tinkerdol

Mobility and a willingness to learn new skills seems to prevail. It's what other generations have done, millions of immigrants (my parents included).

For an individual this might be a solution (even for me! I've moved around lots too)

But for a whole society it's not. Especially when we seem to be hearing similar stories across thousands of towns and cities. Is everyone supposed to move to the bay area, NYC, Boston, Seatle? What is the housing going to look like? Does the rest of the country just empty itself?

We shouldn't ever confuse machine learning with predicting the future -- just because you've never encountered a black swan in the wild, doesn't mean they don't exist.

That being said, the article otherwise seems like a great introduction. Not sure why they chose that title.

Anyone have recommendations for video ad providers? I would like to embed ads to play before a stream starts, but would also like to do it in the most ethical way possible.

Perhaps off-topic but can anyone recommend coffee shops in central Europe that have this type of atmosphere? Right now I live in a smaller city (not far from Frankfurt, Germany), and the majority of places here are not laptop/work friendly. Instead, they have waiters serving tables and most people are meeting and talking with friends.

I'm from the northeast US so I miss the cafe culture and general workaholism there. If someone could recommend cafes and cities in general that have this and are within a 6 hour train ride from Frankfurt, you'll help me find my next vacation location.

I meant people near me -- either in my city or somewhere within an hour away. I struggle to find people around my area to socially code with.

Meetup.com already provides a way to filter events by location, but the problem is, people need to pay to register events, plus sometimes you are looking for just one or two other people and dont need a whole group.

Nice idea, would be even better if you could filter based on location. This to me is even more important than subject matter.

Yep... and this post is already downvoted to the 2nd page. Despite gathering over 70 comments during the last hour...

I wonder why the techcrunch article just got flagged? (how do you even flag something here, do you need to have an account with a certain number of points?)

discussion was here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13555124

If it is yourself:

Realize it is likely you feel this way for a reason, and it is a sign of health. Do an inventory of the main pieces of your life and note which situations are causing you pain:

- work life

- living/housing situation

- physical health (including movement, sunlight, eating habits and sleep)

- general social life (do you have spontaneous positive interactions with acquaintances, coworkers, baristas etc.)

- personal social life (relationships with partners/family and close friends)

If you are feeling depressed I can bet you more than one thing on this list can deserve attention. Pick one you can change for the better immediately and work on it. For instance, if you are lacking social interaction in general, go pick up a coffee someplace that is not too busy and either smile and make brief small talk with someone working there or another customer. If you don't like your apartment, put effort into finding a new one. Talk to your partner or get relationship counseling. Things are not going to magically become perfect overnight, but small things every day add up over time.

If it is someone you love: Listen if they are talking, talk to them if they are quiet. Generally be supportive. Search for a positive thing they are doing or want to do and give them positive reinforcement for it. They are stuck in a negative thought cycle and try to encourage something in them that is working. Here is an example: Friend: "my life sucks. I hate my job, my expenses are too much for what I make, and on top of all that, I just found out that my girlfriend is selling herself to strangers on Craigslist. I already confronted her about it, but she just says to accept her entrepreneurial polyamory and get over it. At this rate, I am never going to get a phd in deep learning or do a startup or have a stable family like I want"

You: "cool you want to get a phd? yeah I've heard about deep learning it sounds cool... which programs would you want to do/ what projects do you want to work on etc."

Remember that scene in fight club where Durden orders the clerk to follow his dream of going to vet school? Something like that. Listen to them to figure out where they want to be headed, and encourage that.

strange, I'm watching from Germany and it's streaming just fine

He/she is talking about the newer home of CSAIL, the Stata Center: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_and_Maria_Stata_Center

It is notoriously difficult to work in, with way too many open spaces (open in the sense of being public, as well as open in the sense of having random 3-story-high atriums of air above you in some places for no discernable reason) and not enough quiet nooks that are conductive to focused work.

See Strasbourg for example: https://www.google.de/maps/@48.5827359,7.7525392,3a,49.9y,21...

For those interested in discovering music over the decades from different countries: http://radiooooo.com/

Depends on what program you're in? In general I think grad school (esp. the PhD level compared to Master's) typically gives the student a lot of freedom. At the PhD level often you are basically an independent researcher and might meet with your advisor once every three weeks or so.

If that were the case, and you could complete enough work to keep your advisor happy within one week, that gives you two weeks of time to use...

What would be a real-time OS? I'd be interested in hooking up a bunch of independent boards that could interact with each other, and have as quick as a response to sensors as possible... Do you have any advice as to where to start with this type of project?

Could you please elaborate and provide links about what happens then? This sounds important, yet I have never heard about these things...

Reminds me of this movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dPnFO_JCdc (haven't seen it, but it looks interesting)

The mob is inherently irrational, stupid and over reactive

Any type of democracy relies on trusting the public to decide for themselves.

