#4 – Cultural Differences

Dave Jones: Hi, welcome to The Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell from Chris Gammell's Analog Life. How are you doing today, Dave? Excellent, mate. How are you doing? Pretty good here. Just the usual list of things to talk about. Electronics. Can't wait to talk about them.

Dave Jones: Yeah, well, we do have a list of stuff, but it's certainly going to be off the cuff, because I really have no idea. I haven't looked at half the stuff, so there you go. We're just going to get our opinions. And this is what's show number four, I think.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, and show number four. That's crazy.

Dave Jones: Who would have thought? There you go.

Chris Gammell: And we got our site up and running.

Dave Jones: Yes, we got the site up, and thanks to all our regular viewers who have joined our RSS feed and came over to the site, because we won't actually be posting this on our individual sites anymore. Or, well, I certainly won't, so if you do want to hear the show and find out when the new episodes are, you're going to have to, I'm afraid, subscribe to the new RSS feed over at theamphour.com.

Chris Gammell: And if they don't want to, I mean, they wouldn't have just heard what you just said there anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

Dave Jones: No, exactly, so they can bugger off.

Chris Gammell: All right, yeah, we don't need them.

Dave Jones: No, not at all. We're blazing our own thing. That's right. But even if we have an audience of two, just us. Yeah, well.

Chris Gammell: Let's still do it. Just talking to ourselves. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Yeah. Well, we pretty much are, because I'm here in Sydney, Australia in my study, and you're in your basement in Cleveland, Ohio. That's right. Yeah, we are pretty much just talking to a screen and a VU meter, so there you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, let's start with some shout-outs. How about that?

Dave Jones: Oh, shout-outs. Yes, let's do it. All right.

Chris Gammell: What have you got? Well, starting off from last time, we were talking about the IEEE a lot, and Cheris, over at CherisTheScientist.net, she had a pretty good response to it. She's in academia, and she was a little more on the positive side of things for the IEEE, but pretty good rundown of all the things that she likes about it, and there was a lot of good feedback on that site, too. So some of the things we missed might have been papers, and I don't really read papers myself, but also a lot of the programming in their local area, so that's real good.

Dave Jones: Yeah, well, that's the thing. I did read Cheris' site. I hadn't actually been there before, and her critique, I guess you could call it, of our off-the-cuff comments about the IEEE and how, I don't know, I can't even remember what we said exactly. It probably doesn't have much role for the average practical engineer and stuff like that, and yeah, maybe they need to, I don't know, change or something like that, but yeah, they were just off-the-cuff remarks, you know, and of course they're going to have a niche sort of crowd, but my comments, well, first of all, I'm not from the U.S., and they're predominantly a U.S.-based organization.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's true. That's very true.

Dave Jones: That's where the majority of their people would be, but still, you know, I can talk about, and let's certainly talk about it, and how, you know, I don't think, I would love to see their stats, but I would still bet my bottom dollar that the, you know, that their percentage of people who join, and then, let alone people who actually really, you know, like it, and join, apart from just, you know, having something to show on their resume or something like that, I think it would be quite small, their actual people who actually take the IEEE seriously. As far as practical working engineering, as far as, yeah, as far as active participation and all that sort of stuff, I think it would be very low among the, you know, the practical working engineers, and I guess that's the angle we were coming from.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, you know, another thing I think is, you know, Cherish is in academia, too, and one thing that I loved when I was in school is you can get, you know, if your school buys it, the IEEE has this ridiculous database of papers, and if you're just on your own, you've got to pay like 30 grand to access all that, 10 grand, 30 grand, something like that. Yeah. And so, if you can't get at that stuff, you know, that's a big chunk of really useful stuff that, you know, maybe you can't, you know, I'm not buying that for myself, I don't want to read papers that much, but if you're in the academic world and you have access to that, that's a pretty spectacular thing right there. So, it could be an academic versus a, you know, outside academic kind of thing, you know.

Dave Jones: Well, that's the thing. I mean, they have a big role to play in the academic world, but, you know, that's totally, you know, the academic world is a totally different scene to, you know, real world, you know, Dilbert style engineering. It's just, yeah, it's totally different. So, you know, I'm not bagging the IEEE in any way when it comes to that sort of thing. And just coincidentally, I got the IEEE Spectrum magazine yesterday. Oh, yeah. And I'm flicking through and, you know, it's not a bad read.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But there's one thing I'm going to have a bitch about, okay? And I'll have to put a link to this. Go for it, Dave. And, oh, here we go, right? Page number two, right? There's an e-reader face-off. You know those, you know, the Amazon Kindle and all those, you know, the Sony. Yeah, and the iPad and all those e-readers. Well, I just bought a Kindle and I'm waiting to get it. And I, you know, and I so wanted to read this article. And they're hyping it up in here. It's not in the actual magazine, but it's actually online. And they said it would be online August 17th, and surely it was. And, yeah, and I jumped online to read it. They're saying, oh, they spent three weeks with, like, nine or ten of these different e-readers. And they've got, you know, all of the editors of the IEEE Spectrum spent three weeks reading them, comparing them, and they're going to do this mammoth review. Oh, I couldn't wait to read it. I jump online, and it's the shittiest, crappiest review I've ever read.

Chris Gammell: And Dave knows his reviews. You know your reviews.

Dave Jones: And I know my reviews, yes. That's right. Oh, I'll have to provide a link to it, but it was so disappointing. It was literally two dozen sentences and then a one-sentence response from three of the people for each of the readers. And that was it. And they spent three weeks, and they had half a dozen of their editors playing with these things, and that's all we got. Yeah. Oh, I'll have to... Anyway, shit. So, yeah, IEEE Spectrum editors lift your game there, really. Oh.

Chris Gammell: That was very disappointing. Maybe they got... I was going to say they ran out of room, but then you said it's only online, so that... That's probably not the case.

Dave Jones: It's only available online, yep. And they could have provided, you know, even taken them... You know, I would have been great if they could have taken them apart, but I can understand if they don't do that. But, yeah, a couple of sentences. That's all we got. You've got to be kidding me.

Chris Gammell: You don't approach Dave Jones with just two sentences. Come on now, people.

Dave Jones: No, exactly.

Chris Gammell: Maybe they'll make it up for you.

Dave Jones: Because you're going to get a serve, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I wish... Yeah, I wish they'd send me the e-readers. Jeez, I know, right? Tear them all apart, and, you know, I'd do a one-hour shootout, you know? Yeah, I've seen what you do to DMMs.

Chris Gammell: I don't think we want people dropping e-readers off of cliffs or anything like that.

Dave Jones: No. That'd be fun, though. Jeez. It would be. So, you know, Amazon Kindle and Sony.

Chris Gammell: Have you ever seen the Will It Blend? Have you ever seen that before?

Dave Jones: Will It Blend? I love Will It Blend. Yeah. This is brilliant.

Chris Gammell: It's like... I don't know where they came... I mean, I guess there's... Are they selling the blenders? I guess they're selling them.

