#164 – Agilent's New Name, Molex's New Owner and PCB artwork - Nonsensical Naming Neolatry

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast, recorded September 23rd, 2013. Episode 164, Nonsensical Naming Neolatry.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics.

Dave Jones: Oh, he's changed it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, you know, mix it up here and there. I'm getting closer. It's almost there.

Dave Jones: Dude, you're a machine. You're a video production machine.

Chris Gammell: No word on how the quality of the video is, but yes, I've done.

Dave Jones: Right, is it? What, so there's no feedback yet?

Chris Gammell: No, there's been some. All right, okay. But yeah, 75 videos. 75 videos.

Dave Jones: Have you actually released 75 videos or are you sort of, you know, caching these things up? Sorry, caching for you US folk.

Chris Gammell: It's just the beta guys so far, so they've been watching them.

Dave Jones: Right, but you have actually released 75 videos.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Have they actually watched all 75? Are people dropping off for it?

Chris Gammell: I'm not sure about, I'm not sure. It seems like it's slowed down a little bit, which is understandable. You know, school started and everything like that, but whatever.

Dave Jones: Because you use Vimeo, don't you, for the videos?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I love Vimeo. It's beautiful.

Dave Jones: It's higher quality than YouTube.

Chris Gammell: Higher quality, you can choose to only embed it in certain places. And it just fits, I mean, like, in terms of, if anyone's doing this kind of same thing, we have to, like, pay for video. Man, video is, bandwidth is just insane.

Dave Jones: Oh, no, no, oh, it's insane. Oh, no, if I probably eventually will do my own video series, and yeah, Vimeo would be, you know, right up there on the list of, you know, how people can pay for it and then watch it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And they can download it too. They can download it, right, for future watching. Yeah, which you have to allow. You can't sort of lock it up in some digital content, you know, management. I'm going to wait until the end. No.

Chris Gammell: Until, yeah, DRM. I'm going to wait until the end of the course, but then everyone can download it, so.

Dave Jones: Oh, right, okay. Yeah. Got it. Cool.

Chris Gammell: Yep, so that's coming. I hyperventilate daily now. It's awesome.

Dave Jones: And he's probably a month away from divorce, right?

Chris Gammell: Oh, that too, yeah. Yeah, right. I bet she's loving it. She's been very awesome, so. So, I'm sure, you know, like our audience, right? I mean, like if anyone's worked on a project, you're getting towards the end, right? You know, crunch time's there. And it's just like this at work too, right? I mean, like. Yeah, of course. I'm getting, you know, I'm stuffed in production. I'm working late. It's just like, you know, you have to just kind of hope things hold out and take them out and treat them right after the fact. Because it's just a business, right? Yeah, of course. Otherwise, it's like, well, you know, I had all these units in production, but, well, I had to be home for dinner, so. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, you could try that, but it's just, I don't know, engineering's like that. It's very cyclical. It's, I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yep. That's tough. Well, I have to remind she who must be obeyed to, you know, that I do actually work for a living. You know.

Chris Gammell: Still working on me too, huh? Right. Then everyone here, of course.

Dave Jones: Just because I'm still in my pajamas at 10 a.m. in the morning doesn't mean that I don't work for a living, okay?

Chris Gammell: Right, right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: He works hard for the money. And just because I'm always on call, you know, to rush home at five minutes notice, you know. Right, yeah. To take care of something that, you know.

Chris Gammell: And just because you get to travel to, you know, other cities and hang out with nerds and, you know, have fun on camera and be at trade shows and stuff. It's still a job, right, Dave?

Dave Jones: The whole Melbourne trip, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was, you know, you're having fun without me, you know.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's always tough too when you're, like, doing business travel. It's like, because, I mean, like, you know, I mean, obviously, you know, you have this on your video stuff now too, but even regular business travel, it's like. Yep. You work longer, you're eating dinner with coworkers usually. It's like, okay, well, it's not like you're out clubbing or anything like that.

Dave Jones: No, no, exactly.

Chris Gammell: A certain breed, right, you know.

Dave Jones: Although, when I'm overseas on business things, it's like, oh, bugger the coworkers, I'm out of here, you know. As soon as the train. Yeah, going to sightseeing. Yes, as soon as the stand finishes, I'm gone. Yeah. Sorry, dudes, but, you know, I work with you every day. I don't want to have dinner with you too. Screw that. I'm out of here. I'm in a new city and I want to see it. Really? You don't take anyone with you? You never, like, hung out with you? No, no, no, no, no. They slow me down. Bugger that. No. No, I'm too fast and efficient.

Chris Gammell: No one can possibly keep up. But then, like, you're eating alone and stuff too? You're cool with that? I mean, I don't know. Who cares?

Dave Jones: I'm a lonesome person. I'm an engineer. I, you know.

Chris Gammell: I mean, I am sometimes, but, I mean, I don't know. Always the eating thing when I'm on travel and stuff. I usually like to find people to eat with at least. I can see the sightseeing thing. It's like, oh, you don't want to go to this museum? No, I don't care.

Dave Jones: No, eating's just something you have to do to stay alive. No. No way, man. No, sorry. No, just grab something and keep on going.

Chris Gammell: See, there's the difference. See, when I'm on business, it's not like I abuse it, but when I'm on business travel,

Dave Jones: it's like, you know, I'm going to be eating a certain amount per day anyways, right? Yeah, yeah, right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, of course. I'm going to at least explore my options, right? And it's like, if there's any question about it after the fact, it's like, oh, well, you know, what did you do here? Like, how about this? I'll buy my own beers whenever I'm out on a business travel, right? But, yeah, I mean, of course, you're in business travel. You go, I don't know, find new, yelp it up and, you know, find some new places.

Dave Jones: Right. Well, there has been exceptions to this when I've, you know, been stuck in the same city for two weeks, you know. Yeah. And I've already seen everything, then, you know, then it sort of starts to, but no, on the first, usually on the first day, no, I'm out of here. Cram it all in.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah, I guess you got to see the world while you can, huh? Exactly.

Dave Jones: That's right. Yeah. Might never get back there.

Chris Gammell: You do always yell at me when I don't stick around after the fact, so.

Dave Jones: See, and like it happens, you know, you get married, you have kids, like I have, kid, and, you know, I don't want to travel anymore. Yeah, right, you want to be there. Yeah. I mean, how many overseas trips have I turned down? You know, heaps. So, you know. Yep.

Speaker ?: Yep.

Dave Jones: Just never know when you're going to get back.

Chris Gammell: Well.

Dave Jones: Anyway, should we, people bitch that we don't talk about electronics on this show. Electronics, right. And we're probably not going to talk about electronics. But this is huge, dude.

Chris Gammell: Oh, this is annoying to me. I don't think. This isn't huge. It's annoying.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, it's huge and annoying. It was huge when it happened. I don't know when it last happened. Like, yeah, the first time. And anyway.

Chris Gammell: It was the 90s for sure. Yeah, something like that. Go ahead. Tell them what it is.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Hang on. No, I'm just trying to remember visualized dates. I can. Yeah, it would have been in the 90s. I'm sure we can get it on the wiki. I'm sure we can. Anyway, it was in the 90s. Right. I'm pretty sure it was in the 90s. Wasn't in the 80s. Wasn't in the 2000s.

Chris Gammell: No, it definitely wasn't in the 80s. Yeah. 99. Oh, wait. Yeah. Yeah. 99. 99. That's later than I thought. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, the world changed in 99 when Hewlett-Packard split up into the computer division and the bastard computer division got the name Hewlett-Packard.

Chris Gammell: So lame.

Dave Jones: Oh, it was pathetic. So lame.

Speaker ?: It was pathetic.

Dave Jones: The whole industry was in uproar. Right? Yeah. And, you know, it's just crazy. Anyway, now they're doing it again.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And I didn't get – I mean, well, I kind of get where this is coming from. But they're splitting off the life sciences division from the test and measurement division. Is that right?

Dave Jones: Right. Yes.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Yeah. I remember reading about it. Because they're the two main things in Agilent.

Chris Gammell: Right. And I remember reading about it a while back – probably like four or five years ago, reading about their biotech sector and just how it's exploding. And basically it's the same kind of thing as the computers thing, right? They think, oh, well, we have this huge brand name. We can't have this low-margin, boring test equipment holding us back. Right. And – oh, man. Well, apparently the – It's just bean counters and marketers. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Apparently the test and measurement division, someone posted on the forum, haven't – don't expect to make a dividend. Or don't expect to pay a dividend, i.e. they're not doing that great. They're not doing really bad, but they're not doing as good as the life sciences division. So as you say, yeah, you know, management have gone well.

Chris Gammell: See, but this is so dumb, right? I mean, like, it's like, okay, so you're not doing as well as you thought you were. Okay. Yeah, I get that. But, like, whether or not you spin out from one division or another, it's like the same people are still making the same amount of money. I mean, like, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's not like they're going to spin out and magically do better. It's like, oh, wait, so we're going to spin out this company that's not doing great right now. Well, they do.

