#6 – Open Hardware and The Creative Economy

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

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell from Chris Gammell's Analog Life. How are you doing, Dave?

Dave Jones: How are you doing, Chris? Wow, excellent.

Chris Gammell: All right, we'll get it down someday here.

Dave Jones: We will get it down someday. Yeah, we've had all sorts of microphone problems this morning. I've got some weird thing happening with my mic. The volume control is going up and down on its own. Yeah. I think it's possessed.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah, I don't know what's happening there.

Dave Jones: Yeah, hopefully this one comes out.

Chris Gammell: If only we knew how to fix electronics or something.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. I guess that's software, though. Yeah, we need to learn more penguin geek stuff. At least I do, so, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right, right.

Dave Jones: Right, so what have we got on the cards for today, Chris?

Chris Gammell: Oh, my goodness, we have a ton of stuff. We do, let's go. Let's run through some shout-outs first, huh?

Dave Jones: Oh, well, there's an event coming up. Oh, right, events first. I wanted to mention last week. They're in Sydney, so only people in Sydney, which is pretty rare to announce an event in Sydney. There's an electronics show called Electronics, and it's on for two days, September 8th. You'll be there, right? And I will be there. I'll be the dork walking around with the tripod and the camera, and I'll have a media pass, and yeah, I'll probably film a thing for the blog. All right.

Chris Gammell: Shout-out reward if you snap a picture of a nerd with a tripod.

Dave Jones: If you, yes, absolutely. If you can snap a photo of me in my dorkiness.

Chris Gammell: The Dave sightings.

Dave Jones: If you have a dorkiness, then yes, there you go. Yep, yep, yep. So yeah, I'll be there. I'm not sure which day yet, but yeah, I'll definitely be there. So there you go, Electronics.

Chris Gammell: Maybe we'll get covered in Element 14 again. I saw you were in that.

Dave Jones: Yes, I was in Element 14. That's a new magazine out, which is the Element 14 Journal. It's their second edition, and I've got an article in there on my Fluke 28, how I-

Chris Gammell: Tossed it around.

Dave Jones: Destroyed it, and I tossed it around in a canyon. Yep. And yeah, it's a two-page article with a real dorky photo ahead of me, and a photo of me abseiling down the waterfall.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And yeah, but we can put a link up to it, so you can see it. It's actually a hard copy printed bank, which they send to people. But you would think it's the Element 14 manual, right? But try to go to the Element 14 website and find it. I bet you can't. Right, yeah. Well, I couldn't. Maybe I'm just dumb. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's just their old format, I think. I think they base it basically like, they're like, oh, well, we're printing this, and we'll just make it a PDF. Yeah, that's digital, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, but why? It's not linked on their main Element 14 page. It's beyond me. It's probably in there somewhere, but the Element 14 site's pretty convoluted. It tries to be all things to all people. It sort of meshes a blog with a discussion forum. Right, everyone's got a blog. And user forums. Yeah. And yeah, everyone has a blog, and you don't know whether, and then there's channels, and you don't know. Like, I've posted stuff on there, and I don't know whether to post things in the channel, or in the discussion, or in the road test discussion forum, or whether in my own channel. It's just dumb. Yeah. Anyway, I wish.

Chris Gammell: I've seen that system they've used before, and it's kind of confusing. I think it's like a full package system. And that's why it's developed altogether. So, whatever.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: They'll figure it out when people stop going there.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. I mean, there's some good discussions and stuff going on on there. But if you can find them, that's the main thing, I guess, is that, yeah, they're just next to impossible to find.

Chris Gammell: Yep, yep.

Dave Jones: There you go. Element 14. Look out for it. I'm in there.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Post it up on your walls. You can hang it up. Yes. There's a little copy. Well, you posted another thing about the Mitch Altman talk. I saw that on your blog, too.

Dave Jones: The Mitch Altman talk. Yes. If you don't know Mitch Altman, he's the inventor of the TV Be Gone. And also those glasses, too.

Chris Gammell: Those pulsing light glasses.

Dave Jones: Yeah, the pulsing light glasses and some brainwave reader or something like that as well. And I also posted up a talk from Art of Fruit as well. Oh, yeah. And that's on how to start your own open source hardware business. Nice. And I highly recommend you listen to that podcast. Especially the Mitch Altman one's very interesting. He actually talks about how to do what you love, i.e. how to take a product, your own product, to market and make it your life. Sounds relevant to you. Yeah, well, it does. We'll see. He's a rather weird. He's a rather interesting character because he's so passionate about not watching TV that he wanted to sort of – it wasn't just doing this cool gadget. He wanted to – it's his goal, I think. Don't quote me, but it's like his goal. Well, what come across to me is that it's his goal to stop people watching – wasting their lives watching TV, hence his TV Be Gone product.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I've read about it before. And I think it was like him and a couple friends that kind of were at dinner one night. And he said everybody was kind of looking over at the TV. And it really kind of made him angry. And he wished he could switch it off.

Dave Jones: Made it angry. So he did. He developed this product. And he goes through all the trials and the pitfalls of actually developing a product. And it took him like a year or something. I mean, it's a little 8-pin micro with one button and an LED, right? And an infrared LED. But, yeah, it took him doing the custom case and everything. And I think by the time he actually pushed the button to go into production, he said it cost him about $30,000 or $40,000 or something. It's crazy. And that's – That's not a jump change. I think he was just – no, I think he was very lucky. And there's incredibly – there's much cheaper ways to do that for one-tenth or one-hundredth of the cost of what he did it. So, yeah, don't sort of think that you have to spend that sort of money to bring a product with one button and one LED and one micro to market. Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah, you can start by making one at a time if you can pocket or swallow the one cost instead of many costs.

Dave Jones: Which isn't much these days to do something like that because he designed a fully custom case and everything, you know, and things like that. And he had a lot of help and he talks about patents and as I have in a recent blog as well. Right. And we talked about it here too. Which is very timely.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So, yeah, it's highly – yeah, I highly recommend you listen to it. I've also got a link to the video of it, but it didn't seem to be working yesterday. So, we'll have to post that.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Yeah, that'll definitely be in the blog. So, if you're listening and you have access to a computer or an iPhone or anything, click on through. Click on through. Well, those guys are in –

Dave Jones: I think someone was –

Chris Gammell: Oh, go ahead.

Dave Jones: I think someone was complaining that they couldn't get this – the Amp Hour podcast on their iPhone or something.

Chris Gammell: Ooh.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, if so, let us know.

Dave Jones: No, sorry. No, it wasn't. No, it might have been my blog or something. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Anyway. Oh, it's early there. Sorry, I'm getting confused.

Dave Jones: When you've got two blogs, it's very – Oh, yes. Two things. How can we keep it all separate?

Chris Gammell: There's just so many autographs and that's how it is, right, Dave?

Dave Jones: Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. Yes. When you're a YouTube celebrity.

