danhodgins

If the tail is gone, the dentures become useless

In a metaphorical sense, Ukraine is the scrappy 'startup' aka highly maneuverable speed boat that can turn on a dime, and the US Department of Defence is a cargo ship that takes years to execute a single turn. The drone playbook is out there, plain for all to see but there are too many entrenched stakeholder interests and incentives for the US to emulate the Ukraine drone playbook. You think the US would establish underground 3D printing drone factories? That would be an insult to its military industrial complex, and a tarnish on its sterling prestige, n'est ce pas?

I thought the headline was discussing all of the yurts in Mongolia that are using machine learning.

Fight fire with fire.

Use AI to determine potential essay topics that are as close to 'AI-proof' as possible.

Here is an example prompt:

"Describe examples of possible high school essay topics where students cannot use AI engines such as perplexity or ChatGPT to help complete the assignment. In other words - AI-proof topics, assignments or projects"

Start going to tradeshows for every possible industry you can think of, and bring resumes.

People who network in person almost always have an advantage compared to people with similar qualifications who sit at home and send out resumes.

You are guaranteed to make more connections if you speak to people at the booths. If you take a genuine curiosity in what they do there's usually something interesting to talk about.

So far in my early forties I have:

* Learned to pan for gold on creeks and use sluice boxes * Learned QGIS from scratch to play with mapping, data viz, gov't data sets and API's, etc * Learned to DJ, DJ'd 3 weddings as a wedding gift for others, and experienced profound joy in making mashups and remixes on the fly * Acquired power tools and started to learn metal working and wood working in my garage shop * Decided to learn to weld, so I bought a welder for 50 bucks on FB marketplace and learned with no in-person classes or courses, only YouTube university. Now I can weld, and a whole new world of possibilities has opened up as being able to create and make things is like a superpower. * Rediscovered skiing and snowboarding after being away from both for 20+ years

In terms of learning new things and acquiring new skills, my early forties have been a period of creativity and discovery, not to mention doing my best to be a good parent to our kid and a good husband.

I'm quite proud of these accomplishments, and none of them have anything to do with career or making money.

A performance benchmark examined compilation times in seconds for a large XCode data set. Surprisingly, the 2023 Mac Mini 10 core M2 Pro with only 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage (~$1,900 CAD or ~$1,300 USD) performed extremely well (85 seconds in the test).

The machine even went toe to toe with 10 core M1 Max/M2 Pro Macbooks containing 32-64GB of RAM and 1-2TB of storage.

An interesting result that has me taking a very close look at the 2023 Mac Mini M2 Pro with 16GB / 512GB.

Seems like a very good performance to price ratio for a new machine.

Note - I am scoping the use case down to Xcode compilation only to keep things simple.

Also - if one is willing to get an 8 core machine instead, for $100 CAD more you can get M2 8 core with 24GB RAM and 1TB SSD for $2,000, which also seems like great value (though XCode compilation in the test took 20-30 seconds longer).

Thoughts? What is your experience with XCode development and compilation using the M1/M2/M2 Pro Mac Mini?

Excel-erate your breath... or spreadsheet

@ExoticPearTree - "Google is an advertising company with hobbies."

This should be Google's mission, purpose, values and tagline.

Lol : )

Totally agree. An idealized journal of one's life over time on Instagram is way more interesting and revealing than any dating app could ever be.

The reductionist argument is that everyone wants to feel 'good', and that life is solely is about chasing a chemical high from natural dopamines, endorphins, oxy, etc that are produced by the body.

Both males and females want the hottest, wealthiest and most interesting person they can pair up with, regardless of their own attributes.

To state the obvious - people who are ugly, fat, poor and boring (as in way below average) have it rough, as they may not be chosen as a long term partner by someone they consider ideal or even acceptable.

For those people, single is better than settling.

You either need to:

1. Spend time getting good at marketing (read books, do the work, get feedback). 2. Spend money for an agency or consultant to do it. 3. Spend equity and/or profit sharing for a partner to do it.

No marketing is not an option.

At its simplest, marketing is nothing more than:

1. Repeat exposure to branding and messaging over time to build familiarity

2. Direct response (in-person or online messaging designed to produce some type of response, right now)

3. Positioning: your 'lane', the unique space you ocupy in the market, relative to competitors.

Clarify your value proposition(s) first, and then you'll need to determine how to make a simple presentation about your product.

I use the word 'presentation' more broadly to encompass any type of communication piece about your product.

Tip - study advertorials. They force you to create editorial content that relates to your product that is more story or customer-driven, and is often far more effective than regular ads highlighting features or benefits.

You can then drive paid media PPC/CPM traffic to your advertorials, and then hit them up with direct response retargeting / remarketing ads after pixelling them.

Be prepared that no one will respond during the first interaction or touchpoint. It requires many touchpoints to develop trust and familiarity.

If you're going to spend on ads, try to 'capture' them somehow - into a FB group, email list, etc where you can get in front of them for free the next time.

So, make friends with the concept of repeat exposure and advertorials, and get busy. Good luck!

Google is lucky they have so many monopolistic elements in their business model, otherwise customers would be leaving left, right and center due to non-stop shutdowns of serives they launch.

Using a Google app, and investing any time whatsoever is a waste as it will be gone 6 months to 2 years down the road.

Seems like brutal PR to me, but they can get away with it.

It sounds like the service launches and shutdowns are incentivized anyway based on what other commenters are saying, so that would explain it.

