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From the Wikipedia article about spherical cows:-

Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. A multi-disciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer, "I have the solution, but it works only in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum".

Since then, a spherical cow breeding program has been successful.

Spherical cows are often the stereo-typical black and white Holstein Friesian cow pattern but may also be the brown and white Jersey cow pattern or numerous other patterns including plain white, brown or black. Unfortunately, spherical cows in a single color are often mistaken for mutant hamsters and shot on sight. This contributes the Holstein Friesian pattern being predominant.

Although genetic throwbacks may exhibit hooves, ears, a tail or an undesirable ellipsoid profile, a pure-breed cow is completely spherical. They are often grown in proximity to cuboid watermelons; an innovation which makes more efficient use of space within a domestic refrigerator. A side effect of the spherical cow breeding program is that spherical cow milk has an unusually high surface tension. The milk often sits as droplets rather than a homogeneous liquid. This may be corrected with a very small quantity of surfactant. However, this additive often falls afoul of legislation regarding dairy products and therefore spherical cow milk may be restricted to illicit channels; similar to raw milk.

A perfectly spherical cow has no (identifiable) legs. Indeed, a perfectly spherical cow in an idealized meadow has no cross sectional area with the ground. Therefore, spherical cows are frictionless with the ground. In a valley, a spherical cow placed near the top will roll down the valley and up the other side. If the valley is in a vacuum then this process may continue indefinitely. If the valley has idealized wind resistance, spherical cows will typically be found in a local minima. Furthermore, a herd will be arranged in a manner approximating sphere packing. If idealized air is still, a spherical cow placed near the top of a valley or hill may be found in one of the surrounding dips. However, if wind is strong then an entire herd of spherical cows may be stuck against a fence. It is strongly recommended that any fence exceeds the radius of the largest spherical cow and can withstand the force of an entire herd during strong wind. Despite being domesticated, it is completely unknown how spherical cows eat or breed. The leading theory is that spherical cows are trans-dimensional beings but agricultural researchers are unsure how to test this hypothesis.

The easiest method to determine if a spherical cow is pregnant is via the increased radius of the cow. However, it is incredibly dangerous to be around a pregnant spherical cow. When a spherical calf is born, it may shoot out like a ping-pong ball. It may travel an incredible distance across countryside; 200m has been recorded. For this reason, spherical cow birthing sheds are strongly re-inforced and the interior is covered with damping material to reduce the total number of ricochets. A newborn spherical calf is approximately 1/2 of the radius (1/8 volume) of an adult. Spherical cows are most likely to be born during a full moon. This may be the basis of an unexplored joke.

A spherical calf grows to full radius over 18 months or so and it sufficiently mature to breed in its second year. In idealized conditions, breeding pairs of spherical cows may increase in a manner which strictly follows a Fibonacci sequence.

Spherical cow leather was the preferred material for equipment used in many types of sport. Most typically, it was used for sports balls due to its equal weight distribution and equal curvature. It was also the preferred material for chess-boxing gloves. Nowadays, sports are more likely to use synthetic materials; especially in upper leagues. Foreseeably, this has contributed to a decline in spherical cow herds.

Spherical cow steak is of unusually high quality. Spherical cows may have recessed legs and therefore edible parts of a spherical cow consist almost entirely of rib, back and belly. Approximately πr³/3 of any given cow is rib meat. However, to properly sear a spherical cow rib eye steak, a particularly large circular searing pan is required. Some advocates of paleolithic diets are particularly keen to promote the benefits of spherical cow steak. One of the disadvantages of intensive farming is that beef, pork, chicken, turkey and other meat is almost exclusively single sex. This may have long-term consequences for all humans. To avoid adverse effects of xeno-steroid hormones, it may be beneficial to eat historical proportions of male and female beef. Given the foreseeable difficulty of identifying male and female spherical cows, males are often allowed to grow to adulthood. However, the increased cost associated with spherical cow farming may have fringe health benefits.

Attempts have been made to cross-breed spherical cows and flying pigs. So far, this has been unsucessful. However, this may change as genetic engineering advances. Nevertheless, it has re-ignited a debate over collective nouns. It is generally accepted that the collective noun for pigs when flying is a flock. However, accepted use beyond this case is varied. In the case of flying cows, moderates suggest that the portmanteau, flerd, be used in all cases. Unfortunately, this reasonable proposal has been met with almost universal disdain from farmers. While diary farmers look forward to new varieties of stationery, dairy farmers are concerned that any re-classification of farming may adversely affect economic subsidies for agriculture. This may further contribute to the decline of spherical cow breeding.

