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How Gas Regulators Work

I just posted a new video to YouTube that talks about how gas regulators work.

I’m still figuring out the whole process of making a video. In particular, I’m trying to figure out the best way of doing the audio. I tried using a microphone that connects to my phone and lets me record my voice, but if the phone’s screen turns on while recording it starts picking up a lot of electronic noise.

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Bob Wildar’s Introduction to Semiconductor Devices

I recently came across the PDFs of Bob Wildar’s Introduction to Semiconductor Devices in the Computer History Museum’s digital archive. I haven’t read them yet, but from glancing through chapters 1 and 2 I’m really excited. I’ve been looking for a text that explains how transistors work, not just how to use a model to predict their behavior. While having a model is important for designing circuits, I really want to have an intuitive understanding of what happens inside of a transistor that allows it to act as an amplifier. I love “The Art of Electronics”, and while it tells you pretty much everything you need to use a transistor, it doesn’t really get into what is happening inside of a transistor (other than the famous transistor man).

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Shaving Safety

Or, how not to cut your face off…
I love watching the YouTube channel “This Old Tony”. I could (and have) spent hours watching him making an espresso pot on the lathe, filing a hole from round to square, or talking about carbide inserts. Recently, on his 500k subscriber special video he talked about his favorite brand of blade for “safety razors”. I was taken aback, aren’t safety razors some outdated thing that went out with beehive hairdos? Well apparently beehives are back (and safety razors never went away).

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