Best Logical Elegance Podcasts (2025)

1
499: This Is Your Problem 50:51

8d ago50:51

50:51

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 ta…

1
498: To Consume Stickers 1:06:34

22d ago1:06:34

1:06:34

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 n…

1
497: Everyone Likes Tiny 1:24:18

1M ago1:24:18

1:24:18

OpenMV has a new Kickstarter so CEO Kwabena Agyeman chatted with us about more powerful (and smaller!) programmable cameras. See OpenMV’s site for their existing cameras. See their (already funded!) kickstarter page for the super powerful N6 and the ridiculously small AE3. Note that OpenMV still is committed to open source. See their github if you …

1
496: Beauty, Elegance, Consistency 59:56

2M ago59:56

59:56

Professor Shimon Schocken spoke with us about teaching computer science from NAND logic gates to arithmetic units, micro assembly, virtual machines, compilers, operating systems, and the Tetris games. We also talk about good design, good interfaces, and good tests. Shimon’s book is Elements of Computing Systems and the website with the course lectu…

1
495: Shortcut the Difficulties of Reality 1:01:56

2M ago1:01:56

1:01:56

Professor Cindy Harnett spoke to us about new and different sensors and actuators, primarily designed for soft robotics and fabricated with relatively low cost materials. Cindy is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Louisville where she runs the Harnett Lab. The papers we discussed are here. You can find a longer…

1
494: All Tech Is Wearable 1:15:56

3M ago1:15:56

1:15:56

Debra Ansell joined us to talk about finding friends and exchanging neat gifts, accidentally tricking people into making unmanufacutable boards, and happy, blinking lights. Debra is usually known by the moniker GeekMomProjects (also her website is geekmomprojects.com). She has been writing for Make Magazine. Debra won one of the SuperCon badge add-…

1
493: Put the Peeps in the Chili Pot 1:20:33

3M ago1:20:33

1:20:33

Elecia and Chris talk with each other about the state of Chris’ mind, what makes an embedded developer stand out, “LEGO block” based design, unit tests, and astronomy. Whew! Elecia was recently on the Changelog podcast, talking about the world of embedded systems. Chris has been working with Micropython (we talked with Damien George about Micropyth…

1
492: Octopus Army 1:09:50

4M ago1:09:50

1:09:50

Nathan Jones chatted with us about his proposal for a computer architecture book based on a 4-bit computer. Nathan found the 4-bit computer in the Hackaday SuperCon 2022 badge and was amazed by some of the ideas that folks implemented (see SuperCon Badge Hacking Awards Ceremony). Nathan spoke at Hackaday SuperCon 2023 on the processor architecture,…

1
491: Oscillators Oscillating Other Oscillators 1:06:50

5M ago1:06:50

1:06:50

Chris and Elecia spoke with Kirk Pearson about running audio-electronic-art workshops, interesting sounds, and their book Make: Electronic Music from Scratch: A Beginner's Guide to Homegrown Audio Gizmos. Find the book and a whole kit of parts on the Dogbotic Merch page. A few clicks from there you can find the Workshop List (don’t forget the coupo…

1
490: Wait Until Physics Has Happened 1:05:37

5M ago1:05:37

1:05:37

Nikolaus Correll spoke with us about robots, teaching robotics, and writing books about robots. Nikolaus is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado, see his lab website (or his Wikipedia page). We discussed Nikolaus’ Introduction to Robotics with Webots Specialization Coursera course (or YouTube Playlist). These go along with …

1
489: Constructive Cat 1:01:50

5M ago1:01:50

1:01:50

Chris and Elecia discuss her origami art show, ponder PRs for solo developers, attempt to explain GDB debugging, and make a to-do list for getting rid of Kanga. Elecia is having an Origami Octopus Garden art show at the Aptos Public Library for the month of November, 2024. The postcard advertisement is below. There are more pictures on her Instagra…

