HN user
trevlovett@gmail.com
That's funny I'm also setting up a home lab and buying a vintage microscope (state of the art 1999 from auction) to look at the creatures living in my pond. There are always new avenues.
I've accepted that we kind of lost the net to the money people and bureaucrats. Mid-late 90's it really was a frontier full of adventurous nerds. I would spend entire weekends on Efnet learning and experimenting with a tight group of people. Since a parallel non-commercial web has never taken off (and VR fizzled) I've ended up adventuring outdoors, the old school way. It's less intellectual but triggers similar feelings of discovery. There's a lot of experimentation and improvisation once you get into things like ski mountaineering because something always goes wrong. The camaraderie is also strong.
Another alternative is simply Science, if you can handle the barrier to entry.
I agree, talent needs to catch up, and new UI concepts are needed (the current VR web browsers feel very awkward). One app that was built very thoughtfully for VR and nailed it imho is Hyper Dash. Making teleporting the preferred form of movement vs. walking was brilliant.
Sounds like you might like this book: https://www.deeplearningbook.org/
Better UI's for navigating browsing history. The current approach is 10-20 open tabs, self-categorized bookmarks, and a history feature that lacks full-text search of content.
Search query: https://bit.ly/3n5cRRt Result is hosted on who.int domain: https://extranet.who.int/chemical-risk-assessment-toolkit/no...
True the film is captivating on the aesthetic layer, with manufactured landscapes appearing as beautiful as the natural ones. Sounds like some viewers pull a positive (or neutral) message out of that equivalence.
It's been a while. I'll rewatch it and see if I can take your view of it. Yes, humans have been driven to refine systems and tools since day one.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) - made me realize the degree to which society has been mechanized, how our alienation to nature and each other is almost guaranteed if we give ourselves over to technology.
Re: Ghost Dog, I was also obsessed with that beautifully shot driving scene (with Killah Priest in the background). I was listening to a lot of hiphop at that time. Usually a burned CD playing on a glowing car stereo.
Can I take a look at your product? I would be curious what a minimal ArcGIS would look like and how long it would take to build. GIS is super edge-casey, I think.
ArcGIS has a formidable feature-set to clone and users will want them all. I believe that's their moat?
I've met startup founders who pay for this data to help in writing their go-to-market strategy for series A.
I really wonder how much friction there is in using a market research firm and if that's a big deterrent to a lot of potential customers.
I agree, we may have reached peak level of Seth Godin-approved consumer startups.
Re: 1, it does bother me producing all that plastic when a cardboard structure with sterile, swappable lining might do just as well in non-windy areas.
I think someone should start a thread asking about all the one-offs people have written and see how much duplication there is.
Curious which applications require logging at high sample rates vs. doing event-based?
That's awesome, congrats. I can't tell what your secret sauce is from your website. I'd love to ask you how you marketed this service if you want to shoot me an email (see profile).
I would love to have such a tool. I was quietly waiting for others to validate the idea.
I like your minimalist solution. Fleet tracking / management seems like a commodity business with a lot of players in it. How do you differentiate and win here?
Right, I was making the point that there should be more info online about the entire mobile video editing app market (one example). I know there are many such apps in the stores.
Thanks for that. I think the NAICS codes could be fleshed out a little to be more relevant and useful.
Not to beat this example to death, but there is a market for mobile video editing applications and I have no idea of its size. Wikipedia only lists one iOS product. I feel there would be a lot of value in providing this kind of information easily to people. I personally don't want to engage with a market research firm during the exploratory phase.
At a previous job I built an internal translation system forked from pootle because the commercial options were so bad (mostly wrt UX). This was 8 years ago, so I would have to do a survey to learn what the state of things is today. It's possible the existing solutions are "good enough" and the switching / retraining costs aren't worth it for most organizations. Not to be too Thiely, but I wonder what a 10x improvement looks like in this space as well.
That's interesting. I never would have thought about this area. If you can shoot me an email (in my profile) I would love to ask a few more questions about this, if you have the time.
It seems there are 19 codes: https://www.naics.com/search-naics-codes-by-industry/. I'm interested in more granularity e.g. where "mobile video editing software" appears on the map, show me the market size, top companies, estimated sales, etc.
Could be nascent markets with a few seed-funded startups trying to serve them. The goal is not to find totally uncompetitive markets but those that are more niche, with a lighter degree of competition, where marketing efforts can be more efficient. The last requirement is that there is an overlap with a larger, adjacent market along a few dimensions.
You did not follow the typical path and that's fine. Own it. As a hiring manager, I would want to talk to an engineer who had diverse experience and insight into a variety of businesses. Is there a particular engineering area you want to build a career around?
I'm not sure a bootcamp is necessary but I would suggest whatever intensive interview training you think you need to get into a good tech company. Working at a bigger one is a solid way to bootstrap a professional network.
1. Hiking the NW, thinking about next-steps.
2. Startup I was working for was acquired by FAANG co. Able to retire from FAANG after four years of plumbing / ops / politics / meetings. There was awful latency at all levels, from dev environment to deployment. I found it extremely boring compared to startup life.
I would say don't judge software engineering by how it is practiced at the FAANG level (where you can seriously get away with just a handful of changes per half) and try to find a small scrappy team of smart high-energy folks.
Creating a directory of all WhatsApp-using businesses in the world. In dog-fooding I must say it's pretty nice booking a dentist without calling and waiting on hold.
Business listings are fairly sparse in some countries. Many owners do not bother creating even a google maps profile and just rely on word-of-mouth for new clients. Acquiring the bottom of the data-iceberg will require some creativity going forward.
The Greatest Generation, for light-hearted deep dives into every TNG and DS9 episode:
Building a mobile-first business directory and messenger for LatAm and rest of developing world. Looking for a co-founder with product and marketing chops.