#124 – SpaceX, Enclosures & Startups - Urging Unemployment Ullagone

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast, recorded December 3rd, 2012. Episode 124, Urging Unemployment Hooligan.

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

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of ChipReportTV and Chris Gammell's Analog Life.

Dave Jones: No other blogs this week?

Chris Gammell: No, nothing new.

Dave Jones: No, just that, nothing new.

Chris Gammell: Just nothing new at all.

Dave Jones: Speaking of nothing new, what about, hang on, the Amp Hour news teletype here. Straight up, hot off the teletype, folks. Oh boy, here we go. Tektronix have released a low-cost oscilloscope.

Speaker ?: Woo-hoo!

Dave Jones: Yay, everyone's getting all excited. And yes, folks, it's still based on the old architecture. You know, a massive 2.5K of sample memory, state-of-the-art. Woo-hoo!

Chris Gammell: Oh, Dave, they are your whipping boy, aren't they?

Dave Jones: They are my whipping boy. They're everyone's whipping boy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. They are.

Dave Jones: They're there, copping, flake, left, right, and center. But, oh man, when are they going to come out with something new and competitive? Well, granted, they did with the MDA, that was quite novel. But once again, still based on the, it was just a spectrum analyzer, tacked novel, tacked onto existing slow architecture. Hmm. So, they're, no, they're going downhill fast. So, there's lots of jokes on the forum and Twitter and stuff about, you know, Tektronix have re-released the, you know, the Tech 556 or something, you know. Yeah. State-of-the-art tube technology. Oh, dear. Please.

Chris Gammell: I actually, I was, I was actually rooting through storage in my work, and I found...

Dave Jones: That's a rude word here in Australia. Rooting.

Chris Gammell: Oh, sorry. Yeah. Like a pig roots for roots, not rooting like...

Dave Jones: As in, oh, the garden, you root the garden. Yeah, exactly. Right, right, right. Not like... Right. Yes. Sorry. Right. Yes. Not like rabbits. Someone shagging my carpet the other day. Right.

Chris Gammell: And, no, but yeah, I found a bunch of old scopes, old text scopes, and it was just, it's like, it's like finding treasure. I love that. Of course. I love finding old gear, and then you look around, and you're like, oh, guess no one's claiming this. I guess it's mine. Mm-hmm. Not for work. I didn't take it home. I didn't take it home. Right. I'm just saying, you know, it's nice to have more at your bench as well.

Dave Jones: It sits in my cubicle, and yeah.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. Exactly. Ah, that's too bad, though, that the, uh, I don't know. You know. It's...

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. The market's passed them by, I think. Maybe. Or maybe they are secretly working on shit, but I don't know. I doubt it. I think they're doing it tough. Because they're owned by Danaher. Yes. My old pal. The Danaher system. Yes. Yes. And that brings us... The Danaher way. It's not quite like the HP way. Yes, where does that bring us?

Chris Gammell: To an article...

Dave Jones: More NBA playbook?

Chris Gammell: More NBA playbook. I swear, I need to trademark this term. Because I've been seeing it more and more and more. So, guess what the new rule has been written into the NBA playbook. Do you know what that rule is?

Dave Jones: Tell us.

Chris Gammell: Well, before... I don't know. That rule, rule number 67, was... Right. Outsource everything immediately, as fast as possible. Get your stuff out of any country you happen to be in, and get it to Asia. Or, well, low-cost country.

Dave Jones: I thought that was rule... I thought that was rule 666.

Chris Gammell: Depending if you work in manufacturing or not.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: So, new article from The Atlantic. They profile GE. And guess what the new, brilliant innovation is, Dave? That's right. They're bringing it back.

Dave Jones: They're in-sourcing.

Chris Gammell: In-sourcing.

Dave Jones: Bring it back.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. Begging.

Dave Jones: Please, can we have it back? Please, Mr. China.

Chris Gammell: No. Someone figured out that if you work... If you design stuff next to where you actually make this stuff, you can actually figure out, well, maybe that resistor doesn't belong there, because it always falls off the board. Or, maybe I need to redesign this mechanical enclosure, because it takes three and a half hours to assemble it, where if I made one small change, it would take half an hour. Mm-hmm. You know? And it's just like, idiots! Wait a second. Come on! Of course this is what happened! And they talk about all the... All right, I'm going to stop real quick and say, I might get a little worked up about this, but... You know, they talk about all the efficiencies they're determining, and oh, there were so many hidden costs. And it's like, well, who forgot to... Yeah, exactly. You know, who forgot to look at this 10 years ago or 12 years ago? These costs have always been there, right?

Dave Jones: And... They're like politicians. They just look at the short-term benefit.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Or partial short-term benefits, you know?

SPEAKER_02: Well, and I think there's something about, like...

Chris Gammell: They can't see the whole picture. Yeah. Getting momentum, too, right? Oh, well, I'm a manager now. I'm in charge of this large company. I need to make action. I need to lower, you know, raise margins, lower costs, yada, yada, yada. And on a balance sheet, you know, I read balance sheets. I know how good that looks. That really does. It really does look good. It does. Because you say, well, we've divested all of our factories, and we've laid off all the staff, and...

Dave Jones: Oh, it's crutch-moistening stuff for an accountant. Exactly. Or for a CEO.

Chris Gammell: Or for a stockholder. That's the real thing. I mean, it really is. I mean, as a stockholder, that's something that is good. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. What do you think?

Dave Jones: LTM share price has just gone through the roof. We'll talk about this later.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. Exactly. I mean, it really does look good on a balance sheet. But if you look at it holistically, as a company that's supposed to last for 50 years, 100 years, like GE, right? I mean, GE is the one that they're profiling here. Yep. And, I mean... General Electric, for those young whippersnappers out there. That's right. Yes.

Dave Jones: Who think that they're just a finance company? Oh, yeah. Because they're into everything. They're into money. They're one of the biggest. I don't know if you get them over there, but where? Yeah. Oh, yeah. We get ads on TV for General Electric Finance, you know?

Chris Gammell: Oh, really? I've never seen any ads for it. But, I mean, all of the credit cards over here, like my warehouse membership card is funded. Right. Is given by them and stuff. So, yeah, they're big. They're really big. Yeah. What was I going with this? I mean, basically, it's what everybody knew, right? There's hidden costs in transportation, in communication barriers, in not working in the same locale, in inefficiencies, and in forgetting how to make stuff, right? I mean, we've been seeing, at least in the U.S., we've been seeing a little bit of a revival of, hey, manufacturing is kind of important. What do you know? It actually gives jobs and yada, yada, yada. Yep. So, of course, politicians love that kind of thing, right? Oh, let's bring back manufacturing. Rah, rah, rah. Yes. Rah, rah, rah. Right. And it's just really frustrating. And it's sad because, I mean, I left my last job because of this. This is one of the main reasons I left my last job is because the jobs were getting shipped to China. Yep. But even in the face of many reasons not to, you know, we were told, no, there are financial reasons. And that's fine. You know, like, that was the decision they made. Of course. Yep. I don't hold it against them. At the same time, though, I decided not to work for them anymore. You can still think it's stupid and not hold it against them. That's right. Exactly. I mean, it's a decision, right? Absolutely. Everybody makes their decisions.

Dave Jones: Everyone makes their decisions. If they're in charge, they make the decisions and they live with the consequences.

Chris Gammell: Mm-hmm. And, yeah. Yeah. But once the anger and the indignation has subsided, it's just sadness. Really? That's all that was left from this. It's just sadness about, you know, these decisions that were made are, you know, they affect a lot of things, notwithstanding the product quality, right? I mean, you were talking about the scope. That happened to be, you know, my former employer. I don't hold anything against them, like I said. But I used to work for tech, or indirectly.

Dave Jones: Well, through, yeah. Yeah, through Danaher.

Chris Gammell: Sure. And, you know, but those kind of things happen when you outsource everything. There are sacrifices that are made. And it's unfortunate.

Dave Jones: They don't necessarily, before people jump down our throats, they don't necessarily has to be, you can manufacture good quality shit in China.

Chris Gammell: That's true. Yeah. I mean, we've had lots of guests on here, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, we've had Scott Miller on here.

