#114 – Kickstarter, Manufacturing, Open Hardware - Judging Jurisdictional Junctures

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast, recorded September 23rd, 2012. Episode 114, Judging Jurisdictional Junctures.

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

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of Chip Report TV and Chris Gammell's Analog Life.

Jeff Kaiser: And this is Jeff Kaiser from MightyOm.com.

Dave Jones: Yes, sir. Yes. Yes, sir. Did I do it right? I have to get him the joke. He's back. Welcome back, Jeff.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, thanks for having me on the show, guys. It's good to be back. It's been too long. I know. Months. It has been months.

Dave Jones: Because your life is flashing before your eyes at Valve, isn't it? It seems like only yesterday. And how long has it been?

Jeff Kaiser: It feels like a really long time, but I've only been working at Valve for three and a half months. So I don't know when the last time I was on the show was, but it was probably, what, four months ago? Three and a half, four months ago? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Is it that, like, stressful? Is your life that in danger of working that close to Jerry and Ben and Alan? That you, like, you're just, like, cortisol coursing through your veins because you're so stressed? Is that why it's going so fast?

Jeff Kaiser: No, it's actually, for me, it feels like it's been a long time just because my life changed very dramatically. Oh, yeah. And I'm still sort of adjusting to it. It's not every day that you pack up all your stuff and then move across the country and start something that's completely new and different. When you have a family in particular. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. And move, my wife moved as well. And it's, she's been working kind of the same job, but it's different because she's working in a different office. And so, for us, like, everything changed very dramatically because I'd been working at home and she'd been working at home at least part-time as well for years. And so, to go back to both of us having, like, a regular job and commuting to work and stuff like that, that's a big shift. And it feels like everything before that was a long time ago just because of how different it is now. But it's, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Plus, there's, like, the 60-degree difference that you had to experience going from Texas up to Washington, right?

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, I love that. I could not be happier about the weather up here. People say that it's about to get really bad. We've had a really beautiful summer here. In fact, one of my co-workers was saying that this is the best summer he's ever had. He's lived in this area. You've been duped.

Dave Jones: Once winter comes, you're screwed. You won't be able to get in the front door, right? You'll have to take a spade with you to, you know, the front door of Valve would be snowing.

Jeff Kaiser: No, it does not snow that much here. They get an inch or two a year if that. Oh, I can. Right. Yeah. It's the rain and the gloom and the darkness and the short days because we've been getting used to it getting dark at 9 or 10 o'clock in the evening. And now the days are getting shorter. Every day, it seems like the days are getting shorter. And I think in the wintertime, there's only a few hours of sunlight. Yeah. Jeff's going to become like the...

Dave Jones: Quick, quick. The sun's out. Everyone races out from the building to have a look, you know?

Jeff Kaiser: No, I've seriously been warned. Like, oh, you better get ready. You know, it's going to be dark and gloomy. And I think actually people are watching me to see how I respond.

Dave Jones: See, they're smart. Valve are smart. They hire in the summertime.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I think people... Yeah, that's certainly a good tactic because I was here in February of this year and it snowed while I was here. Oh, really? So, yeah, I think if Kylie had come out here... Kylie is my wife. If she'd come out here during that time, she may not have been so keen on moving. She really tricked her. Yeah. Well, you know, it's all about presenting everything in the best possible light. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Jeff has three months left at Valve, folks, while the wife makes him move back.

Chris Gammell: I'm sure we can find another guest on by then that you guys can pull in in your stead, right? Someone who's used to the lack of sun.

Dave Jones: So, would it be accurate to say that Valve is... and those sorts of companies, because I've worked at a similar company, that's pretty much... You have to be single to work there, really. You know, being a family person is probably tough at a company like that where people work until midnight.

Jeff Kaiser: I'm hoping to disprove that. But it's actually not totally true. So, I know that in my dealings with people at Valve that there are actually quite a few people that have kids. And I think the workforce is... maybe the mean age is increasing because Valve's been around for long enough that people that have been there since the beginning, now they have families and they have kids. Where before, maybe they were, you know, eating day-old pizza at midnight coding. Like, they're not doing that as much anymore. But actually, it's interesting because there's a mix. There are quite a few people that are young, you know, just out of school or have been, like, working as young professionals or single. And they can afford to spend all of their waking hours at the company, even though it's not required. It's just... it's fun, it's interesting, and it's exciting. And so, people do. But I'd say the majority don't. That's actually the exception much more than the rule. I've been trying to strike a balance because I like to work late and some of the other people that I work with do as well. And so, it's not unusual to be there at, you know, 7 or 8 o'clock or later in the evening. But a lot of times, that's when the interesting conversations about sort of the more softer side of the company and product development. Like, we're having more free discussions because the stress of, like, the workday is sort of winding down and people are becoming more social in the evenings and kind of... Are you saying there's a beer tap somewhere in the building? No, there's actually not.

Chris Gammell: Oh, man, you're a software company.

Jeff Kaiser: I thought software companies all had that. But this is sort of the equivalent of, you know, the coworkers going out for a beer, right? Going to the local watering hole because that's when you kind of get to, you know, talk more openly about sort of what's going on and what you're interested in doing. And that's when a lot of stuff gets designed, too, right? Yeah, that's right.

Chris Gammell: You figure how many things throughout history have been designed on bar napkins. It's probably a shocking amount. And you look at other cultures, too. I mean, like, I know that, like, in Japanese culture and, like, Korean culture that I experience, a lot of the business, like, the actual business when the decisions get made, that's how it over drinks, too. You know, it's just like it's once you relax and you're chilling with people, then you actually get stuff done. It's right. And if you're... I'm sorry. Go ahead, Dave.

Dave Jones: Oh, so I just wanted to mention, I've heard of one company here in Sydney who, you know, like a startup based on the napkin. And they actually framed the original napkin. Oh, that's awesome. And it hung in there for you. You know? Yeah, that is cool. There's our first ever sketch. Brilliant. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: And the truth is, is that if you're, like, a nine-to-five employee, you might be missing out on that stuff. And I think it's really important to sort of be connected at that level with other people at the company and be involved in these kinds of discussions. And so it's sort of like there's an incentive to hang out and just be there and be a part of this conversation that's happening. And, I mean, granted, at a place like Valve, there's relatively few people that are by the clock. Like, five o'clock rolls around and they take off and go home. Yeah, out the door. But, you know, people with different family and other obligations have different constraints on kind of how much they can be there and how much they can participate. And I like to try to find a balance where I'm there some of the time, but I'm not there. You know, I'm certainly not there at midnight every night, right? Two words, telepresence machine. That's not a bad idea.

Dave Jones: This little robot Jeff walking around in the valve corridors.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, man. Your Google goggles controlling it or something. Well, it's good for burnout, too. I mean, like you said, I mean, it's good for balance. And, you know, if you're there too much, you'll burn out. But there's always times when you're ramping up. Like, I know my stuff's ramping up now. And it's timed out pretty well, actually, because the weather's going to crap around here, too. So it might as well be at work, right? I mean, if it's going to be dark when I drive home, it's no different if I drive home at 430 rather than 830. So I don't care. Not outside walking or anything. So, yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, it's just like people in hot parts of the country. They stay at work because there's air conditioning, right? Yeah. It's nice to be there instead of being outside. And so, yeah, you're right. And it changes. Like, I was working really hard on getting a design out a couple weeks ago. And I was there late every night just trying to hammer out this design. And then, you know, I finished. And the design came back. And it worked. And so, you know, you kind of like you throttle up when there's challenges. And then you try to, you know, recover that time when things are a little bit more, you know, normal.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah. And if you just keep throttling it up, too, you're just, your work's going to, your work quality is going to plummet. So it's good to have that balance.

Jeff Kaiser: Unless you're a superstar, you know, designer. Even them.

Chris Gammell: I think, you know, like, I think those people just have average levels that are just, you know, high above everyone else. If they had the time to step back down, they could throttle up even better. You know, they could just do even better things. So, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

Dave Jones: We are going to talk about on today's show something we'd never talk about.

