When a question is asked, you can take your time answering. You don’t have to say the first thing that leaps into your head. It is ok take a few seconds to review it. Or if you draw a complete blank, there are ways to stall for time as you find the words. Let me share a few of those methods.
Read MoreHave you always wanted to have your own podcast? It is easy and fun and worthwhile.
… with a few caveats.
Read MoreChoosing between A and B is easy as long as you want one of them. But what if you don't know what you want?
Read MoreMentoring is an oddly popular topic in our email and slack channel: What is a mentor? How do you find one or be one? Should a company provide a formal program?
Read MoreThe thing you are doing in college is figuring out how to learn. The easy, fun, and interesting classes are essentially a waste of your tuition dollars and time. Sorry, but you can/would learn those things on your own. These annoying, boring classes are key to your success. Because if you figure out how to become interested in the classes you don't like, you will do better in industry (or higher academics).
Read MoreA friend asked if I have any tips on staying productive and happy working from home. He’s staying with his company but moving his home across the country.
It turns out I do, in fact, have tips!
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Stuart McAndrew and I were talking a little about code. He’s a coding newbie, reading many libraries in order to make progress on building his own satellite (OzQube-1). He asked an interesting question about making code for other people.
(Note: I would use ice cream to explain object-oriented programming. But that's not what this is about at all.)
Read MoreOnce upon a time, I met an early-career engineer weighing two job offers. My advice centered around interesting work and supportive teams. However, it is also important to understand your options.
Read MoreAs a nebulously-defined “Hackaday advisory judge”, I want to try out advising folks on their Hackaday Prize entries. On our podcast, I offered to take a look at a project and score it as I would if I were doing the contest judging. William offered up his last-year’s USB Tester as an example project.
Note: last year around this time, I wrote about how to win the Hackaday Prize on element14. That may be a better introduction to all this as I’m going to leap to details now.
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I’ve wanted to find a checklist to identify what issues should be of concern as I design and develop products. I haven’t found one that works so I’ll take a stab at making one, assuming an internet of things (probably wearable) device, a phone application, and a cloud server of some sort.
Read MoreHave you heard about the VW diesel emissions scandal? The software detects that the car is being tested for emissions and changes the engine to function more cleanly. When not being tested, the vehicles do not meet the US Environmental Protection Agency’s emission requirements.
I’m incensed at this. Oh, not because I own a VW (I don’t) or because I’m an environmentalist (I am). I’m angry because there is an embedded software engineer who wrote this code and allowed it to get released to production.
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