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- Dave’s mother got cheated out of a vacation when her cruise ship broke! Chris knew someone who has been on the Oasis of the Seas, the largest cruise ship built to date.
- Dave worked at a company on Garden Island in Sydney’s Central Business District. He worked there two months and subsequently left it off his resume.
- Do you ever leave stuff off your resume?
- Dave just returned from Electronex where he had a trade booth, which listed The Amp Hour! The big hits were the microscope and core memory:
[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJ0c0ioAXY[/tube] - Dave is also looking at foregoing a bigger lab and instead getting a bigger space.
- Apple released a new smart watch, will be interesting to see how it changes the sensors game.
- Chris just got back from the Hardware Workshop in San Francisco (notes available here). It was more “business” focused than electronics.
- This coming weekend is the World Maker Faire in NY. Chris said on the show that he wouldn’t be there, but changed his plans!
- Altium will be officially releasing their new free PCB tool. Dave has a list of the upcoming features. One possible showstopper is that you have to save your files to the cloud (no local copy).
- Chris will continue working with KiCad.
- Breakin (Breakdance) and Breakin’ 2 (Breakdance 2), Electric Boogaloo. 80s classics!
[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMDbBSyS1Rk[/tube] - Chris’s is working on a new component search engine! A new way to discover parts called Parts.io. There is an Alpha signup as well.
- Chris got to meet the folks from Seeed studio and learned about their Open Part Library. This should reduce cost if you send a board to them. They also have an EAGLE library with the part footprints.
- This is similar to what CircuitHub is going to be trying with the part bundling. Andy talked about CircuitHub way back on episode 131.
- Do other CMs publish their part lists? It would be good to create a database or wiki page with links to these.
- Chip of the Week: The TI FDC1004, “Capacitance to Digital Converter”
- There was a wonderful teardown of a Tesla 85 kWh battery pack. The pictures show the multitude of networked 18650 lithium cells.
- We wonder about what happens when a fuse blows. Chris recalls when Bob Simpson was on the show he talked about bypassing cells if necessary.
- We also learned that Vincent Himpe (also a former guest of the show and prolific EEVblog forum member) recently got a gig as the lead PCB designer for Tesla! We’ll try to get him back on the show at some point.
Thanks to Charlie J for the picture of the guts of a Rolex
Altium – You are competing with Eagle and KiCAD. I’ve used Altium/Protel/Tango products and I see no reason to use your product.
Dave it sounds like you are bleeding money renting junk space. I stand by my advice about moving to Taiwan 🙂 screw the waifu, she will love living in the mansion by the beach (that you will be able to afford).
saving to the cloud? oh Dave you pokerface traitor!!1
also: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AAHAHA, stupid altium
at least Chris didnt fail to deliver proper reaction 🙂
btw You have been played by altium pr person, he used one of the oldest psychological tricks in the book on you
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect
They knew you would be the loudest critic of this fail attempt at online DRM, so they asked for a favour (feedback) and all of a sudden ‘its not so bad’. They effed with your mind, created additional frame that screws your perception. At this point even thinking about publicly laughing at altium must feel weird to you. This is some evil shit right there.
parts.io – looks like a lot of search parameters are sucked out of datasheets, this reminds me of what guys from upverter were talking about a ~year ago on the amp hour. Btw Upverter might be what Altium is buying? 🙂
I have to say, it is very different for Dave to be the apologist. Normally I’m the one taking that role.
However, I think Dave has some severe brand loyalty to a good product and that should be respected. I think it’ll be interesting to see where this all goes and we’ll get to laugh about some of the silly decisions along the way.
Altium is kind of becoming like Apple in that way: People love ruminating on what MIGHT be happening or what COULD be included in the next version of the iPhone/Designer/etc when other companies aren’t talked about and continue adding things. Ah well. Fanboys, eh? 🙂
Awesome show, guys!
Given most hobbyists do not use (or publicly admit using) Altium given its price, I think it is very commendable on their part to try out something different irrespective of the features and who they choose as their main PR guy (hehehe). If anything IBM, Microsoft and others learned decades ago, if you enable people to have access to their systems at early stages of professional development you are in for more users in the long run.
I am not a huge fan of the “cloud” approach, but it perhaps caters to the same audience that uses mbed.org and is ok with that.
Also, I particularly loved the Tesla energy storage link.
Speaking of electric cars, check this one out: http://tiny.cc/aegcmx
2MW of LiIon batteries?!? (gestures like Emmett “Doc” Brown when he learned about 21GW)
Great show guys!
Call engineers control freaks, but having your design files on your PC is a MUST. Altium have missed the boat on this one – the “free” version is way too late. I have been waiting for a free version for a long time, it is good to get some Altium experience from a resume point of view at least since many companies use it – may only use it for that.
I will be staying with KiCad (and Eagle) thank you very much… :o)
If you DO leave something off your resume, be sure you have a valid explanation for the gap in work history. Once experienced finding hourly employees at the county career fair. In employment history, many applicants had a few jobs, then a six month gap, then handful of temp jobs for the past few month. You ask, “I notice a gap in your employment history. Care to comment?” “Well, I was in prison for ….”
Then one guy walks up, the conversation starts as usual, then took a detour:
“I notice a gap in…”
“MURDER,” the guy replies.
“Unfortunately not the talent we are looking for in this particular position.”