Will the Rebel Codebreakers be able to emerge victorious against the Empire, or will they succumb to the overwhelming power of the Empire? Tune in!
Six times! Y'all let us talk about Star Wars 6 years in a row! Roz, Hyr0n, Stephen, Chris, and Parker discuss the latest in Star Wars media and tech.
On this episode, Josh Rozier joins to discuss Star Wars. Is the force a glitch in the Matrix? How much energy does it take to vaporize a Jawa?
Parker is an Electrical Engineer with backgrounds in Embedded System Design and Digital Signal Processing. He got his start in 2005 by hacking Nintendo consoles into portable gaming units. The following year he designed and produced an Atari 2600 video mod to allow the Atari to display a crisp, RF fuzz free picture on newer TVs. Over a thousand Atari video mods where produced by Parker from 2006 to 2011 and the mod is still made by other enthusiasts in the Atari community.
In 2006, Parker enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin as a Petroleum Engineer. After realizing electronics was his passion he switched majors in 2007 to Electrical and Computer Engineering. Following his previous background in making the Atari 2600 video mod, Parker decided to take more board layout classes and circuit design classes. Other areas of study include robotics, microcontroller theory and design, FPGA development with VHDL and Verilog, and image and signal processing with DSPs. In 2010, Parker won a Ti sponsored Launchpad programming and design contest that was held by the IEEE CS chapter at the University. Parker graduated with a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Spring of 2012.
In the Summer of 2012, Parker was hired on as an Electrical Engineer at Dynamic Perception to design and prototype new electronic products. Here, Parker learned about full product development cycles and honed his board layout skills. Seeing the difficulties in managing operations and FCC/CE compliance testing, Parker thought there had to be a better way for small electronic companies to get their product out in customer's hands.
Parker also runs the blog, longhornengineer.com, where he posts his personal projects, technical guides, and appnotes about board layout design and components.
Stephen Kraig began his electronics career by building musical oriented circuits in 2003. Stephen is an avid guitar player and, in his down time, manufactures audio electronics including guitar amplifiers, pedals, and pro audio gear. Stephen graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University.
Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!
Welcome to the macro engineering podcast a weekly show about things engineering, DIY projects, manufacturing industry news and Python codeine. Is that different from snake codeine? Well, maybe we're your hosts, electrical engineers,
Parker, Dolman and Steven Craig.
This is episode 315. And by the way, if you listen to you right now, and you're free on Tuesday nights, should totally check out the livestream. It's twitch.tv/macro fab, because we actually, at this point, been talking for an hour and two minutes at this point. I'm already exhausted. I was exhausted beforehand. Gotta keep the energy going, though. I think Stephens good to go though. Everyone in chat is primed. We've been talking about entropy, our place in the universe, time and gravity. Time gravity. What else?
The brain how it processes? Oh,
yeah. How brain just how our human brain just make up information. Little often. We're not going to talk about that right now, though, because y'all missed out on it
yet. Well come and join the pre show. Because like, they basically have turned into a full show before the show every week.
Exactly. It's a podcast, and then we do a podcast. And then we usually do a post pot. Yeah,
we typically do. It's a few hours of just hanging out. And it's a lot of fun. Probably
Probably not tonight, though, because I am asleep. So yeah, I guess
twitch.tv/macro Fab we record live every tuesday typically, I should say virtually all the time at 6pm Central. If if something unique has to happen, we usually put it up on Twitter and our Slack channel. Yes.
So before we start with all our topics when talking about a topic that came up just before we started, and Steven mentioned Hey, tonight is the last episode. Book a Boba Fett of Star Wars. And as everyone on this list in our podcast knows we like Star Wars a lot here. Yeah, we're kind of dark. And so I think we're gonna just talk about this a little bit. Not a lot. Just a little bit of just book a Boba Fett, I think which is last seven. Is it six or seven episodes? It's six. The six episode six so far that we're gonna talk about Yeah, so if you haven't watched bookabach Fett at all just turn off the podcast now. We're not going to talk about the season finale because we haven't seen it watch it yet. Yeah. So spoiler, I guess I will start on episode like, I really liked the beginning of it. Like, turn into one like, right from the gaps on one, two, etc. was awesome. And then it turned into more Mandalorian Season Two and a Half basically. Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't like it as much. Well, the
ties are tying it together. You know, they're
tied together, and they're building more story. But I'm invested in Bobba Fett is a more interesting character than Mandalorian is.
I think I think Boba Fett has has more going for him in terms of like, reasons why he does what he does. Whereas the Mandalorian is, like, was basically he was originally introduced as like, I do things for money. Now I find a little baby Yoda. And now I do everything care of it, you know? Yeah. And that's my story.
Now, I'm a dad of an alien.
Right. Right. Whereas Boba Fett has like actual reasons why he does things. Yeah.
