#38 – An Interview with Jeff Keyzer - Comical Keyzer Comes a-Callin'

Jeff Kaiser: Welcome to the Amp Hour.

Dave Jones: I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog. And I'm Chris Gammell from Chris Gammell's Analog Life.

Jeff Kaiser: And this is Jeff Kaiser from MightyOm.com. Intruder, intruder. Another one. We got another one, Dave. Hey, guys. Set up the mousetraps. Hey, Jeff, how are you doing? Pretty good.

Dave Jones: Welcome, Jeff. Awesome. Thanks for coming back.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, thanks for having me on the show. And I'd like to point out that this is the first time I've recorded with both Chris and Dave. So this is a pretty big event. Yes. Well, next.

Dave Jones: Sorry, a bit of trumpet heraldry. God, I can't even say it. Trumpet heraldry. Got it. I'm going to get it right.

Mitch Altman: Nailed it. Thanks a lot to both of you guys for having me on the show. I'm happy to be back.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's nice to be had.

Jeff Kaiser: I think he's supposed to say that.

Dave Jones: And we're using Skype again today, the big Skype experiment. So I can see little flashes on over people's heads when they talk here. It's all quite nice. But hopefully we won't get too many dropouts.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Hopefully not. Because normally we use Google Talk if you're not aware. But apparently it's good enough for Skype. It's good enough for everyone else. So it's good enough for us. And Chris, you're apparently fighting with your new rig. And you're going to attempt to record all of our voices direct from Skype. So if it works, the final recording you'll be listening to now will be a Skype recording.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, we'll be on easy street at that point. But we might have taken a wrong turn so far. And I'm the navigator. Yeah. He has no clue what he's doing.

Mitch Altman: And he's the miso. I have complete confidence in Chris. Eventually. I just like to point that out.

Jeff Kaiser: So Jeff, we heard about your new thing. I mean, it's timely that you're on here. I mean, in the Amp Hour tradition, we didn't give you any notice for having you on the show.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, it's all right.

Jeff Kaiser: I think I'm actually getting used to it. Good, good. Just kind of set an alarm just in case.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah.

Mitch Altman: It's like the bat phone or the bat. Oh, there we go. The spotlight, the searchlight. It's like I hear the calling and I can feel something in the air. I can feel. And I check online. And usually I've got a tweet or an email from Chris. And it says, hey, do you want to be on the show?

Jeff Kaiser: There we go.

Mitch Altman: You know, there we go.

Dave Jones: Third Ghostbuster.

Jeff Kaiser: Or we can get the bat signal with like just a big resistor across it.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'd be into that.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. There you go. New logo for your website. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, tell us about your new project because that was definitely on our list of things to talk about. Sure. Yeah. Seems like you're getting some good press about it, too.

Mitch Altman: Yeah. It's actually, it's spreading quite rapidly. Like a fungus. No, I'd like to say like a wildfire. Not like a fungus. That's a poor choice of words, I think. But yeah, yesterday I released, and I can't really say I because I was a fairly small part of this project. But there's a new solder comic that I released in conjunction with Mitch Altman, who invented the TV Be Gone. And I think he's a pretty big fixture in the DIY electronics community. He is, yeah. And also Andy Nordgren, who did all of our illustrations. So I guess the back story is that last year, Mitch and Andy made a one-page comic about how to solder. And really it wasn't a tutorial, but it was more something that Mitch could use in his workshops. Because Mitch gives soldering workshops around the world. He travels to conferences and hacker things and teaches people how to solder. So he wanted a quick reference sheet that he could refer to while he was teaching. Well, so Mitch and I have been writing a book for some time now about how to make cool things with microcontrollers. And so we started talking and talked to Andy about doing a full comic book, basically, that teaches people how to solder. And so after months of work and illustrations and working on it, we basically released it yesterday into the world. And it feels really good. And it's got a huge – the reception has been enormous. Yesterday it was on the Make blog, but today I just noticed that it was on Lifehacker. And, of course, my website where I'm hosting it is bending or straining to try to handle all the hits that we've got. But just yesterday alone, I think somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people downloaded it. So it's huge. And I'm really excited. Oh, and I should also say that it's licensed under Creative Commons. And so what we're trying to do is we want people to share this, teach with it, especially translate it. Because right now it's in English. And with the original solder comic, I think it's available in five other languages. And so we'd like people to translate this because, you know, speaking English, you can only reach so many people. And we'd really like this to spread around the world. And it's a fun comic. So it's on my website at MightyOm.com. And if you go to the blog, right now it's the top post. But we can put a link to the show notes, right? Absolutely. And check it out. And, you know, one thing I will say is that anytime you do something like this, this is really good at bringing out the people that have religious convictions on how to solder. What? Wait a second.

Dave Jones: That's solder without the L, folks.

Mitch Altman: Solder. Solder. So we've already gotten a little bit of flack from people that say... What do you mean by religious convictions?

Jeff Kaiser: You mean like hardcore technical soldering skills?

Mitch Altman: All you've got to do is if you ever write something for total beginners and it's on a topic like which microcontroller is best or how to solder, you will get people that come out of the woodwork that say, no, no, no, that's not how you do it. You know, you're supposed to feed the solder this way or, you know, you should be doing things this way. And we've gotten a little bit of that, but actually I have to say that the response has been overwhelmingly positive. So, you know, you always get one or two people that say, oh, no, no, no, you're doing it wrong. But, you know, my advice to them is, well, you know, make your own comic. There's no reason why there can't be more than one solder comic out there. So, but I've got to say that the response has been really, really good so far. So I'm really happy with it. I have to say...

Dave Jones: I've seen it and it's fantastic. It really is. Thanks. Yeah, it's great. Is it just the solder comic or is it the full book has been released?

Mitch Altman: The book itself won't be out until later this year. Oh, okay, right. So this will be included in one of the chapters of the book towards the beginning that basically introduces a lot of the concepts that we'll be talking about. And Mitch and I both agreed that since our book is for people that know absolutely nothing about electronics or programming, and it's supposed to be for total beginners, that learning how to solder was an important part of it because so many of the kits that use microcontrollers require soldering. So that's really where the idea to turn the one-page version into a full comic book came from. So the comic will appear in the book, but we're also using it as kind of a promotional thing. We're giving it out ahead of time. But yeah, it'll appear in the book eventually. And like I said, the book will be out later this year. We're still working hard on it. And yeah, so I think it'll be a lot of fun. It's really... The book is supposed to be very accessible, very fun, very good for people that really know absolutely nothing about microcontrollers or electronics or soldering or anything. It's really... It's kind of for everybody.

Jeff Kaiser: That's great. I have to say, I told my girlfriend about the comic. I was like... I saw it last night, and I was like, oh, yeah, this guy I know, Jeff, he made this comic for soldering. And she's like, what? So I think outside the sphere of the whole hobby, electronic, it doesn't quite fit. But I mean, it makes a lot of sense from... I was thinking about just from the audience you're trying to reach, too. You know, that's... I'm sure that this is going to be an increasing trend in how you reach younger generations, too.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, and I think it really... To understand the context that this fits into, all you have to do is go to a maker fair or go to one of the big hacker conferences around the world and see where Mitch is actually giving these soldering workshops. And you would be amazed. Mitch has taught people from 8 to 80 how to solder. And really, there are people from all ages, all walks of life that come to these workshops. And it turns out that, you know, whether they know it or not, people love to solder. People love to build things. And I think the problem is that a lot of people don't think that they can ever do it. They just think it's like art. You know, they can't learn the skills. They don't have the ability. But the truth is that, I mean, if I can do it, I think pretty much anybody can do it.