Chris Gammell: We're big time now with a couple. Well, we love everybody who listens, though. Anyways, on to a place that actually is pretty big. Make Magazine has a new podcast. Not new. I just never knew about it. I was kind of searching out podcasts myself, kind of just looking to see what else is around. And Make has a really great podcast and it's video and a couple cool tutorials.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I've actually – yeah, I've seen it. A lot of the – yeah, because they work full-time on it. They've got full-time employees. Yeah, yeah. I think Colin – sorry, I forget his last name. He's actually a fan of my blog and he actually watches it and we tweet occasionally. Oh, cool. Yeah, he does the videos. Yeah, yeah. He does some – and that other guy, I think his name is Kay. He does a lot of the – a lot of these teardown – like, oh, no, sorry, how to make things from, you know, nothing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I guess that's a make thing. And – but his videos get, you know, hundreds of thousands of views and, yeah, you know, how to make a little, you know, laser death pointer or something like that out of something you got from the supermarket, you know. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I had never seen it before.

Dave Jones: He works full-time on those.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I'd never seen it before. That's pretty cool that they had those, so.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, it's good. Another thing to check out. It's good. It's sort of not really a consistent thing like mine. It's kind of different, you know. It's kind of, oh, they'll have somebody do one and somebody do another and they'll link in other people's videos and stuff like that. So, yeah, it more is – I guess a blog is traditionally either saying something to yourself or submitting other material, you know, showcasing other material you've found and things like that, whereas mine's all, you know, generated by me, so. Right, right. I'm a one-man band, whereas they're a big full-time business now, Make Magazine, so. Yeah, yeah. Good on them. Yeah, they've certainly got the resources to do it, so.

Chris Gammell: Well, speaking of things people have found online, how about our logo? We have a new logo now.

Dave Jones: We do have a new logo.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, it's actually – if you go to theamphour.com slash link here, we have a couple cut-and-paste-able pieces of HTML you can stick in your site. There's big ones and small ones and things that have text on them, so.

Dave Jones: Yeah, and it's basically a – it's basically a Earth globe thing with a microphone going around the globe, and it's got Sydney, Australia, and Cleveland, Ohio there in the U.S., so.

Chris Gammell: It's got everything, yeah, and circuit board in the middle, too.

Dave Jones: Yeah, and also, we'll post photos of our – well, I haven't done it yet. I'll post a photo of my little recording studio, I guess you could call it here. Yes. Which is rather unusual today. I was annoyed by the echo last week because I'm in a tiny little room with square walls and no other furniture apart from the desk, really, so it echoes pretty badly. So, I've put some – I've taken apart the lounge, and I've put some cushions up behind my monitor.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I haven't seen pictures of this yet, but I cannot wait.

Dave Jones: Right. It's going to look like a fort. Oh, not quite. There's only two cushions there. I didn't go overboard. Maybe next time.

Chris Gammell: You can have like a –

Dave Jones: Yeah, I'll add some extra cushions. Fake camp player. So, hopefully, it's not as echoey this time, but –

Chris Gammell: Yeah, sounds good, too.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but if you're thinking about doing your own podcast, just think about that. Echo is a big thing, you know. You really have to go to a fair bit of effort to stop echoes in most rooms. Yeah, yeah. You could put up heavy curtains and, you know, egg cartons on the wall.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I always love like – when I learned about echo, I never really realized what it was. It's just a phase shift. I mean, it makes sense, right? Yeah. But echo is just – or maybe that's reverb. Reverb is just a phase shift? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Echo is actually the sound wave bouncing back, but then you get like the interference and everything and the phase shifting. It's pretty cool. And that's actually how you can do it in software, too.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah. You can do it in software, but it's hard to take out. So, if your recording's got an echo in it, it's not – Yeah, that's true. It's not easy to take out. So, yeah, if you're thinking about doing a podcast, you know, you may have your super – you know, you may have a $1,000 microphone, but it's going to be no good if you're sitting in a crap room. So, yeah, it's all important. But, yeah, I still don't think my mic and my audio here is perfect. But, anyway.

Chris Gammell: Well, any tips, send them over to Dave or me, and we'll try and get them in here.

Dave Jones: More cushions. More cushions. I'll be surrounded with cushions.

Chris Gammell: I'm telling you, you've got to build a fort. You'll be fine. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Okay, next time. I have to take another photo.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, that photo will be up, so. Okay, good. There you go.

Chris Gammell: So, I got an email from Bill Mira. He's the guy that does solder smoke. Like I said before, I was reaching out for other people that had podcasts. Yep. And we had talked to him, where we had talked about the show before, and I was kind of reading through some of his back issues and listening to some of his older podcasts. And he's actually been in Rome for the past couple years because he's a diplomat. And he said he's a... Oh, right. Okay. That's great. I mean, that's crazy. What a great, like, you know, side... Not side job. I guess podcasting is his side job, and talking on the radio is a side job, but... Or building radios, because he's a ham guy. But, yeah. Yeah. He's been in Rome, and now he's on his way back to Washington, he said. So, he's gonna... He's... For all those listeners out there that have been waiting for him, he's on his way back, and he's getting his stuff soon, he said. So, we'll be looking to interface with him a lot, hopefully.

Dave Jones: Excellent. Yeah. Well, I've known about Solder Smoke for years, because I've posted stuff on the forums and various things, and I don't think I've listened to a full one, because it's... Yeah, it is very ham radio, sort of oriented, I think. But, yeah, they put a lot of effort into that. They sort of pioneered the whole thing. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: And from an analog perspective, those guys are just rock stars. I mean, they can take, like, a transistor, a rubber band, and then, like, bounce it off the stratosphere, and be talking to India. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: Oh, it's incredible. I know. Yeah. That's so different to what I do. It's just... Maybe someday, though, you know. I'm just not an RF. Oh, it's... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You know, just like an oscillator, right? And stuff? An antenna?

Dave Jones: Well, basically, yeah. Yeah, RF, you know. Oh, yeah. I'm not an RF guy. That's not my thing. Right. Yeah, the amp power. I think one of them... Don't quote me on this, but I think one of them died a couple of years back.

Chris Gammell: Oh.

Dave Jones: Was tragically killed or something. Oh. Or something happened. Yeah. I do remember that. There was two of them. I started out with two of them. They were just ham radio operators, you know, discussing something. And I think, yeah. Jeez, I hope I didn't get that wrong. Me too. Sorry if I did. But, yeah, I think that's what may have happened, which is pretty tragic. Yeah. But, obviously, they're still going, so... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, they'll be back on the air soon, so that's good. And hopefully we can bounce ideas back and forth with them, you know, podcasting-wise. Yep. Oh, and we're almost through our list of shout-outs. Shout-outs today have been extensive. They're all over the place. Have you seen the... So, Matt Metz, he... I don't know how to say his site, Sibo Mato. I'll link him. But, yeah. But, yeah.

Dave Jones: I've seen the poster you're talking about.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's about, like, resistors and the resistor colors. I didn't realize what the... I never saw the YouTube video, and then I saw it had, like, 12 million views, and I never got...

Dave Jones: Oh, right. I haven't seen the YouTube video. Yeah. You want to send me that one?

