#246 – Robots are coming - Ominous Operational Overhaul

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Recorded April 21st, 2015. Episode 246. Ominous Operational Overhaul.

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: Nerd! Nerds! Have you seen the new Star Wars trailer?

Chris Gammell: I have. Oh my god. I think I watched it like three times or so. And then I kind of just sat there and screamed for a little while. And then I kind of... So you have as well.

Dave Jones: It's that freaking good. I mean, oh. Yeah. Oh man, the amount of people. Here's what I tweeted about.

Chris Gammell: Why doesn't Chewbacca have gray hair? Because he's freaking chewy. But Han Solo has gray hair. Like lots of...

Dave Jones: Have you ever seen a gray-haired Wookiee? No.

Chris Gammell: Have you ever seen a Wookiee? I mean, I guess they could use like hair coloring or something, but you know.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Laser crossbows, screaming and growling, and then extreme vanity. Those are the things that characterize Wookiees.

Dave Jones: And limb pulling.

Chris Gammell: And limb pulling, right, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very excited about it.

Dave Jones: Let the Wookiee win. Oh, man. Looks fantastic.

Chris Gammell: And that robot thingy, that was cool. So that's kind of gotten some buzz going online.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah. I wish I'd thought of that. Just have a balancing robot on top of a ball, you know, basically. Right. That's basically what it is, I think.

Chris Gammell: Well, some people have been talking about. So the robot's called BB-8. And again, if people don't like Star Wars, you're terrible people and you should stop. No, I'm just kidding. But it's a robot that they're using the movie. But then they actually... There was a press event that Disney did. They actually rolled it out. And it's actually a real thing. And then recently they announced that it actually was Sphero, the company that makes the little toy that kind of rolls with an iPhone app and it's like Bluetooth connected. It actually was that company.

Dave Jones: Okay. They're the ones that made it. Okay. Right.

Chris Gammell: But the key thing is that no one knows for sure. There's been theories on how it's actually like a two ball. It kind of looks like a mini snowman, just like a two-part snowman. Yeah. There's like a little half ball on top that floats. And so as the ball on the bottom rolls, which, you know, that's a problem that's solved. And you can look at the guts of a Sphero, which is, you know, very interesting. How does the thing stay on top? And then it actually moves independently. And that's the cool part.

Dave Jones: So... I reckon the ball at the bottom does nothing. It's got nothing in it. It's just a ball. And all the electronics and the battery and all the stability stuff is done by the guy on the top.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that's interesting. Okay. I wouldn't have thought...

Dave Jones: Yeah. That's the first thing that went to mind. Oh, yeah. That's obvious. That's obvious how they're doing it. The thing on the top just balances on top of the ball. Because it's not like a ball on a ball. It's like a cup on... Like a curved cup on a ball kind of thing, you know? Yeah, right. It looks like they cut a ball in half. And it's got the little motors.

Chris Gammell: And then they, like, put a depression in it so it would fit on top of the bottom ball. And a depression in. Yep.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So, like, cups on top. And then it's got, obviously, rubber rollers under there in certain orientations, which then roll the ball, big ball, under it. Oh, interesting. Large torque motors. And then it balances. It's got an accelerometer there, and it just balances on top. Okay. It's probably not hugely hard.

Chris Gammell: Well, no. The thing that I wasn't sure about, though, I don't know if you saw the video. Like, it actually can... The top part can actually tilt forward almost, like, 30, 40 degrees off the center point of the ball. That would be the hard part.

Dave Jones: It would, but... Because of just center of mass. It's all in the software, right?

Chris Gammell: Well, I mean, there's probably a balance point when it can't, like, where it just, you can't do it anymore. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: And it won't go past there. It's obviously programmed not to go past that balance point. Yeah. Yeah, of course.

Chris Gammell: So, the things that I had heard, I had heard two other things. The first one was magnets, which was, you know, because it's, like, the top part's kind of floating on top of this big ball on the bottom. And that's reasonable, I guess. But then you can't really get as much motion. And then another one that I didn't really think about at all was the ball on the bottom is still doing all the heavy lifting and the actual rolling and stuff like that. And then what you do is you just have a second robot on top that just knows its orientation. And then it just allows the ball to roll underneath it. And it just reacts to that, basically. And then when the top part needs to move, it just basically then that robot on the top part, independently of the bottom one, can move around then. I don't really know. But definitely a cool piece of tech either way. I mean, the fact that it's not just CGI.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I'm surprised the company isn't coming out with all the details, you know. Get some huge, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, they're already talking merchandising. So, that's probably why. When they announced it was Sphero, they also said, oh, and by the way, this will be released at the same time of the movie.

Dave Jones: Chris, just in time for Christmas, you can buy the BBF. Yes, sir. Right. Yes. Everyone will want one. I already do. Got it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Very cool. Well, let's just make our own open source hardware one first. There you go. Yeah. Or if they patented the stupid concept of a ball on a ball. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Can they do anything if you're not intending to sell it? Can they stop you from publishing what you think it is? I mean, it's not like you stole their designs.

Dave Jones: No, no, no. Of course. They can't.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: They can't. I mean, it's like a patent. The definition of a patent is that the information is publicly available. You can rehash and republish that as long as you don't make money from it and compete.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: You can talk about it until the cows come home, I'm sure.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's just when you go to sell it or when someone else goes to sell it, then you can take them to court and have a better shot at winning kind of thing. Ah, patents. Aren't they fun? Oh, yeah. No, no, no. Well, actually, there was a... I don't know if you watched last week tonight, but John Oliver, the guy, he used to be on Daily Show. He did a pretty good thing. It was like a 12-minute video about patents. So I do recommend people watch that. He talks about the trolls and just kind of the numbers. Yeah, yeah. It's surprising that they do kind of journalism. Like, this is the new form of journalism is like vulgar comedy shows.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Yeah. Well, don't they say that more people in America think that, you know, what's the John Stewart show?

Chris Gammell: John Stewart, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: They think that that's actually a real news program. Like, they actually trust that as a real news source. Yeah, the trust part. It's more than, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right. Well, I would be counted. I trust the Daily Show over most other forms of...

Speaker ?: Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Over Fox News. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Just any other ones. It's just like... Yeah. I just care about what they're... Anyways. Yeah, that part's silly. But, you know, it's... But like, I mean, like this other... This new show as well. Like, you know, I'm in the education space. Like, they did like a 25-minute report about for-profit education and just all the crappy things that happen there.

Speaker ?: Oh, gosh.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, granted, you know, full disclosure, I do for-profit education, but not like, you know, University of Phoenix and ITT Tech and how all those operate and charge tons of money and, you know, student loans and stuff like that. So, it's... Yeah.

Dave Jones: Interesting.

Chris Gammell: It's just crazy that they actually go over that stuff. So... Getting back to Star Wars.

Dave Jones: No, no. Hang on.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I just... Last night, it was on TV, I watched Iron Man 3, right? And, you know, I thought it was an awesome movie when I watched it. You know, I've watched it a couple of times and I just watched it last night and I thought, you know what? I'm sort of so over... Even though I enjoy these movies, right, they're great eye candy and the in-jokes are fantastic, right? And, like, there's one-liners galore, right? Yeah. And I love it. But it's just all fake.

Chris Gammell: Oh, the CGI stuff?

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's just all fake and I'm going, oh, look, they're just... It's just a movie of fake special effects, fake CGI, green screen stuff, and one-liner jokes. That's basically all it is. There's no... You know, it's all fluff. And I'm thinking... And that's what I'm hoping. See, that's what people are hoping about this new Star Wars, right? Because that's what the first three, as in the, you know, episodes one, two, and three, right? Which everyone hated, right? Because they were so, like, CGI-y. Oh, right, right, right. Like, yeah, right, that was so crap, right? And apparently J.J. Abrams, who's directing the new one, is, you know, like, there's many real-world special effects and it's going to be, like, you know, dirty and messy like the original Star Wars, you know? It's not going to be...

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: You know, it's, like, it's going to feel real. And that's what you got from this... That's what I got from this trailer. Yeah. You know? It's going to feel like a real adventure, you know? Definitely. ...and kind of thing. And, yeah, and that's what I'm hoping. That's what I'm hoping for. So, um... Well, I think we're going to see...

Chris Gammell: I mean, yeah, I think the really magical... You know, like, CGI has come a long way, right? I mean, like, you think... No. You think the... You think? Yeah. The Iron Man stuff's bad. Go back and watch, like, the, uh, you know, like, Spider... The early Spider-Mans and, like, you know, like, the Spider-Man movies when those are coming out and, like, just all... Oh, they're so terrible. But, I mean, yeah, a lot of that stuff's come a really long way. There's really interesting, you know, the track... The tracking's gotten better and just the rendering engines have gotten better and all that stuff, um, you know, on the tech side has gotten really...