Dave Jones: They can. I've lost count ever since I started the blog. I've lost count of the number of people who've asked me to do a soldering tutorial. It's just, oh. Yeah.

Mitch Altman: I don't know. It's one of those things. And there's not a lot out there that caters to people who have never touched a soldering iron before. And a lot of the books on electronics are very technical. And they assume that somehow you've already learned all this. So it's good to have something that caters to the absolute beginner.

Jeff Kaiser: Right. Yeah, we have requests on here, too, for beginner stuff. And we always apologize to the people. But it's just kind of, how do you really get that mix? So it's really great that you're doing that and Mitch is doing that. Especially at Maker Faires, too, where it is people can walk up. And then there's that assumption that it's like, okay, you're going to be a beginner. And if not, that's okay. You can move on to the next thing. But the fact that you start there at a Maker Faire or some other event, that's really great.

Mitch Altman: Yeah. And it's for people that maybe they've soldered 20 years ago or maybe they've never touched a soldering iron before. And actually, you just reminded me. The Maker Faire Bay Area is coming up in about a month, just a little over a month on May, what is it, 21st and 22nd, I think. And I just booked my tickets last night. So I'll actually be at the Bay Area Maker Faire. I didn't think I was going to make it. But then I decided that I couldn't resist because I'm in Austin now and Texas is kind of far. But I decided that it was worth making the trip out. So I'll actually be at the soldering area teaching people how to solder on at least one of the days. So I'm really looking forward to that. That's great.

Dave Jones: I'd love to do something like that. But, yeah, obviously, I'm a bit further away.

Jeff Kaiser: That's more of a, yeah.

Mitch Altman: I'm hoping to make it to the New York City Maker Faire this year as well. And I'm actually, I'm really excited about that because I've never been out to that one. I've been to the Bay Area Maker Faire a few times now, but I've never been to the New York City Maker Faire. And there's actually another event. I'm planning to go out to Germany in August for the Chaos Communications Camp, which is just outside of Berlin. It's a weekend, actually more than a weekend. I think it's like four or five days of basically camping and electronics and software and everything out in a campground in the countryside in Germany. And I went to a similar event in 2009. And it is a huge amount of fun. I can't say enough good things about it. So I'll be helping Mitch do soldering tutorials there as well. So we try to be international. You know, we try to get out. You have permission from the wife to do this. Well, I invite her as well. And she loves it. That's smart. I mean, for her, it's a good opportunity to go to Europe. And she actually enjoys it. She helped out with the event we went to in 2009, which was called Hacking at Random. That was in the Netherlands. And she loves it. I mean, you really... Well, she's getting a holiday. Of course she loves it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good excuse to go to Berlin. And it's a good excuse to go to Europe. And, you know, for her, it's just that's one part of the vacation. You know, whereas for me, I spend months preparing. You know, for her, it's a good vacation. But she actually, she's a good sport about it. She lets me drag her to all of these things. And she actually enjoys it a lot.

Jeff Kaiser: That's great. Is she a solderer as well?

Mitch Altman: She is. She has done some soldering. I've done some soldering workshops in our garage before. We've invited friends over. And we've actually had a group of friends all solder, many of which had never soldered before. So I would say she's definitely more than a beginner. She's got a mechanical engineering degree. And she's always been kind of technical. And so she's able to handle that stuff no problem at all.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, that's great. So tell me, this Chaos Communications Camp, I saw it because I'm on the Hackerspace mailing list.

Mitch Altman: Oh, great.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, that's actually how I found out about your book, the comic book, too. Oh, cool. And everybody, I suggest getting on that if you're interested. I'll try and post a link to that. So the Chaos Communications Camp, how do people, are you guys just going to bring generators? Or is there actually power there?

Mitch Altman: It's actually, they put a lot of energy into the infrastructure. Energy. No pun intended. I've got to remember who I'm talking to here. You guys are going to call me on these. Yeah, I guess there's a committee that basically is responsible. So you bring your own tent, and you're responsible for your own camping supplies. But at each tent, within 100 feet, there's 220 volt, because this is in Europe. You get AC power, and you also get an Ethernet connection. So this is like camping for nerds.

Dave Jones: It is glamping.

Jeff Kaiser: What's that? Glamping. What is that? I've never heard of that.

Dave Jones: Glamping is glamour camping.

Jeff Kaiser: Ah.

Dave Jones: So that's the only one that my better half will do. I see. Yes, I'll go camping, but only if it's got a flushing toilet.

Mitch Altman: This is a very cool setup, because you're in nature, and you're in a beautiful place, but you have all the infrastructure. I mean, there's a bar. There's a coffee shop. Oh, goodness. There's showers. You know, there's all this kind of stuff. Showers? That's not allowed. Well, you can't go to a hacker conference and not have people bathing. It's not good. I thought that was the idea. That would make it unenjoyable. So yeah, there's actually... Ah, stereotype city. All right. Ah, yes. If it's anything like hacking at random, there were these huge, like, you know, things that would look like they would have to be loaded onto a semi-trailer kind of generators. So they've got huge power generation capabilities. And what's kind of funny is that, you know, coming from America, we need to travel very light, because we're carrying all of our equipment. But the guys that live locally, there's people that bring sofas and desktop computers. And I even saw CRTs. You know, the people that can drive there, there's really no limit to what they can bring. And they can consume as much electrical power as they want, basically. And so it's really hard to describe it to someone who's never seen it. But to me, it's the best summer camp that I could ever... That I've ever been to in my life. I mean, this sure beats, you know, camp whatever that I went to whenever I was in elementary school. It's just a total different level. And the nice thing is that the European notion of a hacker conference is quite different than it is in other parts of the world, including in America, because it's really open. People will bring their kids. People bring their significant others. And there's kind of something for everybody. It's not just about who can hack the most code or, you know, do something like that. But it's very open. Of course, I'm biased because, you know, I see the hardware hacking stuff, and I love that. But hacking at random, we went to a session about how to make beer at home. You know, there's social events that happen, too. More stereotypes.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Mitch Altman: So it's a lot of fun. I really highly recommend it. And I hope that this year is the biggest ever. Mitch went to the last Chaos Communication Camp, and it changed his life. So I really have... I'm really excited about it.

Jeff Kaiser: That's great, man. That's really great.

Mitch Altman: Awesome. Oh, I should add that the Chaos Communication Camp in 2007 is where the notion of hackerspaces in America started. Yeah. So it really does have a big place in the history of hackerspaces, at least in the United States.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, I think I've heard about that before. That's really cool.

Dave Jones: Should we move on to a shout-out?

Jeff Kaiser: Yes. Yes. I mean, thank you, Jeff. That was a very good rundown, man, of the whole scene.

Mitch Altman: That was a 17-minute rundown of the... Well, yeah. Like I said, I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited about it. But I'll shut up now.

Dave Jones: We don't have anything like that here. It's sad, because we just don't have the people. You know, we don't have the sheer numbers that you guys do in America and Europe. Yeah. And, yeah, the population density and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah. We've got a hackerspace here, which I will visit now that I've got some free time. I will...

Jeff Kaiser: There you go.

Dave Jones: I'm sure. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, maybe you should just throw a conference and see who shows up, Dave. Right. You'll probably get Mitch, at least, right? I mean, Mitch is flying around the whole world, right?

Dave Jones: Mitch is flying anywhere by the sounds of it.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. That's great. So, what's the shout-out, Dave? What do we got?

Dave Jones: Oh, me. You. Me.

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, you're going to jump to you?

