Software Safety

Philway board house fire. One year later.

2012-01-22T14:59:00.000-05:00

One year ago this week, Jan/19/2011, the board house Philway burned to the ground. Philway was the oldest continually operating board house in the US. It was also my preferred PCB vendor, sharp people and good quality for the rugged environments I deal with.

At the time Philway burned down, they were not sure if they were going to rebuild. Over the last year I'd kept in touch with Doug Clark at Philway. Seemed the biggest hold up was that their insurance company, which he never named, would not let them back on the grounds for almost four months! So its time for all of us to go check with our insurance agents what kind of treatment we'd get in a similar situation.

As time passed, Doug stopped answer emails, then stopped answering the phone, and in the end the phone was disconnected.

Last week my curiosity drove me to contact Evan S. at the Ashland Area Council for Economic Development, to see what happened. Seems the owner of Philway now lives in Akron and did not want to rebuild in Ashland, despite generous tax rebates etc. and did not want to community to Ashland anymore. The owner also indicated that they could not find "good managers" in Ashland. I took that more to mean people with good technical management backgrounds from the context of our conversation. A new board house may arise like a Phoenix in Akron someday, but it won't be the same Philway without the same institutional knowledge that made it a great place to do business with.

The lesson here for all of us, is disasters do happen to good places and good people at any time. Do you have a workable recovery plan in place in case one hits you and yours? Will your insurance company help you out, or help you go under faster?

Development has become the game. Whats your Potty Mouth Score today?

2012-01-21T11:19:00.000-05:00

To be clear I'm not talking about developing a game, I'm talking about development being the game. This week Microsoft released their Visual Studio Achievements plug-in. The plug in 'scores' a number of things such as the number of curse words in a file, and goes down hill from there.

I do not believe that competition belongs in the development process, it should remain in the arena of sports (Being the classic Nerd, I don't think there should be sports, but that is a topic for an other time...). In my view any manager that promotes composition between teams or people, is doing a disservice to everyone from the people competing to the shareholders. How is it a good use of energy and resources?

I find this concept so abhorrent to the development of quality bug free systems, delivered on time, that I don't even know what to say about it. What are your thoughts? Here are a couple of mine:

If you score bug fixes, does someone that fixes ten simple bugs (why are they there at all if they are simple? Put deliberately so they could be 'found' to raise their score??), do they get a higher score than some one that fixed the single bug that has been there since the beginning of time that no one else could find?

What do you put down on your Time-Card for the time you spent "playing" development?

Is "Reached Level 256 in Visual Studio Achievements" really going to be a good thing on a resume?

In a different, but related mater, what I'd like to know is when did IDEs switched from being tools to improve productivity, to crutches that people do not how to program without using? For example you ask someone what "compiler are you using?" and they reply Code::Blocks.

The best 10xers in productivity are going to develop their own tools, frequently, and not be part of the herd worrying about out scoring anyone in a commodity IDE.

Most of these problems come down to our broken concept of education, and that many places already consider developers and engineers nothing but replaceable bags of meat. Companies try to get their proprietary development environments inflicted on the young and impressionable, with a bit of interest to learn, to capitalize on the Baby Duck Syndrome (You'll like environments that are similar to your first, and dislike others).

To much time is spent teaching the tools and language of the day, rather than teaching concepts and how to learn. Someone with a good understanding of the fundamentals can pickup any language quickly, from 'BF' (this is a family friendly blog), the hardest language I every toyed with, to Zonnon, in the list for 428 computer languages.

I don't know what the full solution to creating better embedded systems might be, however I'm sure it is not making it in to a game with scores...

Earth's Temporal War Leaps to 2015, one Leap Second at a time

2012-01-20T20:50:00.000-05:00

Back in August of 2011 I covered The current Temporal War on planet Earth. Which documented the factions that wanted to keep Leap Seconds as used today, and those that wanted to abolish Leap Seconds.

In our current methodology of keeping time, an extra second is inserted or removed in the Clock-On-The-Wall-Time to keep it in sync with the Look-Out-The-Window-At-The-Sun-Dial-Time (the distinction between Synodic, Solar, Sidereal, Stardates, UTC, UT1 and the myriad of other time scales would make for a much longer blog entry). Those against Leap Seconds say they are to hard to deal with over long spans of time where accuracy and precision are required. The people on the other side of the temporal war want to look out the window and have the clock-on-the-wall agree with what they see out the window. You see that if Leap Seconds are removed the two time scales drift apart. Someday High-Noon Wall-Clock-Time, would be the middle of the night Sun-Dial-Time.

This week the body that governs the time scales was set to vote on keeping or eliminating Leap Seconds. Seems there is no agreement on how to 'fix' the Leap Second 'problem' so the vote has been moved to 2015:

ITU Radiocommunication Assembly defers decision to eliminate the leap second
Geneva, 19 January 2012 – The ITU Radiocommunication Assembly has reached an important decision to defer the development of a continuous time standard in order to address the concerns of countries that use the current system of the leap second in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The decision has been reached to ensure that all the technical options have been fully addressed in further studies related to the issue. These studies will involve further discussions within the ITU membership and with other organizations that have an interest in this matter and will be referred to the next Radiocommunication Assembly and World Radiocommunication Conference scheduled for 2015.

Adjustments made in one second steps, known as ‘leap seconds’, have been implemented since 1972 to compensate for variations in the speed of the earth’s rotation within the framework of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

UTC is defined by ITU’s Radiocommunication Sector and is maintained by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in cooperation with the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS). Measurements from timing centres around the world are used in the determination of UTC, which is adjusted to within 0.9 seconds of Earth rotation time (UT1) by IERS-determined values of the Earth’s rotation.

The suppression of the leap second would make continuous time scale available for all the modern electronic navigation and computerized systems to operate with and eliminate the need for specialized ad hoc time systems. This however may have social and legal consequences when the accumulated difference between UT1 – Earth rotation time – would reach a perceivable level (2 to 3 minutes in 2100 and about 30 minutes in 2700).

ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré considered the decision taken by the Radiocommunication Assembly will ensure that all stakeholders have been adequately associated with a step which will clearly influence our future.

So we tick on with the Status Quo in our Embedded Systems...

NASA's video on LENR AKA Cold Fusion.

2012-01-15T15:56:00.000-05:00

A video was uncovered a few days ago on NASA's Technology Gateway that seems to be supporting "Cold Fusion": NASA's Method for a Clean Nuclear Energy For Your Power Operated Technology, (which I covered last year: Will Cold Fusion or the solar powered bikini, the iKini, power your next embedded system?). Today Cold Fusion goes by the moniker of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions or Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reaction, or simply LENR-CANR, to get away from the political baggage the term Cold Fusion brings. Best to snag a copy of the site before 'They' wake-up...

Actually what I find of most interest is the picture shown at time mark 1:55 from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center. SPAWAR's first papers on Cold Fusion have been listed on my, long neglected, Unusual Research site since 2002. Makes you wonder what does the Navy and NASA really have after ten years of research? It has not been a question of 'if' Cold Fusion works for years, but a question of 'how' it works... Pick up a set of back issues of, the out of print, Wayne Green's Cold Fusion Journal to see where we've been and where we might be headed....

Anyone want to sponsor my trip to the The 17th International Conference on Cold Fusion being held August 12 - 17, 2012, in Daejeon, Korea? :-)

GroupThink: Do you like being part of the herded? Me either.

2012-01-15T13:58:00.000-05:00

Susan Cain has written an interesting piece for the New York Times: The Rise of the New Groupthink. That backs up what many of us know instinctively, we are more creative when we work alone, and not forced into Anti-Productivity-Pods, better know as Cubicle Farms or Open Work Spaces.

Ms. Cain's article updates, and reinforces, what we have known since DeMarco and Lister published their book Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Second Edition) in 1999. Thirteen years on most companies have not learned the advice from Picasso and Steve Wozniak, that creativity and productivity require solitude.

Solitude does not necessary mean you are you are working alone all of the time. We've all been stuck staring at a problem for longer than we should, not seeing the obvious. We ask a colleague to take a look over our shoulder, when it is of no interruption to them, and they immediately say "Why did you do *that*?". Each person has their strengths and it is important to capitalize on them, then leave them alone to get the job done.

'Saftey Valve' to disable your Cell Phone?

2012-01-14T11:19:00.000-05:00

John Fischer wrote an interesting article "Two Years Gone, Two Million More Accidents...When Will We Realize Cell Phones Need Safety Valves?" over at the Injury Board. Mr. Fischer explains why bans don't work, due to a Cell Phone causing a neuro-chemical addiction in the brain [1]. The above article then leads us to his own site Try Safety First, where we find a more data on how bans don't work, well worth your time to read, then purposes a solution.

The purposed solution is to standardize a protocol that disables the cell phone when it receives a transmission from a local low power transmitter. Such transmitters are placed in class rooms, prisons, automobiles etc. The publicly available "White Paper" marked "CONFIDENTIAL", seems rather odd to me, describes the bases of the system. No link here, because after all the paper is marked "CONFIDENTIAL"...

Personally, what seems disingenuous to me is that the "White Paper" wants to charge a dollar per Cell Phone per month for this "safety" function. Not clear where this money actually goes, tho the web site does have a section seeking "investors". They also claim to have filled 17 patents on this technology. My altruistic view of the world would not lock up safety functions behind patents and fees.

I'm sure you have been in places where you wish Cell Phones were not allowed, just as I have. Alas Cell Phone Jammers are illegal. The above proposed protocol does mention security being important to prevent the technology from being circumvented. What I didn't see was anything that said there was something that prevented the local transmitter from being overridden, other than laws, so the Cell Phone would not be able to receive the lockout protocol message...

[1] What I find interesting was the drawing Ben Tannenbaum, The Value of Mobile Phones and the Uberconnected Individual had on his site. We've now come exactly to the point predicted by futurist Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book Future Shock :

I've covered various distractions before:

DigiKey's new "Scheme-it" on line schematic capture tool.

2012-01-08T18:14:00.000-05:00

Anyone tried this new Scheme-it thing on DigiKey?:

"Scheme-it is an online schematic and diagramming tool that allows anyone to design and share electronic circuit diagrams. The tool includes a comprehensive electronic symbol library and an integrated Digi-Key component catalog that allows for a wide range of circuit designs. Additionally, a built-in bill of materials manager is provided to keep track of parts used in a design. Once a schematic drawing is complete, users can export it to an image file or share it via email with others. Scheme-it works natively in all major web browsers without requiring the use of any plugins. Only users registered at www.digikey.com are able to share and save designs."

What would make it awesome would be the ability to export a netlist that could be used for PCB layout, and symbols that have a friendly license, to use in other CAD packages.

Is the Dollar Dead? Bank of England says so.

2012-01-08T15:38:00.000-05:00

I suspect deliberately lost is the hectic holiday activities was the release of the Bank of England's Report #13: Reform of the International Monetary and Financial System (An unlucky number for the superstitious). See also the Financial Stability Papers. Perhaps I'm to cynical, however I would translate that title and reports in to "you and I are about to be screwed".

One of the new objectives of the new system (pg. 4) is: "Internal balance - the IMFS should enable countries to use macroeconomic policies to achieve non-inflationary growth." The current Dollar system requires inflation to work, which I've tried to explain a couple of times in the past:

More background on the issue:

Gold Reserve Act of 1980, January 5th, 1981.
FOIA contains material relating to the Gold Commission, Cria 198X.
International Monetary Fund Current Financial Situation Statement, July 21, 1999.
The Relationship of Monetary Policy and Rising Prices, March 17, 2011; They still don't get the value of the money is going down, not prices going up!
H.R. 1495 Gold Reserve Transparency Act of 2011, June 23 2011.
Third currency war to take world back to gold standard?, July 12, 2011.
The death certificate of the paper dollar: Where to next?, December 22, 2011.
All of the Money in the world, Money - A Chart of All of It, Where It Is and What It Can Do. See also http://xkcd.com/980/ and http://xkcd.com/980/sources/ [Click on png to make it legible]. 2011 data with sources.

To sum those up 'They' want the World to return to a Gold Standard based system. Sounds good in theory, however the same people that are creating the financial mess already own most of the worlds gold. Some banks are known to have bought large quantities of gold. Makes you wonder why does it?

When the Dollar does finally die, the regime that is in power at the time will give you and I say, five to ten days to exchange a token amount of the current Dollars, say $5,000 to $10,000 for the new script. Any amount you have above that, well that is just to bad, the Plutocracy doesn't care...

So the next time you go to buy some components for your Embedded Widget and the prices seem a lot higher, you'll be one of the few that understand they haven't go up, but the value of your money has gone down.

NASA's new Open Source Code Portal

2012-01-05T20:55:00.001-05:00

NASA has opened a new portal: Code, that is meant to unify and expand NASA's Open Source activities.

I wonder if they will be following their Software Safety Guide Lines?

[January 4th, 2012] we are launching code.nasa.gov, the latest member of the open NASA web family. Through this website, we will continue, unify, and expand NASA’s open source activities. The site will serve to surface existing projects, provide a forum for discussing projects and processes, and guide internal and external groups in open development, release, and contribution.

In our initial release, we are focusing on providing a home for the current state of open source at the Agency. This includes guidance on how to engage the open source process, points of contact, and a directory of existing projects. By elucidating the process, we hope to lower the barriers to building open technology in partnership with the public.

Phase two will concentrate on providing a robust forum for ongoing discussion of open source concepts, policies, and projects at the Agency. In our third phase, we will turn to the tools and mechanisms development projects generally need to be successful, such as distributed version control, issue tracking, continuous integration, documentation, communication, and planning/management. During this phase, we will create and host a tool, service, and process chain to further lower the burden to going open.

Ultimately, our goal is to create a highly visible community hub that will imbue open concepts into the formulation stages of new hardware and software projects, and help existing projects transition to open modes of development and operation. We are going to need your help to get there! Please use “Share your Ideas,” comment on this post, or email us at opengov@nasa.gov to let us know how code can help you, where you would like to see the site go, and how we might best fulfill our purpose.

We believe that tomorrow’s space and science systems will be built in the open, and that code.nasa.gov will play a big part in getting us there. Will your code someday escape our solar system or land on an alien planet? We’re working to make it happen, and with your help, it will.

More "Coming Soon" than anything else, but still looks like it will be a fun place to watch, and learn. Especially when the Forum comes on line.

Using Compile Time Assertions to create better code

2011-12-24T12:43:00.000-05:00

In my last entry, ISO releases new standard for the C language, I lamented how the C++11 standard has static_assert() and C11 has _Static_assert(), to give compile time assertions.

Static Assertions are also known as Compile Time Assertions. Their use allows us to put compile time check in our source files, that cause the compilation process to stop if the assertion is not valid. The alternative is to check conditions at run-time incurring performance costs, or having detectable bugs crashing our systems. What if you want to use Static Assertions on compilers that are not up to the latest, just released, standards? You use code that will always fail to compile such as:

int main( void )
{
 int a[ -1 ]; /* Should always fail to compile */
}

From an exchange David Brown and I had on the AVR-GCC list, we came up with the following:

/*
 * Compile Time Assertion:
 *  Usage: STATIC_ASSERT( (msg_count > last_msg), To_Many_Messages_Defined_for_array_size );
 *
 *  STATIC_ASSERT( 1 == 2, One_Not_Equal_To_Two ); that looks like:
 *   assertion_failed_at_line_767_One_Not_Equal_To_Two
 */

#define STATIC_ASSERT_NAME_(line,message)  STATIC_ASSERT_NAME2_(line,message)
#define STATIC_ASSERT_NAME2_(line,message) assertion_failed_at_line_##line##_##message
#define STATIC_ASSERT(claim, message) \
       typedef struct { \
         char STATIC_ASSERT_NAME_(__LINE__,message) [(claim) ? 1 : -1]; \
       } STATIC_ASSERT_NAME_(__LINE__,message)

Admittedly it is a bit of a kludge, however it is still better than letting known issues make it into working code. The native compiler versions should be used when the exist. For example I use the above code myself to detect when an enumerated value list is about to overflow the size of a 8-bit byte:

enum MessagesTag{
 Message0,
 Message1,
 Message2,
 ...
 Messages_Last
};
STATIC_ASSERT( Messages_Last >= 255U, Messages_No_Longer_Fits_In_Byte );

Some unsuspecting person, such as a future Me, could add a number of Messages over the years, and not realize there are now to many for the code to operate correctly.

For more information on compile time assertions check out:

ISO releases new standard for the C language

2011-12-24T10:27:00.000-05:00

As a Christmas Present to all, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published the new specifications for the C programming language, ISO/IEC 9899:2011. All for the whopping low price of $300!

Drafts of what has become known as C1X have been available for free up to now. This is the last free draft that I know of: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf.

So far the critiques of the new standard have been unkind, and I'll add my own on the new Static Assertions; also known as Compile Time Assertions. The C1X standard gives Static Assertions, called _Static_assert:

6.7.10 Static assertions

Syntax:

1: static_assert-declaration: _Static_assert ( constant-expression , string-literal ) ;

While the C++0X standard, released as ISO/IEC 14882:2011, calls the same function static_assert (all lower case, no leading underscore):

"In a static_assert-declaration the constant-expression shall be a constant expression (5.19) that can be contextually converted to bool (Clause 4). If the value of the expression when so converted is true, the declaration has no effect. Otherwise, the program is ill-formed, and the resulting diagnostic message (1.4) shall include the text of the string-literal, except that characters not in the basic source character set (2.3) are not required to appear in the diagnostic message.
[ Example: static_assert(sizeof(long) >= 8, "64-bit code generation required for this library."); -end example ]"

Is it really to much to ask for these two groups to actually communicate with each other?

Spoof Me Not Anti-GPS Spoofing Technique

2011-12-22T12:24:00.000-05:00

As a brief follow up to my Was GPS spoofing used to bring down a drone? entry, I wanted to point out an article in the December 2011 issue of GPS World Magazine, on how one of the ways to mitigate spoofing:

Low-Complexity Spoofing Mitigation by Saeed Daneshmand, Ali Jafarnia-Jahromi, Ali Broumandan, Gérard Lachapelle.

Distracted Pilots?

2011-12-20T21:46:00.000-05:00

I've covered Distracted Drivers, and Distracted Doctors so far. I don't want to leave out the potential for Distracted Pilots.

The Allied Pilots Association requested from the FAA permission to use iPADs and similar tablets in the cockpit to replace what are known as "Electronic Flight Bags (EFBs)". The FAA granted permission to conduct a six month long feasibility test.

While the goal of replacing heavy and bulky, and out of date as soon as they are printed, paper charts and other required documents, is admirable. I have to wonder what the unintended consequences will be. Paper is simply not prone to spreading electronic virus, and is somewhat limited in what you can do with it as far as distractions go (Paper Airplanes in the Airplane?). The batteries in paper also never go dead.

It is also not clear if this is a case of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work, with who knows what applications are loaded, or a locked down company supplied device from the information I could find.

On the upside maybe a iWhatsIt can be pressed into service when the autopilot fails...

Distracted Doctoring better or worse than Distracted Drivers?

2011-12-19T22:02:00.000-05:00

If you thought distracted drivers were bad, what about distracted doctors? As Doctors Use More Devices, Potential for Distraction Grows, from the New York Times.

..."My gut feeling is lives are in danger," said Dr. Papadakos, who recently published an article on "electronic distraction" in Anesthesiology News, a journal. [Electronic Distraction: An Unmeasured Variable in Modern Medicine; November 2011 Volume: 37:11.] "We’re not educating people about the problem, and it’s getting worse."...

I find it a bit ironic that it was my code that created the first electronic prescription. Was it the first electronic doctor distraction too?

