#333 – Science, Not Silence

Jeff: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Recorded January 25th, 2017. Episode 333. Science, not silence.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog. And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics. Just us for the first time in 2017.

Jeff: Yeah, when was the last time we did a show together? It was...

Dave Jones: Well, because I went on holidays.

Jeff: Oh, I guess it was with Jeff, right? I mean, that was probably the holiday episode.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it was, but then, yep.

Jeff: Yeah, it's almost a month.

Dave Jones: The last one, yeah, something like that.

Jeff: How was your holiday?

Dave Jones: It was excellent. Thank you very much.

Jeff: I saw you making videos from the beach and everything. I was like, why are you doing that?

Dave Jones: Couldn't help it.

Jeff: Yeah, just had a creative release, huh?

Dave Jones: Yeah, you can't have the channel go downhill, you know. So I had to release a couple of token videos, you know. I get the coded message here. It's all about the metric.

Jeff: You didn't get enough videos done before you left, huh?

Dave Jones: None. And, like, I was, like, so... When I got back, I'm, like, super keen. I'm going to do, you know, five videos a week or something. And, bloody hell, I got almost none done.

Jeff: Yeah, well, you know.

Dave Jones: It's coming towards the end of January.

Jeff: Do you want me to, like, automate an email that sends you, like, every day, like, don't go on your forum too much, Dave. Don't go on your forum too much, Dave.

Dave Jones: It's been... Well, do you want to know what I've been doing?

Jeff: Sure, yeah.

Dave Jones: Packing and shipping again.

Jeff: Oh, that's a good sign. Logistics. What do you think? Okay.

Dave Jones: Because, yeah, I need a new logistics person. Gotcha. And I've implemented whole new systems and everything else. So I changed over to DHL and everything else and the Amazon stuff and the whole kit and computer.

Jeff: You know, that is interesting too because, like, it's tough because it's, I think, as engineers, it's our prerogative to optimize, like, and trying to optimize everything. And then it just kind of just naturally carries over to things like logistics. For me, it was like, I got stuck in, like, website holes at one point, you know, beyond the, oh, I don't know what I'm doing. But even then, it was like, oh, no, this needs to be perfect. It's like, eh, it doesn't always need to be perfect. But at least in your case, there's actually money tied to it, you know, and time. Yes, there is.

Dave Jones: Time, yes. And it's pretty streamlined. But still, you know, if you go, oh, shit, you know, you've got to take an hour out of your time, you know, to go and do it and stuff like that. It's not like I have to go and actually deliver them. Somebody's leave them out the door. Someone comes and picks them up, you know. It's like, you know, it's.

Jeff: Yeah, well, I think that as more people are, you know, developing, you know, like low-run electronics anyway, is that that is a common thing, right? I mean, people making runs to the post office or the ship or whatever. So it's.

Dave Jones: And, of course, the endless argument about, oh, just Dave, outsource it, you know, the whole lot. It's not.

Jeff: Yeah, well, it's a tough decision, too. But I think it's good that you, I mean, you have evolved it. It's not like you jumped right into it and, like, said, I'm not going to do anything until it's perfect. And that. No. Honestly, is the best thing.

Dave Jones: Not evolved. And then I ditched it all. And I almost started again. Not quite started again. But, you know, I'm using. I'm still using WordPress, but I'm using WooCom. I'm using. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, and then it ties into another third party portal, which ties into DHL, which have two different portals to use, depending on which plan. By the way. Mm-hmm. DHL. DHL, I think, are probably the best company I've ever dealt with.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. Interesting.

Dave Jones: In terms of customer service and having their shit together. Mm-hmm. It's, like, unbelievable. Like, you know, when I set up my account with them, you know, you get yourself an account manager and everything, and they're Johnny on the spot. You know, you call them up. They're there. They'll even call you up if they notice you're having problems, you know, checking in the background. It's brilliant.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. That's nice.

Dave Jones: And, you know, I'm setting things up and everything, and, you know, I've got a question or whatever. You know, email comes back a couple of minutes later. Yep. That's in a document which we sent to you when you first set up. They sent, like, 12 different documents and procedures of how to set it, and everything's there.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: They've thought of everything.

Jeff: That's great.

Dave Jones: And forms come pre-filled out, and it's just, yeah, it's pretty sweet. Doing good customer service. It's hard to beat that. I mean, like, yeah, yeah. They've got their shit together. Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting.

Jeff: Logistics companies in general, like, logistics and automation companies continually blow me away. You know, like, I mean, like, it sounds like that's a good customer experience, but just, like, the logistics, the back end of, like, all the sorting they do and the tracking of packages. Oh, yeah. Like, there is a ton of infrastructure back there. There's a ton of it. And it's really, really impressive. I mean, it's, you know, you think about the delivery person, but it's actually the system.

Dave Jones: Actually, one of their part is convoluted at the moment. Yeah. Well, it's kind of convoluted, but it works. It's like, you know, I'm using their e-commerce system. And to, you know, it's all automated when you print the labels and everything else, you know, and that's all great. But to actually arrange delivery for somebody to come and pick them up is a rather interesting thing. Yeah. Is, you know, like, they don't just have a checkbox you tick. What they've got is a PDF form. You go in, fill out the PDF form. It's all pre-filled. And then you hit an email button. It goes into your email system. It sends that, it converts that to, like, an XML file.

Jeff: Weird.

Dave Jones: The PDF to, like, an XML file. It emails it to their portal. And, like, a minute later, you get an email back with your tracking number and your barcodes and everything else to put on the box. Yeah. So, it's kind of like a weird. So, they said, oh, yeah, we're fixing, you know, we're working on that. Yeah, yeah. This is our temporary solution. Well, it's a pretty impressive temporary solution. It works quite well. But it's just, you know, a little bit convoluted. But, yeah. No, the stuff they have is amazing.

Jeff: So, your setup now, though, would you recommend it for someone getting started? So, say they're just selling, like, tens of boards. Is it worth it to do what you're doing? Or should they just kind of figure it out as they go along?

Dave Jones: It's worth it. My sidekick, David, too, he's also looking at getting into this. He's also set up a DHL account. And he's raving about them, too. Right.

Jeff: I meant, like, the WooCommerce, all that stuff.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah. No, he's going to do all that. He's doing all that as well. And he's going to, because he's going to release a product. Yeah. You know, doing stuff like that. No, it is definitely worth it.

Jeff: And it's not. I am. Obviously, the Amp Hour runs on WordPress. I run contextual electronics on WordPress. That's all I really run. And I was actually talking to a student about this the other day, too. And it's just, like, it's pretty heavy-handed at first. But, like, having knowledge of some kind of, like, content management system like that as an engineer, obviously, you could turn it into, you know, a shipping platform or e-commerce platform like you're doing.

Dave Jones: Yeah, a blogging platform, shipping platform, e-commerce platform, whatever. Yeah, exactly.

Jeff: I use it for a learning platform, stuff like that, and actually uses WooCommerce as well. So, I mean, like, it is kind of overwhelming at first. But even just for documentation, I think it's worthwhile to have that on your site. So, if there's interest in that, we can talk about that more in the future. But it's, you know, it's good to have, like, some kind of flexible platform like that. And there's no one-size-fits-all. But it is good for even for electronics people to just think about for blogging and stuff like that. Put your project somewhere.

Dave Jones: The thing I like about it is that it is basically a standard platform, you know. Yeah, at this point, yeah. And you can get a plug-in for anything. You know, if you're running WordPress and WooCommerce, for example, which is, you know, the blog, you know, generic blog interface and the e-commerce type interface behind it, then there are so many plug-ins. Yeah. Although, I've got to say, the DHL... You have to pay. Oh, yes, you have to pay. But it's not much. It's like, you know, a plug-in might be $20, $50, you know. Right. It's like one-off cost. It's nothing.

Jeff: No, and it tracks really well, I think, with electronics, too. It's like the difference between, like, buying a dev board or designing your own, right? And it's like...

Dave Jones: Right, yeah, no, of course. You buy one for $10.