Chris Gammell: Never.

Dave Jones: Kickstarter. We wouldn't. And open source hardware. Sorry, folks.

Chris Gammell: But not the whole time, right? We agreed not the whole time. No, not the whole time.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, we'll see. There's some other stuff to talk about. We probably could go the whole show about it. Oh, I guarantee we could. Because there's been a lot of shakeup in not only the open source hardware community, but the whole Kickstarter thing. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: What do we start with, then? Which one?

Dave Jones: Should we get the MakerBot out of the way?

Chris Gammell: I guess.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. Groan. Yes. Chris.

Chris Gammell: I guess.

Dave Jones: You just, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I'm just, I'm ambivalent towards it by now, you know? Like, I'm sure some of our listeners don't care, and some have already heard about it, and the rest are probably fuming about it still. But I don't know. It's just, I'm past it. I don't care.

Dave Jones: Well, if you haven't heard, they, the, it's not a rumor anymore. They basically are confirmed as they are going to close some aspect of the open hardware nature of the MakerBot thing, which has always been, you know, 100% open source hardware. That's how they founded the company. That's why they were successful, et cetera, et cetera. And they've, you know, and they're talking a lot of doublespeak at the moment, which is quite sad. But, no, it is basically, they have admitted that, yes, they are closing it in some way, shape, or form, which we don't know yet. We don't know the absolute details of it. Jeff, give us your take. Good, bad, thumbs up, thumbs down, inevitable.

Jeff Kaiser: Gosh, it is such a complicated issue. And I can definitely understand the frustration of the community, particularly the community that intersects with the open hardware community. I think a lot of people adopted the MakerBot because it was an open platform that could be hacked and tinkered with. Because, honestly, the first iterations of it weren't very good, right? I mean, it was a very experimental platform, and it left a lot to be desired in terms of repeatability and usability. And so a lot of very resourceful hackers came together and, like, started glomming things onto it and improving the build platform and messing with the software. And so, obviously, this community that is very attached to the MakerBot and has been basically fueling its success are now really PO'd, right? Because they feel that they've been slighted. Or at least a small number of very vocal people feel like they've been slighted by MakerBot because the MakerBot Replicator 2 is not going to be 100% open source. So, you know, I feel for them. They have a good point. But on the other hand, MakerBot is in this to make money, right? They're venture capital funded, yes. They're VC funded.

Dave Jones: That is their sole goal.

Jeff Kaiser: That's right. So, was this expected? I think once people saw that the VCs were involved, the writing was on the wall. Everyone expected it. Yeah, that's right.

Dave Jones: They probably didn't expect it so soon, I suspect. They probably eventually, oh, yeah, in five years' time, you know, yeah, it'll, you know. Five years is a long time these days. Yeah, exactly. But I, oh, man.

Chris Gammell: Well, we said it's a video about it. We should mention that too. I mean, you kind of ran through it. I did. I did.

Dave Jones: I didn't say much because I, like, shot that, like, an hour after I heard, you know, news was just coming through. And it was still a rumor, you know. So, I didn't say anything.

Jeff Kaiser: But I'm frankly amazed at the shitstorm, like, how quickly, like, it was Thursday, right? Yeah. The Replicator 2 was announced on Thursday. And by Thursday night, it was, like, everywhere. And it was so, the reaction was so intense. And it was, it's just amazing how something like that, it just, like, the avalanche. It overshadowed it too, right?

Chris Gammell: I mean, it was like, it's a pretty cool new product. And it's like, yeah, well.

Jeff Kaiser: And a lot of the things that have been flying around are based on speculation and rumors too. That's the thing is that no one really knows. No one, I mean, for all we know, MakerBot could be having meetings behind closed doors right now saying, hey, you know, maybe we should open source this because people are getting kind of upset. Antsy and pancy. So, I mean, who knows? Like, in a week, the situation might be different. So, it's interesting how far this went just based on one announcement and no confirmation on the actual open source status of the Replicator 2.

Dave Jones: Well, they certainly didn't improve the situation with their double talk response. I mean, it actually came from Bree. And it was either vetted by somebody else or he has been very well indoctrinated in the ways of big company talk, you know, because there were no specifics in there at all. It was all, you know, airy-fairy pie-in-the-sky stuff.

Jeff Kaiser: I read that entire, what, press release as saying, we haven't decided yet, right? I mean, that's really how that read.

Dave Jones: I read it differently. I read it as, yes, we are going closed source, but we don't want to admit it, basically. That's pretty much the only way I thought I could read it. You could have read it as, you know. But I don't think they're going completely closed source, right? A, they're probably not legally allowed to, right? But I read that as we're going closed source in as far as our lawyers tell us we're allowed to. That's pretty much, you know, how I read that. So whether or not I'm correct, I don't know. And there's a couple of aspects to this whole saga was, one, A, does it make any actual difference? Because really, is anyone, like from a completely open point of view, is anyone actually going to build their own replicator from scratch?

Chris Gammell: Right, aside from the Kickstarter guy, right?

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, who didn't, you know, get off the ground, right? And you can actually buy a replicator from China. There is actually a Chinese company called MBot who actually currently sell a replicator and a Thingamatic. It looks slightly different, but they've basically taken the original files, tweaked them a bit, made it look a little bit different, and you can buy one fairly cheaply. Much cheaper than the Tangibot was going to be. So it's already happened. But, you know, is the individual in their backyard going to build one from scratch? The answer is pretty much no, right? You know, like essentially, hardly any.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's like that quote about any piece of technology that's sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. Not that the users of this are, you know, unable to figure it out, but it's just a sourcing parts. Well, no, but they're tricky to get ready. Yeah, sourcing parts, really.

Dave Jones: Yeah, and sourcing the parts and all that sort of stuff. In small volumes, right?

Chris Gammell: Sourcing everything in small volumes is a, your prices, your costs would go through the roof.

Dave Jones: So I think it's more important to think of the open aspect as in people can have the ability to at least modify a few things. I don't think it matters from a point of view of people, you know, able to build one from scratch. I don't think that really matters a rat's ass anymore. In these really complicated devices, you know. Because they're simple on the surface, these things, but they're really complicated to actually, you know, get working and tweak and have a commercial, and make a commercial product out of.

Jeff Kaiser: Right.

Chris Gammell: I don't, I, I, like I said, I'm kind of past it, but. Right, okay. I don't know, like, I think the thought experiment I've been doing is, so this is, this all started from an open source hardware perspective, right? And from that perspective, if it was an open source hardware to start with, it wouldn't have existed, right? I mean, that's, that's kind of the main thing, so.

Dave Jones: Yeah, pretty much. So they do owe their existence, and I think they're forgetting that, but you've got to understand, of course, that the venture capital people who came in don't give a shit about that. Well. They don't care, because they weren't the founders, you know. Yeah. They just put money in and said, right, we want to make a return on our investment. End of story. Well, maybe here's a better question, then. And I think that, I think if they can do it using, by making it open, they probably would, right? But I think, because they don't want this to be a $20 million company. They don't want it to be a $50 million company. They want it to be a $500 million or a billion dollar company, right? You know what's cool?

Chris Gammell: A billion dollars.

Dave Jones: A billion dollars, exactly. Well, here's, okay, so here's a question, though.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, go. What happens if someone started up tomorrow, right, and they came in and they took an Arduino, right, open source hardware project, and they started, and they just took it and they used it in a new product. They didn't call it an Arduino or anything like that, but they just took it and they started a company based on that, and assuming it was, you know, something people wanted to buy, and they said, no, we're not open source. No, we're not. I mean, like, is that...

Dave Jones: They legally probably can't do that in various ways because it's done under a legal license. It's not just given away. There's a legal license behind the Arduino and most open source hardware stuff.

Chris Gammell: So it's the attribution and the share alike. It's the share alike, right?

Dave Jones: And the share alike's the killer, right? That's the thing that really scares the shit out of these venture capitalists, right? Oh, shit, we have to actually give it back, right? It's, you know, that's the scary thing. Oh, if we build upon it in some way, shape, or form, we're kind of sort of legally obligated to give it all back.

