whitej125

Very nostalgic to see the recent DEC/digital talk on HN lately. My first job out of college I wrote C++ on OpenVMS (originally on Alpha).

I remember when we had to port to OpenVMS Itanium. Biggest pita was floating point conversion. Alpha used VAX float while Itanium used the IEEE standard.

I laughed the first time I saw the exit code "%SYSTEM-W-FISH, my hovercraft is full of eels".

I still to this day own a copy of "Writing real programs in DCL". Looks like a collectors item, hahaha!

I also somewhat miss the mainframe development. We had a fantastic (albeit homegrown) build system and architecture (thin client, thick server - all C++) that was hugely enabling. Was super slick and easy to build, you could easily create previews for product people to run and test. Really tight development loops... loved it.

We use DocuSign here and the amount of time I spend hopping back and forth (exporting and importing) between Google and DocuSign is annoyingly high. If Google were to enter this space... I would personally welcome it.

Hey - one of the founders here. Great question!

Wrt/ audience there are a lot of dimensions so to highlight some: * self-directed (vs fully managed) * values diversification (vs concentrated positions) * longer term buy-n-hold (vs yolo) * want their investments to incorporate a personal idea, need or value

You're absolutely right that some types of inquiries might only be 2 minutes of research. At the same time... a lot isn't and people might not know where to start.

If you wanted to find "cancer research companies" companies... there are hundreds. If you wanted "EVs but no Elon"... we'll help you broaden (diversify) that beyond just Rivian and Lucid.

The initial "query" here is just the tip of the funnel when it comes to portfolio construction and ultimately its automated management. But that tip alone is a pretty fun demo to play with.

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm in this camp and looking into DIY. I'm in MA. I get installers stopping by all the time because I have great roof space... but the orientation is horrible for solar so it ends up being a super expensive system that is losing half of its effectiveness because of roof orientation.

So I've been looking into DIY my own "small system" on a spot that is oriented perfectly. Problem is I can only get like 2KW worth of panels. Too small of a job for an installer but even more perfectly suited for a DIY project.

I know reddit is a dicey topic these days but found the r/DIYSolar to be a useful sub to ask questions and get great answers and/or clarification as to where to look for answers.

Pebble Finance | Cambridge, MA | https://pebble.finance Seed stage fintech (B2B2C) turning ideas/observations from retail investors into individualized "ETFs". Looking for one more experienced NLP/ML engineer to join the seed team.

We :heart: Python, Kube, LLMs, knowledge graphs, etc

Email me at join@pebble.finance

Tangent: For the first 10 seconds of this video I thought it was computer generated (and that was the reason this was posted on HN). The inflection in the voice just didn't match the expression on the face or the body movements (lack thereof).

I grew up on pinball. My dad would buy/fix/sell pinball machines and jukeboxes as a side hobby - and of course we'd keep some for ourselves. I absolutely LOVED learning how these machines worked. Being able to go from a beautifully designed playing field to then flipping that up and seeing how it all worked on the underbelly. That trait of learning how things worked under hood has carried with me ever since (and as a SWE - I use it everyday!).

To this day - myself and my sibs each have one of our childhood pinballs at our homes. For me its 1980 Black Knight by Williams (one of the early pinballs to have "voice" sounds). It's in our garage now. It's pretty cool to watch my kids and their friends play it. A refreshing alternative to screens IMO.

I figured these Hyundai/Kia thefts using a USB cable was some techy issue... like there was a auto technicians USB port that would disable car security if it has something plugged into it.

No.

After 5 minutes of searching you see that a USB-A connector just happens to fit perfectly over the nub in the ignition and allows you to turn it.

The problem is there is no engine immobilizer. So you can start the engine just by physically turning the ignition. I thought EI was pretty much standard on all cars post late 90's.

Pebble Finance | Cambridge, MA | https://pebble.finance

Seed stage fintech (B2B2C) turning ideas/observations from retail investors into individualized "ETFs". Looking for one more experienced NLP/ML engineer to join the seed team.

We :heart: Python, Kube, LLMs, knowledge graphs, etc

Email me at join@pebble.finance.

Pebble Finance | Cambridge, MA | https://pebble.finance

We're making investing easier for retail investors like you and me by teaching machines to bridge the gap between how markets work and how people think/speak.

Adding two experienced engineers (ML focus) to the seed-stage team. If knowledge graphs, natural language understanding or summarization are you jam... come talk.

