21-25) Robots and children

Clive Turvey (Clive1), master of the ST Forums, talks with us about ARM cores and answering difficult technical questions for fun. Some answers: NVIC Interrupts on the same pin number STM32F4 PWM channel 3 ST's Cortex-M7 Books (though we talked more about these being good authors, these are the ones Chris and Elecia have or want): The Definitive Guide to ARM Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 Processors, 3rd Edition (Joseph Yiu, 2013) The Definitive Guide to ARM Cortex-M0 and Cortex-M0+ Processors, 2nd Edition (Joseph Yiu, 2015) Z80 Assembly Language Programming Paperback (Lance A Leventhal, 1979) Programming the 6502 (Rodnay Zaks, 1979) A bare metal Scheme interpreter for ARM.

Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) chat with each other about drones, listener emails, conferences, fighting robots, and moonlighting. Elecia's Solid talk, an Introduction to Inertial Sensors is on youtube. Washington Post article about Amazon's good drone behavior Apple's IOS security guide (Elecia's security checklist) Photon WiFi Module (Chris' Linker articles part one and part two) DAB+ FM Digital Radio Development Board Sad autonomous fighting robot video and lightning fast autonomous sumo bots video OpenSCAD- CAD tool suggested by a listener Elecia's conference apology Light painting pictures (500px)

Natalie Silvanovich (@natashenka) discussed reverse engineering hardware, working on security software, and the fantastic world of Tamagotchis. Natalie's site and blog Hardware Excuse Generator Original CCC 2012 talk: Many Tamagotchis Were Harmed in the Making of this Presentation CCC 2013 talk: Even More Tamagotchis Were Harmed in the Making of this Presentation Natalie's upcoming BlackHat talk: Attacking ECMAScript Engines with Redefinition Flash exploit article for Project Zero: One Perfect Bug: Exploiting Type Confusion in Flash Tamagotchis are still available as are the works of Shel Silverstein (Snowball is in Falling Up).

BeagleBone's Jason Kridner (@Jadon) returns to tell us about his new book. Jason co-authored a new book: BeagleBone Cookbook: Software and Hardware Problems and Solutions (or at O'Reilly). His older book is Bad to the Bone: Crafting Electronics Systems with Beaglebone and BeagleBone Black. Previous Embedded.fm episode 60: Fun Things You Can Make out of Beagles BeagleBoard.org's Google Summer of Code page (including BeagleSat and underwater drones!) Some information about putting Xenomai on a BeagleBone Black for real time response. Chris mentioned Brillo, an alternative Google supported OS that isn't on the BBB. Project Ara: an open source smartphone Ardupilot: Autonomous drone piloting. Dronecode: Drones in Linux OpenROV: Underwater vehicles Mars lander Beagle 2 (the Apollo 11 Lunar Module was the Eagle despite some comical confusion). [UPDATE: Listener Mark Stevens pointed out that the Apollo 10 Lunar Module was named Snoopy who was a beagle.] TI's E2E Forums BeagleBone Green

James Grenning (@jwgrenning) returns to discuss TDD, Agile, and web courses. James was on Embedded.fm episode 30: Eventually Lighting Strikes. James' new company is Wingman Software. His excellent book is TDD for Embedded C. James suggested Training From the Back of the Room! as resource to people looking to put together a class. He uses and recommends CyberDojo as a coding instruction tool. Before Agile was Agile-for-business, it was Extreme Programming. James recommends Extreme Programming Explained. James will be the keynote speaker at AgileDC in October.

Jen (@RebelbotJen) joined Chris and Elecia to discuss security, privacy, and ethics in wearable computing. Elecia's Linker post is especially relevant this week: Device Security Checklist.. There is already a standard for privacy and security: HIPAA (Title II). While not easy to read, it is a reasonable starting place. Another good (but not quite on-point) resource is the EFF Secure Messaging Scorecard, especially if you consider your device as messaging your user (it's a metaphor, ok?). Also, read all the way to the methodology, not just the pretty checkboxes. Mike Ryan has great explanations for how to easily crack BLE security. Video to watch. His website has more resources, papers, videos, tools. The Embedded Systems Conference (Silicon Valley) will be held at the Santa Clara convention center July 20-22. Wearables and IoT Growing Up: Talking To Your Products About Security And Ethics(Jen, Wed 11am) Teardown: Wearing Security on Your Sleeve (mostly Jen with Elecia telling jokes if/when things go wrong, Tue 1:30pm, on the show floor so free to attend with an Expo pass. We'll be taking apart a Nymi band.) Faker to Maker in 45 Minutes or Less (Elecia, Wed 1:30pm) Casino article: Breaking the House Chris and Elecia were guests on The Amp Hour. Jen is interested in putting together a workshop/conference on the intersection of art, dance, and technology. Contact her on Twitter or email info at rebelbots dot com.