Dave Jones: Yeah, the deal with that is that the guy that owns the company... Oh, I forget his name off the top of my head. But, yeah, it's actually a viral marketing campaign, believe it or not. I believe it. I thought it was just something that he started up on his own, but no, it's actually... Some sick dude. They actually hired a marketing company, and that's what they came up with. They said, yeah, look, get on camera, blend some stuff, and it took off. So, yeah, and it's massively popular, you know, when he blends like the iPad and the iPhone, you know, and they get 20 million views. I know.

Chris Gammell: You want to see what it looks like, right? I mean, like, that's what everybody wonders about. It's like, oh, I want to see that stuff blow up.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And the guy is just, you know, he's just so bland and dry. He's like deadpan. It's just funny, you know. It's just, yeah, deadpan kind of, yeah, personality. And I think it really works well. It's brilliant. Yeah. And, yeah, I was hoping to be able to, like, you know, send them some meters or something like that so that they can actually blend, you know, a fluke multimeter or something. There you go. But, unfortunately, they're very hard to get contact with. Oh, really? So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. They're very cagey. I guess if you're at the top, I mean, like that, it's like 20 million views. That's a lot of views.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. And you'd have every Tom, Dick, and Harry, you know, wanting to send you stuff and do a video.

Chris Gammell: Sending you cats and puppies and... No?

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Don't send PETA after me. I don't do that to animals. I love my two dogs.

Dave Jones: Oh, I loved it. Oh, I'm glad to hear you're a dog man, not a cat man. I despise cats. The only... I am sorry, but the only good cat is one squished between the tread of my car tires. That's the only good cat. There you go.

Chris Gammell: Now we are going to get boycotted by PETA or something like that. Animal protective. Fantastic. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Controversy.

Chris Gammell: Yes, I love it. People love that. Well, what about other shout outs? What else do we have on here? We got Let's Talk Geek. Do you ever listen to those guys?

Dave Jones: No, I haven't, unfortunately. Yeah. But I'll have to give them a look. Yeah. Let's Talk Geek. What do they do?

Chris Gammell: They're kind of more general technology, kind of like somewhere between us and Leo Laporte. You know, Leo Laporte's podcast. He's all like, you know, just generic tech, kind of like Apple and stuff like that. But these guys are actually out of South Africa. So I listen to that and I think, man, I got Dave and these four guys. And does anyone talk like I do?

Dave Jones: Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. They're the guys that emailed us. Yeah. I think I had a quick look, but I haven't actually heard their podcast. So it's actually a podcast show, is it? Yeah. It's a podcast radio show. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's out of South Africa. It's actually pretty interesting, though, because one of the guys is doing a... The thing I wanted to highlight about it is one of the guys is doing a Lego Mindstorm project. And he was talking about... And I'm not sure about the conversion rate, but he said the boards cost $600. Now, I know these... That's ridiculous. Yeah. Right? So I think it was like four or five boards for $600. I'm not sure if the conversion rate was wrong. And I forget what the South African currency is called, but it's like seven of the South African currency to an American dollar.

Dave Jones: Oh, no way.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So I'm not sure if that's what the discrepancy was or if it's actually $600. I mean, you got to feel for that guy because that's a lot of money to pay for four boards. I don't know what you pay for proto boards out there.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, Australia is notoriously expensive, but it's nothing like that. You know, we might pay, you know, at worst, double for something here, you know, that you can buy in the US. So a Fluke multimeter that's $400 over there is $800 here. Oh, man. That's crazy. Yeah, but I can't imagine like, you know, six or 10 times or something like that. That's just... Yeah, I know. Yeah, that's...

Chris Gammell: I mean, you can get like circuit board specials where you get like four layers and like even silkscreen for like 150 bucks or something like that. And you'll get like five boards. And I mean, there's some really, really good deals out here. I mean, like, I mean, that doesn't sound like if you're just starting out, you're like, holy crap, 150 bucks. But, you know, if you start doing it in the four layer thing is good too. I mean, it's not, it's got silkscreen. It's got, it's got solder mask. It's got all the, sorry, solder mask. Sorry. Solder mask. Solder. Sorry. I'm still... Very good, Chris. I'm going to start talking to like, I'm going to start talking like an Aussie around here and I'm going to be, people are going to look at me funny. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, like, so it's, it's, it's reasonable, I guess. I mean, it's always relative. I mean, if you're paying $600 from the beginning, then, you know, you're going to be used to it, but. Yeah, I guess.

Dave Jones: But yeah, I mean, you have to be really careful. I mean, that's, I'm, I'm getting my boards made in China, you know, all of my personal boards done there. Cause you know, we can't get them done here really affordably. Like, you know, you can just pay from China, even if the, you know, the courier costs you $30 or something, it's still cheaper than, you know. Yeah. Oh yeah. And the maid here.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And you wonder about that. Like when, you know, like gas prices are, sorry, petrol prices, man.

Dave Jones: Petrol prices.

Chris Gammell: Thank you. This, this gap between us, Dave, is just so hard.

Dave Jones: I know. It's ridiculous.

Chris Gammell: Just before the show, Dave was talking about it.

Dave Jones: Here I am wearing a jumper. A jumper, yeah. Cause it's springtime here and you have no idea what a jumper is, right? I thought he was talking about like. You think it's somebody jumps off a building in, you know, jumps off the Empire State Building. That is not what I said.

Chris Gammell: I said, I thought you were wearing, a jumper is what a baby wears around here. So I thought Dave was wearing baby clothing. There you go. So it's a sweatshirt in the US, right? That's right. I'm sure it's called something else. Anyways, cultural differences aside. I mean, you wonder about when, when fuel prices go up, like what's that going to be for? So even if it is 50% cheaper in China, it's going to be, eventually it's going to come back to you, you know? Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. So I wonder about that in the future. Right now it's a spectacular deal. But as soon as fuel prices go back up, that could, that could start driving businesses back to the local. I think we talked about that in one of the previous shows about.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That, yep. That, that changes the whole world economy, you know? Yeah. When things start getting more expensive, you know, transport starts getting, people take transport for granted. Oh yeah. You mentioned this before and yeah, it's a, you know, I think people are in for a real shock when they can't get their, you know, their fake dog poo from China for two cents anymore, you know? Is that a hard out item these days? Yeah, the fake rubber dog do. Buy yours today. We're trying to throw a link on the website too. I remember back in the 1980s, it was Taiwan, you know? Oh yeah. Yeah. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, yeah, we'll see how that goes. Have we got any more shout outs? You know, I think that was it for that stuff. You know, we're talking about manufacturing. Maybe we could talk about the, some of the current events in the US. I don't know if, if you read about it at all with the manufacturing bill in the US.

Dave Jones: Uh, no, I haven't, haven't read about that. Are they trying to sneak through another bill, are they? Or is this a well-known thing or?

