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Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#501

Post by gottebp »

grogenaut wrote: post #430
gottebp wrote: post #312

Breville coffee grinders are impossible to get internal parts for. I designed a 3D printed upgrade for the main wear-part in their BCG800XL SmartGrinder. The storefront is through ShapeWays[1] and I use ifixit[2] to drive the traffic. It's passively making ~$425/mo with about 10 minutes of work per week on my end. This all happened because my grinder failed and I couldn't get parts. [1] https://www.shapeways.com/prod…

Is the material used in the part safe to ingest?

I'm an amateur at this part, but I've reason to believe it's fine.

The material is a Nylon plastic. "Polyamide PA 2200" according to ShapeWays. This link[1] has details on the material when used with laser sintering and in regard to contact with food. The key quote is "[...]are in compliance with EU Plastics Directive 2002/72/EC for the use with all types of foods except high alcoholic foodstuffs[...]"

That said, there is a porosity issue with 3D printed parts and consequently dry coffee coats the impeller and sticks to the surface right away. It's a big problem if in contact with dairy, meat, liquids, etc. because it harbors bacteria. For this reason, ShapeWays does not claim to be food-grade. I don't think it matters for dry coffee though. Nevertheless, there's a writeup about this on the storefront so customers can make the call if they care about stale coffee on their impeller or not.

[1] https://www.sculpteo.com/static/0.30.0-49/documents/material...

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#502

Post by spoinkaroo »

durkie wrote: post #294

i own a decent amount of tesla stock and 2016 was a great year for lending it out. since tesla is such a controversial company, lots of people want to own the stock (expecting it to go up) and lots of people want to short sell it (expecting it go down). if you're a stock holder, certain places (like interactive brokers) will let you lend your stock holdings to people that want to sell it short. you earn a premium on…

How do you set this up in IB? I have a decent amount of long positions that this seems really useful on (especially since they will be selling float regardless)

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#503

Post by [deleted] »

hypercluster wrote: post #471
le-mark wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note it's not necessarily sarcasm. Personally, I've been working as a developer for years (15+), and I 'quit' a couple of years ago. What do I mean by 'quit'? I've been working in large corporation bouncing from team to team. I only write code if I absolutely have to. So in practice I end up actually "working" a few days a month. I don't do shit at work. I just deliver something every so often, and with my experience…

But what do you do instead? Hours must seem long without work!

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#504

Post by icebraining »

Huppie wrote: post #468
icebraining wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using DEGIRO (based in the NL), seems to be OK, decent website and low fees. They have this weird thing about loaning out your shares in the regular accounts; I couldn't quite get the risk I'd be exposed to in that case, so I went with a Custody account.

Same here. Just wondering, are you using the Ireland based Vanguard ETFs (i.e. VWRL, VEUR, etc.) or the US-based ones (VTI, VGT, etc.)?

Neither :) I'm using an Amsterdam based one: https://www.euronext.com/en/products/etfs/IE00B3XXRP09-XAMS

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#505

Post by BirdieNZ »

anigbrowl wrote: post #428
danesparza wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find that the poor generally don't save money -- they spend it, but I digress. Also: Why isn't interest income considered passive income to you? "The fundamentals" are there for a reason, after all.

Poor people don;'t have enough money to save, by definition.

I don't think this is always accurate; a lot of poor people are poor through spending habits and poor financial management, not through lack of income.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#507

Post by Havoc »

dejv wrote: post #42

I do have portfolio of small web apps: tools for learning music notes, non-latin alphabets, language flash cards and so forth. They are making some nice money each year, but the trend is quite clear: given same traffic I am making about 50% less each year. Ad revenue is way down (more adblock users, less money per click, CTR is down), but paid premium plans are balancing it a bit. These projects are still my biggest…

How are the p2p loans doing?

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#508

Post by sitkack »

hypercluster wrote: post #471
le-mark wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note it's not necessarily sarcasm. Personally, I've been working as a developer for years (15+), and I 'quit' a couple of years ago. What do I mean by 'quit'? I've been working in large corporation bouncing from team to team. I only write code if I absolutely have to. So in practice I end up actually "working" a few days a month. I don't do shit at work. I just deliver something every so often, and with my experience…

But what do you do instead? Hours must seem long without work!

The mind can playback any movie idea you can think of, even some you probably can't.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#509

Post by ricardobeat »

grogenaut wrote: post #430
gottebp wrote: post #312

Breville coffee grinders are impossible to get internal parts for. I designed a 3D printed upgrade for the main wear-part in their BCG800XL SmartGrinder. The storefront is through ShapeWays[1] and I use ifixit[2] to drive the traffic. It's passively making ~$425/mo with about 10 minutes of work per week on my end. This all happened because my grinder failed and I couldn't get parts. [1] https://www.shapeways.com/prod…

Is the material used in the part safe to ingest?

Was thinking the same. Looks like the original plastic part is destined to be slowly ground and consumed by the user, the printed one will have the same fate.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#510

Post by addonis1990 »

gottebp wrote: post #312

Breville coffee grinders are impossible to get internal parts for. I designed a 3D printed upgrade for the main wear-part in their BCG800XL SmartGrinder. The storefront is through ShapeWays[1] and I use ifixit[2] to drive the traffic. It's passively making ~$425/mo with about 10 minutes of work per week on my end. This all happened because my grinder failed and I couldn't get parts. [1] https://www.shapeways.com/prod…

That's so cool! I really admire your creativity and the way you turned a problem into a passive income source
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