Dave Jones: The bloody oath. There's an Australian term for you. Shout-out. I'm going to give myself a shout-out, dammit. Give himself a shout-out, yeah. Because I can, and it's my radio show. So, I've entered the Tektronix contest.

Jeff Kaiser: I saw that. Yeah. Yes. I saw the entry.

Dave Jones: Vote for me, please. And you can vote once a day. Oh, that's not a shout-out.

Mitch Altman: That's a begging for votes. Dave, can you remind me what the contest is? That means I have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Well, Tektronix are running a contest. Yes. You upload a video from one to five minutes of using a Tektronix scope in some way, shape, or form, and you can win a whole bunch of stuff. So, yep. I want to win. Cool. Now that I'm a poor, unemployed video blogger.

Mitch Altman: What's your video about?

Dave Jones: Well, my video is about the piezoelectric effect in oscilloscope probes.

Mitch Altman: I have seen your EEV blog episode about that. Very interesting.

Dave Jones: So, it's a five-minute cut-down version of that. Cool.

Mitch Altman: Awesome.

Dave Jones: That's awesome.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. It was a good video. I liked that when you wrapped it with the owl foil, as you called it. The owl foil. Yep. That's it. Aluminium. So, what?

Dave Jones: It's aluminum over there, isn't it? Aluminum. Yeah. Not aluminium. Aluminum foil. Yes. Yes. It's aluminium foil here. Shortened to alfoil, because aluminium is a hell of a word. Sure it is.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, I like that, though, because then you could even still see the signal after that. That was pretty cool.

Dave Jones: Yeah, you certainly could. So, yes, the piezoelectric effect in probes. And when you rotated it, you know, you have to have the right orientation. Yeah, it's cool. And it's not just in their probes as well. It's in virtually every probe out there. So, have a go. Play, you know, some drums with your oscilloscope probes and see what you can get out of it. Yeah, if you don't like having probes. Right. Well, if you're dumb enough to hit the ends of them and break off your tip, well, yeah.

Mitch Altman: No responsibility taken. Isn't this like old vacuum tube amplifiers have microphonics, right?

Dave Jones: Yes, it's microphonics. Yep. Yeah.

Mitch Altman: That's right. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: And so, microphonics are when you have vibrationals. So, just so people know if they don't know what that is.

Dave Jones: Well, microphonics is a, I think, technically different. Because a piezoelectric is a technically different effect. But it's basically, yeah, basically comes down to the same thing.

Jeff Kaiser: Right. Microphonics are usually from the actual material moving back and forth and that's generating electrons. Is that right?

Dave Jones: Oh, well, that might be the triboelectric effect. Oh, boy. Which you're getting cables. No, I think it's because vowels have, like, they've actually got little metal elements in there and they, you know, they physically shake and they've got vibrational modes and all that sort of stuff. Fancy. Yeah. I don't know. Anyway.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, quartz crystals will do this too, right? Quartz crystals if you bang on them.

Dave Jones: They can. Yes, they will certainly do that. I think I've even done a blog on that, possibly. Or I've mentioned it in a blog. Quartz crystals stability and stuff.

Jeff Kaiser: If you take a hammer to, like, your quartz crystal on it. Oh, you don't need a hammer. You can just tap on it.

Dave Jones: Oh, no, no, no. Just tap on it. Just a little small bit of shock and vibration. Yeah, I have a fair bit of experience in that area, which have very many interesting stories to tell about testing these shock and vibration responsive quartz oscillators.

Jeff Kaiser: And now you're allowed to talk about all your former workplaces, huh, Dave?

Mitch Altman: I don't think that's how that works.

Dave Jones: Yes, I'm allowed to say anything I damn well like. Oh, boy. It's good fun. Yes. Nobody had any Altium questions. I did ask for Altium questions and nobody sent me any emails. So, well, I'm not going to talk about Altium. Fine.

Jeff Kaiser: Good riddance.

Mitch Altman: That's the answer there. I have a copy of Altium Designer on my PC that I'm supposed to be evaluating this month. And I have zero time. But what I will tell you is that if you ever sign up for an evaluation of Altium Designer, you will get calls every day asking you, do you want to buy it? Do you want to buy it? Are you ready to buy it?

Dave Jones: And you should go, well, I was if you didn't move to China.

Chris Gammell: That's right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So, maybe I can guess. They are persistent. Yeah. Yeah. They really are. But.

Dave Jones: Anyway. Yes, that's my shout out. Please vote for me in the Tektronix contest because I'm currently lagging behind. Are you? Mostly behind. Yes. And I need to win.

Jeff Kaiser: Yes. Now that Dave's taking. Poor unemployed full time video blogger. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I have another shout out. We got Henrik. Henrik. HS Palm. Heinrik. I'm sure it's Heinrik. Heinrik. Sorry. Well. He actually wrote in about his site. We've linked to him before on Workbench of the Week. But he put together a list of all the DIY stores out there. And he's in Norway. But he put together a list of all the ones that will ship to him. And I think he said he just put a single LED in the cart. And he just wanted to see cost. Right. So, just kind of how international friendly they are.

Dave Jones: Nice.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. So, it's a good idea. I mean, it's a nice sortable table and everything. I mean, your mileage will vary because it is Norway. But it's interesting just to see who's set up for it and who isn't.

Mitch Altman: That is a great idea. Yeah. I really like this. And I actually compiled a list of suppliers for the book that Mitch and I are working on. And it was a pretty big effort because everybody's got their own favorite suppliers. And some suppliers will ship internationally and some won't. And, you know, it's really in the olden days, you didn't worry about that. You just were concentrating, you know, where can I get parts where I live? But if you're trying to cater to an international audience, it is really challenging.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. And you want to know what I hate? I've got to rant on that.

Jeff Kaiser: Okay.

Dave Jones: I've got to rant on everything. Yeah, you do. I hate those companies who you go, they won't tell you if they ship internationally. You've got to go through the entire, you know, put your things in the shopping cart, go through the entire sign-up process. You know, sometimes you've got to wait for a confirmation and all sorts of rubbish, you know. And then they will tell you, oops, sorry, we don't ship outside the US. Well, piss off.

Jeff Kaiser: And now we get your email, Mitch.

Dave Jones: Man, yeah, it's just really annoying. I mean, you know, how hard is it to put, you know, just a thing on the website that says we only ship to the US? Come on.

Mitch Altman: Right. But, you know, it's almost as bad, though, are places that ship internationally, but they charge exorbitant shipping charges. Exorbitant, yeah. You know, it's like, oh, well, you will if I give you, you know, $50 to ship this LED. And ship it via courier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't ship via regular post. We'll only ship. So that's why a list like this is really helpful to have recommended suppliers. And I'd like to see this grow into something where you can select your country and it'll give you the rates regardless of where you are. So, you know, this is begging for like a wiki or something. I agree. That's what I was going to say. Because this would be a big responsibility for Heinrich to do himself. But I love this. This is great.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. And I think the other nice thing about it, too, is that if you get some good community buy-in and you have people updating it, that also pushes, you know, the DigiKeys who charge 32.5 American dollars, a little name and shame there, to ship to Norway, right? Whereas the Adafruits of the world charge $6. Like, that's a big difference right there. That's a huge difference. Especially in size of companies. So it's not like it's a possibility thing.

Dave Jones: Although, you've got to understand, I don't blame them, really, the DigiKeys in the amount. They are huge corporations and they probably, they've got very streamlined processes. The amount of, in their defense, I think, is that, you know, they can't afford to have somebody go down to the post office, stand in line, and, you know, and ship something via regular post, you know.

Jeff Kaiser: I don't think the small ones can do that either, though. I mean, Sparkfront, Adafruit, all those guys are, even if you send it, I mean, slow as hell.