Email me at join@pebble.finance.

My son responds super well to gamified learning. What I found is that there are plentiful options when it comes to math... but not as much so when it comes to reading.

When he was in kindergarten during the disrupted school year of 2020/21... I created a "reading version" of the classic Battle Ship game. Instead of a 10x10 grid of letters and numbers it was a 10x10 grid of K-2 "sight words" that I would randomly choose and draw onto a grid (in Excel) that could be printed.

Then we'd play by reading and repeating sight words to indicate the coordinates to attack. He loved it!

Did you have to break a seal on the meter to get to the meter disconnect? If so, what are the implications of that?

With their powers combined...

(Microsoft's text-to-speech models) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34309306

Pebble Finance | Cambridge, MA | https://pebble.finance We're making it easier, safer and more personal for everyone to participate in financial markets by teaching machines to bridge the gap.

Adding two experienced engineers (ML focus) to the seed-stage team. If knowledge graphs, natural language understanding or summarization are you jam... come talk.

Email me at join@pebble.finance.

Pebble Finance | Cambridge, MA | https://pebble.finance

We're making index investing customizable for the masses. Now you can be safely diversified and still express your individuality.

Adding two experienced engineers (ML focus) to the seed-stage team. If knowledge graphs, natural language understanding or summarization are you jam... come talk.

Email me at join@pebble.finance.

It's the "Johnny Cab" from Total Recall!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWgrvNHjKkY

Last spring a neighbor of mine (researcher/professor) was talking about how one of his students stumbled upon one of these SBF foundations and that prompted them to apply. The application process was a Google Form and within a few days they got a $1M grant. No questions or interactions outside the Google Form. The only restriction was something to the effect that the it had to be spent 100% on the research project and the university couldn’t take any of the money to cover its own expenses (or something to that effect).

He was amazed at how swift and low-detail it was as he’s generally spending most of the year flying to conferences, visiting/speaking to foundations etc to pull the funding together.

Everyone's reasons are their own. For me personally there are some reasons that are more utilitarian in nature... and some reasons that are value driven.

I removed Tesla because it entered the S&P 500 after a huge run up. I own the car (and love it)... def the future. But I think the stock has been overhyped. There are more diverse ways to invest in EVs being the future vs "just buy Tesla".

On the other side... I removed FB because honestly I just didn't like the company (so a values reason). This was well before the whistleblower, etc. Was not looking at that one through a performance lens. Just wanted nothing to do with the company.

Most of my edits are removing companies that I already have too much direct exposure to.

Actually I’ve been doing just this for just over a year. Took TSLA, FB/META and a few others over time out of the S&P 500.

https://pebble.finance/p/f7dc6d732363464487ca5a84a00ce24a

Note: I’m one of the founders in the above. Basically built Pebble to for passive index investors (like us!) who want to be safely/easily diversified but in a manner where we can still express individual ideas/needs. New launch coming soon :)

Outside of Pebble - Fidelity Managed FidFolios will get you close. Not the S&P 500 exactly but their own US Large Cap portfolio which you can customize.

Mortgage rates will change more quickly than housing prices. Mortgage rates are a function of the Fed, Treasury Rates and tons of banks/lenders across the nation. National scale influenced, sure, in part by national demand for mortgages.

You local housing prices are more of a function of local supply/demand which is partially disconnected from the national scene. So yes, national mortgage rates going high will knock out some potential buyers. At the same time (at least in my area)... rates have gone up... local inventory of available homes has gone down (people just choosing to not sell) and thus housing prices are remaining mostly flat even as national mortgage rates rise.

For me, the best source of seed investor introductions (relevant firm and getting to the partner directly) was from other founders. And the best source of getting introductions to founders was, ironically, from seed investors.

Even having a small network on day 1 is enough to bootstrap but you need to consciously grow. And yes it will feel slow at the beginning.

We just closed a seed a few weeks ago. At least in my experience... "new deals on hold while taking care of their existing portfolio companies" never came up. Honestly I don't even think things like the massive tech re-valuation in public markets even came up (at least not that I recall). The convos continued to focus on team, market and GTM. I will say that from early 2022 to mid 2022 - GTM increased its weight in the discussion.

Wrt/ post-raise - be smart about how you spend and leverage the fact that you probably aren't starting off with, hopefully, high burn. Lot's of companies might be operating under an assumption that there is quick cash around the corner... it's not as "quick" anymore I suspect.