Jeff: I think that, yeah, it's very novel to want to, like, have everything you need. But, like, man, it's worth it to just buy that dev board, buy that plug-in, whatever it is, and just go with it, especially at first, you know. Yep. It works. Yeah, it's so much better. So, yeah. Nah, it's all good.

Dave Jones: I actually thought about ditching WooCommerce, like, my online store, completely. When I... Well, I probably could. I could do everything. Well, actually, I could now. I was going to originally ditch it for Amazon, but then I found out, well, Amazon, no. Amazon still don't do the global shipping thing. It's not working. Oh, gotcha. So, I have to, yeah. Anyway, I've tried in Europe now. I finally got into Amazon Europe, and they're shipping from the UK. Very cool. Yeah. Anyway, it's not shipping to other countries in the UK, and everyone's complaining. But anyway, hopefully that will come.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I was going to do that. So, Amazon failed me there. But eBay, because my new system integrates with my eBay store, I use eBay and DHL to ship anywhere in the world now. So, in theory, I could ditch my web store completely. But then the problem comes in is that, you know, the money you're losing, you've got to charge more, you know, because Amazon are going to take their, what is it, 15% to 18% or something like that if you do the fulfill by Amazon. So, you've got to jack the price up. Either you've got to eat that profit or you've got to jack the price up on Amazon. Same thing with eBay. What's eBay? Like 10% by the time you include the eBay fees plus the PayPal. PayPal, you know, so...

Jeff: I've never done any of this stuff, so...

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Well, yeah, I'm telling you. It's like, it's about 10%. Something like that. Whereas your e-commerce store is nothing, right? It doesn't... Well, it's like 80. I think I'm paying $80 a month for the shipping, integrated shipping platform. So, that could eat into your profit if you're shipping low margin stuff and you're not shipping many, you know, things like that. But there's ways to do it without that. So, you're only paying the PayPal fee, basically. Yeah. So, you can sell things cheaper there and you can make more profit per unit, which can be important. So, I don't know why anyone does this on low margin products. Like, you know, if you're making, you know, 10, 20% profit, like margin on each one, right? If, you know, if you buy something for $100 and sell it for $120 or buy something for $10 and sell it for, you know, and you're making, you know, and you're making, you know, 10% or something. What? Like, as a lot of those retailers do. Yeah, you just got to do more volume, really.

Jeff: I mean, that's what it comes down to.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. That's horrible. I don't, I'd never want to be in that business. So, I'm sticking to, yeah, the more niche products, high volume products. I've got another one coming online. So, it will be coming shortly. I got a new front panel. You might have known it. Did I tell you last time that I was advertising for somebody to do a front panel for me?

Jeff: Yeah. I told you to post it. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. You told me to post it.

Dave Jones: And I posted it. And sure enough, an excellent graphic artist came back and did it for me. Very nice. It looks great. So, yeah. Yes.

Jeff: That's a success story. Hiring people is never, it's always a.

Dave Jones: No.

Jeff: It's always a crapshoot, right? I mean, it's like.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yep. And then another person approached me who said, hey, they do intro video titling and all graphic design for a huge TV show. And it's like, shit. Okay. Excellent. You're on file for, you're on tap. Oh, yeah. Right, right, right. In the future for, you know, if I need stuff like that. So, yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. I mean, having like, you know, kind of a cadre of available. People. Yeah.

Dave Jones: People that you go to for tasks.

Jeff: Having a lawyer, having a CPA, having a graphics designer, like all that stuff as you, as you're kind of formulating these things. I actually. That's what I want.

Dave Jones: That's what I want. I want go-to people. So, I've got myself a graphic designer now, potentially a video, you know, effects designer. Yeah.

Jeff: I went to a thing in Chicago that was, it was called Maker Biz.

Dave Jones: Right. I think I've heard of that.

Jeff: It was weird. I mean, it was like, it was sort of, it kind of sort of seemed like a, like an AA meeting. Like, it's like you get up and you're like, hey, my name's Chris and I build hardware. Hi, Chris. Hi, Chris. You know, like. That's great. And then it was, you know, it was just like issues that people were dealing with. And it was, it was a matter of, you know, some people were mechanical people. Some people were software people. They were, you know, kind of diving into the hardware world or the electronics world and stuff like that. And it was, and it usually isn't, you know, you hang out with a group like that or like the new, the new workspace I'm at. It's like kind of just all hardware people. And then it's like, oh, wow, there's a, there are a lot of other pieces to the business that are really important. Like the marketing piece, you know, that's always a tough thing too. So, it was, but it was just weird.

Dave Jones: The last thing you want to do is spend money on marketing though.

Jeff: Well. Really? Yeah. Yeah. But sometimes you got to get eyeballs, you know. So, that makes it tough.

Dave Jones: Only if you've exhausted all possible. Yeah. Avenues for getting those eyeballs for Knicks. Yeah. You know.

Jeff: I know. I know.

Dave Jones: It's like we, we had Dave on the show, right? The Kronos camera.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: Right? Dave Kronstein, right? Yeah. Classic case. Yeah. He ponied up the money to build, you know, what is it, 10 units or something like that and shipped them for free to all the bloggers out there. And the publicity he got, you know, you couldn't buy marketing like that. Right, right, right. You know. Well, he did. But that's also, that's also relationship based.

Jeff: I mean, you shouldn't just ship stuff to people. You should also, you know, he had.

Dave Jones: No, no, no.

Jeff: Prior relationships. He understood that, you know, he talked to people beforehand. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. But that was an excellent example of.

Dave Jones: That's a clever use of, you know, paying for marketing. Yeah. Rather than going to some marketing agency. Oh, yeah, we'll do this. Right, right, right. That's just throw money.

Jeff: Yeah, that is definitely.

Dave Jones: Get some money up the wall. That is definitely.

Jeff: That could be treacherous.

Jeff: Yep. Yeah. Oh, boy. Okay. So, speaking of marketing and money and people being frustrated, there was some news while we were away about a CAD program.

Dave Jones: Oh, I thought you were going to jump into something else there.

Jeff: No, we can get to that. I'm sure that'll come up at some point.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I'm sure you'll get to that. You can't resist. But, yes, I did a video on that.

Jeff: You did. Yeah, you did.

Dave Jones: Yes. For those who don't know, living under a rock, Autodesk. Bought Eagle, Cadsoft Eagle, who bought it from, they bought it from Farnell's because Farnell's originally bought them out.

Jeff: Yeah, it was a Cadsoft. Cadsoft was the original company and then Farnell bought them.

Dave Jones: And Cadsoft was the original company and then they bought it and then Farnell didn't know what to do with it. So, they sold it off to Autodesk, who think they know what to do with it. But, yeah, they caused a big, gigantic shitstorm.

Jeff: Yeah. So, I did watch your video and I thought it was pretty well balanced. And I would like to say up front, I do not actually think, I thought it was a bit of a pylon, unfortunately. But, you know, these things happen on the internet. My video?

Dave Jones: It could be. Not your video.

Jeff: Just in general on the internet. I mean...

Dave Jones: Oh, right. No, of course.

Jeff: If people find value in it, like I understand people don't like SaaS products, that's fine. But if people find value in it, like as a comparison, I, you know...

Dave Jones: Hang on, but we have not told people what the thing is.

Jeff: Oh, sure. Go ahead. Yeah, sorry.

Dave Jones: The problem is... Right.

Jeff: Some people are living on rocks, you're saying.

Dave Jones: Yes. You used to buy, you know, license. You bought the license. It's yours.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: Right? That's it. Now, you can't buy... Now, it's a monthly subscription service.

Jeff: Right. Yep.

Dave Jones: Or a yearly, you can pay a year in advance. But it's basically gone completely subscription service. Yep. You can't buy a perpetual, what's known as a perpetual license anymore.

Jeff: Right.

Dave Jones: So, yep.

Jeff: Oops. Right. And so, there were some very valid arguments about that. You know, like, oh, if we need to store the version of the software with your designs and archive them and stuff, that's totally legit. I think that that's actually a really strong design practice because it's scary when you only have Gerbers in the future. Now, sometimes you can't do anything about it, right? But...

Dave Jones: You're right.

