This post talks about my past few years of work doing hardware consulting and realizing just how many clients are looking for help building IoT projects. I’d like to offer more services to that segment of customers, so I need to take on more skills. In the process, I joined a startup that enables people just like me.
Some of the content of this article was also discussed on my podcast The Amp Hour, on episode 569
I had the honor of speaking at the 2018 Hackaday Superconference over the weekend. It is one of my favorite conferences of the year. The engineers and makers I met there are focused on using their creative energy to make the world a more interesting and better place. I posted a preview of this talk in my “Humble Indicator LED” post earlier this year. This later morphed into the talk shown below. It’s about circuit designs that I have found or used in my life to save products. Watch the talk here:
I proposed a talk to the Hackaday Superconference yesterday titled, “Improve your circuit toolbox: Simple designs that will save your next product”.
While I don’t know if the talk will be accepted, I thought it could be a good discussion regardless and thought I could write out some thoughts here. I haven’t been writing much lately and wanted to stretch my muscles again, so why not?
Yep, that simple of a circuit. Allow me to share a diagram:
For the audio fans out there: I discussed this topic on episode #358 of The Amp Hour
The past couple of years have been a mix of life events for me: I started my course full time, immediately jumped back into the work force (part time), traveled a bunch, started new projects, sold my old stuff, moved to Chicago, I met my podcast co-host in person and started my life over. It’s been a wild ride. Though there have been ups and downs, I’m super grateful for the opportunities I’ve had and the people I’ve been able to work with.
I’m writing from a plane to Australia, coming off a couple days of holiday in Queenstown, New Zealand. Something was tickling my brain that inspired me to start writing
By the end of my 5 days, I wasn’t exactly yawning at the mountains and beautiful scenery. But I also wasn’t snapping pictures of it non-stop like I did at the beginning of my trip. This is felt like the “hedonic treadmill“. Humans are very good at acclimating to the things in life, including the good things. I stopped to think about another way this acclimatization has impacted me:
Today I’m announcing a new project: Pro bono engineering. I will be offering a couple hours per week to those in need in an attempt to make a positive impact.
The concept of pro bono is nothing new. It is a common practice in law and medicine. Sometimes as a method for writing off hours at a tax break (though that is on shaky ground with the IRS) and sometimes as a public service; the American Bar Association recommends donating time to those in need to maintain good standing with the law community. And while engineering doesn’t really have a centralized organization for licensure (yes, the National Society of Professional Engineers acts as this for some fields), it is still an important thing to think about. Really it’s about helping people who are not able to afford services. Other precedents exist for this as well, like Engineers Without Borders (EWB), but I am not aware of this existing for electronics/tech projects.
While I have no guarantees of making it to 99, I like the idea that this birthday could potentially mark the first third of my journey to living to 99. Who knows? I could live even longer…or I could die tomorrow. Either way, I like the idea of being a third of the way to a destination; the numbers tickle my brain. It also presents a good time to pause between the acts in the play of my life and make some announcements.
I’m rounding out a stint of travel to Serbia, Germany, the UK and am now back in the states. It has been a wonderful experience, even if I am ready for a bit of quiet at home for a while.
One thing that strikes me as I travel to these foreign destinations and meet new people and experience new things: work stays the same.
This is the effect of spending a large percentage of time in front of a screen. No matter what the surrounding environment, with a wifi connection, a laptop and possibly a VPN, I can access the exact same setup as anywhere else. No surprise to most people, why should work ever change for an internet worker?
Despite my love of words, I have never actually picked up another language. I have “studied” both French and Japanese in school for multiple years, but neither of those stuck past a few phrases and vague recognition. While the courses are often emphasized in education, actual long term proficiency (or really long term practice) is never a priority. Thus, American kids don’t normally speak two languages unless a second one is learned at home.
I have been working on a new mode of connecting with others in the engineering community. It’s been a slog to get people to try it out and use it regularly, but I totally get it. I have so many modes of communication these days:
It really feels like a popularity contest. Any platform is only as good as the one with all the important people on it. This is called a “network effect“. Getting to that point is the hard part. Convincing enough people that it is worthwhile to spend time in one platform vs another.