#40 – Adafruit, Chip heist, Hackerspaces - The Kit Conniption

Chris Gammell: 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.

Chris Gammell: Alright Chris, you can blame me this morning. I was late. Oh, I'm sorry. No big deal. We got tons of time around here. Right. Tons of time.

Dave Jones: Yeah, well we've got a five day weekend here and yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah.

Dave Jones: So what was that holiday you said it is? It's Anzac Day. It was Anzac Day yesterday. The Australian New Zealand Army Corps. Okay. Anzac. It's a big, you know, respect. All the diggers. Diggers we call them. Our soldiers are called diggers. So, yeah. So, yeah, you have to remember them and, you know, the sacrifices in World War I and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Well, that's good. It's a good thing to do. Yeah. It's a big public holiday here and everyone likes it.

Chris Gammell: Alright. Well, good. Yeah. And next holiday otherwise.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's good. Yeah. It's a five day weekend here. Awesome. Awesome. Except for the fact that I completely forgot about this morning. That's why I'm late. I was still in bed when the wife went, are you recording the radio show this morning? I looked at the clock. Oh, that's... Oh, shit. It's already 7.30.

Chris Gammell: Send her a thank you note or something. You know, she's looking out for the show.

Dave Jones: Otherwise, I'd still be there, I think.

Chris Gammell: That's great.

Dave Jones: Anyway, we forgot because it wasn't in the usual routine. You know, she's home today. She's probably on the other side of the wall there and... Yep. And it just screws things up when you're not in your regular routine. That's all.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I feel it. That's good. What can you do? Move on. Start talking about electronics. It's an electronics radio show. Why not? Yeah. Let's do it.

Dave Jones: Do we have any shout outs this week? Yes, we do.

Chris Gammell: Do we? Jiggish. Jiggish. Oh, yeah. Oh, where is that? There we go. Yeah. Jiggish linked here. That's right. So, his site is knownfo.com. I don't know how to say that. But he linked here and we always give shout outs to people who link here. So, thanks a lot, Jiggish. Thank you very much. Is that a nickname or is that a real name? I believe that's his real name. Awesome. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I hate people like me with common names and you. It's boring. Yeah. Dave and Chris. Yeah. Boring. Absolutely. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Another shout out is to Nottinghack in the UK. Yes.

Dave Jones: They're going. Well, they're not going under, but they've been evicted from their hack space, apparently. Oh, no. Something to do with it. Yeah. They've been booted out somehow. How did you find out about this? Not sure what happened, but they're after donations and things to help them set up a new space. Yes. Okay. So, yes, if you're in the UK and you want to, well, if you're anywhere and you want to donate, because PayPal is international, by all means, donate to their hack space. How did you find out about this happening? They actually tweeted me and asked if I could talk about it on the blog. Well, not really on the blog because the blog's not for that sort of thing, but certainly the Amp Hour radio show is. Yeah. Here you go.

Chris Gammell: That's good. Yeah. That's too bad about getting evicted, though. Yeah. That's a bummer. Yeah, the site.

Dave Jones: But it's exciting because then you can go look for a new space, you know.

Chris Gammell: That's got to be really exciting, I'm sure. That's true. That's true. Yeah. If you go to the front page, they have a big, notting hack is, what is it called? Notting hack is in danger.

Dave Jones: In danger. Danger, Will Robinson. Yeah. And I think they've got photos of the new space they're trying to buy, I think. Yeah. There's a couple of photos. I'm sure that's their new. And it's just big, huge, empty. Wow.

Chris Gammell: That's a tough proposition. Room. It's quite novel for me. I'm sorry. When you just have, you know, like donations from, I mean, even from outside, but just donations like that, and you're trying to actually buy a space, rent is bad enough. But when you're trying to buy it, then you really start, you know, getting into some big money numbers.

Dave Jones: Oh, are they actually trying to buy it, are they? Is that the...

Chris Gammell: No, I just kind of took that cue from you. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. No, sorry. Did I say the word buy? No, I'm sure they're renting. You did say buy. They wouldn't be out. Yeah, I think it's like $1,000. You know, they have to put up $2,000 bond or something up front.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's still pretty hefty, you know.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. If you only got, you know, a few people, a few core people doing the donating up front. Right, exactly. Yeah, it's a pretty hefty toll.

Chris Gammell: I would imagine that would be tough for a lot of volunteer organizations, no matter what they are. You know, like if you had like a volunteer firefighting force, I don't know if they would want to try and go out and find a new space or something like that.

Dave Jones: No, exactly. It might be a bit rough, but yeah. Yeah. That's always... That's why it's good to have your own lab.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that does help, but you know, me and Jeff Kaiser were talking about that. It's kind of hard to balance like the shared space. You know, you want to help out with hacker spaces and donate your time and your gear, but at the same time, it's like then, well, what happens when you need stuff in your house? Yeah, exactly. And there's really no... We were talking about it for probably an hour online and just trying to figure it out and there's not a lot of good options there. You know, you either double up your equipment or you just bite the bullet and you donate all your equipment and then you always go there, but then you have to pay dues too.

Dave Jones: Yeah, well, exactly. Yeah, I really, I thought most people would just donate a spare gear. I thought that was it. Yeah. I think you'd have to be very keen or, you know, literally live very close by, like within walking distance for it to be viable for you to go there all the time. Or, you know, the actual, or the wife booted you out of the study or something like that and you have to get rid of your gear.

Chris Gammell: That would make sense, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But that's, yeah. I don't know. I just assumed everyone donated spare gear because that's what it's like here for the Sydney Hackspace, I think. Like, you know, I've donated some tables and stuff for them and things like that. Yeah. I thought people just bought it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I guess that makes sense more in urban environments too. I mean, I guess I'm in a pretty suburban environment, so I have a buttload of space. So, that's kind of the difference too. If you, now if I was moving to a local or to an urban area, right, then I could probably donate all my gear, get a nice tax write-off and then, you know, go use it too. Right. And that'd be really good. And that's kind of, I think that's what a lot of hackerspaces are built around too, is like urban centers where, you know, you don't have that opportunity.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Yeah, that's why they don't really work in, well, sparsely populated areas here like Sydney. I mean, we've got 4 million people in Sydney, but they're spread out over a 50-kilometer radius area. You know, it's quite large. And really, people don't live in the city, you know, like literally right in the heart of the central business, the downtown central business district. It's really, you know, it's really just a place of business. So, yeah, it's just, you know, it's just hard. We're so spread out, really. Everyone's got their, you know, 800 square meters of land and I don't know what that is in feet or, you know, everyone's got their half an acre. Actually, it's acres at that point. Well, yeah, acre. Okay. Everyone's got their quarter acre lot and...

Chris Gammell: Yeah. No, I know what you mean. Yeah. So, it's hard. It is tough.

Dave Jones: But, you know, I can imagine, you know, in the middle of New York or San Fran or something like that, you know, very densely sort of populated areas, then these sort of things work.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yeah. I mean, I was like, oh, well, Jeff, what about if, you know, what if everybody kind of like had like a key to the workshop, right? And then they had like a, everybody could come out and access it when they needed to. And then you had like a log of tracking people, you know, and so there's all these distributed shops all over town and people could just go use them. And he's like, so you mean hackerspaces?

