#262 – Jobs For Weirdos

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Recorded August 12th, 2015. Episode 262. Jobs for Weirdos.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog. And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics. I think I need to change my career because it's getting boring. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog. I need to say something else.

Chris Gammell: That's so five years ago.

Dave Jones: Yeah, right.

Chris Gammell: What do you want to do next, Dave? What's your next career move?

Dave Jones: Oh, just get into marketing like you.

Chris Gammell: Oh, low blow, man. Low blow. Yeah. Low blow. I maintain I've still made more boards than you have in the past. I've made more boards than you have in the past six months than you have probably in the past two years. Yep. How do you like them apples?

Dave Jones: But I haven't sold my soul to the marketing man. Maybe.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Maybe I like this stuff. I like my gig. Thank you very much. I know. We were talking about this last night. It's, you know, it's, yeah, I'm in a different role now. It's a little, you know, I have a split role, but it's, it's a little different. It's a little different. And it's, it's definitely challenging. I definitely don't know what I'm doing a lot of the time. So it's.

Dave Jones: And I did get to say, I told you so.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. You definitely, yeah. You, you took a lot of, you always take a lot of joy in that. So.

Dave Jones: I do. What?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's those little joys in life that. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, hey, man, I, I am very blessed in what I've, I've had going on for me. So I get to travel and I get to meet new people and maybe someday I'll get to meet your dumb ass in Australia.

Dave Jones: Well, it is a very good job for travel. It's, you know, those, for, for those youngsters out there, and I get a lot of people asking, oh, what sort of job should I get? I would say if you're young, go after one, even if it's not that ideal a job, go after one that has travel. Get somebody else to pay for you seeing the world. I don't know. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, like I do agree with, like the travel part's cool and I definitely agree that that's better before you have a family. Like, like you've said, you know, like the travel. Oh yeah. No, totally. Once you have a family, it's not, it's just crap. I mean, that's true for everyone. I think it's, it becomes much tougher. But I, I, I don't think I agree with that actually. I, I, I benefited greatly from having, having really strong mentors like at Keithley. Like, man, like.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I will add a caveat to that if I may.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: In that don't take a shit job just because it's travel. I mean, you know, but if you, if you saw a torn between, oh, should I take this one or take that? Take the one that has potential for more travel. Okay. Yeah. If you're into that sort of thing, some people don't care, but you know, like I, yeah. Like some people ask, do I regret anything in my career? Well, one is like staying at the same company for too long. That's one of the things. Yeah. That's usually coming. And two is probably not, you know, taking ones that had travel roles and get, got to see more of the world on somebody else's dime, you know? Yeah. Okay. Maybe. But that's not always the case too. It's not, it's not a big regret. It's just something that I look back and go, oh yeah, that, that would have been nice. You know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. But Aussies travel all the time anyways. Right. So you guys. Oh, well. Yeah. Supposed. Rats of the world, man. Rats of the world. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's it. Rats abandoned into sinking ship at the moment with Tony Abbott. Jesus.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. We won't get into that. Nah.

Dave Jones: I don't know.

Chris Gammell: I think, I think the, you know, like, yeah, I think it is a balance, of course. Right. The Star Wars is a balance. Right. Of course. I don't know. Like, I think that the key things for me are like, like if you can find, especially if you can find a manufacturing, something close to manufacturing, like I think like a best case scenario job would be like a place where you have to travel. And at least in the States, it's very common that you, if you were going to be with manufacturing in any way, you're going to have to travel overseas to get to manufacturing facilities because. Of course. They've all left. But then when you come back home, you have people that you can learn from. You can, you know, like there's a culture enough that you can go and ask questions from people. Right. Like that, that part is really important. I think. I think that that.

Dave Jones: Totally. I don't disagree. Like, yeah, no, don't take like a traveling salesman job. Right. Exactly. Where your whole career, you know, but something maybe in manufacturing that, you know, yeah, like odds are you're going to have to go, you know, to the manufacturer a couple of times a year or something like that.

Chris Gammell: Or a vendor visit or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Training, onsite training kind of stuff. Like all that stuff.

Dave Jones: Something like that, you know, like if you're like a, you know, if you're a field applications engineer here in Australia, for example, you'll go to the US and Asian countries all the time for all these, you know, manufacturer support training seminars and things like that. Right.

Chris Gammell: I don't know many new engineers that are FAs though. I mean, have you ever met a young, a super young FA, like out of college?

Dave Jones: Oh, geez. Good point. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: I don't think I think they just don't hire because they want you to be like, when I think about progression of like the engineers I've known, it's usually been like, okay, engineer gets out of school, goes and really hits it hard. Like design job, you know, they're a junior engineer. They're doing the grunt work, but like learning from someone. Then they're moving up into like a senior role. Even a senior role is like usually five years in an engineering company. And then like 10 years in, they're like an expert. And then they get hired away because FAEs get this, you know, they want like the, you know, like maybe there'll be like a manufacturer FAE. So like they'll go work for a TI or a Maxim or something like that. And they'll be traveling around the area because they know everyone anyways, or they know some people in the area and they know the technology real well. And then usually then from there, I've seen them move more into the sales side because they want to move up in the, the, uh, financial food chain. Yeah, exactly. They want to make more from each sale type of thing. And then eventually management and stuff like that. That's at least what I've seen. I mean, like, I don't think that's bad. I think a lot of that, that that's a natural tendency. I think keeping a foot in the, in the technical after 15, 20 years is the hard part, honestly, wanting to, and then seeing your peers kind of going on and making more money in these other roles or being your boss. And it's like, Oh, you know, a lot of people, they, they, they're like, well, I, I don't want to be an underling forever. So then they make that switch too. Right.

Dave Jones: Yep. And I mean, like you see, you know, like, yeah, you can just be like totally unsuitable for management. Like I am, you know, like everyone knows, you know, yeah, Dave is not management material,

Chris Gammell: you know, like you're, I mean, you're a business owner. So I mean, there's, there's that stuff. And you've even said you've been interested in the more of the business side lately. And that's been, you know, that's been a new challenge for you.

Dave Jones: I'm not interested in it. It's a thing I have to do because I have to do it.

Chris Gammell: Interested in making money via it. Right. I mean, like that's interesting. Oh yeah. No, no. Right.

Dave Jones: Of course. Yes. Yes. Because I need other, you know, avenues, but it's not, you know, I don't know.

Chris Gammell: I'd say you've been interested in this stuff though. Right. I mean, like, you're not like, you're not like, Oh, I hate this. You're like, Oh, well, it's something, it's a challenge. I have to do it.

Dave Jones: But like, yeah, but I'm not, you know, I don't think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's, but it's something that I have to do for the family, for the future. You know, it's like.

Chris Gammell: You haven't been going back for the NBA yet. Right. Oh man. The day Dave goes back for an NBA folks. Yeah. It's all over. You know. Shut down the podcast. Yep. Yep. Oh, it's all over. Shoot me now. So yeah. Yeah. Travel. Travel's good. I guess.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Travel's good. Meeting people. Should have got more of it.

Chris Gammell: I think if there was one thing that I would tell a young engineer, it would be, the hard part is getting to know people, you know, especially outside your own company. Right. Like getting to know people in your company is good and you start to, you know, you get to know people outside.

Dave Jones: Well, there's this thing called the internet nowadays, you know. Yeah. But that's different too.

Chris Gammell: I mean.

Chris Gammell: I know. True. True. True. Like I know a lot of people via the internet, but like, you know, I only get to see them maybe once a year or like some, some of them I've never met.

Dave Jones: You social butterfly, you. Right. Right. Exactly. Me? I know 10 million people on the internet, never met them.

