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cabinguy

1,825 karma · joined November 20, 2010

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cabinguy··on Prohibition and ice cream in the US Navy
I had that happen once in my three years in the fleet and they didn’t open them for us (long time ago). We did have kegs & BBQ on the pier in GITMO once, too (“pigs on the pier”). I was in when they were just starting a/the tobacco ban on the ship. You could smoke them, but you couldn’t buy them . It created an excellent black market opportunity for entrepreneurs onboard. Last fun fact - my ship was catered by Krispy Kreme donuts every morning when we were in port - long, long before they were a nationwide brand.
cabinguy··on Thank HN: My bootstrapped startup got acquired today
What a great story & ending. I’m very happy for you - congratulations!
cabinguy··on Sonos CEO steps down after app update debacle
Do you think a sales person or a technical person dreamt up those changes you believe broke sonos?
cabinguy··on The Unisys Icon: One Canadian Xennial's Memories of Ontario's Obscure Computer
Ah, Unisys. I used to buy/sell refurbished laptops and stumbled upon a couple thousand Unisys laptops, one time. Pentium 133’s & 166’s. I wasn’t very familiar with them, but luckily they were all in “like new” condition when I got them. At that time I was probably paying sub $1/Mhz and selling them for $3-4-5/Mhz…so I have very fond memories of Unisys as well. The good old days.
cabinguy··on U.S. appeals court strikes down FCC's net neutrality rules
Most interesting part of this post (to me) is to see how far the perceived importance of net neutrality has fallen on HN. 96 points in 5 hours as of this comment.

Old posts: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=net+neutrality

cabinguy··on Show HN: I am Building a Producthunt alternative
Confirmed. I immediately read “hunt lie.”
cabinguy··on Netflix buffering issues: Boxing fans complain about Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson
I assume you know the answer to your questions is: of course they do. However, I’m in the same boat as you. The joke’s on us, I guess.
cabinguy··on Show HN: A minimalist (brutalist?) website for sharing all your links
I know I said I was done, but, let me get this straight. If I sign up for a website that was created for people to sign up to save links, and in doing so it requires you to submit a URL and a title for the link - and I use the page title as the title for the link: 1) I’m not entitled to do that and 2) It means my website is similar to a geocities page?

Interesting.

cabinguy··on Show HN: A minimalist (brutalist?) website for sharing all your links
[edit] @wizzwizz4 Is it crass to edit your comment multiple times (with no declaration) to address a reply to your comment?

Lol. Thats how the site works. It asks you for a URL and a title for the link. It’s my page, my account, so I linked to my site when trying it out. C’mon. I’m not going to argue about it anymore. Y’all can keep downvoting me if you want to.

cabinguy··on Show HN: A minimalist (brutalist?) website for sharing all your links
2 birds. Seriously though. Adding links to a website for sharing links is now spam? Ok.
cabinguy··on Show HN: A minimalist (brutalist?) website for sharing all your links
I created a page. If you want to look without signing up, here you go: https://lynx.boo/dg
cabinguy··on Frank Lloyd Wright's Only Skyscraper Is Heading to Auction
One of the treats of driving to northern MN from the Twin Cities is driving by the only FLW gas station. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/frank-lloyd-wright-gas-s...
cabinguy··on Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?
I know my project is unworthy of upvotes from HN, but I’ve been working (hard) on a simple real estate site https://davegooden.com. No big deal. No real tech. Just lots of work and lots of potential upside.
cabinguy··on Ask HN: What have you built with LLMs?
I absolutely love this idea.

Most high-level sales people rely on role play partners but that requires a pretty a big commitment. This would make a great product, imo.

Also (tip): Study, memorize and internalize a sales script for your product/service...along with the objection handlers and closing questions. Practice every single day. You'll gain massive confidence because you know exactly what you are going to say, every time.

cabinguy··on Instagram's Algorithm Delivers Toxic Video Mix to Adults Who Follow Children
I use instagram to look at vintage motorcycles and buy vintage motorcycle parts. Thats all. I follow motorcycle accounts only. But when I hit the search icon - the splash screen shows me, almost exclusively, 1/2 naked women.
cabinguy··on Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’
Everyone should move to digg.
cabinguy··on Tell HN: I stopped caring about personal development in tech after seeing GPT-4
…today.
cabinguy··on A16Z is the “worst and largest” scammer of all, says CEO of Swan Bitcoin (2022)
HN buried this story. Should be #1 on homepage. That’s bullshit and puts HN in the scammy category as well, IMO.
cabinguy··on FTC takes action to stop Opendoor from cheating potential sellers
opendoor is a licensed brokerage and a member of the National Association of Realtors. They partnered with realtor.com in 2020.

