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Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

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Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#71

Post by stephen_g »

kasbah wrote: post #68
mindslight wrote: post #3

Of course they do, it's yet another chance to punish their customers. I ordered from Newark/Element14 once, doing battle with and finally prevailing over their extremely clunky online system. It took several days for my $100 order to even ship, and it eventually showed up in two gigantic boxes (a few 4ft pieces of heat shrink tubing had obviously required their own 4ft long box). The packing materials and shipping mu…

In the UK Farnell/Element14 are the best choice for components. My items always arrive next-day when ordered before 5pm and delivery is free (you have to spend at least £20 to pay by card). The site is a lot more usable than RS-Online so I will often order from them though I have an RS trade-counter nearby. Mouser's and Digikey's sites are just as good (this is from a user perspective, from a designer's perspective t…

I find Mouser and Digikey's sites fairly unusable, myself... I search for stuff on Element14 because I find their filtering so much easier, and once I've found an appropriate part I search the part number on Digikey and buy it there if I don't need it in the next few days...

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#72

Post by VolatileVoid »

joe_the_user wrote: post #43

Damn, I'll have to eat my words... In an earlier hn post, I actually suggested that if you use a name that's common enough, like David Fricken Jones, the US would never have the guts to flag it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7240983 But here we are. David Jones... Not a lot of people affected by that, huh.

Although one wonders how intelligent the name comparison "algorithm" (ha) is. I bet if you DID type in "David Fricken Jones" (sic) you'd be fine.

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#73

Post by superuser2 »

I hate to say it, but from an engineering/UX perspective, a secure and reliable federal identity API would make a lot of sense.

As long as they're going to have a blacklist like this, they may as well do it correctly. Names do not individually identify people and it's ridiculous that security-sensitive processes still use names as primary identifiers in this era.

You're also not actually losing any anonymity - an online order is already linked to a physical address and a credit card (which is in turn linked to a real identity). A central ID API only gets Big Brother-ish if its use is mandated for previously pseudonymous interactions (say, HN or Reddit comments).

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#74

Post by nraynaud »

mnordhoff wrote: post #58
nraynaud wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so what? some guy stabs someone with a screwdriver and the US regulate the export of them between Commonwealth countries, still without regulating the AK-47 in its own country? There is more regulation on CNC machining center than on firearms. It's stupid. The US doesn't refrain from sending hellfires missiles on weddings, which kills more surely than the once in a lifetime freak who assemble some mildly radioact…

Incidentally, automatic rifles such as AK-47s are heavily regulated in the US. It's possible to get them, but it requires a lot of paperwork, they're all at least 25 years old, and more cannot be imported. The More You Know.

they make some in maker fairs in garages in California.

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#75

Post by blueskin_ »

Crito wrote: post #65
lgeek wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A smoke detector contains about 0.25 μg of americium [0], which is painted on the inside of a chamber. In small quantities, it seems americium dioxide can only be dangerous if inhaled [0]. According to David Hahn's Wikipedia page[1], his reactor used thorium , purified from thorium ash used in lantern mantles, and not americium. What's more, smoke detectors go straight to landfills in many places. I think it's unreso…

He was arrested again in 2007 for collecting smoke detectors to collect americium.

Sounds unlikely, as he seems intelligent enough to know he'd need (at least) millions of smoke detectors.

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#76

Post by mindslight »

kasbah wrote: post #68
mindslight wrote: post #3

Of course they do, it's yet another chance to punish their customers. I ordered from Newark/Element14 once, doing battle with and finally prevailing over their extremely clunky online system. It took several days for my $100 order to even ship, and it eventually showed up in two gigantic boxes (a few 4ft pieces of heat shrink tubing had obviously required their own 4ft long box). The packing materials and shipping mu…

In the UK Farnell/Element14 are the best choice for components. My items always arrive next-day when ordered before 5pm and delivery is free (you have to spend at least £20 to pay by card). The site is a lot more usable than RS-Online so I will often order from them though I have an RS trade-counter nearby. Mouser's and Digikey's sites are just as good (this is from a user perspective, from a designer's perspective t…

I guess that at least helps me understand why RPi went with them as a distributor, even though their business seems archaic on this side of the Atlantic.

I don't know what you mean by Digikey being awful from a designer's perspective - I've long considered their parametric search a bona fide design tool. So much so that I actively avoid designing in parts that Digikey doesn't stock.

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#77

Post by mindslight »

stephen_g wrote: post #71
kasbah wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK Farnell/Element14 are the best choice for components. My items always arrive next-day when ordered before 5pm and delivery is free (you have to spend at least £20 to pay by card). The site is a lot more usable than RS-Online so I will often order from them though I have an RS trade-counter nearby. Mouser's and Digikey's sites are just as good (this is from a user perspective, from a designer's perspective t…

I find Mouser and Digikey's sites fairly unusable, myself... I search for stuff on Element14 because I find their filtering so much easier, and once I've found an appropriate part I search the part number on Digikey and buy it there if I don't need it in the next few days...

The search is the main thing that struck me as clunky - many important parameters were downright missing, making it so I had to manually click through a bunch of results' datasheets. IIRC, electrolytic caps were missing ESR (seems to be no longer the case, although still no ripple current). The values of an individual category don't "cover" all current results, making it impossible to eliminate values. Plus that horrible needle-in-a-haystack interspersing of greyed out unavailable parameters with the still-active ones. All around it felt like it was only meant to locate something I already have specified, rather than guide as to what is available.

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#78

Post by marshray »

GFischer wrote: post #67
marshray wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a CNC machining system that lets you build silent ship propellers can dramatically change the threats the world faces. Bullshit. (and yes I know about the Toshiba incident)

I didn't know about it, so I had to look it up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba-Kongsberg_scandal

Thank you for elevating our level of discourse a bit :-)

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#79

Post by kasbah »

mindslight wrote: post #76
kasbah wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK Farnell/Element14 are the best choice for components. My items always arrive next-day when ordered before 5pm and delivery is free (you have to spend at least £20 to pay by card). The site is a lot more usable than RS-Online so I will often order from them though I have an RS trade-counter nearby. Mouser's and Digikey's sites are just as good (this is from a user perspective, from a designer's perspective t…

I guess that at least helps me understand why RPi went with them as a distributor, even though their business seems archaic on this side of the Atlantic. I don't know what you mean by Digikey being awful from a designer's perspective - I've long considered their parametric search a bona fide design tool. So much so that I actively avoid designing in parts that Digikey doesn't stock.

Digikey's and Farnell's parametric search are the best from a user's perspective. All the sites are pretty terrible from a designer's perspective. I concluded this from working out how to generate HTTP requests for them for my pet project: https://github.com/kasbah/1clickBOM
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