#51 – Vafrous Video Vaniloquence

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.

Dave Jones: And this is pretty novel, isn't it, Chris? It is. We are on Google Plus for the very first time, and we are using the Hangout feature. If people don't know about it, it is basically a video. We're trying out video as well, so we apologize in advance.

Dave Jones: So if we're giggling, it's because we're staring at each other via our webcams, and we're trying to video capture it as well. So hopefully this will upload onto YouTube.

Dave Jones: I'm just hoping that I can look at the camera, look at the screen, remember to switch over to you. We're actually doing all the production, switching and everything. So hopefully it doesn't suck too much, but we'll have the audio just for all our regular listeners.

Dave Jones: Yeah, and hopefully we don't get any bleed through on the audio because I'm using my little earbud headphones. Ah, hello. Everyone is waving at the camera. This is stupid. Man, this is so lame.

Dave Jones: We'll have to have some kind of visual at some point here. I mean, why else were you doing this, you know? But we'll see.

Speaker ?: Well, I know.

Dave Jones: I think the whole idea, the golden rule of video and TV and broadcast and everything else is just to pretend the camera's not there. That's the thing you've got to do. So maybe that's what we should do.

Dave Jones: I will do that. I will just ignore the hell out of you. Oh, wait, the camera, not the... Yeah. Not the...

Dave Jones: I think we ignore the hell out of each other anyway and just rant, rant.

Dave Jones: Yeah. All right.

Dave Jones: All right.

Dave Jones: Well, what should we start with? I mean, we have... Do we have any shout-outs? I don't know about this list. We do have a shout-out. Oh, I wanted to start with history, actually. This is a pretty fun week in history, actually. Go for it. This week in history. So this week is actually two things. First off, Tesla was born July 10th back in the 1800s. And so happy birthday, Nikola Tesla. Awesome.

Dave Jones: And all the Tesla fanboys are going to get super excited. All of those energy scammers, they'll get mega excited.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. And so there's a lot of fun. I mean, I saw a couple things on Reddit, and I think Google had like a doodle with it. And there's like a YouTube video and all this other stuff about history and everything. But, you know, just kind of reminding yourself about history all the time. And it's interesting just seeing, man, it was messed up, the stuff between him and Edison, that whole electrocuting elephants.

Dave Jones: And the whole ACDC thing. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. The War of the Currents and everything.

Dave Jones: War of the Currents. Is that what it's called? Is that the official term?

Dave Jones: Well, that is the Wikipedia page, at least. Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: Right. There you go. I haven't heard War of the Currents.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So AC versus DC is War of the Currents. And, yeah. So there's a couple of fun links we'll post up about it. And, man, I'm really nervous now that I'm video. This is stupid. Yeah, I know. So am I. I'm a video blogger.

Dave Jones: I'm a video blogger. And it's just, oh, it's, I don't know. We're trying not to cut back to that too much. I know. I've got to remember. Yeah, we can't pick our nose. We can't do anything. We can't scratch our bum.

Dave Jones: We're on it. Well, we can. Just got to make sure we're not on camera at the time. I can, since I'm in control, I can just, you know, pan over to you and it'll be fine.

Dave Jones: And I'm sorry, but my mic is just far superior. I'm just holding my mic up to the camera now. It's got a spider shock mount. Sorry. Yeah. Far superior. Your analog mic there.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You have to get all these spider mounts.

Dave Jones: They just look totally professional. That's right. And now people can see them. If anybody's listening after this or watching, you know, they'll be so sick of us messing with video and everything. I don't know.

Dave Jones: I will probably upload this to my channel as a test to see if anyone likes actually watching the Amp Hour. Because who knows? Maybe there's people out there who watch and they don't know the Amp Hour exists, really. Well, they don't care. And maybe they will like it now that they're watching it.

Dave Jones: Ask Rant on for an hour. Deal with me too. They'll be like, who's this... Who's this guy with the 70s sideburns?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Show us your sideburns. Why do I always get crap on my sideburns? Why do I always... They're not that bad.

Dave Jones: They're so 70s, dude. I get it cut here. I get it cut like halfway up my ear and then it just kind of creeps down on me. So it's...

Dave Jones: Right.

Dave Jones: Come on. I got to get a haircut now before every Amp Hour. It sucks.

Dave Jones: All right. Yeah, I just got my hair cut the other day. It was really big. Now it's all short. Oh, yeah. This doesn't work on radio. No, it doesn't really. It's only for video. Sorry, all our dedicated radio listeners, which is 99.9% of our audience. It's got to be 100.

Dave Jones: It's all of them, right? Yeah. Boy. So this other... This Day in Nerd History, that's what this segment's called for people that are maybe watching new the first time. We call it This Day in Nerd History. Now we have to go through all the segments again and come up with names and tell people what the names are and everything. But it's actually related to the David Bowie thing. Or to the David Bowie thing. What's the David Bowie thing? I just blew that one. The Nikola Tesla thing.

Dave Jones: I do know that you have a David Bowie fetish.

Dave Jones: The Nikola Tesla thing. So a little bit of history. David Bowie played Nikola Tesla in The Prestige, which is a movie about magicians in this kind of time period. Oh, really? Yeah. So David Bowie played the part. And we have another tie to the show, as in David Bowie's real name is Dave Jones. It is. Which we've talked about before.

Dave Jones: Which you didn't know. And you're a muso. I can't believe it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that was actually back in, I believe our last episode we talked about, David Bowie, was Bowie and the Brown Note.

Dave Jones: Bowie and the Brown Note. Yes. What an episode that was.

Dave Jones: What was in it? No idea. Oh, no. We were just cracking up about the Brown Note. Yeah. That's right. Anyways, there was a NASA Twitter. There's a history thing for NASA Twitter account. And basically, they said five days ago, or sorry, today in 1969, it was five days before the Apollo 11 launch that David Bowie released his Space Oddity song.

Dave Jones: Oh, really? There you go. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Wow. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's that old. That's scary.

Dave Jones: It's getting up there, man.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Jeez.

Dave Jones: And so-

Dave Jones: How old was Bowie when he actually released that? How old is Bowie now?

Dave Jones: He is, I don't know. I don't know.

Dave Jones: The music history part of the channel.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. And we can actually-

Dave Jones: I just got a pop-up. Yes. Chris is now watching a YouTube video. Would I like to switch? Hang on. This is part of this new Google Plus thing. Yeah. Here we go. I'm going to try it. This could be an epic fail. I have to find it first.

Dave Jones: We'll see if this works. This is the video we talked about before. So, it's David Bowie, and this is the song Space Oddity. So, we can at least have people listen.

Dave Jones: I've lost your audio. I can't hear a thing. Oh, there we go.

Dave Jones: So, yeah. Actually, there's a push to talk during videos. Oh, is there? Right. Yeah. So, we can actually watch and record videos and everything.

Dave Jones: Mine's not working at all.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: No, there we go. Google Plus fail. Live on air. It doesn't work. There's a big green button at the top, which says switch to YouTube, and a big button which says nope. And now, I press nope, and it's not even going away.

Dave Jones: I've got to turn this video off. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Sorry about that.

Dave Jones: So, that was a fail there, too, I guess. But we were trying out the video thing. You can actually watch videos concurrently on Google Plus. So, me and Dave, it'll actually sync up the time-wise, and it'll allow you to watch videos together. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's pretty awesome. If it works. Yeah, if it works. I'm sure. I mean, this is only a beta, right? I mean, it's only... Or it's an alpha or something.

