Ask HN: Hardware for Software People
I am a software guy but always wanted to get into hardware a bit more. What are good books to read and tools to have to start hardware hacking?
I am a software guy but always wanted to get into hardware a bit more. What are good books to read and tools to have to start hardware hacking?
Remote: Yes
Relocation: Yes (though limited to planet Earth)
Technologies: Clojure, ClojureScript, JavaScript, Ruby, Scientific Computing, [something I don't know yet]
Careers 2.0: https://careers.stackoverflow.com/featureenvy
Contact: [email protected]
I don't like to retire and tell people who ask me that I spent my time making it possible for people to share more cat pictures. I would love to work on something a bit more meaningful. My goal with the master's was to end up in a multidisciplinary team where I could support scientists.
Currently in the process of getting a Master's Degree in Biomedical Engineering (mostly doing image analysis, coming from a Bachelor in Computer Science) and looking for a new challenge. Besides the two degrees I have worked for 2 years on web applications and web security development and have a four year apprenticeship (large scale Java web application) under my belt.
Or of course you could offer me good working conditions, a mentor and some time/money for conferences and other educational things, that would work, too.
I have extensive experience in large scale Java web applications from my four year apprenticeship in a big international bank. But I also have worked with Ruby on Rails and Javascript. In my free time I like to investigate new approaches to developing web applications. For example I am currently testing the waters with ClojureScript and Om, where I am trying to visualize herd immunity with WebGL.
So if you are looking for someone who likes to push the boundaries, doesn't accept "acceptable" as a solution and loves to learn new things (not just programming related!) then you should drop me a line so we can talk.
The only relocation restriction is that I want to continue working on planet Earth.
Stack: Ruby, Clojure, ClojureScript, JavaScript, [something I don't know yet]
Careers 2.0: https://careers.stackoverflow.com/featureenvy
Contact: [email protected]
Currently in the process of getting a Master's Degree in Biomedical Engineering (mostly doing image analysis, coming from a Bachelor's in Computer Science) and looking for a new challenge. Besides the two degrees I have worked for 2 years on web applications and web security development.
I don't like to retire and tell people who ask me that I spent my time making it possible for people to share more cat pictures. I would love to work on something a bit more meaningful. For example supporting scientists with visualization or replacing Excel files with a webapp. Considering my Biomedical Engineering background, biologist would be a perfect fit, but I would also accept mathematicians, physicists, and other scientists. As long as I can learn something new, preferably not just programming related.
Or of course you could offer me good working conditions, a mentor and some time/money for conferences and other educational things, that would work, too.
So if you are looking for someone who likes to push the boundaries, doesn't accept "acceptable" as a solution and loves to learn new things (not just programming related!) then you should drop me a line so we can talk.
Today with the internet, blogs, Github and other such things, I just don't get it!
For example Meteor goes into this direction, though there is still some server-side code involved, most of it is shared with the client, including database access.
Of course we still have long way to go to really abstract this out this far, but I think it will be possible in the future.
Generally software just doesn't work that way. (But maybe that was that you implied with "some contexts". In that case, I agree with you)
* I'm not saying they weren't trying out things until they decided how to land the Rover, but when they wrote the software they had very clear requirements.
Yes, two factor authentication is a small hassle. Yes, two factor authentication requires a bit to set up. But do you realize how much actually depends on your email account being safe?
For one, how many times did you use Googles OpenID provider? Yes, that's your Gmail account! Or for how many services did you use your Gmail account as the email address? You know that password resets go to that account, right?
Don't do that? Maybe you use Google Calendar, then. So yes, there is actually a lot of sensitive data in there. If you don't believe me, try to get a hold of a friends calendar, and see what you can guess about that person just from the calendar.
Or should someone just post some slander about you on you G+ profile? Or buy some apps from the Android Market? Of course this things never happen to you...
So just take the time to, besides looking at the time or the latest message on your phone, open that stupid app and type that stupid code in! It's not THAT much work!
It's nice that we could buy and old machine and program something on it. But at the same time we could do it in Javascript, on the web with a very pretty interface. So why should we trade all the knowledge, the tools and the languages that we (well, people like you how tend to get all nostalgic over this topic) have built and and write something on an archaic system?
I never had such an old system, yet at the same time, I understand the constraints more or less, I now a bit of assembler, C and still question where this knowledge is really benefiting me. (Though I do find it very interesting!)
If I want to have a constraint environment, I could join a JavaScript 1k challenge and also work with artificial constraints (at the same time I could still enjoy the modern tools, environments and even graphics).
Maybe I just really don't see the point.
And to your last point, I think a better approach would be to show our children either PyGame or even modding tools for modern games. I just don't think a young child would really be that interested in the archaic inner workings of a slow machine, but could be really interested in making mods. I'm not saying there are no such children around (I'm sure there are), I'm just questioning the approach here.
The one thing that puzzles me is that the numbers for burning have gone up. Who in the time of wireless networking, huge disk drives and USB sticks burns a DVD? I just can't see this segment growing 6% in a year.
I have one question though: Did you grandfather your old customers in? So you still charge them the old price and give them all features?
Another way, that the Meteor guys are trying (probably on top of training and consulting) is to sell an enterprise solutions. This solution will probably be an all in one appliance that enterprises can buy so they have an easy way to deploy and manage Meteor applications internally.
My point was, that, for example, language recognition doesn't need human intelligence, a statistical model is enough.
Or driving around a confined space only requires a particle filter, not human intelligence.
The rest I tried, and it does look really nice for real-time webapps, as soon as the Javascript development environment grows up a bit more.
The lessons are interesting, and I really like their concept of quizzes in the middle of the lessons. They just show the question on the video, he explains it, and they stop the video and you can choose which one is right, or type in the number.
The homework is also well done and enhances the knowledge from the course. I had a lot of fun doing the lectures each and every week. You probably want to put aside a set day and time when you will do it, though, or else it is easy to do other things and "do the lectures later".
If they continue like this, there is soon no reason to go to a university anymore. :) (which is a catch-22 since the lecturers are payed by universities...)
So learn a lot, even if it doesn't have anything to do with programming. Find something else that interests you. And then solve a problem in that domain with your programming skills.
Good luck, you seem to be on the right track!
Limiting yourself can be refreshing and ensure that we will still like the things we do in 10 years.
And beeing also a fellow introvert, I have to say, not geeking around on the PC doesn't have to mean going out with friends (though it should occasionally... ;)). There are a lot of great books and websites out there with fantastic content. For example I never knew so much about the whole skeptics movement (and the science behind it) without limiting myself from geeking out.
Limiting yourself can be a great thing!
Staying in a beginners mind is hard once you have spent some time with a technology. It also sometimes offers great points for the experts what could change, because it could be easier or is simply unclear.
Of course there are very simple-minded blogs with practically no content, but there are also simple-minded Github accounts that offer practically nothing. There are CVs for the same purpose. I don't think this has anything to do with blogging per se.
There you see how closely I follow this story... :)