And it could be partially because we get the facial expressions from from men from Boba Fett, whereas we don't normally do with Mandalorian but I don't think that's part of the problem because honestly, I can't remember the actor's name for mando but his line never livery is so good. You don't actually need to see his face to get his feelings. It's actually acted exactly the same thing I said for season one and two Mandalorian is the acting of voice delivery is so good you don't actually need to see his face you
know what Okay, so what it is it is it is the exact opposite of how Power Rangers did it where they had to like vigorously shake their hands and show that they were the one talking Yeah,
you're right. You're totally right yeah, it's I don't know is that it's just Bobba Fett just a much more interesting character. Yeah, I still don't understand why he likes the Tuscan Raiders.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. spared him right? That was the I
think it's because in the I think the last episode that came out which was like six or whatever, he mentions that the Tuscan Raiders saved him. But when you if you watch the first episode, they just pulled them off the like technically actually the the jaw was saved him, but just let them for dead. And then he got enslaved by that
that's arguably not saving
arguably but they did, like pull his armor off that's coated in the Sarlacc acid. Right, right. Honestly, no one actually really saved him besides himself, except that he just almost died next to the sarlacc pit. But the Tuscan Raiders did enslave him for a bit. So it's like it's one of those is that like, was it was that syndrome called? Were you like, like your capture? Oh, Stockholm? Yeah, yeah. It's like it's feels like that. Now. He believes that they saved him, which is partially true. But there's there was been many moments, especially early on in Bala FETs. Relationship, I guess with the Tuscan Raiders, that he could just left. And also like he was basically still enslaved at that point, I guess. He could just left. But then he came back and then earned his place, which is very interesting to think about. Yeah, yeah. Because he didn't he came, he came back and and earned his place in the tribe. But he didn't need to do that he could just left well. Okay. So
but but here's the thing, maybe we need to look towards the future, because perhaps what he's trying to do is unifying tattooing. Or at least unify the one location and tattooing and just constantly leaving isn't going to do that.
No, you're right. And I think that's where the last episode besides the finale kind of leaves off is he's trying to do that with all the different groups. So he was trying to do that with the Tusken raiders and then ended up basically all Tusken raiders while at least his tribe died, right? Because he tried to do that. And that didn't
work. Well. Here's the thing. And like, I think he's wanting to unify, but maybe not. It's not a necessarily the most noble goal because he's just trying to get everyone to unify under him. Like he's, he's authoritarian
for I still don't think it's 100% for him. He still does that feel like an authoritarian? Like when he goes to like places? He doesn't feel like an authoritarian figure. Right? Because he wouldn't like the first episode, he goes to the casino place.
Well, he's excited. He's accepting fealty, you know? Yeah, no, he
is. But what he says is he wants to rule by respect and not not peer. Right? Yeah. But when he walks in there, he's he says I want to make sure you all still prosper under me. Yeah, yeah. Which is completely different way of wording that phrase like wording it's like it's completely different as an authority and figure would be like I demand you to pay tribute because of blah blah right? Yeah.
And I suppose maybe he's tried to become some kind of like interesting like protector parent figure for his people I guess almost
almost like the last episode before the finale is we go it goes back to that town that's on like the outskirts and tough to wean with the much like Wild Wild West America's what this town represents, right? Where you have a sheriff and the sheriff's Joffrey towns to rename it Freetown. That was on that line. And so like because the bartender's like foodtown
was like, what also meant, like whatever I don't care, I don't care.
But the best thing is Manos reaction is like what? Like, why and I can't remember his name, but the sheriff's like, Yeah, I can't remember his name now. Yeah, because he's a famous actor too. Because like he's one of the cameos right. The whole thing with the show is like every other characters a cameo.
When quick sidenote in mando bill burr is the best cameo in the whole thing because it's just bill burr in space.
Yes, Bill Burns. Okay, but yeah, all the cameras are really good to show. Yeah, but I It's one of those like, the, the sheriff of this town is super stereotypical Sheriff like, he is not there to take advantage of you want to he just wants to protect. Everyone is town and he keeps there. He keeps the peace in their land, like and that whole ideal. I think that's what Bobba Fett is trying to do on a bigger planet scale, I think because he doesn't. When he goes like all his wording, when he goes to like meet the other groups and stuff, he doesn't really demand stuff besides like saying Keep your nose out of it, and I will take care of it. You know, it's very interesting. Now, we'll have to see later what happens in the finale because apparently it's like an hour long or something like
that. Here's the thing, which can change. I don't think I don't think Boba Fett is just like, chaotic good in that sense. He's not like a paladin where he has to do good. He's gonna do good. But there's got to be something in it for him.
Yeah, so he does have there's a whole thing where he talks to what's her name? Finnick. Fenech?
Yeah,
he's the assassin that he like. He
was like number two?
Yeah, yeah, her his right hand, assassin or whatever. Where he wants to he that's actually more authoritarian, more I think about it, is he thinks he can be better. And be smarter than the other rulers. He does say that. Because he he's raised like Archein. He's talking about bounty hunters get used and be put into stupid situations. And he wants to change that. Which is interesting. It's like one of those like, country of pirates kind of idea. It's very interesting to think about him as a character as a ruler or a leader. Various because he's half the time. He's like, I want to make a society of bounty hunters that. Like, don't have to go in stupid situations, which, I guess like a better bounty hunter guild. Maybe that's what he's trying to build. But he's also controlling a planet, but he also doesn't care. Like, he just wants people to live the lives. It's really interesting. how that pans out.
Yeah, haven't revealed at all. He
doesn't fit in a typical category that we normally I don't
think I don't think we know the motivation yet.
No, I don't fully. It's partially he's angry. Because Because like, he took a job for Java and Java almost got him killed for a stupid reason. Like he almost got kicked. He was died because how a blind Han Solo kick them to sarlacc pit.