Dave Jones: They pay more dividend. They –

Chris Gammell: No, I know. Yeah. But what I'm saying is they're going to spin out the test and measurement company, right? And then they're going to be like, all right, and now we're going to change the name of everything and hope people find us and spend all this money on advertising the new name. And it's like, oh, and our costs will obviously go down, right? That won't cost any money to rebrand and get new stationery for everyone and business cards and, you know, rebadge everything and change all the databases.

Dave Jones: All the nameplates, every data sheet, every – Every –

Chris Gammell: They'll probably pay $3 million for a new logo or something stupid like that. Yeah, yeah, they'll pay some right price. Some boring-ass corporate logo.

Dave Jones: They've probably got half a dozen consultants working on the new name right now.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Yeah. My alma mater went through a rebranding after I left. Right. And they were stuck with it. So I went to Case Western Reserve and they rebranded it as Case. And they had this stupid-ass logo that looked like – Just Case. Just Case, yeah. Right. First off, killed all of the alumni denominations from the other schools that all combined together. Right. But aside from that, then they had this logo they paid like a couple million dollars for. And it looked like someone threw a couple paperclips on a desk and took a picture of it. And it's just like, what the hell are you doing here? And that's where my tuition money went.

Dave Jones: See, but it's a dollar for the logo and it's $999,999 for the interpretation of the logo. Oh, screw that.

Chris Gammell: What does that actually mean? You know what? I doubt we have any graphic design artsy-fartsy types listening. And if they are, I'm sorry, but that's such a load of crap, I can't handle it. Come on. Man, like, you could have – you could have literally – your logo could be a pile of dog crap. And, you know, if you are a good enough company, people are going to associate the pile of dog crap with your product. The logo, of course. Not the best choice, but still, they're going to associate it, right? Like, no one – that's what branding is. That's so stupid. I can't stand this crap.

Dave Jones: Anyway, it's taken me freaking, what, 14 years to get over. And I'm still not completely over. Get over the HP rebrand. I still call them HP. And now they're going to change again. By the way, those asking, no, we don't know what. They haven't said so yet. I don't know if they've –

Chris Gammell: I've got some guesses. I'm right. Go on. Did you see my guesses or no? I have a list.

Dave Jones: What are your guesses? Were they on the forum?

Chris Gammell: No, I posted them on the Reddit, the subreddit. Oh, right. I'll go here. Let's see. Agilent. Okay. And someone else – who else guessed here too? Kayfitch42 also guessed. So here's Kayfitch's redheaded stepchild. The number 57645348634, just like how they name their products. Yeah, right. Inb4prod, which stands for investors before products. And then some of mine were Bill and Dave's discount test gear, low margin stuff that people actually want, GPIB Depot. That was my favorite, actually. Rigol tube, electronic measurement boogaloo.

Dave Jones: Yeah. For those who don't get that reference, it's a very bad 80s. Well, no, the first one was pretty good. The first one was okay. We need to save the community center. Breakdance 2, right? The original movie from the 80s was Breakdance. Well, here it was called Breakdance 2, Electric Boogaloo, right? Because they have different names in different country. Yeah, yeah. It was called Breakdance 2.

Speaker ?: Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Here's Breakdance 2. Breakdance was here. Breakdance 2, Electric Boogaloo.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, they have different names for the movies for different markets. But yeah, that sucked. The first one was okay. Breakdance.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, when he was like dancing on the ceiling. I own both of them, if you didn't know. It's one of my favorite movies.

Dave Jones: In that, watch out for a cameo by Jean-Claude. Oh, yeah. He's in the background dancing in a onesie. Yeah, dancing in his tights. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Just for anyone who's wondering.

Dave Jones: Blowing this electronic show. Whatever.

Chris Gammell: There's tons of electronic music in there. It's like all 80s synth pop crap. Oh, it's so good. It's ridiculous. Exactly. Adolfo Shabadoo Jones and Quinone Shrimp Boogaloo. I don't know. As Turbo. The guy's names. Turbo and Ozone.

Dave Jones: Ozone and Turbo.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's referenced everywhere, too. Like, you'll see that reference everywhere.

Dave Jones: I'm surprised you're old enough to know this.

Chris Gammell: I'm not. It came out the year after I was born.

Dave Jones: There you go. There you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I got into it in college. I don't know why. I'm glad Ryan. Okay.

Dave Jones: Oh, great stuff. All right. Anyway, I was more practical with the name. See, there's a classic Australian, classic old Australian company called B&D. And I thought they should have just bought out there, bought them out. Oh, yeah. And call it B&D. Bill and Dave. That would have been perfect. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Yep. See? That's a damn shame. You know what? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I am just... It was upsetting when I saw this stuff. Yeah. But whatever.

Dave Jones: They'll come up with some bizarre name, you know? Yeah. They're probably going through their patent portfolio and all that sort of, you know, trying to find all their trademark portfolio. Because that's what Altium did. Yeah. By the way, you know how they came up with the name Altium? It was like... It was originally from IBM. And they... Really? Yeah. Altium bought some technology originally owned by IBM, you know, some routing or some other technology. I don't know. Anyway, oh, Altium sold it to someone else and then Altium bought that, you know. And in the trademark portfolio was this word Altium. And no one knows what it means, but they went, I like that. And we'll just use that. We already own the trademark, you know?

Chris Gammell: You know, we could save a lot on a trademark naming guy. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: We could save millions, you know? What a waste. And then just piss it away elsewhere. Yeah. Anyway. I know. But, you know, like... Anyway, I can probably understand why the life sciences division got it right. Because we're talking about a bunch of corporate dickheads, right? Yeah. And the TME... Money, money, money, money, money. The test and measurement division, right? We're more passionate. People will follow the brand regardless of where they go, right? And we'll, you know, a name change won't kill us. We'll be able to recognize them, even though we'll continue to call them Agilent or HP forever. Right? Yeah. But we'll at least still follow them. Whereas in the life sciences division, you know, with scientists buying this stuff, they just go, oh, you know, I know that Agilent make the best, you know, bloody interferometer or, you know, whatever. Spinny thing. Yeah, spinny thing. And, you know, so they may not be able to survive as well with a name change. So I can understand why they kept the name from a corporate point of view, you know. I don't know. Who cares?

Chris Gammell: Who cares? I always get confused about this too. This is a huge deal, dude. Didn't they spin out an LED? Were they Avago or Opto rather? Weren't they Avago? Didn't Avago spin out of them as well?

Dave Jones: Yes, they did. Or did that? Yes. Yes, they did. Yeah. Wiki to the rescue. Yes, it was the HP. Yeah, it was the HP optics division or something.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. So I guess it was a little earlier. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this kind of stuff happens all the time, right? I mean, like. Oh, of course. Became an XP, you know. Oh, there's tons of them. I see with some mashup of other. Yeah, I mean, this stuff happens all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in terms of coming out of HP. Well, we had Bob Davidson on the show as well. And I forget what. I think was his hard drive division still around or no? Did they spin out to something else?

Dave Jones: No, I thought they spun out.

Chris Gammell: Did they become Seagate or something? No. No, I don't know. I don't remember. Oh, it's all too hard. I'll link in the show at least, you know. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. Anyway, I'm pissed off.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I'm sure we'll see a rant video from you about this eventually.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. And then when they change the names, I'll probably do one before they decide on a name. And then after they decide on a name and logo. Yeah. Logo's the other thing. Right. Like the HP logo is so, like it's clip art stuff, right? It's so similar to like, I've seen like two or three other companies with almost an identical logo.

Chris Gammell: HP's logo? Yeah. Oh, no. It's just HP in a circle?

Dave Jones: No, no. Agilent's logo. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's got a name. It's got a fancy name. They call it a starburst or something, you know, like a.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, because it's like a default icon for websites sometimes I've seen before.

Dave Jones: I think so. And then it's just, yeah, they've just modified it a bit. So.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: That could stop and got off easy, right? All I had to do was come up with an explanation, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, anyway. It's just so painful. It took us all, you know, like more than a decade to get over this.

Chris Gammell: What Dave's really complaining about here, he's like, oh, God, my search engine ranking he's going to go in the toilet.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You didn't even think about it, did you? You're like, oh, crap.

Dave Jones: No, I didn't. Thanks for that. I'm going to have to go find every one of my Agilent videos and put the extra search terms in. Yeah. Oh, boy. That's funny. Oh, this sucks ass, really.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It does.

Chris Gammell: Oh, well. Well, speaking of former guests like Bob, we should mention, so we've had two people talk about, maybe the economy's coming back? I don't know what's going on here. Yeah. So we had two people write in about jobs. Yes. The Amp Hour, which is cool, and we highly encourage. Someone told us we should ask people to pay for this. That's a load of crap, though. We just want people, you know, it's great if the Amp Hour community benefits from it, and then, you know, whatever. You guys can buy t-shirts, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So first off is Ryan Brown, who, former guest, he was at National Instruments. He actually moved over to Oculus Rift, the VR company, a couple months ago, and they're looking for someone right now. He posted this on the subreddit. And, yeah, it's, so they're looking for, like, I think they're looking for hardware and mechanical engineers. Yeah. So, like, he, you know, Ryan obviously did a lot of FPGA type of stuff. Right. And if people don't know the system, it's like a, it looks like, it looks kind of like a smartphone, like, smashed against your face. I actually, I got to try it. Did I tell you that?

