rct42

Senior Android Developer | Firmware Engineer

Location: New Zealand Contracts: Yes Remote: Yes (flexible with time zones) Willing to relocate: Not currently (site visits possible depending on location) Technologies: Android application development (Kotlin, Jetpack, RxJava, BLE, MVVM, Android NDK), embedded systems (C, nRF52/nRF91/STM32, Zephyr RTOS, BLE, LTE-M, MQTT, sensors and instrumentation), Python (process automation) Résumé/CV: send me an email Email: rct42.consulting2 [at] gmail.com

About me: I am a senior software engineer with 12+ years of experience, specializing in embedded systems (10+ years), Android application development (5+ years), Python (5+ years) and technical leadership (5+ years). Does your team require expertise in Android app development, embedded systems or some uncommon experience of the two? If so I could be the person you're after. Open to fixed term contracts or FTE.

Exactly. While the marathon is an endurance event, the intensity when racing is often higher than 65% VO2 max - the "fat max" or point at which fat oxidation peaks. For example, for a 3 hour marathoner (or faster), the intensity would be around 74-84% VO2 max or 80-90% max heart rate. It has also been observed that going on keto reduces your running economy (so you end up running slower for the same effort).

As for "hitting the wall", this often happens around 20 miles as this is where your stored glycogen is depleted. To avoid this happening, you'd be better off to "train the gut" to handle consuming ~60g carbs per hour while running at your target pace/intensity.

I would guess they evaluated it at 8 min/mile pace because a more typical speed for evaluating running economy (e.g, 16 km/h or ~6:00 pace) might be a bit tough for cyclists who don't run. Especially since you'd need to do 5 minutes or more at said pace to make a meaningful determination of RE.

Indeed. To put some numbers to this, here's an account of a 90 km ride I did several years ago:

I was roped into a team entry for a Half Ironman. Despite being more of a runner, I did the 90 km bike leg which was effectively a solo "time trial" (no drafting allowed) on a standard road bike with clip on aerobars. After averaging 35.0 km/h on the mostly flat (~600m elevation gain) course, I was exhausted. The SRM Powermeter I borrowed for the race said I had averaged a "measly" 215 W!

My use-case is large (1000+ page) datasheets. Fortunately these pdfs tend to come with chapter bookmarks. I also search for keywords and/or just look at the section I'm interested in at the time. I'll often print out key pages. I have also found using a mouse with an infinite scroll wheel (e.g., Logitech M500) to be invaluable.

They've released their open-source version of the app, OpenTrace

https://github.com/opentrace-community/

Interesting in the Android version they request ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION (i.e., access to GPS) instead of ACCESS_COURSE_LOCATION (i.e., access to BLE). They have also include Firebase analytics (which captures city-level location data) into the app as well.

I've heard good things about both irons! About to order one myself for field work and looks perfect for most use-cases.

(I personally have a Metcal PS900, very happy with it)

Same for me. My note book is A4 sized (lots of space), has a hard cover (easy to write with while out "in the field") and the pages are not easily removed (so I don't loose notes).

While I do write a lot of notes in it, I also like to draw block diagrams and high level designs of systems.

While some of this could be done on a tablet, I also try to reduce the amount of screen time on my eyes. I started this habit since starting my Masters 10 years ago.

Something I've appreciated after replacing Windows with Ubuntu on most of my machines is the ability for me to take its SSD out and put it in another computer. Really handy for travelling.

While I could get a small laptop for portability, its pretty hard to match the price/performance of a desktop. Also like how I can put together a desktop that is really quiet (PC has a NH-D15) even while under high load.

Unfortunately, iffy IDEs are pretty common in the embedded world. I too dislike Keil's uVision IDE, but sometimes you need to take the bad with the good. At work I use Keil + MDK-Pro and now and again also use ETM trace for debugging really tricky problems. AFAIK armcc also produces higher performing binaries than arm gcc (but this probably irrelevant in a lot of use cases).

I haven't used MicroPython and suspect it wouldn't suit my use case. I often have to design things that run on battery power (sometimes a CR2025) and so the firmware needs to be quite lean. Also most of the time is typically spent interfacing to hardware and peripherals so using something other than C wouldn't make sense.

I find that I'm more productive prototyping algorithms in Matlab than in Python. In fact, I tend to write it first in Matlab, port it to Python, and finally port it to C (to run on an embedded device)!

As for Octave, I've used it a couple times in the past but found the environment underwhelming (especially so when creating plots). I also tend to run into various compatibility problems when running scripts developed in Matlab.

Coming from someone who is a hardware/firmware engineer, that's also what I'd do.

Developing hardware is hard and costly. If you are looking to create a consumer-based product, this would be especially true. There's no way you'd be able to manufacture your product as cheap as getting a manufacturer to supply you with a OEM version of their product, let alone having to amortise the R&D cost spent in developing it! And generally speaking, the cost is the bottom line in a consumer-based product.

This is what the Wyze Cam does. They've created a really nice product, but there's no way they'd be able to sell it for $25 had they also developed and manufactured the hardware themselves.

Socialise more. Get a girlfriend. Commercialize a side project. Run the New York Marathon!