
Show HN: HackerThings - Products for hackers - coderdude
http://www.hackerthings.com/
======
angrycoder
Pretty cool. It reminds me of what ThinkGeek used to be before it turned into
Spencer's for faux-nerds.

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...](http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=topre_keyboards,rftenkeyless&pid=rf_se1700)

Happy Hacking
[http://www.elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=pfu_keyboards...](http://www.elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=pfu_keyboards,hhkbpro2&pid=pdkb400b)

~~~
aiurtourist
Also, Unicomp Customizer 104/105:
<http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/customizer.html>

~~~
memset
What is a "Linux2" keyboard layout?

~~~
buro9
<http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/pckeyboards_2163_276533>

~~~
ggruschow
Geez. You'd think that the letter N, being at the very center of both GNU and
Linux, would warrant a space on a Linux user's keyboard.

------
paulgerhardt
Very cool.

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_...](http://www.lukecole.name/research_and_projects/personal/usb_missile_launcher/)

~~~
coderdude
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.

------
0x12
Suggestionss: check all option (for those with fat wallets) and weird tools
like lock pick kits.

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.

~~~
coderdude
Thanks for the suggestions. The weird tools idea is a good angle.

~~~
nickzoic
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 :-).

------
hooande
You, sir, are a genius and a scholar. This site is going to hit my paycheck
every week for months.

~~~
benblodgett
Haha same, I cannot wait to assemble the mini rocket engine.

~~~
coderdude
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.

------
mark_h
I love how the use of "hacker-news orange" (#f60) instantly makes things look
hacker-ish now! (Might just be for me)

~~~
coderdude
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?

------
rix0r
Another suggestion, similar to the Hand Moldable Plastic: <http://sugru.com/>

~~~
hopeless
Sugru is the business. I love the stuff. Last night (with one small sachet) I
added a focus confirmation chip to a manual SLR lens, replaced two missing
feet of my netbook, filled in an annoying embossed Belkin logo on my iPhone
case and added a big colourful zip pull to my camera bag.

This stuff is made for hackers!

------
mcantor
The Kinesis keyboard seems germane to this site:

<http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/>

(Talk about "cure for disposable income"... they're actually great to type on
once you get used to it; they're just not worth $300).

By the way, this is a delightful and simple site; I signed up for the
newsletter, and I want to give you my money somehow. For what it's worth, I
wouldn't bat an eyelash at affiliate links. I agree with joshu that curation
is a huge value-add. In mere minutes, just based on the design of the site and
the content on it right now, you have gained my trust! Treat it well and
benefit from it.

~~~
coderdude
Thanks for the words of encouragement! I have to admit, I am having second
thoughts about making money from this.

------
nickzoic
Nifty. Like the minimalist design. I reckon what it really needs is some kind
of subtle recommendation filter based either on like/dislike
(interesting/boring?) buttons or just on what items you bother to click
through to. Maybe a little (X) button to say take-it-away-and-don't-show-me-
it-ever-again.

PS: Go ahead and put affiliate links on it, its got to pay for itself somehow.
IMHO affiliate links are less obnoxious than ads taking up room. Just make
sure you don't let the affiliate income bias your selections too much, or the
usefulness of the site will be degraded.

~~~
coderdude
Thanks for the suggestions! RE: the PS, my friend and I were just discussing
this. That was my biggest issue, that my judgement would be clouded or that
people might believe that my judgement was being clouded.

------
pnathan
Dude, awesome!

\- 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? ;)

~~~
coderdude
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. ;)

~~~
KirinDave
I am sure the Learn You A Haskell Guy would love to see his book receive more
distribution. He's really nice, you should ask him.

And the bookhas the distinction of being on of the ONLY approachable and
natural explanations of monadic programming.

~~~
coderdude
Awesome, I'll definitely check the book out.

------
toot
I've seen a couple of sites like this that have done well generating traffic
from niche forum banner ads (<http://toppppp.com> is the one that sprints to
mind immediately).

