Author Topic: Hackaday Rant  (Read 6101 times)

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Offline phil from seattleTopic starter

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Hackaday Rant
« on: December 11, 2020, 07:28:36 pm »
Well not really a rant but rather personal observation.

I used to like Hackaday. Always showing something interesting and different. They have always had a bit of a lightweight air about them but lately they seem to be really grasping at things to promote and have become intolerant of negative opinion. Recently they promoted a giant Arduino made with painted cardboard and powered by a Nano. Deeply lame. The worst part is they deleted all the comments complaining that they have sunk low. The ones I saw were not nasty or violating their community standards. Another one featured a nearly 2 hour video about how to use embroidery hoops to suspend a microphone.  Interesting idea but a) waaaay too long, b) the camera didn't properly frame the 2 girls doing it and c) the dialog was complete and utter blather (not that I watched more than a minute in total after skipping around a bit). The idea could have been communicated in 1 photo and a sentence or two. Comments pointing that out were deleted. 

For the record, I haven't had any comments deleted.
 

Offline MrMobodies

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2020, 07:45:43 pm »
This one:
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/11/gigantic-working-arduino-uses-1-4-cables/





Just looking at the cables and there still seems to be many but just a bit tidier that's all and I see no tracers on it.

It looks like a decoration to me.
 

Offline Bud

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2020, 07:46:33 pm »
The idea could have been communicated in 1 photo and a sentence or two.
Yes, but the girls ... Didnt you get that?
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Offline floobydust

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2020, 08:38:48 pm »
Hackaday is mainly showboating of one-man band projects, followed by the usual orphaned project- your basic dead end.
There is no community input or divvied up work, just "comments" after the fact. It's like a TV show for projects, Kardashians included.

I tried for two years to buy a Hackaday t-shirt. Got pissed off and flamed Elliot, muh how hard is it to order some t-shirts and have them in stock? Store - deleted lol.
Then they started the hackaday.io "platform" to pimp out people's projects. What a mess - just try clicking on "Files" for the projects and enjoy those .pdf's
Some for sale on Tindie, some open-source, others missing content enough to reproduce the build.

What is Hackaday's revenue model, how do they make profit enough to pay staff and keep the lights on?
 

Offline phil from seattleTopic starter

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #4 on: December 11, 2020, 09:05:41 pm »
The idea could have been communicated in 1 photo and a sentence or two.
Yes, but the girls ... Didnt you get that?
Girls, if I need that, there's lots better places.  But don't tell my wife...
 

Offline phil from seattleTopic starter

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #5 on: December 11, 2020, 09:15:08 pm »
Hackaday is mainly showboating of one-man band projects, followed by the usual orphaned project- your basic dead end.
There is no community input or divvied up work, just "comments" after the fact. It's like a TV show for projects, Kardashians included.

I tried for two years to buy a Hackaday t-shirt. Got pissed off and flamed Elliot, muh how hard is it to order some t-shirts and have them in stock? Store - deleted lol.
Then they started the hackaday.io "platform" to pimp out people's projects. What a mess - just try clicking on "Files" for the projects and enjoy those .pdf's
Some for sale on Tindie, some open-source, others missing content enough to reproduce the build.

What is Hackaday's revenue model, how do they make profit enough to pay staff and keep the lights on?
Good question (about revenue).  They have some tie into Tindie but no other commercial connections like ads.  Seems like that would be a pretty obvious approach. 

Yeah, their projects are, for the most part, hard to actually get details.  They have no standards. It's kind of like TikTok for Tech, content free.
 

Offline Bud

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #6 on: December 11, 2020, 09:37:10 pm »
True, i have not been able to figure out how to get details for a project, all they have is a brief description and then you become lost trying to follow the links. Maybe i am not using the hackaday site correctly but then it is not obvious or straightforward.
Facebook-free life and Rigol-free shack.
 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #7 on: December 12, 2020, 02:07:33 am »
Hackaday is aimed at makers and hobbyists community with an interest in electronics and microcontrollers.  You'll see plenty of 3D printing and Arduinos, but there are some advanced or research papers, too.