Chris Gammell: So then how is that not going to work now? That's the part I can't get around. It's a complex business. No, but that's not an answer. I know. So if all this stuff is open to start with and they say it from now on, no, we're not open at all, and they've already used share alike, does that mean someone's going to come in and say, well, then prove it's different? Is it like a court case kind of thing?

Dave Jones: The only way to settle it is in the courts, I'm afraid. I know. I know.

Chris Gammell: Let's all sigh at once. This Apple-Samsung taste in my mouth is still terrible.

Dave Jones: I know, and it's going to end up like that. Seriously, you know?

Chris Gammell: And who even puts money behind the other side of it, right?

Dave Jones: Only at the big player level, right? Only at the big player level, because no one's going to bother. You know, the open source hardware groups aren't going to engage lawyers. Who has money to argue in court, right?

Chris Gammell: If you don't have VC money behind it or something. You know, who's on the other side then? Is it like we do a Kickstarter for, you know, like to fight court costs? It's like, I'm not thrown in for that. No effing way. I know.

Dave Jones: It's... There is no answer, because it has not... There has not been a suitable test case yet, really, in the open source hardware thing. And this might be. This might be the big test case. But as, you know, we're implying here, the people with the money always win, unless you can challenge them. You know? Who's going to challenge the venture capitalists behind MakerBot, right? They've probably got a lot more money than they've already put in.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, I mean, why would they be challenged? There's nothing to...

Jeff Kaiser: Well, that's right.

Dave Jones: They might just be shamed, right?

Jeff Kaiser: So we don't know whether they're actually... I mean, it seems like that would only make sense if they were actually legitimately using or violating the license for some open component of their system. But, I mean, for all we know, they've redesigned the necessary components that were open. They could have. Or, for all we know, they may continue to use open components and keep those open. But then, for example, restrict the access to their proprietary slicing engine that they've got on the new replicator, too. I think that's probably the most likely case. Or if they designed a new head from scratch, for example. Right.

Dave Jones: If any new hardware they design from scratch, they have every right in the world, I fully support them to making that non-open.

Chris Gammell: And that's kind of like how Android is as well, isn't it? Like certain components are open, but certain parts aren't.

Dave Jones: I'm not sure. I don't follow that.

Chris Gammell: I thought that was part of how they got it. Because I remember with the whole Oracle, like yelling at Google about using Java in there somewhere.

Dave Jones: Oh, it happened with the OpenOffice suite package. Oh, was it? Yeah, that's right. That's right. And then it forked off.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. And VirtualBox has the same thing. You can download VirtualBox. It's open source. But if you want USB 2.0 support, you have to download a proprietary extension. Right. And that's not open.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, my God. So you just have a mix. You have a mix of open and closed stuff working together. That's like an audacity, too.

Chris Gammell: You can't... There's no MP3 encoder included with the software we use that's open. Yeah. That's the same kind of thing.

Dave Jones: So it was probably inevitable that they were just going to close some aspect of it, I think. You know, I'm not really surprised by this at all. Yeah. I think everyone kind of expected it. As long as they don't, you know, like, I don't think anyone would have a problem with them if they truly produced new innovations themselves from scratch, not making those open. I don't think anyone would in the open source hardware community would have an issue with that. Right? There's nothing that forces them to have to open everything they actually produce. But I think if they do genuinely build upon, you know, stuff substantially, you know, is like if they continue to use the Arduino, for example, as their electronics, you know, engine, and they, you know, and they don't give back changes to that, then, well, that's, you know, against the spirit of the whole thing, and they deserve to be shamed for it.

Jeff Kaiser: I really, really doubt that's what's going to happen. Who invited this Kaiser guy anyways?

Dave Jones: I mean, their lawyers have probably looked at it and go, right, we can close this, this, and this, and, you know, we're legally obliged, legally allowed to do it. And everything else, well, we'll just keep it open to try and keep some people happy.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's maybe not to keep people happy, but because they're required to.

Dave Jones: Well, and be, they're required to, right? Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: I definitely see them taking a hybrid approach where things like their proprietary slicer, I can't remember what it's called, but they're introducing a new slicing engine. To replace, what is it, Skyn, Skeen Forge? Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And that developed in-house, was it?

Jeff Kaiser: That's right. Yeah. So they've got this special software they're using to do the slicing now. They'll keep that closed. And if they're still using Arduino, obviously, they'll keep that stuff open. And yeah, who knows? But it'll be interesting to see. The Open Hardware Summit is next week, and I think Bray is speaking at the summit, right?

Dave Jones: Wouldn't you hate to be him at the moment?

Jeff Kaiser: The timing is impeccable.

Dave Jones: You'd be getting evil eyes as you walked in. Oh, man.

Jeff Kaiser: It could not be worse timing or better timing for this to have happened. So I don't know. Chris, are you going to the Open Hardware Summit?

Chris Gammell: No, I can't go this year. I scheduled something on top of it. Well, yeah, you're the other way. I'm a lot closer than you are now. But yeah, I scheduled something right on top of it.

Jeff Kaiser: It'll be really interesting to see how this is hashed out at the summit. I'm sure it'll be a topic for discussion. Yeah, and that's why...

Dave Jones: We need video. Come on. We need video. Yeah, let's stream it probably.

Chris Gammell: And that's why I'm like... Because you know this is going to stop soon. So I think we should give it up now. We should give up the ghosts and move on.

Dave Jones: All right, that's enough on the make-up.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that was...

Dave Jones: But there's been some interesting stuff on the Kickstarter front. Yes. There really has. They've just changed their rules. I know we talk about Kickstarter a lot on here, and everyone's probably sick of it.

Chris Gammell: We do, but for a good reason, right? We talk about... Yeah, for a good reason. Even talking to Scott Miller last week, it's for good reason because that's where it all is right now for hardware.

Dave Jones: It's a big enabler in our industry to get people started on the hardware front. And it's one of the most important things out there.

Chris Gammell: And these changes have been specifically targeted towards people selling hardware.

Dave Jones: Yes, they have.

Chris Gammell: Even how I'm saying it is kind of interesting because it's not supposed to be selling hardware. And the title of their post was, Kickstarter is not a store.

Dave Jones: Yes.

Chris Gammell: Which is... Yeah, they're not.

Dave Jones: So here are the things that they're changing. The content creators, the creators of the Kickstarter project now must, in quotes, what are they... Well, they must... What's the word? They must answer the question, what are the risks and challenges this project faces and what qualifies you to overcome them? Yeah. As in, how the hell are you going to get this manufactured when you've never manufactured anything before?

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's pretty much what they mean. All right? So you've got to answer that, otherwise they won't even list your project anymore. That's pretty much the insinuation.

Chris Gammell: This is basically the question, like in the interview, like, what are your greatest weaknesses?

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So they've added a risk and challenges section, basically. A risks and challenges section that you must fill out to their satisfaction, otherwise they won't list you. And I think that is a good thing because, you know, hardware is difficult to produce, as we've talked about many, many times.

Chris Gammell: We do talk about electronics once in a while. We do. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But in the real world, you've got to actually manufacture those electronics. Yeah. I hate the real world.

Chris Gammell: I know, right? It sucks. Why can't we just do simulations all the time, right?

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: That brings us to the next thing they no longer allow. And this is a biggie. Yeah. Because this has been the staple of every Kickstarter project, hardware project out there. They now no longer allow simulations or 3D, you know, those fancy 3D rendered models. You have to only show your real prototypes.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Wow. This seems like a direct response to the Lifex. The Lifex bulb, yes. Which is a current project. That's probably the thing that triggered this because that's been in the news quite a bit recently as an example of... I haven't seen any of this stuff. The Lifex bulb? It was on Reuters, what, a week ago? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Reuters really ripped into it.

Chris Gammell: The vaporware of the day.