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. It's... He links to it on his site. It's like some guy, like, freaking out about a double rainbow. But, you know, like, there's all these catchy memes and blah, blah, blah. And so, he did that with resistor colors, but he's selling that. So, if memes and resistors are your thing, you can jump on that poster real quick.

Dave Jones: Go for it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And is that the end? No, we've got one more. Oh, yeah. One more. Do we? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, Jerry Ellsworth again. Yeah, you've talked about her before, but...

Dave Jones: Yeah, our favorite chick.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I've never realized she had a live podcast just by herself, and I clicked over to that when I was looking the other day, and that's, you know, hopefully the shoutouts will be less next time, because I've hopefully found all the podcasts out there, but, yeah, it was just, like, her working at her workshop. It was really weird.

Dave Jones: Yeah, and they always get about, like, 30 people watching her, you know, fix a pinball machine or something, or just, you know, even if she isn't there, the nerds just chat among themselves, you know? Oh, sorry. Scientists, they're called.

Chris Gammell: Oh, really?

Dave Jones: Yes. I'm a nerd. She has a name for people who watch her program, and they're scientists. Well, I'm a nerd, so I might not be allowed. Right, okay. Yeah. You must become a scientist to, yes, be on the forum there. Hello to everyone on the Jerry Ellsworth forum. They all love playing with my, the Dave voice bot chat. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. You've talked about that. Yeah. Okay. Which I'm going to have to play. I'm going to have to actually get my keyboard. I'm going to have to program it up, and I'm going to have to play some of my sounds. That's good. Hopefully we'll see. I'll probably have to do it on video, though. Yeah. Well, that works, too. It's hilarious. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So, the one last, what else have we got? One last event.

Dave Jones: We've got open source hardware. Oh, yes. Have you heard about that? Open source hardware conference. I've heard about the, I haven't heard about the conference, but I've heard about their, their, their, their, their coming up with this new open source. Like a draft, right? Like a draft, yeah. Yeah. Of what actually open source hardware is. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think that's, there's actually a copy of the draft on the website. If you, we'll, we'll link that too. But, uh, I think Phil Terone, uh, he started it and there's a couple other edits and stuff. And, and this is kind of like, you look at the list and it's like, whoa, these people are, that's like all the comp, that's like everybody. So it's like 40 bucks to get in.

Dave Jones: It's pretty much the who, yeah, it's pretty much the who's who of the, uh, open source hardware industry. Yeah. Industry, you know, all, all these $10 million companies are, you know, all their owners are all going to be there. Um, but I've got to, I've got to have a little rant here. Um, I don't, uh, yeah, I'm sorry, but I don't necessarily agree with their definition of open source hardware. Oh, um, yeah, here we go. Because, um, they're saying that it must be under the creative commons, which is great. Okay. But it must be under the, it must not be the non-commercial version. It must only be the attribute only. That means that you, um, can't apparently call your product open hardware, according to them, at least if you, if you, uh, use the non-commercial, um, attribute of the license, which means that basically everyone's, you know, you're giving all your information for free. Right. It's open. Um, that's my complaint is that you're opening your hardware. It's completely open. Same as all the other licenses, but you don't allow anyone else to make money from it, which I think is quite reasonable. Um, you know, I don't, you know, you're still making all the info open.

Chris Gammell: So can you give an example of how that would work? I mean, so you're saying right now, give the old way and the way that you don't like.

Dave Jones: Okay. The standard way is the attribution only. Okay. Um, we, yeah, as I've, I've mentioned this on my blog, there's, there's six different types of the, uh, license and the standard one is the attribution only. So you put your information out there, make it open. Everyone's free to copy it, make money from it, do whatever they want. Um, all they have to do is give you credit for it. Okay. That's it. Um, but, um, there is also a, oh, there's also a non derivative version. Okay. So no one's allowed to make a derivative product.

Chris Gammell: So if you make, if you make a widget, they can't make widget 2.0. Right. Exactly.

Dave Jones: Um, but that one is allowed under there. So they're the two that are allowed under their open source definition. Okay. Um, open source hardware definition. But there's a third option, which is to actually, um, have a non commercial thing applied to it, which means the information's exactly the same. It's open, but, uh, you are not, but nobody is allowed, nobody, but you, the copyright holder is allowed to make money from it. Okay.

Chris Gammell: So then it's like widget, widget internal information is out there. You know how the guts of it work, but you can't, you can't produce your own.

Dave Jones: So you can, but you're not allowed to make a sale.

Chris Gammell: Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: That's the only thing. Just like, um, let's say the, um, Arduino, right? That is under the standard, um, attribution only. Um, so you're allowed to make money.

Chris Gammell: You can take, you can start selling 20 different or different kit companies, right?

Dave Jones: 20 different kit companies with Arduinos. And that's great to fuel that industry. But if it's just, I think if it's just one, your, if it's just your one little product, you know, you've got a product for a niche market or something like that. I think it's, it's reasonable that some people might want to actually have the non commercial aspect to it so that, you know, somebody doesn't come along and, you know, and actually sell the same product and undercut you on price and push you out of the market. So I, yeah, I don't really agree.

Chris Gammell: I didn't realize what side you were coming down on, but now I get it from that. So now it's like, now it's almost like the kit makers are getting to the size where they're trying to, uh, open it all up that their, their volumes are making it worthwhile for them to, to say these things.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Like if I have a new, uh, open source product and I, and I release it under their open source definition, which does not open hardware, sorry. Um, that doesn't include the non commercial license. Then Art of Fruit or Spark fund are free to go, Oh, we love that kit. We'll make it ourselves.

Chris Gammell: Instead of paying any licensing or anything like that.

Dave Jones: Exactly. And how am I supposed to compete with them? Um, the only way I can protect it is to, um, or, or you, if you're making your open hardware product is to trademark the name and then they're not allowed to use the name, but they can copy your PCB. They can copy everything. Right, right, right. But you know, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's kind of interesting because you, uh, I mean, you come down on the side of not liking patents, but that's almost like halfway to a patent. You know what I mean? It's, it's not exactly a patent, but it sort of is.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, it won't. No. Well, I don't agree because you're still giving, well, you are kind of, you're opening it up.

Chris Gammell: But I mean, you do that, the patent too, you say, okay, well, here's all my information. Then the patent office says, okay, here's your patent and no one else can make that, which isn't really true. So I understand what you're saying.

Dave Jones: Well, the, yeah, but, but the patent, you don't actually give away all of your actual, uh, files to manufacture it, you know, whereas an open source, you'll give it away your PCB file, your schematic, your bill of materials, your whole, you know, your whole enchilada.

Chris Gammell: So, well, maybe there's more to it that we don't know about it though. Like maybe there's a reason for all that. Maybe there is. Yes. Well, I'll tell you.

Dave Jones: I'm sure there is a reason.