Dave Jones: It's beta, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, isn't everything in Google still beta? Don't they claim that everything, even the search engine, is still beta?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, they do. And that's actually interesting. That's part of their culture. I don't know if it's still on the list. We had that on the list for a while, but that actually happened with the power stuff. They canceled the Google Power Meter a while back. That's right. Yeah, the Google Power Meter, yep. And that's kind of annoying. And then, apparently, Microsoft did the same. They ended up canceling their... I think they called it Rome, R-O-H-M, I think.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: So, that was the Microsoft one.

Dave Jones: There's a company called Rome. They make resistors.

Dave Jones: Yes, that's right. I mean, I know the company. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Go figure.

Dave Jones: And they both had this big deal coming out about it. They both said, oh, well, we're doing power metering now and control your smart devices. And then, no one really took it up. And none of the smart meters really came out on time. So, they just said, well, screw it. And they just canceled the whole thing. Because that's the software way of things, right? There's not as much reason to keep it around.

Dave Jones: Yep. But you think a company that size would just keep it going because they could. I mean, that's just crazy. I can't imagine it would be a cost-cutting thing on their part. I mean, how many people would be working on that in a company the size of Google, for example?

Dave Jones: Well, at Google, though, it could be... You know, Google has their 20% time. So, if they had people that were working on it and they were invested in it, and then later they said, oh, well, I want to try a new project, that would actually be... You know, if they said, oh, we don't want to spend 20% time on this anymore, that would just be the end of it, right? Yeah, of course.

Dave Jones: If it's a pet project, yeah. Yeah. And if there's no one left, everyone goes, oh, that's boring now. I want to move on to something cool.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Something new and cool, then, well, so be it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And so, I'm actually looking at it right now. This is actually Microsoft Home. And I found a neat little trick. I can actually drag with Google Chrome right over the top of your face, Dave. Oh, really? While I'm recording this, yeah. So, people that are watching the video can see what I'm talking about. It's called Home, not Rome, which makes a lot more sense. Right. But it's H-O-H-M. So, that's the Microsoft one that got canceled. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yes, that's too bad. And what we're actually trying to do here is we're actually recording video at both ends here. So, we're actually locally screen capturing our video. So, I'm screen capturing Chris, and he's screen capturing me, and hopefully we can put them side by side. Yeah. I'm switching between them a lot, too. Oh, yeah. Well, you're switching. It looks like I can't switch it. Just, well, look, I'll try it now. Here we go. Let me hit me. Yeah. Yeah, there we go. Hello. But I get lag, you see? Whereas Chris has no lag. This is the interesting thing about Google Plus is that there is essentially no lag. The video is awesome. I can see Chris practically in real time, and he can see me in real time. But if I put my video up on the window, then I get lag. So, go figure. That's a good one second, half second, one second lag there.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's almost like what we would need is like a third person just doing like production type stuff. Because then if they would be able to record the two remote people, right? They would record you and me, and that would be synced perfectly. And then their own stuff would be lagged, and they'd be able to switch between things. So, maybe if we ever get to that point.

Dave Jones: And that's how the professional shows work.

Dave Jones: Right, exactly. That's how Twit Network does it and everybody else. But they don't do it from the U.S. to Australia. They do it from, you know, their new place.

Dave Jones: Cleveland to New York or something, you know. Oh, yeah. Well, they all beam it back to Petaluma, I think. Most of their people are local, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, a lot of their stuff is. We are bouncing around a lot, though. So, Google+, let's talk about that just a little bit more. I mean, I don't know what your feelings are about it. And we're not like a tech show.

Dave Jones: It probably comes as no surprise to everyone, but Chris is super excited about Google+. Well, yeah, but I was more excited about this thing. You're excited about a new social media outlet. No, no. Wow.

Dave Jones: What a shock. I'm more excited about... I was most excited when I saw the video thing. That's what I'm most excited about. Because people know I've been complaining on here about getting audio in here and getting more people involved and everything. And that's the hardest part. This is a huge tool for just hooking people up and being able... If we just invite people and record, that's pretty awesome. Yeah. So, that's what I'm excited about.

Dave Jones: But it doesn't solve the audio problem. People still have to record locally. We're still recording our audio locally because the audio actually recorded through here is probably not good enough. Although, it's probably okay, I guess. If we had to have a third person and they didn't have a recording set up, we could actually record their audio coming through.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, that would be... Yeah, we would just... You and me would record locally.

Dave Jones: I would still have to probably have a second machine there to actually just record that. And then we don't record our voices on that same stream and then mix it together later and, oh, it all gets too hard.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So... I mean, Google Plus, it's fun. It's a lot nicer than Facebook, I think.

Dave Jones: Well, that's the whole thing. It's not Facebook. And that's what I love about it.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, that XKCD... That XKCD... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: The XKCD thing. These little earbuds. I'm using my earbuds instead of the big thing and they're hurting the inside of my ear because they've got no little, you know, foam insert-y thing in them. So, I don't know. I'll soldier on. It's all right. I'm a radio professional.

Dave Jones: Okay. All right. And this is the... So, that XKCD is actually about Google Plus. And that was actually one of the first things to come out about Google Plus.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it was... It's very cool. Yeah. We'll have to link that in, actually.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah. So, to jump around... To jump back, I actually want to talk about... Because we were talking about the Apollo launch with the David Bowie song. That was part of the history thing. Yep. So, what did you think about the last shuttle launch? Did you get a chance to watch that?

Dave Jones: I missed it live. I totally... Well, I kind of remembered. And I go, oh, I should check when it's on. And then I actually forgotten it had already gone. But I saw it on the news. And, yeah. It's sad. It was so funny. They actually interviewed people down on the ground there. And they're bawling their eyes out. There was this one woman. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. It's the last shuttle. Typical American... American. Sorry. You know, it's... Yeah. And I was watching the news with the wife. And we're just going, Americans. You know? And we'll just shake it out. That's just what they show you.

Dave Jones: I mean, come on, man.

Dave Jones: I know. But that's the stereotypical image we get. You know?

Dave Jones: They actually have the same clip that they use every single time in Australia. It's always some lady. I can't believe it.

Dave Jones: America. America. America was number one. We were just shaking our heads. It was just funny. Yeah. Yeah. The stuff they choose to show. Yeah. And the other stuff we're seeing here. Another American poke. We... I haven't poked America for a while. I'm poking to the camera here. There we go. Was that... There's this trial on at the moment or something?

Dave Jones: Oh, I don't even want to hear about that. No. I've been avoiding that.

Dave Jones: There's fights. That's all they show here is the...

Dave Jones: I know. I know.

Dave Jones: People fighting to get into this trial. It is so stupid. Just to be a witness in this anyway. And we just shake our heads and go, bloody Americans. Yeah. I would say that too. Yeah. Well, you heard it here first. There you go.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah.

Dave Jones: The thing that bugs me about... I mean, NASA is kind of running into funding stuff now too. So, that's kind of the thing that bugs me about it. And I was kind of trying to figure out what would finally do it to get the US off its butt and get NASA back in gear. And I think I figured it out though. Yeah. What is it? I think if we start a Cold War with China and then China says we're going to the moon...