Dave Jones: You can, but you've got to keep a very tight rein.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. And it's hard. That's the other thing that a lot of people, I think when they were starting out, I mean, I don't know. I wasn't there for, you know, when everybody started to ship stuff to China. But just talking to Scott Miller, I mean, talking to Zach a couple weeks ago, you know, talking about his current experiences, it's just hard. You know, aside from the language barrier, you have to live over there. You have to do a lot. You have to move a ton of stuff. And it's, you know, I'm impressed with the people that do move that stuff, right? The ones who actually change processes and stuff. But that's just from a personal perspective. It's not from a business perspective. I know, you know, it seems silly. It seems like, it seems avoidable. And this article shows that too. You know, they talk about all of the efficiencies that they end up finding and all of the process improvements that they have just from saying, well, we need to get better at this. And it's like, okay, well, maybe everyone should do this. You know, we should have done that 15 years ago. But I don't know. Maybe it's just a new reality. I don't know. Yep. I don't know. That's it. Okay. So I'm a little worked up.

Dave Jones: That actually, that reminds me of a video I just watched last night, a physics video. Yeah. And we'll have to link it in where apparently you guys in the US, I'm not sure if it's the same here. So, you know, but apparently you guys in high school teaching high school physics over there. You guys don't teach any physics beyond like they made a point in the video, like 1852 or something. You don't teach anything beyond that. And it was sort of like a plea to Obama. It's an open letter. Here it is. Open letter to President Obama, a physics education in the US. Huh. And it was, yeah, about how you got, you know, you don't teach anything new.

Chris Gammell: What's past 1852 then? I mean, is that just like dynamics?

Dave Jones: Like, you know, like, yeah, like ancient, you know, you know, Tesla type stuff. You know, I'm not sure when his reign was, but could be talking out my ass. But yeah, anyway, it was like, yeah, apparently you don't teach any modern physics at all. You know, superconductors or anything, you know, nothing new at all. Interesting. In high school physics. And it was a really interesting video. Anyway, I highly recommend that. No, that is interesting.

Chris Gammell: Everyone go watch it. My physics class is what got me into electronics, really. I mean, like we've talked about before. That was pretty late for that kind of stuff. But the fact that, you know, we were actually working on electricity and magnetism stuff, and that's what got me into it. So maybe it's just regional or, you know, that's pretty interesting.

Dave Jones: Yeah, maybe it's similar here as well. I don't know. But anyway, this was just about the US. So I thought it was a very good video.

Chris Gammell: I would be interested from our listeners' perspectives, too. I mean, like, you know, like hearing about, I think physics is a big path for a lot of people to get into electronics. I mean, not even if not just into the field itself, like I did, but just from, you know, like a hobbyist perspective or from a...

Dave Jones: I deem physics to be close enough to the field of electronics that if people get into physics, I'm happy, just as happy as if they got into our field, electronics. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Chris Gammell: I mean, yeah, there's some physicists that are way better at electronics than I am. I know that. Because a lot of them actually, you know, I talked to some of them, too, and I'm always surprised. I'm like, because I know a lot of physics guys at my university and stuff, and a lot of them, I talked to them and they're like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm running this experiment. I had to build this huge setup. Excuse me. And I'm like, really? You built that? Like, for 50? He's like, oh, yeah. You know, like, in physics, right, and in a lot of fields, really, the equipment just doesn't exist when you're in research.

Dave Jones: Doesn't it? You've got to build your own shit.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, you've just got to go, well, I guess I've got to build it.

Dave Jones: I've got this great idea. How do I test it?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I've got to spend six months building something.

Chris Gammell: Right, exactly. Oh, that's frustrating. How do you test the test then, right? Exactly. Oh, crap.

Dave Jones: And a lot of these physicists go on to form tech startups and things because they've got an idea and they all that, you know, it might be something as, you know, like a new semiconductor process or something. Yeah. And they go and form these startups. So, yeah, it's all good. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And Dr. James Truchard from National Instruments would be happy about this, right? He would say, more physics kids, more engineering kids, that's what we need more to go into engineering, right? So, he was at a show in London and he gave this speech. Actually, he gives a lot of great speeches. And, you know, you can go back through and look at all this stuff. But my contention with this is actually not, I mean, I agree in general that, you know, he should, that, you know, we need more students in engineering, need more general interest in engineering. And, but I don't necessarily agree that, like, it's at that point yet. I mean, like, in terms of the, you know, we were talking about money earlier, but are we really there, right? I mean, like, so we say today.

Dave Jones: Is it worthwhile, are you saying, for people to get into the field?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, not even worthwhile. In terms of career and money. Okay, so, so he was saying, you know, people need to go in engineering versus finance, right? A big pet peeve of mine is people leaving engineering going to finance. I don't, you know, they do it for money. That's fine. No, it's not. Okay, it's not. Fine. Let's be selfish here. Come on. But the, the argument, which I've seen before, and maybe we could, and we should maybe talk about it, is if there really was a need, wouldn't salaries rise? Like, you know, supply and demand. We've talked about economics before. Wouldn't salaries rise to the level where people would then eventually start to make that choice? Like, why, why doesn't that happen? That's what I don't, I don't understand.

Dave Jones: Well, it kind of does. Because you hear about a lot of people getting into engineering because they either think it pays well or they've heard it pays well. You know, or, you know, it pays, like maybe it doesn't pay as enough as, as much as, say, finance, for example, but, or management, you know, higher levels of management, but it still pays pretty well. Generally speaking.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I guess out of school, you know, like if you're leaving school with an engineering degree, you're going to be making more than someone with a, you know, a math degree or philosophy degree. An arts degree or a human resources degree or something like that. Yeah. Right. And yeah, I guess that is, that is true. Yeah. But eventually they wouldn't, you know, if there really was a need that, that seems like that's always the argument. And I don't really know how to justify that. Not even necessarily just like, you know, people entering the field and, and younger engineers, but if there really was, you know, if there really was a need for it, wouldn't salaries rise? And that's why I don't, I don't understand. I don't understand why.

Dave Jones: Maybe engineers are too smart because they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they are like one very smart engineer who does everything and then they don't need to hire anymore.

Chris Gammell: Well, there are efficiencies in, I mean, there are efficiencies in, in, uh, the workforce and, and productivity continues to rise. Right. Even that Atlantic article talked about that. And that's why some of that manufacturing is able to move back. But I don't know. I, I, I'm confused about, I, like, I don't know economics that well, but, um, you don't see like rising salary, like you haven't, we haven't really seen rising salaries in a drastic manner since, you know, the.com bubble and like the optics. And I'm sure you, you experienced all that stuff, right? Like all the craziness.

Dave Jones: During the, during, during the tech boom. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So like, during the tech boom, there was no, there still was no increase in engineer. It was all in software.

Chris Gammell: Oh, interesting. You know?

Dave Jones: Yeah. It was all awesome. Um, because it was that they didn't call it the.com boom for nothing. You know? Right. Right. It wasn't the open source hardware boom. It was the.com boom. Right. There's no electronics boom. That wasn't it? No, it was software.

Chris Gammell: Oh, interesting. Okay. So maybe it's just a.

Dave Jones: Maybe we need a hardware boom. Will there be a.

Chris Gammell: Well, we'll see some of it. I mean, the hardware startups all over the place.

Dave Jones: But people take it for granted. But think about the buggy, the really annoying thing about hardware. I was going to say buggy. No pun intended. Um, is that it is actually difficult to develop hardware. It's more difficult to develop hardware than it is software. It's, it's costly. It's, you know, there's lots of design iterations. It's hard to, you know, if you screw something up, you're going to waste a lot of money, you know, all that sort of jazz.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. They call it hardware for a region. I mean, that's, uh, that is true. Yeah. It's hard. Yeah. That's right.

Dave Jones: Well, it's not hard. It's, you know, it's time. It's, you know, time and, you know, time and resources and money consuming.

Chris Gammell: Right. To develop hardware. I was talking about this on, on Twitter with, uh, uh, Steve Hofer and a couple other people the other day. And, you know, we were kind of going back and forth and, and, and they were comparing software and hardware and stuff. And I said, well, it is, it is getting easier, right? I mean, like, like, uh, OSH Park and, and, you know, like there's all these quick IT studios and all these, you know, quick turn board houses and stuff. It's all easy to do. I mean, I turned aboard in six hours the other day.