Chris Gammell: Uh, you know, it was, it was signed in the other day. It's, it's not that well-known. I was, I was reading actually some of the legislation and, oh my God, snooze fest. You know, like, like, right. I don't know how they do it, but, um, this one was, if you are trying to make something in the US and you can't get something domestically, so say you get some kind of chemical that is just not made in the US. Yeah. Basically this bill was to cut all tariffs and taxes on that stuff so you can import it and make stuff here and then hopefully export it again. And I think it was that kind of thing. And, you know, there's a lot of like protectionism going, I don't know how Australia is, but like, you know, it's kind of like a big fight for like protectionism of like trade, you know, like trying to not do that to encourage trade between like, you know, US and Mexico, US Canada, or even US China. But yeah, there's a lot of crap that goes into that. And, you know, it's hard to really come down on one side of the issue because one side of it's like, well, if you really jack up the price, like for you, you know, you have to pay double the price. And a lot of that's probably because it's not made in Australia. Whereas if you jacked up, if you made it four times, that doesn't necessarily mean someone's going to go make a multimeter in Australia because your market's not big enough. So it's like, I don't really know where you come down on that side of things, but it's, it's, so it's kind of just something that's, that's happened around here. And you look at the actual stuff that's in the bill and it's stupid stuff. It's like, well, not stupid. It's stuff that I don't understand, you know, like polyvinyl, coral, floral, dual, I don't

Dave Jones: know, but, and the, um, I, I've heard that basically in the U S there's, um, lots of, um, state-based infighting too, isn't there with some sort of manufacturing, you know, we want to keep jobs in this state and, you know, and governors of certain states, you know, fight over, you know, who's going to get the jobs to build a new nuclear submarine or something like that.

Chris Gammell: Oh, it gets even worse than that. I mean, I've seen it at the local level where, um, you know, we'll have a city center like Cleveland, right. And they'll have, you know, back in the day, they had tons of manufacturing. So city center Cleveland has, you know, a hundred thousand jobs in electronics. Yeah. Right. But still let's pretend. And then you'll see all the suburbs all around. You'll start forming as people move out there. And then these governments sprout up in the, in the suburbs. And then they start giving these ridiculous tax breaks to try and lure people out of the city. And so then, then they move their headquarters. They're located in the suburbs. And then you, you, you move even further out and all these different little local governments end up fighting with each other because there's no, yeah, it's, it's crazy. And I don't know how that's done in Australia, but like it's, oh, it's, it's similar here.

Dave Jones: And well, you know, it's certainly not that bad, I guess, but, um, yeah, yeah. Local governments can be a real pain sometimes.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. And I mean, it's, it's more for like the, the companies that are just in offices, you know, cause then it's really easy, right? You just have generic offices in every little suburb. And then as you move outward, uh, it's just, you get a barren center and, and you get these really cheap suburb offices outside. And it's, you know, we don't need to talk about government that much, but it's just, it just hurts. Cause then there's all this spreading. So I really like when, you know, I'd, I'd love to work in a downtown area. I'd love to be able to like walk to a sandwich shop, but you know, I, we don't have that in the U S cause there's just so much room. I don't know how Sydney is, but, uh, it's, uh, well, Sydney's pretty crowded.

Dave Jones: Um, yeah, it's, you know, 4 million odd, uh, 4 and a half million people in the Sydney, uh, basin, which is, um, same as the country of Singapore. Really. It's the same, uh, same, you know, density. So yeah, Australia's getting overcrowded where we're going through a thing. Well, not, not really Australia's getting overcrowded, but everyone who comes into the country, they either want to live in Sydney or they want to live in Melbourne and, you know, and it's, it's, it's unsustainable. So yeah. Anyway, I won't, won't get into that. It's one of my pet topics, overpopulation and things like that. So yeah, but that's, that's the problem. I mean, um, in the 1940s, we actually had a, um, uh, some sort of law in Australia. Whereas if you came to Australia as an immigrant and you wanted to move here permanently, well, we told you where you had to go and live for a certain amount of time. And, um, yeah, so that, you know, um, you know, so it's, I think it's a great idea so that all people don't congregate in the major cities and, you know, overcrowd those cities while the other smaller town centers go to waste, you know, because, yeah, cause they're, they're, they're dying cause everyone's moving out.

Chris Gammell: So, well, it's kind of like what we've talked about with the, uh, you know, in a previous episode, we talked about critical mass of, I forget what you've been referring to, but you know that, Oh, I think it was like online communities. You know, that's a, that's a really big deal to have that in a online community at least. And it's almost the same thing in like a technology situation where you want to have as many like technology work, you want people to like, if they're like technology workers, you want to try and draw as many people in as you can. So you get this really good soup of like, you know, hardware engineers, software engineers, and like, they all want to start their own companies or something like that. And you want all that stuff to kind of just mush together. And so that kind of contrast with like the overpopulation thing, it's like, you almost need the overpopulation. Like you think about like a San Francisco, right? You got so many like nerds jammed into there that you're just bound to have a couple of companies come and not just San Francisco, but like the Silicon Valley, there's just such a critical mass of people there. And even more so, you know, years back when Silicon Valley was really pumping that like, that's a big deal. So it's like, how do you really balance those two?

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, it's one of those, you know, one of those very fine line things. And you have to keep an eye on it. But unfortunately, governments and countries are all based on actual growth, you know, and to get growth, they think they have to do that through greater populations. So yeah, there's a big, there's a big debate going on in Australia at the moment. And, you know, about, you know, should we, because we're, we're growing at the greatest rate of any country in the world at the moment, I think we're, yeah, we're like the top one or two. And yeah, Australia is, and it's not because we're, you know, it's not because of, there's more people being born here. There's not where we're just, you know, people are, people are moving here and we're just accepting so many people. And yeah.

Chris Gammell: Wow. Anyway, let's not talk about that. Well, you know, after this show, I will be able to move there just because I'll know all your little idioms and. Idioms and, yep. I'll have to practice my.

Dave Jones: Right, you'll be able to talk like a local. Oh, there you go.

Chris Gammell: Solder. Solder.

Dave Jones: G'day, mate. Right. Yeah. What you said. There you go. Good on you, Cobber. No worries, mate.

Chris Gammell: All right. She'll be right. All right. So let's, let's talk about what we talked about last time too. Some of the HP stuff real quick. We can, we can just follow up on that.

Dave Jones: Oh, yes.

Chris Gammell: So you, you had posted something about the CEO actually getting 40 million instead of 30 million, which. That's the talk going around. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's 40 million. He's packaged maybe worth upwards of 40 million bucks.

Chris Gammell: Good Lord. But I also posted something about how because of all that and because the stock price dropped out because of all this crap that happened, you know, now you got all these shareholders who are like, hey, hey, remember us? We gave you all our money. We, we, we hate you for doing that. So that's, that's kind of the follow-up right now. And, uh, right. And I, I don't know. I, I, I don't know if, uh, Mark Hurd deserves what he's getting, but I, I, I'm not shedding any tears over here.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. So it looks like the shareholders may hang him out to dry, huh?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? I haven't seen any updates on it.