Dave Jones: Wars work every time.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Exactly. Right? So, if they say we're going to the moon or we're going to Mars, then bring it on, man.

Dave Jones: I thought they already have. Don't China say we're going to be at the moon by 2020 or something? We're going to land a man on the moon? Haven't China already... I'm sure I've read that somewhere.

Dave Jones: You read it on our list actually a couple of weeks back. It was on there. But yeah, they have said it. I think they said robots to the moon or Mars first. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. But I mean, in terms of like dollars that... You know, technology dollars that need to be spent. China is winning. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And that was a dumb ass move by America to cancel that. It's just... At least keep it going until you've got your next program up and running. Because they're still spending money on the... What's the other program called? The new program that they have.

Dave Jones: The Constellation or the...

Dave Jones: Something like that.

Dave Jones: The Heavy Lifter. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Something. Yeah. Yeah. It's got a... And very American type name, you know.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. The Freedom...

Dave Jones: The Freedom America Star Spangled Banner booster. Crazy. Yeah. But yeah, why you would can it and then not have anything else finished yet? It's just...

Dave Jones: That's another thing. Yeah. You know, I was watching a lot of the... Like Neil Tyson DeGrasse. I was watching his Twitter feed as I was watching the feed.

Dave Jones: I don't subscribe to him on Twitter. Is he good? Does he tweet a lot? Oh, he's great, man.

Dave Jones: Oh, man. Especially during Liftoff. And so he'll give like facts and stuff. And so if people are on Twitter, he's a good one to follow.

Dave Jones: Ah. I am actually reading his book at the moment. So...

Dave Jones: Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. It's an awesome, awesome book. He is one of the number one advocates for science in the world. And he's... Every time I see him, I'm just blown away. I mean, like you watch some of his speeches that even... He's just so frank about everything.

Dave Jones: Oh, he's brilliant. And I've seen him live. He was at the Big Bang taping. He was the special guest in that Big Bang thing I went to. So... Oh, nice. Unfortunately, he didn't stick around. So I didn't get to meet him afterwards. So that was... Oh, that would have been cool. That kind of sucked, but...

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So he's just a really good advocate for science for NASA. And he was saying... I think he was the first one to say... You know... The... First... Wow. Sorry, a little distracted. You're live on camera here, Chris. Come on. I know, right? The... He... If you look at the space shuttle program going backwards... You know, we go from nothing to low Earth orbit to finally landing on the moon. If you went backwards in time. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And the point of that is? Well, that we've been going backwards, basically. Oh, right. So we started by landing on the moon. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. I mean, it has been down... You know, it is downhill since we... Since you land a man on the moon, isn't it? I mean... Yeah. It's just... How could it not be? And it's just crazy. Imagine what we could have achieved if we kept up that level of investment and enthusiasm. So... Ah, it's a shame. Don't even get me started. Anyway, we've got a follow-up from last week. Well, I've got a follow-up. You know how we talked about the open source multimeter?

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. That was a good... Yeah, this is a good follow-up. I like this. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Somebody posted a new forum person, just jumped on the forum, and their first post, it was a killer first post, they went, just take a look at my rendering I've done of my own concept for this open source multimeter. It's like a Eurocard format type thing, and he's done it in... He's done all these 3D renderings, and it just looks absolutely brilliant.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's really fun. I really like that it's a pixie chassis, which is a type of modular device, so it's pixie based. That's really cool.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay, so that's an off-the-shelf rubber, like a... That's an off-the-shelf case he's actually using, is it? Yeah, you talk about an off-the-shelf case. I've seen these cases before, but I'm not overly familiar with them. But yeah, it's a standard... Is it actually a Eurocard format plug-in?

Dave Jones: I don't know what Eurocard is. Can you explain that?

Dave Jones: You don't know what Eurocard is? Oh, come on. Sorry. Man, it's only been around for like 30 years or something. It's a standard size board footprint. It's a standard... Oh, cool. It's like 160 millimeters by something. Anyway, yeah, it's a standard... Standard size plug-in rack kind of thing, which people have been using for 30 years. So, yeah, and it's great. And Google SketchUp. He's used Google SketchUp to do this. Now, I tried to use Google SketchUp to do my lab, to try and remodel my lab, and I just sucked at it. I just could not drive the thing properly. I gave it a good go, and I just... I don't know how he's done this. How much effort he's put in. Oh, I do.

Dave Jones: Man, Google SketchUp is easy. It's great.

Dave Jones: You think? Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, I've used it for my workbench when I built my workbench. Yeah, yeah, I saw that. And I've used it... What else? I've actually built similar models before. I actually taught people at my company how to use SketchUp for rapid circuit prototyping and everything. Because if you don't have a mechanical engineer around, and you need to try and show someone what you want, and maybe you want to do all this work before you go bugging a mechanical engineer, then, yeah, you need to show them something. And it doesn't translate.

Dave Jones: Has it actually got plug-ins for circuit boards and stuff? Has it got, like, standard things which, you know, you can... Like, he's got batteries there. He's, like, actually drawing the batteries and the LCD and...

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's all just really simple. It's just, you know, you do a circle. You just draw a circle, and then you extrude it.

Dave Jones: And then you extrude it. Yeah, that's what I've been trying to do. But then when you're trying to do the complexity of this and do those little molded brackets he's done, you know, those little brackets which hold the right-angle panel in place and all that sort of... It just seems like a hell of a lot of work.

Dave Jones: It is a lot of work. I'll give you that.

Dave Jones: Right, okay.

Dave Jones: But it's fun work. I mean, like, I've never been a mechanically inclined person, but it was really fun doing this kind of thing. And so what I do for when I use it, you know, I showed pictures here. I'll drag it across again. You know, he shows it with a green circuit board, and then, you know, he's got the different colored plugs and everything. But then what you can do with Google SketchUp is just overlay a picture. And so what I do is I just grab a generic picture of a PCB, and then it just tiles that across, and so it looks like a PCB.

Dave Jones: And that's how he's done the screen there. He's done the LCD. He's just taken a bitmap image and said, I want it on that surface.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: My voice is going, I want it on that surface, and bingo. Yeah. And I guess once you've done a single button, then you can, like, actually copy and paste those buttons, right? So.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, you know, he's done the front panel plug, so, you know, once you've done one, you can just copy and paste it, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, that's a hell of a lot of work. I don't know how many hours that would have taken him to do that, but it's very impressive anyway.

Dave Jones: Dave, did you mention your video last time? Did you mention your own video about the open source hardware multimedia? Yes, I think I did. Yeah, I think I mentioned it. Okay. I wasn't sure if you had or not.

Dave Jones: Oh, had I actually done it by then? Anyway, yes, I do have an open source multimeter concept.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I'm pretty sure we talked about it last week, but I don't know. It's all a blur.

Dave Jones: I only had some kind of internet medium to check this out. Right.

Dave Jones: And I wanted to talk about, well, you know, how much this has changed the landscape. I mean, as you say, you know, whereas before you needed a full-on mechanical engineer, right, to actually do this sort of stuff, and you had to try and relay your concept to them and things like that. But now, you know, a single engineer can just do the whole show. They can do their own 3D renderings and prototypes. And I would have killed for this 15 years ago. You know, we just weren't, even if you had a full-on mechanical person, 3D wasn't, you know, as big as it is and as easy as it is these days. And it's just, you know, to do like a 3D rendered mock-up of your actual product was almost unheard of, really, outside of, say, aerospace or something like that. You know, outside of Boeing doing a 3D model for their new plane or something.