Dave Jones: It's easier than ever to produce a world. Yeah. It's easier than ever to produce a world-class quality product from your garage. Right. You can do it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And, but at the same time, you know, he made a really, Steve made a really good point of, well, yeah, that's true, but it's not as quick as hitting compile. Right. And that's, and that is ultimately true. It really is. I mean, yeah, but yeah, of course I wish hardware was like that, but I even, even an FPGA bill is slower than a software. Well, it would be if you got your chip printer machine. I didn't bring it up. I didn't do it this time. That wasn't me. That was you. That's not go there. Oh, we can. I got something on the list.

SPEAKER_00: Oh, the list is, the list is, people keep putting shit on there and it's nothing like That was, no, this was me.

Chris Gammell: This was me. I put this one on there.

SPEAKER_02: All right.

SPEAKER_00: We're going to it. Yes, and it's always nothing like it. We're going to it.

Chris Gammell: Okay, here is the only legitimate. Admise me. Dazzle me. The only legitimate thought I've had about chip printing in the past two years. I think you've gotten to me finally, but here's the one that I've really thought of. Okay, so Elon Musk has been talking about going to Mars, right? He said he wants to die on Mars, which is, you know, awesome. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, he wants to start an 80,000 person colony on Mars. He thinks he can do it for $500,000 a person. It's really cool. I mean, like, it's just, you know, we talked two weeks ago about dreaming big, right? This is the dreaming big. But here's what I'm thinking is, okay, so you're on a flight to Mars, right? You're maybe, you know, you're the first guy, right? You're the, you know, you've got a crew of 10 and you're flying to Mars and you know- And you're on your two-year trip. Yeah, you're on it three years, I think. I think it's a three-year trip.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, it depends on the orbit, yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's true, right, yeah. So you're on a three-year trip, right? You're with 10 people. You know that until you, you know, there's going to be some lag once you get there. They're not going to just send someone. They're going to, you know, wait. So you can probably have at least, you know, six years from launch time before you're going to have anything. So are you going to bring, maybe I'm wrong about this, but are you going to bring enough chips for every possible scenario, right? I don't think you would.

Dave Jones: This reminds me of, what was that show? Oh, Mental Blank. It was canned after one season. I loved it. It was where they went back to the age of the dinosaurs and they set up Colony. Was it Land of the Lost? No. It was fairly recent. Oh God, it's going to pop in there shortly. But they had exactly the same thing. They had this chip printing machine there that would print out these microchips. And it broke down. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00: And it was the only one. And they go, oh no. A chip printing machine broke.

SPEAKER_02: We needed to print a chip first. You know, like, yeah. Yeah. Oh God.

Dave Jones: I'll see if I can get the name of that and get the scene if it's uploaded on YouTube.

Chris Gammell: That would be spectacular. But honestly, this is the first time where I'm really like, okay, this is, yeah, you'd really have to do it. And then of course I'm like, well, maybe FPGAs would do it. I don't know. You know, we've talked about that in the past.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but it's only a couple of, like, you know. It wouldn't be the end of the world if you didn't go up there without a chip printing machine, right? You just take triple of everything, right? But yeah, weight is everything. Right. That's true. I didn't even think.

Chris Gammell: I was just thinking, what if the third chip fails, right? I mean, so.

Dave Jones: Well, well, you know, you've got to send more on the next, you know, you've got to be able to, you know, if it's so critical, you have to have backups of backups of backups. It's true. Right. Right. If it's so critical to your life support, right? If you're going to die if this thing fails, well, that's what you take spare of. That's right. You know, and lots of. Yeah. So, I don't think it's that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, sew them in your underwear, that kind of thing, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. I have to say, you know, so my aspirations with CNC machines, part of me is thinking that I'm just going to have to, you know, put my money where my mouth is and just start trying something. And, you know, once I figure out a CNC machine and make other things, but, of course, but yeah, maybe someday. We'll see. If other people want to beat me there, I will happily try and help after that. But, you know, eventually, at some point, if no one else is going to do it, then I'm going to have to do it. Just saying. Terra Nova. Terra Nova. Oh.

Dave Jones: That's the name. Terra Nova.

Chris Gammell: That's right. I remember that.

Dave Jones: They went through a portal thing. Yeah. Right. Of course. They had this chip printing machine. Oh, now I'll, you know, I'll, we just broke it. Like, because they had these glass tablets, you know, like the fancy. Well, that would never happen, right, Dave? Right. No. It's like their tablet broke. You know, the chip out of their tablet. Oh, I don't have one. And the chip machine.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Since we're on the topic, we should bring up other people where, you know, a bunch of people were sending this on Twitter and some of it on the list. Two. There was a low cost conductive composite material that someone printed for like a little hand controller and stuff. But it's just, I mean.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's, I've been telling you, you've been able to print conductive chip for 30 years.

Chris Gammell: I know. I agree with you. I mean, like.

SPEAKER_00: It's nowhere near printing a chip.

Chris Gammell: I discounted this as soon as I saw it. I mean, not that it's not impressive because it really, I mean, it's always impressive when this kind of stuff happens. But, you know, there's an article in the news.

Dave Jones: Cool in its own right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: But yeah, you know, it's going to be sensors. But it doesn't validate your ridiculous idea. Sensors and like flexible solar cells. Like that's the kind of stuff you're going to see printing first. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that stuff is happening. So it's, you know, keep an eye out. People should. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Start a Google alert. That's what I do.

Dave Jones: And you'll go and you'll grow old and die before you see it.

Chris Gammell: Maybe. Maybe I'll die on Mars. Would you go to Mars if you had the choice?

Dave Jones: If I didn't have a family? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: What if you could take them with you?

Dave Jones: I, yeah, no, not really. No, no. Because there's, you know, there's no opportunity. It's a one-way ticket, right? Oh, I know.

Chris Gammell: That's what I'm saying. You know. I would accept that.

Dave Jones: No.

Chris Gammell: I would do it in a second. I would do it in a heartbeat. How cool would that be? Yeah, man.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. It'd be freaking awesome. But then again, once you have a kid. I would name stuff after me. You know. Yeah, but then you'd go.

Chris Gammell: We're going to call this chip printing mountain.

Dave Jones: And you'll have minstrels sing songs about you.

Chris Gammell: Oh, goodness. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Nah. Yeah, it'd be very. Yeah, I would. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. It'd be tough. It's weird, right, to think about. But no, as a family guy, no. I certainly would not do it. Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, I don't have kids either, so I couldn't say that changes things.

Dave Jones: That changes your attitude. I'm sure. Because you know there's no future for your kid on Mars right now, right? So there's.

Chris Gammell: Well, no, you go build it and then you send them later. You know. Like the explorers did, you know. You claim all this land. Lost in space. You start growing space crops. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Well, that's what they did in this TV series, Terra Nova, right? They ruined the planet, right? Of course. The planet was ruined and they found a way to go back in time. So they, you know, all these people, they went back in time and started, you know, started from scratch.

Chris Gammell: Started ruining things earlier. Yep. Sounds about right. We actually, we have another thing on the list from space. Actually, so Scott Harris, he posted this picture from eBay, actually. You can buy the vehicle power interface rack and console from the Hubble Space Telescope. It's like.

Dave Jones: It'd be absolutely useless. Oh, yeah. I want it.

Chris Gammell: Talk about a teardown, right? Shipping is only $1,500 to select locations.

Dave Jones: I think in the States. And it only costs $75,000. Oh, yeah. That's right. There is a make an offer button. That's right. Buy it now.

Chris Gammell: Oh, my God. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And the seller's name is It's An Amazing Life For Sure with 16 feedback. So how did this person, It's An Amazing Life For Sure with 16 feedback, get a hold of this thing? Yeah, it makes you wonder, right?

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's all paneled. Where did they get it from? It's all console. You know that, like, when this thing was built, I mean, people can look at the pictures, but when this thing was built, they didn't have desktop computers then. They were just custom consoles. I mean, this thing was built from scratch, right? I mean, not scratch, but...

Dave Jones: Oh, it's not that old. We're talking Hubble Space Telescope 1986 here, you know.

