physcab

Thank you for writing this. When people talk about these issues it becomes easier and more acceptable to society and it helps lessen anxiety stigmas.

As someone who suffers from anxiety and who regularly seeks therapy, I can say that the rituals that have helped me are:

- Realizing that anxiety isn't who you are, but more like a disturbance that will pass

- Eating, sleeping, exercising, and practicing mindfulness go a long way

- Knowing and dealing with the physiological reactions helps. Realizing that anxiety is a fight or flight response and is often based on fears of the future, which causes heart to race and breath to shorten. Therefore, simply forcing yourself to take large breaths and being mindful about the state of your body helps bring you back to the present and not let your mind get into "rabbit holes"

One piece of advice I have for you is to not take on the role of mental health professional in your relationship. This isn't your problem and you can quickly tire yourself out. All you have to do to support is help your wife accept her current state, and help remind her of living in the present. If her condition is severe enough, encourage her to see a psychiatrist in addition to a therapist too. It may help greatly.

I'm no civil engineer but I talked to one about this story and the concerns seem to be overblown. First, the foundation as I am aware is created by drilling to the point of refusal. Obviously bedrock is ideal, but in a place like SF where some of the land is based off old landfill, refusal is acceptable. From there a concrete foundation is laid and the building rests upon it. Concrete slabs are secure and in the event of an earthquake it will be allowed to shift and "float" if the ground underneath liquifies. Secondly, the sinking and leaning can be corrected. Engineers account for some level of sinkage as the building settles, and if it tilts, they can apply ties to the sides to straighten it. In the most severe of cases they can shore up the foundation and build more supports. I'm sure the builders are examining their options currently so it'll be interesting to see what course of action they take.

This a really dumb question, but since I've never used Glacier what does the workflow for a Glacier application look like? I'm used to the world of immediate access needs, and fast API responses, so I can't imagine sending off a request to an API with a response "Your data will be ready in 1-5 hours, come back later".

This last election was brutal for my phone. Every day for two weeks I got atleast 1 text and sometimes 5 reminding me to vote for some particular candidate or issue.

I don't know how my number got on these lists, but I replied STOP to every one of them.

One thing I enjoyed about consulting is the opportunity to work with so many companies that gave me a glimpse into their work culture. There have been companies where the experience I had interviewing completely shielded the shitshow underneath. And other companies where the interview process was really boring and routine, but the people inside were dynamic and amazing to work with.

I like this approach of merging consulting and interviewing because it gets interviewer and interviewee closer to the source of truth about how a real work relationship will exist.

Yea, historically FB is for demand generation and Google for capturing intent. There wasn't really a good solution for iOS. Adwords weren't terribly effective on iOS but Android may be a different story. So I'm sure FB isn't shaking in their boots or anything but I do think there are sizable budgets dedicated to FB bc that was the only truly scalable method of user acquisition on iOS.

What we call this in the industry is "attribution" and there is a whole sub-industry to deal with this bc it is a complex problem. In short, gaming right now uses last-click attribution so the last advertiser gets credit. FB does influence behavior for sure, though that is difficult to quantify.

From their ad copy they say 65% of all downloads come from app store search. If this is true, this is bad news for FB. A huge chunk of FB revenue comes from mobile app install ads bc that was the only method large app developers had to send users to their apps. I previously worked at a gaming firm that spent $5M/month on these types of ads.

If App Store search is effective, this will swing ad budgets away. FB still has all the demographic and audience info, but arguably none of that is important bc all you want to do in those types of ads is attract users who spent. Apple is at the top of the chain, they can do this better than FB bc they have reliable transaction data and FB has to rely on properly instrumented SDKs, then use machine learning to figure out who "might" be a spender, then have the marketing person optimize those ads. Wouldn't you rather just say, target anyone who has previously made a purchase in a game and be done with it?

Another note. I once created a niche utility app that I eventually had to takedown because as an indie dev it was difficult to rise above the ranks, even if the apps above mine were super shitty. I'm going to resurrect that app tonight bc for the first time this might be an effective form of user acquisition. FB ads were terrible bc it is not intent-based and Adwords were terrible because people don't search Google for apps then pull out their phones to download apps (or search in Safari then switch to App Store).

I've seen Booster Fuels trucks around at a company I used to work at. To me this makes the most sense as a perk offered by a company not in a major city, that has huge parking lots of cars. I used to commute to Santa Clara 3x a week from SF and needed to re-fuel every week. If the company offered the service as a perk with me just paying for gas, that would be pretty convenient no-brainer.

