#82 – Vecordious Vacation Variorum

Dave Jones: This is The Amp Hour Podcast, recorded February 13th, 2012, episode number 82, the cordious vacation barriorum. Welcome to The Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of Chris Gammell's Analog Life. And this is Jeff Kaiser from MightyOm.com.

Dave Jones: Yes, sir. The threesome is back. Hey, guys. Hey, Jeff. Hey, Chris is back and sounding rather under the weather.

Jeff Keyzer: Under the weather? No, I'm above the weather, man. I'm just, I'm chilled out. I'm lucid. I'm cool.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, he's been drinking, folks. Yeah, yeah. He's had a few Mai Tais. So when did you get back, Chris? Did you just get back today? I got back about two hours ago.

Dave Jones: Oh, I see. Three hours ago, yeah. Oh, dedication.

Jeff Keyzer: Yep. Yeah. And although Dave doesn't believe me, I'm not planning to be on the whole show, so.

Dave Jones: Right. We'll see. Hey, you won't be able to help yourself.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I'll be like, I've had enough of you guys.

Chris Gammell: Well, you sound very relaxed, Chris.

Jeff Keyzer: I am. Yeah, it's been great. Yeah, it was awesome.

Dave Jones: Then you'll have to go back to work and then reality sets up.

Jeff Keyzer: Ah, yes. And I did write-

Dave Jones: Are you going back to work tomorrow? Yeah. What's the deal? Yeah, I'm going back tomorrow. Oh, no.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah. I took a chance to write about it last night at like 10 p.m. in the airport about getting back to work and-

Dave Jones: See, you're a hardcore nerd. I know. You're writing a blog post in the airport. You just got back and you couldn't help yourself. I've got off the plane. Oh, I've got to open the notebook and start typing. Yeah. Yeah. You know?

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah, it finally came in handy.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: I thought you weren't going to take the notebook.

Jeff Keyzer: Oh, we took my wife's notebook. It's just a little notebook. We didn't use it much at all, really. I mean, we mostly used it for, you know, Yelp and finding restaurants and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Okay. The occasional crisis. That's what you use a smartphone for.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was using. And it was nice being in Hawaii, too, because they had service.

Dave Jones: Right. As opposed to mainland U.S.?

Jeff Keyzer: No, no. I mean, like if we went to like Costa Rica or Belize. Oh, right. Yeah, right.

Dave Jones: Or you went to the Maudis or something. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Right.

Jeff Keyzer: Met a lot of Aussies out there, though. There's a lot of Aussies in Hawaii.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I know.

Jeff Keyzer: You guys are everywhere.

Dave Jones: It's a favorite destination of us.

Jeff Keyzer: I know. Yeah. It was great. So what's been going on here?

Dave Jones: Well, the cheaper, the people who have less money go to Fiji and, you know, places like that. But if you're a bit more world-heeled, you go to Hawaii.

Chris Gammell: Okay. You know, it's funny. I went to Hawaii on my honeymoon. And people were telling me for months before I went, like, oh, yeah, Hawaii's so expensive. You know, everything costs so much. But at the time, I was living in San Francisco. And we went to Hawaii. Right. And it was like, what's the big deal? I know. It's exactly the same as back home. Oh, it's not that expensive. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's funny. Now, it would probably be different because compared to Austin, I'm sure Maui is a bit more expensive. Right. At the time, the only thing that was really novel, I think, was gas was over $5. But food and everything were about the same. Petrol. Yeah. Petrol.

Dave Jones: Well, you can't get any 99 cent burger, can you? No. They don't have all that cornstarch in here. No, they do. Don't kid yourself. I have to go to Macca's, yeah. But generally, the food's very good in Hawaii. You can get all this organic produce really quite affordably and cheaply. It's great. Because they're kind of self-sustaining. No, they're not. Or they're a lot of local produce. Well, I think it depends on what it is. It depends on where you go.

Chris Gammell: If it's fruits, they're all locally grown. Nope. Wrong. I've heard some of them get amazing.

Dave Jones: What? What are you talking about?

Chris Gammell: Wrong. You guys are all wrong.

Dave Jones: Where the hell were you eating, Chris?

Jeff Keyzer: No, I was eating the same place as you guys were. It's all imported. Maybe it's changed even in the past couple of years. It's just cheaper to import from, just like it is in Cleveland or anywhere else. Right. Import from Chile and a lot of southern hemisphere stuff. They said only 20% of their produce is local. Right.

Dave Jones: Oh, did I tell you the story about, I've got a story. Got to tell it, right? We were driving around Hawaii. I can't remember which island it was, whether it was a big island or Maui or whatever. Anyway, we're following the GPS to this restaurant, right? And the GPS had been horribly unreliable for some reason. And we thought, oh, where's it going to take us? But, you know, it actually had the restaurant we wanted actually in the GPS, in the database. So, great. Okay. So, we're following the thing. And we're going through all these back roads and everything. And then it says, you have reached your destination. And we turn into this driveway. And it is this paddock filled with port-a-dunnies.

Chris Gammell: What is a port-a-dunnie?

Dave Jones: You probably don't know what a port-a-dunnie is. I have no idea. It's a port-a-loo. It's a portable toilet. You know those that they have on construction sites? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where it led us. And you have reached your destination in this American voice. Eat up. And it's like, eat up. It's portable toilets. A paddock full of portable toilets.

Jeff Keyzer: Wow, that's gross.

Dave Jones: It was ridiculous. It, for some reason, the GPS was just useless in Hawaii. I'm not sure what the deal was.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah, that's...

Dave Jones: Absolutely hopeless. Anyway.

Jeff Keyzer: Well.

Dave Jones: There you go.

Jeff Keyzer: Vacation's over. I'm excited to get back. I don't know. We'll see how I get back into it.

Dave Jones: You sound so excited, you're going internally berserk.

Jeff Keyzer: I... Internally berserk?

Dave Jones: Internally berserk. Because on the outside, you're all chilled.

Jeff Keyzer: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know, man. It'll be an interesting adjustment. I mean, like, even 10 days away from electronics and everything, it's... Oh, no. Heaven forbid. I mean, it is a big deal, right?

Chris Gammell: You know the...

Dave Jones: Oh, for a nerd, yeah. Om who?

Chris Gammell: The last time I went to Hawaii... I actually went to Maui. I quit my job about three weeks later. Oh, boy. Here we go. And I'd like to think there wasn't really any link between the two, but that was definitely the reason that my boss at the time gave for me quitting. He was like, oh, yeah. Yeah. You tasted what life was like away from electronics for a couple weeks. Right. Yeah. Oh, look what happens. Yeah.

Jeff Keyzer: If Jeff keeps appearing as the guest, or as the host on the Amp Hour, you knew what happened to me. I call it the Hawaii sickness.

Chris Gammell: You're sitting on a beach somewhere sipping Mai Tais, like Milton from Office Space. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Milton, yeah, from Office Space.

Chris Gammell: And I said, no salt, no salt. No salt, yes. I'll burn down the building.

Dave Jones: The longest I've taken off from work is two months. I went on a world trip. God, that's crazy. Yeah, two months. I had all this holiday saved up, and what are we going to do? Well, let's blow it all. Let's go on a two-month world trip. That's a long time. It is a lot, but it flew by. You just don't notice it. You get back and you go, oh, geez, it seems like I just left.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I find that it creates, like your coworkers don't usually appreciate that very much. And anytime I've ever left for a long period of time and come back, I think it's always been a little weird to reintegrate. So, I kind of wonder. Yeah, it is. It feels a bit weird. Yeah. Two months is a long time.

Dave Jones: Yep. So, if anyone's been away for longer, take a longer break like that.

