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Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#211

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

xyzelement wrote: post #196

This may or may not fit into the OP's intention but some of my favorite physical achievements are repairs that might be impressive for a random suburban dad :) 1. Two years ago our basement flooded a week after we bought the house. I ended up tearing out the now-saturated carpet and put in vinyl plank flooring. Mainly straight forward but requires planning and at some points tricky sawing. It's cool when people come…

Similarly, I have felt huge satisfaction with DIY repairs. Re-plumbing a couple sinks and replacing a garbage disposal and/or adding a dishwasher is not hard to do, the building codes aren't terribly overbearing and its like Lego connecting things together with immediate feedback loop when testing for leaks (modern PVC plumbing, not older copper/metal).

When you own a home and have the time, there are some tasks that will save you a bunch because they are labor intensive but material costs are low. Also if you live in an area where people hire everything out you'll find shortages of contractors and high prices.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#212

Post by shimon »

mattlondon wrote: post #171
csixty4 wrote: post #91

I made a person seven years ago. They started out pretty useless, just eating and pooping and crying a lot. But now they can walk, talk, think, read, write, act, sing, and love.

I found that V2 was much harder from an orchestration and toil point of view.

I agree, the scale problems seem to outweigh the scale economies at N=2. At some point you get positive network effects where the older ones contribute to the care of the younger ones, but so far we mainly observe a lot of resource contention with frequent livelock exceptions requiring intervention by the parent processes.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#213

Post by snprajwal »

ryandrake wrote: post #167

Built a two-seat, single engine airplane. Took 6.5 years to build and I've been flying it for close to a year now. The U.S. and several other countries have fairly liberal rules allowing for home-built aircraft, so there are actually tens of thousands of home-built planes flying around today. Yes, it's built from a kit (mostly sheet aluminum and rivets, some fiberglass) but I'm OK with calling it cool.

Damn, that's well beyond just "cool"! Can you share some more details on this? It sounds fascinating

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#214

Post by adrianmonk »

alberth wrote: post #205
hoofhearted wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. As I understand it, Amazon doesn’t actually own data centers; similar to how they don’t own warehouses. My understanding later on in my career shift to computer engineering was that Amazon is renting out the whole colo, and just owns their equipment. Amazon isn’t maintaining the datacenter infrastructure such as cooling and power, but instead it’s covered in their bill.

Isn’t this though wrongly taking credit. This is like saying “I sell cardboard boxes to Amazon, who uses my cardboard boxes to ship packages” … and then claim you built the logistics and online behemoth of Amazon.com I’m not trying to be a hater. But this story sounds more like you were a supplier to something Amazon built, not something you built.

> Isn’t this though wrongly taking credit.

No, because it says "without really knowing it" right in the first sentence.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#215

Post by owalt »

vonnieda wrote: post #175

I made a clock based on an IV-18 vacuum florescent display tube. In the process I learned CAD, CNC, aluminum anodizing, metal turning, SMT soldering, laser cutting, box making, power supply design, and a dozen other skills I use every day today. Here's the clock's homepage, which has some pictures: https://vonnieda.org/tc18 , and more pictures on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/vonnieda/sets/7215762293577593...…

That's incredibly cool looking!

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#216

Post by pseudosavant »

leipert wrote: post #198
cushychicken wrote: post #99

I'm an EE by trade, and my work has shipped in numerous consumer products. I was lead hardware designer for Sonos Amp, Sonos Port, and a few of the IKEA/Sonos collaboration products. I've since moved on from that job, but it's a very cool resume item. It's also a pretty cool shameless self promotion thing to point out when I need to. Was asked by an executive why I should run a hardware development effort at my curre…

What do you think about the longevity of these Sonos products? I got sucked into the ecosystem via IKEA/Sonos collab and now added one to my TV setup. The ecosystem is nice _currently_ but do you think the hardware+software will be useable in 5,10,15 years from now? Do you think it could be liberated software wise. Thinking about this because I am contemplating moving my vinyl setup to Sonos as well.

I have ten year old Sonos gear that still works. The feature I wish the speakers had most? A line in jack so I could use them with something other than apps. That is a kind of future proofing all powered speakers should have.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#218

Post by shimon »

xyzelement wrote: post #196

This may or may not fit into the OP's intention but some of my favorite physical achievements are repairs that might be impressive for a random suburban dad :) 1. Two years ago our basement flooded a week after we bought the house. I ended up tearing out the now-saturated carpet and put in vinyl plank flooring. Mainly straight forward but requires planning and at some points tricky sawing. It's cool when people come…

What was your AC repair? Did it involve dealing with the refrigerant system or just other electronic components? If so, I'd be shocked too -- AFAIK most commonly-used refrigerant compounds are not generally available to civilians because of the environmental damage caused by their irresponsible discharge.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#219

Post by Fraterkes »

ryandrake wrote: post #167

Built a two-seat, single engine airplane. Took 6.5 years to build and I've been flying it for close to a year now. The U.S. and several other countries have fairly liberal rules allowing for home-built aircraft, so there are actually tens of thousands of home-built planes flying around today. Yes, it's built from a kit (mostly sheet aluminum and rivets, some fiberglass) but I'm OK with calling it cool.

Do you have a link to where you got the kit? And how much do you estimate you spend in total to get to fly your own plane (including getting a license). (Srry if thats rude to ask)
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