It is possible to make a dozen spherical cow plushies for £20 (US$30). This is a popular hobby project because they are relatively easy to make. Only cuboid plushies are easier to make but both require relatively large amounts stuffing. Spherical cow plushies require two self-similar pieces of synthetic fur material. Ideally, the synthetic fur material will have a Jersey cow print. (Among professionals, Jersey print material is known as plane cow plush.)

The two pieces fit together in the manner of a tennis ball or hacky sack. In the trivial case, this requires an ellipsoid template consisting of a semi-circle joined to a rectangle and another semi-circle. For each piece of fur, ignoring allowance for sewing seams, the straight and curved sections should have the same length. The straight section of one piece should fit with the curve of the other piece. This sets the constraint for the relative lengths. For a semi-circle with radius r, the rectangular section should have width 2r and length πr. When a piece of material is curved to fit the other, it would be reasonably assumed that πr is the curved distance between polar opposite focus points of a curved ellipsoid. However, this is not the case.

Making the reasonable assumption that the seam does not stretch but that synthetic fur may stretch to become approximately spherical, it is neccesary to include the (appropriately named) Skinner's constant or other Flannagan Finagling Factor. The four inflection points (where the seam changes direction) are equally spaced around a great circle. Relative to the radius of the ends of an ellipsoid, the inflection points are sqrt(2)r from the center of the sphere. Therefore, for a tennis ball, spherical plushie or similar with a required radius r, all the previously stated measurements for ellipsoids should be scaled down by a factor of sqrt(2) (approximately 1.41). Common worked examples follow.

When making cutting templates from paper, length should be 1+π/2 of width - prior to ends being rounded. For an A4 sheet of paper (297mm×210mm), cut to 297mm×116mm before rounding ends. For a US Letter sheet of paper (11 inch × 8 inch), cut to 11 inch × 4.3 inch before rounding ends. This is suitable to make a plushie with 16cm (6 inch) diameter. Template and/or material should be cut with allowance for seams. Professionals typically include a 6mm (1/4 inch) seam in the template. A wider seam (included or excluded in the template) may be desirable due to inexperience and/or to increase sturdiness.

It may be useful to tack a few stitches where the straight/curved point of one piece meets the curved/straight point of the other piece. It may also be useful intermediate points. Each tack works as a rip-stop. It also reduces mismatch of material when sewing along seams. Optional adornments, such as legs and tail, can be sewn separately and then stitched into the seam. The tennis ball seam provides suitable placement for four legs, two ears and a nose. Miniture cow bells can be purchased in bulk from morris dancing suppliers.

The cheapest stuffing by volume is synthetic car washing sponge. However, the result may feel lumpy and distinctly not spherical. One sponge may be cut in half and each half may be trimmed into a dome shape. Another sponge may be cut to approximate a disc. The three layers (dome, disc, dome) may be squeezed through the hole of the synthetic cow hide before the final section of the seam is sewn closed. While attempting to close the seam in the least obvious manner, increase the difficulty of the task by simultaneously considering the hairy ball problem.

Worryingly, the result meets European safety standards for flammable material and also toys with small parts. However, it does not meet the widely flouted labelling regulations. Without exception, all waste material (fur, foam, cotton) may be stuffed into a spherical calf plushie. However, this does not meet safety standards and should not be given to the type of child inclined to stuff things up its nose; nominally a child less than three years old.

Synthetic fur may be occasionally brushed with a wig brush. Stains can be removed by soaking the surface material only. Deep ingress of water is likely to encourage mold. Synthetic fur is likely to curl or melt in a clothes dryer or under an electric hair dryer. Do not spin wash or tumble dry because it makes plushies very dizzy.

Things are really coming to a head here. We have a bunch of alt-right jerkoffs hysterically jumping up and down shouting "butbutbutbut MUH FREEZE PEACH!!!111one" over Gab getting its blood supply cut off like the cancer it is.

Listen, you Constitutionally-ignorant know nothings, you fucking fourth-grade civics class failures, you frothing wild-eyed lunatics: the First Amendment merely says the government may not restrict your speech in and of itself (and there are still exception clauses for public safety).

It does not mean you have a right to be heard.

It does *not* mean you have a right to a platform.

It does NOT mean you have a right to incite violence.

And MOST OF ALL, it does NOT mean you have a right to escape the consequences of your speech.