Jeff Keyzer: I mean, there's always things where, like, FMLA and that kind of thing, which is a family medical leave act, at least here in the States, where it's, you know, if you have, like, a medical problem or I think they even count, like, births and stuff.

Chris Gammell: You know, at Intel, I interned at Intel a couple summers while I was in college. And the big thing was for the guys that had been there for more than, I think, 15 years could take a six-month sabbatical. And so, all these... Yeah, six months. Six months at Intel. That's like a process note almost, you know? Like, that's a big time, right? Yeah, right. Well, these guys would take their sabbatical and the problem was that as a young engineer, you'd want to talk to these guys. And it's like, oh, no, Phil's out on his sabbatical. You know, when will he be back? Oh, you know, four or five months. And, of course, my internship was usually about three months long. So, they were just MIA. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I don't know how common that is in large companies, but Intel definitely had a sabbatical program. And I think some other big, like, you know, large semiconductor companies do that for their, you know, the guys that have been there for a really long time.

Dave Jones: We don't call it a sabbatical. Well, we do call it a sabbatical here, but I haven't heard of it in the engineering field here in Australia. But companies that, you know, if you want to take time off unpaid, you can actually do that at most companies that are fairly flexible, you know?

Jeff Keyzer: That's pretty cool.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, but if they, you know, if you're going off to work at a, you know, on something else that, you know, if you want to take a six-month world trip, you can usually negotiate with them to take it at no pay or something like that.

Chris Gammell: You know, I've actually heard of that in the States, too. So, you know, for as bad of a reputation as the U.S. has, I know some co-workers that did that. I had a co-worker that went to start a machine shop in Mexico, of all places. And he was gone for a few months. And then it turned out that it didn't work out. And he came back and it was fine. And actually, I think he was kind of better for the experience, you know, because he got it out of his system, right? It wasn't right on, you know, on his mind all the time. So, you know, it's funny. The U.S. has such a bad reputation for, you know, vacation, et cetera. But I think if you're a good engineer, companies will tend to do somewhat extraordinary things in order to keep you, unless you're working for complete devags.

Dave Jones: I think so, yeah. Well, I used to know someone at Altium who went to start their own software startup company. And they actually took leave of absence from the company to go start their own software startup. It was in a non-competing business, but they liked him. So, they said, yeah, fine, we'll hold your job open for you if you want to come back, if it doesn't work out.

Jeff Keyzer: Wow.

Dave Jones: You know? Yeah.

Jeff Keyzer: That's great. That was actually something I had looked at, you know, I had been reading a lot of like Clayton Christensen, you know, Innovator's Dilemma and stuff like that. And one of the things that I had looked at was actually having a sabbatical, not like an external sabbatical, but actually an internal one. And I was trying to convince Keith Lee to actually do that. And they were looking at it seriously. But basically, the idea was, you know, if you have an idea, say you get struck by inspiration, why wouldn't you just give your engineer six months to go sit in a dark lab and tinker on something and just try and crank something out in six months? And I still love that idea. I mean, just like if you have an idea that's really solid and, you know, you can prove it in some way, whatever it is, even if it's just a PowerPoint slide set, right? I love that idea of just taking six months, three months, whatever it is, and just taking a technical sabbatical and just going to crank on something really cool. And I mean, that's almost like the, who else does it? Like Google does that maybe? I mean, they kind of do that with their 20% time, but it's more concentrated. Because I think... But you're paid for your 20% time. So you're talking about unpaid. No, I'm taking, I'm talking paid because it would be for the company. And then the idea would be, it would be, because hardware is a little different than software. I mean, and this is probably a point of contention, but the idea being that if you're interrupted with software, like I think software guys are better with context switching. If you're interrupted in the middle of a layout though, you're screwed. I mean, I think you blow half your day then, right? So if 20% time is one day out of the week and you get one day out of the week to pick up where you left off on your layout and start cranking on your layout again, it's really tough, right?

Chris Gammell: So instead, it takes six months. I disagree. I think that the problem is that if an employee goes away for six months, I think it's pretty disruptive, especially, I've worked on a lot of really small teams. And if one person's not there, it has a really big impact on everybody else. I personally think that the 20% thing would be great in hardware. I would have loved to have had Fridays. I mean, we're trying to be selfish here, right? We want these sabbaticals, right?

Dave Jones: Come on.

Chris Gammell: Well, I mean, in all honesty, rather than just go away for six months and work on something different, I think I would have a really hard time going back after that. And to me, it would be even more jarring to completely change focus like that. But if I had every Friday to work on something fun while I was working at a corporation, I would be one happy camper. I think that would be awesome. And I mean, given many companies, Fridays are not exactly the most productive days of the week. Right, yeah. Then you actually give people an incentive to stay late on Friday because they're working on something that hopefully they actually enjoy working on. I think that would be awesome. Like, in fact, if anybody knows of a company that actually does that in the hardware business, I would love to know about it.

Jeff Keyzer: Jeff wants some new work.

Chris Gammell: Culturally, that would be phenomenal. No, it is. It's a good sign. Phenomenal. It would be absolutely phenomenal. Yeah. I understand where you're coming from. And I mean, yeah, sure. Having a six-month sabbatical to kind of do like a little startup kind of a thing in a larger corporation could potentially be interesting. But if you give me a little bit of time each week, I feel like I'd make better use of it myself. Well, yeah. And we looked at that.

Jeff Keyzer: I mean, I looked at that. I was pushing for this a long time, and I still push for it. But the contact switch is really tough. I mean, you're right. It's easier if you have a whole day. But even going between.

Chris Gammell: You contact switch so much just in a regular job. I mean, you try to get your layout going in the morning, and then 10 o'clock, somebody calls you with some customer-related issue. No, no, no. Like, somebody calls you with some customer-related issue, and then you get pulled into a conference call that you have to sit on for an hour while people talk about stuff. And then noon rolls around, and it's lunchtime. And, you know, I've certainly... God, I know exactly what you mean about contact switching. And I think a day in the life of the average engineer, it's really, really rare for an engineer to be able to focus on one task for an entire day. I think that's unusual. I mean, certainly, in my career, that's been very, very unusual. I would love for everyone to just go away. And actually, it's funny.

Dave Jones: My wife...

Chris Gammell: You heard it here first, folks. Jeff Kaiser wants everyone to go away.

Dave Jones: An engineer wants everyone to bugger away and leave me. Headline.

Chris Gammell: Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. You thought I was so different from the rest of you. But I... My wife actually works from home quite often. And she really values it because it gives her a way to get away from people coming into her office and bugging her about stuff. And she still gets the same amount of work done. In fact, she's more effective when she's at home. And she gets rid of all that noise that's kind of pulling you away from what you really want to be focusing on. I've had the same experience. The problem is that hardware engineers can't work at home, which I think is one of the great tragedies of doing electronics design. Is that usually you have to be surrounded by a quarter million dollars of lab in order to get your job done. I've always... Well, Dave's okay. I don't know. Dave's okay.

Dave Jones: A lot of jobs I've worked at. I've had a better lab at home than they've had it work.

Chris Gammell: You know, it's... In RF design, that's not true. Oh, yeah. It would be really, really hard for me to build it. That's a different... And believe me, I have thought about it. It would be really difficult to get anything near the same capabilities at home.

Jeff Keyzer: Couldn't you just borrow a couple pieces from work, Jeff, and be like, oh, well, my lab at home needed this vector network vector analyzer or whatever.

Chris Gammell: Maybe not out of the question. Usually, I'd bring my projects into the lab. I think that's much more common.

Jeff Keyzer: Right.