Chris Gammell: So there is a chance I might be going to it.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. There you go. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So I'd, uh, I'd probably try and get some, uh, some sound clips while I'm out there. And, uh, I'm actually going out for something else in, in Boston, but, uh, hopefully I'll be there around that time. So. Excellent. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, there you go. Yeah. Fantastic.

Chris Gammell: So if anyone else is going, let me know too. Uh, I don't know who's, who's listening and, and might be going, but if you are, please shoot me an email or leave a message on the blog. So, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But yeah, that'd be great. So I'm not necessarily against their definition. I just want to know their reasoning behind it. Cause I think there's, yeah, I just, yeah, you're right. That immediately pushes it.

Chris Gammell: I just don't get it. That pushes it towards a, uh, you know, a big fishy little fish kind of, uh, situation again.

Dave Jones: It does because art of fruit or, or spark fun could come out and manufacture your kit and put you out of business overnight. It's like a micro scale.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's like a micro economy.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, it doesn't really protect the little guy. And I'm, and I'm all for protection. Sorry.

Chris Gammell: I said the surfs are beginning to riot.

Dave Jones: That's it. Yeah. But yeah. Anyway. So I'd love to know the reasoning behind that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Hopefully we'll hear that.

Dave Jones: I'm sure it's very philosophical. Yeah. Argument, you know, that, Oh, it should be because it worked for the Arduino and all that sort of stuff. Right. Yep. And yeah, but I don't, you know, it's, there's no one blanket rule for all things. That's why the creative comments licenses has, has six different options in it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Um, it allows you to pick and choose which one. So I think as long as you use the creative comments license, heck it should be open. But anyway, I'm going to make a prediction real quick.

Chris Gammell: I think we're going to have a good bit of fun talking in, you know, a year or two from now when these kit makers start eating each other, either, uh, they get into brawls because it, you know, you see this coming with any company or they're going to start buying each other. So keep an eye out here.

Dave Jones: That could happen. You heard it here first. Critical mass. Yeah. I mean, you know, some of these companies are big. They're like 10, 10 million dollars. You know, Spark fund is a 10 million dollar plus company, I think. So yeah. Once they get taken out, bought out by someone, you know, heck I don't like, you know, if the founder of Spark fund, you know, sold out, I, I certainly wouldn't blame him to build up a company. And once you sell out, that's, you know, you lose your core values and things like that. Right.

Chris Gammell: Or you're, or we're going to see like bigger vendors like the Farnells or the, the Digikeys going and buying them because then they have a part source automatically too. And they just get all the customers.

Dave Jones: Well, that's the thing. Farnells and Digikey are getting into this business. Farnell have a new Arduino compatible board.

Chris Gammell: Oh.

Dave Jones: I can't remember the name of it. It's called the... I'll have to check that out. Yeah. It's, it's not called Arduino because it's, I think that's...

Chris Gammell: Oh, just the pinouts are. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's just, yeah. The board is exactly the same. It's their compatible. So they've taken it because it's, it's, you know, there's no license that says you can't manufacture your own.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And yeah, so far it's in the latest Farnell, uh, catalog, the monthly flyer thing. Okay. So I'm sure I can post a link to that. Yeah. If you see a link, definitely post that. Every man is doggers copying the Arduino. So who do you buy it from? Which one do you buy? You know, they're all, they're all going to fight each other on price. So I think you might be... And then China will jump in too. In some... Yeah. Well, exactly. Yep. Someone from... But then you can't stop China. It doesn't matter which license you use. Nope. It's all over. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, speaking of, that's a good segue. I've actually, uh, I talked to a friend who lives in China and I am thinking about trying to learn Mandarin for business and fun and profit, I guess.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: I mean, like, how, how is that not a good idea? Right. I mean, I don't, I tried it once before.

Dave Jones: Well, exactly. We've at, uh, work, we, in our hardware group, we've got a guy who speaks Mandarin and, um, yeah, that's pretty much essential. Yeah. Really. You know, when you're buying parts from all these Asian online dealers and, you know, he sits there in the chat window and, you know, always Skype and talks to them in, you know, it talks to them in Mandarin. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. So, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, yeah, it's just like, it's just a reality of, I mean, we're kind of switching away from the microcosm of, of hobbyist market to the macrocosm of electronics industry, but it's, it's, it's going to happen. I mean, like, and, and, and then you see these are, I have this other article here about, you know, people wondering, uh, you know, Samsung, there's all these articles about how Samsung's meant to outpace Intel in 2014. It's like, well, of course, of course they are. You think, you think you're going to keep buying stuff from Asian suppliers over and over again. And then you're going to be like, Oh, I don't know how this happened. Oh, what happened to us here? You know, like, so yeah.

Dave Jones: And well, let's, let's, let's talk about that Samsung Intel thing. Shall we?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Dave Jones: I mean, there's, well, if you, if you haven't seen it, we'll post a link once again. We're, we're fond of posting links here on, uh, on the Amp Hour and, um, yeah, basically there's a new, the Amp Hour.com there. Uh, there's, um, yeah, there's this, uh, graph and there's some conference thing. Some guy proposed that, um, Samsung within, I think what, 2014, 2015. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: 2014.

Dave Jones: Will, will surpass, um, Intel in sales and they've got this graph and you can see how they actually converge. And, um, it's, it's obvious that, yeah, it's happening based on the, based on the, you know, the, uh, the, uh, sales data of the two companies and things like that. And you can see, I like the, uh, difference. Yeah. 27%. Oh, it, it, yeah. It started out being as high as 400%, um, difference in the sales of the two companies. Now it's 27% and it's going consistently going down.

Chris Gammell: So yeah, they're good at making stuff.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. Cause yeah. Samsung make a lot of, you know, DRAMs and flash memories and things like that.

Chris Gammell: So they're getting into the market. I mean, they make the iPhone, uh, chip right now, I believe too. The, uh, a four arm processor. Yep. The iPhone.

Dave Jones: The A4 one. I think they might. Yeah. Yeah. So they make pretty much, yeah, anything you can think of there, they're probably involved in it. So. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And they get the pricing power too with like, uh, you know, when you think about the people that actually make the equipment that makes chips, then I mean, why wouldn't you want to sell to Samsung? I mean, they're like, they're monstrous. So. Exactly. And the crazy.

Dave Jones: So you might think they, you know, the average consumer, you know, you might think, oh, they just make, you know, TVs or something like that. No, they're huge in the semiconductor business.

Chris Gammell: So the really crazy thing is they make everything over there. They make, there's toilets, there's Samsung cars.

Dave Jones: Oh, really?

Chris Gammell: They are one third of the South Korean GDP.

Dave Jones: Wow. Yeah. That's, that's unbelievable. That is. It is. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, they're just conglomerate. They're like one, they're like one of the biggest conglomerates in the world. So. Yeah. Don't think you're going to mess with them. Uh, you know, you think Intel's big and they are big. Don't get me wrong. Intel's not going away. The much to AMD's chagrin, even though they released that new product or the new chip line, uh, Intel's not going away, but Samsung's getting bigger and, and there's a lot of other companies from China on their tail. I guarantee you that. So.