Jeff: I've dealt with that and you've dealt with that. And it's just... Yep. It's a bad situation. So, people that are backing up their tools along with, you know, when they finalize a rev and they back up their tools with their design, that's good design. And you cannot do that. I think that the fault on Autodesk's side is that they don't offer it at all. I mean, like, if you want to do it, just offer it at a really high price, you know?

Dave Jones: That's what I would think. They do not offer it. No. They do not understand the CAD market. I mean, you know, Altium are trying to push everyone under a subscription model. They have been for years. But they know that's not the only thing they can offer. Right. Because in the professional market for ECAD software, you have to offer a perpetual license. And Autodesk don't understand that. And it's costing them dearly. Yeah.

Jeff: Right.

Dave Jones: Anyway, whether or not you could, you know, whether or not it's blown out of all proportion, everyone's just piling on, as you say. And in the end, everyone will just go groan. I'll just keep on using it. You know. Right. And I think that some people, yeah, they find value with it. There are a lot of people saying that they're going to ditch it. They will, you know?

Jeff: Sure. And I enjoy the influx to KiCAD. A lot of people say that KiCAD's a good alternative. I was saying that not as a pylon thing. I've been saying that for years. I think that it's better. I think it's been better. Yep. And, you know, a lot of people...

Dave Jones: It would be nice to see the stats, if the website has any stats to see, like, a spike.

Jeff: Yeah, there were some on the mailing list. Let me see if I can find it in my email. I mean, it was... So, on the developer mailing list, they were just mentioning a little bit. They've talked about it in the forums and the IRC and stuff like that. So, yeah. I mean, it's... I don't think it was anything spectacular. Let's see. Oh, yeah. There's a spike. But it's really not that big of a spike. Okay. So...

Dave Jones: All right. So, you think everyone's just all huff and puff, huh?

Jeff: I think there's a lot of huff and puff. But I think over time that people are going to realize that if it is something that they feel strongly about, they're going to find something else. Like you said in your video, I really like what you say about that. You say it's a religion, right? And it's tough. Some people will change their religion. It happens every day. But it's not something you do on a whim. And it's not something you do instantly. And so... So...

Dave Jones: Speaking of which, here is the interesting argument for this, right? Somebody argued on the forum or a couple of people did that, oh, the subscription model is better because then you can immediately... If you don't like the direction the software is going or whatever, you can immediately protest by simply not paying your subscription. Like, hang on, I have to facepalm.

Jeff: That's a bit...

Jeff: That's like shooting yourself in the foot, though, too, right? I know. You can't do that. Right. I will just halt all progress on my stuff, right?

Dave Jones: Whereas it was much... Yeah. Because then the pain is on you.

Jeff: Right. And that's the problem.

Dave Jones: The user, right? Exactly. If you want to protest the direction the company is taking and you're on a subscription service, nope. You've got to either completely quit and go through the hell of switching CAD software. And it is hell. It's switching CAD software, right?

Jeff: Yeah. I think you're right. It's about as painful as it gets. No. If you try and update old designs, for sure. But what I would do is I would just take the... If you have an Eagle license from before, right? If you have one of the perpetual license, lock that with your old designs. Keep it. You know how to use it, obviously. Just lock it all together. And then new stuff goes to KiCat or whatever.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But what I'm saying is that you can't just move on a whim, right? Oh, yeah. You can't just go, oh, I'm going to switch from Eagle to KiCat.

Jeff: And if you think about it at an institutional level, too. If there's more people... Yeah, no. You can't. If it's not just you, then that's an even bigger deal. Yeah, no. That's a tough ship to try.

Dave Jones: So you can't protest. Whereas the old perpetual license model, the power was with the customer, right? You think so? Whereas you... Yes. Having worked at a CAD software company, I can vouch for this, right? And I'll explain. When you buy a perpetual license, it's yours, right? You can use that version of software forever, right? Sure, you don't get bug updates and all that sort of stuff, but right?

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's fine, right? You've got that. You can use it forever. So if you don't like the direction the software the company's taking or the next version that they're of release, you simply don't buy the next version. You just keep on happily using your existing version. Nothing's changed. ProTel 99, huh? ProTel 99 SE. Altium spent, even a decade later, after ProTel 99 SE came out, Altium was still desperately trying to convince customers to upgrade from 99 SE a decade later. Right. And everyone's going, no, I don't see the benefit. You know, so that's why it puts the onus on the company to really up their game, really up their product, and convince you that you need to upgrade. Whereas on a subscription base, you're just locked in and they can do anything you want and they can gradually move in a direction you don't like and you're just going to go meh, meh, meh. Right, right, right. Every time a new version comes out. Right. Every time a new version comes out and there's nothing you can do about it.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right? Whereas a perpetual license, you can. And that's, yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. Well, and so that was my, I mean, like I said, I use Fusion 360. I think it's a decent product. I am not a mechanical.

Dave Jones: What is the Fusion 360?

Jeff: That's the mechanical. Mechanical CAD? Yeah, it's a parametric CAD, stuff like that.

Dave Jones: And it's subscription only, isn't it?

Jeff: It is as well, right. And it also has cam built in. No, but then again, I'm not a mechanical engineer. So I'm sure that that is a similar kind of thing. I don't really know how that would work. So, well, but also in the CAD world, also in the 3D CAD world, I don't actually think, I know people are going to say free CAD or SCAD, open SCAD. Right, one of those. But I really, I'm sorry, I don't actually agree with that.

Dave Jones: No, I've used them in there. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. So until there is, I mean, when there is, I will, you know, I'm an Inkscape user. I'm a GIMP user. I'm a CAD user. Like I'm a Libra office user. Like I don't, I think I walk the walk for the most part for when it's viable. Again, video editing as well. I can't do video editing. And OBS, oh man, what a darn shame. Open broadcaster software. That's the streaming software that I use.

Dave Jones: I didn't like that. I did not. Yeah, I used XSplit. I like XSplit.

Jeff: The only reason I really like XSplit. XSplit's a little bit quirky on its own. It is. It is. It's very 90s kind of style, but it's all about the pause button for me. I've said that before. Yeah, of course. Yeah. But anyways, come on in. The water's fine. KiCad is ready to go. If you are interested in learning it, I'll put a link. I mean, the getting to Blinky is still the best I could do for getting people started quickly. It's not fast. It's two hours. But it's like Dave said, it's like, you know, it's going to take you longer to do new stuff with KiCad. But I think you'll get to it pretty quick. DipTrees is fine too. I mean, like people, there's a lot of options out there, right? Circuit Studio, Circuit Maker. Oh yeah, nice, plenty. Try them all. Who cares? Something's going to fit you. I'm not proselytizing more than my usual amount.

Dave Jones: So did you see any uptake when I plugged it in the video?

Jeff: Oh yeah, I mean, yes. I saw a little bit of, you know, a couple more angry comments about how I don't know how to solder on my last video. Oh right, yeah. Which is not wrong. My soldering's terrible.

Dave Jones: Love it.

Jeff: Yep.

Dave Jones: I'd like to defend myself on that. Especially when you shoot live like that. It's shooting, soldering under pressure of recording videos sucks.

Jeff: My new setup is much better for that. But my thing is, a lot of people are like, oh, I really don't like that, you know, you showed your mistakes. And I did show, I show my mistakes. But like literally, that is the entire point of my course and like what I do.

Dave Jones: Exactly.

Jeff: And it's like, yeah, it sucks.

Dave Jones: You have to, otherwise you would not be able to get the content out that you get out if you go edit it. I mean, you just can't.

Jeff: Well, I mean, even just the redo, I think it just detracts from it, honestly. What I tell people is there's this amazing video speed plugin. And I use it on Dave's videos. I use it on Ben's videos, everyone's videos, really. It's a Chrome plugin. It's HTML5. Any HTML5 video, you can speed up or slow down arbitrarily. And it's great for any kind of learning software. So I highly recommend it. And I tell students to use it too. Because, you know, if you don't like it, you just fast forward past it. So it's great.

Dave Jones: So in the end, do you think Eagle is now going to fail? No, I don't think so. Because of this, you think they're going to go downhill?

