tech bubble v5.5: stochastic errorism

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > tech bubble v5.5: stochastic errorism

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Shame Boy: Mar 2, 2010

fart simpson posted:

hole in 1

lol of course, dammit

# ? Aug 17, 2023 03:59

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 18:16

infernal machines: Oct 11, 2012; we monitor many frequencies. we listen always. came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. it played us a mighty dub.

put everything together with screws but then have the customer brick it via a software option to qualify for a discount on a newer model

# ? Aug 17, 2023 03:59

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

infernal machines posted:

have the customer brick it via a software option to get a discount on a newer model

sonos literally did this a few years back. i think they walked it back after people got upset

# ? Aug 17, 2023 03:59

infernal machines: Oct 11, 2012; we monitor many frequencies. we listen always. came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. it played us a mighty dub.

yes, that is what i was referencing

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:00

Sagebrush: Feb 26, 2012; ERM... Actually I have stellar scores on the surveys, and every year students tell me that my classes are the best ones they’ve ever taken.

screws can be a good aesthetic. bunch of countersunk spanner head screws all clocked the same direction? nice.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:01

Shame Boy: Mar 2, 2010

i've gotten pretty good at hiding screws or making them blend in with the rest of the design when i'm 3D printing cases for my electronics projects, hire me as a Screw Consultant

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:01

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

infernal machines posted:

yes, that is what i was referencing

it as a good idea

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:01

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

Shame Boy posted:

i've gotten pretty good at hiding screws or making them blend in with the rest of the design when i'm 3D printing cases for my electronics projects, hire me as a Screw Consultant

these days they prefer to be called �intimacy coordinators�

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:08

rotor: Jun 11, 2001; classic case of pineapple on pizzadog derangement syndrome

�helical loose tenons�

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:16

hbag: Feb 13, 2021

infernal machines posted:

there was, back in the mists of time, the expectation that you might own more than one phone battery, keep them charged (on a separate charger, no less), and swap them in as needed

this went away as the smartphone era dawned

yes, im aware. we werent talking about that. we were talking about replacable smartphone batteries, which you dont need to replace "every day"

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:25

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Sagebrush posted:

screws can be a good aesthetic. bunch of countersunk spanner head screws all clocked the same direction? nice.

we spend way too much money on little design details lol. one of my first products as a product manager, we were basically asked to copy this thing in terms of features, size, and general design. but make it look "more premium"

so our industrial designers came up with this, which i guess does look more "premium"

but the problem is the original xiaomi one is literally just an extruded aluminum tube, they can just punch out the holes and cut off sections from the giant extrusion or whatever. build all the electrical parts separate and attach them to the plastic side cap and just slide everything into the metal housing. done. because of the curves and the overall shape of our fancy one, we had to extrude out the aluminum on each one individually, and we couldnt just use a punching process for all the holes, we had to chemically etch them into the surface. and we had to attach the PCBA into the metal housing first, in a tight space that was not nearly as easy to assemble. so our version ended up literally like 4x more expensive retail price and most of that was from ME cost

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:26

Jonny 290: May 5, 2005; [ASK] me about OS/2 Warp

lol jfc. (also imo the first on looks way nicer)

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:29

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Jonny 290 posted:

lol jfc. (also imo the first on looks way nicer)

the first one retailed for $29.99. we spent $8.50 on mechanical BOM just on the 1 piece aluminum housing on ours. ended up retailing for $150 and nobody bought it

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:32

Trimson Grondag 3: Jul 1, 2007; Clapping Larry

fart simpson posted:

we spend way too much money on little design details lol. one of my first products as a product manager, we were basically asked to copy this thing in terms of features, size, and general design. but make it look "more premium"

so our industrial designers came up with this, which i guess does look more "premium"

but the problem is the original xiaomi one is literally just an extruded aluminum tube, they can just punch out the holes and cut off sections from the giant extrusion or whatever. build all the electrical parts separate and attach them to the plastic side cap and just slide everything into the metal housing. done. because of the curves and the overall shape of our fancy one, we had to extrude out the aluminum on each one individually, and we couldnt just use a punching process for all the holes, we had to chemically etch them into the surface. and we had to attach the PCBA into the metal housing first, in a tight space that was not nearly as easy to assemble. so our version ended up literally like 4x more expensive retail price and most of that was from ME cost

i love this kind of thing, 'designed to be cheap' not 'cheaply designed' for the xiaomi product.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:37

