1,144 karma · joined May 16, 2011
You wouldn’t think that “it’s easy to use and not scammy” Would have been an innovation, but at that stage, I think it was.
When I started, flutter worked on mobile, and web support was in beta. Now, my app works on iOS/Android/MacOs/Web. If you are a small developer with limited resources for cross-platform development, its an amazing environment.
As for Dart, it is actually one of the things I like most about flutter. I really like the parameter passing/naming syntax. It is flexible and expressive. If you are looking for something that will challenge all your basic assumptions about what a language should be, you'll be disappointed. But if you come from any c-syntax background, you will pick it up almost instantly, and find a lot of nice ways to make code more concise and maintainable that previous languages.
In my experience, Flutter is a great environment for getting things done with limited resources.
Cloud Firestore so much easier than deploying a rails app somewhere. It comes with a lot of great analytics tools. The auth stuff works great. The documentation is very good. It has been extremely reliable. Syncing across devices is amazing and seamless in my experience.
If it fits your use case (I think mostly CRUD apps with data sharing that is somewhat limited in its breadth, e.g. not something like twitter with N-N data relationships), it is really amazing.
Often, I will drive to a hike where I need detailed navigation as I get outside my comfort zone, but I am completely familiar with the highways near me. It would be so much clearer if it just said "take I-270 south in half a mile" instead of, "Using exit 272, use the second from the right lane to take I-270 south, I-270 North, then stay left at the fork to take I-270 south." I know how to get on I-270 south, all you need to do is tell me that is where I am going, not the minutia on how to do it.
I can see how the latter is useful for someone passing through, but google maps knows I've been through that intersection hundreds of times. It's really distracting and counterproductive for me. I wish there was some "give short instructions in my area" type setting that would simplify instructions in this case.
Almost by definition, a lifestyle business lacks the potential for massive growth. If it has it, and the owner tries to 'hold it back' someone else will come along and capture the rest of the market. The incentive to do so is large.
Occasionally, you will see privately held businesses that have the potential of startups, but they are not lifestyle businesses (maybe mailchimp). They grow into full fledged businesses that just happen to be privately held. They will often find ways of funding their growth (and have options for doing so), even if that isn't VC.
That said, lifestyle businesses are awesome for your lifestyle. I didn't think I wanted one until I ended up with one, and it turns out high-ish income, total control of your time, and direct positive relationships with customers are a great lifestyle for me.
I am rooting for you!
Yes! It is your business, and you know best, but this sounds promising to me and reminds me of my situation. That is why I recommend that book. It argues compellingly that you want to sell less at higher margins, all things being equal. That gave me the courage to raise prices, and I ended up selling just the same/more at higher margins. Raising prices takes courage, and clearly there is some point where you go too far, but it's worth really pushing yourself emotionally to consider it early in the business. If I had not radically altered my pricing 15 years ago (15 years of massively higher income potential and counting! crazy) my life would be so different than it is now.
Rather than thinking of A/B testing, I would try to think of how much value your product adds for your customers, and then capture some reasonable percentage of that. Think of it very broadly (again, see the book). There is more value here than just the hardware/software. Your customers may value dealing with you instead of dell, etc. Try talking to some good customers about how much they would really pay. Some won't feel comfortable, but others may blurt out "we spent $3k on your hardware last year, and the truth is it's a rounding error for us. We just want someone who delivers a solution and answers the phone in person (or whatever)"
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck. After writing my original comment, I realized you had only been operating for 18 months. That, combined with your inventory assessment (I am in software, and have no inventory, so I didn't think of it), seems very promising!
Consider reading this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Margins-Higher-Than-Competitors/...
I would really consider raising your prices. I found that when I first started my business, I had a subconscious desire to replicate my income at my previous job, which caused me to irrationally underprice my products. After 2 years, I got over it, and it transformed my life. You've done an amazing amount of work. You should get paid for it (or, if people won't pay for it, get out). My dad used to say, "I don't do work for practice."
Watching them, and also my mother struggle with health issues at 73, has really changed my perspective on aging. I am very focused on enjoying my health now (at 47). Some people are spry and enjoying life up to their early 90s (my grandparents), but some experience health declines much earlier.
The stoic idea that "there will be a last time for everything" in your life (last time you go for a jog, last hike in the mountains, last time you can move without pain, last time you can travel, etc etc) is how I think about aging. I really try to enjoy the physical health I have now, and keep in mind that it will not last forever.
She is focused on the Peloton power zone classes. For power zone, you take an FTP test every 6 weeks which measures your ability to produce power output over 20 minutes. The bike then knows your 7 power output zones, from easy effort to max output. Based on that, Peloton instructors design classes which are zone based, and drive improvement at whatever your level is.
