EEVblog Changes? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 02:34:35 am
content: So, it's that time again I start thinking about stuff...I've been thinking about what I can do make the channel better and more productive. Not that the channel is dying, but it's clearly been on a slide over the last few years.Nothing serious, it's just that average views continue to decline as hundreds of new electronics channels come online resulting in an inevitable dilution of views across channels and people have more choice.I'm not alone in this, other electronics channels have seen it to. Not to mention that because I'm an "eclectic" channel with over a dozens different types of styles of content, it gets harder to maintain that sub-to-view ration and keep everyone happy.Subs continue to grow linearly as they always have, but the views per video on average are dropping.Maybe it's just reduced time and/or enthusiasm for me to do things. Not that I'm still not enthusiastic, but I do realise I spend a lot of time in the lab watching Youtube videos instead of making them, as I might spend a few hours doing something and then think "we'll I don't have enough time to start that video today, so I'll start tomorrow. Tomorrow coems and somethign else comes up, rinse and repeat.Financially it's not really a problem, my store is still brining in really good income. In fact it's more popular than ever after I switched to Shopify. So popular in fact that it's draning more and more of my time.So I know that unless try to make some sort of active change, things will continue to meander along as they have been and slowly shrinking rather than growing.What that change required is I don't know and is kind of the point of this post.Here are some radical things I've been thinking about:Hire someone again full time to help out and provide extra resources to help with videos and extra content and packaing and shipping etc. NOT focussed on product design as we did previosuly with David2. But someone who's goal is to help with content. I think I did a thread once on whether or not funding this with sponsored videos would be a good idea or not, but I can't find it.Hire someone part time to do the packing and shipping like I have done previously. This is actually hard as it's barely an hour a day, and I don't like the idea of someone coming in to just do a few packages to save me 20 minutes or whatever. But if I hired someoen full time they would obviously take over this.Invest in buying another office space nearby to give me extra room for future expansion and also a better forced delineation between the lab and editing and shipping. I used to rent that extra smaller 2nd 33sqm space for editing and apart from being a bit inconvenient, it kinda worked. Also a window and fresh air would be damn nice and perhaps a good motivator. It's a very substantial financial step, but nothign ventured, nothing gained as they say. BTW, buying one big new lab is out of the question, too expensiveOne thing I know isn't going to work is the "just focus on these types of videos and they'll be popular" type of comment. It's not that.I feel as though something has to change, even if it's just renewed motivation and time optimisation in some way...Comments invited.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 02:34:52 am
content: Coincidentaly Fran talks about a similar thing in her latest video:

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 03:05:49 am
content: I sure know why I mostly stopped watching. I personally switched to channels that work on actual project, may be even long term projects split over many months or years. It does not have to be a plan to commercialize something, but it must be plan to complete it. Those things let you learn something as there is a concrete goal. A lot of those channels are not even electronics related, but the actual topic does not matter as much as some sort of a stake for the creator.The typical type of content is far too predictable and not that interesting. Finding some random widget, disassembling it while providing generic criticism only goes so far. And not spending any time even trying to make interesting things sent in the mailbag work is just frustrating to watch.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 03:20:01 am
content: I think it is very difficult to maintain viewer interest in a YT channel forever, or even over the long run. Eventually everything to say has been said, the novelty wears off, and people move on. If I think about (British) TV, there are a few topical programmes that maintained viewers year after year (Top of the Pops, Top Gear, Tomorrow's World to name a few), but even they eventually came to the end of their run for one reason or another.When I have subscribed to a channel, my interest has generally only lasted for 2-4 years, depending on the subject matter. The channels that have maintained my interest the longest are ones that follow a journey, through life, through business, through new and different topics.To give an example, Matthias Wandel has exhausted his early wood-working and home-made tools content and he posts way less these days, but when he does post he tries to make it new and different, for example: scientific experiments, or related to his children, or exploring electronics instead of wood, or seeing how mice can navigate mazes and squeeze through tiny holes, or doing things he said he would never do. Recently he has been doing interesting stuff with stepper motors and servos, which I watch because it is a new topic, and he doesn't just play around with them, he has been teaching how they work and what their limitations are, and why you might choose between one kind or another.Obviously you don't want to copy someone else, but perhaps the moral would be to keep it fresh. Are you the "Dave Jones Channel" or the "Electronics Engineering Channel"?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 03:30:19 am
content: Quote from: ataradov on February 01, 2025, 03:05:49 amMy channel has never been about that, apart from that one big series on the PSU project design(s), and literally a couple of small ones.QuoteAgain, the Mailbag has never been about doing that, for hundreds of episodes.So I'm not sure exactly what you think my channel was, but I know what you mean. Thanks.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 03:51:45 am
content: BTW, for those who aren't aware, the majority of my income comes from the store, not Youtube.And it's one of those awkward situations where that aspect of the business is just big enough to be an annoyance on my time every day (in terms of the channel), yet small enough to almost not warrant hiring someone to do it, and/or getting a space dedicated to it.Yet I also want to expand it, because from a business financial aspect it's the biggest part of my business income and hence would be the obvious thing to expand for future continued success.So I could use the excuse of expanind the store and taking it more seriously but getting an place for it, and then also using that for the benefits of work separation as I mentioned.And no, I don't want to 100% outsource it to some drop shipping company.

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 04:07:00 am
content: I think this might be that thread you were after.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/poll-eevlabs/

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 04:48:04 am
content: Quote from: ataradov on February 01, 2025, 03:05:49 amThis pretty much says it all for me as well. The channels that attract and keep my interest are ones where a project gets completed and the struggles are shown as part of the drama. Seeing someone else get something done to completion helps motivate me. They also have to value my time. It helps If I feel I am learning.A couple examples are Cutting Edge Engineering and Farmcraft101 and Backshed. I'll never rebuild heavy equipment like CEE or struggle rebuilding an old excavator or get and old car back on the road. Although I am repairing mine at present after procrastinating for far too long.I think for me the biggest turn-off is when channels fall victim to the YT algorithm and I become super aware of it. Either the video get too long with filler and waste my time or they become repetitive and then also waste my time. Whatever the creators subject is I want to see real human drama with obstacles overcome and problems solved. That's why I watch what I watch.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 05:29:59 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 01, 2025, 03:51:45 amIf you can get the bills paid with less than an hour's work a day and anything else is icing then that sounds ideal!I've actually never been an eevblog YouTube watcher ... I watched the Lee Felsenstein interview, but anything else has been very random and infrequent.I came here because I bought a new bit of kit in January 2017 and googled for where people were discussing it (and related things). The forum is great. Maybe you should charge for it. There have got to be at least a couple of thousand people who would pay $1 a month. Certainly I would.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 05:37:07 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on February 01, 2025, 04:48:04 amIn my case i have never "chased the algorithm"

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 05:41:24 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 01, 2025, 05:29:59 amIn theory the store only exists and works because of the popularity of my Youtube, yet I hardly ever actuallly advertise or actively promote it. Orders just keep rolling in, it's rather strange actually...QuoteThe forum ads pay for the server costs. And quite a few people donate to get access to the private supporters section. So no need for any subscription. It would have to be desperate times to change that.

author: jpyeron
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 07:44:02 am
content: Personally, I wish you rethought some of your sponsored video decisions.I think if you maintain your independence and personality - while doing paid work on camera - it can be a win-win.Months ago I was looking for an EE to work a design, posted here about paying you... (I was looking have you leverage your knowledge and opinions on a work project that could be open sourced , e.g. not core business area or trade sensitive)I can only imagine that there is a reasonable amount of acceptable work that can translate into revenue to offset one of you full time hiring thoughts above.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 08:09:55 am
content: Quote from: jpyeron on February 01, 2025, 07:44:02 amWhy would I go back to effectively "working for the man" again if I don't have to?QuoteI don't do paid contract design work any more. Been there, done that.Actually, doing a paid sponsor spot would be better than doing paid contract work. It would pay way better in $$$/hour.You can bet that if I was falling on hard times financially then I would be taking those video sponsor deals.Some Youtubers like Fran for example would rather let her channel die than take video sponsors, but I'd do it if I had to.I have the brief idea to start a Linus Tech Tips style review channel paid by sponsorships.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/poll-eevlabs/

author: jpyeron
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 08:21:59 am
content: You can still charge "$$$/hour" or whatever makes you happy

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 09:16:40 am
content: Quote from: jpyeron on February 01, 2025, 08:21:59 amWhat makes me happy is not having to charge $$$/hour for someone to tell me what to do. If it did, I'd take the countless contract design offers I get.

author: AVGresponding
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 11:20:55 am
content: As far as the type of videos goes, I would say, make ones on subjects you have enthusiasm for. Can't stand watching people "going through the motions", but I will watch things that are completely new to me, if the presenter has enthusiasm as well as knowledge.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 11:26:43 am
content: Source: EEVBlogQuoteI'll try to avoid doing that. You know what you want to do. Do you need to change and why?Jack Welch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch) was a legendary American businessman. After he retired, his hobby became going to various businesses and trying to figure out what their key (shtick) to success was. Years before that, I had done the same in dealing with a pathology residency program in a new job. New trainees compete against each other for the best programs, and the various programs likewise competed for the best applicants. We had a good program but were failing to get good applicants to rank us highly enough to match. The key was identifying what our competitors had that we didn't have and what we could do that they weren't doing. Our competitors were often big name places, like the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. We didn't have such a big name, but our program was sound. The key turned out to be putting an emphasis on a subdiscipline called Clinical Pathology (aka Laboratory Medicine). That made a huge difference. We only had 4 positions, yet me matched on our top 5 rankings. I was able to find the money to fund all 5. In other words, I identified a need to change and was lucky to identify what I could do to effect that. So, what's your shtick?Again, I am not trying to tell you the type of videos to make. Years ago, you made a short series of videos about entry level oscilloscopes. I was looking to supplement my TDS210. Specifically, you compared the Rigol and Siglent. I believe it was quite popular based on the number of citations I saw on other sites. You introduced me to the term, "Siglent rust," and I bought the Rigol. Did Siglent contact you about that?Like ataradov, I like projects or focused subjects (e.g., op-amps, impedance matching). Clough42 has a long series on making an electronic leadscrew for a lathe. That is one of a few YT series I have watched almost in its entirety. Teardowns are OK, so long as they provide more information than just what's inside the box. What turns me off are videos that seem to have no purpose, such as a 20kW microwave and exploding capacitors. The other thing is politics. Ladyada/Adafruit got into a bit of that.Disclosure: I don't subscribe to any YT channel. I am just too project oriented. I find and watch what is relevant to me at the time.

author: robert.rozee
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 12:31:43 pm
content: hi Dave,a few suggestions, in (honestly!) no particular order:have shorter videos, 10 minutes to 20 minutes (max). if necessary, split into several parts - not only does this make the job of filming them easier when spread out over several sessions, it gives viewers something to look forward to as subsequent parts are released. i hate to admit it, but many of your longer videos i tend to end up jumping over major sections just because of the overall length.have some videos of the form: "send my your X, i'll do a video about it, then send your X back to you". this would, of course, have to be by prior arrangement only. quite often folks will have an interesting bit of kit, and be real keen to share about it with others, but not be willing to donate it to the cause. in many situations the postage cost may be prohibitive, but in some it may be workable.have a few more project (uCurrent, uSupply, uWatch) videos, but make them projects that average people can build using easilly obtained parts. an example: combining an FM radio module, audio amp, microcontroller to handle tuning etc. other examples could be various pieces of test equipment. i'm well aware that electronics magazines used to run articles along similar lines in the olden days, and am alsoveryaware that the vast majority of readersneverbuilt said magazine projects. perhaps think about ways of making this work so that many viewersdobuild the projects.bring 'drop shipping' into the store, so folks can buy things from China while still having some reasonable assurance of quality. the rationale being: many folks refuse to buy cheap electronic parts etc from chinese sources on the likes of ebay because they are certain that they will be ripped off or sent junk. the down side is this would involve building up relationships with Chinese suppliers, and could be quite time consuming.somehow 'moderate' your australian accent. i really don't want to offend, but to the ear of a 1st generation kiwi from a british background your voice carries a perpetual sense of urgency and enthusiasm that is exhausting after 10 minutes. all i can say is, try presenting your videos as if you are reading the marine weather forecast.cheers,rob :-)

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 01:02:15 pm
content: You said early on that your primary revenue stream, your store, is healthy and growing. So, commit. Commit to the thing which is demonstrably working well for you, and take time from that which isn't.When it comes to falling viewing figures, you already understand why; the recent proliferation of other high-quality channels. The effects of that are further heightened by many of those channels having strongly differentiated subject area focus e.g. 8-bit/legacy computing, microcontrollers, test instrumentation and metrology, 'boat anchor hospitals' etc., with folks naturally gravitating towards channels that routinely address their own specific interests. It's an arms race, which might be won but only at significant cost and risk.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 03:01:53 pm
content: Maybe this is cliche again:When I started watching this channel when the episode count was still in the 20s or 30s, I was studying EE with a self-taught SW background. This channel helped a lot in showing how HW design and testing is done, because in the early days there were some (lengthy) videos on design and experiments. I loved watching those, because back in the 2000s we didn't always had Arduino's and whatnot.. so you put a DIP PIC16 in a breadboard, programmed it from scratch, and then went fault finding for hours because you swapped the TX/RX wires.Nowadays I do think a lot of new engineers/makers have shifted over to mostly firmware and software magic. If you wander around makerspaces or FabLabs you'll rarely see people building their own HW anymore. They breadboard something together with an Arduino or RPi Pico and the infinite supply of cheap shields from various vendors. There is very little need for any equipment at all.. a simple DMM and soldering iron is often enough. Certainly I was one of the few to get the bench supply and oscilloscope out for some robotics project at my local FabLab. Usually people around such places get excited when they find a new shield that is priced at 10$ which does all the dirty laundry for them. They will 3D print a case/bracket around things and their hobby project done.I think the people that remain connected to actually understanding how electronics works are a lot more into advanced stuff you cannot buy off the shelf. RF, high bandwidth, high precision, low-noise, FPGAs, that kind of stuff. And with that it makes it a two way street; see how well content does as the maker kind of audience (which won't abide to the "you shall measure voltages" rule when a problem appears), of focus on the EE specialists that still want to see what a 12-bit oscilloscope can do for them.However, with all respect, I do think there are some channels out there that also cover those topics really well. Thinking of TSP for example. And also that channel only went from 118k to 127k subscribers in 1 year time. So maybe we're just in short supply..Or diverge into other kind of content. But I think you've done that already to some degree with the whiteboards or debunking videos. However I think these videos also attract a particular niche audience and may 'push' away some other audience.. At this point I think your subscribed audience may be quite diverse which will only watch a certain kind of content. I don't think a niche channel such as EEVblog will attract views simply because of a host personality that much..

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 04:18:50 pm
content: I think viewers are focusing on their specific field of interest. An increasing number of subscribers means that they like your content, but they'll watch mostly videos matching their interest.

author: eleguy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 05:01:25 pm
content: Not now saying you only do videos under these subjects but there are just so many "review this" or "teardown that" channels around here and there. I do respect when publisher ("the creator") has something own to add to the subject. By this I mean for example that you as yourself use something for some real purpose a or b. I think the solar power "series" has little bit what I mean. Real use case, findings, weird numbers and thoughts how it could be made better or bigger. Now "just" add some self made "snippet", extension or customization around it (to make thing again better, bigger or give more insight) and the thing becomes super interesting.

author: Altair8800
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 06:18:43 pm
content: My 2 bits...You have built up a large subscriber base of about 1 million YouTube subscribers not to mention one of the most expertise and informative EE forum boards.Maybe have it where you (EEVBlog channel) mainly just become the moderator/sponsor of other Electronics Engineers/Hackers/Etc.Maybe your volunteer team (from EEVBlog forum board) will send you what they deem worthy of being shown on your EEVBlog Channel. The team helps you (time wise) find the best of the best (concentrate on newer videos but maybe throw in a few older videos that just very good/well produce/good content and still relevant today).You or team will contact these YouTubers if they are willing to let you repost their video on EEVBlog YT Channel. If they say yes, bonus, if they say no, well oh well there are plenty of other fish in the sea of EE videos... Maybe have it where you do like a 50/50 revenue split (say payable XX months after the video earned most (say 90-95%) of it's revenue).What EEVBlog YT gets out of the deal and brings to the deal.EEVBlog (especially Dave) maybe spends less time creating and editing videos.EEVBlog gets some fresh new blood ideas into the channel. Also maybe can post several times a week or even daily (your just reposting other people videos).EEVBLog is allowing some new and inspiring EE type creators possibility to increase their subscription viewership(presence) with your ~1M subscribers.Etc.What smaller EE YT creators gets out of the deal and what they bring to the deal.It takes a long time to build up scribers. By allowing their video to be reposted on the EEVBlog YT channel they gain EE credibility and likely a boost to their subscribers.There might be some EE YT types that only post randomly but they made a good video(s) but since they have extreme low viewer count at posting of their YT video the good video they did got only a very few views. Some people would love to have their passion projects get more views.By having lots of EE and Hacker YT creators to choose from they will have new ideas/thoughts/projects that Dave never thought of or had time to cover himself.Maybe Dave built started a topic/playlist but over time never got around to completing some parts (new creators can fill in the gaps, like Components).Etc.So in short, the team will be mining YT for EE/Hacker/Project video GEMs and will be aggregating and presenting them on the EEVBlog channel as the Best of the Best. Kind of a Win-Win situation if you can pull it off.Note: I also think that only Dave's EEVBlog long term high subscriber base channel with a lot of enthusiasts from the EEVblog forum board can pull of something like this..Cheers,