Dave Jones: I hope that happens. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I'm sick of these big, you know, these big, uh, uh, you know, the CEOs and everything getting these golden parachutes. I think it's just ridiculous. But then again, if I was in their position, I'd want the money too. So, you know, it's one of those. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You wonder, right? I mean, I don't think I'll ever get there, but, uh, you know, maybe someday when the amp hour goes national and people actually care about electronics. Oh, right. Yes.

Dave Jones: And we're a big conglomerate and, uh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know about that one.

Dave Jones: Uh, excellent. But, um, uh, yeah, just back on the, uh, government bill thing, was that a thumbs up or a thumbs down from you on that government bill? Is it a good idea or bad in summary?

Chris Gammell: Oh, uh, you know, I don't even really know. I mean, I guess good because if it can't be made here, you don't need to protect locally. But, I mean, that's almost, uh, a reason for the people to move production elsewhere, you know? So, say you're making some, you know, you're making Dave's special formula A in the U.S., right? And before you got all these tax benefits from it because you didn't have to, you know, your customers didn't have to pay a tariff on it. Well, now you move it over to China, you make Dave's special formula A there, and then you ship it back here and now there's not any penalty. So, uh, I guess it's good, but in the end it's really a nothing. But there could be some traps. Yeah. It's really a nothing. I mean, it's really a, I wish they could have done more, but I don't really have any solutions for government. So.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. No problem. Have we got any listener suggested, uh, topics? Yeah. I think we've got a ton of them, don't we?

Chris Gammell: Oh, here's my favorite. Um, well, I guess bringing it up even will, will kind of negate it, but, uh, one of our, one of our readers might, or listeners, sorry, uh, Mike, he asked if Dave could go an hour without mentioning the was, but, uh, me just, sorry, the was, there you go.

Dave Jones: Apparently I'm, I, I am besotted with the guy.

Chris Gammell: Yes. Uh, did, yeah. I don't know if you got in touch with, you said you were going to try and get in touch with them for your, uh, your trip to the U S but.

Dave Jones: No, no, I haven't done that yet. Nothing yet. Yeah. You know, I, I think the industry's gotta have high profile people like that, you know, even if they're, you know, they're not as good as, as they're made out to be or they're, you know, I think, I think the world just needs, you know, figureheads like that, you know, who were, who were just popular because they did something cool once, you know, or did just one thing good once. And they're sort of living off that for the rest of their career, you know? Yeah. I think that's great. Yeah. Or even if, I have no problem with that.

Chris Gammell: Even if they're, uh, just making a radio show with someone from across the world, you know, like sometimes you just have to have really awesome, popular people doing that kind of thing.

Dave Jones: Well, exactly. And, you know, and we have, you know, a couple of people like that here in Australia and it's just, you know, they're, they're, they're figureheads and they're, and they're just famous not for being famous like the Hollywood celebrities. They're famous for, you know, for, for doing stuff either in the past and they, they just continue to hold, you know, they just continue to be well known. And I think that's the same with the was, you know? Oh yeah. And, and he's done some really cool stuff and because he's not into the big business side of things, you know, he's more down to earth, you know, he still wears a calculator watch and, you know, stuff like that. It's just, you know, it's just really great.

Chris Gammell: We, we basically just gave two minutes to the was, so we'll try again next time. Maybe we won't mention it next time, but yeah, for now, but you know, some of those people, but, oh, go ahead. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But yeah. And if you haven't read the was's autobiography, I highly recommend it. I was, it's a really good read. There's electronic. It's really the only biography I've ever read. That's basically an electronics hobbyist biography. Oh wow. And he talks about, yeah. And he, which I think was why it's really great. Cause he talks about, you know, hobby electronics when he was growing up, how he optimizes, you know, um, how he optimized designs and build his own computers and stuff like that. And I just think that's really great. Yeah. That's pretty cool. And it's a really good read. So there you go. I was check it out.

Chris Gammell: You know, I think there's a, you know, there's a couple of things I had on here and you know, that's kind of that same, uh, I won't say hero culture, but you know, like the, the real movers and shakers of the mate community are kind of coming on, coming together like that too. And, uh, you know, you'll see people like one of the, one of the items I have in here is about how some of those guys are touring the country now even. And it's, uh, Jimmy P and, uh, oh crap. I can't even forget who it is. I remember who it is now, but you know, they're, they're actually touring the Midwest and going all these hacker spaces and, and really hanging out with a lot of people. It's pretty cool. And, uh, you know, it's Mitch Altman. Uh, he's the guy that did the TV be gone. He invented that at first. And, uh, those eyeglasses that do, uh, binaural rhythm kind of stuff in your eyes to help you meditate. So, I mean, there's kind of these people rising up and, and being leaders in a, in emerging field even of like hobbyists, like straight hobbyist stuff. Yeah, for sure. And, uh, yeah, it's, I mean, it's, you're like you said, it's a good thing. It's a, it's somewhere, you know, you, you look to them as a, as a source for like new links. Cause people are going to be, you know, if you're, if you're talking to Mitch Altman and you tell, and you're maybe working in your garage 24 hours a day on this really cool thing that you haven't been able to tell anyone about, but maybe everybody wants to tell Mitch as he comes through their town and then he posted somewhere.

Dave Jones: Then he posts it in your, yeah, exactly. You go great guns, you know, because you've been mentioned on the, you know, in make, or you've been mentioned on the EEV blog or something like that. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: Exactly.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So I can just, uh, picture like, you know, these, these guys touring the country, turning up to a make lab and everyone turned around, look at them as they walk through the doors, you know, just like in the saloon, you know, and they, we are not worthy. We are not worthy. You know, the old. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, that same kind of thing's happening too with, uh, you know, there's other people like that, like, uh, like, uh, I think his name's Bree Pettis, the guy that does MakerBot. Bree Pettis, yep, yep. And, uh, did you click on that link I sent over to you? The, uh, the make me a sandwich thing?

Dave Jones: Uh, make me a sandwich thing? No, I haven't. I'm sorry about that. Oh, it's brilliant. Where's that one? It's, uh.

Chris Gammell: Shoot it over. Okay. It's, uh, oh, I can't even find it now. Oh, here it is. It's, uh, so, so, Bree Pettis, he, uh, if you ever seen the X-Boters, X-K-C-D comic, if, if anyone hasn't seen X-K-C-D before and you're listening to this. Oh, it's great. Go there right now, please. Just spend the rest of your day there. Uh, but there, there is that one comic, one of his, uh, one of Randall Monroe's most famous comics is actually, you know, someone saying, make me a sandwich. And then the person says, make it yourself. And then he says, pseudo make me a sandwich. And they said, okay. So that's a Linux joke, obviously. And right. So. Which I don't get. Cause I don't speak penguin. That's right. Uh, so Bree Pettis. So he, he made a, uh, basically a, just like a bread and cheese dispenser. And, and the bread is dispensed kind of like in a vending machine with like those coily things where like, it'll come down on the coil and it'll spit out the, uh, crap. Sorry. I'm trying to send this link right now. Uh, it'll spit, it'll, it'll spit out the, uh, the bread onto like a, onto a slab. And then it'll spit out a piece of cheese on the, on the top of the bread. And then it'll shove it, shove it into a toaster oven and it'll do all this stuff and automatically and pop it back out. And you'll have a, you know, toasted cheese sandwich or a grilled cheese, whatever. Oh, fantastic. And it's, it's great. So, and it, and it's all done, you know, with a console. So you're, you're actually typing in pseudo make me a sandwich now.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. And it interprets that in it. Right. Yeah. It's, it's good.