Chris Gammell: It makes you share better, right? The kindergarten really kicks in at that point. Companies generally don't like their assets, their capital assets leaving the building. I find... Yeah. That's the one thing that will get people really upset at you.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Speaking of RF, shall we get on to some news? Sure. Yeah. There is a... We're not sure how to call this one, are we, Jeff? We've been... We had a little mention of it before the show, and it comes from a sign-in from the forum, if I've pronounced his username correctly. It's a spray-on RF antenna. I kid you not, folks. It's a spray can that of these nano capacitors, thousands and millions of these nano capacitors you spray on, and it supposedly... They call it a wireless antenna, and it supposedly increases the effectiveness of the antenna you're using. And we're talking... You know, they're talking orders of magnitude kind of stuff. You know? Like, it's magic. And you've got to watch this video. There's this sort of like a promotional video, but it's like a fundraising capital venture kind of presentation video. You know? And the guy... You said it was creepy. Right, Jeff? Yeah. Or it was somehow creepy, this video.

Chris Gammell: First off, this is one of those times that I wish the amp hour had video, because then you could actually see me turning blue as you're talking about this. Right.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: But I did... The video... There's a lot of comments on YouTube about, you know, the production quality of the video is not particularly good. But that's not the problem that I had with it. The video is just weird. And it's because I watched the entire video, which is 12 minutes long, waiting for them to at some point talk about some technical detail. Or, or, or alternatively to be like, surprise, or April fools. And I was waiting, and I was so, like, unfulfilled once it was done. It left me with this really weird taste in my mouth. Like, what?

Jeff Keyzer: You should get some spray on D-Technifier or whatever.

Chris Gammell: I think this is 100% bullshit. I think there is... No. So, my... No. My favorite... He's like disciplining a puppy. Bad. Bad. My favorite line from the video is that the electricity jumps from capacitor to capacitor and finds its happy spot and launches into space. The word happy spot should never be used in an engineering video. Maybe like a porn.

Dave Jones: But they are doing the right stuff he was saying. And saying, oh, and we've had government representatives tested out with, of course, no further detail of what the government department is.

Chris Gammell: The government probably sent them a 20-page memo about... Classic. Yeah, why this is completely not applicable to anything.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You know, I'm not sure exactly what these guys are doing. And I mean, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe there's some nanomaterial thing or something. There's... The problem is you watch the video and you just get the sense that these guys have no idea what they're talking about. Yeah. If they're a marketer kind of thing. That's right. So, maybe the guy that's giving the presentation is a sales and marketing guy, sure. But I just don't... Well, he's not very good then.

Dave Jones: Because he's very nervous and doesn't know how to speak with enthusiasm or anything. So, he strikes me as an engineer.

Chris Gammell: The best part of the video, though, is the spray paint can that has the spray on antenna label on it. Yeah. I honestly... I mean, I... I went into this with an open mind. Yes, I knew. I was punished so, so severely for that.

Jeff Keyzer: That's funny. There's this... If you guys ever watched the old Batman, like the 1960s Adam West Batman?

Dave Jones: Oh, yes. Yeah. Oh, that's so bad.

Jeff Keyzer: The movie, right? And like, they actually have like shark spray and all these other type of sprays. And that kind of reminds me of that. Yeah, yeah. They had like... They had like all these readily available sprays to defeat... Defeat, you know, guarding animals, right?

Chris Gammell: Like sharks and monkeys or whatever else. It is not implausible that there could be some kind of a spray on antenna, right? I mean, you could spray a conductive material in a specific pattern or you could spray...

Dave Jones: There might be something in it. Yeah, I mean... I will give them the benefit of the doubt, too. There might be...

Chris Gammell: I think that a spray on antenna is possible. I don't think that these are the guys that are going to give it to you.

Dave Jones: And I think it's hyped up and exaggerated and there's no real engineering A-B comparison tests in this. It's all, you know, it's all marketing BS by the sounds of it. Right. So, you know, very vague terms, you know, and he throws out a few numbers occasionally, you know, in TBMs or something like that. But, you know, like it doesn't provide any, you know, graphs to prove it or any, you know... No, there's no data. Scopes, screenshots or anything. There's no data. There's nothing behind it.

Chris Gammell: There's not even like a nice infographic to explain what's actually happening. There's a low quality...

Dave Jones: Because they... Well, they... I don't think they claim to know, really. I think they're...

Dave Jones: We found this. I think they're stretching. Oh, I'm sorry. It's a discovery, you know. We're not sure how it works. That's right. We didn't invent it. We discovered it. We discovered it. That's right. Oh, man.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. Something even potentially as funny as I hate to mention this. I hate to bring it up, but I can't resist. Chris, both you and I were spammed. I don't think it was spammed. For want of a better word.

Jeff Keyzer: It wasn't spammed, Dave. Come on, Dave. It was spammed. I was spammed. I was spammed. Were you too? You got the same email.

Dave Jones: It was spam. I'm telling you.

Jeff Keyzer: It's not spam. I was talking to her on email. But...

Dave Jones: See, I was talking to him.

Chris Gammell: It was an unsolicited...

Dave Jones: It was unsolicited, non-personal email. It was not addressed to me. It was addressed very generic, cut and paste. At least you can do... If you're going to cut and paste an email to someone, that's fine. But at least put, hi, Dave, or something like that. I've seen your blog. Yeah, hi, enter name. Yeah, whatever.

Chris Gammell: Mine actually had my name. So maybe I'm a little bit more special. Oh, you're special.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, what it is. We've been approached by yet another casting talent agency for the Discovery Channel. And they've got a new reality TV show, folks. Yes. And it's about engineering. And yes, it's called Top Engineer. Woo-hoo!

Jeff Keyzer: Woo-hoo! Just like Top Gear, but not... I was thinking Top Chef, actually. One thousandth as good. I was thinking Top Chef.

Dave Jones: You know.

Jeff Keyzer: Although they do produce the Top Guns or whatever the hell it is. I mean...

Dave Jones: Oh, I... Well, yeah, but I... Well, I've just heard about that show recently, Top Gun or something like that. Anyway, it's a similar sort of thing. Engineers compete to build, you know, wacky exploding devices or something. And there's some grand prize, which they don't tell you about. And, you know, and you can win the title of Top Engineer as if that's, you know, going to change your whole life. So, yeah. And it reminds me of the episode we had with Joe Graham. Yeah.

Jeff Keyzer: I was thinking that, too.

Dave Jones: Me, too. Who worked on a... Coincidentally, a Discovery Channel show called Prototype This.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's not exactly the glamorous life that...

Dave Jones: It's not the glamorous life. So, if you're thinking of entering this, go listen to...

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah, and we'll link that in, too. It's worth listening to. I mean, and it's tough because I want to love this, right? Yeah, I know. You do, don't you? The first thing I was thinking about is I was thinking about all the people... Actually, I think John DeCristofaro was talking about how Dale Doherty was supposed to be on CNN, the editor guy, her publisher. And all these guys were talking about, well, I don't usually watch TV. And I was starting to think about it. And I'm like, you know, a lot of the engineers I know don't really watch a lot of TV. You know, per se, I watch, like, Daily Show. That's about it. I mean, like, I don't watch a lot of TV. I watch one or two. Right, exactly. And, like, I don't think I'd watch this. I mean, I don't even think, like, even with Prototype This, like, I was thinking about who watches engineering-type shows. And it's just a really tough proposition because, like Joe said when he was on the show, it's a slow process. And, you know, you really have to crank out some... Like, engineering is not an easy thing to do in the first place. And then to showcase it and to show, oh, well, here's my build segment where I, you know, easily went from step A to step B. It's like, well, you're going to go to step A to step B, but you're going to do it about 30 times. And you're going to bash your head against the wall each time, right? I mean, like...

Dave Jones: And he was complaining that, yeah, they didn't... All the producers didn't like the fact that, what, it takes you a week to lay out this board and build it up? What?

Jeff Keyzer: Right, yeah.