Dave Jones: Oh, no, no.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I have a coworker who has one, who has one of the dev kits. And it's actually really simple, like, at least the dev kit version. Yeah. It's like, it's like looking at, like, a pretty widescreen cell phone. Yep. And then all they do is they, they put a divider in the middle.

Dave Jones: As in a widescreen, what, just in front of both eyes? There's only the one screen? Or there's a two separate one? It's only one screen. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's one screen. And then they put a plastic divider right up against the screen so you can't see across, you know, with, like, with peripheral vision. And then they just display on different halves of the screen. They just display different.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. I was going to say, yeah, because you need an image to each eye. Okay, right. Right. So that's a cheap.

Chris Gammell: I saw that and I'm like, that's brilliant.

Dave Jones: Like, that is such a smart. Well, it is, but why didn't they just do a separate screen for each one? It's not any more expensive, really?

Chris Gammell: Well, because of the, if you use a, I mean, you know this, if you use a standard part, right, it's commoditized. Oh, right. Okay. In that case, it's a, you know, a very commoditized screen, 4.7 inch.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but they have actually used, like, a cellphony type or a little mini tablet type thing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think they probably prototype with, like, an iPhone touch or iPod touch or something like that.

Dave Jones: Okay. All right, got it. Got it.

Chris Gammell: And that's brilliant. Yeah, yeah. Using that kind of commercial technology like that is just really smart. And then they're creating all of the stuff in the background for, you know, splitting out the eyes and everything and putting in, the big thing there is obviously a very fast accelerometer because if you, just like with Jerry's stuff, Jerry was on the show talking about her Castor thing. It's all about the delay because if you turn your head real quick and the screen doesn't move with you, you get super seasick. You'll just, you'll puke right in the mask, even though it's not over your face. Right.

Dave Jones: So that'd make a great video. That'd make a viral YouTube video. It's going to happen one day. Somebody's filming someone playing with this thing. Oh, God. Next thing you know, it's this projectile.

Chris Gammell: Oh, God. I'm coming in. Oh, man.

Dave Jones: Dude, let's do it. It'll make it, we'll get like 100 million views.

Chris Gammell: We'll be YouTube rich, right? Exactly. Yeah. One off. So anyways, yeah, so Ryan's looking for that kind of stuff. And he's, so, and the other benefit is you get to work with Ryan and a brilliant FPGA designer and Android aficionado, I believe, as well. I think he's moving into Android type stuff. So definitely a cool, cool opportunity there. Yeah. And I don't know, Oculus.

Speaker ?: Woo.

Dave Jones: Of course, we have no experience whatsoever in getting people jobs at virtual reality type gaming companies. Or augmented reality, yeah. Depending on your gaming companies in general. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Definitely not. We staffed all of Valve. It's been a while, but yeah.

Dave Jones: Now we're going to staff all of Oculus Rift. There you go. Oculus. Oculus. The Rift is the device, right?

Chris Gammell: Is it? Yeah. Okay. The other one was posted on the forum, though, on the EV blog forum. Robert. For a, I mean, we're hitting all the keywords here, right? So the. Oh, yeah. It's a quadcopter Y Combinator startup. Oh, yeah. So they're looking for electrical engineers and layout type stuff. So cool stuff all around, you know, if you guys want to. It's all California, though. I mean, that's kind of the, that's the thing.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. There's the hub, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I guess it is the hub there. I mean, that's, you know, that's where a lot of the jobs are, especially the startup kind of things. The Y Combinator stuff is obviously all out there. Like we talked to the uproader guys last week. Yeah, you've got to go there. Yep. That's right. They came down from Canada.

Dave Jones: They force you to go out there and hang out with the other nerds.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I always wonder what that would be. I mean, like, you know, I wonder about that. Actually, so in the comment section from last week, someone was writing about that and just kind of promoting the idea of joining a startup at some point just for the experience of it, you know, good or bad, you know, if it doesn't work out, the entire startup. And it was a very nice post, I mean, about joining startups and why it's exciting and stuff. So I recommend it.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. But then you end up with, you know, all these just failed startups everywhere. It's like a, you know, right of Percy Jewel. You've got to fail in a startup. I think that's just dumb.

Chris Gammell: I guess so. I don't know.

Dave Jones: I don't look at... And then you get people just doing startups because they think they have to do one, right? And then all this money's being wasted and whatnot, you know, and... Yeah, well, we know how you feel about that. A lot of investor money being wasted.

Chris Gammell: I think if you look at it... But you've got to look at it like that no matter what company you're going to, right? You can go to an established company that, I don't know, moves to China and it's all about... Right. It's all about what... I mean, the same happened to me, right? I mean, it's all about what you work on there, though, and how you develop as a person. That's all that really matters. I think. I mean, like, sure, you want to work on something. Everyone wants to work on something that becomes, you know, a big thing, but it's not going to happen just statistically. So I think you've got to focus on the interesting things you've got to do there and the problems you've got to solve. That's the interesting stuff to me.

Dave Jones: Well, you just get to... You know, often there's a lot of young kids who go, Oh, I don't know what I'm interested in, but I want to do a startup. You know? Oh, I just... You know, facepalm every time I hear that. Facepalm?

Chris Gammell: Oh, is that a new startup?

Dave Jones: Quick, trademark it, trademark it. Get a patent portfolio, you know? I need a logo. Quick, I need a logo. We need to rebrand. And they end up just brainstorming and working on something that they're not... They don't really give a shit about and something that's, you know, compromised or something just because, you know... Yeah. Just because they're working on startup. And it's like... I do agree.

Chris Gammell: I mean, you should work on stuff that you care about. You know, that's very... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Exactly. That's number one. And, like, I did an interview. I did a Skype interview with these guys in Sydney, these students in Sydney. Did I tell you about this?

Chris Gammell: I don't think so.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. But anyway, they wanted to interview me because they're doing a class at the University of New South Wales, I think it was. Uh-huh. And, which is my state, if you didn't know.

Chris Gammell: Of course. No, I didn't know that.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Oh, right. Oh, there you go. Anyway, yeah, they've got this course, right? It's, you know... Well, class, right? It's part of their engineering degree or whatever. And, yeah, it's like startups, you know? How to... Entrepreneurialism and all that sort of jazz, you know? Which they never had when I started, you know? But now, apparently, well, you know, everyone goes through five different entrepreneurial classes, you know, and wonder why we have this sort of culture today. Anyway...

Chris Gammell: What you need to do is everyone needs to be different. That's right. Now, write this down, folks.

Dave Jones: And it was just all cookie-cutter business shit. And I explained to them, like, they, you know, and they're asking me all these questions, which obviously came directly out of their textbook or course notes. And they were like, so why did you decide to do the EEV blog? And, like... And then they were absolutely shocked when I said, oh, I just did it as a hobby. And they, like... And they were stunned that, you know, I didn't have, you know, like I didn't have a plan and, like, a business plan. And I didn't do it as, like... It's like, no, I just did it because I enjoyed it. It was a hobby thing. And it turned in, you know? And they were absolutely shocked and they went...

Chris Gammell: It was an entry point to try and, you know, meet some awesome person from the States and start a radio show, of course, right? Yeah, of course.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Go back and tell them the truth.

Dave Jones: And it was like... And they actually... And in the end, I went, yeah, like, every answer I've given you is probably totally different to what they told you in class. And they went, yep, it is. Like, oh.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, it's always the problem with classes and stuff, too, right? I mean, like... I mean, even... I was reading about professors today, right? And it's just like, you know... And how professorships are becoming very scarce in general and just the state of teaching and stuff like that. And how... But professors will still teach you, tell you, oh, of course you should become a professor. I'm one. I love it. And it's like, that's terrible advice for people these days, you know? The education market is shifting completely different directions, right? But it's like, well, it's going to be like who's teaching you as well, right? So it's just... Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's...

Dave Jones: Anyway, I thought it was sad that they were, you know, that they just, you know, didn't... That the teacher wasn't instilling in them, just do... Find something that you love and just do it. And don't give a shit about anything else.

Chris Gammell: Well, don't give a shit about money is the main thing there, right? I mean, that's the main thing at first, right? I mean, a lot of people go in, they say startups, ooh, money, money, right? And that's like, well, maybe, you know, you'll raise money. I mean, like, look at the UpFurter guys last week, right? They're three years in, they're still trying to find a revenue model. Like, that is not uncommon. And I tell you what, they're not going to cash out with any big paychecks without a revenue model. And they know that too, you know? So, yeah, it's like...

Dave Jones: Well, no, they might. They might get bought out, you know? They bought out, right.

Chris Gammell: I'd say that's a revenue model, to be honest, but...

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. Right, that's selling a job, right? And it's, you know, and they probably spend three weeks trying to, you know, learn, oh, what's your exit strategy going to be? Oh, holy... You know, and they're asking me, you know, what's my exit strategy? Like, for God's sake, you know?

Chris Gammell: Well, either my wife says I can't do it anymore, or I kill over dead. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or my camera breaks and I can't get it repaired.