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 06:48:01 am
content: Quote from: robert.rozee on February 01, 2025, 12:31:43 pmYou might be surprised to learn that practically nobody would build them.QuoteI'd rather quit. Seriously.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 06:51:27 am
content: Quote from: madires on February 01, 2025, 04:18:50 pmYep, that's how it works, which is why electic channels like mine and Fran Blanche's for example have a poor subscriber to view ratio. Because we don't (can't, as in literally impossible) give every subscriber what they want every time.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 07:09:50 am
content: Mrs EEVblog has weighed in and decided that buying a new/extra office is out of the question.Buying an extra one for expansion is too much of a poor long term financial choice, given other investment options.And selling the current lab and upgrading to a bigger one is not a bad choice on the surface, but it needs to be value based over nice shiny new. And we'd get hit with capital gains tax on selling the current lab, and giving the government money for nothing really sucks.For those interested in the nice shiny new option, here you go.Not really suited to a lab because it would be kinda dumb to block out the windows with lab benches. Not to mention lighting. Cool for shipping and editing, but top dollar highfalutin.So I'm probably stuck in my windowless box and have to make that work. Good news is that saves money which I can spend on other stuff like maybe someone to help out.Still possible to rent another small location just for shipping if/when needed after the wheels fall of the billy cart and I can't handle it any more, but would be in the order of $25k/year. And you know what they say, rent money is dead money.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 09:52:00 am
content: From the last year or so, #1657 (Dumpster Samsung 75" QLED), #1622 (The BIG BEGINNER MISTAKE with Multimeters), #1606 ($45 AlienTek DP100 100W USB-C PSU Review), #1597 (Zoyi ZT-703S $80 2CH 50MHz Oscilloscope/Multimeter Review), #1595 (50 Year Chinese Nuclear Diamond Battery), #1582 (FNIRSI DPOX180H 180MHz DPO for $123?), and #1579 (Nuclear Diamond Battery FRAUD Lawsuit by SEC!), have had over 100k views. (I am not suggesting making similar videos, only bringing them up as a statistic. For example, recent #1659 (Quick 861 Pro Hot Air Station REVIEW) has only been viewed about 25k times in the last month, so one cannot even say that review and device videos get many views.)The common thing about these is that 1) they are something kinda-sorta-new, and therefore get more interest than just test equipment reviews, and 2) Dave uses his experience to gauge the usefulness of the kinda-sorta-new thingamabob.The one thing I can say is that it obviously makes no sense for Dave to do videos that any marketing/brand shill like Linus Tech Tips could do "equally well": it is very important to have Dave's opinion in the video, founded on practical experience and knowledge. I suspect it is also why e.g. Big Clive's teardown videos get so many views: not because the teardown itself is that interesting, it's BigClive's comments on the design, and his nice voice. Compare to similarly useful videos by DiodeGoneWild; the, uh, "stereotypical" accent is a bit difficult to get used to. It took me nearly a dozen videos over a year or so, before I got used to it and am no longer bothered by it. GreatScott!'s felt more like an Asian accent to me, somewhat easier to get used to. GreatScott! on the other hand concentrates on hobbyist DIY-ers using cheapest Arduino modules found on eBay/Banggood/AliExpress, which seems to be somewhat wider an audience.Thus, I'd claim that whatever videos Dave decides to do in the future, make absolutely sure you use your experience and knowledge. Comment on the design, suggest how you'd make things differently describing why. Even in two-minute teardown videos: that way those haveusefulnessbeyond just seeing the gadget torn down.I personally would love seeing schematics and PCBs criticized and suggestions for enhancement made, but I'm not sure my preferences are shared by enough to make for widely-viewed videos. Are there video possibilities there, to be done in a way that would interest both beginners (wide audience) and experienced electronics engineers (for expertise and knowledgeable comments in related discussions)? I dunno, but I'd love to see those. I wouldn't mind Dave mentioning when he uses a tool he himself sells, at least if he mentions why he likes and uses that tool himself. That doesn't even feel "advertising" to me, and I'm quite negatively sensitive to ads. (I noticed that when watching Louis Rossmann repair boards: Ilikedthe mentions, although the ad-like "buy now,.." quip is a bit annoying to me.)It also means that if Dave hires someone else to do content for him, it is unlikelythatcontent would interest those like myself.

author: Xena E
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 10:22:25 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 02, 2025, 07:09:50 amIf you've got space on a wall hang a large picture of a nice scene from the blue mountains, (or wherever) would make it less claustrophobic!Trouble with bigger spaces is they fill up quickly, and give the opportunity for untidiness 😉 just think how much more successful Jim Williams could have been if he could find any of his shit!Capital gains must only be on the inflation between original purchase and resale price? Is Aus now on the revalue property to generate wealth bandwagon, ie,. way above inflation?But yeah, it sucks to have to give them a penny, for something they haven't grafted for.X

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 10:37:35 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on February 02, 2025, 09:52:00 amIt's a fairly safe bet that as far as reviews go, reviewing cheap stuff is vastly more likely to get the views. I've known that for a long time but I still haven't concentrated on it, only reviewing that stuff if the company happens to pro-active and send it to me.So being more proactive on that is probably a safe bet.I've had in mind for many years a version of mailbag based on just the cheapest weirdest stuff I can fine on Alibaba. Instead of a mailbag where I rely entirely on what people happen to send it.QuoteI've done a few of those:One did well, and one did just ok.QuoteDavid2's videos on the channel were very popular and everyone liked him and his content, so I think this is almost entirely person dependent.Sadly he really didn't enjoy making them.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 10:43:03 am
content: Quote from: Xena E on February 02, 2025, 10:22:25 amYes. And you only pay tax on half that profit if you have held it for more than 12 months.But the tax rate you pay is based on your tax bracket, and it would put me in the highest tax braket, so I'd be paying 45% tax on half that profit.I don't know the exact number, but if I ever sold my lab then I could potentally pay $100k in tax.QuoteYes. Property is the official Australian religion. And if you think I'm being hyperbolic, I'm not.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 10:45:17 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 01, 2025, 02:34:35 amIs there no way you could outsource it completely? I'm not saying doing it fully by FBA, but there must be so many companies that specialize packaging, shipping and returns.Quote from: EEVblog on February 01, 2025, 03:51:45 amWhy? It's clearly not scalable, nor is it fun.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 10:52:46 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on February 02, 2025, 09:52:00 amI really suck at doing that promoting the stuff I sell, it's a wonder I'm still in business.I will be reviewing the new BM2257 though.I have never reviewed the BM235 or 121GW or other stuff I sell. I even developed a sorage product the uSleeve, and few people know it exists beause I was too lazy to actually do a video showcasing it!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 10:56:33 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on February 02, 2025, 10:45:17 amI have been packing and shipping products for over 30 years (not a typo), it's just kind of a thing I like to do.There is also the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality. But as I said I've been meaning to look into various fulfilment houses for some countries.I might get someone to investigate this for me. I have someone who helped me set up the Shopify store, so she could potentially investigate say a dozen different fulfilment houses in various countries and break it all down for me. Saves me having to do the ton of leg work there.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 12:09:45 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 02, 2025, 10:56:33 amAh well, we are different.Going back to youtube videos, I think the algorithm changed a lot in the past years. Subscriber count barely matters. Algorithm will give us topic, and people based videos. If I watch a video with a person in it, it will recommend other channels with the same person. If I watch a movie review, I'll get more of the same movie. I think collaboration videos probably is the current thing, growing, or even maintaining audience.I see three kind of content universally succeeding. One is where we watch competent people do their thing. The other is watching projects, which we don't have time/money/resources to to ourselves.Product reviews, especially for test equipment get very little attention, since who has time or money to actually buy a HD3? We watch it to see you talk about it. Same for a Tandy computer repair, not even 1% of the people watching it ever saw one IRL.I also see a huge success with "Stuff that you can actually afford"tm.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 03:02:02 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 02, 2025, 10:52:46 amDon't consider it promotion, consider it just telling why you chose to have the stuff for sale, whyyoulike it. No marketing; keep it to just a single mention in the beginning that you sell it at your store.Also, it is very different to promote stuff you want others to buy, than to promote stuff you yourself want to buy because you've found it useful. It doesn't really matter much whether you yourself sell it or not. Consider it more like videos explaining why you like that stuff, whyyouwant to have that stuff at hand."I do sell these at my store, but this video is about why I myself needed and wanted something like this.", perhaps.Quote from: EEVblog on February 02, 2025, 10:52:46 amExactly! Now that I too have some ESD-sensitive SMD parts on tape, I've found I too need exactly that. For the same reasons you developed it. The sleeves I have access to are very static-y; I'm not sure the tape alone suffices to protect against those electrostatic fields.In any case, do not trust my word on this: just try it, and see what comes out.Quote from: tszaboo on February 02, 2025, 12:09:45 pmExactly.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 04:23:09 pm
content: I hadn't heard of the uSleeve; now I have:https://eevblog.store/products/%C2%B5sleeve?srsltid=AfmBOoosRFopQ6O9MZ536dDuK5nti6AAJLPFdAukwrStl6zrKMURyC91$1.60 per page. Not bad. Disclosure: I have no conflicts to report for this comment.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2025, 12:16:04 am
content: I think your point 1, hiring someone to help with creating content and managing your store would be the most effective among the 3 points you listed. It may not require a full-time position. Maybe 3 days/week would work (and I think would be more effective as far as part-time goes than a couple hours here and there). Now you'd have to find someone you can trust and interested in the deal.In terms of videos, I think your "educational" ones would be a reasonable direction. I don't know if this kind of videos have been popular on your channel in terms of views, so maybe you're going to reply that they just don't "work". But otherwise, I think that'd be worth a shot: I'd suggest making a whole series of learning videos that people could follow, with a logical link between them and a progression. (Whereas your past ones where more occasional.) That would have educational value and offer something that people would look forward to (the "series" effect).I know many people like the "project" kind of videos, but I think your experience with these is that they take up a lot of your time and the ROI is relatively poor. Maybe you can mix a bit of the two approaches by adding a "practical" section to your learning videos, illustrating the points you exposed, rather than strictly staying with the whiteboard.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 03, 2025, 07:24:20 am
content: Survey time again!

author: krish2487
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2025, 07:38:56 am
content: Just my 2 cents..The kind of videos you put out, the frequency, the length, content is exactly why I watch your channel Dave. Not a cookie cutter video made for the sake of making a video, but out of genuine passion - either to pass on your knowledge to the next generation or to showcase aspects of electronics engineering that you find particularly fascinating. This IMO is what interests me. There are dime a dozen channels on YT with the monkey see, monkey doo format.. and they are pretty much the same of each other with varying qualities of video production. thats all. Nothing particularly interesting about any of them.And not taking sponsorship videos gives me a lot of confidence in taking your word, exactly as you say it.If finances are not a concern, I wouldnt particularly change much , if at all. Though.. if I had to actually point out something.. teardown and analysis of retro stuff and the sheer engineering that went into it is something I would like to see more of.. :-)

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2025, 08:50:22 am
content: you could always just rip Elon and steal thunderfoot viewshttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/thunderf00t-has-lost-last-of-his-marbles-and-remaining-bits-credibility/

author: seanf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2025, 04:04:13 pm
content: Collaborative project(s) with the other Youtuber creators?You all seem to mention each other.The different creators have knowledge and skills they can contribute with. Whether thats electronics, mechanical,....ect.You might all benefit from the cross over of the audiences.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2025, 04:47:13 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 02, 2025, 10:52:46 amDo you mean overt promotion? Because you feature covert promotions by using your own DMMs in virtually all your videos. And don't take that as a bad thing.There are tons of YT channels that do the same.. like every single episode of LTT features some recent merch from their own store. Its almost like a work uniform for them in order to qualify for appearing on camera lol. Promotions not always have to be 'in your face' about "hey we released this item", certainly not since some people get allergic to those shoutouts and install automatic segment skipping for such ads/callouts these days.I think covert promotions is way smarter to do things on social, if done right. Especially when people know that they are supporting their favorite creator with a revenue stream outside of YT.However, preaching own products is always a slippery slope though. Conflict of interest quickly could become a problem if a mention/review gets overly positive or even hypocritical (changing old buying advice to suddenly match perfectly with a products limitations or niche)

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2025, 05:12:43 pm
content: I will be honest: what brought me to your forum and then consequentially to your channel, were the threads about hacking devices to unlock extra features.Threads like those regarding Siglent, Rigol, HP/Agilent/Keysight or R&S hacking are top notch. Not to harm the manufacturer, but to allow hobby users buy cheap vintage test equipment and unlock them to full potential.Associated to this, I appreciated the videos that show how to use such devices, like the infamously great video on how to use an oscilloscope without killing yourself or blowing it up:Those are the classics, in my opinion.So please consider:1) Presenting cool test equipment that can be bought cheap at Ebay (yes, I understand this will raise the prices, but that would only be fair to the seller)2) Videos on how to actually use such equipment3) Videos on how to repair common issues with a given equipment4) Videos on how to unlock optional features (not sure if that would be legal, though I am referring to discontinued devices)5) Videos interviewing those that participated in development of such equipmentHere is a short list of examples:- R&S CMU200/CRTU- HP 859x- Siglent SSA 3000/SSA 3000+ series- Rigol oscilloscopes (any)- ...On another topic, perhaps including some software aspects to your videos would be cool. I mean videos were you explain/teach about micro-controllers, but focusing not only on the hardware, but on the software, too.Finally, extend your "rant" videos to actually less rant and more information. Example: AI in smartphones? This really serves to monitor your screen before you send/receive anything, in order to assist you in real time. In reality this means that big data can see all your communications prior to any encryption. Instead of ranting about this, why not inform about this technology, the consequences and how to make pressure as a consumer against such monitoring - in a constructive way. Promote interviews with your local politicians - despite living in a different country, it helps if I can share such content. Consider that your videos are used as a reference when discussing topics with less informed people.Last suggestion: monitor the "hot" threads in your forum and make a video on the discussed subject.Cheers,Vitor

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2025, 09:26:04 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 02, 2025, 06:48:01 amThere is still a lot to learn. When I was a youngster, I'd like to read & understand the diagrams published in Elektor. Not to build them, but just to understand how they work and how they where designed that way. I think I probably build 4 projects from Elektor and these where the practical-use ones like a GAL programmer, a video digitiser and a mixer.

author: thephil
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 10:20:51 am
content: Quote from: robert.rozee on February 01, 2025, 12:31:43 pmNoooo – don't. That's an important part of your "brand"! Of course, there's always people who will find it objectionable and that's fine – there's other channels for them.For the same reason, I am not enthusiastic about he idea of having more cheap gear reviews. Don't get me wrong – I watch that kind of content, too but there are plenty of channels doing that already so why would EEVBlog offer the same stuff?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 10:25:16 am
content: Quote from: thephil on February 04, 2025, 10:20:51 amBecause it's popular.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 10:28:03 am
content: Quote from: seanf on February 03, 2025, 04:04:13 pmCollab videos rarely works.Fran explains why:

author: Simmed
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 10:40:17 am
content: Quote from: Bicurico on February 03, 2025, 05:12:43 pmand things like ucurrentan inconvenient product for mainstream brandsbut it is great for the crowd here in eevblog

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 12:20:55 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 04, 2025, 10:25:16 amI remember you always introduced the mailbag with "everyone's favourite segment" but I also remember it got very occasional at times. I don't know how it has fared lately but being popular wasn't enough several years ago. I liked mailbag. I don't mind cheap gear reviews as long as there is no histrionic sneering down at them. I'll just take the numbers and considered opinions. EEVBlog can add more than some other channels particularly in revealing subtle weaknesses that are often overlooked.What I would leave out is debunking. The Batteriser and Solar roadways went way over the top and well beyond what either of them merited.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 12:58:41 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 02, 2025, 06:48:01 amYes that's likely true but there are some aspects in building a project, not for commercial sale, that viewers could learn from if you did it aimed at the hobbyist. You could show using Kicad to create a PCB. Not a Kicad tutorial per se but just the process of doing it for the project. An electronic load seems an obvious choice. But the project need only be the foundation for many other aspects of the design and component choice. Like heatsink choice and testing if one on-hand would be suitable. I actually think you discussed this many years ago.There are popular projects all over the internet but many of doubtful quality in areas like E-bike batteries, battery spot welding, battery management.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 01:00:17 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred on February 04, 2025, 12:20:55 pmC'mon, debunking is the best part and the main videos I watch from Sydneysiders Jones & Cadogan!

