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starky commented on Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product   simonberens.com/p/lessons... · Posted by u/sberens
ggm · 8 days ago
This is the second article about hardware supply from China I've read and it reads very much the same, albiet in a different niche (the other one was about SBC construction) -Anything you don't specify will be done least cost, and there is no amount of "least" which cannot be chased in manufacture.

The other one noted if you don't specify the density of plastic for bags, or paper for bags and packing, you get clingfilm thinner than you thought existed, and paper which is almost tissue in its weakness. You don't even get boxes to put the boxes in, if you don't specify boxes to be delivered in boxes. So now wrapping a pallet becomes a nightmare if they don't stack. And if you don't specify how many to stack, and how to pad the stack, they won't do unit height stacking if it costs labour time. Your risk.

Some of this like the casting mistake, or the knob thing, could happen anywhere and you have to be close to final manufacture spec to find out e.g. the metal coating impinges on the knob at the free space you specified, because your test rig didn't have powder coating. Or, that a design feature you need like the light entry holes, is used by the casting engineer as pour points because it looked like you'd specified mould pour points not functional holes.

But other things like "yea, you didn't spec how long to make the tails so we cut the tails as close as we could" is just the cheapening above: if you don't SAY its a 10cm tail for the connector, it will be 2cm, if saving 8cm of cable saves money for them.

I've read some stuff which says the cost of 5 SBC boards with pre-applied SMD is now so low, you might as well order 5 so you get at least 1 which works. That means they will wind up working out your tolerance for failure, and produce goods to meet that: if 1 in 5 is viable, thats what they'll target.

starky · 8 days ago
A lot of success in working with suppliers in China (and really anywhere in Asia) is in building a relationship with them where they know exactly what your expectations are and holding them to it until they understand that it is just easiest for them to do it right to start.

I've got suppliers who I can send a difficult part to and know that I'm going to get exactly what I expect, faster and cheaper than just about anyone else. It took a few years to get to that point, but these few vendors make it really hard to go with anyone else, much to the chagrin of the sourcing team who rightly recognize it a risk to rely on just a few suppliers.

Once you get to a certain type of supplier you end up running into the problem where their processes are such that they won't do anything without you clearly documenting it. They simply refuse to make any assumptions on your behalf. They can be so frustrating when you are used to the other way of doing it. I simply cannot answer some questions because I'm so used to my other suppliers just doing it correctly and haven't ever asked about it.

starky commented on Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux   himthe.dev/blog/microsoft... · Posted by u/bobsterlobster
drillsteps5 · 14 days ago
I think Linux is not quite there as gaming system. Simply due to games' compatibility (and I don't play latest and hottest titles, more like Cities-Skylines/Transport Fever/Anno/Satisfactory etc). Plus to my knowledge NVidia drivers are still an issue.

But for literally anything else I think it's ready. Just browsing? Office work (writing/spreadsheets/presentations/email)? Development? Media production? You're good.

For Linux-curious I'd advise to get a dedicated hardware, like 5/7 year old business machine (Thinkpad or even smth like Dell Latitude), they'll be under $300. Don't do Arch (unless you do that for the sake of being able to install Arch). Instead, get Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Debian, Zorin (the last one specifically for Windows users), or one of many other beginner-friendly distros, and drive it for a bit. Get the software you want, see if it works for you, and if you don't like it, it's all good. If you do, you can gradually move all your stuff to the new machine, or install Linux on your main machine.

That's what I did (quite a) few years ago when I got fed up with Windows 8, took me about a year, but I've been on Mint Mate ever since. My gaming rig is still Windows 11 but all it has is my Steam collection.

starky · 14 days ago
>Plus to my knowledge NVidia drivers are still an issue.

This is an overblown issue. For the most it is a case of installing the proprietary driver package following the instructions for your distro. One more step than AMD which just works, but not really any more difficult than installing another package.

starky commented on The state of Linux music players in 2026   crescentro.se/posts/linux... · Posted by u/signa11
starky · 14 days ago
This is frankly one of the areas of Linux that I'm most disappointed about. I tried a number of these options for local players and found them all to be terrible. Especially considering that I really like the specific layout I've used for well over a decade on Foobar2000. I actually ended up installing Foobar2000 through Wine because of my frustration, only to find that it wouldn't start reliably.
starky commented on The Dilbert Afterlife   astralcodexten.com/p/the-... · Posted by u/rendall
SoftTalker · 25 days ago
It's why I don't watch The Office or Office Space. Just too much like the real office.
starky · 25 days ago
Someone told me early in my career that the longer you work in an office, the more Office Space transforms from a comedy to a documentary. They weren't wrong...
starky commented on Show HN: AI in SolidWorks   trylad.com... · Posted by u/WillNickols
areoform · a month ago
I have a SolidWorks Students License™©® and it's the most frustrating piece of software I have ever used. Links to tutorials don't work. And when you do manage to get one, the tutorials are designed for older versions of solidworks and point to buttons that have been moved / don't exist where the tutorial tells you to look in the 2025 version.

