coastermug

Having a lathe and a milling machine would be my dream. But I suspect the number of tinkerers has always remained constant. Properly understanding computers was always niche. Also, it’s impressive what you can achieve with the right combination of apps. I’m not saying you are, but it’s easy to paint the youth of today as moronic Ipad tappers, but if they can achieve what they want inside such an interface what does it really matter.

Incidentally, copyright law etc on fonts is very interesting. Many places license their fonts via in-page JavaScript. However, I believe that such a protection against the font designer doesn’t necessarily apply if for instance you use the font to create a logo. ( I’m sure I’ve missed some nuance here.)

This is extremely well put. Finance and defence really are two of the only well performing industries left. - but this is despite there being excellent talent and people within the UK.

I despair at government talk about skills shortages. There’s no such thing. Our industries have been decimated, and all we really have left is financial services in London. Which is great if you decided to do accounting at university and/or went to a good private school.

I have worked with extreme extroverts and extreme introverts. The single biggest lesson on communication I have learnt, is that it is better to be heard than not. The opposite lesson to this is “better to leave people thinking, than open your mouth and confirm your ignorance”. That is false, in all my experience those who open their mouths and are willing to make mistakes, iterate on their ideas and be heard, those people go further.

Reading the rather thin press on the relationship between Lotus and Britishvolt, it seems all Lotus signed was a “memorandum of understanding”.

What R&D and technical capabilities did this company have? It will be interesting to see if anything gets sold off in administration.

In the media, I saw lots of focus about the factory, a potential building, but nothing about the supply chain or component design.

This felt like a project where many of the partners suspected it was vapourware, but also didn’t want to be seen not getting involved.

Yep, I don’t disagree with many of those points. I find the discussion on “productivity” interesting, as the solution always seems to be to import labour to create growth at a macro scale, but which does not result in a growth in wages - and therefore which does nothing for productivity. I however, don’t like the connotation that it produces, as if the UK is full of lazy people who need to get back to work. The reality is, work does not pay. Immigrants were eager to work in the UK when it financially benefited them, as any sane person would. The solution is not to now tread down on the UK working person/class, but what _is_ the solution? I don’t see one post-brexit.

What are the core issues you see, and what about the workforce is being found out?

Shopify is excellent from a micro business point of view. Even coming from the perspective of a Python dev with limited FE experience, it’s so much easier for the client/business owner to administrate. I have a friend who was a Wordpress developer for 10+ years who couldn’t see from a client perspective that the technical limitations of shopify were irrelevant when compared with the hassle of Wordpress ( and it’s e-commerce plugins).

Long time lurker. I used to use forums lots, then went though about 10 years where I contributed nothing anywhere. Decided to start contributing again, and HN feels worth contributing to.

Where in the world do you live and what social security systems are in place? What savings do you have?

Why do you want to start your own company? Is it because you’re sick of answering to people, or because you believe you have a genuine solution to a genuine need.

Aside from all of these points, the brutal reality of starting businesses is that it can be very risky and capital intensive, if you have doubts, you should consider why.

Over in the UK, many in the startup scene appear to be from upper middle class backgrounds or ex-bankers/finance. These people have security through assets they have inherited or earned.

Aside from that, you can be a contractor and grow your customer base from there, this is likely to be less risky.

Sorry to hear about your situation. Try activities, sports that get you out there meeting people. People wrongly assume that introverted people cope fine alone ( and introverted people also wrongly assume this). I felt myself spiralling downwards over covid lockdowns, and what I needed was to regularly get out the house and mix with other people. For me, it doesn’t have to be loads, but it has to be semi regular. Also try and get outside for a walk once in the morning and once at lunchtime. I find the combination or walk + sunlight + tiny bit of social interaction buying a coffee / lunch makes a substantial difference to my mood.

It’s a tough situation you’re in, and I’m sure many of us have had similar thoughts , aside from therapy, the only advice I can offer is sunlight + walking + some regular social interaction. Find the little joys in life, like a sunrise , or trees and birds.

Have a search for the original investigative piece done by Private Eye. The rest of the reports on this are somewhat lazy copies of their original work.

Good first impressions. I like the category/brand search. I clicked on one link which opened another tab, which wouldn’t allow me to return to the site (which was ok because it was in the other tab - I generally detest this behaviour, but it may just be the retailer I clicked). I would say the business model isn’t immediately clear. Maybe an infographic could help? I think an about us page could help, but alas I doubt I represent the average users behaviour.

Have you thought about having some sort of cart functionality? I fully understand this does not align with what you’re looking for, but wondering if you could make your conversion funnel stickier by some sort of cart process. I’m just slinging ideas out here, they don’t have to be good.

My partner runs a small brand, which attracted a copycat page clearly designed to scam users out of money for giveaways. She attempted to “get verified” and was denied because there was not enough news stories about the brand. We own the trademark to the brand name, and the verbatim copying of the copycat clearly infringes copyright. The only option we have is to file a trademark dispute through Instagram, but that involves handing over business information to the offending scammers, which seems like it could have unintended consequences. My whole strategy has been to tread lightly, as I’ve read so many horror stories of people losing their accounts, or the wrong account being banned. I genuinely don’t understand why the Instagram platform is so permissive to clear scammers.

Engineer turned programmer in the UK. I put the salary discrepancy down to the ease with which I can move jobs. In programming I can bounce around different companies every couple of years in the same city. In engineering things are so frequently sub-industry and even employer specific. If you’re the only person that can operate a company’s machinery that’s great, but if that machinery is unique to that company that doesn’t mean you can get employment elsewhere.

Thank you for taking the time to write this out. My partner had a haemorrhage a number of years back, and has many of the symptoms you explain. The extreme tiredness doesn’t come on in the middle of the day, however at night it comes on very suddenly, as if a switch has been flicked. If you don’t mind me asking, how has your wife been with flying? My partner wasn’t fond of flying before, and we were advised to not fly for a number of years after.

I don’t love the idea of ‘dumbing down’ maths, but I think there’s a needless race slant that gets added here (not by yourself, almost by US society).

Im from the Uk, went a state school, with a Masters in Engineering, and a father who was an Engineer. My perspective is that the curriculum that I grew up with failed to properly teach me maths. Further, as much as I don’t personally like some of the policies implemented in the US education system (positive discrimination), I find myself agreeing with some of the policy/curriculum changes suggested.

The largest difference between myself at university and my peers who went to paid or selective schools was that they knew how to learn. This was the hardest but most valuable lesson I learned from my prof in my first year. I remember trying my hardest, and in hindsight trying to learn in the most ineffective ways- copying out of textbooks. Seems stupid ? But that’s essentially how I was taught maths at school from 2000 to 2010 at school.

I can see 100% how upbringing currently has an outsized impact on maths attainment, far beyond other subjects. - and the impacts on social justice.