tsenkov

Hey, thanks for the question(s)!

There are at least a couple points in your message that I wanna address.

genuine insight is very rare and extremely hard to identify.

Insights capable of spawning billion-dollar companies are hard to come-by, indeed! But the smaller the scope of the idea - the bigger number of insights in existence that you can work on. When you can have a PMF on an idea with TAM of $100M in a matter of days, and you don't need VC money to make it happen, AND you can test it out with a rep of the target audience - isn't that something worth pursuing?

How do you prevent Vibed from becoming a graveyard of half-baked ideas, I mean projects that are trivial, already solved, or fundamentally flawed?

I think people would genuinely not be incentivised to be posting projects for already solved problems, UNLESS the solutions are not exactly accessible to them, which in turn makes those project potentially a good idea still. We are just starting out so I'm not going to pretend I know rn how we would solve every problem we hit along the way (yet I hope we hit many and for a long time, haha), but one of the best ways for us to get the CONTENT we want - would be to work on getting the PEOPLE we need on the platform. We are also pretty well-versed with AI too, so we will be able to do a great moderation too (including a check for past projects that are similar -> thus to discourage repetition and plagiarism).

Hope that answers your question(s).

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate you taking the time to write it - there is a lot of useful info in-here and def food for thought.

Thanks for the reply. We are not keeping continuous presence in the country, just have a teammate who lives in Canada, but is from China and would like to visit family for a month or so.

Does anyone know if Amazon Workspace hosted in Tokyo, could be accessed from China? Latency to AWS Japan would likely be one-of/or the lowest from China to an AWS datacenter?

Perhaps someone has info on the building?

That was my thought as well - basically, how do you know if the strain doesn't kill if you don't check for severe and lethal cases linked to the same strain? I understand the part about looking for specific mutations, and assuming they would indicate the "usual" complications with the deadlier strains would not be present, but mutations are not exactly predictable, right? If they don't cause the sympthoms of the current deadly strain - they may be causing something else completely, which could be as deadly a little bit later down the line - isn't this a reasonble concern, @danieltillett?

Thanks Ron. I will check them out.

Sounds like an unpolished async change - it changes only after the server has confirmed successfully saving. I often hit this in my projects and if I want to be safe I would usually add a progress to make sure the user knows what's happening, but when it's not a critical change (losing a new name of a column would classify for that in my book) I would just apply the new state on the client for better UX, risking losing the change if the user somehow navigates away/kill the app before a request is sent/completed. It's just better UX, IMO.

Awesome tool!

Sidenote - probably the best time to post on HN would've been around 1pm ET, to catch most eyes on the other side of the pond.

What made you think that I am not building a company/product? :)

As I said, I am moving forward and will continue applying for every batch of YC, no matter what I am working on (whether it's the same product or something new).

Sounds like you consider YC to be valuable only for idea-stage projects, but that's not true. There are companies that have raised money and still go through YC.

P.S. Viewing your application at YC as "lottery" would likely not get you even an interview. It's not a lottery. My application wasn't strong-enough and that is why it didn't get picked.

The status of my application on https://apply.ycombinator.com/ changed and I haven't received an email. You should check that out.

I wasn't selected for an interview, but I honestly am not too bothered with this. Just woke up from an amazing 8h sleep and even though I have worked every single day for the last 130+, I feel great! I used to be very emotional about rejection (just YC has turned me down 2 times before), but then I was considering every attempt as potentially THE one opportunity I have. Once I realized this is what I am going to do for the rest of my life (building startups) - the anxiety is almost gone.

No matter if my current product fails or not - I'm already a good builder, I'll get better at picking ideas, I'll get even better at telling my story and I'll apply for S19, W20, S20, W21, S21... and however many times I need to until I become a part of this amazing network of people (or until I manage to get a similar level of quality of connections on my own) and so should you, if you are serious about being an entrepreneur.

Good luck to everyone. Now back to work!