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 01:56:07 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 04, 2025, 10:25:16 amI have and would continue to watch Dave's, in preference over most of those others as unlike a lot of them, he's demonstrated over the years, clearly and consistently, that he is not on first name terms with Messrs Dunning and Kruger.Too many of the other more recent channels feel like a case of monkey-see, monkey-do grasping for that sweet, sweet YT money. Some aren't much more than unboxing videos, with presenters that I don't perceive to have a better understanding of the product they are presenting than I already do. If I'm going to use up to an hour of my time to learn, I like the assurance that I'm being presented to by a subject matter specialist.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 03:52:04 pm
content: Quote from: Peabody on February 04, 2025, 03:16:22 pmI'm the proverbial programmer with a soldering iron. I delve a little into digital electronics, and at one time went so far as 741s and 555s, but biasing transistors is past my comfort zone. I'm more into instruction set design, emulators, code generators, low level languages and runtime libraries. I'd like to learn FPGA and bought an Arty in 2016 and a couple of other cheaper boards since but didn't yet find the time and the right project. I do remember once fighting for a day to try to get Vivado to accept a free license, without success.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 03:57:06 pm
content: Quote from: Peabody on February 04, 2025, 03:16:22 pm+1I'd like to think that's what unifies hobbyist and professional alike - "a thing of beauty is a joy forever", especially if you know what makes it tick.One EEVblog video that stands out in my memory is the one where Dave presented his design for a latching power switch. As a hobbyist, I studied that ad nauseam. I also stayed riveted through his early design series on building a regulated variable power supply, and more lately the uSupply. Don't get me wrong, his Fundamental Fridays have been invaluable too, but it's the design process stuff that really gets the gears meshing.Given his career history, maybe 'design process' is his superpower and his USP.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 04:53:51 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 02, 2025, 10:37:35 amHaving slept on it, I think you're absolutely right, and I was wrong. As long as you are part enough of the process to be a QA on the videos.You see, I realized I didn't watch David2's videos, because it's stuff I know through and through, with my own old-hand preferences and ways of going about it. I likediscussingand examining others' workflows, but not being able to ask detailed questions about it (to build the context and reasoning, so I can compare it to other workflows), just someone else showing their own, makes it deeply dissatisfying to me. I'm a meddler.If you end up doing videos on eBay/AliExpress stuff, make sure you check them over with your experienced eye, and comment on them accordingly. Stuff like access to documentation, vendor provided and open source toolchains (former for the embedded devs, latter for us hobbyists), and so on. An occasional reference to the forums is also nice, exactly because of the background information. An excellent example of this, in my opinion, is #1132 you introduced Padauks (with plenty of reference to MikesElectricStuff tweet that piqued your interest in them), and you have a link to the forum thread here in the video description, and at 28:45 even mentioned the "EEV bug forum"–– which is how I ended up here, lurking as a Guest for a few months before registering, after watching some of your videos on YT. With 253k views, I guess others liked it too.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 04:59:36 pm
content: QuoteMost challenges are driven by requirements. That's also what you often see on this forum if standard building blocks don't match the requirements. Those questions are most often about interfacing standard building blocks with the outside world like "how do I connect this to this".I don't see how you can make a video series on this subject given the wide range of requirements where a one solution fits all doesn't exist. Or is Dave supposed to your job?

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 06:19:16 pm
content: Quote from: temperance on February 04, 2025, 04:59:36 pmRobust and reliable 'real world' solutions/designs for common building blocks, well presented and with the working out shown. Advantages and disadvantages of the approach(es) discussed. Which is what his previous project work on PSUs represents.What we'd call Design Patterns in the software trade.

author: seanf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 07:06:09 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 04, 2025, 10:28:03 amQuote from: EEVblogWould that change the other creators views on collaberations?Quote from: EEVblogDoes that give you some freedom to work outside of the YT politics? Play it your own way.Collaboration, but done differently?Just some stupid thoughts.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 10:35:35 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on February 04, 2025, 06:19:16 pmFor hardware things are different. There are many standard circuits available. But all those circuits must be adapted to fit the design requirements. You can not develop a reliable solution without in depth knowledge of those standard circuits. The in depth knowledge can be found in engineering courses.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 10:48:02 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred on February 04, 2025, 12:20:55 pmI'm trolling.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 10:51:10 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 04, 2025, 01:00:17 pmCurrent survey stats, 46% watch debunking videos. Highest is repair at 66%But only 15.7% say they want more debunking.18.8% say I'm wasting my time making debunking videos.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 10:54:08 pm
content: Quote from: Peabody on February 04, 2025, 03:16:22 pm43% engineering professionals29% hobbyist11.5% technician9.5% engineering students5.6% other industry professional

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 04, 2025, 11:00:13 pm
content: Quote from: seanf on February 04, 2025, 07:06:09 pmYes, I have the flexability to do it, but the point is it's still hard to pull of something really interesting and useful, without it seeming like, "a collab for the sake of a collab".Most Youtubers are just busy doing their own thing their own way.An example of a fantastic collab:

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 12:32:58 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 04, 2025, 10:48:02 pmI can believe you'd enjoy trolling but I can't see why trolling about the mailbag segment is in your interest. The effort of making a video that you don't think is popular enough to make with any return on the face of it it sounds stupid. And I always seek to find a reason someone would do anything. Now, trolling with excessive debunking videos to the point ofjust for the sport of it, I can see that, since they are apparently popular, with a better viewing return. Even if not my taste.Popular or not I see debunking as a way to attract views for less effort than more serious review and EE content might take. I put some weight to @brucehoult comment in support of debunking even if Cadogan wastes far too much time getting to the point. However I think of debunking video like Gourmet Night in Fawlty Towers. "And all the other nights we’ll just have a big trough of baked beans garnished with a couple of dead dogs."

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 01:00:33 am
content: Next video is a failed SMD component ID

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 01:03:28 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on February 05, 2025, 12:32:58 amGeeze Wilfred, you really need to lighten up."Welcome to everyones favorite segment" is just a light hearted into, even if it's not true, it's just fun to repeat. I think most people don't take it literally.I make debunking videos because I like making them, and I think they are important to teach critical thinking in society.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 01:29:34 am
content: I'm not a subscriber to your channel (or any other) because in general I find videos a poor information source. The bandwidth is limited by how fast someone can talk. You are better than many, partly because you talk faster, but mostly because you don't do the common YouTube drill of five or more minutes of "I'm going to talk about this, and this is what I am doing to talk about, and a lot of people want to hear someone talk about this and I can talk about this, so here we go let's talk about this."I do watch videos for entertainment, and for information about subjects which I want just a little surface knowledge. I have no idea if I represent any significant portion of the market, but this suggests to me a good approach to future topics. A variant of product reviews where you take a look at whole product classes and suggest where they might be worthwhile or not. This might include looks at specific hardware, but the goal wouldn't be to identify best in class or best value, but just "Does this or that gizmo have a place in the life of a subscriber to my channel and why?"Your reputation is the coin that would make such videos of interest.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 02:55:15 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 05, 2025, 01:03:28 amPerhaps. I'll think about it.QuoteThat's what I thought too. Until you said you were trolling. I believed it was a popular segment, because I liked mailbag, and it was my favourite segment. I'm not sure I fully believe you were trolling. Perhapsbeing ironicmight be more appropriate.QuoteThat much is evident. You'll no doubt continue which is fine, I won't watch them. But I still think some topics are debunked excessively and beyond any merit they might have as a vehicle for critical thinking education. Dropping the histrionic outrage might draw the focus to critical thinking in a more direct way. From the comments I see in response to some debunking videos there could be more critical thinking. Maybe it has changed recently.

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 03:42:50 am
content: Re: your Aussie accent, as heard by someone whose mother tongue is not English.It is perfectly acceptable to me, I can fully comprehend it since you avoid the deepest of Aussie slang (think of an exaggerated Crocodile Dundee), yet its sing-song cadence I find really authentic. Appealing even.Don’t change it.Now, IMHO the difference between your older vs newer videos is EMOTION.For instance while opening a box in an older video, your body language was similar to a child opening his/her Christmas presents, the facial expressions full of joy and expectation. This emotion is contagious.I don’t see it as much nowadays. But it could be only my perception.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 03:54:02 am
content: This is more of an observation than a criticism, constructive or otherwise.I've seen a bunch of YouTube hosts adopt the super fast speech cadence recently. Like obviously unnaturally fast without any of the natural pauses that people make when they are talking. It's not just edits, but like an effort to just talk really fast.I guess the idea is to not give the viewer a chance to get bored and scroll away. It just sounds exhausting to have to perform like that.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 04:03:01 am
content: Quote from: Smokey on February 05, 2025, 03:54:02 amAre you from somewhere between .... New Mexico ... and ... North Carolina? (excluding Florida)I watch most talking head videos on Youtube at 2x, and a lot of times wish it could do more. ESPECIALLY "The Enforcer" and "Jake Broe" omg. I think I might have backed off to 1.75x for Dave's Lee Felsenstein interview (just went back and checked and yes that's comfortable, while 2x isn't quite)

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 04:45:26 am
content: more fundamental electronics please. or test equipment tips and tricks in the lab. or a top ten bodge wire fix's for PCB errors.your Aussie accent is Ok as is. . yes add some stop motion animation to your white board presentations if you got the time?. lets see how them electrons move in a circuit.as for toilet swirl or anything poop related. its getting old. time to move on to better things IMO.

author: Xena E
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 05:22:48 am
content: I havent checked out views on Dave videos that I like but I wouldnt think I'm particularly mainstream in my tastes.Very much enjoyed his NSW university talk video.I like the tutorial stuff... more to compare techniques of how others explain fudamentals rather than expecting to learn anything, (but, often end up doing so anyway, so I guess that in itself validates Daves method).Tear downs and reviews I enjoy, though there again it's not really high volume viewer appeal for any creator IDT? Another I like to watch and think is very good is Kerry Wong, his channel does seem a little light on subscribers and views considering the quality of content, I appreciate the effort people put into that kind of content given the return.What's the problem with regional accents?I do have a big problem with trendy English horray henry 'Ok Yar, int that amazeballs" type idiots, but otherwise almost any regional accent well spoken keeps you engaged in what people are saying, some youtubers know this and do go a bit OTT... Diodes Gone Wild may be an example (Czech accent obviously, perfectly coherent, but very exaggerated indeed).The Aussie twang is perfectly OK,I generally like the mostly straightforward no nonsense manner of Australians too. I find social cues difficult sometimes, so directness always helps.To ask someone to change their manner of speech is, I think, just very rude if they could be easily understod without, and it would be disingenuous of them if they did so for sake of popularity.X

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 05:39:39 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 04, 2025, 10:54:08 pmThe relatively high proportion of engineering professionals and low of students could further suggest that my suggestion of making more "educational" content may help getting more of that audience - although I don't know if you were able to cross-correlate that kind of demand with this category. Maybe students come to your channel for many other reasons than finding educational content.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 09:58:49 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 04, 2025, 10:51:10 pmWell the thing is that our opinion on what videos to do, might not necessarily be the same as best for the channel.There is a trend on Youtube that is "XY Expert react to YZ". You could possibly do "Electronics engineer react to Tesla battery fire", do a soyface for the thumbnail, plaster it with memes, and get 10 million views on it.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 10:02:02 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on February 05, 2025, 09:58:49 amThat would be a funny experiment...

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 10:21:55 am
content: But as long as your livelyhood is not dependent on Youtube, you could (and should in my opinion) show some integrity, and not "sell your soul" to the algorithm.If you shill something, it should rather be your own store. Maybe not as blatant as the Lockpicking lawyer sometimes comes around, but a shoutout to your new meter like in the last repair video is fine.The EEVBlog is one of the very few channels where i watch every video. I might not always pay attention, many of the more theoretical videos go way over my head (and are not really interesting to me), but i watch them anyway.Regarding your content, i actually like the Mailbag (even if it not really everyones favorite segment), Teardowns, Repairs, and Design. And yes, also the debunkings. Not in any particular order. The theory segments are actually my least favorite.Regarding your voice: I always liked it. It was always easy for me to understand, despite the accent. The EEVBlog was actually one of the first english language channels i started watching because i found you easy to understand. It of course took me a while to get all your expressions, but if you stopped using them, or lose the accent, the channel would lose a big part of what makes it unique.

author: seanf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 11:02:19 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 04, 2025, 11:00:13 pmIs there any value in working at a different level of collaboration?Somewhere inbetween just giving another creator a name drop, and going all out with a heavily coordinated and almost mirrored production.Have a project that you enjoy/want to do, but utilise another creators knowledge / skills on aspects of the project you would normally just miss out or buy in. Say for a mechanical part, have a bit of interaction with the other creator but leave them to do their thing.Or even play it the other way, if another creator has something they want to do but doesnt have the electronics knowledge / skills / equipment.Some more stupid thoughts.

author: Georgy.Moshkin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 12:27:48 pm
content: I think the decline in views is primarily due to fewer people typing "EEVBLOG" into the YouTube's search box. Check the image attached.I've researched keywords for several years already since pandemic. Attaching some screenshots.As you can see, "eevblog", "indiegogo", "sparkfun" keyword search count declines. But individual product/niches search count increases. Using this logic every keyword like sparkfun/seedstudio/adafruit search counts decline as well. But keyword "Arducam" searches increases, because it's a "product" that can be bought. My opinion is that need to focus on a younger audience, simpler projects, and shorter videos. A simple technology that is filmed well and looks interesting. The deeper you go and the more effort you put in, the harder it is to make everyone interested.Many simple topics may seem silly or unnecessary to make videos about, but new people are born every day. I think it makes sense to focus on young people aged 14 to 24 who are beginning to explore this niche, since they can stay with the channel until they turn 35. From an aging perspective, super-sophisticated content attracts an older audience, which may "expire" 10 years sooner. Therefore, making high-quality, deeply advanced content is a very questionable investment of time UNLESS it's a book or a paid online course.The second attached file is an idea of keyword extraction. For example, what datasheets are people looking for. Video ideas: going through most popular datasheets and commenting them. One datasheet per day.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 10:20:37 pm
content: Quote from: seanf on February 05, 2025, 11:02:19 amIn terms of a project the value can be area of expertise. Say Dave does the electronic part of a project, and another channel does the mechanical side. I've seen this done a few times and it worked well.But its a ton of work for that heavily edited coordination. If you are a much smaller channel, just starting out etc, then it could be worth the effort.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 11:03:29 pm
content: Quote from: Georgy.Moshkin on February 05, 2025, 12:27:48 pmI recently made a complete dummies introduction to Multimeters whcih I thought would do really well. It didn't, it tanked.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 11:04:41 pm
content: Quote from: seanf on February 05, 2025, 11:02:19 amThe problem is that both creators have to have the same level of interst in the project, otherwise it'll show that you are just doing this for the sake of collaboration.

author: abeyer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2025, 11:23:59 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 05, 2025, 11:03:29 pmDid you take it down? No search I tried now even found such a video from your channel -- I just get lots of similar videos from other channels. If I'm logged in then finally after pages of scrolling see some eevblog ones vaguely related to meters, though not that one specifically, and if I'm not logged in didn't get anything eevblog at all.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 01:06:16 am
content: Quote from: abeyer on February 05, 2025, 11:23:59 pmSearch for eevblog multimeter, first result:

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 01:12:53 am
content: Quote from: abeyer on February 05, 2025, 11:23:59 pmWelcome to the Youtube Algorithm™It can make or break channels.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 01:25:18 am
content: Quote from: robert.rozee on February 01, 2025, 12:31:43 pmTo me, it sounds like the voice of someone who is passionate and experienced in what they do. I tend to find Dave's style very natural. He isn't pretending to be someone he isn't.You want annoying and fake? Try Linus Tech Tips.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 01:33:15 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on February 06, 2025, 01:25:18 amI actually find Linus fun, he knows he's putting on a show and seems to enjoy doing it. Not that I'm a regular watcher.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 02:04:27 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on February 05, 2025, 09:58:49 amThere's direct feedback, especially when asked for, and view stats to guide a creator that wants to grow their channel. In isolation my opinion is only that, but taken in aggregate in a range of views from the audience it might be useful. The trouble with individual opinions is that they come from a self selected group who would bother to give them. Forum threads and polls on the EEVblog aren't drawing from a representative cross-section in my view. I hardly think I am typical.The trend is what it is and I can't say I like it, but all I can do is give my feedback and hope.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 02:09:05 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on February 06, 2025, 02:04:27 amSorry, I don't get your point here?

author: Georgy.Moshkin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 02:44:52 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 05, 2025, 11:03:29 pmI don't have an idea why. But I have some ideas for a very different content, possibly shorts. Here is an example script (chatgpt):QuoteWith the right actor, filming and editing this may be popular. For example, there are shorts about mistakes made when using a manual gearbox, and the people who watch them often have no clue how to drive. They do not go deep, and do not explain everything. It just looks interesting. There must be some clues though. In the example above, there must be a high voltage danger sign, the fat guy should use multimeter and eat sandwich at the same time, so he can't handle the probes properly. Add some water and wet slippers, scratching the toe, can't find the slipper and steps barefoot on the wet ground. Add some distant thunder, the wind. The same short actually can filmed in different settings. Still a lot of work or need a genius who knows exactly what to film and puts everyone in position and films everything in one go, ready to edit.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 03:02:21 am
content: The overuse of "come-a-gutser" and talking head insert in almost every video is annoying.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 04:00:45 am
content: Quote from: Bud on February 06, 2025, 03:02:21 amThe talking head insert while I'm doing screen capture is standard technique, it helps connect with the audience. Just having a voice over with nothing to look at is boring.It's calledYOUtube, you watch a channel because you usually want to see the person.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 04:45:38 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 06, 2025, 04:00:45 amtell that to this old tony

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 08:18:45 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 05, 2025, 10:02:02 amPlease don'tthough there are plugins that replace the miniatures in every video, vanilla youtube is unbearable.

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 10:11:30 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on February 06, 2025, 01:06:16 amThat is wierd. I didn't see that video as well.And so far i though the "algorithm" worked quite well for me. There is one particular channel that commonly complains about the algorithm. Yet i see each new video they release in my feed, even though i don't watch them all, and i am not subscribed to that particular channel.But this multimeter video did not appear on my feed, while other EEVBlog videos did.

author: Picuino
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 10:55:16 am
content: Generative AI is starting to become proficient at writing, image and video generation.I don't think it's something very close, but in the medium term we are going to find ourselves with “video contents” personalized to each person who requests it, according to their tastes, level and skills.As a creator of written content for high school students, I wonder where we are heading, what activities will be made obsolete by AI, what human activities will be free from AI influence and still be valued?AI does not handle electrical schematics well at all, but it is surely a matter of time before it ends up doing better than we do.StackOverflow has already dropped sharply in users since the emergence of ChatGPT. There is a Spanish proverb that says “When you see your neighbor's beard trimmed, put yours to soak.”What will be left for us humans 5 years from now?