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Trimson Grondag 3 posted:

i love this kind of thing, 'designed to be cheap' not 'cheaply designed' for the xiaomi product.

yeah its the difference between designing something to be manufactured, vs designing something to look nice (we'll figure out how to make it later)

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:38

Shame Boy: Mar 2, 2010

fart simpson posted:

we spend way too much money on little design details lol. one of my first products as a product manager, we were basically asked to copy this thing in terms of features, size, and general design. but make it look "more premium"

so our industrial designers came up with this, which i guess does look more "premium"

but the problem is the original xiaomi one is literally just an extruded aluminum tube, they can just punch out the holes and cut off sections from the giant extrusion or whatever. build all the electrical parts separate and attach them to the plastic side cap and just slide everything into the metal housing. done. because of the curves and the overall shape of our fancy one, we had to extrude out the aluminum on each one individually, and we couldnt just use a punching process for all the holes, we had to chemically etch them into the surface. and we had to attach the PCBA into the metal housing first, in a tight space that was not nearly as easy to assemble. so our version ended up literally like 4x more expensive retail price and most of that was from ME cost

wait the holes were etched in the case after the circuit board was installed??

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:41

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Shame Boy posted:

wait the holes were etched in the case after the circuit board was installed??

no, before. we actually were able to punch half the holes but we had to etch the other half. but this was all done before final assembly

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:42

mystes: May 31, 2006

fart simpson posted:

we spend way too much money on little design details lol. one of my first products as a product manager, we were basically asked to copy this thing in terms of features, size, and general design. but make it look "more premium"

so our industrial designers came up with this, which i guess does look more "premium"

but the problem is the original xiaomi one is literally just an extruded aluminum tube, they can just punch out the holes and cut off sections from the giant extrusion or whatever. build all the electrical parts separate and attach them to the plastic side cap and just slide everything into the metal housing. done. because of the curves and the overall shape of our fancy one, we had to extrude out the aluminum on each one individually, and we couldnt just use a punching process for all the holes, we had to chemically etch them into the surface. and we had to attach the PCBA into the metal housing first, in a tight space that was not nearly as easy to assemble. so our version ended up literally like 4x more expensive retail price and most of that was from ME cost

Isn't there any point in this where someone is like "hey maybe we should figure out an alternative way to make it look nice that isn't completely stupid"?

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:45

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

mystes posted:

Isn't there any point in this where someone is like "hey maybe we should figure out an alternative way to make it look nice that isn't completely stupid"?

yes. and then they get rejected by management, who are attached to the pretty renderings of the current design. and also we've spent so much time on this by now that changing the design would cause a significant project delay... and part of my bonus is making sure this launches on time

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:46

Trimson Grondag 3: Jul 1, 2007; Clapping Larry

fart simpson posted:

yeah its the difference between designing something to be manufactured, vs designing something to look nice (we'll figure out how to make it later)

yeah i just looked at my xiaomi air purifier and it's just a big tube they could make in various lengths like a 737.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:48

well-read undead: Dec 13, 2022

fart simpson posted:

yes. and then they get rejected by management, who are attached to the pretty renderings of the current design. and also we've spent so much time on this by now that changing the design would cause a significant project delay... and part of my bonus is making sure this launches on time

it�s (dis)heartening to know electronics manufacturing suffers so many of the same dysfunctions as software

maybe it�s� everything that sucks?

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:50

outhole surfer: Mar 18, 2003

i dunno, the karman hardon logo is worth 4x easily

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:51

mystes: May 31, 2006

are the electronics in this one totally obsolete now too because it took so long? (i can't keep the products you're talking about straight)

I realize I'm probably not the target market, but if i'm buying a bluetooth audio device the first thing I tend to look at is the bluetooth version, not because the bluetooth version actually matters, but because it shows how recent the chipset is and the more recent chipsets tend to be way more reliable, so there's no way in hell i would buy a very expensive speaker with an older bluetooth version

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:51

leper khan: Dec 28, 2010; Honest to god thinks Half Life 2 is a bad game. But at least he likes Monster Hunter.

fart simpson posted:

we spend way too much money on little design details lol. one of my first products as a product manager, we were basically asked to copy this thing in terms of features, size, and general design. but make it look "more premium"

so our industrial designers came up with this, which i guess does look more "premium"

but the problem is the original xiaomi one is literally just an extruded aluminum tube, they can just punch out the holes and cut off sections from the giant extrusion or whatever. build all the electrical parts separate and attach them to the plastic side cap and just slide everything into the metal housing. done. because of the curves and the overall shape of our fancy one, we had to extrude out the aluminum on each one individually, and we couldnt just use a punching process for all the holes, we had to chemically etch them into the surface. and we had to attach the PCBA into the metal housing first, in a tight space that was not nearly as easy to assemble. so our version ended up literally like 4x more expensive retail price and most of that was from ME cost

