The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

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#136 – Hardware, Surveys and Giveaways – Radular Rental Ranting

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EZE Rental

Thanks to justephens for the rental sign

Comments

  1. You have to remember that the 2.4Ghz band used for Wifi is the exactly *same* that’s used on microwave owens. Of course those microwaves have a lot more RF energy, but those frequencies definitely do affect organic matter.

  2. Just to nitpick something that made me jump on my chair while listening the podcast. When speaking about downloading a pirated software, Dave designate it a stealing. This is wrong, as you are not depriving someone from a good. If I steal your bike you have no more bike. The case of software piracy goes into the conterfit cathegory (but I guess it varies for some contries). You are “only” depriving from a source of money, not from any good themselves. This distinction is very important on the legal side of things. Big distribution companies always like to spread confusion around these two infractions to get the most out of the trials and make examples. Let’s try not to add more confusion.

  3. Chris, you do need to be careful with outside of work activities. In some circles, this is viewed negatively and will be brought-up during a resource action (when any excuse applies) for example. If you have the OK in writing, then no worries, but I didn’t, and even though I had the verbal OK, it still bit me. There can be, and usually are, other employees around you that do it and no one will ever care, but in reality you have to make sure *you* are covered.

    • That’s a good point Russ. If a company I work for wants to get rid of me, they will find a reason; I’m sure that could be used. With podcasting and such, I took the tact of “better to ask forgiveness than ask permission” and will continue to do so. If something happens, I’ll have to deal with it. I always hope that having a few friendly ears listening to my woes will help me find something else 😉

      I’m curious, how did it end up biting you? (as much as you’re comfortable saying)

      • It first came-up during an annual review, even though I was rated at the top rating, the manager asked me how my business was going; and then starred at me as if to say WTF? About a year later when I was laid-off, my new manager (different area) made a point of saying that it didn’t have anything to do with my performance, etc. but included my business in that list; why mention it?

        In fairness, the company was sued for age discrimination and eventually lost. The net result was about $6.82 /mo in restitution starting at age 65. I will have to take great care not to spend that all in one place.

        Honestly though, it’s easy now to look back at this as the best thing that ever happened to me.

        • Ah, ok. I put side businesses in a different categories than hobbies, though many companies do have policies about moonlighting and side jobs. It truly can affect the business. Side hobbies though, like Dave and I were talking about (and what I still consider TAH to be)? I think that’s something different. So when we talk about outside-of-work “activities”, we should really talk about hobbies vs companies I guess.

  4. if (HDL == “hardware description language”) begin
    you <= gold_star;
    end
    else if(HDL == "hardware definition language") begin
    you <= blasphemy
    end
    else if(HDL == "high definition language") begin
    // the phase "high definition" is my number one pet peeve!!
    you <= dave_jones_is_a_bad_bad_man;
    else begin
    you <= arrghh;
    end

  5. I went to a local meetup for start-up co-founders about a year ago. There were probably 45 to 50 folks there, and about half of them were working on some sort of social networking star-up. I was amused, for sure.

  6. Hi there,
    About “stealing” hardware or software, I agree with Dave to some extent, but I also agree with terriea that copying a software is not stealing.
    Also, if I buy a license for a “basic” version of a software, and somehow unlock it to have all the features of the “pro” version, I’m in the same situation as with the oscilloscope.

  9. You asked for comments on the RF absorption of water. It is a common misconception that water ‘resonates’ at 2.45 GHz. Water has a very broad absorption spectrum and microwave ovens work through dielectric heating by the dipole rotation of the water molecules. Since water is a polar molecule it will align itself with an external electric field. By subjecting it to an oscillating field, the molecule will also oscillate as long as the frequency is low enough given the angular momentum of the molecule. Actually, the original microwave ovens ran in the ISM band around 900MHz rather than the one at 2.45GHz and some large commercial ovens still do. They have the advantage of penetrating deeper into food being cooked.

    Here’s some quick links:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_water

    Anyway, hope that interests someone.
    Cheers,
    Mike