Chris Gammell: Still, I mean, it was probably, you know, like, it could have been point-to-point wiring,

SPEAKER_02: maybe PCBs, I guess.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. Single side? I don't know. I was young then.

Dave Jones: It's great. I just wanted... If I was rich and I had, you know, oodles of space, I'd be getting shit like this.

Chris Gammell: It'd be great. Yep, yep. And just think someday they could, you know, put my chip printing machine on Mars on eBay, on Mars eBay, and then people could buy it there. All right, I'm done talking about chip printers.

Dave Jones: What about Altium's... Should I hit the make an offer button now?

Chris Gammell: No, don't do that.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: What about another often-spoke-about topic on here? What about Altium? What's the deal there?

Dave Jones: Altium. Yeah. Some people say Altium. I say Altium.

Chris Gammell: That's okay. You work there.

Dave Jones: Yes, end of an era. It's official for those following along at home. Nick Martin is gone. Gonzo. Gonski.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's official. Yes, he is no longer part of the company. He has no say in it, in the direction of the company. And, yeah, he ruled with an iron fist for, I don't know, 27 years or something since he founded the company. And, no, they booted him out. And, in the end, if you've been following, I've been updating on Twitter and the forum and stuff. And he tried to challenge it. He tried to get all of being the biggest shareholder, tried to get all the board thrown out. Did we talk about this last time?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think so.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I think so.

Chris Gammell: But the big important news is that, is what, the software is still?

Dave Jones: Oh, well, yes. Yeah, I'll get onto that in a second. So, yeah, no, as it turns out, he was, he, at the last minute, he withdrew his thing for having the board thrown out. He knew he was going to lose. And they took the vote anyway. And it turns out, yes, he lost by a landslide. So, he's, yeah. That stinks. I think they took the vote just to rub it in. Oh, that's too bad. They didn't have to. So, they didn't have to take the vote.

Chris Gammell: I was going to say, if that was me and, you know, I got to that point, I would print up a T-shirt that said, I started a multi-million dollar company and all I got was this stinking T-shirt.

Dave Jones: It was this lousy T-shirt. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, yes, the big news is that, which I'm itching to do a video on, I think. Dave's, you know, top five tips for Altium now that Nick's gone. Yeah. And anyway, the big news is that they are getting back into core, in quote marks, core EDA functionality, which means none of this Internet of Things stuff, none of that. Yeah, they're still going to do the cloudy type stuff with the libraries and all that sort of stuff. But basically, they're going back to focus on PCB and schematic, basically. And they're still doing the FPGA stuff, but they're going to open that more or something. Right. Well, that's good. So, they're going back to core functionality.

Chris Gammell: I think that's what our listening audience would care most about. I mean, I think we have a lot of Altium users. Absolutely. So, that's... Yeah. Who cares, right?

Dave Jones: It is a big deal, yes. Yeah. Because there were a lot of disgruntled people who were upset with the direction that they were going. Well, next...

Chris Gammell: You know what's next? Yeah. Insourcing back to Australia. Right.

Dave Jones: You think they'll move back in. No, I think they're really... They love their costs over there. They're gone for good. They love their low costs, which a lot of their program is not done in China, though, ironically. So, there you go. Well, people are going to do what they're going to do. Anyway. Yes. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Core is another fun NBA thing. NBA. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yes, I know. Core, yes. It's a wank word.

Chris Gammell: Once you buy up a bunch of other companies and you change everything around, you say... You do a 180 and then you say, oh, we're going back to our core. Yeah, exactly. Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: And the share price skyrocketed as a result, of course. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it remains to be seen where they go. I've got some good ideas, which I'll... Well, some obvious, bloody obvious, blindingly, stupidly obvious ideas, which I'll probably put into a video sometime soon. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Because it ain't rocket science. When you've only got one product, folks, it ain't rocket science, okay?

Chris Gammell: Make it good. Make it better.

Dave Jones: Make it be the number one in that niche industry. Don't try and bite off more than you can chew and be a tool for everyone. Yeah. Oh, gee, folks, you know. And how about going after all segments of the market, the low, the mid, and the high?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Hello, McFly. Anyway, yep.

Chris Gammell: So would you go work for them again? Hell no. What about...

Dave Jones: I wouldn't go work for anyone again.

Chris Gammell: Well, there's a... Interestingly, I saw this article from the... What was it? Mercury News. That's the Silicon Valley newspaper. Right. When people are trying to get hired, right? So you're not old, right? But you were older than me, so I get to say that. I am. But people are actually... So we talked about age bias, right, before on this show. And so people are going into interviews now, right? Because, you know, there's a lot of aging, but, you know, still very smart and employable people out in the Silicon Valley. And they're getting cosmetic surgery now. Oh, really? When they go into stinking interviews, right?

Dave Jones: Folks, this is from the Only in America files.

Chris Gammell: I don't know, man. It could happen anywhere. I mean, it's just... No. You don't think in 30 or 40 years in China, right, if their economy matures like the U.S.'s did, right, in the electronics space, you don't think that, you know, people with gray in their temples or, you know, if... Now, granted...

Dave Jones: People will say, well, you know, it's not just the looks. Are you going to start removing your, you know, your date of birth from your resume? Which I've never had mine on there, by the way. No, you're not supposed to have it. I've never had my date of... No, but a lot of people do. A lot of people think that it has to be on there. There are bad things to put on your resume.

Chris Gammell: And that is one of them. That and, you know, like your favorite color and, you know, if you're married and your religion. And there's like just tons of things you don't put on there.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: But you can do the math anyway, right? Because usually you're going to have a chronological work history from when you left your engineering education, right? And yes, another bad thing to put on there, folks, is your high school and primary school, which... What do you call it over there? Elementary school or something? Yeah, elementary school. Nobody gives a shit, really. No, no, definitely not. Right? It just looks pathetic. Right. Really.

Chris Gammell: Should we talk about resumes? We never really talk about resumes on here, do we?

Dave Jones: There was... No, we don't. There was a thread on the EEV blog forum just yesterday about somebody was asked by a recruitment consultant to change their resume to make it tailored, more tailored towards this specific job that they wanted... Interesting. ...that they were, you know, shoving him into. You know, because he wanted... You know, they wanted... They want the commission. The recruitment consultant knew... Yeah. Well, yeah, they want the commission. And they knew that they wanted them to work on Atmel microcontrollers. So he wanted... Even though he already had it in his resume, they wanted him to change it so it was the focus of the resume. Interesting. And this is, you know, this is basic stuff. You know, if you're going for a job and you're... There are ways to format your resume so it's a bit neutral in that respect. But if you're really after... If you know that they're after something very key... Right. ...you should always modify your resume to highlight...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: ...that thing that they're after.

Chris Gammell: Right. Because otherwise it should be, like, a bullet point or two. And if it's, like, they want...

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: ...they want, you know, AVR experience... You should talk about every single project you've done with that.

Chris Gammell: And intimate details of what you know about peripherals and yada, yada, yada, right? I mean, like... Yeah. It's... That is important. Yes. It's annoying, right? You know, having to redo that each time.

Dave Jones: And he seemed a bit pissed off because they couldn't provide any details, right? So, like, he asked them for more details and they didn't know, you know. And he said, well, how could I modify it to, you know, without more details? And, well, that's engineering thinking. You need to think more like a marketing person, unfortunately. Right. Because you are selling yourself. So... Yeah. I don't know. How much hiring... Spread the bullshit around.

Chris Gammell: Have you done a lot of hiring in your past? I mean, I don't think you'll have to anymore.

Dave Jones: I've done a fair... I've done my fair share of hiring, yeah. Yeah. For sure.

Chris Gammell: I don't know if I've done a lot compared to a lot of people. I mean, what do you... What do you... What pops for you?

Dave Jones: Well, we've talked about it before. The first thing is, if you seem keen and enthusiastic, i.e. you work on shit outside of hours. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is like... On a resume, though? That is number one. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: No, I agree. I'm just checking.

Dave Jones: Haven't you seen my job? I've done two videos. Dave, we all know I don't watch your videos. We know this. Well, I've... Okay. Well, I've done two videos on job tips, and it includes resume tips as well, and that's one of the big ones.

Chris Gammell: All right. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: No, I said the same thing. And that's one of the big ones. It's like bring shit in, right? I...