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 11:23:26 am
content: Quote from: Picuino on February 06, 2025, 10:55:16 amNooo idea what they mean by that.LLMs are just a more palatable way to RTFM for many people. StackOverflow is outsourcing RTFM.QuoteCreativity that's not in the FM.Will LLMs replace interns and juniors? Yes. Or they will spend most of their time driving LLMs and thereby being more productive. But it's not going to replace the people who gather the requirements, design the architecture, write the specs.If we have more time for shagging, so be it.

author: Picuino
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 03:17:05 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 06, 2025, 11:23:26 amWhen you see your neighbor doing poorly, be prepared to go yourself next.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2025, 03:32:31 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 06, 2025, 04:00:45 amJust it is not necessary to to use the talking head in Every video, this is what i am talking about.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 03:15:31 am
content: Quote from: Bud on February 06, 2025, 03:32:31 pmErr, I don't use it in every video, only for screen captures, microscope work, whiteboard or mailbag. All of my bench videos are shot from behind the camera.Nothing has changed in this process since I started doing this whole thing. There is no "over use", it's used where I've always used it.

author: optotester
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 07:28:40 pm
content: I think there was an increased interest in electronics post-covid because everybody was staying at home. Interest is now decreasing because people moves on to other interests. It not only related to the site/content.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 08:09:15 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 07, 2025, 03:15:31 amPerhaps youshould?This guy is owning it. He seems to have a grasp of electronics, whilst also possibly being slightly insane.https://youtu.be/Cu3e5SvdiFU?t=123

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 08:43:39 pm
content: contemporary electronics in 2025 IMO is moving into were proprietary software does everything with or with out AI included.if the hardware fails just swap out the pcb or bin the whole thing. this does not go well for anyone trying to make a living fixing electronicsparticularly fall time youtubers. is Louis Rossmann still fixing electronics today? Fran Lab treading water just to stay a full time youtuber. case in point.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 09:04:54 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on February 07, 2025, 08:09:15 pmOMG, the Binkov's Battlegrounds of electronics!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 09:09:20 pm
content: Quote from: jonovid on February 07, 2025, 08:43:39 pmDoesn't explain the continued success of Big Clive and Great Scott.Only a relatively small percentage ever watched Louis for the repairs.I can easily explain the continued success of Big Clive and Great Scott. They built their audience on niche video formula, and they stick to it. That guarantees a higher subscriber-to-view ratio because every subscribers gets what they signed up for every video.They don't make different styles of videos.I doubt you could name a channel that makes a a greater variety of content than me. Not only in topics, but style and length. The guarantees a lower subscriber-to-view ratio, because you don't get what you signed up for every time.And they have cool voices, I have a shit voice.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 09:50:56 pm
content: Some Scott material:Forget WiFi AGAIN! This Wireless Method is WAY Better?The End of the Full Bridge Rectifier? (Sorry ElectroBOOM) Active Rectifier is here!My Power Bank Rivals Commercial Ones?! Super Fast! (DIY or Buy)The Best Protection for your Circuit is NOT a Fuse!.....but a Resettable Fuse? EB#54The Most Versatile Voltage Converter you never heard of! The (S)EPIC ConverterAnd this kind of nonsense goes on and on and on. People seem to like those things. Just talking, no substance. The same routine as on the Telly.The most important one:Clickbait Really is Unreasonably Effective! A Recap of 2022:

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 10:05:59 pm
content: Quote from: temperance on February 07, 2025, 09:50:56 pmI get emails all the time from professional thumbnail people, and I take them up on their offer or providing a free thumbnail for trial.Youtube provides a handy A-B thumbnail comparison tool that takes a week and shows a both thumbnails and analyses the results.In every case the professional "click bait" thumbnail has not worked at all, basically still 50/50.I'm currently running one now, and same result so far, no difference:

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 10:14:21 pm
content: Quote from: temperance on February 07, 2025, 09:50:56 pmIf you don't like GScott thats fine, but saying their is no substance in his videos is absurd. There is good info, lots of time spent on schematics and diagrams. Its just more targeted at lower level hobbyists or people just starting off.Quote from: EEVblog on February 07, 2025, 10:05:59 pmI don't think thats click-baity enough, thats just a normal thumbnail.It would have to show your face in shock, and the text would be "You'll never guess what failed" or "Impossible to identify this part?", etc.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2025, 12:09:51 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 07, 2025, 09:09:20 pmYeah, that's an interesting point. That may warrant the same kind of advice one gets for a small business: find a niche an stick to it.And that's probably sound advice (it does work), but we don't necessarily enjoy being "cornered" like that.Quote from: EEVblog on February 07, 2025, 09:09:20 pmTo be fair, I personally don't enjoy listening to GreatScott (to each their own) and prefer your videos.In terms of content, it's completely different: his target is hobbyists, with relatively simple projects (that they can at least reproduce) and some buying reviews of low-cost tools and parts.Your audience is more professionals as your survey showed.Thing is, if your goal is to increase views, targetting hobbyists is a safer bet as there are orders of magnitude more, and not just the numbers, but they also usually have more time on their hands to dedicate to videos.But I think that would "downclass" your channel and might harm your other sources of income indirectly.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2025, 01:24:31 am
content: Quote from: NE666 on February 07, 2025, 08:09:15 pmTo me it reminds me a bit of 'vtuber' I've seen on Twitch.I follow a few channels that run "serious simulation" games with facecam, >5000$ rigs, channel branding, and a personality that makes me stick around for close to 10 years. Those channels attract a few hundred viewers at any moment. Very rarely close to 1k.Meanwhile go vtuber with some adorable avatar, have everything read out with text-to-speech and plenty of channels attract thousands of viewers at once.We're simply in the wrong industry.. but oh well. Still good that people try something new and be themselves. Trying to fake a personality, voice or tone is inevitable going to show.Quote from: EEVblog on February 07, 2025, 10:05:59 pmI believe LTT did some experiments too a little while ago. What they found was:Clickbait gets punished in watch time. People want to know what they get.Hyped face vs neutral face makes no difference.But they didn't really reveal much more. Yes, some A/B tests on thumbnail layouts. But it was a bit too vague for me to take it with a grain of salt. Like mirroring a thumbnail surely shouldn't account for more than a +/-5% deviation.. right?Maybe the A/B testing needs a bit more distinct thumbnails to really move the needle.Not sure if that needs too much photoshopping though.. For example making that burnt component look red hot in the thumbnail would make it more spectacular (more clicks!!), but its not really what the video is covering and thus would be clickbait.

author: Georgy.Moshkin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2025, 03:30:46 am
content: You can start interviewing electronic engineers about their stories. There are many incredible pieces of technology, but we never know the people behind them. Focus on the challenges they faced, how they were underpaid, or even became homeless. There may be some happy stories as well. After a few episodes, people will know where to go. Prepare some rough script, a cheat sheet with talking points, print it or write down on a piece of paper and stick to it with the guest. Maybe find a producer with experience who professionally manages guests to reduce unnecessary waste of time. For example, radio show producer used roughly 10 minutes not only to understand who I am but explained how to prepare for the show and my weak points. Video podcast can be edited into audio-only format and uploaded to apple podcasts, etc.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 08, 2025, 03:39:28 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on February 08, 2025, 12:09:51 amCorrect, and that is why many Youtubers burn out. Great Scott talks out it in his videos, Electroboom has talked about the pressure to keep up the same style of video etc.I don't have the problem, I'm free to do whatever style of video I like, on any schedule I like, and the penalty is guaranteed less success.It might be different with other channels that have a broad audience appeal, but in the niche subject area like electronics engineering where there are hundreds of channel that cater to specific video styles in that niche, you pay that penalty.QuoteI've always done videos targeting beginners/hobbyists, so it's not really a problem.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 08, 2025, 03:40:48 am
content: Quote from: Georgy.Moshkin on February 08, 2025, 03:30:46 amI founded and co-host the biggest engineering podcast The Amp Hour. Been doing that for 13 years now.

author: Georgy.Moshkin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2025, 07:26:33 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 08, 2025, 03:40:48 amIt is possible that you are close to the limit of what is realistically achievable without leaving this niche's boundaries. I've never heard of this podcast and have no clue about Big Clive and Great Scott either. Therefore, it may be that the large creators have already set their own boundaries in some sense. Then it becomes putting 80% more effort to achieve just a 20% improvement in views. I have a feeling that electronics engineering niche becomes microscopic, unconnected and obscure. In 5-10 years, it will become worse, so the only way is to stick with youngest audience, try to understand what they need and make content based on that.Regarding the multimeter review you've mentioned above. I've just watched the beginning of "Ultimate Multimeter Beginners Guide" video and it way too complex for a wide audience. Most people have no idea about multimeters. I think that popular video should start with you using the cheapest multimeter (the one you don't recommend) to measure the voltage of the AA battery taken out from the scale or some remote control. Maybe show that this 1.0v battery is done and can be discarded, but the 3.2v one is good. Then the viewer can go happily poke into batteries at their homes. For most people, multimeters are like PhD-level science. The video should start with an element that they already familiar with - some AA battery. Short form can be without a speech at all. Simply show the readings and use hand/head gestures to express which battery is good, and which should be discarded. End of the short video: One battery falls to the dumpster; the other one is inserted into remote.Regarding podcast. I've gone through the titles. I meant something very different. Less tech details and more life talk. Can be done with young people as well, let's hear their stories about expectations and reality of electrical engineering. No need to spend too much time. Record, edit a little, upload.

author: Avelino Sampaio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2025, 09:07:09 am
content: If you could somehow enable dubbing for your videos, I would spend much more time watching them. It would be much more comfortable for me to listen to your teachings in my native language (Portuguese).

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 08, 2025, 09:13:12 am
content: Quote from: Georgy.Moshkin on February 08, 2025, 07:26:33 amThat's an even smaller audience IMO.We have about 10,000 consistant listeners to each 1hr episode. I greatly doubt that making one targetting engineering or prospective engineering students is going to be any more popular.We actually have had a ton of episodes like what you describe. We usually start with a guests early days, how they got into engineering, study, and then going through roles they have had.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 08, 2025, 09:14:07 am
content: Quote from: Avelino Sampaio on February 08, 2025, 09:07:09 amEveryone hated this and wanted me to turn off the new Youtube dubbing feature.And Youtube gave me a female dubbed voice.

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2025, 09:28:59 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 08, 2025, 09:14:07 amNooootrying to please everyone is a fool's errand

author: Sensorcat
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2025, 02:14:43 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 08, 2025, 03:39:28 amIt seems to me that this is the key statement of the whole thread. Since you're not a large corporation, but the single key person of your business, you reasonably can only do what matches your skills and what you like. That's why you had to reject the changes proposed so far, for good reasons. Whatever you change, it would either alienate a part of your existing viewers, or make you move away from yourself. Both are no good plan. Example: There was a politician over here, a couple of years ago, who hired PR people to become more attractive to young voters. A video was launched, showing him dancing a trendy youth dancing style. Desaster: The old voters did not like it because they felt that it was unappropriate for him to dance on stage; the young felt it was unappropriate to imitate their dance.Conclusion: Do not change anything, but accept that you age with your peers. And that is of course one possible reason for slow decline. At some point, at least some 'young players' will see you as the old guy, who gives advice in a way that has less appeal to them, compared to somebody younger, even if less qualified.Solution: If you want to work more, try something new in addition. No risk, as you can drop the new thing without any consequences for the existing business in case it does not work or you loose interest.By the way, nothing is wrong with your voice. Since English is only my second language, understandability counts, and that is very good. It took me years before I finally found out what "Bob's your uncle" means, but that's not an issue, because it was clear that it is decoration, not explanation. You are your own brand, be proud of it and keep up the good work!

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2025, 05:06:48 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 07, 2025, 09:09:20 pmIt could be worse... you could be Robert Feranec..

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 09, 2025, 06:40:52 am
content: Quote from: Smokey on February 09, 2025, 05:06:48 amI don't mind Roberts voice.I've met him in person, had no issues wiht his voice. Nice guy too.

author: AVGresponding
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2025, 11:40:39 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 08, 2025, 09:14:07 amQuote from: Smokey on February 09, 2025, 05:06:48 amIf the content is worth watching, the voice is unimportant. I get tired of people complaining that DJ's/DiodeGoneWild's/Thomas Scherrer's/Atkelar's/CuriousMarc's etc etc voice/presentation style sucks.Do some aspects annoy me? Yes. Do I complain? Sometimes, in passing. Does it stop me watching? No

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2025, 03:02:33 pm
content: This thing is though: If you are just browsing, knowing nothing about a channel but see an interesting title or thumbnail, the voice is usually the second thing you notice.And if it is offputting, or if audio quality is poor, that is definelty a thing that can cause new viewers to leave, and maybe never come back.I have done that several times. If it doesn't "click" so to say, i will likely not come back to the channel. It's a spur of the moment decision, with - i assume - various unconscious elements. The next video is just a click away, making it even quicker.Not that i have any issues with Dave's voice. He is easy to understand for me.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2025, 11:47:00 pm
content: Maybe practice a hybrid accent. I would mix some Scottish in it. Bit yer videos micht become 20% langer. A wee introduction. Jist ma priceless advice.Buot ilectrucuoting yuourselff repeetedly ilsu helps.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 10:46:27 am
content: Quote from: AVGresponding on February 09, 2025, 11:40:39 amIf it's hard to get through a video it can be the most informative in the world, but it's going to be a bother and most people just won't.Also screw "AI" voices, "AI" subtitles and "AI" translations. Three layers of crap, one worse than the other, and us users cannot turn them off in any way. If us users could just disable them i would be the first to tell dave (or any other creator) to go nuts and do whatever to expand the userbase.I've unsuscribed to all channels that kept the language crap active, because we can't even correct the wrong translation and the creator won't bother do something (or probably just can't. Either get the slop or not).

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 11:26:01 am
content: Quote from: Ranayna on February 09, 2025, 03:02:33 pmI'm not too sure if people that a lot though. I've heard far far worse than most of whats out there on YT when I was still in academia. We had plenty of ehm.. asian speakers.. that were grammatically perfect (on paper) but phonetically memorized their presentation to their best ability, but could not answer questions fluently.At the end of the day, I only skip when the accent is way too thick for its purpose,andthe content is also in surplus elsewhere. So on YT, which I watch in my spare time, yes the bar is far lower to cross. But I still don't end up doing it that much.I also think that "I'm not viewing this because of voice" and "I'm not viewing this because of voice, you HAVE to change!" are two very distinct outcomes. At some point it also comes part of a YouTuber's charm. It's still asocialmedia platform after all.E.g. I like how Andreas Spiess recognized his own Swiss accent by embracing it.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 03:40:19 pm
content: QuoteIndeed, I and many others don't care about ones accent. It is strange this can be an issue for some. But the person who made the first comment on ones accent is from New zeeland and prefers his serving in expensive posh English or Maori.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 03:52:33 pm
content: Quote from: temperance on February 10, 2025, 03:40:19 pmIf your microphone quality is bad, you lose 50% of the audience in 5 seconds into a video. If you have an accent, 50% maybe in the first 30 seconds. I guess someone with a very thick accent where English is not first or second language would lose upwards of 95% of the audience in the first seconds.People clicking away from a video actually kills a channel.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 04:13:18 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on February 10, 2025, 03:52:33 pmI think this applies to a certain content. Would you click away for the reasons you've stated if it is the content you are after? If people move on because of that, then perhaps the content wasn't of interest to them. A bad microphone and being hard to understand because of that is an other matter and easy to solve.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 05:04:44 pm
content: For an example of a channel whose style is off putting to me, perhaps many others, but whose content is pretty solid look at PeojectFarm. Product reviews. North American focus, but maybe broader utility since the manufacturers are largely the same, just different branding.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 05:20:23 pm
content: Quote from: AVGresponding on February 09, 2025, 11:40:39 amDiode Gone Wild channel is a good example why this is not true. And it is not about his accent, it is about voice intonation. The guy is pure torture in that department. His voice pitch raising towards end of phrases makes me think he is asking questions non-stop. I think 2-3 minutes was what i could handle, would not want to watch the channel again, regardless of content.

author: Xena E
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 07:30:07 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on February 10, 2025, 05:20:23 pmInteresting. Acute Misophonia?If an individual or individuals do not like a presentation, it doesn't make the statement 'not true' for anyone else but them... Diodes Gone Wild has around ¼ Million subs, not bad for an electronics channel

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 10:05:20 pm
content: Quote from: Xena E on February 10, 2025, 07:30:07 pmYes exactly its personal, though I'm sure there are certain voices/tones that are in general less popular: eg droning on voices, non excited intonation, extreme accents that are hard for ESL speakers to understand.No offense toKerry wongbut I can't watch most of his stuff, as its too monotone. I would sound exactly the same if I made videos btw.Ferenacs voice is unique, didn't consider it bad? Diode gone wilds voice is hilarious, I got used to it quickly, I don't think about it until others point it out.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 10:16:22 pm
content: It is more about phonemic deafness. Someone with a Slavic language background for example might be incapable of hearing nuances in spoken English. For some a V and W sound the same no matter how hard you try to show the difference. Let a native English speaker speak French or any other language, and the pronunciations they are accustomed to will inevitably seep in. Someone might tell you that your pronunciation isn't correct and demonstrate the difference a few times but to you it sounds exactly the same.How many native English speakers are multi lingual? In my experience not many because they don't have to.Edit:Looking back at my school days you had the cross-eyed, the stuttering guy, the silent one, the girl with the powerful binoculars... made fun off by many. 30 years later. The cross-eyed guy has a PHD in computer science, the stuttering one has a PHD in Physics and the girl with powerful binoculars became a lawyer.I don't care about your dialect or pronunciation if I can understand you.

