Electronics
242 episodes
#6482: Proprietary Plugs and Formats Nobody Wanted
Circuit City took a $114 million loss on DIVX, an expiring disc format requiring a landline modem that 86% of polled users rejected even if free.
#6424: Why the Five-Hundred-Dollar Hospital Microphone Won
Microsoft designated the Philips SpeechMike as the successor to Nuance's PowerMic, consolidating a medical market by default.
#6419: Why Bluetooth Headsets Still Sound Like AM Radio
Turning on a Bluetooth headset microphone drops the connection to narrowband audio as low as 8 kHz, even when using a bundled USB dongle.
#6128: Where the Screws Go: Internal KVM Mounting
PiKVM, NanoKVM, JetKVM, and BliKVM all promise remote rescue — but wiring one inside your case is a different problem entirely.
#6010: Ten Ridiculous Wearables, Ranked by Sincerity
Brainwave cat ears, a tomato-dispensing shoulder robot, and a $3,000 sock tracker — all built with total sincerity.
#5986: Electronics Kits for Toddlers? What Actually Works
No kit exists for a 15-month-old — but the age question splits into three windows: kits at 5, breadboards at 10, microcontrollers at 13.
#5984: Reading a Mystery Adapter's Voltage Without a Label
An unpowered DC jack is electrically silent — so how do you find the right voltage? The answer isn't in the pins, it's in the current curve.
#5897: Why You Can't Buy an IEC 60309 Power Strip
Daniel wired his first blue 16A commando plug. The cable math is easy — the missing product category is the interesting part.
#5889: How Pipeline Pigs Actually Work
A bundle of straw that squealed through the pipe gave the industry its weirdest word. Now pigs weigh tons and hunt cracks underground.
#5871: Why Your USB-C Charger Won't Talk to Cheap Devices
A pocket speaker charges on USB-A but flashes red on USB-C. The answer is two missing resistors and a handshake that never happened.
#5865: Four Pocket Players That Won't Sell You a Device Today
Mono, Fonix One, Sudo, and DuRoBo Krono all promise phone-free podcast listening — and not one of them is ready to ship today.
#5847: Why One EQ Curve Can't Fix Two Voices
One static EQ curve can't serve two different voices — here's why, and what actually works instead.
#5834: Dead Man's Switches: Alerts vs. Final Notices
Same mechanism, opposite goals: hardware that fires in two seconds when you fall, and services that wait sixty days to confirm you're gone.
#5806: Graphene's Real Story: Lab to Fab at Last
Graphene's properties were never hype — the physics is real. The hard part was always making it at scale. That's finally changing.
#5754: Your Home Rack's Power Problem, Solved
Data centers look immaculate, your rack looks like a raccoon got into a cable box. Here's what actually transfers from pro PDUs to home.
#5749: From Sand to Trillion-Dollar Chips: Semiconductors in 5 Levels
A bad conductor and a bad insulator — and the most important material in civilization. Semiconductors explained in five escalating levels.
#5748: What's Actually Inside an eSIM Adapter
An eSIM adapter isn't a converter — it's a eUICC chip in a SIM shell. Here's the silicon, the certificates, and the open source tools underneath.
#5745: Why Europlugs Fit Israeli Sockets So Badly
A 2.5-amp plug, a 16-amp socket, and half a millimeter of interference. The physics of a connection that was never meant to hold.
#5739: Why Your Vacuum Is Legally Weaker Than a Shop Vac
A toddler, a Bosch, and an EU power cap: why the consumer vacuum in your closet is legally weaker than the dust extractor at the tool shop.
#5737: Why Measuring a $4 Spudger Tip Is Weirdly Hard
A listener wants to put a number on his spudger's tip thickness. Turns out that's a real metrology problem.
#5735: The Breaker Protects the Wire, Not You
How service size, load calculations, and the 80% rule actually determine what your outlets can deliver.
#5734: USB Amps: What Actually Happens When You Plug In
Your device pulls current, it doesn't get pushed — and that changes everything about picking USB adapters.
#5732: Why You Own 40 Unlabeled Power Supplies
Three standards bodies tried to fix DC connectors. The box of mystery bricks in your closet is the result.
#5723: Task Lighting Spec Sheets: Wattage, CRI, Kelvin & Dimming
What the box tells you, what it hides, and the four numbers that actually predict how a task lamp behaves.