rayraegah

I'm trying to go from programmer -> anthropologist. I could use all the help, advise, and connections I can get.

Getting started was (really) hard. There are agencies out there who enable the connection between the researcher and consumers for a fee. These agencies usually have a directory of people who volunteer for this type of research work.

It also helps to build a network, for starters I partner-up with many prominent content producers on YouTube and Twitter and pay them a small fee for introductions.

I also pay the people I study on the field (but not always, some are happy to help once they understand what it's for). A lot say no, but you only need a few yes. It's about drawing insights from a small set of data.

Launched in 2016 for free. Started making money in 2018 with $3,000+ MMR. Referral only (side) business. I work full-time as an engineer/principal in growth.

I conduct a form of ethnography, embedding myself in the lives of consumers the way Margaret Mead did among Samoans. I interviews my subjects and the people around them, itemizing the contents of their home (photographing and videotaping), and accompany them as they progress through their day. Then I sift the resulting information for weeks, even months, looking for connections and telltale behaviors.

The service is used mostly by founders for small businesses and startups. I takes questions about sales figures and product lines and reconfigures them into questions about worlds, the context in which people unthinkingly live their everyday lives. The idea is that examining the beliefs and unconscious biases that people have will eventually yield profitable insights for these businesses.

So far, I've done market entry for a few Chinese companies into Japanese market, helped indie game design company launch a successful game, a boutique lingerie shop launch a new summer line, street musicians, and a few cafes and bars.

I do this on the side with hopes to go full time into it soon.

I've been looking for the purpose in life since I asked that question out loud once. Maybe I'll find it, maybe I won't.

I live through everyday to the best of my abilities doing the things I love to do, have to do, and only I can do. I have no regrets.

They fear driving on the road and prefer personal safety or value personal safety (self preservation reasons)

I had a friend who did that and I proceeded to interview/profile her. I didn't ask her why she did that, I simple talked to her about the subject and noticed the primary reason was fear of driving on the road, secondary was laziness i.e. they'd have to cross the road and drive on the other side to reach their target or cross the road to drive on the correct side and cross the road again for the target which could be a little far off from the crossing.

I've been looking for opportunities to talk to more people who do this to get more insight into the problem.

video of apparatus in action [0]

[0] https://streamable.com/7j95b

It's not just ad fraud, they've been copying information like whatsapp phone number, reddit username, telegram username etc.

https://www.reddit.com/r/miband/comments/8eqtve/why_did_mifi...

In Tokyo, people drive their bicycles on the sidewalk (ment only for pedestrians) while completely ignoring the bicycle lane with painted instructions for them. They can't drive fast and usually end up causing a mess by almost running into someone every 30-60 seconds.

What's even worse is they don't even ring their bells but try to sneak past you. Most of these cyclists are not alone, they have their kids in a basket.

This causes me to rage. These days I just walk on the bicycles path since all the bicycles are in the pedestrian walkway.

The problem isn't they forget, it's more along the lines of their culture. In China, they do the {thing} first then apologise.

On a related note, TikTok is just a rebranded version of DouYin [0] which was originally built by a small group of young programmers called Beijing Shaking Youth [1]. It wasn't until their recent funding [2] they sent up an office in the USA by which time the damage had already been done. Not only do they violate laws their app is riddled with dark patterns by US standards (all of which btw is normal in China).

If you go on LinkedIn and look up Jobs in Los Angeles you'll notice TikTok has 1200+ open positions. You'll also notice they're hiring people specifically to develop policies for each region.

[0] https://Douyin.com

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/9iy84y/whats_...

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/08/bytedance-is-raising-2-5b-...

Try to decouple features that are being build and implement feature toggles (turn off or on a feature with remote config). We use release trains which are weekly. If a feature is built and tested before the train leaves its turned on, otherwise off.

Could you add your twitter or contact page on the product page which I can use to reach out to you?

I took most math heavy notes in markdown with LaTeX. Sometimes, I used google sheets. Lately I've been using Observable[1].

[1] https://beta.observablehq.com/

Usually a combination of work and desire. After a decade of travelling around and five international relocations (Madras, San Francisco, London, Paris, Alderley Edge, and Tokyo).

We decided to settle down in Tokyo.

I depend on philosophy for a lot of things but the one "hack" if you want to call it that has helped me the most (universally) is this

"When you're alone you should call this condition tranquility and freedom, and think of yourself like the gods; and when you are with many, you shouldn't call it a crowd, or trouble, or uneasiness, but festival and company, and contentedly accept it."

-Epictetus

oh wow, didn't see that charge added there. We took the trip for free but that was six months ago.

This is just one of the many initiatives by the government or a local body to give away houses. The population in remote areas of Japan (aside from tourism) is declining quite fast.

I've had friends who have bought houses for as cheap as $600 in remote areas of Japan. [1]

If you are interested in owning a house in Japan then Okutama (a town close to Tokyo) is giving away houses with certain conditions. [2]

There are at least five other programs scattered around the Kyushu island and around the Tohoku region. You may want to check areas affected by natural / man-made disasters such as Rikuzentakata, which are "reviving" its cities or towns.

If you are a tourist you'll get accommodation and travel tickets to these "reviving" towns (free of charge) as well (just need to know where to look). [3]

[1] https://imgur.com/74zVNlE

[2] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/11/04/national/social...

[3] https://www.detouur.com/rikuzentakatamain/

Now that's a moonshot.