Now, I personally am all for shitholes like gab.io, and would even support funding them. Why? Because they keep you stupid motherfuckers all in one place, contained, exposed, letting you mingle and hybridize and ooze and fester, like the old Chinese sorcery "gu." Some interestingly poisonous shit must come out of that. Free association and all that, right? And poison goes where poison's wanted.

The most hilarious part of this, though? It's when all the gibbertarian shitheads start demanding that Thuh Eebil Gubbamint stop *private corporations* from doing what the fuck they want with their resources! News flash, assholes: corporations have discovered that hosting actual, literal, Heil-Hitlering, 1488'ing Nazis is a Bad Business Decision (TM). That burning pain you feel is the Invisible Hand of the Free Market smacking you across your inbred faces so hard it raises welts. And raising a gigantic middle finger at you. You made your bed, now lie in it.

So keep screaming and howling at the corporations and the government both to do your bidding. Keep marching. Keep concentrating yourselves into ever smaller and more feverish and more frenzied little circlejerks deep in the festering asshole of the internet. Keep displaying your ignorance and stupidity and hatred and utter, utter impotent rage.

We won't necessarily punch a Nazi, but we're sure as shit gonna mock a Nazi till y'all drop dead of apoplexy. And something tells me what you really can't stand is mockery; violence you will merely take as incentive to continue on. But being laughed at? No. Never. What you fear most isn't death; it's having to live on, knowing your entire political philosophy is a laughingstock, a byword for ineffectual, self-destructive evil, your entire lives wasted on this destructive, fruitless comedy of errors.

It's coming. You've already lost. You lost the moment you started this.

These are two stories that I may or may not submit based on upcoming electoral events:

Congressman John Culberson is a driving force behind the Europa Clipper mission, and an SLS proponent. He may lose his re-election bid this November. This could have a significant impact on the mission. Or not, who knows?

Could November elections scramble a controversial U.S. mission to a frozen moon?

Here is an in-depth story about Culberson's Europa obsession: Inside NASA’s daring $8 billion plan to finally find extraterrestrial life

And a follow-up: The billion-dollar question: How does the Clipper mission get to Europa?

FiveThirtyEight currently forecasts a slight chance of Culberson losing, but it's essentially a coin toss.

This is a Denver local ballot initiative to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms. It won't be on the ballot in November. They are collecting signatures so that it can be on the ballot in May 2019. 4,726 signatures must be collected by January 7th:

Denver, Colorado, Psilocybin Mushroom Initiative (November 2018)
After the success of cannabis legalization in Denver, could mushrooms be next?
No Magic Mushrooms On The Denver Ballot This Year. Supporters Are Looking To 2019
Denver’s Psilocybin Initiative Moves Forward to Signature Gathering Phase

If you live in Denver, go and sign the petition.

Here is the big list of 2018 ballot measures, amendments, etc.. And here's a few that may be of interest:

California Proposition 12, Farm Animal Confinement Initiative (2018)
Colorado Amendment 74, Compensation to Owners for Decreased Property Value Due to State Regulation Initiative (2018)
Florida Amendment 3, Voter Approval of Casino Gambling Initiative (2018)
Florida Amendment 4, Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative (2018)
Massachusetts Question 3, Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Veto Referendum (2018)
Michigan Proposal 1, Marijuana Legalization Initiative (2018)

Missouri has two amendments and one proposition regarding medical cannabis that are in conflict:

If two conflicting constitutional amendments, such as Amendment 2 and Amendment 3, are approved, the one receiving the most affirmative votes prevails. State law does provide a protocol for when voters approve statutes, such as Proposition C, and amendments, such as Amendment 2 and Amendment 3, that are in conflict. Speaking to a similar issue regarding tobacco tax initiatives in 2016, the attorney general's office said the issue would need to be decided in court.

Missouri Amendment 2, Medical Marijuana and Veteran Healthcare Services Initiative (2018)
Missouri Amendment 3, Medical Marijuana and Biomedical Research and Drug Development Institute Initiative (2018)
Missouri Proposition C, Medical Marijuana and Veterans Healthcare Services, Education, Drug Treatment, and Public Safety Initiative (2018)

Amendment 2 taxes cannabis at 4%, Amendment 3 taxes it at 15%, Proposition C taxes it at 2%.

