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Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

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Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#131

Post by zorked »

zangiku wrote: post #60

Interesting to see the _very_ strong parallels to Japanese culture here. For everyone arguing about whether this is true of all Chinese culture, of course there is innovative thinking in China, Wu is simply pointing out that in places where people aren't getting paid to innovate but rather are there to do a 9-5 job, there is little (and, in many cases, negative) incentive culturally to think outside the box and push…

And, for that matter, Germany.

This culture isn't bad and works reasonably well in a lot of places.

(not my thing though)

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#132

Post by jowiar »

theWatcher37 wrote: post #115
samirillian wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the technocracy! I also think that's what Americans didn't like about Hillary Clinton (among other things). She seems to look at governing much more like an engineer.

HRC is the farthest from an engineer you will ever see. I'm not sure how anyone with a professional background in engineering could suggest this.

Deeply deeply disagree (and my background is CS/Software Engineering+Public Policy).

She has way more attention to minute policy detail than anyone who has been elected president in the past few decades. And the knowledge of detail is a double edged sword, because it's hard to sell what you know to be an oversimplification (which almost everyone here can relate to).

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#133

Post by wazoox »

taway_1212 wrote: post #122
anovikov wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because China is not a democracy. In a democracy, someone who speaks well is likely to win - and lawyers by definition must be able to speak very well. In China there is a merit-based system which as every merit-based system, has a lot of flaws - so someone able to work through the top of it must be a real hacker. Engineers win hands down over lawyers.

What? Communist party power dynamics are similar to ones in a gang - i.e. you have someone from the party who managed to seize power and lots of other top party members silently forming cliques and waiting for you to slip, so that they can deliver the blow. The country's people are only chips in the game, if that (often, rulers are toppled not over their policy but over some bullshit doctrinal dispute).

Nothing particular to communists, there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Parties_(book)

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#134

Post by samirillian »

theWatcher37 wrote: post #115
samirillian wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the technocracy! I also think that's what Americans didn't like about Hillary Clinton (among other things). She seems to look at governing much more like an engineer.

HRC is the farthest from an engineer you will ever see. I'm not sure how anyone with a professional background in engineering could suggest this.

She was the furthest from an engineer except for all the other candidates in the field. As I remember, our "real engineer" presidents were Carter and Hoover, both famously ineffectual politicians. So, yeah, I think it's safe to infer a kind of trend.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#135

Post by exikyut »

new299 wrote: post #126
exikyut wrote: post #64

Avoiding the sentiment of the other comments here (which are not completely confusing, but nonetheless a little over my head), I have a practical question: How does one relate to and incentivize the Chinese people, then? Where are good places to start learning more? Context/example: I'm tentatively interested in approaching China from a "hobbyist with a tiny bit of money" standpoint. I want to do limited runs (3 to 4…

I spent a reasonably significant amount of time figuring out the Psion series 5 LCD and Keyboard interface. I built my own controller for the keyboard, and interfaced the display to a Gumstix. That was many years ago... I've also done some prototyping in Shenzhen. CNC and 3D printed parts are cheap. If you've modeled it, everything apart from the membrane itself should be straightforward (and cheap in small quantitie…

This is really encouraging to hear, thanks!

Wow, you figured the LCD out. I'm very curious how the LCD actually works - how is it updated? Through some kind of serial protocol? I get the impression it's pretty fast - I made a program in OPL a while ago that created a borderless window a metric stupid number of pixels high and EPOC was able to scroll it up the screen remarkably quickly (I was trying to see whether it could do haptic scrolling, it definitely could). It also seemed that I could drag windows around the screen faster than the liquid crystals could keep up - there was no choppiness here, it was rather an organic problem, so the LCD controller bandwidth/implementation seemed really good.

Flexible circuit boards are such a cool technology. To clarify, though, you're saying the Psion's keyboard is large? I presume the $500 is for initial tooling and that individual membranes will be a couple of dollars to run.

Another keyboard approach I think is really cool is that found in the original BlackBerry 850/950. I've admittedly only seen pictures of these but it looks quite usable.

> If you really wanted to do it properly, I don't think that would be massively expensive either.

That's incredibly encouraging, thanks.

> Having a prototype might help. There are a bunch of companies that /do/ agree to do small runs.

Oh okay, cool to know.