author: Xena E
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 11:02:50 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on February 10, 2025, 10:05:20 pmI'm "ESL" well, third actually. Lived in the UK for 26 years though. I watch DGW on occasions and don't have any trouble, it's just a very exagerated Czech accent and inflection, I find it easy to understand.People are often critical of fast talkers, Louis Rossmann being mentioned, but although he speaks fast, it is also quite plain to understand, (anyone who is a slow listener should set the playback speed to 0.9 😁)I find that ESL speaking creators easy to understandbecausethey don't often use colloquial expressions, whereas EFL speakers, (UK/American) do often, and also mangle the language.Aussie English speakers have their own set of expressions which I'm used to as I've family that lives there, and it's easy to understand from context, though the expession "balls out" was both hilarious and perplexing when I first heard it!Kerry Wong I think is a very concise, but I would stop at saying his voice was monotonous, and again if I'm interested in the content the fact that he doesn't have a perfomance hook, doesn't bother me, his presentations are factual and easily understood.I don't think I'd make a good you tuber, my voice is very "Sabine Hossenfelder" but not as posh!X

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2025, 11:14:58 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 09, 2025, 06:40:52 amJust to clarify, Robert puts out some of the best PCB design content out there right now with really great interviews. He seems like a chill dude too.As others have said, it's the accent that my US English brain has a hard time working with. I find the same thing with Indian accents. I have to dedicate a non-negligible amount of mental bandwidth to following the words they are saying as opposed to the content. And yes, that's totally on me for not being more familiar with eastern European (and Indian) accents. But if your job is to expand your audience and get people to follow your work, and your work involves you personally communicating with people then the potential audience will be limited if a large portion of the total audience can't understand you very well.Actors have the same problem, and they solve that with vocal and dialect coaching and a lot of practice. I'm not saying that's a requirement, but it would help if you hit an audience viewership wall.ps.. I don't have a problem with Dave. Australian accents, if anything, are just sort of amusing.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2025, 12:03:32 am
content: In my experience some people just can't deal with accents and/or non-native speakers. There is no real solution for that other than to getting used to listening to people who have an accent. It will get easier once you get exposed to different accents. A long time ago I went on a tour through Prague. An English couple complained they couldn't understand the guide (speaking English). I told them I had no problem at all to understand what the guide was saying

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2025, 12:26:33 am
content: Quote from: Bud on February 10, 2025, 05:20:23 pmI would claim the contrary, DGW, I will admit, sounded a little odd at first but now I just roll with it and it doesn't sound odd any more. Now when he says "Super Dodgy" it is emphatic, not least because he has laid the detailed groundwork in his teardown and analysis.Even his repairs of Soviet test equipment tell an interesting story. That's what I like. I am entertained and feel like I have learned something. He doesn't pad out videos with fluff and waffle which says he respects his viewers and their limited time. He comes across as authentic, and he is true to his brand. You get what it says on the tin.I like seeing people from across the globe. I like the differences.All that being said I struggle with an Indian accent, but more so the pacing of words works against trying to decipher the accent for me in real time. My hearing is not perfect and that does not help either. It puts a barrier up that I haven't yet found an Indian channel compelling enough to try to get over it. I occasionally get sucked into those channels where a team of people using fairly basic equipment to repair heavy equipment basically in the dirt. But with my Western sensibilities, watching someone work one small accident away from death or serious injury turns me away soon enough. And those channels speed up the talking, which probably isn't English anyway, to unintelligible chirping.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 11, 2025, 12:37:47 am
content: Quote from: Smokey on February 10, 2025, 11:14:58 pmI'd rather quit than change my voice or style.BTW, I actually went to NIDA and they said I'm the 2nd worst actor they have ever seen.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 11, 2025, 12:46:05 am
content: Quote from: Bud on February 10, 2025, 05:20:23 pmFor me, if a video has the exact content I'm interested in, then I'll watch it regardless of how bad the voice or presentation is. But it certainly wouldn't be something I'd just put on for enjoyment.One example I used the other day on X is Simon Whistler, who has more channels than any other Youtuber on a vast range of topics. His voice and presentation is so nice to me that I know I can just put one of his videos on in the background and have a relaxing time listening to some educational content.Scott Adams is another one I can do that for. He actually used to have spasmodic dysphonia (same thing as RFK Jr has) and could barely talk. but he got an operation and got cued, and has had professional voice training for presentation. He demo's this occasionally on his show by modifying his voice.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2025, 02:11:26 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 11, 2025, 12:37:47 am

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2025, 08:00:31 am
content: Quote from: temperance on February 10, 2025, 10:16:22 pmAgree on both points. I for example do not hear the difference between "loose" and "lose".And indeed, in word i don't know or only rarely use, my german pronounciation will slip in.

author: Xena E
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2025, 05:17:55 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 11, 2025, 12:37:47 amWho is worse... Paul Hogan?

author: AVGresponding
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2025, 06:35:42 pm
content: Quote from: Xena E on February 11, 2025, 05:17:55 pmBurrrn lolDiodeGoneWild speaks better English than I speak Czech, that's for sure.I find sound levels to be more frustrating than accents, usually. Le labo de Michel, for instance; he is so softly-spoken, and if I watch him back to back with, say, DJ or Rossmann, I have to scramble for the volume control

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2025, 09:52:39 pm
content: Here in Finland, Lauri's (of Hydraulic Press Channel) Rally English is considered horribly poor English accent... Finnish politicians who speak with a posh English accent are considered Extra Sophisticated, and those who speak Rally English, backwards backwoods rednecks. At least by reporters and posers, that is; I don't think average folks outside five largest cities care.For me, the issue with DiodeGoneWild's accent was that I felt it was sostereotypicalI felt like I was being punked. You know, like when Ylvis' guys –– utterly white Norwegian musician-comedian brothers –– talk English with a stereotypical African accent (Youtube clip). That accent, too, is genuine: they spent their early childhoods inAngola and Mozambique. It just feels somehow, uh, "inappropriate". (That's the effect of social pressure, even on a semisentient potato like myself.)Nowadays I'm comfy with it, it just took quite some time to get used to. The content is definitely worth it, at least to a hobbyist interested in reverse engineering like myself.In all cases where I've had an issue with an accent, I've always noted it ismy problem, not theirs, if others can understand what they say.

author: JoeyG
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2025, 02:16:13 am
content: Perhaps look at this channelhttps://www.youtube.com/@IMSAIGuythat is rocketing up the YouTube charts.Perhaps the IMSAIGuy has more bandwidth than you do.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 12, 2025, 02:59:54 am
content: Quote from: JoeyG on February 12, 2025, 02:16:13 amAverage of 3k views per video from 128k subscribers. Not high.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2025, 12:15:24 pm
content: Dave, I have an idea for those who complain about your voice. Hire a sound engineer to EQ your voice or try yourself to tune the rough edges with a multi band or parametric EQ.Edit: there is also vocal processing software around for doing such things.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 12, 2025, 12:56:11 pm
content: Quote from: temperance on February 12, 2025, 12:15:24 pmOver my dead body. Take it or leave it.

author: Fryguy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2025, 01:47:27 pm
content: Dave's voice is perfectly ok for me - i can understand everything he says and the aussie elements don't bother me at all . If i hear his voice i know it's him - if he would change it using electronics or whatever , i may no longer recognise him in the videos when he is not in the picture . . . .BTW - I noticed a change in your voice , Dave - i can't recall , when this happend , but you don't sound like you did in the - well - let's say the first 1500 videos . Your voice seems to have "aged" somehow . . . ?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 12, 2025, 01:53:52 pm
content: Quote from: Fryguy on February 12, 2025, 01:47:27 pmI actually get recognised by my voice in public.Funniest one was when I was canyoning, in the car park in the middle no nowhere offloading my gear from the boot talking to my friend, and I hear from the only other car there "Is that Dave Jones I can hear?"What are the odds.QuoteI haven't noticed. Different mic maybe?

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2025, 01:59:20 pm
content: QuoteI didn't mean to insult you and maybe you didn't understand what I wrote. It doesn't mean you have to completely change your voice with "sound engineering" such as sing in tune bullshit or other crap. Just the rough / sharp edges in a subtle way. There is nothing wrong with that and it's being done everywhere since professional recording exists. Even on old Beatles records.You have to because otherwise, depending much on the microphone being used, the recorded sound is "flat in your face" when played back. That might be the problem for some because they use headphones which makes the "in your face" experience worse. The flat in your face experience is also a matter of room acoustics like resonances and reverberation.The most expensive Bösendorfer or Steinway piano can sound like firewood when recorded in the wrong place with the wrong and expensive microphone for that room. And a bad room can be made to sound better with proper miking.But, as I wrote before, for me it's about content. But some keep complaining about it.

author: Fryguy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2025, 02:03:30 pm
content: What are the odds , indeed . . .Your voice is part of the EEVBlog brand - keep it .But that thing with your voice lately - that is not a mic thing - it's definitely you !The change is very subtle and i may not be able to detect it here in the field on the company laptop - but at home or in my workshop (the same speakers in both places - M-Audio BX8-D3) i can hear it very clearly .

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 12, 2025, 08:26:09 pm
content: Quote from: temperance on February 12, 2025, 01:59:20 pmI wasn't insulted, that was simply why way of saying that, no way I am going spend another second editing my videos just to make the voice maybe a bit better more pleasant for a few people.Editing is the most tedious part of beign a Yoituber, and anything that creates any extra effort in editing is just frsutration added.This is why I get everything right in-camera when I shoot a video: the sound levels, the white balance, the framing, the depth of field, and the sequence of clips, so that I don't have to dick around with this during editing.When you have edited something like 4000 videos, you'll understand.

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2025, 09:03:20 pm
content: Quote from: Fryguy on February 12, 2025, 02:03:30 pmYour voice is part of the EEVBlog brand - keep it .as for them complaining about sound are maybe too young. at the play back end they should EQ out the high end stuff that us that are older can not hear.alternatively as a professional full time YTer have your hearing tested.so you know the level of age related high end roll off.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 13, 2025, 01:19:19 am
content: Quote from: jonovid on February 12, 2025, 09:03:20 pmNo point if I'm not going to add extra steps into my editing process, and I'm not.I have shot and edited something, like 4000 videos without ever processing the audio (just the odd level adjust here and there on some clips as needed), I'm not going to change now because a some people want a better sounding voice.And even if I did, I'd then get people complaining that I'm processing the audio and it sounds weird or crap, or insert some other description here.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2025, 01:47:15 am
content: Maybe you can auto-tune your voice for an april fools video.

author: pickle9000
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2025, 02:14:06 am
content: For myself I enjoy the "trap for young players stuff" even though it does not apply to me, I enjoy watching most everything you put out.On the other hand front ends on scopes and meters have improved my actual skills and thanks for that.I've been watching "Saveitforparts" and I have to say he has crap everything but is entertaining. He comes across as a real person and sodo you.

author: G0HZU
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2025, 12:12:52 am
content: It's a bit disheartening (for me) to hear the negative opinions on voices...What little youtube content I've produced has all been silent (no commentary) because I'm not a confident speaker at all and I don't have a classic presenter's voice. So the recent negative comments about voice types on here just reinforce my decision to just do silent videos

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2025, 12:40:05 am
content: Quote from: G0HZU on February 15, 2025, 12:12:52 amIn terms of videos: real voice > AI voice > silent video.Some people do hire narrators as well but thats only for well polished high view videos. But if you don't want to narrate, thats your call of course.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2025, 02:59:23 am
content: Quote from: G0HZU on February 15, 2025, 12:12:52 amYeah, my own youtube content tends to be silent too.Weirdly, when I was working in Moscow, one day I got grabbed by another team to make a voiceover for their research demo, because I was the only one in the office without a Russian accent. I wanted to do a second (at least!) take but they were "That's good enough"

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2025, 04:36:07 am
content: Quote from: G0HZU on February 15, 2025, 12:12:52 amIf you have something to say then just say it. The best guide is whether people are interested regardless. There will be at least as many people who don't like silent videos and if you add music there will be as many again who don't like music, or the choice of music or the volume and so on.I think the only thing every YT creator needs is a thick skin since comment are sure to follow as night follows day.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2025, 04:54:35 am
content: I'd like mailbag videos on gems found online on places like Aliexpress. I watched a few other channels do similar from time to time. Voltlog, Great Scott to name two.I recently bought a couple of crimpers for small connectors (JST, Molex style) Even though I had looked into it I still found it a bit of a lucky dip. With the amount I would ever do I can't justify buying the brand name tool. In fact I see this as a subject for a broad interest video that a lot of people could find useful. BigClive's recent video on Deutsch connectors is one example of such a video. It achieved well above the usual views.Another thread on the Forum recently captured my interest on a project to find shorts on motherboards. You are well positioned to add your take on it perhaps with an engineer's view on component selection that is no better than needed for the function. Saving cost.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/finding-short-on-motherboards-with-a-shorty-(with-display)/150/

author: Simmed
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2025, 06:07:42 am
content: regarding the suggestion about the audio character of the voicei want to show an examplethis channel original voice of the person 8 yrs agoand then now what he does to his voiceit now ended up having a super boosted bassim not saying what is bad or good, i can listen to both

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2025, 02:48:58 pm
content: I don't do well with non-speaking videos, either silent or with just crappy music, even if preceded by completely non-relevant speaking video (the thousands of videos by Roel Van de Paar). I usually just turn them off when I realize nobody's going to say anything. Also shorts. Is there a filter or script to block all shorts?

author: Simmed
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2025, 03:13:39 pm
content: Quote from: Peabody on February 15, 2025, 02:48:58 pmon firefox there is shorts blockers

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 04:09:50 am
content: After I clear my internet cache and then youtube opens up on a blank page, then watch a few smarter every day, scott manley, eevblog videos.The front page then gets habitated by these sorts of recommended video with tens of millions of views.So just saying if Dave wants more views perhaps surgery is required and with appropriate attire, Davina will get more subscribers and views.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 05:04:43 am
content: Quote from: .RC. on February 19, 2025, 04:09:50 amShorts uses a different recommendation algorithm than regular videos.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 05:46:19 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 19, 2025, 05:04:43 amWow, no joke. I very purposefully ignore shorts. I just went to see my top 20 shorts recommendations, not a single one of even remote interest. You would think they will at least prime it with something that would be interesting.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 06:42:23 am
content: Quote from: ataradov on February 19, 2025, 05:46:19 amI guess they figure that absolutely everyone is a target for the lowest quality trash short form content, and they might have data to back that up...

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 08:03:46 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 19, 2025, 05:04:43 amIt has to be related though.I also ignore shorts. I think i "accidentally" watched one that was linked to me.The majority of the shorts i see shown on the YT homepage are made by channels that i regularly watch.EDIT: Even here on my work browser, where i only use YT to listen to music in the background, the shorts i am shown (very far down!) are all related to the music i listen to. Due to a replacement of my work machine, the profile is relatively young, about two months old.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 08:35:05 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 19, 2025, 06:42:23 amI've read a lot about the techniques of influence. I know about cognitive biases. I know about limbic hijacking....... and still youtube shorts can get me stuck in an endless scroll loop... random intermittent rewards are a strong drug!Sam Harris once asked Daniel Kahneman if being the Nobel prize winning guy that study cognitive biases has helped him avoid any of them. His answer was No. They are essentially bugs in the software you can't patch. The only thing he can do is try not to make decisions about stuff in the moment.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 12:01:50 pm
content: Quote from: Ranayna on February 19, 2025, 08:03:46 amYes, but the Shorts algorithm will pick up it's own patterns, it's definitely a different algorithm, probably with some linkage to the main video algorithm.I watched a couple of the Anatoly Powerlifter shorts, and now I just get bombarded with his stuff and other related athletic chick shorts and whatever. But none of that related stuff ever shows up on the main video algorithm. So it seems to be one way at best, which is understandable because I think people would get pretty pissed off if you watched a few crazy unreleated funny cat Shorts, and then your long form content was suddenly flodded with cat videos. I think they are smart enough to know this.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 01:23:13 pm
content: Not all shorts are bad. Sometimes a creative idea comes along from an unexpected source. This is the short I refer people too if they are too dismissive. I don't like getting sucked into shorts either but just watch it to the end.https://www.youtube.com/shorts/anuBLytpAHIIt's not a trick. and it's shortIt's Marty T (Kiwi dragging rusty metal out of the bush) putting his stuff away in the shed. Set to In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. 25 seconds.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 08:30:07 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 19, 2025, 12:01:50 pm"Hello, Can I clean here?"I think it's as strong as Godwin's law: A man's youtube short recommendation will be always slowly evolving into content with girls bending over in yoga pants.Quote from: Smokey on February 19, 2025, 08:35:05 amI think the only way to address this will be to go on the offensive.We need an alternative youtube interface that will recommend you content that doesn't radicalize you, and shows you content that you actually wanted to watch. Right now youtube is very good at recommending clickbait time wasters. I also use it very differently depending the time of the day:- I have it in the background during workout, like a long format podcast.- Foreground in front of my TV- Sometimes foreground on computer- Background during work- Actually trying to look up how to do something. Like a tutorial video on repairing a washing machine or something.I watch different type of content for each of these.I think it was Ryan George who commented that the Youtube is 100% demented that it will try to show you repair videos for weeks if you watched one. Or if you watched a podcast with people in it from a certain political point, it will try to give you content from more extreme in the same direction. Not good. You go on the page, and your home screen is 100% filled with clickbait, and your actual subscriptions are nowhere to be found.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 09:32:08 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 19, 2025, 12:01:50 pmI was getting a lot of Anatoly maybe a month ago, but not recently. It switched to our NZ-born K-pop singer Rose and her APT song, and weirdly some muscly Russian guy called Vlad who cosplays as en e-girl on random video chat sites. On and now a lot of Orrissama's contact juggling / miming / cosplay reels -- often but not always to songs she writes and sings herself e.g. the newish "Na Na Na".Oh and of course young Francis chasing trains.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 11:43:04 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on February 20, 2025, 08:30:07 amI can neither confirm nor deny that I click on the yoga pant shorts.

author: TheSteve
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 08:50:41 pm
content: I will always be a fan of repair videos. It does seem tougher to find interesting stuff to repair at an affordable price though.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 10:55:11 pm
content: Quote from: TheSteve on February 20, 2025, 08:50:41 pmI think we are on to something here... Repair shorts + yoga pants?

