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...

That's all for this week. Looking forward to another year of shows! Remember, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook or now on Google+