The UI is the inverse of whatever intuitive is. It's built on convention after convention after convention. If you understand the shibboleths (and I'm guessing most people take a certified course by a trainer for it?), then it's great, but if you don't, it really sucks to be you (i.e. me).

I would LOVE to try out what you've built, but I am afraid that if the model misinterprets me or makes a mistake, it'll take me longer to debug / correct it than it would to just build it from scratch.

The kinds of things I want to make in solidworks are apparently hard to make in solidworks (arbitrarily / continuously + asymmetrically curved surfaces). I'm assuming that there won't be too many projects like this in the training dataset? How does the LLM handle something that's so out of pocket?

starky · a month ago
Long time SolidWorks user here with experience in other programs. Frankly, SolidWorks is one of the easiest pieces of CAD software to use, being much more flexible in how things are done compared to a lot of other programs. That said, it is incredibly powerful software, and while someone can learn how to use it in a week, it takes months or years to be actually proficient.

My big tip if you can't find a button there is always the search bar. Just search the command you are looking for, it will even show you where the button is located for next time. That said, they don't move things around that much from year to year, I'm surprised if you can't find a command in a tutorial made in the last 10 years.

The features you are talking about sound like you want to be doing surfacing, which is definitely a more advanced modeling technique that I only recommend trying to learn once you understand the basics and can predict how the software wants you to model something.

starky commented on I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great   theverge.com/tech/858910/... · Posted by u/rorylawless
0xperke · a month ago
For all who switched to Linux: which distro did you choose and why?

Fedora: wanted to have the newest kernel and updates due to new hardware - so far i am really satisfied; the only issue i have is that the printer does not work everytime… as a workaround i print with my iphone instead.

starky · a month ago
EndeavourOS with KDE. For some reason, I always seem to have issues with non-Arch distros, even back when I ran Linux on a netbook. After my Fedora install on my Framework 13 broke, I had switched to Manjaro, but after doing a bit of research when I decided to jump in with my desktop 1.5 year ago I went with EndeavourOS and have been quite happy with it.
starky commented on 2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop   xeiaso.net/notes/2026/yea... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti
newsoftheday · a month ago
I'm in my 60's and have never run Photoshop. Nor my wife, my kids, none of my relatives I'm aware of for that matter. Come to think of it, of all the people I know, no one runs PhotoShop that I'm aware of.
starky · a month ago
So? It is still a pretty popular and useful piece of software even if your circle doesn't use it.

One of the big barriers to having more people use Linux is having the software packages they use to actually do work available on the platform. Image editing is the most popular software type that isn't really available on Linux with an equivalent to the commercial package that everyone uses.

starky commented on Linux is good now   pcgamer.com/software/linu... · Posted by u/Vinnl
weinzierl · a month ago
Long time Linux on the desktop user here. I don't feel Linux has become significantly better recently. It's more that Windows reached a new low that is just below the threshold for many. Also, Apple, what are you doing?
starky · a month ago
A large part of it is that for most people, the vast majority of their computer use is in a web browser. Even "standalone" programs are often just an Electron app so they don't even have to use their computer differently than they are used to. Yes Windows has gotten bad, and Linux no longer has some of the major issues people would frequently run into (e.g. hardware compability is largely a non-issue, audio just works, etc.), but I think it is mostly that things are just way more platform agnostic today.
starky commented on Linux is good now   pcgamer.com/software/linu... · Posted by u/Vinnl
Fr0styMatt88 · a month ago
Funnily enough the most annoying things on my system at the moment is RGB and keyboard/mouse customisation.

I haven’t found a tool that can access all the extra settings of my Logitech mouse, not my Logitech speakers.

OpenRGB is amazing but I’m stuck on a version that constantly crashes; this should be fixed in the recent versions but nixpkgs doesn’t seem to have it (last I checked).

On the other hand I did manage to get SteamVR somewhat working with ALVR on the Quest 3, but performance wasn’t great or consistent at all from what I remember (RTX 3070, Wayland KDE).

starky · a month ago
I was annoyed recently because I replaced my GPU and I had to boot into Windows for the first time in months and install drivers just to turn off the RGB on the card because OpenRGB wouldn't find it.
starky commented on 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player   lightcapai.medium.com/the... · Posted by u/ResisBey
thechao · a month ago
My dad grew up in the 50s & 60s. During COVID he purchased my daughters' the, I quote, "shittiest briefcase record players" he could find. Both girls listen to their music on their devices, but also buy vinyl. The other day, my eldest came down from her room complaining that her vinyl "sounded awful". I told her to bring it up with their Grampy. His response: "you can't appreciate good playback until you've heard awful playback on shitty record players like I had to.". My eldest is now plotting a complete hifi system, and is learning all about how to transfer "vinyl" to "digital" without losing the parts of the vinyl she likes.

This was a 5 year play by my dad. Shout out.

starky · a month ago
>"you can't appreciate good playback until you've heard awful playback on shitty record players like I had to.". My eldest is now plotting a complete hifi system

This has strong energy of "Teach your kids how to play Magic, they won't have money for drugs."

u/starky

KarmaCake day1180November 7, 2012View Original