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 11:16:51 pm
content: Quote from: Smokey on February 20, 2025, 10:55:11 pmActually currently discussing with KittenYulia on her discord whether she needs to do vids doing yoga while updating us on stupid things in Russia, for more clicks, no joke. (I'm on the no side, but w/e)

author: Addicted2AnalogTek
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 11:44:00 pm
content: Well, Dave, on the short and sweet from my perspective, as far as the channel goes: You've found and captivated an audience a while back, and they've grown with you and are now outgrowing your current content style. They want more complexity and depth with some more goal oriented projects, it would seem. You can cater to that audience, you can try your hand at captivating a younger generation, or you can keep things going essentially the same as they are now and put your time and energy elsewhere in life.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 11:57:28 pm
content: Quote from: TheSteve on February 20, 2025, 08:50:41 pmI have the worst luck with repair stuff. Many tiems I have deliberately bought broken stuff on ebay for a repair video, and it just works. Or it's something simple that isn't worth a repair video. And in some cases I get ones that are simply beyond economical repair.So it is hard to find repair stuff that has some elusive component fault you have to track down.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 21, 2025, 01:37:46 am
content: Someone on X asked what it would sound like with my pitch changed, so here it is, pitch shifted my 1 semi tone and 50 cents (1 semi tone didn't sound like enough, and two sounded way too much)

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2025, 01:50:34 am
content: how aboutreengineering flawed designs found in popular electronic equipment.that the manufacturers overlooked in the development process.so others seeking to make the same repairs can follow along at homefor exampleremoving planned obsolescence from flawed designs incordless power tools , test equipment , electronic automotive accessorieshome entertainment systems.or for exampleswapping out one resistor in a LED light system PCB can double its life.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2025, 02:30:16 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 21, 2025, 01:37:46 amI A/B compared with the original. Yeah there's a difference, but not major. For me, both are fine. I don't think people who are annoyed would stop being annoyed. Their problem.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2025, 12:50:28 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 20, 2025, 11:57:28 pmMaybe get in contact with an equipment leasing company. Drop their name in exchange for known faulty stuff. Im sure they will have some ruined by the clients.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 21, 2025, 01:00:02 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 21, 2025, 02:30:16 amBingo.

author: Andy Watson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2025, 02:25:23 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 21, 2025, 01:37:46 amI don't think it's about the absolute pitch. For me, it's the Austrailian Question Intonation combined with your enthusiasm that keeps ratcheting-up the stress to unbearable levels.10 minutes is about as much as I can stand.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 22, 2025, 12:21:37 am
content: Quote from: Andy Watson on February 21, 2025, 02:25:23 pmThat's just the way I am, take it or leave it I'm afraid. If I have to "perform" a certain way then I wouldn't want to do this any more.

author: TimNJ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2025, 01:33:14 am
content: Quote from: Addicted2AnalogTek on February 20, 2025, 11:44:00 pmYeah, something like that. I first started watching Dave when I was about 15 or 16, around 2010 or so. I credit Dave (and a few others) for really opening my eyes to electronics eesign past and present. By the time I started college, I felt like I had five years of work experience just from watching EEVblog videos!For those who started with EEVblog and grown with it, maybe the novelty of vintage gear teardowns and scope teardowns has worn off. I'm still mildly interested, but unless it is a very special or very weird piece of equipment, I'll probably think "eh, I've seen this before"...rightly, or not. For today's younger audience, I am not sure what they are attracted to. When I was 16 in 2010, Dave was almost the only show in town, so whatever he put out, I watched, and Ididlove it. These days, there is a lot more to watch and to choose from.I recall being particularly enchanted by the uSupply, uCurrent, and uWatch videos -- I think because it was a glimpse into real product design, which is what I was trying to understand at the time. I think the "series" aspect kept it interesting..I also recall liking "Gaussian resistors", "Let's Design a Product", and other "How to desgin..." videos.These days, for long form content, I find myself watching a lot of BlondiHacks, which is a hobby machining channel with very long project series, updated weekly. Granted, a hobby machining project with many parts to make is probably the perfect match for a Youtube series - Each week you make another part. For engineering, it's obviously a little different because it's not just "build to this set of plans which already exists". But, I still think a uCurrent-esque series would do very well, at least for the old audience.

author: TimNJ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2025, 01:55:46 am
content: Oh, I was going to say that I find EEVblog videos a little disjointed and random these days. (It's also true that I am busier than I've ever been, so maybe I am just being more selective.) Clicking on one of these "random" videos requires that I make a mental commitment to get up to speed on whatever the video's backstory is. Sometimes I simply don't want to do that. There is also the "risk" that I won't find it interesting (because I don't know what I'm getting into) and the "fear" that I will "waste time". So again, I don't click.Just my attempt to break down my own psychology.But who knows, maybe the old video styles which we remember fondly simply don't work in the current age. The internet has really cooked our brains in the last few years...so I wouldn't doubt it.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2025, 04:07:04 am
content: Quote from: Addicted2AnalogTek on February 20, 2025, 11:44:00 pmI saw a post recently which showed a user with a user-number over a million. I went and checked mine and it was 205. I think your post reflects where I am or have been for several years. I am now spoiled for choice on YT and have become quite ruthless in choosing what I want to watch. I get variety from different channels and I tend to subscribe to channels that post less than weekly or even monthly. More as a sort of bookmark. I think you're right about wanting more goal oriented projects, but not necessarily complex ones.There are projects that populate and are popular on the internet and Dave could do his take on them or even his take on a key aspect of them from an engineers perspective.But if you want complex projects then some of them can be very niche. Take Breadboarding Labs which has taken years to complete V1.0 of his 8088 PC and now is going to use his experience and develop V2.0. That's not going to work for EEVblog audience. But designing a PCB for it might. Especially if it was part of a tutorial series on Kicad. Another example I suggested before is the SHORTY tester in another forum thread for diagnosing shorted caps on motherboards. Dave needn't design and build the entire project but he could seek out and analyse the selection of Op-Amp and discuss what makes some ideal and others not. He has touched on things like this over the years so it isn't entirely outside his wheelhouse for video subjects. And it would create perpetually useful long burn videos, as opposed to a transient tabloid blip that debunking videos can be. Who really looks back and cares about batteriser or solar roadways? It is the epitome of lining the birdcage with newspaper.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 22, 2025, 04:25:38 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on February 22, 2025, 04:07:04 amA lot of people cared at the time, and that's what counts. Not everything is forever, sometimes you just need to live in the moment.

author: Xena E
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2025, 02:45:12 pm
content: If a debunking video causes enough publicity on the subject in hand that it stops one case of fraud then its existence has been worthwhile.X

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2025, 05:00:37 pm
content: Quote from: Xena E on February 23, 2025, 02:45:12 pmOnly if the debunking is on-point which rarely is the case as the developers of a product have put way more mental and financial backing into a product compared to a 'debunker' who slaps a video together in a couple of hours based on underbelly sentiments. Take solar roadways for example: currently there are about half a dozen companies selling pavement with solar panels in them and are (very likely) making a profit from sales. So far the track record of debunking videos where it comes to limiting sales has been pretty poor to say the least.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2025, 08:03:07 pm
content: Quote from: Smokey on February 20, 2025, 10:55:11 pmOr ladies playing bass guitar. You will realize why those guitars are shaped the way they are.

author: Xena E
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2025, 08:20:01 pm
content: Solar roadways, pavements, Solar space collectors, RF power transmission projects, et al , are aimed at sucking in public money, and that seems so much like taking candy from a baby, as officialdom seem very careless with their charge of the public purse...so yes, unfortunately you are correct, the debunking has to be introduced on point.There is a lot of local (to me) interest in providing more cycleways, and whenever the subject comes up there's always one of these Lyle Langley type carpet baggers that turns up to try and sell the solar pavement solution, yet when the, I think Korean system of covered cycleways where the roof is constructed of the solar panels is introduced, nobody's interest is piqued, yet it would be a more pracical solution.I have been to council meetings, (invited, because of my work with PV systems), I preemptively introduce councilors to some of the pifalls with links to some of the creators that do debunking videos where these subjects are being brought up, the discussions get quite heated so it often seems that the pro lobby are being indoctrinated with coin. Fortunately it is now becoming well documented how much of a failure these non ideal schemes are at producing payback or even break even levels of return.Fortunately so far the only big developments with solar here (Cambridge) have been solar powered cycleway lighting, and completed in 2018 a covered cycle park designed and constructed by Polysolar at Cambridge North Railway station that is of the solar roof variety and is a successful 49kWp system. Both have proven practical cost effective projects, however it wouldnt surprise me if someone doesn’t get sucked in by the big time wank solar pavement schemes some time soon.https://www.polysolar.com/solar-energy-projects/cambridge-north-railway-station-cycle-parkX

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 12:12:34 am
content: Well, great job at making your competition look bad in favour of your own products requiring a far more expensive structure to be erected. But who cares spending a couple of hundred grand extra on a 50 million pound re-development project. Now who is trying to lure in the gullible?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 01:23:07 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 23, 2025, 05:00:37 pmI have had many people contact me and say they have used my bunking videos as evidence to various councils and government departments around the world that have considered these dodgy solar solutions, and they have been successful in several cases that I know of.I like to think my videos have more than "underbelly sentiments", they contain researched data and analysis of test results.

author: Xena E
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 08:33:24 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 24, 2025, 12:12:34 amThe structure was going to be there anyhow, the extra expense was the PV, so no real difference than puting it on a factory roof FFS. At least it has a chance of survival to break even on cost.Unlike the solar pathways/pavements, that development has a chance of payback.I was only a consultant on the viability of the various projects for, a private contract, however not even involved in this case It was just an example of what works.I used to work in the industry but no longer have any paid involvment, (I'm now a design administrator in an aerospace instrumentation company), and youare making incorrect assertions to just start a flame war,so wind your fucking neck in @nct nico... if you want to sell that shit solar paving/crap batteries/Teslaesque woo woo free energy space power projects to the world, you've got to be prepared to have people like Dave Jones call you out...Count my vote in favor of accurate debunking videos.Regards.X

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 08:49:57 am
content: I did some digging into that project. That bicycle 'shed' is way over engineered. Now it could be possible that they wanted to have it build that way due to aesthetics but you can build something like that with similar function (keeping bikes dry) much cheaper (I have posted the numbers before on this subject). If you are going through the documents from that project it likely shows that at some point there had to be something renewable in that project (hence the involvement of a renewable energy consultancy firm). That probably lead to the idea to combine solar panels and a bike shed and from there to a requirement that the structure would need to be suitable for solar panels. I strongly doubt anyone circled back and did an ROI analysis comparing a cheaper structure without support for solar panels to the extra cost for having a structure which supports solar panels. Probably there where some subsidies involved as well as back when the station was remodelled, solar panels where still expensive.Making an ROI on solar panels is hard even for relatively simple retrofit roof installations (been there, done that). And getting to that point: why aren't there solar panels on the roof of the station? That would have been the low hanging fruit.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 09:04:11 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 24, 2025, 01:23:07 amOfcourse it never hurts to educate people on running some numbers on a project and/or asking the right questions. But it gets iffy when outright 'cancelling' certain solutions which may lead to wasting even more money (*). When combining renewable energy generation with construction work, it gets really hard to do a proper ROI calculation because you need to factor in a dual use function with many variables.Also keep in mind that part of the job of governments is to aid development of new technology. Without government subsidies, there is very little technical progress and this affects us all as engineers. And true, sometimes projects will fail and the lessons learned is where the value is at. The reason it works this way is because in many countries it is forbidden for governments to hand out money to companies directly in order to support bringing new products onto the market. Supporting R&D is not so much of a problem but those subsidies are typically earmarked R&D only and are not to be used for starting up production. But governments aren't forbidden to buy products which may not have been fully field proven. All in all, there is a large grey area here and you have to be carefull your debunking videos aren't abused as a marketing tool by companies trying to get government contracts.* Unless there is a glaringly obvious error like in the space mirror project but this was basically a one-man-band project; not a team of engineers / scientists.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 11:50:25 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 24, 2025, 09:04:11 amI don't think that is true. Most government subsidised research is bullshit with no useful results. The teams are better at writing grant proposals than at doing research, and all the incentives align with obtaining the minimum possible results and then getting another year of grants. In addition, the government funding bodies generally require you to "prove" that their money will not be "wasted" and you will get results with very low risk -- which inherently means going for safe bets that barely if at all advance knowledge. If 10% of government funded research is a "failure" then there are likely to be Questions Asked ... even in parliament.This is the polar opposite of US-style venture capital where 90% chance of failure is perfectly normal and expected and the question asked if IF you are successful, how big is the potential market?The exception in government-funded research is the military. Especially in times of conflict -- whether hot or cold -- they will throw infinite money at all kinds of wild ideas with potential big payoffs and hope that at least some of them work.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 12:20:33 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 24, 2025, 09:04:11 amWhile we could argue whether or not this is true, let's assume it is.Supporting solar roadways or cycle paths is just plain and simple misappropriation. It is crime. The underling technology doesn't survive the smallest amount of technical scrutiny, and it's not the question of technology. It's just alternatives are just 30-50 times better, while reducing the durability of the road by tenfold. As I sad the other threads, you can use the same amount of money to subsidize installations by just waving VAT, and use this as a force multiplier.If Doge is teaching us anything, it is showing that there is a gaping hole in the legislation all around the world. We need governments first and foremost to be accountable for stupid decisions. Whenever a government has the ability to make good decisions and chooses not to, they should be liable. They need to take actions that are in the best interest of their own citizens. Wasting money is not that.Quote from: EEVblog on February 24, 2025, 01:23:07 amHuge thumbs up for that.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 01:27:22 pm
content: @brucehoult: I'm not sure if that's gov fault or simple the game of doing research. Publishing a negative result is incredibly hard, because I think we all know building modern electronics/software requires many parts to operate just right in order to get a functional device. What is the point in publishing a paper if the hardest thing of doing proper research is first establishing boundary conditions that give valid measurement results.However, coming from academia, I think the value in 'developing knowledge' is not necessarily to expand a toolkit that can directly make a ton of money. Research should be just as much about finding out things that don't work. For example, if you look at physics, math, or heck even social sciences, these research activities operate even more inside their own vacuum of importance.When this doesn't happen (as it does right now), you'll always have some paper or startup that polishes their BS numbers to meet some goal or research grant.Therefore I understand the concept of applauding commercial research as parties "that gets shit done" to thrive (or go down if they don't), but I think they are far from perfect neither. If I read the work/research/white paper from a commercial party I'll always think: what is the catch? What are they hiding from me? Where is their secret sauce so that not anybody else can verify their work? (if you're lucky its just a capital limitation and not some magic algorithm)These leads to problems with ethical disclosure. For example, I'm not anti-pharma, but if you look at the efficacy provided by pharma and gov funded research, you'll often find a large discrepancy which can often be explained by poor research methods and exclusions of bias on the pharma side.Similarly, if capitalist research has given us technology that littered today's internet/media with ads, tracking and other kind of privacy intrusive nonsense ("we want to know everything about you so we can make free products"), then I'd rather throw my computer out the window and go back to growing beets.It's incredibly funny to look at computer security articles in IEEE/ACM for example. You'll have articles on e.g. web scraping that either facilitate or defend this practice. Some researchers say it enables new applications (LLM's are trained by it), while others see it as a highly malicious activity of overloading sites and stealing (personal) data. I think you can guess which party is funded by who.But perhaps my experience of academia is a bit too much fairy tale. In the end, I did survive 7 years in there and made it out alive.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 01:50:22 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 24, 2025, 11:50:25 amWell, I'm actually involved in many (scientific) research projects and I can tell you from my own experience that what you wrote is absolutely false. At least in the Netherlands. Getting grants for research means going through a lot of scrutiny and getting results does count otherwise there will be no money to continue the project. There really is no fun factor about it.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 02:23:20 pm
content: Have you looked at the process from the other side, or are you basing your belief on how you feel your grant requests have been processed?In most western countries, researchers do privately admit that the key to getting a research grant is not proving that the research has merit, but to ensure that it is in the granter's personal or political interests to be seen as supportive of that particular research project. Buzzwords and hype is one way to ensure that. With governments and universities and associated entities, it is always easier to get grants for research already being done elsewhere than to do completely new research, because then the granter is seen to be at the forefront of science, competing with others on the "new stuff". Much more opportunities for the granter's representatives to socialize, be awarded for their foresight in selecting research projects, and in general not worry about their future; compared to the case where the project is completely new which is a huge risk, because the granters want to be in the prominent but safe top middle group, not at the very tip with lots of unknowns and risks.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 02:46:13 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on February 24, 2025, 02:23:20 pmMy own applications are handled by people who have a clue about engineering. I can have an in-depth technical conversation with them over the phone. For projects I'm not doing the applications for, I don't see much networking going on. Just paperwork proving the project has merit and solves an actual problem. The Dutch government has choosen several key innovation areas (one of them being quantum technology) and for those key innovation areas it will be easier to get a project approved compared to doing something the Dutch government isn't interested in. In the latter case it will require lobbying to get a project approved or some president to hand out an executive order to get something done.And ofcourse part of the process -certainly at the high level- is political (like which key research areas to choose) as politicians like to have something to show for so they can get more votes. That is how democracy works. There are a million interesting things to spend tax money on but in the end the people vote for what they find important.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2025, 03:12:17 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 24, 2025, 02:46:13 pmThat sounds good. Here in Finland, getting funding from Research Council of Finland looks that way also on paper, but if one looks at what gets funded and the kinds of projects and the researchers that get funding, the reality looks much less scientific or objective, and much more sociopolitical and perhaps even personal (as in Alma Mater and connections matter). I haven't been active in those circles myself in well over a decade now, but what I still hear, things haven't changed much. YMMV, and I could be wrong; my understanding is mainly based on discussions with others, not direct verifiable experience.