Mitch Altman: It's a different philosophy. Because I think that some of these companies that are on the list, they were established before we were really part of an international community. And I think that some of the younger companies, like Adafruit and Sparkfund, they realized early on that a lot of, you know, a reasonable percentage of their orders are going to go overseas. You know, and I can say that I sell kits, and I don't sell a lot of kits, but I would say more than half of my orders go overseas.

Dave Jones: I'd say about 90% of mine go overseas. And quite frankly, it's a pain in the ass. Because I have to fill out a customs form for each and every single item. It is. You know? It is. And it's just, ah.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, but, you know, if you aren't willing to ship internationally, you're cutting out on a lot of your potential audience. Because, you know, electronics is an international business and a hobby. And nowadays, you know, access to information doesn't care where you are. Exactly. It's just how do you get the physical parts. So, again, yeah, I think thumbs up for Heinrich and his list. This is a really, really great idea. I'd like to see this extended so that I can select United States or I can see what people in other countries have as far as their options.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, and like last updated too. Because, I mean, I'm guessing a lot of them do change and that should be allowed for. So, yeah. Great job, though.

Dave Jones: I've got another rant too, if I may. Oh, boy.

Jeff Kaiser: Here we go. People who... Another one in the chamber.

Dave Jones: I never overcharge on postage. I charge at cost, right? I've been doing that for 20 years. I've been selling kits, right? I charge it at cost and I make my margin on the kit. But you still get people complaining, oh, it's $12 to ship it overseas. Well, freaking hell. You know, it's at cost. And, you know, I've got to stand in line. You go to the post office and stand in line. I'm not charging you for that. So, shut the hell up. You know? And now he's got a lot of time to do it too, so... Yeah. And it's Americans, usually. You know? Oh, wow. Oh, boy. Yeah, because Americans don't think anything outside their country exists, you know? That's right. That's right. They don't understand that there's an opposite side of the planet. Yeah.

Mitch Altman: And you also... It takes time to get there. Your customers have to keep in mind the economy of scale, too. You know, if you're selling... If you're a small-time supplier, you don't get the same bulk discounts that a big operation does as far as shipping goes. That's right. And like you said, you're actually physically going to the post office and you're waiting in line and you're filling out customs forms. And, you know, yeah, people have to understand that, you know, you are not Farnell. You can't get the same rates with the postal service.

Dave Jones: Well, speaking of kit business, as soon as I finish this show, I'm going to go out and work on my new kit, which hopefully will be released soon. That's what I'm hoping. And the thing is, right, when I do... I can't afford to go out and actually produce 1,000 of them or 5,000 or something like that. That's a huge amount of money up front. Yeah, the cash outlet. You know, I've got to go out and produce 50 or 100, right? You know, just to recoup, you know, my costs and lower my risk and all that sort of stuff. So, you know, that increases the price, as you said, Jeff. It increases it substantially.

Jeff Kaiser: What if you get some kind of like sweet marketing video, though, and you pre-sell everything? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't like it.

Dave Jones: Dave the Marketer. That's the rule of business. Is that, one, I charge at cost for postage, and two, I do not take pre-orders. If I... I don't take pre-orders. I don't take people's money if I don't have stock. End of story. That's good.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, and I completely agree, and I also have the same policies. Yeah. It doesn't... It's too risky, and yeah, I like to be very upfront with everything. Just don't... Yeah. No tricky business. It just... You're going to get burned in the end if you try to do that stuff.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And because, you know, and it ties you in. Like, if I go and take people's... You know, if I've got $10,000 of people's money, then I've got to... And they're emailing me every day, where's my kit? Yeah. Where's my kit? You know? Yeah. Then you've got to get off your ass and actually produce it. And well, I don't like that. I don't need that pressure in my life, you know? Dave just got rid of that pressure. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So, I just don't need it. And, you know, why you would put that on yourself is... Yeah. It's just silly. Yeah. I simply... You know, you cannot order from my shop if there's no stock. You know? Simple. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Anyway, that works for me. So...

Chris Gammell: Hmm.

Dave Jones: Oh, somebody on, I think probably Twitter, challenged me to go a whole show without saying, you know. Oh, you just did.

Jeff Kaiser: I saw that. But... You know. You know. You know. You know. You know. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Well, speaking of some of these big distributor folk, what about this new DigiKey site? Do you see this? Another?

Dave Jones: Oh, yes. Another one. Yep. Yep. Do tell. And it's, what, a clone of Element 14? It looks exactly the same. Well, it uses the same engine, right?

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Well, and, you know, National Instruments uses the same engine. I don't know what it is underneath. It's all the same. It's, whoever is selling this stuff, kudos. You are making mega commissions. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: Seriously. It's just the same, it's the same shit, different smell. I mean, it's just... Oh, yeah. I don't know. It's the old side.

Jeff Kaiser: They have fewer people right now, but I'm guessing, I don't know. I don't know about the relative sizes. DigiKey's a billion dollar business, but I don't know... Oh, yeah. ...how much people want to join up to their forums. It would be a... You'd think they'd start, they're starting off with a bigger base than Farnell and Element 14 might be, but I don't know.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's a real challenge. And they've got five different categories, and I can just see them sitting around and deciding these categories by committee. You know, they've got the lighting community, the microcontroller community, the power community, the sensors community, and the wireless community. Yeah.

Mitch Altman: Ah.

Dave Jones: You know, yeah. Unbelievable. We've talked about this before.

Jeff Kaiser: Good luck, DigiKey. Yeah. We hope it takes off, but I really hate this format so much. Ugh. What is it about it that you hate? Everything. I hate that it's like a crappy version.

Dave Jones: It's hard to say, isn't it?

Jeff Kaiser: It's a crappy version of like a PHP BB, like a bulletin board. You know, it's like a crappy... I've seen much worse.

Mitch Altman: Yeah. I've seen much worse.

Dave Jones: Have you tried to use Element 14, Jeff?

Mitch Altman: No comment. No. Right. Okay. There you go. I haven't... You know, I have to say, I love my suppliers. You know, I like that they get me stuff really cheap and they get it to me fast, but I am really hesitant to jump onto the community sites that are vendor specific because I feel like it restricts a lot of the possibilities there. And besides, you know, I've already got forums that I can go to. I don't need more forums in my life. That's definitely one thing. I don't need more places. That's true. Yeah. Well, that's the thing too.

Dave Jones: There are a lot of forums around, including mine. Sorry.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Well, there's so low transaction costs to actually get these things set up. You know, like... Zero. It doesn't cost anything. There's like one click installs. I could have a forum tomorrow. I'm not going to do it because... Well, no one would go to mine, but...

Dave Jones: You know, aside from that... Well, that's why we deliberately didn't do an Amp Hour forum. Yeah, that's exactly why. Because we already had the VBlog forum and people were on there and...

Jeff Kaiser: And there's so many other places, you know? There's Stack Exchange. There's Jeff's site. There's your site. There's... I don't know. It's...

Mitch Altman: So actually, you know, what's kind of interesting is that on their forum, they actually have what are essentially applications engineers that are answering questions. And I do have to give them some credit. You know, that actually... I mean, it requires some manpower from them. So at least DigiKey is contributing back to the forum. Does Element 14 do that? Do they have engineers that work for...

Dave Jones: They do, yes.

Mitch Altman: Oh, they do?