Jeff: I don't think so. I mean, they've got a big company behind them. It's not like they're, they, I mean, if anything, they would just, I think that they would make, put less developers towards it in the future. But, you know, Eagle didn't really have that for a long time either because they were just kind of fixing stuff. They were, they were small team, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So. Yep. I did think I saw that they got rid of.

Dave Jones: Anyway, no, I think they'll be adding some good stuff. I mean, they already have started adding some good stuff. Sure. Whether or not.

Jeff: But the thing about that is it's like, it's really moving that out of, it's like not, no longer, you know, like Eagle did well because it has a community and because it started as a hobby tool and people took that and kind of made it more than a hobby tool or, you know, brought it into the workplace because there was a hobby tool. That was a big success from the, from the CADSOFT team. I think, you know, the, the free version, the community version, whatever.

Dave Jones: The free version is what made them. Yeah. And then, of course, Arduino used it, Artifruit and others used it, you know, Sparkline. Everyone else, everyone picked it up. I started on it. I mean, it's great. Yeah.

Jeff: I mean, like, it's, it's quirky, but it's, you know, it, it allowed me to get started. And I think that that, that alone is, is a, is a strong thing, but it's like, you got to keep the community going. So hopefully they'll figure it out. I'm sure they will.

Dave Jones: Maybe in a year's time, maybe they'll backflip. Yeah, maybe. Like they did before. Because they've done this before when Farnell owned a Farnell tried to do this and then they backflipped like two weeks later. Yeah. And, and back down and removed it.

Jeff: Yeah. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Anyway, speaking of software. Yeah. Which is updating. Yeah. LTSpice.

Jeff: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Our favorite simulator. That was weird. That just came out of nowhere. Yeah. It was LTSpice 4. How long has it been LTSpice 4?

Jeff: I mean, at least as long, I mean, so people don't know, we had Mike Englehart onto the show and he, that was an amazing show. That guy's amazing. Holy crap. And that was like five years ago or something, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. And he had, I think that was like a year or two after they went from three to four. I think it was when I was. Okay. Well, I think it was at Keithley when I went from three to four. So, because it was like, I remember it was a big, it was a big update because of Windows 7 or Windows 10 or something like that. So.

Dave Jones: Right. But anyway, they have, instead of LTSpice 5, no.

Jeff: Yeah, 17.

Dave Jones: I know that. So what?

Jeff: Yeah. And it's. LTSpice 17. You read the changelog, it's actually nothing big. It's really, I think what they're probably preparing to do is to have releases each year and then eventually one of those years, maybe 18, maybe 19, it'll no longer be LTSpice. LTSpice, it'll be AD Spice or LTAd or whatever. Because if people don't know, linear attack is now owned by analog devices. Yep. So if they kill LTSpice, oh my God, talk about mess ups with community. Uh-huh. Like, yeah. Pitchforks. Yeah. Well, I just, not even pitchforks, it's just such a good marketing tool. You know, like. It's brilliant.

Dave Jones: And all they've got to do is pay them, pay one person to work on it and maintain it. That's it. I mean.

Jeff: Yeah. Oh, I'm sure Mike's got a little bit of a team now, but, you know.

Dave Jones: Maybe.

Jeff: Yeah. It's.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I mean.

Jeff: It's really good. I mean, like, yeah. It's quirky too, right? It's quirky, but whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: No, it's not the easy, by far not the easiest tool to use. Yeah. It's. Yes. Yeah. No, if you're, I mean, there's lots of good easy simulators out there. A lot of them are web-based now and app-based and stuff like that. Yeah. And they're so impressive.

Jeff: We had talked about every circuit. I remember mentioning that. That was an Android app.

Dave Jones: Every circuit is very impressive. Yeah.

Jeff: But I didn't realize that that same functionality that I really liked, the visualization of current flow and voltages and stuff like that, that actually got pulled into the false dead simulator. Did you know?

Dave Jones: Yes. Yes, it did. Yeah. It's really good.

Jeff: I mean, like, I've actually switched a little bit more over false dead. I think I'll probably do that more because it's just kind of built in cross-platform because it is browser-based. And, yeah, I think that's, you know, there's a bunch of great startup circuits. It's really simple. You don't, the downside to, like, an LTSpice is that if you're doing something with, like, just a transistor, you can do a, you can do a generalized model of a transistor, like a MOSFET or something. Yeah, no, it's not. But it's actually not the default. The default is to pick the actual part number.

Dave Jones: And pick the actual, LTSpice is a professional tool designed for professionals who know what they're doing.

Jeff: Right. Well, like Mike said, I mean, he also said it's an internal tool, which is even more impressive.

Dave Jones: Yes. Yeah.

Jeff: So.

Dave Jones: And, no, it is designed to be, like, the most accurate and fast thing possible. It's not, there's no thought at all given to ease of use beginners, all that sort of stuff.

Jeff: Right, right, right.

Dave Jones: Whatsoever.

Jeff: Yeah. And so, I think Falstad's great. And that actually, for a long time, was a Java tool. And then it went to JavaScript a couple years ago. And it's browser-based. And it's, I mean, it's fantastic. And there's other ones out there. I mean, there's other simulation in the browser type thing. But I just.

Dave Jones: There's so many of them. Maybe I should do, like, a comparison. That'd be a good idea. Of the various tools.

Jeff: I just really like that visualization. You know, that's so tough for people getting started. And that is really, really helpful. And the nice thing is, like, the built-in circuits, too, if people don't know about that. There's just a bunch of demo circuits in there. And just, you know, like, multivibrator type stuff for 555 timers. And, like, LT doesn't really do, like, a lot of the components, like, 555s really well. I mean, it does, but not really. So, I do recommend it. Right. Yeah. Speaking of simulation, you posted an interesting video. About simulations of the light in GPU chips and stuff for the moon landing. Oh, right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Sorry, I didn't get you for a second. Yeah. This is actually not new. It actually came out, what, a couple of years ago. I can't believe I haven't seen it. Yeah. And I put it in the Reddit list and I entitled it Simulation Works. Bitches. Bitches. You just go watch this thing. It is absolutely brilliant. Nvidia, who humorously tried to hire me the other day. That was hilarious. Oh. Anyway. How adorable.

Jeff: I didn't know they had Nazi contingency. That's cool.

Dave Jones: No, it was in Japan.

Jeff: Oh. Wow. Okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, we can talk about that after. Okay. They debunked the moon conspiracy theory of the famous photo of that Neil Armstrong took of Buzz coming down the ladder.

Jeff: Yep.

Dave Jones: Right? Of, you know, of the Apollo 11 lander, right? The LEM. Yep. And, you know, because all the conspiracy theorists, you know, say, oh, it's, you know, it can't be that bright and the image can't, you know, you're in shadows and darkness and everything. And, of course, the Mythbusters busted this one as well. They physically did it. They built little models. They actually got the moon simulated hegelith material, it's called, that has the same reflective properties and all that sort of stuff. And they simulated the hills and why the shadows were longer, you know, and things like that. And they busted that completely using physical models. But what NVIDIA did, they decided, hey, you know, we're the world's best at 3D graphics and, you know, crap like that. Right? They put it, I think they had a team working on this. And they modelled absolutely everything down to the finest detail. Yeah. And, like, as in the reflective properties of each individual grain of moon dust. Yeah. Right? GPUs, huh? GPUs for the win, right?

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right. Because they wanted it as, like, a real kick-ass example. And so they recreated the entire thing in simulation. And then they were able to, like, pan around with the camera, set the exposure of the camera and everything, any angle that you wanted. And they actually matched the photo almost. You can't tell. Just watch the video.

Jeff: Yeah, it's weird, yeah.

Dave Jones: It is weird. You cannot, is it the real photo that they took on the moon or is it the simulation? And you can't tell. It's that realistic. And anyway, they proved that, yes, that is exactly what it would look like. They even got, should I have a spoiler? Because I was quite excited by this part at the end.

Jeff: I think you should leave. You should just say it. Oh, I'll leave it. It's very extreme. The level of simulation is very extreme. It's extreme.