My worry with these types of passive income sites is the upkeep for pricing
information. The OP's source looks like he's manually printed the price, and
the same with my example except their prices are quite out of date by now.
Does anyone have any ideas how best to scrape the price from the 3rd party
site?

~~~
coderdude
Yep, I have to manually keep track of the pricing. It's going to be a pain as
the site grows. Growing pain I suppose. I don't showcase very many retailers.
It wouldn't be difficult to write a simple Python script to fetch the product
pages for the retailers I carry the most items from and automatically update
the price. I can take care of the rest by hand.

------
ltamake
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.

Nice site, by the way. Has some very cool stuff.

~~~
coderdude
Thank you, and I didn't know the batteries sucked. I'll remove them in my next
update. Don't want to show off crappy products.

~~~
noonespecial
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).

~~~
ltamake
I was just gonna suggest this. Reviews would also be a great idea because they
would be "for hackers, by hackers" in a way.

------
revorad
This is one of the most well-designed and interesting projects I've seen
posted here. Considering you built it in a weekend, that's truly amazing.

What's your plan going forward?

~~~
coderdude
Thank you very much.

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.

~~~
joshu
Bullshit - curation is a valuable act and you should get something for doing a
good job of it.

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)

~~~
coderdude
There are a few people telling me I should be trying to hook up some kind of
money making deal with this. It's something I should seriously consider.

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!

~~~
joshu
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...

~~~
coderdude
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.

~~~
joshu
Drop me an email and I will remember to write up my ideas.

~~~
coderdude
Awesome -- what's your email address?

~~~
joshu
You should be able to figure it out from my profile + google :)

~~~
coderdude
Somehow I knew this was a test. LOL

I'll find it.

------
arethuza
You might want to add some items from the United Nuclear website:

<http://www.unitednuclear.com/>

Lots of fascinating products and number three on the google search results for
"buy uranium"! :-)

~~~
coderdude
Thanks, I'll definitely check it out.

------
alanh
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.)

[1]: [http://www.inventables.com/technologies/temperature-
sensitiv...](http://www.inventables.com/technologies/temperature-sensitive-
glass)

~~~
mootothemax
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:

[http://cdn.inventables.com/technology_application_images/565...](http://cdn.inventables.com/technology_application_images/5654/2146_App_Temperature-
Sensitive_Glass_Tiles_Shower_big.jpg)

Very cool stuff, but at quite a heavy price ;)

~~~
iliis
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)

[1] [http://www.inventables.com/technologies/super-absorbent-
poly...](http://www.inventables.com/technologies/super-absorbent-polymer-
spheres)

[2] <https://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/cd32?srp=2>

------
tryitnow
I just have to keep away from this site...I am just going to pretend this is a
dream and it doesn't really exist.

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.

~~~
coderdude
Kind words ;)

Glad you found the stuff there so interesting!

------
memset
HackerThings recently posted a widget I created (the ATX Power Supply to Bench
Supply). In a few days I'll post a writeup of traffic (or sales, if any, none
so far) mainly for the benefit of coderdude.

Thank you, coderdude, for sharing my product!

~~~
coderdude
No problem. Thanks for showing me something cool to put on the site. ;)

------
saracen
Great site! Congrats on launching!

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

~~~
coderdude
Thank you! Feels good.

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.

~~~
pork
Why bother? Just hook up Disqus--it's free and just a couple of lines in your
html.

~~~
coderdude
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.

------
sp332
Since people are posting suggestions, how about Bloxes? <http://bloxes.com/>
They ship flat, you just fold them up and build structures out of them.

~~~
coderdude
Hey that's pretty neat. They'd make a fun addition to the site!

------
ctekin
I think I'll click the subscribe button for the first time in my life.

------
aashay
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.

~~~
coderdude
That's in the works. Well, not yet but I do plan on it. The site is pretty
bare bones as far as features are concerned.

~~~
aashay
Nice, thanks!