We talked to Craig Cook about learning embedded systems. He recently attended an embedded edX course through University of Texas. The microcontroller and boards used in the course Craig's next course will be Interactive Python through Coursera As we discussed Craig's alarm clock we mentioned many parts including: FM Module ESP8266 WiFi Module Electric Imp (Sparkfun or Digikey, don't forget the April breakout board) Chris has also been looking at Particle.io's Photon board for WiFi + cloud development. This will be mentioned on other shows (as well as on The Amp Hour).

Chris and Elecia talk about satellites, survey results, and entertainment. ESP8266 has an Arduino IDE (thanks, Karl!) Elecia will be speaking at Solid June 25th and ESC July 22nd. To celebrate the first 100 episodes, Elecia made a spreadsheet of all the guests and topics. Chris read and recommended Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. He was ambivalent about the latest incarnation of battlebots.

Manny Wright of Cortus spoke with us about developing processor IP and how it goes from RTL to silicon. Cortus development platform with a Xilinx Spartan and Arduino Due compatibility. Planet Labs satellite contest winners are announced and Elecia has a cold.

Atmel's Andreas Eieland (@AndreasMCUguy) spoke with us about low power chips and benchmarks, including tips for measuring and achieving the lowest power possible. EEMBC has a low power benchmark: ULPBench. EETimes wrote up a great introduction to the benchmark. Atmel's SAM-L posted some excellent numbers for ULPBench. Chris wanted to look at processors between Cortex-M4 and phone chips. Andreas suggested the SAM7, SAM E, and Cortex-A5. Programmable logic blocks (Look Up Tables) Coding tips and tricks for AVR micros (most things apply for all embedded development) App Note: Ultra Low Power Techniques App Note: Performance Levels and Power Domains Andreas was also on Episode 15: Robot on the Front, speaking about how the AVR processor line came to life, why there is an AVR in Arduino, and the spirit of making things. The Planet contest ends Friday June 12 (at midnight your time). Check out their jobs and send in your contest entry. Also, check out Elecia's BLE Intro.

Mark VanderVoord (@mvandervoord) spoke with us about leading open source projects and test driven development. His site is ThrowTheSwitch.org, a good place to get started with test driven development. Get more info (and a coupon) for his course. Mark's book is Embedded Testing with Unity and CMock. Lengthy list of unit testing frameworks for C Why's Guide to Learning Ruby (free! with entertaining comics!) D Lang

Charles Lohr spoke with us about $5 WiFi (ESP8266), hacking as a hobby, arcade games, and music visualization. Updated 06/02/2015: A listener pointed out that the Arduino IDE can program the ESP8266, probably an easier setup than Charles' original article. Also, the Linker post for this show is about getting started with BLE. Follow Charles on YouTube (or say hello on Google+ and Hackaday.io). To get you started, here are Elecia's favorites: High Res Wifi Signal Mapping (ESP8266) ColorChord 2 Wifi Cup (ESP8266) For more about the ESP8266: Charles' Hackaday write up (and github repository) Espressif site Electrodragon, Adafruit, and Sparkfun have modules ST 9 axis inertial measurement unit LSM9DSO

Micah Elizabeth Scott (@scanlime) spoke with us about Coastermelt, art installations, FadeCandy, teaching electronics to artists, and mental health. Her Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) installation is mesmerizing, some videos. In her Coastermelt project, Micah uses the IDA disassembler. FadeCandy is for sale at Adafruit. Zen Photon is online, demonstrating ray tracing. Micah's website shows her current projects. Micah's previous Embedded.fm episode focused on FadeCandy: 41: Pink Universes Die Really Quickly. Robot Odyssey looks awesome. Captain Awkward is a site where you can get advice on how to say things and deal with difficult situations/people. Micah's shop has a TypeA 3D printer (note: Tuco's favorite bolts) as well as an OtherMill.

