#201 – Cheap Respins And A Time Machine - Multiscience Mercenary Marketplace

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Recorded June 2nd, 2014. Episode 201. Multiscience. Mercenary. Marketplace.

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: What's up, nerd?

Chris Gammell: Hey, man. Welcome to the world of living after a short delay this morning.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, yeah, you called my home.

Chris Gammell: I did.

Dave Jones: And you got my wife picked up.

Chris Gammell: I talked to Mrs. EEV Blog, and she was confused, to say the least.

Dave Jones: I was going to say, lucky she didn't hang up on you, because any time the phone rings and there's that delay, that delay at the other end, she instantly hangs up because it's like an Indian call center or something.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right, right, right.

Dave Jones: So does that happen with you?

Chris Gammell: What? We don't have a landline, so we know that doesn't happen.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. You don't actually have one. Yeah. Okay.

Chris Gammell: No.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: No, that's – what am I, like, you know, like a senior citizen or something? I don't know, man.

Dave Jones: No, that's very common now. It used to be a real problem, right? Because, like, when you filled out forms and things, they would – people would force you, like, you must have a home phone number. If you do, you can't complete this form. And now it's like, well, people, you know, like the mobile phones taken out, the whole concept of a home phone is almost redundant to a whole selection of the population.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah. All I do now – actually, I have a Google voice number now, so that rings all my phones, and that is my home phone number now.

Dave Jones: Oh, right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, it's great. Although that does – it does hurt – there is some kind of detection algorithm where they can tell if it's not actually a landline somehow, so.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay, because I've got to decide to do that for the office because, you know, I've ditched my real phone – well, I haven't yet. I haven't disconnected my account. I've still got my old analog phone line here in the lab, but I've got to ditch that. I've got to get VoIP. So, well, either VoIP, but then you've got to pay a number to keep the same number you've got, and I want to keep the same number. It's a rather nice number. You know, I like it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, you know.

Dave Jones: I don't have to learn a new one, some obscure number. But you've got to pay, like, a monthly fee forever to keep that number ported into your VoIP account. It's like –

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, maybe not with Google Voice. I don't know, man. Sometimes you can take over those things.

Speaker ?: I don't know.

Dave Jones: I'll check into this Google Voice thing. Is it in Australia? I've got no idea. I'll check into it. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So what is new? What is – what's going on in the Aussie land there? I recall you said you had some new deliveries of your microcurrents, and you're kind of getting down to the end of it?

Dave Jones: They just turned up, yeah. They – I just got another whole bunch in just before the show here. I had to rudely interrupt you because I heard a brief knock. It's hard to hear the knock at the door with your headphones on, but I do. Oh, yeah. Because I don't have fully enclosed headphones. I've got ones that have, you know, vent holes in the outside, so they allow – they do allow at least some sort of, you know –

Chris Gammell: Right, right, right.

Dave Jones: Outside noise to come in.

Chris Gammell: Which is what we want anyways. We really don't monitor our own voices, so. No, no. Well, that's good. So when is the next thing coming? I mean, when is the –

Dave Jones: Oh, well, yeah. It's just a matter of finding time to work on another project, isn't it? I mean, yeah, I've got to get these backlog out of the way. So the wife's coming over today to pack and ship more microcurrents, hopefully. And, yeah, because I do have a backlog. Like I put – you know, so I fulfilled all the Kickstarter stuff, or almost all of them. There's a couple of stragglers there who didn't put their address in, and a couple of returned items and stuff like that. It always happens, you know, if you're going to run your own hardware business and ship them, as I mentioned, ship them yourself, as I mentioned on my blog post in the last week.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Then, if you haven't read that, then, yeah, you've got to allow for the hassle of, you know, one's just like unknown address, you know. It comes back to you, and it's like, well, what do you do? You've taken the person's money, and you've got to go contact them and, you know, and figure out what happened to their address. It goes off in an ether and never comes back, right? Well, yeah, and they reship it, and I don't know. And still some people have taken their money, and they haven't given me their address. What do I do? You know, just force their money back via PayPal or just keep it? I don't know. Right. Boy.

Chris Gammell: Anyway, so I've got to backlog. So let's talk about this blog post. This was a great blog post you posted. So basically, Dave, if people haven't read it, Dave wrote about basically the realities of starting a small-scale electronics company and the prices you should really charge in order to sell and be profitable as a hardware maker.

Dave Jones: Yeah, totally. And the number, that magic number we've talked about, you know, you've talked about like times 2.4 of the actual cost.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I learned that from Chris Anderson. And I think we've said in the meantime, 3 is a much safer, but 2.4 is the one that Chris started.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I sort of round that to 2.5, you know. And I actually did a graph sort of, you know, almost proving why that number is a legitimate number. Because if you're going to have distributors who ultimately distribute your product, you need at least 2.5 to 2.6 or something, thereabouts. That figure we're talking about is multiplied by the actual cost, what it costs for you to produce that product. It's not just bomb cost, it's everything. Oh, it's not just bomb. No, it's assembly, testing, the whole works. You know, shipping, all your parts shipping, all sorts of stuff, right?

Chris Gammell: Oh, maybe I had that wrong then. That's interesting. I thought it was bomb cost multiplier. So it's just a multiplier on the actual full finished.

Dave Jones: Multiplier on finished cost. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Cost of goods sold. Is that COGS or is that something else? Something like that.

Dave Jones: I don't know.

Chris Gammell: That's a pretty business-y term.

Dave Jones: It's a business-y term. Yep. Anyway, you know, factor in every possible thing you can think of, even returns and stuff like that and all sorts of stuff. And yeah, multiply it by that 2.5. And if you do that, then if you sell it to a distributor who typically takes around 60% margin on that, and you've got to understand what the word margin means and stuff like that. So I've done some, I've put the formulas in the blog post. I won't go back into it. But if you do that and use the 2.5 multiplier, then you will make the same amount of money per unit as the distributor. Congratulations. But if you go below that, the distributor will earn more than you do per product. And well, you know, that might be okay to you. But for, you know, some people that doesn't sit well with them. You know, look, I've done all the work. This is my product. And somebody's making more per unit. It's the same with a book, right? If you actually write a book, well, you only get, you know, like 8% to 10% of the retail price. The bookseller, the bookstore, they're the ones who make 50% on your book, right? If you're lucky, you might get 15% if you're with a really good publisher, you know?

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Of that ultimate retail price. And it's a similar thing in hardware, but not nearly as bad as books, though.

Chris Gammell: Right. And part of that is the spread, right? So one person making one book sells it to, you know, maybe 1,000. Assuming a good distribution deal, you might have 1,000 stores selling your book. Right. But then that store itself might only be selling five of your books, right? Yeah, that's right. So they need to get a higher margin to make it worthwhile for them to even put it on the shelf. Shelf space is always expensive and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Oh, they've got rent and they've got wages and they've got, you know, everything else. Yeah. Yeah. Right? So, yeah, it's very expensive to run an actual shop front, you know? Right.

Chris Gammell: And this, folks, is why Radio Shack is not doing very well.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: Stocking resistors in packs of fives is not an easy business. Yes. There was, I think they were, I think that Radio Shack guy was actually, the CEO was actually at Maker Faire, I think. Oh, right. Okay. Man, I just, I can't even imagine, like, that discussion these days being like, well, you know, we make 60% margin on five resistors at a time.

Dave Jones: Oh, jeez, they'd be making more than 60% margin, let me tell you.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, two bucks for a five pack and a blister pack, right? Yeah, they'd be making, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, that's, and that's why, right? I mean, that's why when, you know, our listeners and us go to a local store, that's why you get the gouging. You know, you just have to grin and bear it if you're really that hard up because planning is what ultimately comes down to.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, what we're saying is that there's most money in the retail shop front. Although, as we're seeing, once you include all your overheads, it's a mugs game, you know, especially if you're trying to sell a product the same as everyone else sells, you know? Oh, yeah. It can be a bit of a mugs game. You know, if you're selling Arduinos or Arduino clones, for example, you've set up an online store, then you've got to sell them at a rock bottom price. Otherwise, you can't compete, you know? Right. I mean, it's just, yeah. You can't charge a premium for them.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Anyway, the whole… Yeah, it's way more electronics than it is, or it's way more business than it is electronics, unfortunately.