Collectively, you and I are creating this 'distraction' mess with the various Embedded System Widgets we make. Anything we can do about it?

Will the MBEDDR Project save us from using C?

2011-12-18T10:41:00.000-05:00

I came across the MBEDDR Project, last night, that seems like it might have some promise to add modern programming practices, such as Closures, Functional Programming, Modules, and others, to C language based embedded systems.

The MBEDDR Language uses JetBrains' Meta Programming System, which is an open source projectional language, as a compiler for the MBEDDR language, that ultimately produces C code to be compiled with your current C compiler.

I have lots of questions myself on this project at this point, such as how easy will it be to get directives like FLASH (IAR) or PROGMEM (AVR-GCC) in the right place? Will it do the Right Thing with volatile? They are also not sure they will open source all of the code; Will they hold back some needed part (FAQ says they might)? Will the code fit in the parts I want to use? At this point it is worth watching and maybe playing with what is currently avaiable.

The project has released code under the Eclipse Public License 1.0. My June 19, 2010 blog entry, I'm Scared, covers my view of Eclipse. It is not a kind one. With Oracles removing its Java from Linux I can't see things improving in the Java area. Any Java code I've ever tried to use has been slow and buggy.

Was GPS spoofing used to bring down a drone?

2011-12-18T08:47:00.000-05:00

In my March 23, 2010 blog entry, Politicians replace Air Traffic Control RADAR with GPS, I asked this question:

"Who will be the first Bad Guy to spoof a plane into the ground?"

That question may have now been answered: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer:

"...Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan... 'The GPS navigation is the weakest point', the Iranian engineer told the Monitor, giving the most detailed description..."

The drone in question was a RQ-170 Sentinel.

Published in the Proceedings of the 18th ACM conference on Computer and Communications Security we can find the details of the attack vector that may have been used: On the Requirements for Successful GPS Spoofing Attacks by Nils Ole Tippenhauer, Christina Popper, Kasper B. Rasmussen, and Srdjan Capkun.

I've covered how we are becoming to dependent on GPS, and other problems of GPS in the past, alas I expect there will be more GPS issues in the future. GPS is a useful technology, however we must never lose sight of the vulnerabilities that it opens our Embedded Systems up to when we design it into our widgets:

Will banning Cell Phones in vehicles cause more crashes? Data supports that...

2011-12-15T07:51:00.001-05:00

The National Transportation Safety Board has purposed banning the use of Cell Phones in vehicles; No call, no text, no update behind the wheel: NTSB calls for nationwide ban on PEDs while driving.

Problem here is the existing data says this will make the problem worse, as I explained over a year ago (Wish I could learn to capitalize on such foresight happens to me all the time):

"In the Law of Unintended Consequences the site Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute, tells us in their September 28th, 2010 report that, Texting bans don't reduce crashes; effects are slight crash increases because the Texter is trying harder to hide what they are doing, becoming even more distracted." --- Emergency Broadcast Alerts coming to your Cell Phone, baning of Mobile Cell Phones, baning of parental rights...

Animals as Earthquake sensors. Do dogs have precognition?

2011-12-03T11:20:00.001-05:00

Ever since the March 2011 Earthquake in Japan that significantlydisrupted the Embedded Supply Chain, I have been fascinated by watching the real time seismology reports from various places around the world, such as The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) that covers Europe, and the these two U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) sites: Latest Earthquakes in the World - Past 7 days and Latest Earthquakes M1.0+ in the USA - Past 7 days. The USGS says that Earthquakes must be in at least the 2.5 to 3.0 range and above to be felt by humans.

There is also the Volcano Live site, as there is significant correlations between Volcanoes and Earthquakes in regions that have both.

More importantly than just watching the numbers as they are happening, would be a way to know when they are coming in advance. At the first of the month [Dec/2011] Victoria Gill published the article How animals predict earthquakes, that makes reference to the 2010 study Predicting the unpredictable; evidence of pre-seismic anticipatory behaviour in the common toad by R. A. Grant and T. Halliday, published in the Journal of Zoology. This brought to my mind the conversation I heard my Mother telling my Niece over the Thanksgiving Holiday, about my late dog Diamond.

My late father had some chronic heart problems from an industrial accident that burned his lungs in the Steel Industry years ago. He said Diamond, our eight year old dog at the time, saved his life. Alas we had to euthanize her due to liver cancer. Sad.

Apparently Dad had not been feeling well. He actually told Mom to take him to the hospital that morning, but then changed his mind. I knew nothing about this.

That night Diamond started behaving very oddly, unlike anything she had ever done. She kept pawing and whimpering at me, which she just did not do. She took me to the telephone and sat down, continuing to whimper.

For some reason I had the feeling I should call my parents. I got their answering machine. I left a message saying how Diamond was behaving, and asked them if every thing was okay at their place. Out of character for me as well, I've never felt the need to check up on them before. They frequently ate Sunday dinner at my Uncles so there was nothing unusual about them not being home right then.

When they got home about forty-five minutes later, Dad called. He said he was going to the hospital. Dad told Mom "that the Dog knows better than I do. Take me to the hospital."

He told me that Diamonds behavior had scared him in to going to the emergency room. They told him that he had a silent heart attack. One that has none of the classic symptoms. [I once had a classmate that thought he had the flu. The next morning Max was dead of a heart attack. None of us recognized the symptoms. Do NOT assume you know the symptoms of heart problems, find out the many things they can be.]

Diamond calmed right down after the phone call and was fine after that, never to repeat that behavior again.

We were told Dad would not have made morning if it was not for Diamond. Diamond got him almost an other eight years.

Dad always called Diamond his 'Grand-doggie' as we don't have any kids to be grand-children. She loved it when he itched her ears, seems no one else did it as well. We live sixty miles from parents. How did Diamond sense anything at that distance?

Perhaps my personal experience is unconvincing, however others have looked at such phenomena in the past, such as Rupert Sheldrake in his study: Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home.

If you are still skeptical get yourself a copy of Mind Machines You Can Build by G. Harry Stine. If the simple devices do not work for you (unlikely), they probably will work for your younger children. From around the time that a child becomes sentient around two to three years of age, to about the age of seven, they exist in a predominately dream like state of Alpha Brain Waves.

The point that I'm truly trying to make with this blog entry is summed up by Sheldrake:

"Science as it's usually practiced is too narrow. At any given time, science works within a paradigm or model. Things that don't fit in are anomalies. There are a lot of things that scientists can't explain, and I believe we can learn the most by studying them."

Our instruments only measure the things that we know how to measure, the true question comes down to How did Diamond know? Now do we make such instruments...

20th International Obfuscated C Code Contest opens online this week

2011-11-27T10:39:00.001-05:00

This week [2011-Dec-1] the 20th International Obfuscated C Code Contest, starts taking online submissions.

What is the IOCCC?:

To write the most Obscure/Obfuscated C program under the rules below.

To show the importance of programming style, in an ironic way.

To stress C compilers with unusual code.

To illustrate some of the subtleties of the C language.

To provide a safe forum for poor C code. :-)

To translate that, what they mean is they want the hardest possible to read and understand program written in the C language, that is written that way on purpose. No one wants to see your Boss's code that just happens to come out that way.

I know one prominent author in the Embedded Space that mentions the IOCCC, but they never supply a link to it, as they think it is a bad example of how to do Embedded Systems. Obviously I disagree with that as I already gave you the link above.

The reason I disagree, is that the IOCCC usually exploits one of the many problems that those whom are unaware of them could stumble into. I see it as, that if you see how the problem area of the code is being exploited, you will be more likely to remember to never do it that way in your own code.

IOCCC is also a good stress test for any of your software analysis tools, such as Lint, or MISRA compliance suite.

Somewhat related is Gimple Software, maker of my favorite Lint tool, Bug of the Month challenge. They give you a short C program and you have to find the bug in it. Ever wonder why it is called 'Lint'? Because it is nitpicky!

To make IOCCC code at least look readable, won't help with understanding it much, run it through Artistic Style or Indent. Indent is the simplest to use, AS is the most configurable to get the code to look they way you like to see it. Any code I get from someone I run through AS to get a consistent style, such as the brackets on lines by themselves, and consisting indenting.

Let me know what code you submit, or better yet when you win...

Is your supply chain under water? Flooding in Thailand

2011-10-30T18:00:00.000-04:00

As reported by CBC News a third of Thailand is submerged underwater; Bangkok escapes worst of Thailand flooding.

You may be wondering what this has to do with Software Safety or Embedded Systems. Alas our supply chains are now global, be it Earthquakes (Europe monitoring stations, US World Monitoring, Small daily US Quakes [Did you know Arkansan has more daily earthquakes than California?]), Volcanoes (will the Super Volcano Uturuncu be blowing its top anytime soon?), or Flooding around the world, our ability to get parts to build our widgets suffers along with the effected people of the region whom should always come first.

Places like Benchmark Electronics, Toyota, Rohm (Will a simple resistor stop you from shipping your widget?), and Toshiba; Toshiba Semiconductor (Thailand) Co., Ltd. "Damage status: The water is 3 meters high on the site and the surrounding area and approximately 1.5 meters deep in the buildings. Facilities are damaged but no employees have been injured in the factory.", Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand), Co., Ltd. "Damage status: The water is 2 meters high on the site and the surrounding area and more than 1 meter deep in the buildings. Facilities are damaged but no employees have been injured in the factory." - This one is already having a ripple effect on hard-disk prices and supply shortages. Many other places have also been effected.

Worries of disease and chemical contamination of the water are starting, as people are beginning to develop skin rashes.

Natural or man-made EMP attack on the horizon?

2011-10-30T16:39:00.000-04:00

About this time last year I published Scientists, Politicians Take Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Threat Seriously. Human Exposure to EM Fields. There have been a few events relating to EMP that have transpired over the last year, that I wanted to bring to your attention.

First of all to bring to your attention is Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, a former CIA weapons expert, forty five minute long podcast, on both natural and man-made EMP threats.

Secondly Dr. Pry's site, EMPACT America is a bipartisan, non-profit (with IRS 501(c)4 status) organization for citizens concerned about protecting the American People from a nuclear or natural electromagnetic pulse (EMP) catastrophe.

"The EMP Commission and the National Academy of Sciences warn that a catastrophic EMP event can also occur naturally, from a great geomagnetic storm, with effects virtually identical to those of a nuclear EMP attack, and that such a storm is inevitable, occurring every century or so. Great geomagnetic storms have occurred in the past, but not since the advent of the modern electronic age. Some scientists estimate that the world is overdue for a great geomagnetic storm, that could occur during the next cycle of solar activity, in 2012."

There are a couple items before the politicians, whom are playing political games with our future, that you need to spend some time studying: SHEILDAct, also known as H.R. 668,see below, and Guard The Grid. Give your political representative a call, and tell them to stop screwing around.

H.R. 668:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the 'Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage Act' or the 'SHIELD Act'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The Congress makes the following findings:

(1) According to the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack (in this Act referred to as the 'EMP Commission Report'), the society and economy of the United States are 'critically dependent upon the availability of electricity.'.

(2) According to the EMP Commission Report, 'continued electrical supply is necessary for sustaining water supplies, production and distribution of food, fuel, communications, and everything else that is part of our economy'.

(3) According to the EMP Commission Report, 'contemporary U.S. society is not structured, nor does it have the means, to provide for the needs of nearly 300 million Americans without electricity.'.

(4) According to the EMP Commission Report, due to the existing electrical system operating at or near its physical capacity, `a relatively modest upset to the system can cause functional collapse.'.

(5) According to the EMP Commission Report, electromagnetic pulse (in this Act referred to as 'EMP') is a threat to the overall electrical power system.

(6) According to the EMP Commission Report, EMP occurs both naturally, such as geomagnetic storms, and via man-made devices.

(7) According to the EMP Commission Report, while the electric infrastructure `has a degree of durability against . . . the failure of one or a small number of [electric] components,' the current strategy for recovery leaves the United States ill-prepared to respond effectively to an EMP attack that would potentially result in damage to vast numbers of components nearly simultaneously over an unprecedented geographic scale.

(8) According to the EMP Commission Report, EMP 'may couple ultimately unmanageable currents and voltages into an electrical system routinely operated with little margin and cause the collapse of large portions of the electrical system.'.

(9) According to the EMP Commission Report, a collapse of large portions of the electrical system will result in significant periods of power-outage and `restoration from collapse or loss of significant portions of the system [will be] exceedingly difficult.'.

(10) According to the EMP Commission Report, 'should the electrical power system be lost for any substantial period of time . . . the consequences are likely to be catastrophic to civilian society.'.

(11) According to the EMP Commission Report, 'the Commission is deeply concerned that [negative] impacts [on the electric infrastructure] are certain in an EMP event unless practical steps are taken to provide protection for critical elements of the electric system.'.

...

See also The Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the U.S. from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, 2005, and Testimony of Dr. Michael J. Frankel Information submitted for the record house homeland security committee hearing cyber security and other (EMP) threats to the power grid JULY 21, 2009.

Projections for the current solar cycle are that there will be increasing solar storm activity in 2012 and 2013. I wonder if this is any coincidence coinciding with the Earth's aliment with the center of the galaxy on December 21st, 2012, the day the Mayan Calendar ends? This alignment happens once every 25,920 years (72 years to move one degree of a 360 degree circle). EMP Gama burst anyone?...

Is there any training on "Software Safety" available?

2011-10-16T10:37:00.000-04:00

I was recently asked if there was any specific training or certification on the topic of Software Safety.

Sadly my answer is I don't think so. I've seen some training specific to DO-178B, some related to FDA device compliance, and an occasional course at the MISRA office in the UK.

Part of the problem is defining what exactly do we mean by "Software Safety", as it always depends on the context. My simple working definition is that I never have to tell a person to "just push the reset button" or "you must reboot to recover". Do you really want to push the reset button on your defibrillator?

It also always must be kept in mind that even if the software is safe, it is still part of a system as a whole. If the system as a whole is unsafe, then having perfect software will not make a safe system.

Michael Barr at Netrino does offer Critical Software Safeguards Course: Lint and MISRA-C, for the Embedded space.

Jack Ganssle also offers his How to Develop Better Firmware Faster, one day class, again for the Embedded Space.

Do you know of any courses that would be relevant? If someone put together such a course what should be in it?

Do you work in the Medical Device field? You won't after 2013 due to this new Tax.

2011-09-12T19:38:00.000-04:00

The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) released a report late last week (Sept. 7th 2011) on how 43,000 jobs in the "Medical Device" field are going to be lost due to yet an other new Tax.

Here is the full report: Employment Effects of the New Excise Tax on the Medical Device Industry.pdf by Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Harold Furchtgott-Roth.

"Medical Device" as defined by the IRS are covered in USC TITLE 26 - Subtitle D - CHAPTER 32 - Subchapter E - § 4191. Section D of Exemptions is the problematic portion to those of us doing Embedded Medical Devices:

"any other medical device determined by the Secretary [of the Treasury] to be of a type which is generally purchased by the general public at retail for individual use."

So now we don't have a doctor nor a person familiar with Embedded System Medical Devices deciding which devices will get a %2.3 excise tax, that will cause Medical Device manufacturers to send yet more jobs overseas to avoid paying the tax, at the Embedded Communities expense.

If you work in the Medical Device field, it is probably time to get your resume in order. I'm going to be polishing up mine, because there is no way to tell what clueless bureaucrat will consider a Medical Device...

Firmware Engineers of Northeast Ohio Meeting Sept. 13th 2011

2011-09-03T11:39:00.002-04:00

Firmware Engineers of Northeast Ohio are holding their monthly meeting on September 13th 2011, 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM EDT.

Agenda:

Catered meal provided [Munchies are always the most important thing of any meeting aren't they?]
Opening Remarks
Lightning 1 Talks:
- IEEE Cleveland Computer Society/FENEO event, 'Lightning 1'. Chris Cole's inspiration; four very focused 15 minute talks by four different IEEE Cleveland Computer Society and FENEO members are planed. All are welcome but space is limited, please RSVP here.
  Presentation Topics:
- When UNIX was a Pup by Dr. Robin Lake
- Software in the Hardware World by Mike Dahlhausen
- Real World Examples of Using Open Source Tools in Embedded Development by Christopher Cole
- TDD for Kernel Module Development by Nick Barendt
Networking. Burned out because of to many years at your current gig? This might be your chance to find something new and exciting.

Location:

DeVore Technologies, Inc.
3593 Green Rd.
Commerce Park Four
Suite 525
Beachwood, OH 44122
440-232-3846

Be sure to bring in the flier to receive 1 CPD credit.

"We can always print money" - Alan Greenspan on Meet The Press Aug/07/2011

2011-08-07T14:43:00.000-04:00

I've blogged about how the price of our Bills of Materials appears to be going up, previously. A comment on today's, August 7th 2011, Meet The Press by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, promoted me to write this one.

Mr. Greenspan stated [Transcripts available here] that "the US will always be able to pay its debts because we can print money". Echos of a speech given before the National Economists Club in Washington, D.C. on November 21, 2002 by Ben S. Bernanke, the current chairman of the Federal Reserve, who also said we can control or create inflation by printing money. Rick Kahler once said "A slow, chronic inflation is the most politically palatable way of reducing the debt in a manner that is somewhat unnoticeable to the electorate." In otherwords the more moeny in circulation, the more your money is worth less. Prices are not going up, the value of the money is going down! Do these people actually understand how the system works to say these things?

If you've listened to any of the 'News' this weekend there has been a big stink that Standard & Poor's downgraded the US's Credit Rating, on August 5th, after the stock markets closed. The Governments rebuttal can be found here. What few places are telling you that is more important, is that Dagong, a key credit information and credit solution service provider in China, Downgrading the Credit Rating of the USA, on Tuesday August 2nd. According to reports on the BBC I was listening to on my daily commute, China has already decided to take their money an invest it in its own people, rather than lend more to the US. What many are worried about is what happens if a Treasury Auction is held, and no one shows up? Then it doesn't mater if there is a Debt Limit or not.

Now we need a bit of a history lesson: Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 - June 8, 1845) was the seventh President of the United States (1829-1837). Jackson was strongly against the national bank, he vetoed the renewal of its charter and ensured its collapse. This was the last time the US paid off its "National Debt". Alas when Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in 1865, needed to fund the Civil War, a new bank system was set up. Various incarnations existed, see Paul Warburg's Crusade to Establish a Central Bank in the United States at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, until the Federal Reserve Act was passed by Congress at the Christmas recesses of 1913, under suspicious circumstances; there was no "sign and die" to close that session of Congress.

"Controversy about the Federal Reserve Act and the establishment of the Federal Reserve System has existed since prior to its passage. Some of the questions raised include: whether Congress has the Constitutional power to delegate its power to coin money or issue paper money, why it was passed on December 23 while most of Congress was away for Christmas, whether the Federal Reserve is a public cartel of private banks (also called a banking cartel) established to protect powerful financial interests, and whether the Federal Reserve's actions increased the severity of the Great Depression in the 1930s (and/or the severity or frequency of other boom-bust economic cycles, such as the Late-2000s recession)." -- Wikipedia.

The Federal Reserve has not been audited, no one to date really knows what happens to the 'money'. Worse almost no one understands how this sham system works.

Consider this simplified version: In 1913 the Government declares that all 'money' comes from the Federal Reserve (Fed hereafter). You need to have 'money' to run your business and put food on the table. As the only source of 'money' is the Fed you borrow 'money' from them, which is happy to loan it to you, at interest. The interest rate varies, but they'll get more back, you think. Now what is wrong with this picture? If the only source of 'money' is the Fed, where does the 'money' used to pay the interest come from? It has to be borrowed from the Fed. Remember the Government has declared that the Fed is the only source of 'money', you have no choice, unless you want to barter tangible assets, like real Money, coins, from the US Treasury. The National Debt can never be paid off, because if it was the system falls-apart, as the last 5000 years have shown always happens to this type of system in the end.