Dave Jones: But still, you can't beat a midget in an R2-D2 robot costume, right? You just, you know, like... Or you can't beat a human inside a C-3PO costume, right? You just, like, you... Yeah. You know, there's just...

Chris Gammell: Or even, like, you know, puppeteering and stuff like that. Just having...

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Yoda, you know, a real Yoda as opposed to, you know, CGI Yoda. Yeah, actually, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I was watching a clip of the old version of Yoda and it's like, this is so much better. But, you know, we're old, Dave. We're not the...

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know, I know. But, yeah, anyway, that's what I'm hoping. That's, you know, that's why I think everyone's going ape over this new Star Wars trailer is because it feels real. It feels like it'll take us back to the original, you know, one, which was, you know, everything in the Star Wars universe was dirty and messy and real, you know? And then, you know, Lucas did the other three and it was all just...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, enough of Star Wars.

Chris Gammell: Speaking of dirty and messy and old, what the hell is... No, not you. Well, yeah. Yeah. These pictures you posted. So, tell us about this collection.

Dave Jones: Well, it's a... Well, I haven't put the video up yet. I've got...

Dave Jones: Well, I know. Well, I've posted on the forum, right? So, I can talk about it. Okay. Right? So, it's not really a spoiler. I've posted...

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's on your Flickr set too, right? I mean, this isn't like private photos.

Dave Jones: It's on my Flickr set. So, yeah. I've published it on the forum. Because I wanted this to go to somebody who could make use of it. And it did, by the way. Good. The final buyer of this show will remain nameless until they want to become public about it. But, yes, I put them onto it and it's going to a worthy cause. Anyway, what this is, I found some stuff on eBay, right? And I won it. This is local? It's fairly local. Yeah. It's in Sydney here, right? And it cost me like 30 bucks. So, I went all the way out to pick it up. And it's a pretty amazing thing. I'll actually leave it until the video... I'll leave that one until the video comes out. Because I haven't posted it yet. Right? So, anyway, I went to pick it up, right? And there's this... You know, it's on a big rural property, right? Big house. This guy's got this huge shed out the back. Well, it's like a mini house, right? It's like the size of a small house.

Chris Gammell: It's a work shed, but like...

Dave Jones: It's a work shed kind of thing.

Chris Gammell: It's a nerd stream, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. But it's really made properly. It's got a big concrete floor. It looks like a real house, right? Kind of thing. But it's... Yeah, the guy's workshop. Anyway...

Chris Gammell: It's a nerdatorium.

Dave Jones: It's a nerdatorium. It's a nerdatorium. So, I walked in to pick up the stuff that I was there for. And the guy who's selling this... Because this guy's moved overseas, right? So, you get one of these eBay agents to sell stuff for you, right? So, anyway, I met the eBay agent there. And he's selling it for this guy who's buggered off overseas. He owns it. And he said, Oh, there's more stuff. Take a look in the other room. And I walked in the other room and I nearly collapsed. I mean, holy shit. This is the greatest collection of parts I have ever seen in my entire life. Just look at the photos. Words, like... I can try and explain it, but...

Chris Gammell: I have three words. Obsessive compulsive disorder.

Dave Jones: Obsessive compulsive disorder, yes.

Chris Gammell: This guy is so organized. In the best sense of the word, right? I mean, there's... Oh, totally. It is a disease for some people. But this is putting it to very good use.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, you could argue it's not, as I'll explain in a minute. Anyway, picture thousands... Well, there's probably like a thousand takeaway containers. You know, there's clear takeaway containers. Yeah, like for takeout food, for Chinese food or something. Yeah, for takeaway food. Chinese food, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And all individually labeled, all containing parts, all on bookshelves upon bookshelves upon bookshelves. Stacked in rows of four. Stacked in rows of... Twelve high by like a six, seven wide or something. Or four, if you look at the big shelves. Anyway, there's like a thousand of these tubs. All individually perfectly labeled.

Chris Gammell: But wait, there's more.

Dave Jones: Filled with parts. There's more. Billy B's here.

Chris Gammell: You are not going to want to miss out on this deal today.

Dave Jones: Oh, goodness. Which I don't show on the photos here, but I will show in the video, I think. Yes, I will. Inside each one of those containers, not only has he perfectly labeled all of his parts and sorted them into these thousand takeaway containers. Inside each container, there's like dozens of Ziploc bags, all individually with parts individually sorted into Ziploc, tiny zip, those little, you know, those little tiny ones, you know, like an inch by two inches or whatever. Inside, yeah. All parts individually sorted in those, all labeled and categorized. And he's got a whole spreadsheet as well to index this entire collection. Yeah. It's just.

Chris Gammell: This is the guy you want to hire as your lab manager, except for when you actually need a part and you forget to sign one out.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: You know that time? Like, that's a bad time. Yep.

Dave Jones: And it hadn't been listed on eBay yet. And the guy who was selling it said, yeah, I don't know what to do with all this shit. And it's like, make me an offer. And I'm just like, my head's just spinning. Yeah. You know, like, and it was like, I have to go home and think about it, dude. It's like, what do I pay for all this? But anyway, so after my initial shock thinking this is the greatest collection ever, I started to actually look in some of the containers. And I just assumed that all the parts would be new. Right? Silly me.

Chris Gammell: Right. You thought it was like a guy who's like a part broker who buys and stores parts.

Dave Jones: He bought out an old store or he used to own an old electronic parts store or something. Right? You know, and these are all old stock or something. Right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And then, you know, especially the ICs and things like that. You know, he's got all these cabinets on, you know, regular parts cabinets on the wall with IC trays. And they're all, you know, perfectly labeled. And I started opening them and I went, these are all used. This guy has desolded every freaking part.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: There's hundreds of thousands of parts here. And I'm talking not just the ICs that have been desolded from boards. I'm talking the resistors. They're still bent with the leads right angle cut flush to the board. Like there's boxes full of these things. You know, diodes, transistors, everything desolded from freaking boards.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Based on my estimate, there was only like less than 5% of new parts there. It was almost all of it was secondhand salvage parts. Unbelievable.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I just, I can't. I don't have words for it. I know. Like all I can imagine is like, this is the result of like, like it was like a calming, is a calming habit of like, oh, well, I got home from work. I'm going to go desolder some stuff from a board because it, but man.

Dave Jones: Like, and just do it over and over and over again for year after year after year after year. And holy crap. Anyway, it's the greatest collection I've ever seen, but it's also most useless collection I've ever seen. Right.

Chris Gammell: And that's, that's what, that's what's crazy. Right.

Dave Jones: And, and, and that's ultimately why I didn't buy it. And it turns out that the guy, that the guy who was selling it did put it up on eBay and I was just like debating for a week. Like, should I tell anyone? Like, cause I didn't want to tell anyone cause I thought I might bid on it. Right. I didn't want to be, you know, competing. You know, I'm a bit selfish. You know, I, you know, I want to get it all.

Chris Gammell: Well, you have your eBay habits, those habits die hard, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You know, I'm not going to let somebody else nab it, you know, especially when I can potentially make you, make use of it a lot better than anyone else could in terms of, you know, videos for it. And maybe giving it, giving tubs away to people, you know, to viewers and, you know, anything.

Chris Gammell: But I don't know, man.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I decide, no, it'd be a world of hurt. Yeah. It'd just be a world of hurt.

Chris Gammell: What I wonder too, can you imagine like buying on eBay? Like you see all these pictures and you buy it on eBay and you get the spreadsheet and stuff like that. And then like the eBay agent shows up and like, he's just put it all in one pile. He's just like dumps it on your front lawn. He's like, well, here you go. Oh my God.

Dave Jones: That's the thing. It would have taken me a whole day to just get all the stuff out, put it in the back of a ute, fill a ute, like the entire ute tray. Oh yeah, you'd need.

Chris Gammell: You'd need a big moving truck. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: And then fill it like the full volume of the tray, right? Fill it. And then take it down to my bloody bunker. And then take another day offloading it all. And then another week just like trying to comprehend it.

Chris Gammell: Then you'd have to break the bad news to Dave too.

Dave Jones: Yeah, he's got a sorted alarm. And then what do I do with it? They're all freaking secondhand desolded parts. Well, I think- And by the way, all of it's through hole. Yeah. All of it. Yeah. None of it is modern surface mount parts. None of it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I think what you'd really do is you'd sell all the tubes or you could do stuff with the tubes. There's a bunch of tubes there.

Dave Jones: The tubes are separate. No, no, no. The tubes are being sold separately. Oh, they were. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're a different head. They haven't put those up on eBay. They're worth a small fortune. The tubes. Those will go for a lot. Niche market for those. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, they should definitely break those up too and sell them all separately.