author: Georgy.Moshkin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2025, 06:14:28 am
content: Another factor is that big companies are "stealing" the audience from EEVblog and similar channels. Nowadays, most of engineering related value is concentrated in big companies, and the amount of their "internal content" is probably underestimated: work-related discord channels, internal work-related media consumption, video conferencing. A decade ago, there was no such thing as "internal content" consumption or saturation. So, imagine they have already eaten a stick of engineering "butter" at work, and now we expect them to drink a cup of "olive oil" from EEVblog. But they are already saturated with all that engineering "fat" from their jobs. In this context, the only hungry ones left are kids, retired and unemployed. Otherwise, where are all those people who google for "embedded engineering" 7-times more often than in 2015? And many other niches. For example, 5G and wireless is booming, but every RF-related message board like edaboard is dead. They are living in a parallel reality of content consumption, they never visit message boards of Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Nordic Semiconductor. It seems that they solve all the problems internally and it's not in their culture to search for some more "EE" content on top of that.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 26, 2025, 08:47:44 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on February 24, 2025, 12:20:33 pmWithout getting into any dicussion of *you know who*, DOGE is probably the greatest advancement in politics I've seen in my lifetime.The opposition in Australia have just appointed a shadow DOGE-like minister, not that that will amount to anything sadly, as I think a politican can do what's currently being done with DOGE. It needs someone outside that political sphere of influence, and absolutely passionate about it with zero F's to give.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2025, 09:34:26 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 26, 2025, 08:47:44 amI've said it before. Gina.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2025, 10:12:17 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on February 24, 2025, 12:20:33 pmI so much agree.Here in Finland, when statistics show that current policies are not working, the politicians and civil servants stop collecting those statistics. I'mnotkidding or exaggerating!Hell, when the old East German STASI archives became public, Finnish politicians decided that nah, we won't publishthe list that includes those who got paid by STASI to spy for DDR, because it would embarrass many active politicians. "Theleast corrupt countryfree-est media in the world" my ass: the wussiest, most self-censoring country in the world, more like.Quote from: EEVblog on February 26, 2025, 08:47:44 amExactly! We need the counterbalance, harsh criticism, accountability, and consequences.There having been none before, and most politicians and high civil servants not having done any productive work before where such scrutiny is normal and expected, they're utterly crapping their pants and crying foul. Boo-hoo. Welcome to the real world, where actions have consequences.I, too, have no difficulty appreciating the actions of someone, even if I think they're an asshole otherwise. The opposite is much harder. I still avoid Perl like a plague, because I had to work with a horrible code base for a few years around the turn of the century, written by people I really like. I hated that code, but really liked the authors. It's much easier to hate the person, but still appreciate some of their work.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 26, 2025, 10:47:32 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 26, 2025, 09:34:26 amDick Smith maybe.On X recently I formally offered to do it, but I'm a nobody.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2025, 10:55:13 pm
content: Sad to see Dave still downing that koolaid.

author: TimNJ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2025, 11:25:42 pm
content: Auditing = Good, necessary, and we need more of it (Pentagon budget *cough*)DOGE = We'll see, but rich guys typically favor deregulation at the expense of the working class

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2025, 11:54:52 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 26, 2025, 08:47:44 amIs this an example of staying on thread topic and keeping politics out of the EEvblog forum?I think it isn't and I further think it sends a message to others that politics IS allowed. And my personal bias says it is even more true if you agree with it. I'd sit back and let this DOGE thing run on a bit longer. I have seen reports that the list of savings DOGE has claimed have had many holes poked into it, Some items claimed multiple times, some done by the previous administration already, some simply fabricated and some walked back pretty smartly. I think you need someone who does give a F#$k and who has some skin in the game by being accountable to the people. The most recent report I saw said the claimed $65B savings is nearer $2B. which is a worthwhile saving but still a piddling amount in the context of the US government budget.I saw it here.And I'd say this to Americans who have yet to put a human face to this. 30% of US government workers are veterans. It's time to put your money where your mouth is when you want to do more than pay lip service to thank them. Don't forget to credit Obama for looking out for veterans by implementing a policy to hire more of them.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 12:36:10 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on February 26, 2025, 10:55:13 pmBecause I think corruption, waste, and inefficiency in government spending should be eliminated?Pretty standard thinking for engineers i would have thought.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 07:56:19 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 27, 2025, 12:36:10 amUnfortunately a lot of that is just conspiracy theorism fed by news articles about projects gone wrong. The fact such a thing is news worthy shows that it is a rare event. I think if you do some research you'll find that commercially run companies are equally 'bad' at wasting their own money for whatever reason. But it probably is harder to find because governments use public money which is under more (political) scrutiny where companies can sweep losses under the rug. A Dutch saying: When you chop wood, you'll have splinters.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 08:44:23 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 07:56:19 amIf you think there isn't rapant corruption and waste in government spending then I've got a bridge to sell you, it links Australia and New Zealand.I know that corporations waste money, I lived in that world for 25 years.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 09:09:50 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 07:56:19 am"Because I do not perceive the corruption, anyone claiming they've seen it are conspiracy theorists."I don't genuinely know whether you're trolling, naïve, or stupid, nctnico. I can tell you that that "are conspiracy theorists" makes me think you're definitely all three.Most of government waste never comes to air. When the sanctions against Russia s ("Why don't you go public with these, then?" And be called a conspiracy theorist in public by similar idiots as yourself?)tarted, quite a few Finnish politicians grumbled how they now had to vacate cushy board positions in Russian banks. Their constituents never knew they had those positions in the first place, but the newspeople quickly stopped talking about it in order to control the discourse (wussy self-censoring, like I said), because it was that embarrassing. When someone pointed out in a television discussion that our former prime minister raked in a couple of million for being a spokesperson for the NordStream pipeline, the current head of that same political party started shouting how that was an unacceptable comment and a completely different thing besides, with their face beet-red.You don't find out about government graft and misuse of resources from the news. That only happens when that hurts/annoys enough other politicians, or the ones doing it are stupid enough to accidentally reveal it themselves. You have to know and talk to the actual people in those projects, especially those with access to the financial books, to find out about all the graft and pork.Calling those that have found about these not-talked-about things "conspiracy theorists" is like a pig in the slaughterhouse calling others doomsayers for smelling blood in the air, because they themselves definitely don't see or smell anything off, and all the humans they've ever met were gentle good folks who offered snacks besides.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 09:16:14 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 27, 2025, 08:44:23 amThis one?Aussie end:NZ end:

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 09:44:22 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 07:56:19 amA corporation is free to waste their own money on things. You can (usually) stop buying from a corporation, and another lean and better one can take it's place. They can budlight themselves, burn through their customer base and go out of business.You cannot realistically do the same with a government. Especially with the burocratic branch that is entrenched, made in a way to survive any elections. Waste is unacceptable, because the difference between a successful country and a failed one is very narrow. You could have a country with:- budget deficit of 5% and waste 10% on bullshit, with national debt spinning out of control, leading to poverty on the long term- One with budget deficit below inflation, or even zeroAnd then there is the mental breakdown about this. When you look up Doge in google, I'm not kidding, I got 5 pages of news articles saying this, verbatim:"Nearly 40% of Elon Musk's DOGE Cuts Not Expected to Save Any Money"Maybe, just maybe, they are attempting to manipulate us.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 11:29:50 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 27, 2025, 09:16:14 amThat's the one, going real cheap, government surplus.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 11:31:38 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 27, 2025, 11:29:50 amI'll pass, thanks.I'm waiting for a solar one.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 11:36:29 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on February 27, 2025, 09:44:22 amThe funniest one has been the recent "List 5 things you've done in the last week" demand and the meltdowns over thatAnyone who has ever worked in industry knows this is standard stuff.The bar was so low all you had to do was reply with a cohesive sentenceAnd that's all it was designed to do, weed out the bludgers who couldn't or wouldn't even do that. Brilliant in its simplicity.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 11:43:08 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on February 27, 2025, 09:09:50 amThat is probably the situation in Finland. In the NL politicians are under a lot of scrutiny where it comes to ties with companies. The current prime minister is the 3rd (or even 4th) choice. But he made it because the person higher up the list had some financial entanglements. But again, you get what you vote for. And perhaps there is a difference in opinion between you and the majority of the voters about what is good use of money. In the end large projects need to be voted on so there isn't a single person accountable for making a decission to go ahead or not. Ofcourse things can go wrong with execution or it turns out the idea wasn't that good after all. Hindsight is always 20/20.And I also don't see a problem with a former politician getting a new job which pays well. Good for them. Your comment sounds more like jealousy than stating an actual problem. Hence the reason I use the term conspiracy theorists; you fail to provide hard evidence for any of your claims. It all comes down to the Trumpism 'I know because of logical thinking'. One of the pitfalls of life is thinking governments and companies are run exclusively by muppets and idiots only looking to better themselves. Been there, done that and it was a dark period. If it was the case, we'd be living like in the stone age.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 12:20:23 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 27, 2025, 11:36:29 amSo there is a theory by Musk that a few things are happening:They don't read email, at all.People don't even show up for work anymore, nor do they WFH.Probably some employees don't even exist.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 12:39:54 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on February 27, 2025, 12:20:23 pmThey are also looking for stars in lowly jobs, held down by middle management.Most of what they're doing looks good to me. BUT as someone who has been mostly WFH since 1989  I reject Musk's notion that because some people's jobs can not be WFH then no one's should.Even in the times that I've had to go to some shitty open plan office the time from 9-5 (ok 11-5) was wasted in meetings and emails and ALL the real work got done between 6 PM and maybe 1 AM, sometimes in the office (if access was needed to some mainframe or whatever) or at home if a PC/Mac would suffice . when I bought a Mac IIcx myself to complement the Mac II in the office, and also got a newly-cheap Chinese 2400 bps modem, and an account on one of NZ's first ISPs with real internet mail, newsgroups, telnet, and ftp. ... and the number of times I've had a semi-permanent ssh from my work PC out through the corporate firewall to my home computer, with a reverse tunnel ... shhhh

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 12:42:31 pm
content: I agree. I loath open plan offices. I get nothing done in such places. The whole Doge thing is just a farce though. If you think a department is needing too much money for the work they do, just cut the budget.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 12:56:55 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 27, 2025, 12:39:54 pmI have several issues with Musk. He doesn't treat engineers well. For example: Firing someone because he didn't want to work 12 hours on a Sunday several times in a row is not OK. And I agree with you on the WFH. But if you are only going to accept people who don't have differing opinions, you are going to be very lonely, or in a cult.Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 12:42:31 pmThat has the opposite effect. Managers try to cut budget on everyone's expense. Most talented employees leave first. Productivity drops even further.Besides, the issue is that some of these departments should have the budget of zero, and their results are net negative. And often times their operation is even illegal.Sorry this is way off topic. I'm ready to go back to just discuss the changes.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 05:05:20 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 11:43:08 amYep.Note, however, that Transparency International ranked Finlandsecond least corrupted country among 180, at 88 points.In comparison, NL is ranked ninth, at 78 points.Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 11:43:08 amThere is, but that is not the question: the question is whether that money getsanythingfor Finland, or only just some PR for a few public figures.Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 11:43:08 amI do not recall hearing anyone being accountable for a large government/nonprofit project failing, ever. Instead, the same people who ran something to ground, simply keep popping up in future projects in similar or higher positions of power.Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 11:43:08 amSure. I can accept about 25% failure rate myself before considering it systematic or intentional. From what I have seen and discussed with others, project post-mortems just aren't usually done at all here to find what went wrong. Whenever oneisdone, it becomes news, as if a post-mortem investigation should only be considered in cases where actual criminal behaviour is suspected. Apparently, in politics, it is suspicious to learn from past mistakes.Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 11:43:08 amSigh.Esko Aho, a former prime minister, was a board member in Sperbank from 2016 to 2022. Sperbank is now under western sanctions. While no longer a member of parliament, he was still highly respected within his party, and was often interviewed about politics by Finnish national news at the same time. Typical Finns were definitely not aware of his close ties to this bank, and were only informed about his stint in Harvard University (senior fellow at Kennedy School) and such. By itself it wasn't that suspicious, but the connections to the then-planned nuclear power plant project, Fennovoima, with Russian Rosatom at 34% ownership, and exactly what Aho/Sperbank/Rosatom did in conjunction with the Fennovoima project was very shady.By mid-2022, Rosatom was out of the project, and basically the nuclear power plant will not happen. The city of Vantaa lost about 90 M€ in this project.Another former prime minister, Paavo Lipponen, raked in several million for being the spokesperson for the then-upcoming Nord Stream project.That wasn't suspicious of itself back then (although the pay was eyebrow-raising, considering what people ordinarily get paid in Finland for being project spokespersons). What it was, was his party members started painting others suspicious for having any kind of connections to Russia, especially to nonprofit organizations, and got crazy mad when their previous leaders' particularly lucrative position was brought up.They simply forgot that what they accused others of, their ownemeritusleaders were actively doing also.When they use their still-existing political links and personal relationships to the elected representatives and worse, the civil servants they bossed around for years, to push them towards actions that benefit their personal financial benefactor and not the Finnish citizens, thereisa problem.Their status as former prime ministersissomething that will follow them for the rest of their life. If they sell that influence, that power, for the highest bidder, itisa problem.Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 11:43:08 amRight. Whenyoumake claims like "I am afraid that is .. conspiracy theorists", it is logic and somehow responsible and acceptable; but when others do the exact same, it is an indication of them being conspiracy theorists?How aboutyouprovide some fucking hard evidence for your own claims before demanding it from others, eh?As to hard evidence for my own claims, I already linked to the Wikipedia article onTiitinen listwith further links and references. You can look up "Matti Vanhanen Rosatom" and "Paavo Lipponen NordStream" in whatever sources you consider reputable. For my assertions about large project success/failure rates, perhaps seethiscollection (and perhapsthissummary): worldwide, about 10% of large (>$10M) projects fully succeed (52% challenged, 38% fail), whereas small projects (<$1M) 76% succeed (20% are challenged, 4% fail).No, those are not swapped around by accident. You can argue about exactly why that is, but not even the researchers on this know (andbeliefsdon't matter). When your project failure rate exceeds 60%, you are doing something wrong. And, perhaps, trying to push for large projects instead of splitting them up into many smaller projects, should be considered wasteful.Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 11:43:08 amSure, I agree. Plain humanfailureis not reprehensible at all; it is inevitable. Just look at say Einstein and the cosmological constant.We are talking about something completely different: investigation of results, and accountability.The simple fact of life is that if you screw a $100M project, having to switch to a different career where the damages are smaller would besane. Perhaps it might feel cruel or harsh, but when you waste other peoples money, you need to be responsible.Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 12:42:31 pmWhen the University of Helsinki had to cut its budget by about 10% over a decade ago, they had to decide how they'd do it. Certain faculties were ranked very high in the worldwide ranking lists with plenty of widely refered publications in highest-respected journals; some were so low they weren't even listed and were (according to many) a waste of taxpayer money. Instead of cutting more heavily from the poorly-performing parts, they implemented the cut equally, regardless of ranking or results.I am not at all sure Musk and Trump get anything done, or that doing what they portray is what they really intend to do at all. That's not the thing at all for me. What I like, is that someone is showing that the kind of scrutiny we've thus far only seen in companies and organizations that spend their own money, can be applied to political and governmental organizations that spend other peoples' money.To me, this has the effect of getting the next generation thinking; that even government organizations can be held accountable.I'd love to see the often politically chosen leadership to take personal responsibility –– reputational, not financial –– for the results of their organization, just like publicly traded companies executives are. (There that reputation is tallied by shareholders and board members.)As humans, we tend to perform better when we know what we do will be scrutinized later. When we know nobody will know the details, we let things slide. And when things slide, personal interests start getting more weight than they objectively should. This is human, yes, and understandable, definitely; but unwanted and destructive nevertheless.Letting the same people run project after project to the ground, expecting different results every time, is not sane.If we look at my attitude towards all those Finnish politicians whose certain actions I've highlighted as objectionable, we probably should also note that I wish no ill will or criminal proceedings against any of them; just their failures publicly noted, and correspondingly affecting theirpublictrack record. Punishment is public ridicule and no hope of getting elected again, because those failures are openly discussed instead of hidden as "embarrassing and not newsworthy".One thing I love about Finland and Finns is that no politician, not even the president, needs bodyguards in their day-to-day life. Even politicians should not need to fear for their health or physical safety; we did vote them in power ourselves, and the worst we should be allowed to do is remove them from power (when enough voters agree), and publicly describe, ridicule, and denounce their actionsas politicians. If they switch from politics to business that is absolutely fine, but selling their personal political influence to the highest bidder is not okay. So politics to paid influencer is not okay.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 06:47:02 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on February 27, 2025, 05:05:20 pmThis data (from 2015) is pretty old. In the meantime quite some research has been done (for example by KPMG) into the reasons why projects fail. Overall the problem seems to be in the execution / management; not the (political) decission to do a project or not (*). One of KPMG's suggestions is to split big projects into smaller ones and do an incremental (agile) implementation which can be corrected along the way where it comes to ICT (as an example). In Dutchhttps://www.compact.nl/articles/gedrag-kritische-factor-voor-succesvolle-ict-projecten-2/In the past the NL government has been notorious for having seriously failed ICT projects (probably costing billions of euros) up to the point where a new department has been put in place to manage government ICT projects in order to put a stop to wasting money.* Note: do not attribute to malice that what can be explained by incompetence