Speaker ?: Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, totally. Right. You know, like, that's the downside of this stuff. Yeah. The best business people are going to be the ones who end up surviving. Yes, exactly. And the electronics nerds end up just, you know, being like, all right, well, I guess I'll go tinker some more.

Dave Jones: Well, I, in the blog post, I put the… Because a lot of people ask, why am I not selling through a distributor like I did last time? And the blog post explains that. There's quite a few reasons why. It doesn't mean I won't ever will again, but at the moment, it just doesn't make sense for me to do it. So, yeah. There you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, man. Well, that's… I guess that's just the reality business these days. You've got to try and make some money to survive. And, you know, ultimately what it comes down to, I think… You know, I always feel guilty about this stuff with, like, you know, making money and, like, charging people money. I know, because we're nerds.

Dave Jones: That's why we'll never be rich, you know, because we're just… Well, I think even more than just nerds, I think hardware people.

Chris Gammell: Hardware people are cheapskates, right? You're a cheapskate. I'm a cheapskate. Like, this is just a reality of the situation. And so, we feel… We empathize with our potential customers. We're like, all right, well, I wouldn't pay this much. So, why should you, you know? And then it's like, well, then a business person comes along and, like, well, we did the calculation. They have to pay this much. So, yeah.

Dave Jones: That's what I did with the microcurrent, right? Like, oh, I get a lot of comments, right? Oh, your microcurrent's so… Why is it so expensive? You know? Look, I've gone through DigiKey and I know the bomb cost. I could… You know, the bomb cost is only $30 or whatever. Why aren't you selling it for $40? You know? And I'm going, dude, well, you go ahead, right? And you see how long you stay in business, all right? You know, you'd be paying yourself, you know, third world country slave wages, you know?

Chris Gammell: Right. It's just… You know, a lot of people did that. There was a lot of analysis about that for Google Glass a while back as well, right? So, you know…

Dave Jones: How so?

Chris Gammell: I will be honest here. I did pay $1,500 for Google Glass, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, but you were an early adopter in quote marks. You were an early adopter.

Chris Gammell: Right. Well, yeah, and that's what it comes down to, right? So, they calculated the bomb cost to $80 at first and I think they revised it upwards to, like, $150, you know, in terms of, like, the actual cost. Because, you know, they're getting retail pricing today. That's not necessarily retail pricing when they started, right? Oh, totally. That's the apologist method of, you know, like, when you're trying to develop a supply chain, you have to actually go through and, like, okay, this 640 by 360 or whatever, 480 display that, you know, that goes into the prism, they actually help build up that supply there, right? Yeah, of course. So, they developed a supply that became a vertical market like that. There's a lot of, like, hidden costs there. And then if you look at it three years ago versus if you look at it today, you know, the cost is going to look a lot better today, right? Because there's more available because of the investment there and everything else. That's right. But after all of that stuff, even if it is, even if it was $300 or $500, right, that's still a ridiculous markup. That's a 300% markup on what should be a consumer item. Yep. But that misses the whole point, right? I mean, that really does. I mean, like, I paid not – I didn't pay because – well, aside for what I should have paid, right? But basically, you know, I didn't do it because I thought it was a good deal.

Dave Jones: He's trying to justify him.

Chris Gammell: I know. No, no, no.

Dave Jones: He probably has to justify to the wife every day.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not listening. She's not listening. But even, you know, like, it's not about, like, I thought it was a good deal, right? It's never about being a good deal for that kind of stuff. It's about, you know, being part of something early and then possibly as a market opportunity because, you know, developing hardware forward, thinking like, you know, if it really was the next iPhone, right? You think about how big iPhone ended up getting. You know, I remember saying, oh, $600 for an iPhone. That's ridiculous, right? Yeah, yeah. And then look at the people that were early adopters of that that went on to develop hardware and software for that and ended up making a boatload of money, right? It's an investment at that point.

Speaker ?: Yep.

Chris Gammell: So, yep. That's just the – you know, it's a calculated risk, I guess. I guess. We'll see if that ever pays off.

Dave Jones: Well, you know. Yeah. I think you did your dough, but you're an early adopter. So, woo-hoo.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And there's risk – I mean, there's always risk to being an early adopter.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Totally. Speaking of early adopters, I applied for something else today that was a little bit different. I don't know if I'll actually get accepted. Do you tell? But I applied to be a Google Helpout. Have you heard about that?

Dave Jones: No. What's a Google Helpout? Sounds like you're doing work for free. That's what it sounds like to me.

Chris Gammell: Right. Did you know Google Hangouts? Yeah, yeah. Do you have to 10 people on a call?

Dave Jones: Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. This was – yeah, they released this like a year or more ago or something. And you can charge like 50 bucks to – yeah, somebody – you can have a – like a – you know, you can have a Google Hangout with someone and you will help them out with their problem.

Chris Gammell: Right, right.

Dave Jones: For 50 bucks or some other –

Chris Gammell: So, basically, I made a video and I applied and I put in my information, you know, my credentials and everything else and saying – Okay. Okay, well –

Dave Jones: So, you have to apply. I didn't know that. I thought anyone could just – here I am.

Chris Gammell: I got an email.

Speaker ?: I'm an expert.

Chris Gammell: It charge me 50 bucks. I don't know why I got an email. I don't think it was because I'm an expert or anything. I think it was probably just, you know, because I use a lot of Google services more than anything else. Okay, right. But, yeah, so I was like, well, you know, I could – I'm already teaching people online. I might as well offer my services. And then I started thinking about it a little more and I thought it was interesting. You know, this is kind of an interesting model going forwards of like – I could see this being as like a – not necessarily flexible labor, but, you know, like that is another possible labor market into the future. You know, like –

Dave Jones: No, this sort of thing is going to be huge. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I actually – I was part of a marketplace kind of like this. So it was called Maven. Did you ever hear of that one?

Dave Jones: I heard of it, yeah. I never really looked at it, but –

Chris Gammell: It was pretty terrible. Oh, okay. All right.

SPEAKER_02: Has it failed? Is it still around?

Chris Gammell: It's still around. I still get emails about it even though I ask them not to send me them anymore. Right. But basically it was the same kind of thing. It was basically, okay, so you're an expert in a certain area, right? Yeah. And obviously working in electronics is very, very niche. Yep. And it was like now – so like a marketing manager from like Maxim or TI would go to Maven and be like, I want to interview or survey people for blah, blah, blah, and we're willing to pay up to $30 for a 15-minute survey, that kind of thing.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: And really I had signed up when it was still supposed to be like an actual consulting gig where it was supposed to be like, you know, TI or Maxim or anyone else wants to actually talk to someone for a couple hours and actually bring them in or, you know, have some video services. They never had that actual capacity. And so it seems like Google Hangouts is kind of an extension of that.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: And, you know, it's probably more of a technology thing more than anything else where, you know, Google already has the video conferencing capacity there, whereas Maven did not. Right. So, you know, and doing surveys over and over again, it's just like, you know, it was very, very targeted. It was like, all right, I'm a memory manufacturer and I want to know about people who are designing in memory at a million pieces or more type of thing. You know, it was like very, very, very narrow. So it was interesting. But I think this is kind of an interesting look at what we'll see in the electronics industry going forward. Right. I mean, I've seen other examples of this as well. I don't know if you've seen these as well.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, there's a, I think there's a couple of sites which do this sort of thing. You know, you can like hire out your services on like an hourly, you know, basis and you can do like video conferencing meetups and, you know, stuff like that. Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: There was another, I put on a list while back. It was, oh crap, what was it called? There was one actually called, like it actually called out people for electronics and had like a fixed rate, which was kind of interesting as well.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. All right.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. When all this started up like a year and a half and may have been a couple of years back, I, you know, I thought about it. Oh, should I sort of, you know, start doing this and, you know, charging like 150, 200 bucks an hour or something as a, as a, like a, you know, a consulting expert or something. Cause I get quite a lot of email, you know, can you help me out? Look, I'll pay you, you know, can you help me out? And, uh, I'm glad I didn't actually, because then I would have. Yeah. Because I'd be spending, that's not the future I see for myself. You know, this is just a personal thing. It's not that I don't think it's going to work. I think it's going to work for a lot of people. It's going to be huge. Um, but for me, because I'm trying to build something bigger than that rather than just be an hourly contractor, you know? So, so that's why I turned down every job opportunity, every consulting opportunity. I have to spend my time and effort building my brand and my blog and everything else that goes along with it. So yeah, I, you know, even if somebody charged me 500, you know, even if somebody is paying me like 500 bucks an hour, it's just like, yeah, I could write and take the money, but ultimately it's, you know, it's not going in the direction. Like that's adding no value to building my own. It's getting me money, but that doesn't build my own brand and channel and everything else. Right, right.