They have two very different places:
  • hackaday.com - or the blog where Hackaday editors write a small brief about whatever they consider a good subject
  • hackaday.io - a place for comunity, where any registered user can publish own projects, or maybe just a sketch or an idea
On the blog (hackaday.com) comments may or may not be moderated, depending on the preference of each editor, the number of links in the message, etc.

In the hackaday blog, usually each article has in its first half a link to the original project, followed at the end by links to other hackaday blog/articles about similar subjects.

I think the rant is more about the state of the western society in general and the makers community in special, but if you look at similar makers projects, for example at instructables.com, you'll see hackaday is quite decent on their blogged topics, and the community projects from the hackaday.io are not as simple as the projects from instructables.com.

Again, Hackaday is aimed at enthusiasts, makers and hobbyists.  Would be childish to get upset in the comments for why a newborn doesn't solder like a pro.   ;D

However, Hackaday is always taking suggestions for what to write in their next article.  If you know about an interesting project, or about a possible topic you want them to write about, please click in the blog page on "SUBMIT" and let them know at https://hackaday.com/submit-a-tip/

Disclaimer:
I'm not working for Hackaday, but I posted on hackaday.io some of my projects (or some draft ideas of projects), a couple of them even landed as articles in the Hackaday.com.  Was quite a surprise!   :D
« Last Edit: December 12, 2020, 02:25:28 am by RoGeorge »
 
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Offline phil from seattleTopic starter

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #8 on: December 12, 2020, 06:15:18 pm »
I was specifically referring to the hackaday blog.  A percentage (small, maybe 1/4) of the blog posts point to well thought out, well documented projects with substance.  A similar percentage are at the other end of the spectrum - poorly thought out, undocumented "slow news day" fluff.  Often it is much ado about nothing special. It seems if you can showcase a favored tech-meme it stands a better chance of being covered - anything with with Legos, for example.  Substance seems to be a low priority.
 

Offline retiredfeline

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #9 on: December 12, 2020, 11:30:36 pm »
I don't bother with the .com site. It's more interesting to read the makers on the .io site.
 

Offline floobydust

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2020, 02:49:18 am »
I just see too much showboating "oh look what I made, look what I made!" and some of it is hilarious, things I made as a kid decades ago are suddenly Hollywood material  :P

The majority of maker stuff out there is people making content for getting attention, fame and glory - not the art...
People don't share. I laughed again, e.g.  sim gaming rig with youtube vids and zero BoM, sch or dimensions etc. so it can only be a showboat for someone's project- that you can't build.
3,097,749 views for part one  :palm:
 

Offline Cyberdragon

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2020, 03:50:13 am »
EW!

That thing is a disgrace to plywood...can't even be bothered to paint it. :clap: :-DD

3,097,749 views for part one  :palm:

And then there's 5-Minute Crap-I mean Crafts...
« Last Edit: December 13, 2020, 03:52:09 am by Cyberdragon »
*BZZZZZZAAAAAP*
Voltamort strikes again!
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Offline Whales

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2020, 04:39:30 am »
hackaday.com: Sometimes they link lots of junk, other times there is genuinely interesting stuff.   I've worried about them going bad before but they always manage to oscillate back.

hackaday.io: nightmare architecture, nice inhabitants.  There are some really interesting projects in there but I have to fight the interface to even be able to do simple things like read posts in order.  The interface is 99% trying to hide stuff from you, as if the site has to pay for every word printed and forcing people to navigate a maze is a good thing.  Just put all of the project's posts on one page, in order, not abbreviated, pretty pretty please  :(

I worry that behind the scenes it's some complex framework (Wordpress with multiple users?) that will one day get deemed not worth the effort/money/time and will get abandoned, banishing all of its contents to the geocitiesverse.

giant arduino: not my cup of tea, the idea tastes like Youtube thumbnails.  I'm more of a function than form person.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2020, 05:22:51 am by Whales »
 

Offline TERRA Operative

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2020, 05:29:20 am »
Hackaday is not much more than a content aggregator. They aren't making this stuff they show off (besides a couple of their own projects here and there), they are basically just linking to it with a blurb about the project.
(I'm not going to touch the Hackaday.io thing here, that's just a big steaming pile of badly designed website poop).

