wcunning

Joined 14 years ago

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2,122

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386

Member since

Aug 5

Embedded systems, signal processing and control systems.

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Recent submissions

Comment · 1 month ago

Lots of automotive OEMs want that specific kind of information for generic reasons (how many of what model made it to what mileage under what circumstances) that are entirely reasonable. Lots of them also want that info for warranty related reasons (you've hit the mileage limit and we won't do anything for you anymore). But, my state of Michigan is starting a program to evaluate replacing registration fees with mileage charges to account for the additional wear and tear on the roads from EVs that don't pay gas taxes to fund road repairs. This would require some kind of verification of mileage, which we can't currently do during emissions testing, since it doesn't exist here. Legally required data retention is becoming a bigger and bigger issue, particularly in light of the driver monitoring requirement starting in MY27 vehicles by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act terms. That will presumably be integrated into any black box recording in a crash and probably subpoenaed in any dispute going forward.

In other news, I think I'll be taking a trip to somewhere down south to find a nice, used 1999 F350 dually with a manual transmission, since they're going to cease to exist shortly...

Comment · 2 months ago

The issue is less the wear and tear of the battery and motors and more the wear and tear of everything else -- suspension and brake components are going to need replacing, along with radar and ultrasonic modules, etc. These parts will be at least partially end-of-life and hard to get by the end of that 20 year period. Federal law requires some amount of parts availability for 10 years + some release of part designs to the aftermarket after that, but I have a hard time getting parts for 21 year old Ford designs that were less than popular, so I would be surprised if early Tesla models are having an easy time 20 years on. This gets much much worse as you start to look at the number of abandoned EV models from the Big 3, the abandoned/dead/dying companies (Fiskar, Lucid, Lordstown, etc). That doesn't hit the vast majority of all EVs, which are just Tesla, but it does put a dent/makes the buying decision harder. Now expand that to not just Tesla, but what does Tesla do with a Cybertruck? Like all things, the specific product decision matters a lot, and this is a new area (even at 14 years old) so there will be lots of people who optimized for cost and not maintainability.

Comment · 3 months ago

Location: Detroit, MI

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: no

Technologies: Embedded systems, automotive, machine learning, signal processing, data science, real time computing, safety processes (MISRA, ISO26262, etc), MATLAB, FPGA.

Resume: LinkedIn -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/wcunning

Email: wdocunningham \@\ gmail.com

Currently doing software defined vehicle software architecture with a focus on fail-safe and fail-operational, loosely coupled, distributed systems. This includes some standards contributions and work with high level suppliers like Nvidia and Renesas for next-generation software/hardware system co-development.

Primary skills include hard real time embedded systems, safety critical applications, firmware development, system integration and complex hardware/software interaction debugging, along with detailed data analysis problems.

Side interests include machining, 3D printing, embedded system development, coffee roasting and furniture making.

Comment · 6 months ago

Location: Detroit, MI

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: no

Technologies: Embedded systems, automotive, machine learning, signal processing, data science, real time computing, safety processes (MISRA, ISO26262, etc), MATLAB, FPGA.

Resume: LinkedIn -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/wcunning

Email: wdocunningham \@\ gmail.com

Background: Masters in control theory and signal processing, working in the auto industry for the last 7 years, first on low level powertrain software then the last year or so on LIDAR/computer vision for autonomous vehicles. I've done the most work in C, but I'm now contributing to safety development work with the Rust consortium and Ferrous Systems through my current employer. Recently had to read the Linux kernel source and use the BCC tool suite to find a subtle issue in the network stack causing high latency on sensor data for AV, also coincidentally fixed most of the network timing infrastructure.

Side interests include machining, 3D printing, embedded system development, coffee roasting and furniture making.

Comment · 8 months ago

Location: Detroit, MI

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: no

Technologies: Embedded systems, automotive, machine learning, signal processing, data science, real time computing, safety processes (MISRA, ISO26262, etc), MATLAB, FPGA.

Resume: LinkedIn -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/wcunning

Email: wdocunningham \@\ gmail.com

Side interests include machining, 3D printing, embedded system development, coffee roasting and furniture making.

