By all and C U next time

CU all 

By all

By now -- got to go -- have a conf call scheduled with Texas Instruments -- C U next week -- Max

nice article Max , see ya Duane 

They use traditional instruments like viola and they play heavy metal song it sounds very nice 

I guess it is that time. The day job is calling.

see ya embedded

Nemos - my kids introduced me to that band a while back.

@Duane - it is nice solution indeed...

@nemos: very nice indeed -- it reminds me of my home-made ukulele

Bye

Ok, I will also get back to my work guys..It was pleasure talking to you all.

Embedded - The Cymbet web site has a for to enter to win an eval kit - I'm going to enter.

:P , see ya Warren 

where you was hidden  Warren ? 

See ya Warren

Got to go. Till next week. BCing U.

bye Adam

@Duane - true

Bye Adam 

Bye Adam

Sadly i need to go until next time brethern 

Max - "running on a potato" - bad for the knees but good for the stomach.

for closing ....

@Max, (re: lots of stuff to blog about) Yes... getting there :-)

@Duane: "it was running on a potato"

That's got to be bad for your knees :-)

I have ever heard of Solid State Energy Storage chip? It is kind of cool chip.

www.cymbet.com

MSP430's are pretty amazing... how little power they use!

@RF: Well, there's lots of stuff you could blog about...

Adam - It was a MSP430 16 bit MCU driving the clock.

@Duane- Yes, I have seen something similar...only difference is it was running on potato.

@duane that sounds very interesting power management is a major issue for me 

Energy harvesting is an interesting field. One year at the Embedded Systems conference, Ti was shoing a digital clock powered by three grapes. With chips that run on thet little amount of power, a lot is possible.

@Max,  Can't blog on the neural network stuff... or at least not in any real detail.  This is world-changing stuff.

RF come on we need you here 

@RF- I guess Nike has also done something similar on this line...if I am not mistaken the shoes are for golf.

@rfindley: "Will eventually be VHDL in FPGA."

When are you going to start blogging about all of this here on APP?

Rfindley - That is cool. I want those in my shoes.

@Max,  for now, yess, it's C/C+ .  Will eventually be VHDL in FPGA.

@max a friend of mine did a PhD in it a few years ago 

@Rfindley: You are experimenting with artificial neural networks in C/C+ ... right?

@Adam: "there are genetic algorithms..."

I LOVE the concept of genetic algorithms -- when I was at the University of Norway earlier this year I say an FPGA-controlled robot spider using GAs to learn how to walk .... creepy...

Speaking of energy harvesting:

http://www.gizmag.com/in-shoe-energy-harvester/19623/

Duane - you need to patent this idea...

embedded - That would be green, I suppose.

@Duane  we will put a ground to the balloon of wool 

@Duane - are you talking green? :)

there are genetic algorithms that is kind of like knitting

@Duane, you could harvest the static buildup to power wearable computing!

@nemos: "my grandmother knows"

What's her email address? (grin)

Maybe you coudl ask her to knit one for all of us :-)

Of course, you might need to carry a ballon around and rub it on the hat while walking around to generate enough of a static charge.

hmhmmmm

how about makinf some FPGA based logic to do knitting....

Max - re knitting - Maybe I can use wool yarn and then learn about energy harvesting by capturing the static electricity from the wool in motion.

knittingplanet.com I can see it now ;)

my grandmother knows do you want to tell her about it @MAX ???

Max, Rfindley - In high school, I started digital electronics by building inverters and buffers from transistors. That made it a lot easier to visualize the inner workings of the chips.

I remeber asking my electronics prof, why thyristors are fired and not triggered? I did not receive any convincing stories... :)

@Duane: "Max - knitting is not one of my talents"

You said that about FPGAs, and I managed t opersuade you t olearn them from scratch and write a series of blogs about it...

Why don't you just give in now and order some knitting needles and save both of us a lot of time? (grin)

@rfibdley: "The logic gates were an abstract idea to me at the time."

I know what you mean -- I couldn't see how logic gates worked because the symbols didn't show power supplies -- it was only when I saw how they were formed out of transistors that it all made sense...

Max - knitting is not one of my talents

hahaha what the ... is that ?? 