Dave Jones: And stick around for the, it's a very slow. The guy talks.

Jeff: Another reason I use that video speed control, I put a 2x because you warned about it.

Dave Jones: I put one and a half or two times speed watching this one. He, like, pauses after every couple of words. Anyway, watch it.

Jeff: I wonder if people are listening to us right now because my podcast player also is, I also can do one, one and a half or 2x speed. So maybe we're just talking about going faster really quickly right now for some people.

Dave Jones: I don't think I've heard, I think I've heard the odd person say that they play the podcast quicker because they've only got a 45 minute commute or something. So they, you know. I do that for every podcast.

Jeff: If I can do it, I do Embedded faster. I do Tim Ferriss podcast faster.

Dave Jones: Even for people who speak fast like us, like Australians. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right, mate.

Jeff: Yeah, right. Yep. Yeah. Well, it's really good. I think the thing that popped out to me about this is that I cannot believe there's still people that don't believe this shit. Yeah, I know. What, 50? How many years on? Yeah. 50? 50. Yeah, 50 years on. Get a life, people. Oh, 45. Sorry. Sure, whatever. Yeah. But we are living in an age of, well, we're living in an age of not science.

Dave Jones: Well, before we go there, I would like to say this is a brilliant example of how science works. I mean, they could have come a gutzer on this one. They could have spent months and months and months simulating this and it could not have worked. But it did because science, bitches. Every variable, right. Exactly. Exactly. If you take in, like, if they forgot variables, it wouldn't have worked. Right. Right? But no, they absolutely nailed every single variable.

Jeff: It's like the physics lab where you calculate the acceleration of gravity and you're like, yeah, 11.5 meters per second. Duh. Something might be wrong there.

Dave Jones: But the thing is, like, when they started this project, they probably didn't realize how good it would turn out.

Jeff: Oh, sure. Right, right, right.

Dave Jones: Right? Yeah, you know, like, it's so spectacular. Yeah, it's iterative. It's iterative. Yeah, you can't pick the difference. Yeah. And they, you know, and then once they added in, I think they mentioned that in the talk, once they add in various things, they went, oh, it doesn't quite look right. We haven't quite done it, but we add in this. Yep. And, uh-huh, you know?

Jeff: Yep, exactly.

Dave Jones: And, oh. Yeah, it's just.

Jeff: I mean, like, same thing with, like, if you're troubleshooting a circuit, too, you know, it's, you know, you probably don't know every piece, but eventually, like, if you're doing, like, leakage currents, it always happened for me, where it's like, where the hell is that last microamp going, you know? And then eventually, you pull that capacitor off, you're like, oh, that's a bad cap or something like that, you know? Like, there's the same thing.

Dave Jones: But we never go down to that level. I mean, this, they actually went down to such a deep level because they could and because they probably had to to make it work. Whereas where electronics is more, engineering is more high level abstracted, you know? Yeah, we can go down to, you know, Maxwell's equations and stuff like that. But then, you know, it's not like we go down to the quantum level much. Right, right.

Jeff: Well, and we're also usually measuring and observing with tools. And if the tools aren't up to the job, right? Exactly. Then it's, you know, we only get, I guess you have an eight and a half digit and even that's usually questionable, right? It's like, yeah. Right. Is that perfectly in SPAC or whatever?

Dave Jones: No, exactly. There's lots of, you know, that's why Keith Lee's low measurement handbook is what, three out of pages long?

Jeff: Yeah, that's true.

Dave Jones: You know, it's not like stick current meter in circuit and measure one nanoamp. Right.

Jeff: Like the perfect current meter in the false dead simulator. Right, yeah. Yes, exactly. We're solving math equations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Not quite the same.

Dave Jones: Anyway, that's, I love that video. Yeah. No, that was good. I think I might watch it again. For the win. Anyway, all right. Rant away. Go.

Jeff: Okay. So, listen. I am saying this.

Dave Jones: We have to put this as the photo of you. We have to put it as the photo for the episode, I think.

Jeff: What?

Dave Jones: The photo of you holding up the protest site.

Jeff: Oh, oh, right, right. Yeah. So, I went to a protest and I've been just totally upset about everything that's been happening in the States. Yes, there's politics involved. But the thing that gets me the most, I mean, the human rights stuff especially, but the science stuff. And that's really what I'm talking about here. I'm just going to say that I'm going to keep talking about science and the, you know, supporting the scientific community, supporting, like, the stuff that even isn't getting much press, the stuff that really gets me is, like, the, like, turning off the ability for solar and wind to push back into the grid. And, like, all of this stuff where it's just over and over, there's scientific evidence of these things that happen and it's just totally being abused. And I'm so upset about everything. So, I don't want to talk too much about politics. I'm obviously not a big fan of what's happening in the U.S. right now.

Dave Jones: But we can talk about the science side of it. You know, that's engineering and the effects on our...

Jeff: Sure. I mean, I think that, yeah, right now, I mean, there's already been, they're, like, telling, the Trump administration is telling people, the EPA not to talk to the public. And it's like, no, that is not...

Dave Jones: I love... That is not okay. Yeah, I love the Badlands National Park on Twitter feed.

Jeff: Yeah, yes.

Dave Jones: That was great. And some ex-employee started, after they were... Well, not kind of ordered, but anyway, we won't go into the details. But anyway, an ex-employee of this Badlands National Park in the U.S. started tweeting, after they were fired or whatever, started... He got back into the twin account and just started tweeting random science facts. You know? It's like, cool.

Jeff: Yeah. Yep. And so... For the win. That was brilliant. My sign says, science, not silence. I'm big on that. I think that's going to be a bigger push for me this year as well. I think that it's... I mean, science education for a long time has been under attack in the States, and I think maybe abroad. And I think that that's something near and dear to my heart. And I'm...

Dave Jones: Well, look, add it this way. The... We live in a, you know, technologically insanely modern world. Yes. Right? Yes. The only thing that has made that is science. That's right. The only thing. Right. Nothing else. In fact, everything else tries to drag back... I... There's a... Drag science back. There's a comedy skit. Who is it? I can't remember. But I'll try and find it for you because you'll love it. He uses a train as an analogy of, you know, the progress of mankind. You know? And up in the engine, driving the train are all the scientists and engineers. Yeah. Right? And then behind them are all the wishy-washy people who don't give a shit. And then dragging down the carriage, you know, and dragging the last 199 carriages are, you know, backward thinking people who deny science and everything else. And it's like, why can't we just pull the pin on this engine, you know, and get rid of all these other carriages and just...

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Zoom.

Jeff: Yep.

Dave Jones: Shoot off. You know? It's... Oh, man.

Jeff: Yep. Well, as... I mean...

Dave Jones: But even... Is it a lack of science education? I don't think it is. It's not that. I mean, that helps, but that's not the whole story.

Jeff: It's will-fueling on some people's part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's corporate profits on other people's part. Like, I get it. I get why people, they dislike the EPA. They're like, oh, well, we want to drill. And it's like, well, look. Like, we talked about it in the past on this show, right? Of solar and wind. And I think the great salvation is that they're... Australia is buying a bunch of them. And Germany's buying a bunch of them. And there's just lots and lots of development around that. But, you know, unfortunately, the U.S. is a big market for... Just as a consumer. And so if the incentives go away for buying solar, then... Aside from, you know, the free power that shines down on the earth every single day. So, yeah, it's...

Dave Jones: But, you know, that's not the only solution, though. Because, you know... No, of course. We can get into baseload energy and all that sort of stuff. No, I get all that stuff.

Jeff: I just get so frustrated with, like, the blatant disregard for it. And...

Dave Jones: Yes, yes, absolutely.

Jeff: I share your pain. I can so...

Dave Jones: Although you're taking it really badly.

Jeff: I really am.

Dave Jones: You know, he's telling me before the show, he's...

Jeff: Yeah, I'm not sleeping well. You know, and I get anxious about all this stuff. I mean, like, I think... So, what I'll say... I obviously... I'm talking stupidly right now. I can feel my adrenaline running. I can really... I really get worked up about this stuff. But I think it's our job. I think it's, you know, as engineers, scientists, people that are concerned... It is. I think you just got to keep an eye out. You got to keep fighting for open data. I think that's something that we talk about here a lot. And unfortunately, you can't really bludgeon them with reason. And that's the other thing that's really frustrating, you know, and it's...

