eReaders, datasheets & board assembly - Yearly Yeasty Yapping

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Our last show of 2012! Thanks for another wonderful year!

• Chris has been holiday shopping on Amazon. Merry Booksmas!
• Dave likes shopping the smaller stores through Abebooks.
• Getting bound versions of the Linear Tech Application Handbooks are enough to fight over! You can get all the PDFs from the handbooks on Archive.org.
• Will books become the new LPs? Where only collectors bother? Different speeds of LPs changes the bandwidth of the recording.
• Paper is still preferred for datasheets, but many people try out tablets.
• Chris's friend suggested the Onyx M92 as a large screen version (with the ability to write on the screen). Looks like a good option for datasheets.
• Balancing design and purchasing is tough. EBN has a good article about The Art of Concurrent Design.
• TI has changed the status of the Stellaris Cortex M3 parts they inherited when they acquired Luminary Micro. They are now listed as NRND or "Not Recommended for New Designs". Death knell! (eventually)
• ARM has so many variations, it's really hard to keep up! Should we blame them though? Or the companies that buy the IP?
• The Freescale debt is so unsustainable that the CEO has mentioned they'll be "Focusing" in 2013. Said another way, they'll End Of Life (EOL) a bunch of products. Same goes for NXP and STMicro.
• ST and Renesas might get a reprieve since the country they're based in might bail them out. Japan has already restructured debt for Renesas and France might for ST at any time. Too big to fail in chips?
• Bunnie is working on an awesome open source hardware laptop. Dave thinks it will find further use as a high powered dev board.
• Zach "Hoeken" Smith, who was on The Amp Hour episode #121, posted a link to a desktop Pick and Place on TaoBao. The video is very impressive!
• The Kick project from Kickstarter has decided to move production back from China after 2 failed attempts. Chris and Dave discuss the value of manufacturing locally, even at higher cost.
• Students in Florida might get a break in tuition for studying engineering. What will this do for engineering enrollment?
• There are 5 realistic predictions for disruptive products in 2012 on the new tech site, Quartz. Were there any missed?
• We're on break until the 2013! Leave your questions, comments and suggestions on TheAmpHour.com or on the /r/TheAmpHour subreddit. Let us know about the projects you're working on!
• We will have transcriptions available for select shows. Thank you to all of our wonderful sponsors for making this possible! If you're interested in donating, check out our Donation page on TheAmpHour.com.