Dave Jones: That's not exciting. That doesn't make for exciting television, you know? And it doesn't.

Jeff Keyzer: And that's kind of the fact of it. And that's what's unfortunate because I would love to see... I mean, all the maker people we see, I mean, like...

Dave Jones: Yep.

Jeff Keyzer: I would love to see inside their shops and everything, but I would... It's almost like you need to do more of a lifestyle thing than you do than a competition because the competition side of things is very difficult.

Dave Jones: But that's the only thing that's going to get views. That's the only thing that's going to get the audience in. They're going to have to dumb it down to just blowing shit up, right? Like they do on Mythbusters and stuff like that. So, you know what's... That's what it's going to be. Except they have compelling characters who host the show. You watch Mythbusters because they're compelling characters. Like you watch Top Gear because they're compelling characters.

Jeff Keyzer: Well, if they did like a Cribs type thing instead, I'd watch that. What's a Cribs thing? Cribs was this show on MTV back in the day where it was like they walked around these movie stars' houses, you know? And they showcased, oh, well, I have like a waterfall in my basement, you know? Stupid stuff like that, right? It could be called layers. Layers. There you go. Yeah, I like that. I mean, but it would be...

Dave Jones: Dude, you just gave away a million dollar idea.

Jeff Keyzer: I know. It would basically be Workbench of the Week or, you know, like Jeff's Flickr Pool, which we love. I mean, like that kind of thing, but then do it for shops. I mean, like show off... That would be pretty cool. I would watch that. I would watch that too.

Chris Gammell: But the general public wouldn't. Of course not. Now, one very interesting thing about this is, did you see the company that is, I don't know, providing the space?

Dave Jones: Wet Design, they're called? I went to their website and I gave up. It was just all animated video. I literally gave up in 30 seconds.

Chris Gammell: I agree. It turns out... Garbage. It turns out that if you look up Wet... Who are they? If you look up Wet Design on Wikipedia, these are the guys that designed the Bellagio water fountains in Vegas. Whoa, really? Oh, yeah. So they are a, from Wikipedia, a water feature design firm based in LA. Well, your website sucks. Their website is not the best. And any website that has music that starts playing automatically has a special circle of hell that it belongs in. But it sounds like they're a fountain design company. So you have to wonder what that means for the show, right?

Dave Jones: Well, that makes for exciting visuals. You know, you're blowing stuff up in the water. You have huge pneumatic jets of water flying everywhere. That's exciting stuff, right? And that's what the Joe public thinks of engineering, you know? Yeah. Unfortunately. Well, if they think about it at all, to be honest.

Chris Gammell: I wonder if the show is going to be based around doing water stuff or if they're just using wet design studios as a venue. You know, maybe they have a really cool shop.

Dave Jones: I found a link that says that is the case. That they are using wet designs. That's where all the filming will take place, using the state-of-the-art wet design facilities in California.

Chris Gammell: I bet those guys have some awesome CNC machines and stuff like that, right? Oh, I'm sure they do. Yeah, that's where all this hydraulic stuff.

Jeff Keyzer: Right, and I saw it on layers. I saw it on layers last week.

Dave Jones: Right.

Dave Jones: Oh, my God. And here's the little blurb. No, you don't need to have an engineering degree to compete on this show, but you must be able to, must in capital letters, be able to design, build, test, and integrate an idea into a final product that works all in uppercase. There must be, these will be fast-paced, hands-on, visceral, in uppercase, challenges. Wow. If your experience is strictly behind the keyboard, then this show is not for you, in uppercase.

Chris Gammell: You know, I agree with that. I mean, that's what makes good television, right? Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: You have to be able to build shit, do it quickly. It says, we are looking for visual effects experts, accomplished home shop machinists, contractors, and engineers with background in electrical, civil, structural, and mechanical engineering, i.e. they want the Mythbusters cast. Yeah, that's what I was just going to say. That is exactly what they want. Yeah, that's right. Of course. They want M5. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, they want M5 Studios. Yep. Someone who can build and prototype something in a day from junkyard parts.

Jeff Keyzer: Which is impressive in its own right. I mean, it is.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, I know.

Jeff Keyzer: And there was Junkyard Wars, too, right? There was someone else mentioned that.

Dave Jones: Yeah, Junkyard Wars, yeah, similar things, which is a ripoff of Mythbusters, really.

Chris Gammell: No, no, no. Junkyard Wars was way before Mythbusters. Oh, it was? Yeah, way before. There was another show.

Jeff Keyzer: They're starting up another show about that. I saw someone post about that on Google+. Someone had talked about Junkyard Wars being preempted by Junkyard Wars, whatever this new one was. It wasn't this show.

Dave Jones: Okay. Wow. I stand corrected. Oh, boy. And if you have an outgoing personality and are ready to get your hands dirty for the chance to win a grand prize and the title of top engineer, then we want to hear from you. Oh, gross. Oh, it was... Oh.

Jeff Keyzer: This other show is... It's actually by the Mythbusters, guys. It's Unchained Reaction.

Chris Gammell: Oh, okay. Haven't heard of it. I like the Mythbusters. They're fantastic. If any of the Mythbusters crew are listening, if you could somehow get me into your shop, I'd love to see where... They're not listening, Jeff, sorry.

Dave Jones: Yes, that would have been about 10 million other fans.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, you know, I have to admit that the Mythbusters... Jerry went there. Jerry went there. Really?

Dave Jones: Yeah, I've seen photos. It's on her Flickr account or something. She's a photo of her standing at the bench where they have all the blue, you know, diagram things in the background and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say...

Chris Gammell: But she's good friends with Grant, so... Yeah, that's probably where that comes from. I personally think the Mythbusters was a lot more fun back before Grant and Carrie and... Who's the other guy? Shoot. I'm showing. I haven't watched the Mythbusters in a long time. Back before those guys knew how to act... Tori, yeah. Back before Carrie Byron and Tori knew how to act in front of a camera, it just had this, like, sincerity to it that I thought was awesome. Because it was, like, these three people who were just from the Bay Area, and I was living in the Bay Area at the time. Kind of awkward in front of the camera. Yeah. To me, it was just so precious. Like, I thought it was awesome. And now it's kind of polished, and I don't watch TV.

Dave Jones: I watched the very first episode the other day. It happened to be on TV, and I watched it, and I went, jeez, that video quality is crap. Yeah. And then I realized, oh, this is the first episode. It was filmed with, like, a VHS camcorder or something, you know? And it was just, oh, streets apart in terms of just the visual production film quality. It was, you know, it was really handy cam stuff back in the first episode. It's like early EEV blog days, huh? Early EEV blog, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Did anyone get to see Dale on CNN this weekend? I did not. I have not seen this.

Jeff Keyzer: No, that's what I was talking about before, Jeff. I was saying that it got, it got, John was talking about how it got preempted by- It got preempted? By Whitney Houston dying.

Chris Gammell: Oh, no. Oh, yeah. That's terrible.

Jeff Keyzer: Huh. These things happen.

Chris Gammell: What? It got preempted on Whitney Houston dying? So it was not recorded, or-

Jeff Keyzer: It was recorded, but not shown. It's going to be shown next week.

Chris Gammell: Is it available on the web, or just we have to wait a week for it?

Jeff Keyzer: It'll be, yeah, wait a week.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that sucks. Bummer. Yep. Sorry to hear that. Huh. I have no idea what you guys are talking about. Well, Dale Doherty of Make was supposed to be on CNN, because- Dale's doing this big-

Dave Jones: Which is, of course, a quality news channel.