This schema is really a hidden tax on you and I. It works like this: The Treasury sells bounds, sheets of paper with no intrinsic value, to the Federal Reserve for things that politicians do not have the honesty to come out and say directly that they need to raise our taxes to support. The Fed buys these bonds with 'money' that it created from nothing. This created 'money' is put into circulation, making your money worth less each time it happens. This inflation is the most insidious hidden tax that you and I pay. Few figure this system out because it is usually hidden behind the Orwellian doublespeak of economics such as Quantitative Easing.

For a far more detailed look at the history of 'money' and its coming end, check out The Money Masters, the works of Milton Friedman, and the Laffer curve.

People far wiser than I have told me that when the end of the Dollar comes, it will be over a three day long holiday weekend. Columbus Day is Monday, October 10, 2011, would be such a day. I wonder if it is any coincidence that comet Elenin comes by at the same time...

The current Temporal War on planet Earth. The August 2011 edition of Metrologia.

2011-08-03T20:49:00.001-04:00

Going on here on Earth right now is a real Temporal War. This Temporal War is not Science-Fiction, it is about the future of Time itself, as in how it is measured. Right on time, the August 2011 issue of Metrologia has appeared. This issue, Volume 48, Number 4, is all about Modern Applications of Timescales:

Time, the SI and the Metre Convention
Role of the ITU-R in time scale definition and dissemination
Evolution of timescales from astronomy to physical metrology
Timescales at the BIPM
Local representations of UTC in national laboratories
Earth rotation monitoring, UT1 determination and prediction
Relativistic time transfer in the vicinity of the Earth and in the solar system
Solar time, legal time, time in use
Time scales, their users, and leap seconds
Time references in US and UK astronomical and navigational almanacs
Software for timescale applications
Timing in telecommunications networks
BeiDou Navigation Satellite System and its time scales
GNSS times and UTC

The article are free until the end of August 2011, after which time they go behind a paywall.

In this War there are several factions, such as those that believe that Time should be tied to the Earth rotation. The problem is that the Earth rotation is not constant. To keep our clocks on the wall synchronized the concept of Leap Seconds has to be introduced were a second is added or subtracted every six months from Universal Coordinated Time. From the Embedded System perspective this means an hour can legitimately have 61 seconds in it. Have you accounted for that in your system? An hour could also only have 59 seconds. Maintaining time spans across years becomes a problem, necessitating the use of tables of Leap Seconds.

Courtesy of International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.

Leap Seconds can currently be tracked at the Time Service Dept., U.S. Naval Observatory.

In one of the other major factions they want to do away completely with the concept of Leap Seconds. The clock-on-the-wall-time would slowly drift away from the look-out-the-window-at-the-Sun-Dial-time. This faction believes that it will simplify our lives as programmers.

There are also a few lessor factions at play. Based on input from the International Astronomical Union, the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, the Consultative Committee for Time and Frequency (CCTF), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is close (in 2012) to the moment of making a decision on whether or not to decouple UTC from its tight link to the rotation of the Earth.

Who is going to win this Temporal War? I do not know, it might come down to the group with the biggest Ray-Gun. One thing is for sure, that in a year or two keeping accurate Time in our Embedded Systems might just get a lot harder. Follow the daily battle and decide which camp you want to put your future with, on the Leap Second List.

29 miners lost their lives because safety systems failed

2011-07-31T22:43:00.000-04:00

On April 13, 2010, Davitt McAteer was asked by former WV Governor Joe Manchin, III to form an independent investigation panel to investigate the cause of the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion that took place on April 5th 2010, and to offer recommendations to prevent future explosions. The panel has issued its final report to the Governor, the Governor's Independent Investigation Panel (GIIP). The report can be viewed here, and errata here.

On April 5th 2010 at 3:01 PM local time twenty-nine miners died and one was seriously injured with life altering injuries as the enormously powerful blast rocketed through two and one-half miles of underground workings of the Upper Big Branch mine, nearly 1,000 feet beneath the surface. Of the 29 men killed, 19 died as result of carbon monoxide intoxication, and the remaining ten died as a result of injuries suffered in the devastating mine explosion. To date this is the most deadly coal mining disaster in the United States in 40 years.

For the rest of this blog to make sense to those who have never had the experience of being in a real production coal mine we need to define a couple of terms:

Longwall: A method of extracting coal seams from a long working face. As the workings advance in a continuous line, which may be several hundreds of yards in length, space from which the coal has been removed is either allowed to collapse or is completely or partially filled or stowed with stone and debris.
Longwall Shields: At UBB the longwall mining machine had 176 shields, roof shields or supports, each measuring 1.75 meters wide (or about 5.74 feet.) One "pass" on the longwall is a complete trip by the shearer from shield #1 to shield #176; a second "pass" would be the return trip from shield #176 to shield #1.
Methane (CH4): Odorless, colorless and highly combustible,is the most common hazardous gas found in underground coal mines.

The picture below is one from my personal archives, not one from the report, which has several pictures of evidence and memorials. My picture shows a typical Joy longwall shearing machine.

The report gives a minute by minute sequence of events leading up to the disaster, and the agonizing wait of the families for days to find out if their husbands and fathers would ever return home. The final identification of the deceased came when they removed the bodies on April 10, 12 and 13. A family member told the Governor's Independent Investigation Panel that this time was particularly agonizing because each family was holding out hope that their loved one was one of the missing, not one of the dead.

Picking up the event log moments before the explosion:

At 2:59:38 PM, the crew cut power to the longwall by disconnecting the shearer manual stop button, as logged by the Joy Network Architecture (JNA) control system sold by Joy; a system that I was once imminently familiar with in a past life. This shutdown is standard industry procedure when potentially serious problems occur on a longwall, and it is something that had to be done manually.

Also the electrical breaker to the shearer, located at the headgate, was found "knocked," meaning that the power to the shearer had been manually disconnected. The removal of power in this manner can only be done by someone at the headgate. A person must both push in a button and pull a lever. The disconnect has a visible "off" position. The water to the longwall face also was turned off at the headgate, something I personally find odd. Longwall crews do not leave the face area unless it is quitting time or there is an emergency. The longwall face at Upper Big Branch was 1,000 feet wide with 176 shield bases for a miner to step over. Walking through this narrow space and having to duck, and not kill your shins as I can personally attest to, in the low areas means a miner would have to have a good reason to leave the longwall face. Investigation tells us that these men witnessed something ominous and took steps to try to avert a disaster. Regrettably, they were not able to do so.

3:01 - 3:02 PM, Explosion erupts through the mine blasting debris out the portals and lasting for several minutes. The carbon monoxide monitoring system alarms and mine fan records show a major disruption to the ventilation.

Governor's Independent Investigation Panel has concluded that the ignition point for the blast was the tail of the longwall. As the shearer cut into the sandstone mine roof, the resulting sparks ignited a pocket of methane, creating a fireball. The fireball in turn ignited the methane that had accumulated in the gob during the Easter weekend and leaked onto the longwall face. The fireball traveled into the tailgate area, where accumulations of coal dust provided fuel for a second, more deadly, force. This dust-fueled blast ricocheted in multiple directions, traveling across the longwall face, into the tailgate entry, and through more than two miles of the mine.

The report states that deep water collected - at times neck-deep - (I've personally waded through waist deep water in mines), and tracking systems that did not work, as well has reports of shortcuts taken in safety in the name of profit.

The comment on page 65 "band-aid approach" hit me personally. I've been in mines, many of them over the years. I once asked the longwall foreman that I was with why the 4400VAC trailing cable (powers the shearer) had so many band-aid's (several layers deep) on it, "did it get an ouchy or what?" I recall asking. His answer was chilling: "Management thought we were using to much electrical tape, so they refused to give us more. They don't care how many band-aids we use."

I also found the cartoon on page sixteen by Nick Anderson from the Houston Chronicle offensive, it has no place in a report that claims to be objective. Steve Fiscor Editor-In-Chief of Coal Age Magazine also feels the report lacks objectivity.

Ultimately, 29 miners lost their lives in the Upper Big Branch mine because multiple safety systems failed in a major way, from technology to management to government regulators. Read the report and keep it in mind when you thing of taking a shortcut in safety, or some boss starts pencil whipping you. Do you want a death on your conscious because of a shortcut in the name of production?

By the way the Department Of Labor does have an opening for a mine inspector, if you are interested: Mine Safety and Health Inspector (Metal/Non Metal) - Labor, Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) - Warrendale, PA...

Judge Finds Ford Fraudulently Concealed Electronic Causes of Unintended Acceleration

2011-07-31T10:29:00.002-04:00

This week, July 27 2011, Safety Research & Strategies, Inc published two documents taken from the court of Senior Judge William T. Swigert of the Fifth Judicial Circuit in Sumter County, Florida.

This 51-page decision, by Judge Swigert excoriated Ford for systematically concealing a long history, stretching back to the 1970s, of studying the problem of electromagnetic interference and unintended acceleration.

SRS has an on going page devoted specifically to new Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration studies. It is interesting to note that in 2004 Toyota licensed some of its technology to Ford.

Last week July 21,2011, SRS published How NHTSA and NASA Gamed the Toyota Data, covering issues of Tin Whiskers (see my past blogs Soldering Defect Database: How many ways can a solder joint fail? More than you might think and The Anatomy of a Race Condition: Toyota vs AVR XMega), 'losing' the data the NASA report was based on, and other dubious practices. What NHTSA's Data Can Tell Us about Unintended Acceleration and Electronic Throttle Control Systems. by R. A. Whitfield of Quality Control Systems Corporation gives a brief analysis of the raw National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data.

In my past blog entry The Anatomy of a Race Condition: Toyota vs AVR XMega on NASA's on Toyota's sudden acceleration problem, I went into some of the details as to what I believe is happening. I explain why the Sudden Acceleration issue would not issue a diagnostic code if the problem is based in the firmware of the engine control unit, which is something I never seen covered in any of these reports. Guess they are all done by people with no experience in designing the systems they are reporting on?

Transmission and Reception of Longitudinally-Polarized Momentum Waves By Robert K. Zimmerman

2011-07-03T10:23:00.000-04:00

I just opened my July/August 2011 edition of QEX magazine; The Forum for Communications Experimenters published by the Amateur Radio Relay League, to find: Transmission and Reception of Longitudinally-Polarized Momentum Waves By Robert K. Zimmerman, NP4B, VE3RKZ. [A subscription is required to read the article, it is not on line. Support your local library.]

Robert Zimmerman, NP4B/VE3RKZ, describes five years of research at McMaster University in "Transmission and Reception of Longitudinally-Polarized Momentum Waves." James Clerk Maxwell's famous equations [See my note below] of electromagnetic radiation predict an alternative form of radiation, which Zimmerman refers to as vector potential radiation. He was involved in research that results in a demonstration of the communications potential of what was previously considered to be only a theoretical curiosity.

In the context of 'Longitudinally' studies, it is important to note that what we find in our text books today are not truly James Clerk Maxwell equations but the corruption of Maxwell's work by Oliver Heaviside.

Maxwell's true equations are in the form of Quaternions. Quaternions are a relative of complex numbers often used to parametrize rotations in three dimensional space. In modern computer work they are frequently used to rotate objects without build up of round off error, as you can rotate a quaternion faster than you can rotate a matrix. Quaternions (and their kin) are described in far more details in this document (with errata and addenda), from the Boost Math Library.

Maxwell's 20 Quaternion Equations may be found here at Rex Research ('Rex' can always use some support, help him out and buy something there). The importance of 'Potential' was dropped by Heaviside because Heaviside did not understand the math.

What I'm truly perplexed by is Robert Zimmerman apparent belief that what he is calling Longitudinally-Polarized Momentum Waves is a new discovery. Robert implies that his work is new, and the publication of something that you can really build and experiment with following his construction article is new. Perhaps it is due to the different terminology used over the years?

Roberts article describes how to send 'Momentum Waves' and receive them using a six inch "U" shaped plasma tube that you can pick up at most hardware stores, with in depth construction tips.

Using a plasma based receiver in Ham Radio can be traced back to the article in the February 1980 issue, Plasma-Diode Experiments by Dr. Harry E. Stockman, in Ham Radio Magazine,

which is based up on these from the 70's:

Abnormal glow discharge detection of visible radiation N. S. Kopeika, J. Rosenbaum, and R. Kastner Applied Optics, Vol. 15, Issue 6, pp. 1610-1614 (1976) doi:10.1364/AO.15.001610
N. S. Kopeika, J. Rosenbaum, and R. Kastner, "Abnormal glow discharge detection of visible radiation," Appl. Opt. 15, 1610-1614 (1976) http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=ao-15-6-1610

Abstract: "Extension of abnormal glow discharge detection of electromagnetic radiation to visible wavelengths is observed with inexpensive commercial indicator lamps. The spectral response and mechanisms of detection are discussed and advantages over gas-filled photo-diodes noted. Responses from different discharge regions are observed and their implications considered."

General Electric Glow Lamp Manual 2nd Edition see graph on page one and description on page two.

Around 2007 I was communicating with Dr Ted Anderson about his new "Plasma antennas [that] can magically vanish; New antennas made from plasma, rather than metal, have advantages of being stealthy, reconfigurable, and resistant to jamming". [Note that Plasma antennas may be nested, will get back to the geometry later.] Dr. Ted's group was putting together a web site and had big plans for this new antenna, especially in light of its military applications. Such an antenna can only be detected when running, and due to its high bandwidth it does not have to be running long to communicate data using spread spectrum techniques. A standard metal based antenna can be detected and targeted by an enemy with the proper equipment. Dr. Ted said "I am preparing a package for you on the plasma antenna. I will be sending it soon. Please give me a couple of days. Perhaps we can work together." then dropped off the face of the earth, as did his web site.

Jumping back in history again we find the work of James Harris Rogers (Again curtsy of Rex Research, whom needs support), from 1919, whom I've mentioned before. Rogers work was used in World War One to communicate with submarines. Hams of the day also experimented with Rogers antennas when they were published in Electrical Experimenter magazine.

Tom Bearden once made the comment that Rogers' work had been rediscovered at least five times then quickly "lost", it worked to well apparently. Was Dr. Ted "lost"? Hopefully with Robert's publication in a well respected magazine in the Ham Radio experimenter field this work will not get "lost" again.

Citing Bearden's work is considered dubious by many, however some of his earliest papers are required reading, such as:

Comments on the new Tesla electromagnetics: Part I: Discrepancies in Present EM Theory
Towards A New Electromagnetics Part I: Solution to Tesla's secrets and the soviet Tesla weapons.
[For Part-II see Part-I section "Proofs of Free Energy Devices and Supporting data by Dr. Rolf Schaffranke" [AKA Ro Sigma] {Never made any sense to me, as they seemed out of sequence.}]
Toward a new electromagnetics Part III: Clarifying the vector concept.
Towards a new electromagnetics part IV: Vectors and mechanisms clarified.

I'd not waste time on later works, as explained here, nor most of what you find on Internet. You need to find the original books from the 70's and early 80's.

Rogers work is known by a few other names and related research such as the Aharanov-Bohm Effect (Physics), Poynting Vector (Mathematics), Scalar Waves (Pseudoscience). The differences comes down to issues of geometry but I've not got my head wrapped around all of that yet.

An other rare term referring to this field work is Curl-Free Magnetic Vector Potential by Raymond C. Gelinas assigned to Honeywell:

4,429,280, 31 Jan 1984, Apparatus and Method for Demodulation of a Modulated Curl-Free Magnetic Vector Potential.
4,429,288, 31 Jan 1984, Apparatus and Method for Modulation of a Curl-Free Magnetic Vector Potential Field.
4,432,098, 14 Feb 1984, Apparatus and Method for Transfer of Information by Means of a Curl-Free Magnetic Vector Potential Field.
4,447,779, 8 May 1984, Apparatus and Method for Determination of a Receiving Device Utilizing a Curl-Free Magnetic Vector Potential Field.
4,605,897, 12 Aug 1986, Apparatus and Method for Distance Determination Between a Receiving Device and a Transmitting Device Utilizing a Curl-Free Magnetic Vector Potential Field.
4,491,795, 1 Jan 1985, Josephson Junction Interferometer Device for Detection of Curl-Free Magnetic Vector Potential Fields.
There is also 5,845,220: Communication method and apparatus with signals comprising scalar and vector potentials without electromagnetic fields , H. Puthoff.

The Aharanov-Bohm Effect is most relevant to Robert's work above: Significance of Electromagnetic Potentials in in the Quantum Theory by Y. Aharonov and D. Bohm in The Physical Review, vol. 115, no. 3, Aug. 1959.

Abstract: In this paper, we discuss some interesting properties of the electromagnetic potentials in the quantum domain. We shall show that, contrary to the conclusions of classical mechanics, there exists effects of potentials oncharged particles, even in the region where all the fields (and therefore the forces on the particles) vanish. We shall then discuss possible experiments to test these conclusions; and, finally, we shall suggest further possible developments in the interpretation of the potentials.

and Quantum Interference and the Aharonov-Bohm Effect" Yoseph Imry and Richard A. Webb in Scientific American, vol. 260, no. 4, Apr. 1989.

Abstract: Can electrons be influenced by a nearby magnet so well shielded that its force field cannot be detected? The counter intuitive answer is yes: an energy emanation from the magnet known as the potential does indeed affect the electrons' wave function. This quantum-mechanical effect is being brought to bear on the development of new microelectronic devices.

Once we know the other names, we find a detector by Robert Shannon [I know that particular detector was destroyed in a fire. There is one remaining housing to build a new one if I ever make the time]. Bob lists several Translation Modes to exchange between electromagnetic waves and 'potentials': Magnetostatic Detectors, Electrostatic Detectors, and Plasma (NE2 bulbs are easy to play with).

I think I'll head off to my work bench and fire up some NE2's... Maybe we'll bump into each others signals...

I'll leave you with one closing item for you to speculate on:
T. E. Bearden, "Virtual State Engineering and its Implications," NTIS ADA065762, 1978.

Abstract: Experimental evidence of zero-point energy of vacuum has been established beyond question. Soviet direct measurement of this energy has been reported. Prigogine's Nobel Prize work confirms that in theory a highly disordered, chaotic, virtual state, zero-point energy can be cohered to crosstalk into observable quantum change and even macroscopic energy production. Several simple devices can be demonstrated to observably tap zero-point energy. Extension of the theory onto even a simplified hyperspace model indicates direct applications in certain specialized amplifiers. Consideration of multiple simultaneous observation (Everett's interpretation of quantum mechanics) ties together virtual and observable states into the same time change, allowing super position of virtual state into observable state. By considering virtual state patterns to be carried by the individual photon, then superposition effects can be obtained upon a target radiated by a radar beam if each and every photon of the radar beam contains one virtual state pattern in common, added into its other (incoherent) virtual state patterns. Sufficient superposition of the coherent pattern in the target produces real observable changes which may have significant applications. Such applications include electron current dissolution (dudding of electro-magnetic circuits), cancellation of electromagnetic fields, de-activation(dudding) of nuclear warheads by transmutation of fissionable materials, and simple production of particle beams of enormous power density. Electron current dissolution is also effective against the nervous systems of biological targets. It thus appears that electromagnetic radiators such as radars could possibly be made into universal, all-purpose weapons effective against every major battle element. A mechanism and a theory for direct amplification of the virtual state into observable state is given. At least one known device, Moray's free-energy apparatus, successfully applied virtual state engineering to produce 55 kilowatts of power from a 55-pound device by tapping zero-point energy.