Chris Gammell: That you've worked on. I read resumes from the bottom up, right? I mean, I am completely with you in that regard.

Dave Jones: Oh, I don't read them from the bottom up. I read them from the top down, and yeah, and it's just immediately, you know, you can smell a guy like suit and tie bullshit from a mile away, right? If somebody's just a career engineer, kind of for want of a better term, like they just, you know, it's their day job, and they don't really give a shit, and they're kind of sort of okay at it, then that's not really the kind of person that I want. Right. I want the enthusiastic person.

Chris Gammell: Absolutely. Yeah, I'm with you too. And you know, the interesting thing is that you read a lot of job, like resume tips and stuff, and it talks about, oh, well, you know, you should put about, you should put how much money you save the company, and maybe this is just me, but I look at that, and I'm like, eh, I don't care.

Dave Jones: No, I don't know. I don't like that at all. No, it's of no relevance to me. Right.

Chris Gammell: But it is for people that are... Why is this process to... Right. I mean, if you're going into, you know, if you're trying for like a more, you know, higher level, maybe trying to get in a management position, you will put that kind of stuff, but yeah, for people I've hired... Oh, yeah, of course.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, that's actually bread and butter for your management types. Right, right. Of course, if you're going for... Or a team leader or something like that. Right, exactly. Possibly.

Chris Gammell: Managing budgets and that crap, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yeah. No, that's gold for them. Yeah. Now, what about... Give them a hard on.

Chris Gammell: What about resume... Or resumes. What about websites? Do you... I don't know if you would have seen that when you were hiring, but does that... Is that a thing?

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, because a lot of people didn't have their own websites, but occasionally I would get people who have their own websites. And if it's on projects and stuff like that, absolutely, I'm going to go there and check that stuff out.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Now, I will say...

Dave Jones: And it gets you instantly right up the list.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. I love seeing that kind of thing because it kind of puts yourself out there too, right? It says, yeah, all right, this might be kind of risky, but I'm going to say it anyways, right? Because I know you're going to... It's not like, hey, don't check my Facebook page. You'll see bad things. It's like, hey, check out this page. You don't care. After you see this project I did, you won't care what's on my Facebook page. And that's exactly what I want to see. Now, I will say, one of our former guests, I saw his resume a couple weeks ago, and I think it's public, so it's not a big deal, but Jeremy Bloom's resume... Yeah, I've seen his resume. That is a badass resume. If people want a good model of what to look for... I mean, granted, he does a lot of stuff in the first place, but in terms of formatting and everything, if I would have seen that in a stack of resumes...

Dave Jones: It certainly stands out. It would get you an interview, definitely.

Chris Gammell: And one thing that I always regretted is that I listened to one of those career center people at my university, and I had this idea for a web diagram, like one of those thought diagrams. Oh, yeah. And she's like, oh, this is... You'll never get hired like this. And it's like, yeah, I wouldn't have gotten hired at Intel or standard getting forced through an internet filter. But yeah, but who cares, right? I'm not going for them. I want to go for people who will actually appreciate that kind of stuff. So you don't always listen to just all of the... If you're reading like a top 10 tips for what your resume should be, think about it, right? It's like they're doing that for the mass market. If you want to be different, be different. You know, like sometimes you just got to take a...

Dave Jones: And difference stands out. Because look, the sole goal of a resume is to get you in for the interview. That's it. People don't hire based on the resume.

Chris Gammell: No.

Dave Jones: Right? They hire based on after they meet you, whether or not they like you.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. If they can stand you. Exactly. If you sit in a room... If you sit in one of those little tiny interview rooms for an hour with someone and you don't, you know, if you don't leave complaining about how bad their breath was or how dull they were, you've got a pretty good shot, you know?

Dave Jones: So that's all it's good for, right? So don't sweat it. Right. Just make it unusual. Make it stand out.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Because that's going to get you the interview. Exactly. And the other thing that I should point out is... So I was worried because it wouldn't get through like the filter, right? I saw something the other day that said there was some position for 29,000 people applied for the job and zero resumes got through based on the keyword filtering. Because they just... You know, either the program wasn't working right or they had too many keywords they want. And it's like... Like, you know, you'll hear all these resume tips too about, oh, well, if you see a job posting, make sure you have all of the keywords in there so that it gets through the filter. Here's my tip. Don't go through the goddamn filter if you can help it, right? I mean, if you have any other way of getting your resume in someone's hands, do it. Whatever way possible. I don't care what it is. You know...

Dave Jones: Have we talked about that on here before of ways to find people? Like, you know, it's not hard when you know the email address for a company. Say they have like, you know, admin at companyx.com or something. You search Google for at companyx.com and then engineering in front of it or something. And you might get like the engineering manager for that company because he's posted something in some sort of news press release or something like that. Bang!

Chris Gammell: Well, LinkedIn these days, you can figure out a lot of stuff. Well, LinkedIn's even easier, right? It's like, it's stalker's heaven, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I was actually... I did an alumni event down at my university and I felt like a weirdo because I'm sitting in front of all these, you know, students who are like... It's like 40 students who came to listen to about career stuff. And there was these other nice people that volunteered as well. And I'm like, I'm talking about how much of a stalker I am on LinkedIn. And I'm kind of looking around. I'm like, oh, that sounded kind of weird, didn't it?

SPEAKER_02: But it's true.

Chris Gammell: And then, you know, like, it's true. You can find out so much and you don't have to be creepy about it. Don't be creepy about it. Don't say, oh, I like the picture of your dog on your Facebook. No, you don't actually be a stalker. You just find out, you know, who works there? What are they working on if you can? Who do you know that's even a third connection to them? That's the real value of it. And, you know, it's...

Dave Jones: But you can, but don't be afraid to email them directly.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And say, hey, look, I found your details. I'm really keen to get, you know, have you got any engineering positions available? It's available, right?

Chris Gammell: Right. And that is when you show a website, right? I mean, because people are going to respond to a link a lot more than, oh, I got to open a PDF, yada, yada, yada. This should have gone to HR. If you send someone a link instead... Like, I guarantee you send someone a link, they are 10 times more likely to open it than they will be, you know, like a PDF or a Word document. Because it's not like, it's not like, give me a job. It's like, here's the stuff I do. If you're interested later, you know, let's talk. That's the kind of soft sell. That's like a selling technique, right? That is, you know, I don't know. Or you could say, you know, can you give me some advice on this kind of thing, right? There's actually... This is actually another thing on our list. It's called the Ben Franklin effect. You ever heard of that? No. Too sale. The Ben Franklin effect, or it's also called the foot in the door technique, is basically if you get someone to do you a small favor, right? So I got Dave to do me a small favor of hosting the first amp hour with me. And then he felt obligated. He said, well, I did this thing for Chris. It must be because I like him, right? And granted, this is a psychological thing. I don't really understand how all of it works. But at the same time, it does work. I mean, this is... If people are interested, there's another one of my podcasts, The Engineering Commons. We did a whole episode on influence. And this is like one of the big things, you know? It sounds a little shady, but it's just how humans react. If you get someone to do a small favor for you, they will...

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: ...are more likely to do a second favor for you. This is the basis of every lunch you ever get bought as an engineer by a vendor, right? Right. Yeah. This is awesome. This is their bread and butter. Yeah. Because it's just human nature. And so it's the same thing with resumes. If you can get that hiring manager to check out your website and give some feedback on a project, right? They're going to feel more... Mm-hmm. I don't know. It sounds shady, right? I mean, I'm saying all these kind of shady things, but... It does. It does sound dodgy, yeah. It does. But at the same time, it's just, you know... If you want a job, it's just, you know, you've got to be enterprising about it. And please, no one email me. I don't want to see... I'm just kidding. Post it to the subreddit so everyone can see it. That's the way to do it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. There's so many avenues nowadays. The world's completely changed.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Since when I was looking for jobs. Okay, so when you were looking for your first jobs, what was that like? How about that?

Dave Jones: Well, I got my first job through a... I'm sure I've told the story before. Yeah? I was going through a recruitment. I went through a recruitment. Oh, you did. But I didn't know. But I didn't know. I saw an ad in the paper, right? You bought the Saturday paper where all the... You know, because the internet wasn't around here. Like, we're talking the late 80s, right?