Dave Jones: As well as Kickstarter in general. We'll put up the link to this. Do read it from a guy called Felix Salmon. Wow. And he really tears into this Lifex or Lifex light bulb project. It's basically a Wi-Fi project bulb. And he says there's no way in hell they're going to be able to manufacture it when all the major players in the industry can't even produce these bulbs. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: And this is a particularly typical Kickstarter in that the first thing you see when you open the Kickstarter page is this beautiful conceptual 3D object. It is sexy, isn't it? If you looked at it too quickly, you think, oh, well, there it is. There's the product. That's the thing that I'm giving the money to make, right?

Dave Jones: 1.3 million dollars already?

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: And it's done by Andy Gilm, who I know. He's from the Melbourne Hackerspace. And he's, I think, the key hardware architect on this. And now it's his full-time job, I believe, anyway. 1.3 million. That could be my job if they want it. So hi, Andy, if he's listening. I do wish you the best of luck. I do hope you can actually produce this thing. But yeah, it's going to be tough to produce it. And they're pretty much admitting that. They're admitting lots of stuff. They're very open in their Kickstarter project of what challenges they face and stuff like that.

Chris Gammell: On the back of questions we received, our general, we have adjusted the video to more accurately reflect new information. We removed IPv6 from the main info page. Wow.

Dave Jones: Anyway, it's, yeah, it's, yeah. And it is a sexy rendering, isn't it? It just makes you salivate and want to buy one.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, man.

Dave Jones: Yeah, so this is what they've effectively banned now. You're not allowed to do that anymore. You're only allowed to show real photos of real hardware.

Chris Gammell: That's tough for machine metal stuff. Man, I mean, I guess you could, I mean, you could do the same thing, right? You could, you could put, you could put metallic paint on a 3D model of, you know, this heat sink. And it could be total crap, right? I mean.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, there's ways around it.

Dave Jones: It forces people to actually, I kind of like this. They've really laid down the line in the sand and said, you have to do serious work up front. And actually spend some money up front and get your prototype made.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, I really like it.

Dave Jones: That's what I do. I would never put a project on Kickstarter or any other crowdfunded site unless I had actually produced at least a few through the production line. And here's the finished, you know, here's what it's going to look like.

Chris Gammell: A production line could be your garage, right? I mean, it doesn't have to be China.

Dave Jones: Well, it could be. But I would even run a panel through the local assembler just so that, okay, I've produced 10 of them on a panel.

Chris Gammell: See, but doesn't that mean that you are using it as a store? That's the part I don't get. Well. That means you're like, oh, well, I'm just using this for marketing and, you know, distribution, right? And that's what some of our listeners wrote in about. They wrote in about the Team C3.

Dave Jones: Well, no, because you may not have the money to buy parts for 5,000 units. Right?

Chris Gammell: I guess so, yeah. I mean, that might be a valid point. But, I mean, some of our listeners, so Adshay and Uniclock were talking about the Team C3 and how basically that was an Arduino clone, right? And basically he didn't have them or he was already done, but he just wanted to use it as a distribution point. And, you know, he said you could buy multiples, which we'll get to, I'm sure.

Dave Jones: They've kind of banned that now. Right. Well, they've put restrictions on that. You're not allowed to sell, you know, packages of 100 or something like that, I think. Right. That's another.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: It's, yeah. Getting them shut there.

Chris Gammell: It's tough. Let's just say this. Kickstarter was not meant for hardware.

Dave Jones: Right. But, no, I think it's a good line in the sand. It was a tough line in the sand for them to do, I'm sure. But I think it's good. It now forces people to at least do some legwork.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And produce a real prototype, you know. Because there were so many on there that were just, you know, 3D models and that's it. Right. High in the sky. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: It's all too easy for a group of industrial designers to come up with some impossible product idea. But it has this great. Let's get some architects on there. That's right. Yeah. It's got these great photos and great drawings. And I think Kickstarter is, if you can get that bandwagon rolling, it just- You get the good press. That's right. Yeah. You get the good press and it turns into this huge thing. And pretty soon money is like pouring in the, you know, it's like the river of dollars is coming at you. Right. And I think it's good that Kickstarter is trying to look out for the apparently very gullible public.

Chris Gammell: Oh, they're covering their own ass. Don't kid yourself in any way, shape, or form. Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. This is for them. Because you know it's going to come back eventually, right? There's going to be a class action suit and they're going to be like, oh, well, we didn't get these things. Yes. We were promised.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, fortunately, them protecting their interests, at least to a certain extent, protects the general public interest. It does. I agree. Public's interests as well.

Chris Gammell: Well, there goes that perpetual motion machine I was going to put up on there. I had it all worked out. I had a great rendering. It was pendulum-based.

Dave Jones: And you had the video rendered and everything. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's not a bad thing. I think it's good, actually. Yeah. So. Because there were just too many on there that I just look at them and they go, oh, man, another 3D render. Oh.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, some of these I wonder.

Chris Gammell: So, I wonder about the multiple things, though, because some of that has value. Like, some of these, especially for electronic stuff, you know, people are trying to target the $100 range or so because it's still, you know, consumer-friendly then. A lot of people wanted, you know, I think the thing is when it's like an iPhone accessory, you know, if it's less than $100, you'll get a lot of people that are willing to buy that in such a huge market. So. Mm-hmm. But the thing is with this, you know, multiples of it, right? How do you, how, people are trying to ramp up their, how much money they're getting. And I don't, I don't see it working the same way that like, like music groups do it. And, you know, it's like, you know, music groups will say, well, you know, the album is $15, you get a copy of the album. For $5,000, we'll fly out here and we'll, or we'll fly out to you and sing a concert in your living room. And it's like, now is it like, well, for $5,000, I'll fly out to your house and do some CAD in your living room.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, you know, you could, it's, it's not, it's not unheard of. I mean, the, the, um, the Oculus, uh, Kickstarter, uh, they had a couple options where, you know, you could fly out and you could see their production facilities. You could get a tour, you could meet the founders, you know, I guess so. I think there's still, you can do those sorts of, uh, what kind of touchy feely things. Oh, you added. Yeah. Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: Uh, that's, I guess so. Yeah. I don't know.

Dave Jones: I don't know why anyone would pay an exorbitant amount of money for that. I don't. It's an interesting technology. I don't know why people just donate. Like, you know, like if, especially if this person is just, oh, you know, no, like for some projects, I certainly understand it. Oh, this is a great idea. It's helping out the community and all that sort of stuff. But some of them are clearly targeted at just making money and starting their own business, which is against the Kickstarter rules. You're not allowed to use Kickstarter to start as just the sole goal is starting your own business. Oh, interesting. That is not. Yes. That is, uh, because the, the Tangibot actually, um, was borderline. The Tangibot was actually against the Kickstarter rules there. If you read it and a lot of people pointed that out, they said, cause the guy in his video, the Tangibot guy, I forget his name said, oh yeah, I want to start my own 3d printing business. And you're not actually allowed to say that. You're not allowed to claim that you're using Kickstarter to start a business. Yeah. It's yes. That is. If your sole goal is to build up a business empire, you're not allowed to do it. There you go.

Chris Gammell: Well, that is, uh, this is an interesting time we're living in.

Dave Jones: It is. And it's all happening so fast and the rules are changing so quickly in response to, you know, projects that are going pear shaped.

Chris Gammell: So I had a question about all this stuff because I asked this a while back on the, on the subreddit that we have for links and stuff. And, and who are you asking exactly? Probably you.

Dave Jones: Me?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, you.

Dave Jones: Well, I've got an opinion of everything. Go for it. There we go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So I, I would be interested in from the audience too, though, is like, so hardware is back in vogue or maybe it's going to become more back in vogue or whatever, but are we seeing actually more demand for hardware engineers because of this? Right. That, that, that's the question is, do you know, like you said, you know, someone, what's that? In industry? No, more so like it's startups, I guess, or startups or new companies or even just Kickstarter projects. Are people actually hearing, you know, like, oh, well I need a, you know, I need an electronics person to be able to work on this project. Or is it more like, well, we'll figure it out.