Dave Jones: Right, and I can't make anymore. Yeah. Unbelievable.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, that's tough, man. There was another article I was reading about, about just like our... I don't know if you'd be in Generation Y or whatever, but, you know, kind of like talking... It was very viral this week about just like wanting to advance too quickly and, you know, wanting to, you know, caring and like being told they can do anything and follow your passions and that kind of thing. It's like... But it's always... It's just a balance point, right? You can't be like, oh, yeah, follow your passion, you know? Like, you want to become a, you know, a Scottish historian ballerina? Okay, go ahead. Yeah, you'll make tons of money doing that. You can definitely... Right. But if you want to do that as a hobby, of course, yeah, follow your passion there, right? And then maybe it'll become a thing, you know? It's like... Yeah. There's always balance points there and it's like any time you're learning absolutes, you're going to be screwed.

Speaker ?: So...

Chris Gammell: At least people care about electronics, right?

Dave Jones: Well, that's half the problem with the industry and we've talked about it. Well, no, a problem with the study, you know, engineering is just one example where, you know, you get... You know, I use the example that 99% of the people I studied with didn't give a shit about engineering. They were doing it for some other reason, you know? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think I was in that group, to be honest. I mean, I think... I think it's different these days.

Dave Jones: I think it's probably a lot different these days. I don't think so.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. I mean, when I was in school, it was kind of a post.com bubble. Obviously, I didn't go into web stuff, but that was a big slug of people, too.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but you did all this post... You did all this post-communications revolution, right? Post-internet. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Right? Whereas I did it pre. Yeah, that's true. So, you know, it's kind of different.

Chris Gammell: That is true. But I think we're... I mean, we're... I don't know. I think the fact that the hobby stuff's coming back is... Or is back. Come on, let's be honest here. I think we can call it. Yeah. We can call it. So, yeah. Right. It's a good thing. Obviously, we wouldn't be here otherwise. Right. Well, we would. It would just be us talking to each other and, you know, not much else.

Dave Jones: Next topic, because we always talk about this shit. Yeah. On every show.

Chris Gammell: What was on the list? Where's the list? There's the list. Hello, list. Oh. It's a big list. Well, since we're talking about money... To completely switch gears, Design News came out with their salary survey this year. Or for the year. Right. And, you know, it's pretty standard, you know, salary survey and everything like that. Uh-huh. The thing that was interesting to me about it, though... Let's see if I can pull it up here. Of course, you can't just get to it. You have to register and, you know, so people are worried about that kind of thing. But the... I really... More than other years, maybe they've done this in past years, but they plotted salary against a couple different interesting things. One was, you know, like, how long you've been at the job. But one they actually show in the article here, too, is, like, job satisfaction. So, like, extremely satisfied people are paid the most. And then the least satisfied...

Dave Jones: Yeah, because they're extremely satisfied. Because they're paid the most.

Chris Gammell: It just makes you wonder, though, like, which way does it go? Is it correlation or causation, right? Is it... Right, yeah, yeah. Is it satisfied because they're getting paid a lot? Or are they doing really well and they're satisfied in their job and that just makes them advance more, right? It's like...

Dave Jones: Right, right. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. It's almost impossible to get data on that because you have to... Well, yeah, it's opinions. You have to interview the bosses and ask them why that they're paying them more. Right, exactly. It's just data that's not available.

Chris Gammell: Right. So... Yeah. And there was a couple other comparisons in there as well that were interesting to me. The... It was salary against... Well, obviously, location, right? We were talking about California before. California was the highest, of course. They always skew stuff. Midwest is the lowest. That was fun to find out. Right. Yay. But that just skews the average of it, right? Cleveland. At least we're not Detroit. At least we're not Detroit. We always have to bring that back every couple of dozen shows. I met someone from Detroit the other day and they hadn't ever seen that before. Oh, really? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Were they pissed or were they... No, they were just like... They were just confused. They were just confused. Right. Yeah. Oh, what? I don't see anything wrong with Detroit. Right. Well, I guess you wouldn't if you still got a job, right?

Chris Gammell: Right. And yeah, I mean, Detroit industry is... I mean, like car stuff is doing great right now. You know, like that...

Dave Jones: Well, that's the thing. If you've got a job, you're going to go, what recession? What global financial crisis, right? You know? Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. And that's another thing that they were showing here. They showed like, you know, more people are... You know, just good trends in general. More people are getting jobs. More people are getting raises. That kind of stuff. So that's all good. I mean, again, with the way that our audience is, right? It's like we've got a couple... We've got some people who are professionals, some people who are hobbyists, some people who are students. So it's kind of across the board. But I know that when I was coming out of school, at least, looking at this kind of data, too, was really difficult, right? Because first off, I was in Ohio. And so it's like, I expect... You know, like I look at like the starting salaries of like averages and you do that across the states, at least. And it's like, oh, I should be getting paid 90 grand when it's like, no, sorry, buddy, you're in Cleveland.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: So then no one is quicker to point that out than a hiring department either. Right. So, yeah. Yeah. So it's just, it's an interesting thing if people want to check out though.

Dave Jones: And they claim with Martin, those with masters or PhD earn the highest average salary of 115,000. Well, what's the average for non...

Chris Gammell: That was interesting too. Postgraduate. It wasn't much below it. It was like...

Dave Jones: I was going to say it wasn't much, right? So how, like, you know, how much does it cost to get a PhD these days, right? A buttload in the US, right? A buttload, isn't it?

Chris Gammell: No, PhDs are...

Dave Jones: A metric buttload of money.

Chris Gammell: At least in engineering, PhDs are normally, have stipends and stuff like that. So usually PhDs won't be necessarily charged for. Because usually you're working, you're teaching, you're doing research, that kind of thing. You're paid very poorly. Oh, right.

Dave Jones: Okay. Right. Yeah, right. Yeah. Bet you earning something, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You're earning like a stipend. Usually sometimes masters programs. Stip in, we call it here. Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Stip in. Sorry.

Chris Gammell: Okay. You do that. I will. You do. Thank you very much. All right. Yeah. But the, you know, like master's programs around here. And I don't have a master's. I don't know. I never planned to really get one. I'd rather get to school of hard knocks kind of stuff, right? Yeah, that's it.

Dave Jones: So they, but yeah, so they're saying, you know, yeah, it's not much more, right? So... Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It was a very gentle slope between the different degrees. So like, it was like 115 for PhDs. I'm doing for memory here because it won't open for me right now. But I think it was like 108 for master's and like 102 for bachelor's, you know? So like...

Dave Jones: And somebody asked that on the forum the other day. Somebody came in and, you know, it happens all the time. Yeah, of course. And it happens regularly once every couple of months, you know? Or should I do my master's or PhD? Because, you know, will it earn me more money? And, you know, all hell breaks loose on the forum, you know? And ammonium. Dogs living with cats. Cats, yeah.

Chris Gammell: And that's it. Yep. I mean... Oh, boy. The reason, the standard response is you go get a PhD if you want to work in research, very specifically research, and you don't mind spending a couple years to do that, doing that and getting really deep on a topic. And the thing about PhD stuff, too, is like you're very often dependent on who your PI is or your advisor. You know, you're going to be working on mostly what they're working on. You know, so pick your advisors wisely. That's the main thing.

Dave Jones: So it might be boring as bad shit, you know? It might not be something you care about, you know?

Chris Gammell: Right, but definitely choose that from the beginning. You have to know that going in or else, you know, it's not like you're going to be like, eh, two years in, this doesn't seem like what I want to do.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. You pretty much know up front what you got to be doing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's tough, too. I mean, I've seen people, you know, leave. So, like, PhDs can leave with a master's degree. And that's like, you know, even if you're doing it for, like, six years, you know, you're still like, oh, well, I got a master's degree now. It took me six years to get it, but... Yeah, exactly. It's not a reason not to do it. It's just a matter of how much you value the research over maybe development type stuff, right? You know, in research and development, you're going to have one or the other. And I do mostly development.

Dave Jones: Right. The question with this survey is, is it electronic specific or is it just engineering, in quote marks?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that is another good one. Which I hate. It is a little more engineering. It seemed like the top ones were electrical, mechanical, and then, like, manufacturing type stuff. Oh, they do break them down. Okay. Yeah, they do break them down. But they don't break them down by, you know, like, high-level stuff. So, really the best thing would be to get the data set if you could, but whatever. I'm sure that's...

Dave Jones: What we're saying is these salary surveys are bloody useless. In all practice, right? No, it's interesting to see. They're full of shit. It's interesting, but don't put any stock in it. Seriously, don't think, oh, they're only paying me $80,000. I'm a graduate, and this survey said I should be earning $90,000. Right, exactly.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, if you walk into your boss's office with this thing, or anything from, like, Glassdoor or salary.com or any of the pay scale.com, you know, like, you're just going to get laughed at. It's like, okay, well, you want this? What have you done for me lately, you know? You've got to walk into your boss's office with, I designed this last year. This is earning us $3 million this year. I feel like I did a great job. Our support requests are low. I did, you know, like, I'm designing the next generation of stuff, and if you want to hold on to me...