Chris Gammell: Kind of like a long-term versus short-term kind of thing, right?

Dave Jones: Exactly. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So the, the site I was thinking of is actually, uh, protoexchange.com. That's the one I was thinking about. I saw this a while ago. So, and, and basically it's the same kind of thing. It's, you know, it's a marketplace and basically it mirrors like a, uh, I want to say Elance or Odesk. I think those are the same thing now, or, uh, you know, there's a couple others out there and it will be interesting to see this over time though, because what ends up happening with a lot of those times, a lot of the sites is usually with marketplaces like that, you start getting like, you start getting a, a, a striation of data, right? So you get, you get people that come in and say, well, I'll do your work for 60 bucks. Yep. Total. Right. And, you know, they just want to get the work and they want to get that kind of stuff. Uh, this one actually is a little bit different. It actually, uh, they have, they have a fixed rate, which is actually, I actually, uh, messaged them about this as well. Right. And I said, you know, well, how does that work geography, geography wise? Right. Cause someone working in Sydney or working in New York city or working in San Francisco, right. I think that, uh, they would have a harder time with these fixed rates than it would be, you know, someone in the mid, I think the Midwest actually would be quite benefited from this kind of thing because you basically start getting these, these pricing differences, right? The median salary in, in the middle of the middle of the states versus the, the edges is, is usually a lot lower. So someone bidding from the middle, right. That has that extra time might, might be in a better situation than someone living in New York and paying 4,500 bucks a month for an apartment or whatever craziness people are doing these days. So.

Dave Jones: And this is, this is interesting because this one targets specific hard, uh, it's, uh, hardware, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's hardware design and I'm kind of looking at it. It's, it's a bit weird. Like can anyone join as an expert or it looks like they have just a select few people. That's what it looks like to me. They've got like a select and proven group of.

Chris Gammell: Well, if you go down the page, they actually show their pricing, which is nice as well, right? That transparency is nice. So they show flexible pricing, 60 bucks an hour for junior 99 an hour for professional, 130 an hour for expert. And then you can do a bid, a fixed bid pricing as well.

Dave Jones: And, uh, but can, if you're an expert, can you come along and just join them instantly or do they have to vet you?

Chris Gammell: How do you actually prove yourself? Right.

Dave Jones: I mean, yeah, exactly. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, it's always tough in a marketplace like that. Right. But, uh, you know, just like the hiring marketplace is tough. I mean, how do you really prove yourself even with an interview or anything else? I was listening to Alicia and, uh, and Chris and Jen on the, uh, embedded podcast. So embedded making embedded systems are, are, uh, our, our second favorite podcast versus our own. Uh, they, they just changed names over to embedded. And, uh, and they were talking about this, the whole hiring process as well. And, you know, just like how hard it is to just figure that out. Right. They were talking about all of the different questions you ask and how do you actually deal with this kind of stuff. And, uh, you know, it's, how do you, how do you figure this out? How do you figure out if one engineer is going to be a better fit than another engineer? Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's just, it's impossible. It's, it's, you know, it's a gamble.

Chris Gammell: Right. It totally is. Yeah. So it's interesting from a, uh, uh, a marketplace standpoint because it's kind of a infinite pool of labor. Right. So what it comes down to is how much, how much tie-in do you have? Right. Is it like, is it like if I'm an expert, do I get to charge 130 an hour and guaranteed 10 hours a week? Probably not. Right. It's probably like one hour at a time. And if hour three is not as good as hour two, I get fired. Right. You know, it becomes this fluidity of the workforce. It's kind of an interesting market dynamic.

Dave Jones: Oh, and then you've got that. Oh, okay. You can based on their experience. Oh, they've worked on exactly the same project as you're working on. Right. So obviously this person is going to be a fantastic fit. Well, they may not be right because they might not be as efficient as what you're after. Right. You may want to pay top dollar for the utmost in efficiency, the person who can get it done tomorrow. You know? Right. And that doesn't necessarily mean, like that person could be really good. They can have perfect experience in their resume, all their feedback's fantastic, but they're slow. But they could be very thorough and methodical. Deliver it, yeah. Yeah. Whereas you need somebody who just hacks something together, you know, overnight. That's the kind of person you're looking for, you know, or vice versa. Right. You end up with a hacker and you wanted somebody who thoroughly, who spends a week just documenting shit. You know? Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: And you never want to pay for that up front either, right? I mean, that's always a thing.

Dave Jones: No, that's right. And then you never want to pay and then you think it, you know. And that's the problem. People hiring hardware people, they don't realize how long hardware takes. Right. Oh, my God, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's, that's why I just don't want to, like, I would rather go back and work for the man than work as an hourly contractor again. It's just because the demands are just so high on you to get stuff done and finished. It's like, I don't need that stress. I don't want that stress in my life, you know. Right. And some people like it and can handle it.

Chris Gammell: You know, I was talking to a friend about this recently and he said he actually switched over to fixed bids. I was very surprised by that, actually.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Right.

Chris Gammell: So, consulting, if people don't know, consulting engineers often try and do between, you know, hourly rates or fixed bids, right? And usually the hourly rate is always negotiable, right? So, if it's like Dave was saying, you know, if you don't necessarily know the subject area, you might bid a lower rate or you might negotiate a lower rate if you say, kind of going back and forth, how much have you done this kind of thing? Yep. And, but really there's still no guarantee. And what he was saying is that there's just a ton of pressure, right? Oh, yeah. So, he was saying that, like, he was doing layout and he felt guilty. Well, yeah, and he felt guilty, like, listening to music. Exactly. He wasn't, like, 100% focused. Exactly. So, he started bidding, you know, known jobs to the fixed bid because of that, right? Yeah. There's a risk either way, of course. Yeah. But there's, you know, it's more kind of on you and your work ethic and kind of the results-based.

Dave Jones: In my experience, that's how it works. If you're charging an hourly rate, people expect you to be more efficient than if you're charging a job rate. If you're charging for a job, then people are aware, okay, it gets done when it gets done kind of, you know, thing. But when they're charging, when they hire you hourly, they sort of, the implication that goes along with that is that you're going to do it quick and you're going to be efficient. Oh, yeah. And I'm going to pay you top dollar per hour, but you bloody well better get it done, you know. Right. Tomorrow.

Chris Gammell: Yesterday. I used to co-work with a bunch of engineers that were doing that, you know, the company I used to work at. We hired a local company that did a lot of that kind of contract work but on a larger basis.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: And, you know, oh, my God, like comparing the differences in our lifestyles, right? I mean, it was insane to me. It was like, oh, well, you know, hey, man, how's your work going? I'm like, oh, well, you know, I heard about these new parts for, you know, I had these three different FAEs come in and they told me about these parts. And it was great to hear about this kind of stuff. They're like, no, no, no. I can't talk to FAEs. You know, it's just like I can't write that on a timesheet, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Heck, I can't even talk to you. I don't have the time. I know. Right? It was so insane.

Chris Gammell: I know. And I didn't realize that's how it was either. Yeah. And so the first time that happened, I was so shocked and appalled, you know. And I'm like, well, you know, okay, yeah. So you don't get to talk to FAEs. But, you know, you're taking like, you know, you're probably, oh, you know, between like Christmas and New Year's, it's probably really dead at your office, right? No, no, no, no, no. If we don't come in, you know, I'll get fired or something. It's like, dude. Oh, yeah. You know, it's just like, and it's not even like it was like this, you know, it wasn't like me talking to a buddy who worked at a totally different company. It was like people that were doing almost effectively the same work that I was that had a completely different experience, you know. And it was just like, holy crap. That is not, I mean, and that's what it comes down to is like it becomes a grindhouse for those folks. I mean, like the corporate jobs might be not paid as well, but the lifestyle is way different, right? I mean, in a better way, I think personally. I don't think I'd survive that way.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. As I said, I wouldn't, like I've done, I've worked for myself and I've done contract consulting work before and I would not go back to it. It's just, you know, yeah, there are advantages. That's why I worked so many decades, you know, in the end working for a big company because it was a lifestyle thing. You know, it was low stress, zero stress almost, you know. Right, right. Go home at the end of the day kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. Don't care. Yeah. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Whew, man, that's intense. I don't, yeah.

