johnvschmitt

It shows that long term planning will indeed win out in the long term.

Meaning, if the extremist privatization politicians got their way, the gov't would own zero. But, if the gov't holds the commons in receivership over a very long term, the commons (as the gov't is ours if done well) will still hold a strong position over time.

I appreciate your inputs, but IMO this use case is kind of inevitable.

Yes, it's hard, and not quite doable today. But, there are millions of people working on making the components of this solution better.

It's so attractive to carry around a computer in our pockets (our "phones") and it's really not much of a stretch to envision a near future where the thing in our pocket is our "local data/projects" that we can plug into any larger display or keyboard /IO on demand.

Before you know it, it's going to seem archaic to have local working data on any other device than the one in your pocket. And it's going to seem archaic that any nice large interface (screen or keyboard) is tied to only 1 device.

Cool.

Close, but not what I need. What I want (& maybe others?) is:

Compute on a stick that's a VM. Then, I can plug this into my laptop's HDMI or USB port to work on my project's local data/apps that's inside the VM.

Then I can take the stick when I travel, instead of taking my laptop. I can plug the stick into any laptop for full keyboard/trackpad. Or, I could plug the stick into a TV/monitor & use my phone/tablet's IO (keyboard/touch) over the same wifi. (Yes, the stick would need a minimal host OS to run a VM on a dumb monitor.)

Small local storage (working cache) with the rest in the cloud.

If such a device exists, please educate me/us.

Jim Morgan [1] had this (relevant) mantra:

"Bad news is good news. Good news is no news. No news is bad news."

Essentially, it means:

Bad news (criticism) done right will show you where you need to focus to improve. That's why we upvote those comments.

Good news will give you little or no actionable items to improve.

No news means you are not getting any feedback, which means your progress will stall.

[1] I worked (far) under Jim Moran when he was the long-time CEO of a huge hardware tech company: http://www.appliedmaterials.com/en-in/profiles/james-c-morga...

Thanks. That is indeed an incredible level of transparency. I didn't see a CSV download but just scanning, it looks like it's more like a $200k median, with 1.6M average. Medians just make far more sense in letting someone outside the system know what to expect. Just like, "The average actress in Hollywood makes $250k, when in fact the median is $30k and a few make $100M).

Great news & I have more hope for the community.

However, many people outside of the startup scene have misconceptions, as they see survivor bias/success bias in the reporting. One item in the report feeds this misconception: "The average company got $1.9 million in funding." The median raised would be far more revealing of the actual experience that a startup faces than the average.

In SV, it's less about color, and more about education. Yes, that's IMO, not fact, OK? But, seriously, I've worked with 1,000+ people in Silicon Valley, and >50% of them are not white. So, Indian, Chinese, and other "colors" can be extremely prosperous here. The market doesn't care about "color", as much as their education, passion, and collaboration. To raise people out of poverty, it is more about attitude than physics. The attitudes in Detroit are far more toxic than the minor class warfare in SV.

I was born there. It's sad, but hopeful.

The "Renaissance Center" (celebrating the rebirth of the city) was built in 1980. The last 34 years, I've heard stories of the "inevitable rebirth" of the city.

It's just so sad. For 34 years, a few people are hopeful while the city still declines.

Detroit has so many good things going for it: An international border. A water trade route to the Atlantic. More fresh water resources than any other state. Rail lines that are well connected to Chicago and the East Coast.

What's really sad for me, personally, is the realization that for so many other challenges, like the CA drought, Global Climate Change, etc, we need tons of capital and work. But IMO, for Detroit to get "fixed", we just need a change of MIND (which can be more difficult than getting sustainable energy, but seriously, could change in 1 day, for free, if we had MLK Jr. type people on the ground).

So, in short, it's people's minds that are killing Detroit. We desperately need to change minds there. In Silicon Valley, all races collaborate, live & work together, and we thrive. Please let's try to export that culture to Detroit soon.

For those with integrity, it's not worth the read. Yes, stop taking money from new customers when you've shut down the company.

For those without integrity, it's a recommendation: There are trusting people who will signup & pay even if you don't deliver.

The world is still wild, and I like that. Nothing to recommend than to be skeptical and ethical please.