Star Simpson (@starsandrobots) and Jen Costillo (@RebelbotJen) catch up with Elecia and Chris, discussing how hobby projects have changed over the last two years since the show started. Jen's website: RebelBot Star's website and weekly drone newsletter The Buzzer. Star works at Orion (formerly OnBeep). Novena board and Star's project Balboa ODROID Open Cores Crowd supply and What it took to make the Octopart reference card

Andrei Chichak spoke with us about MISRA-C and ethics. Linker post: It's dangerous to go alone! Take MISRA-C Embedded.fm listener survey (please!) Andrei's has personal website (we failed to talk about his kite aerial photography, it is really neat though) and his company is CBF Systems. Plum Hall C Compiler Validation PC Lint JPL Coding Standards for C (and the mentioned video discussing Mars Code) ISO 26262 Automobile software standard Cortex-R for high reliability systems (ARM's description) National Society of Professional Engineers code of ethics and Canadian EngineeringGuidelines on the Code of Ethics Offline, Andrei recommended two books and another podcast about MISRA: C Traps and Pitfalls Safer C MISRA with Johan Bezem (podcast)

Chris and Elecia talk about memetics, learning, and processors. Elecia was coy about the Pasadena party May 9th and 10th, but Hackaday announced it so you can invite yourself. She will also be speaking at the Solid conference in June in SF (email for a coupon!). She'll also be at ESC-Silicon Valley in July. Star Wars Teaser #2 and SpaceX almost-landing BLE fun: TI's CC2640 and Nordic nRF51822 (Elecia likes the BLE Nano with the free, online mbed compiler for getting started with the nRF5122). Everything seems to be a Cortex-M0 these days (including the aforementioned CC2640 and nRF51822). The new Atmel SAM-L series is Cortex-M0 and even more low power than usual. On the other hand, the MSP432 is low power and is a more powerful Cortex-M4 (and inexpensive dev kits!), Elecia has a book: Making Embedded Systems. It makes a great gift.

Professor Paul Fishwick joined us to talk about CS and STEM education, excellent analogies, and the crossover of art and technology. The Linker post related to this episode managed to be reasonably topical for a change. Paul's work: UT Dallas homepage Creative Automata blog and Modeling For Everyone blog TEDx talk Aesthetic Computing, one of his books on art and CS. Online chapter. Creative Automata course Videos Radiolab Color Episode Forrester System Dynamics Max is a visual programming language for music and multimedia. CS Unplugged is a collection of free learning activities that teach Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around. There are many bubblesort dance videos (mindboggling) but this is the one Elecia knew about previously. The Computer History Museum is awesome. If you are in the area, you should definitely go. Conference and contact notes: There is a party/hack event in Pasadena May 9th and 10th, email if you want more info (and an invite). Elecia will be speaking at SOLID in SF in June, giving an intro to inertial. She's got a coupon to share if you ask. ESC Minneapolis' call for proposals is open but closing soon. Elecia will be at ESC Silicon Valley in July, speaking on being a Maker (or not).

Carrie Sundra (@AlpenglowYarn) spoke with us about doing a Kickstarter on her own… and nearly failing. The SkeinMinder is an automation tool for small yarn businesses (and enthusiastic amateurs). When the successful Kickstarter nearly fell short, Carrie candidly wrote about it (includes a great description of the economies of scale). Carrie's yarn company is Alpenglow Yarn. You can use the contact page there to ask for electrical engineering help as well. Carrie is active on Instagram and her blog is a blend of crafts and engineering. Ravelry is the social media site for knitters and crocheters (requires free account to see anything) The insanely popular Potato Salad Kickstarter.

This week we discuss lasers, internet of things, and static electricity. Our extremely opinionated guest has a lot to say, including some scatological humor. The associated Linker post went up early for this one, please check it out. Scary robot litter box

The linker post for this episode is Be Excellent to Each Other. Dennis Jackson spoke with us about drones (and Airware), simple code, and learning. Hobbyist drones and UAVs on Amazon: tiny and cheap, medium (Christopher's gift), andplease-I'm-drooling-right-now. Only the last one may be an Airware platform (Dennis could neither confirm nor deny). Airware's breakdown of proposed FAA rules Simple code: Cyclomatic complexity Chris Svec's episode on empathy driven design (he'll also be at ESC Boston!) Test Driven Development for Embedded C by James Grenning Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability Dennis has also worked on DEKA's iBOT and at Avinger's OCT system. Dennis had a list of suggested articles and blogs on safety critical software development: 30 Pitfalls for Real Time Systems (part 1 and part 2) Rules for defensive C programming Joel Spolsky's blog (see top 10) Why are you still using C The Power of Ten -- 10 Rules for Writing Safety Critical Code Dennis' other suggested reading (ongoing blogs): Coding Horror Jason Sachs's Embedded Systems The Old New Thing Rands in Repose (management and leadership)