Dave Jones: It's intense just talking about it.

Chris Gammell: It is. I like, I feel my adrenaline pumping right now, like thinking about this. And I feel bad, like, and I think it's a personality type too, right? Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah. You know, it ends up affecting design decisions too. That's the other thing that was interesting too, you know. Like a lot of times, you know, I'd be working with my corporate coworkers, right? And it'd be like, okay, well, let's take this and analyze it. And if it slips a little bit, that's okay. And then on the other side, it was just like, you know, talking to the contracting folks. And like, I totally understand where they're coming from, right? And I respect the shit out of them for doing this really, I mean, like really fast-paced work, right? That they have to bill for. But, you know, it was always just like, go, go, go, go, go, right? You know, and we'd be like, well, let's take a second to look at, go, go, go, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Holy moly. And it's like, you know, what ends up happening is it becomes very efficient but becomes very snap judgment, right? So it was like, oh, well, let's look, you know, like a lot of system design stuff, right? You and I are both system designers. We look at higher level stuff. When you start to do that kind of thing, you really have to take a step back. You have to plan interfaces. You have to plan architecture type stuff.

Dave Jones: You got to have backup plans upon backup plans and look at that.

Chris Gammell: Exactly, right. And when you don't, when you have these like reactive decisions like that, you know, it just like starts to build up. And, oh, man, I really feel stressed thinking about it right now. Like I really, really do. And, yeah, I haven't talked about my most previous job yet, but I will once the product I worked on comes out, I will talk about it. But, you know, it's been, it's, you know, thinking. And like I said, I respect the crap out of those guys. They really do work hard.

Dave Jones: For people, there's some people who thrive on that and they love it because then it becomes their life, you know. And they're usually, you know. Workaholics. I hate to say it, but they're usually single workaholics. They live and work in their lab, you know. Like their lab is at home and they live and work there and they have, you know. Yeah. You know, little else outside of that. And, yeah. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: There's nothing wrong with that if that's what you want to do. Fine. Hey. Awesome. Go for it. You know.

Chris Gammell: You know, I feel guilty sometimes, too, because I think about, like, so I talk to friends who are out in the Bay. You know, obviously the Midwest is a lot different than the Bay Area, different than Sydney, different than everywhere else. Obviously everywhere is different, but I can't imagine some of these. You know, even, like, or, like, the people that live in China, you know, as well. Like, and just these different lifestyles like that. I honestly, I just, you know, until you're in it, I just, I can't imagine. Obviously, I used to work, you know, 70-hour weeks when I was at Samsung, right? But, like, you know, it's just these weird lifestyle changes that you can't really experience until you're in them, you know. And I guess the thing is I just, I don't want to experience that anymore. And so I will not be signing up for Proto Exchange. And I also will not be signing up for, actually, Circuit Hub. So Circuit Hub's another one doing it. Yeah, that's right. Andy, we've had on the show before. We'll have to have Andy back, I think. And we'll have to have Andy back. They've started moving into some interesting stuff as well. Okay. But they're doing the same kind of thing, you know, looking for consulting engineers. And as we, you know, as the hardware revolution, quote, unquote, continues, right? We keep moving deeper into that. People are going to be looking for more and more labor. And what's going to happen is people in the Midwest are going to get thrust into this Bay Area culture or the China culture and kind of vice versa. And it's just going to be this weird mishmash of cultures and expectations. And we'll see what happens.

Dave Jones: At some level, I am jealous of people who can do this. You know? Oh, yeah? I'm jealous of people who can just work so efficiently and so hard and so focused. I just can't do that. I can't do that.

Chris Gammell: Well, you have your forum, so. Right. You know, I've been experiencing this lately. Okay. So, for my course, so we're in the sixth week out of eight. We just finished. We're in the seventh week out of eight, right? So, in the build course. And a lot of the members have been lapping me. So, I've been making videos, obviously. And a lot of them are like, oh, yeah, you know, I wrote this code. And, you know, this part works. And that part works. And I get this interactive. Chris isn't there yet. And I'm like, oh, crap. That's it. You know? I think it's two things. One is my trip killed me, right? So, that's definitely one thing. And the other is that going into – and obviously, they're awesome people, right? That's an unsaid thing. But a lot of them, you know, as we get into coding stuff, you know, now I'm slower. And they're a lot faster.

Dave Jones: But, see, the thing is you're not devoting 100% of your time to it, whereas they might be. Right?

Chris Gammell: I think that, yeah, that is true. That always does make a difference.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That makes a huge difference. You know, if you're trying to, you know, work a nine-to-five job, do a blog and, you know, do some contracting on the side and do something else and have a life. And you're trying to do all this. You know? It's like, no. Your productivity drops to, you know, takes a huge toll. Right.

Chris Gammell: The context switching is very, very tough, right? I mean, yeah. Yeah. No. I don't want to sound like I'm making an excuse for myself because I really don't have one. No, no. Some of them are just better at it than I am, to be honest.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, they are, but you're no slouch, right? But it's just that, you know, it's just the fact that you have other things, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You have other things on your plate too. And it takes time to get back up to speed on something. Yeah. That's why I never get my projects finished, right? Because I can't just do an hour here, an hour there. It doesn't work. I've got to go, right, I'm going to spend the next three days solid on this, you know? And then I might get something done. Yep. Deep dive. Yes.

Chris Gammell: You know, I've thought about this though, and it's kind of an interesting idea of like, not playing the fool, but like playing the, someone to kind of, like a benchmark to race against. Like some people really thrive on that too. Oh, yeah, yeah. So like I think I'm moving at an average pace on this build, right? So we're building the Bench Buddy, and there's been a lot of snafus to say the least. And we can talk about that. But actually it's interesting, you know, kind of going forwards, it's kind of an interesting, I don't know if it's a business model or anything else, but just like, you know, like people want to compare themselves and have like something to work towards, right? I mean, that's another thing, right? It's just working in a group, right? People thrive on that competition and everything else. And I feel like that's almost like a service these days, you know? Like having a group that has a similar focus and then working towards a goal. Some people are very, very motivated just by working towards a common goal. And I think that's awesome.

Dave Jones: Or showing off. If this goes right back to the, you know, the Steve was, you know, the, what was the, mental block, I can't believe it.

Chris Gammell: The computer club?

Dave Jones: The hardware computer club thing. What is it? The homebrew. The homebrew computer club, right? It was, you would work, you know, ridiculous amounts.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, 48 hours stint, right? You'd be on a bender for 48 hours. Exactly.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Just to have something to show off at next week's meeting. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's the same thing that happens in Maker Faire and everywhere else, right? Yeah, yeah, totally. It's like, you need some kind of final goal to work towards. Yeah, that's it. And once you do, some people just, they just deliver, you know? Their adrenaline kicks in and they just.

Dave Jones: Well, we've talked about this before. Engineers have the knack, pun intended.

Chris Gammell: The knack.

Dave Jones: We're sorry, man. He has the knack. He has the knack. Knack of, if you have a really hard deadline, you always make it somehow. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, it just happens. Engineer, you know, any half, anyone who calls himself an engineer will make that deadline. That's right. It just, yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: And it's tough when you manufacture for yourself too, right? I mean, obviously, you know this with a Kickstarter. Kickstarter, obviously, you did well, actually, with it. But, you know, I think about, like, my personal fitness type of goals and stuff like that. Oh, well, I need to, you know, be this, you know, have this kind of goal by the end of the month and that kind of thing. Like, it's tough when you're setting it yourself. Like, intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. Yep. Intrinsic's always tougher. I mean, the people that have intrinsic are always end up doing better. But, you know, when there's always an extrinsic goal, it does help, I think. I think that's just a human. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's why I think you and I talked about that with, like, having managers, you know, having a manager kind of pushing that kind of thing.

Dave Jones: That's it. That's it. Right?

Chris Gammell: It's not something we, like, want necessarily. But it is.

Dave Jones: People ask, why don't I finish the micro supply project? You know, why have I spent years dicking around with it? Well, if this was a task at my job, I'd have it done in a month. Right? From go to woe. Right? Right, right. It's just because it's a deadline. You're expected to do it. And, you know, somebody's going to kick your ass if you don't. And then, you know, there's weekly meetings. You've got to show your progress. And you've got to do this and that. And, you know, and you have to meet goals. And I need this board laid out by here. Otherwise, I know it's, you know, five days to get it manufactured and assembled. And I've got to test it here. I've got to show it off. I've got a meeting scheduled where I've got to demo it. And I've got to, you know, it's just a totally different board game.