Dave Jones: They're thinking about selling them in per tray. That's what he was talking about. Yeah. Yeah, that's the right way to do it. Yeah, per- Yep.

Chris Gammell: But man, if I could talk to this guy, if anyone ever sees this guy or knows him or-

Dave Jones: I know his name. David Sparks. David Sparks is his name. We shouldn't say that on the air, Dave.

Chris Gammell: I mean- Why? Anyways.

Dave Jones: Well, I've said it in my video, so it's going to be released publicly. Okay. Anyway. No, I'm- I'm in awe of this, like for real. Yeah, my hat is off to this guy and he deserves to be publicly acknowledged that this collection exists. Totally. So, you know-

Chris Gammell: What I would question is, is, was, like, what was the motivation behind it and then how often did he actually use it too, right? I mean, that- I know. Because that's the thing, like-

Dave Jones: I would love to know that.

Chris Gammell: Like, we all know, like, we have stuff on our benches. Like, I have, you know, trays of components on my bench and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. But it is, like, the easiest thing to mess up. You know, like, you really do need to be very, very dedicated to this kind of thing. And so, something like this, especially where he's desoldering it as well, it's like-

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: You know, what did you use this for? And what, like, why is this- You know, like, that's what- Yep, yep. It's like part archaeology, you know? Like- Yeah, I know.

Dave Jones: And sometimes it's just too hard. Da-da-da.

Chris Gammell: Sorry. This interlude brought to you by George Lucas. This show brought to you by-

Dave Jones: Royalties payable. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Lucasfilm Limited, Disney. Right, right.

Dave Jones: What was I going to say? Yeah, like, often I have not been able to find parts in my disheveled collection. So, like, I know I've probably got that part somewhere, but I've went, oh, screw it. I'm just going to order it from Farnell's, you know, because I can't find it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right, right, right.

Dave Jones: You know, like, if you do this, you've got to do it properly. Yeah, it's all or nothing, right? It's like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, you get one thing out of sequence and you're like, nope, well, that was a good run. See you later. That's it. Man.

Dave Jones: Oh, man. Anyway, can anybody beat this? Can anybody- Yes. Somebody on the forum claims- Work venture of the world. Okay, well, there's somebody on the EV blog forum where I mentioned this, who reckons this guy's an amateur and his collection just, like, embarrasses this one. And I'm saying post the photos and going, oh, yeah, yeah, you know. Anyway, I, yeah. Okay, then ask that guy.

Chris Gammell: Okay, even if someone delivers a similar or smaller subset of components, ask them about maintenance times on this kind of thing. Uh-huh. Like, man.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But no, like, I reckon, like, somebody might have more components, perhaps. Yeah. Right? But I reckon it's not going to be assorted, like, and categorized nearly as obsessively as this guy did. It's just, oh, it's stunning.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but please, everyone listening, send it in your, you know, post them to Reddit or send us a link, you know, post it to ImageUR. Post your component collections. Put it in the, put it in the comments section. We'd love to see it. We haven't done Workbench of the Week in a long time. Time.

Dave Jones: This can be, what, component collection of the week.

Chris Gammell: This is of the decade, man.

Dave Jones: Sending your component collections. The decade, man. Photos of your component. I know. It's, I, you know, you can, you imagine just walking in there. Like, I just walked in there and, you know, I, I, I just went, holy, you know, like, I, like, bowed down to this thing.

Chris Gammell: It was just, oh.

Dave Jones: You know what this is?

Chris Gammell: You know what this is? This is the, you know how, like, there's, like, what is it, like, electrons and positrons and if they ever meet each other, they annihilate into pure energy type of thing? This is the exact, the, the polar opposite of Jim Williams' bench. Like, we found it. Right, right. You know, like.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: For as messy as that was, this is, this is tidy. So.

Dave Jones: Oh, man. This is incredible. It's incredible. But it's useless. I could have got this for 500 bucks. Right. This entire collection. But it's useless.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, you have pictures of the.

Dave Jones: It is absolutely, you know.

Chris Gammell: It looks like he poked them into, like, foil almost. Oh.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. The ICs. Yes, yes. He's poked the, or foil, foil covered foam or something. I've never seen that.

Chris Gammell: I've never seen foil before. I've seen a lot of foam. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Foil covered foam. That's, that's very common. It's bad. It's a really bad way to do it because the foam is, you know, terrible stuff.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's just, oh, unbelievable. Yeah, it's useless. I would have had to, like, I would have kept it and just, you know, ogled it. Like, yeah, look at my collection. Yeah, right. I've done nothing with it and then 10 years time just throw it out, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, this is kind of like the, you know, the whole thing. It can be, it can, it can become an obsession either way, right? I mean, like, I don't know, test equipment.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: How often do you use all those scopes on the shelves? Granted, I know that it's different now.

Dave Jones: But I do, right? Because I use them in the videos, right? Often I'll drag one out and do a comparison, right? I'll, like, use them.

Chris Gammell: Okay, but there are some people that, you know, it becomes that the thing is the collection. Oh, sure, sure. More than, you know, like, oh, I don't know, I might need it. It's like, yeah, you know, like, but.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: You know, for so much of the stuff that most people are doing, you know, having a collection like that, it's like, how often are you going to be using all of these parts and in this volume? It's not worth it. Yeah, exactly. And if it is.

Dave Jones: Especially if you're in the US or something, you get it delivered next day by DigiKey, right? Right, exactly.

Chris Gammell: And maybe, yeah, maybe 20, 30 years ago, this is because you didn't, you couldn't get that stuff, right? You know?

Dave Jones: Exactly.

Chris Gammell: So maybe that makes sense then. But man, this.

Dave Jones: Right, right.

Chris Gammell: He just kept going.

Dave Jones: Well, that's right, right? This guy might have started this collection 20 years ago when the internet didn't exist, basically, right? And there was no online order. And there was, you know, and yeah, Farnell exists, like here in Australia, right? Yeah, there was Farnell and RS components back then. But they, like, they were 10 times, if you think they're expensive now, you should have seen them 15 years ago. Right, right. It was like, that was so expensive. And you had to have a corporate account with them, right? Yeah, you buy everything on credit. Yeah, it was just, it's not the same as it is these days. And yeah, so having a hoarded collection like this was the go. But it's just, you know, totally. And it's all through-hole. I mean, it's all old school. You know, I hate to use the word obsolete, right?

Chris Gammell: Right, because it's not. It's just the form factors. Like, you can still get 7-4 Series Logic and a lot of people, you know, it's still used in, you know.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: A lot of designs, but it's not usually a dip package.

Dave Jones: No, I mean, but you can't even plug these chips into a breadboard because they're all bloody desold and all the legs are bent.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Right?

Dave Jones: And they've still got the little solder blobs and the PCB turrets that have pulled out of the board, you know, stuck to them. It's like, it's junk. I hate to say, it's the most marvelous collection of useless junk I've ever seen in my life.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, move on. Anyway, I did get something from this guy's collection. So I'll leave that until the video is.

Chris Gammell: And Dave will have a video coming soon. Maybe.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: It's already edited. I just haven't uploaded it yet.

Speaker ?: Okay.

Dave Jones: Anyway, all this stuff did go to probably the best place it possibly. We could. Good. Good. Yep.

Chris Gammell: That's good to know.

Dave Jones: Yep. That's why I didn't bid on it. So if I did, I would have just given it away. If I bid on this, I would have just got a few videos out of it and then just given it all away. You know, it kept some of the good stuff.

Chris Gammell: You wouldn't do it like what people do with cash when they make it all into ones and then roll on the bed with it kind of thing. Oh, right. Then you'd have like dip pins stuck all over your, you know, you'd have dip packages stuck to your body. It would be really painful. Right. No. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I got something almost as obsessive as this collection from him. So you'll have to wait and see. Okay. Okay. And I actually haven't looked through it all. I've looked in very few of what I've actually got from what I picked up. Yep. So I need to do a second video on that. So there'll be a first video showing you what it potentially is. And then after that, I need to like shoot a video just looking through the entire collection.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: To see what's there. So anyway, cool. Move on.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Next.

Dave Jones: Come on. You're supposed to have a segue.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that time I don't have one. Ready to go. Yeah. Actually, no, I did want to talk a little bit more about that though, because I think this is relevant, you know, like what does that look like these days? Like how do you store, how do you store your components these days? Like, uh.