North Dakota Measure 3, Marijuana Legalization and Automatic Expungement Initiative (2018)
Ohio Issue 1, Drug and Criminal Justice Policies Initiative (2018)
Oregon Measure 106, Ban Public Funds for Abortions Initiative (2018)
Utah Proposition 2, Medical Marijuana Initiative (2018)
Washington Initiative 940, Police Training and Criminal Liability in Cases of Deadly Force Measure (2018)

Legislative and automatic referrals

Alabama Amendment 1, Ten Commandments Amendment (2018)
California Proposition 2, Use Millionaire's Tax Revenue for Homelessness Prevention Housing Bonds Measure (2018)
California Proposition 7, Permanent Daylight Saving Time Measure (2018)

Hey look, it's Kanye's issue: Colorado Amendment A, Removal of Exception to Slavery Prohibition for Criminals Amendment (2018)

Colorado Amendment X, Definition of Industrial Hemp Amendment (2018)

I think one of our ACs complained about this mess: Florida Amendment 11, Repeal Prohibition on Aliens’ Property Ownership, Delete Obsolete Provision on High-Speed Rail, and Repeal of Criminal Statutes' Effect on Prosecution Amendment (2018)

Hawaii Constitutional Convention Question (2018)
Louisiana Amendment 1, Felons Disqualified to Run for Office for Five Years Amendment (2018)
Nevada Question 2, Sales Tax Exemption for Feminine Hygiene Products Measure (2018)
New Hampshire Question 2, Right to Live Free from Governmental Intrusion in Private and Personal Information Amendment (2018)
South Dakota Constitutional Amendment X, Constitutional Amendments Require a 55 Percent Supermajority (2018)
South Dakota Constitutional Amendment Z, Single-Subject Rule for Constitutional Amendments (2018)
West Virginia Amendment 1, No Right to Abortion in Constitution Measure (2018)

I plan to submit a story focusing only on ballot initiatives, measures, propositions, amendments, etc. Last time around, I submitted a story before the election. This time, I think I will do it after the results are in so we can see what succeeded and what failed.

If there's a specific ballot measure you want to see mentioned, please let me know below in the comments.

11 Dead, Several Others Shot At Pittsburgh Synagogue

Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting: At Least 11 Dead and Gunman Identified

Guns beat bombs.

SpaceX ships another huge propellant tank to South Texas BFR test site

Russian Orthodox Church severs links with Constantinople

In a major religious split, the Russian Orthodox Church has cut ties with the body seen as the spiritual authority of the world's Orthodox Christians.

The break came after the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople recognised the independence of the Ukrainian Church from Moscow.

The row is being described as the greatest Orthodox split since the schism with Catholicism in 1054.

Relations soured after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Many Ukrainians accuse the Russian Church of siding with Russia-backed separatists in the east.

Russia sees Kiev as the historic cradle of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Church now fears losing many of its 12,000 parishes in Ukraine.

Constantinople holds sway over more than 300 million Orthodox Christians across the world. The Russian Orthodox Church is by far the biggest.

Also at Reuters and The Guardian.

See also: Archbishop’s defiance threatens Putin’s vision of Russian greatness

It turns out that increasing spending and decreasing tax revenue isn't good for the bank balance.

The federal deficit ballooned to $779 billion in the just-ended fiscal year — a remarkable tide of red ink for a country not mired in recession or war.

The government is expected to borrow more than a trillion dollars in the coming year, in part to make up for tax receipts that have been slashed by GOP tax cuts.

Corporate tax collections fell by 31 percent in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, despite robust corporate profits. That's hardly surprising after lawmakers cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21.

Income taxes withheld from individuals grew by 1 percent. Overall tax receipts were flat. As a share of the economy, tax receipts shrank to 16.5 percent of GDP, from 17.2 percent the previous year.

Federal Deficit Jumps 17 Percent As Tax Cuts Eat Into Government Revenue

A Suicidal Nanny, an Underground Industry and 3 Babies Stabbed

The Case of Jane Doe Ponytail

China’s Media Crackdown Spreads to Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s expulsion of a British journalist after he led a foreign correspondents’ meeting with a pro-independence activist is, first and foremost, an attempt by Beijing to tamp down any dissent in the former British colony.

Hong Kong officials have not given a reason for rejecting a journalist visa for Victor Mallet, the Asia news editor for The Financial Times. China’s only comment has been that Hong Kong authorities are within their right to do so. But that’s the typical legalistic evasiveness of authoritarian regimes when they do something they know is hard and embarrassing to defend.

The authorities have never criticized Mr. Mallet’s reporting. But he was the main spokesman for the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club in August when it hosted a talk by Andy Chan, head of a political party that called for Hong Kong’s independence from China. Hong Kong and Beijing officials blasted the event in advance and subsequently banned the party.

Beijing took back control of Hong Kong from the British in 1997 after nearly a century of colonial rule, and agitation toward independence has never pleased China’s leadership. Hong Kong as an “inalienable” part of China is written into the territory’s Basic Law.