Chris Gammell: Right. Exactly. And it's like, but, but when I think about like the actual, like job prospects, the practical feet on the ground kind of thing, like. Right. You know, like I got jobs because I got my, my next jobs because I knew people. Right. So like. Exactly. My, my job when I moved back up here was because of a former co-op friend and my next job from there was because, uh, I have an FAE that, that told me about a position that opened up kind of thing. And like, like, like things like that, that's what you have to do. If I was going to keep hopping around, it would be through FAEs, through people I've met before through sending emails of like, Hey, what's going on? You know, like the catch up email or the let's grab a beer email like that, that kind of stuff. That's where the mobility happens. So if people are looking for jobs, that's, that's what you gotta do.

Dave Jones: Can I flip that around and say an alternative way of doing that? Sure. Not you knowing people, but people knowing you. Very true. Yes. Right. If I, if I had to get a job tomorrow. Right. Yes. Dead easy because people know me. It's not who I know. I wouldn't go off to people and say, Hey, have you got a job? They would come to me. All I'd have to do is announce, Hey, you know, I'm available.

Chris Gammell: And that's totally realistic, but I think it's totally less common. Right. I mean. Oh yeah.

Dave Jones: No. Yes, definitely. The leg, the leg work between. The thing I'm getting that is there is make yourself public, make your projects published, have a public profile so that people get to know you, not just, Oh, you're, you're that, you know, kid who hangs around everyone else and tries to get to know them. Right. I see. I see.

Chris Gammell: Right. That's what I, that's what I'm going with. I think that's, that's, that's right. Yeah. I think that, um, I mean, it's going to be both. Right. I mean like it, like, and it's going to change based on the jobs you want to get too. Right. If you want to get another job in the area, you get to know people in the area and they might, they might not be on the internet. Right. It might be the FAE. That's right. Yeah. That hardly checks his email, but you know, is on the phone all the time. if you want to get a consulting gig across the country or across the world then yeah you know get people to know you and you can ship your work wherever you can travel wherever

Dave Jones: that just happened the other day actually oh yeah my mate Doug everyone knows him right he well actually a customer of his emailed me through Doug said email Dave he might know and they're looking for like a PIC firmware person right and they wanted to know like they were desperate they couldn't find anyone local right they couldn't find anyone at all anyone at all they were so desperate to find somebody who could you know because their PIC programmer left or whatever and they've got nobody right and so they've got this firmware that they need to you know update and maintain

Chris Gammell: when you say their PIC programmer left I imagine like a pickaxe walking out the door oh that's artificial intelligence is really moving up yeah yeah it's weird it's a weird day too much coffee today

Dave Jones: oh goodness and yeah so he came to me and I went all right I'll ask around so I asked somebody that I knew like local because you know we had met before and and yeah and he said yep I'll do it you know and then boom I put them two together and bam you know

Chris Gammell: yeah

Dave Jones: well off they go

Chris Gammell: I don't know I mean I don't know in your hiring stuff I guess you've seen this a little bit so far but like when you get to that point where it's like oh well we need this person with these skills like the you know it goes from 7 billion people in the world to like you know usually like 20 maybe right and then like 15 of them don't don't even call you back because they're not interested and you know of the five you know maybe maybe you know one or two of them but you know the other three are lurking there somewhere and you just can't find them you know like they're just not out there they're not they're not on your radar so it's

Dave Jones: well see that's the thing like every like I think all 80 people who applied for my job right for my you know intern job here like I've kept their resumes because you know I might need somebody else for something right so you know the first port of call I'm going to go back to if I need someone for something else I'm going to go back to those resumes right is anyone suitable you know and then I'll contact them

Chris Gammell: yeah

Dave Jones: you know it's yep

Chris Gammell: ah the dreaded don't call us we'll call you call you right

Dave Jones: yeah

Chris Gammell: that's not what it is we'll keep your resume on file that's what they say right yeah

Dave Jones: I actually had so many people email like who actually applied for the for the job I was I had and uh who sent in a register like I personally replied to each one of those you know um things and you know thank you blah blah you know and everything so I personally replied to each one of them and um and I was surprised by the number of people who emailed me back and said thank you thank you for rejecting me at least you told me you know and you told me why like and they say yeah that's so rare nobody ever gets back to me

Chris Gammell: right because usually it's going into like the you know the IBM mainframe you know Selectrix 9000 and you're like oh well I spelled I spelled this word slightly I had a U in color and therefore when I was talking about a color LTFT and because of that you know the keyword match is now not 95% it's 92% and you don't meet our cutoff and you you had a 3.41 average GPA in school and we require a 3.43 average because that statistically is it's like screw you guys you stupid lazy pieces of shit like sorry that was a little harsh but I just yeah exactly

Dave Jones: well everything

Chris Gammell: because it's a lot of work

Dave Jones: like I it is it was a lot of work to reply to all of those 80 emails personally

Chris Gammell: and that's the reason they don't do it but like but also it's just like so I had this argument with Jeff when I went back to the Engineering Commons the podcast I helped start and when I was back on there me and Jeff the guy I co-founded with we kind of we started talking about this kind of stuff about like well I was talking about education and you know like oh well you know like you said right people should know you you should have projects online and he actually had a really good point and it's like when you're Intel and you're hiring a thousand people like you just can't do that you know like you have to use some kind of other metric you have to use some kind of filtering and like I do have you know I have empathy for that a little bit but I don't know like at a certain point like what do you really like it's going to be garbage in garbage out kind of thing right it's like of course if you don't actually look at resumes I don't but

Dave Jones: they don't because it's an average job requiring an average person and everything works on averages and they hire so many people that you know they know that on average X percent are going to be shit but it doesn't matter right right well and I

Chris Gammell: I can't argue with it too much because honestly I got hired in a class of 200 when I got out of school right and it's like I know I know that I was in the same

Dave Jones: I guess you felt so special

Chris Gammell: no I didn't know no I can no I mean I was hired with really smart people they were all very capable but it was like we were learning fab stuff so it was like they didn't give a they didn't give a crap I mean they're like are these people capable enough and like that was the only reason I had a job after school and I get it it's fine like but so I have to I have to be okay with it but at the same time then I think about you know when I really think about it when I think about so we were talking earlier in the show about about you know best case scenarios of jobs and stuff like that too I think the best jobs too personally I think the best jobs are also the the small to medium sized companies anyways and so you know people are always looking for these big brand name companies that they're like applying to like oh I applied at Apple and I applied at Intel and it's like right

Dave Jones: yeah

Chris Gammell: okay well what about what about the the key fleas of the world or the you know obviously that's my only example here but all the jobs down the road who has an engineering team of 10 you know yeah the EEV blog the contextual electronics of the world right and it's like that's where you're really going to learn because you're going to have to do everything anyways and you're going to actually have a human being look at your resume like that that's that's the best case scenario

Dave Jones: that yeah that's totally different you know when you're like maybe if you're in a company I don't know I'll throw a number out there maybe a hundred people you know like yeah a company like that might have an R&D you know an electronics team of you know 10 or something

Chris Gammell: yeah exactly right couple of tax couple of senior engineers perfect yeah

Dave Jones: exactly so a real person is going to read your resume right generally like a real technical person is going to read your resume they probably haven't got a big enough company to have a HR team right so you know maybe 50 people you know you probably wouldn't even bother with like a HR person right so you know yeah

