517: A Direct, Sensible Podcast

Nathan Jones and Chris Svec give Chris and Elecia their 2025 performance review. 

Donations went to Elevate Tutoring, an organization that provides funding and support to low-income and first-generation college students as well as free STEM tutoring for underserved schools.  Embedded has already sent in the match to the donations for a total of over $5000. 

Here is a list of all Embedded.fm episodes.

We mentioned the Foldscope, a small but mighty microscope. Also, mentioned was the book If I Only Changed the Software, Why is the Phone on Fire?

The show this week is sponsored by us. And you. Please consider supporting Embedded.fm on Ko-fi or Patreon. Or tell a friend about the show.

Transcript

516: Voices From the Cataclysms of the Universe

Sophi Kravitz joined us to talk about art, science, and engineering. 

You can see Messages from Space on Sophi’s website /sophikravitz.com). A subset of the artwork had a short stay for a demo at Chabot Space & Science Center. The completed work will be shown in 2026. Sophi mentioned collaborating with two sonic environment artists Sofy Yuditskaya and Ria Rajan.

Geiger–Müller tube is an ionizing radiation detector. Cosmic rays move through space at nearly the speed of light, generally originating far away and long ago. You can also see them in a cloud chamber, like the one at San Francisco’s Exploratorium. We also talked about using sculpting in Blender (there are many online video introductions).

Sophi does EE consulting and system quality checking at her company Greenlight.

The show this week is sponsored by us. And you. Please consider supporting Embedded.fm on Ko-fi or Patreon. Or tell a friend about the show.

Transcript

515: Script Boomers

Nick Kartsioukas joined us to talk about security in embedded systems. 

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) is the primary database to check your software libraries, tools, and OSs: cve.org.

Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP, owasp.org) has information on how to improve security in all kinds of applications, including embedded application security. There are also cheatsheets, Nick particularly recommends Software Supply Chain Security - OWASP Cheat Sheet. 

Wait, what is supply chain security? Nick suggested a nice article on github.com: it is about your code and tools including firmware update, a common weak point in embedded device security.

Want to try out some security work? There are capture the flag (CTF) challenges including the Microcorruption CTF (microcorruption.com) which is embedded security related. We also talked about the SANS Holiday Hack Challenge (also see Prior SANS Holiday Hack Challenges).

This episode is brought to you by  RunSafe Security.

Working with C or C++ in your embedded projects? RunSafe Security helps you build safer, more resilient devices with build-time SBOM generation, vulnerability identification, and patented code hardening. Their Load-time Function Randomization stops the exploit of memory-based attacks, something we all know is much needed. Learn more at RunSafeSecurity.com/embeddedfm.

Some other sites that have good information embedded security:

  • Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is at cisa.gov and, among other things, they describe SBOMs in great detail

  • National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) also provides guidance:


Finally, Nick mentioned Stop The Bleed which provides training on how you can control bleeding, a leading cause of death. They even have a podcast (and we know you like those). Elecia followed up with Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT). Call your local fire department and ask about training near you!

Transcript

514: Just Turn Off All the Computers

Philip Koopman joined us to talk about embedded systems becoming embodied and intelligent. We focus on the safety considerations of making an intelligent and embodied device. 

Phil’s new book is Embodied AI Safety: Reimagining safety engineering for artificial intelligence in physical systems. It uses robotaxis as an example as it discusses safety, security, human/computer interface, AI, and a bit of legal theory for tort negligence.

If you’d like a taster, Phil gave a wonderful summary in his video: Keynote Talk: Embodied AI Safety

This new book is intended for a wider (less devotedly technical) audience than his book How Safe Is Safe Enough?: Measuring and Predicting Autonomous Vehicle Safety.

Phil was last on the show in episode 473: Math Is Not the Answer where we spoke about his book Understanding Checksums and Cyclic Redundancy Checks 

Transcript

Thank you!

This episode is sponsored by you, our listeners! If you’d like to become members and get ad-free episodes as well as bonus shows, sign up at Patreon or Ko-Fi. Thanks for listening.

513: I’m Sorry You Learned Something

Jason Turner of C++ Weekly and Empty Crate spoke with us about the joy of puzzles, the changing directions of an interesting career, and the C++ programming language. I mean, of course we talked about C++. But only a little. 