People tend to say the same thing about marriage. They say "when you know, you know". Not extremely helpful information. However, you can optimize for that scenario by dating as many people as you can. If you go on 3 dates a week for 6 months, thats 75 dates of worthwhile info you can use to get closer to that objective.

I'm not sure this is how women shop. Women don't buy dresses with the intention of re-selling it. They have more of an emotional connection to the style and how it makes them feel and they want their friends to look good in it too. There are niche markets where this isn't true like bridesmaids dresses, so maybe your model would work there. However vast majority of women probably view their dresses as collectors items.

There are similar APIs available for same day delivery from Postmates and Deliv so not exactly a new concept.

Ah ok. Makes sense. I remember searching for a low interest loan because I knew I would be able to pay it back and thought 13% was ridiculous for such a credit worthy individual (credit score 760). Thanks for taking the time to answer, it is definitely a cool product!

So I was probably in your target market last year but I'm struggling to understand how this product works. I work in tech but was laid off mid year and simultaneously incurred a bunch of debt. So I carried a balance of around $15k for most of the year (13% APR) until I could build savings up and get back on track. Thankfully I'm debt free now, but if I had had Tally, would it have paid off the balance and then I would have paid Tally a lower rate?

At my previous company we used a crappy piece of software (Trackstar) to record our goals and accomplishments twice a year. It asked us a few questions and provided options for long form response and multiple choice. Supposedly this was used for performance bonuses and ratings. One problem I always had was that my review was based off what I could remember, which seemed like a bad way to do things. I could have possibly been negatively impacted if I did something and I couldn't remember it. I always wanted something that could keep track of my accomplishments in the background, and help set goals on the fly, then when the 6-month eval came around, it would collect all the feedback objectively and report it back to me. My hack was to periodically (about once a month or so) search my e-mail inbox for weekly updates I provided for my boss, summarize them, and keep a record in Evernote. God that was terrible.

This is true. My sister is a civil engineer on the SMART train - supposed to have been light rail from Fishermans Wharf all the way to Santa Rosa. The Golden Gate Bridge actually has a railway line below it that hasn't been used. But the train will only go to Larkspur ferry because Marin disallowed it.

One very important "soft skill" aspect to debugging code is time and ego management. There are times when all I want to do is "solve the problem" and if it means losing 4 hours of sleep over it, my obsession will let it happen. But I'm starting to learn there should be thresholds before letting the problem go and asking for help. Sometimes the fastest way to solving a problem isn't brute forcing it, but getting away from the problem, letting it simmer, or asking someone more experienced.

Attribution on mobile is a commodity now. 5 years ago before AndroidID and Apple IDFA, all you could use was IP, OS, Device Type, and random other bits of info the network would send you. So you'd need some machine learning inference to connect installed users to where they came from. Now, you just literally match the device-ids with what you get in the click from network partners (off-Facebook). Adjust, Appsflyer both do this.

On FB, just use FBSDK and it comes with its own attribution. They are starting to shift to a "multi-touch" model where you don't really know how they attribute -- its a black box that FB controls via their statistics. FB will report what the CPI is to you. It sucks, but thats market dominance for you.

What I'm also saying is, make sure you're also sending revenue, logins, and any other significant events to FB as well. Then you can figure out ROI and do more performance marketing. This works at any scale.

I also have similar experiences running ad budgets ($5M / month at highest). I built tools to do ad optimization on FB using attribution as a backbone and optimizing for ROI. I learned the hard truth with FB advertising when I built my own iPhone app last summer and thought all this experience would help me. Turns out when you're spending $2500 per day per campaign its easier to sit back and optimize, but when you're spending $100 in a month its completely different.

Turns out that the first thing you need to do is figure out if FB is the right channel for you. I found out that on FB, anyone will download anything that looks interesting and you can optimize your CPI fairly easily. But if you count on people spending money via in app purchases, the typical rules (1%-5% of active users) don't always apply for apps of different genres.

Cool. Happy to see you're focused on other verticals that would be willing to pay. I see it every day with my friends. Manager sends out PDF of schedule, giant white board in back office, calls to manager on day of shift to reschedule. Manual optimization to cover the over / under problems. Plus the laws. As an engineer I was screaming but never could figure out how to make the business a good sell over their entrenched ways and existing ways of tracking.