Dave Jones: I think it's so fueled far between. It's just down so far down in the noise. I don't think it matters.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: I just think, I would expect it. It's, it's, it's not like there's 10,000 Kickstarter hardware projects, you know, there's, you know, a dozen or two. Sure as hell feels like it.

Speaker ?: Well, yeah, I know.

Dave Jones: And, and most of them are, you know, they are hardware guys to begin with, or at least they have some hardware experience. So, you know, it's, it's not often that they have to go out and hire someone to take care of the hardware for them.

Jeff Kaiser: You know, I, I do think it's cool that these projects make hardware engineers seem like rock stars though. You know, it, it definitely. Yeah. And it's changing the public image of what it means to design hardware. And you get a cool Kickstarter project going and you know, the, the lead designer, he's in the videos, you know, he's got a very public presence. I mean, it's interesting. That's right. Yeah, that's right. I think that's really cool.

Dave Jones: Actually, if anything, they need video people to produce the slick video for them, right? Because it's all about the slick video, right? It really is. Everyone can do a slick video. I, I, I'd have a hard, it's my full time living to make videos and I'd have a hard time doing a really slick video. Right.

Chris Gammell: With all the fancy cuts and everything.

Dave Jones: Because I'm so used to just, you know, slap it together kind of videos.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. I've, I've got, the, the secret is a Canon 5D narrow depth of field.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Those nice. It makes everything look awesome. Nice broquet effects in the, yeah. That's right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Should I know what that means? I have a new camera. I don't know what that means.

Dave Jones: It means that's a blurry background. You know, the object in the front is in focus. It means, that's a very, what's called a shallow depth of field. Okay. So the, the object in front is in sharp focus and the object behind is all blurred out.

Chris Gammell: Don't they need to actually like sometimes then change it too so that they focus on something else? Isn't that part of like making videos look cool? Or like, yes. That's right.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. It's all about highlighting the object that you want to highlight and, and blurring everything else so that you're, the viewer's attention is, I don't know anything about making films, but that's my understanding of it. Yes. And so the way you do this.

Dave Jones: It can be grossly overused. Right. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. It kind of, if you go on Vimeo, it's everywhere, right? You see it.

Dave Jones: See, I, I hate using it. Actually, I've shot a little, I've shot a segment on this before and it'll be in an upcoming video I've already shot about lighting in my lab. I actually shoot. Yeah. Here's a teaser. I shoot a little depth of field kind of primer kind of thing. It's very, you know, it's very crappy, but it explains this effect and how, when you're doing say a tear down of a board, I show my board as an example, when it's on an angle, the front of the board will be in focus, but the rear of the board's not. And I find that really annoying when I'm watching a video. Me too. If that board is tilted to an angle, I want the whole board to be in focus, not just the front of the board or sort of the, the, the, the middle of the board. Sometimes if the camera is set, so the depth of field is so shallow that, that the middle of the board is in focus, the front of it's out of focus and the back of it's out of focus. It's bloody annoying. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: You see this in product photos sometimes. Yep. Yes. Particularly done by.

Dave Jones: The only way to fix that folks is to open your aperture up. So increase your F stop, increase your F value.

Jeff Kaiser: That's actually closing the aperture down.

Dave Jones: Closing. Oh yeah. Whatever the term. Don't worry.

Chris Gammell: You still have no, you have more, you know more than I do because I'm just totally lost right now.

Dave Jones: Anyway, it's, it's, it's increasing the F value. That's what you got to do. That's right. Right. That's right. What physically happens in the lens. Who cares?

Jeff Kaiser: Hey, some engineer at Canon worked for years. Yes. Throwing up his mouth right now. Yep. I'm going to get taken to task.

Dave Jones: I don't know the turns, but I do know the effects and yeah, it's a pain in the ass. I hate it.

Jeff Kaiser: That's right. Yep.

Dave Jones: I think there's nothing worse than sometimes nothing worse than a product photo where yeah, it's all out of focus. Like at the back, like show me the detail. Anyway, I'm guilty of it too.

Chris Gammell: So, sigh. So the lesson being don't have Dave make your Kickstarter video for you. Right. No, I suck ass. Might be better off having him work on electronics for you. So now, so now Dave, so Dave, you've stated before that you said you think that you would like to do a Kickstarter or something similar someday. Does this now change it?

Dave Jones: No, no. I just want to do it for the experience of doing it. I think. It won't be on Kickstarter because I'm not American, so I can't do it. You know, because you need someone in the US to take legal responsibility for it.

Jeff Kaiser: I was going to say, you know, a lot of people in the US, but that second part.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Take a legal responsibility for my project.

Jeff Kaiser: If I get the money, I'm gone, man.

Chris Gammell: It'd be the amp hour with Dave. Oh boy.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So I'll do it on the Australian Possible website, most likely. So I'll give it a go. I could regret it totally. In fact, it's likely I will. But anyway, it'll be fun. Yeah. Or it could completely flop. I may not make my target, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So who knows?

Chris Gammell: I had another question about Kickstarter. You're not going to like what's next. There's an article about the Internet of Things. Oh no. Things, things, things, things. Do people give a crap about things that aren't connected anymore, though? That's my question. Yes.

Dave Jones: I think they do. Because a lot of the people, there's a lot of, you know, gadget freaks just trolling Kickstarter, right? A trolling as in the term of looking through. Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: Not trolling like saying, I'll take 20.

Dave Jones: And some people say, oh, I'm not using the term correctly. It's actually trolling. But no, it's a trolling is actually a legitimate use of that term. Anyway. No, no. Yeah. And they just search Kickstarter for the latest gadgety thing. And they just get, they salivate at the mouth when it connects to their freaking iPhone.

Chris Gammell: So money just burning a hole in their pocket kind of thing.

Dave Jones: Even though it's not useful. Not useful. I mean, like, take this LIFX bulb, right? Novel project. Okay. Granted. But I don't want to, why would I want every light bulb in my house controlled by my phone? If I have to go find my phone to control the bloody lights, I just want them on off. You know? Rarely do I need to change the color. I'm so old. Rarely would I need to change the color or dim it. Right. You know, I, I, I don't know. I, but people will flock to buy it. Right? And they have. Right? Because it's novel. But they don't think about the practical. They, they're just buying a toy. And any toy that connects to the internet or their phone is cool. And that's why they'll buy it.

Chris Gammell: Hmm. Okay.

Dave Jones: Which doesn't mean that projects that don't connect to the internet can't be successful as well. Because they certainly can.

Chris Gammell: I just can't, I can't put anything on the internet, basically. That's my concern is I, I'm, I'm pretty clueless. I'm pretty, uh. You suck at it. I'm a dinosaur already.

Dave Jones: It's so, same, same here. Yeah. I don't, you know.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. We're a dying breed, man. You know.

Dave Jones: Jeff, comments. Come on.

Chris Gammell: Jeff's like, oh, I can put shit on the internet. Jeff's like, I'm doing this all the time at Valve.

Jeff Kaiser: Um, I, I mean, in terms of the, the LIFX, uh, yeah, I, I, I haven't, I haven't, definitely haven't been a supporter of the internet of things. I think in particular areas it might be useful. Like, it would be cool if my dryer would text me when it was done, you know. Yeah. I mean, sure. That's kind of cool. Uh, and, uh, it'd be cool if my refrigerator. I don't know. Told me something. But, uh, I think that this. Jeff, I'm hungry. Give me more food. I am not, uh, at my peak capacity. But if, if you read the, the Kickstarter for the, the LIFX, it's, uh, it delivers an amazing range of experiences we think you'll love. Like, yeah, great. You're a light bulb. With light bulbs. I just don't, yeah, I don't need that complexity. It's, it's one thing. Yeah. I mean, this is really, uh, it's a commentary on having infinite configurability is often not actually an asset, right? Because the more knobs you have to turn and configurations you can adjust, the more likely you are to end up with something that you're actually not happy with. Right.