Pebble Finance | Boston, MA | Full-time | Remote but proximal to Boston/Cambridge

Fintech creating personalized ETFs - copy any ETF and make your edits. Passive investing with an active voice.

Building the seed team - mostly Eng and focusing on backend application, data engineering and ML - all predominately Python ATM. Looking for min 5 years exp at this juncture.

Drop a note with one wish how you wish you could modify the S&P 500 or VTI to better fit you: join@pebble.finance

Please link an LI or resume if possible too.

She was captured in Argentina attempting to steal Iguazu Falls [0]. Fortunately a couple of super sleuths [1] were tipped off about the soon-to-be caper by none other than Dr. Brain [2].

I miss the educational games of the 90s.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Sandiego_(video_game_se... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Mountain! [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Dr._Brain

>> Because fear.

What's funny is... whenever you call an FA (financial advisor) in a moment of panic... they answer always is "don't act emotionally and stick to the plan". Maybe a real "robo-advisor" should just be a chatbot that responds to any message it gets with "HODL".

>> Because unfamiliarity.

This one is going to be interesting to watch evolve and I see it becoming less of an edge for financial advisors. More and more, we are seeing retail investors gain familiarity (not saying knowledge... but at least familiarity) with financial markets through blogs, social media, etc. I think we are moving to a world of more self-directed investors than advised investors.

Some interesting articles to that effect:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/rich-millennials-to-financial-a...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fidelity-once-stodgy-and-adrift...

https://www.m1finance.com/blog/the-rise-of-financial-influen...

Wealthfront (and this goes for the rest of Wall Street) are analog businesses.

They thrive on mass producing a fixed set of products. Those products are ETFs, Mutual Funds... or in Wealthfront's case... a rebalancing strategy based on a 1960's white paper called Modern Portfolio Theory.

Each of these players spends a ton trying to mass market these products. You have financial advisors pitching mutual funds, asset managers shilling the virtue of their shiny new ESG ETFs... and robo-advisors all promising a set-it-and-forget-it panacea. Wealthfront got commoditized. Betterment at first... but then the discount brokers came in (Vanguard, Fidelity, etc) and just had a much more effective channel (advisors!) to the end investor. If you are just selling a singular product and that product is successful, you are going to get copied and beaten by competitors with better marketing channels.

Wall Street will some day transform from an analog industry of mass production to a digital one of mass personalization. The building blocks for said transformation are slowly becoming ubiquitous (fractional shares support, commission free trading, etc). Super excited to watch this happen.

I direct index... but I don't tax-loss-harvest the index which is what your are describing here (just noting that you can direct index and not do TLH if you want to).

The wash sale rule has teeth. Currently, trades on a stock or direct derivative (options tied to that stock) will all trigger the wash sale rule.

I have never seen an ETF of a single security. Got an example? It would be hard for me to fathom that one could be made and remain economically viable but who knows.

ETFs however, do currently provide some loopholes with wash sales. While selling/buying AAPL within 30 days is a wash sale... selling VOO and buying IVV (both which track the S&P 500) within 30 days is currently not considered a wash sale.

You see some explanations as to why that currently is (technically those two ETFs are from different asset managers... so they have some different risks, etc). But it looks like the rule just hasn't been amended and maybe the IRS doesn't see this as prevalent enough of a case to change the tax code.

In my experience, the auditors themselves aren't really going to provide much value in terms of an evaluation.

It was a little like having a Physics teacher ask each student to write their own final exam... and then take it. The teacher opined on the number of questions being asked but that was about it. All they are doing is recording your questions and your answers and certifying that you were indeed the person that took that test.

That being said.. I do think you can learn a lot going through the experience of a SOC II. You force yourself to drown out the noisy world a bit and think really critically and thoroughly about security. You need to learn how to articulate security to the entire company, to clients, etc. And you need to back this up with data... not hand waves.

SOC II was a pain... but a good learning experience too.

Think you might mean SOC II Type 1 and SOC II Type 2 (vs SOC I)?

SOC II Type 1/2 cover the "scopes" that more generally pertain to "secure" development.

A SOC II Type 1 is basically coming up with that checklist. The third-party auditor will then measure your performance against that checklist (you provide the evidence) for a single point in time. The Type 1 is considered the baby step into the Type 2.

A SOC II Type 2 is generally taking that checklist from the Type 1... but the auditor is randomly sampling for evidence over a time range (usually a year). Generally once you've done your first Type 2... you're doing it continually each and every year.