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nrs26

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DC-based entrepreneur. Particularly passionate about education technology, millennial entrepreneurship and startups in general.

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This is very cool. I've been considering doing something similar for my family. Is there a hardware solution (like an open-source GPS-enabled Tile) that you found that could track people's location without installing Life360? I did some cursory research a few months back and couldn't find anything.

Oh you may be exactly the person I need to talk to! I'm looking for a soil humidity sensor that is able to permanently sit in my garden and accurately measure soil humidity and soil temperature. Do you have any advice?

Currently I'm using this one: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1298

But after 3-4 waterings, it reads 95-100% consistently, regardless of the temperature. I've tried 2 of their sensors and have had the same problem.

I am so excited to see this! I've been working on a very similar project to monitor my outdoor vegetable garden using a raspberry pi and some ESP8266's. Like you, I'm using this as a project to better learn javascript, angular and django. It's in the very early stages, but I'm really loving the experience so far.

Here's a picture of my setup. http://imgur.com/a/BV188

I have a enclosure (that I recently made waterproof) that sits out in my garden that has the ESP8266 wireless chip in there, which works very similar to an Arduino with built in WiFi. I have it reading data in from a soil humidity / temp sensor, an air humidity sensor, a light sensor, and a air temperature sensor.

That data gets sent back to a simple django webserver that I have running (indoors) off of a raspberry pi. It records all the sensor readings every 10 minutes and registers them to various plots in my garden. And then, if there are any big issues (no light for 2 days, lower than average soil humidity or soil temperature, etc), it texts me.

Eventually I'll connect it to my irrigation system, but I don't trust it enough yet!

I have the exact same problem with soil humidity sensors that you mentioned. I even sprung for some fancy ones (http://bit.ly/2sMNRnD) that claim to be waterproof. I cannot make them read useful information and, once it rains or I water outdoors, the sensors read 99% for the next few days. It's very frustrating and the missing piece to make all of this work.

Like you, this started as a quick, month-long project and now it's become something a lot bigger :)

I think eventually I'd like to build this out to be a vegetable garden planner, so I can plan my vegetable garden at the start of the season, monitor what's happening with them, and automatically trigger my irrigation system if needed.

Anyway - it was great to read this! I'd love to hear how this project evolves and would be happy to share any of my experiences as I've put this together.

P.S. And, it's a long shot, but if you (or anyone is reading this) figures how to accurately measure soil humidity temperature in a waterproof environment, I would be forever grateful!

[dead] 10 years ago

The capacity of meta-psychopaths to justify their psychotic tendencies is just astounding. :)

Elon Musk AMA 12 years ago

Wish it was longer / more in depth. Seemed like he was rushing through it. Like he has more important things to do...

I think this is a great article and an awesome website in general. I've always been a big gamer and interested in videogame design but I haven't found many accessible essays for non developers. I'll be following the website and new essays from now on!

If anyone knows other websites or essays like this - that are an in-depth look at videogame design - I would love to know about them.

This is fantastic. I have used the same system for the last 4 years and it is the single most useful productivity "hack" in my life. The only change I use is that my reference emails usually go into Evernote.

Kudos for such a useful and comprehensive post!

This has always been my issue with these e-mails.

Either way, it will be awkward, and checking in with someone to see if they can be introduced just adds another e-mail to the chain.

Maybe I'm just overly choosy with who I introduce, but I have never had someone not respond, or say "No, I don't want to be introduced to that person." It just always seems to add an unnecessary step.

Thank you for putting this together and sharing it. I've been flirting with the idea of meditating more seriously for the last few years, and I always find myself making excuses not to continue with it. A 50 or 100 day challenge seems like a manageable experiment, and a better way of deciding if it's worthwhile to continue.

I have a question. Could you explain "The Deep" in a little bit more detail? What happens to your body and your mind? What is going through your head?

I don't need to use bitcoin. Did you need to use the Internet in 1993?

I think this is actually the most interesting point. The truth is that, no, you don't actually need to use bitcoin right now. And that's different than not needing to use the internet in 1993. Right now, there are plenty of substitute goods - more stable, more accessible currency that is used by more people. In 1993 there weren't that many substitute products for the internet.

Said another way: I wanted to do something like send a text string to another person in 1993, the internet was my only option. But if I want to do something like purchase an item right now: there are tons of other ways of doing it.

So, In order to convince me that I need to use bitcoin, the benefits of using it need to outweigh the costs, risks and hassle of converting my money.

From a ideological perspective, I think this really appeals to the HN community (including me). But from a practical standpoint, I can't see this catching on with enough average consumers to really become a stable currency.

At Shutterstock, we’ve delayed the reversion to an uninspired mean by letting different teams and groups in the company develop their own culture.

I worked for a growing tech company over the last 2 years - and was there while it grew from 30 to 150 people. I found that this was one of the most important things to keeping things fun and engaging. It felt like there were a bunch of little startups within a bigger startup.

The only downside thought was that people had divergent ideas of what our company culture really WAS. We hadn't done the work that Shutterstock probably has in defining our overall company values, brand, ideals etc.

I'm going through the startup growth path again and I'm curious to see what other people have seen work in scaling cultures in growing companies. Any big insights or observations from the HN hivemind?