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You are here: Home / Radio Show / #725 – The Secret Life of Circuits with lcamtuf / Michał Zalewski

#725 – The Secret Life of Circuits with lcamtuf / Michał Zalewski

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Welcome Michał Zalewski, AKA lcamtuf!

  • The lcamtuf Substack is where Michał is writing most these days
  • Chris first found and geeked out about the CNC guide on the lcamtuf original site (discussed many times here)
  • Michał is interested in the craft of teaching electronics
  • He recently published The Secret Life of Circuits with No Starch Press
    • Use the code AMPHOUR26 for 30% off The Secret Life of Circuits valid from June 1st through June 30th
    • It was announced on his blog here
  • Deriving fomulas from basic trigonometry sometimes bugs people who think electronics should only work with calculus
  • Software geeks follow the site, often getting lots of attention on Hacker News
  • Row hammer DRAM
  • There were no Information Security degrees in the early days, so the field was made up of folks with backgrounds in math and EEs
  • Fuzzing for security
  • SMBC cartoon for blming humans
  • Books
    • American Fuzzy Lop
    • The Tangled Web
    • P0f v3
    • Silence on the Wire
  • Security stuff (including books on the subject) ages over time, as opposed to electronics
  • On the subjects of Calculators (and Michał’s collection)
    • Calculators are a footnote in the history of computing, but still intriguing
    • Dead ends in calculators
    • CRT displays on calculators
    • Nixie tubes
    • Discrete moving into logic gates into processors
    • Mechanical calculators are rare and get a high price online
  • Working with transistors
  • The Secret Life of Circuits start with FET based transistors vs BJT
  • BJTs are often right after diode chapter because of the multiple junctions in an NPN, but that doesn’t make it easier to understand
  • Projects
    • A recent project involved making a clock out of current meters 
    • Woodworking and AI example
    • Want to see all lcamtuf articles in one place?
    • Sokoban
    • Sir box-a-lot

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