SPEAKER_02: Right.

Dave Jones: When I got my first job, right? There was no such thing as the bloody internet or the communications revolution, for goodness sake. Right. And so you bought the Saturday paper. That's where the jobs were. Yeah. And, you know, and you look through the engineering jobs. Oh, he's an engineering job. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, yeah, that sounds interesting. I'll apply for that.

SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: And I'd call them up thinking that I'm working for OU Norman. You know, the company's called OU Norman. Because there was no way to research them back then, right? Oh, right, right. There was no internet, right? It was very difficult. So I thought, okay, it's an engineering company called OU Norman. And they phone them up, tell them about myself. And they go, oh, yeah, it sounds interesting. Come in and talk to us. So I came in there and I walked into the city. I looked at this huge, you know, big 50-story building. They're up on level 20. I'm going, this doesn't look like they make any shit here. Yeah, right. Where's the manufacturing floor?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I'm walking through the glass door and I'm going, oh, I see, there's a bunch of cubicles. Yeah. What's going on here? They most outsourced. And they explained to me, you know? I mean, yeah, shit, I was only a teenager, right? Right. But that was my first experience. And then he explained the concept of recruitment consultants.

SPEAKER_02: Right.

Dave Jones: And, yeah, I went, okay, send me to the real company, you know? And even then I kind of like rolled my eyes like, oh, you're wasting my time, dude. Right. Why did I have to meet you? Why couldn't you just send me straight to the company, you know? Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, a teenage Dave Jones, I can only imagine. You're right. Yeah, yeah. Irreverence upon irreverence. Oh, boy. Yep.

Dave Jones: Yeah. No, it's all changed these days.

Chris Gammell: Better or worse, though? What do you think?

Dave Jones: Oh, it heaps better. Yeah? A million times better. I don't know, man. Of course. The communications revolution changed everything.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it did, but here's the thing. So the thing that's different is you can't necessarily work your way up like you used to be able to, right? I mean, that was one of the benefits back then. You could start as like a tech and you could end up as an engineer. And these days, not so much, I think.

Dave Jones: Why not?

Chris Gammell: I mean, you can't if you go to school, but I think a lot of companies just don't do it. You know, there's not as much on-the-job training experience as there used to be because it's, you know, they basically, companies have said, well, we'll rely on schools to do that for us, even though it's, you know, more of a theoretical side of things. I don't know about that.

Dave Jones: But I could be wrong. I don't know. It'd be hard to get data on that. You know, getting data on that is next to impossible, right? Right. So, yeah. Anyway. Yeah. We had enough?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think so. But speaking of school, right? And school projects and stuff. There's actually another thing we have on the list from Mike, who actually works at SparkFun. But he wrote an article on his own blog about the, what's it called? The beauty of Dunn, I think it was. Oh, Dunn is beautiful, rather. Yeah. Dunn is beautiful. Yep, yep. And basically, he knew someone who got in trouble for using an Arduino in a senior project, but that wasn't the focus of the project. Basically, they used it as a means to an end, and then they got in trouble because they used this, you know, they said specifically, no Arduinos allowed, right? It's too easy. Oh, well, there you go, right? Well. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah. Okay, so breaking the rules. But, I mean, like, is that a new reality, right? I mean, like, these days, are you going to say, well, you know, you can't use a Raspberry Pi, you can't use an Arduino, you can't use any kind of dev board. You have to go out and lay out your own, you know, micro board. Is that realistic? Well, why not?

Dave Jones: If that's the intention and they're the rules, I mean. I don't think that was the project, though. So be it.

Chris Gammell: The project was, you know, they were actuating stuff. You know, it was like they were doing something not electronics related. And basically they said you have to do every part of it, including reinventing the wheel.

Dave Jones: Well, maybe they did that for a reason. I think that's good. That's intentional. If you're forcing people to do a complete engineering project from the ground up, there's lots of value in that. I agree that there's value. Come on, there's huge value in that.

Chris Gammell: I agree there's value in it, but not always. But here's the quote, right?

Dave Jones: Not always, but I don't blame them for doing that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I do. Quote. Go ahead. Quote. The professor told me that he does not allow Arduinos to be used on these projects since it makes things too easy. At this level of education, they're supposed to be learning the stuff that Arduino hides from you. Which, okay, I can understand that part of it, right? The...

Dave Jones: Well, there you go. End of story.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, surely. Writing the registers, you know, like that kind of stuff. I'm doing all that stuff now, right? I'm actually relearning... I'm relearning programming right now, personally. Right. C or assembler? Yeah, C. It's a sordid affair, let me tell you. It's been a while.

Dave Jones: But at the same time... C or C++?

Chris Gammell: C. Just straight C.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Excellent. Yeah, I don't know, man. You know, the temptation was there. I mean, like, at the same time, I'm just talking to some chips. I'm just talking over Spy Bus. You know, it's... And I've got to learn everything else in there. Now, is it necessary for me, right? So someone in my situation...

Dave Jones: No, of course. You get the job done based on your parameters, you know? It's based on your, you know, cost and time targets and everything else, right?

Chris Gammell: Okay, so then why do you constrain...

Dave Jones: You use whatever you can. Okay, so why do you constrain... Because it was a specific... Because it was a specific test for a course. Now... I don't blame them.

Chris Gammell: It's a capstone. If it's... Okay, if you say at the beginning of a project, I'm going to do this. I'm going to make... I don't know. I'm going to make a full-blown oscilloscope, right? Where does it stop, right? Do you stop by, you know, including the... Are you allowed to use an off-the-shelf enclosure? Are you allowed to use an off-the-shelf dev board? Are you supposed to design your own, you know, chips?

Dave Jones: You're setting it up. You make the rules. Just like, say, the 7-4 series design contest or something, right? Design, you know, some huge thing with 7-4, right? It's stupid, right? You wouldn't do that in the real world, right? But you do it for a reason. And for that reason, it was cool and it was fun, right, in terms of the contest. But for educational purposes, it might be because they're trying to teach you the value of the complete system as engineering from the ground up. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I guess.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, I know. That's not how it happens in the real world, right? You're going to take any damn more shortcut you can.

Chris Gammell: Right, exactly. If it was a course on, you know, programming, right, then I'd say, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. You should be learning how to write to registers, right? You should be doing the same stupid bit masking that I have to do and all this other crap that I'm relearning, right? I understand that, like, and I agree with that. But if it's a project, if it's... I'm totally with Mike on this. If it's a project where you're trying to get something done, if you're trying to achieve a goal...

Dave Jones: If that's the sole purpose, I agree. Okay. If the sole purpose is the end result, then I agree you should be able to use any damn means you like.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: I don't like programming, Dave. Really?

Dave Jones: I don't know. An analog guy doesn't like programming.

Chris Gammell: I think that's weird, right? Sodder. Sodder is still my friend. Yep. Sodder is your favorite programming language. Yes, it definitely is.

Dave Jones: Are you programming much these days at all? That's the thing. I don't ever do it any. I mean, occasionally, I... Yeah. Well, I just did code the other day for, you know, for my little micro supply project. Yeah. What do you... Is that C as well? C, yeah.

Chris Gammell: C. You know, here's the problem. And this is maybe always the problem, is that, okay, so I can hack code. I can, you know, modify stuff. I can figure my way through, at least right now. But, man, like, starting from not even scratch, like, just there's no examples out there for this thing I'm using, right? So maybe that's a system problem, but I'm locked into the system, right? There are no other options. And it's like, man, how do people start from scratch, scratch, right? I mean, like, what was it?

Dave Jones: Well, that's the hardest part of programming. Oh, God. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible. Right. You type in main bracket. Yeah. Well, not even that.

Chris Gammell: Just, like, talking to all the peripherals and, like, all the SATA files. All the peripherals and everything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, God. It is terrible.

Dave Jones: And nothing works. That's the thing about hardware that we talked about at the start of the show, right? Nothing works until you've got almost everything in place. Like, if you can't talk to your LCD, then you can't get data output. You know, status output. So you've got to get the LCD working first before you can get anything else working. So that's what I'll typically do, right? For this micro, so, well, for any project that uses it, like, has a user interface or has an LCD or a display, that's the first thing I'll do is I will get that bit working. Yeah. Because then I can use that to output status stuff that I can use for the rest of the development.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. Any sort of display is your troubleshooting buddy. That's right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, LEDs count too, right? Or talk them back to the terminal.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Even if it's just a LED, if this LED lights, you've entered this part of the program and you know it's working. You know what I mean?