Right, right, right. And
it's one of those he probably doesn't want that to happen ever again to any other bounty hunter. So he's like, Okay, I'm going to be a smarter leader. That's part of the motivation. He says that like, either last episode or the episode before that, like five or six. Yeah, he says that. Now I think that's the episode he like, fixes. I think your name is Finnick I won't say that.
That sounds right. I don't remember. Yeah, that sounds it's close. If that's not exactly it. They don't actually say her name very often.
Yeah, f e n n e c Finnick. And that's like, why she follows Boba Fett now because like, because, like, they ended up being like, at the end of that episode, or conflict, like there are a square already, but she ends up following them because that has this, like, idea of maybe a society that doesn't have to the has smart leaders. Honestly, that's what it is. Right. So it's interesting. Bob fits very interesting character compared to mando because man knows, like, I have the Darksaber now, but I don't know what to do.
I feel like he's a lot more one dimensional.
mando Yeah. But I think that plays into what he is though because he is a what do they call it in the show? A. He calls a grow goo the same thing. A because they're Mandalorians that were basically escaped the genocide Mandalore and they lived in hiding and have a certain name for that group
yeah gotcha no i I don't recall I know when
and and and Luke Luke basically says the same thing to grow grew at the end of last episode was second last episode. And as grow grew to like choose and we don't know what grew who choosed Greg, who's the child or baby Yoda? But what was that? What is it called?
Is it foundling?
found new? Yes. Yeah,
exactly. Lads in the in chat. Said Yes.
You're right, you're right. foundling because he's not a Mandalorian he's like adopted Mandalorian. Right. That's right. That's right. But yeah, that whole aspect of that that, I think, because he's a foundling, because so basically he's adopted, so he doesn't have a pass so to speak. He does have one but it's been slowly been pieced together over everything. But he's a very one dimensional character in terms of like his motivations right now. It's his motivations are survive and go see grow grew, and make sure Gregory is safe. That's about it. Whereas Boba Fett has, like, what, what is his? I don't think Buffett has a baseline motivation. He's so has so many different conflicting motivations to come up with what he is doing. That's
what I'm saying. Like, I don't think it's been revealed to us fully yet. Then why? Maybe I'm just missing it. But why is it even called the Book of Boba Fett? Like what? What is the whole reasoning behind that? I haven't seen the finale maybe it's that's actually
a good point is why is it called book right,
right is the first one
that is the other one was Mandalorian, which is the character. Right? And then the book of Boba Fett implies more of like a novel aspect to it. But the thing is, like, the last two episodes have been about the Mandalorian which is like complain about because I'm like, like, I've watched like, a lot of people were like, Oh, the last couple episodes have been awesome for the man for broke about fat because it's about Mandalorian. And like, those have been the worst ones. My my opinion. Like, I'd like watching Boba Fett, like, figure out how to lead like he's learning how to be a leader. He's learning to be a from a bounty hunter to be a leader of a planet. Well, okay, super interesting.
But they're connecting the stories they're tying. And they are. They have to they have to give enough reasoning behind all the things that's happening
with me. Yes. But I would say the last episode, like was like Fennec comes up to Mandalorian. And goes, will you help? Boba Fett and mando is like, Yeah, I'll do it for free. But I gotta go do something else first. Right? Yeah. And then the next episode is all him doing the next like that thing?
Yeah, go go set it up, at least. Yeah.
But it's like, well, he could just they could just put that section of time in the next Mandalorian season instead of this season. And he could just spin back and be like, Yeah, I did, why didn't need to do and then leave the audience guessing what he did and they show it into the next season of Mandalorian instead, yeah. I think that would have it make sense from a chronological order times back what they're doing. But from a like, packaging standpoint,
it doesn't work well. There's a there's another aspect that needs to be taken into account. And it's not Star Wars at all. From a from a Disney marketing standpoint, they have to put a certain number of things in there. You know, I'm sure that there's some committee action going on to make sure that like could be Hey, you know, spoilers here. Luke was in the end of mando. Season two, they put Luke in Book of Boba Fett when mando comes in such that, you know,
it could be I do like, but they kind of they kind of fix that though. So in in one of the episodes of mando I think it's like the second thought like Episode Five, where we were Bobba Fett finds Fennec, like on the side of the mountain, like Ben got shot by basically mando right. But when Boba Fett looks in the distance, they do that do Lou did lose some effect. And you know, it's Manda. That's a mando event going off in the distance because the sound effects. And I'm like, they do that a couple times before, like, Mando comes into the story 100% of the time, but I thought that was such a great way to do it because it ties the events together. Yeah. And without being on on the screen. Right, right. And that's all I really enjoyed about it. And then like, Oh, now we're just Mandalorian Season Two and a half now. Come on.
Well, we'll fly. Okay, so episode six actually airs tomorrow. Night 7127. I think no, it's episode six. There's only six episodes in this season. Really? Yeah, I looked it up earlier. There's only six total so that that that airs we're recording on a Tuesday night. So I think that shows up tomorrow. You know, I started to know
episode six came out last week, so it's gonna be seven. Are you sure? Yeah. I watched episode six last night on Monday.