Chris Gammell: Good fun. You know, good fun.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That's pretty cool. That's good. Yeah. Those guys that make a great. Yeah. And, uh, yes, um, Brie, he actually is a fan of the EV blog. He actually watches it.

Chris Gammell: So how you doing? Hey. All right. Hopefully he listens to this too. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. We, we love those guys over there. And actually another thing that, uh, Brie mentioned, uh, was, uh, you know, about fab labs. Have you ever been to a fab lab before?

Dave Jones: Uh, no, I haven't. I would love to though. I got a chance.

Chris Gammell: It'd be terrific. Yeah. I got a chance to, uh, I volunteered with a, uh, a STEM school around here. It's really awesome. It was like science, technology, engineering, and math. And so it's these kids just doing projects all day long. And it's called little pitch for them is MC squared STEM in Cleveland. It's this really great program. I know some of the people running it and I got to see their fab lab and you go there and they have, they have an epilogue laser. They have like all these, uh, you know, like wood cutting machines and stuff like that. They have soldering equipment. They have a reflow oven and all this stuff. Basically it's like, it's like make incarnate basically. And I, when I was there, I was there, uh, trying to help them, uh, work on it. On a board, a board cutter that they had just gotten. And while I was there, uh, one of the kids that was there, he pulled up a site online and he clicked a couple of buttons, downloaded a file, put some plastic into the epilogue cutter. And as we were working there, probably like an hour later, he had an entire set of pieces to make a connect for game set.

Dave Jones: Oh, very cool. And it's like, awesome.

Chris Gammell: Why did this, why didn't I grow up 20 years later? Like, that's so cool.

Speaker ?: I know.

Dave Jones: Make your own, make your own toys. I know. Awesome. I know. And so you just wonder. I'd love to have one of those 3d printers. That'd be, that'd be great.

Chris Gammell: So cool. And it's like, you wonder though, you know, if the technology keeps progressing is eventually maybe the Walmart's of the world aren't necessary. Maybe you don't have to ship tiny little pieces of plastic from China over here. You just make it at home, you know, like.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But, oh, please. I don't want Walmart to go down the toilet. Cause I love getting those emails. Have you seen the emails of the people of Walmart? No. It's cool. Oh, yeah. All these, yeah, quite ridiculously looking and dressed people at Walmart. Oh, yeah. I get these email updates regularly in there. Those are fun. Just hilarious. I'm sorry. I had to mention that. You mentioned Walmart. Yeah. It's just a stereotypical American. Oh, yeah. Sort of thing. It's very humorous to us Australians. I'm sorry.

Chris Gammell: It's humorous to us too. Right. Okay. It's more of a human race kind of thing. You know, it's a. Yeah. It's a wow. Wow, people. But, yeah. I mean, maybe someday, you know, like. It's kind of like going back to that local economy kind of thing too. Where if you have all these tools. And gas prices or, you know, fuel prices are through the roof. Maybe it eventually becomes a reality where you're making everything for yourself. Maybe you're making. You know, I've seen articles before where people make replacement parts for their dishwasher. I think that was on Make 2. Oh, yeah. Yep. And it's like, you know, that's totally conceivable. You know, the.

Dave Jones: Absolutely.

Chris Gammell: The only thing that's really not conceivable is maybe a manufacturer giving you the IP to go and actually make that part. Because that's how they make their money.

Dave Jones: Well, exactly. And it's only simple stuff you can make. I mean, you know, of course nobody's going to be able to make a, you know, an IC at home or something like that. I don't know. It's crazy. It's just not going to happen.

Chris Gammell: I thought your friend Jerry does that.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Like, and it's got one transistor, you know, it's like. Yeah. Yeah. It's hardly, you know. There's a reason why it costs, you know, $5 billion to make a fab plant to make your little 20 cent, you know. Right. Chip, you know. So, yeah. There are limits to that. But no, certainly, you know, some things that can be made with these 3D printers and things like that, by all means, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It could certainly, it could certainly change the fabric of the manufacturing industry. You know, if everyone, if, I mean, these things, you'll be able to buy them on eBay soon for $100. Yeah. You know, I guarantee, in a couple of years' time, you'll be able to buy a 3D printer. Yeah. I'm sure, for $100. But, you know, you won't have to make it from the MakerBot kit. I'm not sure how good the MakerBot kit actually is that does that. But, yeah, you know, there's really not much, there's not a huge amount that goes into them. So, I'm sure, yeah, once China gets, you know.

Chris Gammell: I think there is a lot that goes into them, but it's getting, it's more widespread now because of the open source of the MakerBot. And there's other projects out there, too, I think. I think that's what really has developed this stuff, opening it up. Because before, you couldn't get one for less than $20,000. Oh, yeah, I know. It's pushing down, like, even the professional ones are down in the $5,000, $1,000 kind of price range.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I would love to get one for work, you know. I'm trying to convince people, oh, yeah, we really need a 3D printer, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That'd be great. Yeah, there'll be, like, three different, like, busts of your head sitting at your house. It's like, where'd you get those, Dave? Oh, we got a printer. But I look good, right? I mean, like. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But, yeah, they will really, you know, you can bet your bottom dollar. In a couple of years, you'll be able to get one on eBay for $100, I'm sure. And when that day comes, it's going to be awesome.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, definitely. And, I mean, like, it's great for, like, the rapid prototyping kind of stuff. That stuff is, like, we've talked about that before, too, about just, like, the greater expectations and turnaround times. It's almost, you know, a curse. You know, it looks like a blessing up front, but it's actually a curse because now it's added requirements. I mean, like, you as an electrical engineer now might even be expected to go use a Google SketchUp or something like that and actually just go make everything.

Dave Jones: Well, exactly. I mean, now all of the EDA CAD packages are all supporting, you know, 3D, 3D mechanical stuff. You know, that's the big move, you know, in the whole industry. So, yeah, the individual designer is expected to be able to be, you know, to at least be able to do basic level mechanical stuff and integrate it with the PCB. And you do your 3D model before you even make it. Does your board fit in? And it really is. It isn't really a gimmick. It really does work. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And it's worth putting that extra effort in so that up front you can see that your project, how it's going to look on, you know, you can see it on screen exactly as you make it. And it's just, oh, it's brilliant. That's pretty cool.

Chris Gammell: Absolutely brilliant. Yeah, I've never done anything like that. But actually I was talking to DesignSpark on Twitter today and they had asked, I think they're talking about trying to put their free online CAD program, like pairing it up with Google SketchUp. Oh, right. Okay. Which would be cool. I mean, I like that idea. I mean, it's both are free and I love SketchUp.

Speaker ?: Yeah, absolutely.