Dave Jones: So can I please have a new multimeter?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly, right?

Dave Jones: Because it may come down to that, you know? That might be all you get, folks. The best you do. Okay, that's the best you're going to do. So be careful. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, that was another thing from the survey that was interesting, was the, you know, people... Are engineers getting replaced when engineers retire? Are they getting replaced? And it was a, you know, not a huge amount, but a significant portion were not still. So, you know, that's what I keep wondering about. I don't know if you watch the stock market at all, but I keep watching the stock market, and, you know, it's like going gangbusters right now.

Dave Jones: I don't watch it anymore.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, I just wonder about it from, like... I wonder if engineers that are getting up there in age, you know, like maybe they're near 60, 65 kind of thing, it's like, well, yeah, you don't want to... You know, maybe you like your job, but maybe you also want to retire, you know, work part-time kind of thing. It's like, I just wonder how that's going to affect engineering.

Dave Jones: Well, if you retire in one of those lulls, you know, when the share market's low, you're screwed.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Well, at least you're not here, because, you know, most people's superannuation is tied up in shares. I don't know how the system works in the US, but... Poorly. That's generally how... Right. Poorly. Yes. Yeah, why am I not surprised? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's okay. Oh, I hear horror stories. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. News. News. You got something else?

Dave Jones: I'm interviewed in a new book, Makers at Work.

Chris Gammell: Dave News. Oh, thank goodness. Yeah, and well, you know. We've already done industry news. It's out again.

Dave Jones: Agilent's splitting up, you know.

Chris Gammell: And now, something else about Dave. I've got six toads. Brief brought to you by Dave.

Dave Jones: Sponsored by the EEV blog. I'll be paying myself to sponsor this show. Oh, my God. Yeah. So, what's this book?

Chris Gammell: It's a Makers at Work?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Oh, yeah? It's a book about Makers. Do they know you don't work? It's a book of interviews.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's a book. They interviewed Makers. Oh, cool. It was a phone, Skype-y, you know, interview. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, there's a whole bunch of people in there. You know, Nathan Seidel, Jerry Ellsworth, all the usual players, you know. Yeah. They're all there.

Chris Gammell: Except they actually come to the States sometimes, yeah. Or live here, whatever. Oh, right.

Dave Jones: Well, they live there, yeah. Yeah. Almost all of them live there. I may be the only international one. I don't actually know.

Chris Gammell: International man of mystery. Right.

Dave Jones: You know, it's got Eben Upton. What else we got? Ward Cunningham. Sylvia Todd. Brie Pettis. Ben Heck. Becky Stern. Yeah. It's all the usuals. Massimo Banzi. There you go. There you go. Someone from our, Ian Lesnit, you know, Bunny Blunt. Well, he lives overseas now. They're all there. Yeah. It's Linnae.

Chris Gammell: It's Linnae, if you remember. Were you on the show when he was here? No? Yes?

Dave Jones: Yeah, probably. I think so. Okay. Sorry. And Lane is there and, you know. Of course. Anyway, Stephen Osborne is the guy who wrote it. And it's basically an interview format. Cool. No pictures. Sorry, people.

Chris Gammell: No pictures? What do you mean? Like startup pictures?

Dave Jones: No. No. Well, there's no pictures of the people. Oh, pictures.

Chris Gammell: I thought you said pitches.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. No, no. Sorry. Pictures.

Chris Gammell: Like the picture show. Pictures. Pictures. Pictures. Yes. Okay. Yes. Got it. Oh, man. Speaking of pretty, pretty pictures, did you see this board from Boldport? So. No. You know what Boldport is? No. Sar is the. So. So he's the one who did. No. Whoosh. This is another one on the. It's on the list as well. We talked about once before. He did a board with the Bob piece. The only. My favorite programming language is solder. The PCB that looks like it's hand drawn. Like a hand cut kind of thing. Yep. So he did this board for his buddy. For his buddy's wedding. And so Boldport is the software. And it's all Python based. And then it cranks out SVGs. And we talked about it before. Because. And you said. Oh, it's not good. It's only single layer and everything like that. But I swear. This is just a gorgeous. Gorgeous board. He. So he basically panelized it. And then he made the entire panel assemblable. Using only parts from the panel. And then it also had LEDs in the back as well. With a little. I think an AT tiny or something like that. To actually control it. And so basically it's just like this light up piece of art. And just how he. He did the. I forget what he called them. Like whisper lines or something like that. I forget what they're called. But it's in. It's in the copper. Layer. On the top. Where. Basically it looks like solid copper. If you're just looking at it. And then when you shine light behind it. It actually shines through. The copper. Like just lines in the copper. It. Is unbelievable. Yeah. So. The bold port stuff still scares the crap out of me. Because. You know. It's all Python. And programming based. But. This is. It's just. It's gorgeous. I don't know. Like. If this thing was to come.

Dave Jones: I've called up the photo. Called up the photo.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You got to see it lit up too.

Dave Jones: Oh right. Oh yeah. Right. Like the photo at the.

Chris Gammell: At the midpoint. Oh lit up. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's really intense.

Dave Jones: Wow.

Chris Gammell: So. Jeez.

Dave Jones: That's a work of art.

Chris Gammell: It really is. And so. Obviously we can't talk about it too much on the show here. You know. People have got to go see it.

Chris Gammell: Well yeah. It's not a visual medium. If you take nothing else from this. Other than like tips on how to do like. Like just the lighting type stuff. Like the backlight stuff. You know. With the solder mesh relief and everything. And the. Um. Solder mesh relief around the copper. And as is obviously gold plated as well. Probably Enig. Yeah. Um. But yeah. It's just gorgeous. And I. I was telling him online too. Like. You know. He's better just get ready for the Kickstarter. Because people are going to keep asking about it. Right. I mean like.

Dave Jones: Oh I know. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: It's just awesome. So.

Dave Jones: Yep. People should definitely go check it out. It's.

Chris Gammell: And like it's. You know. It's got like. I think it might have music associated with it too. And everything. Yeah. So.

Dave Jones: Well it's not the first time I've lit up. Um. Through FR4 material from behind. Yeah. You know. But yeah. This is like. It looks funky. Because it's got multicolored RGB LEDs. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. And symbols of cars. And you know. Like. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's all personalized and everything. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's very. Very cool. It's actually a work of art. You've got to be artistic to do this. Right. Yeah. That's what I was thinking too. It's like. Which I lack all talent to do.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean. You know. It's. It's. It's trivial.

Dave Jones: Just putting some copper on there. Remove the salt. I mean. You know. It's not hard. See. But the lines.

Chris Gammell: Do you see those little lines in there? I didn't know how to do those. The. If you. If you zoom in on. What is the picture? Yeah.

Dave Jones: I can see them. Inside the actual letters. Yeah. Inside the letters. So there's. So there's letters on here that say. The big thing that says. Life is the game. Yeah. Life. Life is the game. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right. And then. But if you look at the close up of it. There's like little etched. Lines. Inside the copper. And I don't. I don't.

Dave Jones: Where they've actually removed the copper. So it's mostly copper fill.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's mostly copper fill. So would it be the copper layer then? That would be. Just without. Without that space filled in then? Like just really thin lines. I don't know man.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So cool. It's freaking awesome.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: All right. We're done with Dave and Chris art history hour. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh boy. No that's. That's gold. Yeah. No pun intended.

Chris Gammell: So I mean I'm probably going to have to open up Boldport at some point here. But it scares me. I don't know. Code still. Like that. Like code doesn't scare me on an everyday basis. But just like the idea of like projects that are totally like that. Like I'll. You know I've been doing. And GitHub and stuff like that. And you know I'll do command line. I do command line stuff. I do all Linux for the. The amp hour server. But. I don't know. Something about it just. I need to man up.

Dave Jones: Oh this is a Y Combinator thing.

Chris Gammell: Which is.

Dave Jones: Says he's just. He's just applied for Y Combinator.

Chris Gammell: Oh well. Applying is different than. Being there. Oh right. Okay. If people are interested in you. Of course. They'll fly first and then they say okay yes. And then. Yeah. And then they'll give you money and. Whatever.

Dave Jones: Got it. God I wish I had some artistic talent. I have none.

Chris Gammell: Well your rulers. What about your rulers? Those are. Are those all shipped yet? Are those all. Out in the world?

Dave Jones: No they're not. No. But they're not artistic. That's just. You know. It's not artistic. No.

Chris Gammell: No. Well you can't. I guess you can't make a new logo for Agilent then either. Or whatever they are. B and D. B and D. B and D. I love it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Unbelievable.

Chris Gammell: What kind of.

Dave Jones: Ray Dolby passed away. That's pretty sad.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. He was. He was a badass dude. Yeah. He did a lot of. I mean like all of the noise reduction stuff. And then. I'm always still amazed at what they were working on outside of the noise reduction. As well. Is it Dolby? I think it was Dolby. Maybe it was Bose. I'll just shut up about that. Maybe. I always keep those two confused. Sorry.

Dave Jones: Bose is no. Nothing to do with that. Bose is a. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Their speaker stuff. Or their audio. I mean they're both audio.

