micah63

Apple doesn't seem to have a vision for the future. Elon is working on global energy sustainability, self-driving cars, underground tunnels, global internet, reusable rockets, neuralink, free speech, etc... Apple was rumoured to be working on a car... now a VR headset... It feels gimmicky. It feels like: "let's wait to see what becomes popular and then copy it".

"Where there is no vision, the people perish" - Proverbs 29:18

During the investor day March 1st there was what seems to be a van shape covered by a white blanket on one of the slides. There is an image here: https://www.drive.com.au/news/tesla-van-teased-investor-day/

I'm pretty sure the next two vehicles are a small affordable hatchback and a van. I least I hope so! I have a Nissan Passenger NV 12-seater van for our family of 9 and it's not fun paying $150/tank to fill up : S

Healthy soil accepts water and retains it. Soil does not like to be naked, it always tries to cover itself so that it can grow a jungle of underground creatures and nutrients superhighways. Every time you till (cut up the jungle to get rid of weeds and give crops a chance to grow), you complete destroy all organic life! That soil turns to dirt that can’t accept water (drought) and can’t retain it (floods and top soil erotion). No till drills surgically insert seeds so that you can grow diverse crops simultaneously without destroying the underground jungle! Check out Gabe Brown to learn more about no till drill crops.

No till drilling is the ultimate solution because you get ultra productive land without disrupting the soil. It's an incredible advancement in industrial tractor PTO accessories.

Another huge win that a lot of people are not aware of is using mobile electric fences to quickly move cows through fields. They eat, poop, stomp and move on. That adds an incredible amount of fertility into the ground without needing fertilizer.

For those interested in industrial production of healthy food with healthy soil (+18 inches of rich organic porous soil with trillions of cool characters, diversity and nutrient sharing super highways), check out "Kiss the Ground" on netflix (great intro to soil), then the "The littlest biggest little farm" on netflix (see a 7 year transformation from barren monoculture hydrophobic dirt to rich soil farming in California), then check out youtube for Gabe Brown (soil expert), Joel Salatin (regenerative mobile cheap farming nut), Richard Perkins (regenerative farming expert), Allan Savory (holistic management, how animals help soil).

When Burger King "bought" Tim Hortons in 2014 (I believe this was a tax evasion effort by Burger King to leave US and "merge" with a Canadian food company), the whole experience went to pot. This was a Canadian institution. I won't even step foot in a Tims anymore, the food, the customer experience, the app, it's all junk.

I think it's too little too late. It's so much more than EV now, it's about FSD, AI, data collection, charging networks, owning mass battery production, automation of manufacturing, remote software updates, the center screen interface, service to the home networks, direct to customer sales infrastructure, solar panels on your home to charge your car, etc... I believe every car company is 10 years late responding and Tesla will destroy them like Apple iPhone destroyed Blackberry, Nokia, etc... If Ford can mass produce the electric F-150 before cybertruck hits, they may stand a chance (#1 selling vehicle in NA), but again, they are behind on so many of the other factors. I think Tesla will do it in a more streamlined way, more profitability and are ultimately heading towards a robo taxi network which isn't even in the competitors' visions.

My take on it is that when MSN Messenger came out, they stored the contacts "in the cloud" (which was a new concept back then). So let's just say hypothetically that Windows 95 crapped the bed with a true blue screen of death, you'd re-install MSN Messenger and bam, your contacts were back. ICQ kept contacts local and if you lost them, you lost them.

I feel very happy to be a Canadian right now. The CRTC's (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) laws on net neutrality are considered to be some of the strictest laws in the world.

Here is a great quote from a 2017 music streaming case requiring all data to be counted against a user's data cap, regardless of its source:

"the aim [of] the decision was to encourage Internet service providers to compete on price, speed and network quality instead of acting as a gatekeeper." - Chairman of the CRTC, Jean-Pierre Blais

Summary:

1 - Seed money is given on promise

2 - How to get VCs to invest: Build something people want + talk to users + focus = 10% growth

3 - Be default alive, which means: existing cash + revenue - consistent expenses gets you to breakeven

*How to shoot yourself in the foot: Overhire -> Default Dead -> Ugly Duckling -> No VC

Sam, I'm just just wondering if you could expand on your productivity advice? You said that you:

- Have 1 piece of paper with 3-12 month goals that you look at every day

- Have a tool/paperstack/book? for each day of these goals? Can you expand on this?

- Have a tool/paperstack/book? for each employee? Can you expand on this?

I'm working on my own method similar to this and I'm just curious about your preference of paper vs. book vs. tools.

Thanks in advance! Micah

Man, I've been looking for the name of a Sega Genesis game for a long time and couldn't remember it. I just saw it on your site. "Atomic Rob-Kid" was one of the best games I've ever played. Super hard and super frustrating, but it has a great feel!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/textfiles/14811059366/in/set-7...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Robo-Kid

Love it! Being able to add our company's logo would be super cool too!