UK says Hong Kong rejection of FT journalist visa politically motivated

This is written primarily in response to JID3525 by UID2828 but is of general interest:-

People are quite interested in your work with Arduino systems. Whatever you've achieved, people will pick fault. However, I understand that you are primarily interested in automotive applications. You also want something which is more open, accessible and educational than the predominant CANBus systems.

CANBus DRM

People may wonder why a serial protocol is neccesary in a vehicle when legacy designs had little more than a spark coil. Engine emission limits almost force a central computer. From there, security and convenience features make it worthwhile to spur numerous micro-controllers. A modern car may have more than 100 micro-controllers. The alternative is more than 3km of wires between wiring looms and an infeasible array of fuses and relays. At some point, it is easier to implement everything with software and a network topology. From Robert X. Cringely on Mon 5 Jun 2017:-

I was shocked five years ago, for example, when my friend Shoichiro Irimajiri told me that automobile wiring harnesses had reached the point where they cost as much to build as the engine and transmission for the same car. Irimajiri-san, who built Honda's first U.S. assembly plant in Marysville, Ohio, was then a board member of Delphi, the world's largest maker of car parts, and certainly knew what he was talking about. The future trend, he explained, had to be for wiring harnesses to become cheaper by turning into intelligent networks with single wire pairs replacing dozens of wires with hundreds of connections.

However, manufacturers have used this transition to enact substantial lock-in and a large amount of unproductive busiwork which is largely hidden from customers but extracted via increased repair costs. One of my ex-housemates was a car mechanic and from this I learned that car repair has become as tedious as Microsoft Windows licencing. Specifically, the Windows® Genuine Advantage*†☠ requires re-activation of a licence key after changing components such as processor, harddisk or motherboard. Most people out-source car repair and so they are generally unaware that the same DRM tedium is required after replacing an electric mirror. All such components are connected to a common one-wire serial bus and almost every car from almost every manufacturer uses the same bus network protocol. The specification for the bus is open but the address ranges, authentication and data are not consistent between manufacturers. If a person wonders why car repairs are so expensive, it is because an independent mechanic has to:-

1. Diagnose fault.
2. Obtain DRM component from authorized supplier.
3. Fit component.
4. Connect authorized diagnostic computer. (Purchased and maintained at own expense.)
5. Obtain first part of authentication handshake.
6. Telephone premium rate support line and get put "on hold" for 30 minutes.
7. Complete cryptographic authentication.
8. Discard old, unservicable component.
9. It may be possible for an erroneously substituted component to be installed in another vehicle. The manufacturer may set arbitrary limits on this process. The manufacturer may change the limits unilaterally. This includes revoking all support to a mechanic, vehicle or model.

Do you own a modern car or is it a smartphone on four wheels? Even niche luxury cars use CANBus with unwanted DRM. I investigated luxury car manufacturers and found that it is mostly a business of out-sourcing. This includes body panels, dials, engines, gearboxes, brakes and car hi-fi in addition to more mundane components, such as screws, switches and tires. (The history of CAD/CAM software suitable for curved body panels is tied to Prime Mainframes and, via Tandem Computers, back to our interests in reliable and documented serial protocols.)

Competitor Analysis 1: Vehicle Manufacture Assembly

McLaren specifies its own engines (but certainly doesn't test them where it assembles cars). The remainder send out CAD files or purchase from a catalog. Larger manufacturers have their own tweaking divisions so they can upsell their own products. The most ridiculous example is the heavily marketed Audi R8. Each edition is only available in one color. The trashy flecked orange convertible model was product placement during the test flight in the first Iron Man film where it is priced at US$135,000. However, it has a ZF transmission, tweaked with VolksWagen mechatronics before being assembled in a (hopefully hardened) Audi chassis. The transmission alone visits three or more sites during manufacture. This is an example of supply chains becoming increasingly global. Another example is Cherry Keyboards which was founded in the US before re-locating to Germany. It produced many switch and sensor products for automotive use before these products were amalgamated into ZF.

One safety feature which was initially available on an Audi R8 (and now more widely available) is headlights which selectively ignore rain and snow by using infrared sensors and a matrix of white LEDs. This system functions at 70MPH. I explained this to a person at my local makerspace and was told that it was technically infeasible. I replied that much of the required functionality has existed in optical mice for decades. It may have to work at a higher speed, with more elements and some calibration between sensors and lights but it is certainly feasible and commercially available.