Chris Gammell: I have a story about this actually from go for it so I was when I was when I was still at Keithley and obviously they got bought by tech and I was helping recruit up at MIT I met this guy and he walked up to me this is a this is a promo for people that are going to job fairs well I guess it's it would be not for a couple months yet but going to job fairs and doing weird things talking to employers I had a guy walk up to me and he handed me a picture of his bench and I've never awesome I have never so instantly fallen in love with a candidate yep I I was like I don't even need to see your resume totally I don't care and then he handed me some PCBs he's worked on and I'm like uh okay uh and then so this is at MIT right super smart right I mean they're all smart anyways but then on the opposite end of the spectrum uh my story is

Dave Jones: yeah no they're they might all be smart but they're not all passionate right

Chris Gammell: well that's exactly right so the other end of the spectrum obviously I was there with Tektronix and the other end of the spectrum a kid walks up to me and he's like uh so what do these do and I'm like uh yeah it's an oscilloscope

Dave Jones: yeah like

Chris Gammell: I'm like looking at his resume he's like yeah I've been I took all the the EE courses and I'm like I don't care

Dave Jones: man yeah that's yeah like yeah

Chris Gammell: I hope I didn't sign like an NDA about not talking about this stuff I don't think I did but I who cares oh come on this is just yeah this is anyways uh but so then I was back in Boston a couple weeks ago at the Hackaday meetup thingy at Artisans Asylum which is one of the the hack uh the hacker spaces there and and it's the same guy it's the guy it's the same guy and I and I walk up to him because we had brought him in we had interviewed him everything like that

Dave Jones: this guy by the way we tried to

Chris Gammell: we tried to so hard we tried like I we gave him a great offer everything like that he's like oh no I'm going somewhere else

Dave Jones: oh okay

Chris Gammell: and I see him at this event and I'm like I'm like hey I'm like punch him on the shoulder like what the hell man what are you doing here because he said he was going out like northwest and I'm like uh so yeah what do you he's like oh yeah I've been working on PhD for a couple months a couple years now right okay and uh actually if you saw on Twitter I don't know if you saw uh uh there was a posting I did I'll I'll link it in but um uh it was a ticker tape thing like it it was a what's it called paper code you know oh yes I saw that yeah

Dave Jones: did it did it have the amp hour on it or something

Chris Gammell: yeah it had the amp hour rocks and then that was actually in binary and stuff like that yeah right it was him and it was oh okay it's a great project he still had all this cool stuff so uh nice yeah

Dave Jones: so how do do we have any advice for the youngsters out there how to stand out at these career

Chris Gammell: oh man the events like

Dave Jones: we don't have these here like this is like a this is not a thing that's done here that I'm aware of anyway maybe in some incredibly small form form yeah like maybe there is but then when I was a boy there was never anything like that right

Chris Gammell: yeah uh

Dave Jones: I have zero experience with job fairs

Chris Gammell: like so I've done a couple where I was you know standing there all day hmm I have I have uh things to not do I know that the first thing you don't do is you walk up and you say so what do you guys do

Dave Jones: so what yeah do not do that that was gonna be my first tip do not do that

Chris Gammell: even if like like everyone has a smartphone now just look up the company before you walk up to them

Dave Jones: before you go to the booth oh I love your

Chris Gammell: I love your your sprockets that you work on I just I was just looking at them the other day

Dave Jones: research them yeah it's called lying right of course no it's just it's just called doing your research

Chris Gammell: right

Dave Jones: and you know even before the internet you would do this you know you would find out info about the company

Chris Gammell: right right but now you can procrastinate and do the research on site that's what I mean

Dave Jones: now yeah it's easy you can stand in front of the booth and then walk up right two seconds later and know enough to bullshit your way

Chris Gammell: exactly bullshitting is a into the coming through the first person tradition folks that's it listen to Dave he knows this and I've learned from him I am a disciple young pedo and learner yes that's right dearity yeah

Dave Jones: yeah so that's

Chris Gammell: walking up with a PCB right I mean you've always talked about that absolutely

Dave Jones: take your stuff along I mean of course it's the same as a job interview really isn't it I mean it really is it's a first impression come along with the photo of your bench wear a t-shirt that has it this is my bench like and they just walk up

Chris Gammell: that would be amazing right dress up like a bench I mean I don't know like like so I think about like so if someone rolled up like you know my old portal lab thing the thing I was working on like if someone rolled up with a portal lab like how would I be able to

Dave Jones: you would like all the because they're usually tech people are they like I need to like like people who man these job fair booths like from technical companies are they usually technical people or are they HR droids

Chris Gammell: it depends like usually the so like that's the thing like usually the bigger size companies will send you know a lot of HR type folks right and then but like then as you get smaller and smaller

Dave Jones: but you can spot them a mile away you can spot like you can spot the engineers versus the HR droids approach the engineers right

Chris Gammell: look for like the nerdiest people you'll always be fine

Dave Jones: disheveled people yeah oh yeah

Chris Gammell: those are the ones you want to talk to anyways right and like yeah that's right and you know that one of the frustrating things that a lot of people say like that I always got frustrated with too was like so I used to go to these job fairs I mean this is what almost 10 years now right so I was looking as a punter yeah right being like a punter is like a job seeker yeah yeah job seeker yeah and you know so I would I would walk up and what they do is like so everybody you know they prep you before and they're like oh well wear a suit and oh well have multiple copies of your resume you need to be on your best behavior and all that and like and like and then you walk up to them and they're like they take your resume and they're like do you have any questions and you're like you can ask them questions and they're they're sitting there in like jeans and a t-shirt and you're in a full suit they take your resume you're like so what's going on with my resume here like oh yeah you have to go apply online like that's that's the common thing these days and it's like oh really so it's just it's really just like a promo thing

Dave Jones: right so

Chris Gammell: so it's just

Dave Jones: yeah so it's just advertising their company so that you go check them out later that's lame

Chris Gammell: however no but but some companies do send legit engineers that would be hiring people and that's the thing so if you walk up and you don't hand them a resume you hand them a board you've worked on or you just have it with you and like hey can I show you this thing because I've been showing everyone here that kind of thing like that is totally legit like you will be remembered you won't be remembered with just a resume you will be remembered with a picture of your bench or a board you've bought

Dave Jones: remember faces like you know it's like you know me meeting people at the trade show booth right you know I'd be standing you know and lots of fans would be coming up right you know shaking my hand and how you doing you know just brief conversations and you know there's I you know I'm sorry but you know I probably wouldn't remember your face if I met you last time but you know like I had we'll talk about the Maker Faire coming up this weekend right I had a guy contact me like I hit him at the Maker Faire right it was actually in one of my videos right he had this you know LED belt buckle right that he designed you know I had like a micro controller with a belt buckle and everything right and you know he emailed me like a month ago or something and this was like two years ago I met him and he went you probably don't remember me but I met you at Maker Faire and I went yeah I do you're the guy with the LED belt buckle or if you just

Chris Gammell: lead with that right it's like hey you may not remember me but I was the guy with the LED belt buckle like these are like mental hooks that it's like

Dave Jones: that's what they did it's like I recognized a guy

Chris Gammell: in a city that I thought he was no longer living in you know like because of this picture of his bench right I mean it's the same thing these mental because as nerds we are not primed to remember people we are primed to remember sweet awesome tech right that's right yeah you're totally right yeah I mean that's what you do and you hook them with that and then that's how you get to know people right I mean like people remember you Dave because of your craziness and your Aussie accent right

Dave Jones: exactly they remember me

Chris Gammell: because why do people live in Cleveland I don't get it so yes

Dave Jones: do that people stand out be memorable

Chris Gammell: yeah I mean that's the same thing but with you know and then if you hand someone a resume and it says I documented this whole build on you know my blog or on the Hackaday project site or somewhere else then you know like that then they'll go and actually look at that you know it's just about