I tried powerzone after seeing my wife do it, and although it’s only a part of my exercise, I really like it. You can really see the improvement. I’ve never liked exercise classes in the past, but I like the powerzone classes and instructors.
My wife also signed up for some third party website (I forget what) that is essentially like a team based and powerzone based training plan. It motivates her over longer periods.
Having tried it, I think the peloton bike product is really good. It may have pulled forward a lot of demand and grown too much, but it offers a lot of real value.
If anything, the flexibility in my schedule from financial independence opens me up to a lot of unpaid work I don’t enjoy (helping with my aging mother) because I’m the one who can. Ironically now that I don’t have to work, I wish I had more time to work!
This pays directly for what the gov't wants (increase in the student's productive utility in the economy), it correlates increasing expenditures with increasing long term tax income, and I think in the long term it would create structural incentives guiding students towards more practical degrees.
So, I think this is a great idea.
She is currently waiting for an ablation, which was a close call vs leaving her in it, but she wanted to try it.
One of the common causes is that many medicines contain Tylenol/acetaminophen, but don't have it in the name [1]. For example, DayQuil or Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold and Sinus.
People take something like that, then they layer Tylenol on top of it thinking that is the first Tylenol they are taking, and it pushes them into the danger zone.
[1] https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/chronic-pain/5-medic...
Although the original article is interesting, I think it would be more interesting to try to systematically vary the original prompt, and then see how much the tone and utility of the response depends on the prompt itself. It is forums, or is it the prompt, or some of both?
It did seem to me like the response was flirting with something interesting but not quite getting there. I thought it would have been interesting if the response had echoed the original book by having the parent eventually grow old and sick, and the child mature and have children of his own who begin asking similar questions, and come to understand the question not as understanding the universe, but as understanding the people in his own life. In my view, that would have been an interesting nod to Adams with a bit more poignant and actionable outcome. In the final section, I thought it was going to go there, and when it did not, I was quite disappointed.
1. Throughout my 20s and early thirties I was very, very unsuccessful with dating. I was shy, and lacked self-confidence. At age 32 I had had one partner, and a period from 27-32 with no relationships of any kind. I did go on a decent number of bad first dates during that period.
2. In my early thirties, I continued to be shy, not conventionally attractive, etc. But I became comfortable enough with myself to keep at dating consistently and to realize that rejections often were not about me (or didn't say anything bad about me). I continued to be well intentioned, sincere, conscientious, and generally decent. I came to understand who I was and what I was looking for better.
3. After many bad first dates, and a few unsuccessful medium term relationships, I met my wife. She is conventionally attractive. It happened that we were perfect for each other in other ways. We had similar financial values, we had compatible senses of humor, we both liked camping and backpacking, and we could just talk and laugh together endlessly (we still can to this day).
4. We dated for a year and half, got married, had kids, and have a spectacularly fortunate alliance 10 years in.
So, if my 32 year old self had read this thread, I would have been agreeing about 'apex predators' and legalized polygamy and the general hopelessness of everything.
But, I think there are many, many women who would love to meet and marry exactly the kind of decent, sincere, intelligent, thoughtful men who frequent HN. You just have to stick with it. You have to go on a lot of bad first dates. You have to be patient and not overly critical as you get to know people. You have to be looking for someone who is a really good match for you overall, and to whom you provide a lot of value.
My sincere advice is this: My 20s and early 30s were pretty awful in terms of dating. But if you meet someone wonderful for you at 33, none of that will matter in the long run. All that frustration will fade away, and you will be happy. So keep at it, even if dating really sucks most of the time.
* I would lead with the % of the population tested (not the total) and make it in the last 7 days, since I really care how likely they are to detect a current outbreak.
* I think to be really useful, it needs to be localized by county, since what I really care about is how likely I am to get infected, and that means I are about testing in my area.
* I would go with the positive rate in the last 7 days. It's important to explain that a high positive rate indicates they are probably only testing people with symptoms, and so they are probably missing lots of infectious asymptomatic cases.
* Then, I think I would drop the recent growth rate in testing, because I suspect that the growth rate is not going to grow consistently, and also that testing growth will be unevenly distributed. I am skeptical that it is meaningful to try to predict when testing will achieve specific milestones.
If I were in charge, I would try to combine (1) a temporary but much broader federally run unemployment system, with (2) measures to prevent short-sighted reallocation of capital resources based on contracts (say leases) that did not adequately anticipate this kind of disruption. My strong emphasis would be on (1).
Part of my perspective is that I remember being very, very annoyed by the bailout of the automakers in 2008. Now, though, I think "where were all those workers going to go?" Would I have really been better off if we had hundreds of thousands more unemployed ex-autoworkers, and no GM? Ultimately, I think Obama made the right call on that.