Dave Jones: Where they actually, like, build the little plane and they put it in a wind tunnel and they have those techs that are, like, brilliant at doing that stuff. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Those tools were so massively high-end and expensive that no company could actually afford them, you know, apart from the big Boeing's and, you know, defense companies and stuff like that. So, really, you had nothing. You had to do just a little hand sketch of your concept. And it was pretty shitty. Yeah. So, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's the worst when you're trying to, that was actually part of this presentation I did on it. I showed the difference between a 3D model that I had. And it was pretty rough, a rough 3D model. But then I compared it to the situation that got me into it in the first place where I was trying to show a connector vendor what I needed. And instead of being able to quickly draw it in 3D, I had to try and sketch it out. So, I scanned those sketches in and they were just, they were unbelievably bad, you know. Yeah, they're pretty crap. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And you can tell the difference between the video I did, which is my hand-drawn DaveCad sketch of my concept, and this fantastic 3D model, you know. It's just, ah, no contest, really. So...

Dave Jones: Yeah, it really is quite nice.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I... And it's just changed the whole landscape, you know. Anyone can, you know, come up with these brilliant concepts and ideas. And once again, you can go on Kickstarter and you can get funding and you can do all sorts of, you know, you can go and get venture capital or anything, you know, with your concept. It's just so easy for any man on the street to do a 3D model. I don't know. Is it putting these 3D experts out of business? If you're a, you know, a 3D, you know, I don't know, 3D artist, if you're into that sort of stuff, I don't know. Or like a mechanical engineer, even. A mechanical engineer. Well, you know, there are differences between... I don't think so. You know, there are specialists who actually specialize in, you know, product renderings like this and things like that.

Dave Jones: I mean, that's like the difference between someone saying, well, oh, Dave, people have, you know, Eagle or DesignSpark. Are you as a professional electronics designer and, you know, former, you know, CAD specialist when you were just doing CAD, like, would that have put you out of business? I don't think so. Because you couldn't handle the volume that was needed, right? The volume of boards.

Dave Jones: I, I, yes. I guess. Okay, but this just opens up avenues to, you know, anyone. Really, it's just absolutely amazing. Because it's apparently so easy to use, even though I'm dumbass at it. But, yeah, it's, it, it just works. It's great.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And so on a similar front, actually, we just saw news this week that CERN, the particle accelerator lab in Switzerland.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Dave Jones: Or, they have, they have released the first official, I guess it's official open source hardware license. So it's a license now versus the, whatever it was before.

Dave Jones: Because there hasn't actually been a real license before, has there? It's people of, it's a concept, it's a definition. Open source had an open source hardware definition, but it didn't actually come with a license. Right. You had to go choose one of the, you know, GPL or something like that.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know. But now, this is actually a specific hardware open license. So why is it, how is it different? I haven't looked into the details. Does any, do you actually know how it's different to the Creative Commons one, for example, which most people use?

Dave Jones: It is different than the Creative Commons. I'm not completely sure. So I'm on the open source hardware mailing list, which anyone can get on. And so I could post a link to that if people are interested. It's not like this is like some kind of secret information. So it's a lot of people that went to that open source hardware convention last year.

Dave Jones: That's on again shortly, isn't it?

Dave Jones: It's coming up. Yeah. Remember I said that's the same weekend as my wedding this year.

Dave Jones: Oh, you're getting married. That's right.

Dave Jones: Right. Right. Yep. So basically on the same list, one of the guys from CERN actually wrote to it today. And he said basically it was all in the same vein as the definition, the open source hardware definition or the open hardware definition. And basically they were just kind of taking that and running with it. And now I think the difference is it's a legal framework now. So now it's like enforceable. They had lawyers look all this over.

Dave Jones: Well, that's the same for the Creative Commons. So what's the actual difference if the Creative Commons, which we've talked about before, where there's commercial, non-commercial, and there's all sorts of – there's about eight different variations of that you can pick and choose. So I'm assuming that there's got to be some sort of extra stuff in there that covers hardware. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Or did they find that the Creative Commons really, when it came down to it, didn't legally support hardware as well as it could have? Maybe. I believe that's it.

Dave Jones: So he wrote – he talked to the legal advisor of CERN, and they needed a good legal framework for their open hardware designs. Right. And basically – I think they were adding other stuff in. I think that's kind of the idea.

Dave Jones: So they have looked into it. CERN have looked into it, and they go, well, the other one's not really legally adequate for us, so we're going to do our own. Okay.

Dave Jones: You know, the thing that's crazy to me is that CERN – I wouldn't have thought of – I mean, CERN is publicly funded, and they do really crazy stuff. But I wouldn't have thought of them as someone who – you know, a company or an entity that would be like, yeah, let's release all their stuff. You know, it feels like it would be very secretive, you know.

Dave Jones: I was very surprised. Yeah, CERN is, you know – yeah, usually they don't actually release anything unless it's actually published, you know, in a peer-reviewed journal, unless you're reading Nature or something like that. Right. You know, I just didn't expect them to – yeah, I was very surprised. I went, CERN? Huh? Yeah. What's going on? Whatever it is.

Dave Jones: I mean, it's good that it's in there, whatever it is, you know. So, oh, boy.

Dave Jones: Excellent. So if you want to release your open-source hardware stuff, you've got an extra license you can use. So, yeah, if you can actually read – if there's any legal experts out there who can read the stuff and actually tell us the exact differences. So, yeah. I don't know. Maybe I'll be using that instead of the Creative Commons for my stuff.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And one of the last things about that, there was actually another debate on that email list about whether – and I think we've talked about it on here before about open-source hardware versus open hardware. And our prognosis was who cares, and I think theirs was who cares. Right. So, all right. Let's just move on and make some stuff, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I like it. Now, another follow-up. Dino.

Dave Jones: Yes.

Dave Jones: Tried to make that USB kill switch I was talking about.

Dave Jones: He did. He did.

Dave Jones: I enjoyed – he actually did a live show where he tried your concept, even though I shot that down in flames last week and said it wouldn't work. Like, he actually went ahead and tried it, and, well, duh, it didn't work.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Told you so. I actually ended up sending a – I found a USB – there was like this webinar, and actually, I think for the first time in history, recorded history, there was a useful webinar. I'm not sure. Oh, no way. No. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, he actually – he wrote to me today saying that he learned more about USB. And, you know, I was reading about it as he was doing some of the hacking there, and he was just kind of trying resistor here, resistor there.

Dave Jones: Yeah, trying to actually – the data lines trying to pull them up and do weird stuff like that.

Dave Jones: I never realized that with USB, there's actually – I mean, there's data plus, data minus. But what I didn't realize is that it's not just differentially sensed, like the data coming in, but it's also – it's different depending on what speed grade you're on. So, if you're at like the lower speed versus the higher speed, it'll be – I think it'll be reversed. And that's actually how it tells you which is which. Oh, really?

Dave Jones: Okay. I didn't know the exact details like that. Right.

Dave Jones: And I knew that some of the – how that's determined, how the – which speed grade it is, is based on like pull-ups and pull-down resistors on different lines. But then that's just like when it first talks to a device, it says, okay, well, what speed grade are you going at? And it says, oh, you've got to pull up on your data plus or whatever it is.