Is 'Reality' nothing but a mind trip? Are you getting ideas of what happens when you do things like four wave mixing of potentials, or nested geometry?...

Rest In Peace Bob Pease

2011-06-21T19:58:00.000-04:00

Does the Universe have a sense of irony? Sadly it seems so. Another analog legend Bob Pease died in a car crash while returning from Jim Williams private memorial service.

What is even more ironic is that Bob wrote the book How to Drive into Accidents - And How Not to, and he was not wearing his seat-belt!

To me not wearing a seat-belt is simply incomprehensible. There is no rational argument that you can come up with to justify not wearing one. Buckle Up!

I had the pleasure of meeting Bob in Cleveland at one of his seminars. We struck up a conversation on 'Floobydust' of all things...

Floobydust is a contemporary term derived from archaic Latin miscellaneous, whose disputed history probably springs from Greek origins (influenced, of course, by Egyptian linguists) -- meaning here "a mixed bag." -- National Semiconductor Audio Handbook, 1976 Corporation.

Rest In Peace Jim Williams

2011-06-19T10:48:00.000-04:00

This week has been a sad one for anyone doing analog design. Jim Williams of Linear Technology died suddenly and unexpectedly from a stroke on June 12th. More on Jim here.

Jim is survived by his wife Siu and son Michael. His family requests that donations in Jim's memory be made to The Parkinson's Institute, 675 Almanor Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94085.

Archive of Jim's analog design collected writings can be found here and here. After reading those you will understand why we have lost the best among us.

I once had my own Jim Williams encounter, back at the height of the Dot Com Bubble around 1998, when I was writing Circuit Cellar Online Resource Pages. Out of the blue Jim called me up to tell me that I was miss applying his LT1088 (Yes it was his design, that he had to convince LT to make it), RMS wave form to Heat converter. We had a lengthy discussion on how to measure esoteric wave forms from even more esoteric sources (always work with First Principles if you can, like heat in the LT1088).

We never know when our own number is going to come up. Find an industry that lets you spend more time with your family and less time at work...

Will Cold Fusion or the solar powered bikini, the iKini, power your next embedded system?

2011-06-12T09:44:00.002-04:00

The term 'Cold Fusion' has lots of baggage with it today, so most of the research takes place under the term Low Energy Nuclear Reactions or Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reaction, or simply LENR-CANR.

A summary of Andrea A. Rossi's Cold Fusion Generator has been put together by Sterling D. Allan and Hank Mills. Nickel and Hydrogen in the presence of proprietary catalyst under pressure are claimed to produce 15,000 thermal Watts output with 400 thermal Watts input. There have been independent tests to confirm numbers like this.

From what I've gathered a company operating under the name AmpEnergo is going to distribute Rossi's technology in the Americas. There are a couple of different web sites calming to be AmpEnergo's and it is not clear to me which one is the legitimate one. From an official document issued by the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, AmpEnergo is apparently registered to operate in Ohio.

A lot more details can be found in the "April 2011, updated May 2011" LENR-CANR News. Decide for yourself if this technology looks 'real'.

I have little background in chemistry, other than what I've learned related to batteries, however to me Rossi's stuff looks more like a thermogenic compound, than 'Cold Fusion'. That is, a compound that generates heat. In Harold King's novel, that I've mentioned before, Red Alert a couple of different thermogenic compounds are used. One based on Aluminum powder and one based on Iron powder. A line from the book: "How do you know the big one [the Iron based one] has not gone off yet? Because we are still here!"...

If 'Cold Fusion' is not 'hot' enough for you then maybe this hot little number by Andrew Schneider will be. He has created something that might power your next Embedded System. A solar bikini, known as the iKini. Your imagination might come up with some interesting tests for the system model. Not sure what more I could possibly say about this here? I do hope he is better at hardware design than web design as neither of his web sites rendered correctly in any browser I tried.

Myself if I was doing a practical solar design I'd use some Ixys IXOLAR^TM High Efficiency Solar Cells that can be handled by normal pick-and-place equipment. They can be gotten from Mouser. The cells would be followed up with a Maximum Power Point Tracker from either ST, SPV1040, or the Linear Tech LT3652 chip or LTM8062 μModule.

A good friend of mine, the late John Draper, had a patent 4,651,080 "High Efficienty Battery Charging System"; March 17, 1987, that put solar cells in a unique series-parallel combination to match the inherent impedance of a Lead Acid cell. If any one is interested I'll post the internal test documents of SylCell, the company that was going to promote this technology before John's untimely death. Tests showed large increases in charging efficiency.

Software Quality and Software Costs by Capers Jones

2011-06-12T09:00:00.002-04:00

"An occupation where failures and disasters are the top cost drivers is not a true engineering discipline. To become a true engineering discipline, software engineering needs better quality control, better quality measures, and better economic analysis than current norms." - Capers Jones in ASQ/SQP June 2011.

This month's (June/2011) issue of the American Society for Quality's Software Quality Journal, has a 'Must Read' article, "Software Quality and Software Costs" by Capers Jones where he explores the application of two metrics frameworks - software cost of quality and software defect containment. Both to model and manage the cost and quality consequences of poor requirements and spending time on debugging, instead of not putting the bugs in the first place.

Some ASQ/SQP articles are member only, and a few are available with a free registration. Some articles such as the one we are discussing here are made available as PDF's under 'Open Access'. The system may ask you to register with a name and email address, then you may be directed to a page saying you must purchase the article. However if you click the link again, the article should open due to it being an Open Access article.

Jone's metrics are based on the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG). Using Function Points allows for measuring defects across different languages, and in requirement documents where measurements of "Lines of Code" are useless.

To summarize: The Bad, and alas the typical development process today:

Either inadequate estimation or the arbitrary rejection of accurate estimates by clients who then imposed unachievable schedules; [Clients refusal to listen to accurate estimates on development time, usually being driven by an unmovable trade show deadline].
Inadequate status tracking by management that concealed problems until too late to recover.
Poor change control combined with creeping requirements in excess of 1 percent growth per calendar month; [The Creeping Feature Creature is a powerful task master, as late addition requirements contain more bugs].
Poor quality control.
Testing alone is not very efficient in finding bugs. Less that 35% effective.

The good, that is proper project planing and management (Always make a case from the point of the bottom line to get the attention of the Bean Counters):

The high-quality project schedules will be shorter by about 15 percent.
Software Quality and Software Costs in defect removal efficiency will cost about 20 percent less to develop than identical projects with poor quality.
Cumulative Total Cost of Ownership of high-quality applications from the start of the first release through five years of maintenance and enhancement will be about 30 percent lower than identical projects with poor quality.
Annual maintenance costs will be lower by about 40 percent.
For large applications, high quality levels will minimize the chances of failure.
High-quality applications tend to have quicker testing schedules and hence quicker overall schedules.
The economic value of excellent quality is directly proportional to application size. The larger the software application, the more valuable quality becomes.

"No true engineering discipline should have defect repairs and canceled projects as the two top cost drivers. For software engineering to become a true engineering discipline, quality control will have to be much better than it is in 2011."

"Case Studies in Software Safety: Accidents and Lessons Learned", Aug 2nd 2011, by Hardy at NASA GSFC

2011-05-15T08:53:00.000-04:00

If you happen to be in the area of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Building 3 Auditorium on August 2nd, 2011 stop in for the Systems Engineering Seminar on Software Safety. You must register at least four days in advance, see below. For those that can't make it will be available on-line sometime after the 2nd.

The Mission Engineering and Systems Analysis Division (MESAD) of the Applied Engineering and Advanced Technology Directorate(AETD), the Office of Human Capital Management, and the Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP) Office of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) are co-sponsoring a series of seminar presentations on Systems Engineering concepts, philosophies, principles, and practices.

NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center

Systems Engineering Seminar

Case Studies in Software Safety: Accidents and Lessons Learned

Presented by:

Terry Hardy, Director, Safety & Risk Management, Great Circle Analytics, LLC

August 2,
2011, 1:00 p.m.

Building 3 Auditorium

Abstract:

Case Studies in Software Safety: Accidents and Lessons Learned

The complexity of our systems is increasing, especially with the use of software and computing systems. System safety approaches are therefore necessary to help manage risk and prevent accidents in these complex systems. An essential element in preventing accidents in the future is learning from past failures. This lecture will present case studies from many different industries describing accidents and mishaps related to software and computing systems. Such case studies can help us identify what can go wrong in our own systems. The focus of the talk will be on software safety as part of a broader system safety effort, and lessons learned will be discussed related to the system safety process. Recommendations will be provided based on lessons learned from those accidents as well as personal experience.

Biography:

Terry Hardy leads efforts in system safety and software assurance at Great Circle Analytics. Mr. Hardy has over 25 years of experience and numerous publications in the areas of launch vehicles, space propulsion, cryogenics, software, safety analysis, and risk management. Prior to founding Great Circle Analytics, he led software safety and assurance efforts at Special Aerospace Services and at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; responsibilities included membership on the Constellation Safety Engineering Review Panel. Mr. Hardy also was the Principal Engineer for Reliability in FAAâ€™s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, leading efforts to develop safety, reliability, and risk management regulations, guidance documents, and training. Mr. Hardy holds a BS degree in chemical engineering, an MS degree in chemical engineering, and an MS degree in civil engineering. He also has been certified as a Reliability Engineer, Quality Engineer, and Software Quality Engineer through the American Society for
Quality.

The Fine Print:

***YOU MUST STOP AND SIGN IN AT THE MAIN GATE***
***BRING PHOTO IDENTIFICATION***
***ALL VISITOR CARS WILL BE INSPECTED BY GSFC SECURITY***
Please allow 30 minutes for security check in.
Please bring a photo identification.
Badging for special situations may be at the Visitor Center Badging Trailer

The really important fine print:

Registration for a visitor badge:

Employees and visitors with a Goddard badge need not register.
Visitors without a GSFC badge must register for a visitor badge.
To register, please send your Name, Citizenship, Organization, Phone, and Email at least FOUR days prior to seminar to: Lindsay Macleod, 301.286.6493, Lindsay.B.Macleod [At] nasa.gov
The SE Seminar Committee is only able to process Visitor Registrations for US Citizens.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Software Assurance

2011-05-08T10:36:00.001-04:00

Back in the blog I wrote, The Anatomy of a Race Condition: Toyota vs AVR XMega I mentioned the NASA Software Safety Guidebook. Seems that link went viral, as it popped up lots of other places the next day as people spread it around.

I was a bit surprised, but glad, to find that the Software Safety site and this Software Safety blog are listed number one and number two by SEMRush (a 'Competitor Research Service'), beating out NASA themselves at number four, for the term "Software Safety".

Will today's link to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center's Software Assurance page go viral as well?

"The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Software Assurance Website provides tools, procedures and training materials for software and safety assurance personnel, software engineers, as well as program and project managers."

Of the most practical day to day value are the numerous Checklists, for example one on Code Inspections, and the Forms and Templates. There are also examples of Procedures, Guidelines, Work Instructions, links to tools etc. The Automated Requirement Measurement (ARM) Tool has been developed as aid to "writing the requirements right," not "writing the right requirements". As of this moment Humans still create the initial requirements for any device or Embedded System, and Humans are prone to errors. Unless an other Human catches the error(s) in a requirement document early in the development life cycle, no downstream tool will clean up the mess or mitigate the cost overruns.

NASA Site for On-line Learning and Resources (SOLAR), has some on line training as well. The Defense Acquisition Guidebook also has a section on Software Safety online training; MIL-STD-882D, "DoD Standard Practice for System Safety".

While in the Software Safety area of space flight check out Software Safety and Rocket Science by Gerard J. Holzmann in ERCIM News. Issue #75 covered Safety-Critical Software.

In my last blog entry I mentioned Circuit Cellar Magazine. In the April 2011 issue George Novacek took on the DO-178B software assurance standard. George details the standard, as best as you can in the allowed couple of pages, then seemed to imply at the end, that doing all of this paper work doesn't make the system much safer. Over the years I've seen both sides. Not having good written requirements leads to nothing but never ending project changes (changes are normal, but if you don't know what your setting out to make, you never know when you are done), cost overruns, and missed deadlines. On the other side having so much paper work that you can never actually ship a product out the door puts any company selling Embedded Systems out of business.

Congratulations Circuit Cellar!

2011-05-08T10:15:00.000-04:00

I want to congratulate Circuit Cellar Magazine on reaching issue number 250. When almost all other print magazines (you can get CC as a PDF too) are shrinking and/or dieing, Circuit Cellar is actually increasing in circulation and the number of pages.

I still remember the rush I got when I unexpectedly came across my own name in Issue #2, and many other issues. Check out the magazine for yourself and see what kind of rush you can get out of it each month.

Dodging counterfeit electronic components is far more difficult than in the past, parts are getting harder to spot.

2011-04-17T20:16:00.001-04:00

Medical Electronics Design magazine has posted an article that everyone needs to read: Dodging counterfeit electronic components is far more difficult than in the past. "The counterfeiters are becoming increasing harder to detect. Unfortunately, the devices they're selling aren't getting any better."

I've already pointed out that the counterfeiting issue has gotten so bad that the politicians have gotten involved.

Vala a modern language for embedded, validated with VCC for C?

2011-04-17T19:51:00.001-04:00

I'm always in search of the mythical 'Silver-Bullet' language that will let all of us write bug free software for our Embedded Systems. This week I came across Vala. Vala is a new programming language that aims to bring modern programming language features to GNOME developers, its syntax is taken from C# amd Java. What piqued my interest is that Vala is a front end that compiles to native C code. So there is some hope that it would be run on an Embedded Micro, tho it would have to have some beefy memory to support GObject.
Some of the features of Vala are:

Assertions and Contract Programming.
Signals/Asynchronous Methods; With asynchronous methods it is possible to do programming without any blocking. [Yes, the masochistic could do this with raw function pointers.]
Anonymous Methods / Closures.
Multi-Threading.
Resource Control.

Still there are a few kinks I see in Vala. The Vala Tutorial gives some examples of where the language will let you shoot yourself in the foot. A language should do all it can to prevent errors by the programmer. If we want to use a language that lets us shoot ourselves in the foot we can keep using forty year old C, or Programming A Problem-Oriented-Language by Charles H. Moore, written ~ June 1970.

I don't know how close Vala's asynchronous queues are to a true message passing system like Erlang. Hopefully close enough to have to avoid the whole issues of threads and locks, but I don't think this is the case from look at a bit of the code. Threads and locks simply do not scale, especially after you get past about 64 cores. Linux multi-core scalability is a good paper to start with on the issue. I'd like to see a language similar to Vala that enforced single assignment variables and true message passing, that complied down to something that ran on our small micros.

Chips with 144 independent F18A computers are just starting to come on the market now, so we collectively need to get our acts together on doing multi-core programming, without archaic notions of shared variables, threads and locks.

Something else I came across this week over at CodePlex was VCC from Microsoft: "VCC is a mechanical verifier for concurrent C programs. VCC takes a C program, annotated with function specifications, data invariants, loop invariants, and ghost code, and tries to prove these annotations correct. If it succeeds, VCC promises that your program actually meets its specifications."

I wonder how you could convince Vala to output VCC annotated source code to feed VCC to prove a 144 core program is correct on one of Chucks Chips? I do realize chips from Chuck Moore will be using Forth...

Anyone want to buy my Small-C Handbook collection?

2011-04-17T15:12:00.001-04:00

My wife and I keep working at downsizing our home. We are tired of having our lives determined by "stuff". Move it from 'there' to 'here', spend time to inventory, dust it, move it back, etc. All of which takes time from our goals in Life.

[The Small-C book set below has found a new home, so they are no longer available.]

Anyway if anyone wants the following set of books I'll send them to whomever wants to pay for their shipping. I'll only ship to the Continental US, sorry. About five pounds shipping weight.
I just can't bring myself to toss this in the trash as they are still good teaching tools, and Jim Hendrix says Small-C is still being ported to devices to this day.

The Small-C Handbook by James E. Hendrix.
Small-Mac User's Manual for CP/M Release 1.2.
Small-Tools User's Manual for CP/M and MS/PC-DOS Release 1.2.
Dr. Dobb's Handbook of C. 700+ page hardback in like new condition.
Dr. Dobb's Journal A small C Compiler for the 8080's and Runtime Library for the Small C Compiler by Ron Cain. Reprint, with permission, from the May and September, 1980 issues of Dr. Dobb's Journal.

While I'm in a selling mood, if anyone wants to acquire the domain name dsPIC.org for any dsPIC projects send me an email. Don't really use it, and it is just more "stuff" that needs maintenance once in a while.

NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR TRUSTED IDENTITIES IN CYBERSPACE Released. Yep, its on your router.

2011-04-17T11:36:00.000-04:00

On Friday the administration released their authoritative document on NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR TRUSTED IDENTITIES IN CYBERSPACE; Enhancing Online Choice, Efficiency, Security, and Privacy. We covered this a few months ago: National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) on your router?, where I wondered if they would account for Embedded Devices.

The answers to that question is yes. From the examples given they clearly indented this to be implemented at the device hardware level, using Smart Grid Meters as the example and "... a trust framework for the identification of computer network cards...mobile phone...". Clicking on the image in the Commerce Blog shows an Ice Maker in a refrigerator, in image #4! Note that is is the one in the blog index you must click, not the one in the press release, they are the same picture, but only the first one brings up the seven flash-based images. Also take note of the comment under the press release.

Note that this NSTIC "Identity Ecosystem" system is already different than the Federal Identity, Credential, and Access Management (FICAM) Roadmap; NSTIC Objective 2.3 disagrees with me. Makes me wonder why NSTIC is not good enough for them? Let the conspiracy theories begin... Why are we being taxed to pay for both? We also get to pay more in local taxes for our schools "...school also acts as an [NSTIC] attribute provider...", nothing comes for free.

Secure authentication between the power company and the meter prevents criminals from deploying fraudulent meters to steal electricity

Trusted hardware modules ensure that the hardware and software configurations on the meter are correct.

The meter validates that instructions and periodic software upgrades actually come from the power company.

At least they seem to be promoting the use of open standards, do they mean Open Source?: "The effort to develop technical standards should use open, transparent fora and leverage existing, market-recognized guidance on assessing required authentication...".

Alas as of now there is no real details as to what is actually being implemented, nothing more than block diagrams of high level 'warm and fuzzy' ideas, nothing like requirements and specifications so far:

Objective 2.1:

Implement the private-sector elements of the Identity
Ecosystem. The Strategy can only succeed if the private sector voluntarily implements the Identity Ecosystem and only if it makes business sense to do so. The vast majority of the Identity Ecosystem will be built by the private sector, and almost all of the Identity Ecosystem's subjects, relying parties, identity providers, attribute providers, and accreditation authorities will be in the private sector.

The private sector is already providing many services that, if they choose, could be a part of the Identity Ecosystem We encourage these providers to participate in the development of the Identity Ecosystem Framework and the implementation of the Identity Ecosystem, to ensure that both incorporate these providers' knowledge and experience.

To support the private sector, the Federal Government will work to promote and incentivize [SIC] both innovation in the marketplace and the private sector's implementation of the Identity Ecosystem in accordance with the Identity Ecosystem Framework.

There is "NSTIC Implementation" Solicitation Number: SB1341-11-NSTIC if you want to get on the Interested Vendor List. So far no one there strikes me as representing our Embedded interests.