Dave Jones: Well, I, well, I do have one of those rotating towers that I made. I made. Oh, I just watched an awesome video yesterday. Right. Um, uh, Adam Savage, right. It's in his nerd cave, right. It's in his nerd, how he sorts his parts. He's got these, uh, clip boxes. Mechanical stuff or also like electrical? No. And also switches and things like that. You know, so there is some electronic-y type parts in there. Um, and yeah, he's, he bought these, uh, clip like these, you know, cases. They've got like a clear lid on them. Right. And little compartments inside. Right. But they're like, like not fixed compartments. They're like little trays that you can pull out. Right. And then he's got these all stacked in a custom rack. Anyway, I'll link in, I'll link in the video. And, um, yeah, watch that. And it's just, yeah, it's awesome. And our local hardware store has like a cheap-ass version of it, but they're very expensive. The ones he used are very, like they're like 60 bucks per, you know, tray or something.

Chris Gammell: You know, they're very expensive. It's an investment, Dave. It's an investment.

Dave Jones: It's an investment. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, there are cheap versions of these things and, and they're really nice. Um, yeah, but I, I, I just use one of these rotating, uh, you know, uh, I made my own rotating cabinet thing. Okay. So, which I haven't sorted yet. That's one of, uh, Dave two's jobs. Sorry, David two. He, he doesn't like to be called Dave. Apparently hates it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Why don't you just call him David then? We don't call you David.

Dave Jones: He won't, he won't. I hate the name David. I hate it.

Chris Gammell: Well, there you go. There he's not David two.

Dave Jones: So I call him Dave. I'm the only one who's allowed to call him Dave. Gotcha. I think it does piss him off. So yeah. What if you call him the David or like. Right. I don't know. R2. There you go. D2, Dave two. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: There you go. R2. Revision two, Dave two.

Dave Jones: Right. Anyway. Um, yeah. So I still have to sort of like, I've still got my original parts cabinets from when I was like 10 years old. Right. And they're still got the parts from.

Chris Gammell: And they're made out of granite folks. They're.

Dave Jones: They are. Yeah. Flintstone style. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Carried them up hills both ways each time he went to school. And.

Dave Jones: And I am, I, I, I am going to throw them out. I'm going to. So once I get the parts out of there that are still relevant.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Um, then you know, like, but that's the thing, right. In some of my, uh, tutorial videos, for example, if I'm breadboarding a chip, often you might see a chip in there that I, that is, you know, even secondhand that I desoldered from a board 30 years ago. Right. Back when I, I, I, I did this thing. Right. I did. I desoldered parts. Cause that's what you did 30 years ago. Right. But, uh, not to this sort of, you know, that's sort of insane level we've been talking about. But yeah, I, or I'm using, you know, like, or it might be a brand new part, but it is 30 years old, you know, and I pull it out of the foam. Hey, I haven't touched this in 30 years. Whacking in the breadboard still works.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well.

Dave Jones: Like a, you know.

Chris Gammell: The transistors are made on the 250 micro or 250 nanometer process. Right. So it's like.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. They'll work a treat. Nanometers. Nanometers. Microns.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: 0.25 micron.

Dave Jones: No. As in like five micron process or something.

Chris Gammell: Oh, we're going that far back, huh? I guess. Yeah.

Dave Jones: We're, we're, we're talking chips from the seventies.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. I guess that would be a lot bigger, huh? Yeah.

Dave Jones: I, I don't know. Well, I don't know the timeline of process technologies, but it'd have to be in the microns. Yeah. That's true.

Chris Gammell: I guess, I guess, uh, 90s is probably 250 nanometer type stuff, right? Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. It'd be 320 nanometer.

Chris Gammell: It was the node. So.

Dave Jones: Right. Anyway, they still work, you know, I've actually, I have yet to encounter an old chip I've pulled out, you know, from 20, 30 years ago and it hasn't worked. So they're pretty robust things. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, the old ones. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Not like this new, uh, speaking of C speaking of process nodes, uh, this was an, I mean, it was announced a while ago, but they're actually finally qualified, uh, TSMC, you know, like the, the big, the big, uh, chip fab foundry. Yep. They just, they just, uh, qualified their, their new process. Which is? The 16 nanometer fin fat, right? Which is like, okay. Smaller than what we have now. I get that. Right? Like right now we're 22. It's going down to 16. Right. The core voltage is 0.55 volts.

Dave Jones: Oh, geez. Oh, why couldn't they have made it 0.555?

Chris Gammell: Seriously, guys. You're not even thinking. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I reckon every voltage reg should be tweaked to 0.555 volts.

Chris Gammell: Make it so.

Dave Jones: Oh. 0.55 volts.

Chris Gammell: I mean, I just don't even know how to, how to do, I mean, whatever.

Dave Jones: Right. As if we need another fricking voltage rail, you know, I've, I've done designs that have six different voltage rails, you know, like it's just, and it's just for basic digital stuff, you know, it's crazy.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah, exactly. And a lot of it, I mean like, yeah, cause you have like the, uh, PLL is internal and those need their own clocks and then analog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So you'll do like, you know, five volts, you do 3.3, you'll do 2.5. You'll do 1.8.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: You'll do 1.2. There's five.

Chris Gammell: You need to do the, uh, the DDR two or the DDR half voltage, right? That's for, uh, so you can double clock the, double clock the memory.

Dave Jones: That's right. Yep. You know, so like six, it's nothing to do six rails on a digital board, right? On a modern complex digital board.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, it's, you know, five is like practically every modern high-end board is going to have four or five bloody rails on it. It's ridiculous.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. I'm, uh, I'm going through some of that right now. I'm not to the point where I care about the rails yet, but I'm still, uh, I think I mentioned a week or two ago. Maybe I just mentioned Twitter, but I'm, I'm in the process of picking out a micro for, for contextual electronics. Did I mention that?

Dave Jones: No. Oh, yes. Yes. I think you did. Yeah. Well, we talked about it. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And so actually I was at, I was actually at an event today. I even went to like a, I went to like a marketing event by Freescale. Oh God. Yeah, I know.

Dave Jones: But that's it folks. He's officially jumped the shark.

Chris Gammell: No, no, no, no, no. It wasn't, it wasn't like a marketing event, like, like I, like inviting marketers. It was like, they were marketing parts to the, the people in the area kind of thing. Like they were, you know, it was like a tech day kind of thing where they're.

Dave Jones: None of us are buying it. None of us are buying the differentiation there. What?

Chris Gammell: There was, there was engineers. There was tons of engineers there. I was going as an engineer, Dave. Turn to the dark side of the force. Oh man. But yeah, I mean, it's tough. And like, you know, the thing with, with Freescale too, like I didn't ask this question explicitly, but like, you know, all of what I've been kind of going back and forth with is like all of these different arm flavors and stuff like that. And I, you know, it is what it is. Like, you know, that's fine. There's arm, there's tons of arms out there and I can pick one. But like, in this case I was at Freescale and it's like, well, didn't you guys just get bought by NXP? You know, it's just like that, kind of like that. Well, what happens if I, you know, like not, not like I have like a high risk product or anything like that, but you know, you start to think about that stuff and you can't really ask that question because they're just going to say like, oh no, no, no, it'll be fine. You know, of course they'll say that. And it's like, no, NXP bought Freescale. There could be big, bad stuff happening, but I don't know. You got to kind of, kind of roll the dice.

Dave Jones: Speaking of big, bad stuff. What's this about, you linked in a Wired article about John Deere.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You're destroying the very idea of ownership and it comes down to, there's a, I know we're talking about tractors here, folks, but it's, it's totally relevant. Stick with me. They claim that you don't, when you buy a tractor now, you don't own it because it contains code, right? That belongs to them.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: There's microcontrollers in there. Contains code. It's ours. You don't own that tractor. It's ours. You only, we only license it to you.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: What the freak? Like this has implications.

Chris Gammell: When I drink beer, I don't, I don't buy beer. I just, I just, I just borrow it for a little while.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Because it gets recycled. We're all made of recycled atoms. Right. Exactly. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We, we, we belong to the universe. Yeah. Oh, good. But this has implications for every product.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah. I mean, imagine this now, you know, extend this now to cars. Like, I mean, there's ton, there's more, there's more firmware in a car than there is a tractor probably. Right.

Dave Jones: And well, yeah. So now like farmers are talking about, well, I don't want to buy your tractor and I'm going to buy an old tractor that doesn't have firmware. Right. And then it's mine, you know, and it's like, ah, you know, is this the way companies are going? Are they so obsessed with keeping, you know, with owning everything? Well, the answer is probably yes. Well, some, a good, a good lot of them are.