Chris Gammell: More likely that you're about to say, I want on and off like Dave did. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: People complain about this with my power supply project, which is what I aim to put on Kickstarter. Oh, why doesn't it connect to my phone? Why doesn't it, oh, who wants buttons? Why can't it all just be app based on my phone and do this and do that? And you know, why can't I have Bluetooth interface and the wifi and oh, bloody hell, it's a power supply.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know? I mean.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You know, I try to balance that too from like marketers I've talked to about like that, that kind of same thing where it's like, oh, people love buttons. But then it's like, well, people love buttons now. I don't know if they'll love buttons in the future, but at the same time, it's like, well, buttons are a hell of a lot easier. So there's, there's a reason for buttons. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Totally depends on the project. As you say, some totally suited to it, but there's a lot of people who just love to buy gadgets and gadgets that do this sort of stuff look cool. And there's people with a lot of free money out there who'd love to plonk down and, you know, plonk down their money on these toys.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Well, then maybe you need two versions of your product. The one that actually does its intended purpose. And then the one that connects to your phone and has all these bells and whistles that cost three times more. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And there's nothing wrong with that, by the way, if you want to market your product to people who just like toys and then they play with it a couple of times and throw it out. Well, you know, so be it. Right. You're, you're catering to a market. Yeah. I am not one of those users. So you're not going to get my money, but.

Chris Gammell: Right. You know. Yeah. And that's the thing, right? I mean, I guess we're electronics people talking about electronics. You know, we think about buying gear or, you know, buying stuff that's useful for our hobby. But a lot of people are doing it for commercial, commercial success or for people that are trying to buy everyday stuff. Right. And that's, that's, you know, we, we might be part of that subgroup as well. Right. But we're not, we're things that are targeted towards us specifically as electronics people would be different than for the general populace. So, like an oscilloscope or a, you know, soldering iron. Right. Right.

Speaker ?: So.

Chris Gammell: Speaking of things that electronics people would want to buy, Dave has a, what I'm going to call a rumor. Huh? Because I don't believe this in the slightest.

Dave Jones: What are you talking about?

Chris Gammell: The Art of Electronics 3 will be out early next year.

Dave Jones: Art of Electronics 3. You're not going to be sucked in to the vaporware that is Art of Electronics. I, oh, I want, I want to believe that. It's, it'd make a great t-shirt. Art of Electronics. Vaporware since 2006. I want to believe. I want to believe.

Chris Gammell: The new I is someone who wrote on our subreddit and he said, and Maxim parts will be easy to source. I'll believe it when I see it.

Dave Jones: I want to believe. So, what's the deal here? I just want to get a t-shirt for that just for kicks. You should, man.

Chris Gammell: I know. That'd be awesome. That'd be a good t-shirt. I like that.

Dave Jones: Art of Electronics 3. I want to believe. Do it. With a picture of a UFO. Oh, boy. Anyway, Wyn, Wyn Hill has come out. He's calling you? He's on the phone. He's calling with an update for the project.

Chris Gammell: Great timing, man.

Dave Jones: For the project. Oh, boy. Real professional here, aren't we? Oh, yes. Andy, he has come out just yesterday, or I think I read it this morning. Actually, I did. On the forum. Somebody's been in contact with him and he says, yes. He is targeting an early 2013 release. So, and he's talking about, you know, he's got all these extended chapters and stuff like that, which he admits that are just getting out of control. And, you know, and if he doesn't call it quits, then on those chapters, he'll never get it done. Right.

Chris Gammell: He's got to start episode four as soon as he can, right? Or edition four.

Jeff Kaiser: I read the post and it was interesting because he's basically saying that, well, he's just going to cut it off. Like, they're done working on it. And that's actually, that's probably a good sign because they could probably keep writing forever. So, they need to constrain themselves somehow. And it looks like they're finally getting serious about actually releasing it, which is awesome.

Dave Jones: I think so. I got that serious vibe from it. That, you know, yeah, I think once he's made that decision to go, oh, look, I'm sick of this. I'm just cutting it off. No more new info in there. Boom.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Ship it, you know. I was telling someone about it the other day and I did the math. Wasn't it 89 was the last edition or was it later than that? Yes.

Dave Jones: I think it was. Yeah, that'd be right. I've got it. 23 years?

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Wow. That is a long time in terms of electronics. It's changed a lot in that time. You know, the sad thing is that. Well.

Chris Gammell: It hasn't changed. It's just expanded, right? I mean, it's not like the assembly language hasn't changed. It's just, you know, it's just there's more of it now.

Dave Jones: And not as relevant anymore. Right. It's not as relevant, but it's still there.

Jeff Kaiser: But the art of electronics, there's chapters about using, what, 68,000 series microprocessors. Yeah, I think all that should be ditched from the new.

Chris Gammell: Maybe you should work with industrial stuff in the Midwest, Jeff, because I see 68,000 processors every damn day.

Dave Jones: Well, I don't, yeah. I always hated the fact that that book had microprocessor stuff in it. I thought, why? You know, this is one of the best analog, you know, electronic books on the market, you know? And they've just got this microprocessor shit in here. Like, why?

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, so you're saying that they should just cut it out because.

Dave Jones: I think they should cut it out completely. That's about it.

Jeff Kaiser: I don't see any value in that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it used to be probably where that was all you had to know to fake being a digital designer, right? Right, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now the digital field has expanded so much that you may as well not even try. Is that what you're saying? Like, yeah.

Dave Jones: I would be disappointed if there's FPGAs in this one, right? Yeah, yeah, that's true. Like, that's a waste of space. I'd be buying this book because it's the duck's guts in proper electronics analog. You know, FPGAs and micros, they're all system level stuff. Right. More to, you know, for want of a better term.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. No.

Chris Gammell: I think the last, and the first and second edition, I've never actually seen a first edition. I don't know if you have a first edition leather bound and everything, but. But, you know, I think it was just trying to be all inclusive too, right? And that's another reason.

Dave Jones: It was at the time, which I can understand at the time because there wasn't, there weren't really microcontrollers like there are these days. You know, the microcontroller market didn't exist like it does today. And, you know, FPGAs weren't really, you know, around back then. And so, you know, you basically had analog stuff and you had, well, these microprocessor things, which, you know, I can understand having a chapter or two.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Hey, man. I don't think it's relevant. Even Jim Williams had, in his thermocouple app note, there's actually, there's, I think it's C, it might be assembly, but he's got code about calibrating thermocouples. It's really weird. You look into this linear tech app note and you're like, code? What am I looking at?

Dave Jones: If it's got a nice algorithm in it, that's what it's all about, right? Yeah, no, it is. It totally is. It's about the algorithm.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, but. Which is cool. I'm totally cool with that. Me too, but it's just like, code? It's very confusing.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. Oh, boy. So, are we taking bets now? Are we, is anyone going to, anyone going to guess?

Chris Gammell: Ooh, how about whoever loses has to shave their head.

Jeff Kaiser: Wow, it just got really serious really fast.

Chris Gammell: Hey, man. Start of electronics. Isn't it some, you know, a little pamphlet we're talking about here?

Dave Jones: This is our whole life. Oh, I don't know. Oh, boy. My guess is mid-2013. Yeah. By the time I'm able to get one. Minimum.

Jeff Kaiser: They still make books, huh? Yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty, pretty likely. It takes a few months for a book to, to actually make it onto shelves. So, even if they released it early next year, it'll still be, what, spring, summer?

Chris Gammell: Now, here's a real question, is will they have a Kindle edition, finally? Oh, God. Because they still don't have it for the second edition, right?

Dave Jones: No. So. It's just a scanned PDF available somewhere. Yeah. You know, or, yeah, some crappy scan thing or something.

Chris Gammell: I've never seen that.

Dave Jones: It's not official.

Jeff Kaiser: You would read the Art of Electronics on your Kindle? No.

Dave Jones: Well.

Chris Gammell: You wouldn't. Okay. How about just EPUB?

Dave Jones: If it was formatted properly, maybe.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, just searchable and, you know, like, even if it's searchable from a PDF standpoint, that's better than what it is now.

