Damn :( That's very unfortunate (and I am sorry if I got your hopes up). I should have specified that I've only searched for and purchased hardware specific standards not software ones.
628 karma · joined February 28, 2018
Prices are generally single to low double-digit Euros (even for standards that are hundreds or 1000+ dollars).
If you are a solo contractor like me (and hence only need one copy), DON'T get the single licence copies. You need to use some BS DRM software that binds the file to your computer and is a PITA.
Get the organisation one, pay for two licenses, and you'll be given a regular PDF instead (and still save hundreds of dollars).
You obviously will only get the Estonian specific annexes, but those are normally optional anyway, and generally available for free when downloading the "free sample" of a standard for a specific country.
I thought ML needs huge datasets? This is great for GitHub's Copilot as there is plenty of high quality, production, open source code they've used without authorisation from the creators (and possibly proprietary code).
But this dataset just doesn't exist for hardware development on the internet. Almost everything on the net is hobbyist stuff. Great for hand building 10 on a desk but absolute rubbish for a (even horribly) manufacturable and COMPLIANT product.
Further: an anecdotal, but to me very telling, one liner from the video "the component is "not use for new designs" but we can ignore that because there's 260,000 of them". I have personally sniped larger quantities than that from digikey. "Not for new design" means you don't use it in a new design. PERIOD. And ironically, for something like a Murata cap, they've probably literally changed one letter in the PN because they've made a tiny process or recepie change and its more a "move everyone to the new iteration" process.
I do sincerely wish them success and maybe they can carved out a small bit of the hobbyist market but that's probably it.
Even software I pay for seems to try to screw me at every turn. "You paid for me? Have some ads! I'll scan everything you do and sell it off to the highest bidder! No you can't copy and send this image to a friend, but here's a link to try and lure them into the walled garden so I can data rape them too. Stay in my eco system it's great. You love it here! Click click click keeping clicking. Moar data to sell! Give moar! Data breach! I'm soz (but no compensation for you."
Oh and when you live off grid with little power you learn to hate electron apps. They are such power wasters. Three things cause my inverter to spin up its cooling fans: games, windows updates and electron apps. (And of course if you have "AC" plugged in most apps seem to think its a damn free for all for power. So its more power efficient to charge powered down and only run using battery if possible).
But yeah, sometimes find it almost violating in a way, especially when its that typical PM line "hey did you read my email?" (that was literally sent 10 seconds ago).
It just feels like someone coming over to my desk and pushing, monitors, scopes, everything off and smashing it on the floor, then walking off.
Now I have both unrealistic deadline AND a mess to clean up.
I don't know where I'm going with this comment. Just venting I guess :)
I've also ever used Chrome and I never will. Also never used IE either. Netscape was way better.
I actually found a copy of the Firefox 1.0.14 (I think) installer when going through an old hard drive a few months ago. That was a cool little discovery.
I'm sorry to be so terse (and it'll probably get me horribly downvoted) but: What the absolute f**? Just ... What? Huh? Housing crisis ... Fixed? Who paid you? And how much?
It most certainly, absolutely, positively is NOT fixed.
And if I recall correctly, the recommend changes that are linked in TFA were not adopted because of a NIMBY backlash and Auckland council caved (like they always do). All they ended up doing was scrapping the "green belt" border allowing the awful urban sprawl to resume full tilt.
The only "maybe" meaningful change that has happened was by central government at the end of 2021 by tweaking the RMA Act and essentially forcing councils to allow denser builds. (https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/457924/resource-managem...)
And that won't be enough. Deep structural changes have to occur: economically (introduce capital gains tax), politically (both major parties are currently useless on the matter) and culturally (everyone pours money just into housing rather than more productive investments just because the stock market detonated in 1989) to have any chance of fixing this.
I also love how there are no graphs on incomes, house prices, housing affordability, immigration, crime, homelessness, the massive price inflation during covid, or the current housing bubble deflation that's occurring.
I'm sorry. This article is a giant load of insulting rubbish. I can't figure out if it's just very poorly researched or some sort of propaganda piece.
edit grammar
A $5k temperature chamber running over night or weekend would have caught this.
They wasted resources on fixing what they "thought" was the problem. That money would have paid for some nice chambers and other equipment.
Next thread: "We learned our robot doesn't work when sitting in a shipping container at -40C for three months because customs was being difficult."
Thread after: "Hardware is hard! We learnt about EMC compliance."
You'll find that their values are almost exactly: stated_value+/-tolerance rather than a range of values.
i.e a 100k 5% resistor will be almost exactly either 105k or 95k not some number in between.
* I graduated as a Computer Engineer.
* Worked as EE/EEE entire career (currently almost 14 years).
* Half of my class of EEs and CEs went into other careers immediately after graduation because money was better.
* 10 years later my best conservative estimate (based on sampling from friends from my year) is that at least another quarter has left because money.
* I have mainly worked in companies that make embedded devices, which is a market that is supposed to be exploding. So I should be getting paid better right? Have always been paid worse than my SE peers even though there's x5 - x10 as many of them.
* Know lots of SEs who moved from EE because money was better (chief complaint from them is that SE is easier but they don't care because job less stressful and again more money).
* Have never met an SE moving into EE.
* I am now at a junction point in my career where I will either: Leave EE completely and work in something else (probably SE or IT), start my own EE business, consult in compliance of EE products (had one gig for a while and it paid well). Why? because money.
And I don't want fast cars or huge houses or any of that absurdity (although A house would be nice). Just living comfortably would be nice. Having the salaries of my SE and CS friends would be amazing.
