HN user
Cofounder & CTO of Beast, Inc. Bringing magical pets to life in XR.
@otherflipside http://www.beastpets.com San Francisco
Scoring research by reliability in addition to novelty would help fix the incentives in research publications.
Replicating research would boost your reliability score and the original's too which would boost credibility for future research.
I've racked up 3000+ miles riding up and down the hills in SF (530 vertical feet over 3.7 miles). 4 falls, 1 going too fast downhill and overcharging the battery (dislocated shoulder), 1 crossing tracks perpendicular slowly, and twice slipping on wet metal. Except for the first time I only managed to get banged up.
Take safety seriously and remember that things can go bad any time, so go slow (but not too slow) when it's riskier. Knowing how to foot break and fall safely are also musts.
I'm working on Retrace, "Graph-oriented communication" for sharing the ups and downs of experiences via a waveform interface. Reach out if you'd like to chat!
Is there a reason this is published under your domain and not YC?
Just wondering because it sounds like this is the collective wisdom of all the partners (even if you're the one that wrote it).
So in short, "talk what you write" might be better advice than "write like you talk".
I do a lot of hackathons. My record is 4/26 for winning 1st, 16/26 for winning 1 or more prizes, mentored 3 times and judged once.
Do it on a weekend, have interesting sponsors with prizes, and make the judging/presentation criteria very clear from the start. Also attendance can be hard to estimate, not everyone will show up and not everyone will come back, plan accordingly.
Also, three pieces of advice I always give at hackathons:
1. work backwards from the presentation
2. only build what you show
3. only show the interesting parts
This is why I love my Boosted Board do much (well, among other reasons). I can just pick it up and carry it inside once I reach my destination.
Plans like this sound cool, but I think it would be helpful to make a visualization so people could see how the payouts change for different exits, thresholds and % redistributed. Visualizations are an easy way to reduce uncertainty so people understand what they're buying into.
Shoutout for Ampersand.js which was mentioned in the article. The modularity is really nice for keeping things flexible so I can swap out parts as our app evolves.
I haven't had much luck finding the right cofounder despite meeting thousands of people over the past few years so clearly there's a problem. A few months ago I decided that the problem was probably me since I'm far from perfect so I've been spending considerable time on self improvement by working to define and embody our vision, mission and culture (while continuing to hammer away on product).
Is quality the right thing to focus on at this stage or should I just play the numbers game?
Should we try to communicate culture and values in the application? Are those things that YC filters for?
I know a lot of YC alumni, are endorsements about quality or quantity? Are they important?
A strong case can be made because the line is extremely blurry and there can be severe consequences for forcing a category on people that doesn't fit.
Sex and gender are shoved in people's faces practically every waking moment which means this "highly accurate approximation" breaks down billions of times a day with consequences ranging from discrimination and depression to sterilization and death.
How certain are you that you or some close doesn't fall outside the binary?
I channel some of my motivation into cultivating discipline. I also apply discipline to periodically remotivate myself.
In practice this means I'll do a hackathon to build something I want, while limiting myself to using one new technology that has to be relevant to my startup.
To stay motivated I pitch everyone I can because nothing motivates me as much as other people getting excited.
As someone that used to lack motivation and discipline, this has kept be going on my startup for 4+ years.
Edge cases, I love exploring edge cases and even better, the intersection of edge cases (corner cases?). The more edge cases there are, the more interesting something is and sometimes they lead to discovering entire new spaces. I consider myself lucky to have stumbled into an opportunity with my startup that I find endlessly fascinating.
What are the implications of using a patented feature of an open source project?
There's an opportunity to outsource mental models to software in a similar way to how we've outsourced basic math to calculators and basic facts to search engines.
A benefit to a digital mental model is that it could be updated based on new data independent of the owner which has all kinds of (possibly disturbing) implications.
If you like backbone, definitely check out http://ampersandjs.com. They've taken backbone and split it into separate modules with some nice upgrades.
it isn't intended to be used in real-time, let me know what you can infer from that.
neither would i ;)
I absolutely should, but I haven't figured out a system for blogging that doesn't take too much time.
We'll start with YouTube but the original application was TV.
A misguided attempt at rebranding... Probably gonna change it again eventually.
4 years in the company, 10 months on this product.
It absolutely looks like a "bad idea", but all its deficiencies can be compensated and its strengths are unmatched.
The landing page was an experiment and has been slated to be replaced for several months.
I know, right?
One of these days I'll figure out the right way to explain things in writing...
Team has changed, name has changed, product has changed, vision has been refined.
10/30 marks my 4 year anniversary for coming up with the core ideas behind Tinj. We're building dramatically better ways for people to share information starting with video ratings.
More than anything, I've grown enormously as an entrepreneur, as a developer and as a person.
Applying to YC is a straightforward decision every time:
1. YC would definitely be helpful and worth the equity.
2. The application process is a helpful reality check for the status of my startup regardless of outcome.
3. I still believe we have crazy amounts of untapped potential.
I focus just fine on my startup the rest of the time.
7th rejection, doesn't even phase me anymore. :P
For those with less experience, the disappointment will pass. Take a day if you need to reflect on what you're doing, why you're doing it and how you could do it better.
Rejection is fuel for the fire, use it to burn brighter going forward.
Next time, be so good they can't ignore you, simple as that.
Congrats! I remember the debut of firebase at a hackathon back when I could barely code. Since then firebase has become my goto backend for new projects.
Firebase is awesome, keep up the great work!