Does anyone know (or have a speculation on) the annual profit loss coming out of this? Didn't they get a very significant portion of every Android sale?

I think this is interesting because it shows that Facebook isn’t really sucking that much worse than Instagram and that Instagram isn’t going to save Facebook on its own.

I think this is a stellar observation. Fb, right now, is only a dominant force for users of age 30+ and the battle for the next generation(s) is just starting out. Instagram does show the most significant growth but isn't a clear winner, yet.

Thanks for the feedback. Useful stuff.

Is there any chance I can get a contact of yours? (I am always in the middle of a project that can benefit from the constructive criticism of smart people, so I will be happy to stay in touch)

You can use the contacts in my profile if you don't want to post yours' here.

Cheers!

I agree, but I make notes not to speed up consumption of content - just search gets faster this way. Text search or even scrolling a few pages, is definitely faster than FF through 40-50m of content split into 16 episodes.

No work on my part at all. TBH, I actually prefer video when I first consume the content (or audio, I am listening to a bunch of podcasts; or video, working just as well as audio), but I want to have something I can comeback to and quickly check when I try to remember specifics from the videos, without the need to go through the entire youtube playlist to find it. Recently, I started keeping notes on podcasts, but I haven't published any of those. Maybe I should.

<shameless-plug> In fact, I just recorded the 82nd episode of a daily vlog I've been keeping, while developing a new product (haven't published a single episode, yet). Closed beta starts in a few days. I think it's pretty interesting stuff (I meant to do this, ever since I discovered Alex Bloomberg's Startup podcast) and I honestly hope to win-over even folks who prefer print, like yourself. Of course, my main focus is on the product, but it will be absolutely amazing, if even a few people get inspired from the story surrounding its creation. </shameless-plug>

Cheers!

You are welcome!

I just watched the series and posted my notes here: https://tsenkov.net/2018/09/03/a16z-crash-course-on-sales

Thanks to a16z and Peter Levine for this course.

Likely a dumb question (apologies in advance): can that in any way replace the need to spinning a native LoadBallancer on AWS?

+1 :) I use the exact same machine and I simply don't want to upgrade it with the current options.

I don't even need anything higher resolution (retina is great), honestly. In fact, I don't even need a more performant (or more cores on my) processor (my quad-core i7 works great with everything), or better GPU - all I need is:

- 64GB RAM;

- 2TB SSD;

- better camera.

I achieved my lowest weight about 2 years ago and have managed to keep off all but 10lbs of it, much of which I'm confident is muscle. It took me 4-5 years to hit the low mark.

Good job.

160 lbs loss and that being half of your weight is a huge accomplishment. Congrats! I hope you did it in a healthy and sustainable way and now feel much better than before. If you don't mind me asking - how tall are you, how long did the weight loss last and for how long have you kept the new weight?

44 lbs is about 1/4 of what you needed to do, yes, but that doesn't mean that my accomplishment is not significant. I wouldn't call a 6-month-long starvation insignificant effort. And 1/4 from a billion dollars is still a lot of money, isn't it? In my case it was 19% of my body weight that I trimmed, I am 6ft 1 and I am about 6 lbs above that previous mark, 6 months after I finished my weight-loss sprint (and this year I will continue to go down).

As I said - I wouldn't exercise to create a deficit. I would do it after I have achieved a big-enough deficit, and would replenish any calories expended through it with food.

So I don't try to argue you should "work" instead of "starve" - I am arguing that you should "starve" to get that deficit in and then "work to preserve muscle; continue burning on a good rate; eat more". Does that make sense?

Correction: 500 grams -> ~ 1.1 pounds, not 2.

I've also done a substantial weight loss, while staying healthy (you can check my 1st-level comment in this same discussion).