Chris Gammell: Dale got a DARPA grant, along with Saul Griffith, I think. Who's that? Who- Saul Griffith is the guy who was a part of Squid Labs for a while. He's a columnist for Make. He was the recipient of, oh, gosh, some scholarship for- He's an MIT alum, and he did those eyeglasses with the- You have a liquid, and you pull a vacuum on it, and it makes custom eyeglasses very quickly. So, you know, he's a visionary in the industry, doing, you know, interesting stuff.

Jeff Keyzer: I want that title someday, Jeff. If you could say that about me someday, Chris Gammell, visionary, doing interesting stuff. I still have to do that stuff, I realize, but someday I'd like that to be my title.

Chris Gammell: Your episode of Lairs, it'll have Chris Gammell, visionary, doing interesting stuff. I like that. So, Dale, and I think Saul, and I apologize if I'm kind of distorting this a little bit, but I believe they got a DARPA grant to bring makerspaces to high schools. And I think that's what this is all about. There was an article in Make about it in the most recent issue, and it's kind of a big deal, right? I mean, I think that high schools are one place where makerspaces are needed. I also think that universities could use these as well. But he's been getting a lot of publicity, and I think Dale has been working on this for a long time, and it's nice to see it finally come around and actually turn into something that's really quite big, right? This is a really big deal. So I'm looking forward to seeing that when it finally does air. I'm really sad to hear that it got bumped, though. That's too bad. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep. All right. We've got some more news, I guess. There's a new MakerBot killer out, which I think is – it might actually be a MakerBot killer. It's a fully assembled commercial 3D printer for $1,300. And it's called the Cube. Really cute name, and it kind of looks like a cube. It looks like other commercial 3D printers out there, and it's from the big firm 3D Systems, and they've got their own Thingiverse-type store where you can buy pre-existing designs, and there's already thousands of designs on there and stuff like that. So, yeah, I mean, it's cheaper than the MakerBot, and I don't know about quality, but it debuted at the CES in Las Vegas, and it's $1,300. It looks okay. Yeah, it looks okay. And it looks very cute. I think the new MakerBot has a bigger build platform, and it's two-color as well. But, you know, I mean, everyone's – there's going to be a flood of these things, and this is only the start.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah, 3D Systems is actually the one that I was looking at. I'm looking at getting a 3D printer for some of the stuff I'm doing at work. And some of their mid-range and high-range stuff, it's – oh, it's sick. I love it. I know. Yeah, pornographic. I'm pushing so hard. Like, people at work, I start – you know, they see me, and they expect me to start talking about 3D printers and –

Dave Jones: But their little cube looks really – it actually looks like something – It looks like a sewing machine. Like something you'd buy in a toy shop. You know, it really – you know, it looks the part – something that you would have in your home to make 3D objects. And that's what they promoted as. It's the 3D printer for the home. Yeah. Except – And it comes with Wi-Fi and USB.

Chris Gammell: Wait a minute. So I'm on the website, and I'm looking at the design file. So one thing I'll say is Thingiverse is free. So you go on Thingiverse, and you can download – And I think everything is pretty much licensed to Creative Commons, too, so you can remix things. That's right. So I'm on here, and I'm clicking around, and I go Speedboat V110 by 3D Modeler. $90.

Dave Jones: Oh, that's right, yeah.

Chris Gammell: To buy the digital file so that you can print this thing out. That is absolutely ridiculous. Like, there is no way when something like Thingiverse is available that I'm going to go on there and spend $55 to download the model for a grand piano. I don't know what these guys are thinking. This is like the bizarro Thingiverse. This is the Apple model. This is the Apple model. I think.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, they're thinking that because they vet the things, and that they'll get higher quality ones if, you know, people actually – if they vet the designs, make sure they're doable and stuff like that. Then the theory is that you get higher quality designs. But price is like, you know, $90 or something. That is silly. I totally agree. So, yep.

Jeff Keyzer: You just got to get people over that hump. That's the key, right? Buying that first app is the killer thing, you know?

Dave Jones: But I don't understand. But then it does promote people who have really excellent 3D modeling skills. They could possibly make money out of this, you know? If they go on there, design something really good.

Chris Gammell: Why am I going to go on there and spend $90 to print out a boat? But it might be a really good boat, and you might really, really want it. I agree.

Dave Jones: $90 is too much.

Jeff Keyzer: You could print it out, Jeff, and then it would be like, wow, that's a great boat.

Dave Jones: It has to be the app model where it's $5 or $10 or something.

Chris Gammell: But isn't this kind of like semiconductor companies charging for their design tools? This is the kind of thing – they should be trying to sell printers, not try to sell data, right? By selling the data, I think they're destroying the possibility to have a community because you can't have a community of people who are spending $90 for this model, right?

Dave Jones: But the app model works, right? That's why apps work.

Chris Gammell: Apps aren't at $90.

Dave Jones: Not maybe. I'm sorry, but it's a $100 billion industry or something, okay? Works. Apps aren't $90, though. But it works because they're low cost.

Jeff Keyzer: That's an important point, I think.

Dave Jones: It works because they're only a couple of bucks, and people don't care. Yeah, right. I agree. When it's a couple of bucks, people are just going to buy it, okay? And it might actually get some really professional artists on there who actually design really top quality stuff if they know that they can potentially make some money from it. So there's the advantage. That's what they're thinking, I believe. That's what they're hoping for. Yeah. They're all trying to get that edge. There is, you know, thingy versus some guy's design, you know, some kid in his basement. Well, that's good then. I mean, that's good.

Jeff Keyzer: That means that an open source hardware thing like MakerBot will have a competitive advantage of being able to...

Dave Jones: It could do.

Jeff Keyzer: That's right. ...having the thingy versus it would be that competitive advantage then.

Dave Jones: Yep. I think these... This site also has free stuff as well, but there's only like 10 of them. You know, there's a couple of thousand bought ones, but there's only like 10 free ones. So, yeah. I know. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: I don't think these guys get it, but I...

Dave Jones: Anyway, I don't care about their store. I care about their 3D printer. It's $1,300 bucks, right? Yeah. Right. But... Why? You know, I don't care about the hardware.

Chris Gammell: You have to print with it.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah. Dave's going to work on actually building the one that he has in his lab.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I'm building that tomorrow. Tomorrow is MakerBot. Oh, is it? Oh, I'm excited. I've got my friend in to help me out. All right. All right. And we're... Cool. We're going to build up. So, I'm shutting off the internet tomorrow. Lies. Going off the grid and we're going to build our MakerBot.

Jeff Keyzer: Everybody who gets Dave to tweet something gets a dollar.

Dave Jones: Right. Oh, boy. Anyway, it's cool. It's like $1,300 bucks for a professional, you know, built up 3D printer. Great. And they're only going to get cheaper. I really like this. I love this competition.

Chris Gammell: My dollars will be going to MakerBot if I buy a 3D printer.

Dave Jones: Yes. What if this one's better?

Chris Gammell: Well, I guess it depends on how much better it is.

Dave Jones: What if this one's better for less cost? Yeah, exactly. What if it's better for less cost? I don't know if it is, but what if it is?

Jeff Keyzer: Then you procrastinate like the rest of us.

Dave Jones: I'll take out with one, which is twice as good for half the cost. Would you still go with MakerBot just because they're MakerBot and you want to support them?

Chris Gammell: In that case, it'll put pressure on MakerBot and hopefully they'll come out with something that's better and cheaper. And ultimately...

Dave Jones: Bingo. That's why I like this. All right.

Chris Gammell: Sure. So, in terms of spurring innovation and cost reduction, then yeah. Sure. These guys have a role in the ecosystem, I guess. By doing it wrong, they show other people how to do a better job. Yeah. Sure.

Dave Jones: Sorry? So, you're saying this cube is wrong? No, I think...

Chris Gammell: I won't say that their product is any better or worse than MakerBot. It's just the fact that they're charging so much for models really turns me off. Like, I just do not like the way that ecosystem looks.