Chris Gammell: It's an engineering ego, right? There's a lot of human factors in there that also seem to mesh with our need to build stuff. Right? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Whereas if it's your own project, it's like, oh, well, you know, who cares? You know, if I don't do anything this week, who cares? Right? It's my project. Everyone else can piss off, right?

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah, for better or worse, right? It's like, you know, some people want that so they can have that flexibility. But then you don't necessarily get the benefits on the backside either.

Dave Jones: No, that's right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I tell you, I never, I always said I was never a better guitar player than when I was in college, when I had exams. Right? When I was motivated to do anything other than study. That was my extrinsic motivation was study, play guitar instead of studying. Right. I was just like, it's just about what you focus on, you know? Or what your brain wants you to focus on. Mostly that's me being a procrastinator, of course, but yeah. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So tell us about the screw up.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. So the bench buddy, I'm holding a bench buddy in my hand right now, actually. A non-functional bench buddy. Non-functional. Yeah. So there were some big, there were some pretty big ones. I mean, some of them, you know, so you had said, I actually, I had a conversation with some of the members talking about this as well. And, you know, like how the, you had wished us the worst, right? You had wished us that we did not have a perfectly working.

Speaker ?: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: I hope your project doesn't work. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, obviously I wish it would have gone better, but it does not work. So thank you, David. No worries. You're welcome. Yeah, but, you know, it's basically a lot of the common stupid mistakes, right? Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: They happen time and time again. Every time.

Chris Gammell: Regardless of how experienced you are. Regardless. Exactly, right. Yeah, 20 years of experience. So, like, one was like the spy, the Mosey and Miso, you know, like those master and slave out, master out, slave in. Got those backwards. Yep. Of course. Yep. But the thing that was beneficial is that I had all of my digital connection, you know, this is all Arduino-based, so all my digital connections, I had jumpers to each pin, so I was able to easily wire that across. Yep. So that jumper pin, that was actually not bad, right? It didn't have to cut any traces. Of course. They were already pre-cut. And that was all, you know, like solder-bridged jumpers in there kind of thing. Yep. But the big one was the, I don't know if I should spoil this for everyone, but the, if anyone's thinking about taking the course in the future, the hardest footprint on the board, this A to D that I have is actually an analog front end. Yep. It says the wrong footprint. Wrong footprint. Right. So...

Dave Jones: How wrong is it? What? Did you get the wrong pitch? Did you get the wrong width? What?

Chris Gammell: The wrong width. So I... Width. Yeah. That's common. Stupidly had assumed that TSSOP and SSOP were the same, and they are definitely not. Wah, wah, wah, wah. Wah, wah. Yep. Sad trombone. But what's been interesting about this is that they're pretty close. This has actually been the most interesting thing. Yep. And so what we've had is interesting conversations about how to modify the footprint and actually taking an SSOP, and then folding the pins under like an LPCC has been one method of doing that kind of thing. Been there, done that. And then another one is trimming the leads. Another was like kind of doing like a what we call tiptoe method. Yep. And so what this means is that like we need even better, even more flux than we would in the first place and better drag soldering and better, you know, like hot air and everything else. Absolutely. And so it has been a learning experience.

Dave Jones: So much so that you should have deliberately designed that in to begin with. Yeah, no, who says they haven't, Dave? Exactly. Right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to claim this in the future. I told you, this is where learning happens, right?

Chris Gammell: It does, right, exactly. And, you know, I don't know how to balance the two, right? I don't know how to deliberately have that, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. It's better when they organically happen to use a wank word.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And there's a lot of other small stuff on here. And really, it's just life, you know? This is just, and that's what I said. It's like, this is a prototype. This is a realistic look at what you're going to do in your own designs, right?

Dave Jones: So did you give this board out to people before you got it fabbed and asked them to check it? Or did you just trust yourself?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but that's like given, you know, like that's like people that aren't necessarily experienced with it. You know what I mean? Right, right, yeah. So that's, I was thinking that at first too, that's not quite fair.

Dave Jones: But I would have thought they're the ones who might go through and methodically test every component. Check every component. Just because they're enthusiastic and, oh, I'm going to go, I'm going to find something on here, you know?

Chris Gammell: Well, the pinout's not wrong. That's the problem, right? That's the problem anytime you have a footprint issue is that if it's a big difference if like, if pins 1 and 20 are swapped, it's a lot different than if your pitch is slightly different or your width is slightly different, right? I mean, like all of them can have a detrimental effect, but I think the really obvious ones are the ones where it's, you know, is pin 1 actually MOSI, right? Yes, right. Is pin 2 actually VDD? You know, that's, those are the tough things, those are the things that are easy to check, but not necessarily, you know, it's all about where your assumptions are and where you, you know.

Dave Jones: Well, a good thorough check, you assume nothing. You check each individual, you cross-reference each individual pin on the schematic against the data sheet. You cross-reference the footprint, the pitch, the sizes, the mapping of the schematic to the footprint, you, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah, no, and it's, you know, I've been meaning to make like a checklist for that kind of thing, you know? It's like a promotional thing for contextual electronics, you know? Like that's.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's the holy grail of, you know. Of course, right, yeah. I've got a list of that somewhere, you know?

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah, I think I asked you about that at one point on the show, like things you should check. Yep. But even still, like what it comes down to, you know, so we, this has been another discussion that's come up with us as well, is that no matter what, like even, even if someone held a gun to your head and said. Exactly. Check that data sheet three more times, right? You gotta miss it. You can still, you're still gonna miss something until you get into it, right? And this happens every time there's a spy part for me, you know, it's always like, oh, crap, that's what that pin does? You know what I mean? Like, you know, you just make these mental assumptions and these leaps and it's just like, until you're in it and you see that behavior that you didn't think was supposed to happen, you know, that's the only time that learning really happens. And, you know, all of this experience and, you know, going forwards into this, into, you know, all the people that, the tools that people develop and everything like that, you know, like there's, I don't think there's any replacement, honestly. I feel like it's like, you know, the only thing that's gonna benefit us is Osh Park offering low-cost boards or other low-cost boards.

Dave Jones: Yeah, right, and yeah, re-spin it, re-spin it, re-spin it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. Lowering the cost of failure is like the only thing that ultimately benefits us.

Dave Jones: There's two things you need. The holy grail of electronics design is cheap re-spins at a time machine, right? They're the two things that will, that's all you need. You don't need talent, you just need those things. Oh, boy. And the thing is, you're often not aware that you're doing this. It is a subconscious thing. Your mind, you think that you've checked that, but your mind, you know, like in your mind, you go, oh, yeah, I thoroughly checked that, but you didn't. Your mind told you that you thoroughly checked it, but you didn't. You mentally skipped over it because your mind made an assumption that it was okay, and you're not aware of that. It's psychology stuff. You can get right into a PhD thesis on that.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. You know, the other problem with that is that, so even when you had, so say I was doing a board and I had looked at this schematic and layout for 20 hours cumulative, and I was ready to send it out. And I'm like, Dave, can you take a look at this? I've looked at this over and over and over again, and I just, I can't look at it anymore without, you know, finding, I can't find anything now. The other problem there is that there's like, there's still a threshold, right? Until you've looked at it for five hours, you know what I mean? Like, you know, until you dig in, you know, that cursory look is not enough either, right? There's like the sweet spot between looking at it enough and looking at it too much. It's just like, you know, and this is why Reisman's half.

Dave Jones: Because ultimately, like, you know, the checklist you were talking about, all right, the checklist is simple. It's one line. It's check everything and then assume nothing in brackets, right? But to do that is, to do that on any mildly complex design would take you weeks and weeks. You know, it's just, it'd be so mentally taxing that at some point you're going to cheat, right? And you're going to make those mental assumptions. That's why it never happens. That's why the alternate test is always in the pudding. When you actually assemble the thing and test it, did it work, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And, you know, I had a great manager too, where I was stressing over a lot of this stuff too, you know, where I would just stress and stress and stress. He's like, you know, man, he's like, Chris, you know, sometimes you just got to pull the trigger, you know? Like, because you're going to find stuff so much faster when you do turn the board. Exactly. Because the cost isn't as much as it used to be and because of yada, yada, yada, yada, right? It actually does make sense to just fail, you know? Like, that is ultimately what it comes down to.