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: I mean, because he's right. I was like, oh, damn, that is what it is, right? Yeah, exactly. Oh, dear. So, it's a tough problem, but I think the key is the urban center and having them really strong there.

Dave Jones: You need to populate. Yeah. And you need a core group to keep it running. So, you've got to have people who go there all the time.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, who basically live there after work or whatever they're doing, you know.

Dave Jones: That's right. Because they don't have their own space. I mean, you know, I wouldn't be able to get to the Sydney hackerspace. I would, you know, it's just not viable. It's got to be a 45-minute drive easily for me. Oh, wow. That's in good traffic. It'd be over an hour, an hour to get there if I had to, you know. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it just isn't viable. Yeah. Yeah. And if it was 10 minutes away, it's still a pain in the ass, you know. You've got to get in the car. Jeez, you have to even get dressed, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, yeah, not that I sit in the work, not that I sit in the lab nude or anything, but, you know, you've got to, you've actually got to put shoes on or something, you know, and you've got to get on out.

Chris Gammell: It's just a transaction cost, right? It's like getting over that hump to get there.

Dave Jones: Yeah. A financial term there, yes. It's a, yes, there is an inherent transaction cost in going to your lab if it's outside of your home, if it's off-site. So.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Walking, and that'd just be a, you know, that'd just be a bummer. Oh, I can't just go out there for five minutes and, you know. Yeah. Bum around, so.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I did, I did that the other night. I walked downstairs and I was like, I'm bored, I'm going to clean up the shop. And I started Ustream channel.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: As you do. I've got the sickness. I've got the sickness now, Dave. I have a Ustream channel just like you. Awesome. Except, you know, no show to speak of. You don't do anything on it. Right. No, well, you know, I just got it yesterday.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay. Any plans to do a live show?

Chris Gammell: I don't know. People are asking about us. You know, they keep asking if we're going to do a live show, but.

Dave Jones: Ah, yeah, bullshit. You get one or two people asking and then nobody turns up to watch it. Who would want to watch the recording of a radio show? It's just, no, it's, yeah. It's just not going to work.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's just us staring at our screens, basically. Me trying to.

Dave Jones: Pretty much. It's, you know, yeah. It's pretty boring.

Chris Gammell: Visualize how I can make Dave the most upset with what I say. Right.

Dave Jones: It's good, passionate.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, let's get on to some stuff, shall we? There's news. Breaking news. Breaking news. Is there a.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I know what you mean.

Dave Jones: Five people have been arrested in a $37 million chip heist. Awesome.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I didn't see that. Just like the movies.

Dave Jones: There's a chip heist. Where did that go? This has been on here for a while, dude. Get with the program.

Chris Gammell: Oh, so it's not news. Oh, there it is. Okay.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, it's point number 16 on the list.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I see.

Dave Jones: I see. No, sorry.

Chris Gammell: 12. I see it.

Dave Jones: 12.

Chris Gammell: A chip heist.

Dave Jones: That's crazy. There's a chip heist down in California somewhere. Who steals chips? People who realize how much they're actually worth. They actually, in one heist, they stole $37 million of, uh, was it DRAM or something?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I remember some kind of memory.

Dave Jones: Yeah, they stole some sort of memory that was destined for Apple. I think it was Flash. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But there were $37 million worth of chips.

Chris Gammell: That's gotta be weird. How do you unload that? I mean, like, I mean, if it's just gonna be, do you go, like, sell it to China? Yeah, because you're not gonna get as much of that.

Dave Jones: They sold some of them, and that's how they got caught, of course. Duh.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, well.

Dave Jones: Like, as if that wasn't gonna happen. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That is impressive that, you know, criminals are thinking to go after technology products that are that basic. Not basic, but, you know, more of the raw materials as opposed to buying or stealing, like, you know, finished cell phones.

Dave Jones: And you've gotta think, was there some inside knowledge there? Yeah. That they actually had $37 million worth of stock there. Yeah, that's true. You know, on site. And, of course, you know, these big companies, I'm sure they wouldn't have even given security a second thought, really. They had $37 million worth of products sitting on the shelves, but I bet you they just had some secretary at the front desk and some guy in the store, you know? And he didn't even have a shotgun under the bench. Which you don't agree with, of course. Right. Bloody Americans. Yeah. Wow. And, yeah, it's just, they probably didn't give a second thought because they, you know, who would steal chips, right? It's just, it isn't money. So, whereas if you had $37 million, geez, you'd have 20 armed guards there guarding it, right?

Chris Gammell: Right, right. So... And that's crazy. You know, the crazy thing about that is the fact that they ended up going through these gray market dealers, which are basically, what are they called? Uh, not agents, but...

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: You know what I'm talking about.

Dave Jones: They are called agents sometimes.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. But basically, this stuff that, you know, large companies actually use when they're in a bind. So, I guess it wouldn't be too hard to unload it then. Especially since...

Dave Jones: No, it wouldn't, but they got caught. And if the cops come around asking all of the gray market, you know, they aren't going to cover for them unless they're their buddy or something. They're going to go, yes, sir, hand over the...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, when the FBI come knocking on the door, they'll hand over their...

Dave Jones: ...who they bought their stuff from. So... Yeah. And because it's a specific chip, you know, and probably had specific date codes on it, it's probably not hard at all.

Chris Gammell: It's so weird.

Dave Jones: So, you know, you could change the date codes, you could reprint them and stuff like that. Yeah. But, well, you know, you've got to have the actual number on there because that's the whole point. That's why it's worth money is because it's that particular part number chip. So... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It isn't like gold. You can't just melt them down and reuse them. Yeah. So, I got melted these down and now I have sand.

Chris Gammell: Oh, crap.

Dave Jones: Maybe some gold bond wire or something like that. Yeah, there you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I have some phosphorus ions in here somewhere.

Dave Jones: Anyway, what a bunch of... Well, I give them A for knowing that... Yeah. You know, for actually pulling off the heist because that's to knowing it's there and knowing there were something. Yeah. But just for getting caught, yeah. I mean, dope.

Chris Gammell: That's an enlightened criminal.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Stealing technology products. Man, it must be getting bad out there. Yeah. In California.

Dave Jones: And it's right in the heart of Silicon Valley. Yeah. And they did the full thing. They tied them up and kidnapped them and all sorts of... So, they've got them on charges of theft, kidnapping, attempted murder and all sorts of things, I think.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah. Wow.

Dave Jones: Well, anyway, I thought that was funny. Chip heist.

Chris Gammell: Maybe it'll be a movie someday.

Chris Gammell: Right. These nerds in... Yeah. Nerds with pocket protectors and shotguns. Oh, goodness.

Chris Gammell: No. I will happily play one of the characters in that movie remake. It sounds like a made-for-TV movie kind of thing. Cameo, you think. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Goddy.

Chris Gammell: Wow.