https://www.opendoor.com/w/blog/realtor-dot-com-partnership

cabinguy··on Toshiba formally and finally exits laptop business
100%. My first business was buying/refurbishing/selling used laptops. I bought/sold tens of thousands. Toshiba was by far the best. IBM was 2nd. Now they’re both gone.
cabinguy··on Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
By the time I had kids, the dial interface was long gone...but if I could teach my kids to push 1,0,0, start, I'd bet I could teach them what 1:00 looked like on the dial pretty quickly.
cabinguy··on Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
I remember when microwaves had one dial and no buttons, no digital touchscreens. You set the dial to the desired cook time in minutes/seconds, and it automatically started (as long as the door was closed).

Same with an oven. Turn the dial to 350 and the oven was on and set to 350. It took a fraction of a second vs a touch screen.

These new interfaces are often a terrible use of "technology" and are actually a step (or more) backward.

cabinguy··on Jason Fung explains why intermittent fasting diets work
I've done a 12 day fast. The first 4-5 days were extremely difficult (caffeine withdrawal didn't help) , but by day 6, I had a feeling of euphoria. My original goal was a 10 day fast, but I didn't want to give up the clear mind and energy I was experiencing, so I extended it to 12 days.

I think this is a pretty common experience. You don't start feeling the "good feels" until you get past the 4-5 day mark.

Anyway, this was about 7-8 years ago and I haven't tried again since, but I often think about it.

For what it's worth, I do IF as a lifestyle (18:6). Basically (for me) it's a very easy way to help restrict calories. Hopefully there are some health benefits, too.

cabinguy··on Ask HN: Inexpensive Google Maps Replacement?
We're just showing properties on a map. Nothing special.
cabinguy··on Spain leads the world in organ donation. What’s stopping other countries?
This isn't a very popular opinion, but I agree. I feel that people should be able to become donors in exchange for some sort of payment to heirs (kind of like life insurance). The doctors and hospitals are making money from life saving transplant surgery, why not the donors? I think the waiting list would get real short, real quick if this happened. (Note: I'm a registered donor)
cabinguy··on Raising a Very Unusual Round of Funding and Open-Sourcing Our Docs
I don't know how not raising money from VCs works in VCs favor, but I'm open to listening.
cabinguy··on Raising a Very Unusual Round of Funding and Open-Sourcing Our Docs
First - your new business sounds like a(nother) winner to me.

Your pushback = really good point. Personally, I wouldn't recommend that anyone tries to raise $25-$50k, as their odds of hurting a really good relationship will be at about 99%...but I understand what you're saying.

My advice is that if you are thinking about raising under $500k, or only raising money from family and friends, just go through the struggle as a bootstrapper. You'll learn a lot more and probably get further than you would with the friends and family money. Plus you'll still have a place to crash and be welcomed to a warm meal from time to time, if needed.

Of course I say this as someone who was never able to raise capital. So, my bias is what it is. I'm a bootstrapper. Good luck, Rand - wishing you the best!

cabinguy··on Raising a Very Unusual Round of Funding and Open-Sourcing Our Docs
I don't personally know Rand, but I've been following his former company (and his personal twitter) for a long time. He seems to be a genuinely thoughtful, great guy with really good intentions...however, this post felt like a little bit of a humble-brag (nothing wrong with that).

It's great that he is sharing his documents, however, the chances of anyone who hasn't already raised $20M+ from VCs (and/or created popular videos for 10+ years) ever following in these footsteps are slim-to-none.

If you really don't want to raise money from outsiders, just don't raise money. Many people launch businesses with very little money. Some of us win, some of us lose. If you're in a position to raise capital from 30 "somewhat" high-profile entrepreneurs/investors, congratulations! You should probably do it!

But if you're not in that position, do it like Rand did from the beginning. Work your butt off and make things happen. Then someday (hopefully), you can post your own humble-brag on your blog.

cabinguy··on Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?
I feel your pain...but a little less so, since I only spent my own money. My advice is simple: if you believe 100% in what you’re doing, keep doing it! If not, quit ASAP.
cabinguy··on Condemned House Sells for $1.2M in Fremont (East SF Bay Area)
Exactly. Just read a story in Mpls Star Tribune today about a $12.5M tear down in Minnesota (Lake Minnetonka). Location, etc.
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