Dave Jones: From both a time and a cost point of view. Because time, A, time is money, right? And if you spend a week thoroughly checking it, well, you know, were you better off just sending the thing out a week ago and build it up and see what problems there were?

Chris Gammell: Right. Exactly. You'll get that checklist of things you should have done better from the beginning. Yep. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, totally. Spin it. Just spin it. There's a t-shirt. Just spin it. Just do it. I was thinking the same thing. Yep. I said it first. I said it first. It's mine.

Chris Gammell: Okay. You get the check point for this one. Yep. Just spin it. Spin it and go, man.

Dave Jones: Just spin it with a PCB.

Chris Gammell: Yep. And don't forget, folks, the autorouter t-shirt is still available.

Speaker ?: Right.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, goodness. You know, it's interesting.

Chris Gammell: So, oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02: No, no, no. It's all right.

Chris Gammell: So, we talked about the cost, bringing down the cost of the PCBs and everything and how much that is. There's actually a service I heard about last week as well, kind of trying to do the same thing for chip design, right? So, we've talked about MOSIS in the past, M-O-S-I-S, right? That's a wafer sharing service. We have multiple wafers and everything going through. This is now a service that's supposed to do multiple chips per wafer. And the number I heard was as low as 500 bucks per chip.

Dave Jones: Whoa, dude. That's hobbyist affordable.

Chris Gammell: I know. And that's kind of crazy. And so, interestingly, there was actually someone on the subreddit as well talking about this. Because the other interesting thing with this is not necessarily that you have to have a full license of mentor now. Right. Right. There's actually a tool that's actually included on the website that actually does...

Dave Jones: That was going to be my question. It all comes down to the tools now. Right. The cost of getting the chip manufacturer is nothing now.

Chris Gammell: Right. Exactly. So Clifford Vienna had written this on Reddit. And so he had written IOSIS. I'm not sure what IOSIS is. Oh, that's the Synth and Assist backend. So we'll link that in as well. But basically, it's web-based now as well, right? Which is another big deal, right? I mean, you and I are not necessarily fans of web-based IDEs or anything that's meant to be quick turn type of thing. But I don't think chip fabbing is quick turn.

Dave Jones: No, it's not. I wouldn't mind probably using a web tool, especially if it's the only option, right? Right. I mean, fine. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Right. Let's go for it. Right. So Clifford is the author, and he'd written on our subreddit as well, which was actually – I don't know how the hell he found us. Right. But basically, so it's Verilog-based, and it's a push-button flow. So I think what it is is basically it's if you have a digital – so I think it's someone like Jerry, right? So obviously Jerry is experienced in chip design. She's been pushing through this chip. She's custom-designing. But thinking about, like, if you have an FPGA design written in Verilog, right, and it's timing-wise, you look up the timing characteristics of the silicon. I think they said it was 180 nanometers, something like that. Right. So not, like, super huge, but not, you know, not like – what are they at, 28 nanometers these days?

Dave Jones: They go from 600 down to 130.

Chris Gammell: No, no, no, no. I mean, like, the leading-edge technology. Oh, right. Right. Like, TSMC these days. I think they're –

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: They're 28 or 20 nanometers.

Dave Jones: 22 or something. Aren't they stupid?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Something stupid like that? Yes. Yeah, something stupid small. But basically – so it's still big, but, I mean, this is, like, the stuff – this is, like, the commoditized stuff that, like, a lot of the analog folks are doing now too, right? The analog's still up at 180, I think 90 is the smallest analog goes these days for some of the mixed stuff. So, I mean, but still, like, in terms of, like, stuff that you or I could do, that's kind of crazy.

Dave Jones: I'm – like, it looks like they're just – like, you have to sign up for a pilot program or something. There's not much information on here.

Chris Gammell: Right, right, right.

Dave Jones: So you've got to look – they're so new that they're – where did you get all these prices and stuff from?

Chris Gammell: From a friend. All right. Okay. Right. Yeah. Hopefully. Hopefully I was supposed to say this. Man, I could be wrong, too. Like, honestly, I could be wrong. Right. I mean, like, this is kind of an opening up of capacity, right? I mean, this is ultimately what it comes down to, right? We talked to – oh, crap. I'm going to forget. They were a former sponsor of ours. A little help, Dave.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. I know. Come on. I've got the worst memory in history.

Chris Gammell: Yes, and –

Dave Jones: You're a genius compared to me when it comes to memory. You're such a people person. Yeah, try a semiconductor. Try a semiconductor. That's right.

Chris Gammell: Yes, that's it. Yes. I met all of them, too. So I met Reed and Luke out at EE Live as well. So they were all out there. But, you know, and that's another thing where it's like it's a commoditized process. And then they basically do the metalized layer over top of a fixed set of semiconductors. In this case, this is actually custom semiconductors now. Kind of like Moses did, right? So Moses was another one that a lot of people did. You know, you hear people doing it for grad projects and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, right. But I don't know, man. This is like 500 bucks. Like, that's definitely like – that could open up some startups. It's pretty crazy, right?

Dave Jones: If that's actually the price, I will do that on the blog. I'll, like, design something and get it found. Yeah, like that. Like, yeah, that's crazy.

Chris Gammell: That's crazy. Well, I hope I'm not lying now.

Dave Jones: See, I can't – well, see, I can't believe they can do that price, right? Because they've got to package that chip as well, right? I don't think they give you a bare die, right?

Chris Gammell: Oh, they might.

Dave Jones: Well, they might. Okay, so you've got to bloody wirebond the thing over yourself. Okay, well, that could be –

Chris Gammell: No, you could do probing and stuff like that. You could have test vectors. You could send them test vectors, that kind of thing. We know people – so Tony, who's been on the show, he's done wirebonding. We could find you a wirebonder, Dave.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: This is totally doable. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Yeah. Eh. I don't – well, if your die was big enough, you could do it under – you know, if your pads were big enough, you could do it under a regular microscope, probably.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. Right, right, right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I don't know. And what's this? They can do mixed signal as well?

Chris Gammell: I haven't read that that far into it.

Dave Jones: See, because of that – well, they're talking about mixed signal on here. And see, that's a different ballgame. When you start talking analog stuff, you know, digital stuff's easy. Right? Digital – you know, yeah, yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: That's a translation of Verilog, right?

Dave Jones: You just send them your Verilog code and it's all practically guaranteed to work. Right? Out of the bat. Yeah. Right? As long as you've, you know, tested – you've, you know, you've tested your Verilog code.

Chris Gammell: You're not pushing the limits of the clock or anything weird. No, no.

Dave Jones: Exactly. You know, you're not trying to – yeah. You're not trying to eke every last, you know, cycle out of the thing or something. Right? Then it's probably going to work. If you've done all your test benches properly on your Verilog, you know, why wouldn't it work? But something like analog, well, I mean, hey. Yeah. Yeah. Is the gain of that transistor good enough at that frequency? Well, I don't know. Yeah, right. Exactly. You know, it's all to do with the doping and everything else, right? Right. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: And that's where a lot of the – I think the fancy pants, the packages from the Mentor and the Cadence and everything else like that – That's why they cost a million bucks. That's where they come in because they're super characterized and they have built-in synthesis and simulation and everything else.

Dave Jones: For your particular fab and your particular technology.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So, mm, yep. But that's – well, that's something to keep an eye on. That's for sure. Join our pilot program. Here we go. I'm going to click, oh, put in your name and address and your contact number. All right. Right. Wonder if they'll recognize me. David, Eve, Eve.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, probably not. No. I mean, it's a different domain, right? I mean, it's just like – so it's so interesting seeing like the – I mean, this is ultimately a capacity thing, right? I mean, like if you have enough capacity out there, eventually you're going to start – the same thing, like honestly, the same thing that Lane was doing with Oshpark. Right. Right. The reason we can get $5 per square inch is because there's enough fabs out there and there's enough capacity that you can get good pricing, right? And another – I think another measure of capacity overage is – did you see the article where Japan is growing lettuce in old chip fabs? Did you see that one?

SPEAKER_02: Oh, really? No. They got photos? Yeah. Is there photos?