Dave Jones: even even if you hadn't even if you had an attitude and said I didn't bring my resume this boards my resume exactly I would go that's memorable right that's memorable to me

Chris Gammell: right right

Dave Jones: right

Chris Gammell: I mean like if you want to work at like you know like I think well first of the other thing I wanted to say too like so as someone who stood there before I've like eight hours a day for two or three days straight but the bigger ones I went to like Michigan University yeah you you get so bored like and like you hear the same same crap well it's like everyone's like so people that haven't done internships or haven't done anything else outside like yeah well I've you know in this in this in this class we did this stoplight project and it was a state machine and I could tell you all about it and I'm like no I've already heard about it and I don't want to like discourage the person but like I want to have someone that you know like that has interest and passion outside of right you know EE 101 you know like type of stuff like like people that it's fine you know I got started in college too but like just even anything like then I went and did a co-op and you know like then I was able to talk about stuff on co-op and stuff like that I'm not sure how I got the first job but like just having anything else other than and we all did this exact same project and let me tell you about the challenges that I you know met was met because you're getting so

Dave Jones: many people from is it just people from that university or do people come from other universities to

Chris Gammell: yeah yeah yeah so like so like I would go recruit it so far I've been to recruit at like Toledo which is south of here or sorry not south of here northwest of here Case which is where I went to school Michigan and then MIT and

Dave Jones: jeez you've been around

Chris Gammell: yeah well that's the travel stuff right that's actually a good way to travel is to do the the recruiting stuff you know because you're young and hip and I was hip Dave and my no you were hip nerdsters yeah and it's

Dave Jones: also about finding a company that likes you for you like a culture fit as well like like like like you know like I said if you rock up to a booth with attitude this board is my resume you know I don't need no stinking resume and they like you right then you know that's probably a good company fit for you right it's like the next step

Chris Gammell: there though is if they say yeah yeah you're cool and then you say am I going to be working with you right if you want to be like if you want to just get pawned off the next person who doesn't give a crap right so

Dave Jones: exactly

Chris Gammell: yeah

Dave Jones: and yeah I mean that totally no one will tell you to do that you know you'll only get that advice here on the amp hour right because it will rule out a lot of options for you right if you go in with attitude and stuff like and you don't conform that might rule out a ton of options for you but so what you know like getting the job you want that's probably a good way to get it

Chris Gammell: or

Dave Jones: a good way for it to find you I

Chris Gammell: think the only way there's the traditional path right which is going through the computer system and you know having the perfect resume and then being matched up against a bunch of people that I don't want to discount them but I also don't want to compete with them but I'd rather you know but then when you go through the less traveled route type of thing and you meet people somewhere else and you hear about jobs that don't exist yet this isn't a thing yet but if you're a good fit it'll be a thing for you and that's common that's

Dave Jones: a lot of companies I've worked at even big ones they will have an open higher policy like if a good person comes along they'll invent or find a role for you

Chris Gammell: you don't go work at Google X from like oh well I went to a job fair and I got all the way through it's like you have to have something else there it's not like how many people have 4.0s from MIT and even still how many of them actually could go into a weird culture like that and still be a good fit I don't think that's the common thing it's the Jeremy Blums it's the Ben Krasnos it's the those are the only two

Speaker ?: !

Chris Gammell: weirdos and I like them so we do like weirdos because we're pretty weird we found each other Dave and also if

Dave Jones: you're looking for jobs don't just go to job fairs go to the trade shows of course go to trade shows as well and if you like a company go to the trade show booth once again try and find a real engineer right you can smell them usually I don't want to stereotype that's a bit

Chris Gammell: of a stereotype hygiene is not an indicator of awesomeness but

Dave Jones: you can just tell you can definitely tell the salesman they're just too slick looking usually we don't want to say

Chris Gammell: you should be super judgy physically or from looks but come on within five minutes if you're like oh yeah you know and then I built this PCB and you know it had some you know a couple current shorts and if they're just nodding if they're not asking you another question of like oh well how'd you find it you know they're just nodding and then you say well have you ever had

Dave Jones: that problem and what you do is usually it's a perimeter thing right around the trade show booth right the bigger it gets the bigger the perimeter is it's usually staffed by the slick salesman out there you know ready to target people as they walk past you know drawing you in and the engineers are like hiding in the back because they're usually not that forward and social so you want to dart through the front line defences and get into the bowels of the trade show stand you know

Chris Gammell: and then

Dave Jones: yeah get talking to it and then just go hey you know look I've got all this stuff you know I think your company is pretty cool is there anything going you know

Chris Gammell: yeah

Dave Jones: and then do this you know and then they might go look I don't know but I'll ask around you know and if they like you you know give me your business card they'll probably because they're engineers you know they'll probably email you back and say you know I checked but you know there's nothing at the moment but hey you know right if there is the best

Chris Gammell: engineers would be like hey but my buddy's looking and I don't give a crap yeah yeah exactly corporate years that I'm telling you about that kind of thing yeah right yep yeah that's the best way to do it

Dave Jones: ah finding a job

Chris Gammell: yeah we don't have to do that anymore no

Dave Jones: not at all yeah I love it

Chris Gammell: it's tough but I mean like but like you said I mean like being I think you know both going out there going to meetups meeting people like that like that's good you gotta be a little proactive on that side of things but also just documenting the project stuff that our audience is already doing because we know we've seen their stuff right I mean like that kind of thing is what will get you to that next level I think you know like that's that's the stuff where and even if it doesn't right even if you're not looking for that or if it doesn't like you know having your stuff out there there's just all these benefits these these like these snags that might have these helpful snags that might happen as you crawl through the underbrush of life and that's a good

Dave Jones: way to do it actually get known by putting your stuff out there if you're not a people person you know if you're just if you just can't talk to people there's a lot of nerds like that once again stereotype well I think

Chris Gammell: people listening to you might say oh I'm not going to do video right but you don't have to do video right I mean like it could be a github repo it could be you know it could be a blog where you're just documenting projects kind of things like that stuff needs to be out there Dave and I are hungry to look at this stuff so yeah

Dave Jones: like me personally I am not a proactive social person I'm a hermit who lives in a lab alone you know I am too

Chris Gammell: but sometimes I play a proactive social person when I travel

Dave Jones: right

Chris Gammell: yeah

Dave Jones: and it's like yeah so if I'm in a room you know I'm just gonna hey how you doing who are you I'm Dave Jones you know like oh you know yeah that's just not my world no go away

Chris Gammell: that's my impression of Dave yeah

Dave Jones: but if you come up to me and start talking hey you know an hour later we're still yapping right

Chris Gammell: I've been to probably 50 to 100 nerd meetups in the past couple years now yeah

Dave Jones: that's crazy I've been to none no no no

Chris Gammell: and I'm always uncomfortable everyone's always uncomfortable but yeah exactly the thing that will bring people out of their shells and the best way to bring yourself out of the shell is just be like like you look at a project and you're like well what is this thing you know like the honestly like that that is like the nerd speed dating question you know what I mean like that's that's the one that actually gets people talking about oh well let me tell you about this FPGA you know like this is this is really this is a tough tough FR IR filter that I was working on it's like oh okay I'd love to hear more about this like and it's always genuine because it's like and when we have a nerd lock folks I mean like

Dave Jones: this is this is how the early culture you know you're talking you know you talk about you hear about the homebrew computer club right you know and how they used to have their early meetups and that's how the whole computer industry practically formed right the modern computer industry from the homebrew computer club that's a bit of an exaggeration but you know it's it's not far from it actually