Dave Jones: I can hold the distinction. I can hold my opinion separately for their online community thing and for their product. I, you know, I'm not going to say their product's shit just because I don't like their community. Right? But you're free to do that if you want to do that. That's fine. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, that's like saying that you'd buy blood diamonds because the diamonds look great with complete regard of where they came from and people that died in the manufacturing. Right. There is always a cost to something, right? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, not everything in this world has to be open source and free. No, and I didn't say that. I do not blame them at all for trying to make an app-type model out of 3D objects. Like a paid app-type model.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I don't blame them in the least.

Jeff Keyzer: I don't blame them, but I expect them to fail, personally.

Dave Jones: Oh, probably. Yeah. Well, they, you know. Yeah. I mean, like, the Pirate Bay just came... The market will dictate. Did you guys see that?

Jeff Keyzer: The Pirate Bay just came out with a bunch of app-related things, or sorry, 3D printable things. In a 3D printed world... Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: That's right.

Jeff Keyzer: The Pirate Bay talked about already printing... Yeah, I saw that. ...and sharing files, right? So there's... Yeah. Yep. That's an interesting point to it. You know, that's the next wave of piracy. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, do these 3D printed files have DRM? Like, do they have digital rights? If you try to copy someone else's digital files, will your printer not let you print them? No. Like, I just... This totally tastes bad in so many ways, but... Yeah. Yeah, I mean, sure. If they make a quality printer, more power to them. I mean, that's great, but I don't know. This totally pushes my buttons, I guess.

Dave Jones: I don't know. I don't mind paying... If it's a professional model, I don't mind paying a reasonable price for it.

Chris Gammell: Sure.

Dave Jones: You know? I... Why not? But ultimately, the market will dictate who wins in this thing, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Dave Jones: In terms of the community and sharing of models, the market will work it out itself. So it doesn't matter who's doing what and who wins or who loses. The market ultimately decides. But for the actual printer itself, the 3D printer is, you know, is here. Like, totally kits are gone, as I predicted in my video quite some time back when MakerBot got their funding.

Jeff Keyzer: At a jungle gym, if people don't remember.

Dave Jones: They don't have a kit anymore. You can't buy the MakerBot kit. Or maybe you can, but the new one is only available built up. And so you won't get MakerBot kits anymore. And, you know, things like the RepRap. Like, I think the RepRap won't go anywhere because when these things get cheap enough, under $1,000, people won't want to build their own. They will want to just use one of these commercial ones. I guarantee it.

Chris Gammell: So that actually plays really well into the next discussion point that you had here, Dave. You had something to say about your power supply kit.

Dave Jones: Ah, yes, I did. Why does it play into that? Oh, a kit. Yes, of course it does.

Dave Jones: Yes. Yes. So your kit or the lack of a kit.

Dave Jones: But mine is not a mass market product, right?

Chris Gammell: Sure, sure, sure.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I don't know.

Jeff Keyzer: An EV blog power supply kit in every home and chicken in every pot and car in every garage.

Dave Jones: Yay, that's my goal. Just like Bill Gates.

Chris Gammell: Microsoft software in every home. So you're thinking that you don't want to make a kit now, right?

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, I was originally one of a kit. I got infatuated with the idea of doing a kit again. Because I haven't done an actual kit for a long time now. And I kind of got infatuated with the idea. And that drove the project for through hole and all that sort of stuff. And I don't know. Now I'm thinking, oh, it's probably too much hassle. And there's no cost benefit, really, in doing a kit as opposed to having the board actually pre-assembled. But it'll still be a kit. Like, as in, you know, you've got to wire up the case and the boards and the front panel and all that sort of stuff. But it won't, you know. But I'm tossing up between whether or not to have all through hole components and just actually provide you a bag of components or provide you an assembled board.

Chris Gammell: This is just like what Ellacraft went through with the K2 to the K3 ham radio transceiver, which I know you guys have talked about on the show before.

Dave Jones: We've talked about.

Chris Gammell: The K2 is all solder it yourself. And then the K3, all you do is you take a few sub-assemblies and you bolt them together into a chassis. And you bolt them together. And you have a professional radio. And, you know, I think it's interesting. Selling kits is not all it's cracked up to be in a lot of ways. Oh, no. And I think there's actually a negative cost to offering kits because if you sell kits, you have to support kits. And that can be a real burden if you're trying to make a product. And especially if you're a very small business, you can't afford to be spending all that time supporting people who are building kits. So I think this is a really interesting question. Personally, I think it depends on what the product is. And if it's something that people just want to use and they want to get from A to B quickly, they don't want to spend, you know, a day building this thing, then it probably doesn't make sense. But if people are going to take pride in putting it together or there's a big cost advantage, which if you're having to go through hole instead of surface mount just to keep it a kit, that's probably not true, right? Yeah. You're actually paying.

Dave Jones: I know this happened for the Arduino, actually. Yeah, right. Because they used to sell Arduino. There are a lot of companies who sold Arduino type kits and nobody bought them. Nobody bought. Nobody wanted one. Yeah, because after you build one, you don't care. So there's shelves full of them just sitting there.

Chris Gammell: It's just not interesting anymore.

Dave Jones: That's right.

Chris Gammell: I mean, a lot of things like that are fun to do once. And then you're like, oh, yeah, that was great. Now I know how that works.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that was fun to build up. And otherwise, it's like this MakerBot, right? That's true. I've got to admit. It's a pain in the ass. I know I've got to dedicate at least a full day with me and a friend to build this bloody thing up. And all I want to do is print 3D objects and cool stuff. And it's annoying. And that's why they dropped it. But, yeah, I don't know. So if you've got some opinion on it, please leave it in the comments. I'm sure there'll be lots of varied opinion. But, yeah, it does take – I've done kits before. And I've had people actually ship me the kit, like, without asking. The kit just comes back in the post with a note on it saying, your kit doesn't work. Fix it. You know? And I found that they've put the voltage regulator in backwards or something like that. You know? And their note says, I tested everything. And it's obviously a problem with your design. And it's like, well, you're a dickhead. You soldered the voltage regulator in backwards. You know? Like, ah. And, yeah, it can be bad. See, and I'd hate to have to say, well, sorry, I'm not going to support you. That's what the forum's for. Please go ask on the forum. You know? And then, you know, I just feel bad having to do that. But I would have to do that. Because I can't – you cannot troubleshoot by email. Have you ever tried to troubleshoot by email? It's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. Unless you're sitting there, you know, and using the meter and actually probing around. It's just, you know.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah, it's funny thinking about, like, all right, so what does your DMM read now? Three hours later, well, it's 3.44. Three hours later, you wait for it. All right, what about now?

Dave Jones: It's like playing chess by mail.

Jeff Keyzer: I don't know what's wrong, you know?

Dave Jones: There's some people who play chess by mail. Yeah, there you go. They send a letter to each other.

Chris Gammell: There's a Saturday Night Live sketch that's pretty famous of the IT guy, and he comes into the office. Oh, Nick, your company computer guy. He spends, like, yeah, he spends, like, five seconds. Yeah, I think it was Jimmy Fallon. It was Jimmy Fallon. In, like, five seconds. Move. Move. Yeah. You're welcome.

Jeff Keyzer: That's one of my favorites, actually. All right. I've got to watch it. Oh, yeah, they're great. Your company computer guy. It's Nick something.

Dave Jones: So what's your opinion, Jeff, as a kit producer, as a fellow kit producer? Like I said, I think it depends on the kit. That's my safe answer. Exactly. Thank you. I know.