Dave Jones: I haven't really used Google SketchUp. I've heard of it. I think I had a little play with it once. Is it really easy to use? Oh, yeah. Some idiot like me can, you know, because I'm hopeless at CAD packages, you know, using AutoCAD and stuff like that. I just suck at it. But, yeah, I can, you know, I've done a through, I've done a, I've manufactured a few little 3D models of my watch, you know, my actual calculator watch case and I managed to do that. So, you know, it isn't that hard in the end if you sit down and, you know, and actually try and do it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, SketchUp's pretty easy. I mean, it's, it's, it's more, it's a lot more intuitive than a lot of CAD packages. I mean, I don't want to speak against other CAD packages because I haven't used them. And, you know, Google SketchUp has its own limitations. But, I mean, I've, I've made a model of my house. I've made a model of a lot of different things. Oh, awesome. I mean, it's, and it didn't take long either. I mean, it took a while, but it probably would have taken about three times as long for me to learn other packages before I would have been able to do it. So, you know, it's, it's interesting. We're talking about, you know, people having to do more, more work per engineer, per, even just per hobbyist, you know, like being expected more of, of each individual. And, and one of, one of our, our listeners, John S., he had asked about microcontrollers and how, you know, people that grow up learning microcontrollers and should they even bother learning discrete components and stuff like that. And, well, yeah, I mean, but I think it's a valid question because everything kind of gets abstracted to a higher level. You know, microcontrollers can blink a light on and off, right? You could do that with a, with an oscillator that you develop, design with, you know, bipolar transistors. Sure. Yeah. But it's getting, it keeps getting abstracted to a higher level with either code or software packages and stuff like that. So, I don't know. What do you think? Do you think people should still learn all the basics or have them around or just kind of know it at the top level and then, and then kind of scrape the rest?

Dave Jones: Oh, there's no doubt. I mean, the answer's obvious. You have to know the basic building blocks. You know, there's, there's no way to avoid them. Sure. You can flash a LED with a LED, but, you know, with a, with a, you know, little five pin pick micro or something like that. But it's, you know, that's just not good enough. How do you, sure. They've got ADCs built in, but, you know, you need an amplifier on the front end often to do that. You know, you've just got to know your basic building blocks. That will never, ever change. You know, I, anyone who says that, you know, you shouldn't learn discrete design or you shouldn't learn discrete gate design and stuff like that is, is just, you know, is just really has no idea, I think. So, yeah, I think the answer is yes. You must still stick with it.

Chris Gammell: I mean, I think about it too. I mean, I think about the availability of information these days and even the, the specialization. I mean, there is a lot of generalists out there where, you know, I talk about analog a lot, but I'm still using micros and stuff like that. And I think a lot of people have that, that broader experience, but, you know, some of the nichiers, I don't know if I would call components nichier stuff, I guess, but I mean, I agree with you that people should learn it, but I'm not sure that people need to specialize because it just keeps getting abstracted. I mean, you think about like a part that LT makes, you know, they're, they're making parts that like you, you almost can't make on a full circuit board. They're making it on an IC, you know, like, so some of that stuff gets so abstracted out where you're just throwing a spy signal at it or a I squared C signal and it's just doing everything for you.

Dave Jones: Oh, absolutely. I mean, yeah, there's no doubt all these application specific ICs out there. They're just, as we've mentioned these before, I'm sure they're, they're absolutely phenomenal, but you know, there's, you know, you're always going to need, you know, a power supply. You're always going to need filter caps. You're always going to need amplifiers. You know, it's just, you know, you've, the, the, the basic building blocks are the foundation of the whole industry, you know? So to only learn micros and think that you can get away with actually designing something is pretty naive, I think. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, there, there, there are going to be examples where, yes, you're only going to need, you know, a five volt, you know, a five volt power supply or a 3.3 volt power supply and a whole bunch of application specific chips. But, you know, it's, that's pretty rare, really. I mean, you're still going to need to, to know all the basics. Yeah. So it's kind of escaping it.

Chris Gammell: As you kind of work your way down the, the hierarchy of stuff, you know, you think about people that are like, like a Java programmer, you know, they're so in the clouds of like, you don't ever see, you know, you're not seeing a little bit flip, you know, you're not writing Java in order to flip an LED. Exactly. And, but, you know, you kind of have to work your way down. So maybe your Java programmer and you go out and you buy a Beagle board or an Arduino and, and then you learn that stuff. And then maybe the next logical progression is, Hey, well, I want to actually like be able to use a DAC and then amplify that signal to make a speaker, you know, and put it through a speaker so I can, you know, make some kind of digital music. And then you kind of keep working your way down to the bottom. So maybe it's more of a, yes, you need to learn it, but no, you don't need to learn it at first. You'll get there.

Dave Jones: You know, like, Oh no, I'm yeah. Don't by all means. I'm a big fan of just learning whatever you want first. You don't have to learn. Like I hate some university courses and they teach you, they spend the first year and they teach you the physics of how electron flow. And like, what's the point? Right. You know, that is ridiculous. It's boring and, and it, and it really isn't very useful to your average practical engineer. In fact, it's totally useless almost, you know, so by all means, if you want to learn microcontrollers first, you know, do it. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, you know, just realize eventually you're going to have to learn your basic building blocks. And then ultimately you might find for some niche application. Yes. You have to go back right to the physics of it and, you know, stuff like that. But yeah, to, to start from the bottom end and learn Maxwell's equations and work your way up is just, ah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's almost harder to go from the bottom up like that where you're starting with the basic, you know, like how do you get from quantum physics? I mean, not like people started quantum physics, but how do you get from that up to, you know, billions and billions of electrons flowing through a resistor and then trying to figure out, oh, well, okay. There's going to be some kind of relationship between voltage and current. What is that called? Yeah. You know? Oh, oh, there's a law for this.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Yeah, exactly. And everything you've learned up to that point is, you know, is pointless because, you know, you just work from that basic Ohms law and, and, and so on, you know?

Chris Gammell: Right, right, right.

Dave Jones: And electronics is like that, you know, it's, it's, it's the whole gamut from, you know, from that quantum world right up to the macro level, you know, plugging an entire board to do something, you know? Yeah. Kind of, you know, kind of, you know, oh yeah, use a, use a 10 million line operating system to flash a lead. Yeah. You know? That's, yeah, it's, it's really amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Windows LED flasher. That's right. Only $400. Yeah. And, and, and, and you need a cooling fan and everything else and a 200 watt power supply to actually flash your LED, you know? And that's, you know, seriously, you can do that if you want, you know, you can boot up and, you know, and, you know, you can build up a, boot up a modern day computer with an operating system and flash a LED, you know? It's, it's just crazy. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So. Such a, such a built in cost then, you know? It's like, it's not, it's not really worth it then.

Dave Jones: No, it's not. But, but the fact is you can do it and you might want to do it for some niche application. Who knows? So, you know, the whole, that's what I'm saying. The whole gamut, the whole spread of electronics is, is almost infinite, you know, of stuff that you can work on. And yeah, so there's no hard or fast rules there. Yeah. Not by a long shot.

