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

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