Their content quality (outside their own original articles) is almost entirely dependant on what they find around the net, and mostly on what tips people submit for them to check out.
They are bankrolled by Supplyframe, and rely on advertising (which requires clicks) so they are always going to be throwing in the easy clickbaity topics. It's either that, or eventually not exist at all.

So stop your whining, and either start making your own stuff to submit (I've submitted my own projects 3 or 4 times and had my stuff shown every time within the week), submit tips to the stuff you want to see, or go make your own link aggregation site with blackjack and hookers and only the coolest of hardcore projects without a single Arduino and all the 555 timers..


What makes me laugh the most though, is how those complaining the loudest about Hackaday keep going back over and over like a junkie to crack. :D
If you don't like an article, scroll that little mouse wheel to the next one you do like. It's not philfromsealttleaday or floobydustaday or TERRAOperativeaday, everyone is going to like and dislike different things, you complain about this, they complain about that, the other person complains about something else....


Why can't we all just get along? :P
« Last Edit: December 13, 2020, 01:47:38 pm by TERRA Operative »
Where does all this test equipment keep coming from?!?

https://www.youtube.com/NearFarMedia/
 

Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #14 on: December 13, 2020, 06:36:50 am »
Hackaday is mainly showboating of one-man band projects, followed by the usual orphaned project- your basic dead end.
There is no community input or divvied up work, just "comments" after the fact. It's like a TV show for projects, Kardashians included.

I tried for two years to buy a Hackaday t-shirt. Got pissed off and flamed Elliot, muh how hard is it to order some t-shirts and have them in stock? Store - deleted lol.
Then they started the hackaday.io "platform" to pimp out people's projects. What a mess - just try clicking on "Files" for the projects and enjoy those .pdf's
Some for sale on Tindie, some open-source, others missing content enough to reproduce the build.

What is Hackaday's revenue model, how do they make profit enough to pay staff and keep the lights on?
SEO.

The only reason I even see anything related to them is when I'm surfing around for something else and it shows up as a recommendation. Google is the financier here.

edit: read TERRA's post. Yep.



iratus parum formica
 

Offline phil from seattleTopic starter

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #15 on: December 13, 2020, 05:34:56 pm »
Quote
So stop your whining, and either start making your own stuff to submit (I've submitted my own projects 3 or 4 times and had my stuff shown every time within the week), submit tips to the stuff you want to see, or go make your own link aggregation site with blackjack and hookers and only the coolest of hardcore projects without a single Arduino and all the 555 timers..

Perhaps you didn't actually read what I said but rather decided to climb up on your high horse and pontificate to make sure all are able to clearly see your superiority, based on what you hoped was said.

To reiterate, it was about deleting negative comments that do not violate their community standards.
 

Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #16 on: December 13, 2020, 09:45:47 pm »
Quote
So stop your whining, and either start making your own stuff to submit (I've submitted my own projects 3 or 4 times and had my stuff shown every time within the week), submit tips to the stuff you want to see, or go make your own link aggregation site with blackjack and hookers and only the coolest of hardcore projects without a single Arduino and all the 555 timers..

Perhaps you didn't actually read what I said but rather decided to climb up on your high horse and pontificate to make sure all are able to clearly see your superiority, based on what you hoped was said.

To reiterate, it was about deleting negative comments that do not violate their community standards.

It does in the sense that you cannot pile on the whamens for any reason whatsoever now. Maybe the community standards are out of date, but the response to this behavior is the status quo. I'm certain, however, they would have received more favorable comments if they were making sandwiches.
iratus parum formica
 

Offline AntiProtonBoy

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #17 on: December 14, 2020, 02:33:57 am »
I stopped following Hackaday years ago, because they had a lot of fluff like this, even back then. I'm not gonna rant on about how "they are doing the wrong thing", it's just that I realised the content is not for me, and I simply left. Perhaps you've come to the same realisation and need to do the same?
 

