CobraKai

This is amazing - great work!

Can you talk a little big about how you made the app? What was the source of data to convert the food to equivalent calories? What sort of technical and non-technical challenges did you run into during development?

Would love to try it - agree with the others, the visual interface is very very nicely done (I've been reading up on this subject recently...!)

The video makes me want to try it out. If I dare offer one suggestion...the guitar music is a bit bland and seems out of place with the video, maybe I'm missing something. Great job overall!

http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/products/ Amazing, 3D vision robots. Very graceful translation of hand movements into the robots arms. Very nice product. Currently only for laparoscopic intra-abdominal surgery. Not yet automated. They have DaVinci assisted cardiac surgery programs developing in some parts of the country.

Robot assisted airway manipulation http://www.anesthesia-analgesia.org/content/111/4/929.abstra...

This robot could intubate you. DaVinci could operate on you.

As a specialist, I have to say: This makes me very glad I'm not a primary care provider. The doctors of the future will be evaluated on bedside manner and interpersonal skills - not on diagnostic ability or knowledge, because they'll all have access to Watson. Which is scary because smooth talking idiots can get into medical school, but get rapidly weeded out in the real world. It scares me that stupidity can hide behind this computing beast. And there will be situations where Watson cannot help (emergencies) where a doctor and his smarts are all he has to go by.

If Watson makes a wrong diagnoses and a patient dies, who will be responsible? The doctor? IBM? All it would take is one or two incorrect diagnoses leading to large malpractice suits to really put the medical profession on edge about this. Granted, many incompetent practitioners exist out there making all kinds of dangerous decisions, but this would really stick out in the public eye.

I find it easy to navigate and it is useful in discovering new sites if you're a neophyte (like me!). I've already found 2 interesting new websites that I've never heard of before that I have bookmarked.

OP: But how will you monetize this?

There are neurosurgeons and cardiac surgeons that train for 4 years after medical school, 5-7 years of residency, and possibly 1-2 years of post-doctoral research or 1-3 years of fellowship - who will never EVER see a million dollars in a year. Working 80-120 hours a week.

It IS a great time to be a software engineer.

Nice article. Thanks for posting. I, especially, needed to read that for more perpective (going through some similar mindstuffs).

I love this advice. Bookmarked.

There are competitors in the field. The problem that I'm trying to solve has been marginally solved (using sloppy shortcuts) but I want to solve it the real way. I think there's a market. It's a niche market, with 2 very established companies (100+ years old) but they don't have (i'm really really really hoping they don't) what I want to make.

This is a great attitude, I'm going to read your post a few times to let it sink it. It is worth building. I know I'd LOVE to have the product I'm thinking of. And I know it doesn't exist (yet). And yes, there is lots and lots of learning in this project. Thanks, stsmytherie.

haha, point taken. there have been at least 2 products released in the past 2 weeks that are similar to what i'm doing, hence my fear of someone beating me to the punch. hence, my hope that what i'm working on is going to succeed.

on the other hand, maybe you're right and maybe they have tried what i'm trying and it failed and they gave up...

I wonder if this will be a repeat of the Sirtris story - big pharma buys magic pill company for 500 million dollars for a drug that doesn't do shit.

Diet and exercise have been shown to improve CAD, HTN, Diabetes, even cancer risk. It doesn't cost nearly as much(probably), and leads to more than 9 lb weight loss(if consistently done). If only they made a motivational pill that made people want to eat healthy and exercise...

Thank you all so very much for your comments! You're giving me a lot of insight into the process and the many positive/negative factors I should be thinking about - this is absolutely perfect!

Hi, thanks for your input. This is definitely one of my fears...there are a lot of very talented programmers who do this for a living, who're ahead of me in every respect. You're correct that I'm outside of my area of expertise - it's one of the things I'll need to address honestly before I do somethign like this.

Hi. Thanks for your input. I've heard great things about Ruby. It's next on my list, for sure. I'm working my way through SEIA right now and learning Perl (re-learning? It's so similar to C!) I'll look into Python as well. I've heard of more web apps being built on Ruby/rails, but you guys know better than I do. Thanks again.

Hi. Thanks very much for your input. I have indeed fiddled with the idea of working with medical devices. The main problem with starting a medical device firm is the herculean regulations that you have to overcome. Unless you have someone with deep pockets backing you up, it's hard to become the next MedTronic. At least that's my concern - correct me if I'm wrong. I'm still fiddling with my Arduino and coming up with good device ideas, though!

Either way, I feel like doing a web startup would be a good way to learn firsthand bootstrapping entrepreneurship. And the skill sets (programming, rapid iteration, etc.) would be very beneficial in working on a medical device startup down the line. You're right about one thing - problems that need fixing abound in my field. I have a Moleskine with page after page of things that need fixing in the system!

You're in a good industry. Devices, especially non-invasive things, are the new new thing. I wish you well.

I'm toying around with a few ideas, but you're intuition is mostly right. The problem is that I don't know which of them are realistic in terms of programmability (hence my desire to really learn web-dev languages). I've only discovered this site 2 days ago, but I've already read a few posts saying you can't find strong programmers who'll just implement your idea and let you take the credit/bacon, which I can understand.

I went through 4 years of college (majoring in EE), worked 1 year as an EE, switched tracks and went to medical school(4 years), then finished 4 years of residency. I've been out practicing for a bit more than 1 year now. Everyone who wants to go to medical school has to have a college degree in something - mine happens to be in EE! Thanks for your input, much appreciated.

I'm still paying off my medical school loans (30k remaining). No kids, Corolla (paid off), rental apt (split with girlfriend). I have savings ~100k liquid and available to me now (much more is invested) and my girlfriend would support me. My annual expenditure (outside loan payments) is ~40k. Without vacations 30k.