Chris Gammell: Oh, it's magical. Yeah. It is magical when it's LED lights. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Exactly. And you can do it without that. Like, you can set, like, spare pins to go high, but then you've got to hook up your scope and everything. Like, it's just not convenient, you know? No, I agree. It's just more convenient if there's a display there. And you can get it to print strings and get it to print numbers. Like, you can get it to print internal counter numbers and stuff like that. Yeah. So, very, very handy. A lot of people say, oh, that's what a good debugger's for and all that sort of shit. Oh, I prefer to, you know, work on the real display and have the thing output. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's so much faster, right? I mean, you don't have to... Well, then you remove a step from it, right? It's like, okay, the display is working. I can test that the display is working by, you know, typing test or whatever. Or you don't have to worry that the scope's broken or that the probe fell off or that the, you know, anything else, really, at that point. I mean, yeah, I like the way you did it. That's smart. Yep. Excellent. I just... I don't... I don't like it yet. Maybe I'll get into it. Maybe this is the problem. Maybe, you know, maybe I didn't struggle enough when I was doing programming projects and, you know, I'm just... I never learned it well enough.

Dave Jones: If it doesn't tickle your fancy, it doesn't tickle your fancy. I mean, I think we talked the other week about how I used to be... I went through a whole programming phase where I hardly did any electronics... I was into just programming. I was churning out, you know, I was writing huge 10,000 line long programs, you know, and I just loved developing algorithms for...

Chris Gammell: And kids, that was before energy drinks. Can you imagine? Right. Oh, man. Oh, boy. What was I talking to about that? I don't know. So my friend has a startup, right? He has a software startup. And we were talking about... I was meeting with him the other day, and we were talking about someone having a Red Bull dispenser at an office. And I'm just like, oh, that's disgusting.

SPEAKER_02: Why?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You know, there's just this whole, like, subculture of startups now and stuff. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's just... You know, it's like, oh, you have to... It's like the whole, like, Silicon Valley thing. You know, you have food there. That was something I was always blown away by. I went to go visit a company out in Silicon Valley, and they just had gobs and gobs of food at the office, right? I'm like, who's paying for all this stuff? There's just chocolate-covered pretzels here. This is delicious, you know? And I felt guilty eating it, so I'm not eating that.

Dave Jones: But it can ring warning bells, right, when companies provide, you know, these energy drink vending machines in the lab.

Chris Gammell: That's right, yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, it sort of means that they're working some pretty long... And you see pizza boxes stacked up in the corner. Oh, yeah. You know, it can ring alarm bells, folks. That's true. You don't like that sort of thing. But if you're young and single and you don't mind working 18 hours a day, hey, go for it.

Chris Gammell: It could be very lucrative, right? We actually have a link here about that. This is actually from two months ago, but I still think it's a really interesting chart. And it's actually like a little interactive chart, but I had no idea how much some people get paid at startups. It's kind of ridiculous. Maybe it's just because of geographical differences and stuff. But, you know, we're talking like software people get like six figures going in, right? And all I could think when I heard about this is, you know, they're getting six figures, but aren't they struggling for funding and stuff? Like, I don't understand it. You know, like, why are startups paying so much? That's what I don't understand. You know, they're paying...

Dave Jones: It depends on what sort of startup you've got. If you've got a startup that already has venture capital funding, then bingo. Yeah, they're going to pay you a lot of money. But if you're actually part of the startup, like founding the thing, no, you're going to be living and you haven't got your venture capital yet. Or you don't want to take it, which I highly recommend. Yeah, then, yeah, you'll, you know... Is it like the lottery effect?

Chris Gammell: Where, you know, you get, oh, well, we got $2 million in funding. It's like, raise this for everyone, you know?

Dave Jones: It happens at big corporations too. If you go in at, if you're hired at the start of a big project, that's when it has all the funding and that's when they're going to pay you the big goals. If you're hired at the end, at the tail end of a project, they've got no freaking money left. Seriously. And this is big, you know, billion, you know, tens of billions of dollars corporation. This is how it works internally.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's like they just keep running as fast as they can and then they say, oh, okay, let's... Bank account strike.

Dave Jones: Start off a new thing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: They've started out with their, you know, $10 million budget for this project. Oh, $10 million doesn't get you much. And you own hardware, right? Let me tell you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right. It's like, what, two proto runs and a couple of plastics? Yeah, yeah, right. And a lab and a... Yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. A couple scopes. Oh, man.

Dave Jones: So, yes, you stand the best chance when projects are brand new. That's when you want to get in, folks.

Chris Gammell: That is weird to me. I guess, I mean, I never really... I've never really, you know, looked at startups. I mean, I'd never heard of hardware startups when I was leaving school or anything. So, you know, I didn't even think about that.

Dave Jones: I've had to... Like, I've been on the recruitment side of this and I've had to sit in the interviews with people. Look, you know, and we're negotiating... Like, we want them and we're negotiating, you know, salary and stuff.

Chris Gammell: And we're going, look... Really?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. And we're going, look, you know, it's... Sorry, dude. It's, you know, it's the end of the project. You got here too late. You got here too late. You know, this is all we can afford. Seriously.

Chris Gammell: Go build a time machine and we'll be able to pay you a lot more. Not withstanding the time machine. We'll pay more for that. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I've had to admit that to people. Yeah. Sorry, we don't have any budget left. You know? Wow. This is all we can afford. Take it or leave it. I'd love to pay you more and snatch you up. That's weird. If it means you walk, well, sorry, I don't have that extra five grand I can give you. It's just, you know? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's weird.

Dave Jones: Sorry. I've never sat in... How about a free muffin or something?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I've never sat in a salary. I mean, like, you know, we were talking about hiring earlier, but I've never... It always was, at least, you know, my experience, it's always like through HR, it's always like, well, we'll call you later. Well, sometimes it depends on the company. Yeah. Oh, okay. So, like, smaller companies. Yep.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yeah. I guess that's... Oh, no. It's at larger companies, too. Like, I've... Really? I've mostly worked at large companies, but it depends on which area of the company you're working in.

Chris Gammell: That's interesting.

Dave Jones: And if you've got... You can see, because a lot of the time, you have your own funding, right? Oh, no. You know? Dave. As a budget, right? As a...

Chris Gammell: Were you a manager?

Dave Jones: No, I wasn't a manager.

SPEAKER_02: Well...

Dave Jones: Oh, well, I've managed my own project. It's all been a lie. That's where I had my own budget.

SPEAKER_02: It's all been a lie. Dave's a manager. Manager. Run for your lives. The amp hour's over. The amp hour's over forever. No, I'm just kidding.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that'd be hilarious.

Dave Jones: Bit of awesome wells there, folks.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right?

Dave Jones: The Martians are coming.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Soylent green as people. No, it's Elon Musk. It's Elon. Bow down. Elon. Elon. Elon. Elon.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, man.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. Yeah, I used to manage myself once.

Chris Gammell: Yeah? Oh, weird. Wow, you are again.

Dave Jones: Yeah, because I'm... Everyone knows Dave is unmanageable. Unmanageable. So you might as well let him manage himself, you know? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Give him a budget. Tell him to go away.

Dave Jones: Yeah, give him a budget and go, yeah, I've had my own project budgets and everything, you know? So, you know, I could afford to buy stuff for my own lab from scratch, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's nice. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I like that. I hope I get to do that at some point. You mentioned Elon Musk. This is not really electronic. I guess it's kind of electronics given the nature of the product. But the Model S was released and that thing is, I think you say it's sex on a stick. I think that's the appropriate term. But they're actually raising the price of it, which is weird. So I know this is a car, but it's an electric car. But just, you don't expect to see that in any kind of consumer devices these days, right? You know, they've finished this model.

Dave Jones: But they've done that before.

Chris Gammell: Really? Like, what kind of stuff? Are you talking about Tesla?