Chris Gammell: the culture is the same right yeah yeah right and exactly

Dave Jones: and they would have these huge meetups right in the in the conference hall at the uni right but but I'd had somebody run it right you get to talk about your project and they'd call you out right and then you get to talk about your project and then afterwards people who liked your project could then come up and ask you questions and that's how they broke you know the nerd thing you know it's not like oh they come in and there's cocktails and you just mingle right mingling is like people nerds don't mingle yeah right yeah nerds don't mingle right unless there's a catalyst there which is hardware or projects or something to you know get people to approach you or you can approach people with or you know so if you can like stand up for two seconds I developed this isn't it cool and then you know if you like it come and talk to me kind of thing and you'll get

Chris Gammell: if you feel social anxiety too I think that bringing a project is the best way to get over it I mean personally I mean I feel all the time at meetups and stuff like that but like when I even just having like obviously it wasn't my project but even just having Google Glass right of like people like asking you about it it's like there's you're just having like conversation starters like that you know and even better when it's like you know you got something that blinks and you're wearing it or whatever you know you're just carrying your projects around kind of thing people it's gonna attract the people that you want to be talking to so totally totally yeah speaking of documenting projects we should tell people four days left probably three by the time I post this Hackaday Prize is coming up so

Dave Jones: Hackaday Prize yes I'm judging it again and I'll probably cop some more flack this year yes yay how dare I be social and share my thoughts of how I judged I'll definitely do it again it was so much fun last time

Chris Gammell: yeah so and there's a buttload of money on the line stuff like that so is there another

Dave Jones: trip to space

Chris Gammell: yes same prize as last year same prize trip to space or 190 something thousand dollars

Dave Jones: thousand bucks they took the money last time I never really followed up on that but they did take the money didn't they because they did yeah I definitely knew they took the money because they're a group so they couldn't send one person to space and then they

Chris Gammell: started a non-profit actually it was the Satnogs guys

Dave Jones: oh right yeah yep the Satnogs oh okay they started a non-profit

Chris Gammell: yeah that way and that basically I think that ended up saving them some money as well tax yeah because yeah it was a really good idea and then basically now there's going to be a foundation around that and sweet you know helping with space stuff right

Dave Jones: there should be a follow up with them here's last year's winner here's what they've achieved

Chris Gammell: they've done some stuff I haven't seen it lately but I know there's been some stuff with Satnogs lately so probably on Hackaday I'm guessing I don't keep that closer track on it even though

Dave Jones: you worked for them yeah because you were sort of involved with it last time weren't you I was definitely

Chris Gammell: on stage when the winners were announced I was there for that yes I saw

Dave Jones: you there so was I on Big Scream

Chris Gammell: wasn't I yeah your face was big looming over you yeah yeah so yeah no that was a really cool project and all of them were I mean like honestly though so if people haven't done it though I think even still like the the requirements are like you know you need to have like some documentation yeah like

Dave Jones: four days is probably too late

Chris Gammell: no you can totally do it still no seriously you can so you need to have like project logs but like if you started right now as soon as you heard this you could go create a system diagram and then you need to have like four updates and a YouTube video about your project concept and it's possible yeah and then the next time through then you have to have like an update video kind of thing so if you were at the point where you created a schematic and a system diagram and you did some updates with it I think it's totally doable so even if

Dave Jones: the schematics wrong you can always update it in the second step

Chris Gammell: you know exactly

Dave Jones: yeah it doesn't actually have to be

Chris Gammell: 3d model type stuff I think all that stuff's good I mean people have to check the rules but it's yeah I think it's totally doable and yeah so get on it folks procrastination time's over there's a buttload of money on the line so yeah

Dave Jones: that needs a lot of money that needs a lot

Chris Gammell: of money yep so yeah that's fun and I think that'll be in November have we given up no no no I was trying to think of the date when it's all over I think it's all announced in mid-November so

Dave Jones: okay

Chris Gammell: yeah cool that'll be good what else oh speaking of big events so I was emailing with Mike Osman who's been on the show a bunch before and I tried to get him on this week but he's actually off to the ccc camp or cc camp rather cc camp yep yeah so chaos communications

Dave Jones: it's the chaos communications camp right

Chris Gammell: so there's the congress which is at the end of the year right around new years the camp is in august and I'm not sure and this is

Dave Jones: germany

Chris Gammell: yeah yeah so it's in Germany but if you look at the badge Mike Mike sent me an email about this stuff and he's like yeah so basically it runs hackrf firmware on the badge on the conference badge which is like cool super crazy so I think it was him and Jared Jared's the guy who does the shield or not the shield but like the thing that plugs into the hackrf the I forget the name of it but I know Jared's part of hackrf stuff too so but yeah very cool looking badge I don't really usually care about conference badges and stuff like that because I don't go to that many conferences but this one is very neat I wanted

Dave Jones: to design one for the Maker Fair coming up this weekend but they said yeah it's not a bad idea last year and then I emailed them this year and they really didn't reply so they

Chris Gammell: obviously

Dave Jones: weren't interested

Chris Gammell: there's like a huge culture around it so I saw I was looking at the so DEF CON just happened too and there was one for that and then I also looked at I saw that the one coming up for the Open Hardware Summit which is in September is done by that's being done by Parallax so Parallax is doing that one too and like so all these things like they're all like you know they're all hackable now and they're crazy like you know they've all got like Easter eggs on them

Dave Jones: and they've all got an LCD display and all that sort of well yeah that one

Chris Gammell: from not last year I think two years ago but like that was the Open Hardware Summit one by Anuel in the Wyoming Labs or something like that but yeah I mean like it's just it's like an interesting culture I always wonder like it's like I want to just be at the conference I don't want to go hack a badge but yeah I guess some people are really into that kind of thing so it's a cool culture for sure

Dave Jones: love to get there one day but yeah it's Germany it's about as far away as you can get from Australia

Chris Gammell: right before you start coming back yeah exactly yeah

Dave Jones: speaking of all this sort of stuff Maker Faire Sydney Maker Fair is on this weekend it just like completely snuck up and I will be there for the full two days nice no booth

Chris Gammell: though right

Dave Jones: no booth no no but I will be there roaming around I'm pretty easy to spot although I'm hard to find well it's hard to find anyone in the Powerhouse Museum it's a bit of a labyrinth but that's what makes it so cool but yeah I pretty much stand out I'm probably carrying a tripod or something yep and yeah I don't know how much footage I'll get this year because I've gotten footage the last two times so but still I can't help myself you know like I'll go there oh yeah I won't take much you know and then I end up taking you know three hours worth of bloody footage I have to edit right right right

Chris Gammell: well and that's the same thing as like a meetup too right where it's like you know now it's projects are literally on display you're like oh yeah I gotta talk about this I gotta capture this so yeah

Dave Jones: anyway yep I'll be there so I better actually prepare

Chris Gammell: any surprises that you'll have on hand or no I haven't really thought about that no

Dave Jones: like a tweet giveaway find me and the first person who finds like I'll tweet and maybe like I did that at the at the at the electronics show in a couple of years back I did like a tweet first person who finds me gets a free multimeter you know blah blah so maybe I'll do that again

Chris Gammell: cool yeah I mean you should uh you should go like straight lady gaga and make like a outfit out of dmms or something

Dave Jones: I wanted actually to make something um to show off um it was it was a wearable um thing but um yeah unfortunately um yeah we ran out of time and some things came up that meant that we um me and myself and David too couldn't work on it so unfortunately yeah so that's uh yeah that's a file maybe I'll wear my um infrared watch though my infrared camera watch yeah that's a good idea yeah so um yeah it's kind of like in a few pieces but maybe I can slap tape it back together even better man yeah exactly hot glue hot snot and uh and some solder man why not I might wear that sucker around and uh yep so I'm easy to find probably I thought about maybe I might actually look and maybe organize this today but I thought about maybe a meetup afterwards or something