Jason recently published Programming Puzzles Big Book: 400 pages of fun for ages 7-99, a book of puzzles for the logically minded. It teaches programming concepts as engaging puzzles: recursion, binary, assembly, Lisp, regular expressions. You may not know what you are learning but you’ll likely find you know a lot more about how computers work afterward. 

For the puzzles, paper is better than electronic. But you can also get the electronic version on LeanPub (which is better if you like to get lost in Wikipedia links).

This is not Jason’s first puzzle book, he’s made them for C++ Object Lifetime and Copy and Reference (see his Amazon and LeanPub author page for other books as well). 

If you want to catch up on C++, check out C++ Weekly With Jason Turner - YouTube. Note the playlists are useful if you are looking for a deep dive on a particular topic. 

If you want to get more out of C++ in your organization, Jason’s consulting company is Empty Crate. His contact page is there as well (or look for lefticus on most social media platforms).

Transcript

If you’re interested in how 3D printing is changing design engineering, Mouser Electronics has some great resources to check out. Their Empowering Innovation Together platform is taking a deep dive into additive manufacturing—covering smarter production, faster prototyping, and breakthrough materials that move ideas beyond prototypes into real-world products. You’ll find podcasts, expert articles, and videos that keep you informed and inspired. Sound like your thing? Head to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and explore.

512: What if I Didn’t Stop?

Katherine “Smalls” Connell spoke with us about making thin and flexible circuits, making stretchable electronics, and running a successful Kickstarter.

Katherine’s Kickstarter: Sprite Lights LED Body Art (light-up tattoo).

Katherine shares her makes, describing her build process for companion robots and other projects. You can find her as The Small Wonder on Hackster.io and Hackaday.io. She often goes by Smalls on other social media. 

We talked about a paper on making stretchable circuits: Silicone devices: A scalable DIY approach for fabricating self-contained multi-layered soft circuits using microfluidics.

Transcript

If you’re interested in how 3D printing is changing design engineering, Mouser Electronics has some great resources to check out. Their Empowering Innovation Together platform is taking a deep dive into additive manufacturing—covering smarter production, faster prototyping, and breakthrough materials that move ideas beyond prototypes into real-world products. You’ll find podcasts, expert articles, and videos that keep you informed and inspired. Sound like your thing? Head to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and explore.

511: Forty Trillion Divides

Chris and Elecia talk about the show overflowing to another bit, fight over vim vs nano, consider awards, discuss writing (and self-motivation), consider linear algebra on AI cores, encourage remote device quality assurance, describe design documentation, review timer multipliers, and consider changing chip vendors.

A list of all Embedded Episodes

Support the show and get goodies: Patreon/embedded and Ko-fi.com/embedded 

Data-Driven Science and Engineering book (currently on chapter 8 and working through the Control Bootcamp playlist)

Not mentioned but related to the Cozy Science announcement: Elecia found Sleeping World, a 10-episode podcast that is nicely soothing and science.

Transcript

If you’re interested in how 3D printing is changing design engineering, Mouser Electronics has some great resources to check out. Their Empowering Innovation Together platform is taking a deep dive into additive manufacturing—covering smarter production, faster prototyping, and breakthrough materials that move ideas beyond prototypes into real-world products. You’ll find podcasts, expert articles, and videos that keep you informed and inspired. Sound like your thing? Head to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and explore.

510: The Secret Chip

Christina Cyr spoke with us about building cell phones, entrepreneurship, social purpose corporations, awards, lithium recycling, and her interesting career path. 

We talked about Christina’s Cyrcle Phone, the related kit from dTOOR, and her CES Innovation Award. We also mentioned Fairphone in the section about social purpose corporation.

There is a great paper from Nature about lithium-ion battery recycling: The evolution of lithium-ion battery recycling | Nature Reviews Clean Technology. The US EPA meetings mentioned in the show are part of the Extended Battery Producer Responsibility (EPR) Framework.

Christina Cyr Personal Website 

Wellfound (formerly AngelList) is a startup focused job site that may lead to non-fulltime positions. Crunchbase may help you figure out is the startup has capital (also Pitchbook thought that generally has a cost).

ADH connectors by JST and the SparkFun JST Battery Removal Tool

The quote was from Hemlock & Silver by T Kingfisher and it was a lovely fantasy mystery with an incredible first chapter.