Dave Jones: Anyway, what else have we got? I saw the new... There's a link. We'll link to it. The new Facebook data center. Oh, yeah. They've just opened it. This is the main data center where Facebook have all their servers. Very, very impressive. And they've got some behind-the-scenes videos showing, like, taking you on a tour and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And all they seem to talk about on the video is the power supply system. How do you power all this shit?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And how do you cool it, too? Yeah. How do you cool it? How do you power it? And it's just... Yeah. So, they go into nth detail about the power supplies and the redundant backup battery-backed power supply, which lasts for 90 seconds, by the way. Yeah. That's crazy. So, you know, when you've got a rack of 10,000 servers, there's only...

Chris Gammell: Well, just how much they use, too. You know, like, how...

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. It's phenomenal. They use a massive amount of power for each server. But the battery system lasts 90 seconds, but that's enough to shut them down gracefully. I think it shuts... I think you said it shuts down in 47 seconds or something.

Dave Jones: And it can back everything up, and, you know, so they've got sort of, you know, twice the leeway there that they need.

Chris Gammell: That's crazy.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. And that's on top of the diesel generator backup, so, you know, that's like a third line.

Chris Gammell: Well, thank God they'd be saving my Farmville game. Let's make sure we have our priorities in order, people.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Can't lose any of those cows.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Oh, my God. Right. The world would go to crap if that happened.

Dave Jones: Everyone lost their Farmville... I don't know. Is there points? I don't know. I don't know. I've never played. What a load of garbage.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's impressive, though, just the amount of technology, too, that they... Did you watch the whole video? I didn't watch the video.

Dave Jones: I watched most of it, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah? What kind of rack... What kind of server is it?

Dave Jones: Oh, I didn't see that part. I was just interested in the power supply. Oh, okay. I don't even think they mentioned what server.

Chris Gammell: Oh, no? No.

Dave Jones: Anyway, all the power supplies were all fully custom designed and built. Yeah. Specifically for that purpose. So...

Chris Gammell: Man, you want to talk about places you should steal valuable stuff, Facebook data center is where you would do it, right? I mean, you just think about... I mean, granted, you'd have to sift through a lot of crap, but, like, think about the value of the information in there. I bet they have security guards, you know?

Dave Jones: Oh, yes. Yeah. Even, you know, your regular ISP. I mean, not your ISP. Your host, your actual... Your web host. Yeah. Those big web hosts. You know, they're housed in earthquake-proof, fireproof, guarded, 24-7 data centers.

Chris Gammell: Well, there's a lot of money tied up in there, you know? Oh, yeah. Especially sites that are doing commerce. You know, that stuff goes down and... Yep. Wow. So, it's a big deal, so... We are well acquainted with crappy... Crappy hosts around here. Yeah, we are, indeed. Yeah. Yeah, that's too bad.

Dave Jones: Nothing worse than a shitty web host. Anyway. Yep. Yep. Let's not go there. No. Mine's still holding up under the onslaught of the blog.

Chris Gammell: That's good.

Dave Jones: That's good. Which is great. Hmm.

Chris Gammell: So, I am going to California for the first time. You are. I am.

Dave Jones: You're going on holiday.

Chris Gammell: Ah, not holiday.

Dave Jones: First time ever.

Chris Gammell: It's not holiday. It's work. It's work, man. It's a holiday, dude. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And you're now in Element 14 Stooge. I am. You've sold your soul for a couple of tickets to California.

Chris Gammell: Hey, I think that was the right move. And I'm excited. I don't know. Like, Element 14's doing some fun stuff. So, I'm going to be doing the Roving Reporter stuff with Jerry, actually. So, me and Jerry are going to film some video together. And we're going to try and go around to surplus shops. So, you know, if people have suggestions about where to go, I've been asking about that. Because I really, I have no place, I have no idea where I'm going out there. Right. I don't know. Hoping to see the area and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Well, Jeff has a list of surplus places on his website.

Chris Gammell: Oh, he does. That's right. And he's actually, he's thinking about going out, he's going to be out there. He might stick around for a day. So, he might be on camera, too. Fantastic. So, that'd be a lot of fun. I don't know. I'm excited for it. Good luck. Thanks, man. And you were supposed to go, but...

Dave Jones: I was supposed to go, but yeah. No, I had to cancel that, unfortunately. Yeah. So, yeah. Otherwise, I would have been in California next week.

Chris Gammell: That would have been a hell of a party. Yeah. It's next week.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. Everyone's been, everyone's there except me, I think.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Goodness. Anyway, last time I went to ESC, bloody no one was there. Really? Yeah. Well, I didn't have the blog then, so... Oh. But, yeah, it was like, yeah, I didn't know anyone and, you know. I still don't care. What year was that? 2008 or 9, maybe. I'm not sure. It was a couple of years ago. Yeah. I think it was 2008. Cool.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I don't know. So, I'm looking forward to it. I've been to a couple of ESCs now, but this is the big one, so that's why I'm looking forward to it. And the California thing.

Dave Jones: Absolutely. It is pretty big. It's pretty big.

Chris Gammell: Why? I work at electronics. I've never been to California. I've never been to Silicon Valley. I've never been to California. You know, like, I don't know. I just, I feel silly telling people that, you know. Right.

Dave Jones: Yep. Well, I'm sure most haven't, you know. I mean, there's nothing exciting in California. It's just, yeah, there's lots of companies there, but really, apart from that, you know, okay, there's a couple of surplus places, but there are those landmark things, you know. There's a HP. Tell me you are going to the HP Garage. Yeah, I'm going to try to, yeah. Awesome. All right. Yeah. Try? Come on. There is no try. There is no try.

Chris Gammell: Do or do not.

Chris Gammell: It's compulsory. I'll try. I don't know. I don't know what my schedule is, so.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, it's well worth it. It's a house in the suburbs that has a garage, and it's really exciting.

Chris Gammell: That sounds worth it. It's good advertising, Dave.

Dave Jones: I went there. I remember I was at ESC, and I drove. I went, bugger this. I'm going. Yeah. So, I grabbed the hire car, and I actually, you know, I had no idea about navigation and all that, so I just whacked it in the GPS, and the GPS got me there. No problems at all. It's this leafy little suburban street just near Stanford Uni there, and yeah, there were some garbage bins out the front, so I thought, oh, great. I had something to sit my camera on so I can take a photo of myself. Yeah, and I think you posted that on here, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah. I've posted the photo before in various places. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. You aren't allowed in. You're not allowed. No. You're allowed to go. You're allowed onto the property to view the sign, but you're not allowed through the gate, so, which leads you to the garage, apparently, so. Right, right. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's okay. I don't know. I'd be more interested in seeing Stanford and all that other stuff out there. I just hear it's a cool area, so. I'll be poking around. I'll be reporting on it, so. Cool. If people want to watch that, they can.

Dave Jones: If not, no big deal. How many extra days you got off?

Chris Gammell: Three. Three. So, I'm going Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then flying back Thursday night. Red eye.

Dave Jones: Oh, you've only got three days total.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You're not taking any extra time off to have a holiday. Nope. Ah.

Chris Gammell: I got stuff to do.

Chris Gammell: Sorry. I'll get back out there. I don't think this is going to be on my last California trip. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's only a five-hour plane flight or something. Four hours? How long does it take? Yeah, about five hours from here.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: How long is it from there? How about that? That's the real question, right?