Dave Jones: Uh, and all the more reason for the U S to protect South, uh, South Korea. Then I guess, there you go. I suppose.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I don't really have any opinion on that.

Dave Jones: Oh, I've got an opinion on everything, but we won't go there.

Chris Gammell: Oh, right, right, right. Well, well, I mean, there's, uh, one thing that, that we're definitely not protecting and that's, that's of course jobs. Uh, so that's another article I have here is, uh, just about, you know, there's a, it's a EDN article actually about, uh, from the now hear this blog, but just how there's a repeated ignoring of technology request, like requests that for funding about technology and STEM programs and everything. It's just, you know, one day, you know, they, they did this with, you know, there's a lot of, uh, shock and outrage that, oh my God, Samsung's going to be bigger than Intel. Well, it, there's, there's a lot more that's going to happen than that. Uh, so if, if you happen to be a politician and you're listening to this, I guarantee you're not, but if you happen to be wake up and smell the coffee people, if you don't start, you should have started funding things 10 years ago. Uh, it's already too late.

Dave Jones: So 20 actually 20 probably. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You should have started when China opened up to, to capitalism and, and it's a little too late, but you know, there's still time. You can still get some, some, some niche industries. I got, I got cussed out for not saying niche right yesterday. I always say niche, but, uh, that's all right. Yeah. But I mean, there's, there's still time, but they're, they're not doing very well right now.

Dave Jones: Um, well, I think, I think the U S government has always, a U S industry has always thought, well, we're too big to fail. I mean, I think that's probably the old, you know, the old fashioned, yeah, we're too big to fail. Nobody's ever going to come up and beat us. And that was, that's been true for 20 years, but, um, that's clearly not the case anymore and they're going to get bitten.

Chris Gammell: So, oh, it's even worse than that. I just saw this other article I linked here. So there's another article about TSMC now coming to, they're in, they're in Boston. They're, they're recruiting there. So now they're coming back. So all these, all these students, these young students from Taiwan, mainland China, uh, you know, South Korea, they all come over to the U S they do that. You know, they have spectacular grades. They're great students. They, they get into MIT and Harvard and all these awesome schools. And now TSMC is coming back and recruiting them right back over to, to, uh, Taiwan. And it's like, of course they're going to do that. Why wouldn't they? They got the, I mean, and, and believe me, that's not going to last very long because the schools in, in China are getting so much better that they don't need to, but they're coming over here. And now the, because of the, uh, you know, the, the H1B, I don't even want to get into that stuff, but the visa policies and everything like that, it's just easier for them to come over here and recruit all these kids back who are brilliant. And it's like, Oh, exactly. Really? Uh, what? Double whammy.

Dave Jones: Double whammy. Yeah. Oh, losing the people, you know, people taking the places in the universities that could be training, you know, could be training Americans. No, that's the thing though.

Chris Gammell: I mean, like these, I mean the, the people that are the, the, the kids that are coming over here and they, they deserve to be here. They're, they're brilliant kids, you know, they're doing, they're doing the research that needs to be done. And yet there's just not anything here for them to stick around. So see you later. They're recruiting a thousand kids this year. So if you speak Chinese, you're in a good place right now. If you, if you do technology and you speak Chinese, you might not make as much in the U S but you're not gonna be paying as much to live over there either.

Dave Jones: So absolutely.

Chris Gammell: That's another, that's another one where Chris got worked up.

Dave Jones: Oh boy. Oh, he's going internally berserk again. Oh yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, I'll spend all my nervous or my energy, hopefully learning Mandarin. Uh, but if you never thought of it, you know, start thinking about it.

Dave Jones: Yes. Oh yeah. I don't think I'll go there. I suck at foreign languages. I really do. There's no way I'm going to be able to learn it. But, um, yeah.

Chris Gammell: David, you tried, you tried English. That sounds like a foreign language to you.

Dave Jones: English. Oh, well, yes.

Chris Gammell: Apparently I don't speak Aussie.

Dave Jones: No, you don't speak Australian or, uh, strine as it's called here. Really? Strine. Oh, nice. Okay. Never heard about that one. Strine. Strine. Because we slur our words together. So Australian becomes strine. Nice. Strine. Oh, nice. Yeah. So, and it's interesting. The further towards the center of Australia you get, the more slurring the words, the faster, the faster they talk and the more the words get slurred together. So. Wow. Do you have, do you have an impression for us? I guess it's the same in the US when you go, oh no, I know. Oh, okay. No.

Chris Gammell: Okay. No. Okay. Yeah. It gets down. No, I think I'll get lynched. As you get, as you get south, it gets kind of drawly.

Dave Jones: The southern. Yeah. The southern. Hey y'all, I'm from Texas. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: I used to live in Texas. How you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Howdy. All right. Nice little tangent there.

Dave Jones: Yes. Well, uh, that brings up, um, the jobs market and things like that. That brings up an interesting, um, I think we had that as one of our discussion points here is that how the, you know, jobs are declining and how graduates are supposed to be like, what is it? One in 70.

Chris Gammell: That was in the UK. Yeah. Yeah. There was.

Dave Jones: That was in the UK. Was it? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right.

Dave Jones: Well, that's, that's, that's crazy. It's nothing like that here. I mean, it's, I don't know where they're getting that. Yeah. I don't know where they're getting their general figures from, but I'm sure it's nothing like that in the US either.

Chris Gammell: Well, I don't even know, but I think a lot of that could have been inflated too. Cause when you have, I mean, in the US at least it's 10% unemployment. So you got to figure it for every job, people are throwing a resume at it regardless of if it, it fits or not. So a lot of that is actually noise, I think. So maybe.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I think it is. 30. Yeah. There's, I don't know. Yeah. There's not much signal to noise ratio there. Right. Right. Yeah. So, yeah. And well, interestingly, um, what I want to talk about today is I got a new Amazon Kindle.

Chris Gammell: Oh, really?

Dave Jones: The brand, yeah. The brand new Amazon Kindle three, and I'm going to have to do a review of it, but I am absolutely gobsmacked. But before I talk about that, um, which wasn't on the list here, sorry, I've thrown this in as an aside. That's okay. Don't want to throw you there, Chris. Off the cuff, Dave. Off the cuff. Yeah. Off the cuff. That's it. Uh, we do have a list of stuff we might talk about in the podcast, but yeah, that's, there's certainly no script and no, uh, no logical order. That's for sure. So here we go. I've thrown in from left field, the Amazon Kindle, which I think is a game changer. Um, but let, before I get, um, I, my original reason to bring it up was jobs because, um, the Amazon Kindle is designed. Yeah. Designed by a company called lab one 26. It's lab one 26.com. Okay. And they're, um, a company, they're an R and D, you know, uh, company. Yeah. Like E-ink and everything, right? The E-ink display. Well, they use the E-ink display. They don't do the E-ink display. Oh, okay. That's separate. Um, but they, they, they, they just manufactured the Amazon Kindle. They actually designed it. I, I, I'm sure they write the software as well, but they designed the hardware and write the software and, um, they do the whole kit and caboodle. And if you go to their website and you look at the careers button list of jobs, they have, I, there's a, there's gotta be 50 or more of them. I'm, I'm not even going to count them. It's ridiculous. Firmware engineers, lead performance engineers, software development engineers, uh, quality, uh, there's, you know, there's a few managers, but most of them hardware engineers, systems engineers. There's, uh, there's a university recruiter position. So not only are they looking for graduates, they're looking for a full-time university recruiter.