Note: there are some audio artifacts on Christina’s track, we apologize as there was a technical issue that couldn’t be resolved. We’ve tried to clean it up with post-processing. There’s nothing wrong with your headphones :)

Transcript

If you’re interested in how 3D printing is changing design engineering, Mouser Electronics has some great resources to check out. Their Empowering Innovation Together platform is taking a deep dive into additive manufacturing—covering smarter production, faster prototyping, and breakthrough materials that move ideas beyond prototypes into real-world products. You’ll find podcasts, expert articles, and videos that keep you informed and inspired. Sound like your thing? Head to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and explore.

509: Swarmed by Engineers

Steve Hinch wrote a book about engineering, innovation, and business. He shares decades of wisdom gleaned from his career at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent as an engineer, manager, marketing director, and general manager. 

Steve’s book is Winning through Innovation: Lessons from the Front Lines of Business. While mostly retired, Steve is an executive consultant, see his website to get in touch: Stephen W. Hinch.  

We also touched on some of Steve’s nature and hiking volumes as well.  While Elecia is reading My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir | Project Gutenberg, Steve suggested works by Edward Abbey might be of interest. 

Elecia and Steve both received copies of Dave Packard’s The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company while at HP.

Transcript

Mouser Electronics has a dedicated Empowering Innovation Together hub that covers the latest breakthroughs in tech. Their new series explores how AI is reshaping engineering—from design automation to rapid prototyping and predictive maintenance. You’ll find insightful articles, podcasts, and videos that showcase real-world applications across industries. If you’re ready to see how AI is powering the next generation of engineering, head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation.




508: Descartes' Demon

William Griffin spoke to us about hardware-in-the-loop testing, simulation, terminology, learning complex topics, and books.

We don’t usually expand upon the show title but Wikipedia has a rabbit hole called Evil demon so there you go.

Books mentioned:

William Griffin and  Bailey Steinfadt (333) have started Spark Embedded, an embedded software and simulation consultancy. 

Transcript


Mouser Electronics has a dedicated Empowering Innovation Together hub that covers the latest breakthroughs in tech. Their new series explores how AI is reshaping engineering—from design automation to rapid prototyping and predictive maintenance. You’ll find insightful articles, podcasts, and videos that showcase real-world applications across industries. If you’re ready to see how AI is powering the next generation of engineering, head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation.

507: Turn Our Data Into Predators

Chris and Elecia chat about books, courses, alternate podcasts, electronics, statistics, kidnapping Roo, and journaling failures. 

The Embedded Patreon book club is reading Data-Driven Science and Engineering: Machine Learning, Dynamical Systems, and Control by Steven L. Brunton, J. Nathan Kutz. PDF book and links to lectures are at databookuw.com. Some recent links of interest:

Chris is taking a course from Dogbotic. See their workshop list. We interviewed Kirk Pearson from Dogbotic on Episode 491.

Transcript

Mouser Electronics has a dedicated Empowering Innovation Together hub that covers the latest breakthroughs in tech. Their new series explores how AI is reshaping engineering—from design automation to rapid prototyping and predictive maintenance. You’ll find insightful articles, podcasts, and videos that showcase real-world applications across industries. If you’re ready to see how AI is powering the next generation of engineering, head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation.

506: How Do I Fit a Whale Into an Apartment Building?

Dmitry Grinberg joined us to talk about running Linux on small microprocessors (physically small and/or 4-bit). Dmitry does this by emulating a MIPS processor. Boot times vary between minutes and days, depending on the processor. 

Dmitry’s projects are on his website (dmitry.gr) including:

Dmitry recommended NandGame, an online game about building up a processor.

We mentioned Eric Schlaepfer of TubeTime. He was on the show on 419: Fission Chips, with EMSL’s Windell Oskay, talking about their book Open Circuits.

Transcript

Mouser Electronics has a dedicated Empowering Innovation Together hub that covers the latest breakthroughs in tech. Their new series explores how AI is reshaping engineering—from design automation to rapid prototyping and predictive maintenance. You’ll find insightful articles, podcasts, and videos that showcase real-world applications across industries. If you’re ready to see how AI is powering the next generation of engineering, head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation.

505: Potato in a Number Field

We spoke with Peter Griffin about Jumperless Breadboards, no-install GUI development, Excel, and puppies.

Jumperless Breadboard at CrowdSupply

Teardown 2025 will have talks up soon!