Jeff Kaiser: I, I, a bookmarked PDF would be awesome. Yeah, searchable, like, full text PDF would be cool. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. And they're not going to just sell you a PDF these days. They'll sell you an EPUB or something else you can't easily, you know, share. But whatever it is, you know, it might be worth buying to have on a, on a digital device like that. So, even if it's an iPad or whatever else.

Dave Jones: I would still want the Dead Tree version.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, me too. It's got a thump on the desk, right? If that's how you...

Dave Jones: How big is it going to be? Because the, because Edition 2 was like 1100 pages or something.

Chris Gammell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: Like, it's just insane. And now he reckons they've got like 12 expanded chapters, new expanded chapters or something. Holy crap.

Jeff Kaiser: I can't wait, man. It's going to be like... It'll probably be printed on phone book type paper, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: They'll call it DigiKey Catalog Makers, right? Yeah, right. Well, we're not making DigiKey Catalogs anymore, so... That's right, yeah. Yeah, we can. It'll be in full color, too. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll see. I don't know. We'll see. You guys both have it, right? I mean, you have the originals? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, we've got Art of Electrical... Yeah, I've got two copies. Yep. Or I did have... Maybe I sold one. Anyway. Yep. What else we've got on the list? We've got, like, you know, no time left, but we'll add something. Well, no, we've got five minutes.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Which means, like, 35 minutes if we really want to be, right? Yeah, of course. Let's go. Amp Hour time. Yeah, our last episode was an hour and a half, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: We're still called the Amp Hour, though.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well...

Dave Jones: Because it's a funky name. I like it.

Chris Gammell: Hmm. How about some Amp Hour trivia? We have Amp Hour trivia? Dave is 1.028 smootz, and Chris is 1.075 smootz.

Dave Jones: I cannot believe you hadn't heard of the smoot as a unit of measure. You know, I probably had passed it.

Chris Gammell: I had seen that wiki page before, so if people don't know, there's a Wikipedia page of odd measurements, and one of them is the smoot, and that's what Dave was referring to when he told me how tall he is, and so it's 5.58 feet or 170 centimeters.

Dave Jones: Jeff, how many smootz? How many smootz are you?

Chris Gammell: Jeff's pretty smootful. He's about as tall as me, right? I'm 6 foot 2. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: That's like 1.2 smootz or something, is it?

Chris Gammell: No, it's like 1.1. 1.1 something? Okay. Yeah, I'm taller than Dave, though. That's the trivia.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, I'm 1.10 smootz. Nice.

Dave Jones: There you go.

Chris Gammell: Jeff towers over both of us, Dave.

Dave Jones: But mine is 1,028, like 1.028. It's kind of like I just flipped that binary digit, you know? It's kind of nice. I like it. At least I'm closer to a binary multiple than you guys.

Chris Gammell: Would it be 1.048? Would it be what you want? 1,048?

Dave Jones: Yes. At least I'm close. Okay. All right. Yeah. Gee. All right. That segment just sucks ass, dude. Let's not do that again. Yeah. No more trivia. Strictly trivia. No more trivia.

Chris Gammell: Well, we can't do Chip of the Week. I've been doing Chip of the Week on ChipReport.tv. I took that away. Or at least I don't pay attention to putting stuff on the amp hour anymore.

Dave Jones: What's this crap you got on the list about hardware is dead? Oh, yeah. We just do a whole show about hardware is the new thing.

Jeff Kaiser: Them's fighting words. Hardware is dead? It was a sensationalized title. Hardware is dead.

Dave Jones: Long live hardware. Yeah, exactly.

Jeff Kaiser: That is the definition of a sensationalized title. Right. Basically, the idea behind that article.

Dave Jones: Who is VentureBeat? Where this article comes from. Who the hell is VentureBeat?

Chris Gammell: It's like TechCrunch or any of those other, you know, we follow startups kind of thing. Right.

Dave Jones: Useless technology blog websites. Right. Right. Yeah. Nah.

Chris Gammell: Anyways, what the idea was is they found a $45 tablet, basically, that had Android 4.0, Wi-Fi, like a nice screen. It had full access to all the Google APIs and everything. Basically...

Dave Jones: I can't believe it has a nice screen. I believe it has a screen. I can't believe it has a nice screen for $45.

Chris Gammell: I'm sorry.

Dave Jones: It's just... I don't know. It's just not going to happen.

Chris Gammell: But that was basically the idea, though, is that at $45, no one is making any money anymore. And, uh... Hmm. I... I agree. No one is making money on tablets. But I don't think... I mean, like, people haven't been making money on computers in general since, I don't know, what, 95? Like, there's no margin left in generalized computers anymore. So it's not, like, that surprising, this stuff. But, yeah, $45, that's nice. I don't know. Like, I can't make a tablet for $45. But I expect that in China, if they're selling it at a 20% margin, you know, it's conceivable with what Dave says is a crappy screen and, you know, generalized third-generation hardware, you know, like, or three generations back or whatever. You know, you probably could find a tablet for $45. I don't know. Hmm.

Dave Jones: And you can get them for $35 a piece if you want to get 20,000 of them.

Chris Gammell: Right. Wow. Which means that... So that means that they probably are about, what, like, 20, 25 bucks bomb costs or whatever. And there's nothing saying that this, there could be, you know, some of it could have fallen off the back of a truck. There's no way to know if it's actually, like, legit.

Dave Jones: Right, if it's just a surplus lot or something.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, you buy 20,000, but can you buy, you know, 2 million of them?

Dave Jones: Can you buy 20,000 next week?

Chris Gammell: Right, exactly.

Dave Jones: And you're like, no. Right. You can buy 20,000 this week and that's it.

Chris Gammell: The only thing I was interested in this story about was, well, actually, it's two things. One is it gives credence to my idea of using a tablet as a generalized screen. Oh, there it is. No. Using it as a generalized screen, right? No. And I've talked about that before. Because of the cost, right? At 45 bucks, you know, that could easily be part of your bomb if you're trying to have a 10-inch screen on your device. File. Nothing to say about, you know, actually sourcing a decent screen or, you know, a reliable tablet each time. But the other interesting thing is that this just totally ignores the idea of custom hardware or just specialized hardware, right? It's just like, yeah, hardware, like I said, is, yeah, computer hardware is dead. You're not going to make money on building tablets. But you are going to make money building, you know, products for a specified market just like you've always been able to. So, I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's why I don't understand why anyone wants to go to the, wants to follow that race to the bottom on Kickstarter again. Sorry. You know, and produce something at really low cost. Like, as in, like you feel you're obligated to because you have to compete. Jeff and I were talking about this a little bit before the show. Mm-hmm. And it's, you know, you're just not going to make enough margin on it. It's just, you know, you're working for slave labor wages. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's hopeless. Well, you're always going to have customers asking you for lower prices, right? That's just a relentless drive because people expect it, right? It's just a, it's baked into the marketplace. But, you know, some things people don't expect to ask for lower prices on, you know? Like, I don't know what.

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, boy. I think you have to, you don't build commodity stuff, right? You, it doesn't, it wouldn't make sense to build, start a Kickstarter to build laptops, right? That were just ordinary laptops that you could buy at Best Buy. You need to be adding value somehow. Yes. Because otherwise.

Jeff Kaiser: Otherwise.

Dave Jones: Or meet in some niche market. You've got to, you know. Right. That's the key. That's always been the key in this business.

Jeff Kaiser: Right. Target your market appropriately. Right. Don't try to compete with Samsung. Right. It's not going to end well if you're trying to build exactly the same thing as you could buy elsewhere.

Dave Jones: Or don't do a Kickstarter making a $10 watch. You know, you're just not going to win, right? It's pointless.

Chris Gammell: Right. We're losing $3 per unit, but we'll make it up in volume.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. It reminds me of the quote on how do you make money from free stuff.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Volume. You know, that's, you know, free software. How do you make money selling free software? Volume.