Dave Jones: See, I didn't know it did that. I thought it always defaulted to the lower one, torqued, and then it was a software handshake thing that actually determined the faster bit rate.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I'll have to try and find that. I didn't know it was actually a pull-up.

Dave Jones: So, that's – but once again, I've never been that involved in it to actually know that sort of detail.

Dave Jones: Right. Well, unfortunately, USB is one of those things where you just kind of expect it to work. I mean, it's not really realistic. Exactly. No, that's right.

Dave Jones: You want to – you know, you have a micro that's got USB built in. You hook it up to it and you just – you know, yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, the other thing that usually confounds that too is that like the simplest of USB is always like USB to serial. That's the simplest stuff. But when you get into it, it's always like USB stacks. So, it's basically like Ethernet where it has different priority levels.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Because if you have like 100 different devices on the line –

Dave Jones: It's a complicated software layer. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So, if you have a bunch of different devices, it has to figure out, well, all right, this one has priority. This one – you know, if your webcam and your mouse are plugged into the same port and it's sharing the data lines, then it's got to figure out – Oh, yeah, that's a big deal. If it's plugged into like a USB router or something, right? Or what's that called? A USB port. You were talking about you needed one.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I need a USB – I've run out of USB – because my laptop's only got four, you know, USB ports. And I've got one for my – I'm using one for my external speakers, which you've seen in a blog. I'm now using one for external webcam because I am using my external –

Dave Jones: And Dave can actually show his little – his lab here if he moves his webcam on.

Dave Jones: Oh, I can.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Let's hope we don't kill it. So, there's my notebook. Yeah. And can we get that? There we go. That is recursive. Hey, there's you. And there's the recording window. Yeah.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I'm using that as the recording window. That is weird. Yeah, that's the live audio there being recorded. And there's my speakers, which I'm plugged into there.

Dave Jones: This is like – see, now, this is another thing we could do with Google+. We could have – we could invite people on here, right? Not just guests, but –

Dave Jones: And they can – yeah, and they can show you.

Dave Jones: We could do Workbench of the Week this way. We could switch back to Workbench of the Week. See, that's what I'm saying, man. I mean, it's not bad. Right? So, Google+. The app is now a video show. All right.

Dave Jones: Well, we'll see how it works. Oh, boy. Anyway. Watch out, world. I think people are still going to listen to it rather than watch it. Well, if that's still – hopefully it's still the focus. Anyway, I'll stick it up as an experiment on my channel. And I'm sure we'll get, like, 5,000 people watch it just out of curiosity. But then they'll probably get pissed off. Oh, I don't want to watch this. Yeah. I just want to be audio.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Or maybe they are actually – they're actually playing it, but they're just – I do this all the time at work. Like, I will sit – you know, I will play something on YouTube, but I won't actually watch it. You know, it'll be a lecture or something like that. And I'll just play the audio in the background. And I'm just, you know, wasting all – killing – wasting all that bandwidth. Because I'm just listening to it. Google doesn't really care. I know. But why? Why don't they have a simple option like kill video? I just want to listen to the audio. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: We talked about that before. Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that'd be nice for us too because we wouldn't have to edit the audio at all.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway. Should we start up a new Ampower YouTube channel? Have we got one?

Dave Jones: I think so. Yeah. We'll make one for that. So I'll link it into that. I actually just made an Ampower account just before the show. So, yeah. I'll link it in there. Ampower account. Yeah. I don't know. This hasn't been too awkward yet. I mean, I'm usually a pretty awkward person and now I feel kind of awkward.

Dave Jones: Well, see, you're staring directly at the camera. Whereas I'm not. I'm barely looking at the camera. Now I am. I'm looking at the camera. Right. Right. Right. No, I'm just staring at my screen because you can't have the camera in front of the screen. Right. Well, I guess I could. I could stick it right in front and then sort of if I need to read something that's under it, I can move my head around. But yeah. Maybe I should try that.

Dave Jones: All right. Moving in front.

Dave Jones: There's so much shit on the desk here. Hang on.

Dave Jones: All right. While Dave's doing that, I'll start talking about the next thing I want to talk about. So, this is actually a segment we haven't done in a while. So, we got...

Dave Jones: Oh, this is crap. What the?

Dave Jones: Yeah. So, I found out... Oh, this is not.

Dave Jones: That's just garbage. I'm sorry. I got too much shit on my desk.

Dave Jones: Oh, that's okay. It's just not working at all. So, I found out yesterday... Not yesterday. Two days ago. So, I live in Cleveland. I live in Cleveland, Ohio. I found out Cleveland has a semiconductor company. This is just like the weirdest thing ever. Yeah. And it's just... It's a small company. You know, they do, you know, like sensors. A lot of like photo sensors and stuff like that. But it's funny. I wouldn't think about like a chip company being in a small place. But I guess if you have the right kind of equipment, then that's all that really matters.

Dave Jones: Right. So, they actually have their own fab. They've got their own small... Yeah. Small... Scale.

Dave Jones: Basically a bunch of CBD machines and, you know, some silicon wafers. Right. But yeah, it's pretty cool. It's called ER Semiconductor. And so... Oh, there you go.

Dave Jones: Shout out to ER Semiconductor. Yeah, right? That's awesome.

Dave Jones: We found semiconductor companies before. So, maybe they'll get big and then throw a design contest after this.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Any more thought of any more design contests?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, it's too hard, isn't it?

Dave Jones: No. Oh, for me? Oh, hell. Yeah, yeah. Uh, hell no. Yeah, we're still dealing with that, yeah.

Dave Jones: You're right. Oh, you're still dealing with after effects of that, eh? A little bit here and there. Yeah, here and there. Yeah. Uh, yeah. I told you so. Whatever. Chris, my young pedo and learner, he doesn't listen.

Dave Jones: Just because you're lazy, man. Just because you're lazy.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I am. I'm inherently lazy.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's a wonder I get anything done at all, really. Oh, yeah. I'm just totally surprised. Yeah. Anyway.

Dave Jones: Um, so another thing in the chip, uh, the chip bin, so we have other, you know, we group stories by, by topics. And another thing in the chip bin, there's, I think we've seen a story about this before, but there's a, there's a new company. I found this, this kind of obscure article today. But, but, so India has, has sponsored a chip design before, and I think we've talked about that. But, but there's a new one, actually, from the Philippines now. Now the Philippines is trying to get into it. And so they're developing a new processor, and I forget what they call it, like a, a Rizar, I think that was it. Rizar. Right. R-I-Z-A-L. And so they're trying to just develop a new processor from scratch, and then, and then, you know, actually do the manufacture there in the Philippines. But I think what they're trying to do, basically, it's state-sponsored, and I think they're trying to create a chip industry, because they're kind of a, a next generation, low-cost area.

Dave Jones: Okay, that's pretty cool. But why design your own architecture from scratch? Right. There are so many out there. There's so many open source ones now. Why would you, I don't understand. I, you know, just, just from an educational point of view, maybe. Great. Fine. Go for it. But, I don't know. Does the world need yet another architecture?

Dave Jones: Well, I think it's almost expressly for the purpose of trying to stimulate industry, and trying to create a chip industry in the area.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but you can do that, just taking an existing off, in fact, you can do it a lot quicker, and with less risk, using an existing off-the-shelf open source. Like, design? It's not a source architecture. I mean, why?

