Linear components are pretty nonlinear -- and parasitics don't tell the whole story. | Continue reading
And chemistry, I guess | Continue reading
It’s fascinating how these vascular bundles, containing xylem and phloem, are arranged in a ring located beneath the skin (periderm) and the cortex. | Continue reading
Does electricity travel at the speed of light?... does light? Yes and no - and you'd be hard-pressed to find an explanation that has an intuitive physical basis. | Continue reading
And how do we derive its value for sine waves? | Continue reading
A simple question that takes some effort to answer in a satisfying way. | Continue reading
AGENT: I am prescribing vardenafil 5 mg for you. | Continue reading
A quick look at the physics of conductors, insulators, and electric charges. | Continue reading
Interior of a low-rise office park. | Continue reading
When it comes to infosec, there are certain mistakes that most companies are more or less bound to make. | Continue reading
RP2040, ESP32, AVR, CH32V003, STM32...? When it comes to hobby projects, there's plenty of choice and just as much zealotry. | Continue reading
I apologize, but there won't be any Insane Clown Posse jokes in this article. | Continue reading
A quick intro to interfacing common OLED displays to bare-metal microcontrollers. | Continue reading
A closer look at a fashion trend in printed circuit board design. | Continue reading
One of the simplest and best-known computing devices on the planet is a fascinating study in interface design. | Continue reading
"Build a product, not a platform" is a common saying among tech entrepreneurs. But why do some platforms succeed? | Continue reading
Reverse-engineering hardware can be difficult -- but sometimes, all you need is a comfy armchair and some Google Translate. | Continue reading
Don't copy that floppy, or why our views of technological progress are not always rooted in reality. | Continue reading
They won't be able to find bugs in your code if they can't figure out how it works. | Continue reading
Making a nicer version of a forgotten, electronic Etch-A-Sketch toy. | Continue reading
Just say no to LM741 and LM324 / LM358. | Continue reading
Let that sink in: the most popular tool for teaching electronics makes the trade harder to learn. | Continue reading
A quick overview of prototyping and part duplication with RTV-2 silicone molds and castable polyurethanes. | Continue reading
Diffusion and drift currents: depending on what you're trying to do, photodiodes can be really fast or infuriatingly slow. | Continue reading
The performance of photodiode amplifiers can be improved in a clever way. | Continue reading
There's very little written about natural phosphorescence. Let's design a device that can spot it in the wild. | Continue reading
Involute gears are everywhere: toys, kitchen appliances, cars. But what's so special about their shape? | Continue reading
A closer look at op-amp feedback loops and the stability criteria for circuits that use them. | Continue reading
Photodiodes are the most versatile light-sensing components. They are also commonly misunderstood. | Continue reading
Computers happened not because of Charles Babbage, but because of the invention of electronically-controlled intermediate data storage. | Continue reading
A continuation of the gentle intro to analog signal filtering. In today's episode: the Sallen-Key topology. | Continue reading
A quick 18-month experiment to shed light on traditional woodworking lore. | Continue reading
In which the author tilts at windmills for a brief while. | Continue reading
ML-based image enhancement models are great. Unfortunately, some of them are great only once. | Continue reading
Yes, they throw snow. But the mechanical design of residential snowblowers is more interesting than it seems. | Continue reading
Lithium batteries are making everything better. So why do mid-size electric power tools suck? | Continue reading
A middle-aged computer expert opts to escape civilization, offers dubious life advice. | Continue reading
The internet's oldest pastime finally has a purpose -- and it's more serious than AI companies would like to admit. | Continue reading
Some intuition about this topic can be developed without summoning the ghost of Pierre-Simon Laplace. | Continue reading
C is beautiful yet full of horrors. Here's to uncovering its hidden depths. | Continue reading
A glimpse of the missteps of x86 in the embedded world. | Continue reading
Buckle up for another unnecessary excursion into the bowels of history. | Continue reading
Eight-bit microcontrollers aren't relics; they are a design philosophy. You might want to use them more. | Continue reading
Fake content is here to assault your remaining senses. | Continue reading
The ups and downs of publishing non-commercial content on the internet. | Continue reading
A little-known offshoot of the ATmega series of 8-bit microcontrollers is better, faster, and cheaper than its progenitor. | Continue reading
My abortive adventures with VC money in the Bay Area. | Continue reading
Going from pixels to usable graphics with an ST7789 display hooked up to a generic microcontroller. | Continue reading