Chris Gammell: Wow. I guess they need some people. And you see, I just spotted one audio system engineer. That means that I guess they're bringing sound to it soon. Huh?

Dave Jones: Well, yes. The Kindle does sound. It plays. It does. It's brilliant. Yes. It's got lovely speakers on it. I tell you, I'm going to have to do it. I looked, there's not many reviews on the Kindle three. Oh, it's amazing. So I'm going to have to do one. Yeah. Probably do a teardown as well, but my wife might kill me. If I take it apart, but so I'll probably do a separate review and a teardown. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Maybe once you get the Kindle four, you can do a teardown.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Or another three. Oh, this is amazing. I, I mean, you know, I've heard about this e-ink, um, e-ink screen, which they use, you know, but I've never actually seen one. And this is the latest generation. And I'm telling, I'm telling you, I am absolutely gobsmacked. And I've been looking at, um, the, you know, the LCD technology progress for the last 30 years. And this is a game changer.

Chris Gammell: I, uh, really? You think? I, meh.

Dave Jones: It is, it is that, I mean, it's not going to, it's not going to, you know, it's not going to surpass LCD, but it enables niche applications like this. And it's in, in that respect, it's a game changer. So it enables, this thing has got a one month battery life. I know that.

Chris Gammell: Okay. That, that is spectacular.

Dave Jones: That is insane. That, that is what sold me on this. Um, and even if you turn on the wifi, it's got wifi and, um, and, uh, mobile phone GSM reception. It's like three weeks, even with that display and, and you open the box. Okay. You open the box and they're on the screen. Welcome. You know, it's already. Just like shipping like that. And exactly. It ships like that because it's not actually switched on because the image retains its, um, you know, it actually retains the image even with the power off. Um, so yeah, they, they actually ship it and you get it out of the box and there, and you think it's one of those peel off, you know, one of those plastic things. But it's not, it's the, it's the real screen. And I, you know, this is a radio show. I can't show you, but if you haven't looked at the new generation, um, Kindle three, have a look at the screen. It is, it is gobsmacking. Yeah. Do you know how that works? There you go. Have you ever, um, it's, I did look into it once. Don't quote me on this, but I think it's carbon particles or something. There's no particles. They're suspended in some fluid or something like that. Uh, and when you polarize it one direction, they float to the surface and then the light gets reflected off the black particles. So you see that as a black dot and I think they actually, the other way it sinks.

Chris Gammell: Oh, okay. I thought some of them, uh, I thought, I thought they rotated, but that makes sense too. I thought they had rotated. Oh, well, yeah. I'm not sure of the exact. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I haven't actually looked at the exact thing.

Chris Gammell: So that's what's cool.

Dave Jones: I mean, it's really cool, but it's very cool. It's completely different to LCD technology. And I'm telling you, you cannot see the pixels on here. Yeah. It's just, it is insanely good. And it looks like a real sheet of paper and it has a true, uh, 180 degree, um, spherical, uh, angle. Yeah. You can view it. It's just, yeah. Yeah. It is nothing like, it looks like a real bit of paper. It's just absolutely incredible. Anyway, I am absolutely gobsmacked and I'm still trying to figure out all the features of this thing, but that's pretty cool. It is cool. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I know they, they started putting textbooks on. I know some of the people at my alma mater, they actually started using that for textbooks.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's great. I mean, I've only got the smaller, um, the small screen version. I've got the art of electronics on here as a PDF document, but because it's formatted as like a large size book, it doesn't fit on the screen very well. You can still read it, but it's very small font. So you can zoom in and stuff like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's not as convenient. So if you are going to, if you do want one of these Kindles to view, um, you know, data sheets, PDFs and, uh, books that aren't formatted for the six inch screen, then by all means get the nine inch version.

Chris Gammell: So if people play the amp hour on that thing, then they do, can you do podcasts through that?

Dave Jones: Um, well it can play MP3s. Um, but it's got a really, it's, it sounds really good, but, um, there's no actual media player in it. So all you can do is turn it on. Actually I'll turn it on now. Here we go.

Chris Gammell: Man, Dave does love this thing. Doesn't he?

Dave Jones: Oh, hang on. Hang on. I've got to switch it on first. There we go. That helps. It's see, it's confusing because it had an image on the screen. It was switched off. So I thought it was actually on.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I press alt space bar and there you go. Weird Al Yankovic.

Chris Gammell: Weird Al. Hang on.

Dave Jones: Uh, I've got the complete collective works of.

Chris Gammell: Wow. All right. Well, there we go. Not too much, Dave. We don't want to get caught for copy. Yeah.

Dave Jones: We don't want to get caught for copy.

Chris Gammell: We can't afford it. We can't afford it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So my Kindle has the complete collective works of Weird Al Yankovic on it.

Chris Gammell: Nice. Very nice. I'm sure he'll, he'll love the shout out. I'm sure he's listening too.

Dave Jones: Yes. Love you, Weird Al. Oh yeah. One of my favorites. Oh yeah. It's brilliant.

Chris Gammell: Classic. I always loved the, uh, you ever see the movie UHF?

Dave Jones: Uh, I, I haven't seen that in 20 years or something. So good. I have it on DVD. Yeah. I love it. Oh, right. Oh, that's that, that reminds me. I'll have to download, I'll have to get it again and watch it. So, yeah. There you go. All right. That's the Amazon Kindle anyway.

Chris Gammell: All right. Yeah. That's the, uh, that's the gadget review of the year for, for The Amp Hour.

Dave Jones: The gadget review of the year. Yeah. Cause we're, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Radio doesn't, uh, let's talk geek guys or the, uh, the Leo Laports of the world.

Dave Jones: Yes. Radio doesn't lend itself to product reviews. I'm afraid. So. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's still pretty cool though. I'll have to, I'll have to check that out.

Dave Jones: Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm stoked. So, you know, I don't get excited about products like that too often. What else have we got?

Chris Gammell: Uh, let's see. Well, uh, so I, I've been kind of getting into like the creativity side of things lately, uh, kind of reading about that. And I saw a really interesting article today about the creative economy. You've ever heard about that?

Dave Jones: Um, uh, yeah, I've heard snippets about this and I've, I've, uh, seen the link you sent through and well, tell us about it.