Dave Jones: Okay. And they do responses. But another thing about DigiKey, which I'll give them credit for, you go to their YouTube channel. They've got 600 plus videos on there. And some of them are pretty decent content. They put a lot of effort into them. So kudos for that, really. I haven't seen those. It's a lot of content. I don't think many... They... Not many people watch them, of course, as with all these big corporate YouTube channels. But yeah, like they've done their own projects and you can... You know, there's somebody on there explaining the project and showing it off. And then you can go to their website and you can download all this, the schematic and all the details and the bill of materials from DigiKey, of course. Right.

Jeff Kaiser: It's just like they're all trying to wall their garden in. That's the problem. That's always the problem. The same with Element 14, same with DigiKey. They're all saying, come to my site because they can't justify higher up to say, oh, well, we can't start an external site. They have to have it all internal, right? Yeah. That's what the problem is, I think. Yeah. And so like when Jerry makes a video for Element 14, they keep it on their site for a week because they need to show some kind of, you know, some kind of payback. And it's like, I understand the problem from like a business perspective. You have to show that you're spending your money well. That makes sense. But man, something else has to happen. And someone else has to give there.

Dave Jones: So yeah. Why can't they? Yeah. Why can't they actually step out and go, look, we will pay to set up this new forum, but it will be community run and it will be, you know, it'll be sponsored by us. And but that's it. It'll be community.

Mitch Altman: Isn't that what AVR Freaks is? I don't know.

Dave Jones: Oh, I don't know. Actually.

Mitch Altman: AVR Freaks is definitely sponsored or run by Atmel. But it is. My impression is that it is community run. Like the day to day activities are community run. But the actual website is paid for by Atmel. I could be totally wrong. But I think that's how that.

Dave Jones: I don't think it is because I've looked at their advertising stuff. They actually get. If it was run and paid for by AVR Freaks, they wouldn't need advertising. Don't quote me on this. But I think I've looked at their advertising rates to see how much they charge. So they must be getting funding from somewhere else. I know.

Jeff Kaiser: A good example of that might be like BeagleBoard, right? Like that's external, but it's external from TI. So you talked to like Jason Kreidner about that. And he's very adamant that, no, it's external from TI, but it's still tied to TI, right?

Dave Jones: Well, it's designed by the guys who work for TI. Why?

Mitch Altman: It's basically an eval. It's an eval board. Yeah. Right. But it has a community around it, which I think TI was one of the first to really make a big deal about that.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. And I think they do it pretty well, I mean, to be honest. Yeah. And their stuff is, I mean, it's not like, I think it's like a Drupal backend or something like that. It's nothing fancy, but it's just a place to, I don't know. It's not trying to be everything, though. It's not like you go there and you're like, oh, TI, like every TI part. That's like the TI E to E form. Those things are crap, too. Like, instead, it's very focused. It's on BeagleBoard. It's just BeagleBoard. It's not trying to be, oh, come here for everything. We'll have experts on everything. It's like, no, I don't want to go there. I'll go there when I, I'll go to BeagleBoard when I need help on a BeagleBoard. There's no op-amp forums, but if there were, I'd go to an op-amp forum, right? Mm-hmm. That's what I would do. So.

Dave Jones: Absolutely. Now, I was correct on the, I just checked, the AVR Freaks website. They've got an advertising panel and they're encouraging people to advertise and they've got their advertising rates. I, and I don't see any AVR ads. So I really can't see how AVR would approve of. You mean Atmel? Atmel. Sorry, Atmel. Yeah. Atmel would actually approve of, you know, it looks like a classically run independent website that's trying to get advertising to pay for it. So, yeah, they've got their advertising rates there and they've got some ads on the side from, you know, smileymicros.com. Great name. Okay. There you go. Yeah. But yeah, I, I don't know. I don't think they're getting money from Atmel, but if you go to the Atmel people, they will always point you to AVR Freaks. In fact, this is one of the things I don't like about it. Atmel won't actually help you much. They'll just say, oh, go to AVR Freaks, you know. Oh, really? All your answers are on there. Everything's on there. And their reps as well. The reps will say, oh, but we've got AVR Freaks, you know. It's the ultimate source of everything, you know. Insert. Hallelujah. Music, you know. Yeah. So, they do tend to fob everything and everyone off to AVR Freaks. Anyway, that's just a little rant. Sorry.

Jeff Kaiser: Mini rant. Over.

Dave Jones: I just wanted to point that out. I didn't really have a point. I just wanted to say. Okay. Okay.

Mitch Altman: Dave, I just looked up the domain information and AVR Freaks.com. The administrative contact is Atmel Corporation.

Dave Jones: Oh, it's AVR Freaks.net.

Mitch Altman: Oh. Sorry about that.

Jeff Kaiser: What, did they just, like, point to the other one?

Mitch Altman: Like, oh, yeah, we got it. Atmel Corporation. So, AVR Freaks.net. Wow.

Dave Jones: They own the domain.

Mitch Altman: The registrant is Atmel Corporation in San Jose, California. So, yeah. I can't remember. And they're taking small time advertising. I can't remember where I read that it is controlled or owned by Atmel, but I definitely have seen something to that effect. Maybe somebody listening can comment on that. But I can't. Wow. I Googled around frantically while you were talking, and I couldn't find anything that specifically said it. But I think this pretty much proves that there's a strong connection.

Dave Jones: Very interesting. Okay. Well, I'm impressed in that case that they're allowing third-party, you know, tiny advertising and stuff like that. Well, and at the very least, it seems... They fooled me. They completely fooled me.

Jeff Kaiser: It seems independent, right? I mean, that's the thing. I mean, I don't know if that really matters, but...

Mitch Altman: You know, it's possible that they created it, and they are trying to make it self-sufficient. You know, they may be trying to keep it its own separate entity, which actually, if that's the case, then kudos to Atmel. Because they're doing exactly what we want. They're creating a community, but they don't have their hands in everything. They're actually letting it grow on its own. And so, yeah, I think AVR Freaks is a good example of the right way. And it's actually successful because, you know, it feels genuine. It's genuine. It doesn't feel like advertising, right? It doesn't feel like it's created for the sole purpose of driving clicks to Atmel. So, yeah. Right. Thumbs up.

Dave Jones: There is not a single Atmel add-on there. There's not a single link to Atmel.

Jeff Kaiser: I like how Jeff said that, too. It's like, it's not created to create links back. It's created as a helpful thing for the customer. That's the key, right? And if I believe that these other forums are doing that, then, you know, good forum, right? But it just seems...

Mitch Altman: And SparkFun kind of has that figured out, too, because SparkFun has forums. And I'm not active on them, but I have used them to get information before. And I think that they realize that if you can build a community around your products, but it doesn't feel like advertising, then I think it can work pretty well. So, I'm sure that's what DigiKey and Element 14, you know, that's what they're trying to do. But maybe they need to be more subtle about it.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, and make that the express purpose, you know, like, this is here to help you. We want nothing more than to help you. That's the key. And if you do that, I'm going to come back and I'm going to use your... I'm going to be like, oh, yeah, I'll buy from them. Because in the end of the day, it doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter if I buy from Element 14 or Mauser or DigiKey or anyone else. It comes down to shipping, price, and if you're helpful to me.

Dave Jones: And who sucks the list and who pisses me off the least, right? Yeah, that's another way to say it. Yeah, really.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, if you're spamming me with ads and pop-ups when I visit your site or you're doing, you know, just bugger off.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, like Mauser. Oh, those guys. They've been on EDN. I know their app is supposed to be really great. Like, they have a new smartphone app. What's wrong with Mauser?

Mitch Altman: What's wrong with Mauser?