Chris Gammell: I don't think they're doing – no, I don't think they're done with it yet. But basically, it's a clean room environment. It's an E.E. Times article. And, you know, it's like you can start having –

SPEAKER_02: I can see that they're in the bunny suits with them.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_02: Why are they in the bunny suits? Why are they –

Chris Gammell: Probably for the picture, to be honest. But, I mean, you start to get rid of all the reasons you would need pesticides and anything else.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah. No pesticides. The lettuce stays fresher for longer. And there's these guys in the bunny suits inspecting these lettuce. Yeah. This is one step above organic, you know. This is like –

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right. I'm sure if you had extra phosphorus canisters, you know, from your implantation, you know, implanter thing, you could probably use that as well, right?

SPEAKER_02: Oh, and they've got a wanky artist impression of a Toshiba clean room, vegetable facility. Come on. This has to be an April Fool's joke.

Chris Gammell: I know. It feels like it for sure because it's like – you've got to think of the operating costs, right? Just for like the air filters they use in those places is super expensive. But what it ultimately comes down to for me is like just the capacity measure, right? It's just huge overcapacity at this point, especially in older technology areas, you know. Like when people – when, you know, when the big chip companies only demand 40 nanometers below, well, if some place is outfitted for 180 nanometers, the cost between upgrading and the cost between growing lettuce is like –

Dave Jones: No, come on. This has got to be bullshit. I mean, come on. There's no way this is economically practical.

Chris Gammell: It feels like it. But I don't know. Like you think about the density of the place, you know, like lettuce isn't cheap, right? I mean like – I don't know, man. It's – they – there was a – I think there was a comment in there too, you know, talking about the cost, right? If you think about the overall operational cost of running a chip fab, right?

SPEAKER_02: Somebody said they should be making potato chips. Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: But I mean like when you think of the operational cost of all the raw inputs, right? Thinking about, you know, silicon and all the energy inputs like that when it's just lights and it's just a filtration system and, you know, deionized water, whatever they're using to actually water the plants. It's like, well, crap. Maybe it actually could be economical, you know? It's like – aside from the overcapacity thing, it also shows me it's like, you know, chip making is expensive. I know that's not a revelation in any way, shape, or form. Oh, no.

Dave Jones: It is actually the most expensive process on the planet. To manufacture what we take for granted, that processor in that – those electronics in your phone, it is the most expensive thing on the planet to manufacture, most expensive and complex thing. Yeah. You know? It's just – yeah. It's just because they put so much into it on such a large scale that you take it for granted that you can buy your 200,000 parts for a dollar. It's just $1.00 each on DigiKey, you know?

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. Exactly. It's just volume. When you think about all the different – that would be interesting to see like a pie chart of all the input costs and all the costs. Like, you know, you think, okay, well, yeah, silicon, they get the cost down for that like to maybe, I don't know, like a couple hundred bucks a wafer or something like that. But even at a couple hundred bucks a wafer, how many total wafers need to be made before, you know, the smelting plant and all the purification stuff? Yeah, exactly. That goes into making – Yeah, yeah. The ingot gets paid off. And, you know, like how much of that wafer cost is like a new diamond tip blade to actually slice up that wafer? You know? Yep. All of the crazy stuff that just goes into it. It's just like, jeez.

SPEAKER_02: Yep.

Chris Gammell: I need to work harder. I feel guilty sometimes. You know what I mean? Right. Like, I feel guilty of this new space thing.

Dave Jones: Yeah, the new SpaceX. I knew you'd bring that up. Elon Musk.

Chris Gammell: Elon Musk, man. This guy. This freaking guy.

Dave Jones: Every time. Somebody tweeted this. I can't remember who it was. It's somebody I follow on Twitter. They're not in engineering, but I – so it might have been Sam Harris or somebody like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, somebody said that, oh, Elon Musk is surely the greatest engineer who's ever lived. And I go, I don't think so. It's a tough call. He's a vision. He's not an engineer. He's a very smart guy. I'm sure he gets into the technical details of all this stuff. But, you know, I wouldn't go as far to say that. You know, that's a bit –

Chris Gammell: Yeah. How do you judge that, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. How do you judge that? I mean, it's not like he's done any of the engineering himself.

Chris Gammell: No, I think he does some stuff. I think he's definitely in on a lot of decisions.

Dave Jones: I'm saying, yeah, he's very clear. He does some – you know, I'm sure he sits in the technical meetings and says, no, this is the best way to do it, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, I hear it's kind of cultish over there as well. Like, I was reading stuff about the – Oh, totally.

Dave Jones: I can imagine that.

Chris Gammell: How the salaries are lower there. I think it was a Quora post about that. Oh, really? Yeah. Why are the salaries lower at SpaceX? And basically, it was like, you know, it's kind of cultish. And it's like, oh, well, it's basically – not cultish, but like cultish in the way that like people believe in it. You know, like, okay, we're going to send people to frigging space. Space. That's right.

Dave Jones: So, I'm going to work for Peanuts. Yeah. Exactly. To make it happen. Yeah. That's right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And I have nothing but respect for that, you know. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I would too. You know, it's like freaking space, right?

SPEAKER_02: It's like space, man.

Dave Jones: Like, that's crazy.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, we went there, you know. We went there in the 60s, so it's okay. Right.

Chris Gammell: It's just that we haven't been back much.

Dave Jones: Too lazy to go back. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right. Money and political wealth. But we should say that the NASA, I don't know if you saw that, NASA's planning to 2035.

Dave Jones: Oh, no, I haven't said. I'm going to have to read it again. What the? Yeah. Come on. What the? NASA's always done it wrong. They've always, you know, they haven't done it right since Apollo. Let's put it that way. Right? No, seriously. They have not done it right since Apollo. Yeah. Like, the space shuttle was an expensive farce, right? It was. Yeah. Yeah. It got the, yeah, okay. It was cool, right? It was a reusable shuttle, kind of. You know, the boosters were one off, right? And, you know, massive cost. But the cost of sending these things up was ridiculous. And you're sending up humans to do what robots can do. You know, it was ridiculous. Yeah. They lost their way, right? They lost their way because they didn't have any vision. They didn't have any Kennedy-esque vision.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, what was it, like 600 million a launch or something like that? Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: It's just ridiculous. And you didn't even need to send humans to do most of the stuff they did. You know? Yeah. It was just, eh. No. No. It's been a farce. Always has been. And they'll just screw it up again. And that's why they've got no-

Chris Gammell: Well, we can be optimistic, I think, right? Well, yeah, we can.

Dave Jones: But no, until, like, the president sets a goal, right? It's just not going to happen. If you just leave it up to NASA, no, their own internal trying to please everyone, right? Everyone's got their own pet project. Right, right, right. That's why this stupid, the Mars thing, right? Bush, George W. Bush, right? W. W. Bush came out and, you know, we're going to Mars, you know, in his Texas accent or whatever it is. And, right, and everyone went, yay, rah, rah, rah, you know? They trotted out bloody, you know, Buzz and everyone at the time and Surnin and all the, you know, all of the- Yeah, exactly. They dragged them all out and they did the big press ones. We're going to Mars. All right, let's do it. And then, you know, I want, it was the 40-day report it was called, I think. And I'm getting inkling we've mentioned this before and I've had a rant before, but I'll rant again. It was like the 40-day, the NASA 40-day report based on how long it took to, you know, Bush said, I want a report in 40 days of how to get to Mars and how much it's going to cost. And I'll put it to Congress and Congress will approve it. And they came back. NASA did their thing. They got it done in their 40 days or whatever. And the report came back and no, it'll cost, you know, 800 trillion million bazillion dollars, you know, because everyone in NASA rubbed their hands to everyone and went, well, you have to include my idea. My idea is these huge big starships that we have to build to go, you know. And it was like, so everyone got their pet idea into the report and that's how much it cost, you know, and it just was not practical. And the same thing will happen with this. Yeah, there wasn't any focus there, right? No, there was no focus. There was no one driving it said, we need to do it by the end of the freaking decade, you know, and we're just going to do it. And no vested interest bullshit, just, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, ultimately it comes down to like the same kind of like human interaction type stuff, right? Yeah. You know, like, so, so like thinking about, you know, my, my least favorite example ever, but, you know, thinking about the whole Apple thing, you know, people going behind jobs and like, you know, basically having, you know, a centralized figure, right? I mean, you can go back to Caesar if you wanted to as well, but it's the same kind of thing with Musk, right? I mean, like the same kind of thing of having a strong figurehead and people kind of gathering around that. And I guess you can go back to Apollo and saying that's Kennedy or saying that's, you know, whoever's leading NASA then or just saying that, you know, fighting the, the Ruskies is another thing. I don't know how people said it back then, but, but basically, you know, like having some kind of common purpose at that point. And you're right when there's not that, you know, it becomes, it devolves in kind of a political thing. So.