Chris Gammell: Well, basically it's that, you know, from now on, I mean, you think about what, what do we even talked about on here today about the event that we were talking about the kit manufacturers and how, when China gets their hands on it, it's all over. Right. And it, I mean, basically it's true. I mean, manufacturing is a commodity, uh, electronics are a commodity. And now they're saying that even knowledge is a commodity where the, to the point that, uh, you know, I, we talked about that too. You know, the students are getting so good. There's so many students worldwide that have learned so much that, so you think about the availability of information today. So take the art of electronics, maybe if that book was around 40 years ago, due to the availability of books and, you know, cultures and everything else, only a small percentage of the world have access to that book. But now today in 2010, it's all out there. It's in 30 different languages. It's easily, you know, people can rip that off the internet easily, just as easily as they can get it, you know, from a bookstore. And now, so that information is everywhere. So now knowledge is the new commodity basically.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, I, yeah, knowledge is, but it requires more than knowledge. I think, I think talent is the real economy. Um, because you know, you've got millions of engineering graduates, right? Spewing out of the universities all over the world, but are they talented? You know, are they, you know, yeah, they've got their basic education, but that doesn't mean that they're actually good at actually doing anything. Right.

Chris Gammell: Um, that makes me question if I'm good though, too, you know, am I talented? I don't, I don't know. We'll see.

Dave Jones: It's, um, well, because that's been my experience. Um, in, in general, you know, I don't know what the percentage is, but probably we're pushing over 90% of the people I meet who graduate engineering degrees just don't have a clue and they don't have any interest and they don't, you know, and it's, and it's sad and they all end up in sales or they just go onto something else. And, you know, it's, I, I don't know if that's getting worse these days or whether it's getting better with, as you say, with all the knowledge that's out there, you know, and, and people encouraging this sort of, you know, being creative and things like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I don't know if it's getting better or not, but yeah, just because there's, you know, millions of people out there with the knowledge does not mean that they have the talent or the enthusiasm or the, you know, yeah, the go, the go get it-ness to actually, to add, yeah, to actually carry it through. Um, like, you know, how many electronics podcasts are there, right? There's two because how many people have bothered to get off their ass and do it?

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah.

Dave Jones: How many electronics video blogs are there? You know? Yeah. Two. It's, um, yeah, well, exactly.

Chris Gammell: There's, yeah. I mean, but that might, but the thing is, you know, everything can get commoditized eventually, right? I mean, if there's enough, if there's enough demand out there, I mean, we don't know how much demand there is for this, even like our own little radio show podcast thing. But if you got to imagine if, you know, 300,000 people start listening to like a Leo Laporte kind of shows, right? Cross your fingers. Uh, then eventually there are going to be other people that enter the market. That's just kind of like a economic system where, you know, it's efficient and that people are going to move towards, towards where it is. Or even the, the kit manufacturers, people have entered the kit making business because they see an opportunity and they try and, you know, eat out a living doing that. And so it's the same kind of thing, I think. So we can say that now, but basically I think the, the article, the article I was talking about was from Phil McKinney. He talks about innovation and stuff and, and, uh, and he has a podcast too, actually. Uh, but, uh, I think the thing is that you kind of have to keep coming up with stuff. So, you know, maybe kits are the thing this year, but maybe 10 years down the road, it's a completely hackable solution. So like, even like the Chumbie, right? Chumbie one is a, is a full scale solution that you can hack, but maybe that's the new norm. Or maybe it's something we can't even dream of right now. So, you know, like.

Dave Jones: Well, exactly. But the, um, it's interesting thing about the Chumbie. Chumbie is open source hardware. You know, it's fully open source, but it's the only one, the only open source hardware company, which is venture capital funded, I believe. Oh yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So yeah, they're getting, you know, they, they got venture capital to set that up. Money, money, money. Show me the money.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, but, um, and, and, and interesting aside here. Yeah. And interesting aside is that, um, uh, personal manufacturing. I'm, I'm a, I'm a big belief that, um, every, you know, intending to, in 10 years time, pick and place machines, it's starting to happen now, pick and place machines and, you know, and actual manufacturing, manufacture assembly equipment is getting so cheap. And so it's almost getting down to the hobbyist level where the hobbyist can, if they've got enough space, they can have their own pick and place machine, reflow, soldering, the whole, you know, uh, paste dispenser, the whole works, they can manufacture their own products in house. And I can see that happening a lot more rather than the outsourcing side of things as, you know, as the prices come down for these machines, they don't cost half a million dollars anymore. They cost 10 grand. Right. Yeah. No. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's, um, well, I think that's kind of the, that's kind of the idea because then eventually you think about it. So every person say every electronics hobbyist has an entire setup in their house, maybe because it's all made in one machine, you know, like CNC and circuit board manufacturer, somehow that all gets rolled into one thing, the size of a maker box. If everybody has that, then what's left? I mean, nothing really. Talent. There you go. Yeah.

Dave Jones: There's talent, talent, enthusiasm and creativeness. Right. Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's not necessarily knowledge. Knowledge, you know, knowledge is easy to get. It's important still. But how, how, but how you actually apply that knowledge is very true. It's a different thing entirely. So yes. Okay. We've got, um, another discussion point here. Um, a bogus, another bogus energy harvesting scheme. Oh, I love that.

Chris Gammell: Did you get a chance to read that?

Dave Jones: It was like, I've, I've, I've got it open here. I'm having a look at it now. And, um, what is it? A lightning thing?

Chris Gammell: No, it's not lightning. It's just, it's just, it's just not even lightning. It's just, uh, static electricity out of the air. You know, there's ionosphere. There's, there's electrons floating around in the air and, oh, let's just pull them on down. And, well, sure.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Okay. No, you know, with no thought about the actual, uh, conversion efficiencies involved and things like that. I'm sure. So somebody's probably getting good funding for that. I'm sure. And they're, and they're milking that for all its wealth. And then they'll probably start a startup company based on their university research. And then they'll get grants and then they'll get rich and then they'll bail out because the company will fail because the idea was a flop. And yeah. So the world goes around. Yep. There you go. That happened with, uh, good luck to them.

Chris Gammell: EE store. Did you ever, I wrote about them a long time ago and kind of, I called them out.

Dave Jones: What's the EE store?

Chris Gammell: EE store was this horrible, horrible, horrible, uh, scam. As far as I know, they still haven't produced a single thing. So you heard it here. Chris Gammell is calling you out still EE store. You are full of crap. I don't like to use that language that often. I'm not Dave, but, uh, you are full of crap. Uh, basically. I think they're full of shit too. Oh yeah. There you go.

Dave Jones: I don't know them, but yeah, I'll say they're full of shit. Yeah. Well, tell us a story.

Chris Gammell: Basically they say, oh, well we've got this ultra capacitor technology and we use this fancy new, it's not even fancy. It's like barium nitrate. I'm not even sure what the, uh, the component is cause I've, I've ignored them basically. I think they're so full of it and they're trying to do the shadowy. Oh, well we have this great product coming out in two years and we already have contracts with blah, blah, blah. And basically for the past two, two and a half years, I wrote about this when I started my blog. And so that's been like two and a half, three years now and they still haven't produced a single thing. So they say, oh, we have interest from, uh, rock, not rock. Uh, who's, who's one of the big, uh, aerospace guys, Northrop, not Northrop, the other one, whoever that is.