Chris Gammell: I mean, you could, it all comes down to like, you know, marketplace, right? If, if you don't like it, you could go buy something else. Unfortunately, it's probably that going to be that all of them do this. You know, if one does it, they're probably all going to do it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So you have to let, you have to let the marketplace decide. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: But I don't know if you know, like, I mean, like, so, so I have family members that are like, you know, live out in the boonies and used to farm and I've gotten away from it. But like, like those things are like really like those things are easy half a million dollars. Like most of the time you don't buy them anyways. You know, like these are, these are serious, serious industrial equipment.

Dave Jones: This is why you buy them secondhand, right? Which is why you buy them secondhand. Yeah?

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah. And yeah, usually you don't even do that. You just lease them. I mean, it's just like you lease, you know. Okay. Right. Because buying them outright is, is so tough. And then, and then, uh, even when you do, you know, if you need like the firmware updates, stuff like that, you need, you need service plans anyways. So it's just like, it's just farming, farming is big business anyways. So. Yeah. I know. But I think, I think more broadly, this, yeah, this, this is just an argument about, about, you know, do you own your stuff when you buy it? Right. So let's take it to a small level, right? Do you, do you have the right to, or how about, you know, stuff we've talked about on here before.

Dave Jones: Do you have the right to. Do you have the right to hack your oscilloscope? Right. Exactly. Do you own the code that comes in it? Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Uh, do you have the right to hack it? You know, and we, I think we've come to the conclusion that yes, we should.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Regardless of whether or not legally we have the right. I think, you know, morally we should.

Chris Gammell: I think, you know, in terms of enforcement, like, I don't think that we, we don't argue that, you know, like IP is a thing, right? I mean, like, and you know, companies are going to, you know, there is research dollars involved.

Dave Jones: Understand and respect IP. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. But if you're going to give us, if you're going to sell us something and you've hidden something inside of there, and if we happen to find a way to exploit it, well, tough tits to you. That was your risk.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. And I think the only thing that, the only recourse is if, you know, if Dave goes and he finds an exploit on a, on a scope, you know, the only time that you can be prosecuted is if you publish it online. Right. Cause then you're, you're not doing it to your product. You're allowing, you're, you know, basically endangering their, their product cycle. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But I don't like, no, I don't like the, I don't support the idea of anyone being sued for publishing information. I'm like, I'm like, have a fundamental issue with that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I think this is where we landed on this last time too. I remember we talked about this.

Dave Jones: But if I was to go and sell hacked scopes, okay. If I was to go buy the cheap scope, hack it and then resell it as a, yeah, this is the high end scope, right. Ha ha. I hacked it then fine. Sue me.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right. But publishing information. No, no.

Chris Gammell: Sorry. Yeah. Okay. I don't know if I, I mean, I, I probably agree with you in principle, but I think that in terms of when. Because it's a thin edge of the wedge. How people actually will get pinched for this. Yeah. Right.

Dave Jones: It's a, it's, it's the, we use your metaphor, the thin edge of the wedge, the slippery slope, right. That goes to, you know, and you end up with the shit that, uh, you know, all of the, you know, the, um, you know, the Edward Snowden and the, you know, the whole release of information and all that sort of jazz, right. It's like, uh, you know, and all of, and how governments are cracking down on rights of journalists now. Right. Even in Australia, we've got now they, they actually pass ridiculous journalistic laws. I can go to jail.

Chris Gammell: I know where you're going with this stuff, but I think you might be getting a little off, a little off kilter. Like, I know, I agree. And I'm sure that, you know, I'm sure.

Dave Jones: But yeah, no, anyway. Okay. Stop me. All right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Uh, well, I think another interesting point in here and actually something that someone brought up on the subreddit earlier in the week before this came out was the fact that, uh, New York and Minnesota, two States in the United States, uh, introduced fair repair legislation, basically on the same thing. So basically, uh, encouraging and or punishing making like, uh, uh, obsoleted, uh, unrepairable

Dave Jones: products. Right. We, we have similar laws in this country in some way, shape or form. I'm not up on them, but it's like, uh, you know, major companies have to like hold a certain percentage of parts for a certain number of years for certain products. Yeah. Right. So it's not like you can sell a fridge and then not have any parts available for it. You know, it's like, you know, as part of you doing business, you're forced to sort of make parts available for the next 10 years or something.

Chris Gammell: I think, I think, you know, it also kind of feeds into the whole idea of like recycling and stuff like that as well. Like, you know, if you can't repair it, it should need to be recyclable then, you know, because basically it's, you know, how do you, how do you decide, you know, when basically when companies are going to just try and churn, churn you through these, uh, you know, devices that can break very easily and you don't have a choice, then yeah. Then, then there could start to be a big environmental impact and also, you know, a big impact to consumers who are buying this thing. You could say, well, it's in the marketplace, but then if everybody does it, then yeah, you're kind of screwed. Yeah. Right.

Dave Jones: So I'm not sure. You're going to have some sort of government legislation. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I don't know how I would feel about like, uh, like New York state government. Uh, I don't know how that would actually be, uh, determined. Right. Like, uh, but yeah, whatever. Uh, it's interesting either way. And, and I think, I mean, it's all just like, it's all kind of all part of the same argument, right? If you buy something, do you own it? And do you have recourse for something poorly made in order to, you know, bring you back in as a consumer, as a consumer again, like should, should, should you be able to buy quality things that last for a long time? And I think, you know, and, and fix them and update them and stuff like that. And I think the answer is yes.

Dave Jones: So, well, some people will say, oh, it all, it'll, it once again, it comes down to little let the market decide, you know, if the market decides they want to become a throwaway society, then that's what society becomes, you know, or if they decide that they want to pay for high quality products that last a long time, then they should. You know, emerge as the natural winner based on what society, you know, people vote with their wallet, you know, and.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, there's always, there's always that piece. So.

Dave Jones: It's, yeah, it's tough. Tough thing. Hey, MakerBot. Made off 20% of its staff.

Chris Gammell: Speaking of throwing things away.

Dave Jones: Yeah. MakerBot just threw away 20% of their new, I think it's new, mostly New York staff. I think. Well, I think that that's the only place they have staff, isn't it? Or do they? Pretty sure, yeah. Right, okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, so I, I mentioned that, you know, you don't need to, you know, you don't need to have as many people when you're making stuff overseas. And it's, you know, someone did bring up that they do still assemble in Brooklyn, New York, where, where a lot of that is. But I think basically all the pieces are, are outsourced. That's, that was where my mistake was. So. Yeah. Anyway, they. Surprise, anyone?

Dave Jones: No, no. They, they, they, they've got a new CEO. It's not Bree Pettis anymore. He's off into Stratus' land, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, Jenny Lawson. Is it Lawson? No, Jenny something. I have no idea who the CEO is.

Dave Jones: Oh, Jonathan Laglum.

Chris Gammell: No, it was. He's the new CEO. Lawton was the, yeah. Jenny Lawton was the, the CEO before that. So, and she was part of the company.

Dave Jones: Oh, I did. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know they had gone through another CEO. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Have you seen, have you watched Print the Legend yet? No. I think I mentioned it on here. It's about, Print the Legend is on Netflix and I'm sure various other online sources. and I thought I mentioned it, but it's basically, it was a documentary about MakerBot and then who's the MIT one with the goop, the orange printer. Oh, yes, yes.

Dave Jones: I know the, I know the one, the, yeah, the SLA printer or whatever. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yes. Formlabs. I know. That's it. Formlabs. Yes. Yeah. Formlabs. Right. And it was, it was really, well, I, like I said, I think I've talked about this in the show before, but it was really well done. It kind of showed the internal workings and just the struggles and all the crap that went on. So, yeah. So, yeah, if people are interested in that kind of thing, I'm not personally very surprised by this, you know, it's like their MakerBot is part of the big machine now, you know, they're part of Stratasys. They're going to be. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: They're the part of, yeah, exactly. And they're going through CEOs like there's no tomorrow and looks like they're going through employees like there's no tomorrow. So they marched them out. And they, like, they had security march them out. Have you ever actually been fired where you had security escort you out?

Chris Gammell: I don't think I've ever worked anywhere that, oh, I worked at, at Samsung they had security, but no, I was not, I've never been, I've never been fired yet. Right. Come on, folks. We all know it's coming. Although I work for myself sometimes now and I think that'll be, you know, like, you know. No. So.

Dave Jones: No, I used to work at a company where, maybe I've told the story before, but this was back in, I don't know, 94.

Chris Gammell: Uh-huh.

Dave Jones: And while every, you know, they called a big meeting together, everyone was in a big room. Um, and while everyone was in this room being told that they're, uh, you know, they're, you know, sacking a third of the company. Right. Um, uh, the, all the, um, security and IT staff are outside actually taking everyone's computer.

Chris Gammell: Oh my God.

