How I found my mission at an electronics market in Guangdong Province, China.

This post picks up where 100% more tits left off.

July 1 2014

A Date forever burned into my mind. My first day as a free person, having resolved not to ever again be employed by anyone else. Sure, I was excited as hell, but it was much more than that, too. Not too long after arriving in Shenzhen, we found an apartment in the Xili district of Shenzhen, where you should not live, because nothing's nearby and you'll find your housing overpriced. Then again, in most places in Shenzhen, especially compared to most places in China, you'll find your housing overpriced. I'd first visited Shenzhen in Fall of 2013, but somehow I'd not made it to 华强北 market, the literal epicenter of the global electronics trade. I was too busy being utterly ridiculous and enjoying the more liberal South Chinese culture. (Shanghai is NOT an okay place to be a living human in, you see.)

Dan Sont enters the picture

Around august 1st, I met Dan Sont, a young developer who was working at OnePlus at the time. he, like everyone on their team complained about the total lack of equity (see, it's a "startup" at OnePlus, not a startup) and the working conditions at OnePlus. Eventually, he joined me on my quest. But I haven't yet shared with you my quest.

My Quest

At 华强北 and in the myriad surrounding areas and factories, you can get really high quality electronics at very low prices. Here's a few examples, in addition to the tablets that I mentioned in my earlier post:

A Cluster of Orange Pis

A $15 amplifier that delivers great, clear sound

GeekBox Board

Fenix, the first HW project I was involved in

Banana Pi M3

Q8 Tablet PC with Allwinner CPU

Finding My Mission

As it would turn out, all of these devices has a common flaw: The driver support is so bad that they're effectively not customizable/upgradable on a software level. And this is a shame because China's hardware is the best in the world, hands down. The driver support for these devices is bad for many reasons:

• Poor management
• Poor SW dev choices
• GFW (Internet Censorship)
• Manufacturers didn't care

And thus, my mission:

• To make it easy for these devices to enjoy 100% Linux Kernel support so that they are not "throwaway."