The picture recognition test is particularly annoying. Even in their example, of "match this" (cat), are we to assume we're matching all cats, or just cats of that color?

If they have to make very careful sets of photos to avoid confusion, then the sets of photos will be small enough to build lookup libraries for bots.

Yep. The proper reply would be, "Thanks. But, I don't work for your company and am not bound by those rules. In fact, it's the policy of journalists to seek the truth regardless of your company policy."

I'm sorry to see evidence of a rare bad actor, but that doesn't warrant holding back critical data from the many good actors who want to invest.

Simple P&L statement & balance sheet: Provide it to all investors who ask. That's just basic common sense.

Would YOU invest in a company that wouldn't even tell you these basic financial metrics? Would this author invest without it?

And, I've seen far too many "startups" who don't even know what simple financial things are (balance sheet, P&L, cash-flow, margin), and that illiteracy is NOT going to end well.

So, the pain may be real, but the advice given is not IMO correct.

2 big points I've learned & want to share on this topic:

1) In the smart long-term play, family & few close friends are most important. Everything else (including your startup) is trivial.

2) Even if you value your startup at 100% value (over family/friends/health/life), you're incredibly short-sited and killing your own startup baby if you don't have some balance in your life. Startup life is NOT a sprint. It's a marathon. To give the BEST to your startup, you need to bring your BEST every day.

Phrased another way, I often ask, "Let's say you're going to be interviewed on the Colbert Report, or other big-huge-friggin' deal tomorrow, what would you do today?" Often, people say, "I'll eat well, build something, hug my family, build something, help someone, build more, chat with a friend, take a walk, build more, play a game, go to bed early" So, if that's what you do to bring your BEST tomorrow, then what would you do if you wanted to bring your BEST EVERY day?

That tends to drive home the message that work-life balance isn't just helping your life, it's truly what matters to helping your work too.

Corollary: If you're overstressed, you aren't helping your work. Often, overstressed people at startups will add much more friction in the small team, hurting efficiency as arguments & disrespect poisons the day's actions. Not to mention the zombie-brain mistakes in execution when you're not taking proper care of yourself.

If you brush before sleep (with triclosan, a very common antibacterial agent), you breathe >25% of your breaths through a mouth populated with antibacterial agents.

The prevalence of antibacterial agents in soaps, & toothpastes in the last 15 years coincides with the increases in asthma & digestive disorders.

The article says, essentially, "It's complex, and adaptive, so be careful how you force it away from a neutral state." Yet, adding antibacterial agents to toothpastes is quite a forceful change.

It's not too hard to separate 2 colors. (Just have separate STL files for each color). I do this currently.

I don't think many designs will really require "pixelized" variations in color like their demo shows. Just putting a transparent layer, or 5 colors, will provide for ~80% of predicted use cases. So, a simple "STL per color" format can act as a "bridge" until the necessary richer standard is developed & adopted.

That illustrates it very well.

It's a shame that recombinantrecords.net has removed that from his site, even though it's original work, because lawyers sued him for using the title of a (good) book "Amusing Ourselves to Death". Then, 9GAG & other sites have no problems copying the content. It just goes to show you that you can't stop information flow. All you can do it stop legitimate players from controlling it.

You're absolutely correct. However, when you combine host + time + location data, all at once, on your phone, then your carrier indeed has TONS of data to spy on you, regardless of the encryption on the phone itself.

All good points, & my only point was that while we strengthen each link in the chain, we can't assume we're secure while weaker links exist.

Even so, there are weaker links in the security chain: Carriers (mobile equivalent of ISP's)

Your carrier has access to every URL you visit (http or https) and the entire packets sent to/from them (if http), regardless of the password on your phone.

Those Carriers have been MORE THAN eager to bend over backwards & give up the farm to the feds. Just check Verizon, AT&T's history with NSA/FBI/etc.

So, YES, the article is golden, Schneir is golden, but the fact that weaker links exists should still install vigilance & outrage amongst civil libertarians / freedom lovers.

And, even if there are weaker links in the chain, we should still applaud & support strengthening any/all links, while still vigilant/aware of where the weakest link remains.