The Linker post for this episode is RTOSs and Brownies. Joel Sherrill (@JoelSherrill) spoke with us about real time operating systems, free and open source software, interns, and space. RTEMS home page and wiki Google Summer of Code (the FAQ is the best part!) and ESA Summer of code (awesome tagline: In space no one can hear you code). The LEON is the ESA Sparc core with open source VHDL and extensive use by ESA. Some projects RTEMS is used on include the Magnetosphere Multiscale Mission, theExPRESS Logistics Carrier, Mars Curiosity, and the Dawn spacecraft that is visiting the Ceres asteroid.

The Linker post for this episode: Make Anything James @Laen Neal from OSHPark spoke with us about starting a business, helping open source hardware, and throwing wild parties. OSHPark got its start from DorkbotPDX. If you are in Portland, Oregon, check out their meetup (started out on Mondays, now first Tuesday of the month, look at the CymaSpace meetup calendar for the Maker Meetup). Open Source Hardware Association (OSHA) PCB Design School blog Bay Area Maker Faire 2015 is May 16-17, Bring a Hack dinner is usually Sunday. This time we really did talk about the Maker Pro book.

The Linker post for this episode: How to Win the Hackaday Prize (and Other Design Challenges) Sophi Kravitz, electrical engineer and Hackaday Mythical Creature, came on to leak the new Hackaday Prize details! On twitter, she's @SophiKravitz and often has the reins of @HackadayPrize. Sophi mentioned Matt Berggren's PCB workshop (oh! and a Solid talk too!). All three of us have been trying to make time for Contextual Electronics (now with fewer time constraints!). Hackaday Omnibus HardwareCon (startup conference in San Leandro, CA) Giant Flip-Dot Display at CES Soft Robotics Kit (and contest) The balloon project is going to FITC. You can hear the soothing sounds here. Sophi rejoins us after being on Episode 77: Goldfish, Fetch My Slippers. Also, we forgot to discuss it but Sophi was an author in the Maker Pro book, full of neat essays.

The Linker post for this Episode: Solving a Different Problem ThingM's Tod Kurt (@todbot) joined us to talk about the most important part of every embedded system: blinking lights. ThingM has been making I2C lights (BlinkM, MinM and MaxM) since 2006. The newer, more productized USB light is the Blink(1) (there is a coupon near the end of the show). Blink(1) had two successful kickstarters (second one). The BlinkMs have an ATTiny85 (which is also on the Adafruit Trinket). The Blink(1)s have a PIC processor that is small, cheap, and supports USB quite well (PIC16F1455-I/ML and dev kit). Other smart LEDs include WS28xx (aka NeoPixel) and APA102 (aka DotStar) Seeed Studio was discussed as a way to get boards built, assembled, even housed. Elecia mentioned Tindie's new CM review site. Tod is cofounder of Crash Space (@CrashSpaceLA), a Los Angeles based hackspace. They (including Tod) were on the short-lived Mythbusters-hosted Rube Goldberg devices show called Unchained Reaction. Tod has worked on some neat art projects, including the Crystal Monster and the Cash Machine. Tod's blog. Speaking of blogs, Chris and Elecia are going to start writing after (podcast) action reports forElement 14. More announcements (and actual links) soon. Don't forget the Chris Savage (Parallax) call for assistance!

Chris Savage (@SavageCircuits) talks about building a community and about stopping projects when life intrudes. His site is Savage Circuits. He has a YouTube channel. He has Savage Circuit TV which are the longer, more in depth videos and Short Circuit for the shorter ones. Also see his forums. Chris works for Parallax and had some kit suggestions: BOE-BOT (board of education bot), its successor the ActivityBot, and the ELEV-8 Quadcopter Kit. Chris is also a writer for Nuts and Volts. At the top of the show, we mentioned Chris' wife. Here is Ken Gracey's request for help. Or you can skip that and use the PayPal link on the Savage Circuits thank you page. (No PayPal account required.)