Dave Jones: Yeah, Tesla. I was talking about that doco. Oh, right, right, right. The Revenge of the Electric Car, where he had to go to the owners and say, sorry, look, I'm going to have to ask you for more money. Otherwise, we're going to go broken. You're not going to get your car.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, hmm.

Dave Jones: And maybe it's a similar thing. Maybe it's a...

Chris Gammell: Maybe he's like, well, I'm building a spaceship. I'm trying to go to Mars, too. So, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. That costs a lot of coin. Exactly, right. I'm going to move it out of Tesla.

Chris Gammell: The rocket's not going to build itself. NASA doesn't pay like it used to. I'm getting in at the end of the NASA project here, folks. So, you know, they don't pay like they used to. Yeah, there's no more budget left, folks.

Dave Jones: Talking about, yeah, you needed to get in at the Apollo era. That's when you needed to get in.

Chris Gammell: Oh, man. Yeah, maybe that's when engineers, you know, I'm thinking about, like, we were talking earlier about electronics, you know, like, maybe that's when electronics engineers' salaries were going up like crazy, right? When you had, you know, a huge project like that, there was not many people. It was a new field, you know, and that's when the, you know, the salaries were going through the roof because electronics were so new and there were so few people.

Dave Jones: Maybe these days... I don't know of any boom in engineering salaries. I don't know of... Well, if you count software engineering... I've never heard of any, you know, I...

Chris Gammell: I don't know. I mean, there was the 70s aerospace stuff, I mean, that ended up crashing eventually, and then, I mean, 60s, late 60s, early 70s kind of stuff, I mean, there's...

Dave Jones: Yeah, I mean, well, I can't speak since, you know, before the late 80s.

Chris Gammell: Right, well, I can't speak before 2006, so... Right, well, there you go. I'm going off Wikipedia and pulling stuff out of my butt here, you know? Yeah.

Dave Jones: But, yeah, I can't say I've ever heard of any, you know, boom time in engineering salaries. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Maybe wars. I don't know. I mean, like, World War II, maybe. Please, if anyone... Yeah. Historians out there would be... That would be helpful if we had any kind of historical perspective here, so please let us know.

Dave Jones: Because we do talk out our ass here on the end.

Chris Gammell: We do, quite a bit, actually, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of enclosures and talking out of them, you had one last thing on here about enclosure design. What's up with that?

Dave Jones: Oh, enclosure design. I'm trying to select a new enclosure for my micro-supply project. I did a recent video that I'm getting back into that now, and it's why are enclosures always the hard part?

Chris Gammell: Because you're an electronics person. That's what it is. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Actually, so, former guest, Zach... Yeah, but no, even if you're not, right? Like, you can either go for an off-the-shelf one, right? And maybe, okay, it's not exactly what you want. It's boring. You're maybe going to have to do some internal wiring, and you've got to design extra boards in there, so there's extra caution. You've got to have a front panel board and a back panel board. It may not be ugly, but it's extra engineering, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's extra engineering. And then you get all the people, folks, oh, why don't you 3D print your own case? Yeah. Try and put that into mass production. One of them, right? Yeah, one of them, maybe 10, you know, but then you're screwed for mass production. Well, oh, why not laser print a clear acrylic case? Everyone's doing that these days. Well, you know, the devil's putting in the detail there as well. I like those. Yeah, they can look nice. So I'm trying to come up with, you know, because I've got a form factor in mind, and I can't find an off-the-shelf case this time that really is optimized.

Chris Gammell: Maybe you need to take the same path that I'm looking at, man. Maybe you've got to learn, like, metalworking and machining and stuff. I've been reading a lot.

Dave Jones: Well, once again, it's how do you take that volume production at low cost?

Chris Gammell: Oh, well, I mean.

Dave Jones: And by volume production, I'm not talking super high volume. I'm talking just 1,000 or 2. Yeah, yeah. Or 10,000. 10,000 over a life, right?

Chris Gammell: 10,000 over 10 years.

Dave Jones: That would be massive volume, right? Right, right, right, right. I'd be stoked if I sold 10,000. Yeah, but you know what?

Chris Gammell: If you come up with the, you know, it's called G-code for CNC designs, right? I think it is, at least. I'm still learning, folks. But, you know, like, you could send that to, you know, like, when I was talking to Zach, Hoken, he was talking about just, you know, you walk down the street in Shenzhen, and it's just like CNC machine after CNC machine. They all talk G-code. You could send them that file, right? That is basically the step.

Dave Jones: I don't want to get it made in China.

Chris Gammell: Okay, well, then find a machinist around there. I mean, like, you can, or you can, you can learn, you know, what's it called?

Dave Jones: That's what I'm trying to do, right? I'm trying to come up, yeah, you can do, oh, sheet metal. Yeah, let's go make sheet metal. I'm just saying. What do you want to do here, man?

SPEAKER_02: Okay, so go build a mold.

Dave Jones: I know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to come up with some, I'm trying to come up with some innovative ideas.

Chris Gammell: I think you need to learn, you need to learn how to do injection molding. You need to, you need to cut some steel, my friend. And you need to, it's exciting. I mean, working on plastics, I really like it. I mean, 3D printing is cool, right? And I like it a lot. But the reason I got into CNCing stuff is because I was doing some stuff at work and like that stuff is just really cool. I mean, it's just like, I don't know. It's just like, it's a whole new feel for me. So that's why I keep talking about it. I hope people don't get pissed about it.

Dave Jones: Well, you can stick with what you know, which is part of what I'm thinking of doing, you know, front panels, PCBs. Well, you can do cases out of PCBs too, folks.

Chris Gammell: Interesting.

Dave Jones: That's not very sturdy.

Chris Gammell: I guess it's sturdy. I don't know.

Dave Jones: It depends on how you assemble it.

Chris Gammell: You could, what you can do is get really cheap ones and you could stack them up, right? And glue them all together.

Dave Jones: Like a, you can stack them up or you can stack them up and bolt them together. And remember, you can get very thick, rigid PCBs if you want.

Chris Gammell: Really?

Dave Jones: How thick? You don't have to. Yeah. Like, you're talking about like... 24 millimeters standard?

Chris Gammell: I was going to say like...

Dave Jones: They're pretty rigid, but you can go for 3.6.

Chris Gammell: Half a meter prepreg inside there and stuff. Right. What we're going to do is we're going to take a, you know, a one meter by one meter block of FR4 and just put some copper on the outside. We'll just glue it to it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So there's lots of avenues these days to... And you can do a combination of these. You can combine PCB stuff with laser cut acrylic, with laser cut aluminium, something like that. Laser cut aluminum, really? Yeah. I've never heard of that. I don't know how, however they cut it.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. Water jet. Water jet cutting. Yeah. There's a whole exciting field out there. Yeah. You know, I was actually, I was, I was complaining about my, my trials and tribulations learning about the CNC stuff and someone had a very interesting and woefully obvious suggestion. Why don't you stop by the Cleveland hackerspace, you idiot? And I'm like, oh yeah, we have one of those. So I'll probably be stopping by there. And that might be a good idea for you too, because you can get some ideas and see what tools are out there, at least in terms of, you know, rapid shops and stuff like that. Well, good luck, man. It's a, it's exciting. It's an exciting world out there and I'm sure you will document all of it.

Dave Jones: I will. That's your job. I always do. It is. Yeah. It is my job these days. Good luck not doing that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'll get my ass hauled over the coals if I don't. Right.

Chris Gammell: All right. Well, anything else for this week?

Dave Jones: No. We're up. All right.

Chris Gammell: Our capacity's done. We are. People can check us out on Twitter, on Facebook, G+, sort of. Or you can review us on iTunes. That's fun too. If people want to give us a review on iTunes, we love that.

Dave Jones: Are we a high capacity discharge radio show? What? We don't seem to have any building protection. What? I'm talking batteries here. Sorry. Oh, okay. I've got batteries on the mind at the moment. I thought you were talking about ESD kind of stuff. No, no. You want to start like a whole other thread right now? Amp power, capacity, batteries.

Chris Gammell: After I've already... Oh, batteries. Gotcha.

Dave Jones: You know, as we named our radio show, as a pun on the amp. That's what it was.

Chris Gammell: I never knew.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That's...

Chris Gammell: All right, folks. It's coming back now, is it? We'll talk to you next week. Bye. Bye.

Chris Gammell: Nice.