Dave Jones: Well, but then you, then you don't need tons of designers that you can give money, and that injects money into your economy.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah.

Dave Jones: So, that's, I think that's the real thing. So, I think, I don't know, I don't think it's going to be a big deal. I mean, and, and, and it's not going to be like a national pride kind of thing either, because, like, I'm sure that, you know, at least on the street, probably one in ten people couldn't tell you where ARM was first started, and I'm sure even in the electronics industry, six out of ten people probably couldn't tell you where it was started.

Dave Jones: Uh-oh. Uh-oh. We have another caller.

Dave Jones: Amp our caller. And now you can't fake it, Dave. You're on camera.

Dave Jones: I can't, I can't do it. It doesn't work anymore on the video. Yeah, sorry, buddy. I can answer it, but maybe it's Randy again. Was it Randy, was it? I don't, I don't think it was Randy. Randy, where was he from Hicksville or something?

Dave Jones: From Oklahoma or something like that.

Dave Jones: Something like that.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Poor Oklahomans.

Dave Jones: Yeah, all of the, uh, this is like the, um, the, uh, Oz, like, behind the curtain kind of thing, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yes, we are the wizards from behind the curtain. Yeah, yeah. So it's just lifted. Totally. Ah, yeah. Ah, well. Yeah. What can you do? Talk about more ships. When you actually work from your studio here, which is your office, you've got a phone in here and well, it rings occasionally. It's never for me. Nobody ever calls me. Oh, well. Yeah. I've got a mobile phone. Never rings. I don't even bother to check it, even if I have a message or something. Right. It's just pointless. I'm so off the grid.

Dave Jones: Right. And if you were consulting back in the day and the phone's ringing, that's a good thing, right? But now it's like, if your email box is full, that's a good thing.

Dave Jones: Because we didn't have bloody mobile phones back then, you know? It was a, we had fax machines and we had real phones and, uh, yep. Jeez, we didn't even have cordless phones back then. It was just all, uh, you know. Back in your day? Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Back in, it was rotary dial, you know? We had a rotary dial phone up until well into the eighties. I'm sure it was well into the eighties. We, we, we had a rotary dial. So. Yeah. I mean, we had it in the nineties, I think. Really? No, we probably got a touch time. Down in the nineties. Well, if you are from Cleveland, Ohio. What the hell does that mean? So, I'm just poking you, bringing you from some backwater, you know?

Dave Jones: Backwatering? Don't even know where Cleveland is on the map, I bet.

Dave Jones: Well, you could be in California where all the action is, you know?

Dave Jones: Well, it could be, but, you know, whatever.

Dave Jones: You're, you know, I think. You're always talking about how few opportunities there are.

Dave Jones: Well, I think, you know, I think the interest. Okay. So, here's an interesting article about that, actually. So, you say California is where the action is. And I would, I would counter with China is where the action is, right? And that's what I think a lot of people counter. Right? But get this. Because now there's a company called, oh, I don't know how to say this. Huawei? Oh, where is it? Gesundheit. Yeah, right? Yeah. Huawei. I'm totally saying that wrong. Anyways, they're a foreign national company. They're a Chinese-based company. And they are, they've got a huge design center now. And they're expanding it continuously in the Silicon Valley. That's their thing. Man, I'm going to focus here. Sorry, my camera. I have to try and get it back in focus.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. I thought it was something to do with the stream. It was your focus. Camera focus. Just not working. Yeah. Fail.

Dave Jones: Yeah, another fail. All right. Yeah, so there's a new, it's not new, though. It's this huge company. They've got people everywhere. But basically, there's so much talent in Silicon Valley that this Chinese company opened a design center in Silicon Valley. And now they're expanding it because that's where they're pulling a lot of their talent from. I mean, even a lot of Chinese talent is ending up in Silicon Valley.

Dave Jones: So here's all these other dumb companies, right, moving to China like Altium thinking that's where the action is. And here's all the smart Chinese companies now moving out of China because there's no talent there, right?

Dave Jones: Right, right.

Dave Jones: Is that what they're doing? Well, you know, there must be a huge reason why a Chinese company like that, you know, would move shop. And I assume they've moved shop, right? They were China-based. They didn't start up in Silicon Valley, right? Is that the thing?

Dave Jones: No, no. I mean, they started in China and basically they've grown through acquisitions and everything else. So now they have a North American arm. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, they're like a contractor company, I think.

Dave Jones: Okay. Yep. And they realize that's where the talent is, right?

Dave Jones: Right. There's that. And they also, I mean, they also, it's because they're growing through acquisition too. I mean, if you're buying RF companies, you're going to want to be where the RF companies are because you need to have more people there. So.

Dave Jones: Yep. Very true. And it's, I think we talked about this the other week. It's like, you know, everyone's moving to China. Companies are moving there thinking, oh, yeah, we'll get cheap, really good talent. You know, there's so many people coming out of the universities there and stuff like that. Yeah, we can pick them all up cheap. Well, A, it's not that cheap. And B, apparently there's a really high, really high turnover, a really high churn rate in these companies for engineers. They just last six months and they bugger off. Yeah. Especially in the big cities like, you know, Shanghai and Hong Kong and places like that. There's just a massive turnover, apparently. So, it doesn't matter how good the talent is. If it's just churning over every six months, you're going to be screwed as a company.

Dave Jones: Right, right.

Dave Jones: And really, you know, it's going to be hard to get consistent quality and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Right.

Dave Jones: Especially when there's a big, steep learning curve. So, say you're a software company like Altium are and they move to China, as we've talked about. Well, if you've got your key programmers actually, you know, churning over every six months, well, good luck to you. It's going to be hard to get consistent code out of it. So, yeah, that's got to be tough. Because, you know, it takes you many, many months to come up to speed on something like that. And, you know, they spend three months coming up to speed. They do three months worth of work and then bugger off. Right. Well, yeah, you're screwed. So, yeah, it's got to be careful.

Dave Jones: So, you were talking about the Time article, right? Is that right, Dave? The Time article that you're referencing? Yes, the Time article. Yes. Yes, that's right. Yeah. So, I've got that up here now. And, you know, part of it, too, is, you know, you read about it and, you know, it's easy to say, like, oh, well, Chinese people are taking our jobs and whatever people say, right? But, at the same time, you know, like, you read these stories and, like, man, they are just, it's, like, heartbreaking to think, like, how little work there is for the world, right? That's kind of what it comes down to. Because they're so happy to have the jobs. People that are losing jobs are so sad to be losing the jobs. And, you know, and it's just, culturally, it's just an amazing difference, you know? I don't have any solution for it, obviously, but, you know.

Dave Jones: Well, that's at the low end. But I think, as I said, like, at the high end, all of these engineers, all these graduates who are coming out and people with experience, they're not batting an eyelid at changing companies, you know, at moving around. They don't seem, you know, oh, I've got a job. I've got to be loyal to the company. And, you know, they just don't seem to care. They will just jump from one company to the other. So I guess there's work out there. Well, there has to be to be able to do that. If you compare that to, say, the Japanese, who they're very loyal, you know, that's part of their culture. You know, you join a company and you're there for life almost sometimes. So they're a very loyal culture. But China, I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that is kind of interesting, the difference between the different, like, white collar, blue collar kind of stuff. Because this article is mostly about kind of manufacturing side of things. And they don't really touch on the white collar kind of stuff.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. I don't know. If you've got a background in China, if you can tell us if we're right or wrong or, you know, what actually happens over there. I'm sure we have some Chinese listeners.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You notice I got that right. I didn't say Chinese viewers. I'm learning. What do you mean? Now we do. Well, because I always mix up viewers and listeners, right? Oh, well, yeah, we might have both now, though. Well, okay, technically I can say either now, right? Because we're now in video. The amp hour has gone video. Yeah, yeah. Crappy 320 by 240 webcam. Yeah. Yeah. Jerky video. I'm just making funny faces to the camera there. Actually, I haven't even looked at the camera. Hello, camera.

