Has anyone tried this buck converter board? 42 cents each

[Rick Law]

Maybe it's a language thing, jokes are notoriously tricky to translate. Also engineers tend to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum and many have a tendency to take things literally.

Probably more inter-discipline cultural difference than language difference.  I first heard that joke in US Sales organizations in the USA in 1980's (before dot-com days).  Even then, other non-English speaking Sales folks elsewhere picks it up real quick.  Tech-staff typically just display the confused look face.

EDIT: adding this point below

Perhaps the reason why Sales is more receptive to that joke is:  For many of the companies I've work at, Sales Rep work on commission based on Sales figures and not based on Profit figures.  They are given a price schedule and a sales quota to meet, and they go sell.  At times, the customer may propose a deal like "we will by a thousand units if you lower the price to X per unit".  The Sales guy would bring it back to get their boss to agree.  Naturally, the profit is cut to some degree in the process.  Typically (at least at the places I've worked) profit margin is the worry of someone higher up than the Sales Rep.

If their boss let them out to sell dollar bills at say 75 cents, they will do just that to make their quarterly/monthly sales quota.

[soldar]

I started a thread about improving unregulated wall warts.  I am thinking of buying a bunch of these regulators and regulating them at whatever voltage they can handle.