Chris Gammell: If it's something that's fairly simple to put together, that people will get some satisfaction out of building it. And I think the Geiger counter fits into that side, where people get a lot of... They actually get to build something that does something useful that's not... You know, if it takes more than an hour to build for an average person, then it may not be a very good kit, unless there's something like a huge value add to someone putting it together themselves. Or if it's something that's impossible for you to manufacture, like the cost and the labor of assembly is so high that you can't do it. Is too much. Yeah, that's right. But for something like your power supply kit, I would just go surface mount, use state-of-the-art components. That might even reduce the cost. And then... Oh, yeah. How many people really want to build a power supply, really? People just want to use a power supply. You know, it's an appliance.

Dave Jones: Well, they might want to build it, but they don't want to solder every component. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's what I mean.

Chris Gammell: I would take the K3 philosophy and have sub-assemblies that get pushed together. And that's actually... There's an additional benefit in that you can actually test each sub-assembly as you manufacture it. And then the user actually gets... Or the consumer, I'm sorry, gets known good working parts. And I think that's a huge advantage to doing kind of the sub-assembly point of view. That's what I would do for the power supply kit. But, you know, I think it's different for every product or every kit. You have to think about what your users want. It is.

Dave Jones: It needs to be weighed up the pros and cons, Sano. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Thank you very much. And if you've got comments, please leave them. And I'll read through them all and just go crazy. Yeah. Thank you.

Chris Gammell: So I have some exciting news. Oh. We just talked last show about how I've been traveling so much. I'm going to be traveling again. And I'm actually going to be in the Bay Area this coming weekend. I've got a wedding reception that I have to go to. Not my own. And I'm actually really excited. Jeff and Mormon. I'm really excited because I'm going to get to see Jim Williams' desk at the Computer History Museum.

Jeff Keyzer: Oh.

Chris Gammell: Awesome. Yeah. So this exhibit's been up since, I don't know, shortly after he passed away last year. But I was reminded of this recently. I forget. I was Googling around. I was like, oh, yeah. And it turns out the exhibition runs through April. So I'm just going to catch it. And so I'm probably going to be at the Computer History Museum this Friday. Are you going to be in the Bay Area this Saturday? I am. Yeah. Are you going to the Analog Aficionados party?

Jeff Keyzer: I, no. You should, man. Oh, so I've been getting emails from Paul Rako. Paul Rako used to work at ED. He used to be the analog guy at EDN. He sets up this dinner every year. And if people don't know about it, it's an open invite. He just needs to know about who's showing up. But, yeah, tons of people will be there. And, like, really. Jeff, this is probably really good, like, networking and everything, too.

Dave Jones: Even Jack Kilby could be there if he's still alive. If he's still alive.

Jeff Keyzer: Well, Paul sends out these emails. And he actually sent out a list of who's going to be there. And just some of the list of people, you know, like AdMell, Texas Instruments, Linear Tech, all these people. Like, Bob Dobkin's going to be there, like, from Linear Tech. Like, that's a really big deal. I mean, and then Sue, Jim Williams' widow will be there. I know Bob Peace's son will be there. Like, yeah, so tons of people will be there. And even in this email then, yeah, they talked about, Paul Rako talked about printing out that poster that Jaime had done. And they might have a printout of that poster there with Bob Weidler. With your big finger. Yeah, Bob Weidler giving the finger. Giving the finger, yeah. Yeah, so that might be a giveaway.

Chris Gammell: So, definitely. Well, I will certainly look into this. I can't say that I can necessarily make it. I was planning on a side trip to Sacramento. But if I'm in the area, I will definitely.

Jeff Keyzer: Well, there's a thing Friday and there's a thing Saturday. So, I'll forward it to you. And if there's, I'm not sure. I don't think Paul posts on EDN anymore because he's at Analog Devices now. Ah, okay. Got it. Yeah. So, yeah, big party coming up this weekend. And I was talking to Todd Bailey about going to it. And because he's going to head out there for it. And I'm going out there the following week probably. But I can't make it out this weekend. So, it's a darn shame because this is going to be a really cool. I know Jerry went a year ago or two years ago. And just great party. Like just like tons of people. Like old, like the gray beards come out of the woodwork. And it's just like Silicon Valley madness.

Chris Gammell: Don't you think these guys are going to give me a bunch of shit though for being an RF designer and not an analog designer? I mean, they're like, yes. Oh, yeah, you guys design. Same shit. Three transistors. Same shit. I've heard these things before. No, I'll definitely send me the information. You know, I just picked up a copy of the book that came out late last year. Do you have a copy of this Analog Circuit Design, a tutorial guide to applications and solutions? No. I know that when you're talking. It was a Soviet or something. It came out right after Jim Williams passed away. Yeah. It's him and Bob Dobkin, right? Yeah. It's edited by him and Bob Dobkin. And I, again, like I think I was on the computer history site and I ended up finding a link to this and I ordered a copy and it's kind of expensive. I think it was 60 or 70 bucks on Amazon. Yeah. And I just got the copy on Friday. And I was really shocked when I picked up the package at my doorstep because this textbook, which is what it is, weighs almost six pounds. Oh, yeah. So this is six pounds of analog goodness. And it's mostly linear application notes. I think that's pretty much all it is. And not all of them are by Jim, but many, probably most of them are. And I started tearing through it and there's some really interesting stuff here. And I actually, I started kind of reading it, which it's hard to do because it doesn't really read like a book. But one big disappointment I had is they got rid of the cartoons. Oh, yeah. Oh, what? I'm trying to find cartoons in here because Jim is so famous for the cartoons at the end of the app notes. And I guess they edited them out. They're gone. Oh, lame. Publishers. Yeah, publishers. I'm not going to buy it now. Come on. And I was disappointed.

Dave Jones: And it's only 65 bucks on Amazon, which is not for such a big book. Yeah, for six pounds. I mean, yeah, the price per pound is great. It's pretty good.

Chris Gammell: And I think, I mean, granted, I think the biggest negative point about the book that people have been pointing out on Amazon is that a lot of these app notes are available for download for free. Yeah. But I, you know, I don't have a Kindle. I don't have any kind of an e-reader. And it drives me crazy to read app notes on a computer screen. So I was like, yeah, this looks great.

Dave Jones: Because they're A4 letter formatted. Yeah, that's right. They don't fit.

Chris Gammell: And the other thing is that the book actually, it's curated a little bit. So the app notes are actually arranged in a particular way. And there's additional commentary that's been added. So it's cool. I mean, this book reminds me a lot of Bob Pease's book, Troubleshooting Analog Circuits, which I've had for a while now. Which I loved. And that was a book that I'd never heard of while I was actually working in the industry. And then it wasn't until I left and did some contracting that somebody introduced me to that book. And I wish I had found out about that 10 years ago. Because I love that book. It's a really, really good book.

Jeff Keyzer: It's very conversational about how to, like, get into a circuit.

Chris Gammell: I read it in a couple sittings. You know, it's one of those books you can sit down. It's just a couple hundred pages long. And you can just breeze through. And it's great. Bob Pease, RIP, was such a great storyteller. Rip rap. Rip rap, yeah. He was such a great storyteller that the book is very well written. And Jim Williams has that same gift where you can actually read his app notes. And unlike a lot of app notes, and especially papers in academia, you can actually read these.

Jeff Keyzer: I believe you needed an ahem at the end of that, Jeff. You needed a ahem.

Dave Jones: Ahem. Ahem. I've got a rant about Amazon. Can I? Yeah.

Jeff Keyzer: Who's going to stop you? I shouldn't even be here right now. I was just thinking, holy crap, we're an hour and a half.

Jeff Keyzer: I told you. You'd stay the whole hour. I know. You were right, Dave. You were right. Nerd. My wife's going to kill me.

Dave Jones: In my best ogre voice.

Jeff Keyzer: Yep. Nerd.