Chris Gammell: So what happens when you're, so say you're using a, so say your, your little project that you still haven't told us what it is. And, and we don't need to talk about that now, but say you're using a, you know, an ASIC or an op amp even, and you think something's wrong. What do you do? And I mean, like, I know when I have that stuff, it's like, I usually try and ignore the concept that the chip is wrong until the very end. But have you ever had it where the chip is actually in the wrong? It's like operating out of specification.

Dave Jones: Well, that happened to me yesterday. I, my project failed and, you know, I thought it was all sorts of things because it's been, you know, it's, you know, you get led down the garden path a lot. You know, you think it's one symptom and, you know, and it turns out that it looks like my chip is, has actually died for some reason. And I'm not sure why I, I, you know, I was measuring, I eventually got it down. It was two ohms across the power rail and that was causing, you know, all sorts of things. And I narrowed it. I thought, oh, my caps failed. My DC to DC converters failed. All sorts of things have failed. Yeah. You know, my bypass cap. No, I narrowed it down to the chip. I haven't actually desolded the actual chip yet, but yeah, it's just, you know, so yeah, the chips died.

Chris Gammell: There's blowing it up. I mean, like, I'm not saying you blew it up, but I mean, there's failure modes, but I'm talking more like, have you ever had it where the, like, say like an op amp, uh, it's just like not working right. Everything else is right. You've checked it a hundred times and then maybe the op amp, it's just, you know, you got too close to the rail or something like that. Maybe you didn't, I mean, maybe they're specified, but it is not working right. And I was just wondering about that because it, op amps are maybe a simple example, but you think about like a DC to DC controller, you know, like the thing that actually drives current into, uh, MOSFETs to, to actually do the switching. That stuff, it's just so buried in there. The internals of that stuff that like a national or an LT is making, you're never going to be able to touch that stuff. And if it's doing it wrong, how do you ever even really tell that it's that chip doing it wrong?

Dave Jones: So that's kind of, well, that's the thing. That's the art of electronics, isn't it? I mean, you know, you, you really have to understand your basic building blocks for starters. You know, if you're just a microcontroller guy and your DC to DC converter's playing up, well, you're just screwed, aren't you? You know, I mean, you can start plugging parts in and out until it works. Um, that's the old, uh, Japanese method of engineering, but, uh, but, um, yeah, to actually truly, you know, if your circuit starts oscillating, you know, and, or starts playing up because you're on some, you know, marginal spec, um, you know, somewhere that, yeah, who knows? You know, you're, you're getting, um, you know, coupling because of poor power supply rejection ratio or something, you know, something more obscure like that. How do you deal with it? Well, you know, it just comes down to experience of, you know, uh, dealing with discrete, um, designs and basic building blocks and all that sort of stuff. So yeah. Yeah. Troubleshooting is an art in itself. Oh, it definitely is.

Chris Gammell: There's actually a really good book for that. I didn't, I didn't list it in this, but there's a, oh, shoot. What's it called? There's like, it's like a nine step process. And I think maybe Jeff Kaiser from, uh, Mighty Elm reviewed it. So I saw someone reviewed it at one point and I really liked it. Right. And it's about, you know, make sure it's plugged in, obviously, you know, track your progress, just really good steps. And like, it's real well, well written book that, uh, you know, shows you how to troubleshoot. I know whenever I talked to like college students or high, I think it was high school students. The last time I asked this, I'm like, do you know what troubleshoot? I don't think it was college students. I think it was high school students. Do you know what troubleshooting is? And they're like, ah, not really. And, and I mean, I was flabbergasted by that, but then I think back to my high school days and I'm not sure if I would've known what it is either. And it's such a critical skill that it's like until you're actually working on a project and it doesn't work and you're scratching your head. This is supposed to work. This is supposed to work. You just don't know what it is. So I think you're right about it being an art.

Dave Jones: And one thing I've mentioned on my blog before, I think it was one of my live shows is that, um, and it's different. You're talking about this nine step process or something like that. And, uh, that can be a good and a bad thing. Um, because troubleshooting is going to differ if you're the person who actually designed it because you're intimately familiar with it. And then your mind might say, oh, it can't be that, you know, you'll just instantly rule things out. And it turns out, no, that's, you know, the problem really was that simple. You know, you might start going looking for the complex things first because you're familiar with the design and, and, and things like that. Whereas, you know, I mean, I've had, um, you know, I've been at work and somebody's been working for days trying to troubleshoot a circuit. And they'll finally give up and they'll ask me to come around and have a look. And I don't know the design. I haven't worked on it before. I'll walk up and go, oh, there's your problem. You know, there's your problem. Hey, did you think about turning that on? You know, it's, it was so, it was so, you know, it'd be so obvious to someone with a fresh pair of eyes, you know, and maybe if they went through some process, you know, some. Well, this is actually more like a.

Chris Gammell: Maybe they would have found it. It was like a set of, not a set of rules, but it was like, uh, you know, just kind of like tenets of, uh, of troubleshooting. And that was actually one of them to get away from the problem for a while. That's such, such a good piece of advice because you're just gonna, you're not going to like it if you just keep staring at it.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. Yeah. Well, the first rule of, uh, the first rule of any troubleshooting is, uh, thou shall check voltages. You know, that is the, that is the golden rule of, you know, check your, you know, check your voltages, check your power rails, that kind of stuff first. And yeah, there's a whole bunch of, uh, rules like that. And yeah, I guess you could write a whole book on it and then you'll find that, well, that's not going to be applicable to your particular niche, you know, problem that you're working on. So, yeah, yeah, you know, it's, yeah, one of those things, but yeah, you have to have an open mind and actually consider everything. Because I know that I'll, I'll have a closed mind if I'm working on my own design and I'll just go, it can't be that. You know, it's got to be this over here and you'll spend a day looking at that. And it's like, you idiot, you know, it was never going to be that. But for some reason your design mind sort of, you know, thought, you know, it must be that over there and, and you weren't thinking logically and yeah. So you can get caught up.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I actually, uh, while you were talking about that, I, uh, I was looking for the actual book and, and I think I found it. I think it was in, uh, do you know who Jack Gansel is?

Dave Jones: Yes. Yeah. He's the embedded, yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. And so he was the one who actually reviewed it. It was, uh, it was in his, he has a real good newsletter that I get. And the, the nine, the nine rules, this is debugging by David Agins. And I'll try and post the link. Understand the system. Make it fail. Quit thinking and look at it, which is a really good one. Cause you know, a lot of times you'll get the, uh, analysis paralysis, which is a fun thing to say. Yes, right. Uh, divide and conquer. So, you know, split up the problem into little tiny pieces and eliminate. Uh, change one thing at a time. That's a huge one. I always, oh yeah. Always end up messing that up. Uh, keep it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So do I, without a doubt, you know, you'll change two things and then you'll go, oh, it worked. And you go, oh shit, I've got to go back and figure out which one it was.

Chris Gammell: You know, and you break it again and break something else. Right.