I was less impressed with Aston Martin (which uses odd numbers for car models to avoid confusion with the number of cylinders in an engine). This was before the grifter banksters tried floating a company which has been bankrupt on seven occasions. Ford has owned various brands including Volvo, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Shelby. Few question Ford's apparent absence from self-driving cars but several advances have been made with Volvo cars and trucks. The most successful Aston Martin product, the DB9, is a salvaged failure and famous example of product placement fakery. The DB9 is also the least advanced product when compared to contemporaries. When Ford owned Jaguar and Aston Martin, a Jaguar design exceeded component cost and was transferred to Aston Martin. That's why a DB9 has a Ford chassis. It is also why the DB9 was manufactured assembled in a separate factory. However, the "DB9" which appears in the James Bond film: Casino Royale is a mock made from a DB7. Technicially, it is the best DB9 ever made - especially after mock DB9 exteriors were rolled for a stunt. The special Chinese edition Virage 88 doesn't come close.

Barriers To Entry

There's an old joke aout a man browsing in a Rolls Royce dealership. He asks the sales respresentative why the cars cost so much. The answer is "Try making one for less, sir." However, that isn't true any more. A back-of-an-envelope calculation shows that the Bill Of Materials for a car with the performance of an R8 and the strength of a DB9 is less than the retail cost of either - even for a single unit.

There are a few limitations for the aspiring sports-car manufacturer. For example, European safety regulations require approximately 30 vehicles to be trashed (at manufacturer expense) in front impact, side impact and similar tests. A similar number may be required for other jurisdictions. However, in the UK, regulations only apply to fully assembled vehicles. The UK has a long history of kit cars. The most famous is the Caterham Seven which was featured in the title sequence of the television series: The Prisoner. ("I am a name, not a number!" and then drives car model seven. Yeah, you're a unique snowflake - just like everyone else.)

In the UK, if a customer makes a token effort with a wrench and assumes responsibility for final assembly, a vehicle can be certified as street legal on a individual basis. I've seen some dangerous stuff certified as street legal, including a recumbent motor-trike with exposed continuous variable drive. It is also possible to pack approximately twice as many vehicles into a shipping container if they are sold in pieces.

I am concerned that the disparity between material cost and sale price occurs prior to the inflection point from hydrocarbons to electric. This could be like the situation where micro-controllers become powerful enough to drive VGA monitors at the point where VGA gets deprecated and replaced with something less accessible, less secure and more centralized. Or where analog headphone jacks and US$1 amplifiers get deprecated in favor of less accessible, less secure and more centralized digital protocols. Now that the little guy can make a better sports-car, the rules may change. Unfortunately, the result is likely to be garbage.

An electric train is sensible because the energy is supplied externally and therefore it doesn't carry its fuel. However, an electric car - even with the energy density and fueling/charging time of hydrocarbons - competes at a 2:1 disadvantage because an electric car carries the deadweight of a flat battery. A diesel (turbo) electric car is worthwhile. Specifically, an engine block connected to an alternator and an electric motor on each wheel with regenerative braking. This would be a hydrid with no gearbox or differential. Electrical losses are comparable to mechanical losses but it swaps precision machining for precision etching. It also provides the optimal acceleration of an electric car and the urban efficiency of a hybrid.

The next limitation is the industry specific CAD/CAM licencing (and formats) for body panels and interior. This can be skipped if a chassis is retro-fitted or a chassis has a strikingly angular appearance, like an F-111 Aardvark or the USS Zumwalt. I appreciate this loses mass market appeal but I merely suggest what can be trimmed from low volume production.

Competitor Analysis 2: Serial Protocols

The remaining limitation is the serial protocol which is used ubiquitously by car manufacturers. I don't want to diverge from CANBus to be a contrarian. I only want to diverge to reduce cost and risk. I want user-servicable parts - especially in a tight situation. I believe this is your primary use-case. The ability to tweak and customize is a welcome bonus but the penalty is that it is time-consuming, like every other open source project.

What is the point of maintaining wire-level compatibility with CANBus when manufacturers don't use consistent address ranges or data formats and lock-out third-party spares via DRM? The most standardized part of CANBus is agricultural accessories. However, in this case, ass-hattery is moved elsewhere. Most notoriously, John Deere refused to honor the re-sale of a firmware licence. Competitors have followed this poor practice. This greatly affects the capital value of a tractor and routinely requires tractor mechanics to break the law.