Jeff Kaiser: There's nothing wrong with them, but they have this ad on EDN every time I go there. There's this ad on the bottom that pops up and it won't leave me alone. It's one of those. It's just this horrible technology that just keeps chasing me around the screen. It's like, guys, 1998 is over. It's just like the Microsoft paperclip. Right. The Microsoft paperclip. Yeah. Anything else other than that. I don't know. I love it. Oh, boy. I'm actually on the show.

Mitch Altman: It's just... I'm partial to Mauser because they are overnight shipping. Even if you pay for ground, they're located up near Dallas. And so anything I order from there, I have the next day, even if I pay the cheapest shipping option. That's sweet. That means a lot. In the end, it's like you're right. You're saying it's shipping, it's availability, it's price, and you choose. And I think if the suppliers realized that if they gave... If they created a community and people shopped around, it's not necessarily a bad thing as long as they can remain competitive. You're creating a community that I think goes beyond just trying to drive clicks to your website. But I don't know. Right.

Chris Gammell: I don't know.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, they must know that from the metrics, too. Like, you know, if you get a thousand people to click on a video, like, say, Jerry makes Element 14 a video, only so many of them are buying... You know, like, if people aren't going there to already buy stuff, I don't think they're going to be like, oh, well, now that I'm here, I'll buy some parts.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, that's an interesting perspective. I do wonder sometimes how exactly... Yeah, it must be very hard for them to justify that to the managers that, you know, look at the numbers for these sites. But, you know, I do like whenever they actually create original content like that. And, you know, they give you something to do on the site. I do, too.

Jeff Kaiser: I mean, the fact that they sponsor it, that alone makes me say it. If they just put it up on YouTube, right, from the start and just said, oh, well, you know, we sponsored this video. Why not check us out? Get your name in front of me. That's great. I'm going to think about you when I'm buying parts. But just making me click over to your video on your site, I'm going to probably resent you and, you know, just watch the video and leave, to be honest. So all these free tips for all these companies. Oh, man, we got to start charging for this stuff. I know.

Mitch Altman: Maybe we should create a community around our website where we can give information to suppliers or advice to suppliers. There you go. How to market themselves.

Jeff Kaiser: There you go. Who knows? There's a model in there somewhere. But we should probably talk about electronics at some point, right? Uh-oh.

Dave Jones: Yeah, probably.

Jeff Kaiser: So what have we got? One thing I definitely wanted to bring up, I was out at a conference a little while ago and I got to hear one of the most impressive talks I've ever heard of. And it was a guy that converted a bunch of stuff to EV, so electric vehicles, rather. And so he did it all himself. And I'll share the site here, but he converted a BMW 325i all by himself. He made everything from, not everything from scratch, but he, you know, he pieced the whole thing together and he does conversions now as a job. And he has like a build log of the whole thing.

Dave Jones: Awesome.

Jeff Kaiser: Awesome. Have you guys ever seen that kind of thing?

Dave Jones: I've got a friend who built her own EV. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, really?

Dave Jones: She converted a little, I don't know, one of those little compact cars into an EV because she hates oil and she hates the oil companies. And she went, this is like 10 plus years. This is like 10 years ago, right? This is, everyone's converting their car to EV now, you know, it's trivial. So this guy that you're talking about, well, he's just one of zillions of build logs. It was in Silicon, there was an article in Silicon Ship six months ago about on the front cover of someone, you know, converted a ute, which is a truck in America, into an EV or something like that. And, you know, so every man and his dog's doing it, but she did it like eight, 10 years ago or something when it was, yeah, really, you know, way out there and nobody had a clue how to do it and all that sort of stuff.

Jeff Kaiser: So, yeah. The thing that was impressive about it is that I've seen conversions like that too, but they're usually like batteries filling the whole car. Yes, they are. Yeah.

Mitch Altman: I've seen these as well. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: And he fit it just in the front of the car. I know nothing about cars. He fit it in the front of the car and then underneath.

Mitch Altman: In the engine area. Yes, thank you.

Dave Jones: As opposed to the boot, which is a trunk in America.

Jeff Kaiser: I was thinking about boot and then I got all messed up. I knew Dave was going to correct me on that. Isn't it the bonnet is the front, right?

Dave Jones: Bonnet? Yep. Isn't that the front? That's right.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. So, he put it all up there and just like hearing about the, you know, there's a lot of arguments for it too.

Dave Jones: That would be very front heavy though. My friend actually load balanced the batteries, put some in the front, some in the middle, you know, to sort of load balance it out. Well, it depends though.

Mitch Altman: If he's using a lithium polymer or some fancy battery chemistry, which it sounds like he must be, right? Because he's not filling the car with batteries, which was the old way to do it.

Jeff Kaiser: Right. Exactly. So, these are all the A123 lithium ions. Oh, yeah. That's very nice. Yeah.

Mitch Altman: So, do you have any idea what the economics of this are?

Jeff Kaiser: I do. And that was actually one of the most impressive things about it. So, he was saying that, oh crap. I didn't bring the presentation up. But he was saying though that basically there was two things economically that were quite impressive. The first was the cost per gallon, the effective cost per gallon. And it was somewhere around a sixth. So, that was just, you know, electricity cost. And I think he even factored in like an estimated road tax if they did that per mile. So, that's another big thing because at least in the U.S., they charge, you know, a lot of taxes on gasoline to take care of roads, right?

Mitch Altman: But clearly, he's not factoring the cost of the conversion into this, right? That's true, right?

Dave Jones: Or the maintenance because the batteries wear out and they have to be replaced and it's

Jeff Kaiser: a huge cost. Well, no, that's another thing. He said he's 9,000 miles in and they're at 100% health. So, he's actually got all these charging methods that…

Dave Jones: Yeah, but they fail pretty quick.

Jeff Kaiser: No, no, no. The old ones failed really quick. These are like… If you stay within the right window, so like if you stay within like 30 to 80% charging, so not completely charged and not completely drained. Right. The health of the batteries is extended for years, like lots and lots of years.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, but you know, you've got to think about it. You know, are you willing to not drive your car whenever the battery level gets below 30%?

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Well, that's another thing. And that's another reason I was so impressed with this. His name is Bob Simpson and the site's called evdrive.com. He's developing a range extender. It's a two-stroke motor and it actually attaches right to the drive shaft and it can… It can just pick up right where… And a lot of cars are doing this now. You know, it'll pick up right where… When you get to the 30% charge, it just starts right in and you can use natural gas or any other kind of fuel basically. And… It's a two-stroke motor? It's a two-stroke. It's like a 98% efficient two-stroke.

Mitch Altman: I thought that the emissions restrictions had pretty much killed the two-stroke in America at least. Yeah. I'm… So he's doing some sexy stuff to maintain emissions, I'm sure, because…

Dave Jones: Yeah. Maybe he just doesn't care. No, he does. No, he does.

Mitch Altman: That's like his big thing. It's environment bedammed. I just want an electric car. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Jeff Kaiser: And I mean, it looks pretty sleek too. I mean, it is a BMW, but, you know, it's awesome. Just the whole thing about it.

Mitch Altman: I think this is great because, like Dave was saying, 10, 15 years ago, I also had a friend who was working on some electric conversions. There were a bunch of them that were done on the West Coast in the United States, and they were all filled with batteries. They got 30-mile range. They cost a bunch of money, and they were, you know, not very practical. They were basically like glorified golf carts, right? Because you could use them to get to your job in town, but you had to charge them overnight every night. And to have, if a conversion kit was available that actually used the latest battery technology and had some hybrid options, that'd be fun. You know, you could definitely see, especially people that have older cars that are looking to, you know, turn their classic cars into something that's economical and reliable. It's kind of an interesting option. I'll actually check out his site because I'm interested to see what this looks like. But, you know, that's been the thing for the DIY electric car conversions, I think, has been the battery technology. It's been a big limitation.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Mitch Altman: And it still is. It still is.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, it is. Because I think you'll find that it hasn't actually improved as much as you might think. You know, yeah, they only got 30 miles before, but, well, now they're only getting 60 or 90. Right. You might have doubled it, right? Or even tripled it. But it's not, it's still not that great. So, you know, if you want a truly practical car as a, you know, a fuel car is, then you need that hybrid kind of thing. Right. You know, they are still, you know, they are still fairly limited. Battery technology is not magical. It's not going to suddenly give you a 500 mile range like you can get on a tank of petrol. Right.