Okay, maybe I got it wrong. I looked it up earlier. My wife has that many awareness and it said six. So
we're going to be a super long episode for the final season finale,
which is seven. I saw something funny earlier. So at the end of the last episode that I think both of us watched Luke Gibbs grow goo. A choice between lightsabers and mithril armor, basically. And I saw somebody post a meme that just said, only a Sith deals in absolutes.
Absolute grabouw takes both or none. Yeah,
takes the lightsaber kills Luke.
That's very interesting. But who picks?
We'll see what's up.
I bet you grow goo. So we're 21 minutes and you haven't talked about engineering yet? Yeah. It's convictions. Grow goo takes the armor.
I agree. I think Grogan is going to take the armor and find his way back to mando. I think that's I think that's what they're going to do. And I think, in fact, crab legs, wrote in chat, something that that's along the lines of what I'm getting at here. I've seen I've seen some theories about basically Luke trying and failing to be this like, master that, like, everyone's like, Oh, Luke can be this amazing. Teacher for everyone. And his very first student he fails on and then you know, if if Disney keeps the stories that that appear in 789 the movies? Luke fails even worse, let's just put it that Yeah. So
and, and the EU was extended to universe for Star Wars. Luke was never a really good teacher either. He's Striked with failure, and, and the like, and I know a lot of people don't like the sequels 789. And also, the whole idea of like, pappelina is Palpatine is back, which none of us like either on this podcast, but read the whole, like, Palpatine coming back is not a new idea. By the way. It's not something JJ Abrams came up with because that was in the EU. Yeah, yeah. That was late. It was also bad. So yeah. When people like, like are shocked that that was the thing, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I read that book before it was awful.
Was that the one we're like? Palpatine like talks to Luke in a cave and Luke. Like contemplates the dark side? I don't remember that. I think that was a Timothy's on book if I remember right.
It was um because Palpatine comes back as as a clone basically. And it's called the Dark Empire or something like that that point. and EU is it gets with Star Wars EU is awesome and awful at the same time and it is it's one of those things where like, zoo Disney retcon basically all the EU and a lot of people like complained about it I'm like okay, that's okay. That's that's fine. There
was there for as much good there was a lot of bad
there's more bad than good and the older you and well I really liked though about so far the stories or the TV T TV shows, of course, because they're online right now on Disney plus, they've been doing so far is they've been really good about taking the good stuff from the EU and bringing it back. They bring some bad stuff back but most of it has been pretty good. So I've been pretty happy with it. I just wish 789 had one director doing all three movies instead of what we got that So I want to say, I can say way more harsh things about those three movies,
I think, amend that a little bit. Maybe it could be different directors, I mean, four or five, six had different directors. But this one, they had least more cohesive story, you know, I write your 789 should have had at least the structure planned for all three of them, whereas they didn't. And that messed it up. Now, Lucas
was still the architect of the story. Before five, six and 123789 could have really used that. We know from interviews, is JJ actually kind of wrote an architect up and then Rian Johnson said screw that He
just ignored it. Yes.
That does not excuse both of them because they my opinion, honestly, seven, man we're getting
we're like we're gonna be half.
But sevens actually not. You know what we don't want to do seven. We need to do a we got to figure out how to make this work. We need to do like a watch party. We're Star Wars.
Hmm. Like a twitch watch party? Yeah,
I don't know if Star Wars Star Wars. The problem is Star Wars is not on Amazon Prime. Because on if it's on Amazon Prime, you could do a Twitch stream with the movie because people just log into Twitch and like it brings up the Amazon Prime account that are associated with and then they can watch the movie right at the same time. Which is pretty awesome. So where's does not have that? Star Wars does have like a family or Disney plus has like a family watch thing. Every week? Convince like, we have a family of like 40 people, then yeah, good work. Yeah. I think it'd be a lot of fun to try to figure something out though. Because having kind of like a rat, because we can rise on like, even the originals four, five and six, because they're,
they're problematic. They're problematic
as well. Maybe we just watch it together and record it and then publish that as like a riff track. Like we can't use riff track because it's a that's a trademark name of a registered user. 3000. But yeah, the episode sevens not the worst. Like I walked out a movie being like, you know, what does a pretty good reboot. I'm pretty happy
with it. There's a handful of things that annoyed the snot out of me. But I was still hopeful that this
was hopeful for the future of the next two episodes. And then episode eight came out. I'm like, no,
no seven had a ton of potential and then they squandered all of it.
Yeah. And then nine was just like, nine isn't what I don't even know what nine is. And like, you right? This thing is not Disney either, because Rogue One is my hands down favorite Star Wars movie.
It's so good.
And then solos actually in top five. Easy. Like, I like solo that says a good solo. died for the sins of episode eight.
Yeah, that's true. That kind of sucks. I've been able to watch because I've only seen solo once. I saw it in a theater. Sure.
I need to watch a good movie.
Yeah, I'm just liking it. It wasn't bad.
I can't remember his act, his name the actor who played Han Solo. But like the first scene. He has like a silhouette of like him. He's been backlit. So it's just a shadow, you see. And he's got the swagger of Harrison Ford. Han Solo. And I'm like that that sold it's like they set up that shot on purpose. Of course this show that this character this actor can pull off Han Solo. He did it in like the first five seconds and I'm like, Well, I'm sold. I don't care anymore. He's Han Solo now. Yeah, so yeah, I got movies so good. I gotta watch it again. But rogue ones my favorite. That's man. It's got the best space scene for sure. Space fight scene over saref
Oh good yo for sure. Yeah, when they ran the star destroyer into the shield of the Hammerhead Yeah, it's so good.