Congrats! I met with the team in their YC days, and can say they are all quite sharp, and the market is overdue for this kind of automation/service.

They might want to partner with my buddies at http://TheOrangeChef.com, who sell (among other inventions) iPad sleeves to keep them clean in the kitchen. Maybe send a batch of sleeves with every new restaurant that signs up?

Unfortunately, even if this works, it will likely have less and less application over time. California has very little fresh water reaching the ocean, and as population increases, and drought increases, we're sending less fresh water to the ocean.

And, over time, it takes more & more energy to make water fresh/clean in the first place, and to move fresh water around.

So, any power generation scheme that requires using fresh water is not on a good trajectory. It's good science experimentation though, & may spark other more useful ideas.

At this rate, in another 10 years, it'll become George Bluth's "Sweat & Squeeze".

But, let's not say this is any surprise. It's the trajectory of nearly everything that is initially super-cool/elite. It gets to the rich elite who aren't cool, then it gets mass produced & mass-marketed, then it gets uncool.

Abusing the cancelation policy is the specific immoral act I'm calling out here. Offering employment invitations is fine.

But, often a company has very forgiving cancelation policies to be customer-friendly. By abusing those cancelation policies to do a DDOS-style attack is going to lead to adverse impacts on the ecosystem (less forgiving cancelation policies, drivers & riders wasting time chasing bogus reservations, etc)

Too many times, I've seen people call ugly, immoral tactics like this as "growth hacking", which is polluting an otherwise positive culture.

Yes, it may be legal. Yes, it may grow your company. Yes, you may not have to pay any consequences until you're big enough to pay it off as a "tax".

But, no, it's not ethical, and yes, your investors will worry that you'll shamelessly cheat them at the first opportunity.

My neighborhood uses NextDoor.com and it does work. We share info on nearby construction, crime, and trade recommendations for local services, trade local gardening/landscaping tips, pest-management, etc.

Having civil exchanges over those "transactional" issues is the first step in knowing them, establishing trust, & then digging deeper when you cross paths.

With all the data, carpooling/sharing a ride is great.

But please, the phrase "game changer" is horribly overused today & diluted.

It's a well thought out & written article.

But, we still need a much shorter retort to use in conversation, than trying to discuss all of the points in that article.

Maybe:

"Well, if you think privacy is only for criminals, then you wouldn't mind if me and my friends, and your boss, all ride home with you tonight, & spend the night watching you sleep & all the stuff before that, right? Can your bathroom fit us all? If not, please pay some taxes to support that surveillance need. We'll be there every night from now on. See? Privacy is about "not being watched", not about "hiding crimes".

AutoCAD? Seriously?

For consumers, who are the primary market here on Amazon, looking to get started, why would they buy very expensive software for the CAD part?

Blender is a free CAD tool that I use, as well as millions of others, and is just fine for 99% of consumers. If they get serious & professional, then they'd feed right into the expensive corporate CAD solutions: SolidWorks, AutoCAD, etc. But, it's odd that Amazon would start you with B2B tools like that.

Of course, that makes me suspect that AutoCAD is paying Amazon for this positioning. If not, then it's just a mistake IMO.

Good points & over all, I really appreciate the rational, yet learning/confrontational discussions here.

I was just trying to spread the word to other startups that the auction-based paid advertising model might work initially, but gets really tough to sustain as it naturally evolves.

In a non-auction based method, the evolution to "zero margin" may be a slower process. Yet those non-auction methods of paid advertising (billboards, magazine, TV) are just horrible for tracking & closing the loop as to be obsolete, and are often too expensive for startups to even enter anyway.

The best advertising is to realize that your customer service/support function is not an cost, but rather an investment in word-of-mouth advertising. Investing in great customer service is often the best modern marketing.

I'm not saying that the VC-backed company is intentionally or maliciously poisoning the healthy profit of the competition.

I'm saying that it's an unintentional byproduct of the otherwise naturally healthy approach to "grow first, profit later". Just like, I'm about to release a free game in the app market, no IAP, no cost, as I'm generous. But, that can & does have unintended consequences in the ecosystem to make it harder for those who do need to profit from their similar work.