Biarchy Birthday Bavardage

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Happy Birthday to us! One year in the bag! Thanks for all of our wonderful listeners!

• From the EEVBlog forums, user "dics" is listening to The Amp Hour on a breadboard! Awesome!
• Tech Shop SF is matching donations on a new campaign to spread the word of Hacker/Makerspaces in the community.
• Chris's alma mater, Case Western Reserve, is talking about starting something called "Thinkbox". Could be a school/hackerspace joint space, hopefully as well stocked as a Tech Shop. If it materializes, we think it should be called a Hackerversity™
• There are other examples out there in existence today, but not quite a fully public/private sharing with good funding. Some examples:
  • BUILDS
  • MITERS
  • SPaRC
  • MIT Media Lab
• Dave is excited about the possible re-release of the HP15C calculator.
• Funky Hakko guide to soldering. Perhaps it was lost in translation but some of the "stories" in this are downright creepy. We prefer "Soldering is Easy"
• Another post from the EEVblog forums, a member asks about how much fudge factor a design should have, specifically relating to power budgets.
• Chips continue to pull in system level functionality. Does this affect the role of a hardware designer? Examples of "all in one" type chips:
  • Radar front end
  • ECG Processor + Front End
  • An audio codec (DSP, DAC, ADC, PGAs, op amps, etc)
• COTW: The temperature sensing Texas Instruments TMP006, a thermopile based sensor with a serial output.
• This Day In Nerd History: Joseph F. Enbelberger was born (July 26th). He developed the first industrial robot in the US and is referred to as the "Father of Robotics". Also co-founded Unimation in 1965.
• New segment, yet to be named ("wank of the week" doesn't seem to fit the bill). If you hear about bogus products or claims, send them our way. Though not a product, the TI "Thank An Engineer" videos receive honorable mention for having "engineer" in the title but not actually being about engineering...