I don't really have a plan at all, to be honest. I don't plan on putting affiliate links or ads on it ever. I just wanted to put up a simple showcase of products for like-minded people. It's sort of my hacker answer to ThisIsWhyImBroke.com.
My point is that I think you are free to make money. If you can do it without compromising your sense of quality you will go very far.
Well, not necessarily tags, but I want to dive deeper in some things. You should allow that.
I like the idea of having a web page that's the opposite of sites that make me email some jackass to get a price. These are all buyable things, RIGHT NOW.
You should have a giant page of SBCs. And UAVs. And 3d printing things. And useful software. Free or otherwise! I think the iphone game Trainyard might appeal to hackers, for example...
I'm gonna order the panograph tomorrow, I think...
Good idea. I think you've got a good idea of what I'm trying to add to the site (especially with the SBCs and UAVs). Adding individual pages based on interest would be a major improvement. Apps is another great idea.
I'm considering the idea of cutting deals with retailers (or even manufacturers) if the site reaches critical mass. I mean, I'm not averse to making money. I just hadn't planned on it.
My one suggestion would be to add an "additional resources" section under the more hackable products with links to relevant GitHub repos or blog posts.
Thanks for the suggestions. I like the idea of additional resources. I was also thinking of trying find things on sites like Instructables that use the products I find. Including links to little projects like the one shown in the USB missile link would certainly add a lot of value for the visitors.
Nicely done. I'm looking forward to seeing more web-stores that just link to other websites for the checkout process. Does this have a name? Product curating?
Question: do you make money from affiliations and if not, do you plan to?
Huh, the temperature-sensitive glass [1] featured on the home page seems backwards. The coolest parts are red, and the hottest parts, blue. (This violates color theory and standard heat maps.)
Under "existing uses" on that page they show examples of how it really looks (which should be correct I think). Inventables photoshops a lot of their images. They might have just touched that one up as well.
> • Tiles that appear black at room temperature and move through the color
> spectrum when temperature (warm water, radiant heat, etc.) is applied.
Now I want a shower curtain thats translucent when in ambient temperature, then turns (red/green/white/black/whatever) while the shower is on (hot water).
At $33/each, they're also astoundingly expensive to buy from this site; by my calculations, one wall of the shower featured in this photo cost a minimum of $4,620 in tiling alone:
Yes, inventables.com has some really cool stuff, but they are sometimes too expensive. For example, the "Super absorbent polymer spheres" [1] are also available from ThinkGeek for a lot less [2] (And you'll probably get them elsewhere even cheaper)
Word of warning: DO NOT buy the rechargeable USB batteries. They are very cheap and leaked acid (I owned two). Also, they do not hold a charge for more than a day in my experience. You'd be better off with regular rechargeable batteries.
How about including a mechanism for reviews like this on the site? (I know most of the linked to sites have review areas as well but having it all in one place in your curated venue might add some value).
This is pretty neat, but it'd be more useful if it had some basic category filtering. That way I could filter out all the electrical engineery stuff from the other stuff, for example.
I really recommend it. I bought that one myself a few months ago. It's very cool! The guy who runs the site is awesome and he'll help you out if you have any questions. He can't ship the N2O canisters outside of his country though (or maybe it was just to the US) so you'll have to find a place around you that sells them. Not too hard to find though.
DealExtreme.com and similar might be worth picking some of that stuff up from. Mostly crap but hard to beat for odd screwdrivers and the like.
Oh, and add a "Don't show me things from stores that won't ship to my region lest I become consumed with envy and curse the very name of newegg.com" checkbox, perhaps :-).
Have to be careful with some things like lock picks. Various state laws can make having such things troublesome. Sure, most of the laws have something requiring the intent to commit a crime, but if someone gets the wrong idea, it's rather hard to prove that you had no such intent.
I will update it daily -- at least I'll try. It depends on whether or not I can find things that are a good enough fit each day. I want to update it with 3 new items per day. The number of items I showcase will grow. I haven't decided on how I want to handle this yet. I'm thinking the items will need to be split into categories and the front page will just be newest or most popular items.
Not just you -- that was totally the idea. Nothing says 'hacker' like that particular shade of orange. It also helps because I made this site for the HN community (for the most part, figured only you guys would understand it). What better way to identify with my fellow HNers?
And from the comments, I suppose some of the next few features you may want to add would be:
1. a way for users to recommend products
2. a way for users to LIKE and DISCUSS products
1. Absolutely. I've been getting great suggestions through multiple channels (in this thread, through Twitter, my personal email, etc.). It would be great if visitors could suggest something right on the site.
2. That would be ideal. I might end up creating a comment system similar to the one on HN. Something barebones that just works. I would very much like to add some interactivity to the site.