------
mbesto
Cool! One suggestion - make it more like Uncrate: <http://uncrate.com/>

So, add:

\- Tags

\- Categories

\- Filtering (most popular, saved, etc)

\- Saving

\- Blog style (so people can direct link, or just provide direct link)

\- Similar items (via categories or tags)

~~~
coderdude
Definitely some good advice. Although I probably won't make it like a blog, I
do agree that each item should be linkable. That's something I wish I'd done
before submitting it. Hindsight! But those are all features I think I should
incorporate as soon as possible.

------
adrianwaj
I would love to see more EMF shielding products, including clothes. Some of
the stuff here looks great: <http://www.lessemf.com/personal.html>

I'd like to wear this on a date for sure:
<http://www.lessemf.com/images/a260.jpg> (being optimistic, then run one of
the Faraday canopies over the bed)

~~~
coderdude
Hmm... those RF shielding boxers do look pretty comfortable... ;)

~~~
adrianwaj
EMF has been shown to reduce sperm count and testosterone, if those boxers can
help - great.

------
sneak
Oh god, love it. The ultimate cure for disposable income.

One suggestion, which may be unpopular: As many cool "let's build stuff" ideas
as I get when browsing sites like this, a tag or filter for stuff that is
complete, ready-to-use products would be helpful, as I already have too many
PCBs scattered around and most times should only be buying complete products
that can actually improve my life directly.

~~~
coderdude
Not a bad idea! Thanks for the suggestion.

------
gadders
You know what I like about this website? It doesn't use the word "curated" to
describe what it does.

{I realise this is an off-topic personal bugbear)

------
sfkaos
Excellent job! Clean, simple, effective... perfect.

Will you update this daily? And will the number of items you showcase be the
same?

~~~
coderdude
Thanks!

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.

~~~
paul-woolcock
What would be the best way for others to suggest products to add? Tweet them
@hackerthings?

~~~
coderdude
For now that will work. Or you can email stuff@[the HackerThings domain]. I
plan on adding a suggestions form though very soon.

------
phatbyte
Dammit, I want everything in there ! Congratulations btw.

~~~
coderdude
Thanks!

------
rhdoenges
Everything here is great.

relevant: <http://isitchristmas.com/>

------
dotBen
Tell us more about the "backend"... are you drop shipping this stuff or do you
have inventory?

~~~
coderdude
I'm not selling any of this stuff myself. It's just a big page of links to
other sellers. It would be neat though to have inventory of my own!

~~~
dotBen
Oh I see, sorry - I didn't actually click through otherwise I'd have seen that
:P

You should definitely check out the excellent Adafruit Industries for similar
geeky goodies (<http://www.adafruit.com/>)

~~~
coderdude
Awesome, another great source I didn't know about. Thanks!

------
msutherl
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?

~~~
coderdude
I do not use any affiliate programs nor do I ever intend to. It's just for
fun.

------
webmonkeyuk
The site looks great, full of stuff I'm now trying not to buy...

How to plan to make money from the site? I guessed that the links would be
tracked to affiliate schemes but they just look like straight links to the
retailers' sites

~~~
coderdude
No plan for making money on it. Just doing it for the fun of it!

~~~
webmonkeyuk
As long as you don't compromise the content of the site (i.e. only promoting
products that earn you the greatest award) it could be worth considering at
some time, even if it just makes you some beer money.

Keep up the good work!

------
laxk
USB-Rechargable AA Batteries is amazing idea!
[http://www.inventables.com/technologies/usb-rechargeable-
bat...](http://www.inventables.com/technologies/usb-rechargeable-battery)

------
tsumnia
Definitely happy to see the Emotiv headset on the site! I am currently using
one to run a study on brain wave activity on athletes.

Definitely going to keep an eye on your site.

------
tjpannu
Did you use a CMS or did you build this from the ground up?

~~~
coderdude
The backend uses web.py <http://webpy.org/>

It's a truly kick-ass framework. I suggest it to anyone doing Python backend
work.

------
bprater
How often will this be updated?

~~~
coderdude
Once a day, 3 items per update (provided I can find good enough stuff each
day).