Chris Gammell: yeah yeah pick a pub I could pick a pick a time and yep you don't even need to buy people drink like I've always said that this you know like it's just good good stuff to set up that kind of thing and then just publicize it so yeah

Dave Jones: yeah exactly so I might uh I might do that so watch on my social media and blog and forum and twitter and all that stuff sort of stuff so if I can announce if I can arrange that I will announce it good in fact I better do a video right after this announcing that I'll be at the maker fair yeah you should yeah I should and also I will be at the electronic show in Melbourne on the 8th and the 9th of September I think so that's only like three weeks away yeah or so yeah so I'll be down in Melbourne uh once again for the two days so cool man

Chris Gammell: yep no booth though no booth there

Dave Jones: no booth no I not haul in all the crap right I was not invited um and in fact they haven't invited me at all to even blog the event which they've done in previous years so I don't know what's going on there I'll just get a normal pass like everyone else and I'll rock up and hang around

Chris Gammell: cool well that's still good too yeah good to make connections right that's the yep that's the yeah yeah well that's

Dave Jones: that's the problem that's was you know like either when if you've got your own show stand you don't get to see the show right because you're too busy on the stand right I just last every twice it's been in Sydney now twice I've had a stand and I just never get to see the show um and so the one in Melbourne's the only one I actually get to see and then sometimes I'm like oh it's like blogging you know like so they yep so I agreed the first year to uh actually blog the event for them you know so I felt pressure to you know like get footage and stuff like that whereas if I go on my own it's like if I get footage I get footage if I don't I don't so yep yeah anyway so hopefully I can see the show this time yeah good yeah it's a tiny show like you know it's not it's not huge so anyway and apologies in advance if you can't get near me because like usually I take like five steps and then somebody else comes up to me and you know so it's uh it does yeah and you know I want to talk to him for a while and yeah so five more steps oh you're Dave Jones yay g'day and yeah so it's like it's hard to find me actually just roaming free range so

Chris Gammell: yep uh so we were also going to talk about uh finding new parts not finding Dave is one thing finding new parts is another thing uh we were going to talk about that right yeah no we were

Dave Jones: did you we noticed something new on DigiKey how long has it been there I don't know I

Chris Gammell: don't know yeah I haven't touched DigiKey for a few weeks but but yeah it's always kind of tough to find out about new parts um and this is why they have this thing if

Dave Jones: you go to the product index they will actually have the number like next to each category they will now have a a link to you know they'll say 90 new products so if you go to batteries there's 51 new products if you go down to boxes there's 299 new boxes enclosures and racks and there's a big prominent link there which is great the capacitors there's 38,000 new

Chris Gammell: capacitors well we don't know when how what the

Dave Jones: timeline on it is either but what's the timeline yeah like a month or three you mean yeah a couple

Chris Gammell: months or weeks even we don't

Dave Jones: know but we should contact them and say you know hey you should actually put in a time you know in the new month or have it selectable

Chris Gammell: yeah that'd be cool yeah because

Dave Jones: i'm sure they've got the metadata there right you know they can this sort of stuff is like trivial to program right oh

Chris Gammell: yeah yeah no data part data is super easy Dave i definitely know how easy it is yes

Dave Jones: yeah right so it should be easy to go like you can select like get the user to select okay in the last week search for dev boards in the last week i want the latest dev boards and sign up for an email in list where you can get automatically emailed

Chris Gammell: yeah i don't know if you'd want that i get those sometimes and like that stuff's a little that's a little overall i mean like because even if you look at some of these like

Dave Jones: you can change yeah right 3,000 new capacitors right i know it's yeah 38,000 emails from new capacitors right well i mean i get other stuff 7,000 new crystals yeah yeah right

Chris Gammell: exactly well this is the problem so like i was telling Dave before the show like i used to get the uh i think it's datasheet.com i think right it's a ubm the guys that owns e times and and uh and edn and stuff like that they had something like that where they would you know every time these new announcements would come out they'd send out emails and i'd get like i'd look at the rss feed and it would be like uh you know it would be like 3,000 new parts and of that 3,000 2,500 are connectors and they're all just you know one letter different or one number difference it's insane it's yeah it's a product family right so uh but yeah i used to go through that and i wouldn't that's as as dave was laughing at uh that is how i dug through new parts to get potentials for chip report dot tv

Dave Jones: and the problem is right this like on digi key the new parts are probably oh a new package variant of an existing part right we we now offer the quad flat pack you know like you know or we now offer the industrial temperature range version so right exactly probably shows up as new right because each part is you know a separate part number everything else so that's probably counts right yeah all that yeah we we just added the military grade temperature range part

Chris Gammell: yep you know and

Dave Jones: because i i'm i'm just looking at the list now and just for micro controllers new products this is the list for new products there are 50 thousand five hundred and seven micro controllers and if i go into that list and break it down yep right and there we're looking at uh hang on which i'll get it well if you

Chris Gammell: just look at if you're just browsing too and you just look at integrated circuits there's 13 000 new

Dave Jones: ones right yeah and so it's like oh well no yeah so i'm looking at 50 000 new uh sorry no no no no no there there is 2097 yeah yeah new micro controllers so i'm looking through those from all the manufacturers so i can like go into okay i want new microchip ones and i can apply the filter to the new microcontroller ones and the pix pix 16 f f5 4 is new right is it come on that's been out for 15 years right i don't yeah i

Chris Gammell: don't know the pix stuff

Dave Jones: so right yeah right that's one of the old ancient ones right that's one like the pix 16 5 4

Chris Gammell: temperature grade or something like that so grade it's a new

Dave Jones: whatever right it's got a new letter after its name so it shows up in the new list so no it

Chris Gammell: can be tough i mean like like all this stuff it's tough to find out about new parts like i think about how i found out about stuff like that in the past oftentimes it was even though i kept an eye on all this stuff it was you know it was a fae coming and being like no no this is a real this is a whole new family this is the one you want to be looking at this is a good fit for your application kind of thing like that that that actual like tailored to your needs kind of stuff is actually really really tough to get so you'll

Dave Jones: start to dig through a

Chris Gammell: lot of crap but you

Dave Jones: know that's right but but that's that's kind of our job is digging through crap as engineers you know that's what engineers do that that's by definition almost you know that's by definition one of the jobs of an engineer an engineer is to produce a practical solution yeah to a problem right that that's what engineers do that's the number one thing and to do that you need to sort through you know how to develop that practical solution right right and a huge part of that is sorting through the stuff that's available to do

Chris Gammell: that well yeah and so one of the things that i've i've always said in the past as well is that like the the tough thing is that you know you i think a lot of young engineers at least i mean i was a younger engineer as well you know now that i'm old and grizzled like you dave uh uh as i always thought the new stuff would be a good fit but the thing is like oftentimes the good the good fits might just be about an older part you don't know about right that's kind of the misnomer there where it's about it's about true fit to your application kind of thing and that's where the faes and stuff like that would always kind of help me along kind of thing so that that's where you know sometimes you just have to you just have to find out about new parts to you and so yeah i i was

Dave Jones: never a fan of faes coming to me with new parts i was never like no i want to do it myself i get something i enjoy doing go away don't bother would you

Chris Gammell: just be filtering and doing that kind of thing like find them out like yeah yeah yeah yeah

Dave Jones: things like that i do i just don't care go away because most of the stuff they'd always try and tell me is like no it's like just no i'd always be okay

Chris Gammell: with that stuff but it was usually like you know like if they were pushing like oh well are you going to design in this new part