To those commenters who say that you need to be bright to be an EE, it is very flattering, but I am obviously not very bright :D
(edit: formatting because, again, not very bright :) )
Anything important I get from a physical store. For cheap crap or stuff I am happy to gamble on, I'd rather cut out the useless price gouging middleman, and go straight to the source.
I've actually had very good customer service from AliExpress vendors. A NUC form factor PC I got had issues using a certain brand of RAM. They churned out a custom BIOS overnight to try get it going.
To clarify, I support the problems trying to be solved but a lot of the ideas are just the wrong way to go about it. I've thought of weighing in, but the way some other dissenting commenters get beaten down means I self censor and move on to other threads.
I personally wouldn't give the CCP that much credit, at all.
In my experience, the signs for this crunch in supply were there. The unusual part is maybe the speed at which it took hold and now the amount of time the shortages are lasting.
I was arguing for building inventory when the situation was (in my eyes) clearly getting bad, the business chose not to. Now its much much worse. A 5-10USD lithium charge controller goes for about 100USD (one seller had it for 500USD).
At least this way, the smaller businesses that get ignored by the big suppliers in times like these, can get supply if they can pay.
It's also not all just brokers. The outfit we use in China for PCB fabrication and population saw the signs and stocked up on inventory on their one initiative. They are the only reason we can make anything at all.
Fundamentally ICs are NOT a Just-in-time-able part. And if people actually read the book on JiT they'd understand that fact, and they would keep inventory.
When you see this time and again like me, it's hard to have sympathy for businesses that get caught out. (I do have sympathy for those that came prepared and are now stuck though).
Next crunch time (and there always is a next time in this business), I seriously think I'll just invest in IC inventory. Because honestly if I did this time, I probably could have retired early.
Another speedtester you can try: https://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
I learnt this at a talk I went to about 10 years ago. At the time, in the speakers opinion (who from memory was involved in surveillance testing of these products), some countries did regulate stuff like vitamin supplements, but Australia was the only country that "did it properly". And a major component of this was that their regulations covered ingredients and the supply chains.
A quick search turned up this article: https://www.tga.gov.au/blogs/tga-topics/how-are-vitamins-reg...
Finally, a word of caution given by the speaker: many companies/suppliers try to trick consumers online by selling cheaper versions with identical labelling but no AUST number and shipped directly from overseas so it technically counted as a consumer "importing" on their own. Idk if this loop hole still exists.
2022 is when I'll be trying my hand at bootstrapping and also working on my reoccurring back pain.
1) To get the result presented heavily depends on the experimental setup and this appears to be hand-waved away (or for the cynics: deliberately obscured) as it would detract from the impact of the video.
2) The definition of "ON" in the video is not what anybody would reasonably define as "ON". This is not discussed in the video therefore potentially comes of as deceptive.
As an electronic engineer I actually initially found the video confusing. I wasn't familiar with Veritasium before and I will admit my initial visceral reaction was "Oh he's just one of THOSE YouTube's and needs his clicks".
It wasn't until I went back through to understand Veritasium's unspoken assumptions, simplifications and a couple of medium mistakes that I could say: yes this is technically correct.
Personally I think with some better choice of wording the pitchforks wouldn't have come out as they have.
Edit: Added word for clarity.
So yes, broadly you can build anything as long as it still meets building codes, zoning, fire, covenants etc.
1) The 1V8 power supply cannot cope with the additional power demand (just cause "it boots" doesn't mean it will be fine in all scenarios).
2) The SKU of the chip used cannot operate (or is not guaranteed to operate) at the higher speed + lower voltage.
3) The phone stops being EMC compliant.
A bit of research, probing and testing can answer those questions and screen for others. The PinePhone seems like it is aimed at a very technical crowd so I'm sure someone will figure it out :)
edit - formatting
Other filters will be same part but different temperature range; same MCU but different footprint (which would require a board re-spin but not normally the end of the world).
You'll also get SKUs where different peripherals and flash is available which is generally the same die, but not everything worked when tested at the fab so it will get binned appropriately.
There's other filters but I guess I am saying the total number of SKUs of die that are getting made is not anywhere near 3000.
You are right with the 730 day lead time. Actually anything beyond a year you can interpret that way.
Even when there is stock, the parts will be on allocation anyway. Normally the biggest existing customers get first dibs and everyone outside of that circle is given an absurd lead time. Sometimes you can push your way in if your order is big enough.
I feel for the PlayDate team. It's not a fun time when this happens. Even my usual rule of "make sure there are at least two alternatives if possible" is failing in this shortage.
We've even resorted to ordering dev kits and scavenging parts from there which is good fun :)
And when the code won't scan, people's natural tendency is to then move closer to the QR code (make it fill the whole screen), which doesn't help at all. But if they instead initially move away it can fix the issue.
I'm not sure what would cause this? Maybe a reduction in relative angular distortion? Or perhaps only a crop of the image is "scanned" for QR codes?
But yeah this, (very) anecdotal, data point would counterintuitively push for a smaller QR code than "Works now"(maybe 10-20%).
The best experience I have had was the Queensland system. The QR codes I saw were different than explained at the end of this article. They were small (Original NSW size) but very simple codes. From the look and the number below, I assumed it was just a 6 digit number. Those would scan very fast (as in while I was still moving the phone at speed to align with the QR code).
In NZ the behaviour is: stop, aim, scan, wait, done. But in Queensland it worked so well I could just keep walking, wave my phone in the direction of the barcode and it would catch it.
Anyway, I just found those experiences very interesting, maybe others will too :)