Jeff Kaiser: Or gas. Right. And the reason for that, too, and I was talking to an aerospace engineer about that, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on here before. And one thing I never realized about that is just the energy density. If you think about a gallon of gasoline, that has like... Yeah, it's massive. It's something like 32 kilowatt hours, the effective, you know, energy density, if you convert it to electricity. And, you know, like that's ridiculous. You know, you get a full tank of gas.

Dave Jones: Batteries aren't even close. Right. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: So, it's always about that. You know, that's always going to be the limiting factor until we figure something else out. We need Mr. Fusion. We do need...

Dave Jones: Mr. Fusion. Absolutely.

Jeff Kaiser: If you will remember your history, Jeff, Mr. Fusion only powered the flux capacitor. Oh, I'm sorry. The internal combustion engine. Oh, I'm very sorry. How did you jump on that? How did you jump on that? I'm very sorry.

Dave Jones: Because I think the movie's wrong there. It's generating power. Yeah. You can... Surely. Yeah. You know, Mr. Fusion would generate... Yeah. ...a constant energy source, not a peak energy source required for the flux capacitor. Clearly. Come on, people. Get serious. Yeah. Come on. Right? Dave has done... Extensive analysis. You can...

Speaker ?: Extensive analysis.

Dave Jones: In the future, in the BTTF future, you can buy Mr. Fusion and surely it would not provide peak energy. It would be designed... It'd have a... It'd have... Well, because it's American. It'd have a 110 outlet.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. There you go.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah. I think the movie's flawed there. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Yep. Well, that's another thing that... Sorry? We've showed before, I think, on here with the DeLorean conversion. Wasn't that one of the ones... Didn't we show that on here once?

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's right.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. That was awesome. That's great. Yeah. So, another...

Dave Jones: I would love to have an electric car. I would just love to do it. Yeah. It's just a matter of cost, really.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. And... It's not cheap to do. I think it started getting up in the many... You know, it was a very high-end car eventually, you know. But he's developing this stuff, too. He's developing technology as he goes. So, that's another thing to keep in mind here.

Mitch Altman: So, if he's working on... Isn't the Tesla Motor Company working on a low-priced car? I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I heard something about that, I think.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, we'll see if that ever happens, I guess. Anyway. Yeah, because...

Dave Jones: You want to know what I hate? Here we go. Now that we're on the topic, I've got a rant. What do you hate, Dave? These hybrid cars, right? Yeah. The Toyota Prius, right? I hate the Toyota Prius. Oh. It is bullshit. Okay? Why didn't they make it a plug-in rechargeable? The only difference between a regular Toyota Prius, which you can't plug into the PowerPoint, and one that you can, is a little black box, right? That converts to 240 and monitors and charges the battery. And yet, Toyota... This was a couple of years back when everyone was talking, oh, now we want plug-in hybrids. Toyota said, oh, yeah, it'll take us at least five to ten years to develop that before it will be viable. Bullshit. You can go out and buy a third-party aftermarket kit for your Toyota Prius. You've been able to buy it for ages. That converts it into a plug-in rechargeable.

Jeff Kaiser: So you just don't like that it's... You have to go aftermarket?

Dave Jones: No, I don't like that it's not... Why you would develop a hybrid car with batteries and not have the capability to recharge it from a PowerPoint is insane. Well, do you know why? And I will believe the big conspiracy theories here. That's the big oil companies driving it, right? Because they don't... They just want to wean... And Dave does love... They know the end is near for petrol. The big conspiracy theories. Yes, I'm ranting. You're not going to shut me up. I do. I love it. And... Well, no, because I've worked in oil, you see. I spent more than a decade working in the oil industry. So, you know. And, yeah, it's bullshit that they can't do it. Toyota are lying that they can't develop a plug-in, you know, a Prius. It's just bullshit. So, yeah, there are reasons why they did not make... They actually crippled their first Prius and did not make a plug-in... A plug-in... What's the word? Yeah. Hybrid. Plug-in hybrid. Plug-in hybrid. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. So, anyway. You know... Oh, that really bugs me. It does. I mean, like, you'd think just from an electronics standpoint, but...

Dave Jones: Yeah. Because it's nothing. It's just a black box. That's it. It's one extra box and an outlet, you know, and a plug on the side of the car that lets you plug it in. I mean, it's... Ugh. Another interesting...

Dave Jones: So, I hate them for that.

Jeff Kaiser: Another interesting concept that I heard about this talk was the whole vehicle-to-grid thing. Have you ever heard of that?

Dave Jones: No. Vehicle-to-grid thing. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Basically using unused cars as a load balancing...

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. In Garazas. Yep. Which was... I'd never heard of that before. It's horribly inefficient. It's horribly inefficient.

Jeff Kaiser: I believe. Anyway. Well, I mean, it'd be the efficiency of the inverter, right? Inverters and...

Dave Jones: Yeah, and the conversion and the batteries and the outgas, and then you've got to replay and the wear and tear on the batteries and everything else. It's just... Yeah. It's not a very efficient way to do it. Right.

Jeff Kaiser: And there's actually an article from Don... Toot? Tweet? Toot? I'm not sure. He's from Electronic Design. But he actually has an article about that, about the conversion stuff. And he doesn't seem to buy it either. But...

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Good. I'm not alone.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. But the guy I heard talking about it, you know, I probably would have believed that aliens helped him build his car. He was... I was so enthralled by it.

Dave Jones: Yeah, you were so caught up in the rapture of it.

Jeff Kaiser: I was a bit sorry. I'll be honest about it. But...

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: I mean, it's exciting.

Dave Jones: Whatever happens... Chris Gammell's easily impressed because he fell for that Obama... Yeah. Whatever. Replaced all his cabinet with engineers.

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, yeah. The April Fool's joke. Yeah.

Dave Jones: You were so, yes, that's what I want. Yes! I believe that. I am very gullible.

Jeff Kaiser: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't fall for your stuff, though, Dave. Whatever.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Five, five, five, whatever.

Dave Jones: Oh, dear. Yeah. I don't know. I think it's just... Although, I bet you you would have if I was able to rope in Hans to admit that he actually added it.

Jeff Kaiser: If you would have done that, yes, I would have believed it. Right. I agree.

Dave Jones: I should have done that.

Jeff Kaiser: You should have.

Dave Jones: Even though you know that the process technology wouldn't actually allow that. I know. It's just... You know, it's an impossibility.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Or Hans is some magician, you know? Right.

Jeff Kaiser: Right.

Dave Jones: So far ahead of his time that he...

Mitch Altman: So I have to admit that I don't... I haven't seen the video.

Mitch Altman: And I have to say that it's because I pretty much turn off the internet on April 1st.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: I just can't. Oh, yeah.

Mitch Altman: It drives me absolutely crazy. Because it's like, oh, it's April 1st, you know? Everyone's got to do their little thing. And I'm sure that, Dave, yours was clever. And I'll have to watch it now that it's not April 1st anymore. But after, like, the 3rd or the 4th, you're like, oh, you know, why do people do this every year? You know? It's like, it never gets over.