Dave Jones: It's 14 hours. 14 hours. That's just on the plane. That's flight time, so that doesn't include sitting on the tarmac when the plane's delayed, which happens every time. So, you waste a couple of hours there, and then you waste a couple of hours in the airport. It's about 20 hours by the time I left my place to when I would get to the hotel would be 20 plus hours. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's crazy.

Dave Jones: Which isn't bad. Try going to Europe. It's worse. It can be 30 plus. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's bad. Yeah. I have a friend from India who tells me about his travel woes, and it doesn't sound fun at all. 30 plus. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But, yeah. That's basically as far as the planes can fly. 14 hours. Although, no, they're flying further now. I think they'll be able to squeeze some extra fuel. I mentioned this before. You can now fly directly from Sydney to Dallas. In fact, you can't fly into San Fran anymore, which sucks.

Chris Gammell: Because of the...

Dave Jones: It means I don't want to go back to the US now. I don't want to fly into LA, because LA sucks. And I don't want to fly... Well, Dallas, maybe. Okay. Somewhere new. But I loved flying into San Fran. It was great.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Great jeans coming in. Anyway, they dumped it. I was very disappointed. That's too bad. I guess... Not a problem. You'll have to stay in Sydney forever now. Sorry, Dave. Or go to Europe. Oh, well.

Dave Jones: Best country in the world.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Good. I like that nationalism. That's good.

Dave Jones: We've got the Triple Five Contest winner, Jonathan.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. He...

Dave Jones: Well, I... Was he the ultimate winner?

Chris Gammell: No. So, the ultimate winner was... And if people don't know, me and Jerry did an announcement. We talked about it last week. Jerry and I. Jerry and I. And Dave corrected me like that last week. Thank you. I did. Grammar master Dave. Jerry and I had the final announcement for the Five Five Five Contest winner. Five Five Contest. And Dave's video was in there, even though we cut it up wrong. So, sorry about that, Dave.

Dave Jones: What happened there? That was unbelievable.

Chris Gammell: Sorry, man.

Dave Jones: Can't win them all. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Doesn't matter. I upload it straight away.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, no. Tom Jenner was the one who won it all. He was the... He was the robotics and the servo... Yeah. Yeah. The servo controller. And actually, on that topic, real quick. So, I was talking to him last night. So, Five Five Five Contest, we hadn't announced what the top prize was. But since he won the Mims Commons Inn Prize, which is a custom painting. But Tom doesn't know what he wants painted. So, if people have suggestions, they can leave it on here. I'm going to post something on the Five Five Five Contest site, too. And so, the nice thing about that is since he's willing to have anything in it, if we get something that a lot of people like, then we can help the artist out, too. Because I'll sell prints and we can all have this cool print on our wall. So...

Dave Jones: Oh, I've got it.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: The photo of Bob Wydelag given the finger. Paint that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Not really Five Five Five related.

Dave Jones: With like a Triple Five background on background. Even though he has nothing to do with the Triple Five. But, oh, come on.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Maybe we can get a picture of Hans doing that. What do you think?

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Brilliant.

Chris Gammell: Anyway. Yeah. So, we're going to try and get something that a lot of people like so that it helps the artist and we can all have a cool picture on our wall. But, so. Anyways, a different winner. One of the guys that had a utility entry. So, that was one of the contest entry or one of the categories was utility. So, the most useful thing that you can make with Five Five Fives. He made an etching controller for acid etching PCBs. And so, he was wondering and he wanted me to pass questions along to Dave. But just about, you know, how to move forward with like a kit business or what other kind of stuff and just kind of things that like tips that Dave would have.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Absolutely.

Dave Jones: I've been in the kit business for 20 years. When I was a boy. Yeah. Anyway, I'm trying to get back into it now. Yeah. Which is a good thing. If I ever find bloody time. Yeah. It's going all right. But I just need time to work on stuff. All this free time I supposedly have. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Do you have a lot of new design ideas or is it just a. Well, no. Old ones I've dragged up really. Oh, okay. Out of the dregs that have been sitting there for 12 months kind of thing. Yeah. That makes sense. That I've never had time to finish. So, yeah. I'm getting back onto those which is good. That is good. Anyway. Yes. Jonathan's question really was that he's considering turning it into a pick based project. He doesn't want to just sell the Triple Five. Right. Timer project. Right. Because it uses more parts. It's expensive. Right. You know. And he asks, should I go to a, well, something like that. There would be a huge reduction in cost, he says. Yeah. If he went with a pick based, then he can add an LCD display and as a nicety. And should he do that? Yeah. Well, yes. Of course. Absolutely. You're a fool if you stick to the Triple Five timers. Yeah. A big thing about the kit business is lowering your bomb cost, your bill of materials cost. That is key because then that allows you to not only, well, you don't have to sell it at a competitive price. But if market forces change or a competitor comes along or something like that, if you've got a low bill of materials cost and you're making a large margin, like, you know, three, 400% margin or something like that. Like, if your parts cost cost $10 and you sell it for $40, then you've got a large, large-ish margin there. And you need that sort of margin. But the, yeah, the idea, lowering your bomb cost should be your number one requirement, apart from functionality, of course, of your kit. So that you can, you know, you've got that margin there. And not only, and then to sell it onto the kit suppliers like Artifruit and SparkFun and those sort of places who, you know, you may want to find it's too much grind doing it yourself. And it is a pain in the ass getting stuff yourself and selling them and shipping individual orders. And, you know, it's, I mean, you do make more money like that. You make more income per kit. Right dollars, yeah. But you work your ass off. So you've got to trade up. But, yeah, I think we've talked about this on here before, surely. Yeah. But, yeah, that was, that is my recommendation. Yes, go spend 90% of your time trying to get the cost as low as physically possible.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that'll pay back in overtime. And that'll pay back big time. Yep. Yeah. The only downside is that, like, I mean, I don't think he was, like, particularly attached to the 555 setup. But that is a rework. No. So it's more of a, you know, the concept's still there, right? So netching control.

Dave Jones: Of course. The concept's the only thing that matters.

Chris Gammell: Right. It doesn't matter whether you use it. I think it's a good idea for a concept, to be honest. I mean, I think there would be a lot of interest in that kind of thing. But you're not really going to know that until you actually make it and start trying to sell it.

Dave Jones: Yeah, have to make it and start trying to sell it. Yeah. And the other advice, of course, is to do your first run of kits small and base your profit margin based on, you know, you might make 25 kits. Yeah. And make sure you can make your money back with the first 25 kits. So all your, you know, all your one-off PCB costs and things like that, make sure that your profit margin's sufficient. And, yeah, you really have to do make large profit margins on kits. Otherwise, it's not worth it. You know, like in, say, some, if you're running a normal business, you know, a normal business, a good business will be running a 20% profit margin. Right? Well, that's not good enough for a kit business. If your kit costs $10 in parts and all your expenses and you sell it for $12 or even $15 or even $20, you're just not going to make any money out of it. You know, you've got to sell it for $40 or $50. You've got to sell it for three or four times what the parts cost is. Otherwise, it's not worth it. You're just wasting your time. If you're just doing it for the fun of it, fine. But if you want to sort of, you know, make it either a viable business or at least make some return on it, you've got to make that big margin there.