Dave Jones: A new book by Neil Tyson. Our friend Neil Tyson, who we love. Yes. Right?

Dave Jones: Yes.

Dave Jones: And he's got a new book come out. It popped up in my email inbox from Amazon. And it's like, here's the hard copy of the book. Hard copy. You know, real paper, dead tree stuff. He's only $16 something. And I thought, okay, well, I'll get the Kindle version. The Kindle version is $14.50. Oh, no. Are you shitting me? Yeah. Come on.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Give me a break. That's ridiculous.

Jeff Keyzer: Publishers are going to hold on to that as long as they can. They will not give up anything.

Dave Jones: Oh, man. Yep. Come on. Two bucks difference between the hard, barely two bucks difference between the hard copy and the Kindle version. Yep. Unbelievable.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah.

Dave Jones: No, that's all I'm going to say. Okay. That's all I'm going to say. No. Sorry. I've got another rant. Can I have one more rant?

Chris Gammell: Yes.

Dave Jones: Mother me, I, yeah. Excellent. I bought one of these little remote control zoom things for my video camera. You know, it's a corded thing. You plug it into the side of the camera and you've got a remote handheld thing that you can adjust the zoom so that you don't have to touch the zoom ring on the camera. So you can get nice smooth zooms without shaking the camera on the tripod. Anyway, I thought I'd get one of these. It's cheap. You know, it's only 30 bucks or something. And I get the thing and it looks all right. And then I press the buttons and they go click, click, click, like really loud. They've got these really loud tactile buttons in there for the zoom control. And yeah, fail. Hello. Product fail. You know, the last thing you want when you're in a quiet recording studio trying to record something is a big click from the button as you push the zoom. What were they thinking? Idiots. Yeah. End rant. Granted, it's not a genuine Canon one. It's a, some other one hung low brand.

Jeff Keyzer: Well, Dave, if you paid, if you paid for quality, man, we were talking about that earlier.

Dave Jones: If I paid 400 bucks for the genuine Canon one. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, you know, you can buy a whole video camera for that.

Jeff Keyzer: They're custom and everything. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That, ooh, pornographic and made of silicon and, ooh.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Now, is this infrared? No, no, no, no. It's actually wired. It uses the Canon one wire bus. I forget the name of the bus offhand. There's a, it's a Canon and Sony do it too. It's a similar.

Chris Gammell: Is it a proprietary bus or could you design your own interface?

Dave Jones: It's a proprietary bus, but, no, I don't think it's proprietary. Oh, well, some of the commands, but it is an open protocol. Like, you can actually download what the protocol is. You know, I don't know whether or not it's official and it's been reverse engineered or not, but it's a, yeah, it's a simple protocol. Canon have used it for 20 years or something and Sony and Panasonic. And it is kind of like a standard. So I think some of the, some of the commands are common between the different brand cameras, but some aren't. Some are proprietary for a particular model.

Chris Gammell: So you may or may not be able to actually make your own version of this. I mean, it'd probably be easier.

Dave Jones: I've been thinking about making my own version. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's really annoying. Every time I want to actually, um, like I've just shot a clip and it's a heap of crap, right? I've screwed it up and I just want to delete the thing. I've got to go into playback mode, go through the menu, select the clip and then press delete and then okay. And it's like a 10 step process. I don't bother because it's so annoying. I want just a single button remote control that goes, that automatically macros through and, you know, actually deletes the clip for me. So, so much for their professional level camera, you know, can't even delete a fricking clip without jumping through hoops anyway. Yeah.

Speaker ?: Wow.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I was annoyed. I just, it just shocked me. That is the first thing I did is push the button. Click. Unbelievable.

Jeff Keyzer: User testing is important. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Crazy. Anyway, that's our show. Wow. One hour and three minutes. Yeah. It's fast. No, it's probably a one hour and one. I think we had a couple of minutes in show, but I told you you'd last the whole show. You were right, Dave. Chris, you knew it.

Jeff Keyzer: I couldn't resist. I could not resist.

Chris Gammell: I know. I think Chris likes to keep an eye on us, right? I mean. Yeah.

Jeff Keyzer: You guys were going a little wild last time, yeah. You're right. I listened to it on the plane home today, yeah. Yeah? Yeah. It was good. I liked it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Thanks. Okay.

Jeff Keyzer: I should mention for next week, we have a guest, a special guest.

Dave Jones: Oh, we do. Yes, we can.

Jeff Keyzer: Of course, Jeff is always a special guest as well.

Dave Jones: Oh, yes. Thank you, guys. Yeah, of course.

Jeff Keyzer: Thanks. But next.

Dave Jones: People take him for granted, though.

Jeff Keyzer: I know. We do. We do.

Dave Jones: Hmm.

Jeff Keyzer: We'll pay him soon enough. As soon as we get paid, we'll pay him.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, I do it because I enjoy doing it, though. I mean, it's... I wouldn't be here if I wasn't having a good time. All right.

Jeff Keyzer: That's good to know.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the club. Why do you think you're doing it? Yeah, right. That's true, yeah. It isn't for the big bucks, let me tell you.

Jeff Keyzer: It sure as hell isn't it, man? Oh, yeah. I'm doing this for them. Although we do love our donors. They are awesome. We should always mention them. Yes.

Dave Jones: People have been donating. Thank you very much. Thank you to all of them. Helps pay for our new...

Jeff Keyzer: Jeff doesn't get any of that money. Don't worry. Anyways, next week, we will have Bunny Huang on the show. Is it Huang or Huang, maybe? Chubby guy. We'll have to ask him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He designed the Chumbie. He just released the NETVs and he hacked the Xbox. So, I think we're going to have a lot of cool questions for him.

Dave Jones: I think so. Yeah. Including, how did you get the name Bunny?

Jeff Keyzer: That is a good first question.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yep. I think his real name's Andrew. It is.

Jeff Keyzer: Yeah. And we'll post up a link to a page. So, if people want to ask him questions, we'll be able to do that. You know, be able to post questions in there and then we'll ask him during the show, hopefully. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Exciting. Awesome. Yeah. That is very cool. You'll have to ask him about the NETV does some pretty slick digital rights circumvention. Yeah. I was reading about that.

Dave Jones: I'm not aware of this NETV thing. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You'll have to read up on it. It's really cool. I'm talking about it. Yeah. It's very, very cool. He's done some really interesting things and he seems like he's an FPGA wizard. So, you'll have to ask him some FPGA stuff. Very cool guy. I don't know if I've ever met him, but I saw him talk while I was in Berlin over Christmas and amazing guy. Very talented engineer.

Jeff Keyzer: Yep. That's what we like. Cool engineers like Mr. Jeff Kaiser of MightyHome.com.

Chris Gammell: Oh, thank you very much. Well, thanks for having me on the show, guys. Like I said, I always enjoy it. It's a lot of fun.

Dave Jones: And always nice to be had. Well, thanks.

Jeff Keyzer: Catch us all next week. All right. See you guys. Bye.

Dave Jones: I'm recording in audacity.

Chris Gammell: Okay, I just hit recording audacity also. Let me, for some reason, mine always defaults to not the right waveform view. All right, there we go.

Jeff Keyzer: And Dave, just so you know, I'm going to let you post that because I know how much you were looking forward to adding in Aussie songs.

Dave Jones: Yeah, there goes another hour or two.

Chris Gammell: You guys will have to have me do it once to experience it. Okay, yeah. No problem, man. We'll just ship them to you every week if you want. No, that's okay. Thank you.

Dave Jones: Forget I said that. We can outsource it to Texas.

Chris Gammell: It'll have a little bit of a twang on the audio. Yeah, there you go.

Dave Jones: Julian Banjo. You can pass it through the twang filter. That's right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Australia.

Dave Jones: We'll be right back.