1
488: Two Slices of Complimentary Bread 1:10:20

6M ago1:10:20

1:10:20

Andrienne Braganza Tacke spoke with us about her book Looks Good To Me: Constructive Code Reviews. It is about how to make code reviews more useful, effective, and congenial. Adrienne’s book is available now as an ebook at manning.com or a paper copy later in the year (Amazon link). Check out the example Team Working Agreement from Appendix A. Adri…

1
487: Focus on Fizzing 1:05:28

6M ago1:05:28

1:05:28

Chris and Elecia chat about simulated robots, portents in the sky, the futility of making plans, and grad school. A problem with mics led us to delay the show with Shimon Schoken from Nand2Tetris (co-author of Elements of The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles). Look for that later in the year. Elecia is…

1
486: A Nice Rainbow Dream 54:42

7M ago54:42

54:42

Antoine van Gelder spoke to us about making digital musical instruments, USB, and FPGAs. Antoine works for Great Scott Gadgets, specifically on the Cynthion USB protocol analysis tool that can be used in conjunction with Python and GSG’s FaceDancer to act as a new USB device. While bonding over MurderBot Diaries was a given, Antoine also mentioned …

1
485: Conversation Is a Kind of Music 1:17:27

7M ago1:17:27

1:17:27

Alan Blackwell spoke with us about the lurking dangers of large language models, the magical nature of artificial intelligence, and the future of interacting with computers. Alan is the author of Moral Codes: Designing Alternatives to AI which you can read in its pre-book form here: https://moralcodes.pubpub.org/ Alan’s day job is as a Professor of…

1
484: Collecting My Unhelpful Badge

8M ago

—

Chris and Elecia talk to each other about setting aside memory in a linker file, printing using your debugger, looking around a new code base, pointers as optimization, choosing processors, skill trees and merit badges. Elecia’s Creating Chaos and Hard Faults talk and slides. STM32 Application Note AN4989 microcontroller debug toolbox includes semi…

1
483: An Ion of the Highest Fidelity 1:01:27

8M ago1:01:27

1:01:27

Rick Altherr spoke with us about high-speed control, complicated systems, and making quantum computers. If you want to know more about building quantum computers, take a listen to Rick’s MacroFab episode: The Nuts and Bolts of Quantum Computing. If you want to make your own quantum circuit simulator, it only takes 27 lines of Python: A Quantum Circ…

1
482: Reference the Same Dog Object 1:05:08

9M ago1:05:08

1:05:08

Professor Colleen Lewis joined us to talk teaching pointers with stuffies, explaining inheritance through tigers, and computer science pedagogy. Check out her YouTube channel to view her videos explaining CS concepts with physical models. These are also collected on her website: Physical Models of Java. If you are an instructor (or thinking about t…

1
481: The Girl from Evel Knievel 1:02:12

9M ago1:02:12

1:02:12

Chris and Elecia talk about their current adventures in conference talks, play dates, and skunks. Elecia’s talks are available on YouTube: Creating Chaos and Hard Faults: An introduction to hard fault handlings, stack overflows, and debugging hard bugs Introduction to Embedded Systems (O'Reilly Expert Webinar): An introductions to… well, embedded s…

1
480: Surprises Early In The Game 1:01:11

10M ago1:01:11

1:01:11

Jerry Twomey spoke with us about his new O’Reilly book Applied Embedded Electronics which covers embedded topics such as EMI, signal processing, control systems and non-ideal components. Jerry is also the principal engineer at Effective Electrons. His articles are linked from there and you can contact him via the site. Here is a 30-day trial for th…

1
479: Make Your Voice Heard 1:05:08

11M ago1:05:08

1:05:08

Carles Cufí spoke with us about Zephyr, Nordic, learning, open source development, and corporate goals. Carles had some great suggestions for learning Zephyr: Memfault Interrupt Practical Zephyr blog series Nordic’s Developer Academy Zephyr’s Discord server Zephyr’s YouTube channel (@ZephyrProject), sorted by views Macrobatics term is from Zephyr D…