Dave Jones: I, yeah. I never learned my lesson there. It's one of those. Yeah. One of those things, you know, you're just hoping to get lucky quicker, you know, and you just don't want to spend the time to methodically do it. Oh yeah. That's the hardest part.

Chris Gammell: Guilty as charged. Yep. Yeah. Yep. So the other ones were keep an audit trail. So like keep, just keep track of your work. Check the plug. That was, that's my favorite. Uh, get a fresh view, which is what you were talking about. Just kind of getting up and, and looking around or, you know, walking around for a little bit and come back or having someone else look at it. And then the last one is if you didn't fix it, it ain't fixed. And I like that one because a lot of times you'd be like, Oh, well, I tried it once and it worked that one time. And it's like, no, you got to really try and break it again and make sure it's broken or it's not broken anymore. Yep. And so anyways, the book is debunking.

Dave Jones: You've got to understand. Oh yeah. You know, why it actually failed. You just can't go, well, that, you know, that component's dead. Well, why did it die? You know, is there some transit on your power rail? Is there, you know, did you kill it with static? Did you do, you know, what? Yeah. You've got to, but sometimes, yeah, you don't have the time to do that. You know, you've just got to fix it and use your best judgment that, oh, well, you know, parts, you know, fail occasionally. But yeah, it's not, it's not really the best, uh, best option.

Chris Gammell: That's for sure. That's not the best method. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a method, I guess.

Dave Jones: No, but well, well, sometimes you're under the pump, you know, if you're at work and you've got to get something done, you know, you will not have time as much as you hate it. You know, you will not have time to thoroughly investigate the problem. And you've just got to, you know, you've just got to make your best judgment, you know, is this going to be a problem in the future? And well, you know, it's, yeah, that, that, that comes down to company, big companies and how they operate and things like that. Let's not get Steve started on that. Yeah, well, we could do a whole hour on that one. I'm sure we should do that sometime. Dilbert land. Oh boy. Oh boy.

Chris Gammell: Let's not start that.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I mean, I think we've got time for a couple of, I think we've got time for one more thing. Is there anything we have?

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. Left to cover? Well, there's one thing I want to mention. Do you ever go to DIY drones before?

Dave Jones: I've seen them once, yeah. Yeah. So that's. They sell kits for, for little, yeah, drones and planes and things, don't they? Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: And so I just saw this today. I mean, some of those lists I made about last week. So I, I felt bad about it having, a little bit older, but one thing that just, I saw today is I was on Chris Anderson's Twitter feed. He's the guy that wrote the long tail and free. And he's, I think he's one of the editors at Wired and this guy does everything. But he and, or sorry, he, and he helped start DIY drones, I think. But a guy named, I hope I don't say it wrong, either Johnny or Yanni maybe, J-A-N-I. And he basically has a kit, like a full kit for a quadcopter. So you can go out and just buy a quadcopter based, based on the Arduino. And it's all going to be open source. Like the parts are all there. It's going to be like somewhere from three to $400. So not cheap. Yeah. But like, you think about like the work required to just get one up and running. And this guy's done a ton of work.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah, it's, it's, it's phenomenal. It's a huge amount of work, especially in the software side of things. Yeah. And, you know, just, just the control algorithms to keep it stable and all that sort of stuff. You know, yeah, it's a huge amount of IP that, that goes into something like that. And, and to give that away is just, you know, is just great. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, this, this company, the drone company, they're one of the ones who are, you know, they're, I think everything of theirs is open source hardware, is it? They're one of the.

Chris Gammell: So yeah, they're, they're pretty good. Yeah.

Dave Jones: They're, they're one of these new multi, you know, they're now, now it's a multi-million dollar company, you know, just like Art of Fruit have cracked the million dollar mark or something like that. And all these other companies, you know, and that are making this open source hardware and they're making, you know, millions of dollars business out of all this open, open hardware stuff. It's fantastic.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's really, it's, it's brilliant. I mean, it's when people, like you said, doing all that work and then just giving it back, it's, you know, and you kind of wonder about like, oh, wasn't someone just going to cut me out and just do all, you know, do all the manufacturing. It's like, well, maybe you want that. I mean, like when you were, you said you were going to do your project open source probably and, uh.

Dave Jones: Well, there are various levels to making it open source with the, uh, license, the creative commons license. You can open it free where anyone can go manufacture it or you can give away all the information, but then you retain the rights to actually manufacture it commercially. Yeah. Which is also a good option. But I think that's frowned upon in the open source community. But I don't know why, you know, if, if you want to, you know, give the information for free, but hey, you're the only one who can sell it. I've got no problems with that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, that's, that's just fine. Um, so yeah, so there's options out there where you can actually open source your projects yet, you know, no one's going to come along and manufacture it from under your feet, manufacture it cheaper and take away your market. So yeah, there's, there's certainly ways to do that. So that's a good thing about all these licenses these days, you know, back in the, back in my day, you, you know, when I was a boy, you, uh, you, you, you know, to, you know, there were no such thing as these, um, open source legal licenses, you know, you just have to either write it yourself or you had to go and pay some lawyer $5,000 or something to do that. But now you can go online and, you know, you've got these, all these, um, uh, licenses. You can just choose the one that best fits your product, your application, your niche, and just actually publish the information using that license. And it's fully defendable in court. If you, you know, if you want to do that, finally, if it goes that far. So, you know, fantastic. And that really, um, those sort of, uh, licenses really enable the open. I don't think the open source hardware industry would exist if those licenses didn't exist. Yeah. Uh, really, it wouldn't be as big as it is today. Right. So there you go. Well, good for them.

Chris Gammell: I think our time's up, Chris. I think it is. I think it is. I, uh.

Dave Jones: I think we've done our hour and it is the amp hour. You don't want to go over, do we? That's right.

Chris Gammell: And that's the last thing I wanted to mention. Uh, one of our Morris, uh, uh, observative members. Observative? Did I just say that? Yes, you did. Anyways, Roger, he, uh, he came up with an alternate name for the show. The 3600 Coulombs.

Dave Jones: 3600 Coulombs. Neat. Just brilliant. Maybe it's available as a .com. Oh, yeah. Maybe you should register. Oh, maybe.

Chris Gammell: If not, that can be our competition. Someone else can register there.

Dave Jones: It could be. Anyway, it's been a good show again. And thanks everyone for joining us. If you've listened to the hour, I hope you found it interesting. And you've subscribed to the RSS feed. Because that's the best way to do it. If you don't understand how RSS feeds work and things like that, then really go check them out. Because, you know, I've got people turn up to my site every day waiting for me to release a new video. It's like, well, you don't have to do that if you don't want to. You can sign up to the RSS. Just stop by.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, sign up to the RSS feed and it'll automatically be, or iTunes, it'll automatically be downloaded to your phone or reader or iGoogle homepage or something like that.

Speaker ?: So.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's really nice. All right. Well. All right. Thanks, Chris. Yeah, we'll talk to you next time, Dave.

Dave Jones: And thanks everyone.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: See ya.

Chris Gammell: Bye-bye.