Same day PCBs?!? Danielle Applestone (@dapplestone) chatted with Chris and Elecia about desktop CNC milling using @OtherMachine's OtherMill. OtherMill links: features tools and materials (neat!) store (kits!) instructables (chocolate spaceships!) kickstarter page miniature mocha pot brass, err.. aluminum turbine (also: what Elecia heard) stories of people using OtherMill Synthetos TinyG controller (also see the Make write up about TinyG) BANT (budget, authority, need, timing): more info

Chip Gracey spoke with us about founding @ParallaxInc, chip design, and the Propeller with its many cores. Parallax Some notes on open sourcing the Propeller Propeller One Verilog forum Propeller products Elecia has a very old Propeller Starter kit but is tempted to get the PropStick USB. Many years ago, Chris got a Basic Stamp 2 module (like this one) to control a camera in his RC airplane:

86: MADEUPICAL WORD Erin McKean (@emckean) is a lexicographer, programmer, and start-up founder. We spoke to her about Wordnik (the online uber dictionary), Reverb (smarter recommendations), and her many books. Wordnik: Adopt-a-word Developer Erin's favorite list Reverb Erin has written many books, some about words, one about dresses (The Hundred Dresses), and one fiction novel about The Secret Lives of Dresses. She has also given two TED talks. Watson on Jeopardy Brian Garner talks about skunked words in his book Modern American Usage Five Intriguing Things via Tiny Letter [Feb 2, 2015: This link is broken today but it is the right link, google "Five Intriguing Things" to see if they've fixed it.] Elecia's Wordy project if fully documented over on Hackaday Reaction Housing is hiring!

Scott Miller built a hula hoop with Bluetooth, an inertial measurement unit, a 32-bit processor, an 8-bit processor, and a slew of individually addressable LEDs. It makes wild patterns when you move. Scott's "normal" company, with all of its ham radio equipment, is Argent Data Systems. The hula hoops are Hyperion Hoops. You can buy a hoop. They are also on Facebook or you can watch the mesmerizing lightshow on YouTube (also here and here). Yes, the hula hoop does speak DMX512, doesn't everybody? Reaction Housing is hiring!

The founders of Bluestamp Engineering spoke with us about running a hands-on summer engineering program for high school students (while keeping their day jobs). Bluestamp website, Twitter (@BlueStampEng), YouTube channel full of student projects and Facebook page. Dave Young (@daveyoungEE) is also the principal engineer at Young Circuit Design. Robin Mansukhani is also CEO of Alzeca. Robin also gave a TED talk about learning by doing.

Raman Pi creator Mark Johnson (@flatCat_) spoke with us about spectrometers, 3D printing, and competing in the Hackaday Prize. Raman Pi project on Hackaday.io Hackaday prize semi-finalist video Mike Szczys' Fl@c@ bio on Hackaday.com Open Source Fusor Research Consortium Wikipedia: spectrometer, Raman spectroscopy, fusors, and optical coherence tomography Weird Stuff is a Bay area electronics surplus store Raman Pi also has its own website

Jen, Chris, and Elecia talk about the movies that influenced them to go into engineering. Real Genius (imdb, Amazon) Star Wars (imdb, Amazon) Choose Your Own Adventure books (Amazon, wiki) Wargames (imdb, Amazon) Ghostbusters (imdb, Amazon) Star Trek: The Next Generation (imdb, Amazon) 321 Contact, show and magazine (imdb (tv)) The Muppets Show (imdb, Amazon) Sneakers (imdb, Amazon) Phineas and Ferb (imdb, Amazon) Sisterhood of Spies (Amazon) Crytonomicon (Amazon)

Chris and Elecia babble up a show about gifts, conferences, and makers. Embedded Systems Conference is put on by UBM. The conference is in Boston May 6-7, 2015, Santa Clara July 20-22, and Minneapolis November 4-5. The Santa Clara proposal deadline is January 9th. O'Reilly's Solid Conference is June 22-25 in San Francisco. Proposals are due January 12th. Fitbit Surge (Amazon) Kerbal Space Program and some controllers and telemetry boards from other people CrossyRoad is on iOS and Android (This is bad, do not start. Also unihorse is the best!) Elecia's Wordy project on Hackaday Magnetoception in humans is controversial (wiki) but the magnetometer/motor anklet is neat.