Chris Gammell: Right. And isn't that margin kind of determined by how many you think you're going to sell to? So, like, if you're not going to sell a lot, you need more margin versus if you're selling a crap load, then you could start lowering your margin because you're going to make more money overall.

Dave Jones: Well, if you know that you're going to sell a lot, why would you lower your margin? You wouldn't. Well, maybe you have to in order to sell a lot. That would be the reason. Maybe you have to. If it's a price-sensitive product, then, you know, if the key to it is its price rather than its functionality, then, yes, it's a different ballgame, really.

Chris Gammell: And there's other options now, too. I mean, like, so Dave was talking about that first run. You know, that's true, and that's a good way to do it, I think. But don't forget also that you can do Kickstarter stuff now, too. So that's a way, at least in the U.S. Dave knows that that doesn't work outside the U.S. Doesn't work in Australia, nope. Right. But you can have, you know, and then you can actually gauge interest up front, which is kind of nice. So you'll get people to pledge, and then based on that tiered level of interest, you know, someone says, I'll give 100 bucks. And then for that, you get, you know, a T-shirt and a full kit or an assembled one. Yeah. So that's the nice thing about Kickstarter is that you get that up front interest, so you actually get capital to start with. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But I would only recommend doing that if you absolutely have to. Really? If the only way, yeah, absolutely. Why? If the only way you can do it is if you're flat broke and you do not have the money, and the only way you can do it is to get Kickstarter money up front. No way. I totally disagree with that. No, no, no. Why? Tell me why. I'll tell you why. Because then you are locked in to satisfying people, and that only has negative, that can only have a negative effect. Okay. And then you've got people emailing. If you've got 100 people signed up to this thing and they've all given you your 50 bucks or whatever, they're going to be emailing you every day. Where's my kit? Where's my kit? Where's my kit? That's true. Right? And you can't just say, well, screw you. I'll do it when I'm damn well ready. Okay? And then if there's any problems, if you run into any problems, you don't have any contingency time or stuff like that. So it's just, no, I'd highly recommend investing your own money in it because it's not much. That's why you start off with a small number of kits.

Chris Gammell: All right. I'll get behind that.

Dave Jones: And what happens if you take everyone's money and then you invest all that money in these kits and you went, oh, shit, I goofed up. Right? Well, what do you do? Right? Screw it.

Chris Gammell: That's when you throw your own money in because you have to.

Dave Jones: Yeah, well. Then why didn't you put your own money in to start off with? No, that's true. Make a small number of kits. No, there's only downfall there.

Chris Gammell: So maybe the best thing to do would be to prove out that really small five-lot kit at the beginning. And then once you know it works.

Dave Jones: Then maybe once you've proven it and everything's fine and all the kinks are ironed out, then use other people's money to do a full production run or something perhaps. But then you should have the money because you've had that money. You should have made a profit from the first run of kits. So you can bootstrap yourself and do more.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So that's the traditional method of doing it. But this Kickstarter, yeah, I just don't recommend doing it unless you absolutely, there's no other way to do it. Really. There's only downside there. I cannot see an upside to it.

Chris Gammell: All right.

Dave Jones: If you've already got the cash in the bank and you can pay for it, why would you want other people's money?

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: It just ties you in. Call it fear on my part, but it just restricts you in what you can do. Screw that.

Chris Gammell: I mean, some people like that driving force, though. You know, like if people are banging at your door, you know you're going to get it done because you have to. I don't know if that's the best reason.

Dave Jones: Yeah, true. But I think if you need that, then, well, you're probably in the wrong business. That's true, yeah.

Chris Gammell: So. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I don't know. Anyway, that would be my advice.

Chris Gammell: So, speaking of, how about this forum user that wants you to do a design to production video? So, we actually had, there was talk in there about doing Kickstarter, but why don't you explain the story first?

Dave Jones: This story is, what's his name? I make sure I get it right. Ticati. Where is it?

Chris Gammell: Ticati. It's the next one.

Dave Jones: Ah, Ticati.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I'm sure, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly. I'm not sure if that's his real name. It's probably just his forum handle. Yeah. But he pledged $1,000 if I would do a series of exactly this, how to take an idea, like a kit kind of thing, how to take an idea from literally an idea, you know, sketched on a napkin through to full scale production. Either a kit or, you know, anything else, a full product. And he pledged $1,000 for that, which is incredibly generous. That's a lot of dough. Yeah. That's a lot of dough. Well, it sounds like a lot of dough, but it's not. Well, not for it. If that just paid for my time to do it, it wouldn't pay for it at all. At my contracting rates, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right, but if you got 10 Ticatis, then it would start to add up, right?

Dave Jones: Then maybe it would start to add up. I'd be able to do it. But, yeah, and he was calling on other people to pledge and stuff like that. And, well, I don't like that idea either because, once again, that ties that, A, it ties me into actually producing stuff. B, I've got to satisfy every single person. And when you're talking about this isn't just a kit that you deliver to them. This is educational material, you know. Right. And everyone wants something different. Yep. For every video I upload, it doesn't matter what it is. I get 10 emails saying, oh, why didn't you include this? Why didn't you include that? And imagine if people paid for it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's true.

Dave Jones: You know, if people put down $1,000 and they were expecting something and I didn't deliver exactly what they wanted or most of what they wanted, I'd be forever chasing my tail, actually refining it and adding stuff.

Chris Gammell: It's just, yeah, I can't see it working. Here's a question then. How about, would you do design-to-production videos on your own, though?

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, I already have.

Chris Gammell: You've done all the way through?

Dave Jones: I've already done parts of them. I took my little microcurrent kit and I explained how I designed it and designed for production. Well, yeah, kind of.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, I've already had a foray into that area.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think I've seen some of those. But I would be interested in that, too, just from the all the way through lifecycle kind of thing. But it would probably take so long.

Dave Jones: I'm sure a lot of people would. But it's very, it'd be a very long video. My one just for the microcurrent, which is an incredibly simple thing. And that didn't include all the stuff that this guy wanted. And I think that was already 50 minutes long or something, 40, 50 minutes or something. Yeah. So, once again, he said it should be a series. Right. No, I would agree with that. Of videos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Spread into 10, you know, each actual, you know, spread each process of it into a separate kind of video.

Chris Gammell: Like concept and prototyping and then layout.

Dave Jones: You know, I might do that, you know, someday. But yeah, it's a lot of work. Yeah. No doubt. And satisfying people is next to impossible.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Because everyone wants something. You know, how many combinations and permutations of things are there in the design process? It's infinite.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's true. Well, you're not going to tape them all, though. That's the magic of it is editing them all down. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, you've got to do an example. You've got to take an example. The only way to do that is here's an example product. This is the one I'm going to do.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I'm going to explain my design process, my thought process, everything behind it. And I've already done that partially. Yeah. So, I don't know. Well, you've got tons of time. You've got tons of time, Dave. Right.