Are there any other serial protocols which are suitable for automotive use? Commercial aircraft use ARINC429 and larger ones use AFDX which is effectively ARINC77 tunnelled over UDP over dual runs of 100Mb/s twisted pair Ethernet. Many military aircraft use MIL-STD-1553 - except the F-35 Clusterfuck which uses FireWire. (I wish that I was joking.) I2C was originally developed by Philips to reduce wiring in televisions. This was eminently sensible when Philips made the custom chips and the televisions. Nowadays, robots use I2C for servo control and ultrasonic distance sensing and it is fairly apparent that each node is an independent micro-controller. Beyond aircraft and robots, there is RC5 for infra-red remote controls (possibly via an RC5/I2C bridge), MIDI for music sequencing, DMX for stage lighting, DALI for ambient lighting, X10 for home automation, the defunct iLink for hydroponics and several mutually incompatible protocols for Internet connected devices.

I don't suggest devising one universal serial protocol because that inevitably creates another standard while doing nothing to handle legacy cases. Regardless, many of these control protocols have very small address-spaces; typically 8 bit or less excluding reserved addresses. Even IPv6 over IEEE802.15.4 with stateful header compression and self-selection of addresses effectively has an 8 bit address-space rather than the expected 128 bit address-space. The most inane example of the art is HDMI's slow bus with a 4 bit address-space. Of course, this means that a television which implements I2C and HDMI may have a protocol with 7 bit address-space inside the device and a completely incompatible protocol with 4 bit address-space between devices. (Bring back SCART. All is forgiven.)

It is hoped that a vehicle has less than 127 micro-controllers. However, a small address-space hinders independent innovation and hinders auto-detection of optional peripheral components. A Hamming distance greater than one also increases reliability.

General Purpose I/O

A general purpose I/O expander system is of general interest because they are often implemented poorly. Multiple incompatible systems exist for Raspberry Pi systems. For some domains, this would be acceptable if basic database theory was applied to process control. (Error detection, read locks escalating to write locks, atomic commits.) More often, it is written for children or halfwits. And it is an insult to children. The typical scenerio is something akin to "Hey! I've got two Raspberry Pis connected via Ethernet and I'm running out of I/O pins. *Surely* I can get a program on one Raspberry Pi to flip pins on another?" And this is how we get pigpio and the numerous incompatible variants. Please don't use them; especially on hardware lacking parity RAM.

I first encountered this scenario when working with PIC micro-controllers. I found that PICs with more I/O were disproportionately more expensive because they came with additional RAM, ROM and interfaces which were not required. My idea, which was not unique, was to have an open or closed loop where all-but-one of the chips had identical firmware. This leads to the possibility that additional I/O pins don't have to be in the same place. For example, each node may control a cluster of car lights. The next consideration was addressing.

I didn't want I/O expanders with 16 I/O pins and then lose 8 pins to a hard-coded address. (Nor some variation thereof.) Nor did I want to maintain consistent addressing. So, I devised a protocol of three byte triples of the form <device>, <command>, <data>. In all cases, <data> is provided even if it is a dummy value. This allows upward compatibility and provides a placeholder within a closed loop serial stream for read operations. The part that I thought was particularly cunning was that the device number would be decremented by each I/O expander. It was hoped that every device could test against zero. This would allow the I/O expander at the head of the chain to be device zero. All subsequent devices would be numbered contiguously in ascending order and no I/O pins would be used for device addressing. Unfortunately, this scheme is very susceptible to bit error - before or after a triple is processed by the intended device. There is also the very fundamental problem that each byte of a triple may be mis-interpreted. For example, a command may be interpreted as a device number.

After many iterations of eliminating obvious flaws, I settled on a protocol which can be concisely be described as ATM Lite with a 28 bit address-space and 24 byte fixed-length cell bit-stuffed into a 256 bit frame. Somewhere along the way, synchronous communication became asynchronous. Actually, a dream caught that design error. In the dream, I was at my local makerspace and demonstrating a four node configuration but it didn't work. I woke and thought, "Phew! It was only a dream!" I then had the worrying realisation that the test case was depicted accurately and that designs over the previous two weeks didn't work.

My primary use-case is hydroponics and home automation - where everything is grounded. However, my choice of bit-stuffing would look hopelessly naïve in an ungrounded automotive or aerospace environment. A quick fix would be Manchester encoding where every bit is echoed with the reverse polarity. However, that halfs the bit-rate. In typical cases, such as bit-stuffing with an even Hamming distance, it is possible (and often desirable) to have an equal number of zeroes and ones to represent each valid symbol. This maximizes current balance and discourages accumulation of static. For my purposes, unbalanced bit-stuffing is sufficient. Indeed, it is desirable for low-speed software implementation. This would be re-considered if an ungrounded and/or high-speed, hardware implementation was ever required. Similar choices define the different generations of USB, although neither USB 1.x, 2.x nor 3.x are current balanced within one wire.