Bill Winterberg (@BillWinterberg) chatted with Elecia about leaving embedded engineering to become a financial planner then to being a technology adviser to other financial planners. Bill's company is FPPad. You can subscribe to his newsletter and watch Bits and Bytes, his video blog (or read it). Bill and Elecia met at LeapFrog. Bill was instrumental in making the original LeapPad Learning System. When Elecia mentioned Domini Social Investments, Bill mentioned Vanguard Total Stock Market. Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties and Thirties Financial adviser networks: XY Planning Network (by interest) Garrett Planning Network (hourly fees only) NAPFA (fee only advisers) CFP® (by zip code) Robo-advisor (automated investment management) Bill says: "It shouldn't be this hard for smart engineers."

Vicky Tuite (@vixter55) came on the show to chat with Chris and Elecia about EVAOS, a company that upgrades Ford trucks into plug-in hybrids. Feminist Hacker Barbie She's Geeky Bay piggies (BayPIGgies)

Chris Svec (@christophersvec) has an idea about adding empathy to software development. It is a good idea. His blog is Said Svec. He works for iRobot and they are hiring. (Chris' email is given toward the end of the show but if you hit the contact link here, we'll pass along info to him.) Obligatory cat video Embedded has an episode devoted to impostor syndrome. O'Reilly's Head First book series is pretty awesome. Elecia is still talking about Thinking, Fast and Slow as a great way to understand brains. Chris Svec also recommends Make It Stick. The Richard Hamming quote came from his address to the Naval Postgraduate School. The whole lecture is available on YouTube.

Sophi Kravitz (@SophiKravitz, G+) joined us to talk about working on neat things: Wobble World, Oculus Rift, Unity, goldfish training, and BlueStamp Engineering. Sophi's company is Mix Engineering Leap Motion vs. Microsoft Kinect Goldfish driving (vid) Quit Your Day Job on Element14, previously on Super Green Dot Advertising in SkyMall Thermoelectric Firestarter

Ron Sparks (@txNgineer, AG5RS) spoke with us about the convergence of makers and ham radio enthusiasts. The alternative internet: AMPRNet (wiki) aka 44 net South Texas Balloon Launch Team Pecan Pico AmSAT SatNOGS (their site, their hackaday entry, and the video Elecia liked) Weak Signal Propagation Reporter Network ("whisper"). Also on wiki.

Glenn Scott and Nacho Solis spoke with Elecia about content-centric networking, being research scientists, and working at PARC. [Note: Elecia was the recording engineer and her inexperience showed by not hitting that other little button on the software. Nacho's mic ended up bad but Chris mostly fixed it... the sound gets better after the first five minutes.] Twitter: Nacho (@isolis), CCN (@projectccnx), and PARC (@PARCInc) CCNX website (includes contact link) CCN enabled Riot OS

John Schuch (@JohnS_AZ) talked with us about being a semifinalist in the Hackaday Prize, his project, and entering other contests. John's webpage John's Hackaday Page Winning Entry on Mouser 500 Challenge Honorable Mention on Circuit Cellar's ChipKit2012 Many contests are announced on Circuit Cellar and searching the EEVBlog forums. IRC channel mentioned is TYMKRS

Christopher and Elecia look through listener email, check in on what past guests are up to, and consider the best and worst of science in recent fiction. Hackaday Prize Finalists (and the 50 Semiinalists) Saleae Logic Pro 16 (related: Drive the Boat with a Wii Mote) Darma Kickstarter (related: Resonant Frequency of My Butt) Peep sign up to be notified of their Kickstarter (related: Vision for Simple Minds) EMSL Halloween round up and open house on Nov 13 (related: Mwahahaha Session) Silicon Chef Hackathon results (related: Dancing with Hundreds of Women) Pan-CJK fonts (related: The Tofu Problem) The Martian (Amazon) (There is a tiny spoiler, one Elecia doesn't think merits the warning but Christopher says to skip 55:00 to 01:02:55 if you want to read the book cold.) Don's I Snooze Remote

Emile Petrone (@emilepetrone) talked with Chris and Elecia about Tindie: buying, selling, changing the rate of hardware innovation, having a burgeoning start up, connecting government agencies to craft electronics, etc. We talked about many amazing projects on Tindie but there were so many, it is hard to call them out. Arduboy and AirPi Raspberry Pi weather station are two that stood out.