So good. And then more recently, we did you know, Star Wars visions, which is very divided. The good thing is that's not canon. So you can just watch it. Don't like it. I like that show a lot of Well there's a couple I don't like but majority I like so.
I Guess we need to talk about engineering eventually, right? Yeah, let's
let's switch gears. So circuit grounding. Okay, so I was at work in the Star Wars universe.
I think things are weird in the Star Wars universe. That's that's for sure. There's there's so much stuff that's like, how do they have designs like they have yet everything still seems to be like radio communication.
And I just I have a very valid question right now. Yeah. What's it? So in DC? How do you is it interesting question? How do you dissipate electrostatic discharge on like a space station?
like, Wait, are you just saying like, if the space station itself, like just builds a charge? I'm sure it does, right?
Yeah, no, that's the thing is I'm thinking that's what I'm thinking about. Like, okay, so on Earth, we were an ESD strap that's connected to ground and we're basically dissipating our electrons through a big resistor into the planet. Yeah.
So the idea, right, so the planet has an enormous amount of electrons that we can bet can soak that well. Yeah, that could still get enormous. Right. So so does the, the space station, right?
Yeah, but smaller. Yeah,
but I mean, it's like, it's still in comparison to whatever voltage you're charging up. It's insignificant. Maybe because you just equalizer. You just equalizing against whatever the charges on the space. I know, but
the thing is, okay. Your car gives you a shock. Yeah, the cars pretty big.
Well, I know you're having to define what is
Mercury capsule? Yeah, but what if you were to Mercury capsule, which is no bigger than a frickin compact car?
Yeah.
So how do you dissipate ESD their
exact same way you just equalize it. Like dissipating is different than like, dissipating. It kind of gives the idea that it's going away, or it's like, dissolved, but
it has to absorb it. So like, what if you're on a spacewalk and you collected enough potential to go touch the Mercury capsule in it, you equalize that potential. I wonder if those tether on those missions are tethered? Oh, I'm surely more grounded to it. Yeah, I wonder if on spacewalks, there is a procedure to equalize your potential from electricity.
Oh, I guarantee you. Yeah, absolutely. There has to be some kind of sequence on how everything
comes to kind of like the people who ride helicopters to do maintenance on high voltage lines. They use that big probe. Yeah, like equalize the potential between the helicopter in them. Right. And then the helicopter is at 100. And whatever. 1000 1000 volts. Yeah, line. Yeah. And then they okay. Yeah. I wonder that has to be the has to be consideration. Yes, you're if you're just on a spacewalk, you've been bombarded by space particles from the, from the sun, you're also grooving through giant magnetic fields, right? Yeah. So you have to be collecting or just or shedding electrons in some regard.
Yeah, there were. I gotta look it up. Now. I don't remember the name of the thing. But it was like, generating electricity via a large cable that they extended out of the space shuttle. And they were generating a huge amount of of energy just from having this cable out, passing through into the attic, sealed into the earth. Yeah. And eventually, the cable broke it. I don't remember exactly what happened. But there's, there's a video of it. And that's exactly what you're talking about. Like, basically, you know, if you're the guy spacewalking out there, and like,
you're way out there that way different potential, and they're either shedding or picking up more electrons than they would be back on the shuttle. It's interesting. Yeah, DJ free energy. That's how it works.
Yeah, that's exactly how it works. You'll never slow down and fall back towards her.
Interesting idea. Is that haven't heard for this concept is the whole idea of a space elevator. Yeah, right. The idea of returning a space elevator is a way to reduce the amount of energy required or delta V. Change in velocity required to leave Earth's influence of gravity. So you would basically climb up a tower, which takes less energy than firing a rocket up the same altitude basically, that's the whole idea. Well, if you do that, and you make it really, really long, like the space shuttle wire, yeah, yeah, you have to post to watch them
you just say could you just pump electricity from it? Yeah.
Because now you're you have a ginormous antenna basically into this magnetic flux,
right? And the the I watched a video about something similar to that they weren't talking about energy generation, they were just basically talking about the the elevator. And the thing is like, the materials required for the elevator basically, to have this mass so far away from Earth. It'd be rigid and rigid is just it's obscene like we don't have we don't have anything that is like it's orders of magnitude past our strongest
materials. Hey, carbon, bucky balls, man, where the future there it is, as of 20 years ago,
gosh, I gotta find what this program was called. At video of it.
Someone's gonna tell me if carbon bucky balls actually made a difference in the world. That was like the thing 20 years ago.
Well, okay, so bucky balls were isn't there some custom lubricants that use them? Because they're extremely? They make it fun? Yeah.
It's like graphite. Yeah. Yeah.
But but they're different spirits. Carbon on top of that,
it's a different structure is graphene is talkable. Or graphite is basically sheets of carbon. Right?
Space tether experiment? Is that what it is? Sorry, I'm actively googling this, I got to figure out what it's called
to figure it out.
electric wire in space test.
So D DJ in chat says, I really want to experiment with harnessing lightning. Did you I hope you're really careful. That's all I have to say about that. We really awesome. If you figure out how to I think it'd be easier to make a ginormous coil and just live next to like power lines.
That's also highly wonder.