1
478: The Map Is Not the Territory 55:00

11M ago55:00

55:00

Jan Rychter joined us to talk about building a company, electronic components, and software design. Jan is the founder and engineer at PartsBox.com. If you are interested in the meta-analysis of the data, check out his article on the Top Ten Hobby Parts and the Electronic Component Database, You can find out more about Jan through his website(jan.r…

1
477: One Thousand New Instructions 1:24:04

12M ago1:24:04

1:24:04

Kwabena Agyeman joined Chris and Elecia to talk about optimization, cameras, machine learning, and vision systems. Kwabena is the head of OpenMV (openmv.io), an open source and open hardware system that runs machine learning algorithms on vision data. It uses MicroPython as a development environment so getting started is easy. Their github reposito…

1
476: Sidetracked by Mining the Moon 56:28

12M ago56:28

56:28

Lee Wilkins joined Chris and Elecia to talk about The Open Source Hardware Association, the Open Hardware Summit, and zine culture. The Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) provides certification and support for creating open source hardware. The Open Hardware Summit is happening May 3-4, 2024. It is in Montreal, Canada. It also has many online…

1
475: Stuffed Animal or Colleague 1:09:36

1y ago1:09:36

1:09:36

Chris and Elecia talk about the Embedded Online Conference, their experience learning Zephyr, and some listener questions. Elecia will be presenting on Creating Chaos and Hard Faults at the Embedded Online Conference, Apr 29 - May 3, 2024. Some other talks that look interesting: The Power of a Look-up Table by Nathan Jones Zephyr Tools To Debug Har…

1
474: It's All Chaos and Horror 1:11:51

1y ago1:11:51

1:11:51

Logic gates and origami? Professor Inna Zakharevich joined us to talk about Turing complete origami crease patterns. We started talking about Turing completeness which led to a Conway’s Game of Life-like 2D cellular automaton called Rule 110 (Wikipedia) which can be implemented with logic gates (AND, OR, NOT). These logic gates can be implemented a…

1
473: Math Is Not the Answer 1:10:12

1y ago1:10:12

1:10:12

Philip Koopman joined us to talk about how modulo 255 vs 256 makes a huge difference in checksum error detection, how to get the most out of your checksum or CRC, and why understanding how they work is worth the effort. Philip has recently published Understanding Checksums and Cyclic Redundancy Checks. He’s better known for Better Embedded System S…

1
472: Field of Boxes 1:02:01

1y ago1:02:01

1:02:01

Making Embedded Systems, 2nd Edition came out today! Chris and Elecia talk about the changes, the writing, but not the eldritch horror. Then we talk about pianos and origami. The electronic version is available now on Amazon, ebooks.com, Google Play and where you get your ebooks. The paper copy will be out in about two weeks, you can preorder now. …

1
471: Bicycle Built For Two 58:29

1y ago58:29

58:29

Where electronics meets music, there is a board called Daisy. Created by ElectroSmith, Andrew Ikenberry, the goal of the board is to teach computers to sing. Andrew joined us to talk about music, audio processing, instruments, product design, and electronic manufacturing. See the Electrosmith website, specifically the Daisy Seed. The electro-smith …

1
470: Upping the Chaos Level 1:16:19

1y ago1:16:19

1:16:19

Helen Leigh joined us to talk about putting together conferences (including Teardown 2024), indie hardware producers (including via Crowd Supply), and building communities. Teardown will be June 21-23 in Portland, OR, USA. More information about attending or presenting. Early bird tickets are available for a limited time! Teardown is put on by Crow…

1
469: Saving the World Is Not a Hobby 1:04:24

1y ago1:04:24

1:04:24

Chris and Elecia chat with each other about motor encoder reading methods, conferences coming up, soldering irons, schematic reviews, looking for a new job, and general life. Some conferences coming up in the embedded space: Embedded Online, April 29-May 4, virtual (Elecia will be speaking) Open Hardware Summit in May 3-4, Montreal, Canada Embedded…