Dave Jones: So that disgrunt, so that disgruntled employees when they come out of the meeting going, oh, I'm formatting the network drive, screw you, you know? So they actually took your computer while you were in the, yep. And then once you came out of the meeting, there was security going, they watched you collect your things from your cubicle and they escorted you out the door, you know? And yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's, that's pretty messed up.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So.

Chris Gammell: It's tough, right? I mean, like, like we, I mean, I, I'm guessing it's in other industries too, but like my identity is severely tied up in what I work on. You know what I mean? Like. Right. Like I get angry when you call me a marketer, you know, like maybe for other reasons, but you know, like, and I think that's, you know, that's just a lot of, I'm sure it's a lot of things, you know, it's, it's human nature just to, you know, or maybe it's whatever it is, but I'm very tied up in that identity of engineering. Right. Mm-hmm. And that really, that hurts when, whenever someone loses their job because like, it's like, hey, you know, this thing you've been doing for eight plus hours a day for 20 years of your life.

Dave Jones: Yep. It's yep. Because of forces outside of your control. It gets sold for 400, it gets sold for $400. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I.

Speaker ?: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Anyway. There's a, uh, in Arrested, Arrested Development, which is a show, uh, that was on Fox a long time ago, but they, they taught the, the boss like walks him. He's like, oh, it's, it's get new computers day. And he, and they all move their, their office equipment out into a truck and they're like, all right. So where's the new computers? He's like, there, there isn't it. You're all fired. Nice. Oh my God. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I love it.

Chris Gammell: It's, yeah, it's, it's, that sucks though. Um, so I do feel bad for the people to get laid off. Um, you know, I don't think we said that.

Dave Jones: Some people take it really bad, you know, like me, it's like air water off a duck's back. You know, I couldn't care less. In fact, in, you know, I'm happy. Yay. All right.

Chris Gammell: I remember. I remember when, uh, yeah. I'll tell him, let everybody go. Oh, no.

Dave Jones: I've been happy at most companies that I've left. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, anyway. Yeah. Sad to hear that all the Makeupot staff are being laid off, but that's what happens when you get bored. You know, if, if people there didn't know that this wasn't going to happen there, well, now they do. They know that this happens at big companies. So, you know, it's like, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's inevitable, right? When, when it's a publicly listed company operated by a board of directors, this stuff, it must happen. It ultimately always does happen without exception. The only way for it not to happen is for it to be a private company run by a dictator, you know, and that's it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Companies are always going to. Run by one person who, you know. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right. I think especially at certain sizes, usually companies, you know, they become, they become machines, you know, like that's just how it goes.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Totally. In fact, they're required by law to become machines. A lot of people don't realize this, but publicly listed companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to make money. They can't operate at a loss for some, you know, they can't keep on employees making, you know, if those employees are, you know, not making money for the company. It's just, you know, they, they can't do it. It's not a charity. They, they have a legal responsibility to make a profit or attempt to make a profit. So, you know, that's the, yeah, that's what you sign up for when you go for a public company. So, yep. Anyway, Bree has made his, you know, a hundred million bucks. So he's, you know, off happy in Stratus' land somewhere. Yep. Got his extra bonus, I'm sure. Good luck to him.

Chris Gammell: Ah, yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about the, there was a video actually, and this is actually from the 70s. Where was it? There was a glass blowing video. It was actually the, yeah, it was glass blowing at Bell Labs. And so this video is from the 79, right? And it's these, these guys. So this is kind of like, you know, not the end of the, yeah, I guess it is the end of the tube era, right? But, you know, like glass blowing, you think about it at Bell Labs where they invented the transistor. Yeah. Yeah. Tubes?

Dave Jones: So you're saying they invented their own demise. That's what you're getting at.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, these guys are like artisans. They're not artisans, but like these guys are like serious, right? You know, they're, you know, they're expert glass blowers and they're at the place where, you know, transistors completely supplanted them. And, you know, I am right about that, right? Why is my brain saying that Bell Labs is wrong? That is right, isn't it? Yeah. Bell Labs?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yes. Yes. The transistor was invented at Bell Labs by Shockey.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Yeah. Why is my, my brain is just not working right today. Anyways. But yeah. And, and, you know, so they're talking to these guys and they're like, yeah, well, you know, times are changing, you know, like it's just, and it's like, I'm sure that there are, there still are, you know, there's people that still have a lot of know how to do this stuff because, you know, there's, it's super, super niche now. You know, there's, you know, there's tube makers in, in, you know, Russia and, you know, there's like.

Dave Jones: They, no, well, they, they, they still make neon signs. The only way to make neon signs is to blow the glass.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. True.

Dave Jones: I mean, people don't, people think these neon signs that you still see it, you know, cause they're still sort of, you know, every like companies like neon signs, they actually look good. Right. And they're all still hand blown glass.

Chris Gammell: Huh.

Dave Jones: There's, there's, there's, there's no way to mass manufacture them like that in, you know, custom shapes. So somebody sits there, you order your custom logo in a big neon sign and somebody glass blows it for you in the shape of your logo. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And I don't know if, I don't know if like, like for this kind of stuff, right. It's like, I don't know. There's not really nostalgia about it. Right. Because it's like, like, I think there's just nostalgia for the loss of skills. Right. Because like, this is, it is a viable skill. And I'm sure that the guys that were glass blowing went off and became glass blowers elsewhere. Uh, but it's not like, you know, we're not losing a ton by not using tubes. Right. So I don't know. Right. It's just, it's, it's interesting to think about this kind of thing because, uh, you know, we're kind of.

Dave Jones: But why, why are we talking about it now? If this happened in the seventies?

Chris Gammell: I don't know what brought it up for me. Like I said, my, my brain's not going, what I really wanted to get towards though, is like, this is coming to other things though. Like this is like, this is an, this is indicative of other skill sets. Right. Because. Right.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: So like, so like the, I've got, I was just scrolling through the list. There's like, there's at least like five things about robots on, on the list. Right. Including up to an, including a robot that, uh, attaches to your kitchen cabinets and can be, you know, like it emulates chefs. Uh, there's a robot that will feed you tomatoes while you run. If you're in Japan.

Dave Jones: Why are robots taking off like right now? It's gotta be because, not because the, the motor and actuator technology and all that sort of jazz is getting any better. Right. It's all about control systems. It totally is. It's a processing grunt, right?

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: And that's, that's, you know, we've hit a, you know, we've hit a milestone there where it's just so cheap and easy to, you know, measure 10 different accelerometers at once and, you know, and, and accelerometers are cheap. That's the other thing. Yeah. Right. You know, for this balancing robot, right. You were, this R2, what is it? RR8 or whatever?

Chris Gammell: Uh, BB8. DD8. BB.

Dave Jones: Yeah. BB8. You know, this wouldn't have been, might not have been possible 10 years ago.

Chris Gammell: Well, it would, but it would have been with a, you know, a $10,000 accelerometer and then, you know.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: It would have been big and clunky and not, yeah, exactly. I mean, like that's, that's just how it goes. And yeah, so I think you're right though. There's definitely been some kind of inflection point and I think it's just a confluence of stuff. It's not like robots are any easier, right? I mean, like, like reverse kinematics are really, really hard, you know?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You have to like calculate where a robot arm is going to go by doing tons of math. But as that becomes.

Dave Jones: It's trivial to do that math. They say, it's in a library, you know? Right. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: And as more people do it, it becomes abstracted out, right? And it's just like, okay, now it's just a thing. Now you just send it a, you know, a vector and it goes there, right? Like, like stuff like that. Again, I don't know what I'm talking about with that stuff. I don't, I don't do robots, right? Right. But I think that, that you're totally right about, you know, and micros are cheap and everything else is cheap. I think the big thing is still the thing that's holding up everything else, which is batteries, right? Like, you know, you look at like the, the, the Petman, was it Petman? One of the, the Boston, it wasn't on the list, but one of the, the Boston Robotics. Yep. Now owned by Google. They had a battery version now. It was a while ago. I remember it because it used to be completely, it was like a diesel or, you know, you could hear it like putt-puttering along. And I think it was the one for the DARPA challenge that kind of runs across the desert thing or whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah. One of the DARPA ones. But now it's battery powered. It's like, oh, crap. There it is. Like, that's the one that might kill me. Right. And, you know, and it's just like, and, but, but that's not the crazy thing. Like, those kind of robots are, are frightening to think about because of the, because we watch Star Wars and, you know, we've seen, we've seen, we've seen how badly it can be not only rendered by George Lucas, but also, you know, like, you know, a potential scenario that's bad, we've seen Terminator and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Dude, I, I tweet, it just reminds me, I tweeted this the other day. It was so funny. It has started, you know, under the title, it has started or something where a monkey or a, yeah, I think it was a monkey takes down a quad cop, an autonomous quad copter with a stick. Nice. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. We're going to link it in. It's great. You've got to watch this video. It's like, yes, robots are starting and the monkeys are fighting back.