I wonder if a power company could figure that out? Because they definitely wouldn't see a loss. But could they figure out where that loss is coming from? On that ginormous line? Like how granular there's a power power generation company, maintain their lines, no. onlines. I like how like everyone in chats like they can. It's illegal. And I'm like, prove it's
okay, it's now going to be my homework to find what this thing was called.
Now, so, so GraphLab says, I read about the lawsuit between a farmer and the power company because he was doing that. Now. Did he advertise? He was doing that? Or say he was in that?
No, they probably just found some kind of coil wrapped around the power lines, right?
Well, no, you can just bury it in your shed in the backyard? Well, I
think you have to be a little bit closer in proximity.
Depends how big the power lines are, man.
How much currents flowing through them? I suppose right? Actually wouldn't wouldn't your your phantom electricity that you're pulling from the lines would be dependent upon the load at that point would be dependent upon what everyone the loads doing?
Yeah, but the loads. Power lines up bag is generally constant. At least it should be. That's the whole idea. is a constant? Yeah. So and actually, when you think about it if you buried the law, if you put him on your property, didn't advertise it. And no one knew you had it. Technically, they wouldn't be allowed him and search a property for it. So they would actually would not have no idea how to find it. Unless they localize the line basically. within that area.
Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.
This is talking about the United States by the way, property rights and warrants and stuff like that. You know, I feel like Gosh, what was the name of that? Not legal advice in this podcast by the way.
What was the name of that? Guest we had from Austin, Texas that put the energy meters in your in your box.
Oh, I'm with pecan. Yeah, I'm street
Pecan Street. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like they would be able to tell because they would look at your at your house. And they'd be like, this house this house uses like, you know, a few watts of power, where are they getting all the rest of it?
So, craft lab is correct, they have the right away under the lines. The great thing about electromagnetic fields is they expend they extend past runaways. So, if it's on your if it's actually on your property and not a right away people that are listening to our audio stream only does not say the face I say I just I just showed it would be very hard to prove that you're doing that. This this is what I'll say? Not legal advice. Don't do that.
You know, they might be able to. If it was real fancy, they might be able to detect really odd loads. But honestly, probably not. Because they would know.
They were definitely see a lot. So if you pulled enough, they would see a loss. Yeah, because they know how much loss their lines are taking. Right? So they would see an increase
of loss. But probably I don't I don't know exactly how accurate it is. But I don't know if they'd be able to tell exactly how much and
the thing is, could they tell they have a line? That's, for example, 1000 miles long or 100 miles long. Could how do you detect where that loss is coming from? Foreman, basically an EMF siphon, right? A coil. Unless you. And there has to be a way to do it though. Like, if you I guess if you found a way all I know how so because your siphon or your coil is taking flux out of the area. So all you have to do is walk your line with an EMF reader and find where it dips down. Because should be technically constant over the whole line. And you if you find the dip, that's where it's being pulled from. That's how you find it. Because you're, you're technically your flux should be the same over the entire line. But if someone's got a big ass coil in the ground, that's polling it. Well, you're gonna find a difference in flux there.
I'm sure they have fancy techniques
for all of ways that they have they have the electron police.
Yeah. Dang, our free energy idea came came apart we in like five minutes. No, we'll just keep trying. Keep trying, perpetual motion is out there somewhere.
Just make a tower. That's how tall of a line you have to make to get power from the EMF flux of the EMF flux, but just the flux of the Earth's magnetic field. Like how long was the experiment for the spatial?
I don't remember it. Not sure. I'm still looking for this. I have like, I can do all video in my head of this. All you
have to do is have a couple billion dollars and design a space shuttle. Then you get free energy.
No, all we have to do is make like a what a 300 mile extension cord and just throw one end into space and have it which stays up there and then we just plug the other end into a surge protector. And there we go. Done. We've solved everything. You know, okay. perpetual motion machines. Isn't it funny that like Okay, have you ever gone on like YouTube and like searched perpetual motion machines?
I think everyone did that around circa 2008.
Isn't it funny how like, every single perpetual motion machine somehow involves magnets. Like there's something like yes to call about magnets for people.
How do they work? Yeah, magnets fan. Crazy. That's that's an ICP song isn't it?
What magnets?
Yeah, there's an Insane Clown Posse have a song about magnet. I
don't know. I've never really been an ICP
If so, like I kind of
want to pat who wrote that song. Yeah. And St. Client campaspe miracles.
And it's about magnets in it. Oh, this is a weird episode. I like it.
Yeah, miracles A 29 A 2010 Rap Song by Detroit bass hip hop duo and St John's posse. Yeah, this is I Know Your Meme. I'm so glad correct on this. The song instantly went viral because of a lyric called fucking magnets. How do they work?
So that's the that's basically what the meme is. Based on. Yes. Okay. I never knew that because I'm not an ICP guy.
That's freaking funny. Me neither. But I was on the internet and 29 and 20
Sure, sure, yeah, yeah, that was, you know, you don't strike me as an ICP kind of guy.
I just pull out, I pull out a bunch of white face makeup.