1
468: Designed to Kill All Humans 56:49

1+ y ago56:49

56:49

Anders Nielsen joined us to talk about why the 6502 is the best processor. Anders also sells 65uino kits on his store: imania.dk. For more explanation of what they are, how they work, attaching peripherals, and programming in assembly, look at Anders’ YouTube channel @AndersNielsenAA, read his blog on abnielsen.com, or read about it on its Hackaday…

1
467: Temporary Axolotl 52:30

1+ y ago52:30

52:30

Chris and Elecia talk about cars, fleeting moments of fame, their year, and the sorry state of tools in the embedded space. Chris became internet famous for asking a car dealership’s chatbot (powered by ChatGPT) to generate Python code for fluid dynamics problems. After this, someone else asked the chatbot to sell a car for $1. Pass the Bricks is a…

1
466: Attacked by a Goose on the Way to the Office 1:08:18

1+ y ago1:08:18

1:08:18

Ralph Hempel spoke with us about the development of Lego Mindstorms from hacking the initial interface to running Debian Linux as well as programming Mindstorms in Python. Happy 25th birthday to Lego Mindstorms! Pybricks is a MicroPython based coding environment that works across all Lego PoweredUp hubs and on the latest Mindstorms elements. The cr…

1
465: Dinosaurs, Pirates, Spaceships 1:05:18

1+ y ago1:05:18

1:05:18

Yanina Bellini Saibene joined us to discuss teaching, localization, barriers to learning coding, and global communities. Yani works on Teach Tech Together (https://teachtogether.tech/) with Greg Wilson. It is a fantastic resource if you are learning to teach. It is available in English and Spanish. She also works on The Carpentries which teaches co…

1
464: Please Make This Monster Look Scary 58:59

1+ y ago58:59

58:59

Chris and Elecia talk about their favorite processors, their breakfast preferences, large language model ethics, presents, and Eeyore's birthday. Elecia’s new edition of her book Making Embedded Systems is finished! (Except for a couple months of tech reviews, updating, copyediting, and drawings.) It will be out in March. All of the back issues of …

1
463: Layers of Band-Aids 56:21

1+ y ago56:21

56:21

Kevin Lannen is an embedded systems engineer making powered wheelchairs safer. This sounded interesting to us. Kevin works at LUCI Mobility (luci.com). Check out their tear jerker introduction video as well as technical description of over-the-air update concerns on smart wheelchairs. We also talked about the app that goes with the system: LUCI Vie…

1
462: Spontaneously High Performing 1:15:02

1+ y ago1:15:02

1:15:02

Marian Petre spoke to us about her research on how to make software developers better at developing software. Marian is an Emeritus Professor of the School of Computing & Communications at the Open University in the United Kingdom. She also has a Wikipedia page. The short version of How Expert Programmers Think About Errors is on the NeverWorkInThe…

1
461: Am I the Cow in This Scenario? 58:46

1+ y ago58:46

58:46

Chris and Elecia discuss the pros and cons of completing one project or starting a dozen. Elecia’s 2nd edition of Making Embedded Systems is coming out in March. (Preview is on O’Reilly’s Learning System.) She’s working on a companion repository that is already filled with links and goodies: github.com/eleciawhite/making-embedded-systems. If you’d …

1
460: I Don’t Care What Your Math Says 1:19:35

1+ y ago1:19:35

1:19:35

Author, engineer, manager, and professor, Dr. Greg Wilson joined Elecia to talk about teaching, science in computer science, ethics, and policy. The request for curriculum that started the conversation was the Cost of Change, part of NeverWorkInTheory which summarizes scientific literature about software development. Greg is the founder of Software…