I guess the "random internet know-it-all" is supposed to be me. I am in no way anonymous, btw (you can check my profile for links, in case you want to learn more about me), so maybe you can search for something that I have EVER posted that you are 100% sure was a lie and then try to label me? I find your comment rude and your username appropriate, Ms./Mr. AnIdiotOnTheNet.

Is it?

When you are losing weight for more than a month, I guarantee you, if you are a reasonable person, you wouldn't be losing a donut with those 500 Kcal. You'd instead be giving up 500grams (almost 2 pounds) of tomatoes + 80 grams of cheese + slice of wholegrain bread. That's a meal right there.

BTW, training during weight loss (by caloric restriction, at least) is mostly done to keep your existing muscle mass + keep metabolic rate up. You wouldn't train to create a bigger deficiency. So every calorie you burn through training (even low-intensity) you should intake back as food.

I will be walking for about an 1.5h tonight to "gather" some calories for dinner. I spend my rations for a bit more caloric lunch and now I will have to pay for it. :)

Sure, but they can probably walk at least that. And (not) surprisingly walking is comparable (usually about 1/2 from jogging) as energy expenditure. Low intensity exercise (cardio) is the biggest burner of energy, since you can sustain it for long periods of time. Try burning 500 Kcal with weight lifting. You will quickly see that an hour long walk is much easier thing to do.

Last year I lost 44 pounds (20kg) by counting calories (I also used MyFitnessPal to count and record everything).

My advice to people who want to be successful into this, would be:

1. Be realistic with the calories you consume. Use an app to track everything down. Eat more raw vegetables and lean protein-source foods that are easy to account for and will fill you up (so you will not feel hungry all of the time). Measure everything to the gram. Buy a scale and try preparing most of your food yourself.

2. Don't have cheat-days. Get to your goal and then, you add a few hundred calories a day to equalize intake/expenditure (so you stop losing weight), so you will have a few hundred more calories a day to eat - now you can (hopefully) have what you want and would not be cheating.

3. Be realistic with the calories you spend. Get an armband to measure your movement throughout the day, measure yourself on the scale every week and if things don't add-up - correct for the error.

4. Don't go for more than 0.5kg loss per week. Having such a huge deficit to make 1kg of fat go away within a week can render you in a very unproductive state where you barely can get anything done during the day (that's ~1285 Kcal deficit a day, which is half of your normal calories per day if you are 30 yo male, not gaining or loosing weight and you weigh-in at 220 punds / 100kg, you would usually be expending about 2600 Kcal if you have at least some activity during the day like an hour of walking).

5. Don't listen to people's stories about weight loss and "what worked for them", if they are in their early 20's (I am 30 yo). Younger bodies (and minds) are more susceptible to magic.

If at the start of your journey you maintain some muscle through training - you will have to continue training during this period of weight loss, or that is the first thing you will lose. Even then, you have to know you will lose some muscle. I personally don't care about looks (I run and I train in Boxing) and losing some of that muscle doesn't bother me, since at the end I feel lighter, quicker and (compared to my new weight-class) stronger.

Good luck!

P.S.

- Even if you weren't training when you started and you are not trying to maintain gained muscle - doing some interval training during the weight loss will help keep your metabolic rate from falling. Your body will (partially) adjust to the weight loss by lowering your metabolism and this will solve part of the hunger, but you will feel sleepy, slow and tired and you will be burning less fat overall. Pushing yourself for just a few minutes a day with some HIIT or something similar, can offset this.

Yep. As I said: > ... you will keep the muscle you need in your regular physical activity level

Well, to be fair you will lose it if you had it in first place. People who don't bulk up by training, only cary the muscle that... carries them. As long as you keep your protein intake as recommended, you will keep the muscle you need in your regular physical activity level.

Thanks. This is very informative.

Hence why their mobile processor offerings were built on laughably dated processes, using very obsolete designs. If Intel made them better they knew that someone would figure out a way to drop 32 of them on a motherboard with a shared memory controller, etc.

Interesting... Would you care to share a reference for this? Thanks.