Dave Jones: Hello, camera.

Dave Jones: Whereas you seem to be staring directly at the camera. Is that on purpose or are you actually, or is it smack in front of your screen?

Dave Jones: I'm staring at you, man.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm being rude. I haven't looked at you once.

Dave Jones: It's okay.

Dave Jones: It's those sideburns, dude. I just can't. I know, right? I can't look at you. I can't look at you. This 14-year-old kid. I can't. It's just, no.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It doesn't work.

Dave Jones: That's okay.

Dave Jones: So, does your girlfriend tease you about that, your youthful look, or is it just an on-camera thing? Are you that youthful looking in person?

Dave Jones: You know what it is? It's the lights here. I have, like, right up here, you can kind of see how washed out my hand is. I mean, I'm a pretty pale dude to start with, but I have some sick amount of lighting in my house. Right. Okay. And I get the greasy forehead, too, so that helps. Right. Okay. So, yeah. Everything about my setup, basically, makes me look really young. Cool. What are you going to do? I love it. I get carded a lot still when I try and buy beer, so don't worry about that.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Oh, boy. What else we got? We've got 10 minutes left.

Dave Jones: Yeah, we do.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's a bit different. It's a bit muddled today. We're not as focused as we usually are.

Dave Jones: We are all over the place.

Dave Jones: You know, I didn't give a shout-out, basically. Not that we're usually focused. Oh, shout-out? Did we miss a shout-out?

Dave Jones: I missed a shout-out because I wanted to talk about history, but now I should get to it. I want to just give a shout-out to Hams again. So, I was going through old emails, so, like, basically clearing out my inbox, and I got so many emails from Hams when I was talking about that, and I'm still studying, obviously. But, uh... Right. They're just so helpful, you know? And I don't know if people know that our listeners that aren't, like, ham people, but they actually have a thing called Elmers. Have you ever heard of that, Dave? No. Yeah, so that's what they call, like, Elmering is, like, basically mentoring someone. And so, if you're an Elmer to someone... I look really stupid when I say the word Elmer. You're a young... Elmer.

Dave Jones: Right. You're a young Jedi Padawan learner, are you? Is that the... Right, yeah. I mean, that's kind of the idea. The interim for... Oh, okay. Interesting.

Dave Jones: It's really integral to the culture, and so I got so many nice emails about that stuff, and it was... I just wanted to thank all those guys who sent emails, and just give a shout-out to the Hams again, because, as I've said in the past, I mean, annual analog... The rock stars of analog, obviously, but...

Dave Jones: Right.

Dave Jones: Just the helpfulness is nice, too. And for people that are listening or watching, too, if you're interested in getting into it, you know, don't be afraid, because there's so many people out there who are willing to help. It's pretty awesome.

Dave Jones: So... Well, I'd love to know, what is the rate of young people actually taking it up? Because I... You know, I can... I can picture it almost dying out. I don't like to say that, but as people get older and older, and, you know... Oh, yeah. As the people who are... You know, because I think it's mostly older people who are into it. So, I'd love to know what actual percentage of you...

Dave Jones: Well, I actually have an article for you, Dave.

Dave Jones: Oh, there you go. Hey.

Dave Jones: Yeah, there's this article from Brainwagon. Go figure.

Dave Jones: Chris has got an article. Hey.

Dave Jones: Hey, hey. Something different. Yeah. It's from Brainwagon. But basically, the author... Who was Brainwagon? Brainwagon. He went to a conference called Pacificon, and he's talking about Elmer's here, too. And he said he's in his 40s, and he was one of the youngest people there, if that gives any indication. Right. Okay. So...

Dave Jones: Yeah. That... I'm not surprised in the least. Yeah. You would be a young... Yeah. Young... Hipper snapper if you're... Yeah. You're 40. Oh, yeah. What? He was in his 40s? Like, mid-40s or something? And he was...

Dave Jones: Oh, where's the... Yeah. He said he... I suspect I was in the youngest 2% of attendees, and I'm in my late 40s. Yeah. Late 40s. Okay. It's tough, man. It's still not surprising. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, you know, it's interesting. The whole article's about mentors in general, but... And he bolds this part. He says, mentors don't actually create interest in subjects, and that's true. You know, if people aren't going to be interested in ham radio, it's just going to die out. You can't make people want to like stuff, right?

Dave Jones: No, no. Of course.

Dave Jones: At least not directly. At least not as a mentor. You're not going to be like, come on in.

Dave Jones: Indirectly via, it's cool, it's fun in some way, but yeah. No. Right.

Dave Jones: And just like parents, like engineering parents who, like, force their kids into engineering, those kids usually don't make it. But the ones who are like, hey, let's go make some stuff together, that's usually where it ends up working out.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, so take notice, Dave. So when you and you, you know, when your neuro project, you know, ramps up. Right. Yep. Don't force him. Just show him the cool stuff you can do.

Dave Jones: Oh, no. Yeah. If he's lucky. That's what I'm going to be doing. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, no, he can, you know, I don't care what he gets into as long as it's technical. Yeah. No, I don't care. But, you know. Musician.

Dave Jones: One musician coming up.

Dave Jones: Right. Great. Technical musician. Muso. Yeah. Okay. You know, I'm not fussy, but obviously I'd be more excited if he's interested in the stuff that I'm interested in. Hopefully, yeah, I'll show him. But if he doesn't like it, if he thinks it's just uncool, then, well, so be it. You know?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I can hear a dog barking in the background.

Dave Jones: Ah, yes. The lovely noises of my lab. Should I give a showing of my lab real quick?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Move the curtain. If you don't know, if you're watching this on video, that is a curtain behind it. That is not a wall. This is literally the Wizard of Oz curtain. Behind the curtain. There's a wizard behind there.

Dave Jones: A bunch of crap. Look at that. This is the messiest basement ever. There's a reason there's a curtain there.

Dave Jones: And you can tell the difference in the actual light there. Like, you're really lit up, and behind there is so dark and grainy.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And this is the... Holy dooly. I can see drums. Drums, and this is my bench. People have seen my bench before, obviously, but, you know, there's all this junk. I can't really tell what I'm looking at here.

Dave Jones: Oh, you've got dual monitors there, dude.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, that's... Nice. That's my thing. Yep. That's my piano on the bench. So. Yes, the wonders of video. Yay.

Dave Jones: So novel, isn't it? Oh, yeah. You can waste your time to connect. Yeah, that's what I did on the live shows. I just, you know, started putting special effects over the thing, and then the novelty wore off, and it's just stupid. Oh, I know, and people get sick of that stuff, right? And it's just, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Nah. They just want to listen to your rant on. So, come on. Rant. Oh, there's a door. Closing.

Dave Jones: Yep. Oh, never a dull moment in my house.

Dave Jones: No. No, you have your own Foley studio there.