Offline Fred27

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #18 on: December 14, 2020, 10:26:30 am »
Did you find anything similar but better? I find most of Hackaday a waste of time - especially when they go through odd phases like ensuring there's the word Arduino in every single title or continually reposting from Instructables. I'd like to find a higher quality source of interesting projects but I haven't found one so I stick with the Hackaday blog page as "better than nothing".
 

Offline TERRA Operative

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #19 on: December 14, 2020, 11:45:54 am »
Quote
So stop your whining, and either start making your own stuff to submit (I've submitted my own projects 3 or 4 times and had my stuff shown every time within the week), submit tips to the stuff you want to see, or go make your own link aggregation site with blackjack and hookers and only the coolest of hardcore projects without a single Arduino and all the 555 timers..

Perhaps you didn't actually read what I said but rather decided to climb up on your high horse and pontificate to make sure all are able to clearly see your superiority, based on what you hoped was said.

To reiterate, it was about deleting negative comments that do not violate their community standards.

The point is you are whining to random people on he internet about a blog that owes you exactly nothing at all.
If you don't like it, stop going back to it like an addict, or give them material to use that you do like instead. Sure, they probably aren't going to change their moderation habits even if you message them anyway (You did do that before bringing your complaints here right?) but they most definitely won't change if you just post your ranting here.

Or keep yelling into the void, whatever makes you happy.
Where does all this test equipment keep coming from?!?

https://www.youtube.com/NearFarMedia/
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #20 on: December 14, 2020, 11:49:59 am »
It's just normal trash media these days:

1. Vague wordy shit
2. Wraps useless crap
3. Split it into N parts to scale up revenue from sponsors
4. shit show comment threads

Best thing you can do is just walk away :-//
 

Offline Fred27

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #21 on: December 14, 2020, 01:22:03 pm »
Wow. Today Hackaday has reached a new low. It's bad enough that it's worth sharing. Yes - you too can now connect an LED via a switch to a battery.
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/little-red-night-light-is-just-right/
 

Offline Yansi

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #22 on: December 14, 2020, 01:25:39 pm »
Why so much annoyed by that? Just ignore it. I just also walk away any time i see some *duino sh..stuff instead of bitchin' how bad it is. It's not even worth that much.

Just let it go, today's "maker" community is anything but electrical engineers, or what once electronics hobbyists were.

The only thing that really bothers me if some incompetent *duino folk presents himself as an electrical (or whatever else) engineer.
 
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Offline bd139

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #23 on: December 14, 2020, 01:40:22 pm »
Wow. Today Hackaday has reached a new low. It's bad enough that it's worth sharing. Yes - you too can now connect an LED via a switch to a battery.
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/little-red-night-light-is-just-right/

Oh that's the Maker cult that one is.

They made a shit torch, something I'd expect from an 8 year old, listed it on instructables, this was picked up by a shite aggregator and everyone's pious self-congratulationary handjobbery goes full whack.

The only thing that really bothers me if some incompetent *duino folk presents himself as an electrical (or whatever else) engineer.

The problem is that's exactly what a lot of people do. People don't know what actual engineers do so the person doing this shit looks like a magician from the future and likes that image. Eventually some day someone asks them a question which requires more than stitching shit together with dupont cables and cutting and pasting some shit from someone else who already did the leg work. Then their universe collapses.

Edit: a canonical example of this was a former boss of mine who was a software dude. He got some traffic lights and wanted to wire them up to our build server so we had a red/green status light. So he went and bought a whole load of stuff from Maplin at the time and proceeded to just bodge it up with tape and dupont wires and all sorts. This was mains powered. When he went home that night, we looked at it and found it was a basic death trap fire hazard from hell. It disappeared that night never to be seen again.  A little knowledge is dangerous.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2020, 01:46:18 pm by bd139 »
 
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Offline mikerj

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Re: Hackaday Rant
« Reply #24 on: December 14, 2020, 02:53:32 pm »
Wow. Today Hackaday has reached a new low. It's bad enough that it's worth sharing. Yes - you too can now connect an LED via a switch to a battery.
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/little-red-night-light-is-just-right/

That project is surely more about the 3D printed design with ball/socket joint to aim the light rather than the circuit?
 


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