Cory Doctorow wrote about ‘Enshittification’ in Wired. We didn’t bleep the word for this episode since it’s becoming an essential part of tech criticism.

The Flag of Maryland. You know what you did.

Joel Spolsky’s You Suck at Excel

Miso Come Here (Instagram, TikTok) shows puppy communication buttons.

Transcript

 Mouser’s Empowering Innovation Together hub dives into all sorts of topics like renewable energy, energy-efficient systems, and sustainable design. Whether you’re looking for the latest in clean tech trends or just need some inspiration, you’ll find articles, videos, and podcasts all geared toward engineers who want to make a difference. Head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and check out their clean tech content.

504: The Robot Was Expecting It

It’s another episode with Elecia and Chris. This week they discuss people that have influenced their lives and careers, thinking about past career choices and regrets therein, identities, the Embedded Slack book club, and electronic projects.

Chris is currently taking Dogbotic’s DIY Rhythm Widgets course which covers making an analog drum machine from components. We had Dogbotic founder Kirk Pearson on the show on Episode 491.

Elecia mentioned the book that the Embedded Slack #book-club channel is working through, Data Driven Science & Engineering Machine Learning, Dynamical Systems, and Control, which you can find for free at https://databookuw.com along with code and examples. The group is two sessions in but if you want to join late, join the Slack group via Patreon or Ko-Fi.

You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

Transcript

503: The Tiniest Laptops

Emily Lovell spoke with us about teaching how to contribute to open source, including her own experience creating the LilyTiny as a Master’s student and researching the impact as a PhD student. 

The LilyTiny work was done in conjunction with Leah Buechley (Embedded episode 382). See the paper The LilyTiny: A Case Study in Expanding Access to Electronic Textiles or watch the video.

UCSC Open Source Program Office (note this is different from the Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS) that we spoke about with Carl Maltzahn (Episode 285).

Emily recommended the curriculum from TeachingOpenSource.org. 

Emily’s other life is at EP Custom Pickups and Aberdeen Guitars. She spoke on a lutherie panel at NAMM.

Transcript

 Mouser’s Empowering Innovation Together hub dives into all sorts of topics like renewable energy, energy-efficient systems, and sustainable design. Whether you’re looking for the latest in clean tech trends or just need some inspiration, you’ll find articles, videos, and podcasts all geared toward engineers who want to make a difference. Head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and check out their clean tech content.

502: Chat, J'ai Peté!

Chris and Elecia talk about Murderbot,  LLMs (AI), bikes, control algorithms, and fancy math. 

The website with the ecology jobs is wildlabs.net from 501: inside the Armpit of Giraffe with Meredith Palmer and Akiba.. 

The algorithm Elecia mentioned was from Patent US7370713B1. The Control Bootcamp YouTube series is a great introduction to control systems beyond PIDs There is also a book from the same folks (with matlab and some python code): Data-Driven Science and Engineering: Machine Learning, Dynamical Systems, and Control.

Finding bad AI interactions is too easy. Copilot PR mess that was discussed. Lawyers letting ChatGPT hallucinate precedents. Fake (hallucinated) citations in a high-profile report on children’s health.

Transcript

Nordic Semiconductor has been the driving force for Bluetooth Low Energy MCUs and wireless SoCs since the early 2010s, and they offer solutions for low-power Wi-Fi and global Cellular IoT as well. If you plan on developing robust and battery-operated applications, check out their hardware, software, tools, and services.
 
On academy.nordicsemi.com, you’ll find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT courses, and the Nordic DevZone community covers technical questions:  devzone.nordicsemi.com.
 
Congratulations to the giveaway winners!


501: Inside the Armpit of a Giraffe

We spoke with ecologist Dr. Meredith Palmer and embedded engineer Akiba about lions, terror, and technology. 

Akiba works for FreakLabs.org on global conservation projects. We talked about their Boombox which Meredith uses to create experiments to map the landscape of fear in predator/prey relationships. While this may look like pranking animals with jump scares, well, there is real science being done. 

  • What would it look like to be smooched by a lioness? (Video)

  • Bird hears lion, decides to go over there (Video)

  • Checking the reflexes of some zebras and other critters (Video)

  • Hyena eating camara (Video)

These are lots of fun to watch and you can find the freshest ones and help out science by categorizing some at Snapshot Safari. Or skip to using the data on Lila.science (Snapshot Safari 2024 data).