The following seems like more Orwellian Doublespeak to me. How do you have a trusted identity (at the network card level?) and remain anonymous?:

Identity proofing (verifying the identity of an individual) and the quality of identity source documents have a profound impact on establishing trusted digital identities, but the Strategy does not prescribe how these processes and documents need to evolve.

Lastly, the Strategy does not advocate for the establishment of a national identification card or system. Nor does the Strategy seek to circumscribe the ability of individuals to communicate anonymously or pseudonymously, which is vital to protect free speech and freedom of association Instead, the Strategy seeks to provide to individuals and organizations the option of interoperable and higher-assurance credentials to supplement existing options, like anonymity or pseudonymity.

http://nstic.us is a joint effort of non-profits, corporations and individuals to jumpstart[SIC] a wide-open, nationwide discussion of the government's proposed "National Strategy on Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" (NSTIC) system. They have the entire strategy in HTML, complete with embedded citable links to the paragraph level. In your tweet, blog post, article, etc, use their HTML version to facilitate dialog on any facet of the strategy, and include the link to the section or paragraph you are discussing so everybody
can follow along.

Also the organization Identity Finder paints a bleak picture of what can go wrong if this system is not implemented perfectly, (Do we have perfect software yet?) NSTIC's Effect on Privacy and Security:

New ways to covertly collect personal information, and new markets to commoditize Users' identities.
New, powerful credentials that will subject individuals to new risks of identity theft.
Identity Ecosystem Participants may not need to comply with industry baseline security or privacy protocols.
An enhanced Identity "Marketplace" which enables Participants to profit from the sale of human identities.
The Identity Ecosystem "Marketplace" would continue to be opaque to users, and may create a false sense of control, privacy, and security among Users who are unaware that their identities are subject to sale without their knowledge.
A User who opts out of the Ecosystem may also inadvertently lose privacy protections.
New, powerful NSTIC identity credentials will enable the same functionality as an Internet "Power of Attorney," without the procedural safeguards offline Powers of Attorney provide.

The official links and pronouncements follow:

Kevin S. Xu, Press Assistant Department of Commerce Office of
Public Affairs, sent out the following email on Friday, April
15th, 2011, the traditional Income Tax Day where the government
takes more than fifty percent of your income; I'm Taxed Enough
Already how about you? What is the message they are trying to
send by tying this date to this announcement I wonder? Might have
to do with April 19th being the archival date for the
solicitation, SB1341-11-NSTIC, so fewer people can get in on the
action, which was issued in March?

PREPARED REMARKS FOR COMMERCE SECRETARY GARY LOCKE

Release of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace | Washington, D.C. April 15, 2011.
[Makes me wonder prepared by whom? {Paragraph spacing is all wonky is the original email, I did not try to duplicate it here.}]

Thank you, Ann, for that kind introduction, and thanks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for hosting today's event.

I also want to welcome the many innovators, trade associations, companies, and consumer advocates that are represented here as we mark another important milestone on our mission to build a more secure online environment.

President Obama has made promoting innovation a centerpiece of his economic agenda - and there is perhaps no segment of the economy that has seen more innovation than IT and the Internet.

Fifteen years ago, we saw the dawn of the commercial Internet.

Flash forward to 2011.

Nowadays, the world does an estimated $10 trillion of business online. Nearly every transaction you can think of is being done over the Internet:

Consumers pay their utility bills from their smart phones;

People download movies, music and books online; and

Companies, from the smallest local store to the largest multinational corporation, order goods, pay vendors and sell to customers via the Internet.

U.S. companies have led at every stage of the Internet revolution, from:

Web browsing and e-commerce technology; to

Search and social networking.

But at critical junctures, the US government has helped enable and support private sector innovation in the Internet space:

In the early 1990s, the government opened the door for commercialization of the Net;

In the late 1990s, the government's promotion of an open
and public approach to Internet policy helped ensure the Net could grow organically and that companies could innovate freely; and

Recently, we've promoted the rollout of broadband facilities and new wireless connections in remote parts of the country.

Today, we take another major step - this one to ensure that the Internet's security features keep up with the many different types of online transactions people now engage in.

The fact is that the "old" password and user-name combination we often use to verify people is no longer good enough. It leaves too many consumers, government agencies and businesses vulnerable to ID and data theft.

This is why the Internet still faces something of a "trust" issue. And it will not reach its full potential - commercial or otherwise - until users and consumers feel more secure than they do today when they go online. President Obama recognized this problem long-ago, which is why the administration's Cyberspace Policy Review called for the creation of an "Identity Ecosystem," where:

Individuals and organizations can complete online
transactions with greater confidence; and

They can trust the identities of each other and the integrity of the systems that process those transactions.

I am proud to announce that the President has signed - and that, today, we are publishing - the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, or NSTIC.

The Strategy is the result of many months of consultation with the public, including innovators and private sector representatives like you in the audience. I'm optimistic that NSTIC will jump-start a range of private-sector initiatives to enhance the security of online transactions. This strategy will leverage the power and imagination of entrepreneurs in the private sector to find uniquely American solutions. Other countries have chosen to rely on government-led initiatives to
essentially create national ID cards.

We don't think that's a good model, despite what you might have read on blogs frequented by the conspiracy theory set.

To the contrary, we expect the private sector to lead the way in fulfilling the goals of NSTIC.

Having a single issuer of identities creates unacceptable privacy and civil liberties issues. We also want to spur innovation, not limit it.

And we want to set a floor for privacy protection that is higher than what we see today, without placing a ceiling on the potential of American innovators to make additional improvements over time. Behind you are a number of firms exhibiting technologies and applications that can make a real difference in our future, and some are already out in the market today. At the end of today's event, you'll have an opportunity to see all of them, but let me take a minute to highlight two in particular.

Each year, medical researchers make discoveries that save lives and improve the well-being of those afflicted with disease.

Part of this rigorous scientific research is the review and approval of clinical trials, such as the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program run by the National Institutes of Health.

To conduct these trials, paper signatures are needed for approvals at every turn.

This adds hundreds of dollars of cost - and more importantly, weeks of time that could be better spent getting patients into treatment more quickly. But the system has been stuck in paper as the world moves digital for a simple reason: because there has been no reliable way to verify identity online. Passwords just won't cut it here, as they are too insecure and the stakes are too high to risk fraud. The good news is that today, NIH has come together with private sector groups - including patient advocates, researchers and pharmaceutical firms - to eliminate this inefficient paper system through new identity technology that enables all sides to trust the transaction.

With trusted identities, patients can be enrolled more quickly in potentially life-saving therapy programs, saving hundreds of dollars per transaction. Trusted identities enable:

Trials to run faster;

Researchers to spend more time in the lab; and

A faster and cheaper way to move new therapies from the lab to the treating cancer patients.

At the other end of the identity spectrum, we have the scourge of ID and data theft, with phishing schemes being among the most prevalent.

Every second, phishing emails show up in people's inboxes, asking unwitting consumers to type their username and password into a fraudulent site.

In the audience today is Kimberly Bonney, a consumer from Bethesda, Maryland, who was victimized by one of these schemes last year.

She received an e-mail that she thought was from her Internet service provider, telling her that her account was in danger of being closed. The email asked that she provide her password, which she did.

Then, her co-workers, fellow members of her church, and her landlord began receiving emails that appeared to be from her stating that she was overseas and in need of a $2,800 loan to fly back to the United States.

It was a fraudulent e-mail of course.

Kimberly had become one of the 8.1 million Americans who were victims of identity theft or fraud last year. These crimes cost us some $37 billion a year.

But companies are introducing technologies that can help us turn the tide. At least one leader in the U.S. technology sector has come up with a simple solution to stop scammers from accessing their customers' accounts with just a stolen password.

They've recently rolled out a simple tool where verification codes are sent over the mobile phone network to a user's smart-phone or wirelessly connected computer - and when they want to access their online accounts, they have this additional and incredibly simple layer of protection.

I urge you to walk around this room to see for yourself how stronger authentication technology can protect against identity theft and cybercrime.

This is a difficult challenge. We're trying to improve security, convenience and privacy all at once.

That's why it's so important that we are leveraging the power and imagination of entrepreneurs in the private sector.

And the Commerce Department - led by Jeremy Grant at NIST - is staffing up to facilitate these private sector efforts.

I'm looking forward to learning of your future successes - perhaps you can send me an email - an authenticated email - describing those successes to my new email address at the U.S. embassy in China - that is, if I'm confirmed of course. Thank you again for your support, and now let me turn it over to Jane Lute, who is the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Jane has over 30 years of military and senior executive experience, having served at the United Nations, on the National Security Council and in the United States Army. She understands how integral cyber security is to our national security, and I'd like to bring her up here to offer a few thoughts...

# # #

The The Commerce Blog has other related items:

Administration Launches National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace; Submitted on April 25, 2011 - 10:00am [The Time Warp is theirs not mine. Is this why ... never mind.]
National Identity Strategy Envisions a More Trustworthy Internet; Submitted on April 15, 2011 - 11:45am. Guest blog post by Leslie Harris, President and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology.

"A public-private steering group will ensure that accreditation authorities" translated, in my cynical mind, to an other 'fee', the latest way to get around Taxation Without Representation, that we must pay out of our hard-earned money.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

Ronald Reagan 40th president of US (1911 - 2004)

Altium (Protel) Relocates From Sydney Australia to Shanghai China

2011-04-09T11:38:00.000-04:00

I know a few people that use Altium or the older Protel, circuit board layout package. Though you might find of interest that Altium has announced they are moving the company to Shanghai China.

Former Altium employ David L. Jones of EEBlog confirms this:

"They [Altium] are moving, lock stock and barrel, to China, and as a result, a whole bunch of people were made redundant or laid off...I don't know the exact numbers, but it's a lot,...The idea is to move all their R&D to China, and pretty much start again." -- David L. Jones as quoted on The Amp Hour.

A couple of other related items with some different background:

The Altium Press Release says: "Altium plans to expand its R&D team over time by drawing on the talent pool in China".

I recently spent some time with someone who had been doing some consulting for a company in China that developed Cellphones. His description of the development process in China was, ammm, unkind. His description went something like this: The Chinese developers had no access to Internet. They had no idea what "good code" should look like [Sadly, from seeing code on Internet, it seems like a lot of people that do have Internet don't get know either]. After a new developer gained some experience they were promoted to management, and a new inexperienced developer was brought in to replace him [No evidence to support there are any female developers involved here. Are females smart enough to stay out of this field or they are never born with the 'Knack' (Dilbert[TM] reference)?]. Any developer that wanted to keep doing development, because they enjoyed it, was seen as lazy by the culture from not getting promoted to management.

The developers always wanted to know "the fastest way" to do something and had no interest in learning "the best way" to do something.

In the end the company did ship Cellphones that some how did work. Is that all that maters? I hope not... Is this one company representative of all development in China? I hope not...

Hopefully this move by Altium will drive a lot more interest to Open Source packages like gEDA and PCB.

Changing subjects a bit, I spent a bit of time with Dave Jones at Renesas Devcon 2010. Dave kept insisting that I looked exactly like Altium's CEO Nick Martin. Actually I though Nick looked like my father.

In Q2 of 2011 I has planing on designing in some Renesas Micros. Now with the earthquake in Japan and the on going after-shocks that have been predicted could continue for a year or more, designing in any Japan based part does not seem like a prudent business move. What do you think?

The Digi-Key Catalog is Dead

2011-03-30T19:57:00.001-04:00

Just in case you missed this press release on the Digi-Key site:

THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minnesota - March 25, 2011 — In an unprecedented industry move, Digi-Key Corporation, a global electronics component distributor, recently announced that it will immediately cease all print versions of its product catalog and TechZone™ Magazine, offering this content exclusively online. This all-digital decision, driven by the company's efforts to be environmentally vigilant, marks a major milestone in Digi-Key's transition into a totally integrated Internet-based distributor, using state-of-the-art technology to support customers and streamline sales for suppliers worldwide....

A colleague of mine commented today [March 30, 2011] "Yeah, they did it for the environment. They did it to save money!"

I find flipping thought the catalog to be more productive than trying to use their web site when I'm looking for something, like a connector, but don't know exactly what it is I need till I see it. How about you? I've yet to find modern web based catalogs and magazines, to be as fast as those in the real physical world. With the chemicals-on-dead-trees version the pages can be turned in well under a second. I've yet to see that happen with the digital ones. Has our software become that bloated that the real world is faster than the world of cyberspace?

Digi-Key has not been doing the industry any favors by raising prices 50% every few days on some commodity parts due to the Japan Earthquake. Alas they are not alone in such actions...

LightSquared and GPS controversy position statement from the US Government

2011-03-27T18:10:00.001-04:00

The US Government run Space-Based Positioning Navigation & Timing National Executive Committee has issues an official statement about potential interference to GPS receivers from the LightSquared, LLC. communications network.

There is quite a purported back story of political intrigue about past heads of the FCC, the White House, the usual problems of politics such as corruption and greed swirling around the net related to GPS being rendered useless by bureaucrats paying back favors verses technically competent people making rational decisions. Due to the fear of lawyers I'll let you do that research for yourself, it is not hard to find.

Sticking to the technical maters the company LightSquared is planing on setting up a new country wide data network, which we sourly need to get AT&T and Verizon out of our lives [Verizon left us without Internet and phone service for a week. My wife tracked down the phone number for the Head Cheese in Washington DC, who said the people giving us repair hassles "will not like hearing from us!", in less than 24 hours a mobile "Tornado Trailer" was supplying us service as the equipment was repaired for the area.], sorry I digress.

LightSquared's plan is to setup 4G-LTE transmitters of thousands of watts in spectrum immediately adjacent to the GPS spectrum.

The fear of those knowledgeable in GPS sensitivities claim that the low cost GPS that most of us have will be blinded by the nearby high power transmitters. It comes down to a lot of power from transmitters close to the receivers on the ground verses picking up the GPS signals from thousands of miles away in space. Which one do you think will win?

Past items about GPS:

Test Driven Development in Embedded C class synopsis

2011-03-27T16:56:00.001-04:00

This week I spent three days with James Grenning, and ten other gentlemen, to be educated in Test Driven Development for Embedded C at the LeanDog boat in Cleveland Ohio.

For some background Jack Ganssle did a two part interview with Mr. Grenning last summer [2010], on the subject of TDD in Embedded Development:

A majority of the course is based on James' about to be released new book [May 2011] Test Driven Development for Embedded C, and a lot of insights drawn from his background in agile development methods, James was one of the signers of the Agile Manifesto and Embedded Systems.

The premise of TDD is that you write the tests for the code that needs to be created, before the first line of code is ever written. How can you possible know if your code is bug free if you can not figure out how to write a test for it? As each small test case is written, you watch it fail, then write the code that is being tested, then run the test again to see that it passes. In the method of design from the top down and build from the bottom up, our products now are being built from a solid foundation of small tested functions, rather than on untested code full of unknown bugs, sinking in the Big Ball of Mud.

More thought is put into the upfront requirements (the what of the product and how it gets validated) and specifications (the how the product gets built and verified), rather than seeing the schedule slip month by month trying to get all of the bugs out of the code by heroic effort at the end of the development process.

In the words of Confucius: "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." A large part of the class was hands on examples of writing tests for supplied examples, and then seeing how our version compared to that written by James. Some of the examples had deliberate bugs and build traps that those new to TDD would fall into, such as a module being pulled from a library causing a name clash when a header file gets edited. There is the real production code, test code, and sometimes fake or 'mock' code. The 'mock' code takes the place of some item that does not yet exist or would be to time consuming to test. If things were not set up correctly the fake/mock code would collide with the real production code. Myself in this one case I still think I prefer using Makefiles and different build directories rather than James' linker library method. Neither is right or wrong, but a mater of taste and style.

All of the tests were run using the test harness cppUTest, which can test plan old C code and C++ code.

TDD is not just for brand new projects, it is equally suited to cleaning up the tangled mess that some legacy code has become after years of changes by different people. Part of the class was on 'refactoring' and the difference between that and redesigning the code, and how to apply the test cases. Pick out a single area of code with the end target to be a single well tested function. When tests have been established for the existing code the code is incrementally moved, in small steps, to get visibility points for more tests, until the code can be replaced with new tested clean code. James and the book are far more eloquent at describing the process than I have been here. James' blog and papers, several covering Embedded Systems, are a great resource to take advantage of, for example: Legacy Code Change - a Boy Scout Adds Tests.

One of the other tools mentioned, but not actually used in class is FitNesse acceptance testing framework.

Alas TDD is not a panacea for all of our collective code problems. It may not cover integration issues such has multi-threading race conditions [Use the Erlang principles of modify nothing and everything is a message, and threading issues vanish, even on MultiCore parts], it also might not find issues that are dependent on the target hardware integer size, when the host and target differ, unless the tests can also be run on the target, which is strongly recommended when possible.

At lunch Jon Stahl, our gracious host for the three day class, the owner of LeanDog, gave us lunch time talks, such has the one on Agile & Lean From The Top Down: Executives Practicing Agile and Seeing Constraints, Kanban Explained. Take a look at the slides to see the LeanDog Boat, the floating office, and the Lean Dog's themselves, Otis and Iggy. Talk to Jon about improving your bottom line in your business area and/or your software development area.

Also it is always good to get out, as sometimes you learn things at lunch that you would never know about such as The Tau Manifesto on how Pi is (still) wrong [YouTube Video]...

If you have the opportunity to take James TDDinC class when he is in your area, make the time for it, and if you are in Cleveland stop and say hello to Otis and Iggy, and sign up for some traning.

Make Makefile Tip #4: GNU Make Standard Library (GMSL)

2011-03-26T13:42:00.000-04:00

Next tip in our on going series of Make/Makefile tips is to use the GNU Make Standard Library (GMSL). GMSL supplies the features that you've wanted to use in writing your complex Makefile but could not figure out how to get it done.

The GNU Make Standard Library (GMSL) is a collection of functions implemented using native GNU Make functionality that provide list and string manipulation, integer arithmetic, associative arrays, stacks, and debugging facilities. The GMSL is released under the BSD License.

Associative Arrays
Integer Arithmetic Functions
List Manipulation Functions
Logical Operator: AND
Logical Operator: NAND
Logical Operator: NOR
Logical Operator: NOT
Logical Operator: OR
Logical Operator: XOR
Miscellaneous and Debugging Facilities
Named Stacks
Set Manipulation Function
String Manipulation Functions

Past Makefile Tips:

How do I get started in this field? With "Understanding Small Microcontrollers".

2011-03-26T11:55:00.001-04:00

A recurring cyclic theme I'm sure we all see, is someone with the Knack wants to get started in the embedded field. My recommendation for the first thing to start with is the book, for the long obsolete 68HC05, Understanding Small Microcontrollers by James M. Sibigtroth.

Which I'm sure many readers of this blog might find odd. Just because it is old doesn't mean it is still not educational. The book covers the fundamentals like computer numbers and other things that more experience authors gloss over. It is also free, a price a budding seven year old can afford, until someone can drive them to the library. Obviously lots of resources on Internet, but to me the best way for a young person to learn is with books, to spur the imignination.

Japanese Earthquake Update from International Atomic Energy Agency

2011-03-19T11:24:00.000-04:00

Wanted to point out the site of the International Atomic Energy Agency as a follow up to my post last week, Japan nuclear power plant at Fukushima-Daiichi to become a real China Syndrome?.

IAEA has a page that they are updating regularly with information coming from Japan.

Also Scientific American [TM] has posted a page How Radiation Threatens Health. Lets hope the rest of us don't need to find out.

Maybe it is time to take a look at Thorium Fluoride Molten Salt Reactors that are passively safe, rather than safe by extraordinary measures?

