The Change Log Co-host
Appearances
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
On platforms like the web, it's so easy. You can get to that moment in minutes because you can load up their favorite web page and show them how to open up the dev tools and change the background color or something or delete a line and the title disappears. And you see that aha moment very quickly because And I know in embedded systems, a lot of times now it's the blinking lights, right?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
It's the Arduino or whatever it is. And that moment of turning a light on, that's so cool. When you mentor, when you teach, what do you do? How do you get people to that moment? What do you show them? And how long does that take? Because it has historically been considerably more steps in embedded than on platforms like the web.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
I had no idea it existed. How big is the chasm between... I'm able to use a simulator in Python or maybe it's even in C. Or I'm even able to get something onto some device and have it do stuff. And your world of I'm writing professional embedded software for autonomous vehicles that go underwater and sense things. How big is that chasm?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Well, there's a sideways application of Parkinson's law here, which, you know, Parkinson's law is the one that the scope of a project will expand to match the time allowed for the project. Something like this. That's a bad paraphrase.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
And I was just teaching my kids about budgeting this morning and was talking about how if you're not diligent that your lifestyle will expand to match the size of your income, right? Sometimes beyond. It's just kind of like a human nature thing. And I think our software expands to... you know, match the size of the hardware that it's running on to use every last bit.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
And has allowed for many of us, web developers like myself included, to be lazy and do things the easy way, the fast way, the cheap way. But in that embedded world where like every resource counts and it's heavily constrained, you must have to know all of the all the little tricks, the way to manage your memory so as not to bloat or leak. Do you like, I mean, you must like that.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
I mean, it's literally a constraint. Puzzle. The challenge of, yeah, it's a puzzle. Yeah. And to many of us, that would be a huge bummer, you know, because it's hard and there's things to do. But you must like puzzle solving a lot.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
There you go. There you go. Yeah. So what about open source? Has that permeated your crew yet?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
What's that?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Gotcha. And so the vendors of the device would provide like a set of filters for you to use?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Okay, because they've done those tests and they understand the sensors and their error rates and these other things.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Better than you do.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Yeah, I mean, after a while, you may understand them better than they do. But those used to be closed source or they used to be unavailable to you and now they're just provided.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
So you helped invent these things?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Gotcha. So you mentioned self-driving cars and you mentioned LIDAR. So I have to ask your take as an embedded person on Tesla's proposition that they can get to autonomous or whatever level you need to get to with cameras only. And then Waymo's using LiDARs. Other people are using LiDARs.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
How important is the LiDAR, do you think, pure opinion, versus having a bunch of cameras and letting that be your only input or your only data streams?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
That's what a lot of people say.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Right. Like all we have is eyes, right?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Okay. I'm tracking you.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
All right, we are here with Alicia White from Embedded FM. Alicia, welcome to The Change Log.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Nice to have you. See, you are on the other side of the microphone, so to speak, as a longtime podcaster. I think you've done 491 episodes, if the most recent one on your homepage is in fact the highest number.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Right. Yeah, I think your point about the horizontal scale, Alicia, if that's just the way I'll say it, is that we have crazily bad 16-year-old drivers... But it's not like at a specific moment in time, this percentage of all cars on the road are going to turn into that.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
The error that happens spread across a fleet of cars all running the same software, for instance, that makes the same mistake all at once. is catastrophic. Of course, the famous or infamous, I think this was the one that the first Tesla that killed somebody that was in FSD mode was because it came over a hill and the sun was coming up And the sun shone into all the cameras at once.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
I'm just giving my depiction of what happened. It's roughly that. And the thing, I mean, it couldn't handle it. Well, of course, a human couldn't handle that either because your eyes are completely blinded. And so likely, maybe the same result in that one instance. But if something like that happens across 50,000 cars at the same time.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Oh, so it must be a new one out today. What's the most recent?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Oh, I see it right there. You know what? I scrolled right past it. Two oscillators oscillating other oscillators, which is a great title.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
One of the reasons why I've been tentatively positive about this progress is because of how many accidents there are and because how distracted and bad we are at driving, even though we are amazing, Alicia, to your point about the actual physicality of observing the world that we're in and that connection between our hands and our eyes being just grounded in, I don't know, biology.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