Check out Meredith’s website for more github and Data Dryad links to data and science. 

If you want to get involved, Wildlabs.net has discussions around conservation technology. There is also a Slack group by Sara Beery focusing on AI for conservation.

Elecia mentioned David Quammen, an author who writes a lot about biology and ecology.

And now, a guy gives birth to a botfly.

Transcript

If you’re interested in the intersection of neuroscience and engineering, you might want to check out what Mouser Electronics is doing with Brain-Computer Interfaces. It’s all about how you can control machines with your mind, and it’s one of the coolest areas of innovation right now. Mouser’s Empowering Innovation Together site has great content on BCIs, from videos to in-depth articles and podcasts that break down the tech. If this piques your curiosity, head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and explore what’s happening with BCI and other exciting developments in the world of design and engineering.


500: Nerding Out About the Ducks

Komathi Sundaram spoke with us about her enthusiasm for tests and test automation. We talked about the different joys of testing vs. development, setting up CI servers, and different kinds of tests including unit, hardware-in-the-loop, and simulation. It may sound dry but we had a lot of fun.

Komathi’s site is TheKomSea.com which hosts her blog as well as contact info. She will be speaking on automated hardware in the loop test processes at the Embedded Online Conference. 

Transcript

Nordic Semiconductor has been the driving force for Bluetooth Low Energy MCUs and wireless SoCs since the early 2010s, and they offer solutions for low-power Wi-Fi and global Cellular IoT as well. If you plan on developing robust and battery-operated applications, check out their hardware, software, tools, and services.
 
On academy.nordicsemi.com, you’ll find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT courses, and the Nordic DevZone community covers technical questions:  devzone.nordicsemi.com.
 
Oh, and don’t forget to enter Nordic Semiconductor’s giveaway contest! Just fill out the entrance form, and you're in the running. Good luck!



499: This Is Your Problem

We spoke with Janet Hansen about the world of professional costumery (with electronics) and becoming an artist.

Janet’s business is Enlighted where you can find custom illuminated clothing as well as Janet’s ready-made art. Janet’s personal site is janethansen.com which is more focused on her artistic pursuits.

Janet mentioned Seeed’s MSGEQ7.

We talked about Janet’s light up pillow with Debra Ansell on 494: All Tech Is Wearable — Embedded.

Transcript

If you’re interested in the intersection of neuroscience and engineering, you might want to check out what Mouser Electronics is doing with Brain-Computer Interfaces. It’s all about how you can control machines with your mind, and it’s one of the coolest areas of innovation right now. Mouser’s Empowering Innovation Together site has great content on BCIs, from videos to in-depth articles and podcasts that break down the tech. If this piques your curiosity, head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and explore what’s happening with BCI and other exciting developments in the world of design and engineering.



498: To Consume Stickers

At the end of this week’s show, Elecia reads a Winnie the Pooh poem as Cookie Monster death metal. Before that, Chris and Elecia chat about mental health, journaling, personal projects, and listener questions. 

Please sign up for the Nordic Giveaway! 

You can also sign up for the Embedded newsletter. Maybe now with job postings?

Elecia’s journaling notebook is this one on JetPens (which is where she gets her nice pens and some of her stickers and washi tape). 

From discussing some listener messages, we mentioned:

  • Matt Keeter’s talk on debuggability in production where you don’t have access to the system that is faulting (video and slides)

  • Letter boards (in the Adirondacks), see those in action here

  • Wokwi simulator is a great place to get more embedded experience without buying all the kits.

Christopher has said that there will not, definitely not, under any circumstances, be a whole death metal album of Winnie the Pooh poems. Elecia is practicing anyway. 

Transcript

Nordic Semiconductor has been the driving force for Bluetooth Low Energy MCUs and wireless SoCs since the early 2010s, and they offer solutions for low-power Wi-Fi and global Cellular IoT as well. If you plan on developing robust and battery-operated applications, check out their hardware, software, tools, and services.
 
On academy.nordicsemi.com, you’ll find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT courses, and the Nordic DevZone community covers technical questions:  devzone.nordicsemi.com.
 
Oh, and don’t forget to enter Nordic Semiconductor’s giveaway contest! Just fill out the entrance form, and you're in the running. Good luck!