Dave Jones: now right oh yeah that's

Chris Gammell: what no i'm not but what i'm going to do is i'm going to file this away and then at some point my brain's gonna get tickled and then i'm gonna say oh well there was a oh what was that thing that bill told me about a couple weeks ago you know like and then i'll call him up and like and honestly that's the best those are the best people that i always work with were like the ones who were just like

Dave Jones: call you actually call humans up yeah on the

Chris Gammell: telephone on the on the felly tone yeah you social animal you yeah i know i know wait sometimes it's faster get people uh right but yeah i mean like and then okay or i email someone and just say hey what was that thing that you showed me and they always keep good notes and then they would send me you know even if they just send it to me again i would go read through those data sheets again but honestly it's i think it's just about that it's just you know like the best engineers are the ones who are just keeping that mental library going you know just kind of totally you know that that that rolodex or filofax in your brain and you're just like ready to ready to at least kind of know where to go next right like oh well i need i need a temperature sensor but i need it to be also to output you know on a i-squared c bus you might know parts that are doing that naturally but you also might know that you know that eight bit micro you were looking at like we were talking about last week that eight bit micro you're looking at in five pin packaging also has an i squared c bus output you could just use that you know like that's that's the stuff that even the best ai in the world is not gonna at least not yet i mean it's not gonna it's not gonna tell you oh we'll try this micro for your temperature application you know like that's where the

Dave Jones: best use of a file of facts like that is to just know what something is

Chris Gammell: called oh yeah you know

Dave Jones: like i want a chip that does this but i like i don't know the name that i can search for like what's the you know yeah yeah knowing that is a huge

Chris Gammell: benefit yeah huge yeah and that's uh i mean to be blunt this is the these are the problems i think about all day every day now right of course because you're working for the man who does yes yes i'm working for the man dave trying to make things better for you uh thanks chris we all appreciate it yeah all right there we go that's what i wanted i i did want a group chris chris needs sometimes sometimes yeah uh the other thing i wanted to point out with regards to the chips though too is that like so obviously you were laughing at me about chip report tv in the past uh i

Dave Jones: wasn't laughing at you i just said hey that was a blast from the past it was i was laughing at me

Chris Gammell: thinking about how it used to be yeah you know and like we've done chip of the week and stuff like that and the spark app podcast i don't know if you've seen or listened to spark app those guys do i have not they call it part part of the show which is like a fun play on words because it's like hey this is the part of the show

Dave Jones: part of the show so i love those guys

Chris Gammell: all right uh but they always yeah they always have good chips as well and uh but then there's another one called uh nice chips on reddit there's there's a subreddit there um where it's just you know people putting up hey here's a cool part um you know what's one i'm looking at here like the uh like iic controlled lipo charger or you know a cheapest 32-bit mcu psoc at 58 0.58 euros kind of thing like like that kind of stuff you know like just like people throwing stuff up there and just being able to kind of keep an eye on you know like it doesn't have to be new stuff but it's just it's a it's a it's another source right that's another thing that engineers have to do is kind of curate these sources it's not just datasheet.com it's not just the digikey new stuff it's not it's not just nice chips or us or spark gap or whatever it's got to be all of them you know like it's like you have to be a data hoarder right i mean like you have to i mean like a lot of people keep data sheets on their on their hard drive you know they'll download them and just have folders of like they'll put like a potential folder like a maybe someday folder kind of thing you know you have to have that stuff squirreled away in case and uh those are the the best engineers i've seen have been doing that kind of thing you know so yeah uh i saw one i i have a chip of the week this week i haven't tried it yet i haven't tried it yet uh oh that link's broken oh no oh no the uh the tp i'm excited about this because it's it's something new but the tps uh 65982 basically it's the first one i've seen where it can do that uh the the usb type c stuff so the 100 watt output i think it

Dave Jones: can do 100 watt oh okay yeah right the new charging

Chris Gammell: standard right exactly so you need the new connector but then the other thing that i didn't realize you know i saw the connector and i read about and stuff like that but it's swappable so you can plug it in either way which is great but then when you think about actually having to handle that stuff oh oh now you have to figure out which pin is which and you know like know where to send which data stuff like that so there's there's a multiplexing of of the lines and stuff like that and it's got all the you know the five what is it like five giga sample per second type of right throughput stuff like

Dave Jones: that that's interesting like because i'm working on the micro supply again yeah right yeah and well you know david too is well we're both kind of working on it and um yeah like you know do i include the new whiz bang you know because it's actually rechargeable right so it's you know is the you know do i whack in the new usb standard world no because i don't even have one here you know like i say if you could

Chris Gammell: i mean like that 100 watt thing is really i i'm really excited about that i mean like i'm yeah it's pretty cool chromebook stuff came out that apple the new apple macbook came out like yeah

Dave Jones: it's pretty cool 100 watts man

Chris Gammell: you can do a lot with 100

Dave Jones: watts 100 watts you fly to the mars with 100 watts 100

Chris Gammell: watts mark watney man mark watney can do anything that's

Dave Jones: it that's it i haven't finished the book yet are you

Chris Gammell: are you start do you started it though oh yeah

Dave Jones: yeah yeah i'm like like two thirds of the way through it's great i can't wait for the

Chris Gammell: movie so so so excited i know

Dave Jones: i just like the martian that's what we're talking about i hope the movie's good yeah the martian i hope the movie's

Chris Gammell: good i re-watched the trailer today uh i saw someone i think kakaday road water someone was

Dave Jones: talking about it is there a there's not a second trailer

Chris Gammell: yet is there i don't think so

Dave Jones: but usually like they have like two or three trailers don't they these days yeah like yeah

Chris Gammell: that one and i don't know if i told you about last time we talked about this ready player one have you read that one yet

Dave Jones: no that one's like super nerdy

Chris Gammell: it's about like a virtual reality world but like it's all like these 80 references around that and right they're spielberg's making that one i know this is switching oh okay but spielberg's making that and then i just saw an article today that he's trying to get gene wilder to play the the the the old you know the old mysterious wilder jesus he's still around he's in retirement yeah

Dave Jones: yeah yeah so say how old is gene

Chris Gammell: wilder old man he's really old and but he's awesome right i mean like so uh yeah yeah uh so those two but those are my my only two books i've read recently but both of them were so

Dave Jones: good he's he's 82 i mean you know of course he's awesome he was willy wonka you know i know right here we go he's 82

Chris Gammell: such a good crap yeah so uh anyways uh yeah so how did we get talking about the martian and everything i don't know uh some movies yeah so you should oh you were talking about usb 3.0 you should definitely try to uh because that 100 watt that's what got us talking about the martian yeah

Dave Jones: but whether or not it's you know like yeah it's rechargeable and you know it's the future blah blah blah i guess

Chris Gammell: yeah if you moved it over to the

Dave Jones: but it's got to be backward compatible you know like true yeah

Chris Gammell: maybe like have it as an upgrade like leave some room in the pcb for that

Dave Jones: like i still haven't decided how big the battery is going to be in there like it may not you know yeah it may not benefit from 100 watts yeah right yeah the 100 watts capable but oh yeah you know you can only charge the thing at you know a tenth of that

Chris Gammell: right right so we got a 100 kilowatt or 0.1 kilowatt hour uh battery so this thing lasts for not long an hour right anyway yeah i might look into it just

Dave Jones: because it's cool

Chris Gammell: all right yeah oh yeah i'm i'm very excited about it so

Dave Jones: yep

Chris Gammell: all right yeah what else we're done talk about

Dave Jones: nah nothing come on the amp power is up

Chris Gammell: come on come on people expect more

Dave Jones: they just waffle on and

Chris Gammell: they expect us to to to screw with them while they're listening in the car i did