> And I know many people how have done this.

:D

> Often you end up having to visit the factory a bunch to push them to do what you want, and have occasional failures.

Hmm, plane tickets...

> But it's often still far easier than it might be elsewhere.

Duly noted. Thanks.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#136

Post by theli0nheart »

vacri wrote: post #118
theli0nheart wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm just going to tell you, OP, and everyone who agrees with you right now: fuck off. There's nothing inexplicable about a woman being able to use tools. The fact that your comment was voted up to the top in this Hacker News submission says a lot about Hacker News itself. Go feel shame, because you deserve it. Regardless of what your opinion is of anyone on this forum, using profanity is inappropriate and uncalled…

Profanity is not synonymous with abuse. People use profanity all the time here. Similarly, the mods will still take a dim view of you if you keep it clean while abusing someone.

My comment doesn't imply that profanity and abuse are synonymous. The HN guidelines state clearly that you should be civil in your contributions. The OP's comment, profanity or not, was not.

From the guidelines:

> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#137

Post by jonathankoren »

Iv wrote: post #117
aleyan wrote: post #87

> Even now, engineers are not held in anywhere near the same regard in China as they are in the West. I have to respectfully disagree with the author on the esteem of engineers in China versus the West. I am not Chinese, nor an expert on their culture, but I do live in the West so I understand half of the equation. Current President of China, Xi Jinping was educated as a chemical engineer[1]. His predecessor Hu Jinta…

Lawyers are advantaged in a democracy where you rise by convincing people. Engineers are advantaged in a meritocracy or in a system that sees itself as a meritocracy as we are probably better at optimizing for an important metric.

If you think the communist party doesn't have politics, you are gravely mistaken. Lest we forget the rapid rise and fall of Bo Xilai, or the purging of Zhao Ziyang, or hell even the Gang Of Four and it's on-again-off-again relationship with Deng Xiaoping.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#138

Post by simonh »

ivanhoe wrote: post #128
taway_1212 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Communist party power dynamics are similar to ones in a gang - i.e. you have someone from the party who managed to seize power and lots of other top party members silently forming cliques and waiting for you to slip, so that they can deliver the blow. The country's people are only chips in the game, if that (often, rulers are toppled not over their policy but over some bullshit doctrinal dispute).

isn't that how any political party works?

Yes, but at the end of the day it's the voters that decide whether you get actual power or not. Imagine if it was the Republican National Committee that appointed the President of the United States. Not just now, but always.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#139

Post by rout39574 »

ivanhoe wrote: post #128
taway_1212 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Communist party power dynamics are similar to ones in a gang - i.e. you have someone from the party who managed to seize power and lots of other top party members silently forming cliques and waiting for you to slip, so that they can deliver the blow. The country's people are only chips in the game, if that (often, rulers are toppled not over their policy but over some bullshit doctrinal dispute).

isn't that how any political party works?

More or less; but I think the point is, that by denying the power-struggle dynamic and punishing people who talk about it, communist structures in fact amplify it.

So in a democracy, there's all that behind the scenes tussel, but there's also an important aspect of public advocacy and decision testing. None of that in China; the politburo says what it's going to say, and then does what it's going to do.

Re: Lu Ban's axe and working with your Chinese suppliers

#140

Post by jogundas »

ivanhoe wrote: post #130
aleyan wrote: post #87

> Even now, engineers are not held in anywhere near the same regard in China as they are in the West. I have to respectfully disagree with the author on the esteem of engineers in China versus the West. I am not Chinese, nor an expert on their culture, but I do live in the West so I understand half of the equation. Current President of China, Xi Jinping was educated as a chemical engineer[1]. His predecessor Hu Jinta…

They were not elected for being engineers, but because of their careers in the party (just as Angela Merkel wasn't elected because of her PhD, politics don't work like that). Article, at least as I understood it, is about the respect that society gives to an ordinary engineer. Is it considered prestigious to be engineer by common people or they view it as just a little better than being a technician or factory worker…

AFAIK in the USSR attractiveness of a profession was largely determined by two factors. First, is it possible to take bribes. Second, can one get hands on products that are in short supply. Doctors fall into the first category. Shop workers and sailors (two highly desirable professions in the USSR!) fall into the second. Engineers seem to fall into neither.
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