Comment · 8 months ago

This is going into the next Wifi standard specifically to get this data off of normal wifi traffic.

Comment · 9 months ago

The much much much more concerning part of this bill in my opinion is the part that applies this expectation to CNC machining equipment. This means that there will be some ugly consequences to running real industry out of New York state. Probably heavy import and cross shipping delays (lots of German machining equipment passes through the port at NY/NJ, so could theoretically be subject to this, even if eventual delivery is to Texas, for instance). The reasoning behind things like the old "receiver is the only part of the gun to be serialized and tracked" and "80% AR Lower Receiver" were to prevent impact to non-gun industries. Block of steel with random holes is not a gun is an important concept. My only conclusions are: 1) very glad I don't live in New York, 2) buy my used VMC sooner rather than later to avoid this stupidity. Much like continuing to drive my 2010 Miata a lot longer since it doesn't have all this terrible new technology that prevents maintenance (VIN locked modules, no home programming software to replace things, etc etc).

Comment · 10 months ago

The Friends of the Wanamaker Organ society is doing work with the new owners towards preservation. I doubt it's going anywhere, but concerts will be sporadic for a while.

Comment · 11 months ago

The biggest thing is what kind of "coffee" you mean by coffee -- cold brew in particular tends to be a much higher extraction % since the bitter notes you get on higher extractions are less noticeable at colder temperatures. The rest is what the sibling responses mention -- time of day and speed of absorption in the digestive system can have big impacts.

Comment · 11 months ago

James Hoffman did some interesting videos on that -- espresso is a more efficient extraction method than Aeropress, but less complete than a very high water to coffee ratio pour over for the same weight of ground coffee. Extraction of caffeine is very directly tied to contact time and temperature, so two double shots of espresso (40g coffee) can actually be less caffeine extracted than a single large pour over (25g coffee) when the pour over is upwards of 22% extraction (typical of 20:1 water to coffee ratios and modern zero-bypass brewers). Similarly, there are large differences in beans, so 22% extraction on weak caffeine beans might be way less than 18% extraction on much higher caffeine beans. This is most obvious in the fact that Robusta has much higher caffeine on average than Arabica. Also, 22% extraction has a lot more unpleasant bitter compounds, not just more caffeine, so it's not my preference for taste in general.

Comment · 1 year ago

Location: Detroit, MI

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: no

Technologies: Embedded systems, automotive, machine learning, signal processing, data science, real time computing, safety processes (MISRA, ISO26262, etc), MATLAB, FPGA.

Resume: LinkedIn -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/wcunning

Email: wdocunningham \@\ gmail.com

Side interests include machining, 3D printing, embedded system development, coffee roasting and furniture making.

Comment · 1 year ago

This is mostly a function of the markets for used EVs and used ICE vehicles being the same and the used EV purchaser is not a target market for EVs in general.

Not that many people can afford a new car now at all, and of those who can, they're getting luxury end cars, generally. Luxury vehicles depreciate faster than non-luxury vehicles, generally. People who want used cars are frequently people who can't afford new cars, thus they want something that works in their area in their situation with their stuff as it stands. Many of these people live in places with poor charging networks or rent and cannot install a charger. Used EVs don't come with a free charger like new ones often do. EVs were also being priced and purchased based on the tax credit for quite a while, which meant that price was a little... soft? On top of that, many EVs that fit into this data are selling for less for real reasons, like the uninsurability of Cybertrucks and the range loss on the Bolt EV. This all drives demand down or shifts the curves and lowers prices. It's just a small market for now.

Comment · 1 year ago

Thus the starting out part. Certifications, years of experience, skills in terms of welding exhaust or the like all raise that, but mechanics get screwed on their rate regularly, which is why they're dropping out. See one of the other top level comments about "shortage -> low wages."

Comment · 1 year ago

The impression I got from seeing the demonstration was that this was the result of years of negotiating and arguing to get to something fair. Ford doesn't love it, dealers don't love it, but no one can really come up with a major improvement.

Comment · 1 year ago

$20 is starting as I understand, and goes up quite high for master mechanics with certifications. That's how I meant that to be read.