Dave Jones: No, you can't. It's... Unfortunately, it's... I'm not going to say it's an unwinnable battle, but it requires generational timescales, you know.

Jeff: But I think economic benefits too, right? So, I think that the... So, like, the fact that solar is actually a cheaper energy source, that is actually really beneficial. I think that there's going to be...

Dave Jones: Oh, the consumer drives everything.

Jeff: Yeah. But there's always vested interest. And so, it's going to veer way too far into politics. And I get that. And people don't want to hear that. But the science... The pieces where there was willful ignorance of climate change and, you know, environmental impacts. And even, you know, like, there's a lot of trade stuff that's happening. Like, some is decent. I will totally admit that. But some of it's going to be really bad too. So...

Dave Jones: You know, I just don't get why people go against scientists. You know jack shit about anything and you want to go, oh, they're wrong.

Jeff: Right. You know? Well, it's...

Dave Jones: Yeah, they might be wrong, but that's the scientific process. Okay? And it'll sort itself out.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know? I mean, that's how we've achieved this fantastic society that we live in for the last... If...

Jeff: Right. There was a tweet the other day. It was like, 50 years ago, half a century ago, the US federal government launched Apollo 11. Half an hour ago, it forced a national park to delete a science tweet.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah.

Jeff: And it's like...

Dave Jones: Which wasn't true, by the way. They did not force them to do it.

Jeff: It doesn't.

Dave Jones: I verified that. I verified that. Sorry. Yeah. Yes. I was going to reply to that tweet, but I did actually verify. Got it. So, that's not true. Yep.

Jeff: I don't know.

Dave Jones: They pulled it themselves.

Jeff: Get involved if you're interested in either direction. That's all I'm going to say. I mean... And yes, people are going to say you should live in a long time ago, and that's true too, but I live in a very liberal area, so...

Dave Jones: Well, you know, maybe we can have community brainstorming here.

Jeff: Sure.

Dave Jones: What do we, as the...

Jeff: Yeah, for anyone still listening. If anyone's still listening. Yeah.

Dave Jones: The reason... The people who have reason and, you know... Boy. What do we do? How do we...

Jeff: I've got some ideas, but they're not fully formed yet.

Dave Jones: I think a lot of it is you have to continually laugh and shame people.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And like... Right. Take the absolute piss out of people. That's actually a really good point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If people are... Embarrassment will change people and shut them up. Right. Right. So, if you see somebody throwing something on Facebook...

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, that... You know, oh, look at this and this isn't real and this isn't real, you know, laugh at them.

Jeff: Right. Right.

Dave Jones: Send them, you know, like try and humiliate. Right. You know, because they're very difficult to educate, so you might have to educate by humiliation. That's an interesting point. Yeah. You know? Right. Use data.

Jeff: I think that's another thing for me, too, is that like, you know, blind faith is bad in any direction. I've actually never reviewed climate data myself, and so that's something I'm going to be doing. I have.

Dave Jones: I've gone into some detail. You know, there's a massive armada. Of course. I have actually done some research.

Jeff: I think that, you know, just being informed and stuff like that. I think that there's... There are changes afoot, and I am not...

Dave Jones: I can even tell you their confidence level.

Jeff: Yeah. Oh, nice.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Jeff: Nice.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I can go.

Jeff: Well, if you have links, maybe we can send them through, but... Oh, well... Like Dave said, we're brainstorming, and we'll be taking action. What can we do? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yes. I think humiliation is one, and yeah. I mean, the worst thing I think you can do is respect somebody's opinion. Right? Oh, you have to respect my opinion. Bullshit, I do. Right. I agree with that. If your opinion is demonstrable bullshit...

Jeff: I've actually come around to that, Dave, but I should say...

Dave Jones: I'm going to laugh at you. Right. You know? Right. You have no right not to be humiliated.

Jeff: Right. I totally agree with that.

Dave Jones: Because of some stupid thing you say. Right? And yeah. You've just got to point it out at every available opportunity how stupid somebody is. And not just say you're stupid. Right. And here's why you're stupid. Actually link to facts. Yeah. Right. Try and educate them at the same time. And you know... Yep.

Jeff: We'll see. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway. But then they just go and join other groups and things like that. And then you have problems like Facebook where... Yeah. This has been in the news the last 6 or 12 months where it funnels the news that you want to hear. You know? So it funnels your... It just reinforces your view.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: Something like Facebook. That's just the mechanism. That's the algorithm.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So you know if you're all fake news and anti-science and everything else and woo-woo you know and you love your woo-woo.

Jeff: Yep.

Dave Jones: Then that's what Facebook's going to funnel you and it will just continue to reinforce your opinion.

Jeff: Yep.

Dave Jones: You know? Yep. And it doesn't help at all. It has to be... Yep.

Jeff: Well, how about in the olden tradition? Let's go to the AT&T archives to feel better about the old days of science, yeah?

Dave Jones: Well, hang on. Have heart. We survived, okay? That's true. We had the Abbott government which was an anti-science. They abolished the science minister.

Jeff: Right.

Dave Jones: Okay? Right? That's how bad... Okay, you still have a science, you know... We... They abolished. They abolished the science minister and he appointed himself head of the... He appointed... No one misogynist and everything else, you know. Appointed himself the head of women's... What is it? The minister for women.

Jeff: Like women's rights or something.

Dave Jones: Yeah, women's rights. I don't know. Whatever. Anyway, yeah, we've had our anti-science government and we survived, you know? So, you know...

Jeff: That helps a little but not much. Okay. It helps a little. Right. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Anyway, hang in there. Like, yeah, Australians are more, meh, you know, bunch of dickheads and, you know, we'll just boot them out at the next election. It's like, you know... Same thing with you, you know? Like, probably at most it's going to be four years, right? Yeah. I don't see it last in eight. I think something else is...

Jeff: That's... I don't want to think about it, so...

Dave Jones: Well, anyway. Hmm.

Jeff: Okay. Um, okay. So, the olden days. Uh, this is actually a great... I actually got this from Chris White. Uh, he posted it. Uh, but there's... I don't know. Have you watched the old AT&T archives? The, um... I think we probably posted about him before.

Dave Jones: Oh, I've probably watched the occasional one that somebody sent me.

Jeff: Yeah. Um, this one's...

Speaker ?: No, I haven't.

Jeff: This one's great, but they actually talk about... They actually show... They built an entire, uh, wave simulator with, like, using, um... I can't even tell what it is, really. It's like... Um... Oh, boy. It might get loud here. There's a guy with a ladder outside where I'm recording right now. We'll see how this goes.

Dave Jones: I have experience with wave tanks. We built wave tanks at, uh...

Jeff: Oh, yeah? At your... At the... At the...

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah. Because we tested stuff in-house, and they're, uh... Yeah, they're not... They're... Oh! One of these things. Oh, yes. I was going to build one.

Jeff: Yeah? So, like...

Dave Jones: Spoiler alert. Yes. Um, David 2 actually looked into it for me. I was going to get him to build me one. Yes, yes. No, I've seen this. Yes. I was going to build one.

Jeff: How does it work? I can't tell how it works. So, it's... So, we should explain what it is. It's... Basically, they're showing a wave simulation, but they're doing it with, like, sticks that are kind of, like, rotating? Is that kind of...

Dave Jones: Yes. They're... They're on a center pivot, and, like, a torsional pivot, and the torsion... The flexor torsion goes through that center pivot, and it generates... And they've got arms, which then wave up and down, and it will simulate a wave. It simulates reflection. So, when the reflection hits the end, it bounces back. Yes, I wanted to build one, and David 2, you know, being the physics and math nerd, that he, oh, I can build that in 10 minutes. And I went, no, you can't.

Jeff: Hold my beer.

Dave Jones: And I think it's a bit more finesse involved than that. Yeah, this looks really complicated. And he said, no, no, no, I've got this great idea, and he... I... Yeah, anyway.