The glue that holds the electronic industry together falls apart, Bismaleimide Triazine (BT) resin shortage.

2011-03-19T09:42:00.000-04:00

We are now one week out from Japan's worst earthquake and the problems that effect the electronics supply chain are starting to appear.

Something that most of us have never heard of, Bismaleimide Triazine (BT) resin, is about to impact our electronic production lives. Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company, Inc. (MGC) seems to be the major supplier of this material to the world. This was posted on their website on March 14th, 2011:

Recovery Working of MGC's Electronic Materials Subsidiary
This is a brief report on the most recent status of recovery operations at Electrotechno Co.,
Ltd. (Nishishirakawa-gun, Fukushima), the MGC electronic materials production subsidiary affected by the major earthquake that struck off the cost of Eastern Japan on March 11,
2011:
The earthquake has caused damage to part of the interior of the Electrotechno buildings and to some equipment; however, power and gas supplies have now been restored.
Since Monday, March 14, Electrotechno management and staff have been working with construction experts to conduct a close inspection of its buildings and equipment, while at the same time making every effort to restore operations. On the basis of information obtained during this inspection, MGC will announce its outlook for the restoration of Electrotechno on Friday, March 18. [None was posted today, Saturday March 19th.]
At present, MGC estimates that product supply from Electrotechno will be hindered for the immediate future, but is committed to making every effort to restore production as soon as possible. Further reports will be provided as soon as more information becomes available.

Where is BT used? It is the 'glue' that holds together the glass yarn fibers, which is also now in short supply due to damage to a different factory, that make up FR4 PCB laminates that almost all of us build our products on.

BT is also used to hold the chip dies in place on the packaging substrate material. So even if we have the printed circuit board itself, we still might not be able to get the chips from ICs to FETs, to put on it. Blank wafers will also be in short supply from damage to yet other factories.

Alternates suppliers for BT exists but unless the that maternal has already been qualified it can lead to cracking of the body of the part when exposed to heat, as no two manufacturer's process is exactly alike. It can take a long time to qualify new material.

The cracking can lead to moisture ingress that can damage ICs when they go through the soldering process. A single tiny, relative to the size of the IC, drop of water can produce enough steam to fracture the die from the sudden pressure change when the water transitions from liquid to gas.

Moisture Sensitivity Level (MLS) is one of those obscure items found on data sheets, if it can be found at all, that most designers ignore thinking it has no relevancy to them. Sometimes the MLS ratings are not even on the data sheets, but in separate reliability documents that few look at. MLS is a number from one to six indicating how long an IC can be exposed to room air before it would be damaged by the soldering process due to moisture ingress. ICs don't come in those big nitrogen filled silver bags just for the fun of it. They are in the nitrogen to keep the moisture out.

An IC with a MLS of one, can be exposed to air indefinitely, a MLS of six can not be exposed at all, it must be baked, at a low to moderate temperature before it can be exposed to the high temperatures of the soldering process, to drive the moisture out, then soldered while still warm.

We can only hope that those at the top have learned their lessons in relying on single suppliers in a single location. Maybe it is time to bring manufacturing back home? Anyone know of any second sourced modern Micros anymore? Companies don't like second sourcing as there is little profit to be had. Once again greed corrupts all. The hording, "Stockpiling for Q311", and gouging has already started; DigiKey raised the prices on some capacitors this week by fifty percent. Also these problems are only going to make the counterfeit parts problem worse.

In the end lets not get so self-absorbed that we lose sight of those in Japan that have lost literally everything, and do what we can to help them.

Senate Armed Services Committee Announces Investigation Into Counterfeit Electronic Parts in DoD Supply Chain

2011-03-13T20:28:00.000-04:00

Seems that counterfeit electronic parts have gotten so bad that now even the politicians are getting involved. I've personally experienced this, having gotten some tantalum capacitors that were marked with higher voltages than their true working voltage. They'd last about six months in the field then *exploded*. With the problems in Japan right now, I expect there will be massive increase in counterfeiting of parts that should be coming from the legitimate Japan supply chain:

WASHINGTON – Following is a statement by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, regarding the committee’s investigation into counterfeit parts in the DoD supply chain:
"U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee has initiated an investigation into counterfeit electronic parts in the Department of Defense's supply chain. Counterfeit electronic parts pose a risk to our national security, the reliability of our weapons systems and the safety of our military men and women. The proliferation of counterfeit goods also damages our economy and costs American jobs. The presence of counterfeit electronic parts in the Defense Department’s supply chain is a growing problem that government and industry share a common interest in solving. Over the course of our investigation, the Committee looks forward to the cooperation of the Department of Defense and the defense industry to help us determine the source and extent of this problem and identify possible remedies for it."

James Grenning to present "Test is not for finding bugs", Cleveland March 23, 2011, 5:30PM

2011-03-13T20:10:00.000-04:00

James_Grenning_March23_2011_Event_Flyer

It is with great pleasure that Firmware Engineers of Northeast Ohio, Cleveland Agile Group (CleAg), and the IEEE Cleveland Computer Society welcome James Grenning. He will be speaking to us at our upcoming event on March 23rd, 2011.

James Grenning trains, coaches, and consults worldwide. His considerable experience brings depth in both technical and business aspects of software development. James is leading the way in introducing Agile practices to the embedded world. He invented Planning Poker and is one of the original authors of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development (February 2001).
Mr. Grenning will present "Test is not for finding bugs".
Test is something that has to get done sometime before shipping the product. Test can wait while we do the important work of specifying, designing and coding the system. Test helps find bugs. Test happens at the end.
Wait! Don’t quote me on that!
Test is not that unpleasant activity at the end of the *development phase*, it is an integral and critical part of everyday work. It does not add drudgery, and overhead, it adds rewarding feedback and makes it possible to put more value into the software instead of wasting time chasing bugs. Test is not about finding bugs anymore. Test is specification; test is defect prevention, test drives good designs. Tests must be largely automated. You may think that you cannot afford to automate; when in reality, you cannot afford not to.
This will be the first time that Cleveland Agile Group (CleAg) and FENEO/IEEE have joined forces to bring such talent to Cleveland.

Donations are very welcome and appreciated. A donation box will be available at the sign in table. Please make all checks out to IEEE Cleveland. Also, FENEO is always looking for new sponsors.

Space is limited! To reserve your seat, please RSVP by March 21 at http://www.clevelandieee.org/jgrsvp.

Are we to reliant on GPS/GNSS? Royal Academy of Engineering says we are.

2011-03-12T15:03:00.000-05:00

I have blogged in the past about our reliance on GPS technology here Politicians replace Air Traffic Control RADAR with GPS and here Scientists, Politicians Take Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Threat Seriously. Human Exposure to EM Fields, now the Royal Academy of Engineering in London has released a new report: Global Navigation Space Systems: reliance and vulnerabilities.

This report details how we have become to reliant on the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), Global Positioning System (GPS) is currently the most widely used and best known example of GNSS. GPS is used a for more things than just getting us from Point-A to Point-B with maps of dubious accuracy. Telecommunication Network timing and the International Banking System are a couple of examples of 'hidden' uses of GPS. The timing aspect of GPS is used by the infrastructure systems more than the position aspect of the system. The report covers other infrastructure uses, and how they might be attacked and exploited.

The report also says that there should be an independent backup to GPS. It is interesting to note that the U.S. recently destroyed the LORAN system, with explosives no less, under the guise of saving money; it cost more to dismantle the system that it would have cost to keep it running. The paranoid among us might think there is a conspiracy to get everyone relying on a technology then take it away to advance a yet unknown agenda.

Japan nuclear power plant at Fukushima-Daiichi to become a real China Syndrome?

2011-03-12T11:51:00.001-05:00

The headline reads: Huge blast at Japan nuclear power plant at Fukushima-Daiichi, are we seeing a real life version of the China Syndrome about to playing out? Let us all pray that is not the case.

The China Syndrome is when there is a loss of coolant in the reactor vessel. The idea being the reaction becomes so hot that it burns down through the Earth until it comes out the other side in China. What really happens is the hot reaction burns down until it hits Ground Water, which is then turned into superheated steam, blowing the whole mess back up into the environment.

Obviously somewhat outdated, as it says "Operating Fully", design information on Fukushima-Daiichi can be found at Global Energy Observation. Fukushima Daiichi is located at 141.0329686159818, 37.425775181836 if you'd like to find it on Google Earth.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulates commercial nuclear power plants that generate electricity, in the United States. They have a lot of educational material on how Nuclear Reactors work. There are several types of these power reactors. The two types that are most prevalent, in the United States, only the Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) and Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) are in commercial service. I've been told by people more knowledgeable than I that Japan's reactor is a BWR type.

Images curiosity of the NRC.

The Teachers instruction manual Reactor Concepts Manual might be of interest to you to read, especially chapter five:

There are various radiation monitoring systems in operation around the world. The one of most interest in northern Japan is at present either damaged or disabled. Which shows that we must always consider catastrophic design issues in our Embedded Systems designes.

Other monitoring systems that I know of are the German radioactivity monitoring network ODL-Netz, which opens a map with about 1800 stations, the stations are clickable and show the measurements in the last seven days. There is also the Community Environmental Monitoring Program in Nevada, where Gamma Radiation is measured and recorded near real time.

Do you know of any others, particularly ones that are World Wide? [Shades of Harold King's novel Red Alert where a super secret world wide radiation monitoring system is a central part of the plot.]

The U.S. Geological Survey has a map of the Latest Earthquakes in the World - Past 7 days

Some have speculated that recent Earthquakes have been the result of increased solar activity, such solar activity is documented by NOAA / Space Weather Prediction Center.

For those that really want to crawl out on a limb, some say around March 20th, and/or April 18th, will be the next massive Earthquake, probably in New Zealand, based on a recent trend, and the Moon reaching lunar perigee, its closest approach until 2016. That there is a connection between the Moon and Earthquakes is not speculation, it is Tidal forces at play.

NASA to outsources Validation and Verification. Do you want the job?

2011-03-05T09:41:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you run into things that just want you to shake your head and wonder, what is going on here? Case in point the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration outsourced the study of Toyota's Sudden Acceleration problem to NASA because they where perceived to be the best around to study this problem. Now this week we find that NASA wants to outsource their Validation and Verification work. Good enough for cars but not space shots??

Before getting to the NASA solicitation I want to define what Validation and Verification mean. Like many people confuse Weather Watches and Warnings many people are unclear on the difference between Validation and Verification.

Weather watch is used when the risk of an event has increased, but its occurrence and timing is still uncertain.

Weather warning is used for conditions posing a threat to life or propert.

Definition of Terms:

The FDA's Glossary of Computerized System and Software Development Terminology, defines many of the terms used on in this blog and our Software Safety site.

Defect: The difference between the expectation and the actual results.

Validation and Verification:

Validation and Verification are a set of terms you find when working with Software Safety. Many people do not understand how they differ from each other.

These are my working definitions for Validation and Verification (V&V):
Validation: Have we built the correct device? Do we meet the customer's requirements?
Verification: Have we built the device correctly? Did we find and remove all of the 'bugs'?

Requirements and Specifications:

Clarifying the distinction between the terms "requirement" and "specification" is important.

My working definitions for Requirements and Specifications:

Requirements are a statement of what the customer wants and needs. Requirements are used for validation. Specifications are the documentation of how the customer requirements are met by the system design. Specifications are used for verification.

A requirement can be any need or expectation for a system or for its software. Requirements reflect the stated or implied needs of the customer, and may be market-based, contractual, or statutory, as well as an organization's internal requirements. There can be many different kinds of requirements (e.g., design, functional, implementation, interface, performance, or physical requirements). Software requirements are typically derived from the system requirements for those aspects of system functionality that have been allocated to software. Software requirements are typically stated in functional terms and are defined, refined, and updated as a development project progresses. Success in accurately and completely documenting software requirements is a crucial factor in successful validation of the resulting software, and the project as a whole.

A specification "means any requirement with which a product, process, service, or other activity must conform." (See 21 CFR§820.3(y).) It may refer to or include drawings, patterns, or other relevant documents and usually indicates the means and the criteria whereby conformity with the requirement can be checked. There are many different kinds of written specifications, e.g., system requirements specification, software requirements specification, software design specification, software test specification, software integration specification, etc. All of these documents establish "specified requirements" and are design outputs for which various forms of verification are necessary.

Device failure (21 CFR§821.3(d)). A device failure is the failure of a device to perform or function as intended, including any deviations from the device’s performance specifications or intended use.

Now with that background under our belt we can get a better grasp of what NASA is seeking in their, Proposals For Software Verification And Validation. This contract will provide resources for NASA-directed software verification and validation services; software safety assurance support for agency missions; and potential software development work for other government agencies.

NASA INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION SERVICES
Solicitation Number: NNG11310421R
Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Office: Headquarters
Location: Office of Procurement (HQ)

Synopsis:

Added: Sep 21, 2010 3:02 pm Modified: Mar 02, 2011 5:35 pm

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center announces the release of the final RFP for NASA Independent Verification and Validation Services. Proposals submitted in response to this RFP shall be submitted by April 5, 2011, at 3:00pm Eastern Standard Time.The due date for questions or comments is March 24, 2011 to ensure our timely response. All questions and comments must be submitted in writing via email to the following email addresses: Laura.E.Freeman[-a-t-despaming]nasa.gov. Telephone questions will not be accepted. Technical documents related to this procurement can be obtained from the Procurement Proposal Library at: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ivv/recompete/index.html. Documents related to this procurement will be available over the Internet. These documents will reside on a World Wide Web (WWW) server, which may be accessed using a WWW browser application. The Internet site, or URL, for the NASA/HQ Business Opportunities home page is http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/bizops.cgi?gr=D&pin=04 Offerors are responsible for monitoring this site for the release of the solicitation and any amendments. Potential offerors are responsible for downloading their own copy of the solicitation and amendments (if any).

Here is the link to NASA's V&V Facility, and I'll repeat the link I gave last week to NASA's Software Safety Guidebook. NASA has other standards and programs that are worth studying such as their Standards and Technical Assistance Resource Tool, for example the Software Formal Inspections Standards and Langley's Formal Methods.

So do you think you and I should team up and add ourselves to the Interested Vendors List for this V&V opportunity, or maybe one of the other 23,000+ opportunities?

Mazda6 "Bugs" and real world design considerations

2011-03-05T09:22:00.000-05:00

While we may never know for sure if Toyota's have software bugs, we do know for certain than Mazada6 Sedans have them. Okay, for the purists it is not a bug but an arachnid, specifically a Yellow Sac spider. Seems these spiders like building nests in the fuel system. I know from experience that some spiders are attracted to cretin smells, like propane, and can be a problem to keep out of backup generator systems.

Designing for rodents and other creepy crawlies is one of those things I've never seen show up in any project requirement document, yet experience has tough that these kind of real world problems must be considered in any system design. Ever consider what happens when a Red Ant walks across the high impedance A/D sensors traces on the circuit board? One of those cases that once you see it, the problem is obvious but all of the field reports and remote debugging facilities made no sense at all.

Conformal coating is an obvious solution to this 'bug' problem, but coating is not a panacea for all problems. Like all things in hardware design there are always tradeoffs.

A very common misconception is that Conformal Coating is a Hermetic Seal. It is used a lot in the Coal Mines, and the Electronic Industry in general, to keep the caustic dust, and other contaminants, off circuit boards.

As Conformal Coating is not a hermetic seal, what real happens is the impurities in the water are kept away from the circuit, but the water itself reaches the traces. Since the water is now fairly devoid of contaminates the water acts more like a dielectric insulator. You never notice it in a low impedance digital circuit, but unless debugging is an obsession don't let it get near a RF tuning circuit or a high impedance Wireless Sensor Network circuit.

Mazda6, Mazda Six, Yellow Sac Spider, Conformal Coating, Hermetic Seal, Toyota Sudden Acceleration, Wearable Smart Sensors, Software Safety, Software Bugs

The Anatomy of a Race Condition: Toyota vs AVR XMega

2011-02-27T09:39:00.000-05:00

NASA has released their report on Toyota's sudden acceleration problem. The report indicates that there was no problems found with the electronics, hardware or software.
They blame the issue on user error and bad floor mats. As no problem was found, we can be 100% certain that no problems at all exist in the hundreds of thousands of lines of software code, in the vehicles electronics, right?

"Because proof that the ETCS-i caused the reported UAs [Unintended Accelerations] was not found does not mean it could not occur." - pg 17.

"Today's vehicles are sufficiently complex that no reasonable amount of analysis or testing can prove electronics and software have no errors. Therefore, absence of proof that the ETCS-i has caused a UA does not vindicate the system." - pg. 20.

Something that I find most annoying is that the areas where the embedded system hardware is discussed the most, is the area of the most redaction (blacked out sections). Why?

If a problem was to still be lurking, unfound, it could be what is known as a Software Race Condition. What does a software race condition actually look like?

We can find an easy example to pick apart in the AVR-LibC bug tracker, bug#29774: "Prologue/epilogue stack pointer manipulation not interrupt safe in [AVR] XMega".

To understand the problem here, you need a bit of historical background. In AVR's prior to the XMega, when an Enable Interrupt instruction was executed, the instruction following the Enable was guaranteed to execute with interrupts still turned off. In the mists of time someone thought it was a cool hack to save an instruction cycle by restoring half of the stack pointer, enabling interrupts,then restoring the other half of the stack pointer. The problem with such novel hacks is they invariably come back to bite you in the future.
Like a bad Soap-Opera story you can probably already see where thisis going? In the XMega when interrupts are enabled the following instruction is not guaranteed to execute before an interrupt occurs. Now the stage is set for the race condition.

The current generation of XMega parts can run code in a singlec ycle at up to 32 MHz. That means we have at minimum one 1/32 MHz, or31.25 nano-second window for the software race to happen. In a complex system there are probably more than one interrupt enable happening. To add more pain, the XMega can nest interrupts three levels deep.

You see that if an interrupt occurs exactly at the point where interrupts are enabled, only half of the stack pointer has been restored. So the new interrupt saves its registers someplace,odds are high it is not the right place! The new interrupt eventually returns, tries to restore its registers,from someplace that might have been read-only-memory, and bang we are off to the races with a crashed system doing who knows what.Maybe a full open throttle? No message shows up in any logs because there was no event logged through a call to the event logging system,as this was never an anticipated event; "systematic software malfunction in the main central processor unit (CPU) that is not detected by the monitor system".

Due to the short length of the 31.25 ns race window possibility, a crash may never happen, may happen every 18 hours and 22 minutes, or as often as I win the lottery [Give Wheeling Systems a try]. It could take some certain combination of options and users actions to cause the conditions of enabling interrupts while returning from an interrupt, while getting an interrupt. Turn the radio dial, press the brake peddle while the over automated headlights turn themselves on perhaps?

While the this bug was actually reported in the AVR-LibC bug tracker, the problem is actually within the AVR port of GCC. Specifically the file gcc-version/gcc/config/avr/libgcc.S.

I fixed my copy of WinAVR-GCC with a hex editor, so my projects would not suffer for this bug. Realistically how many other people will have done that? Not many I would guess. It is impossible to tell from the hideous Atmel website (all glitz, no useful information) what the state of the bug truly might be today.

For those that want to fix the problem the solution is to simply write the lower half of the stack pointer first: "To prevent corruption when updating the Stack Pointer from software, a write to SPL will automatically disable interrupts for up to 4 instructions or until the next I/O memory write". As GCC does not yet nativity support the XMega, the XMega features are maintained as a set of patches. Those patches have been updated to fix the problem.