We're pretty amazing computers. But I don't think these cars have to get so good to be better than us because we have so many failure rates already. The failure rate's very high. That being said, it does seem fraught. It's always been, it's 18 months around the corner for the last 10 years. There's progress being made. I mean, Waymo is opening in new cities.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
It seems like maybe a city-by-city rollout, and I believe they have LiDAR involved as well, is working. They also, I think they have a call center, I believe. I could be spreading fake news, but I think they have actual humans, not in the loop, but available in order to take over a car if need be. That seems like a good fail-safe. There's progress being made, but it does seem like
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
I love that. Yes. That is my brand. That's your brand.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
I don't want to call it an impossibility, but at this point, I just don't feel like we're close.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Right. And a smaller problem set.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
I need to invest in a smart rock company because we're going to be selling a lot of smart rock. Yeah.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
That's crazy. What do the scripts do for you?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
It's just a world that I've not been introduced to, so I don't know what exists. Yeah. But yours is custom curved origami that you want to make. Yes. And so your scripts give you the crease lines.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Well, you started a podcast called Embedded. So at a certain point, you decided to embrace it, at least.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
No, we're with you. We are with you. I'm listening.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Right. You just know that somebody else is there doing something. It's a connection.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Yes. Love it. It seems like the, you said you get intimidated by mechanical and it seems like the pusher would be the... the hardest part of that, maybe you could utilize gravity to just have like, you know, an opener and shutter versus a pusher. And then you're dropping the pellets in. I'm not sure how triggers work.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Binder clip.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Like during your interview with her?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
We've gotten so many amazing links from this conversation. Are there others? If we're like Alicia, what's another cool thing you just showed us? Chibitronics first. Firstinspires.org is the first robots people met or met. Adam pointed us to Crunch Labs. Of course, we have MicroPython, Adafruit, the WalkWe. What else you got?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Oh, Hackaday I'm well aware of. What was the first one you said?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
And privacy too, which those two are kind of eternally linked, aren't they now? Because being able to throw a smart rock into a river and monitor things is awesome. But being able to throw it into my pool and monitor my swimming, maybe not so much. Just for instance, you know?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
The Internet of Things. And also, for IoT makers out there, you know, just leave us physical buttons. You know, like give us, let us opt out every once in a while and just use the dishwasher without having to launch an app. Oh, yes.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
No. I never want almost any. Sometimes you're like, oh, this actually is kind of nice. Once you start using the feature, you're like, yeah, I kind of appreciate this, but it was never.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Yeah, it never has sold me on any piece of appliance.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
But you know, those... Those bits of information that they're showing to you can also just seep out of your local area network and into the hands of somebody.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
You know, someday you're going to get an email from a hacker and he's going to be like, Adam, you're out of underwear.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Okay? All right, Alicia. I assume the website is embedded.fm. Where else can folks connect with you?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Look for the one with a robot.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Congrats.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
There you go. Or one of those things you can touch that we know like Alicia is still there. She can just send a sensor to the conf. Still here. Like light up a light, you know, blinking lights. We hear you like those.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
um heaters no because i'm really neurotic about setting the house on fire but what if it was water cooled or water warmed warm water yeah smart rocks i'm just i never got over that i'm like he just said smart rock and i'm like that's that's new to me you're dumb as a rock no you're smart as a rock i know it's like a whole new world where rocks are smart cats and dogs living together
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Or something. I don't know. See well enough.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
But that'd be so cool. Oh, yeah. I have the... I still have the pie. Okay. and I was using it for something. I was using it as a, what's that thing called, the blocker pie? The pie hole. Yeah, I was using it as a pie hole, and then I quit using that, and I'm using XDNS instead. And so the pie is just sitting down there, and it's relatively close to the freezer.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
I just want to make sure, at least here we have, we buy like half a cow once a year kind of a thing, and like that's very expensive.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
So what are some non-computers that you've programmed?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Smart rocks. Is that what you call them? Smart rocks?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
Wow. Okay. Never heard of that.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
You can't top that one, can you?
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The world of embedded systems (Interview)
You've done a lot of cool stuff. How did you get into this world?