I think your definition of religion (spirit beings) is limiting. The study of religion and philosophy can lead to a lot of interesting thoughts about purpose, meaning and morality. Those topics are usually interesting to everyone. Maybe add Ravi Zacharias to your list and CS Lewis has a lot of interesting stuff on this topic as well.

yup, our app is down : (

The only way to break the in-app purchase model is to have try before you buy. I'm not going to pay full price to try a game before knowing if it's good or not. So yes, I'm potentially ignoring lots of great games that charge full price up front, but how do I know if they are good or not? I don't understand why Apple hasn't pushed for this from day 1. If I got to play even two levels of Super Mario 3, I would buy the game in a heartbeat.

Also, we rented the full game for a weekend from Blockbuster before buying.

That is why I love http://getpocket.com. Collect articles you are interested in, read them in your down time, when you are done, hit the check mark and.... satisfaction, go to bed.

I'm new to the concept of Bitcoin and the part I have the hardest time with is how do I get out? If I have Bitcoins and want to turn it back into Canadian money, how does that work? Or does it work at all? Am I locked in? Can I only buy tech items on a couple websites that support it?

Most of China's 3million+ cities are on the east coast, the west is relative unpopulated. I was there in November and while the results of this map shouldn't have surprised me, considering the extreme city expansions I saw, I was still very surprised to see that half the country is at the same level as Saudi Arabia!

If you watch jobs unveil the iPhone, there is a moment, when speaking of three new revolutionary devices being released that day (http://youtu.be/0KfrSzyXmiw?t=1m5s), he says "the first one is wide screen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device.", repeats the line, and then chuckles as everyone realizes that they're all one device... I remember streaming that live and thinking: "Holy crap, phones don't suck anymore". If Balmer watched that and laughed at it, I'm going to be hard on him. He had the chance to react and he let Jobs walk away with it. So many people, including me, we're just waiting for a cell phone that didn't suck.

I am working my way through the book "Running Lean" by Ash Maurya and his advice on setting up problem interviews and solution interviews is awesome (chapter 7 + 8). I combined the two templates into one interview because our product is already started. Still not selling, but learning focused.

I would definitely recommend "Running Lean", it could save someone a lot trial by fire.

If you don't like it, then you should become a politician and start fixing it yourself. It's easy to complain, it's hard to do something about it.

I just planned a 30th Bday party for my wife and had a 100 people out. It would have been a nightmare to do it without Facebook. I just don't have all those people's phone numbers and emails and whatever. I set up an event, made a couple of her girl friends hosters of the event (can't invite people you aren't friends with) and shebam, 100 person nacho potluck party complete!

Yah, don't use it for the news feed, but even with the crap, it can still be interesting to see what some of your funny friends are saying and jab some friends when your hockey team is winning!

While I do not downplay how vicious school can be and I don't envy his situation back then, I think it definitely is an amazing opportunity to launch out into a celebrity career. He couldn't have known that in the pre-rebeccablack / pre-meme era, but it's a life lesson, don't get down on yourself, rock it. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Overly Attached Girlfriend has used her celebrity status for good causes!

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/overly-attached-girlfriend

If it helps at all, I "suffer" from the exact same thing. I once studied procrastination while I was procrastinating at work and here are my 3 tricks that work, at least half the time:

1. Just don't do what you have to do. Just sit there. BUT the catch is you are not allowed to do ANYTHING else. After about 15 minutes of doing nothing, your interest creeps back for your the task you are working on.

2. Make a big 3 list. At the very beginning of the day, write down the 3 most important things to get done that day. Only work on those things.

3. Cut up the elephant. This is the biggest thing helps me. Many times the items on our todo lists are really gargantuan tasks! Your brain unconsciously knows this and will try to avoid these loaded tasks. Break them down into bite sized elephant chunks. Elephant wasn't eaten in a day ; ) You'll feel better as you knock through those smaller todos. I also recommend Tudumo (www.tudumo.com) as a todo tracker. It has a lot of keyboard shortcuts. I have a list called "elephant chunks" and as soon as I tackle an item on the main list, I create the elephant chunks list and start hammering those suckers down.

I still lapse into massive procrastination, but these tricks have helped me a lot. You aren't alone. And I don't think you are lazy. If you are anything like me, this is probably some of the stuff you are most passionate about and it's killing you that you are avoiding it. Make a new big 3 list every day and don't give up!

The whole idea hinges on getting employees to break confidentiality agreements. Maybe target the company instead of the employees? I know it's not as fast/interesting/honest, but some of the questions are easy and companies might actually want to participate so they can recruit.

I love our Medicare system (Canadian) because it creates a peaceful feeling of reassurance. You show your Medicare card and you are good to go, no paperwork, no bills, nothing. It's hard to explain that feeling, the hospital is not a scary place, it is a safe place. It's there to help you. You just go to the doctor when you are sick, no big deal.

On average, we pay roughly 30-40% Income Tax. The less you make, the less you are taxed. If you make less than $38,000 in my province, you would pay something like 24% (15% federal tax + 9% provincial tax - http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html). And if you make more you get taxed more, but it's reasonable.

Honestly, when you grow up here, you just get used to it. It comes off the paycheck just like retirement savings and employment insurance, and you don't think about it.

I'm a proud Canadian, equal healthcare for everyone is a value we share and I think it's worth paying for.

Pretty good update, 3 gripes:

1 - No contacts, I know you can use native app, but I want them in gmail

2 - No groups, can't send a message to a group

3 - Autocapitalization turned on, overrides iOS settings

Conclusion, no better than native app.