It would be easy for some to say that one should not use Open Source compilers for real production projects, as I've seen a few prominent people state. I have a copy of IAR's AVR compiler, at no small price tag, that I've seen produce complete crap for output. So just because you paid, perhaps a lot of money, for it doesn't mean it is error free.

Some standards require that the code generated by the tool be inspected. At what level of detail is the question? I once actually ran into an assembler that produced correct listings, however the generated .HEX file was wrong. That problem took days to find. Disassembling, with an independent tool from a different provider, the generated .HEX file is one option, however it is not always easy to figure out what optimized compiler code is doing in a reasonable amount of time.

What kind of tool problems have you ran into?

Now returning back to Toyota. Section 6.7.1.2 tells us that a Renesas,formally NEC, V850E1, and GreenHills ISO/ANSI Compiler are used for the control software of interest to us. Alas the section that might shed light on Race Conditions is completely redacted.

Starting on page 112 Tin Whiskers become a prominent failure mechanism. Keep in mind that according to page 19 of the report only six vehicles were analyzed. The whisker problem discussed from a seventh vehicle accelerator assembly only.

Tin (and Other Metal Whisker) Whisker are such a problem that NASA has given them their own Homepage. Tin Whiskering on PCBA Capacitors in Storage by Terry Munson gives a different, but still depressing, view of the Tin Whisker problem.

The comments about the whiskers over at Circuit Assembly Magazine are also educational, that I recommend that you read, for example:

Brett Emison pokes several holes in the NASA report, What NASA's Report Said About Toyota Sudden Acceleration for example:

The NHTSA/NASA report did little to address issues documented by drivers who actually experienced an unexplained sudden unintended acceleration event.
NASA's findings do not solve the question of what caused Kevin Haggerty's well documented sudden acceleration event. Haggerty owned a 2007 Toyota Avalon that experienced at least 5 different sudden acceleration events. Haggerty did not have accessory floor mats and his OEM mats were secured in place. Sticky pedals couldn't have caused the problem because he didn't have his foot on the pedal. On Haggerty's final incident, he was actually able to drive the vehicle while the engine was racing out of control into his local Toyota dealership.
He got to the parking lot, shifted to neutral and stopped the car with its brake smoking and engine racing out of control. He got out of the car and the engine was still racing (no pedal misapplication) Service technicians were able to look at he car and confirm the unintended acceleration was not caused by floor mats, sticking pedals or driver error. They also confirmed no computer error codes (meaning the computer was not detecting whatever was causing the problem).
Bob Landman
LDF Coatings, LLC
http://www.ldfcoatings.com

I do wonder if NASA applied their Software Safety Guidebook to Toyota's source code? I assume they did not, as it is not listed among the techniques they did apply.

...Tune in tomorrow for an other episode of As The Stack Churns...

Test Driven Development with Embedded C - Discount through Friday Feb 28th

2011-02-22T20:06:00.000-05:00

We need just three more people to bring James Grenning to Cleveland next month.

If you were on the fence about signing up, there is now a twenty percent discount if you sign up before 4PM EST on the 28th of February. Enter the code "FENEO", for Firmware Engineers of Northeast Ohio (FENEO).

See my last blog entry Test Driven Development Embedded C with James Grenning March 22nd to 24th in Cleveland for details.

Test Driven Development Embedded C with James Grenning March 22nd to 24th in Cleveland. Be there!

2011-02-19T06:41:00.000-05:00

Late last summer James Grenning was scheduled to give his class on Test Driven Development for Embedded C. Alas not enough people signed up to get him all the way to Cleveland. This year he is trying again.

His course is scheduled for March 22-24, 2011 at cost of $1495. If you plan on attending, please register ASAP so we can make sure there are enough students to justify bringing James to Cleveland.

I covered James new book Test Driven Development for Embedded C [Nov./2010] in my blog about Makefile tip #0 on automatic serial numbers to be embedded in C code.

Test Driven Development is a powerful technique for building embedded software. This hands-on course teaches the practice of Test Driven Development in the challenging environment of C. In this course you will learn how TDD helps overcome some of the challenges embedded developers face including: unpredictable schedules, poor quality, and the problems that follow. In addition, embedded software developers must conquer the realities of concurrent hardware/software development, scarce target hardware availability, long download times, high deployment costs, as well as the challenges of testing embedded C.
TDD leads to better designs, towards more object oriented approaches to C. In this call you will also learn some of the design principles that can help to guide engineers to better designs.
Most of you have existing legacy code. In this class you will learn valuable techniques for dealing with legacy code. You will see incremental approaches to getting control of the legacy code with tests making improvements to the design less risky.
Test-Driven Development, a key agile practice, helps software developers improve schedule predictability and product quality and can do the same for embedded developers. TDD is valuable even outside of agile development methods.
This course describes the problems addressed by TDD, as well as the additional challenges and benefits of applying it to embedded software. You will learn the test driven techniques as well as specific design approaches to make your C code to testable today, maintainable tomorrow, and ready for a long useful life.
This course will get you and your team well on the way to applying TDD for Embedded C in your development efforts.

Columbia County 36 inch gas line rupture. Is three a trend?

2011-02-11T21:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I reported on a gas explosion in Allentown Pennsylvania. The total of damaged houses there is now up to 47.

Today a thirty-six inch gas line ruptured near Hanoverton Ohio. The gas pipeline explosion rocked entire county of Columbiana, reports say it was felt as far away as Pittsburgh PA.

Fox8 News has video of the event.

We now have three major gas explosions in less than 30 days. I don't like this trend. Will my neighborhood be next? Maybe yours?

Are we looking at a systemic failure of technology?

Allentown explosion and fire. An other frozen sensor?

2011-02-10T20:35:00.000-05:00

Today in Allentown Pennsylvania two houses were leveled and six damaged beyond repair. Five people are known dead.

Allentown Police Captain George Medero has said that fire looked to be the result of a gas explosion.

Lets pray that we are not seeing a trend of gas company sensors that are freezing up and causing pressure regulators to go bonkers.

Tantalum bust in Goma; Congo. Stock up on capacitors! Before the movie??

2011-02-09T21:34:00.001-05:00

In Mark Doyle's, British Broadcasting Corporation Correspondent, blog, Mark posted an entry relevant to anyone designing Embedded Systems power supplies. Mark is reporting that "The President of Congo, Joseph Kabila, recently ordered a ban on mining in the area". The a area he is referring to are the Gold and more importantly to us Tantalum mines in that area.

Mark's online summary does not mention it, however on the actual BBC report I heard on the radio yesterday morning, they specifically mentioned Tantalum "used in mobile phones". Seems the Bad Guys were smuggling Tantalum, but as no one knows what that is, so they call it Gold and "other minerals". The on air report also said this whole episode had the good makings for a Spy Movie, complete with the take down of the Bad Guys on the airport tarmac.

Tantalum Capacitors are used as part of the power supply regulators in many devices. They have several unique properties, such high capacitance to volume ratio, an Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) that falls within the Goldilocks Zone of not to low and not to high, to prevent the regulators from oscillating etc.

Newer regulators are stable with Ceramic Capacitors. The problem is supporting the legacy designs that can not be changed due to the acronym agency paper work. Pick the one of your choice: FDA, MSHA, FCC, UL etc... :-(

Want innovation? Then get out of the way!

2011-02-05T10:50:00.000-05:00

Do you know what I find so irritating about today's economy? The White House, and Big Boys like Intel are playing with hundreds of millions of dollars to spur market based innovation.

'They' just don't seem to get that the current lack of innovation in the country is due to small business and entrepreneurs being crushed under burdensome paper work, unfunded government mandates, environmental regulations that lack scientific foundation or common sense, the unknown costs of confusing heath care regulations, and obscure IRS regulations.

Did you know that the very people being asked to be innovative are actually singled out in the Tax Code:

Engineer
Designer
Drafter
Computer programmer
Systems analyst
or other similarly skilled worker

for special punishment by the IRS? Whatever happened to "Fairness for all"? The actual suicide note of consultant and programmer of Joe Stack, introduces us to the issue created by Tax Reform Act of 1986; see also the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996, and the Pension Protection Act of 2006.

The tax code issue of who is an "Employee", in the purview of the IRS, is so confusing that the IRS has tried to clarify the issue multiple times such as PRESENT LAW AND BACKGROUND RELATING TO WORKER CLASSIFICATION FOR FEDERAL TAX PURPOSES;2007 and SECTION 530: ITS HISTORY AND APPLICATION IN LIGHT OF THE FEDERAL DEFINITION OF THE EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP FOR FEDERAL TAX PURPOSES; National Association of Tax Reporting and Professional Management;2009.

In my personal view, until the IRS is replaced with one of the many proposals for a Flat Tax (The harder you work, the more 'They' take is not much of a motivation to be innovative in the current system), and Congress and other politicians are forced to follow the laws that they create for the rest of us (We get their health care plan or they get ours), things are not going to get any better. No one wins in the Race to the Bottom...

To see what kind of road blocks to being innovate are, I would like to see one of the presidents young daughters (I do know they are to young to do this, but it makes the point) go to a random city in each state (to see the difference of regulations between states) and open a business that does something simple like sell Ice Cream Cones. Along the way they document each permit, each fee, and each regulation that they must comply with, be it local, state and Federal, before they sell even their first Cone. Then for the next year document each interaction with the Government for taxes, permits, and fees while documenting those costs. After that then they try to open a more complex business like a circuit board manufacture where lots of environmental rules come into play. Then maybe 'They' would understand the real world of a normal, that is outside of political circles, business people that want to change the world but are to busy shuffling Government forms.

Strategy for American Innovation: Promote Market-Based Innovation, Startup America, Ice Cream, Joe Stack, Computer Consultant, Suicide Note, IRS Section 530 1706, Intel

Who controls us? Our technology?

2011-02-05T07:15:00.000-05:00

In a Free Software Foundation appeal for donations, Technological power should be held by all users of a technology, Benjamin Mako Hill, whom is on the board of directors at the of the FSF, states "Control over technology is power". Past events in Egypt are a good example of that.

Turning the control of technology issue around, on January 24th 2011, the community of Fairport Harbor in Lake County, located alongside Lake Erie northeast of Cleveland Ohio, literally exploded.

3,200 people suddenly found that their lives were controlled by the technology of the Gas Company. Authorities say built-up pressure in natural gas lines led to a house explosion and then a series of fires.

Various reports say spokesman Matt Butler with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, says ice that formed in a sensor line caused a gas pressure regulator to fail when the outside temperature was 7'F.

What I wonder is if this sensor system was designed by some well educated person setting in a warm office in a warm claimant, who has never seen a real gas well, while any country hick from the Oil Patch knows that the moisture in Natural Gas condenses when it is cold?

Environmental factors must always be considered in any infrastructure design. Maybe it has never been 7'F where a system is to be deployed, but can you say with certainty Mother Nature won't change her mind about that next year or in ten years? Redundancy is not always a bad thing when it comes to failure prone sensors and technology.

"Software Safety - Where's the Evidence?" Tuesday April 5th, 2011

2011-01-29T17:58:00.000-05:00

Anyone up for Road Trip to London this spring? Safety-Critical Systems Club is sponsoring Software Safety – Wheres the Evidence:

Demonstrating system safety is difficult at the best of times. When software is involved, it often seems impossible. What constitutes evidence? From what sources can it be obtained? How much is enough? These questions, and others, are often asked, but so far the answers have been vague.
This workshop will discuss software reliability and safety. The purpose is to identify the current state of the art, the principal questions that need to be addressed, and the difficulties to be overcome in addressing them.
The workshop will examine many sources of safety evidence, including design and production; testing, deployment and assessment; and operational use. It will consider many kinds of evidence, such as analyses of products at various stages of development, results of product use (in testing and operation), data about the processes used to develop the product, and even legal and contractual evidence.
It is hoped that this workshop will lead to a continuing discussion on software reliability and safety . at subsequent workshops, in the Safety Systems Newsletter, and in other media.

The event is limited to forty people so sign up early.

Cost is around $400 USD in today's, Jan 29 2011, Pounds to Dollars exchange rate, room and travel is not included in that price.

Anyone know of any similar Software Safety Clubs here in the US? There are a few Firmware groups around such as Firmware Engineers of Northeast Ohio, not specifically focused on Software Safety. By the way there was related group created on LinkedIn for Firmware Recruiters. Leave a comment if you know of any related groups.

What does the Facebook Generation do when Internet and Cell Phones are gone?

2011-01-29T17:43:00.000-05:00

On the daily commute I usually listen to The BBC News Hour. Yesterday they reported that Egypt Shut Off All Internet Access and all cell phone cariers.

Seems the "Facebook Generation", as the news reports have referred to the protesters, are not happy about lack of having good paying manufacturing jobs. Hmm... Better places around for that discussion.

I bring this up here in the Embedded Space because of the connectivity issues. For example EETimes is reporting Cellular modules for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications will reach over 100 million in 2015. Related areas of connectivity are eHealth, such as The 4 "-e’s" of eHealth: connectivity, conformity, usability, security by Jennifer Hesse and Dr. Joseph Kvedar's related Keynote at the 2010 Connected Health Symposium.

My question to you is what happens when Internet and Cell Phone technology is gone? We could go back to FidoNet on Plain Old Telephone lines, or Amateur Radio always the communications of last resort because the Hams look forward and prepare for this kind of service.

Keep in mind that some are adopting Sinclair Lewis's 1935 classic It can't happen here as their modern planing book, rather than seeing it as classic literature:

..."Nonsense! Nonsense!" snorted Tasbrough. "That couldn't happen here in America, not possibly! We're a country of freemen."...

Philway PC Board House Fire

2011-01-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

At approximately 10:30PM on Wednesday night, Jan/19/2011 Philway Products Inc. of Ashland, Ohio burned to the ground. Fortunately no one was hurt.

Philway was the oldest continually operating board house in the US. It was also my preferred PCB vendor, sharp people and good quality for the rugged environments I deal with.

Purportedly the owner said on a TV interview that he was not sure if he was going to rebuild or not. Will be a great loss if that is the case. Also makes me wonder even if they did want to rebuild, would the EPA allow it? Ammonia, Sulfuric Acid, Nitric Acid, Formaldehyde and other chemicals are used to make PCBs.

Philway was big in the military and Hi.Rel. Aerospace, there could be a significant ripple effect from this event. I've never been a fan of "Just In Time" inventory for just this reason. Luckily from my perspective no work of mine was in process.

Someone wondered what will happen about tooling? Do we have to pay for it again should they rebuild? Obviously we will if they don't rebuild. Time will tell, the lives of those involved deserve more consideration and help right now, some links from the news:

Are you going to learn assembly language in 2011? First Job? Does your job make you happy?

2011-01-09T12:54:00.000-05:00

Learning a new language, rather spoken or computer, is always a good thing. Gets us exposure to different concepts. The book Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: A Pragmatic Guide to Learning Programming Languages (Pragmatic Programmers) is a good example. To me the most important computer language to learn is Assembly Language. I'm sure I'll hear that no one needs to know assembly language any more. I can be fairly certain that those people are not making cost competitive embedded systems in large quantities; smaller code means smaller memory sized parts can be used resulting in lower BOM costs. No mater if you are using the latest wiz-bang Web development language like CoffeScript, or maybe Functional Web functional programming languages and techniques for web development, my personal interest, or tried and true languages like 'C', it is still important to understand the fundamentals of the underlying system. Especially if you want to get close to the hardware.

Programming from the Ground Up by Jonathan Barlett can be downloaded here. The chemicals on dead trees version can be purchased here An introduction to programming using Linux assembly language (the version of Linux used is somewhat dated now but the fundamentals still apply) also gets in to real world issues that never get taught in a class room, for example meetings. When was the last time you had a class on holding meetings? Myself I would have put some more of the fundamentals like "Counting Like a Computer vs Counting Like a Human" at the start of the book, rather than after people are already writing code. Getting back to the section on meetings:

Where Does the Time Go?
Programmers schedule poorly. In almost every programming project, programmers will take two, four, or even eight times as long to develop a program or function than they originally estimated. There are many reasons for this problem, including:
Programmers don't always schedule time for meetings or other non-coding activities that make up every day.

Programmers often underestimate feedback times (how long it takes to pass change requests and approvals back and forth) for projects.

Programmers don't always understand the full scope of what they are producing.
Programmers often have to estimate a schedule on a totally different kind of project than they are used to, and thus are unable to schedule accurately.

Programmers often underestimate the amount of time it takes to get a program fully robust.

Myself I've found that the time estimate given by Murphy's Law is accurate far to often. Take the estimated time, double it and then raise it to the next higher units. A two minute task will take four hours to complete, due to interruptions from coworkers, ringing phones, slow equipment due to byzantine IT policies, the boss and/or customer changing their mind, again...If you are looking for less cynical view Jack Ganssle often promotes Wideband Delphi as a method of scheduling.

Something to keep in mind, when you are thinking of getting into programming Embedded Systems for the money, consider the words of Pete Warden in How to Hire Coders tells us:

"The best programmers often aren't driven by money...they're after more responsibility, independence, the chance to work with cutting-edge technology or recognition from their peers."

Something to keep in mind when working for that first programming job is that most employers are always interested in new fresh young employees so that they can use them as cheap slaves to improve their lifestyle.

Jacob Morgan offers some good advice, valid no mater where you are in life, in his Working Hard vs Working Smart and the Myth that Young People are Told.

"There isn't a better or worse way to get things done it's based on preference. Personally I'm not capable of bulldozing through a long list of tasks, working ridiculous hours, and sacrificing my life for a paycheck, it's just not me. I don't really admire people that make a ton of money and work ridiculous hours (if I want to make a ton of money I can just get two full time jobs and sleep 3 hours a day), I admire people that are successful yet still have discretionary time and a solid work life balance."

Tom Becker of Man Power Inc. (best known for their temporary and contract recruitment services) wrote in the Talent Management section of the January 2011 Quality Progress Magazine that Happiness Helps; Career development breeds employee engagement, boosts organizational performance. The article is free to all but registration is required to read it (why I have no idea, and I hate registering to read things like this myself).

In 50 Words Or Less:
Having discontented employees who don't feel engaged in the workplace often leads to lower retention and a higher rate of absenteeism, which can affect an organization's overall performance.

A career development program can help organizations retain and advance talented employees while boosting productivity and business performance.

Something I read not long ago, don't recall where for sure, might have been CNN Money, said that 84 percent of employed people, in the survey, where going to be looking for new jobs "when the economy improves". Sounds like shuffling the deck chairs on a sinking ship to me...

What is Requirement Traceability?

2011-01-09T11:37:00.000-05:00

Last week Simula Research Laboratory released A SysML-Based Approach to Traceability Management and Design Slicing in Support of Safety Certification: Framework, Tool Support, and Case Studies.

Abstract:
Context: "Traceability is one of the basic tenets of all software safety standards and a key prerequisite for certification of software. Despite this, the safety-critical software industry is still suffering from a chronic lack of guidelines on traceability. An acute traceability problem that we have identified through observing software safety certification processes has to do with the link between safety requirements and software design. In the current state of practice, this link often lacks sufficient detail to support the systematic inspections conducted by the certifiers of the software safety documentation. As a result, the suppliers often have to remedy the traceability gaps after the fact which can be very expensive and the outcome often is far from satisfactory. Objective: The objective of this article is developing a framework to enable systematic and efficient software design inspections during safety certification. In particular, the framework enables safety engineers and certifiers to extract design slices (model fragments) that filter out irrelevant details but keep enough context information for the slices to be easy to inspect and understand. This helps reduce cognitive load and thus makes it less likely that serious safety issues would be overlooked. Method: Our framework is grounded on SysML which is rapidly becoming the notation of choice for developing safety-critical systems. The framework includes a traceability information model, a methodology to establish traceability, and mechanisms to use traceability for extracting slices of models relevant to a particular safety requirement. The framework is implemented in a tool, named SafeSlice, that supports establishing the traceability links envisaged by the methodology, automated consistency checking of these links, and automated generation of SysML design slices. Results: We provide a formal proof that our slicing algorithm is sound for temporal safety properties, and argue about the completeness of the slices based on our practical experience. We report on the lessons learned from applying our approach to two case studies, one benchmark case and one industrial case. Both case studies indicate that our approach offers benefits by substantially reducing the amount of information that needs to be inspected in order to ensure that a given safety requirement is met by the design."

