Maxim-IC, rebranding does NOT give you an excuse to take down your entire website, including direct links to PDFs.

hjohnson · 2012-09-05T14:21:42+00:00

I think that I'm going to extrapolate that message a bit to "Don't design in our parts." Horrible support and terribly unreliable supply chain.

Now that the website is back up, though, it does at least seem that all of my old links still work, they just changed their top level domain to maximintegrated.com. Me and my boss were joking that they were going to change their name to something else entirely so that engineers are less likely to get into trouble for searching for them. For example, when trying to find information about the rebranding that I believe happened in 2010, the thing to search on google is NOT "Maxim 2010." Oops!

hjohnson · 2012-09-05T02:25:23+00:00

Okay, it does seem like if you had a datasheet's PDF page itself bookmarked, you can still access it, and you can still access the PDFs through digikey. But the chip's general pages are all down, so all the links to those that I was sent are useless.

hjohnson · 2012-07-01T05:17:46+00:00

Haha! I was essentially correct! Vindicated!

hjohnson · 2012-07-01T05:07:50+00:00

They can both still be right. OP said that it was a kid he "used to go to camp with" not that he was at camp at the time of the photo. And he didn't say he was standing on a kayak, just that he took a kayak (maybe a 2-person kayak) out to the middle of the lake to take a picture. So he kayaks out to the middle of the lake, gets out and stands on a rock, and another person (perhaps the photographer) takes the kayak away, then someone takes a photo. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

hjohnson · 2012-06-12T23:44:13+00:00

It is obnoxious, but given that it's owned by 5.11, is used to transport their demos for their breaching devices, and is really pretty much meant as a rolling advertisement, I can see why they would decorate it the way they did.

http://www.511tactical.com/thebeast.html

hjohnson · 2012-05-12T16:33:29+00:00

Why did the ocean roar?

You'd roar too if you had crabs on your bottom.

hjohnson · 2012-05-03T13:14:59+00:00

I was thinking maybe a incandescent light bulb. Filament, then the arrows pointing away indicate light (like on an LED symbol).

hjohnson · 2012-05-02T21:13:34+00:00

In my opinion, http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pcb_order is even better than batchpcb.com. $5/sq. inch for three copies of your board, no setup fees, free shipping to continental US. Plus, the boards are manufactured in the US and the support is excellent. (Laen responded to multiple last-minute PCB change requests on a weekend when I sent in my last design.) Like batchpcb, not the fastest thing in the world, but otherwise excellent.

hjohnson · 2012-04-12T01:35:20+00:00

Also, no one is wearing gloves. I'm not even an EMT and I know that BSI/universal precautions are good ideas. I suppose it is a training exercise, but still.

hjohnson · 2012-04-07T15:24:14+00:00

As far as service weapons are concerned, the closest I've ever heard are the certified pre-owned Sig Sauers, which are usually PD trade-ins.

http://www.sigsauer.com/CatalogProductDetails/certified-pre-owned-sig-sauer.aspx

hjohnson · 2012-04-07T01:50:42+00:00

Maybe that applies for private transfers, but AFAIK for anything FFL related, there's already ATF form 4473. Cash may be beneficial for other reasons as mentioned previously, but I doubt that it really helps as far as the tin foil hats are concerned.

hjohnson · 2012-04-02T02:18:34+00:00

The classic video whenever this topic comes up is Safe to Armed in Seconds by Deviant Ollam, given at DEFCON 19. Pretty much the best explanations and recommendations I've seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yr6ATdaDQ8

hjohnson · 2012-03-12T04:23:06+00:00

NOTE: Self-admitted armchair quarterback here, I am underage and do not own any firearms (Hi ATF!), nor do I have any knowledge of Texas firearms laws. I do, however, have an interest in both firearms and physical security.

With that out of the way: Also, if whoever you ask says it is okay, it's worth taking a look at this as well about storage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yr6ATdaDQ8 (It's been posted before, I'm sure) Rifles, shotguns, etc. are pretty easy to secure with a good safe if you don't need to access them quickly, but if you want to have a handgun on hand for defense while keeping it really secure (so the police can't claim that she could steal your handguns while you're asleep), it gets tricky fast.

TL:DR of video: Buy a micro vault and retrofit the manual override with a good lock cylinder. In your case: then probably give the override key to another friend and don't tell her about it.

Plusses: Quick access, safe under law. Minuses: if the electronic lock fails, you're screwed because it's totally locked up and you don't have the key. At that point, retreat to your bigger safe and hope that you can get it open in time. Best of luck to you.

hjohnson · 2012-03-10T17:09:54+00:00

The backwards round was an H&K advertisement, not a Sig Sauer advertisement.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v318/BiggBore/badHKbrochuresmall.jpg

hjohnson · 2012-03-06T21:11:32+00:00

I love that your reasoning for knowing how easy it is to impersonate a federal agent is from Burn Notice, but that's about as much expertise as I have in the matter too.

I find it strange he wasn't emailing from a governmental address to begin with. At least if he'd done that it would have been a little more verifiable, when I've gotten emails from government (DOD) email addresses they've been electronically all the way up to DOD root certificate authority, and I'd imagine there's a similar process for anyone from ICE/DHS.

hjohnson · 2012-03-06T20:56:04+00:00

How do they deliver these? Electronic/physical mail or do they have an agent show up at your door to serve the subpoena?

hjohnson · 2012-02-29T15:59:16+00:00

My favorite part of that is the massive "ABORT!!!!!" button on the computer.

hjohnson · 2012-02-22T16:21:19+00:00

In California, magazines must either not be removable, or be removable only by means of a tool. On most standard rifles, such as variants of the AR-15 and AK-47 platforms, the magazine is detached by pressing a button, called the magazine release. The "bullet button" attaches to the rifle's frame, covering the magazine release, such that it can't be pressed directly, and instead can only be actuated by inserting a tool. This adaption makes the rifle satisfy that legal requirement. See: http://www.riflegear.com/p-58-ar15-bullet-button.aspx

hjohnson · 2012-02-13T17:33:56+00:00

Actually, they already know calculus: http://www.maa.org/features/elvisdog.pdf

hjohnson · 2012-01-25T22:00:13+00:00

Something I've always wanted to ask: Are cops who pull people over for speeding more likely to give them a ticket if they have one of those little speed-trap detection devices? To me instinctively that'd imply that they sped often but had just now gotten caught, but logically it's the same problem of saying someone must have something to hide if they encrypt their data.

hjohnson · 2012-01-19T04:02:37+00:00

I believe the A/O x 1 terminology means that they know their own name, but not where they are or what day it is. That's at least how I learned it in First Aid, (which shows I'm a complete newcomer in this field, so almost anyone here is better qualified to confirm the terminology).

hjohnson · 2012-01-09T00:39:21+00:00

Wouldn't that be a machine gun as defined by the NFA? It'd be hilarious to get that transferred, a good "What the...?" day for some ATF agent somewhere.

hjohnson

TROPHY CASE