I have a number of friends who work in the restaurant industry including some very close friends who are opening a restaurant and their families have numerous restaurants throughout the Bay Area. I'm quite familiar with this pain point. Some questions:

1. Who are you targeting this to - small businesses or large managed groups?

2. How will you compete with time trackers as they get integrated with POS? Does yours integrate?

3. How are you going to handle training? In my experience, people in the restaurant business do not know technology and any type of software requires extensive training.

4. Do shift managers find value over using their own existing methods?

The pricing seems ok but it's a tough market. Small businesses with hourly workers do not have a ton of money, while larger groups already have solutions in place. Just my 2 cents.

I'm having trouble figuring out if this is a product that would benefit me. I'm a contractor / freelancer. When I take on a client, I receive a PSA with statement of work, and typically get paid on a Net 30 terms with Bill.com, mailed check, or direct deposit (however the client wants to pay me) managed with something like Quickbooks I'm guessing. The contracts are all very similar. Cash flow is definitely tricky because Net 30 is a pain. And invoicing is pretty easy. I use On The Job, create my pdf invoice, and send that to accounts payable on the first of the month.

  - Is this product for a certain type of contractor? Size client?
  - How does the flow work using your product?
  - Is my use outside of the norm of your typical customers?
  - What is different about your contracts that make them 'bulletproof'?

When I first met my fiance a few years ago, I had been on my 40ish online date and she her 3rd. I had all these rules about gauging girls' interest, mostly to protect myself from pain of rejection. Wait a day or two, text, not more than 2 lines, wait for a few hours, if no response, remove number promptly from phone. After every successful date, I sent my fiance a text asking her out again or to make small talk and I would get a response back anywhere from 9 hours to 24 hours and sometimes up to 48 hours later. The joke I tell people about our early courtship is that I deleted my fiance's number 10 times. Once I decided that her unpredictable texting shouldn't be a dealbreaker, life got much easier. After a while I just accepted that she's a horrible texter, and still remains one to this day.

Some people just aren't big on technology, as crazy as that sounds. My fiance doesn't work in tech, doesn't have a laptop, barely uses her phone. In fact, its one of the things I have come to love about her because it has helped me detach and be more mindful.

It's not very scriptable but that's not the use case of Tableau. Generally data analysts do not know how to program. They meet with PMs to understand concerns, interpret concerns into metrics, write some SQL, and display them in dashboards.

While Tableau performance is a thing that people debate, its a non-issue. Generally, the data analyst produces a report that is consumed by 1-10 people and if that consumption grows >10, then the organization will "productize" the report by putting engineering resources on it and build something custom with HighCharts or D3.

This is definitely an issue. It's difficult to really sell a tool like this to your managers unless you can prove over time it saves you. With orgs I've been at the decision process was like

  - order 1 license to test it out
  - analyst gets order of magnitude work done more than co-workers
  - team manager buys 10 licenses and a tableau server

It absolutely does. I know what life was like before Tableau (MS Excel + webquery, custom highcharts, cobbling together graphs from multiple SaaS services, custom python+R code) and I can say it probably saves 5 hours in a day or two.

Less moving parts. If I get a request from a PM, I quickly open up Tableau, select a datasource or write some SQL and deploy. Sometimes data asks that they think would take 24 hours or more can be turned around in under an hour with Tableau. You can also train and hire less technical people to use Tableau...its basically like advanced Microsoft Word.

The price is expensive but if I'm charging $100 - $150 / hr and it takes me twice as long to do something in PowerBI that it does in Tableau, Tableau quickly pays for itself for the desktop software. Then you can multiply that across a team of experienced BI professionals and even the product team because they can easily view workbooks and give feedback. That would easily outweigh the costs of Tableau Server.

Never heard of DevExpress but just by going to the website it feels far less intuitive than Tableau. Tableau is so freaking easy that you don't need to be experienced in BI to be user.

Tableau is a good product. I use it daily. There simply is no better alternative for quick ad-hoc, enterprise-level, intuitive graph and dashboard making.

I've been at large orgs where we evaluated all the cloud services like Mixpanel and the ilk, but they are very different use cases.

Tableau + Redshift (or Vertica but Redshift is way less expensive) is the typical BI tech stack. When I go a client or a new job and ask them what they use for analysis and if they say "Good Data" or "MicroStrategy", I know my job will be a pain in the ass to get done. Its as if you're interviewing for an engineering job and they say "oh we all use NotePad here". Its night and day in terms of productivity.

I don't know what this means in terms of the stock, but all I can say is that I vouch for the product and think it has a lot of room to grow (from a BI perspective).