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 08:22:30 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 06:47:02 pmFinland is still similarly notorious, but we only get "experts" saying it is quite normal and expected, and how "nobody could have foreseen this back then", ignoring everyone who did and got called "conspiracy theorists", even though nobody even suggested any kind of conspiracy, just predicted the same errors that have been made before, would be repeated. (It's why that label angers me so.)Has there been any independent review on whether the new department does any better?The Apotti IT system has been a bit of a woe for a decade now here in Finland. My main complaint is that it does not really provide all the tools the health and medical specialists need; it was not designed as a tool from the get go, but as a "system", without fully understanding the individual workflows involved. Credit where credit is due, the CEO did a "post-mortem" on the completed project andadmitted they planned and implemented it wrong, not involving the actual health and medical professional users in the development enough, and not splitting into smaller sub-projects.We have no organization or any political pressure to do that analysis when a project completes at all. There was no real pressure (except for everyone basically knowing already) to admit that, but they did it anyway, and I'm kinda impressed by that. (I do know why the CEO chose to do it this way, and it makes a lot of business sense too, but still.)So it's not all doom and gloom and somebody grafting when failures occur. At this point, here in Finland at least, we just don't get to find out why, unless the project executives choose to volunteer that information.Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 06:47:02 pmPerhaps; I do not have enough data to have an opinion on that.I definitely believe that funding a project but letting it be executed/managed by incompetents,and fail to admit that a project failed due to bad management, is wasting taxpayer money, and reprehensible behaviour from a politician. It is the responsibility of the politicians and public officials to check the executives' past record, and monitor whether the project is projectly run or not.With respect to Apotti, my main wish is that the suggestions on how to avoid repeating the mistakes was compulsory reading for everyone involved in making decisions on the next 100M€+ taxpayer-funded project. Not out of cynicism, but having seen the same kind of management failures in similar small-scale projects before, so something has to change for the wastage/errors to be reduced.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 08:54:39 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on February 27, 2025, 08:22:30 pmSo far most of the big projects have been put on hold since then pending investigation on how to proceed from here. There are many systems (like the ones used by the tax / internal revenue) which are horribly outdated but have not been replaced due to lack of suitable replacements. From what I have witnessed myself in various projects is that the human factor (change and expectation management) is a very complex element in itself. Add some stubborn department bosses who demand things to work in a certain way and you quickly run into requirement stating a square peg needs to go into a round hole. From there the chaos emerges...Since last year there is a law in the NL which rules that government ICT projects need to be assessed by an independent committee which' advice can't be overruled or ignored. According to the news such a law is pretty unique in the world.

author: osmax_br
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 09:36:49 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 08, 2025, 03:39:28 amI'm one of the new followers/subscribers here , and I am just a stupid hobbiest between thousands of professional EE here in EEVblog , and I might be the least experienced person on this thread , so take my comment below with a grain of salt :I've known your channel for quite a while (5 years) , I knew that there is a big channel called EEVblog , but didn't bother to watch since I found it more focused towards professionals -nothing wrong about that- , I used to watch channels like GreatScott and Andreas spicess , I watched all of their videos , but had near 0 benefit of doing so , why ? , because they are entertainment channels not educational ones , you won't get any useful information from a 5 min video that explains something complicatedI started watching your channel because of your fundamental Fridays videos (I'm a big fan of those) , and before saying anything , THANK YOU FOR MAKING THESE TYPES OF VIDEOS , I realized that your videos had actual benefit, I personally think that a small loyal audience is always better , but this is debatableHowever , I have a suggestion, some of your fundamentals videos are extremely old , 15 years old ! , of course capacitors and ohm's law wont change , but the video quality , the camera , the way you explain will surely changePersonally, before knowing your channel , when I search about something like "capacitors" , I find a lot of videos , one of them is yours with 100k views or more , but when I see that it is 15 years old I would automatically think that the recording\voice quality would be not so-goodI think you should reconsider updating these videos , especially that they get a lot of views (beginner stuff) and you would get more loyal viewers like meYour 300$ lab setup video is very popular , however it is extremely old , a lot of things have changed , including budget scopes , dmms , psu etc...... , you need to do an updated videoMaybe do some more reviews in the budget segment, maybe do an aliexpress diving video ? (It is just a suggestion) , but for hobbiests , I wont be buying 3000$ scope,500$ psu,800$ awg anytime soon , but I might be buying entry level ones , I thing you don't normally review these stuff unless people beg for it , for example you've reviewed fnrisi 1013d , but you never reviewed the very popular hantek dso2000 series (maybe they didn't send a one , I dont know)again , seriously , thank you for doing useful videos for the past 15 years , you've helped a lot of hobbiests like me , and I appreciate it

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 10:20:25 pm
content: fundamental Friday.Today's electronics is for a large part software and some questions specific to embedded systems emerge almost every day on various message boards.-Embedded web servers and how to communicate with them to configure your device. CGI, web sockets...-Boot loaders. This can be done in quite a few ways.-Protocols. I need a protocal to make A communicate with B. What should I do and what I shouldn't do. And if you roll your own protocol, do it properly.-How to talk to a server. What are the options? There are many options from simple and good enough to complex.-Structuring embedded projects. Who's the boss in my system. You or the ruthless program counter and how to avoid chaos.If you want to stick to electronics, this forum is a good source of information. Most questions are about interfacing.-I need a high/low side switch. Most seem to not have clue about the requirements. From discrete solutions to off the shelf. What are the limitations of each and how to make them work properly.-AD/DA conversion. Accuracy, precision,...what is that and which reference would I need. Input voltage limiting. Interfacing and perhaps you need a instrumentation amp.-EMC: Do I really need all those fancy components?-Supplying power: Batteries, off the shelf switching power supplies and how to choose the right one for the job, transformers perhaps.-LDO specifications and how to understand those.-Fuses. How to select the right one and not burn down the house. Fusible resistors, PPTC, cartridge fuses,...-Connectors: what to look for. Plating types and combining different plating types, a disaster lurking around the corner.-Switches: a switch is a switch until the darn things doesn't switch because the interface doesn't fit the switch requirements or is it the other way around.-Getting rid of the heat: things get warm and you all you have are SMD components and a PCB to work with.-Interfaces: RS485, RS232,...-SPI/I2C: level shifting-SPI/I2C: long cables-Relays and why you might need a snubber network.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 10:23:20 pm
content: Don't forget proper grounding. Sounds trivial but finding the right grounding topology for a circuit can be tricky.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 10:32:00 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 10:23:20 pmOh yes. Worth a video series on it's own.

author: osmax_br
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 10:33:57 pm
content: Quote from: temperance on February 27, 2025, 10:20:25 pmYup , I realized thatHowever even though most my work is in embedded, and most of my time is sitting in front of a keyboard typing in vs codeBut I realized that you cant do proper embedded projects without electronics knowledge, you can't make a pcb for your project if you don't know how to use a decoupling capacitorsBut since I doing this as a hobby , and my time is very limited , I decided to focus on basics , I decided to watch those 50 fundamental videos , and then decide what subjects to dive in moreI always avoid Somethings like RF,HV,AC,radio,audio because I have no interest inAlso , could you suggest a forum about embedded stuff like the EEVblog , I'm getting recently into freeRTOS , but there isn't much people interested in these studdd here -like you mentioned above-

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 10:41:08 pm
content: QuoteNot really.Also, many people think they need an RTOS. But do you really need one and what are the other options?

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2025, 11:01:44 pm
content: An other question often seen:Critique my PCB layout.-GND and how to use GND properly. Routing strategies for single, double and multi layer boards or how to not split planes into small fragments.-Feedback circuits around simple buck regulators. Where do I place those resistors?-ESD protection. TVS's, small capacitors and the like. One end is connected to the signal and the other end to GND. How to do this properly without my micro controller getting angry at random.-TVS diodes, overshoot and you might need some current limiting further down the road.-MLCC capacitors and their high Q. Did you just inadvertently made a tuned circuit?-Probing around for noise in your proto type and what are you going to do about it if things look ugly?Or: how to trouble shoot problems. How to I start do investigate what is going on and how to find perspective?

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2025, 01:48:53 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 27, 2025, 11:36:29 amAnd if you are on vacation? maternal/paternal leave? Sick? Think about when you and your wife would have been in that situation.Its an idea straight of a Dilbert cartoon.

author: Georgy.Moshkin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2025, 02:12:24 am
content: One more approach worth considering is making videos based on forum topics.Idea: Forum topics with lots of pages and views can potentially generate lots of views if converted into videos.Approach:1. Minimize time spent on content creation by leveraging existing content of EEVblog message board. The most interesting or essential parts of discussions are converted into long-form or short-form videos.2. Create a list of forum topics sorted by the number of pages and views. Select candidate topics.3. Perform screen recording, highlight certain excerpts (less time consuming) or even copy-paste text to a HTML-based template that will make discussion look more like a messenger chat (more time consuming, but can work better. For example, forum messages appear one-by-one with a popular messenger sound synchronized. Can be automated using HTML+Javascript template)4. Dave comments/reacts on the topic.I am sure that similar content already exists on the channel, but not on the scale I am imagining. For example, take it to the extreme: a separate EE News channel solely focused on creating multiple daily videos based on EEVblog forum topics. No need to overthink, just take any new topic with some replies and do a quick highlighting. If the pace is right and the video highlights some interesting points, it can be pretty engaging. So, there is some obvious value.Most important:1. Avoid bias in choosing topics. Use metrics instead (number of views/pages/...). And the commenting on the highlighted part can be easy: "This looks interesting", "This sounds interesting", "Is it real?", "Is this a joke", "Hmm..." etc.2. Limit the video length to 2(?) minutes and avoid going too deep. Instead, you can create a follow-up "..... part #2" if the topic continues to evolve.

author: Sensorcat
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2025, 02:25:36 am
content: Quote from: Georgy.Moshkin on February 28, 2025, 02:12:24 amLike this one.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2025, 11:55:07 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 08:54:39 pmI like that.Ireallywish we had such an assessment law, too.Wrt. EEVblog changes, I just looked at Dave's recent video catalog with the thought "whatothervideos would I like in this set?", and couldn't come up with anything that would likely have a wider audience than the current videos.I obviously don't mind a discussion dipping into commentary on current politics, but I would not watch videos about those. Unless it is about some big project that failed,and exactly why it failed and how the failure could have been avoided. Humans fail, yes; the thing is to learn from them, and avoid repeating the same failures in the future. I count the debunking videos in the latter class, because Dave describes his reasoning, instead of just presenting an opinion like they do on the telly news.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 28, 2025, 12:15:08 pm
content: Quote from: Georgy.Moshkin on February 28, 2025, 02:12:24 amEEVreacts!Someone suggested the series "Electronics Engineer REACTS to...." *insert latest tech claim here*That would probably work if it hit the latest daily hot trending topic.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 28, 2025, 12:19:32 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on February 28, 2025, 01:48:53 amAgain, the bar is literally:1) Did you reply2) Did you use cohesive sentencesIn that case you likely had already set up an email auto-reply for being away, or your manager should know you are holiday and replies on your behalf stating that.Or, because it's been such huge news, you likely saw it so you like in remotely and reply yourself.It's not rocket science, it's basic business operation stuff.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 28, 2025, 12:25:27 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 27, 2025, 12:42:31 pmI posted this on XFirst day on your new job, and this is your desk facing the motivational wall, what do you do?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2025, 03:13:09 pm
content: I'd wish I took the office tour before applying. It would have saved me the trouble of trying to get the job

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2025, 07:29:29 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on February 28, 2025, 11:55:07 amI agree about politics; there are excess Youtube channels for that. I have not watched any of those and I don't think Dave will do anyone (including himself) a service by going the thunderf00t route.I partially disagree about the debunking videos though. There is way more to learn from failure of complex projects than just defaulting to 'this is a stupid idea, it can never work'. One of the hardest parts of engineering is taking a product from a lab situation into a real world situation. How do you test a product properly so it will work when installed? How to specify the (environmental, human factor, etc) conditions for a product to work as expected? How to setup a test environment in a lab so it matches the real world situation as close as possible? Even if a project fails, you have to respect the engineering effort as there is a lot to learn from failures. And this circles back to 'motivating wall phrases'; one I spotted at a startup incubater lab at a university said 'I just found 10000 ways it won't work'.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2025, 01:09:41 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 28, 2025, 12:19:32 pmHow would a manager reply on my behalf, with my address, to an email sent directly to me?Why should I be expected to follow "huge news" when I am sick or on vacation? Some of us don't care to follow the news.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2025, 01:32:38 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 28, 2025, 07:29:29 pmI recently heard that super glue was an accidental discovery resulting from Kodak trying to develop a clear plastic for optical lenses.It was in a recent Veritasium video.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 01, 2025, 01:52:02 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on March 01, 2025, 01:09:41 amYou are micro-thinking something that isn't designed to be.It's simple, HR does the firings, and HR knows you are on leave. So if the company is the least bit competent, they will defend you in that situation and not fire you because you didn't respond to an email. This isn't rocket science.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 01, 2025, 01:59:07 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 28, 2025, 07:29:29 pmI have only done a couple of political videos very early on, but that was local politics, and people just aren't as crazy as the yanks, so no one really cared that much.I did a video debunking Trumps solar wall announcement way back, and it's the only time I had to actively moderate the comments section.No way I want that again, it's bad enough when I do videos covering from a technical aspect some things like Tesla battery day, Tesla robots, and SpaceX, I get branded the worst possible things right up to and including being a Nazi.No thanks.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2025, 11:32:27 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 28, 2025, 07:29:29 pmAbsolutely, but I haven't watched any debunking videos that default to that. (I'm sure there are those, too, but I don't watch them; they've no value to me.) In particular, in every debunking video Dave explains the better approach/solution. I like that.Whenever someone says "This is a stupid idea, it can never work", I immediately askWhy?followed byWhat do you suggest as an alternative, then?, becausethoseare the interesting and useful things about debunking. I assume that is what every self-respecting engineer and scientist does, too. Opinions are worthless, only the reasoning behind those opinions is interesting because the reasoning can be evaluated and compared, opinions cannot.I mean, anyone can point out details in every single human project that are stupid. Sometimes those are necessary, because the alternatives are even more stupid, and without that stupid bit the really useful smart bits cannot be done at all. Therefore, pointing out something stupid is utterly useless, unless you have a better alternative to offer.I personally also accept the first time anything is tried to be found utterly stupid, and not blame anyone; that happens. It isrepeatingthe same thing over and over again, expecting different resultsthis time, that I object and consider waste of money. For example, every supposedly-Green trial project seems to need to be repeated in every country, preferably over and over again, in as many municipalities as possible, everyone starting from the same point, instead of looking back at previous trials and learning from them. To me, that is either literally insane, or unnecessary waste of money that allows the project funders to grandstand in public collecting cookie points how progressive and pro-environment they are, completely ignoring the actual value of the projects' results. Because face it, typical politicians aren't engineers or scientists and usually do not grasp the details of these things, so easily slide to "I'll do what seems best for me" because there is no opposing pressure, and "best for me" is the normal, healthy default human behaviour.You'll understand what I mean, if you ever get to play with other people's money with nothing but your own conscience as a pushback.

author: bostonman
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2025, 01:40:13 pm
content: I didn't read through every post in this thread, however, being a fan of your site and videos including a great appreciation for the contributors, I wanted to think out loud for a moment.First of all, without your site and the people who contribute to answers, some items I've had to repair over the years may never have happened. Some members have taken extensive time remaining on a project I've had that resulted in the issue(s) being solved, others have taken time to create a 3D model for me allowing me to download the file to print, some have edited/created code for me to download. You appear passionate about what you do, so I just wanted to emphasize that you've helped not just me, but many all over the world.With this being said, the reason I wanted to comment isn't necessarily because I have an idea, but, if you're seeing a decline, one thing to keep in mind is more will start to use AI for answers.As a result, you may see less activity because of this. Unfortunately I don't have an answer on how to keep your site more attractive than this alternative and/or other sites, but it's an issue I thought was worth mentioning.Also, I think some want the solution to an issue rather than reading through long threads. Some threads tend to deviate from the topic (it's an easy thing to do), other threads result in the OP not providing enough detail, vanishing, etc... Maybe this drives individuals to seek other sites in hopes of resolving an issue immediately. Not much you can do about the OP vanishing or other anomalies, but I was just thinking out loud.As for AI, recently I've used ChatGPT for a few things, not because I think it's better than this site, but because I've wanted to be walked through things like assembly code and Arduino code where I can just waste it's time with silly questions. It has some useful answers, but I wouldn't consider it better than the friendly collaboration from this site. I've just used it because I don't want to post numerous questions because I'll waste the time of others and eventually get a bad reputation as a result due to being a serial poster.Unfortunately others may see AI as a tool to replace this site and that was my point of replying to this thread to provide feedback on where I think things can go from here.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 08, 2025, 02:33:38 pm
content: Quote from: bostonman on May 07, 2025, 01:40:13 pmThere is a dedicated thread on this topic.This forum is at no risk from AI replacing it. People aren't here just for an answer to a question.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2025, 03:47:30 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 08, 2025, 02:33:38 pmJust so.The bigger problem, IMHO, is people using an LLM's emissions to as a reference/justification for the points they have made here. That's already happening.Providedthey explicitly denote it is an LLM, I see no problem - we can simply mention "AI hallucination" and point to references to that problem and others.

author: iMo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2025, 06:10:01 pm
content: I would never ever allow the national flags on my forum..With world's entropy rising you have already lost many productive EE contributors..Btw., you know pretty well how many flags here are false..

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 08, 2025, 10:11:46 pm
content: Quote from: iMo on May 08, 2025, 06:10:01 pmBecause it's often handy to know where someone is from when answering questions, or adding context to what they have said.QuoteSo just give up, hide everything lest someone get upset?How about having a global filter that automatically hides key works people offensive?Who is leaving because there are flags on profiles?It works the other way too. A really big user everyone liked left because we wouldn't allow them to put a political message in their profile footer.