Follow the money!

I actually prefer that Spotify have both podcasts and music in their app. I would be more annoyed if I had to use a separate app for the two use cases. In my view, both are audio entertainment, so it makes sense. I can see how this would annoy some people though.

To everyone who created, maintains and improves Homebrew - thank you! It's an awesome solution that makes things really easy. Your work is appreciated.

"Writing is rewarding. Writing is empowering. Writing is even fun. As human, we are wired to communicate. We are also wired for “play.” Under the right circumstances, writing allows us to do both of these things at the same time."

What if on day one you showed up to high school English class, and there were 2 terms on the board: 1. COMMUNICATION 2. PLAY

The teacher then said: "The most successful people in the world are the best communicators. This is true in every field - business, science, technology, medicine, sports, the arts and politics. The most successful people also have a love of play and get the chance to practice it during their work day. Whether its in business, the arts, or intellectual pursuits. Would you like to learn to be successful like them? Have I got your attention? Alright, let's go."

Although this would be a non-egalitarian and elitist curriculum , it would be highly appealing for me. I would want to attend a course like this, and I would forgo the author's offer to not attend and still get an A. I would attend, and get the A.

Surely we can improve course design so high school students aka humans 'studying life' can learn success, and it just so happens that writing is part of becoming your best self and reaching your potential.

Teachers could benefit from some 'marketing style' re-positioning and re-framing of the curriculum to what is relevant and resonant for students.

There is a major relevancy problem in the high school curriculum.

What if the gym teacher said: "today we're going to talk about Jordan. Best fadeaway jumper in the business. How did he do it? You're about to learn about one of the greatest players in history."

Or if the English teacher said: "Obama. Jobs. Musk. Why are they so persuasive from the podium? Listen up, because you're about the find out how they craft presentations that move millions of people and billions of dollars in product."

My high school English teacher let me write an essay analyzing lyrics in songs by the Doors as poetry. It was awesome, and I got an A.

-Dan

Exactly, one type is called BNPL (buy now pay later).

jjeaff - BNPL (buy now pay later) by companies such as Affirm may help level the playing field in applicable industries/cases as a 3rd party can shoulder the risk.

With BNPL, small companies are paid right away (within 1-2 business days), and the BNPL provider is responsible for collecting payment from the other party.

I don't think BNPL it would apply in this case specifically as the grocery industrial complex seems stuck in the last century, but in other cases it is an innovation in payment terms that could help.

Full disclosure - I have no affiliation with Affirm or any other BNPL provider.

Upvoted.

I use Affinity Designer for Mac (an Illustrator alternative). (90 day free trial, and then $40 one time after that - for lifetime ownership). So done with Adobe - their software is a total system hog, and they are now sketchy as an organization.

Amazing story about hustle and initiative... from an 8 year old kid. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did! -Dan

Roll-your-own filtering of RSS or API results is an interesting idea, Paul. Thanks for sharing.

Have you seen a catastrophic failure of an e-bike e.g. lithium battery fire? Would love to hear about it in the comments. -Dan

My experience with doing a podcast has been very positive. Check out the Dan Hodgins show where I share thoughts on life and business - http://DanHodgins.com. It's available on Itunes, Spotify, Sticher, Google Play and elsewhere. The first two shows are on the topics of greatness (episode 1) and naming your product, service or project (episode 2).

Go to tradeshows or conventions. They are the biggest concentration of business owners anywhere.

After you get your logo done you might find you have an ongoing need for a bunch of day-to-day, maintenance graphic design. If that sounds like you then check out Design Butler™ --> https://designbutler.co. We provide Unlimited Graphic Design (flat rate, all-inclusive) - web, print, social, infographics, presentations and more.

Fellow HN'ers - what was your 'now or never' moment when you knew you had to chase your dream or it might never happen? Would be great to hear your stories.

If you want any help with graphics or images for your ebooks my company, Design Butler™ can help.

We offer Unlimited Graphic Design for a flat rate of $379 USD/mo.

Go here to see what types of design jobs we can handle for you:

https://www.designbutler.co/faq.php

Feel free to get in touch with me personally, would be glad to help!

Dan H. Founder, Design Butler™

Dabockster- I did a stint as a tech recruiter a while back (not doing that anymore), so I can offer some perspective from the other side of the table - although limited.

A few questions:

1. How many events do you attend per week? (could be related to any industry at all - could be a tradeshow, a panel of speakers, tech meetups - anything really)?

2. How many hands do you shake at each event?

3. How many people from these events do you follow up with?

If your score is "0" for all of the above then you are doing it all wrong.

You need to meet people in person, each week. The only way to do that short of showing up at the front desk, resume in hand, is to go to events.

You need to set a goal of attending 1-2 events per week (minimum), and figuring out how to get in front of hiring managers from companies you admire.

Figure out what events those people might attend socially or professionally. Get up to speed with events in various industries in your city.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable at events, and find a way to make them enjoyable.

People who log facetime at events do immediately jump to the top of the pile compared to people like you who are #200-300 at the bottom of the stack in the applicant tracking system for some BS job posting on Monster (many of which are for non-existent jobs).

Don't be #300.

Start attending events!

There's no reason you should have to apply for 3,000 jobs, that is a waste of time.

Start working smarter - even if you are introverted and awkward in person.

Now pick your head, up, get out there and get started!

You can do this!

D.