Dave Jones: They're a cheap ass. You know. They're cheap ass speaker manufacturers claiming that. They can do. You know. Magic.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: With little. And. Yeah. Oh. This is. This is huge industry news. Which we haven't talked about.

Chris Gammell: What's that?

Dave Jones: The. The. The Kosh brothers. Are buying Molex. Molex. Yeah. The huge connector company. Like the world's. Probably the world's biggest.

Chris Gammell: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Definitely. One of the biggest. I mean.

Dave Jones: Connector company. I'm sure. Right? They make connectors for everything. Right? Yeah. People know like. They're buying them for $7 billion.

Chris Gammell: ATX connectors. Like you think of power supplies on computers. Stuff like that. That's. That's a Molex connector. That's a Minifit jr.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Like Molex are like the industry. When you talk about a type of connector, Molex almost certainly were the first to make it, you know, usually. Yeah, I don't like that. Anyway, they're huge. And these Koch brothers are apparently, yeah, the world's dodgiest businessmen. And, yeah, there's a doco on them, which I haven't watched, like exposing their corporate behaviour or something, how they, I don't know, it's something. Anyway, and they tried to have the movie shut down and, you know, exposing them and all sorts of shit. Anyway, they're buying Molex. So, yeah, goodbye, Molex.

Chris Gammell: I don't know if that's going to really matter, though. I mean, like, I don't know. Like, I think about big holding companies buying other big companies, you know, like.

Dave Jones: Yeah, like it's a Danaher type, you know. It's not going to be a Danaher kiss of death, is it?

Chris Gammell: Well, I don't know. Like, it depends on the company who buys them, right? I mean, that's kind of what it comes down to. If it's like they're going to come in and, personally, like you think about Molex connectors, like they're pretty dirt cheap to start with, so.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, no, they're not. I've paid hundreds of dollars for a Molex connector.

Chris Gammell: Really? Oh.

Dave Jones: No, they make some of the highest obscure connectors in the industry, the highest quality obscure connectors in the industry. I don't use them for that stuff.

Chris Gammell: I mean, I think of them for, like, generic, you know, like. Yeah, right. You know, the jelly bean, USB connector. Well, I think, like, you know, single wire, little old lady sitting there at the Molex crimping machine, you know, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, little foot controller, you know, put the wire in, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, and it just does, it has the mold and it crimps around the wire, and then someone else is putting wires into plastic headers. That's what I think of. Got it. That's actually one of my first jobs. I had to learn how to do that kind of stuff because when I didn't have anything else to do, I had to go work the Molex machine and I got in tons of trouble. That's right. Yeah. And those things will take your fingers off if you're not careful.

Dave Jones: No, see, you know, when I think, like, I'll think of the DIN 41612, you know, and stuff like that.

Chris Gammell: DIN 41612, huh?

Dave Jones: Dude, come on, VME.

Chris Gammell: I don't know what you're saying right now.

Dave Jones: It's a standard VME connector, you know.

Chris Gammell: What industry? I mean, come on, man. You can't blame me for not knowing different industries.

Dave Jones: Industrial computer industry. Okay, fair.

Chris Gammell: DIN 416, oh, there we go. I know DIN. Oh, okay, yeah, DIN. Like the 90 pin. It's a standard, yeah, yeah. Was that them who did that, though? I thought that was someone else who did that. It's a cartage. Yeah, I know the cartage stuff.

Dave Jones: No, I'm sure it was Molex who made the first one.

Chris Gammell: Oh, okay. Now every man whose dog makes it. Because DIN stands for Deutschland, Industrial, something, whatever the N is, yeah, like standard and number, yeah. But I knew it was German, and that's where DIN comes from. Mumble, mumble. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I know D is Deutschland.

Dave Jones: It's one of those things that I think they started off with a connector, and then they ratified it as a standard. Right, which is brilliant. I could be wrong on my history there. Yeah. I might be talking out my ass, but. No. Yep. No.

Chris Gammell: Dave. Dave. We don't do that here.

Dave Jones: Of course not. Yeah. Anyway, that's pretty huge. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, it might be. We'll see. DIN connectors aren't expensive, though. DINs are cheap.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. No, no, no. DINs are pretty cheap.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: No, I'm just saying. Yeah, Mulex can make some very expensive connectors. Yes. If you go to the right niche industries.

Chris Gammell: I think. But anyone can make expensive connectors. Oh, of course. Everybody, that's what they always do, right? Everyone starts like that. Yeah. You know, there's 100,000 companies in Shenzhen, China right now making this exact same connector, and all of them dream to make the next level of connector, right? That's how you start. Of course. It's just you start at the low end, and you move up. It's the innovator's dilemma, right? Every time. Every single time. God damn it. Oh, boy. Yeah. I don't know. I guess that's news. I don't know.

Dave Jones: No, it's news. Come on. That's huge. You know, Mulex are, you know. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, like, it's the bread and butter of things. I think about all this stuff, right? I mean, like, so, like, this is interesting to us, right? I mean, but.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Does it actually affect us? I mean, like, this Intel thing, too, right? No, probably not. Nothing happens, right? Right. I mean, like, these new Intel chips, too, right?

Dave Jones: HP matters. Agilent matters.

Chris Gammell: It doesn't matter, Dave. You're going to figure out the new name. You're going to complain about it for a bit. You're going to complain about it for a bit. And then you're going to be like, oh, I'll keep buying it, I guess. Oh, they gave me a scope to review? I guess I'll review it. Okay. But, I mean, that's just how it goes, right? I mean, like, parts of electronics are very steady state. I mean, like, just the fact that, I mean, like, DigiKey and Mauser exist, right? The fact that you can have these huge supply chains where you have, you know, billions of parts in the pipeline that you can just go and buy. Like, the fact that you don't have to buy anything custom. The fact that there's standard numbers. It's insane. The fact that there's, well, there's less of this these days. But, you know, like, cross-reference parts and pin-compatible components. Like, that is just a function of how many electronic pieces are in the world. Because otherwise, they wouldn't do it. Because there wouldn't be money in it.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Speaking of that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. No money in it.

Dave Jones: Perfect segue back to Agilent. Right? Somebody on the forum. Yeah, no, come on. This is important. Somebody said, well, does that mean Agilent are going to stop making their high-end gear? You know, like, doing their high-end, you know, basic research on, you know, 80 gigahertz front ends. And they're going to stop making that. And the answer, I believe, is no. In fact, if anything, they're going to stop trying to target the low-end. Because they can't compete at the low-end. Yeah, maybe. Because Weigel and all the others are just going to kill them. Right? So they have to almost sort of, you know, continue to focus on that, you know, sort of high-end stuff. They have to.

Chris Gammell: Because that's where the big margins are. Two customers who need gigahertz scopes, you know what I mean?

Dave Jones: Yeah, but there's big margins in there which do pay for the R&D. I guess so.

Chris Gammell: But if you lose people, then, you know what happens is someone who has, they have an Agilent scope on their bench, right? And then they shop around. They see Agilent is no longer focusing on low- to mid-end scopes. And then they ignore it for a little while. They buy someone else's. And then they come back, and the name is changed. And they can't figure out what the hell is going on. Take that, Agilent. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Dave Jones: Oh, goodness. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: No, I think you're right. I don't think they'll stop doing that stuff. It's just- No, of course they won't. Hopefully. You know, the thing you hope about that stuff is that, you know, if you have a CEO, because if it's just a test and measurement company then, and you have a CEO who's focused on test and measurement, then yeah, okay, he cares about test and measurement. He or she cares about it, you know?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, it could become a better company. Who knows? We could get- Who cares? Yeah, we could get better test. Who cares? I want better test gear.

Chris Gammell: We have no decision in this process. Oh, man.

Dave Jones: Goodness. Yeah. Goodness, goodness, goodness.

Chris Gammell: I wanted to talk about, so it was weird because no one really talked, well, I saw it here and there. So yeah, it seemed like everybody was talking about it, you know, in like, it seemed like it was very forced, like the press release was parroted a whole bunch. But I was actually excited about this thing, the TI, the new TI part, did you see that thing?

Dave Jones: You're talking about the inductive one?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, the LDC thing, which is a stupid name, but whatever. I've already got one. You do have one, yeah. So I've-

Dave Jones: I've got one in my hands.

Chris Gammell: Okay, I didn't know that. Yeah. I got one at work just because I think they were handing these things out like, Andy, it's pretty cool though, right?

Dave Jones: I mean, like- Okay. Yeah. Well, I haven't actually tried it yet.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Haven't tried it. Yeah, demo's pretty cool. It just turned up yesterday, you know. Oh, okay. Okay. So, I mean, so basically what it is, it's- I mean, it's nothing new. That's the interesting thing about it. It's nothing new. And in fact, our buddy Alan, Alan Yates, did a great video with the same kind of concepts. That was inductive power transfer. That's not the one I was talking about, actually. Oh, okay. Right. I think he did another one about that. The one I was talking about was where he had- he had a coil with a resonant oscillation oscillator, or he was- sorry, it was a resonant coil, rather. So, just the coil, inductance, and then a capacitor out there, and probably an oscillator as well. It was a tank circuit, yeah. Yeah, tank circuit. Thank you. And then basically, though, it was- I love it. It was- the coil was big enough that he dropped different core materials through it, right? So, like, he put different ferrites through it and different materials, and then he played the tone, and then you could hear the tone change based on the inductance changing from the core material changing, right? Yeah. And basically, that's what this is. I mean, that's like- It's a metal detector, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, that's- I mean, so maybe that's why no one's interested in it, but I think, you know, in terms of standardizing it, right, and having it so that it's just a drop- drop it in, it's effectively just a sensor chip now, that was interesting to me.