I found it. It's I think I mentioned it earlier. But it's called Space tether. And it's basically a large, spherical face thing at the end of a cable that they extended from the space shuttle and it here, let me see if I can put some video up in our chat. And we can do what was this? 1996? Yeah, this is the video. Yeah. And this is the video of it breaking. And they were just like, bye bye. As it floats away. You know, maybe, maybe I had it wrong. Maybe this wasn't something where they were actively trying to generate electricity. But perhaps they were measuring the voltage on the cable and noticed I don't remember the exact
Oh, gotcha, gotcha. It's one of those. I think though, because magnets had this. They seem to have a inference. I think this is why they're part of like, this whole mystic of perpetual motion or perpetual energy, is they seem to have this capability of infinitely repelling or infinitely causing a force on something. Yeah, right. Which is not true. You will wear out magnets. But like all the things like having like, a special disk of magnets, and then you spin the rotor and like the magnets, like keep repelling it around.
Right? Yeah. So as a magnet passes, another magnet is the rotor stator then it gives it a push. But I think what most people tend to miss on that is that it's also pushing against it as they the magnets approach each other. And so it might
work for a while, but eventually you will either slow down or the moment you tried to take energy out of the system. Yeah, it stops. Right. Right.
So yeah, I had a professor say and I think it was physics one. I was just like, Come on, guys. Like I'm gonna just give you the whole thermodynamics thing. Or just tell you like, don't even think about perpetual motion.
The whole i. This is actually because my pre the pre podcast for today was about entropy. Yeah. And that's, that's all that is. So. Okay. Um, you know, what's even I think we're just, uh, hold
on. No, no, no, like, totally, like, maybe 30 minutes ago. I was like, yeah, no, we're not. That's just, let's just cruise. So we'll hang on these topics. They were just random topics anyway, so we can now do these another
very interesting podcast today. I think we need to start recording our pre games, though, at least because we had an hour's worth of podcast material already. And then we talked 30 minutes about Star Wars tonight, which is totally fine with me. Hopefully, we didn't make people angry talking about that.
This was this was a refresher episode where we just got to talk about whatever came up. Yeah.
You talk so craft lab says if you talked about grounding and might be interested in talking about virtual grounds. I don't know what you mean by virtual grounds. There's a hardware design
Well, virtual ground being a return point that isn't like your traditional zero volts. So like, if you do like a handle rail on a single Yeah, frail. Yeah, things like that.
Anything that you have. All you mean at that point is it's whatever you're considering your reference point at that point. How many times can I say point and that sentence? That's yeah, it's what have you considered in the reference, which is what you're because in a DC circuit, and actually any circuits, whatever you traditionally call ground is just a reference If you're just considering it, most people have the time to make math easy. You consider zero volts? Well, and this is a convenience thing.
Virtual grounds are kind of a little bit, they require a little bit more of a unique handling, mainly because it depends on how you're generating your reference ground like, are you generating it from just a resistive divider with the capacitor to smooth it out? Or are you generated in a more active sense with transistors or, or a, or an op amp or something like that, you have to pay a lot of attention or a lot more attention into what kind of current is flowing through them? Because your virtual ground isn't as shall we say, stiff as zero? You know?
It depends. It really depends on the circuit, though. But you're right, you're right there is it really depends on how it's like, technically, you could have a, basically a double resistor ladder, right. And you pick the middle one as your reference as your virtual ground. Yeah, it's not going to be very stable once you start pulling more current through one rail. The other though,
but But you see, like in really inexpensive designs, that's a really great way to go. Like you can just create your own virtual ground, I'd like I said, Throw cap in there, and you've smoothed it out enough. And it works. That works really well, when doing op amp circuits were one of the input terminals, which has enormous input impedance, you can just reference it to your, you know, your virtual ground, and then any other resistors that, you know, attached to that ground, you can make them really large. It works great in those kinds of situations. But as soon as you have appreciable current flowing through it, especially if it's dynamic current, you start getting your ground starts moving all over the place. And then you basically at that point, what you've done is you've created positive feedback to everywhere. And then like, all bets are off at that point.
Yeah, it's very interesting thinking about we talked about before, and there was a very good YouTube video by it's the one where like, ground isn't what you think it is on PCB layouts.
I was at Robert Fendrick. Yeah, Robert, Fennec clinic, I can't remember how to pronounce the last name. Yeah. We probably both up there.
Where he talks about that whole aspect of ground isn't what you think it is on PCBs, and how current flows and how it creates differentials across your planes and stuff like that. So we had a whole podcast about different grounding types, like star and plunge and we're gonna jump on a plane plunge and play my favorite way of doing it galaxy, Galaxy style a bunch of different styles and and how basically, he went over, like how there's differentials, even how small there is, there are still differentials. So there's always Yeah, and the more current you're doing, the more differential there is, because, right, the equals IR ohms. Law,
and, and in a plane, that's something you actually have to really pay attention to. If you have your, your nice pristine little analog front end grounds, and they flow across your big, nasty, noisy, high current digital grounds, you're going to have a bad day. And you have to pay attention to which direction everything's going.