I may do that instead. It would be nice to take advantage of the various auth systems without requiring me to implement Twitter and Facebook (et al) myself. That's the only reason I might choose a canned system over something homegrown though.
Great ideas! Thanks for contributing -- I hadn't thought of that. And yes. I think the site is going to need a Lisp book. Possibly Haskell as well. I want to keep the normals off there as long as possible. ;)
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 177 ms ] threadWhat's your plan going forward?
I don't really have a plan at all, to be honest. I don't plan on putting affiliate links or ads on it ever. I just wanted to put up a simple showcase of products for like-minded people. It's sort of my hacker answer to ThisIsWhyImBroke.com.
Also, you should build a machine learning thing to up/down rank stuff based on clicks. I might be able to help with that.
Also, I want tags. More like this! Especially for stuff that I don't know much about (eg UAVs)
Doing some machine learning for the ranking would be a load of fun. If you have any ideas or want to help out with that I'd be glad to accept!
Of course you want tags. ;) I definitely agree though. There needs to be labeling or at the very least some sort of categorization.
Thanks for the feedback!
Well, not necessarily tags, but I want to dive deeper in some things. You should allow that.
I like the idea of having a web page that's the opposite of sites that make me email some jackass to get a price. These are all buyable things, RIGHT NOW.
You should have a giant page of SBCs. And UAVs. And 3d printing things. And useful software. Free or otherwise! I think the iphone game Trainyard might appeal to hackers, for example...
I'm gonna order the panograph tomorrow, I think...
I'm considering the idea of cutting deals with retailers (or even manufacturers) if the site reaches critical mass. I mean, I'm not averse to making money. I just hadn't planned on it.
I'll find it.
There was a thread a few months back with a few similar ideas along this vein. See: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=1988328
My one suggestion would be to add an "additional resources" section under the more hackable products with links to relevant GitHub repos or blog posts.
I know for instance a few people have messed around with creating their own USB missile drivers for Linux. Here is one example: http://www.lukecole.name/research_and_projects/personal/usb_...
One suggestion, mechanical keyboards.
Das Model S http://www.daskeyboard.com/model-s-professional-silent/
Topre Realforce Tenkeyless http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=topre_keyboards,r...
Happy Hacking http://www.elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=pfu_keyboards...
http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-SC-750-Snap-Circuits-Extreme/dp...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gakken_EX-System
Denshi blocks are a fabulous way to learn electronics and they belong in your catalog.
It's a truly kick-ass framework. I suggest it to anyone doing Python backend work.
Question: do you make money from affiliations and if not, do you plan to?
[1]: http://www.inventables.com/technologies/temperature-sensitiv...
http://cdn.inventables.com/technology_application_images/565...
Very cool stuff, but at quite a heavy price ;)
[1] http://www.inventables.com/technologies/super-absorbent-poly...
[2] https://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/cd32?srp=2
Nice site, by the way. Has some very cool stuff.
That's a really neat collection and I'm going to have to put your site on the blacklist to make sure we have food here.
Oh, and add a "Don't show me things from stores that won't ship to my region lest I become consumed with envy and curse the very name of newegg.com" checkbox, perhaps :-).
See also: http://www.lockpickguide.com/legalityoflockpicks.html
relevant: http://isitchristmas.com/
You should definitely check out the excellent Adafruit Industries for similar geeky goodies (http://www.adafruit.com/)
Will you update this daily? And will the number of items you showcase be the same?
I will update it daily -- at least I'll try. It depends on whether or not I can find things that are a good enough fit each day. I want to update it with 3 new items per day. The number of items I showcase will grow. I haven't decided on how I want to handle this yet. I'm thinking the items will need to be split into categories and the front page will just be newest or most popular items.
Otherwise I will spend so much money and so much time playing with the awesome things there that I will end up broke and unemployed in under a year.
Glad you found the stuff there so interesting!
And from the comments, I suppose some of the next few features you may want to add would be: 1. a way for users to recommend products 2. a way for users to LIKE and DISCUSS products
1. Absolutely. I've been getting great suggestions through multiple channels (in this thread, through Twitter, my personal email, etc.). It would be great if visitors could suggest something right on the site.
2. That would be ideal. I might end up creating a comment system similar to the one on HN. Something barebones that just works. I would very much like to add some interactivity to the site.
- I would suggest feeding in some of the dev kits from Digikey. The Parallax devices are pretty spiffy, as is the XMOS XCore.
- What about a magstripe reader?
- Include a Lisp book... On Lisp or perhaps Practical Common Lisp? ;)
And the bookhas the distinction of being on of the ONLY approachable and natural explanations of monadic programming.