@embedded,  True :-).  I recently won a Kindle Fire in the 'Geek Games'.  Maybe it will support apps.  I know it is based on Android.  I might have to 'root' it first though.

As a total aside -- have you seen those beanie hats with fake beards (click here) ... way too exoensive, but I really want one ... does anyone know how to knit?

Well you are talking about your wireless plan which is cheap but you can definately have handset which can do a lot more :)

@embedded, no haven't seen CAT.  I'm just using a cheap Tracfone that costs me $6 per year.

@Rf Ahh ok , sorry 

@rf: Do you know the CAT app on iphone? It is pretty interesting...it is all about physics.

@Nemos, I mean that I didn't realize I was really learning digital electronics.  The logic gates were an abstract idea to me at the time.

"The 'Odyssey' comes from the storyline." dont forget I am from Greece 

My high school electronics teacher taught digital electronics, analog electronics, and even house wiring. The hosue wiring has helped with home projects, but I think it also helped to solidify my understanding of just what all of those electrons are doing out there.

The 'Odyssey' comes from the storyline.  Boy somehow gets trapped in this world full of only robots.  Have to program the robots to flip levers to turn off force-fields, etc, so you can escape.

"I'm amazed what I learned without really knowing what I was learning." I didnt get it ? ???

My friend who works at a school gets kids interested by entering the robotic lego competitions 

I dont know about the program (actually it sounds pretty good) but it has a nice name (Odyssey) :P

@Duane, thinking back, I'm amazed what I learned without really knowing what I was learning.

@Rfindley: That really does sound rather cool

@MAX - When I entered into engineering I was passionate and excited to do a lot as time progressed, I started loosing interest and more education I had more frustrated I became. I regain my excitement when I started working first time where my boss and myself would try to implement different solutions which were technically challenging...thats when I started loving engineering!

@Adam: "I think top down as we discussed the other day is good"

I'm still mulling this over -- you can only fit so many things into a kid's head -- you want to catch their interest and attention -- but a tthe end of the day my goal is to teach them about digital logic and FPGAs...

rfindley - Now that sounds like a great teaching tool.

The biggest challenge I see in teaching FPGAs to high school students is the overhead in the tool chain. I think a teacher could spend most of the term just teaching the use of the tools.

I started with BASIC ;) 

My greatest introduction to electronics (in a sense) was a computer program I played in Jr High School.  It was called Robot Odyssey.  You had a virtual toolbox full of logic gates, and you wired them up to your virtual robot's bumpers, thrusters, shape and color detectors, and antenna to get them to do various tasks, such as sort objects by color or shape.

@Embedded: "I first got exposure to programming in Frotran"

You have th eadvantage over me .. we coudl only afford FORTRAN when I was young, we couldn;t hope to use a cool language like FROTRAN (grin)

@max I think top down as we discussed the other day is good 

i think my first program was also in fortran and then c with some simple lab programms

@Warren -- that's back to the "hands on" thing again

I have all sorts of ideas churning aroudn in my head...

Thanks Max (y)

Lego robotics stuff- perfect 'gateway drug' into engineering...

@max ahhh I do follow now

@Nemos: "sorry not sure I follow"

Embedded means that it doesn;t matter what they are saying about you so long as they are saying something about you

I reember my days when I first got exposure to programming in Frotran...and importantly we were implementing Numerical methods without knowing it's significance...it was total exhaustive expereince

On electronics and computer science education- Maybe most engineers are 'hands on learners'. I didn't really get interested in electronics until a high school electronics teach put us in the lab. He had around 10 boards (actually built on wooden planks) with switches, relays, lights, etc. Each board had a different bug on it. We needed to figure out (with volt meters) what was wrong. I was hooked.

I have recently been checking out the online classes MIT has made available (videos of lectures) on Math, Computer Science, etc. Really great stuff. It has been a great way to refresh my math skills.

Educational gaming is the key factor for our kids  

@embedded: "popularity can be achieved by praising or bitching"

There's an old saying "It's when people STOP talking about you that you have to worry"

@nemos sorry not sure I follow

I've work with my kids, helped with Lego robotics in grade school and middle schools and worked in my son's boy scout troop to introduce technology. Lego Robots are great because you can get some pretty quick cool results. It also does a pretty good job of introducing a lot of hardware and software concepts without being overwhelming.

