p-funk

We did a lot of blind testing, but blind testing takes more effort and we were always swamped. Usually the engineers would just test things ourselves, and then I would give my boss a blind test for the final approval.

At my last company, we tested tons of combinations of class D modules with various power supplies, and the best sounding results tended to be with linear power supplies. Don't get me wrong, there's tons of tricky stuff when it comes to the subjective side of audio, so it may be at least partially placebo effect. But we pretty consistently found that off the shelf switching PSUs sounded worse subjectively, even if they measured the same on the bench.

I haven't been doing audio for a while, so I don't remember more of the details. But audio signals tend to need all their power in short bursts all at once, when a low frequency bass note hits for example, and so the transient current tends to be much more important than a stable voltage rail. A lot of switching supplies do not optimize for this. Well designed versions can both sound great, but a cheap linear supply is going to sound much better than a cheap switcher. Audio is stuck with 1960s technology for the most part anyway though.

This youtube channel has (seemingly good quality) Khan Academy style lecture videos on control systems, if you just want a quick introduction to the concepts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThoA4amCAX4

Location: Cincinnati, OH

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies:

-Embedded systems: C/C++, Arm core microcontrollers, Atmel, Cypress, STM32, etc.

-Web: HTML, CSS, Javascript, React

-Other: SQL, MongoDB, Catch2, Mocha, AWS, C#, some Rust, some Python

Résumé/CV:

  pmusgrave.github.io/contact

  github.com/pmusgrave

  https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-musgrave-74818842/

Email: ps.musgrave+hn@gmail.com

Hi, I'm Paul, I'm a software engineer. My latest project is an IoT home automation system and dashboard in React that ties together a lot of microcontroller projects I built. I've previously designed high quality pro audio equipment and developed software in the structural engineering industry.

SEEKING WORK | CINCINNATI, OH | REMOTE OK

Technologies: C/C++, embedded systems, STM32, hardware design, signal processing, audio

Resume:

  https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-musgrave-74818842/

  pmusgrave.github.io/contact

Email: ps.musgrave+hn@gmail.com

Hi everybody, I have about six years experience in product development and embedded systems. I've primarily worked in the pro audio industry, but I'm interested in any type of embedded work, firmware, IoT, manufacturing, etc. For the past year or so, I've been doing a mix of developing my own products and some contract work. I can help with prototyping, product development, firmware development, bringing new products to life, and getting things to market.

Location: Cincinnati, OH

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: C/C++, embedded systems, STM32, hardware design, signal processing, audio

Resume:

  https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-musgrave-74818842/

  pmusgrave.github.io/contact

Email: ps.musgrave+hn@gmail.com

Hi everybody, I have about six years experience in product development and embedded systems. In the past, I've primarily worked in the pro audio industry, but I'm interested in any type of embedded work, firmware, IoT, manufacturing, etc.

I suppose the implication is that the "you" in the title is your conscious experience and in reality, you are the sum of your conscious and unconscious processes with all of their inherent perceptual distortions.

Not sure if this one is going to be any easier, but I've been slowly going through Max Born's Atomic Physics after I picked up it used for really cheap. I like the way he goes through each step historically and presents quantum mechanics as a progression of discoveries based on what people were thinking at the time, which for me made it easier to reason about.

I've had multiple bad experiences with Amazon Logistics. They routinely ship things 2-3 days late and update the tracking information with some nonsense about "attempting to deliver the package but no one was home," which I don't buy for a second. They also routinely deliver to the wrong address. One time tracking information was updated to "delivered" and my package showed up at the building next door to mine 3 days later. I came close to canceling prime the last time this happened.

What rankings have you been seeing? Javascript is on top of the list from what I've been seeing.

https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/#technology

I've been planning a side project with a lot of those features. That's exactly how I think about my budgeting and that's exactly how I would like to allocate my money. I'm really not aware of any way to do this currently, apart from a lot of manual work in a spreadsheet, which is annoying and still requires restraint in spending. Mint isn't even that helpful when it comes to budgeting because their alerts and categories are always inconsistent and they change categories that you've set for no apparent reason. Not to mention the ads.

Unfortunately, getting data from bank accounts is a pain due to bank security. The approach I was going to use just to get started was to export Mint's data as a csv, and then build an app around that until I read up on the bank transaction formats that would let you pull your transaction history. Not ideal, though.

I think tvanantwerp's point wasn't that you shouldn't attempt to know yourself, but that you should try to do so in a way that doesn't ascribe labels arbitrarily, such as "morning person" or "evening person". Not all aspects of identity can fit into such boxes. Otherwise, there's quite a risk of reifying the label and thinking that everything the label describes must describe you too.

Thanks for the advice. This is basically what I've been doing for the past year, every spare second I've had devoted to side projects. I don't think my expectations are too out of whack because whenever I've gotten a code challenge from an employer, it was pretty easy and I made it through to the next round. But it probably takes longer to build up a portfolio that is actually meaningful.

Not really. I'm in audio, so mostly analog with a bit of microcontroller experience.