It is reasonable to assume that your protocol is somewhere between a toy implementation and a carrier-grade communication link. I hope that you have considered error detection in some form even if you have not investigated the art thoroughly. Indeed, I strongly recommend against a thorough investigation because you'll rapidly encounter an exotic zoo of unbalanced LDPCs where you can get too smart and zap your electronics. Despite this, minor tweaks to your protocol may disproportionately improve resilience. However, I would be the first to concede that there are diminishing returns to this process.

Circuit Design

I presume that you are a hardware engineer and that your designs are distinctly above average. For automotive applications, people wrongly assume that 12V is the maximum Voltage. However, 14.4V is typical for battery charging and 60V transients are typical despite surge suppression. Semiconductors, typically rated at 30V, are rapidly destroyed in such an environment. Irrespective of firmware quality, your designs would have increasing utility with increasing resilience to automotive electricity, US mains electricity, European main electricity and three phase electricity.

Your circuit board designs would also gain utility by providing mechanical compatibility with the fixing holes of the most common credit card computers. I assume that your design is considerably more compact but the (optional) additional area could be used for MOSFET heatsinks. In this scenario, a compact (automotive) version would be sufficient to switch headlights whereas a credit card (home automation) version would be sufficient to switch a kettle. Indeed, it may be trivial to design boards so that they can be crudely cut to the required size after manufacture. This would be particularly true if you provided, for example, eight MOSFETs and only six were required.

Successful Propagation

Your motive is neither fame nor fortune. You merely want to see your work being used rather than ignored. In particular, you are considering open source partly to obtain the most reach within formal education environments. I was inclined to agree with this approach until I suggested similar to a friend. My friend is extremely hostile to dumping a life's work on the Internet and finding that it is completely ignored. That would be particularly dispiriting. Instead, I strongly suggest charging about 10 times the component cost. This is not so that you can become an evil capitalist, spend the money on porn, hookers and blow or circuitously defend against litigious parties because you are worth suing. It is to cover unforeseen setbacks and spend the remainder on promotion to further your ideas. From the (cleverly named but concise) Lazy Man's Guide To Riches, retail price should be a minimum of three times the cost price (including materials, assembly, instructions, packaging, delivery and support) with the intention that more than half of the turnover is spent pursuing further sales. I understand that it appears pointlessly circular to take money to spend money to take money - while skimming whatever you can to cover equipment failure, manufacturing defects and calamity. However, if you do not engage in this practice then you exclude a very obvious method to leave a legacy.

I discourage the fixation on youth education. Without effacy, we attempt to stuff maximum knowledge while also expecting social success, civic responsibility, health and athletic prowess and many other goals in preparation for a career, financial responsibility and family. The pressure leads many to give up and some are driven to suicide. Although we should strongly encourage numeracy and rationality, adding proficiency electronics and micro-controllers is detrimental, especially for a kid who doesn't have an aptitude for STEM. Even in the case where the computer game, Minecraft, became a school activity, use of Minecraft for personal projects rapidly became uncool. Do you want your field to be treated similarly?

Neither do I suggest that you target efforts towards military veterans. For many people, joining the military is the best economic option even if aptitude lies elsewhere. However, it rewards failure to withold a STEM education until someone becomes a violent aggressor. Nor are they in the best state to learn after injuries; visible or hidden.

If you must target efforts, concentrate on people who are in mid career; who are stable, competent, unhurried - and heading towards divorce and homeless alcoholism when their job is suddenly offshored or automated. If you charge accordingly, you could personally extend credit to people in decline. In aggregate, you would cover the losses.

Suggested Strategy

Hardware and firmware may have independent merit. If nothing advances the art, overt secrecy may not be an advantage. However, if you strictly retain copyright, you have the descretion to gift licences to worthy causes. You can also avoid wasting resources by ignoring unofficial clones. It may be an advantage for clones to expand the market but it becomes problematic if they leave you with liability, take rewards and leave you in poverty. In general, if someone wants to do the money-getting while spreading your work then it gives you more time to use your talent. However, you are far less likely to spawn imitators if they cannot stake a career and mortgage on it. That definitely won't happen if you act like a hobbiest.

Anyone wishing to make DRM-free micro-controllers for automative applications may use any of this text with or without attribution.