HN user
Hi!
Embedded development, among other things.
Blog: https://www.keacher.com/
Email: jeff.keacheratgmaildotcom
Environment Canada assumes 60 km on their Weatheradio page ( https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services... ), so that's what I went with. Having said that, I very much agree that the range is probably considerably greater in many cases.
Here's a map I put together of the Weatheradio (one "r"!) service coverage in Canada, assuming each station has a range of 60 km: https://www.keacher.com/files/dir12/weatheradio_map2.png Perhaps unsurprisingly, the coverage is most dense where the population density is also highest, with some exceptions.
And if anybody is curious, here's the coverage for the equivalent Weather Radio service in the United States: https://www.weather.gov/nwr/maps
That was exactly my thought when reading the article and my personal experience with Covid. For a couple weeks, I perceived a persistent smell of something burning.
Golf courses in the USA used about 2.1 billion gallons of water per day circa 2004 [1]. In other words, the annual usage of Amazon's datacenters per the article, 7.7 billion gallons, is less than the amount of water used on just American golf courses in four days.
[1] https://www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/pdf/Water%20Resource%2...
Per NIST[1], the value is 0.7204% +/- 0.0006%, with the uncertainty representing one standard deviation.
[1] https://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/Compositions/stand_alone.pl...
Current evidence is that PSA tests don't actually save lives:
https://thennt.com/nnt/psa-test-to-screen-for-prostate-cance...
I wish they did, of course. I personally lost a close friend to prostate cancer last year. He was 41 and was, before the cancer, one of the healthiest and most athletic people I knew.
The first inkling he had that anything was wrong was a backache that wouldn't go away; a stage 4 diagnosis ensued. He held on for 21 months from the onset of symptoms before the cancer took him.
For what it's worth, /r/welding seems to think this claim is complete bunk:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Welding/comments/1khd9aj/this_is_co...
Goes back at least slightly before that, as I've had 2038epochalypse.com registered since March 2017, but I can't recall whether I thought I was being clever or whether I heard it somewhere else.
My first thought as well!
Here's the scene for those who are unaware: https://youtu.be/90eg_erObDo?si=E0ZbU_k-H7ANLqcZ&t=179
Awesome! I love seeing how the blocks are affected by twiddling bits.
SEEKING WORK | Remote (based in Denver, Colorado, USA) EMBEDDED FIRMWARE and HARDWARE
Got an embedded programming or hardware design challenge you need solved? I'll solve it!
15 years of experience consulting, and I've seen it all; for the past decade I've been exclusively consulting independently. Past clients have included companies large and small, with everything from green-field ideas for new products to tricky situations with existing products they needed fixed. Comfortable working under regulatory constraints; many of the projects I've worked on have been medical devices.
C is my bread and butter on the embedded side, and Python is my go-to for developing PC utilities and scripts, but I'm comfortable working in a lot of languages from assembly all the way up to Javascript when needed. I can even patch embedded binaries by hand when needed.
Architectures? Well, these days it's mostly ARM Cortex, but I've done everything from 8051 and 6502 to STM8 to PIC16/24 to all of the modern stuff, plus a handful of really obscure things. Specific chip families that I've dealt with a lot lately include STM32, nRF5x, and PIC16, but again, I've successfully worked with MCUs from ST, Nordic, NXP, SiLabs, Renesas, Atmel, Microchip, and various other vendors.
Super comfy with Linux, though most of my practice is bare-metal or with true RTOSes.
Bespoke drivers need development? No problem. USB, I2C, SPI, CAN? Yup, all of those and more. BLE, LoRa? Expert. Power optimization for battery operation? That's a specialty of mine: I squeeze out every last nanoamp -- and quantify the improvement.
BS in EE. Designing analog and digital circuits, laying out PCBs, bringing up boards, debugging hardware, simulating designs (including EM simulations for antennas, transmission lines, etc.), and consulting on hardware improvements are all no problem. I have an extremely well equipped EE lab bench, including for RF out to 8 GHz, and am very comfortable doing fine-pitch soldering under a microscope as needed.
US citizen, masters from Stanford. Licensed professional engineer (PE) in Colorado.
Feel free to reach out and let's see if there's a good fit. Thanks!
jeff@nesota.com
Ultra-fast rise-time pulse generators! Yeah, hardware -- or, hooray, hardware!
A few months back, I got excited about pulse generators that had rise times on the order of 15 to 30 picoseconds. There aren't a lot of those available, and I was curious about what would go into their design. so I decided to build my own. https://voltative.com/pulser
Indeed. I've unsubscribed from all subreddits that have become infested with political content, and I've "unfollowed" all of my acquaintances on Facebook and LinkedIn who post anything political. So much more enjoyable.
Under $100: a Knipex pliers wrench. Best hand-tool ever! I originally got just the 7.25" size, but now I own everything from even shorter ones to much longer ones. I use them all of the time. If you're cheap, you can even get a knock-off version from Harbor Freight now at about half the cost of the German-made Knipex ones.
Unfortunately, that link between vagotomy and reduced risk of PD hasn't been supported by subsequent studies. In fact, it wasn't really even supported by the initial study[1]: although the point estimates of the hazard ratios were below 1.0, the confidence intervals did not exclude 1.0 -- or stated differently, at p<0.05, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected.