Chris Gammell: Just get on that. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, it's a great idea. Thank you, Takaki. Takaki. Takati. But, um... I'm hopeless at pronouncing things. Yeah. But, yeah, I... It's just not doable. Once you start taking money to produce certain things people want, especially when there's just so many ways to do it, is, yeah, fraught with danger, unfortunately.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, here's one last question about the designing side of things, too, because someone wrote in... I don't remember who it was that wrote in about this. Sorry. It was Adam Ward, I think, actually. But he was talking about what kind of licenses he should do. So, if he does start a kit business or he starts just a design in order to release it, what kind of license should he do for homebrew kind of stuff?

Dave Jones: Well, I'm surprised he hasn't heard of the open-source hardware license.

Chris Gammell: I was a little surprised, too, but I thought it was good to bring it up again.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was... That's the whole idea. As far as I know, that's the only one out there, the only license out there that includes hardware-specific things, really. I mean, I've released stuff under GPL before. I've released schematics under GPL and stuff like that. And that's what he's doing right now, too. I don't know if that's legally... Right. You know, if that's, like, enforceable. I have no idea. Whereas the open-source hardware license has been vetted by, you know, smart lawyer geeks to be suitable. So, unless you were a lawyer and you went into the details, I don't know which one's the most appropriate. Yeah. But the problem with the open-source hardware license, as we've said on here before, it is fully open. That's right.

Chris Gammell: You can't... I think that's a good thing, though.

Dave Jones: It's a... Yeah, it's a good thing, but there are maybe some reasons why you might want to keep... You might want to open to the world, but you might want to keep the commercial license to it, which then you would go to the Creative Commons licenses, which I've used before as well. And they do have a non-commercial version of their license. So, yes, everyone's free to use it. Do whatever you want. Here it is. I give it to the world, but I'm the only one who's allowed to make money from it.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: You know? Which, you may have a legitimate reason for doing that. You can say... You can argue till the cows come home. Oh, it's not a good thing to... You know, it doesn't promote the open-source ethos and the...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, that thing's... That's going to shake itself out eventually, too, though, because if a lot of people did that kind of thing, and then, you know, it would... Like, if projects just die on the table, then, you know? So, say... Yeah. Say you release a product under non-commercial, and then it just... No one wants to work on it because they can't go and sell it, right? There's no economic benefit then. So, that kind of thing just works itself out anyways. Yeah. So, the open-source hardware is... You have to allow commercial reproduction as well. So, that is a good thing to keep in mind. But, yeah. And there's a logo now.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but I think there should... There may be legitimate reasons why people want to go and use the non-commercial license. Anyway, I've explained this on the blog. Yeah. There's five different versions of the creative commons license. So, just go pick one, pick each one, and pick any one that deems suitable for your particular thing. Yeah. And we've mentioned this on here before, and I don't think it's really happened yet, but it ultimately has to happen someday. When you release something under the open-source hardware license, and say you made a kit for it, say Jonathan, who wants to release this, you know, his triple-five kit under the open-source hardware license, right? If he prices that wrong, or can't produce enough kits, or does something else...

Chris Gammell: Or it's just really popular too, right?

Dave Jones: Well, right, yeah. Or somebody else. There's nothing stopping SparkFun, or Artifruit, or any other big or even small like me. I could come along, take all his design files, do absolutely nothing, and produce a competing kit at half the price, and put him out of business. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from doing... For anyone from doing that. Yep. You know? And it will ultimately happen eventually. Like, if he released this kit, and it's $200 or something, and everyone goes, well, that's... You know, it should only be worth $20. Then, well, you know, he may not sell any at all, because somebody else might come along and go, well, I'm going to sell it for $100.

Chris Gammell: Right. Or even...

Dave Jones: And puts him out of business.

Chris Gammell: Even at the beginning, probably people would just take the design files, if you opened it up, and just go and roll their own, right? That's another... That's always another option.

Dave Jones: They would roll their own version. Yeah. And their one is 10 times better than yours, because they've done a little tweak, which you didn't think of, and then their one becomes the most popular.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: What can you do? I've done this before, actually. Back in... We're talking 93 here, I think. No, 92. Old. 1992. Right? Somebody, Glenn Pure, his name is, he designed this kit, this EEPROM burner kit, right? He got it published in Electronics Australia magazine, and it wasn't a really good design. You know, it wasn't great, but it kind of, you know, it worked, and it was out there. And his software for it, he was giving away... No, he was... I think he was selling software for it, or he was giving it away, actually. Okay. And the software, you could buy the kit from Dick Smith or whoever, or Jcar, or whoever, but the software was really very primitive. It was a, you know, it really was hopeless. And I, as soon as I got the magazine, I went, oh, it's an okay project. I wouldn't mind building one, but the software sucks. I'll write my own.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So I wrote my own software, and very quickly, and it was, you know, 10 times better than his one. And I sent it into the magazine, and then they reviewed it, and I started to sell it. And mine became the de facto software. So he never sold... Ooh. ...almost... He never sold a copy of his software. Everyone bought mine. Uh-huh. In fact, there were three versions of the software. Somebody else wrote their version as well. And the original designer, Glenn Pure, he actually did a review for the magazine, actually comparing all three versions of the software, including his own. And he was quite impartial about the whole thing. It was all nice, you know. That's good. It was all good. Yeah. But everyone went, well, Dave's one's the best. I'm going to buy that. So 99% of people bought my software. I sold thousands of copies. It became the de facto standard. And, yeah, sorry, Glenn, but, well, your software wasn't good enough. Mine was better, and mine was more useful to people.

Chris Gammell: Well, then that kind of refutes the argument that you have then, Dave, doesn't it? Oh, I know. I was just telling a story. I don't know.

Dave Jones: No, I know.

Chris Gammell: It does, I think, because then if people do non-commercial, then it says that, oh, well, even if your software is better, you can't go and sell it now, Dave. Sorry.

Dave Jones: Oh, true. Okay, yes. Yeah, point taken. And so the community got better software because, yeah. Yeah, that's where the focus is, I think. I didn't use his source code. I wrote mine completely from scratch. That's true. Yeah, so it was more concept. It wasn't built on his work, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: But then, you want to know what the downside is? It wasn't all roses. You had to support it. Because everyone thought from that day on that it was my project, right? It was everyone thought because it's my software, I'm the one who did the bloody hardware.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: And I had to, for years, for about 10 years, I had to answer all the support queries for the hardware. Because the hardware was, you know, really quite troublesome. There were, you know, a lot of issues with it. Yeah. And I had to support that. Whereas he pretty much got off scot-free for supporting his own project. But granted, I was making money from the software. So, yeah, I, yeah, that's downsides. But yes, you're right. If you release it under the non-commercial license, then the community can't build on it. But sometimes, well, the community doesn't want to build on it. Sometimes. Sometimes. So, yeah, of course. Or they'll just go do their own version. Yeah. Whatever. I don't know. You know, there's so many permutations of that one. It's, you have to weigh up your own. Yeah. Situation. But of course, you know, the art of fruits of the world, they'll all come along and say, well, the only solution is to do open source, you know, completely open source, give it to the world. And, you know, I don't necessarily agree. I reckon there's always a reason to do it some other way. So, I'm just putting it out there that there are other options. I think, like I said, I think that'll shake out economically. And after all, it's your project. Don't let anyone force you.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. No, that's understandable. But like I said, it'll shake out economically, I think. I think there's economic benefits to opening it up, too. Long term, who knows?

