A shootout last year in Waco, Texas between rival biker groups the Cossacks and the Bandidos ended with nine people dead, 20 injured, and a lot of questions. Hear bikers give eyewitness accounts of the shootout and their predictions for what's next in this "war." Find Kelly McEvers on Twitter @kellymcevers. Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Philip Freidin (@PhilipFreidin) spoke with us about his BLE platform OSHChip, debuggers, and consulting. Planet Labs is sponsoring a contest! Hit the contact link to enter. Also check out their careers page and apply to [email protected]. Both the OSHChip and the CMSIS-DAP SWD programming module are on Philip's Tindie store. While Keil is the suggested compiler for now, you can also use mbed (tutorial). The system is wholly open source, you can find everything at github.com/oshchip. (Philip gave an HDDG talk about OSHChip; we didn't talk about it but I thought it was interesting.) Philip's company is Fliptronics. Under Tips and Tricks, that site has his advice on consulting.

Meet the people inside a house at the center of an HIV outbreak in Indiana. Find Kelly McEvers on Twitter @kellymcevers. Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Kelly McEvers (@kellymcevers) joins us to talk about the definition of embedded. Kelly McEvers is one of the hosts of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon news magazine. She is also the host of a new podcast called Embedded which takes a story from the news and goes much deeper into it. Her Embedded podcast launches on March 31st. Subscribe now on iTunes, listen on NPR.com or your favorite podcast app. Kelly's Diary of a Bad Year: A War Correspondent's Dilemma is an amazing listen. Kelly mentioned her interview of a drone pilot, Lt. Col. T. Mark McCurley, author of Hunter Killer. She also interviewed Sarah Pennypacker, author of Pax. Elecia does not squee on air. But it was a near thing.

Christopher and Elecia chat about the Hackaday prize, Unity class (and their games), the blog, hams, and IDEs. Embedded.fm blog posts we discussed: Chris wrote about ham radio practice tests and his plane's maiden flight. Elecia is working her way through her book about taking apart toys. Chris Svec is taking a microprocessors approach in Embedded Systems 101. And Andrei's current Embedded Wednesdays posts have been about number format and accelerometer output. Sign up for the Embedded.fm newsletter to get blog content in your email box. Hackaday Prize! Yay! Sign up early and often. Chris and Elecia have been taking a Unity course on Udemy (pricing becomes more sensible after April 1). Elecia's game is live for the next 30 days, you can play it from your computer's browser (but not Chrome). Audio "enhances" the experience. Also: you were warned. Atomic Game Engine is another game engine but open source. Justin has 8 reels of 800 of Atmel AT32UC3A3256S-ALVR. Let us know if you'd like to be connected. Elecia liked the Ed Emberley Make A World drawing book. Bipedal robots at RobotShop.com for software programming or SparkFun's Redbot kit for more hardware oriented fun. If you missed last year's April Fools Embedded.fm: The Elon Musk of Earth. Feel free to listen to it again on April 1 as there will be no such gag this year.

Dan Luu (@danluu) spoke with us about processor features, startups vs large companies, error handling, and computer science research. Dan's blog is danluu.com. Some posts we talked about: CPU features since 1980 Working at Startups vs. Large Companies Recurring Postmorten Lessons Efficacy of Computer Science Research Areas Dan mentioned some conference proceedings he monitors. For computer architecture: ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA): http://isca2016.eecs.umich.edu/ IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Microprogramming & Microarchitecture (MICRO): http://www.microarch.org/ High Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA): http://www.hpcaconf.org/ For software engineering: International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE): http://www.icse-conferences.org/ Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE): http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/fse2016/ He also mentioned Operating System Design and Implementation OSDI: https://www.usenix.org/conferences/byname/179

Sarah Petkus offers to let her robot lick Christopher's leg. Christopher agrees reluctantly once we determine the saliva will be anti-bacterial hand sanitizer. Sarah is a kinetic artist and some of her projects include a robot army (built your own from parts printed out or purchased at robot-army.com), Noodlefeet, and Carl (the flamingo of pendulum inversion). Her Zoness.com site is an umbrella for her drawn and robotic art. Specifically, you may enjoy her webcomic Gravity Roads, her YouTube channel, and/or her Robotic Arts blog. Some other topics we discussed: Sarah got into mechatronics at her time as SAIC. Festo's air jellyfish on youtube Algodoo.com 2d physics simulator Woodgears.ca for 3d printable gears Also, please check out our new embedded.fm/blog or if you prefer email updates, sign up at embedded.fm/subscribe.

Here's a preview of what's coming up on Embedded, a new show from NPR hosted by Kelly McEvers. Each episode we'll pick a story from the news that might seem far away, and take you deep into the place where it's happening. Subscribe now.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Julia Evans (@b0rk) spoke with us about using profile analysis to debug programs. Her PyCon 2015 talk was Systems Programming as a Swiss Army Knife (video). Julia's blog is jvns.ca. Some of the posts we discussed include: Have High Expectations for Computers How I Got Better at Debugging perf top: An Awesome Way to Spy on CPU Usage Julia's favorite conference to speak at is Bang Bang Con in New York City, May 7-8, 2016. Coincidentally, the call for proposals is open. Also, please check out the Embedded.fm/blog!

Andrew "Bunnie" Huang spoke with us about manufacturing in China, writing books, and crowdfunding. Bunnie's new book is The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen. It is available via crowdsupply and the price goes from $30 to $35 when pre-ordering ends on March 17, 2016. Bunnie's blog is at www.bunniestudios.com, many of his professional projects can be found at www.kosagi.com including more information about the Novena open source laptop. Hacking the XBox is available for free from No Starch Press.