Dave Jones: Yes. No, you've got to have one person calling the shots, but it doesn't always work. I mean, hey, look at Altium, right? Hey. Okay. There was one, one person there who called the shots and well, they almost ruined the company and well, went nowhere for 10 years. Right. And yeah, because no, they weren't practical. Okay. So you've got to, you know, it's not just a matter of having one person in charge. Right. If, if Musk wasn't any good, right. Then they would have gone down the toilet. Right. But he just so happens to be really freaking good. Right. He's got really freaking visions. He understands the goals. He understands what things are practical and what aren't, you know, and speaking of which, doesn't the new, um, dragon module kick ass.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. The V2. So that's, that is what, we didn't actually say that, but that is what got announced this week. The new dragon module. The nine, yeah. Is it nine person and two crew? Is that what?

Dave Jones: Nine person or something. And no, it's nine people total, I think. Nine people total.

Dave Jones: It comes down. Like it, it doesn't just fly through the atmosphere and deploy parachutes. It's got controlled jets. Well, it does have parachutes as a backup, but it, it's designed to land, you refuel it and you go back up. Like, and you stick it on the top of a rocket again and you go, well, I think you probably have to replace the heat shield, but Hey, that's just me. Who cares? I know. It's freaking awesome. Yeah. And did you see inside it? It's just got these chairs. It's like freaking, uh, you know, um, Carl Sagan's cosmos. Uh, yeah, not cosmos. Um, God, help me out here. Mental block in my rage. Contact. Contact. The movie and the book, you know? And no, you haven't. No, you're not into that. Anyway. Right. I've watched the movie, but it's been a while. Right. Okay. Inside is so cool. It's like that, you know, it's just got chairs inside and this big flip down console, this big touchscreen flip down console. Oh, it's sex on a stick. It really is. Oh man. And it's just, yeah. And, and I'm sure it works. I'm sure it's practical.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. We're, we're, we want knobs as long as it's an oscilloscope, but if it's a, if it's a spaceship, if our, if there's rockets behind us, we want touchscreens folks.

Dave Jones: They had backup knobs and buttons in that, like everything else was touchscreen, but in the middle they had in an emergency, we have, here they are, the buttons.

Chris Gammell: Here's the knobs. Right.

Dave Jones: Here are the knobs and the buttons that bypass everything else. Exactly. Exactly. So when shit hits a fan, the pilot can just grab that stick and boom, boom, boom. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yep.

Dave Jones: And, and speaking of Mars, the interesting thing about, uh, Mars in the books I've been reading recently is, you know, you would never, you would never send pilots again. Right. Pilots would never go. But no, because if you think about it, right. A trip to Mars, right. How, you know, how, what percentage of the entire trip time would need piloting skills? Like it's 0.001% or something that would actually need piloting skills. Right. So, and most of the time, you know, computers and everything has to automatically handle it. Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: Not to mention we've, we've already landed something on Mars with, uh, with, without any human intervention.

Dave Jones: So exactly, probably could replicate that, right? Exactly. Yeah. So what you send is they, they, you know, the compliment of crew, which would go, they reckon you can send four people comfortably to Mars. And that's the best number. You would send two engineers and two scientists, the two scientists, because you've got to send scientists, right? What's the point of going if you don't send scientists?

Chris Gammell: I would send four badasses. I don't care what they are. No, no. I mean, honestly, at this point, like, like honestly, like resourceful badasses that have a lot of self-control.

Dave Jones: That's what the, that's what the engineers are there, right? They're the fix-its. And of course you don't send a doctor, right? Because, hey, you know, you can send a thing up on a CD that tells them, right? And medicine. Yeah. Anyone can become a doctor if you train them for a couple of months and they've got all the info there. Whoa. Right?

Chris Gammell: That's some strong words there, buddy. But okay. Yeah. We'll say that knowledge.

Dave Jones: They can take care of emergency.

Chris Gammell: 80% of the cases at least. Right. Right. Exactly.

Dave Jones: Right. They can take care of, you know, you don't, it'd be a waste of resources to send a doctor. Just like it'd be a waste of resources to send a pilot.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Only a doctor would be a waste. Right? Totally. Totally. But no.

Chris Gammell: Whoever goes has to be in every person.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah. You've got several years to train them, right? So everyone would be trained up. Right. At least two people in the crew, they'd be trained up on medicine, right? So they'd spend, you know, and they'd have all the resources plus they'd have contact with mostly, right? So it's only if shit hit the fan that, you know, and everything can be done by procedure. Okay. You look up the, you know, have you ever been to a doctor recently? Right. You go in there and they put your symptoms into a computer and that pops out the, you know, that, that pops out the, you know, the known issues, you know, that they. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Watson's starting to do diagnosis as well. The IBM computer that was on Jeopardy as well. Oh, right.

Dave Jones: Okay. Yeah. See, interesting. You just don't.

Chris Gammell: That's his new task is a diagnosis.

Dave Jones: Yeah. You, you, you don't need to send these people. So yay engineers, engineers will go to Mars, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Like I said, I, all I want to send is the only people I want to send is badass, resourceful people. Like honestly, like that's, that's ultimately all you need. Resourceful people with a lot of access to internet.

Dave Jones: You need four Givers, right? Four makers. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Four, four hacker maker types. MacGivers. Yeah, dude. Well. MacGivers. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, MacGivers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. That's the, that's the type that, that fixes the air filter in the Apollo 13 module, right? Exactly.

Dave Jones: That's right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, goodness. The nerves of steel. I don't. Yeah.

Dave Jones: With 10 seconds left on the countdown timer, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. Does that mean if they're MacGivers, they need mullets too? Yeah. Got to have mullets.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Got to have 80s mullets.

Chris Gammell: That guy had a fabulous mullet. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Have you seen him now?

Dave Jones: Oh God, it's embarrassing. No.

Chris Gammell: No. Man. Yeah. We should mention as well, so the one we mentioned last week, I think we mentioned the reboot of the ISEE-3 satellite. Did you see that they did reclaim it?

Dave Jones: Oh, did they? No. No, I didn't catch the latest news.

Chris Gammell: They did reclaim it. Yeah, they now have control. I mean, it's so freaking crazy. Because there's a bunch of amateurs, people don't remember from last week, there's a bunch of amateurs talking to this spacecraft and they interpreted the now defunct programming language that it talked and were able to communicate with it and they should be bringing it back into orbit and everything. It's just, that's crazy.

Dave Jones: Awesome. How old am I going to be in 2035, I wonder?

Chris Gammell: What's 2035?

Dave Jones: This is the Mars thing. Oh, I want to be around when they land on Mars. I want to be around when they land on Mars.

Chris Gammell: I think the question is if, so Musk says he wants to go to Mars first, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. Will that be before 2035? It's possible. That will be interesting.

Dave Jones: It's possible.

Chris Gammell: You will be a bit older. So we're about, we're almost to 2015. So that's like 20 years from now. So you'll be up there, man. You'll be near retirement age.

Dave Jones: Well, I don't know. There's just increase of retirement age here in Sydney. Oh, right, right, right. In Australia. So, yeah. Yep. Yep. I'll still be working like a dog.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah. Oh, well.

Dave Jones: That's all right. All right, dude. Our time's up.

Chris Gammell: Is it? No, yeah. We're way over. 15 minutes over. Was there anything else that we should mention this week? Oh, well, we didn't talk about self-driving cars, but the Code Conference, they revealed the Google self-driving car. I'm super excited about that, personally. I think that's going to be huge.

Dave Jones: Yeah, whatever. No one didn't see that. I've seen it. That has a lot of interesting instrumentation. Of course. From a technical aspect. It's about as practical as the solar roadway.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Another one was the... We talked last week about Mexico versus China. Yeah. And there was actually a New York Times article about that as well. Right. So, people can check that out as well. I'll put these in the notes. And I think... Sweet. Yeah. That's probably about it, right? That's it. Okay. Well, I guess we'll have stuff next week. I do have a guest on the line for next week, so... Fantastic. I don't have confirmation yet, but... If not, it'll just be you and me again, man.

Dave Jones: That's fine.

Chris Gammell: All right.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Well, we'll talk to you guys next week.

Dave Jones: Catch you next time.