Dave Jones: There can be, but only if you capitalize on them.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, you can't just open it and then do nothing and expect money to roll in. Oh, that's very true. It's just not going to happen. Somebody else will go, oh, well, he hasn't produced a kit. I'll produce, Art of Fruit will go, oh, that's a nice project. I'll produce a kit. They'll sell 100,000 of them and you make zip. Yep. So, yeah. Although, I believe if you go to the Art of Fruit site, they talk about, well, you know, as a goodwill thing, they give you a commission. They do, yeah. If they sell. But really, they don't have to. Nope. You know? They don't have to. And if they go get bought out by somebody else in five years' time, you know, it'll get ruthless. Or anyone can come along and produce a kit. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And not give you a red cent because they don't have to. Yeah. I don't know. It's a risk opening your project. It's up to you. I plan on opening mine, but that's my decision. It's my project. That's what I'm going to do. But you may have other reasons. So, by all means, do what you like. There are many options out there.

Chris Gammell: So, there's more cases. I saw an article today about, in ECN, about IP cases in China being hurt. Right. So, you know, that's obviously another big source of strife with, like, IP and openness and all that kind of stuff, right? Because, like you said, someone could come in and start building kits and it doesn't mean that they're, you know, stateside or Aussie side or anything like that. It could just be a low-cost manufacturer that starts doing that, right? Yep. Absolutely. So, they start talking about how, oh, well, this year there's 45,000 cases hurt in court and China's cracking down. Oh, whoop-dee-dee. I know.

Dave Jones: That's a fair bogus numbers.

Chris Gammell: I don't think they're bogus, but get this, right? Well, they're just... I'll link the article in, but they... I mean, first off, 45,000 cases. You think about the amount of litigation in the U.S. alone. That's like a drop in the bucket, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: They said there's even less cases being heard about foreign entities. So, you know, if IBM is... You know, they're not getting in there. You know, like these are homeland cases, right? So, it's someone from China against someone from China, you know, dealing with rip-offs versus someone from the U.S. versus someone from China getting this stuff into court. So, there's nothing going on there. And then, half of these cases are all based on copyright. So, it's like piracy and trademarking and all that other crap. So, the situation continues, although I'm sure there's a lot of, you know, positively spun PR to try and say otherwise. Like, oh, yeah, give us your designs.

Chris Gammell: Of course. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And the world just continues, as it always has. This has absolutely no effect on anything whatsoever.

Chris Gammell: Nope. Nope. And... Zip. I can't stand it when people are, like, shocked by that. They're like, oh, well, we sent all the production over to China and for some reason it showed up on a street corner. It's like, well... What do you think's gonna... I mean, like, there's... It's just a different... Of course. It's just a cultural thing, right? It's not...

Dave Jones: It's a cultural thing, yeah. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Chris Gammell: Right. And I'm not judging against it either way. It's just... If you're gonna do that, if you think, oh, I'm gonna save some bucks doing this, sending my production overseas, you gotta know the risks, you know? And I think a lot of people still don't know the risks. They're not even close to cognizant of what's actually happening with all their product and IP and stuff. And it's just... It just happened anyway, so...

Dave Jones: Yep. Good luck. And the same thing can happen with your open source hardware kit.

Chris Gammell: But I think there's less money in that, you know? There's a lot more money to be made of.

Dave Jones: Of course, yeah, but... Oh, no, I'm talking about in terms of somebody can come along and rip off your... Well, not rip it off, because you're giving it away.

Dave Jones: They can do whatever they want. Yeah. But they will have no problems with not giving you a commission. Yeah, yeah, that's true. If they sell exactly the same kit. I mean, the whole idea... I think the whole... I may be corrected on this, but this is the gist I get. The whole concept of open source hardware, you give it away, you know? You're... Here it is to the world. You're giving it to the world. And if you sell a kit, the idea is that, well, you don't muscle in on somebody else's kit. If you want to produce a better version, modify it, you know, and do that, then that's fine. Yeah. And nobody will, including the original person, should complain. But if they just directly take your files and make no changes, give nothing back to the community, and just put you out of business, then that's frowned upon. So, even though it's completely legal.

Chris Gammell: I think the idea is that the community is going to frown upon that, then. I think that's what the idea is.

Dave Jones: The community frowns upon it, and then they won't buy from that person. That's the whole idea. But, well, if their kit's half the price, well, you know, it's... Well, yeah. It's hard.

Chris Gammell: Well, I don't know that...

Dave Jones: Because, yeah, people aren't made of money. They can't... Yeah. You know, they can only support you so much. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. Time will tell, man. Time will tell.

Dave Jones: But, anyway, that's the whole idea. That's the whole ethos behind it, is that if you're going to take somebody else's files and make money from it, at least contribute something back.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. In terms of...

Dave Jones: You know, yeah. That's the whole idea. Yes.

Chris Gammell: I agree with that.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I would be a bit miffed. If I was selling... If I went to all the effort to kit up on my latest kit and somebody came along and just stole my... Well, not stole them, but took my files, produced exactly the same kit, gave nothing back, I'm doing all the support for the project and everything else, and they're just making money off the kit without giving me a cut. I'd be a bit miffed, even though I know it's perfectly legal.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I would be... Yeah. I think that's human nature.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So... And the only thing you can... Like the Arduino, classic example. You can't use the word Arduino, because it's trademarked. Right. So you can take the exact same files, produce the exact same board, but you're not allowed to call it the Arduino.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: You have to call it something else. So, yeah. So you can protect your design that way. So you can claim that, well, Arduino aren't even... Which is the showcase example of open source hardware. Right? Even they aren't playing by the... They're protecting their market by trademarking the name. I don't blame them, but, well, you can say that's probably against the ethos too.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. I agree with that. I think what they're doing is okay.

Dave Jones: I think what they're doing is fine too. But other people, you know, more hardcore people who believe that, you know. Yeah. Okay. Anyway. TI. Let's talk about TI.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. We've got five minutes left. Okay. About five minutes left. So I saw this actually... Go on. It's your story. Through Suzanne Dufri, who's from EDN. She posted this. But there's a new trend kind of emerging. And it's not just TI that's doing this. There's a lot of companies that are doing that for social media. Where they kind of... They call it... In the article, they call it deputizing.

Chris Gammell: I'm sorry. I've got to laugh. I know.

Chris Gammell: It sounds like... Go get the sheriff.

Dave Jones: Let's deputize the whole town.

Chris Gammell: You know?

Dave Jones: And it gets better, folks. They have... They're deputizing... All their employees... Their goal is to deputize all the... Oh, sorry. I'm telling you a story, but... No, that's okay. Go ahead. I can't help myself. They're deputizing all their employees. They're deputizing... First wank word. They're deputizing everyone to be social media conversation agents.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. That's got the quotes around it.

Chris Gammell: Wank word of the week. Conversation. Give me a break. It's tough.

