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- Chris has a new mic! An AT2020 USB microphone. Dave uses a Samson C01U USB microphone.
- The Jacksonville police mistake LED lightbulbs for a bomb! Whoops!
- Shonky Product of the Week:
- The ADE651, a scam bomb detector. Similar to a dowsing rod…in that it’s full of crap!
- Shoutouts:
- Fake EE Quips has created a bingo game to play along with during The Amp Hour.
- Tymkrs has created a new podcast called “ZombieTech” as part of their broad range of educational material.
- Another site for electronic education called The Signal Path. Similar format to Dave’s videos, they’re great for learning about electronic components.
- DIY Drones has a fun (unlisted video) that shows a (possibly fake?) electronic human-scale multicopter. The guy driving it wasn’t being very safe, but we’re glad he’s ok.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEa0V6mOodI
- Dave wishes we could talk about it more, but he wanted to remind people about the Tektronix announcement coming up in a few hours (from when the swhow was taped). Dave may or may not have something to say about it soon.
- Rumor about TI selling the OMAP family to Intel or Broadcom. Junko Yoshida (the EIC) was upset they took so long to respond (because they don’t regularly participate?).
- TI has a new app out for all their products. Speaking of, Chris just got a Nook and has Android unlocked on it, but probably won’t put electronics apps on it. Do you use mobile apps from vendors?
- High voltage electronics and a funny accent? Yes please! Great (dangerous) videos from PhotonicInduction!
- We’ve talked about Kickstarter before on here and the viability of HW projects. Geekscape describes an unfortunate scam on Kickstarter for a project that sounded pretty cool (and too good to be true)
- Prizes were ridiculous, but didn’t compare to the money required to get the top prizes in the the MC Frontalot Kickstarter Campaign that recently completed.
- This Day In Nerd History:
- Charles Kettering, an American engineer whose 140 patents included the electric starter, car lighting and ignition systems. Later had the General Motors Institute named after him (now Kettering University). Vice president and director of research for General Motors Corp. (1920-47).
- Are robots going mainstream? At $285K per robot, probably not. But it’s a good step forward. Dave is building a Microbric robot at home for fun.
- Should green cards be stapled to diplomas? Could help with the exodus of skilled workers back to their home countries and instead entice them to start companies in the US (or wherever they are educated).
Did we miss something? Have some suggestions about what we talked about or did a story strike you as odd? Think we should add or subtract segments from the show? Let us know in the comments!
The link to Amp Hour Bingo appears to be broken, here’s one that should work:
http://wp.me/p1rUdF-30
Thanks for the shoutout guys!
Fixed, thanks!
anyone who thinks that the fucking bombsquad cannot recognize a box of leds when they see one, is extremely naive and apparently uninformed.
there was no mistake, and everyone should think really hard about why these things are really happening.
again, if you believe these people who need knowledge of electronics for the reason of not getting killed by them will not recognize a box of leds when they see one, you really ought to stop sniffing wood polish…
Not from a vendor, but Droid Tesla is a great Android circuit simulation software, works very well on tablets such as the Motorola Xoom. http://droidtesla.com/demo.html
This has promise. i guess it wouldn’t work so well on my HTC Dream (G1). I’ve been trying to think of good electronics mobile apps but i didn’t come up with anything good. On the ham side of things i did download a morse code reader. It seems to only really work on amplitude. I would be better if it filtered for frequency as well. When i hold it up to the radio, the morse tones dip into the static noise.
I have lots components from Element14 that came in the red compostable bags that I think are starting to compost around the components.
The ADE651 or GT200 or whatever it’s called now is a great detector. Not for bombs but for corruption. Apparently there are large kickbacks in the purchasing process. I don’t think people are stupid to buy them cause they think they are working, but motivated by the bonuses they get paid back from the producer.
The scandal is older than a year. There have been some arrests in the UK at the beginning of 2010. However, it looks as if authorities didn’t follow through.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10269170
posted that on twitter already, but here comes again. think thats copter project is legit.
http://www.hecopter.com/images/stories/tech-7.jpg
pretty sure he got no stabilization whatsoever. it would have never tipped over even if half the mosfets burn out.
That guy Photonicinduction is funny !!!! I laugh on every video I watch of his!!!!
The great pity is that when he does finally Fry himself no one will be around to post the video.
I think you guys should make an episode where you score a full house on the bingo card. It would make a quintessential Amp Hour.
Dave, it’s improvised EXPLOSIVE device. Not Electronic device.
More for the bingo card:
“You heard it here first”
“I hear this all the time”
“There you go”
“Everyone should get a …”
“Did you see that thing?”
Another one for the Bingo card, that would be a “gimme” would be: Dave says, “ahh, I don’t know”
Is IED defined differently in Australia? I heard Dave refer to it as Improvised Electronic Device – which sounds pretty harmless. Here in the US, IED means Improvised Explosive Device.
The Amp Hour bingo now has its own domain:
http://www.theamphourbingo.com/ 🙂
I agree with Chris’ hard-working Midwest view of things.
If everyone wants to move to a city or attend a certain school, that’s a good thing. It will inspire people to create more of the same, since creating something good makes everyone want it which makes it expensive.
I also agree with the green card. There’s room for debate about how many foreigners we let it, but it seems like letting them in on a visa that can have them sent home on a week’s notice is a bad policy. It’s difficult for the foreigner worker, and it creates opportunities for abuse.
I don’t know if I’m late to the game with this, but everytime I see a story about hobbyist electronics causing an over-reaction among law enforcement, my first thought is “yeah, I could make that blow up.”
Granted, my background is pretty uncommon, but I haven’t seen any hobbyist electronic project that has been stoppped by security that I couldn’t build an identical device with a bomb in it.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that we’re not over reacting in a lot of these cases, but I don’t think the issue is as cut and dried as some would like to believe.