Dave Jones: Northrop Grumman. I don't know. There's, there's a tallies, which is huge, but you're probably talking about the U S ones. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Whoever the other one is. And they're saying, oh, we already have these military contact contracts and basically still there's nothing. There was a, they were supposed to be put into this Zen car, which is another, you know, like a all electric vehicle flat, flat on their face. So you heard it, you heard it here. I think they're full of it.

Dave Jones: There you go. But they're making, but somebody got lots of venture capital and they probably still. Oh yeah. Oh, they get tons.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. They were out of Austin. That's why I've heard of them. And, and, you know, they got so much interest to the point where people were buying the stock of the, the car that was supposed to have it in it because it was supposed to be some awesome technology. And, and, and it's, uh, you know, you hate to see the scams, but whoever gets, whoever gets dumped on when they buy that stock, they deserve it. You know, like, I'm sorry.

Dave Jones: That reminds me, um, Silverbrook here in Australia, Silverbrook. It's what it's run by this nutcase guy. He's been running it for, um, his actual name is Kia Silverbrook. So the silver, it's his last name, um, Kia Silverbrook. And, um, it was a top secret, uh, research, um, center, which basically he, his goal in life, I believe is to become the world's largest patent holder. Okay. Like surpassing Edison and that Japanese guy and everything. So they've got their own in-house. He, he came up with one idea for this, um, inkjet, uh, printhead for use in mobile, you know, micro, you know, high speed page at a time, um, uh, inkjet printhead kind of things. They, they, like a nano scale silicon printhead or something. Anyway, he came up with one idea and he patents like thousands of different variations of this idea. And he's crazy. And they haven't made a cent in, I don't know how long it's been going, 10, 15 years now and companies, all the big, uh, printer companies, I won't name names, but they invent, they continue to invest in this. They continue to hire. They've got hundreds of employees here in Australia and they, they used to be very secretive before they came out about a year ago. They'll now finally admit how many employees they actually have because they used to hide how many employees they had. They, they, yeah, they, they, they actually used to, cause I went for a job interview there once and they used to hide, um, how much consumables they buy, you know, how much milk they buy for their employees, less somebody figure out how much venture capital funding they've got. Cause if you don't have any employees and all that sort of crap. Anyway, they haven't produced a damn thing. Oh, they've demoed a couple of, uh, printheads, but they're ramping up to full production, but they still haven't produced a damn thing.

Chris Gammell: So, and you know what, it's just, guess what companies, it doesn't matter how many employees you have or how many patents you have until you have something that you're selling and you're making money.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: You're not doing anyone any good except maybe your owner and whoever's milking it from you proverbially. Yep. Proverbially. So, yeah, that was another.

Dave Jones: Exactly. But, but my hat's off to him though for getting venture to continue to get venture funding for so long. So they are just taking the bait. Yeah, exactly. So for some reason he's very good at getting money. Yep. So there you go. But yep. Haven't produced a damn thing. Not a sausage.

Chris Gammell: Well, that was another, uh, another thing I, I, I would, I get upset about, you know, you see all these, you know, I read the e times and the EDN and, you know, I do it for, you know, not just work to try and get some technical articles, but there's, you know, there's industry news there. It helps here and it helps for, you know, buying stocks or whatever like that. But I can't stand when all the articles are like, oh, well, Intel, Mr. Guidance and, you know, uh, Infineon, Mr. It's like, I, this is, this is a bit of a rant for me because, you know, I, I always read about like Warren Buffett and all those guys. And like, I cannot believe that these companies basically, they come out and they say, we're going to make $2 billion next year. Why, why do you say that? Why? It's like, what does that really do for you? It does nothing for you. You know, like all it does is then at the next quarter, when you say, oh, we made $1.9 billion, you're worth 10% less for no good reason. It doesn't change anything.

Dave Jones: It's like, why, what are you doing?

Chris Gammell: Like what?

Dave Jones: And you know, and you're, why do you forecast? Why do you bother doing forecast? Yeah. I mean like. The market demands it. The market demands. I guess so.

Chris Gammell: But what's the market going to do? What's the market going to do if you don't do that? You know, like, so say you're not even Intel. Intel is a ridiculous example. Say you're, you know, linear technology or analog devices, right? Great analog, analog type of companies. Who cares? You know, like you're big, but you're not that big. Who do you think people are going to stop buying you because you didn't tell them that you're going to make $300 million next year and then you make 301?

Dave Jones: Sales are going to, yeah. There are companies like that. The sales are going to be pretty darn consistent. So it's, yeah, it's pointless giving exact figures. But yeah, I know that's, that's big business for you. Who knows how it.

Chris Gammell: I think the other thing is too, it's, it's because, you know, there's people sitting around and finance departments and, and executive offices and they're like, well, we got all these numbers. What do we do with them? I guess, I guess we should tell people.

Dave Jones: It's like, exactly. It generates excitement and it pushes the share price up now. Right.

Chris Gammell: And then they go cash it out and then buy it when it drops next semester, next quarter. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That, that's the evilness of being a public company. You know, it's just, oh, you know, the day you build up your company and sell out, just, you know, sure. Sell out to the company, but don't hang around. Just take your money and go.

Chris Gammell: Go start another company. Go fund, go fund little companies. Yeah. Yep.

Dave Jones: Absolutely. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: It gets, it gets to a size that's, it's unrealistic. I mean, like I, I, I can't even imagine, you know, like people, like we talked about HP before and how that, you know, that guy's making $40 billion or they're making $40 million, uh, you know, and it's like, what?

Dave Jones: Exactly. Just for leaving. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I, I, I don't get it. I'll probably never get it because I don't want to do that stuff.

Dave Jones: But, but if you were offered $40 million, you'd take it too, just like me.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. Yeah, you would. Come on. I mean, I, yes.

Dave Jones: I would. Yeah. Yeah. You'd take it and bugger off, but these people take it and they go, well, that's not enough. I'm going to go do it again and again and again. And, oh yeah. Anyway, what can you do?

Chris Gammell: Well, we can end the show on that sad, sad note.

Dave Jones: I think our 3,600 coulombs are up.

Chris Gammell: I think they are. I think they are. But, well.

Dave Jones: Well, it's been another good one. Thanks for joining us.

Chris Gammell: Definitely. Yeah. Hopefully, you're checking out the website once in a while. We'll have some pictures up of the labs. I'm reworking my lab actually again. So, I'll put up new pictures after that. And Dave's got his.

Dave Jones: Well, mine isn't the lab. Mine is just my study. So, just expect a photo of a table with a computer and a couple of cushions on that. That's right. That's right. Sitting on top.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And also a reminder, if you have a site or you want to make your profile, picture on Facebook or something, The Amp Hour, you can find it on our site at theamphour.com slash link here. So, that might be a bit unrealistic, but, you know, we'd love you for it.

Dave Jones: Yes, indeed. Okay. All right. Catch you next time.

Chris Gammell: Bye, Dave.

Speaker ?: Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.