Jeff: Oh, they're showing it at about 22 minutes in, how they actually build it. Yeah. Okay. Anyways... Oh, are they?

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. These old videos are amazing. No, I haven't seen this episode.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Okay, are they showing how they build it?

Jeff: Yeah, a little bit.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Jeff: Yeah. But anyways, yeah, these old videos, this is...

Dave Jones: Ah, okay, I need to watch this one.

Jeff: Yeah, this... So this is... The old archives, they have stuff about tubes, they have stuff about transistors, stuff like that. And I think I mentioned last week, or maybe the week before, but I have been reading that book that Jeff recommended, and it is just fantastic. It is the idea factory.

Dave Jones: Right.

Jeff: Yeah. Highly, highly, highly, highly recommended. So, I mean, they're talking about... I didn't realize that in order to... Spoiler alert. In order to get out from under a bunch of monopoly, like they were going to break up AT&T, instead, they gave away all their patents in order to...

Dave Jones: Right.

Jeff: ...to spur innovation in other companies. And that's basically... That's actually what... Sweet. ...basically allowed transistors to be made outside of AT&T, or... Mm-hmm. What do they call the other... The electric arm of it. So, yeah. Crazy. Crazy stuff. So... Mm-hmm. Really good book.

Dave Jones: Damn you. Now you've made me want to build one of these again.

Jeff: I know. We should also mention that Jeff did post all of his photos from that trip. So, last time we talked was also with Jeff on the show, and Jeff did post all those photos. We'll link those in as well. So... Cool. ...good photos. I can't believe Nokia owns Bell Labs now. That's so weird. But... Yeah. What else is going on? What else we got? There's a good article about when you're depressed, make something. So, that's some good...

Dave Jones: Is there one LinkedIn in there?

Jeff: Yeah, that's a good thing for me. It is good to make, I mean... Straight after the show. Yeah. I built a... I recently... So for XSplit, right? So we mentioned XSplit. There's a way to map keyboards to keys, or rather keys to functions, like to switch between cameras.

Dave Jones: Hang on. I've got a technical question with XSplit. How do you pause when the focus isn't on the app? When the focus isn't on the app? Because I've tried to... I've got a pause key set, and it doesn't work if I switch focus to the screen I'm capturing.

Jeff: Oh, mine does. I think that's the setting in there. Okay. But anyways, there's a bunch of hotkeys you can do for it, and so I was like, oh, well, I can just do this with a teensy, and so that was what... I built that in like a day and a half. Not a day and a half, but it was a quick layout, and so that's what I built recently. What do you build? Anything?

Dave Jones: I'm trying to. Yeah? No, I'm trying to get my multimeter out.

Jeff: Oh, this is your secret stuff, huh? This is your...

Dave Jones: Oh, it's not secret. It was in my latest video.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, trying to get my custom multimeter done.

Jeff: Hmm. What video was that?

Dave Jones: Hiccup after hiccup after hiccup.

Jeff: What's going on with it?

Dave Jones: Oh, there's just more. More things, more things I discover every time I use it.

Jeff: Is it a firmware thing, or is it a hardware thing?

Dave Jones: I don't know at this stage.

Jeff: Okay, so it's just a... Stuff I found at the moment. Bug report kind of thing, and...

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, I've sent back some bug reports to them, and... You see how much...

Jeff: Yeah, because people should know that you don't actually have full control of it either, so...

Dave Jones: No, I mean, well, I've got the source code. You're working with them. I can go in there and know, but I'm not writing, and... Right, right, right, right. It's not like I'm writing the source code. It's not like I'm laying out the board. Right. So, yep.

Jeff: That's...

Dave Jones: But apart from that, I'm reasonably closely tied to it. So, yeah, it's... And it's compromised, because if I was doing it myself, you know, there's a lot of things I'd do differently. Interesting. Yeah, well, we talked about it before.

Jeff: You're more like a product manager now, right, versus like... Yeah, I can't...

Dave Jones: Yes, I cannot micromanage a hardware team I haven't met and don't have direct contact with on the other side of the planet. Right, right, right. Like, it's just, you know, it'll just go on forever. You know, you've got to go, okay, well, that's, you know, I don't necessarily like that, but it's, you know, shrug your shoulders. It's good enough, you know? Yeah, right, right, right. And, yep. No, you can't keep tweaking until the cows come home. Mm-hmm. So, well, you can if it's your own project. It's right there in front of you. Tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak. You know, but no, not when you're dealing with a design team somewhere else, so. Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, well, it's pretty cool.

Dave Jones: I mean, that's good for you, though, right?

Jeff: I mean, that's a good, that stretches you as an engineer, kind of moving into quasi-management without actually being beholden to a company.

Dave Jones: I've got to learn to let go.

Jeff: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's tough, right? It's really tough.

Dave Jones: Got to let go of my anger, Luke.

Jeff: Yeah. Yep.

Dave Jones: Anger leads to hate. Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Sorry. What was I going to mention with that? Oh, with product stuff. I was interested. Did you watch any of the, I mean, so again, it's been a while since CES and stuff like that. Did you see any of the stuff that came out of it? I mean, we kind of talked.

Dave Jones: I didn't look at CES this year. I just didn't care.

Jeff: You didn't miss too much. Yeah, you didn't miss much on the. Right.

Dave Jones: No, it was, apart from looking at the Internet of Things breakdown of it. Oh, the Internet of Shit, you mean?

Jeff: Shit, yes. Yeah, that was fun. Twitter account. Yeah, that was very fun. I think Simone mentioned that as well. We linked that a couple shows ago.

Dave Jones: Right.

Jeff: But the interesting thing that I saw was the, if you look at the hardware battlefield, which is the tech crunch, they always do like a little competition. You know, it's like a pitch competition, like a shark tank type thing.

Dave Jones: Right. Yep.

Jeff: The top two winners was kind of the style, and I think this is actually something we'll see more in terms of, like, electronics devices, things that people are looking to build. You know, like, so if our listeners are, like, contracting engineers and stuff like that, things that they're interested in building. So this was, the winner was smart socks. And so, yeah. Oh, God. The interesting thing about it to me is that it's, so it's low-cost electronics, but it's a combination of a hardware, a connected hardware business model, right? So device that talks to an app that then talks to online. But the crazy thing is that they sell multiple, they try and sell you on a subscription model of, like, go buy new socks every month or something. No! So it's, like, disposable socks because it's for health, because it's, like, the health industry as well, right?

Dave Jones: What is wrong with these people?

Jeff: What do you mean? That's a great business model. You get the data, you get the recurring sales. I think it's really interesting. It's, I'm sure that's why they won.

Dave Jones: Yeah, so is the $1,000, so is the $1,000 Juicero that, you know, you have to use, like, and insert any other bloody, oh.

Jeff: I just think it's interesting from a, so it's connected and it's also, oh, sorry, the, I'm sorry. The connected piece does not get thrown away. The electronics don't get thrown away. It's the, there's, like, a consumable piece to it, and then the electronics gets recycled and reused again and connects again, right? So it's, like, yeah.

Dave Jones: I don't care. This is just stupid.

Jeff: I think that's smart, man. I mean, from a business perspective, I think it's smart, but.

Dave Jones: Yeah, well, I don't give a shit about the business perspective.

Jeff: Okay. Step back and ask why. This from the guy that was talking about shipping for the first 10 minutes of the show, yeah. Right. You don't care about their business perspective.

Dave Jones: Right.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh.

Jeff: What do you hate about it? Internet of shit.

Dave Jones: No, it's just, like, why? Why do I need, it's like, why do I need a freaking internet connected light bulb? Why do I need internet connected socks?

Jeff: Oh, this is for people with diabetes. So, like, that actually is.

Dave Jones: Yeah, okay, fine.

Jeff: Like, circulation stuff for diabetes. Niche product, right? Oh, yeah, super niche, yeah. There's another one for pregnant women.

Dave Jones: I bet you a million dollars they're not just marketing to them.

