Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by koonsolo | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

koonsolo

Why the negative outlook? The world now is way more awesome for hackers than it was back then!

1. You can find any information you want, in an instant.

2. Hardware is very cheap, computers can be tiny, you can order components from anywhere

3. Robotics and electronics are way cooler now, with drones etc.

4. Software development is way more productive with all the libraries and tools we have right now.

5. When I was a kid, games were made by 1 or a few people. It quickly evolved into big studios. But nowadays, a solo or tiny team can release super successful games.

View on HN

> 2. Hardware is very cheap, computers can be tiny, you can order components from anywhere

In the past I could get any component I might need from a local store in 20 minutes. now I've got 2 weeks to 3 months turnaround on shipping from shenzhen.

I really miss hardware shops now that you pointed this out :(

In the past, there were only enough components to fill a few shelves. Also, you can get many, many components from local stores now, if you're willing to pay the 4x-10x premium.

Not many people are, so local stores aren't as common.

In 2010, the local store had more components than I can order at reichelt, and was cheaper than aliexpress (if you include shipping).

I really miss having a place (back then we even had ad dozen of them in a few km distance) with a huge selection carrying every component you might ever need, and with enough technical expertise that you could show your circuit diagram and get feedback how to improve it. This is something only seen in shenzhen today.

Now I just don't do any small projects anymore as there are no stores in the entire state left, and the extreme premium in shipping and waiting time of aliexpress just isn't worth it anymore.

>I really miss having a place (back then we even had ad dozen of them in a few km distance) with a huge selection carrying every component you might ever need

That sounds very atypical. I live outside a major US metro and I know of one good computer store in the area (Micro Center). I imagine there a few small places that carry electronic components but not sure how many. And it wasn't much different 10 to 20 years ago unless you count Radio Shack which wasn't really all that great.

I count RadioShack, because it was great. As late as 2016 they had their transisor, resistor, capacitor buckets and speaker wire. You couldn't get arbitrary ICs there, but for basic components or last-minute bodges they were key. And now they're no longer carried.

How much is AliExpress shipping for you? It's free (or a few cents) for most of the world, AFAIK.

Depends on the seller, but quite a bit if you desire 24h or even 14 day shipping instead of the usual 90 day shipping

There was only one store like that in my childhood city but it had everything you might want.

There would be a queue of people waiting on a Saturday to give their handwritten list of components to an employee to go find.

>You can get many many components from local stores now, if you're willing to pay the 4x-10x premium

Well. No. RadioShack is closed. Fry's is closed. If I needed a resistor, I honestly wouldn't know where to go. Probably AliExpress or DigiKey. There's no local stores left.

Comic books shops are suffering the same problem. It's not just computers.

The obverse of this is that everybody can get whatever they need from Shenzen nowadays, not just some privileged American communities.

I live in Germany, so I never had the advantages of the US situation with fry's, radioshack or microcenter.

And companies sending parts remotely always existed, all that happened is now some have less access.

Don't get me wrong, I am not talking about myself here. I am still an absolute curious fellow. I just started learning woodworking, I am 37 years old now. I start learning something new each year.

I meant the current trend of digital products which are, in my opinion, more like a TV than "computers".

What, if any, resources did you use to learn woodworking? In-person courses and hackerspaces are not available in my area right now and I wonder if there are any good online classes. And by that I'm not talking about those quick-cut YouTube videos where you need a workshop worth 50k in machinery and tools to properly follow "this one easy trick" ;-)

If you have any resources you can share/recommend, I'd be very curious also ;-)

Sounds like you might like Wood Working for Mere Mortals (https://woodworkingformeremortals.com/). I haven't taken any of the courses Steve offers but I'm a huge fan of his YouTube videos.

Rex Krueger has the most budget-conscious channel I know of (https://www.youtube.com/c/RexKrueger). His "Woodworking for Humans" series starts out with just needing three tools and bootstrapping your way to more.

Personally I started with restoring discarded and thrifted furniture. The initial outlay was just for some glue, varnish, and sandpaper.

I have also been disillusioned of late with the computing hobbies that have fueled me most of my life. I'm still heavily involved with computing for my employment, but there's just something that doesn't spark my curiosity as much as it used to.

Interesting that you mentioned you've moved to woodworking, as I found a way to rekindle my curiosity be exploring older technology as well. I've dived head first into antique clock and watch repair.

I took up to painting as Im involved too in computers as my day job. The contrast is wonderful, there is freedom in it, there is a sense of limitless possibilities and no pressure or hard deadlines. I’ve often said to myself if I went to art school I’d probably have been interested in computers now. I have also become disillusioned a while ago with computers and I think there is a limit to any interest without taking a break. But recently about an hour a year ago I started to become interested in programming again and one was using racket/lisp/scheme and second was Linux. I’m a new Linux user I am very stoked about it.

> I meant the current trend of digital products which are, in my opinion, more like a TV than "computers".

That is true. But I really wonder if the hacker/consumer ratio has shifted over the years or not.

> 5. When I was a kid, games were made by 1 or a few people. It quickly evolved into big studios. But nowadays, a solo or tiny team can release super successful games.

And games will look exponentially better considering the tools we have at disposition now. Also, selling millions of units of one game is "possible" even for Solo developers (while it's obviously going to be a superstar kind of probability). in the 90s reaching that kind of market was impossible without a huge corporation support.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com