Chris Gammell: What you don't understand is we are all the monkey.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, it's just great.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's a great video. Got to watch it.

Chris Gammell: But it's not, it's not about, it's not about the chef robot or the robot, you know, like the robot that's walking or stuff like that. It's the boring robots. It's the, you know, like.

Dave Jones: It's the ones that they're, they're, they're assembling cars and. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: It's, it's the, it's. Right. You know, when we talk about, okay, we were talking about MakerBot with layoffs, right? Mm. You know, and like, I always think about that Baxter robot, you know, like that one. Baxter? What's the Baxter robot? Baxter was by, I forget what, it's a big red robot and it's got like a tablet as a face and it's got two arms and you can grab the arms and reprogram. They were, they were at Solid Conference last year, so I got to actually like, like be near one. And it's like. And it's. Oh, I can see it. Right. Yeah. Okay. So. So it's like.

Dave Jones: And it's got like a human-y face kind of thing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, sort of. Not enough to be like the creepy, what's it called? Right. The chasm of the. Hmm. Not the chasm, but whatever. Oh no, the valley. The. Right. Uncanny valley. That's it. Which is. The uncanny valley is like as you make a human look, or as you make a robot look more and more human. Like you, you have to get through the valley. Like it doesn't. Like it basically looks even more creepy at a certain point. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Keep it on the, on the robot side in order to not creep people out.

Dave Jones: Anyway, this is like an upper body robot. Like it's got a torso and it's got two arms and it's got a head and. Right.

Chris Gammell: And I'm sure we've talked about it before.

Dave Jones: It's got like suction cups for.

Chris Gammell: Um, you can, you can get a bunch of different things, but the crazy thing about it is that it's $30,000 with like all of the features on it, like a 23,000 for, for just the robot and like two arms and not like much.

Dave Jones: I don't know about you. Cause you're making, you know, like millions of dollars from contextual electronics. But to me, that's a lot of money.

Chris Gammell: Uh, uh, first off, no, I'm not. Uh, and second off, uh, it's not though. Right. Okay. So if you can train. Okay. So in, in watch the, people should watch the videos, you know, you can, you can have.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but why would you want a general purpose robot like this?

Chris Gammell: Okay. So, so think about, don't think about, you're not replacing an engineer with this yet. You're not replacing a musician with this yet. Right. Right. Then that's coming. Right. I mean, like there's tons of stuff, whatever, but imagine someone who makes, okay. In Australia, especially. Right. I mean, the U S has terrible labor laws and stuff like that, but like in Australia, you have someone who's making, I don't know what the minimum wage is there, like $20 an hour or something like that. They have, you know, state benefits, stuff like that. Yeah. Like that's $40,000 a year. Okay. And, and they might be doing something as simple as taking something off an assembly line and putting it in a box. Right. You know, granted that's a very simple task, but, but now you go and, and not only that, that person can train this robot to do it. That's what's insane about it.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So now that person trains this robot to do it and okay, so $40,000. Yeah. You replace that one year. Ah, ah, ah. That's an eight hour, eight hours a day job. You can get four shifts out of this robot by running 24 seven. Like that's. Yes. You've now. Got it. Quadrupled. Got it. Your investment. So.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: It's like, I.

Dave Jones: But, but why, why does it have to look like it? Like what is so different about this? Why isn't it just like, you can buy these like robot arms. Why does it have to look like a human? Why does it have to have a torso and a face with a dot matrix screen with some eyes that, you know, like.

Chris Gammell: Ah, because it's meant to work alongside humans. That's, that's actually the reason they talk about that. So you can see as, as it's going to move its arm, Right. It moves its eyes there first. That's what it. Yeah. No, that's, that's the thing. I mean, like, this is like human behavior studies that were done, you know, like, and like, it'll stop. But it's saying that like, as the eyes move, it's going to move its arm where it's looking because that's what people do. Right. And these are, these are cues that humans can pick up on.

Dave Jones: Right. So people feel safer around it because it's turning its head to look where it's moving its arm. Right.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. And if.

Dave Jones: Instead of just, instead of just a robot arm with nothing else and the robot arm just goes.

Chris Gammell: Well, how would you do a robot arm then too? Like, how would you actually mount that? I mean, like, like the human interaction piece.

Dave Jones: It just mounts on the bench, right? It just mounts on the bench and then it does whatever operation it needs on the bench. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: But now you're thinking, you're thinking about a very specific situation as well. Right. And.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but.

Chris Gammell: Look, Dave, I mean, like, you don't have to agree with it. Like, that's the thing. Like, I mean, like, it doesn't matter.

Dave Jones: You're saying the only reason this looks like a human is not for functionality, but because to make it more appealing to a human that might have to work next to it.

Chris Gammell: Not appealing, but like just in terms of workflow safety. And, you know, programmability and functionality and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but you can get that without making it look like a human.

Chris Gammell: Right, but if you need to move this thing.

Dave Jones: Why does it have to look like a human? Yeah, but why does it have to have a head with an eye and a face?

Chris Gammell: Why? Why? Explain the eyes already. And that's just a human interaction thing.

Dave Jones: That's what I'm talking about, right? That's the only.

Chris Gammell: So this is.

Dave Jones: That's why they've made this look like a human.

Chris Gammell: I think you're focusing on the wrong thing here, Dave. Focus on the economics of it. That's what's crazy about this. Like, so there's a.

Dave Jones: I understand the economics of robots.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Of course I do. But it's not just robots. I mean, like, so. So this is where it's interesting, right? Because we're talking about. And I can already. I'm now remembering the show where we talked about this. Because you and I were. We got in an argument at the end of the show. Similar to this. Where we started talking about replacing engineers, too. Right? Right. And. And it just becomes. It becomes an interesting thought exercise of. Okay. You know. They're going to. Replace certain menial tasks and stuff like that. But. Mm-hmm. What I wonder about is. You know. Not that. People can't learn to be engineers and doctors and. And things like that. But like. Like, if you look at the population. Like, not all of them. Are going to. You know. I think that there should be more focus on trades and stuff like that. That's obviously very important. But. But even that. You know. Like. There's. There's. There's optimizations there as well. And.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But. What do people do? We live. Look. We live in a Star Wars. Like. Real. World. Right? Everything's dirty. Gritty. Random. You know. Like. These robots are great. If you're setting up a production line. But apart from a production line. It's not like you're going to have one of these robots in your local pub. Serving you beer. Right?

Chris Gammell: No. It wouldn't look like this.

Dave Jones: Because you can't talk to it. It can't move around. It can't. No. You're thinking about that all wrong though.

Chris Gammell: Dave. Why? If you were going to set up a robot in a pub. You wouldn't set it up to look like this. You would set it up to look like a beverage dispenser at a McDonald's. You know. Like. And. And you have it check against how many drinks you have. You know. You insert your. Your ID. It says. Oh. You've had five drinks. And you're cut off. Or you've had one drink. And. Oh. By the way. You love. You know. Like. There's already drink bonds to do this kind of thing.

Dave Jones: But. It doesn't go around and clean up the glasses. It doesn't talk to you. It doesn't smile at you. It doesn't interact with you. It can't. Take your money and change. And like. You know. Dave.

Chris Gammell: Do you ever use a self-checkout at the grocery store? Do you guys have self-checkouts at like. Yeah. I know. At like convenience stores. Yes. We do. Yes. I use it all the time. Do you prefer talking to the people that work the checkout lane. Versus doing it yourself?

Dave Jones: Sometimes the checkout lane is faster. Yeah. I don't. Sometimes the human checkout is faster. They're much better at bagging. At scanning. And much quicker at scanning things and bagging stuff than I am.

Chris Gammell: Right. But. Okay. Would you rather wait in a line for people long? Or go. No. I like. Oh. No. All of this. What I'm saying is like. Okay. It's coming whether we want it or not.

Dave Jones: I go. Which ones. Yeah. I know. It is. But I'm just saying. They're not. As great as you think they are. Right. They're not. They're not as.

Chris Gammell: But that's the other thing. They're going to get better. And the important thing here. is that I am actually encouraging our. Encouraging. Why does that sound weird to me? I'm encouraging our audience to be the ones to build it. Because the people who are building it. I think that's it. I think that's the last job that's left. I mean like. Yeah. Like.

Dave Jones: It's no. This is where you're wrong. Right. You're saying that. There will be no jobs left for anyone in. You know. 50 years time. Because robots will be doing everything. I say. I'm calling bullshit. Right. I didn't say any jobs. The world is too random. The world is too. Dirty. Gritty. Star Wars like. Random. Robots can't handle that shit. Only humans can.

