awt_akris[asciilifeform]: asciilifeform can you post the link to the FG docs? loper-os.org is not currently displaying posts very well.
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: It's called the OP-XY.
asciilifeform: awt_akris: http://nosuchlabs.com
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: asciilifeform: ah yes - thanks
asciilifeform: noprob
asciilifeform: errything still there afaik
asciilifeform: awt_akris: building own fg ?
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: asciilifeform: no just generating some new keys
asciilifeform: aa ok
asciilifeform has the FG II schems/pcb/fw lying around for yrs nao, gathering dust
asciilifeform: the lyso scintillator thing, ~10MB/s
asciilifeform: ( see also re wainot avail. )
dulapbot: (asciilifeform) 2020-08-20 asciilifeform: Aerthean: related reading. it is ~very~ difficult to profit by 'actually Do Right Thing' in engineering, vs. 'convincingly pretend to Do Right Thing' , 'i can't believe it's not butter!' atrocities.
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: I have some experience at demand testing now - successfully marketed and sold t-shirts. While I suspect your reasons for "wainot" are correct, could likely prove it true/false empirically without building the thing.
asciilifeform: awt_akris: if you discover evidence that 100+ people seekritly want a 1000$+ rng, please lemme know
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: asciilifeform: Could likely prove no demand for an ad spend in the 4 figure range or less.
asciilifeform: see e.g. & elsewhere
dulapbot: (asciilifeform) 2022-09-13 asciilifeform: a reasonable rng is 'part of balanced diet'
asciilifeform not aware of any reason to think that anyffin pertinent has changed
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: asciilifeform: not seeing market places where it was advertised, ad campaign details, etc. My recollection of what happened was that dpb bought almost all of the FG units. I don't know what else you tried in terms of marketing them.
asciilifeform: awt_akris: mp & the pete_d fella were in charge of marketing, and iirc did not detail what, precisely, they had done
asciilifeform: phuctor www (and for a time, mp's, with supposedly large audience) had a fg banner for a time
asciilifeform: that, iirc, was all
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: yeah my current impression is that mp's audience was very very niche given that I come across links to trilema virtually never, and no one I talk to has ever heard of him.
asciilifeform unprepared to even speculate how to convince e.g. microshit victim that a trng is a useful addition to his setup, given that 'medicine for corpse'
dulapbot: (asciilifeform) 2020-08-20 asciilifeform: it is also the case that rng as commercial product is a very questionable biz proposition. it takes quite a bit of 'adulthood' to even get to a place where you actually benefit from a 1000 $ rng. for instance, microshit victims dun really win anyffin from using whatever external rng.
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: IDK either. But honestly looks like no one seriously tried to market it.
asciilifeform: the folx pushing suborned crypto hardware have ~infinite marketing budgets (and vendor lock), the hero who can counter this is prolly not yet born.
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: What do you mean by infinite? Millions/month in adspend?
asciilifeform: infinite as in usg printing press collectively feeds the lot of'em
asciilifeform: (even if any particular shop very much 'finite')
asciilifeform: infinite as in anthill, all the while life of any particular ant is not long
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Ok well was trying to put a number on it
asciilifeform: imho attempts to 'put number' are inescapably focusing on wrong aspect
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Because I guarantee you if you buy ads, they will be seen by real people.
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Or if you put a listing in a marketplace - will be shown to real people
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: And it will cost a specific amount
asciilifeform had bought www ads in previous times, long before the fg episode, for 'clearly superior to prevailing $shitware and not even expensive' product, with $0 to show for the ads, went away believing that pushing serious scientific instruments to www randos is a fool's game
asciilifeform: anyone who seriously thinks 'fg not correctly marketed' is invited to prove asciilifeform wrong by buying 100k$+ worth in 1 go and marketing'em himself
awt_akris[asciilifeform] bought ads with > $0 to show for it now what lol
asciilifeform: asciilifeform however is done with fronting costs (incl. own time) on long shots
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: asciilifeform: so it was seriously marketed or what lol and who asked asciilifeform to front any costs omg
asciilifeform: well notionally 'hey if only made moar/sequel, and correctly sold, would sell' is at least hypothetical 'wat if front' neh
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: nope incorrect - didn't suggest that a sequel be made, only marketed, and didn't specify by whom
asciilifeform: asciilifeform's collaboration with mp was 1 long episode of fronting serious $ / time , with ~0 to show for it, ftr
asciilifeform: iirc there was actually a fella who proclaimed, circa '18 or so, that he'll be baking & selling own fg-like. iirc nuffin happened there
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: baking one without proving demand would be a bad idea, as we've seen.
asciilifeform: whosoever convincingly 'proves demand', can have as many as he wants, 'will roll off conveyor like sausages'(tm)(r)(hrusch). but asciilifeform aint aboutta spend anyffing whatsoever prior to seeing said proof.
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Dunno why proves demand is in scare quotes here.
asciilifeform: awt_akris: for asciilifeform's edification, plz describe the hypothetical in detail
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Create a kickstarter campaign for product. Spend $(one year worth of netflix) on promoting it and see what happens. If nothing happens after maybe 4 weeks of daily ad campaign iterations, delete kickstarter page. Move on with life.
asciilifeform: not that one couldn't, but goodluck trying to convince folx to pony up for 1000$ (hand-tested, like aircraft engine) trng on kickstarter where already they see 100% phunded <100$ 'just as good' (from their pov) trngs
asciilifeform: 'pearls before swine' etc
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Why would you go after cheapskates? They're the worst.