It is an old idea that education is the solution to this problem: "The commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty" -- inscribed outside the Boston Public Library, 1895.

Perhaps I am nit-picking but....

ROSS "is a digital legal expert" that managed not to attribute its landing page's photo legally.

The photo is from here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stuttgart_Bibliothek...

And according to the licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), attribution credit as well as link to the cc license should be provided.

I think the idea is very cool by the way -- just trying to help!

Note to the organizers -- this sounds awesome, and I'd even love to apply, but something announced now is too short notice for a round that starts in September for those of us living in Germany and who currently have jobs (maybe this applies to all of Europe? Not sure).

I have a work contract through the end of December and must give at minimum three months notice to my employer if I leave before then, in order for them to have time to find a replacement. And three months is the legal bare minimum; better to plan more like 6 months out. Pretty sure this is the standard timeframe throughout the country, if not continent.

Just a heads up -- I'd guess there are at least a handful of others in my position.

Occasionally, one gets the impression that this meticulous, sober man could be a little stuffy.

when Mick Jagger wrote to “Maurits” asking for permission to reproduce one of his pictures on the cover of the Rolling Stones’ album Through the Past Darkly, Escher refused, informing the rock star’s assistant: “Please tell Mr Jagger I am not Maurits to him.”

Just want to point out, this could be a cultural difference and have nothing to do with his personality.

Note from the wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_customs_and_etiquette#Ad...), in the Netherlands formal address is used for people "one does not know, or is only slightly acquainted with."

For us Americans it is hard to understand why it'd be a problem being too friendly -- you are simply trying to be nice and signaling that you are cordial and open, right?

Imagine that a stranger at a bus stop wants to talk to you: instead of caustiously approaching, and trying from few feets' distance to get your attention first, they come in for a full hug like a close friend would greet you. You might not want to interact with them further from that point.

Thanks for the response!

Let's assume we want to dominate the market and not create a lifestyle business.

Isn't it a benefit of a more lean/bootstrapping style to be forced into finding a product people love faster (rather than burning money marketing the product)?

For instance, what about eBay as an example of a side project that really took off. Are such instances really anomalies?

Thank you for your response.

That's an interesting point, about an effectively infinite timescale, but to play devil's advocate, it can't be true. Greater than a human lifetime? Sure, but not infinite. Therefore, what timescales are we talking about and for which different types of businesses?

To use your examples, I don't think anyone is expecting Amazon to be huge in 500 years. Or, if you don't agree with me, change that number to 5000 or 50,000 (point being, there is a limit). Therefore, it wouldn't make sense to indefinitely pour in investments as we wait for its successor or the singularity to take over; what is the litmus test to see if a company is actually healthy in the meantime? Let's define "healthy" as eventually returning more value than its investments, if you agree that the definition makes sense.

Could you also expand on your last point? >Nonsense, no simple formula should ever exist, if the markets are functioning properly.

I'm not sure what that means.

I don't know anything about investing, that's why I'm asking :)

Tell me where to start.

By relying on private investors for a longer period of time, start-ups get more runway to figure out sustainable business models

Can anyone explain, what is the rough amount of runway that a company should need? For instance, are there rough estimates expected for when a company should be able to reach profitability depending on product type?

I was watching the How to Start a Startup lecture on how to raise money (http://startupclass.samaltman.com/) and was astonished about how many rounds of funding VC's expect to give out after seed funding (A, B, C, D rounds, the letters seem to keep going).

I'm thinking of bootstrapping a company and easily also see the appeal of getting funding, in order to hire a team and get the product out faster. But why are so many rounds necessary?

Is there some business or economics theory out there that would explain the amount of runway needed for each business or product type? For instance, if I were launching an ice cream truck tomorrow, I'd expect profitability in the very short term compared to say, something like SpaceX.

seems only to make sense as a business in cold locations.

I'd change that to read "in cold or temperate locations."

There are plenty of locations in Europe for example that rarely have days over 30 C yet don't often get below freezing in the winter. Doesn't make sense to describe these places as particularly "cold."

But we have to deal with the cards we were dealt

Are you sure about that? You're a manager. Responding to your parent comment about managing worker's perceptions of their team members: In the case that someone wants to leave at 3 because they got there at 6, why not just explain to everyone that it is, in fact, okay (or even encouraged)?

What department is it replacing?

Beautiful. Anyone know what music is playing in the background?

Nah, no need for her to say all that, because that info will be pushed to your phone while she's on her way over. That will give you time to arrange Homejoy to come tidy your place up real quick, while you use the new Facebook Advanced Analyics to find out that there's a very strong correlation between how long she lingers on a guy's page and how short his hair is. So you Magic over a hairdresser for a quick buzzcut, while turning up some music you think she'll like (based on her Spotify account).