I am just arguing that in this case, gov't support for struggling individuals and businesses seems quite justified to me, and I think actions meant to support a return to something like the status quo in 2 years are probably wise.
In this situation, many many business which are fundamentally viable (great restaurants, cruise lines) are going to be threatened by a temporary dislocation (everyone social distancing). It's not clear to me that we need a fundamental reallocation of resources in the long term (we don't have too many restaurants, or vacation destinations).
In addition, I don't think its economically sensible to ask every business (say restaurant) to plan for a 2 year pandemic. It would just be inefficient. I think its right to handle that risk at the gov't level. It's all of our problem.
So, in this case, I am hoping for effective gov't action to preserve much of the economy. I don't think I benefit if in 2 years, all my favorite restaurants are gone, and all the big vacation operators are bankrupt.
But there are lots of other similarities as well: Hospitals were rapidly overwhelmed. With both flu and coronavirus, it is the pneumonia that is dangerous (also, apparently true of measles). Some people died very quickly of their own immune response and massive lung damage (SARDs, severe acute respiratory distress) while others succumbed later to secondary bacterial pneumonia. Health authorities were reluctant to acknowledge the problem for fear of creating panic. Many people and communities attempted to self-isolate, with very limited success.
There are some possible similarities that have not yet played out - notably multiple waves of infection with different mortalities and characteristics.
Overall, the book has a lot of detailed scientific explanations that I enjoyed. One of my favorite parts was a detailed explanation of the significance of "H" and "N" in flu names (e.g. H1N1), and why flu mutates so rapidly, and is so likely to cross over in certain animals. Overall, I recommend it if you like detailed but comprehensible scientific explanations.
Maybe 10-12 years ago I read the book 'The Great Influenza'[1], and there are enough similarities between that outbreak and this one that we are taking it fairly seriously.
Although that book isn't perfect, it has a lot of detailed and fascinating explanation on (a) the development of scientific medicine in Europe and then the US (b) the way flu works, is transmitted, etc (c) the way that specific pandemic played out.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-Hi...
My own favorite higher education reform idea is to have the gov't fund higher education by paying schools a percentage of the student's increase in W2 earnings for a period after graduation. That would avoid the 'indentured servitude' aspect, because the gov't would be paying, but would only reward schools that could increase students' W2 earnings.
To the extent that lambda school is exploring models that do something similar, it might eventually make space for a gov't funding model build around the insights they have had (like the one in this announcement, about how to pull future revenues forward to fund the school in a practical way).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10#Cargo_...
It seems to have continued on for several years, though ultimate its poor safety record seems to have been a factor in its discontinuation.
When an industry is offered a technology-based productivity improvement by a vendor, the increased profit associated with that improvement can go to three places:
1. The technology vendor itself 2. The business purchasing the technology 3. The customer
When the business purchasing the technology is a commodity business (its product is undifferentiated from a large number of competitive producers, e.g. corn, soybeans), the value from the technology will generally either stay with the technology vendor or flow down to the consumer in the form of lower prices.
This is why technology investment in a commodity business is often about a need to keep up with your competitors and not about actually increasing your profit. To paraphrase Charlie Munger, the productivity improvement doesn't 'stick to your ribs' if you are the farmer.
I think any business sophisticated enough to build highly automated farm tractors is also going to be sophisticated enough to realize that it doesn't make sense for the farmers to own the value associated with those productivity improvements. That is the plight of a commodity producer in the supply chain, I don't think it's a moral failing of the technology vendor.
All income goes to vanguard. Each year, we move our total budget for the year to checking. Then, we pay for all spending from checking. We can easily track whether our budget is on Pace at any given time. If we run out of money, we went over. (Technically, we subtract out year end expenses like property taxes to avoid a year End surprise.)
We also have a 30 year budget spreadsheet that estimates our savings, expenses, and income Up too retirement. If we exceed or income goal for the year, we put half towards retirement and half towards a virtual 'bonus discretionary' account. If we exceed our annual budget (have to do an extra transfer from. Vanguard), we deduct that from the virtual bonus discretionary account.
Note that I wouldn't recommend exactly this approach unless 1 years spending is a relatively small amount of your net worth. We only started this technique in our 30's.
In its syntax, its very similar to classic languages like C++ and Java. It's very easy to pass functions around, like Javascript/Ruby. I didn't really need to 'learn' it, it all seemed familiar from the beginning. It also has some nice little shortcuts, like null-safe member function calls.
As for the typing system, it is definitely compiled/typed, which I like, but it does not feel overbearing. I find it to be in a nice sweet spot between hard to refactor/you need unit tests for everything (ruby/javascript) and hard/wordy to write because the type system is too strict (C++/Java).
It also has a nice packaging system (like ruby/javascript), and it has been thoughtful about how you reference packages.
Overall, I like it a lot.