Project 5050 [video] | Hacker News Reader

Project 5050 [video]

project5050.org

42 pointsspking11 comments

Woohoo!

I once heard a metaphor on HN for the growth of software products. Building technology as War.

Start-up: Your initial core of members make up the ELITE team. They are the ones that storm the enemy lines, cutting the throats of the enemy generals, and bombing key strategic targets. Only the best, of the best, of the best, need apply. There is glory to be had.

Fledgling: Next, come the infantry. The boat is full to storm the beaches. It is gruelling work; support queries, scalability issues: bring the people, bring the degrees, bring the money!

Business: Finally, once the beaches have been stormed, its time to initiate the systemic takeover. Secret police and politics; restructure, assimilate, grow, grow, grow.

I do not repeat it because I like it. It stuck out to be because I felt it was accurate. It bothered me. Working in this industry for 10++ years has been psychologically bizarre. It is time to turn the page on this energy.

Tech no longer needs "War". It needs teachers, Moms, spirits, love, and patience.

Good luck, Project 5050!

The "Commandos, Infantry, and Police" metaphor is from t Robert X. Cringely: https://blog.codinghorror.com/commandos-infantry-and-police/

It's a good description of any high-risk human endeavour like a startup.

The initial video doesn't tell me anything about what project5050 is about. The following text was below the fold for me:

> Join CS50's own Hailey James '19 as she meets with CS50 alumni to talk about struggles they faced in Computer Science.

Seems important to mention in the video.

Where did you find that text? I wasn't about to watch a bunch of videos to figure out what a thing is and was hunting desperately for a tagline.

How hard is it to just have a single line of text at the top of a website (or under the banner, whatever) describing what the company/organization/project does? I can't believe how often I come across the website of startups, non-profits, and (shockingly often) libraries/packages/node modules that just kinda assume you know what they're about, or hide it all behind videos or something.

I'm not a greybeard here with my javascript turned off. I just don't like watching videos to gain information.

EDIT: Just thought of another - kickstarters are a HUGE offender.

> Where did you find that text?

It's underneath the first video.

Nice! Creating things using programmable logic is something that can and should be extremely accessible these days, with all the tools and communities available.

But people still seem to have difficulty getting started; computing is a bewilderingly large field of study, and it's distressingly common to see people write it off as something "for experts". Efforts like these CS50 MOOCs seem to do a great job of providing people with the basic language that they need to learn more about the particular areas which they are interested in, which is hugely encouraging.

It would be nice if the site had some text describing what it is.

I clicked this thinking it be would something related to the 5050 LED RGB chip. I feel cheated.

There are millions of things called 5050 or 50/50.

What's the deal with the shaky camera? It makes it effectively unwatchable.

Post seems to be encountering manipulation. Very little content on the site beyond a couple of youtube videos and zero interest in the comments, yet 4th place on the frontpage.

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