Chris Gammell: So, there was an interesting article a couple of, it was two weeks ago now. I'm not sure, her name is Amanda Payton. But she wrote about APIs for manufacturing. And... Huh? Yeah. So, APIs are... I don't even know what API stands for. It's basically, it's like you throw a standard...

Dave Jones: It stands for application programming interface.

Chris Gammell: Ah, thank you. Oh, man. Yes. Dave's a software strength around here. I'm behind the software guru. This moves to show how bad that is.

Dave Jones: Right. How bad you are.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yeah. But, basically, she was asking about the fact that, you know, maybe someday, you know, like China continues being the hardware powerhouse it is, if it ever would be possible for an industrial designer, like we were talking about earlier, to just throw an idea there, right? And then pop out...

Dave Jones: I can see where this is going, yes.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Popping out the product, basically. Is that ever a possibility?

Dave Jones: Well, it is now. There's companies that will... It's called a turnkey solution. There are companies that will do that for you. They will take your idea. Some of them will actually take your idea and do everything for you. Oh, really? They're usually called those invention companies. Oh. Oh, yeah. We talked about them before. Yeah. No, but there are people...

Jeff Kaiser: I think the role of the contract manufacturer is expanding into this, though, right? Yes. A lot of CMs you can give half-baked products to, and they'll finish a remarkable part of the design, right? Yeah. Including, you know, redesigning portions to become... To be manufacturable. So all the DFM work.

Dave Jones: You can give them your hand-built prototype. That's right. Here's my hand-built prototype. I want you to 3D design the case and do it and give just, you know, I give you money. You give me 10,000 of my widgets. Me give you money. Right. You give me thing.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. I've heard of this even contract manufacturing, developing firmware and developing wireless stacks. Yeah. Same here. The amount of capability that's on that end of the supply chain is amazing. So this sort of does exist in a way, I guess.

Dave Jones: They will usually subcontract out. Like, you know, if it's firmware or VHDL or something, they will, you know, subcontract it out to India or something like that and get somebody to write it for them. They usually don't do it in-house. They, you know, they will do, they will do what they can in-house, but often they will have so many connections to other people who can do it. Then they subcontract out to other people. So, you know.

Chris Gammell: So maybe they'll become like the, what is it called? What's that type of shark that kind of like feeds on the remains of the other, the big shark is whatever the big shark's eating. So, you know what I'm talking about?

Dave Jones: Is it just called shark? Don't all sharks do that? No, no.

Chris Gammell: There's like, there's a certain type of fish that like, kind of like, it's like the, it's like symbiosis or something, you know, like, it's like a little tiny shark that swims along with the bigger shark.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. And just sits there and waits for the bigger shark to die or get killed. Right, exactly.

Chris Gammell: So the idea there would be if you're a hardware person, like an, you know, an individual looking to get some hardware work, maybe you kind of hover around the CM waiting for them to say, oh, we need someone to lay out a new board or work on firmware or whatever. And you go gobble that up and you, you know, and you say, thank you, big shark.

Dave Jones: I know people that do that. They're PCB designers and they do a lot of their work comes from these contract manufacturers. Because they've, you know, somebody's given them the task of, you know, we want you to lay out this board to fit in this case or something. And yeah, they don't want to do it in-house. So they farm it out. They farm out mostly everything. Because really their speciality is the manufacturing side of things. Right, right. They don't want to deal with the rest. It's the pick and place machine. Right. You know, they don't design 3D cases in-house usually. They'll give it to someone else. They don't lay out boards in-house, you know, usually. So, yeah. But they're happy to take your money in, you know. But you can get screwed. I mean, you know, if you choose somebody in China, oh, yeah, we lay out. We do turnkey, you know. Yeah. And then you give them everything or your hopes and dreams and all your money, you know, that you mortgaged your house for and they don't produce. Well, you know. Yeah, you're screwed. You're left holding the bag. Yeah. Oops. And it's a big, smelly turd left in the bag usually. Right. Well, and it's funny, too.

Chris Gammell: You know, you think about that idea, too, where it's like, well, you hand them a big bag of money with, like, you know, a canvas sack with, like, a big money sign on the side, right? You say...

Dave Jones: With a big dollar sign on the outside. You got to do that, right? Right.

Chris Gammell: And then they hand you back this product in three months or whatever. And it's like, okay, cool, I'm going to go sell this. And then, but what happens, like, you know you're going to be coming back with another bag of money in about three months when they can't source those parts anymore or your firmware doesn't work because someone... You haven't written the code or anything, right? I mean, so there is a significant value to having stuff, to having certain parts of the line in your own control, right? And that could even be the manufacturer.

Dave Jones: You could argue that you should have everything in your control, ideally.

Chris Gammell: Right, yeah, even manufacturing, right?

Dave Jones: That's the ultimate gain. That's the ultimate goal, really, is so that you have control over everything. If you don't, it's a risk, and risk is, you know, usually frowned upon.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, another VentureBeat article about that, too, is basically there was a bunch of Harvard folks basically saying that same thing of, hey, you might want that hardware stuff back here, the manufacturing stuff back in the U.S. or wherever you are, too, because it kind of allows those little tiny feeder sharks around the big shark. Basically, just from a jobs perspective, you know?

Dave Jones: I've heard a lot of people get called out on that they've, you know, given their turnkey stuff to a manufacturer, and they've done everything for them, and they've produced what they wanted, no problems at all. But then when they try to get the info back out of them so they can take it somewhere else, no, sir.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Forget it.

Chris Gammell: You do it yourself.

Dave Jones: That's right. You have to start. A lot of them have started from scratch again because they simply could not get the info out of that contract manufacturer. They go, no. There was nothing in the contract that said, we have to give it to you.

Chris Gammell: Can you imagine fixing the same firmware bugs twice because of that? You know, you fix it one time, and then you redo everything, you have to fix it all over again. That would be really frustrating.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. Last words from Jeff. Because we're out of time.

Chris Gammell: Put him on the spot.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, thanks for having me on the show. It's been fun, and I always enjoy it. So, thanks.

Chris Gammell: How's your time looking in the future? Do you think you're going to get more busy or less busy?

Jeff Kaiser: I think it's probably going to maintain a very busy state. Oh, yeah. You are very busy. For the foreseeable future. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: What I'm asking is, can we see you again, Jeff?

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. I mean, I'm generally free on the weekends, so this works out really well for me. Good stuff. I definitely would like to be on the show again, so if you guys will have me, yeah, it's always fun.

Dave Jones: You don't work weekends? You're slacker.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, right? No, don't tell anyone. But, you know, actually, I've been trying to get into doing some projects on the weekends, and it's been pretty busy during the week, but I just picked up a DE0 Nano FPGA board that I've been meaning to teach myself Verilog. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, and now I've got access to some really good FPGA programmers at work, so I can ask them questions. So it's been something I've been playing with a little bit and getting back into ham radio again and trying to get a ham station set up at home. Nice. And Alan, I think, is interested in getting his license here. Yes, I've heard that. So somebody to talk to, that'd be cool. Somebody to talk to at work, but for radio? Oh, boy.

Dave Jones: Well, certainly do enjoy your last three months at Valve, Jeff, before your wife makes you new back. Oh, yeah, before the darkness comes.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, you know, I'll still be around. I'll just be a little more paler and...

Chris Gammell: Right. A little more depressed. That's right. You know what I said, though, about the Pacific Northwest? Is that's why the beer and the coffee is so good up there. You need the coffee in the morning. You need really good coffee to get yourself out of this seasonal affectives disorder stuff. Then you need the beer at night to just... Just drown your sorrows. Just drown the sorrows, yep. Oh, son, where are you? Yeah. Well, for next week, we will have Dr. Gregory Charvat on our program. He makes radar station or radar out of coffee cans and lots of cool microwave stuff. He actually has... There was an article a couple years ago about using microwaves to see through concrete walls. That was him. Cool.

Dave Jones: Sweet. Yeah. Not white. Thank you very much, Jeff.

Chris Gammell: Thanks, guys. Yeah, man. We'll see you soon.

Dave Jones: Bye. Bye.