Dave Jones: speaking of cars

Chris Gammell: i did get one email about that by the way

Dave Jones: right speaking of cars you might be able to in england you might be able to recharge your electric car as you drive

Chris Gammell: yeah

Dave Jones: apparently there's an article which will link in and like usually i dismiss this like but apparently like they mentioned in the article which i didn't know about these south koreans and they know what they're doing right they do solar roadways properly right these people know what they're doing right um they've had a trial in place with these like rechargeable um things under the road for the last two years like 2013 they put in a 12 kilometer stretch um like it's not a continuous thing and it's designed for uh to repower the urban buses right the buses that they use they've got these specially equipped yeah which can recharge as they go around so you know that makes sense because like a bus like usually has to stop at bus stops right so you know like you can actually yeah you can have the induction coil under the road of course that's how it works right it's an induction resonant induction you know process

Chris Gammell: i saw one like that abb puts something like that where at one point where they like they actually had like a contact charger but it would be like at the bus stop plugging to the side of the bus kind of thing so yeah

Dave Jones: side of the bus you know you'd have contacts on the side of the bus and these brushes would come across right as

Chris Gammell: it as it drives by kind of thing

Dave Jones: right as it drives by and that's the only that's the only real valid way you can do it is have otherwise it'd be too pulsing you should go yeah you're traveling at you know 80 k's an hour i just passed the coil i got 0.1 joules of energy from that woohoo you know like right exactly

Chris Gammell: right 99.9 percent of energy to the environment

Dave Jones: yeah yeah and and well see and that's the thing it's got to be energy like it's great to be able to recharge your cars this way or your buses or whatever right but think of the efficiency right it's like the q charging mat right you know which you can buy these days like my phone has

Chris Gammell: actually qi qi is pronounced qi

Dave Jones: qi right the qi charging mat right and you know it's like it's designed to be super efficient right it it takes like 0.1 million like it takes like 0.1 milliwatts or something like microwatts in when when it's not coupled right and it just powers up every second and takes bugger all energy just to check if there's something's been placed over right so it's incredibly efficient incredibly efficient point uh thing from point of view unlike u-beam and other crap shit like that right that's a swear word around here man huge like we're talking about resonant charging a car right the amount of energy is massive that's required for this thing right and of course yeah okay that's great okay the car stops or the bus stops over the top and it's a written it's resonant it's only like a foot above the coil underneath so yeah you get decent coupling right resonant coupling it might be you know i don't know 60 70 percent efficient hey beauty right that's great but what happens when there's no car on top right what does it shut down to how much energy you piss it away what's the standby kind of thing how long does it take to start up what's the energy required to start up blah blah blah you know that's they're my concerns that instantly jump into my head when i see an article like this like right you know yes it works i'm sure it works but how efficient is it like you know when people they always talk about implementing this on a global scale city-wide scale it's like yeah okay but like if it's like we we don't want to be able to efficiently charge our cars if we're going to kill the environment by generating by having to generate piss away all this energy in the inefficiency of the charging system

Chris Gammell: right right and even if you have detection of like okay well there is a car above me now i can charge it even if it's moving kind of thing like there's still going to be losses so

Dave Jones: yeah i think it is a startup time this is why i think like driving over at a high speed is just not going to work just the startup time required to detect the cars there they're like just driven over the top and you know boom maybe maybe it lights you put them at lights where cars typically right you know have to stop for a few minutes right then then we're talking but if you just put them on like the motorway it's just i can't see it working off the top my head i just can't see a mechanism to make that work efficiently so right yeah well and if

Chris Gammell: me wrong what i was going to say is if there's if there's listeners out there that are working on wireless charging i'd love to like you know inductive charging rather not wireless charging yeah we'll i'd love to talk to you about having the show yeah so i think that would be really totally yep especially especially like the big scale stuff like like dave's mentioning here i think that would be actually the coolest stuff because like i don't even i personally don't even like i i understand inductive coupling and stuff like that but like yeah what are the real implications

Dave Jones: probably already have this in niche applications like in automated factories right they have these automated pallet lift robots and things like that right they're they're not that common yet but they you know there's a lot of factories that do actually have these automated robots which go around and you know move inventory and stuff right and they're all battery of course because you can't run a petrol engine inside a building right you've got to have right it's clean right so yeah yeah right so they're all fully electric and they go back to their charging stations right and you know and they charge up and um you know and they just drive back like they're they're autonomous vehicles so they drive back over the charging there whether they're contact base or they might use an inductive make sense to use an inductive charging system there as well but um you know but of course you can't beat like a direct physical contact so right

Chris Gammell: anyway yeah copper man but it would be

Dave Jones: easier it would be easier to couple them if it was just an inductive charging mat so the you know the pallet robot just dries back and boop just plonks itself over the mat and it doesn't have to be aligned perfectly you know right you don't have corrosion

Chris Gammell: problems or anything else like that

Dave Jones: exactly yeah contact issues yeah yeah exactly so that makes sense and you

Chris Gammell: could do like waterproofing type stuff like that too like that's the other benefit of that kind of stuff is like totally self-enclosed kind of thing it's like that that stuff is really useful for that so yeah there's definitely uses for it i think it's just a matter of implementation and then and then being in situations where if their losses are you know uh that can mount you know higher and higher then you have to kind of start to consider that stuff so cost i guess cost eventually always rolls into it so

Dave Jones: oh yeah yeah oh but sometimes you know like uh yeah you can have a high cost but if it increases the efficiency of factory then you know cost really isn't an issue

Chris Gammell: right yeah that's a good point

Dave Jones: i always have good points

Chris Gammell: no no

Dave Jones: most of the time some of the time

Chris Gammell: some of the time sure sure sure all

Dave Jones: right yeah sure sure sure yeah so come on we're done we're 10 minutes

Chris Gammell: over yeah we're done i know the stuff i wanted to call out though the the things actually because devcon just there's a couple cool articles there's one about uh uh the guy that did the um the keyboard capture thing in that little charger i wanted to call that out he's got a new garage door charger a garage door capture thing that's really cool uh tony over at adafruit did some bare metal scm 32 stuff on the amazon dash that was cool too and then uh there's something going on with like the intel the old intel stuff i honestly i didn't read enough about it so i don't really yeah i don't really know much about that so but apparently the old the old stuff's vulnerable but what are dave and i about security we're we're using wordpress that's right please don't hack us please the password is one yeah one two one two three three password is the air power

Dave Jones: yeah that's the password on my luggage how many people are going to go there and check that now

Chris Gammell: it might be wrong anyways uh yeah so uh i guess we'll all right catch you next week yeah good luck to everyone searching for jobs uh if you're doing that kind of thing hopefully this stuff was a little helpful today

Dave Jones: and yeah and if you want to meet me yes this weekend make affair i'm sure yeah the this podcast will be up tomorrow so yes

Chris Gammell: yes

Dave Jones: cool yes it'll be up before the weekend so all right make affair i'm excited

Chris Gammell: in person

Dave Jones: yay live song and dance show i'm i'm not giving a talk this time they didn't really book anything we did i i will say we did try to get the was oh yeah but unfortunately yep so i think

Chris Gammell: i have to say uh if anyone gets a picture of dave looking forlorn because he always says this about me if anyone gets a picture of dave looking forlorn i will send them an amp hour t-shirt dave never puts any any backing behind his stuff but i will send them an amp hour t-shirt if if you get a picture of dave looking forlorn

Dave Jones: great all right you have to you have to tweet it to the amp hour

Chris Gammell: yes oh yeah sorry tweet it to the amp hour cool man i'll talk to you next week

Dave Jones: bye you

Speaker ?: you Take care.