Yeah. But I think, because a lot of people, especially me, too, in the past have designed like you have your analog front end, and you'd like make a special ground plane, but you still have to connect them. Right, you set the connecting point? Yeah, I think that is less. You have to look at where your ground where your current returns are at. Of course, I don't think it's 100% all the time, you need to separate them out. Because if they are, if your analog front end, current is only going to stay in that area, you probably actually don't need it, I bet you would not see much difference separating those grounds out and then connecting them in one spot. Also, you might even get better as better grounding
well as with everything. It depends right there. Your pens. Yeah,
what I'm saying is if all your analog fronting current stayed on that analog chip, let's say we're talking about a thermocouple IC, for example. Okay. If a thermocouple is an analog device, and it's that chips front end is analog, but it's got digital back end, right. Or maybe it spits out a Yeah, it's also a spy device, right? Because that's actually what we deal with a lot of on firmware and embedded system stuff. Well, the spy is definitely digital side. So it's all digital. But that thermal couple current that goes out to read that, that thermocouple comes back to the same pen. So like,
yeah. Let's, let's say you have the chip close to the edge of the board where you had your thermocouple. Towards the right. So this is filtering, what you're what you're doing is you're trapping your analog currents are your containing them really close. But one thing you got to remember is the power supply that flows to that IC. That the return current on that is also your analog current. So no matter what, yeah, you are trapping, like the signal currents. But the but the the power supply has to do its own thing. So you're kind of not at the same time.
Yeah, but the thing is, does that matter for what you're reading?
Well, once again, it depends. It can depends. It can and and in the case that you're talking about, that's the case you're talking about is one of the most annoying, especially if you have multiple of those chips. Because what you have is you have a chip that has an analog side and a digital side and you hope to god, that the analog pins are on one side of the chip and the Digital's are on the other side, but sometimes they're not inside the chip has very little leakage between the rational side. So what's what's happening is your star point, I guess you could call it is underneath the chip. But what happens if you have multiple of those chips? Which Yeah, which one wins? And I think the situation you get into with those kinds of chips is the plane and plunge thing where you like, Okay, I'm just considering my ground to be the star. And I'm making sure to put all my digital stuff over here and all my analog stuff over here. And then you have to test you know,
yeah, you have to test to make sure you pass FCC. Actually, it's more like our is your noise floor low enough to get the temperature readings you're looking for. Right, exactly what it is. Yeah. So
it gets it gets really, yeah, that's difficult. It's a lot easier when you can say, hey, here's my ADC. And here's all my analog stuff. And I only have one ADC. Therefore, I can know where I can put my star ground effectively. Or where my two planes Connect. If if I do want to break them up, it's a lot easier if you have one. I've certainly run into that in the past, I had a design I temperature sensing design I did once that had like six chips. So it's like, where do I want the grounds to be?
Yeah, where do you want me to connect those together for the digital side? Yeah, it's not what I have done is, is I had the connection between two ground planes. Underneath the digital lines, like the lines go on, like the top like so your clock signals, chip selects that stuff. And then the ground planes under that only between the two sides. Because technically, that's where you have. It's low, but you still have your currents on your clock lines, and you're in your data lines, because that's how that's how electricity works.
It will technically no, here's the thing, it's actually not low, because it's going really fast. So for a very short period of time, you're already high. So if taneous Lee Yes, yeah, if it's zero or high, it's virtually nothing. Right? But that transition is really high.
Current. You're right, you're right. instantaneously. It's really high. Right. So
that's, that's where thing, you get into trouble. Yep. So fun.
Yeah, I think so next week, we'll talk about your circuit grounding for you this new setup you have and then we'll start talking about Python next week, too.
Yeah, I've been doing a lot of Python. And I'm doing a little bit more tomorrow, I think I can finish up my first thing, basically, as like a thing for next week we'll talk about I've got a Python script where I've got it, talking to a database via API's going in parsing and scrubbing a bunch of data and then creating some nice Excel files that automatically generates, because I have, I have a bunch of team members who don't want to go do data gathering. So I'm like, I'm going to make you the best data gathering you've ever had. And I'm going to schedule it on a window scheduler, such that it runs once a week. So all you have to do is double click an Excel spreadsheet, and it has up to date up to date data and you are ready for the management meeting. This is one of those situations where an engineer will spend 20 or 30 hours to save one hour, but I save one hour, every week every week from here on out. And it is it is totally it's actually
that I think that's gonna be a topic next week is that is what it is. Engineers are willing to spend 20 hours now to save an hour per X period for the rest of their lives.
Yeah, so yeah, we will work our butt off to be lazy.
So that was the Mac FEV engineering podcast. We're your hosts Parker Dolman
and Steven Craig
Thank you everyone.
Take it easy
Thank you. Yes, you are listener for downloading, listening and subscribing to our podcast if you have a cool idea project or topic let Stephen I know Tweet us at Mac fab at Longhorn engineer or at analog E and G or emails that podcast at macro hub.com Also check out our Slack channel it is macro live.com/slack And also check out our live stream which is every Tuesday somewhere between six o'clock Central and 10 o'clock Central like this week, but usually it's six o'clock Central and that is twitch.tv/macro Fab I still haven't got a Mac for ab.com/like twitch or stream or whatever URL Ford or yet for it, but soon someday maybe who knows. And with that how do how does fucking magnets work? I don't know.
Just listen, ICP they'll tell you Yeah,
Will the Rebel Codebreakers be able to emerge victorious against the Empire, or will they succumb to the overwhelming power of the Empire? Tune in!
On this episode, Josh Rozier joins to discuss Star Wars. Is the force a glitch in the Matrix? How much energy does it take to vaporize a Jawa?
Six times! Y'all let us talk about Star Wars 6 years in a row! Roz, Hyr0n, Stephen, Chris, and Parker discuss the latest in Star Wars media and tech.