Chris Gammell: You know? It's interesting as a generational study because people in Generation Y, which is kind of the generation I'm in, we're really strongly brand aware and we care about what we associate ourselves with, right? And that's aside from the whole engineering dude side of things, too, where people really... Dude? Yeah, dude thing. I think it's a male trait. Maybe not exclusively male, but to associate yourself, to define yourself by your work, right? That's another thing. Not saying that's just exclusively male. I think that's a more male than female trait, though. And so, like, those two things added together. You know, people want to say, oh, well, I'm from TI. You should love TI parts because I work there and I really want to tell you about these parts. So, from that side of things, it really makes sense, I think. But, you know, deputizing. I don't know. I would have a... I would have to have a hard time if I badmouth a TI part and someone just came and said, oh, well, have you seen this spec, though? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If someone comes and says that to me and I'm like, who the heck are you? And they say, oh, well, I just work at TI. It's like, are you a deputy of TI?

Dave Jones: Like, that has some credibility. If they walk around with a big deputy badge on at a trade show, I'm a deputy.

Chris Gammell: Okay, that'd be great, yeah.

Dave Jones: Right, great? Oh, my God. I'd mock them until the cows come home.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so, I mean, it's a good idea in theory. But I don't know. I just, I don't think I would really...

Dave Jones: No, I don't... I feel like I could trust them, you know? No, I don't think it's a good idea. Because, well, they are taking volunteers. I think it's a voluntary thing at the moment. Yeah. But, yeah, and that's okay, because then you'll typically only get the passionate ones who probably would hang out on the forums anyway. Yeah. Right? And that's fine. They're the ones you need. Yeah. But when you try and train up every employee and force them all to... Yeah. You know, oh, you must spend 10% of your time answering tweets, you know? Right.

Chris Gammell: Or if you have, like, a handbook, right? If you have a handbook that says, if this, then this, or if this, then this. Right. That's when it starts to be like, well, really? I mean, it's okay to say, well, we don't care if you talk about the company because we know you'll say good things. We trust you as people. But if you're actually going out and training your employees about what to say, you're just turning them into little PR people.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's... Yeah, it's wrong.

Chris Gammell: So.

Dave Jones: Yep. Absolutely. I mean, granted, it could backfire in the other case. You've just got to let the passionate people do that.

Chris Gammell: I mean, I don't know. Would you have done that for... You probably would have done that for Altium when you were there, but you didn't because...

Dave Jones: Yeah, I've done it on the stands and the forums and various other places. Yeah, you do it because you're passionate about the product.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, and you know about it and you want to tell people about the cool things that are contained within it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But then you've got to be honest as well. Well, me. I'm... Right? I'll always tell it like... Just try and stop him. Yeah. Somebody comes up to me. Exactly. They come up to me on the trade show stand and they went and they go, Altium's overpriced. And I go, yeah, it is. I know.

Chris Gammell: But look. I don't pay for it, so...

Dave Jones: And, you know, why don't you do this? And why don't... And I go, well, you know, something else might be better for you. Yeah. You know, but here's what our product can do.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Kind of thing. And, you know, you've just... Yeah, you've got to be honest and...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And you go, well, yes, the circuit simulator's shit. Yes, I agree. I don't use it myself. You know, you can't go, oh, but the circuit simulator's fantastic when it's not.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, you...

Chris Gammell: You know, I interviewed for a job at a big place like this a while back, too, a couple years ago. And, you know, and I asked that. I was like, well, what if there's other products that are better? Can I talk about those? And they said, no.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Your job is to... Yeah, I know.

Dave Jones: Of course they will.

Chris Gammell: Advance the company. It's like, well, all right, well, then that's disingenuous. At that point, it's like, well, what are you really doing? You know, you're just spinning it positively to try and sell more stuff. You're a marketing drone. That's what you are. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's an upside. You're no longer an engineer. Right. So... And really, they need engineers. You know, you can't have, like, the company secretary going out and, you know, answering tweets. You know, it's... You've got to have... Yeah. Because they're typically engineering... There's no value unless it's technical knowledge. ...technical questions, right? Yeah. Exactly. It's a very specific field. Right. And the last thing you want to do is appear stupid, too. Like, you know, give a stupid technical answer or an attempted...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Or attempted answer to what is a technical question.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And a lot of marketing people won't even realize it's a technical question or how deeply technical it is and how deeply technical the answer that they want.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Whereas an engineer would know that. So, you know...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's... It isn't always obvious. You know, this person asks this question and a marketing person goes, I think I know the answer. But a technical person would know that what they really were asking is this. And... Yeah. You know, this is the answer that they really want, not some bullshit marketing answer.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah. Anyway. I hope we see follow-up on it. I don't know if we will. But I think we'll start seeing more companies do this. I mean, like, I've seen some companies start to do this kind of thing. And it's... I'm sure it's, you know, kind of an idea that's out there floating amongst management conferences and marketing conferences or whatever. And it'll produce some hilarious results, I'm sure, too. You know... I'm sure. Someone will accidentally email, you know, some lists, all of the plans for a new product or something. Right. Yeah, I know. It's found out. And then someone will go steal all those chips, right? You know, and then they'll get caught. Right. And then we get to laugh about it on here.

Dave Jones: Awesome.

Chris Gammell: It works out well. You know your TI, but... Yeah.

Dave Jones: Ultimately, in the end, it's going to come down to just a few passionate people who want to do it anyway. And those people are going to... The thing is, every company is going to have employees who are going to want to do this sort of stuff because they're passionate about it. And, well, they're techies and that's what they want to do. Yeah. They want to be on the forums answering shit. You've just got to let them do it. Right. You've got to trust them to do it. That's it. Yeah. End of story. That's the key. You don't need to train them. You don't need to train up the whole company. No, just give them...

Chris Gammell: Because the whole company is not going to do it. Just give them permission. And then the rest is going to be autonomy is going to be the best piece there. So... And the only thing you should really tell them is, if you don't know an answer, don't make up an answer. You know, tell them you'll get back to them. And then that's like the only thing you need to train people to say otherwise. You know? Let me go find someone that knows this.

Dave Jones: And don't slap them over the wrist if they say something they probably should have. Let it slide. Yeah. You're going to generate more problems by slapping them on the wrist or pulling their post out of a forum or something like that. Yeah. Than you are by just letting it go. Yep. You know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, totally.

Dave Jones: The world's not going to end, really. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: The amp hour's ended, though. It has. So, people should tweet us, leave comments, send us suggestions. They should. Send us... Yep. What did they send us this week? What did they send you? They sent... Did they? I don't know. Whatever. But, yeah. Suggestions, comments, and whatever else. We'll happily take any of it. And we appreciate you listening this week. We do. Next week, I'll be at ESC. I'll be recording from there. Probably from a hotel room.

Dave Jones: So... From the hotel room. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Fantastic. All right. See you next week. Will Jerry join us?

Dave Jones: I don't know. I'll have to ask her. Right. Oh, then we can spread rumor about you and Jerry in a hotel room together. Oh, boy. Hey. All right. That's getting cut out.

Chris Gammell: I'm just kidding. All right, guys. All right. We'll see you next week.

Dave Jones: Have fun next week at ESC, you bastard. All right. I'm not going to be there.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Ah. Anyway. Yep. See you guys.

Speaker ?: Thank you.