Dave Jones: Yeah, right? Yeah. If only we needed sound effects, right?

Dave Jones: And for those people who don't know, a Foley studio is like a sound studio where they do all the sounds for the movies. Oh, okay. So, if you're actually watching a movie. I know that title.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, you didn't. Yeah. I believe it is. Maybe I got it wrong. But anyway, yeah, a Foley studio is where they do all the after effects for the movies. So, when they're actually shooting a movie, they don't actually record sounds on set, like sounds of people walking or sounds of, you know, things clanging and doors closing. They actually add all that after the fact, usually. So, with all of your big budget ones do anyway, all of your big budget movies. So, almost every sound effect, almost any sound you hear, people's footsteps and stuff like that is added after in a Foley studio. And they just have lots of weird objects. There's a guy who sits there at a thing with, you know, pots and pans and little tiny doors and little squeaky kids' toys and all sorts of stuff just to, you know, just to get all these noises, you know, like the noise for the Star Wars lightsaber or something like that, you know, that was done by a Foley studio guy. They'll spend a whole week, you know, going around. They go out to junkyards and they take their little recorder with them and they try and try and record just the right sound for something. So, anyway. There you go.

Dave Jones: Well, my studio is well equipped with lots of noise, unwanted noises. So, if you ever need anything recorded, just, you know, give me a shout. And, oh, look at that. Even dogs coming downstairs, even though I didn't ask for them. Right.

Dave Jones: And I did get it right. I just searched wiki. And, yes, Foley is used to describe a place such as a Foley stage or Foley studio where the Foley process takes place. Ooh. There you go. A Foley artist. Sound effects. There you go. So, I was right. Yep. That was a bit of useless trivia, wasn't it? Yeah. And we've got one minute left. Yep. What have we got? Anything else on here? I don't know. This is a big fail, this episode, I think. We're too distracted by the video. No, it's not that bad.

Dave Jones: Well, we've been a little distracted by the video, I've got to say. But hopefully we get better at it, you know?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, there's actually... Did we ever talk about the video with William Shatner? With him explaining microchips? So, there's a...

Dave Jones: No, I don't think so. I don't know. I thought we did.

Dave Jones: Really? Yeah, there was a video back in the day. Yeah, it's really weird. It was sponsored by AT&T or Bell Labs. Oh, and mine started, of course. And it was started by AT&T or Bell Labs. And it's basically him explaining it, like just kind of diving down into a microprocessor. Oh, that's right.

Dave Jones: I think maybe it was on the... Yeah, I do recall mention of this. Right. And I assume this is like back in the 70s or something, is it? Or 80s or something like that? Yeah, I think late 70s, early 80s, something like that. Right, okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And basically, there's a site with all these, with a bunch of, not just the Shatner explaining it, but it was also other videos too. So, a lot of other technical type videos, all sponsored by Bell Labs. And basically, you'll never see this kind of thing again, because Bell Labs doesn't exist in that capacity. And there's other people making these kind of videos. But I think this kind of video stuff is now up to hobbyists making fun videos explaining stuff, as opposed to whereas you needed thousands of dollars of production. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: Anyone can do it now. That's the... Anyone can do anything they like these days. You can form your own chip company. You can do your own... You can become a movie star, a video star, film star, radio star. Anything you want to do. You start a podcast, mess it up, move on. All you've got to do is buy a thousand bucks worth of gear and go. You know? You're set.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's amazing. Yeah. The world of the internet.

Dave Jones: And one last fun thing. There was actually this... Shoot. I don't know when I saw it, but there was a prediction of the internet, actually, from the New York Times.

Speaker ?: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Where is this? It was a New York Times article talking about how... Let's see. Study says technology could transform society, apparently. So, I don't know if you guys heard about this. Yeah. And, you know, they're talking about privacy and shopping online and all the other stuff. Oh, okay. Yeah. Cool. It sounds... Yeah, they talk about, you know, home will double as a place of employment. Home-based shopping will, you know, open up the markets. Shift away from conventional workplace. And then... Okay. A new... This is interesting. A new profession of information brokers, they call it, and managers. Basically... Oh. Video bloggers. I don't know. Yeah. Podcasters, I guess, is that...

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, not broke. Well, yeah, we sort of syndicate, you know, when you're talking about... It's like aggregators, right? You create content, then you do...

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I guess, yeah.

Dave Jones: Or when they talk about, like, influencers online, right? So, people that are really influential, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Do they talk about people producing content? I guess that's maybe what they get. Yeah, I think that would be the same thing. Maybe that's what they're talking about. They're actually talking about a content producer.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Perhaps. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

Dave Jones: But then they're also talking about extended family, too. So, like, allowing elderly people to work from home longer in life. And that's another good thing. And I think with the exception of the elderly thing, because that has been more of an amount of jobs that have been available, you know? And the amount of people coming up with technology and, like, being able to use the technology. Aside from that, I think, yeah. Yeah. They've been pretty spot on. So, this was written in 82. 1982. Wow. That's pretty crazy.

Dave Jones: Okay. That was before you were born, isn't it? Yes, this was... You were born in 82, weren't you?

Dave Jones: I was born in 83.

Dave Jones: 83. There you go. Before Chris was born. Before Chris was itching his daddy's pants. There you go. That's the saying, guys. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I like the last line. It says, copies of this report titled Teletext and Videotext in the United States are available if you write to this address. And it's just like, who... You had to write to people to get the articles? Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: You had to actually write a letter. And you have to include a stamped self-addressed envelope. Yeah.

Dave Jones: You have to get it on microfiche or something from the library, right? Yeah, right. You've got to wait a bunch of months.

Dave Jones: Oh, that's brilliant. Oh, man.

Dave Jones: I love it. I bet you miss it, right, Dave? Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: I so miss it.

Dave Jones: All those 28 years ago.

Dave Jones: It had its good and its bad points. Yeah. As I've talked about. Come on, I have one last rant that we've got on here. Or should we talk about next week, the Internet of Things?

Dave Jones: Yeah, let's talk about that next week. That's a big rant. Yeah, all right.

Dave Jones: Because I'm sick of freaking hearing about the Internet of Things.

Dave Jones: That is a big pile of BS.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Okay, we'll talk about that next week. We're five minutes over.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Dave Jones: Thanks for joining us on our big experimental video. Yeah. Video thing. And, yeah, we'll put this video up today and hopefully, I don't know, if it sucks, let us know. If nobody watches, not listens, if nobody watches, well, so be it. We just maybe won't bother because it's just too distracting, really.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I'm sure there'll be some people. What's the threshold? Is there a threshold of people we need to give the thumbs up to it before we keep the concept?

Dave Jones: Two people.

Dave Jones: Two people. You and me.

Dave Jones: No, more than two more. How about that?

Dave Jones: All right. Okay. No, this is our show, damn it. We'll do whatever we want. Okay, yeah. If we like it, just do it. Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's, it's basically our way or the highway, people.

Dave Jones: That's right.

Dave Jones: Take it all in.

Dave Jones: We do appreciate people watching, so.

Dave Jones: We do appreciate the, and we appreciate feedback. We do appreciate the show based on feedback. But generally, we just do it because we want to do it and we do it our way. So. Yep. Yep. That's the way it works.

Dave Jones: All right. Well, we will talk to you guys next week and maybe even see you next week. We will. See ya.

Dave Jones: Bye.