@embedded: "are you actively looking/ working on kids project?"

Not as such -- I've just been thinking about how to teach kids about FPGAs -- I'm going to write a blog about it sometime in the next few days (when I ge tsome free time ... Ha!)

i had my first programming experience in second year of my UG clases

@Nemos- popularity can be achieved by praising or bitching...atleast person become popular :)

rfindley, thats great to have a hands on in high school clasess

When I compare my high school electronics education, as well as after high school, to my kids', what I see is a problem in terms of the need for instant gratification. I was happy to wire up an LED and an inverter with a 2N2222 transistor. That was cool and amazing. Today, kids want to spend about the same amount of time to make an immersive 3D shooter game.

@MAX are you actively looking/ working on kids project?

Here (Sweden) they say that as much kick name you have as much famous you are ;) @Adam is that correct ? 

Max - re "people REALLY ARE saying bad things about you" Yeah, but people usually say bad things about me behind my back and ratherr than tell me about them, they just keep spreading the stories...

"In my opinion when kids get to correlate the new thing with their day-to-day activities then they can easily understand what going around." so true , I believe exactly the same 

@Max,  My first embedded experience was in high-school.  They had a Hero1 robot in my Physics class.  I learned to program it in Assembly.

So depending upon kids exposure you can choose where to start.

Max - re teaching the kids. I look back at my experinces learning electronics in high school while dosging dinosaurs. First, make the classes avaiable. Electronics and programming were some of the very first cuts here in my town when the economy went south.

@MAX - In my opinion when kids get to corerelate the new thing with their day-to-day activities then they can easily understand what going around.

@Duane: "Twitter seems to be suceptable to hacks. I fairly regulary get direct message tweets that say 'You should hear the bad things people are saying about you'"

Of course there's always the chance that these are real messages from your friends trying to let you knwo that people REALLY ARE saying bad things about you (I know I say bad things about you all the time :-)

@Duane,  Agreed.  I've had my twitter account hacked once, shortly after I opened it.  And I tend to use very high-strength passwords.

@embedded: "I think best way is hands on opportunity to kids"

I agree with that -- it's nice to see LEDs flashing in the real world -- but if you had to teach someone about electronics (assuming they actually want to learn) woudl you start with transistors and resistors and capacitors -- or with digital logic gates...?

Or, woudl you start much higher like with a robot -- makt it wave its arms around, then "work down" to the logic gates

rfindley - Twitter seems to be suceptable to hacks. I fairly regulary get direct message tweets that say "You should hear the bad things people are saying about you" or something to that effect, sent from legitimate user's accounts. Scams.

@max I might depends how much he learns ;)

once they start playing then it makes more sense to corelate it with theory

@adam: "I forgot I sent Dave on a EMC course"

Well, that explains why I haven;t heard from him ... I hope you don;t forget to bring him back...

I think best wat is hands on opportunity to kids

Nemos - "it is in our hands to make it better" I certainly agree on this one. I take a pretty hard line with my company's social media to limit self-serving content or at least label it as such.

ahhaha Adam nice "any comments on my hardware security blog are appreciated ;)"

@max I forgot I sent Dave on a EMC course so not had chance to talk to him yet re the education engineering scheme 

@Adam: "...any comments on my hardware security blog are appreciated ;)"

It was a very very nice blog :-)

FB has better security than Yahoo email ........

@myplanet any comments on my hardware security blog are appreciated ;)

@Myplanet: "So any particular topic for todays chat"

On ething I'm working on / mulling over in my mind / is the best way to teack young kids (like high school students) about digital logic design in general and FPGAs in particular

I use a company blog to primarily post technical huints and tips, i.e. we learn about the best way to lay out a board for some new chip and pass that information on, or we see common problems and post those as well as suggested solutions.

@Duane yes I agree but it is in our hands to make it better (with our participation) 

@Duane, I definitely agree re: Facebook.  My biggest concern, though, was security.  I know lots of people who got hacked via Social Engineering, and didn't even know for months.