The paper gives detailed analysis of the theory of traceability, worth your time to read, to find out why you should care about traceability. The one major downfall in my view is that the automation tool they present only works on Windows. Leaving those of us that prefer to do development on Linux and other platforms out in the cold.

To prevent vendor lock-in extortion I always prefer to use Open Source software where it makes sense. Traceability is one area where there is almost no applications at all that support this problem domain. The Web PHP based project TRUC - Tracking Requirements & Use Cases, is the only one that I know. Leave a comment on the ones that you know about.

A simplistic introduction to how to do traceability can be found at eHow How to Create a Requirements Traceability Matrix. Linda Westfall offers up a in more depth introduction Bidirectional Requirements Traceability . How well do you think you will do on Lind's Certified Software Quality Engineering Quiz?

Tom and Kai Gilb explain why bad or non-existent requirements are the root of failed projects, with emphasis on traceability. They have a large number of papers related to the subject, and subjects such as software quality, available for download. The manuscript for the book Evo - Evolutionary Project Management is also available for download.

When it comes to documentation I always like to look to NASA for inspiration, for example the NASA Safety and Mission Assurance Documentation Status Tree Policy, Plans and Documents section and the NASA Software Assurance section, all part of the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA).

One paper from the NASA sites above worth pointing out is NASA Complex Electronics Guidebook for Assurance Professionals. One of the things that it wants to accomplish is to stop organizations that were implementing software functions in FPGAs and ASICs to avoid the need to follow the software assurance/safety standards for:

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA)
Complex Programmable Logic Device (CPLD)
System-on-chip (SoC)
Blurring the hardware/software line

It is also an excellent management introduction to those topics, if you are still trying to convince your boss to starting using some modern technologies like FPGA's.

National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) on your router?

2011-01-08T15:57:00.001-05:00

Just in case you missed this Government Press Release yesterday, January 7th 2011, I'm reprinting it here, with a few editorial comments of my own:

At a forum with Silicon Valley business and academic leaders at Stanford University, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard A. Schmidt today announced plans to create a National Program Office [At what cost to tax payers?] to help [Who asked the Government for this help?] foster an environment in which sensitive online transactions can be carried out with greater levels of trust.
The National Program Office, to be established within the Department of Commerce, would coordinate federal activities needed to implement the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), an Obama administration initiative aimed at establishing identity solutions and privacy-enhancing technologies that will make the online environment more secure and convenient for consumers. The national office would serve as the point of contact to bring the public and private sectors together to meet this challenge.
[Will the challenge be government mandated cryptographic systems on all Embedded Devices even if they don't need it, and don't have the power to implement them?]
"The Internet will not reach its full potential [What is it doing now without helpful intervention of various government around the world?] until users and consumers feel more secure and confident than they do today when they go online," Locke said. "A coordinated national strategy to significantly improve online trust will put e-commerce on stronger footing. [With who? Will ITAR regulations prevent me from buying something over Internet in a different country using NSTIC? If it is not worth of being band for export, it probably is not worthy of being used?] The National Program Office will engage the best minds in the field [Who is going to be representing Embedded Systems?] from both the public and private sectors to give people greater confidence that their personal information is safe when they engage in online transactions."
"With the full participation of industry and the general public, NSTIC plans to nurture the development of a secure and privacy-enhancing 'identity ecosystem' for the Internet," Schmidt said. "This identity ecosystem would instill greater confidence in online transactions with less personal information being collected and stored with each transaction, lowering the risk of identity theft." [Nobble goals that Industry should be supporting without government prompting.]
Created in response to President Obama's Cyberspace Policy Review, NSTIC is a key building block in the national effort to secure cyberspace. NSTIC strives to enhance online trust through increased security and privacy. It focuses on improving the ability to authenticate individuals [Nineteen Eighty-Four?], organizations, and the underlying infrastructure, such as servers and routers [An Embedded System Device...], involved in sensitive online transactions. At the same time, it provides consumers a choice - those who want to remain anonymous for activities like blogging will continue to be able to do so. Online service providers that opt in to such a system would follow a set of security and privacy guidelines.
NSTIC's anticipated benefits for consumers include increased convenience, security and privacy. For example, implementation of NSTIC would allow users the option to obtain secure, interoperable credentials from a range of service providers that would authenticate their identity for a variety of transactions such as banking, accessing electronic health records and ordering products [To enhance tax revenue?]. This would simplify these transactions for users and reduce the amount of private information users must reveal to the many organizations they deal with online. Such a marketplace will ensure that no single credential or centralized database can emerge.
In the NSTIC vision, businesses would enjoy new market opportunities, with the ability to deliver services and transactions previously considered too risky. Government would be able to expand online services for constituents [We know how well E-Voting has been working so far.], so they can operate with greater efficiency and transparency; remove impediments to e-commerce; and increase public safety by bolstering the integrity of networks and systems. [Why does the network need to know my identity? End points yes, but the network itself?]
As the Federal coordinator, the National Program Office would collaborate with other Federal partners, including the Department of Homeland Security and the General Services Administration on NSTIC implementation. The National Program Office would work to:
Build consensus on legal and policy frameworks necessary to achieve the NSTIC vision, including ways to enhance privacy, free expression and open markets;

Work with industry to identify where new standards or collaborative efforts may be needed;

Support collaboration within the government; and

Promote important pilot projects and other NSTIC implementations.

E-commerce worldwide is estimated at $10 trillion of business online annually. E-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2010 were estimated at over $41 billion; up 13.6 percent over the same period last year.
"Identity theft is rampant and growing. Increasingly sophisticated cyber hackers and thieves continue to steal personal information, bank account data and proprietary information. The NSTIC will take important steps forward to enhance the trust of user and consumer confidence in all of their online transactions," said U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski.

Senator Mikulski, who chairs the Commerce, Justice, Science subcommittee on Appropriations, added "I will be an active partner with Secretary Locke, NIST Director Gallagher and Cybersecurity Coordinator Schmidt to implement this important program. I can think of no better place than the National Institute of Standards and Technology for this important initiative to be housed."
"Establishing this office represents an important step in the process of protecting the security and privacy of online transactions, said U.S. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. " It's a critical piece of the larger cybersecurity puzzle. I look forward to working with the Administration this year in enacting comprehensive legislation [Maybe we should enforce laws that we already have? Like getting banks to actually care when your identity is stolen, because of their lack of security?] that will address the challenges we face in securing cyberspace."
Later this year, the Commerce Department plans to hold a workshop to highlight the existing initiatives in this strategy. Representatives from industry, academia, civil society organizations, standards-setting organizations, and all levels of government will be encouraged to attend and collaborate on the development of an interoperable identity ecosystem.

Always fully specify requirements; Software Quality Assurance. Why can't I turn off the headlights??

2011-01-08T09:58:00.001-05:00

I had mentioned not long ago that I was shopping for a new car, due to my GM rusting, failing transmission and failing fuel pump. I ended up buying a used 2010 Toyota Corolla.

One of the things purchasing the vehicle did was to remind me of how important it is to always fully specify requirements for both hardware and software. You see, it simply never occurred to me to have on my checklist, the requirement of "Does the headlight switch work?". The answer is no! Understand that it is not a broken switch, it is designed not to work!

The car has a light sensor that turns on the headlights anytime the engine is running and it is dark, per some light sensors and computer algorithm hidden away in the Engine Control Unit. Here in cold Pennsylvania I get my car out of the garage to warm it up, before adventuring out on the daily commute to work, while playing Russian Roulette with the local deer population (Hunters complaining there are not enough deer are not hunting around here!). Anyway, my now impossible to turn off head lights are now shining directly into the neighbors bed room window, as the car warms up. While I've seen far to many people driving around here with their headlights off in the dark, would not a simple LED on the instrument panel have been sufficient? A complex device like a automobile should never over ride the judgment of its user. Do we really need technology to control impulses, enforce good behavior? What happens when all technologies fail?

I think "Smart Cars" are about to get to smart. I once almost had a accident on Interstate 80, in a construction zone.

Somehow a car that was over packed pulled from between some construction equipment, in front of me.

This driver could not see out any window but right in front of him, and he was pulling across the interstate traffic, not going with the flow. He could not see out the passenger window, that was facing me.

He shot out from between the construction equipment about twenty feet in front of me, while I was doing 45 MPH, remember it was a construction zone.

The correct solutions to the problem was to floor the gas, so that I could get in front of him while there was still space, and get off on the right hand brim of the road.

Toyota's system, Toyota cars to monitor driver's eyes for safety, would have guaranteed that a crash happened in that situation by applying the breaks.

"Toyota will start building a safety system into some of its cars this year that monitors if a driver is clearly watching the road during situations when a crash may occur. The system is based around a camera that watches the driver's upper and lower eye lids to evaluate how attentive he or she is to the road ahead. It builds on a current system that measures the driver's head direction when driving. The car's safety system continuously monitors the road ahead using a radar system, and if it determines a crash may be possible, it matches this with the driver evaluation gathered from the camera. If the driver doesn't appear to be paying attention it sounds a buzzer and warning light. If things progress and a crash becomes probable then it also tries to gain attention of the driver by quickly applying and releasing the brakes. At this point the car's pre-crash brake assist system is also readied. When a crash is judged to be unavoidable the safety system engages the brakes and seat-belts for the collision."

Moving from Requirements to Software Quality, the January 2010 issue of PragPub Magazine from Pragmatic Programmers, has an article that you should checkout: Rediscovering QA; Three Unusual Attributes for Software Quality Assurance by Chris McMahon.

PragPro Magazine is edited by Michael Swaine who was the long time editor of Dr. Dobb's Journal, giving PragPro the flavor of Dr. Dobb's in its hayday.

Also this week Walter Bright wrote a piece Patterns of Bugs, where he covers several common bug patterns he has encountered over the years. Take note of the articles comments as they point to some interesting sounding papers and tools. For example one of the commenter's, Kennn [SIC], to Walter's piece points out Andrew Koenig classic paper C Traps and Pitfalls, at Literate Programming.

Literate Programming is one of those things that sounds great in theory but I've personally seen it fall apart in practice. In a nutshell Literate Programming is where you write the documentation for the program, and that documentation is then transformed into executable code.

The Open Source schematic capture package gEDA was originally written in NOWEB (which has nothing to do with the Internet Web). Many people wanted to contribute to the gEDA project, but few wanted to be bothered to learn this obscure language. Only after NOWEB was abandoned in favor of straight C code did the project start to advance significantly.

Walter makes a case for creating an Open Source repository for bugs, where people can see the mistakes others have made. Add a rating system, as in which bug happens the most like, '=' rather than '==', and we have the makings for yet an other social networking site to consume our time, distract us from our goals in life, and make some extremely wealthy. Who wants in? :-)

Perhaps NASA's Lessons Learned site would be a good example? Contrast the space and aviation industry with how they learn from their mistakes and share the knowledge, with that of the medical industry, of hospitals and doctors, where they get to bury their mistakes. Those mistakes get covered up, literally and figuratively, so no one learns from them and they are repeated over and over. For inexplicable reasons my wife's hobbies are to collect medical and insurance horror stories, and there are more every day. She could make a career out of it if anyone paid for such a thing. I keep trying to get her to blog about it, but can't get her interested, so far.

Wonder if I'll void the remaining warranty by installing an old fashion low tech. toggle switch...

US Math Education vs Russian Math Education

2011-01-02T21:28:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned the pathetic US Math education system in the past, and given a couple of alternatives like Trachtenberg Speed System of Basic Mathematics and Kiss My Math.

Aleksey Nudelman had an interesting Guest View Editorial in the last weekly edition Software Development Times (It has gone to a monthly magazine format for 2011+, don't expect it to last long myself), Why public school math fails.

Aleksey young son had the opportunity to spend some time in the Russian school system. In their system mathematics is built from the basics of two plus two equals four, where each incremental concept builds on the last. This seems like a good way to learn just about anything. He then contrasts the US mathematics education system:

"...A random set of math topics is presented without emphasis on concept development.
The 'Everyday Mathematics' system is approved and recommended by the U.S. Department of Education; it presents mathematical topics in a random order and does not require students to master basic topics before they progress to more advanced ones.
In an open letter to the U.S. Department of Education in 1999, 200 mathematicians, including Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners, argued that "Everyday Mathematics" should not be used because it does not follow a logical order of the pupil's math skills. Yet it continues to be used by many school districts across the U.S.
Many parents protest the 'Everyday Mathematics' curriculum adopted by our school district, but they have had no discernible effect. The only way to get it removed is for a group of parents to mount a district-wide campaign against the curriculum. Unfortunately, given the cost of the campaign, it is cheaper to send a child to a private school..."

Aleksey also gives us all something to think about when he was doing job interviews: "the majority of [Russian] candidates were easily able to solve a logical puzzle that had proved difficult for their American counterparts..."

In closing something worth regularly checking out is the English version of the Russian newspaper Pravda. Where else would you learn about the Three giant spaceships to attack Earth in 2012? I don't know about you, but I don't care who is flying them, I'm going to look up 'Scottie' and find out how they fly. :-). There is of course serious articles as well, such as Russian Government Mandates Shift from Microsoft to Linux by 2015. Sometimes you can find out what is really going on in this country by listening to Shortwave Broadcasts and reading foreign papers like Pravda.

Do you worry about Dirty Electricity when you go car shopping? EMF Health Effect Research

2010-12-28T11:16:00.000-05:00

I'm in the market for a new automobile. I don't think my current GM model has much life left in it after only 160,000 miles, bad transmission sensor, think the full pump is about to expire. I really wanted to get a hybrid, with the Toyota Prius being at the top of the list. In doing my due diligence research I changed my mind because the Prius seems to suffer from the problem of 'Dirty Electrcity'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius:

"The Prius has been known to emit excessively high electromagnetic fields. ICNIRP guidelines stipulate that the maximum long term exposure should not exceed 1mG but the Prius measures higher than 24mG in some locations, such as the rear right seat. ICNIRP guidelines are not law in many (if any) countries. The World Health Organization in conjunction with the ICNIRP conducted a study and found levels above 3mG contribute to a child's risk of developing leukemia. At 12mG, the electromagnetic radiation is so strong it's able to block the body's ability to inhibit cancers (in this case breast cancer) using melatonin. The Toyota Prius exceeds 12mG (up to 24mG) in some areas of the cabin. However Toyota claims that the Prius emits similar fields to conventional gasoline vehicles. The high voltage power cable from the traction battery and the forward electric drive motor/generator passes directly under the drivers seat."

In my blog on EMP I covered the work of the late Dr. Robert Becker, which I think it is important enough to repeat here:

I can not stress enough that anyone interested in the medical research field and/or the effects of our ever increasing exposure to EMF's, must read The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life by the late Robert Becker and Gary Selden. All research in the field starts here. One key point worth mentioning is that Becker's research showed that low power signals of the same frequency had biological effects that higher power levels of the same signals did not have.

Some will assume that because that work was done decades ago that the issues have been solved by now, alas not, which leads us to the relatively new book Dirty Electricity: Electrification and the Diseases of Civilization by Samuel Milham MD MPH. Dr. Milham covers the research since the time of Dr. Becker.

Less you think that health problems are limited to power lines and hybrid batteries, we must wonder what our modern wireless society is doing to our health and that of future generations as we design our fancy new Embedded Systems. There have been a few voices crying warnings in the wilderness such as my friend Dr. Nick Begich, who in 1999 wrote Cell Phone Convenience or 21st Century Plague? along with my friend the late James Roderick, that was originally published in 1999 in Explore! magazine, followed by the book Earth Rising II: The Betrayal of Science, Society and the Soul in 2002.

Here in 2010 we find Should You Be Snuggling With Your Cellphone? by Randall Stross. [The text is also available from the Risk Digest, should you find the previous link behind a pay-wall.]

Microwave News is a good place to stay up to date on what is happening in the health versus wireless technology arena. For example this obscure report released on the 21st of December 2010 in Epidemiology.

We should not fall into the cynical trap thinking that all EMF exposures are bad. In the early part of the twenty century before the American Medical Association and Big Pharma corrupted health care, there was a thriving Electromedicine Community. As far back as the time of Tesla we can find items like his Violet Ray. A glass tube filled with Argon that gives off a purplish glow when it is plugged in. Mine is extremely noisy and the smell of Ozone waif's through the air, so I don't use it much. The Inert Gas FAQ may interest you as well as the out of print book Einstein Doesn't Work Here Anymore by Maurice B. Cooke, should you be interested in such things.

Perhaps the best document work of lost Electromedicine knowledge is the work of Royal Raymond Rife as documented in Barry Lynes book The Cancer Cure That Worked: 50 Years of Suppression.

"It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so." -- Artemus Ward and/or Josh Billings.

Is that new Christmas Present setup up naughty or nice? Better check it twice...

2010-12-24T07:59:00.000-05:00

Did Santa Claus put a new SmartPhone, PC, Router, or other new electronic widget under your Christmas Tree this year? Do you know if Santa's Magic Elves setup the security properly? Better check it twice to see if it is setup up naughty or nice!

Over at Network Information Security & Technology News we can find current security news for the day. Around the holidays it is always good to keep up on the latest security issues. Those that just received their new Christmas Present might not understand the security issues that shiny new present might open them up to. It is especially important to explain security to the younger crowd. Here are few suggestions go get you started:

Why Don't Firewalls Work?; Even the best firewalls might fail an audit -- or get hacked -- if your enterprise doesn't follow proper change and configuration management practices. Here's a look at some of the common pitfalls that trip up firewall administrators by Tim Wilson.

The Non-Encrypted Hall of Shame™.

"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night..."

What happens when our chips get sick? Is there a Chip Doctor?

2010-12-11T07:51:00.000-05:00

A couple of things in the news about Bacteria and Viruses being engineered into our components, on purpose, has me wondering what happens when our components get sick?

Colloidal Silver and Oil of Oregano are popular home remedies when we get a virus or bacteria. However if we treat our components that way, if we could, they stop working.

Colloidal Silver is something you can make at home with a current source, see Q1 and Q2 in figure five of Design Note 189 from Linear Technology for an example of a current source, and some pure silver wire, the kind used for repairing jewlruy. Always make sure you measure what you make. I use a HM Digital TDS-3 myself.

Mix the Oil of Oregano with some juice or water when you first take it, otherwise it will burn a hole in your tongue.

Sorry I digress...

Logic gates to program bacteria as computers by Julien Happich:

"A team of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has engineered E. coli with the key molecular circuitry that will enable genetic engineers to program cells to communicate and perform computations. The work builds into cells the same logic gates found in electronic computers and creates a method to create circuits by 'rewiring' communications between cells."

How the Future of Big Tobacco Could Be Tiny Lithium Batteries by Kit Eaton:

"The tobacco mosaic virus is a destructive beast infecting over a hundred different species of plants, including tomatoes. [This includes many other plants of the Nightshade Family as well.] But it may have a weird eco benefit: Incorporated into lithium batteries, it can increase storage capacity ten times."

Maybe we have the Andromeda Strain to look forward to...