------
Oddman
There really is nothing that can top Caffeinated Soap.

------
macca321
This is the greatest site I have ever seen

~~~
coderdude
Wow, that's quite a compliment. Thank you. :)

------
bennesvig
Very neat. I have a pair of those rechargeable USB batteries. They're perfect
for a wireless mouse.

------
fs111
You should see if you could also become a distributor for milkymist.org (open
hardware VJ system).

------
iandanforth
Dammit man, get me a panda board!

~~~
coderdude
Neat! I didn't even know about the Pandaboard until just now. I'll add it in
an update.

------
wilhelm
This is excellent. Thanks!

~~~
coderdude
Glad you like it!

------
adrianwaj
I really like the Bamboo keyboard and mouse. Avoid touching plastic.

~~~
staticshock
Does anyone have any experience with these? The reviews seem rather slim.

------
jamesbritt
Really very nice, and I appreciate the time and effort you put into this. Have
to say, though, that the Facebook association leaves a bad taste.

~~~
fossuser
Really? This complaining about facebook is getting ridiculous. This site
merely has a facebook tag among other services to help advertise it.

~~~
jamesbritt
_Really?_

Really.

 _This complaining about facebook is getting ridiculous._

No, it's not. What's ridiculous is the way Facebook treats privacy. If you're
OK with that, and are happy to see it promoted by propagating Facebook bugs,
that's your choice.

People who find it offensive, though, need to speak up and let site owners
know that they do not approve of Facebook's behavior.

I assume that any site with a FB "like" button is OK with Facebook's "privacy"
policy.

Whatever your thoughts I can't understand encouraging acquiescence through
silence. That's also ridiculous,

James has done a great job with Hacker Things, but if he wants to put a
Facebook tracking item on the site for whatever promotional gain then he
should be doing so with true deliberation, knowing that it will put off some
number of users.

~~~
jamesbritt
Would whoever down-voted me tell me where I'm wrong?

~~~
fossuser
I didn't down vote you (don't have enough karma,but even if I did I still
wouldn't), but I can explain my opinion better.

First the disclaimer: Personally I find the complaining over Facebook's
privacy concerns exaggerated and sensationalized (I don't think it's that big
of a deal).

That being said, I think it's absolutely fine to not agree with Facebook's
privacy policies or have your own personal concerns. I also think it's
completely reasonable not to use the site and even to tell others that you
have some concerns over their policies.

What I think is excessive though, is complaining about it on an unrelated post
about something that has nothing to do with Facebook and saying a simple tag
'leaves a bad taste'. Especially considering a Facebook tag on a different
site has nothing to do with their policies.

~~~
jamesbritt
Thanks for the comment.

 _What I think is excessive though, is complaining about it on an unrelated
post about something that has nothing to do with Facebook and saying a simple
tag 'leaves a bad taste'. Especially considering a Facebook tag on a different
site has nothing to do with their policies._

I would not have brought up FB if I did not think it was germane to the post.
This is a "Hey, HN people, what do you think of my site?" post. The site
includes a FB bug in the form of the "like" button that makes it easier for FB
to track people across sites. That diminishes the site for me. I'm less
concerned with the Twitter button precisely because of the difference in
company privacy policies and past behavior.

When people build sites and decide to tranclude content from other domains
they need to make a deliberate decision about what that means. If you
willingly associate your site with some other site then the expectation is
that you're good with what they do and how they do it.

------
anakin
Briliant! I definitely buy the Emotive headset

------
ropable
Man I wish that I'd thought of this. Great idea, and great site!

------
msinghai
How many sales you got till now? Just asking ... :)

------
geekytenny
nice collection

------
freemarketteddy
Thank you...this is awesome!

~~~
coderdude
Glad you like it!

------
mkramlich
ie. if SparkFun, ThinkGeek and Maker SHED had a baby...

~~~
coderdude
I like that analogy. However, I'd say it's more like if SparkFun and ThinkGeek
were a couple, but then it turned out Inventables was the real dad and
ThinkGeek only got visitation on the weekends.