Dave Jones: What I mean is- explain what it is, is that it's actually a distance measuring chip, so you can get the distance from a metal object.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And fingers, too. I mean, like, you can actually just get regular- any kind of material. Well- Oh, right. Okay, I haven't tried that. I mean, if you get close enough, it's- yeah, it'll do non-metals as well, but that's just because the coil's changing, really. Yeah. And basically, though, they're talking about doing it, you know, using it in weird, you know, weird applications, like- like, putting it underneath a bed spring and monitoring your breathing and stuff like that, which I thought was interesting, or, like, non-contact switches, which is probably the dev kit you have, where they actually show you that the- they have, like, metal, a slider, right? So, it's a non-contact kind of thing. You can just detect how much metal is over top of it. But it's, like, pretty sensitive, too. I mean, all in all, it's- it's an interesting concept, and, you know, obviously, it's not a new concept, but it's an interesting concept, and interesting-

Dave Jones: That they're integrated into a chip so that you can more easily do it.

Chris Gammell: Right. And here's-

Dave Jones: Whereas before, you had to sort of roll your own solution.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. And here's- here's my point, though. What's going to happen- so, I'm basically calling this a new sensor class, even though, I mean, it's not, like, new, but it- because it's- it's standardized into a chip, you know, you can drop it in. Mm-hmm. It's a new sensor chip to me. What we're going to see, and if we don't, you know, some of the listeners on this show might want to do it, is we're going to just see Kickstarter projects where you have a sensor chip- Yeah, of course. New sensor chip comes out. You bolt on a Bluetooth- Some novel application. ...chip to it.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You hook it up to an app, and then, basically, you have a sensor hub for something else, right? Like, that is just going to be the trend we see over and over and over again. Yeah. And so, what I'm saying is, people should watch for- I mean, like, when I saw this news, I was excited because of that. I knew that the sensor chip coming out is going to inspire-

Dave Jones: Same here.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's just going to be a bunch of these little new gadgets.

Dave Jones: That's why I got one, to play with it, and I went, oh, what idea can I come up with? Exactly, right? Yeah. You can come up with- Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's kind of what- if people watch data sheet announcements and stuff like that, that's what you look for. You look for something novel and different and a new type of technology or measurement kind of thing. And I think it's going to end up spawning a bunch of Kickstarters and, you know, integrating- Mm-hmm. And how easy is it now to, like, throw it into a quadcopter, right? I mean, obviously, it'd have to be pretty big if you are approaching Earth. You approached Earth two seconds ago. But, you know, and so different applications like that, but just drop- the dropping in kind of thing is what- was what really is interesting about it. So- Right. Yeah. You're welcome, TI. Someone who actually knows what we're talking about, you know, aside from my little tank snafu there.

Dave Jones: So is this chip of the week?

Chris Gammell: Like, ooh, chip. Chip, chip, chip, chip. Of the week. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I like it.

Dave Jones: Awesome.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I'm going to have to have a play with it. It's fun. I got one. Yeah, they- It's only like 20- the dev kit's like 20 bucks or something, and they ship it for free. You know, even- even to me, here in Australia, they FedExed to me for $27 or something.

Chris Gammell: That is a nice- Yeah, I know. That is a nice trend, I have to say. I hope that continues. Like, you know-

Dave Jones: TI are doing this for everything. It's brilliant. I mean, like- I know. How are they not-

Chris Gammell: We talked about that on the show, right? It's like, stop spending your money on stupid marketing stuff, like Mayim Bialik talking about zombies on YouTube. Do you see that crap? Exactly. Holy crap. Shit. Ugh, it was terrible. You know, it was the calculator division, which in TI probably has a lot of money sitting around anyways, because they, you know, make a $5 calculator and charge $154.

Dave Jones: They're sitting on a throne of cash.

Chris Gammell: But still, that was so annoying when I saw that stuff. I could not believe- like, what?

Dave Jones: They're talking about Mayim Bialik from the Big Bang Theory. They got her- Right, well, and she's a neuroscientist too. To star in this-

Chris Gammell: Yeah, she's a professor. You know, like, nothing against that, but like, good God. And yeah, they're talking about zombies.

Dave Jones: A lot of money was thrown down that shithole.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: And yeah, just sell-

Chris Gammell: Exactly. You spend your marketing money giving away cheap kits at cost. Subsidize is the word. Subsidize the kits. Yeah, yeah, not cheap. Right, cheap is the wrong word. No. Subsidized kits.

Dave Jones: Yeah, you have to cover your base costs, you know. Right, yeah, you don't want to-

Chris Gammell: Yeah, and if you give stuff- the other thing too is if you give away dev kits for free, right, everyone's going to sign up for one, and then no one will use it, you know?

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's right. So it stops the tire kickers, but if you make it $20, $30, you know, it stops the tire kickers, but it gets the genuinely interested.

Chris Gammell: Right. Or most of them. I think that was part of the problem with, like, the launch pad. I mean, like, five- was it $4.30? Because it was MSP430 on there. It was $4.30. That was almost free. Almost free, right. And I think free shipping too. And then, you know, kind of the same thing with the Raspberry Pi too, where it was like, everybody saw it as a computer, you know, for $30, and it's like, of course I'm getting that, right? Or like this-

Dave Jones: And everyone bought them, and they sold a million of them, but how many people have actually used it? Exactly, exactly. Yeah, we've talked about that before.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's like this new 3D printer on Kickstarter you talked about that-

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, let's talk about that, shall we?

Chris Gammell: We're hitting them all. We're getting all our bases today, folks. Yeah, we are, folks.

Dave Jones: This is a potpourri of-

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. Anyway-

Chris Gammell: So you posted about this, or someone on your forum did.

Dave Jones: Yeah, somebody on the forum, and then I tweeted it, and my first gut reaction was, yeah, like, this guy's thinking outside the box, right? We'll talk about it in a second, what he's actually doing. Yeah, love it, thinking outside the box of how to design a new 3D printer. He's doing some novel stuff in it, but in practice, it's just no- It's not going to work. It's going to be a pile of shit. I'm sure of it. That's my gut instinct. That was everyone else's gut instinct, really. And, you know, and it's just, it's going to be a useless toy. It's a $100 3D printer. And, of course, they've already met their target, right? And you're going to have a whole millions of, well, not millions, but you're going to have tens of thousands of these nerds, oh, it's a 3D printer for a hundred bucks. I'm going to buy that. And they're just throwing their hundred bucks down the drain. Yeah. On a toy. That's just going to be impractical, I think. So, yeah, it might print something, but it's just, oh, it's so many issues with it. I don't even want to go there. Oh.

Chris Gammell: Well, we should name it. It's called the Peachy, right? I mean, that's the name of it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting, too. It's Canadian Kickstarter. So that's just started a couple, I think it was a year ago, right? Now Australia has Kickstarter, too.

Dave Jones: They're about to, yeah.

Chris Gammell: They're about to, right. The thing that's interesting about, so first off, I like that, you know, it was developed with this hackerspace. That was cool. Single founder. The thing that's interesting to me about it is that he said he developed his own light, what was it, like the mirror circuit? Or, no, it wasn't a circuit, but it was like a...

Dave Jones: Yeah. It uses a mirror to bounce a laser. By the way, this is not a deposition. Right. Yeah. It's a SLA type technology. FDM. It's a laser sintering.

Chris Gammell: A selective. Right. Whatever SLA is. Whatever it's called. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. The goop. It needs the goop. But basically, so he, and he, and the interesting thing from the video is he said, I'm saving money by not having analog to digital converter. So instead, I'm using the audio output port from the computer and then the microphone as feedback, I think

Dave Jones: he said. Oh, I don't know. Something like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So two things are interesting about that. One is that he said he developed the actual mirror himself, which, you know, I think that alone should be applauded because, you know, developing your own sensors or developing your own interface device like that, that's...

Dave Jones: It's a mirror on a piece of string, you know, it's a, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. But I think it was like laser cut or something like that.

Dave Jones: And then they have a coil to move it, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. But that's, but that's interesting from a, you know, because that's the kind of technology where you can develop that more, right? Whereas you're not dependent on, you know, like, like, like the Form 1, which is another 3D printer, uses Blu-ray disc stuff, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I just, I think that's interesting from a manufacturing perspective and stuff. There's a lot of efficiencies you can get from that. It might be limiting eventually.

Dave Jones: Yes, there is. But, but generally you're probably going to have like really do it yourself, cruddy stuff like he's doing, or you're going to have to put massive technology funding into it to get... Well, he just raised $250,000 so far. Well, yeah, but, but have you seen the size of his team he's got?