Jeff: No, no, they are. It's called siren care. Tracks changes in temperature and the feet for diabetics. Yeah, no, I understand what you're saying. Okay. Yeah, you're saying this fits like a broad thing. Yeah, then that totally would be internet. Like, no one needs internet connected socks on a daily basis. Like, your feet are sweaty. I know my feet are sweaty. Yeah. All right. Right.

Dave Jones: Okay, it's a pass thing.

Jeff: Okay. Well, but that is interesting, too, because there was another article I had on here about the death of gadgets, right?

Dave Jones: Yes. The gadget apocalypse. I was going to link that in. Yeah. Yes, the gadget apocalypse. Yes.

Jeff: It's true, though. I mean, like, it's, what is the device that anyone really needs past a cell phone? I think we've mentioned that on the show before, right? It's like, unless it's super, I think, industrial, you know, like, standalone type stuff. Sure. Right? That makes sense. Yeah. But that's not on a person.

Dave Jones: No, everything people have tried has failed.

Jeff: Right.

Dave Jones: Everything, every little widget that plugs into your phone somehow, nobody, you know, apart from, oh, yeah, you might make 10 million bucks on Kickstarter, but then it just flops and who's, you know, who's actually carrying this thing around?

Jeff: Right. Right.

Dave Jones: You know?

Jeff: Yep.

Dave Jones: Even Google Glass was a complete flop. Right? And other...

Jeff: It's the...

Jeff: Yeah, it's right. You just mean there's, like, a big company behind it, right?

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah.

Jeff: No, like, the Apple Watch as well. I think that that's not really doing well either. I mean, like, all of these things. Yeah, these are all consumer level.

Dave Jones: Smart Watches aren't... Yeah, Smart Watches aren't... You know, there's a market for them, right?

Jeff: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And it's, I guess, it's fairly big in the scheme of things, but it's not ubiquitous. Right? I mean...

Jeff: Yeah. You know, I was thinking about... So, obviously, Pebble is one of the things that prompted this article, and that's what they're talking about. You know, like, really, you don't need a connected ring or jewelry or watch or anything, right? Yeah. I mean, it's just your phone, right? Your phone is going to be the main thing. Maybe there will be something else in the future, but it's not there yet.

Dave Jones: Oh, dude. Yeah. Have you seen Captain Disillusion's video on the...

Dave Jones: On the... What is it? The Projection Watch, the Circa or something?

Jeff: I forget what it's called. Yeah.

Dave Jones: The Circa Projection Watch. We've got to link that in.

Jeff: Yeah, it's someone that, like, is supposed to project the entire screen onto your arm, and it's waterproof, and it's... Yeah, no, that was...

Dave Jones: Dude, seriously, I have never seen a better produced YouTube channel in my entire life. Oh, come on. This is the Dark Sky... No. No, seriously.

Jeff: I don't agree with that. I mean, it's not like... I mean, like, it's not very cinematic, if that's what you're talking... I mean, like, you're just talking about, like... It is...

Dave Jones: The technical details that go into... I mean, this is what the guy does for a living. Right, right. He does film special effects and everything else. And the amount of effort that goes into each video is phenomenal.

Jeff: Okay. I don't think it's the best I've ever seen, but it is... I will say that it is a significant effort, and it's very good.

Dave Jones: It's a massive effort. It's very good. It's very funny. Anyway, he's my new favorite YouTube channel at the moment.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, so I was really wondering why... I'm surprised there isn't... Or maybe there is, and I don't even know about it. Like, if there was just the... I'm surprised there's not, like, someone just making a small Bluetooth-connected board, you know, that could go into a watch. Like, you know, like an open-source version. I mean, I guess it would be open-source, but, like, I really haven't seen that.

Dave Jones: They're off the shelf. You can buy those.

Jeff: Which?

Dave Jones: What are you talking about?

Jeff: You're talking about just, like, a screen, a connected screen, basically, you can integrate into a watch? Like, I would just think about, like, a... I mean, because, I mean, Pebble was trying to do that a little bit with the time, I think. But it wasn't really open, you know? Like, I would just think that that would be something out there. Like, a little screen connected. No, no. Okay.

Dave Jones: No.

Jeff: Anyway.

Dave Jones: No, you can go down that rabbit hole if you want. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Jeff: Well, I mean, maybe just as a project to build for yourself kind of thing. That's a good learning experience, but... Of course. I've still never tied anything into an Android phone or an iPhone or anything. So, that would probably be the long pull of learning here.

Dave Jones: Right.

Jeff: That's nice. I think it's time for me to end the show. It sounds like they're cutting metal pipes right here.

Dave Jones: Right. Where are you, by the way?

Jeff: That's how you know. I guess I should have gone to the soundproof room.

Dave Jones: Oh, you're in your workspace. You're in your...

Jeff: I'm at the supply frame office in Pasadena. Oh, right. And it is a new office, so that's why it's...

Dave Jones: Right.

Jeff: Crawling with people cutting pipes, apparently. Yep. So...

Dave Jones: It's not too big of a deal.

Jeff: Next time it'll be a little quieter. Yeah. I think that's it anyways, right? What else do we have to talk about? Is there anything else on the list? People can go check out our list. Reddit.com slash r slash the amp hour. It's always there.

Dave Jones: Speaking of gadgets and going downhill, GoPro are slashing staff. Oh, yeah. They slash like 400 staff or something. Yeah. They just can't compete. Can't make money anymore. Yeah, that's tough. Right.

Jeff: I mean, that's another one with another gadget, right? Yep. Yep. The end is nigh for electronics. I mean, this is all consumer stuff too, right? You could still find a usage for industrial, you know, automotive stuff. Or, sorry, automation stuff, I think, is a big deal. So... But, yeah.

Dave Jones: If I was to recommend to people to go into something, go into some niche industrial thing. You know, you don't have to go into the consumer world. You can be the world's best industrial widget.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: Yep. You know? And make it... And make a... Yeah, make a $100 million company out of it. Yeah. That nobody's ever heard of, you know?

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, there was that article about GE buying up all those... GE's, but not a buying spree for... Oh, yes, that's a buying spree, yeah. ...industrial companies. So, yeah.

Dave Jones: That's right. All right.

Jeff: There's money there. And, yeah, companies pay, you know? Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, we're teaching people just to go for the big sellout.

Jeff: Yes, that's what... Yeah, so that's what the amp hour. Yeah, right. Get it while you can. Get it while the getting's good. Yep. Otherwise, you'll end up like pebble. Speaking of getting while the getting's good, Dave, I need you to pick a number between one and 30. 30. Don't pick 30. You're gonna pick 30? All right. You said one and 30. All right. Then our winner is... Wait, I gotta load it up. Tox104. Ivarz. I don't know where Ivarz is from, but...

Dave Jones: Ivarz? Is that their name?

Jeff: Yeah. First name? Well, that's what it says on Twitter. So, this is from... This is from our contest that we did back when David Kronstein was on the show. And we asked people to share. If they shared the... If they shared the post with friends, then they would be entered. And so, Ivarz is the winner of the signed copy of The Art of Electronics. Generously donated by David Bankston. Thank you to him. He will be shipping that out. We'll do more contests like that in the future. Actually, it worked out really well where people just sent me a screenshot of them sharing it to contestattheampire.com. We'll be doing that more in the future because that was just a great way to collect it. And people don't have to share on Twitter. It was really fun. People shared on IRC, LinkedIn, Slack. You know, like... IRC. Wow. I'm on IRC again. Yeah. That's where the KiCad people hang out, so...

Dave Jones: Right. Yep. All right. Maybe you need an internet connected... Maybe you need an IRC connected widget.

Jeff: There you go. I'm sure there already are. I remember Jerry had one of those. She used to have one that would, like, read the IRC messages in her shop and then she would respond on live stream. Yeah, right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but that was all software.

Jeff: Oh, it might have been. Yeah, I think you're right.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Jeff: But either way. All right. Well, thanks to everyone who entered. And we'll be back next week, I guess. Maybe.

Dave Jones: If Chris doesn't check himself into a Pentel Institution. If I don't go nuts. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We'll talk soon.

Dave Jones: Catch you next time. We'll be right back.