Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

simonberens.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 427 posts

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#151

Post by brewdad »

burnermore wrote: post #145
cwal37 wrote: post #52

> As someone who generally stays out of politics, I didn’t know much about the incoming administration’s stance towards tariffs, though I don’t think anyone could have predicted such drastic hikes. I have an appreciation for very bright lamps, and the project is neat, but that stuck out to me. I'm always fascinated by people who both feel comfortable ignoring maybe the single most impactful society-determining appara…

Nobody saw this coming. Trump's first term might have been crazy inside US, but outside... it's the least interfering US govt we've had in a while for the world. So as far as geopolitics is concerned, he is right.

First term Trump didn't quite have as many toadies willing to follow him no matter where he takes them. They also weren't quite so willing to blatantly violate the law and dare someone to do anything about it.

Second term plans were all written down for anyone to read but still far too many didn't believe it.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#152

Post by Waterluvian »

burnermore wrote: post #145
cwal37 wrote: post #52

> As someone who generally stays out of politics, I didn’t know much about the incoming administration’s stance towards tariffs, though I don’t think anyone could have predicted such drastic hikes. I have an appreciation for very bright lamps, and the project is neat, but that stuck out to me. I'm always fascinated by people who both feel comfortable ignoring maybe the single most impactful society-determining appara…

Nobody saw this coming. Trump's first term might have been crazy inside US, but outside... it's the least interfering US govt we've had in a while for the world. So as far as geopolitics is concerned, he is right.

“Nobody saw it coming” is a blanket people wrap themselves in that socializes their failure to see it coming.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#153

Post by IncreasePosts »

esafak wrote: post #136
ihaveajob wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Athens, an "idiotes" was a citizen who focused only on private matters rather than participating in the polis (city-state). Because civic participation was considered a duty, this term carried a negative connotation of being socially irresponsible or uninvolved. This term evolved into the modern "idiot" which we are familiar with.

And as a fellow Greek man said, "Just because you do not take an interest in politics, it does not mean politics won't take an interest in you".

You could equally say "just because you take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics will take an interest in you".

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#154

Post by nemomarx »

EarlKing wrote: post #149
nemomarx wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last Trump term, a small business making PC cases locally in california went out of business because of steel tariffs. I'm not sure that local manufacturing in small batches is much safer given there's aluminum and other material tariffs this time too?

Cost was not the only issue addressed by OP.

Other than the back and forth / lead time issues on checking issues, what do you think a local manufacturer shop in the US would do better? If the takeaway was needing to specify stuff in the design phase earlier that's kind of a universal manufacturing lesson I think.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#155

Post by seizethecheese »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #124
seizethecheese wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange position to take. Sure, Polymarket has warts, but that doesn't mean it's not a very good source for consensus opinions about the future from the past. Do you think this market was manipulated?

Search “Polymarket manipulated” or similar and examples are legion. You can even do that on hacker news. There’s a lot of incentive to do so.

Sure, but that’s not likely in this specific market, at least in enough size to make a difference to the main point here.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#156

Post by js2 »

burnermore wrote: post #145
cwal37 wrote: post #52

> As someone who generally stays out of politics, I didn’t know much about the incoming administration’s stance towards tariffs, though I don’t think anyone could have predicted such drastic hikes. I have an appreciation for very bright lamps, and the project is neat, but that stuck out to me. I'm always fascinated by people who both feel comfortable ignoring maybe the single most impactful society-determining appara…

Nobody saw this coming. Trump's first term might have been crazy inside US, but outside... it's the least interfering US govt we've had in a while for the world. So as far as geopolitics is concerned, he is right.

> Nobody saw this coming.

That simply isn't true. Here's a PDF from December 2024 (before Trump was elected) by the US Senate Joint Economic Committee:

https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/5c392e02-9eb0...

Throughout 2024, Donald Trump has proposed a series of tariffs on all goods coming from outside the U.S. or on goods from specific countries. His recent proposals include:

• An across-the-board 10 percent tariff on all products imported from other countries.

• An across-the-board 20 percent tariff on all products imported from other countries.

• A 60 percent tariff—“or higher”—on all goods imported from China.

• An additional 10% above any additional tariffs on imports from China.

• A 25% tariff on products imported to the United States from Mexico and Canada.

Yes, everbody who was paying any attention at all saw this coming.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#157

Post by brewdad »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #146
eek2121 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a fun random fact from me: We do need more lumens. Not for normal (non-production) indoor lighting in most situations, however, I always want a bright light for my outside lights, and I find that most 100w-equivalent (1500 lumens) are just not quite enough. 2,000 lumens is almost there, however, 2,500 lumens would be beneficial. Both 2,000 and 2,500 lumen bulbs either don't last in temperature extremes, or are s…

Why do you need bright lights on outside all night?

In my case, I park a car in my driveway overnight. My lights also help deter anyone who might wander near my neighbor's open carport. I run GE daylight 100w equivalent bulbs purchased from Lowe's from dusk to dawn. They last for years and are cheap. Two bulbs at my driveway and two 60w equivalents on my porch.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#158

Post by dyauspitr »

cwal37 wrote: post #52

> As someone who generally stays out of politics, I didn’t know much about the incoming administration’s stance towards tariffs, though I don’t think anyone could have predicted such drastic hikes. I have an appreciation for very bright lamps, and the project is neat, but that stuck out to me. I'm always fascinated by people who both feel comfortable ignoring maybe the single most impactful society-determining appara…

All the main retailers like Walmart, Costco, Home Depot/Lowes etc. should band together and pull out the tariff costs as a separate payment line on the bill like sales tax. They shouldn’t include it in the bill and pull it out to be paid at time of sale.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#159

Post by georgemcbay »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #124
seizethecheese wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange position to take. Sure, Polymarket has warts, but that doesn't mean it's not a very good source for consensus opinions about the future from the past. Do you think this market was manipulated?

Search “Polymarket manipulated” or similar and examples are legion. You can even do that on hacker news. There’s a lot of incentive to do so.

Open, public non-academic prediction markets basically exist to be manipulated by people with insider knowledge.

Filter out all the noise of people random ass guessing what will happen in the future and focus on people making big bets late in the game. That's your important "prediction".

See: Anonymous person who made $400,000 betting on Maduro being out of office, etc.

I'd be surprised if there weren't already people running HFT-like setups to look for these anomalously large late stage trades to piggyback their own bets on the insider information.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#160

Post by bjt »

munificent wrote: post #143
chillfox wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the "no one could have seen it coming" crowd extremely tiring, they usually always say that about something anyone who paid a tiny bit of attention could see coming. It's genuinely baffling to me why business owners pay so little attention to the politics that will directly impact their business. The entire tariffs thing was incredible obvious to me (I am Australian) and I only check in on US politics for 10 m…

Trump in 1987 in a full page ad in the New York Times: "It's time for us to end our vast deficits by making Japan, and others who can afford it, pay. Our world protection is worth hundreds of billions of dollars to these countries, and their stake in their protection is far greater than ours. ... Tax these wealthy nations, not America. End our huge deficits, reduce our taxes, and let America's economy grow unencumber…

Too harsh. Trump was president once before, and didn't impose 150% tariffs on anybody. You don't have to be a fucking moron to assume he'll behave similarly in his second presidency. Trump says a LOT of things that he doesn't end up doing.
Post reply on HN