Chris Gammell: No.

Dave Jones: Working on this thing. I don't know if they're full time. Yeah. Like he lists all these people that are working on, there's like more than half a dozen or something. Oh, I figured that was the hack start. And one of them's a marketing person. One of them's a marketing person, right? Yeah, it may be at the hackerspace, but if they're working on it full time, they're going to, you know, they're just going to hemorrhage cash.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, maybe.

Dave Jones: So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, the other thing that was interesting to me is that the fact that he's coming, they're coming out of the audio port on a computer and then using the microphone port, it doesn't tell me that they wanted to save money on analog to digital converters or DAX or anything like that, because those are pretty cheap. It tells me that they're software people. I mean, that's the kind of thing that that tells me right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is okay, too. I mean, that's an interesting, like you said, it's an interesting outside the box kind of solution, which alone is very cool. I mean, that's great.

Dave Jones: Well, we haven't talked about the Z-axis yet.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. That is cool.

Dave Jones: Here's an even novel thing, right? The Z-axis. There's no stepper motors in this thing, right? It's just a little box which you stick above the solution. Right. You just hold it there and it uses the mirror to... And the way they raise the thing up in the Z-axis is to put salt water into a top reservoir and then it drips. The salt water drips down to the bottom reservoir, which then lifts the liquid up, the resin, because the resin floats on top of the salt water. Right, so it's a real thin layer of resin, too. It's a density... Yeah, it's a density thing, you know? So they're using physics, so it's really quite novel there. And then they're counting the number of drops that go in to determine their Z-height. And it's like...

Chris Gammell: Right. And that's the microphone thing. I forgot. That's what they're using a microphone for.

Dave Jones: Oh, you know? Right. Okay. For the sensor for that. And it's like, yeah, A for out-of-the-box thinking, but is it going to work in practice? Oh, it's just going to be awful.

Chris Gammell: I think at this point, who cares? I think that's going to be... That's interesting by itself.

Dave Jones: Well, that's the thing, right? It's just a toy. It's not going to be a workable 3D.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but you know what? I think it's interesting from a development standpoint, too, from... Like, that is so different, to me at least. Oh, of course. Like, that might drive other people to do different stuff, right? Or develop more expensive versions.

Dave Jones: No, no, no. That's where I see its value being, in just, you know, people dicking around with this sort of technology. And it's a dick-around kit. It is not a 3D printer to produce anything practical with, right? It's just, you know...

Chris Gammell: Or a dev kit. We'll call it a dev kit to maybe make it a little smoother there, Dave, right?

Dave Jones: It kind of rolls off the tongue. No, no, it's a dicking-around kit.

Chris Gammell: No, no. Okay.

Dave Jones: It's a dick kit.

Chris Gammell: A dick kit, okay. Yeah. Don't search for that on Google.

Dave Jones: A dick kit? No, you'll probably get a Dick Smith kit. Oh, sure. Yeah, maybe in Australia, buddy. You'll probably get a famous Australian Dick Smith kit, yeah? Yeah. Right. Oh, dear. Yep. All right. Anyway, yeah, so we're on the same page. We both agree there that it's not really going to produce a practical 3D printer, really. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, and, you know, there's always... I think there's still value in, you know, the toy side of things, right? I mean, like, well, our friend Jerry, right? She worked in the toy industry. There is still interesting stuff there, you know, from learning about how to do low-cost design, how to be innovative with, you know, working with what you have there. That is just... It's interesting, right? You'll find efficiencies, and then you can roll that out to bigger designs later, so...

Dave Jones: So, get working on your farting novelty toy or your spank-o-meter.

Chris Gammell: Well, I think this has a little more value than that, but okay.

Dave Jones: Right. Oh, boy. Anyway, yeah, great for out-of-the-box thinking, but... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, we should probably rapid-fire some links and get the hell out of here, huh?

Dave Jones: Yeah, probably.

Chris Gammell: So...

Dave Jones: I think we're going way over.

Chris Gammell: I signed up for a power electronics course. I don't think I've mentioned it on the show yet, but Coursera actually has a power electronics course on DC-to-DC converters and stuff like that. Yep.

Dave Jones: And you signed up and you watched it?

Chris Gammell: It hasn't started yet, so... It's actually, like, you can actually get credit and everything if you do the homeworks, which I will not be doing. I'll be making my own course. Yeah, exactly. And this is free, right? Yeah, Coursera is free.

Dave Jones: It's subsidized by the University of... Whoop-de-doop.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Don't ask me how the hell that's going to all work out. But whatever. Let's see what else. FDA is removing some roadblocks for apps and stuff like that. So, we might see, you know, talking about dropping in sensors into smartphone-type apps real quickly and having little gadgets to talk to smartphones. You know, if you can do that in medical applications, that's really big, right? Whereas, currently, FDA stuff is crazy. Right.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah. Gotta go there.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I called it, of course, Australia is now rooted. Oh, yeah. In my election rant video, I said that Australia would be rooted. And it didn't take long. It only took a week. Yeah. The new Australian government has axed our science minister. We no longer have a minister for science.

Chris Gammell: Oh.

Dave Jones: The last time this country didn't have a minister for science was 1930. Yikes. And they axed all sorts of other ministers. Minister for youth services, the women's minister. And as a rubber in your face, guess who appointed himself women's minister? Our prime minister, who is known as one of the biggest misogynists in the country. So, it was like, screw you. Anyway, I called it. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're screwed for the next three years until we can boot the bastards out. At least we're not Sydney. Yeah. Australia. Yeah. Oh, man. I'm so embarrassed. I'm so embarrassed. I know. You should be.

Chris Gammell: You're basically like the deep south now. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Next thing you know, it'll be creationism. Oh, yeah. You're screwed. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Other things. Oh, Alan's video on antenna matching was very cool. I like that a lot for low-cost antenna matching. That was a cool video.

Dave Jones: Oh, I haven't seen it. You're talking Yates?

Chris Gammell: No, Alan Wolke.

Dave Jones: Oh, Alan Wolke. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And then on the same subject of ham, we had a visitor from Hackaday. Mike's, oh, I can't say his last name. I learned it at once. But Mike, one of the editors at Hackaday dropped by to let us know about an article from Bill Mira, actually. The Solder Smoke podcast, one of our favorite other podcasts, who wrote an article called Why Ham Radio is a Hacker's Paradise. And it's very Link-heavy. So, yes. Cool. Good stuff. Check them all out. Next week, speaking of things that shake around as signals, we will be having Henry Ott, the preeminent, preeminent, is that the right word? One of the world's leading experts on EMC, 30-year veteran of Bell Labs, wrote the textbook on...

Dave Jones: I've got it right here in front of me. I have it in my hands. Yep. Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronic Systems, Second Edition.

Chris Gammell: If you've seen it, you know what it looks like. It's got really blocky graphics and everything like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's very distinct and it's very good. So, please, please get your questions in for him. If you've got any kind of questions about noise reduction, EMC reduction, he is the one to talk about. So, he's still touring doing courses and stuff, too. Even though he's...

Dave Jones: Yeah, how old is he?

Chris Gammell: Talk about not retiring. I think he's 70-plus. So, yeah, I'm very excited about this. So, really, can't wait for that. And we've got some other good interviews lined up for the following weeks as well. Awesome. One last thing. We will be selling more t-shirts.

Dave Jones: He was born in... Hang on. He was born in 1936. There you go. It's inside the book.

Chris Gammell: 36. 70. Yep.

Dave Jones: So, that makes him in his mid-70s or something. Yep.

Chris Gammell: No, more than that. 80-something.

Dave Jones: Does he have a grey beard?

Chris Gammell: I think he is clean-shaven, so... He doesn't need... He's moved beyond the grey beard, Dave. That's how good he is. That's how good he is. But, yes...

Dave Jones: He's gone from getting off the grey to getting off the white. Is that what you're saying? That's what I'm saying. All right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Uh... I don't even know what I'm saying now. Oh, boy. Yes, t-shirts. We will be selling t-shirts. We'll probably kick off another Teespring campaign. This is going to be a white t-shirt. We are going to have ladies' sizes as well. So, uh... Uh... For our... 5% of our audience. And also, you know, if you want to... If our male audience want to buy Ampower t-shirts for their lady friends as well. One for their partner. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh... Definitely get in on that if you're interested. If you missed it last time, this is going to be another nice-looking t-shirt. So...

Dave Jones: It's the same logo, though. It's exactly the same design. Yes.

Chris Gammell: Same logo, different colors. White shirt, black logo... Black and blue logo. It'll look nice. Sweet. All right. Uh, anything else, Dave?

Dave Jones: No, that's it. We're way over time. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, we are.

Dave Jones: Yeah, because we screwed up in the middle. We had the blue screen of death.

Chris Gammell: Oh, you didn't... You're not supposed to tell them, Dave.

Dave Jones: I tweeted it, for goodness sake. The illusion is ruined.

Chris Gammell: No one pays attention to your Twitter. Come on. All right. We'll see you next week, man. Bye.

Speaker ?: Bye. Thank you.