I guess it might be easier at a bigger company like that, so I could focus more on those types of roles. Thanks for the ideas. Just have to keep at it I guess.

I'm sorry if this is off topic, but I'm just looking for some advice I guess. I'm currently an electronics engineer in NY and I've been trying to switch to something in software for about a year now because there are essentially no electronics jobs here in my field. I've had a hard time convincing employers how my electronics experience is relevant or how well it would translate to a software role, because, basically, no one knows what electrical engineers actually do, much less how similar it is to software engineering. How do I convince people that I'd be a good hire, despite not having "production" software experience apart from a few embedded projects? I know for certain I can do the work, I just don't know how to prove that to someone doing the hiring.

Since you mentioned Indeed, I thought I'd mention I had a similar sort of "resume black hole" experience. For a long time, I wasn't really thinking and just applied through those job board sites, directly from the posting. Later, I started using those sites just to research companies, and then go to the company site and apply there, and all of sudden I get five responses in a week. If there's no company listed, a lot of times you can google portions of the job description and it leads to a real company. My resume formatting would often be messed up by the job board sites, so it probably went straight to the garbage. There's really no reason to go through a recruiter if you can avoid it.

As a candidate, I'm the most excited when there are short contract/work sample coding challenges that are problems directly related to the job I'm applying for, and I wish more companies did them than whiteboard stuff. It tells both parties the most information out of all of those options. To the employer: "Can this person do the job, or not?" Pretty simple. To the candidate, I think a coding challenge can tell you a lot about the company and what type of work you're going to be expected to do. I think it weeds people out much more effectively than whiteboarding. Making time for this part of thing is part of the job search, the same as scheduling an onsite.

> so far The dangers of AI are theoretical ones that will show up if AI reaches somewhere close to human levels of competence. The fact that it doesn't work well right now should be compared to computers speed today vs computers not being very fast in the 1960s, for example. I'm not totally sure about the "singularity" concept. But I also think today's level of sophistication should not mean any and all concerns about AI should be dismissed outright.

Musk's hype of AI is his response to reading Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence.

Personally, I'd rather have the people working on AI be the ones who are aware of the potential theoretical pitfalls, rather than someone who is not aware of any pitfalls and rushes full steam ahead.

Literally the only place I've been able to find that successfully keeps comments sections on topic.

There are some modified versions of CBT that some people use with more of a focus on mindfulness. There's one called DBT, dialectical behavior therapy. For me, this was like all the benefits of CBT but with a much easier way to get to there. Although, I'm not sure what the research evidence is like for DBT. But I definitely agree that CBT feels extremely similar to mindfulness. Mindfulness is just sort of another approach to the same end result, and certainly might not be the right approach for everyone.

I think emptiness can serve as a sort of reference to keep things in perspective, but I'm just as unsure as you are how capable emptiness is as a philosophy. I think, mainly, it can be a tool to help you get closer to detached awareness of the present moment. If you aim to go from "a self who is being aware of the present moment" to "some poorly defined state of emptiness who is exists in the present moment", you sort of get closer to "being more aware of the present with less impulsive reactions" by default. But, like many things, you can take it too far and the idea kind of falls apart somewhere.

Pretty cool. I've experienced a similar type of synaesthesia but it was based on rhythmic patterns for me. For instance, I was listening to a song that was in 3/4 or 6/8 or something, and I saw a really distinct triangle pattern. And then the album changed to 4/4 and became more of a square.

Doesn't it follow, regardless of causality, that if Facebook were just as good as face-to-face social interaction, then there would be no difference in happiness levels between people who use Facebook and those who don't? If Facebook had a positive impact on people's lives, then there would be a similar positive correlation in using Facebook compared to seeing someone in person.

Maybe there isn't enough proof to say "Facebook is toxic", but it certainly seems true that Facebook is not as good as real human interaction.

I was really looking forward to this phone. Lack of headphone jack = instant dealbreaker.

>once you want to use a microphone you're dealing with different pinouts

This is true, but ultimately they are all variations on the 1/4" phone plug, which has been a standard across multiple industries since the advent of the telephone. Adding another ring to a TRS, or changing the pinout, is a minor variation compared to Apple's alternative. The phone plug is so ubiquitous that I think the comparison is valid.

You can be a knowledge worker and have a job that involves working on physical product / working with equipment you can't take home with you.

Procrastination is actually just a mild form of discomfort about what one perceives to be an overwhelming task. The "no zero days" mindset is excellent because it gets you past the initial discomfort and gets you into the stage where you're actually working on the thing. Once you are working on it, it becomes easier to keep working on it because you realize it isn't as bad as you perceived before you started.

The pomodoro technique is another thing that's commonly recommended, which is essentially the same. It helped me big time.

The great thing is that it applies to pretty much anything. Having trouble picking up a new programming language? Just look at the wiki on it and you'll probably find something that sparks your curiosity. Having trouble keeping up with exercise? Just walk for 1 minute and you won't want to stop. It's all about consistency over time.