1
459: Ideas Have to Come From Somewhere 1:17:17

1+ y ago1:17:17

1:17:17

Professor AnnMarie Thomas spoke with us about playful learning through joy, whimsy, surprise, and meeting new people. We also spoke with AnnMarie about how adults can foster an environment that encourages innovation. See more about that (and the interviews of various engineers and makers) in her book Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of In…

1
458: Fiddling, DIY, and Cursing 1:11:04

1+ y ago1:11:04

1:11:04

Trond Snekvik spoke with us about developing VSCode extensions and Bluetooth meshes. Trond is a Staff Software Engineer at Nordic Semiconductor. Nordic’s Visual Studio Code Extensions include device tree and kconfig support for the Zephyr project as well as tools for nRF Connect. Trond’s github page: github.com/trond-snekvik In 329: At Least 32-Bit…

1
457: Rubber Duck Phase Cancellation 1:12:04

1+ y ago1:12:04

1:12:04

Chris and Elecia chat about their ongoing efforts to create and learn. Then they answer some listener questions. Duck quacks do echo but the echoes seem to align in phase so that there is no interruption making the echo sounds like an extension of the quack (Mythbusters episode in which Jamie says “Quack, damn you!”) Elecia continues to work on Mak…

1
456: Left Right Symmetry of a Banana 1:08:32

1+ y ago1:08:32

1:08:32

Damien George spoke with us about developing with and for MicroPython while Elecia tries not to spill all the secrets about her client. To start at the beginning, you probably want to check out micropython.org. Wait, no, one step back. Before listening to the show, you probably should read the Wikipedia MicroPython entry because we kind of start in…

1
455: Snaps! 55:21

2y ago55:21

55:21

Natalie Friedman joins us to discuss when, where, how, and why robots should wear clothing. Natalie is a PhD candidate at Cornell Tech. Natalie’s website is natalie-friedman.com and you can find her papers in the research section. She has an Instagram account: @natalie.victoria.f AIForGood shows several robots dressed in home, business and social a…

1
454: Printf Hello 1:15:23

2y ago1:15:23

1:15:23

Uri Shaked surprises us with a chat about silicon design when we were expecting to talk about a web-based board simulator. If you want to try your hand at silicon design, check out Tiny Tapeout, a way to possibly get your design on to real silicon. The digital design guide is a great way to start looking at how chips work. If you aren’t quite ready…

1
453: Too Dumb to Quit 1:08:38

2y ago1:08:38

1:08:38

Nathan Jones has been talking about building command line interfaces, good design practices in C, creating MCU boards, wielding the PIC of destiny, and going beyond Arduino. As we are too lazy to attend the conferences, we asked him to give us the highlights. Nathan is giving two conference talks at Crowd Supply’s Teardown 2023 June 23-24 in Portla…

1
452: Numbers on Computers Are Weird 1:11:54

2y ago1:11:54

1:11:54

Julia Evans spoke with us about how computers compute. We discussed number representation including floating point as well as Julia’s extensive collection of ‘zines and comics. Julia’s zines about debugging, managers, Linux commands, and more are available on WizardZines.com. If you want samples, check out the comics section. Also, the experiments …

1
451: From Concept to Launch 1:02:18

2y ago1:02:18

1:02:18

Phillip Johnston of Embedded Artistry, Tyler Hoffman of Memfault, and Elecia White discuss the software tasks that tend to fall through the cracks after the device has all its features but before it is in customers' hands. Noah Pendleton of Memfault was the moderator. You can see the video on the Embedded YouTube channel or directly from memfault (…

1
450: Swimming Through Nutritious Slurry 1:06:20

2y ago1:06:20

1:06:20

Kari Love joined us to talk about soft robotics, robots in religion, and squishiness. Kari co-authored Soft Robotics: A DIY Introduction to Squishy, Stretchy, and Flexible Robots. Her website is karimakes.com. She was previously on Embedded 189: The Squishiness Factor One of the pneumatic drives that we mentioned was a Hackaday Prize Winner: FlowIO…

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