Torvalds used Claude Code. Judge the patch, not the tool.
Linus Torvalds signed a kernel patch series written with an LLM. Here is what other projects now ask of AI-assisted code, and the bar we hold ours to.
Blog · Category
Business update
The long tail that pays the bills
Not every lab sale is one of our flagship instruments. Here is the smaller, faster-moving end of the same niche.
Six steel tables and a shop that finally looks like one
We bought a lot of mid-century drafting tables to outfit our own workspace. Here is where that project actually stands.
Where the logo came from
The mark on the site came from somewhere specific, and the old favicon had been wrong for months now.
The app that runs our business, and how we would build yours
One app takes our surplus lots from auction to shipped sale, with AI doing the research. Here is how it works, and what it looks like for a trade business.
Nine calipers for a dollar forty-five
Not everything that pays the bills looks impressive: new old stock calipers that cost about sixteen cents a unit.
Every listing gets a bench report now
A listing with no description tells a buyer nothing. We are writing up what was actually tested on every unit.
We had seventy-five items filed under Other
An RF signal generator and a box of pipettes were both filed under Other. Here is why cataloging breaks down.
Every eBay-listed buy button now goes to eBay
Every storefront listing cross-listed on eBay now routes purchases to eBay. The real reason is buyer protection, not fee avoidance.
Repair buys speed. Testing buys margin.
Our own repair-ticket data: tested units sell in about half the time of untested ones, and at a far higher margin.
We are becoming a lab equipment business
We started out buying computers. The bench is now full of chromatography, ultrasonics, and an atomic force microscope. Here is why that happened.
We moved into a space in Frankford
Strommen Systems now has a workshop in Frankford, Philadelphia. It is a working space, not a storefront, and here is what it changes for buyers.
What "refurbished" should mean and usually does not
Most refurbished PCs are sold half finished: wiped, reinstalled, and shipped. Here is the standard we hold ours to, and why Secure Boot is the tell.
The niches we buy into, and the ones we leave alone
We do not buy everything that is cheap. We buy in four specific niches where knowledge is worth more than capital. Here is the map and the reasoning.
What we are building at Strommen Systems
We buy government surplus and corporate liquidation lots, test and repair what is worth saving, and sell it direct. Here is the thesis behind the business.