I bought a copy when it was discussed on HN back in March and loved reading it. I lent it to some like-minded builders-of-things at work and they loved it too and sold it on a few others. It's super inspirational and down-to-earth, like yeah you can just go to Shenzhen, learn the ropes, and get your ideas manufactured whole-sale if you just go out and do it.
I loved the heirloom laptop idea that he made, and was inspired by the on-board GPIO to discover the FT232H breakout board that Adafruit sells (basically GPIO over USB) and now I have a cool "swiss army knife" for my PC. Sure made it easier to read precise measurements from my digital protractor while calibrating my DIY star-tracking camera mount.
That's just a little idea, but this book gets big ideas spinning in your head. Highly recommended.
Worth noting that the author's other book in a similar vein, "Hacking the Xbox", was made freely available by No Starch Press in a kind of protest after Aaron Seartz' death: https://www.nostarch.com/xboxfree
I still remember an article of his I read about hacking the Xbox. Made me realize that security is ultimately physical. If you can gain physical access to the secret (such as a key obscured in Xbox hardware) then the secret is compromised.
> billpollock (founder, no starch press): It's based on bunnie's blog but one of our editors poured her heart and soul into this. She's a EE with incredible passion.
Note: this book has been in print for a while, since March, 2017.
I love bunnie's work and I got this book as soon as I could. It's good, but a little uneven: it felt like stitched-together blog posts (which much of it is), without good unifying threads.
I do recommend it though, especially for entrepreneurs contemplating a hardware startup. The war stories are a reminder of how hard it is to build and ship reliable hardware, and how you can get tripped at every turn.
I've been contemplating for a while, how much does it make sense to move to Shenzhen for a while to understand how production works. How important is it to speak Mandarin ? Are there companies hiring, where I could get a glimpse into that?
Of course like many others I'm spoiled by SF salaries, however I've noticed that there are huge numbers of valley hardware startups and crowfundings and most of them fail when it comes to actual production.
Ps. I'll probably get this when I'm home, but am curious if any of these questions are answered there.
Take a class in Chinese to get the basics. You won't be able to have much of a conversation at such a basic level, but it will make life much easier around China if you can be self sufficient.
I was just in Shenzhen two weeks ago, and though I can speak basic Mandarin and read some Chinese, I was thrown a curve at the train station. Almost no English at the train station, which was also true in Wuhan and a few other places. That's a big deal, because taking high speed rail is much more pleasant than flying.
Reading it as we speak. For a noob in hardware, it's a very good read that highlights some unexpected aspects of Chinese manufacturing. Sometimes the book takes a turn from a high-level overview and jumps into minute details, but you can always just skip those parts for now.
If you don't want to buy a book, there is a video on YouTube about him which talks about many things covered in the book. It's about an hour long.
Anyone looking to learn about the Shenzhen hardware scene is welcome to join us here on a nontrivial project for either a paid internship or (with relevant skills, experience or motivation) a full time position. Minimum commitment 12 months. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15157396
I loved the heirloom laptop idea that he made, and was inspired by the on-board GPIO to discover the FT232H breakout board that Adafruit sells (basically GPIO over USB) and now I have a cool "swiss army knife" for my PC. Sure made it easier to read precise measurements from my digital protractor while calibrating my DIY star-tracking camera mount.
That's just a little idea, but this book gets big ideas spinning in your head. Highly recommended.