Jeff Kaiser: Ah, it's a great tradition. Yeah, it is.

Dave Jones: And I had... Oh, you always get someone complain. Oh, it wasn't April 1st when I watched it. You uploaded it too early. Well, there's this, you know, the Earth, it's like a globe and it spins around and there are different time zones. And well... Well, we all have to agree. I did upload it three hours past UTC. So, you know, technically stick it up your ass. Thank you. Got you. Oh, that's funny. Oh, boy. You, you know, you fooled me because you uploaded it on March 31st.

Jeff Kaiser: Nope, they just... They were taken in first.

Dave Jones: Oh, dear Eddie. Anyway.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. So, with regard to the...

Dave Jones: We've got a couple of minutes left.

Jeff Kaiser: We do? We do.

Dave Jones: No, well, maybe one. Is anyone keeping track?

Jeff Kaiser: I don't know. Yes.

Dave Jones: We're up to 59 minutes recording. All right.

Jeff Kaiser: All right. Well, what else we got on here?

Dave Jones: Oh, I'm putting some new lighting in the lab at the moment. But I thought I'd go LED. I said 6, 12 months ago, yeah, I'd go LED. But I haven't. It's just too expensive and too hard. I've gone with regular CFL fluoros again.

Mitch Altman: CFL. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, not CFL, but the, you know, not the compact ones, but the tube fluoros.

Mitch Altman: T8 or T12 or whatever they are.

Dave Jones: Yeah, the T5. I've gone with T5 and T8. Yep. Okay. So, yeah. Speaking of high power... But they don't have the old-fashioned ballast. They have the new electronic ballast. Oh, okay. Which helps with the flicker and everything else in the startup and all that. That's good. So, yeah, you just still can't beat fluorescent $4 per watt. Right. You know, it's... When you need a lot of light, you know, and I... When you're filming, people don't know that you need a hell of a lot of light.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, it is pretty incredible how much light you need for any kind of video or photography. You need just hundreds of watts to get anything decent.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, lumens is a better measure, right, Jeff? I'm sorry.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. I'm sorry. Lumens per watt.

Jeff Kaiser: Right, right, right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but in my tiny 2.5 by 2.5 meter lab, I have two 36-watt fluoro... Sorry, three 36-watt fluoro tubes plus three 13-watt fluoro tubes. Right. Right. And to get the equivalent amount of that light in LEDs, it would cost, you know... Thousand bucks. ...$500 to $1,000, right? You know, it'd be a lot of money.

Mitch Altman: But not only that, but after, what, a few thousand hours, the light output goes down dramatically for a lot of the LEDs that are on the market right now, right? That's one of the big problems.

Dave Jones: If they're overdriving them in terms of temp... Yeah, and I'm sure they are if they're trying to get the cost. If they're conservatively designed, then no, they won't. Yeah. Especially if you buy the cheap ones, they do overdrive them and they last, you know, hundreds of hours before they start shitting themselves.

Jeff Kaiser: Right, and that's all based on heat, right? Just getting the heat out and they can't do it. So it...

Dave Jones: It's getting the heat out. Heat is number one.

Jeff Kaiser: It starts to migrate all the fancy little deposits in there.

Dave Jones: It does all sorts of weird semiconductor physics stuff. Yeah. And... Yep.

Jeff Kaiser: Hey, so as one last thing, one last WTF, I wanted to mention this. There was a... Oh, was that a little drumroll? It's light-related. It's light-related. You know how, Dave, you hate that the US loves guns? Yep. Well, they've... They listened. And there's... Right. There's laser beams now, Dave.

Dave Jones: I saw that you spelt laser with a Z. You bloody yeep.

Jeff Kaiser: What? That was a joke. Freaking laser beams, man.

Mitch Altman: Also, if you're joking, you can use a Z and... Right.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, exactly. Or if you're naming yourself, you know, like... Laser with a Z. Maybe two Zs. If that's your nickname, you can use a Z, yeah.

Dave Jones: But yeah, that... Yeah, the US bloody military... The Navy, yeah. They blew up a boat with a laser. The US military machine now has laser beams on their boats. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Zap shit.

Jeff Kaiser: There's freaking laser beams. Yeah.

Mitch Altman: Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. It's pretty, pretty cool. It's kind of scary. What? I gotta say. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Star Wars-esque.

Dave Jones: The amount of power they need for that is massive. Oh, yeah. I watched a video of this. I think it was when this weapon was being actually developed. They test fired it on the range or something. And the amount of, you know, the huge capacitor banks they've got to have to store the energy for this thing is just phenomenal. You know? Yeah. It's just amazing.

Jeff Kaiser: That's where sci-fi is kind of lacking, huh? Those guns aren't too big in sci-fi movies, but...

Mitch Altman: They're also... It's an invisible laser, right? Which in sci-fi doesn't make good television, right? Yeah, exactly. You at least need a visible laser. You can't see. You can't have this infrared stuff.

Dave Jones: And it goes out as a pulse, you know? Yeah. It's just one pulse. And you'll see the pulse just travel, you know? You'll see the little packet of light.

Mitch Altman: It's got to start at an ending point.

Jeff Kaiser: Was it invisible? Because there's a video on this site. I'll link the site. But there was a video, and it looked like there was a red dot. Maybe they just added it in video. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, no. There's a red dot. It wasn't touching the surface. But most lasers... Oh. A lot of lasers, you can't see going through the air. Yeah. If you've got really clean air, you can't see it. You actually rely... Those green laser pointers that they use to... Yeah. Green is better for this because it diffracts better off the particles or something. Well, it's not...

Mitch Altman: Your eye is most sensitive to green light.

Dave Jones: And your eye is most sensitive to green. But I think it... No, anyway. Yeah, you've got to have... Yeah, you've got to have particles in the air. You've got to have smoke, pollution, something like that. Oh, yeah. To see the beam. Otherwise, you just won't see it. There's nothing for it to defract, refract from. I don't know my optics. I don't either. Yeah. What the correct turn there is. But, yeah. You need particles in the air to actually see it. So, everyone goes, oh, look at the shiny laser in the sky. Well, yeah. What you looking at is pollution, people. Bouncing off everything. It's like a gorgeous sunset. Everyone sees a gorgeous sunset. Oh, isn't it wonderful? Well, that's pollution causing that gorgeous sunset. Beautiful pollution, Dave. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: It's beautiful.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So, anyway. Ah. There's our... Frickin' laser beams, huh? Frickin' laser beams. Frickin' Americans.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, well. Yep. Yep. Just blow shit up. It's all you want to do.

Jeff Kaiser: All right. In this case, it's kind of cool.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it is kind of cool. Yeah. I'll admit. Okay. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Granted. All right. I think our amp hours are... I think so, too. So, people should leave comments. We always love that. Suggestion page is always sitting there.

Dave Jones: Vote for my project. Vote for Dave. Stratonics contest.

Jeff Kaiser: Send us tweets. Jeff is at MightyOm. And people probably know ours. MightyOm.com. Yes, MightyOm. And definitely go to Jeff's site to crash the server and check out the new comic.

Mitch Altman: No, please don't crash the server. Oh, no. It'll happen. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on the show. It's always fun. And I enjoyed, actually... Thanks for joining us. This is a unique experience to have both of you guys be on the other end of the line. And it's been twice the fun. There you go.

Dave Jones: Three times the fun.

Jeff Kaiser: All right, guys. We'll talk to you next week. All right. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Chris. See ya. Yep. Thanks, guys. Bye.

Speaker ?: Bye.