Bowie and The Brown Note

[display_podcast]

• The 555 contest continues onward! Everyone is getting excited! Dave's classic 1976 vintage Signetics 555 timer chip (which he destroyed! RIP). Can anyone beat it?
• WOTW
  • William
    • L-shaped bench photos
  • Laurence White
    • Photo tour of the workshop
  • Mr. J from Boston
    • Home workbench
    • Radio gear
• Rants
  • Dave doesn't like how all those cupcakes he's sending to US Senators have been blasted with high energy rays!
• Shoutouts
  • Dino Segovis linked here from his site!
  • MAKE has a new live show! Great production value!
• Discussion Points
  • Dave plays the lotto!
  • Plastic transistors are improving in the lab...could help for future printable electronics.
  • Using lasers in board/chip construction followup:
    • @chrisindallas alerts us to PBeam technology for chips
    • And laser board cutters are already available for £80K
    • Cherish notes there are external forces pushing new methods to reduce chemicals in processing
  • Perhaps the economy is picking up? NI plans to increase headcount 19% next year.
  • ADI and NI have a free SPICE package that is pretty fancy. Bloated software but Chris liked it at first glance.
  • Microchip still charges $900 for open-source software you can download and compile for free.
  • Intel had a bit of a snafu with one of their latest chips. Time for heads to roll? Or is it a $700 million lesson like at IBM back in the day? (thanks to Eduardo for the link!)
• Videos
  • David Bowie's Space Oddity
  • The Brown Note (Noise) episode on South Park
  • Mythbuster's investigation of the (busted) brown note theory
  • Super Awesome Sylvia
  • WTF, mate?
  • Another Gammell on YouTube has some cool soldering videos