sashakatsnelson

If you've got some time - there are twenty pages of archived blog-posts categorized as "mba mondays" at Fred Wilson's blog. His content is quite accessible and frequently has good suggestions for additional reading. E.g., the first couple of posts are the basics of finance and accounting: https://avc.com/category/mba-mondays/page/20/

I moved to Madrid this past December, and have thought about this question quite a bit. TL;DR: if you can work remotely and live in Spain you'll have a great life. Cost of living is 1/3-1/2 of SF or NYC, but incomes in tech are also 1/3 to 1/2.

More specifically: 1. Language in tech is not a big issue if you speak English. The work and the documentation will largely be in English and most of your young co-workers will speak English. 2. Remote work in Madrid is easy: there are lots of co-working places, rents are cheap, high-speed internet is relatively ubiquitous, and transportation to the U.S. and other parts of Europe is accessible. 3. Expect Madrid's infrastructure and startup scene to be about 5 years behind New York's in most ways. (Except access to capital - Madrid's way behind on that front). 4. In terms of local opportunities in Madrid: There are both Google and Amazon offices here, most of the big bank headquarters, and lots of freelance opportunities for local companies. Startups exist, but there aren't as many as you'd find in larger tech-hubs - founders don't tend to be very sophisticated, but there are lots of exceptions. 5. Job security is much more important and more expected for the Spanish - and it's a philosophy that's a bit rough for the startup community. It's harder to get a job because people don't quit and companies don't fire them as quickly AND it's harder to start something because each hire becomes a potentially crippling liability if you run into cash-flow problems. 6. The Spanish value work/life-balance. Siestas aren't as ubiquitous as they used to be, but there are lots ways that the Spanish still find to enjoy life - younger people with full-time jobs seem to have time and resources for hobbies, courses, and travel as well as plenty of time for family.

Good feedback on the sign-up sheet. We've cobbled together a brief video explanation of the site - let me know what you think!

That's a good point on the quizzes - we've added logic to choose quizzes that are more reasonable in length (going for 90 seconds for now and we'll see how it affects use).

It's pretty scary how much of US taxes are supporting fast-food and other corn/soy-based food. About 0.8% of the national budget goes to agriculture (http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes/tax-receipt) with billions of those dollars going to subsidize the production "staple" crops that make us obese (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy12/pdf/BUDGET-2012-BUD-5... - I've heard all of the "commodity" line items point to those subsidies, but it's hard to decode)

Another site, similar to ZapReader is spreeder.com. Sites like these offer a really spartan reading experience, but on top of a proven curriculum/methodology. They were a big part of what inspired us to create the first version of readfa.st.

The exercises we looked at were everything from the index-card/finger and stop-watch to flashing words all-around the screen. Based on the small bits of data available and the effectiveness of the various exercises on our own reading speeds, we found that flashing "chunks" of text (similar to spreeder.com) and the "word-snake" method (that we decided on) were the only effective methods of increasing reading speed. Because the word-snake most closely approximated off-line reading, we settled on that as the basis of our curriculum. For sources, we looked at available literature like Evelyn Wood and software like 7SpeedReading.

As far as a data blog - that is one of our middle-term goals, but until we have more users, the best we can offer are anecdotal evidence. This type of shoddy analysis is a big part of the problem with existing reading research, so the plan is to wait until we have a more robust data-set before we start publishing results. I'll post on HN when we start publishing results.

The reason for the difference between the final treadmill reading speed and the suggested speed is that users regularly demonstrated a significant loss of comprehension at the final speed. We think that it was because of the delay between realizing that the treadmill was too fast and stopping the treadmill. At first, we reduced the speed by 10%, but after a few more users, it was clear that was insufficient, so we're trying it at 20%. The quiz speed is adjustable (with the faster/slower buttons or by using f and s as hot-keys), so it's meant more as a suggested starting point than as a definitive reading speed.

Thanks for your feedback!

Another issue is that many New York startups focus on supporting advertising, finance or other businesses. Most internet users don't notice these products in their daily lives, and BI is doing New York a dis-service by ignoring some very useful and successful companies in the B2B space.