On those days, I like to switch from work on the computer to work with my hands, like wrenching on a project in the garage. It won't get me any progress on my computer-based work, but it will give me a sense of progress on my garage-based projects, and it will leave me recharged for the next day.
That, and more coffee.
Still quite common to encounter elemental cadmium in other contexts, too. I'm around it all the time while working on my race cars where (at least in amateur circuit racing in North America), the use of cadmium-plated "AN" and "MS" fasteners is extremely common. Ditto for aviation.
SEEKING WORK | Remote (based in Denver, Colorado, USA)
EMBEDDED FIRMWARE and HARDWARE
Got an embedded programming challenge you need solved? I'll solve it!
14 years of experience, and I've seen it all; for the past decade I've been exclusively consulting independently. Past clients have included companies large and small, with everything from green-field ideas for new products to tricky situations with existing products they needed fixed. Comfortable working under regulatory constraints; many of the projects I've worked on have been medical devices.
C is my bread and butter on the embedded side, and Python is my go-to for developing PC utilities and scripts, but I'm comfortable working in a lot of languages from assembly all the way up to Javascript when needed. I can even patch embedded binaries by hand when needed.
Architectures? Well, these days it's mostly ARM Cortex, but I've done everything from 8051 and 6502 to STM8 to PIC16/24 to all of the modern stuff, plus a handful of really obscure things. Specific chip families that I've dealt with a lot lately include STM32, nRF5x, and PIC16, but again, I've successfully worked with MCUs from NXP, SiLabs, Renasas, Atmel, Nordic, Microchip, and various other vendors.
Super comfy with Linux, though most of my practice is bare-metal or with true RTOSes.
Bespoke drivers need development? No problem. USB, I2C, SPI, CAN? Yup, all of those and more. BLE, LoRa? Expert. Power optimization for battery operation? I squeeze out every last nanoamp -- and can quantify the improvement.
BS in EE. I have a fully equipped lab bench, including for RF out to 8 GHz. Bringing up boards, debugging hardware, and consulting on hardware improvements are all no problem. I do embedded hardware design, too, if that's what you need.
US citizen, masters from Stanford.
Feel free to reach out and let's see if there's a good fit. Thanks!
jeff@nesota.com
While well-intentioned, I wonder if this will lead to something like the "sesame" debacle[1], in which is becomes far cheaper and easier for companies to deliberately design digital devices so as to be absolutely unrepairable -- even by the manufacturers themselves -- rather than provide parts and instructions for 3rd parties to effect repairs.
[1] https://reason.com/2022/12/23/why-is-sesame-suddenly-in-ever...
Haven't touched it in over 20 years, and kind of surprised ICQ was even still around, but so many memories from the '90s. Good night, sweet prince.
-- 10923345
The interactive visualization is pretty great. Try zooming in on the slices and then scrolling up or down through the layers. Also try zooming in on the 3D model. Notice how hovering over any part of a neuron highlights all parts of that neuron:
http://h01-dot-neuroglancer-demo.appspot.com/#!gs://h01-rele...
I've worked on the hardware and firmware design and implementation for many medical devices, almost all of which were approved via the 510(k) process. I always found it a mixture of amusing and bemusing that we'd have to tell the FDA, effectively, "Look at how similar this thing is to existing stuff!" while at the same time telling the Patent Office, "Look at how new and novel this thing is!"
In terms of total compensation, I probably pay myself about what I would make at one of the big tech companies. (Side note: before changing to consulting, I did spend several years working as an engineer in a "real" job at a large medical device company.) The real appeal to me is twofold: first, I have strong control over my time; and second, I get to see and work on a very wide range of interesting projects and challenges. You can certainly get all of this in a traditional job as well, but my personal opinion is that it's easier to find it as a consultant.
Yup, self-employed embedded firmware and hardware engineer. I mostly consult on things like wearable sensors (especially class 2 and class 3 medical devices) and industrial control systems. I also have a bit of an odd niche in phosphorescence-measurement instruments for research and practical applications. The closer to the metal, the better! The tighter the power requirements, the better! The more connected, the better!
Been doing it independently for almost 14 years now. Was based in Minnesota, but now I'm in Colorado. Wouldn't have it any other way.
Exactly this: my 96-year-old grandma still uses Wordpad to write letters that she then prints out and mails to the family -- just like she has been doing for almost 25 years. There's definitely a niche for Wordpad.
I was one of the Kickstarter backers of this, with my purchase/commitment happening on October 19, 2013.
Gabe (the guy making the oscilloscope watch) sent updates every few days for the first month or so, then roughly monthly into 2014, then a few times in 2015, then a pause, and then a few updates in late 2018 and early 2019. After that, it was radio silence for over four years until July 30th of this year, announcing that the devices were actually going to ship.
To say I never expected to actually get the watch after, say, 2015 would understate things considerably. In fairness, I still have yet to actually receive it.
Except breast cancer screening, at least via mammography, doesn't save lives. See, for example: https://thennt.com/nnt/screening-mammography-for-reducing-de...
The key to knowing when to when to quit is being financially able to quit in the first place.
A lot of people get stuck and are unable to afford to quit.
Yup, here's the HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33464494