Chris Gammell: Right now. Yeah. I agree.

Dave Jones: Only humans can do it. No.

Chris Gammell: Dude. Come on man.

Dave Jones: No. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You know what my favorite phrases is. I don't want to sound disparaging. But. You know what my favorite phrases is. Think. Think of the American. The average American intelligence. Half of them are dumber than that. Now. Of course. You can insert your own country here. You don't have to say American. But just. Like. Come on man. Like. Yeah. Like. It's. But they're still humans.

Dave Jones: They're still humans. They're infinitely. Infinitely. More versatile. Than a robot. At. At just random. Yeah. No. You're right. You're right. Actually. Unexpected stuff. Right now. Unexpected shit happens.

Chris Gammell: Robots can't deal with it. Right now. The best robot. I think they talk about the best robot is. The same dexterity. And like. And like. Matching capabilities of like a two year old. So. Yeah. You're totally right.

Dave Jones: And. And I think it's not going to. Right now. It's not going to accelerate as quickly as you think it is.

Chris Gammell: Everybody in the audience.

Chris Gammell: Everybody listening right now. Who is working on. You know. Neural networks. And. Yeah. Well.

Dave Jones: Good on them. I. It's great. I. Fantastic. I support it. But I. It's like your bloody chip printer. Right. It's not going to happen.

Chris Gammell: We would love to have someone on. If you know anyone. Who we should be talking to about this. We would love to talk to them. Granted. Most of them.

Dave Jones: I would love to talk to them too. But they're still. They're still not going to be right. That. Oh. In 10 or 20 years time. Nobody will have jobs. Because we're all replaced by robots. It's bullshit.

Chris Gammell: I didn't say that Dave. I'm saying. I didn't say nobody's going to have jobs. I'm saying. It. It. It. Quick. In terms of economics. It. It becomes a problem. Not at. A hundred percent. Don't have jobs. It becomes a problem at a lot lower. Right.

Dave Jones: Oh. Yeah. True. True. Oh. Yeah. No. I. I.

Dave Jones: !

Chris Gammell: I. I.

Chris Gammell: I.

Chris Gammell: I.

Chris Gammell: there's there's other podcasts about this too i'll try and like i think it was on uh on the innovation hub podcast they talked about some of this stuff as well uh it might have been that ben yalfson book the the mit guy and i think it might have been that or whatever but all i can think about is when you replace when you start replacing you know white collar accounting type work right i mean like uh you know doctor uh uh diagnosis type work just even if you just start shaving stuff off from automation and just improving workflows you start to need less people and that's fine that's probably good net net right i mean that's good i can't figure out what happens after that though like what do people do i look around right now i was i was in i was at a casino which i i'm not a huge fan of casinos but there were some friends and i was just looking around at like all these people spending lots of money and i'm just like what do people do for a living

Dave Jones: now i know that like you know people can spend money i often think that too you know i go to the local shopping center during during a work day right i because i've got a job that allows that yeah right and i go this shopping center's packed what do people do people have jobs i know like i'm

Chris Gammell: sure that there's just you know i'm not thinking oh there's well there's government jobs and there's you know there's all these teaching jobs maybe they're off for the summer blah blah blah blah like you know like yeah okay fine you know like even when i'm looking at a crowd uh you know if i go to like a sporting event and there's a hundred thousand people there or if i'm at like yeah you know like in an airport and it's just like what do people do for a living you know i mean yep yep the end of this the end of this podcast guys got very uh hippie-ish like yo man like what do people do yeah i know

Dave Jones: and we can only find the answer under the influence of drugs you know no see the the answer is we are not you know we we have a very limited view of the world we know our little industry and stuff like that but there are countless industries we haven't even haven't even heard of it's just you know it's the big wide dirty complex world that we live in we're just so ignorant of all these things out there that's the answer there is you know there's a thousand a hundred thousand times more different fields than you think there are yeah that all or that you can imagine from your limited experience with the world right okay yeah i totally take that that's the answer

Chris Gammell: totally agree with that but but there is no but that's the end i would like to say one more thing i i am all for robots let me just say that up front and not because i think they're going to come for us and kill us and i should try and get on the good side i'm all for robots because it in it increases you know like quality of life for you know the like in terms of you know product costs drop and you know efficiencies become greater and you know automation helps me every single day when i use google maps and all these other things right i'm all for it it's just that i don't know what i like hell i'm not all for i'm building a robot in contextual electronics you know like this is like right like i think it's important that we you know we all work on this stuff but i just don't get what's on the other side and yeah maybe it's just called the future but i don't think it's

Dave Jones: it looks different i i think you're worried too much because of your ignorance or all of our ignorance

Chris Gammell: maybe of how complex the world is maybe you'll just be retired by the time this matters uh so

Dave Jones: right you just don't care and it's sagan's problem right exactly exactly yeah no and and well but that's the thing right it is definitely it is definitely uh you know a generation or two right problem away right okay it's not going to be a problem in the next 25 years right in 50 years you know i don't

Chris Gammell: have kids but i'm planning to you know like what about for them right i mean like okay yeah fine i i

Dave Jones: just i don't know man it's just yeah i think the answer will sort itself out i think you don't have

Chris Gammell: to worry all right i think you should just yeah thinkers of big thoughts will will look at this and pet man will come and tell me what to do that's that's the oh goodness yeah maybe we should answer

Dave Jones: in the upcoming star wars movie yeah we can i hope so they've got all that we should end on a positive

Chris Gammell: note because i'm not feeling good right now uh that's your problem that's your problem right there

Dave Jones: in a nutshell what what's my problem you don't feel good about it i do right that's

Chris Gammell: yeah but some people would be saying that you're the ignorant one maybe you're not thinking about it enough uh uh let them okay uh i think uh what's the good news dave there must be some good news you're the one telling the story i think okay since it's actually still related to robots uh both dji and 3d robotics now have cameras that basically like sort of like a thousand bucks you can buy effectively a robot and like get some of the most gorgeous i'm really excited for the future of aerial photography obviously it's already gotten like you know a thousand times better but like like now it's kind of like mass market and like anyone can buy one of these and like make these i don't know if you ever watched like that uh like the gopro channel and stuff like that like i don't have the gopro channel but i've caught clips like you just get like some of the craziest views that you never see actually there was on i there was a reddit post of a guy that uh he took he he took his quadcopter and he was going all these different sites all these historical sites all over the world and he took a picture of the taj mahal and it was where you know it was an angle he was like outside the gates but he like took an angle of it and he and and it was the post that that got me about it it was like he's like this this view has literally never been done because no one's allowed to do aerial photography around it you know he obviously snuck in there yeah it's just like holy crap like now expand that to the rest of the world and it's like you don't have to be on a cliff edge anymore to get a shot of something you know you can just throw your quad in the air and get the amazing shots it's

Dave Jones: just like that that is very exciting to me so oh yeah totally i'm so i'm so into that sort of thing

Chris Gammell: did you ever you were looking at one or did you get one or no no i was well we were trying to design

Dave Jones: our own to go through a canyon we were trying to design a canyon copter yep yeah yep and now it's like yeah you can probably buy something commercial off the shelf that's got to do the business so

Chris Gammell: right but do you really care if like i mean like you would do that right you just put some floaties on it and be like dude awesome shot yeah yeah yeah yep yeah yep totally yeah because it's too much

Dave Jones: work to develop your own from scratch you know it's like yeah you really have to devote a lot of time

Chris Gammell: and effort to it yeah so yep robots but that's positive robots right oh goodness oh man go and lie down i think i will i think it might be it might be beer o'clock around around cleveland so i need to go i need to go get my robot dispensed beer this is not the last show that we'll talk about robots folks i'm sure this is going to come up again

Dave Jones: so in the meantime i actually don't know how we got onto robot rants where did that come from in this

Chris Gammell: uh it was uh glass glass at bell labs i don't remember why that came up all right listen to the tape but uh such a random show i'm gonna go work on my robot so i'll uh next week i'll be uh in serbia uh we'll see if we have a show i'm not sure yeah we may not yep yeah okay see you all right

Dave Jones: later

Chris Gammell: that's like three weeks i've had this shit yeah you need to get like a uh salt water you ever seen those uh neti pots you should get one of those things no wait oh wait i gotta see if i can get you the neti pot uh jif this is a hilarious jif this is it here we go uh link sent oh someone added to do it

Dave Jones: oh jif they added obviously they added the glasses afterwards but like this is just like this this video you know they did it for

Speaker ?: you know to show how to use it

Chris Gammell: it's just so like nonchalant too it's just like water in one side water out the other that's funny so yeah you should do that ! you

Dave Jones: you

Chris Gammell: you