Max, u r right. i think they only look for messages from friends or known peoples

@rf Skype it rocks, I think it is the best communication tool

So any particular topic for todays chat

I think linkedin is the most interesting, the groups are very interesting 

@Duane: I must admit that I post links to all of my articles on Twitter and Facebook etc... The problem is that I haven;t found any engineers who are using Twitter and Facebook to look for articles (grin)

Nemos - There certainly are engineering users of Facebook. I think adoption is growing, but from my experience, the majority of engineers still think it has too low of a signal to noise ratio.

Hi Max, i think am little bit late

@Max, I use Skype's text-chat/IM for communicating with people I'm working with.

facebook is like hollywood movies...you get in to forget

Max - We use Facebook to mostly post interesting (well, hopefully interesting) tidbits like pictures of our assembly machines, and events. I use Twitter to announce blog posts and sometimes chat with an engieer or two. Sometimes to announce events too.

@All: I agree tha tLinkedIn is useful for stuff lik efinding jobs and networking -- but what about the chats/discussion groups -- do you use those (to get your work done ... not just to chat)

I must admit I use facebook personally to have fun, I find lots of people react to comments which provides a little entertainment 

FW articles ,that I read , like your articles and posts 

Max - Twitter seems to be a bad thing when companies spend all day posting about "buy this", "We're great", "Me, me, me."

@Max so I broke the system ;) .....

@Benson and Nemos ... HOW do you use social networks for work?

I only use LinkedIn.  I use it for networking.  I have a twitter and facebook account, but never use them.

linkedin will offer better appreciation

"Most engineers I've heard from think it's a stupid waste of time." I dont think so ....

@nemos: "Max why I am still a Beginner ?"

I hav eno idea -- the ranking system is performed automatically according to som eobscure algorithm -- part of that algorithm searches for words of praise in close proximity to my name and rewards the person making the comments accordingly (well, if it doesn't, it should) ...

@max now linkedin is very useful for finding jobs and networking 

@max apart from www.tweetathief.com not for work 

Max - Facbook doesn't really do much good. Most engineers I've heard from think it's a stupid waste of time. I hear good things about linked in. Twitter can be a total waste of time, but it's finding a niche.

I too

me

Max - I do.

@Adam- finally, I guess, after months of experiment I felt pic32 is better and cost effective (in terms of IDE) solution

Does anyone here use "social networks" (twitter, facebook, linkedin) as part of their job -- as opposed to personal use like posting pics of the cat...

Max why I am still a Beginner ? 

sounds interesting 

pic32...

@ Adam you missed the whole picture 

@Adam -- Oh, I see -- I didn;t mean I was interviewing him for a job -- just that I was chatting with him so I can write a story for EE Times

@embedded what are you implementing it in >?

I'd also like to see something done with one of the old, old cathod ray signal strength indicators. Does anyone remember those?

@Adam ahahhaha

@max the chap you interviewed 

@Adam- well it's lot of struggle but fun

@Adam: "did he get the job?"

Who? What job?

One thing he's done is t mount a tri-colored LED under each of the four Nixie-Tubes -- he gets some amazing effects that way

mAX can I take an interview from a teacher in embedded systems 

@max did he get the job?

Nixi tubes are cool.

Embedded sounds more fun than mine althouhg it is a pretty cool solution we will be re configuring a xilinx in space 

HEJ hEJ mAX

cool

Hello Duane 

I was just interviewing a guy who has made th emost amazing Nixie-Tube Clock -- he will be talking about it at next week's Design East conference in Boston

well I am implementing embedded web server

Hello all

HAPPY THURSDAY!!!

hmmm we struggle out  

been hectic this week doing a bid lol 

yeah, how things are with you guys!

Hi Hi ,Hello 

how are we all, having a good week 

hi

evening

why I am a BEGINNER ,having more than 80 posts :P

"where my dear old mom lives." I like this phrase very much ;)  

Our weekly chat will commence on Thursday 13 September at 12:00 noon my time (Central Time), which is 1:00pm Eastern Time, 10:00am Pacific Time, and 6:00pm UTC/GMT in Sheffield, England, where my dear old mom lives.

As usual, we will follow our usual practice of leaping from topic to topic with the agility of young, fearless mountain goats, so make sure you're wearing appropriate clothing!