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Literally the worst customers to have.
asciilifeform: is there a separate kickstarter for non-cheapskates ?
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: I didn't know kickstarter was only for cheapskates. I do know that the best customers drop $maxint and never bother you.
asciilifeform: the funny thing is, absolutely anyone could've done 'kickstarter for fg' for ~decade nao, the schems+softs have been public since day1
asciilifeform: for sumreason nobody afaik to date did anysuch thing tho
asciilifeform: (afaik nobody to date even baked own unit for own use -- as asciilifeform encouraged folx to attempt -- much less for commercial purpose)
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: asciilifeform: brief search of kickstarter not coming up with any rng devices.
asciilifeform: hm, maybe was on 'other kickstarters' ?
asciilifeform: e.g. (outta print?)
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Amazon is showing there is some market for rng devices.
asciilifeform: the other 1 asciilifeform recalls from l0gz
asciilifeform: there were at least half dozen that were (or still are) buyable
asciilifeform: ( all of'em afaik 'whitened', unshielded, and/or relied on commercial blackbox rng chip rather than auditable analogue circuit )
asciilifeform: ( re shield, 'onerng' is a lulzcow, stuffs the digital microcontroller under the same shield as the entropy gatherer, lol )
asciilifeform: or take the 'takes fw upgrades from pc via usb' lul.
asciilifeform could go on, but pedantically detailed these in #t days when they came out, and afaik erryone tuned in remembers
asciilifeform: then there were the various folx who 'gathered entropy' from rf receiver !
asciilifeform will not say whether 'wreckers' or 'idiots' , but at a certain point difficult to distinguish
asciilifeform: fwiw mp was earnestly convinced that there were folx like himself walking around somewhere, 'serious btc people' who want to buy dedicated, auditable irons, commercial support for same, etc
asciilifeform: seems as if this 'loch ness monster' did not reveal itself. the 'serious bags' seem to have split into 2 types -- one type in fact trusted reich with its coin, parked in goxes
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: I made something based on similar reports from a guy - was completely illusory
asciilifeform: ... the other, 'laying low' and relying on irons/softs wangled together personally / in-house / openly-published 3 or 4 exchrate zeroes ago
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Anyway making the thing first and then marketing it is the reverse of what should be done. For ex. in my t-shirt biz, I didn't make a bunch of baby tees with a specific design, then try to sell them. Made a bunch of listings with mockups, then when they sold, made the shirts.
asciilifeform: awt_akris: 'print on demand' worx a++ for shirts, boox, etc
asciilifeform: not so much for items which require tooling, back'n'forths with fab houses, etc
asciilifeform: items where unit cost can vary within 2 or 3 orders of magnitude (and with considerable 'floor', as hand-tested) based on qty made -- poor fit for 'sell custom-printed coffee cups' method
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: I object to the notion that you can't sell electronics before producing them.
asciilifeform: plenty of folx in fact tried (and continue)
asciilifeform: e.g. 'hackrf' was a kickstarter product
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: I've purchased a few such items - the lightphone for example.
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: They are even still around.
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Making new stuff.
asciilifeform not contending that 'kickstarter -- scam, nothing was ever baked there' fwiw
asciilifeform contends, however, that cryptography -- as a field -- is so thoroughly 'schneierized', that likely scarcely a dozen people alive have any kinda grasp of what the real thing loox like, and what one oughta expect to pay for it
asciilifeform: ... the rest, either wanna pay $0 -- 'rng comes with intel and mswin' crowd, or '$35' -- the various usb stix etc
asciilifeform: ( consider various other lulcrypto-ware, e.g. 'trezor', to see what kinda 'pearls' the 'swine' are interested in buying & at what price point )
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Well aware of the hw wallet scam
asciilifeform: of course, for thread-completeness, there is the other end of the scale, 20+k$ 'quantum zyz11222!!!' boxes, but these are sold via usg favouriteson 1-bid contracts, rather than 'to humans' afaik
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: I suspect that they're buying the podcasters for extremely cheap
asciilifeform: awt_akris: likely
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Well known that X account paid tweets can be purchased for 4 figure amounts.
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: Seems like only the "bad guys" ever bother to buy anyone off though.
asciilifeform: aha, and there the winner is the 1 who spends moar $ on buying twits, and as little as possible on the actual product
asciilifeform: spending on the product -- moar or less -ev
asciilifeform: hence wai kickstarter, as asciilifeform remembers it, was emblematic for hucksters pushing e.g. chinese whitelabel routers with custom-printed sticker, shitlinux + 'tor' etc. shitware inside, and some fancy verbiage
asciilifeform: there -- product costs just about $0 from their end, and 'over9000 profit' if just about any chumps can turn up to buy
asciilifeform: and so yet there it becomes a q of bribing 'influencers' and swimming in various online cloacas in search of the gullible
asciilifeform: this kinda activity has, yes, made a few people rich, but asciilifeform has 0 interest in being involved in any variant of it, in any capacity whatsoever (oughta not be surprise to anyone tuned in)
awt_akris[asciilifeform]: What would be the cost per fg on a 1k unit run?
asciilifeform: the original fg ? prolly 20bux or so (assuming 'buy at own risk' rather than ' asciilifeform tests each 1 on desk ' )