I'd rather have the first one on my desk than the second one.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:57

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

mystes posted:

are the electronics in this one totally obsolete now too because it took so long? (i can't keep the products you're talking about straight)

I realize I'm probably not the target market, but if i'm buying a bluetooth audio device the first thing I tend to look at is the bluetooth version, not because the bluetooth version actually matters, but because it shows how recent the chipset is and the more recent chipsets tend to be way more reliable, so there's no way in hell i would buy a very expensive speaker with an older bluetooth version

well, this was 7 years ago so its obsolete by now. but no at the time that wasnt an issue

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:57

Enderzero: Jun 19, 2001; The snowflake button makes it
cold cold cold
Set temperature makes it
hold hold hold

leper khan posted:

I'd rather have the first one on my desk than the second one.

that�s why you don�t get paid the big bucks. ever hear of Premium Feel? heh, didn�t think so.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 04:58

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

oh yeah, the other fun part is that acoustic volume is hugely important on small speakers like that and curved surfaces add to the silhouette and perceived size, without efficiently adding to usable internal acoustic volume. so our sound quality was slightly worse. lol!

# ? Aug 17, 2023 05:00

Eeyo: Aug 29, 2004

speaking of cheap design, i had to fix up the milk frother we got to mix up my boy's formula.

they designed it without any wires at all. there are contacts for the two aa batteries, then a spring is pressed down with the plastic button, bridging the two battery contacts. the battery contacts on the other end go directly to the motor using springs.

the little motor had regular solder terminals on it but they just slipped two tightly fitting springs over the terminals and pushed them up against the battery contact.

this all worked about as well as you'd expect. the battery contacts actually had a tab coming out so the angle of the spring that bridged the contact would change as you pressed the button, so it would just sometimes not go very fast at all. after flattening the tab and cleaning up the contacts everything actually worked.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 05:02

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

well-read undead posted:

it�s (dis)heartening to know electronics manufacturing suffers so many of the same dysfunctions as software

maybe it�s� everything that sucks?

at least on stuff like this, we spend a year on it and then its "done" and everyone moves on to new projects. i havent worked in software but it seems like people are commonly working on the same product forever?

# ? Aug 17, 2023 05:04

well-read undead: Dec 13, 2022

fart simpson posted:

at least on stuff like this, we spend a year on it and then its "done" and everyone moves on to new projects. i havent worked in software but it seems like people are commonly working on the same product forever?

that is often the case, but not always

so just imagine if your speaker were eternally in the design and production phases simultaneously, and people were constantly coming up with new bad ideas for it

# ? Aug 17, 2023 05:16

qirex: Feb 15, 2001

I know �great artists ship� is attributed to steve jobs but in my experience �employed designers ship� is more accurate

# ? Aug 17, 2023 05:34

Agile Vector: May 21, 2007; scrum bored

TerminalRaptor posted:

Defunctland

they did one about the garfield kennywood ride and one of the concept images from a full theme park was a thirsty boy garfield

# ? Aug 17, 2023 05:40

Shame Boy: Mar 2, 2010

Agile Vector posted:

they did one about the garfield kennywood ride and one of the concept images from a full theme park was a thirsty boy garfield

thanks for reminding me of that

# ? Aug 17, 2023 05:43

Shame Boy: Mar 2, 2010

supposedly jim davis himself made that or something

# ? Aug 17, 2023 05:44

outhole surfer: Mar 18, 2003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK3Yr80lPOY

good stuff

# ? Aug 17, 2023 05:45

BMan: Oct 31, 2015; KNIIIIIIFE
EEEEEYYYYE
ATTAAAACK

fart simpson posted:

bluetooth speaker story

you guys should get bought by apple

# ? Aug 17, 2023 06:00

Internet Janitor: May 17, 2008; "That isn't the appropriate trash receptacle."

i find a tremendous beauty in complex things that have been exhaustively cost-reduced

the internals of those $4 multimeters you can get at harbor freight are a great example: barely anything more than a circuit board with an epoxy blob, a handful of passives, and an lcd, but it works, for a miniscule fraction of the cost of a good meter like a fluke

# ? Aug 17, 2023 06:01