johnvschmitt

12 ms·

1.
by johnvschmitt 12y ago
It shows that long term planning will indeed win out in the long term. Meaning, if the extremist privatization politicians got their way, the gov't would own zero. But, if the gov't holds the commons in receivership over a very
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
I appreciate your inputs, but IMO this use case is kind of inevitable. Yes, it's hard, and not quite doable today. But, there are millions of people working on making the components of this solution better. It's so attractive to
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Cool. Close, but not what I need. What I want (& maybe others?) is: Compute on a stick that's a VM. Then, I can plug this into my laptop's HDMI or USB port to work on my project's local data/apps that's inside
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Jim Morgan [1] had this (relevant) mantra: "Bad news is good news. Good news is no news. No news is bad news." Essentially, it means: Bad news (criticism) done right will show you where you need to focus to improve. That's
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Thanks. That is indeed an incredible level of transparency. I didn't see a CSV download but just scanning, it looks like it's more like a $200k median, with 1.6M average. Medians just make far more sense in letting someone outs
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Great news & I have more hope for the community. However, many people outside of the startup scene have misconceptions, as they see survivor bias/success bias in the reporting. One item in the report feeds this misconception: &qu
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
In SV, it's less about color, and more about education. Yes, that's IMO, not fact, OK? But, seriously, I've worked with 1,000+ people in Silicon Valley, and >50% of them are not white. So, Indian, Chinese, and other &quo
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
I was born there. It's sad, but hopeful. The "Renaissance Center" (celebrating the rebirth of the city) was built in 1980. The last 34 years, I've heard stories of the "inevitable rebirth" of the city. It&#x2
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
For those with integrity, it's not worth the read. Yes, stop taking money from new customers when you've shut down the company. For those without integrity, it's a recommendation: There are trusting people who will signup &
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
The picture recognition test is particularly annoying. Even in their example, of "match this" (cat), are we to assume we're matching all cats, or just cats of that color? If they have to make very careful sets of photos to a
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Yep. The proper reply would be, "Thanks. But, I don't work for your company and am not bound by those rules. In fact, it's the policy of journalists to seek the truth regardless of your company policy."
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
I'm sorry to see evidence of a rare bad actor, but that doesn't warrant holding back critical data from the many good actors who want to invest. Simple P&L statement & balance sheet: Provide it to all investors who ask.
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
2 big points I've learned & want to share on this topic: 1) In the smart long-term play, family & few close friends are most important. Everything else (including your startup) is trivial. 2) Even if you value your startup at
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
If you brush before sleep (with triclosan, a very common antibacterial agent), you breathe >25% of your breaths through a mouth populated with antibacterial agents. The prevalence of antibacterial agents in soaps, & toothpastes in t
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
It's not too hard to separate 2 colors. (Just have separate STL files for each color). I do this currently. I don't think many designs will really require "pixelized" variations in color like their demo shows. Just pu
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
That illustrates it very well. It's a shame that recombinantrecords.net has removed that from his site, even though it's original work, because lawyers sued him for using the title of a (good) book "Amusing Ourselves to Death
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
You're absolutely correct. However, when you combine host + time + location data, all at once, on your phone, then your carrier indeed has TONS of data to spy on you, regardless of the encryption on the phone itself. All good points,
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Even so, there are weaker links in the security chain: Carriers (mobile equivalent of ISP's) Your carrier has access to every URL you visit (http or https) and the entire packets sent to/from them (if http), regardless of the pass
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Congrats! I met with the team in their YC days, and can say they are all quite sharp, and the market is overdue for this kind of automation/service. They might want to partner with my buddies at http://TheOrangeChef.com , w
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30 Year Old CS Image-Recognition Problem Solved Using XKCD Solution(imgur.com)
2 points by johnvschmitt 12y ago|0 comments
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Unfortunately, even if this works, it will likely have less and less application over time. California has very little fresh water reaching the ocean, and as population increases, and drought increases, we're sending less fresh water
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
At this rate, in another 10 years, it'll become George Bluth's "Sweat & Squeeze". But, let's not say this is any surprise. It's the trajectory of nearly everything that is initially super-cool/elite.
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Abusing the cancelation policy is the specific immoral act I'm calling out here. Offering employment invitations is fine. But, often a company has very forgiving cancelation policies to be customer-friendly. By abusing those cancela
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Too many times, I've seen people call ugly, immoral tactics like this as "growth hacking", which is polluting an otherwise positive culture. Yes, it may be legal. Yes, it may grow your company. Yes, you may not have to pay
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
My neighborhood uses NextDoor.com and it does work. We share info on nearby construction, crime, and trade recommendations for local services, trade local gardening/landscaping tips, pest-management, etc. Having civil exchanges over t
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
With all the data, carpooling/sharing a ride is great. But please, the phrase "game changer" is horribly overused today & diluted.
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
It's a well thought out & written article. But, we still need a much shorter retort to use in conversation, than trying to discuss all of the points in that article. Maybe: "Well, if you think privacy is only for criminals, th
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
AutoCAD? Seriously? For consumers, who are the primary market here on Amazon, looking to get started, why would they buy very expensive software for the CAD part? Blender is a free CAD tool that I use, as well as millions of others, and is
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
Good points & over all, I really appreciate the rational, yet learning/confrontational discussions here. I was just trying to spread the word to other startups that the auction-based paid advertising model might work initially, but
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by johnvschmitt 12y ago
I'm not saying that the VC-backed company is intentionally or maliciously poisoning the healthy profit of the competition. I'm saying that it's an unintentional byproduct of the otherwise naturally healthy approach to "g

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